On Main Characters

[Desmond]

There's a school of thought which suggests that interactivity and compelling stories are inverse relationships: the more freedom a player has to act within a game, the more difficult it is to keep the player in the realm of a dramatic narrative.  (The exception would be writing dramatic narratives for all contingencies, but there are some things that simply can't be made dramatic, so you'd have to limit the player's exploration that way.)

This got me thinking about main characters.  I've read over and over that for the player to truly assume the role of the main character in a game, the main character needs to be as "ambiguous" as possible to allow the player to project his or her personality onto the character.  This was true with Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) and Crono (Chrono Trigger), neither of whom spoke in their games.

But that runs counter to a lot of adventure titles.  Take Tex Murphy, for example, whose dialog is often wittier and more interesting than anything the player could have come up with.  Many adventure game developers go to great lengths to give their main characters personalities that "we will want to spend time with."  It's almost as though the adventure game's goal is not to bring the player into the game, but to allow the player to be someone more interesting than himself/herself for a while.

My question is this: how defined are your main characters?  Do you go to great lengths to make them very specific and detailed, or do you try to keep them as similar to the player as possible?

How do you think this affects your narrative?  Your interactivity?

For me, my main character is pretty well fleshed out, but not quite so much as the surrounding characters.  I do expect the players to assume his role, though, rather than project themselves into the game.  Having the character really fleshed out has given me a lot of dramatic possibilities for the story, but the game is becoming a "trail of bread crumbs" without a lot of freedom.  Perhaps this is inherent in the adventure game genre, and is requisite to telling a story.

I've seen AGS games go both ways.  My opinion is that Prodigal's main character is pretty amorphous; it's easy to assume he's "like me," and the game story has him act in ways that I would choose to act (trying to seek out my brother even after he's stiffed our family).  Cedric and the Revolution has a main character with a very distinct personality, and I realize that we are very different.  That keeps me removed from the game, in a sense, but it's entertaining enough that I don't mind.

Any thoughts on this?

Sorry for the long post.   

[Erenan]

It depends. I base games on story ideas, and main characters are usually tied in with the story idea when I come up with them. So in a story that demands great specificity and detail in the protagonist, he'll have them. In a story that doesn't need such things, he probably won't. Usually this equates to stories that are more serious having more detail and personality in the hero, and stories that are a bit more lighthearted and silly having less.

Personally, I don't really think that interactivity and immersion have a lot to do with the detail in the character. I think that the detail and interactivity of the game world itself has more to do with that.

By the way, Cloud did speak in FFVII.

[ManicMatt]

Grand theft auto 3 had a silent character. I didn't like it. Rather than trying to give him the impression of no character, it did. When a certain bad ass shouts at him, he doesn't have any lines or action, therefore it gives the impression that he's a coward with no backspine who just lets people have a go at him.

I don't know if this was the same reason as for why rockstar gave the following characters in the sequels character, it may have just been from feedback given.

Also, those RPGs like Alundra where the main char doesn't have any lines really gets on my nerves.

[Helm]

your distinction is one between role-playing and personal projection.

Early sierra games were essentially personal projection because a very generic background was given, larry wants to have sex, roger is a space janitor, graham needs to walk around in fantasyland and get killed by sliding rocks or gnomes like an idiot and so on. The characters never spoke out loud. The genesis of adventure games is after all, paper and pencil rpgs.

Lucasarts did the opposite approach, with defined characters, not avatars.

A detailed character can still make a person connect with them, in fact this is most usually the case, if the writing is good and you can empathize with what's going on. Just like with a good book or movie, the threads that are essentially the same in all men are the ones that make us feel this connection.

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII didn't have characters, or stories for that matter. The most basic and overused cliches, in a row, 350 times in the duration of the game. It amazes me how low the standard must have become if people say FF VII is the best story-driven game they've played, or they connect with the hollow puppet that is Cloud.

[ManicMatt]

Ha I don't connect with Cloud at all! Although he reminds me of a friend of mine...

