Question on Protagonist Motivations and Goals

Game Development Writing and Content
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I’ve been working on story idea I’ve had for a long while and I’m getting hung up on this portion of the planning. How fixed do authors normally set the motivations of their protagonist and how tied to the character’s goals and personality is motive? Because I’m realizing my protagonist could have any number of motivations and goals and this could skyrocket how much branching my story would get past manageabiltiy.

I’m thinking maybe I just rid the non thematic motivations and goals entirely, but that feels a bit restrictive. Games like the Evertree Saga throw you into a situation but you can choose your motivation and goals, whereas I think Fallen Hero (book 1) has some degree of fixed motivation behind it all but I know there was a portion where you can pick why you were doing what you were doing, and I haven’t fully completed ITFO but it seems that has a fixed goal but not too fixed motivation (still at the start of Krorid so I could be entirely wrong or could have forgotten really important bits). But figuring out what works best for my narrative (or any narrative I may decide on) seems quite confusing to me even with these examples. Maybe I just haven’t played quite enough IFs to know the conventions or get a good intuition on this. Or maybe it’s a subjective thing for authors?

Is it tied to character role? Maybe an office worker gets dreams of world domination or change, but unless it’s relevant to the narrative their day to day motivations and goals would probably be not that. But how do you deal with characters who have non fixed roles or roles that allow for a breadth of motivations to pick from? And how do you then deal with how sprawling the list of goals a single strong motivation can have?

I’m inexperienced, so I am most definitely overcomplicating it. Would love to hear others’ thoughts on this.

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Ive made protagonists whose goals are obscure and others who are simple but escalates further in.

My best protagonist is the one who had a simple goal that spiraled into something bigger.

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Do you set the motivation alongside the goal or do you allow for some flexibility? Or is it sorta like a “character X is pursuing Y goal and this story is getting into their shoes in their pursuit” kind of thing? Like a character study or specific character fantasy of sorts?

I have a feeling this discussion partly bleeds into the fixed vs nonfixed protagonist discussion but deciding which works for either is a bit tough to me

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I feel the motivation is meant to get the story going some books give you a clear motivation while others let you chose a more wide concept of it like in the examples you gave.

In fallen hero the main motivation there is freedom/revenge but the way sidestep Achieves it is left for the player

an in evertree the motivation is getting to the city. however why you are going to the city is left to the player

so it mostly depends on what you need for the story the motivation is just there as a starting line. yet its almost always kept to one goal that the character would want to achieve. from there it can grow slowly into something else as the story develops and your character gets closer or outright achives the goal.

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Every story will require a level of buy-in from players. If a story is about revenge, then the motivation is revenge! It’s non-negotiable; players can’t say “well, my character doesn’t want revenge”, because the story wouldn’t even happen in the first place. This, obviously, changes from premise to premise.

Finding the balance between player agency and authorial intent is really the trick of the trade. A general rule of thumb I set for myself is to leave internal things (how characters feel about a situation) to the players as much as possible and as far as it doesn’t clash with the story/premise. Try to write around that or adjust for different options. Most of the time it just means adding flavour text here and there.

You have a lot more leeway with external factors. You can even get away with forcing the character to do something as long as you give the players the chance to express how their characters feel about it (and don’t use this trick too often).

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Simple goals. I dont really think too much on it. Like this guy is bad, go fight him. Then I do the who, what, where, why and how.

Theres your game right there.

Like my current wip, the goal is that theres a weird energy source on earth, lets find out what it is. Then I built a canvas from that.

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I’d suggest looking first at how you define the difference between goal, motive, and personality.

What would you say is the distinction between what the character wants, why they want it, and how they express it? Which of these does the premise of the story require to function and which may be flexible?

Personally, I’d define a goal as what the character wants to achieve. Their personality is how they behave. A motive is the ‘why’ behind those wants and behaviors.

Games often give players freedom in one of these areas, and then restrict them in another.

Using your 3 examples:

Fallen Hero has a fixed MC goal: become a villain. It’s the premise on which the story builds itself. Sidestep might have different motives and personality expression -
vengeance, self-defense, fate | arrogance, empathy, daring - but the outcome they’re aiming for is always the same. The player only chooses what kind of villain they become.

The Evertree Inn Saga has a fixed MC motive: achieve a better life. It’s pre-established during the character creator and backstory. The player chooses the MC’s goals and personality: wealth, power, knowledge | determination, compassion, work-ethic. But their motive of ‘living well’ remains constant. The player only chooses what counts as a good life.

I, the Forgotten One puts a fixed point in the MC’s personality: haunted. Goals and motives can change - support the sister, seize power, heal from trauma | love, resentment, duty. But you cannot choose that the Marshal was unaffected by their wartime experiences. The player only chooses what they do with their personal demons.

(If you think I’m wrong here, then good! Hone in on the differences and springboard into how that informs your approach to your project.)

There’s a way in which MC design always requires the author to draw a few arbitrary lines. My advice is that you choose which of the three (goal, motive, and personality) you think is inseparable from the story you want to tell. Then give the player some freedom to choose how that element expresses itself through the other two.

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I got a bit busy over where I lived but everyone made great points!

I think I’m going to go with something similar, but more in line with what the others said.

I think this comes from a difference in definitions for motives where you treat it sorta like the concrete goal behind a goal whereas I treat it more like an abstract one but you make a great point.

This actually got me thinking on my premise… But not for long because I ended up confusing myself. Intuitively I knew you were right but it still felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle to fully get it until:

Which makes everything click together neatly.

Now choosing which of those 3 elements I should set, I’ll have to do some more thinking on. But I feel like my MC having a fixed backstory helps a bit with the springboarding. My problem of “way too many possible X” still kinda exists, but I think that semi-arbitrary author restrictions are the fix for that. I’ll just see where this takes me.

Thank you all for the thoughtful responses!

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@valence’s reply was really great, perfectly worded.

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