Disdain for Set Main Characters

[Hitoshura]

If the emperor wills it, I shall obey!

[jay-walker]

@Hitoshura

Vampire the masquerade

Oh yeah, how could I skip my all-times favourite. Vampire: The Masquerade story is not that great but the characters and the intrigue (and voiceacting) are all unforgettable. The protagonist is a blank slate but the game still feels personal (you really are tired at the end, at least I was done with these bloodsuckers).

Another good example of a game with good story and a blank slate is Morrowind - though their approach to storytelling is kinda Dark Soul-ish? You have to read the books, get immersed in the lore for it to be good.

[RockmanX]

I think one needs to strike a right balance between the big picture and the details. This unfortunately is not easy to do.

There are various goals one wants to achieve: the first one is to let others see the world from the PC’s perspective, to put themselves in their shoes, and ask, “What would I have done if I was ___?”

In short, it all depends on what story you are telling. The above will give you a rough idea of how much background one needs to give and how preset the PC needs to be.

[ilovecoins]

@Keller

Somehow Larian is able to make a long-form fantasy romp with a colorful cast of characters and a sprawling story while also accommodating my character identity choices.

Larian also gave you a choice to play either as one of the companion or create your own protagonist in BG3, AFAIK.

They could just stick with one path instead of doing that, to lessen the work, but they didn’t which I deeply love and respect Larian for that.

As much as I love SMT, i’d still prefer playing Divinity/Pathfinder/Baldur’s gate.

Part of the reason i wasn’t so hyped when Soul Hackers 2 was released, and I played BG3 early acces for the hundred times instead hahaha.

[phimseto]

Actually I’ve been annoyed about not being able to name my FF characters since FFX.

The answer lies in character creation. Whether in tabletop or video games, it’s a favorite part for RPG players and the less of it they have, the more it is likely to chafe their sensibilities.

Leaving a bad review is poor form, though. However, that’s unfortunately par the course. That speaks to a kind of community monoculture (or vocal subculture) that uses reviews and feedback to enforce their thoughts on what should be, which others above have alluded to.

All of it adds up to a simple truth: the developer should make the game they want to make and concentrate on making the best version of that they can, not accommodating the crowd. The CS community may be small relatively, but it’s diverse enough to support different points of focus and interest.

A good example of this is Samurai of Hyuga. If you went by here or Reddit, you’d think it was the worst game of all-time. Whatever your opinion of it, the series sells and reviews well, and I’ve argued before it’s because the developer hews to his vision and the games don’t slot in as easily to the average CS game. It does things most other ChoiceScript games don’t, and people have responded to that (negatively, too, per above). That doesn’t mean we need SoH clones. It does mean that people should make the game they want, and be ok with either finding their audience or not.

[MoonlightBomber]

This is what I fear the most, if not a little, given that my current WIP has a gender-locked female MC. But I did give her a strong, well-defined personality, and the story’s tone is also set. Yes, there will be players who will be disappointed by my design choices, but the initial receptions are positive (“Wow! The MC and the story are cute!”), and I hope that translates to good sales once it’s formally released on the usual CoG/HG/HC channels.

[hotmess.exe]

@Keller

“This is how I prefer people to address me, this is how I look and present myself, these are my thoughts, these are the decisions I make.” Are the things I like to have control over. “This is how the people and the world react to how you look, think, and act.” are the things I like the author to have control over.

omg this and

@Keller

“This is who you are, this is what you do, this is what you think.” isn’t interesting to me, it’d work better as a novel but we know the novel market is so saturated nobody will likely read it while the IF market is constantly starving for new content so a number of people will probably pick up your novel disguised as a game simply because it becomes available while they’re waiting for other content to materialize.

THIS! you nailed it, omfg, this is exactly what bothers me about a set protagonist. Not just that it doesn’t interest me but because they often are the protagonists in games that do not feel like interactive fiction. And because it doesn’t feel like IF, it frequently feels like an at least partly deceptive attempt on the author’s apart to MAKE ME read their kinetic novel. Like it’s a book with just enough dressing to make it technically an interactive fiction, which means it’s just enough dressing to make it worth pretending you wanted to write a game. Ofc I’m not saying that’s what it actually is every time, but wow I finally have some words to describe this.