I connect more so with the lead character from FF9 actually.

For me FF7's story felt so great because it was the first RPG I'd played, hence to have such a massive game with a story in it that slowly progressed as I went along was great! I wonder if this applies to many others? It's like seeing an action flick for the first time. It's so fresh and all the cliches wouldn't be known. (I'd imagine)

[Mr Flibble]

In RPGs empty avatars are passable, as they can put you right in the game, but in an adventure I prefer to have a 'proper' character (which is why I never got into Myst.)

[Kinoko]

Yeah, let's make that destinction. An 'empty' player character in an RPG isn't always a bad thing, because sometimes you like to take on your own role. But it doesn't work as often in adventure games, because you're playing, usually, a much stiffer storyline. I'd always prefer my adventure game players have good personality.

[Helm]

japanese-styled rpgs usually have the ultimate in stiff storylines. There's actually no choices of importance to be made in most of them, no way to define your character besides choosing to wield that sword or this sword. You go there, then there, this triggers that, a million random encounters on the way. On-rails gameplay of the worst kind. They're basically dumb lineart adventure games with fights.

I remember this very lucidly, I was playing one of these retarded rpgs and at some point the game tells me 'do you want to help him?' and I was confronted with a YES/NO option. I chose no. The game then tells me 'oh come on, why wouldn't you want to help?' and gives me the original 'choice' again.

[biothlebop]

Yep. Even when they come up with an original plot like in Digital Devil Saga, where you are a demon and have to eat others to survive, they fuck it up usually with saving the world stuff and a storyline that goes from A to B like a train on rails. Most adventure games give you more than one dialogue option, when RPG:s are button-mashing and the plot is totally overstretched to last 60 hours or something.

[ManicMatt]

japanese-styled rpgs..

Dammit I was going to mention Star Wars KOTOR....

Heh apparently in Suikoden 4 when you are stuck on a desert island it asks you if you want to make a ship to leave or live there. If you say "Lets live here" about FIVE times your crewmates give up and you are then stuck on the desert island forever.


And as for:

"saving the world stuff and a storyline that goes from A to B like a train on rails."

Sounds like a lot of adventure games. 

[The Inquisitive Stranger]

I remember this very lucidly, I was playing one of these retarded rpgs and at some point the game tells me 'do you want to help him?' and I was confronted with a YES/NO option. I chose no. The game then tells me 'oh come on, why wouldn't you want to help?' and gives me the original 'choice' again.

Ahaha, that reminds me of this.

(Consequently my upcoming game contains a gag that parodies those silly yes/no option choices where the only real choice you can make is "yes"...)

While we're at it, I wonder what you people would think of this article, especially the part about some games intending for the player NOT to take on the main character's role, as with Tomb Raider.

[LimpingFish]

I think you have to dig pretty deep to find more than one dimension to most player characters. By their very nature, they usually remain free of complex emotional depth to allow wider player identification and personality transferal.

Which is why, I think, so many Japanese RPG's leave their protagonists mute, and reduce the need for complex emotional choices to simple YES/NO answers.

Games were the player character has  pre-defined ideals,  a certain way of looking at things, and whose behavior is strictly defined, down to their sense of humour and how they behave towards NPC's, I believe, narrow the possibilities of the player identifying with that character. The characters may benifit, but if the player decides "Hey, this guy is an asshole" then they'll lose interest in his plight.

Different people look for different things in a PC, but most seem happy to put themselves in the shoes of an undefined, faceless avatar. Hence the popularity of FPS games, in which we inhabit a world where the only issue is moving foward and the only questions they have to ask themselves is whether to reload before rounding the next corner.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII didn't have characters, or stories for that matter. The most basic and overused cliches, in a row, 350 times in the duration of the game. It amazes me how low the standard must have become if people say FF VII is the best story-driven game they've played, or they connect with the hollow puppet that is Cloud.

Right on.  Square has, for a long time, suffered from a dirge of poor ideas supported only by their hefty bank rolls and drooling fans who will consume anything they make.

