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Something which is often implicit in a game design is the relationship the player and the player-character(s) have.  This relationship can take many forms depending on the game design, and I think it's a very interesting thing that deserves some analysis.

The player character's agency (the choices it makes) is by definition in the hands of the player.  Some games, however, have the character make choices autonomously (as in cutscenes) or restrict the player's agency to a set of choices that would be reasonable for that character.  I like to think of game design in terms of contracts, and this one extends to the narrative -- there is a contract between the player and the character defining what actions the player may reasonably take through that character.

Direct actions are most commonly the player's domain:  Where to go, what to interact with, and other actions which directly affect gameplay.  Sometimes, these comprise the full set of choices a player can make -- I like to call such choices the player's "vocabulary".

Expressive actions may fall to either side, or both:  What to say, what face to make, and other actions which have a more purely narrative or sentimental effect.  Generally a player's vocabulary here is more limited, and reasonably so:  Expressive actions tend to be comprised of many small choices and to have a lesser and less-direct effect on gameplay.  There are always exceptions, of course, and the line between direct and expressive action is not a sharp one.


So some simple examples:

Half-Life:  Gordon Freeman's vocabulary is running, jumping, and shooting at things.  The player has absolute say in his direct actions, with virtually no exceptions, and there isn't much expressive action to speak of -- Gordon's thoughts and emotions are left to the player's imagination.  I call him the Silent Protagonist.

Elder Scrolls:  These games are designed so the player may create a character and play that part as freely as possible.  Like Half-Life the player is virtually never deprived of control over direct actions, and these games try to facilitate free characterization through dialogue choices, apparel and role-playing.  I call this the Blank Slate.

Little Big Planet:  Another Blank Slate, but with an important difference:  Because expressive actions (in this case, facial expressions, personal appearance, and dancing!) don't have a strong effect on gameplay, players are more free to take expressive actions without being constrained by an optimal play strategy.  For fun, let's call this guy the Canvas -- a more colorful alternative to the slate.

Batman, Arkham Asylum:  A very, very common case is that direct actions are in control of the player and expressive actions are in control of the character.  Thus the character has a defined personality and the player simply takes actions as that person.  This is almost any adventure game or platformer protagonist; let's call it the Actor.

There are a relationships beyond the ones I mention, and perhaps other categorizations of action, and I think it would be interesting to discuss these and their implications.

Okay, two part answer for myself:
A) I prefer the Blank Slate when dealing with a character, being immersed in a game with your own variety and twist to things is really a key to games and gamers. I think, that some things like Elder Scrolls or Saints Row did grow popularity through customization features. I would like to one day incorporate more range than WoW did. (Yes, we call it pipe-dream I know)
B) The problem is also though that having fully controllable characters would be challenging, which is why Elder Scrolls has such a high budget for each of the series. Sure they promo the expansions and stuff but honestly the high cost of programming such parameters is astounding. So look at God of War, Prince of Persia, Legacy of Kain, realms of Action RPG, people really enjoyed them and it isn't so open, maybe a mixture of these two elements, would create a successful game 

An interesting thought on direct versus expressive action:  When the player is assured that an action will not have any effect on gameplay, but one must be taken, they inevitably express themselves with that action.  A great example is in Okami when the player must draw a mask on a piece of cloth.  Another is when naming an object or character.

My own preference in characters is the Actor.  I like a character with a mind of its own, principally because I've never played a Blank Slate game where my interpersonal interactions were any kind of interesting.  What if I want to flirt with the shopkeep, or taunt the guard, or act dismissive toward the knight-in-training?  When games do give us these options they generally use dialogue options; such expressions are necessarily clear and discrete, lacking the subtlety a willful actor might achieve.  It's difficult to imagine a game where you could control your character's body language; more conceivable if still far-fetched is a character with autonomous physical expressiveness...

Though an interesting counterexample, and a good addition to the discussion, is Chris Bell's Way.

What about Fable and Fable II, these were games where gestures not only could be made toward anyone, but really anyone could have a reaction. Liked by some, hated by others. Plus the element of the character evolution by character decisions. Evil or Good reflected in the appearance. If that could be scaled to be a more customized feature as the progression took place would only sharpen the games enhancements, but still for the effect Fable did wonderful job at giving reaction to actions in the game that were completely user controlled.

This is very interesting!
*I came here by luck when I saw the topic in the most recent post thing in the Developer section. My english is not the best and I am not too familiar with the subject from a writers point of view but I think I might have something interesting to add here.

We are currently developing a game where the player and the main character are separate, meaning that the player has no direct control over the main characters actions or behavior. But the player has an indirect control over the character where he can manipulate the surrounding environment to make the character behave in certain a manner.