This niche is always hungry for new demos and complete games which makes that an easy decision to make, but that’s also what feels gross about it? It feels like, to me anyway, a sense of writer’s entitlement to a specific content-starved niche crowd/audience for the sake of their own self-promotion and/or ego boost. Which is not something anyone has the right to to tell someone not to do so

And regarding your last paragraph, I don’t think I could have said it better. Totally agree. Since writing my first reply in this thread, I’ve actually fallen in love with the Bastard of Camelot demo despite it technically having a set MC. The writing and all other aspects of MC customization have me a big fan of a concept I have been thoroughly disinterested in before. The same applies to Fields of Asphodel. I almost feel like both demos deserve extra points for me because I’m also largely disinterested in retellings of myths and legends.

[ilovecoins]

@hotmess.exe

Since writing my first reply in this thread, I’ve actually fallen in love with the Bastard of Camelot demo despite it technically having a set MC. The writing and all other aspects of MC customization have me a big fan of a concept I have been thoroughly disinterested in before.

The Broken Fable WIP also technically has “set main characters” (you played as either Zeus, Arthur, Janus, Ishtar, etc), but they still have great variability of costumization as well.

The author still grant you the ability to pick the Fable’s personality, motivation and their appearance or even Alias names. Though certain fable has their gender fixed—such as Arthur and Ishtar.

So you might like that one.

[Jacic]

@Keller

“This is who you are, this is what you do, this is what you think.” isn’t interesting to me, it’d work better as a novel but we know the novel market is so saturated nobody will likely read it while the IF market is constantly starving for new content so a number of people will probably pick up your novel disguised as a game simply because it becomes available while they’re waiting for other content to materialize.

@hotmess.exe

It feels like, to me anyway, a sense of writer’s entitlement to a specific content-starved niche crowd/audience for the sake of their own self-promotion and/or ego boost.

That’s an unfair assessment. Outside of CSG’s established characters are VERY common in IF. You can have story focus and interactive fiction rather than it being a case of an author trying to trick readers into picking up a pretend game they never wanted to make but just felt no one would read a novel . Games with preset characters have won big interactive fiction comps like IFComp. I get rather sad that it’s come to a point where there is now a right and a wrong way to make IF in CS format and you’ll risk getting these sorts of accusations if you step outside of the popular way of making a game

[Keller]

I did try to avoid throwing out a blanket good/bad dichotomy around this by going into detail with examples of games that I specifically thought were great, and what still made them great, despite not appealing to my personal tastes as a gamer or consumer of IF (I do not purport to represent any population of gamers, just myself).

The life and suffering of Sir Brante is specifically an example of a work of interactive fiction that has a set protagonist but still feels like it gives me agency within that character, but the character begins as someone that was appealing enough for me to be interested in playing. I think it was a great game!

But it would have been even more appealing to me if I had even more control over my character, that’s just a fact about what makes my dopamine flow. That doesn’t invalidate the author’s work.

I don’t think having a preset character is the wrong way to make a game, but I do think games with a preset character have an uphill battle for my enthusiasm. I gloss over many such games because a quick read of the game’s description immediately tells me I’m not going to be able to get into that character and I’ve been burned enough before that I’m more choosey now. I’ve probably missed titles I would otherwise enjoy because of this.

It takes more than having a set protagonist alone to fall into the thinly-veiled-kinetic-novel category that I personally dislike, but I am much more likely to find myself in a story that has no respect for my agency as a player if I begin a game with a set protagonist rather than one that begins with a character I can customize. Authors rarely combine their heartbreaker novel with a character creation system, because the main character is usually a specific person in their heads they want to tell me about and they’re not going to risk letting me try to add my own spin to them.

[Clary_Fray]

It sucks, but interactive fiction doesn’t have to be customizable, and lots go wild with the “interactive” aspect with it. If the MC is set in them chances are they are focusing on something else they want to say rather than giving you a self-fulfillment in self-creation. Just because (as said earlier) you don’t feel like it’s an interactive fiction doesn’t mean it isn’t.

[Keller]

Yep, and as I mentioned there is definitely enough to work with in a game without allowing the player to create their own character to experience the story with. I’ve explicitly said such things exist, such as when I said

Is Final Fantasy bad? Is The Last of Us bad? No, they’re amazing, but they gambled on intentionally dropping that agency of identity because they decided they had a story and characters that were engaging enough and gameplay that was good enough that relinquishing control over the MC’s identity was made up for. And they were right.

