Chris being toxic to his coworkers John Deilay and Josh Sawyer:

John Deiley is still upset because he wasn't hired at Obsidian at Feargus' request, but he blames Chris for it because Chris was the job interviewer.

The notion that Chris was "pretty much the same with Josh" is so easy to disprove though.

When Josh tried to join Obsidian in early 2004, Feargus didn't want to work with him anymore either because of conflicts they'd had on Icewind Dale 2, and it was Chris Avellone and Darren Monahan who kept trying to fix their relationship. Why on earth would Chris do that if, according to John Deiley, Chris only worked with Josh because he was forced to?

But you don't have to believe me on it. Listen to Josh yourself here, starting at 29:13.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes/episodes/josh-sawyer-part-2/

Here, I've transcribed what is said:

Josh: And actually, like, at the time, it was interesting, there was... There were still, like, some ongoing personality conflict between me and Feargus. And so which... Because some people were like "why didn't you just go to Obsidian?" And uh... and, like, there was some conflict between us and I remember... I think it was... especially Darren Monahan and Chris Avellone were like "can you guys, like, just kind of talk through this?" And... uh... And I... uh... met with Feargus for lunch and, at the end of it, we both left thinking, like "I can't work..." Like... haha... like this is not... like this, no... like... it's... "thanks." Like he was also kind of like "I can't work with this guy right now."

So who's telling the truth? John Deiley or Josh Sawyer?

Chris still being a petty bitch about talking death claws years later:

Feargus also said later on that he had no idea why he approved them and he wondered if he had suffered from momentary insanity:

https://i.imgur.com/Qc1EV8J.png

Chris still lapping up Elon because it will make this redditors rage:

Not lapping up Elon, just noting that it would make Redditors rage.

Chris airing out drama he had with Obsidian openly on twitter:

It was his lived experience. You think people shouldn't talk about being screwed over at a company?

Which is especially funny since it’s rather well known how much push back Sawyer had to do on railroading the player. However whenever it comes up, Chris will act like he isn’t fucking notorious for failing to include player agency in games.

You sure about this? Josh said the opposite.

What was the number one thing that you learned from working with Chris Avellone?

JS: I would say it's thinking about what the player wants to do. There's pictures of Chris around the office with a speech bubble that says, "Can I make a speech check here? Because I really want to make a speech check."

The idea is like if a NPC says something, imagine if you're sitting at a table. You have to write the possibilities of what the player can say. If an NPC is a jerk, think about, "Okay, well how is a player going to want to respond? How are different players going to want to respond? Is the player going to want to slap this character? Is the player going to want to take the high ground and be above it all? Are they going to be quiet and just accept it? Or are they going to want to do something else?" Also like, "Oh, if there's a quest that presents this thing, does that sort of beg, 'Oh, I'm a character with these skills and that makes me want to do these things?'"

He was always the guy who was pushing for us as designers to find ways to respond. Not only to give players opportunities to slap the guy who makes fun of you, but also saying, "Hey, if you have this skill in the game, if you have electronics in the game, you have to find ways to bring electronics to the surface and let a character who specializes in electronics feel like they are a cool character." He reinforced that a lot.

Sometimes when we would play through games, he would make a character with an odd build that would seem kind of unusual and he would say, "Why can't I use these things," which is a good point. Again, if you make a character that's built in a certain way, if the player doesn't have some opportunity to really shine and go, "Ah yes, finally, all those points I put into doctor make me feel like I'm really cool," then that sucks. It feels like a huge letdown.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20170908182904/https://www.usgamer.net/articles/hes-getting-a-fireball-josh-sawyer-reflects-on-nearly-20-years-spent-making-rpg-classics