And just to tie back to fable which you mentioned. What if there were only two persons in fable, the player and another character? If you would narrow it down like that you could possibly put a lot of effort and affects into that single relationship. I can imagine it being kind of powerful if you focused on just that player and another character relationship.

This is something that we are exploring to some extent in our game, where we are building puzzles around character behavior and the understanding of how an interaction calls for a reaction. In our case, as an external force of some kind, you might say that the player is playing himself. This fact is also something that creates an interesting dynamic in the relationship between player and character, since they are very different in both what they are and what they can do. Still depending on eachother.

I totally think that this kind of 'in direct control' over another character can be explored in so many more ways than we are trying to, especially in a focused and narrative based game. Probably very much so in an narrative that is more fable like where you actually get a consequence out of your interactions.
Just take away all the fighting and deaths and pointless mini games and that kind of noise that clouds both characters and narrative in a bad way...

I agree with the focusing bit but at the same time you are hindered by the fact of a deep relations with specific character while another may have lacking or none at all. True that RPGs have often done this with Quest Givers and such but that doesn't always account for better relations, building a dynamic character with responses is hugely difficult because as human beings we don't have a simple list of programmed responses: If Answer A then Reply B - If Answer B Reply C- we don't have this controlling dominance to our conversations, it has more depth than simple response, in fable response also changed future interactions. Same thing in Elder Scrolls, sometimes they may just run up and attack you if you do something wrong. Well things are interesting in the world of gaming but to get a character to have so much depth that the Player continues to grow and learn would be quite a difficult task.

Very insightful.  :)

I'm trying to do something a little like this in a project of mine.  The way I'm trying to implement it is through a dynamic body language system -- very technically complex, and doomed to be a crass oversimplifiction of the real thing.  However, people have a way of reading into ambiguous signals and ascribing depth to them.  If I can do my work well enough to represent subtle mannerisms and queues, they will not go unnoticed.  Or so I hope.

(That's key, really -- we're not simulating reality, or the subtleties of people.  We're representing them.  That's the basis of art, and there is power in understanding it.)

I totally see your point and agree with you. Though, say that you have a whole bunch of programmed responses to different player actions. I can imagine that this would work pretty well for a while, as you were kind of getting to know the character. Every human has emotional triggers that give you a certain emotional respons. Fears for example are very individual and good triggers for direct responses.
The thing with game charaters that takes away their soul is when you get into these moments where the AI repeats the same thing over and over or do not act in a logical way. I really wanted to fall in love with Yorda the first time I played ICO, but when I found myself trying, for the 58th time, to get her to climbe down a small ladder it just became too evident that it was a stupid AI character.
It's like that weakest link thing, a character is just as real as their weakest character moment.

So I would say that good AI and a well designed logical game that tries to avoid repetetive situations and unlogical behavior could probably help make the player learn and grow by themselves. Though I have yet to see a game like this.
And I at the moment very much believe that it is the characters around that will trigger the emotional responses in the player, not his own action.
AI is one of the huge things in games which I feel is somewhat unique to games and I would rather have major studios focus on that than prettier graphics.
You are very much right in it being a very difficult task but I would love to see more focus on just that.


Your project sounds very interesting. And I think you are right in your observation. We try to do something in line with that too. But our game is built around an AI characters behavior puzzles, which means that our focus is not quite just to make this character as alive as possible but to be as human as possible. So what we focus on are more the general traits of a human, almost a charicature of a human, where we try to boil down the essence of human emotions. We then try to figure out who this character are and gve him fears, longings, targets and so on. This is mixed with the basic human needs, food, comfort, safety... And these things are depending on the immediate surroundings. If you are a little bit more cold than hungry your target would probably be a warming fire rather than an apple. But we are still figuring things out but it is sure an interesting topic.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this.   

emotional responses in a game although difficult can be achieved but it would require a very complex and changing algorithm. That would also have to keep into place a complex random generator. See when we go through our lives with independent thought, we have responses based from our perspectives and so you trying to flirt as a character can cause a variety of responses, but to make it successful the randomness factors would have to be enormous. Programming the language aspect is something that Elder Scrolls and others. But then to convey those in aspects with the hints of body language rules and submeanings and openings would take a very complex code for doing that.

Philosophical tangent:  Randomness is a game developer's canned substitute for complexity; any sufficiently complex system is "random" to the extent that it is unpredictable.  "Randomness" as we know it is a simple chaotic behavior which helps us make a system less predictable easily.

Non-repeating behavior is a really special thing, and has been put to good use with narrators in Bastion and The Cave.  It's a simple, elegant rule that solves one of the principal problems with non-player characters in games.  That said, it's a concept which would be better discussed in the "good characters" thread.

