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I've been writing and designing the narratives of video games for 20 years; I've written…
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Chris Hepler reposted thisChris Hepler reposted thishttps://lnkd.in/gE_hD7nJ Absolutely blown away by the shout out as "best game writer" she's seen, by the incomparable N K Jemison, one of the best, most original sci-fi/fantasy writers of the past decade or two. The love is absolutely mutual!PC GamerPC Gamer
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Chris Hepler reposted thisChris Hepler reposted thisWhen criticising GenAI writing there's a tendency to focus on sentence structure and punctuation, but neither is the issue. LLMs learned these structures from humans, and there's nothing particularly "AI" about them when used properly. It's just that AI doesn't do that. Let's look at some examples: X is not Y, it's Z. Possibly one of the most popular AI clichés, but it doesn't have to be. Consider a post that starts with "The real villain in climate change isn't carbon dioxide, it's methane". Whether you agree with the premise isn't important. The sentence actually starts with a "Y" that is the dominant narrative. The "Z" is then a meaningful counterpoint. The sentence does a job. When an LLM generates the same cliché, it often starts with an "X" that very few people thought was the issue in the first place. It's just padding. Another example is repetition. Many good writers will use the rule of three to strengthen a point, separating the repeats with semicolons. It's a technique taught to UK GCSE students. Human writers quickly learn to use it sparingly. They feel the "cringe" that happens with repetition of the repetition. LLMs have no such awareness. If the random number generator lands on the rule of three, the LLM uses it. Again and again and again. The first time has impact, but after that it's just more distracting padding. Dramatic one liners are another feature of writing that's often labelled as AI, but once again, it's the way they're used that marks the difference between a human writer and an AI. A human writer may well use the statement "Everything changed" but hopefully only when everything did change. AI will use it in embarrassingly inappropriate situations. "This time Bob chose grey socks instead of blue, and everything changed!" This is another example where a human would feel the cringe and quickly (not quietly) press the backspace key. LLMs plough on regardless. Herein lies the key issue with AI writing. The LLM doesn't think or feel. It has zero understanding of the word sequences it's generating. Even if we created an AI that did feel and understand, it wouldn't feel in the same way we do and it's writing would still jar emotionally for a human reader. You can't prompt your way out of this one. You can't give the LLM instructions that tell it not to use those constructs, nor can you guide it on how to use them. In the same way as it doesn't understand what it's writing, an LLM also doesn't understand what you're telling it. It's all just context that affects which word sequences are most likely to be reproduced. It could be better, but that would require "over-fitting". The AI companies can't go down that route because the LLM would reproduce, verbatim, the copyright material they use to train the models. The bad writing is necessary to avoid plagiarism lawsuits. So, LLM writing will always be bad, and better left to humans. Also, writing is thinking, and we need to be doing more of that, not less.
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Chris Hepler posted thisI should be writing a game right now. I have a job, for the moment, which is an incredible blessing in this industry. All week I've been head-down in companion dialogues, finding the feels, writing come-hither lines right before intimacy cutscenes, being sure to add paths that acknowledge friendship and respect for those players who choose to romance other companions or none at all. And I can't concentrate. I'm writing a World of Darkness game heavily influenced by Vampire: The Masquerade's Bloodlines, but everything I know -- really, viscerally *know* -- about this kind of RPG came from BioWare. Before I worked there, I played their games. The romance I saw in KotOR was better than the stuff Lucas was putting in theaters. And the twist -- it did something no movie could do -- turn Revan into a story of redemption or damnation dependent on you, the player. I thought, "This is a young medium... maybe it'll really change for the better." I remember when I came onto Mass Effect 2 and playtested the suicide mission. I asked, "How did you calculate who lived and who died? I put a soldier in charge of a squad, but I still lost 3 people." And the response was pure story -- "Put Garrus in charge, because he's got command experience and motivation. He lost his squad and he's going to be extra careful this time. Thane and Zaeed don't have the leadership skills." I was amazed that a game prioritized character like that and not just class or game mechanics. To ace the game, you needed to be not only a soldier, but an actual leader. BioWare took a lot of first steps. That came with missteps and I had my share -- sh*t, I worked on Mass Effect 3 -- but we brought story front and center, even if it got the fanbases ranting about which installment in a series was best or worst. My journey at BioWare ended after seven and a half years, but along the way, I noticed something. The stories in other games got better. They started to take more risks. Their dialogue got tighter, more cinematic, smarter, funnier, more poignant. Quite a few started flirting with tragedy stories instead of just power fantasies. (Some, I thought, were better than we were.) And today, on a day when everyone's talking about BioWare for all the wrong reasons, I keep hearing a theme. It's some variant on, "BioWare games were where I realized I wanted to write for video games." Also a lot of "I could see myself for the first time in these games." BioWare never had the massive sales of some other companies, but I like to think at one point, it really *led.* Anyway... I'm going to try to help a game scratch the BioWare itch. It's not set in 2185 or Thedas, but maybe players will like it. It's Teyon's "Hunter: The Reckoning - Deathwish." It's an RPG. I freaking love it. 'Nuff said on that. And to all those affected by the layoffs, or hurting from the closure, may Kalahira wash you clean of pain and regret. And may we all meet again across the sea.
