"We've carried that over into the visual development as well. We've designed quite an exotic cast of characters, but the last thing we want is to dictate to the players how their PCs should look. What we want to do is inspire"
About this Quote
The line reads like a creative manifesto smuggled into a production note: build a world vivid enough to seduce, then step back before it turns into a lecture. Wood is talking about “visual development,” but the real subject is power. Directors and designers normally rule the frame; here, he’s acknowledging a newer, pricklier audience that doesn’t want to be staged. By stressing an “exotic cast of characters” while refusing to “dictate” how player characters look, he’s negotiating the tension between authored spectacle and personal agency.
The phrasing does quiet rhetorical work. “Carried that over” suggests continuity, a studio discipline applied to a different medium, as if good craftsmanship should survive the jump from camera to game. “Exotic” signals ambition and marketable difference, yet it’s tempered by the self-aware fear of overreach: exotic can quickly become prescriptive, even reductive, if it hardens into canon. The sentence pivots on “but,” the hinge where control becomes collaboration.
Contextually, it’s a statement that fits the cultural turn toward participatory fandom: audiences as co-creators, not mere consumers. Even if Wood himself predates modern game culture, the sentiment captures a contemporary design ethic: concept art as invitation rather than instruction. “Inspire” is the key word, less altruistic than it sounds. Inspiration is a soft form of direction. You don’t order the player to conform; you make the alternative feel less interesting. That’s the sly genius here: relinquishing authority without surrendering influence.
The phrasing does quiet rhetorical work. “Carried that over” suggests continuity, a studio discipline applied to a different medium, as if good craftsmanship should survive the jump from camera to game. “Exotic” signals ambition and marketable difference, yet it’s tempered by the self-aware fear of overreach: exotic can quickly become prescriptive, even reductive, if it hardens into canon. The sentence pivots on “but,” the hinge where control becomes collaboration.
Contextually, it’s a statement that fits the cultural turn toward participatory fandom: audiences as co-creators, not mere consumers. Even if Wood himself predates modern game culture, the sentiment captures a contemporary design ethic: concept art as invitation rather than instruction. “Inspire” is the key word, less altruistic than it sounds. Inspiration is a soft form of direction. You don’t order the player to conform; you make the alternative feel less interesting. That’s the sly genius here: relinquishing authority without surrendering influence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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