These two sort-of-tangental ideas can be related back to the notion of deep characters, though:  If the behavior patterns of NPCs and the non-controllable behaviors of the PC are subject to complex systems, and those systems have specific provisions to ensure a repeated stimulus does not provoke a repeated response, then those characters will be a little more "random", and a little more believable.  Poke me with a stick once, and I'll give you a filthy look.  Poke me again and I'll try to take it away from you.

More succinctly:  Characters should learn and change, even if in a very simple way.

I myself think that randoness is just something that creates more obstacles in a situation like this. I am not sure if there is that much randomness to human behavior. I can imagine most human actions to be base upon past experience. This would be part of your character and your personality and in some ways make you predictable.
So rather than having a random response in a character I would like to see situations that are well written and maybe even scripted to emphasize a consistent personality of a character. Most games does this in a shallow way I think where important characters lack depth in personality because they "need" to be likable rather than personal.

I agree with you Evan. And I very much think that the NPCs can be connected to the learning and growth of the player. Especially in a gaming environment where moral and ethics are generally much lower than other mediums. Mainly because how games handle issues like death, to give an extreme example. Death is a very serious matter in real life and something that has a profound consequence on people that experience it up close, in one way or another. In games it has far from that same impact as a death would in real life.
And to make a point, I think we need to try to get that impact back, not just regarding death but all things that can affect and make growth within the player. This can maybe partly be achieved by well written NPCs.
Say that we have a game about a marrige. In the game there is a certain object that is totally meaningless to the man(player in this case) in terms of emotional depth, so he simply throws this object away. The thing is that this object is of great emotional value to his NPC wife which is shown in her reaction to the player throwing it away. Then, from her reaction, maybe the player would learn the value of the object and then even grow to know his wife a little more.

Maybe things like this where you let the player learn the meaning and value of things through interaction and NPC reaction might be an interesting standpoint. I don't know but I can imagine an NPC to have a bunch of influence on the PC and player if situations are well written.
Also if certain events had a consequence throughout the game and was referred to later I think it would give more depth to the experience and remind the player of the consequence of actions. And the consequence is probably better if it doesn't abrupt the game where it tells you "this was wrong, redo!" but rather just a branch off leading in a slightly new direction.

So the wife could forgive the man for throwing away the object but would remind him of that first incident later in the game.
And further down, in a similar situation, the palyer might not throw away a certain thing before asking his wife, which would mean that he had both learned and changed.
 

 

i think silent protagonists only work as long as there are a lot of interesting secondary characters which are actors to pick up the slack. for instance, in chrono trigger, crono was a silent protagonist, but the real story was with the other characters: marle, lucca, robo, frog, magus, etc. -- those are the characters most of the story scenes revolved around, not crono. similarly, most of the main suikoden games are story-driven through non-player actors, the player is just sort of along for the ride

in other words, i think that a story still needs to be composed of actors, regardless of whether or not the player actually controls an actor or not. whenever they make a player silent, all that means is that the player character has very little impact on the plot, and has to ride along with it rather than take part in it

Silent characters has never been one of my likes, like in Doom 3 the character stayed silent the whole game, sometimes it's just great when the character speaks like Duke Nukem.

i think silent protagonists can be pretty awkward in gams and i don't find the half life style of storytelling particularly "immersive"  tbh.

Why was Freeman silent? Was there ever an actual reason / explanation? To me it also feels very strange when someone is speaking right in front of you and you say nothing and they carry on like nothing's wrong. I would be "fucks sake, say something!".

I guess the thinking is that if Freeman expresses himself, that's undermining the agency of the player and the fantasy they undertake as him.  We don't know whether Gordon is humble or proud, gentle or stern, self-interested or heroic.  So we make those decisions based on our own feelings and there's nothing to undermine them.

Personally I don't care for it, though.  As far am I'm concerned it's more interesting to fantasize I'm someone different than a powered-up, repercussion-free version of myself.

Balster, your work is similar to mine. I'm working on a body language system too, dynamic conversations etc. etc.

I don't like the "canvas" character though. Expressive actions without mechanical relevance bother me. In Mario you can duck-jump without need but the situation still plays out differently. Looking different in LPB is just aesthetic; making faces is the same.

Westman, companies don't focus on AI because AI is hard. The situation is that simple. We don't approach the problem right yet. AIs are super iterative. They also require a complete harmony between technical implementation and the understanding of a person, or how a person acts. These things are opposites.

Malice, complex code isn't required to solve these problems, just well designed code. You don't need a complex painting to have a beautiful one. Minecraft is enormously simple. Look at its depth. The process for reaching this code however is complex.

