Planescape: Torment Interview, Part One
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Q: What was it like working with the PS:T team? How did the team come up with all the insane characters?
Chris Avellone: I made up and wrote most of the major characters such as the companions, plus Deionarra, Ravel, Pharod, Dhall (and quite a few of the minor ones, especially in the Hive), but the entire team contributed to the roster. Dave Maldonado did an excellent job on bringing the Clerk's Ward to life as well as elements of the Sensorium, Colin did the same with the Foundry, and so on. I had done a first draft of most of the dialogues for Planescape before full production started, and some designers would use those, others would revise or change as they saw fit.
Colin McComb: Avellone had at least a broad outline of the entire game from start to finish, with all of the major characters sketched out, by the time I'd joined the team. The rest of the design team added minor characters, stuff not exactly crucial to the main quest, and other fun stuff, and fleshed out the stuff he couldn't get to. Avellone is a madman, I'll tell you that it was only with the greatest regret that he passed off Fhjull and Trias to me, and I heard him weeping bitter and solitary tears in his office when he assigned the Brothel to Dave Maldonado.
Working with the Torment team was incredible. It was really a fantastic bunch of people. We all did the very most we could to help each other out, to make each area as good as it could be, and to incorporate as many ideas as we could. Eric Campanella, one of our artists, came up with a pile of crazy and creepy monsters, and we made up some names and stats for them and threw them into the sewers.
Also included in the article are first and final drafts of Ravel Puzzlewell's dialogue toward the Nameless One. Good memories.