As for games with strong narratives and player characters, I think they are far and away the superior approach to game making- unless you take the route Ultima did, with literally PROJECTING the player into the fantasy world like a fish out of water and forcing them to help out in a hopeless cause.  That worked because as the games developed, so did the Avatar's knowledge of the world. 

Also, empty-headed characters like Chrono do not suspend your disbelief, ergo, they make people immediately aware that it is a game they are playing rather than an experience.  In contrast, there have been some games where I was so caught up in the plight of the main character that I'd invested emotion in his outcome- Vampire: Redemption and Siege of Avalon come to mind here, both rpgs but both very different in their approach.

Lastly, I don't think most people play games to imagine themselves as they are now in the game world with a gun or a knife.  It's like old p&p D&D, GURPS, or Rifts, etc.  You roll a character around a series of skills and quirks that you like, but ultimately you give them talents and even weaknesses you certainly don't possess to make them viable in the fantasy world.  In turn, you create an alter ego which you use to adventure with.  With games where the protagonist is already established, I can see this becoming a problem if your ideals/personality completely clashes with that of the character, but I rarely see that happen in games; most of the time the characters are very middle-of-the-road, anti-evil (but more and more anti-hero as well) and typically behave like smart-asses to attempt to inject some life in the character.  Bear in mind that most game designers are not accomplished authors and lack much subtlety when it comes to character development, so the characters almost always fall heavily into cliches as a result- something I've come to accept through the years.

Anyway, I hope that answered some questions without making people say 'omg progz, j00 think Square are dumb?!'

 

[LimpingFish]

Square's best games are usually the ones they took risks with, creative or otherwise.

Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, etc.

I think the FF games have become far to reliable on the "Save The World" lark to really offer anything interesting. I've played them less with each release, to the point where I played X2 for about fifteen minutes before I realized I had absolutely no interest in its characters, their conflicts, or their world.

Or course most game franchises usually end up repeating themselves.

Are any of the Tomb Raider games actually that much different from the last? Or Resident Evil? Or Metal Gear?

Even, dare I say, Guybrush found himself on Monkey Island, facing off against Le Chuck, four times.

[Helm]

It's not about repetition being bad. It's repetition of what, that's the issue. Metal Gear games are essentially the same thing, honed better each time. But boy, characterization? Spades. I severily dislike Snake for being for going '...huh?' all the time and generally being boneheaded, but they pull it off: I dislike him as a CHARACTER, not for lacking character. He's like a big baby that only knows how to kill, and we've seen him grow from game to game, enriching to his utilitarian understanding of ethics slowly with absolutes he picks up just to keep sane as he starts to realize what the patriots are and what they're doing... generally, a job very well done on that end.

[LimpingFish]

I think Kojima made a big mistake when he traded Raiden for Snake. A mistake he admits.

Snakes story in Sons Of Liberty seemed far more interesting. Its a shame we weren't let experience it as the player.

Raiden was a pointless character, with little or no depth beyond his thin backstory and his relationship with Rose.

Jack and Rose....wait a minute!

TITANIC! :o

[Kinoko]

Japanese RPGs often have a lack of character in their main character, but there are plenty that don't... uh, have a lack...! My all-time favourite game ever, Terranigma, has a main character with more personality than most adventure games, and the story is very open to taking different paths.

To label all RPGs as having stiff storylines and blank main characters is just ignorant. There are so many of different characteristics, JUST like adventure games. Imagine if someone came here and said that adventure games suck because they've played things like King's Quest.

To stick up for the RPGs that -do- have the stiff storylines, part of the fun is that you still go around talking to different people, doing your own mini quests or playing the games mini games... you make the story yourself a lot of the time. The same could be said for adventure games with avatar-ish characters, though there usually is more room to do so in an RPG simply because of the freedom of levelling up and shopping and whatnot. I find adventure games have a higher chance and by design are much more susceptable to being one dimensional and stiff.