Westman, even better if the NPCs react to player decisions that are rooted in core mechanics. For example, in Skyrim the player runs around town and explores. NPCs never react to this. They react to dialog decisions, though clearly the choice of what mission to do next, where to explore next, are the most revealing ones (of the player's personality). NPCs should react to that. You can do a lot with NPC reactions.

I like non-silent protagonists because I need either an action to express myself through or a character to do it for me. Gordon Freeman fought, but I didn't imagine a personality behind it, not outside of the fighting. That's just me.

Freeman was silent because of game design. Same thing with Link, who just make noises. Link is called Link because he is a link to the player, the player's proxy in the world.

The silent protagonist thing hits home for people who fill in the story naturally for themselves. I'm not crazy for it either, but that's because I find filling in a character without in-game tools very difficult.

yeah that's valve's reasoning but tbh i don't buy it. or rather i should say it doesn't work for me because 1. half life is completely linear and there's no player agency to speak of, and 2. in plot terms, gordon is basically a silent goon who does what other people tell him. i can "imagine" how he feels about being a goon, but doesn't change anything about it.

also i guess why it doesn't work for me as immersion is that i generally don't think about videogames in terms of "this is me, i'm doing this."

so yeah basically i think the gordon freeman-style silent goon protagonist is an often awkward storytelling device and i agree with rinku's point that it essentially reduces the protagonist to a passive entity who needs other (actual) characters give them some kind of motivation.

the funny thing about this is that valve is aware of these problems and even parodies them in portal (tho ofc that sort of thing dates back to at least system shock)

Yeah this is true. At least Link has some personality. He makes noises, animates etc.

I think maybe if you're less used to it you'll think like a character. I played Skyrim with my step-siblings - children. They loved the character creation part. I knew like, you never see your model, or only from behind, so details like barely matter. But when you don't know you pour yourself in.

You move Gordon around and you're like, "this is me, I am doing things!" You are unused to the experience of controlling a guy in a universe. Though on the other hand reviewers project into Skyrim characters. Though they are paid to find the fun in games. We just move on to different ones.

I prefer it far more if the protagonist has an actual personality. Silent protagonists are just a crutch for not being able to write the main character so that they don't come off as annoying. It takes you out of the story and destroys any semblance of realism when you can't talk to the supporting cast, it feels like the MC is just your "cursor" in the game world and not a legitimate character.

Self inserts are not a very good storytelling device in a linear game, they make me feel like a powerless servant of whoever wants to boss me around. When someone talks and I can't, I don't imagine myself talking, I just take it as fact that they didn't say anything because they're wimpy. It wouldn't have made someone like Gordon or Crono any worse if they said a few lines at times, just more interesting to play as.

You can always combine the "Blank Slate" and the "Actor" by giving them a personality and changing their appearance, see also Commander Shepard.

i think player-created characters in RPGs are very different from "blank slates"

Yeah I feel like that blank slate is a cop-out, like the story that is entirely up to you to explore. Make some decisions devs. What should I think about and what shouldn't I? I have blank sheets of paper at home. I don't need more.

im not talking about that either, and i would argue that an "explorable" story that has enough hooks to actually make me WANT to explore it is actually good storytelling and plays to the so-called "strengths of the medium".

but i digress. what i mean is its awkward when the story is told in a conventional way but the protagonist is somehow mysteriously mute and needs other ppl to speak for him. it just creates a lot of odd situations dialog-wise and like i said its strange to play someone who's supposedly a "hero" but has no real agency in the plot.

o btw, another pet peeve is games with voice acting where you can name your character and the dialog has to be constructed in such a way that the protagonist's name is never mentioned (ex: final fantasy 10).

Haha, yeah.  There's an interesting connection there, between giving a character a personality and giving them a fixed name.

err... I know it's not what you meant. I was making the connection.

I figured this would come up. "Explorable" is a loose term.

A blank slate is purely explorable. The free-range story you're talking about isn't actually blank, it's suggestive. The environment hints at you and leads you around. It is a well designed playground. A blank slate is something different.

Explore is probably the wrong term for me to use. "Make up" is better. I hate having to make up reasons for why characters are doing things.

This is a very complex subject, and I'm sure many a scholar in the future will write theses about it...

As an actor, I've learned over and over that actions is what defines a character, not words. Crono has SO much character. He acts on his own once in a while. When his team-mates despair in the year 2300, when they find out the world has already ended and this is our future, Crono says, 'No. This will not come to pass. We can change it.'  Except he says it with his movement and body language instead of words. This makes you respect him on a deeper level than if he had actually said it.