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Chris Hepler reposted thisIt was obvious the house was going to come down, wasn’t it?Chris Hepler reposted thisbig azure exfiltration campaign based on activity from a threat actor selling massive enterprise employee databases downloaded directly from Azure/Entra portals using compromised credentials. Full blog (4 minutes read time with more images) - https://lnkd.in/djcYeQE8 The campaign impacts multiple global enterprises across IT services, hospitality, telecommunications, retail, and logistics. I went over the data and it seems legit based on the email addresses found + field names matching Azure. Here are the affected organizations and records offered so far: • McDonald’s Corporation: ~1,700,000+ records • TCS (Tata Consultancy Services): ~800,000+ records • Vodafone: ~425,000+ records • HCL Technologies: ~250,000+ records • InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG): ~185,000+ records • Kyndryl: ~170,000+ records • Gap Inc.: ~80,000+ records • Hexaware Technologies: ~20,000+ records • Wyndham Hotels: ~9,000+ records Across the affected tenant dumps, the leaked fields consistently include foundational corporate directory attributes: Core Identity & Contact: Full Name, corporate email addresses (including active domains and tenant-specific .onmicrosoft.com structures), phone numbers, and physical addresses. Organizational Structure: Employee IDs, job titles, departments, manager details, and direct reports. Access & Group Mappings: User group memberships, service accounts, and privileged account records (such as global administrator listings).
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Chris Hepler reposted thisMark my words, after the “election” and resulting unrest has been “resolved”, OpenAI and Anthropic will eventually turn around and pitch the full extraction of collected data, research, kompromat and trade secrets everyone has uploaded based on “pinky promise we’re not going to use it’ as the foundation of their valuations. Because that is rational in a war economy and the country is being aggressively reconstructed into one right now. There's some indication this is intended. For example, why would OpenAI issue a "we can't rule out our agent stole your math solution" statement in response to the Navier Stokes mess? It makes little sense, corporations either deny or don't comment for a reason, unless you wanted to slip a glance to investors of what your loot is worth [1] And because that’s the only way their valuations make sense. It’ll be stepy by step, but war economy justifies everything and these people have already slurped up everything of value without permission, primarily by getting everyone to carry it though their gates and paying them for it.Chris Hepler reposted thisAs someone who wrote a 300-page dissertation and 166-article newsletter on economic espionage, I find this article incredibly short sighted. The author argues that America should begin a coordinated, deliberate, and targeted campaign to steal intellectual property from foreign companies because American companies are no longer capable of staying at the forefront of industry by legitimate means. His argument (they do it, so why don't we) exemplifies the abandonment of long held values now so prominent in America. Let's be clear - economic espionage is theft. The Chinese have conducted exactly this kind of nefarious campaign against America for decades, driving American companies out of business and leapfrogging decades of R&D from brilliant and hardworking Americans. But China has gotten to where they are today not just because they stole American technology, but because they have also prioritized math and science education, and they have a billion-person populace to draw from. And the US? Test scores for US students are in a 'generation-long decline,' particularly in mathematics, and the world's most brilliant workers are finding it ever more difficult and unwelcoming to migrate to the US. (The Chinese government also heavily subsidizes its strategic industries and flagship companies. The US government does this as well, though to a lesser degree.) So instead of giving up and saying 'well, they beat us, so we better steal their secrets,' maybe what America should do is invest in math and science education across the country and attract the world's smartest people to work for their companies. This would not only ensure that America retains its culture of innovation and competition-based R&D, but that hard work and honesty can plausibly be maintained as American values. #espionage #economicsecurity https://lnkd.in/gBu_ux-e
