In a recent appearance on the Human Can Opener podcast, Obsidian design director Josh Sawyer talked about how the studio approached balance in Fallout: New Vegas, particularly with skill checks in dialogue and making sure different character builds got unique, cool reactivity throughout the game.
"Some people think I'm preoccupied with balance," said Sawyer. "I want people to build characters and have a good time with them. You have to think a little bit, but I don't like it when players have a character concept that they build, and it's like 'Oh, you just built a fundamentally bad character.'"
After Troika closed and before the likes of Owlcat, ZA/UM, and Larian really took off, Obsidian was practically peerless when it came to this sort of design in RPGs. Much love to BioWare, but it would typically just rely on a persuasion skill to win conversations and a...
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