This is petty and probably only annoys me, but an incredibly common thing I’m not fond of is when games explicitly or implicitly prevent the PC from having the same eye color as their biological family members.
Aka the “you have your mother’s ${eye_color} eyes” cliché when you choose the PC’s eye color.
Bonus points if the PC’s mother doesn’t even show up in the game.
I don’t mind if it’s plot relevant, but typically it’s never mentioned again. Why not give the player the latitude to imagine their character comes from a family of entirely green-eyed or brown-eyed people?
Especially weird when a self-proclaimed “inclusive” game has “diverse” character creation options but doesn’t seem to consider how saying “you got your brown eyes from your mother” is kind of strange for a PC named Cindy Kim. Does Mr. Kim not have brown eyes? Are we playing 50 shades of brown?
Doesn’t just happen with eye color either. It’s fairly common with hair color and, in one especially memorable case, I’ve seen it done with hair type (straight/curly/wavy/coiled). At least when it comes to skin color, authors recognize why writing “you have pale skin, unlike your sister” would be restrictive.
In some cases, it’s done very explicitly. After you pick the PC’s eye/hair color/hair type, you have to pick for a biological family member and what you picked for the PC is un-selectable.
Unless it’s important for the plot (which would be cool!), I really don’t see the point of forcing the PC’s biological family to be phenotypically diverse.
I’m more and more coming around to the idea that less is more when it comes to PC customisation. Fewer, or no, customisation options and just let the player fill in the blanks in their own mind. Especially if your customisation boils down to a fake choice at the start of your game that is never referenced again.
While I am sure that there is a significant portion of players that feel this way and think character creation is a pointless chore they’d rather not suffer through, I simply disagree.
Being able to make the choice to customize my character is important to me, even if it is never referenced later. Nobody cares what you look like in Baldur’s gate, Cyberpunk, Divinity, Dragon’s Dogma, the Elder Scrolls, Saints Row, Elden Ring. Does the fact that nobody references your pink hair or ridiculous proportions mean that the customization is pointless? Not to me.
Letting me choose means that the game is going to honor my choice, that my mental picture of the character is going to be consistent even if never referenced (it would be strange to ask my hair color and then later mention it being a completely different color without justification!), and I’m not going to get through half the book and suddenly be told that I’m shorter or taller than I expected or have some other contradiction to my conception of the character throwing me out of the experience.
I definitely don’t think the game should dictate to the player what they look like, so if the narrative is going to reference a physical characteristic then the player should be able to set that. My point is that if a physical characteristic is never referenced in the narrative then there is no point making the player choose it, simply allow them to imagine whatever they want.
In fact providing character customisation in this situation can actually limit player’s choice. If you provide a list of options and the one the player actually wants isn’t on there then you have artificially limited how the player sees their character and if that has no bearing on the story then you have limited the player choice for no reason.
The comparison to traditional videogames doesn’t work because even if the choices are never referenced you still SEE your character, but that isn’t a factor in text based games.
And yet, it feels too similar to an approach to another issue I have with some games.
The author feels incapable of describing something in a satisfactory fashion, or doesn’t want to invest the time or energy into it, or doesn’t want to burden the player with the friction of having to make such choices, so instead they just tell the player “Imagine something really cool.”
Telling the player to just imagine the player character however they want because it has zero impact on the story and world you want to tell them is just like telling them to imagine the LI you ham-fisted into the game is just like whatever they imagine. It’s substanceless in an artless way and gives up an opportunity to build attachment to the character.
“This person couldn’t be more your type. You know exactly the kind you’re most attracted to, the offbeat energy and unique characteristics that make your knees weak. Whoever this person is, he/she/ze possesses all the vibes and charms you love most.”
When you let the player make choices and define their character, even if there is no reference to it later, I am hearing that my choices matter. Even if only to me.
When you tell the player their conception of the character matters so little you don’t even want to record it, I am hearing that my choices don’t matter.
“Imagine a thrilling fight, it was really exciting and tense.”
“Imagine whatever epilogue makes you happiest.”
“Imagine they said something very convincing to you.”
Mm, I don’t think it’s fair to say that lack of hair colour/height/etc choices means a game is saying player choices don’t matter. There are a lot of ways of having a vividly-written, responsive game without it.
I think it is just something where people have very different feelings about it. For me, I struggle to get very excited about hair and eye colour choices, especially if it’s before the story has got going. I do write the choices, - I confess they’re not generally my favourite thing to do because there’s a fair bit of effort to make them feel interesting to me, but the options are helpful to inform descriptions down the line, which will hopefully help players who feel more strongly than I do to feel like they’re gelling with their character.
I at least agree that opinions differ. I know how I feel when I see it, I know I’m not alone in those thoughts, though I also know plenty of people who don’t feel that way at all.