[cup_half_empty]

I find it funny how most people at https://intfiction.org automatically assume that IF means puzzle-fest parser games and people here assume IF means narrative heavy and choice-driven.

Just because a character is set doesn’t make it less of an IF.

[Jacic]

Infiction has become more open. There’s a lot more love happening for choice based games (twine seems particularly common over there, but also see CS, ink, bitsy (etc) and even parser coded to emulate choice based games more strongly on occasion) happening. I’ve entered a few game jams and comps that have a forum presence there and there’s been a good variety of games from linear to more branching, story to puzzle based.

I do fully agree with you that IF means different things to different people though. It’s inclusive of everything from linear fairly preset visual novels to tricky puzzle based parsers. There’s really something to suit everyone’s tastes out there which is nice

[hotmess.exe]

Umm… no. I am not accusing anyone of anything, I am simply expressing the impression I get from these game design decisions, personally. That’s why I used

@hotmess.exe

MAKE ME

@hotmess.exe

Ofc I’m not saying that’s what it actually is every time, but wow I finally have some words to describe this.

@hotmess.exe

It feels like, to me anyway,

But my personal opinion is an accusation apparently? Idk why these opinions are being lumped in with

@Jacic

I get rather sad that it’s come to a point where there is now a right and a wrong way to make IF in CS format and you’ll risk getting these sorts of accusations

Unless you’re not referring to me, I have no idea when I said anything like this. Ever. And especially not in this thread. Also, I’m not sure what preset character games winning at IF competitions has to do with anything? I never said preset characters are only in bad games or that no one should like them, so how is that relevant? I also don’t follow IF competitions, I just read summaries and play what sounds interesting.

@Havenstone How are two people expressing this sentiment in a thread about disdain for set main characters “a discourse” about the IF writing landscape or authors My sentiment might make y’all sad, but I’m speaking strictly from the impression that I get as a reader; that doesn’t make it an accusation. I am not claiming to speak authoritatively or even attempting to make it a topic of discussion. Or even insisting it’s a fact. Expressing something that might feel accusatory to you is not the same as making accusations, which again is why I wrote:

@hotmess.exe

Ofc I’m not saying that’s what it actually is every time, but wow I finally have some words to describe this.

[LiliArch]

@Jacic

I do fully agree with you that IF means different things to different people though.

Try to find the academic definition at some point. Fun times.

[Havenstone]

@hotmess.exe

I am not accusing anyone of anything

The feeling you’re describing is a pretty accusatory one:

@hotmess.exe

it frequently feels like an at least partly deceptive attempt on the author’s apart to MAKE ME read their kinetic novel. Like it’s a book with just enough dressing to make it technically an interactive fiction, which means it’s just enough dressing to make it worth pretending you wanted to write a game.

Couching it as your personal feeling doesn’t change what made Jaci (and me) sad about it: this discourse where authors are supposedly deceiving, pretending, passing off novels as IF.

[cup_half_empty]

Not to mention the broad definition of IF. IF does not mean Choice of Games, and it does not mean you get full or thorough customization of the MC. This is just what the ChoiceScript community particularly has come to expect of it.

[Doriana-Gray]

@Keller

“This is how I prefer people to address me, this is how I look and present myself, these are my thoughts, these are the decisions I make.” Are the things I like to have control over. “This is how the people and the world react to how you look, think, and act.” are the things I like the author to have control over.

This is gold.

But this makes me curious—what are the important parts for people?

What does a game need to have for you?

• Prefered gender
• Prefered pronouns
• Prefered Sexuality
• Prefered (full) Name
• Prefered (partial*) Name
• Prefered personality**
• Prefered looks

• I don’t mind a game lacking all of the above things

*A partial name can be: only a first name, or only a last name, or that you are sometimes or often referred to by a secondary name/title/nickname. Think of Mass effect’s “shepard” or Wayhaven’s “detective”.

** Personality includes behaviour.

– I know it sometimes depends on more specific things like: the game doesn’t allow me to RP in a very specific way, or this particular name or look doesn’t work for me. Simply use your own judgement and vote based on games you have played or general feelings.

[KZV]

Poll should include a none of the above, IMO.

Nothing there is a dealbreaker for me, at least.