Actually, I'll also mention my second favourite game ever, Breath of Fire II. This game had a very avatar-ish main character, who never spoke and you occasionally gave YES/NO directions to. Yet, that game had one of the most impressive storylines ever, several very different endings and many different paths throughout the game. You would play it 10 times and play a completely different way each time.

My third favourite game ever if Final Fantasy IV, which had what I consider to be an absolute operatic storyline. The main character had tonnes of personality and spoke all the time, making his own value judgements with no input from you whatsoever, and yet compared to the previous two games I mentioned, a very linear storyline. That didn't matter at all, the game knew what it was doing so I didn't -need- to have any input into the story. Awesome game.

[Helm]

I didn't say all rpgs are this or that. I said some japanese are such. I have an extensive rpg background, some of my favourite gaming experiences were with rpgs and computer rpgs such as Ultima Underworld, A.D.O.M and Magic Candle. I've played a lot of computer games, and sadly, a lot of japanese rpgs because either I didn't know any better at the time than to waste gaming hours level grinding for some bullshit game, or because they simply were pretty enough to warrant the grind.

Terranigma, for all it's charms (gameplay and graphics, mostly) didn't have what I would call a charismatic main character. The issue is with the overused child chosen one cliche. It's been done so much, if someone's going to do it, they better give it a different spin. Now, I didn't finish Terranigma (gave up when animals started talking) but I didn't see much variation of the same cliche themes as far as I got. But it's also been a while.

'making your own story' is a copout, in a story-driven medium, in my opinion. If you did that, awesome for you, you had the mindset for it, but most of these games didn't give me much incentive to fill in the blanks because they're so formulaic. I *did* fill in the blanks when I played say, Dreamweb because it's so idiosyncratic, you can't help but think about Ryan's life and whatnot. Just reading the manual blows your mind, really. The game opens with a goregeous overhead screen of you in your sleeping girlfriend's room, a fan above you spinning, so serene and beautiful, an oasis from the otherwise ugly game setting. You have to wonder, what happened last night, was it a good night, did she sleep well? Should I disturb her? Should I quietly leave?

I've never had that with 'LOL YOU'RE THE CHOSEN ONE, HERE IS AN ENCHANTED SWORD' japanese rpgs. They're just stale storylines, with little new or exciting about them, and it seems they don't mind being that at all. Fantasy Quest 32 is like 31 or 30 before it, just with new graphics, interchangable characters and let's say, a new battle system. Fans seem content with this, publishers seem content with not taking any chances. What you get? Empty games.

You say FF 4 has an 'operatic' plot, I say you haven't seen opera (for good or worse). You say Breath of Fire II had an impressive storyline (I've finished BoF and BoF II) and I say it's the absolute in cliche overwritten colossal storyline. I know, tastes... but still, we should be able to recognize good stories in games when we see them, and not settle for mediocrity just because of nostalgia or because that's all we've played.

[Kinoko]

I think the problem is that you see a cliche, and label that as a bad thing, whereas I don't. I can get over a "you're the chosen hero" plot, as long as the other things in the game make it fun for me. I -loved- the characters in FFIV, and I -loved- the characters in BoFII, and the fact that you stopped playing Terranigma when the animals started talking means you BARELY played any of the game at all.

Where's Rincewind? He'd back me up on that one.

There are only so plots you can use to have a hero running around with a sword in an RPG. I congratulate people who stray from this and try something new, but I still love that style of game. Much the same as the way I still love picking up items and using them on things and solving puzzles. It's not nostalgia, it's the kind of game I like.

[biothlebop]

It is just too bad those are 10+ years old. JRPG's have staled, they have practically nothing new to offer (like adventure games) and are defined by the cliches and idiocities of the genre.
When the developers should have strived to give the player more freedom they have not improved much on the basic formula other than graphics.
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
I personally enjoy advancements in games and the freedom that seems to increase continuously. JRPGs are a genre where new games can be released with a bad plot about a princess and a knight and be called "classic" cause kids playing NES didn't know of any better. They rely on too many crutches IMO.