I prefer to have control on what they say, feel, and think. It’s better for me to to show how my MC feels in certain situations and about people.
An example would be maybe there is a character my MC is specifically ruthless and cold as opposed to others. Another would be my sarcastic and jokey MC would end up in a tragic situation and instead of making a joke about it he’s withdrawn and depressed after.
The problem with the defining personality in games is that the MC are always this one thing throughout the entire game even in situations where someone would react differently.
Also I’m gonna assume this is gonna add and complicate a shit ton of coding and rewriting scenes for every personality.
Hmmm, this is a rather tricky subject. If I remember correctly, the forum tended to be rather divided on this.
Personally, I think relying on a personality stat to determine certain reaction kind of takes away from the potential nuance of Player Characters.
Going by the Caine example, if an MC were 80% ruthless, there would be no way for a player to express their soft side (if they should have one) by helping Caine up. Essentially, it feels—to me—that there would be no Pet the Dog moments for a character whose ruthless personality is set. Conversely, it seems like there’d be no way to show a jokey/sarcastic character taking a case seriously if their response is determined by a stat. A nice character can’t lose their temper, a stoic character can’t crack a smile, etc.
Unless, of course, you continue to let players choose their reactions despite their personality, but then that would make personality stats redundant. Because the players would still be choosing their reactions anyway, it begs the question, ‘what is the point of tracking personality stats?’
I think there’s less clunky ways of going about it.
Really, I don’t even think that a prompt is all that necessary. After all, just presenting the choices shows that there’s an option to react.
Yes, true—that was actually my problem with DA2 and this general approach as well, sarcastic Hawke could NEVER turn off the sarcasm and came off as an asshat occasionally!
I think it depends on how it’s implemented! I most likely wouldn’t do it for SoH, but if I did, it’d be more flavortext within scenes than rewriting whole scenes/reactions according to each personality type. I agree though, it would be a lot of work for something that might restrict nuance.
I find that little subtle differences can make a scene just perfect. So think it would be nice if the McCain acted similar to the way they have been throughout the game.
I agree—but I do think I see it quite a lot in CS games, leading me to wonder if there’s an appeal! I’ve tried my hand out at defining the MC’s feelings about a thing (like in a “how do you feel about this?” prompt), but I get so insecure about all of the different kinds of thoughts and motivations and feelings someone could have that I realize I could never satisfactorily define them all! I think letting readers choose their action or decision and leaving the MC’s motivation/thoughts up to the imagination might be better?
I have to agree that you really cannot define all of the motivation and will like make it too much work. I think the basic motivations would suffice (good, bad and neutral) especially if these will have an effect further down the story.
I think it depends. In many cases, you can have a player choose an action and leave it to them to fill in the blanks.
If that’s not possible, like say the character is being duplicitous, then there’s always the option of splitting the action and the motivation into two separate *choices or stacking them into *fake_choice trees.
This would alleviate having giant walls of text in your choices because then you don’t have to account for each choice and motivation combo. You would simply present the action choice, then lead to the motivation choice, and then get back to the text.
One interesting thing you could try to add an aspect of a personality type and flavor would be track personality in a hidden stat. Then make one option in choices that says “Follow your instincts” which will then present the scene based on the personality you have developed throughout the game. The scene might make people go … Oh have I really been that sarcastic, wow. And if it was just one of the options then people would still have the choice or just go with a personality they have developed. A small excerpt at the beginning should make it obvious that choosing this will be based on certain characteristics your MC has displayed through the game. As long as it is an optional thing, I think it would be a nice addition. That might add too much work, but it could make choices interesting.
I think I would prefer it actually. In DA2, Hawke can still choose diplomatic or aggressive options: it’s just that when there are no particularly important choices, they default to a sarcastic response. I think that would be a fun way to handle it.
Maybe have three categories: Humor, Work, and Personal. Then have substats that you default to when in a humor, work, or personal situation. For example, if it’s a moment that calls for humor, you might respond wittily, use sarcasm, or maybe even miss the joke entirely depending on your personality. For work, you might be professional and formal or laid-back. Etc.
However these flavor texts shouldn’t affect other stats or relationships with characters, so there’s no downside to a specific personality. But you can still have characters commenting on the player’s personality so it feels more realistic.
As for the I feel X because X, I’m not a fan of it. I would prefer if things like that were handled more naturally.
Thanks for the input, everybody! I will definitely take it into consideration and experiment with some of these ideas, though—as some have said—it might be a lot of work on top of what I’m already planning, lol. Maybe for a separate game that doesn’t deal with so many determinant characters!
Will there be any real benefit for saving Caine? Like him being your follower or influencing others to support you?
So far he seems like a nice boy but it looks like you don’t get anything out of saving him
Our motivations for making a choice may not match up with the personality the game thinks it implies, also as said above, people are complicated, and I feel like putting a label on them makes them flatter.
(DA2 purple!Hawke made me facepalm so many times.)
‘How do you feel’ choices are great for getting in character, as long as it allows for a broad enough range of reactions.
You get the opportunity to recruit Caine to the Shepherds later on, but it’s really a choice between the initially-unpleasant political connection who took a while to respect you, and the precocious surrogate brother who wanted to be your friend from the start. It’s all about how you want your story to unfold and who your MC wants to be!
I agree though, it would be a lot of work for something that might restrict nuance.
It’s all about how you want your story to unfold and who your MC wants to be!