Hmmm. I’m with you. As time goes on… I’m coming around to this perspective as well. A well written and memorable protagonist will do all the leg work, in my opinion. I’ve played many games that gave players all the customization in the world (Wayfarer, for example - the sheer amount of customization was genuinely intimidating at first) and it never brought me any closer to the MC nor made them a more believable character in their own right.
But I recently played Tally Ho & Jolly Good and it wasn’t until I was maybe 10+ replays into both games that I realized there’s no choices around the MC’s physical appearance - and yet the Tally Ho and Jolly Good MCs are now among some of the most vivid, memorable and beloved IF protagonists to me. Their character shines so well, in any way you play them, without all the extra fluff. Anything more would’ve felt superfluous. I got to know them as I played them and their images came to my mind naturally; so naturally I hadn’t even noticed it.
Yes, I imagine what my MC looks like, but when there are choices for MC’s appearance MC feels more real. It is not only in my imagination, it really written and acknowledged. Also I find very useful when MC’s appearance is described on the stats page. Because I can forget what my MC for this game looked like (especially in WIPs).
Even when it’s never referred to in-story, just the fact that it’s there makes it more real than “just imagine that the MCs are excactly like you’d want them to be even though we don’t give you an explicit option to decide on your MC’s appearance”. IIRC, there have been several people here in the forums and other places who are POC and have stated how much they appreciated being given the option of choosing their skin color, type of hair and such, because that made it explicit that the MC then was different from your “typical” white protagonist and if I understood it correctly, this was independent on whether it was explicitly referred to in-story or not.
And as a comparatively short guy, I feel similarly about being able to choose my MC’s height and allow to make a male MC explicitly short, since those kind of male protagonists are still in comparatively short supply in the kind of genres that are most commonly used for COGs and HGs( such as fantasy and the superhero genre) and it’s nice to have a male MC/protagonist who explicitly has that in common with me, as opposed to yet another tall, strong hero.
Although there are of course also differences between those two examples, so to speak, they’re both to do with representation in one way or another. Just allowing you to explicitly choose a particular customization for your MC that you as a player/reader can particularly relate, makes you feel more represented, or at least it makes me feel more represented than this being left deliberately vague during the HG or COG in question, even when it’s not mentioned in-story. I won’t deny that having it also referred to in-story would be the ideal option for me, but in the absence of that, I’m happy with being given customization options that I care about that are never referred to in-story.
However, I won’t deny that I don’t care equally about all customization. I’m personally quite indifferent to the options of customizing the hair and eye color of the MC and if those were removed I personally wouldn’t feel that I’ve missed anything and unlike, say, skin color it doesn’t jump out as the kind of customization option that is important when it comes to making more people feel represented. But then again I wouldn’t rule out the possibilty that many people feel that it’s important to have MCs with the same hair and eye color in order to relate to them more easily and in some way feel more represented if the MCs can explicitly have the same eye and hair color as they themselves either.
Yes, a HG or COG can still be good or even great without the customisation option that is the most important to me personally. But for me at least, this usually means that I need to have more opportunities to choose to customize the MC in other ways that are important to me. And there’s no question that the HG or COG in question to explicitly or implicitly allowing me choose the height of my MC, certainly makes me much more positive to that HG or COG and makes it much more easy to enjoy it and for me to get the kind of story I’d like.
bleh for me it’s just pointless fluff then but not even he good kind that gives character interactions, I always feel like my time is being wasted if that’s the case.
Personally I’ve always enjoyed character customization, and I prefer it to no customization at all (though I admit it can sometimes be excessive).
Part of the reason why is just because I like the creativity of it. To me, it’s like drawing without a pencil; I get to create my character from scratch and shape them thanks to the option given, and I just find that fun to do.
(Yes, I am absolutely the type of person that salivates over extensive cutomization in video games and spends hours on it to get a character I like.)
But another part of the reason is that I have trouble visualizing stuff when it’s narrated in a written format, which is also why I hate when descriptions of an environment are badly done or confusing, and I really love it when they’re cohesive and in-depth (The Golden Rose imo has some absolutely exquisite descriptions, and it really helps me immerse myself in its world); because I rely on them so heavily just to “see” anything in the story.
So when a game has no character customization at all and just indirectly tells me to imagine their appearance myself (Weyrwood is the first game that comes to my mind that did that), I just end up imagining a shapeless blob of a person instead, completely intercheangable and with no distinguishing features. And that just leaves me frustrated and unsatisfied, and can really take me out of a story.
Idk, it’s hard to explain, but the complete lack of customization makes my MC feel bland, like a blank slate or like one of those rpg silent protagonists. Except so much worse because with the silent protagonists I can at least imagine they’re saying something funny, but here I don’t think to picture it if I haven’t had something that helps pre-establish it.