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Chris Hepler reposted thisChris Hepler reposted thisAnthropic banned my Claude account, denied my appeal, and refused to tell me what I did wrong. Apparently, due process is still in beta. Today, I opened Claude Desktop to discover that Anthropic had permanently suspended my account for violating its usage policies. ❓ What policy did I violate? They won't tell me. ❓ What evidence do they have? No idea. ❓ Can I appeal? Sure. I did. ❓ Thirty minutes later, my appeal was rejected, and the decision was final. So I've been accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced for a crime nobody will actually tell me I committed. For me, it's mostly an annoyance. I'll recover my work, move to another AI provider, and get on with life. But what happens when it's not just an annoyance? What happens when a company builds its engineering workflows, software development, customer support, or entire business processes around a service that can be shut off without warning or explanation? There are already reports of entire organizations losing access because of alleged violations, with little or no recourse. We're investing billions into AI infrastructure and encouraging businesses to build their futures on these platforms. Yet apparently, access can be revoked with less explanation than you'd get for a parking ticket. I wrote about my experience, the absurdity of the appeals process, and why this raises a much bigger question about who really controls the technology we're becoming dependent on. Guilty as Charged. Charges Unknown. Link to Substack in comments shortly. (But you know where to find it..)
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Chris Hepler reposted thisChris Hepler reposted thisUnfortunately, self deception is built into the incentive system of democracy as implemented in most of the West. When you can convince voters of an alternative reality where problems don't exist and therefore they don't have to inconvenience themselves with changes to their way of life, you've got a winning recipe. Some people thought that, once problems get too hard to ignore, people snap back into reality, but Covid taught them that the uncompromising math of viral spread was no match for self deception and rationalisation potential in society when exploited by information superspreaders. As a result of these incentives, hard problems get shoved down the road, there's literally no incentive in the system to address them, especially when voter attention span and memory becomes literally zero, everyone breathlessly moving from scandal to scandal to panic. When the problems finally become bad enough that stakeholders can't avoid them within the 4-5 year terms, they'll get brutally punished by electoral mechanics and the party promising to not address them gets voted in. Eventually one must conclude democracy is a failed system, but that'd be reductive: The implementation sucks, it lack short term incentives because you didn't need them in our generation of democracies at the start. The horrors of WW2, the escape from colonialism, etc were enough to temporarily align people on long term better outcomes. Unfortunately, those benefits expire over time. While politics is incentivised to ignore problems this way, Insurance, however, does not have that luxury, it measures reality and packages its risks into financial products. They don't have the luxury to continue insuring against risks that become uninsurable. The equivalent to climate change, at much faster pace, is happening in cyberspace. Decades of vibing it, of treating cybersecurity as a compliance problem, to be jettisoned the moment a higher priority, like AI adoption came along, are about to brutally thrash the economy as the largest friction item, the need for human operators, is being removed while we simultaneously update available bandwidth and compute and rent them out to anyone with money. Within the next 18-36 month, cyber related insurance products will become unaffordable or, just not offered anymore. Just math, from current payouts. First deductibles and exclusions will increase rapidly, then products will be retired, then most companies will exit the field. Startups will be the first to find out what that means - every MNC, platform and service partnership requires liability insurance as compliance line items. Thoughts and prayers. One benefit of Singapore's variant of democracy is that there's no scapegoats. The governing party has nobody to blame. With the the size of the country, ensuring elites would have nowhere to run if things turn bad, it incentivises longterm thinking (plus the constitution mandates taking the needs of future generations into account)
