Back at it
Over the weekend I attended STARFest, a literary festival in St. Albert. There, I had the opportunity to interview former BioWare coworker Drew Karpyshyn.
I think the interview went well. The main focus of the presentation was exploring how to write evil characters, specifically his work with the Darth Bane novels, but extending to Mass Effect and other properties he’s worked with. There was also time for some great questions from the audience. I do not believe there was any recording of the interview but there were pictures taken and I’ll let you know when those are available.
Also, one specific question that I asked was whether Drew was going to return to videogame design. His answer was basically that he isn’t willing to close any doors permanently but for the next while he’s focusing on his own projects, specifically his unique fantasy series, “Children of Fire”.
As for me, I’m back to work on the novel. Three chapters to go! I’ll be back here next week, probably, unless something exciting happens before then :)
Brent Knowles
Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.
2 Comments
Mordi Peshkess
I always get the feeling that Authors like writing bad guys way more then good. Maybe because villains have more personality and mystery around them. Good guys are almost always single minded in their action.
The one thing I think is important is not to make the evil guy evil for no good reason. Another thing that I think is important is to make the player or the reader question the motive of the “good guy” by making the good guy question himself. that’s why I think Seren and Loghain were such good villains It’s not they woke up one day and decided to become evil, a series of events led them to question their own path in life. I liked how there were moments that both of them showed that on some level they are not happy with their action and of what they become, but that they are doing because they believe it to be the right thing to do even though they know that it’s going to come at a terrible cost.
On that subject, who is your all time favorite villain?
For me it can’t get any better then The Joker. He’s such a perfect Yin to Batman and in some perverted way makes Batman’s existence whole.
Honorable mentions goes to Roy Batty from Blade Runner.
Brent Knowles
Yes, villains are definitely interesting to write. Drew’s talk was quite interesting, in regards to how he went about keeping Darth Bane as an protagonist a reader stills roots for, while still being evil and doing evil things. Loghain is definitely engaging, because his actions are grounded so strongly in doing the ‘right thing’, as he sees it.
In general, I’m not sure if I have a favorite villain, but certainly many of the villains in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series rank up there near the top of my list.