I hate writing descriptions (because most of the time I have no idea what the thing I’m supposed to describe looks like, either. I just don’t visualize stuff like that apart from some rare cases!) … this’ll be a problem. (Yes, my characters are shapeless blobs by default. Sans, again, some rare cases.)
This is also a mood. Ironically, my own descriptions can be pretty lacking because of the same reasons mentioned above. I don’t hate writing them, mind you, but it can be a struggle.
But that’s also why I have a ton of respect for any game that puts effort into describing something in-depth and setting a proper mood and atmosphere. Even when it doesn’t always land or work out, while it is frustrating and can be a huge turn-off for me as a reader, I can at least acknowledge the attempt and effort put in as a writer, because Writing Is Hard™.
It’s true that writing descriptions is my number one mood-breaker, and I agree with a lot of sentiments said here. I do dislike it when descriptions are too vivid, more in the sense that it’s too much detail for certain scenes. It pulls me out of the immersion if there’s too much focus on the environment. But that’s just me, probably because in real life it’s hard for me to slow down and smell the flowers (as they say).
So yes, I agree that badly written descriptions, or badly timed descriptions simply do not do it for me. But on the other hand, when it’s done well, and not overly-complicated (I’ve had to google so many architecture terms due to some LOL), I can get behind it!
Adding some thoughts into character customisation too; I say I’m all for it! I absolutely love creating characters, whether I can visualise them after creation or not doesn’t matter to me. I simply enjoy the act of creating them. Sometimes it even gives me inspiration for more artful adventures, like drawing and stuff!
Hard agree with this perspective. I somewhat curse myself every day for writing in the choice to choose your own build (short, average, tall/average, toned, muscular) in my game. To make the choice seem meaningful is a lot more work than I think a lot of people realize, especially with height. Because suddenly, they find themselves asking, “If this thing is just barely out of reach for the playthrough with my short MC, why is it still just barely out of reach for the playthrough with my tall MC?” Then there’s descriptions of romance scenes, taking the romances heights into account, etc. etc.
In my experience, it just adds so much development time. It’s cool flavor, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just a lot to keep in mind and keep track of while writing a game.
I’m the same way. I’m not a very observant person when it comes to a lot of things, in general. I don’t even notice if someone wears the same set of clothes every day. Nor do I care. And describing scenery is the most boring thing on earth to write (and read, really), unless it’s pertinent to the character observing it or the overall story. I don’t need two paragraphs describing the trees and flowers unless the character is going to have to eat them. Given the only trees I can identify on sight are magnolia trees, crepe myrtles, and pine trees, descriptions of them mean nothing to me. They’re green/brown/orange/whatever and have leaves. Let’s move on…
I have one OC who is observant about everything and I struggle with him (despite him being a really cool character), because I have no idea wtf he’s seeing and don’t really care, lol. My writing partner is good at that kind of thing and at keeping a plot contained–instead, he isn’t as good at characterization or dialogue. We balance each other out.
Still, I don’t enjoy reading detailed descriptions of characters’ surroundings. I’d rather know their thoughts, their feelings, and how they respond to different stimuli so I can understand the characters.
The one caveat is if it’s story related. I enjoy @ViIsBae’s “investigation” scene immensely, because the MC is looking for something. There is a purpose to it, so it’s very cool. If it was there without the investigation, I couldn’t care less.
Would you rather there is none description of the surroundings, or just the bare minimum? I tend to gravitate towards the former when I write, and then have to go back and edit, because I’m pretty sure the reader at least needs to know if they’re in a forest or in a coffee shop… or in a forest that’s a coffeeshop.
I prefer the bare minimum, but can deal with no description of the surroundings at all (especially in IF games–wasting words on flowery descriptions of a room just ends up annoying me).
I tend to write however it fits the character, though. I have characters who notice nothing about their surroundings, those that only view their surroundings in a tactical fashion (where are the exits, are there any threats nearby, what is the path to get out, etc.), and a select few who take in everything (but are able to do it quickly and succinctly).
What I’m getting at is that the descriptions should fit the narrator/POV character. But, even then, I prefer minimal descriptions.
This is true. But I don’t think it really requires a great deal of description to get that across. Sometimes simply writing “CharacterA entered the cofffee shop, which was smack dab in the middle of the forest” is all you need.
Edited to add:
I will say that this is actually something that could be adjusted based on a character stat. A combat-based character would have a more tactical view of their surroundings than a detail-oriented observant character. It would actually be fun to have it tailored to the character build, if authors are really determined to be overly flowery in their descriptions. At least give an “out” for those who don’t like the flowery crap–and give a more succinct, tactical description of the character’s environment.
bleh for me it’s just pointless fluff then but not even he good kind that gives character interactions, I always feel like my time is being wasted if that’s the case.