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Chris Hepler reposted thisChris Hepler reposted thisIf AI companies with the largest market share, whose datasets are comprised of stolen labor, are making enormous losses, then the principles of capitalism would seem to suggest that they should not exist. After all, if we extrapolate logically from Milton Friedman’s general thesis (that I don’t agree with) that profit is the sole measure by which we determine whether a product or service is useful or needed, then we can surmise that these products are not useful nor needed, and as such have no place in the market. If AI companies are exempt from the laws of capitalism that its investors would no doubt also espouse without hesitation, they exist outside of that framework and are something else entirely. If investors are happy to blow large amounts of capital on something with insane valuations and completely unrealistic projected growth that all reasonable analysis would say they could not possibly make a reliable return on realistically, then they are functionally more akin to donors than investors. I therefore posit that AI companies and their investors sit outside of the known principles of capitalism and instead inhabit the other, equally familiar space of religion and religious doctrine. Consider the magical thinking of AGI claimants who have no real need to quantify the elements of consciousness and intelligence before making such claims on behalf of a black-box technology, mysterious and unknowable (to them, at least), a disembodied voice that answers every prompt-prayer they make to it. Consider the ease with which proponents suggest somehow that such a computerized god and the priests who maintain its function are somehow beyond the reach of, or exempt from, human law. Now Anthropic even tells us that there is a right and a wrong way to “talk” to AI. Every negative impact it has on humanity on any scale is positioned as a necessary sacrifice for the good of the future of the human race, and every potential positive result hailed as some sort of miracle just waiting to happen. The end of work, the liberation of the workforce, the ascendance of our species, the curing of all diseases - heaven, paradise, nirvana. A land of milk and honey, just a little out of reach, but it will be yours, though perhaps not in this life, if you just believe, if you just tithe the right number of tokens. The singularity - a moment when AI surpasses humanity and transforms us irrevocably. Essentially, a reframing of end times - our modern book of revelations. And to accelerate our rush to transcendence, and to protect ourselves in the process, we are asked to blindly trust singular individuals who claim to know the future, who claim that their path is the only path. We are asked to abdicate our laws, our ways of life, our artisanship, to serve the high priests of a god who will definitely come tomorrow, whenever that is. The cult is already here. It is already entrenched. I don’t know about you, but that seems, and pardon my French - fucked.
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And people wonder why my online handle is “theotherhepler.”
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Mags Donaldson
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And if you want to read dev diaries, wishlist it on Steam and all that jazz: https://teyon.com/
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Chris Hepler reacted on thisChris Hepler reacted on thisI’ve never been very active on LinkedIn, which explains the lack of updates since I left Meta in January. But in light of last week’s news about BioWare’s closure, I felt it was time to share something I haven’t talked about publicly: from April until last week, I was the art director of the Mass Effect franchise. During this time, it was a privilege to work alongside such a talented team, with the shared ambition of exploring new creative territories while staying true to the legacy and spirit of the Mass Effect trilogy. Knowing that this work will never see the light of day is truly heartbreaking. We were good at this. We really were. I’m thinking about the team, the talent, what we could have achieved. In nearly 30 years in this industry, I’ve rarely seen a group so tightly knit, so experienced, and so good at working together. And I feel extremely honored to have been part of it. As for what comes next, I’d be curious to peek into my own future. I simply don’t know. For now, I’ll take a bit of time before figuring out next steps. In the meantime, I wish everyone affected all the very best for what lies ahead. Sparth - Nicolas
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Chris Hepler reacted on thisChris Hepler reacted on thisToday was my first official day as a Writer over at Larian Studios. (Still feels completely surreal to be able to say that.) Working here has been on my carreer bucket list ever since Divinity Original Sin 2 came out - well before I ever earned my first penny working in games. And getting such an incredibly warm welcome from the team during an incredibly grueling time for the industry has only made things feel all the more special. Considering the state of the job market these days, this isn't an opportunity I plan on taking for granted. I'll keep sharing any promising job listings I can for those who are still looking for work out there, but for now, my focus will be on learning the studio's ropes, polishing my craft as a storyteller, and hopefully becoming a small part of some really, really meaningful games. Here's to new adventures, folks. Take care of yourselves out there.
