Feargus Urquhart Interview

I noticed there’s a lengthy interview with Feargus Urquhart, the president of Black Isle Studios, over on RPGVault. In it, Feargus talks about about the RPGs that Black Isle has developed and been involved with, including the Baldur’s Gate series, Fallout series, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment. Here’s a snippet:

Jonric: The three internal BIS products, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale seem like pretty different types of games. To what extent do you think there’s a recognizable Black Isle style of RPG, and is it your goal to have a style?

Feargus Urquhart: It’s funny, but while I think there is a recognizable Black Isle style – I’m not really sure what it is. I think some of it is attention to detail, some of it is the way we do dialogue, and the rest of it is our creative process. As for us generating a universal Black Isle style, I’m not sure if we will ever try to have everything become a system. We have rules for the way dialogue is written, the ways areas are written up, and how experience is given in our games – but I don’t think we try to define it more than that. It is much like building a building – I would suppose. We have the type of concrete and re-bar that we like to use and our own methods for using it, but the building could be anything when it is finished being built.