[quote=“Havenstone, post:13, topic:14899, full:true”]
I agree that a lot of the games out there right now incentivize playing your stats as consistently as possible, and you get punished for ending up in the muddy middle. (I’m probably going to do this in my game, too). Fairmath lends itself to this kind of game dynamic.[/quote]
I can’t say it doesn’t make sense that the greatest of rewards should lie with leaning heavily in one direction or the other. That said, I don’t like the idea that players should be punished/penalized for remaining in the ‘muddy/neutral’ middle. Ideally, I prefer if things are like here: http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=50
That is to say, players who lean heavily in one direction or another likely reaps the better rewards but staying neutral would have some advantages noentheless… Or it could be like in The Lost Heir games, where leaning heavily towards either Good or Evil is mostly only benefical to you depending on what your class is - a Druid doesn’t seem to reap any special benefits or rewards depending on whether he/she leans heavily towards good or evil, but a Knight will most certainly reap certain benefits if leaning heavily towards either…
Yes, I agree that giving neutrality its advantages would strengthen most games. One way of balancing would be to give neutrality its own rewards. Another would be to make sure that stat extremes come with negative as well as positive consequences, so that ultimately a player who plays a moderately “[stat]like” character will do no worse than the extremist.
In bigger more complex games I usually try to have my character react to the story…this means sometimes they start good and go bad…Sometimes they even find their way back to the light.
It’s hard in CoG games to play a character that undergoes a major change, because as many people have mentioned they tend to use consistency as the way to “win” the game. For second or third play throughs I do it sometimes… Consequences be damned.
The closest I came to having a character really change was in A Wise Use of Time. I had my character start off good, and be slowly corrupted by her power.
Current CoG titles where I played more dynamic-orientated MC include:
Choice of Robots
Lost Heir (1 &2)
Current CoG titles where I played more rigid and unyielding MC include:
Heroes Rise (1,2 &3)
Tin Star
Slammed
The difference between category 1 games and category 2 is the approach of stat-use in the game. In LH and CoR, every change in stats was an evolution of my MC. Did I chose military hard drives for my robot or did I chose the less secure option? Did I chose to summon demons in Lost Heir or did I chose to honor my family’s wishes? These choices made were pointing to the evolution of my MC and her experience and view of that story-verse,
With Slammed, Tin Star and Heroes Rise, the choices made were more challenged to the integrity of my MC. The choices made that reinforced the make-up of my MC were reinforced by more positive outcomes as the story progressed and those choices I made against the grain of my MC made the outcome of the story more of a question as to success.
All the titles I’ve named are titles I like and enjoy; there is no one way to approach MC character development. As to which I prefer; it is dependent on the story itself. A dynamic character emphasis in Heroes Rise would have defeated many elements in the story that worked well and I’m not sure a dynamic approach would have done anything to improve the story. On the other hand, the opposite is true for @Lucid 's work. A less dynamic MC would have meant a less successful story for me. So it really does depend on the story and author.
Yes, both of those ways work - at the very least, even if I prefer neutraility coming with it’s own advantages/rewards, one should make it so that ‘neutral-ish’ characters aren’t penalized…
As for the question in the topic, depends. My first charact(ers) usually stick to one belief/side/whatever or another, making them not so very dynamic, though that CAN change depending on events along the way. After my first characters, however, I may well play a character whose outlook changes at some point, if the game so allows - not all games does, as has been pointed out…
Normally, I try to stick to the stats and choices and keep myself pretty rigid.
However, in Heroes Rise 3: HeroesFall I broke that general guideline despite the hit on my Legend score.
Based on a choice I made that caused things to get… slightly depressing, I played it like it affected my character’s core self.
Throughout 2 and 3 my character focused on his Control (HR has a duel-stat for Control/Unleash for powers).
After the outcome of the choice made, I ended up leaning a LOT more towards Unleash. The same went for Lawless on the Lawful/Lawless stat.
It was more because I played the character as I would act, and seeing what happened shook ME to the core as well.
Playing that way was actually quite fun and made the end results bittersweet in a sense.
I don’t know about Heroes Rise; it’s true that in the individual games it’s hard to stray from your previously set archetype, but actually throughout the series as a whole it’s perfectly possible to do a complete 180 in terms of the Justice/Lawful stats, and there’s more than enough happening to the MC that you could say it stems from that.