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Chris Hepler reacted on thisChris Hepler reacted on thisAs a Narrative Designer on the Mass Effect team, I was impacted by EA’s decision to shut down BioWare last week. Over the past few days, I’ve been grieving this loss not only as a team member, but as a member of a fandom. Shortly after I graduated film school, my collaborator Michael Tucker insisted that I MUST play Mass Effect. I was a BioWare fan, but skeptical that a new, original sci-fi universe could rival Star Trek or Star Wars. Boy, was I wrong. I became a hardcore, read-every-codex-entry Mass Effect fan. Falling in love with the Normandy crew, exploring an endlessly fascinating storyworld, and watching my choices ripple across a trilogy was unlike anything I had encountered in games, film, or TV. In fact, it was a magical alchemy of all three: the epic scope of a blockbuster movie, the emotional character arcs of television, and a level of reactivity only possible in RPGs. As someone building a career in linear film and TV at the time, Mass Effect opened my eyes to an even more exciting storytelling frontier. Mass Effect became a narrative north star for me and Michael Tucker as we developed our craft. We deconstructed the mind-boggling reactivity of the Suicide Mission, studied how expressing socio-political conflicts through beloved characters made choices in Mass Effect 3 so agonizing, and spent months putting together a pitch for why a Mass Effect TV show could be the next Game of Thrones. So when Michael and I had the chance to join the writers' room on the next Mass Effect game under the mentorship of legendary Narrative Director Mary DeMarle, it was truly a dream come true. Building out new lore, stories, and characters for the future of our favorite sci-fi franchise was an honor we did not take lightly. I believe we were on our way to creating something incredible under the leadership of Michael Gamble and Creative Director Parrish Ley. That’s why last Wednesday’s announcement was so devastating—and why the outpouring of love, support, and enthusiasm from fans has been so moving. We were making this for you. My nearly 5 years at BioWare were some of the most exhilarating and challenging of my career. I brought my full suite of skills from film and TV to bear—writing story bibles and branching dialogue scenes, editing cinematics and trailers, and participating in performance capture shoots. I applied the storytelling principles learned from years on the Lessons from the Screenplay team to Mass Effect’s next chapter. I collaborated in cross-disciplinary pods with insanely talented peers to craft missions that seamlessly integrate story, level design, art, gameplay, and cinematics. I come away incredibly grateful for the hard-won lessons this experience gave me. I’m more confident than ever that my passion lies in collaborating with talented teams to create epic worlds, characters, and stories that gamers can fall in love with and get lost in over and over again. Thank you for everything. Until we meet again – Keelah Se'lai.
Experience & Education
Licenses & Certifications
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Cyber Defense
SDSU Global Campus
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Cybersecurity Professional Program
SDSU Global Campus
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Networking and System Security
SDSU Global Campus
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San Diego State University Cybersecurity Bootcamp
SDSU Global Campus
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Threat Detection and Response
SDSU Global Campus
Publications
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Pinup Noir: High Class Muscle
Raconteur Press
See publicationFrom 1940s Arizona to the cyberpunk future, there are always men willing to get their hands dirty, but even the roughest men have lines they won't cross. My story "This Thing of Darkness" is one of 10 tales in the gray areas of justice. Can a human weapon's devotion to bushido keep him from slipping into cyberpsychosis?
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Hairballs, Hiccups, and Hope
Independent
See publicationThis anthology shares stories of hope that span the stars, sparkle with magic, and shimmer with joy. It's a charity anthology where the proceeds go to help out an author who was in a car accident. I contributed a story -- my first reprint! The story is "The 10:40 Appointment at the NYC Department of Superhero Registration." A hapless hero discovers why regeneration is the worst superpower to bring to the equivalent of the DMV... and also the most meaningful.
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Paladins of Valor
Chris Kennedy Publishing
See publicationThis anthology has 14 stories of paladins of all eras and oaths, from medieval times to faraway planets. My story, "High Water Mark," asks if a single paladin can change the course of the American Civil War. (That's her pictured on the left on the cover.)
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Keen Edge of Valor
Chris Kennedy Publishing
See publicationThis anthology's 14 stories all revolve around relics of legend. You've heard of Arthur's sword Excalibur, but who would die rather than give up the location of the dead king's spear? Find out in my story "The Torturer of Camelot," winner of the 2021 FantaSci writing contest.
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Unidentified Funny Objects 8
UFO Publishing
See publicationAn anthology of humorous fantasy and science fiction stories, started off with my story "The 10:40 Appointment at the NYC Department of Superhero Registration." Superheroes fight bureaucracy, each other, cancer, and aliens, not in that order.
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Civil Blood: The Vampire Rights Case that Changed a Nation
Self
See publicationA generation from now, the Supreme Court faces a class-action lawsuit to decide whether vampires are considered human under the Constitution. It is an impossible choice: do they allow an ever-growing population of predators legal protections, or condemn citizens whose only crime is getting infected by a disease? Into this comes the hot mess Infinity DeStard, assigned by a paramilitary force to kill the plaintiff. Hiding her own infection, how long can she can lie to them... and herself?
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The Art of the Mass Effect Universe
Dark Horse Books
See publicationA behind-the-scenes tour of the Mass Effect Trilogy's fantastic art, as told by Derek Watts, the art director for all three installments. I put the sentences together, fit 'em on the page, and made 'em sound cool. Casey Hudson, the project director, wrote the foreword.
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Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands
Alderac Entertainment Games
For the second installment in the Shadowlands series, my writing partner and I scoured Japanese mythology and then upped the decibel level for the first foray into horror roleplaying in Rokugan. Demons, blood-crazed warriors, and glimpses into the ancient history of this brutal place all combine to detail a hellish land that has never been conquered by the Rokugani Empire. Read this book, and you'll discover why.
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The Ork Nation of Cara Fahd
FASA Corporation/Mongoose Publishing
Orks in the world of Earthdawn are not the servants of evil found in other settings. Here, they are a free people finally reuniting in their ancient homeland after thousands of years, as the Theran Empire threatens them with the shadow of war. My writing partner and I added buckets of lore to the scorcher tribes, the founding documents of Cara Fahd (the "Seeds of Nation"), new monsters, new spells and talent knacks, and new magical items rooted in Earthdawn's legendary history.
Note that…Orks in the world of Earthdawn are not the servants of evil found in other settings. Here, they are a free people finally reuniting in their ancient homeland after thousands of years, as the Theran Empire threatens them with the shadow of war. My writing partner and I added buckets of lore to the scorcher tribes, the founding documents of Cara Fahd (the "Seeds of Nation"), new monsters, new spells and talent knacks, and new magical items rooted in Earthdawn's legendary history.
Note that this link is to a reprint from when Mongoose Publishing had the rights to Earthdawn in 2011. The original publication date was in 1998.Other authorsSee publication -
Cyberpirates!
FASA Corporation
An ambitious sourcebook cloaked in a piracy premise, "Cyberpirates!" covers three never-before-seen parts of Shadowrun's world: the Caribbean League, the Philippines under Imperial Japanese rule, and the Gold and Ivory Coasts of West Africa. It also introduces new Awakened creatures, new totems for shamans, an entirely new way of playing Shadowrun where the players drive the missions, rules for water-borne and underwater combat, and new vehicles from dinghys to nuclear submarines. (Shout-outs…
An ambitious sourcebook cloaked in a piracy premise, "Cyberpirates!" covers three never-before-seen parts of Shadowrun's world: the Caribbean League, the Philippines under Imperial Japanese rule, and the Gold and Ivory Coasts of West Africa. It also introduces new Awakened creatures, new totems for shamans, an entirely new way of playing Shadowrun where the players drive the missions, rules for water-borne and underwater combat, and new vehicles from dinghys to nuclear submarines. (Shout-outs to John Szeto for the vehicle rules and Mike Mulvihill for the alternate campaign tweaks.) It may not be the most well-known of Shadowrun's second edition sourcebooks, but I'm willing to bet it was the craziest.
Other authorsSee publication
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