Also, the idea of Link as a silent protagonist has always bothered me. He's not a silent protagonist. He talks to everybody - we just don't see his text. Everybody responds to him. Example:

Zelda: What's your name?
...
...Link?
What a great name!

, or whatever. He just said his name!  It just wasn't displayed as a string of text. It could be considered a cop out, I suppose, but the impact it has for me is that I'm able to fill in the dialog for myself. I can decide what kind of a person Link is. That's my power as consumer. And at any rate, there's no such thing as a 'defined character' whose personality we can't interpret. Hamlet has loads of spoken lines, and yet he's been considered through the years as being depressed, suicidal, insane, brilliant, lazy, or whatever you like. There's no correct response here. Whatever Shakespeare wanted the character to be is irrelevant. It doesn't belong to him, it belongs to us.

I won't use Freeman as an example, because all the supporting characters basically tack on some personality traits for him, and like it's been mentioned, he's just some goon, effectively. You don't use any of your brilliant-scientistness to fight the bad guys...

Bioshock, on the other hand... ripe with player self-expression and interpretation. You have so many choices in that game, that each player playing the game has a different opinion of who the protagonist is. Maybe the guy is a sneaky bastard who likes to kill people from behind with a wrench. Maybe he's a ballsy mofo who's all in your face with a shotgun. Maybe he's a passionate learner, who goes out of his way to re-learn this world he can't remember. Maybe he's heartless (or at least pessimistic) and kills all the little girls that he finds. At any rate, all of the options are there, and it's the player that defines the character as the game goes on - in much the same way as the actor defines who Hamlet is.

Something that's really interesting for me is the player as its own character. Like in Starcraft, where you play 'the Commander' or 'a Cerebrate'. My favourite use of this so far was in Jonas Kyratzes' The Sea Will Claim Everything, in which the characters in the game have actually summoned you from your own room, and built a 'window' through which you see the action. And everyone sees you for what you are, an outsider, but no one judges you for it. And you're the one that rallies the people to fight against the evil Lord. You. The player.

It's so wonderful...

Jonas Kyratzes is one of my favorite interactive storytellers.  Don't know why I don't bring him up more here.  <3

I think the argument that Bioshock provides a lot more character that Half-Life 2 is pretty weak. Bioshock is just in vogue.

I agree it provides a little more character. You are humanized by the terror, other people reacting to you. Your hand animations are also more personal.

The argument is not that Bioshock provides more character, but rather that it provides more opportunity for character. In either case, I'm the one that provides the character. More choice = more self-expression = more of me providing character. Call it a blank slate or a silent protagonist if you like, but in the end, it's me, the player, who provides the character. You can compare it to something like Terra in Final Fantasy, but it's really not a fair comparison. Terra's got a whole lot pre-established, which is hard to tack on your own opinions.

It's like a character in a book versus a character in a play. In these cases, I'm a reader of a book (FF), but an actor in the play (Bioshock). Bioshock is in vogue because it's a great game; I could analyze that shit for years :gentleman:

I understood what you meant. I am saying that it doesn't provide more opportunity to create character. HL2 is a better selling game than Bioshock, by 3 times.

I think Bioshock provides a strong atmosphere. It doesn't actually give you more choice. It just gives you a richer world. Then you invent your own choices in that world.

The choices you make in HL2 are more tactical. They are less humanized. I don't see Freeman as a goon, but I agree he is less of a person than the Bioshock protagonist. On the other hand the control of Freeman is a lot smoother. As a mechanics-based shooter, HL2 takes the cake, by far IMO. Bioshock is the story game.

You might find this distinction pedantic, but I don't. Bioshock gives character through context, not through choice. Context makes the player invent choice. There is a big difference between these two things. Often designers will struggle to give players more choice when really they want more meaningful choices, as Bioshock provided. So my mental flare went off when I read what you wrote. But mostly I think we're on the same page.

Another distinction: HL2 puts you into the world. Bioshock puts you inside the head of someone else.

I'm a little bit surprised that some people seem to dislike silent protagonists in general (unless I am misunderstanding). This strategy has been employed in a lot of otherwise brilliant games, such as the first half-dozen Zelda games and Pokemon R/B/Y, and I'm not saying that this makes it a good idea, but there's no denying that tons of players have found those games to be highly effective pieces of entertainment in general, so I think the strategy shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. I think Rinku probably has it right in saying that if the protagonist is silent, they have to spend a lot of time interacting with an interesting cast of secondary characters. When this is done, though, I think the result is quite satisfying, because it doesn't try to force the player into relating to a character whose personality may displease them (see: CD-i Zelda).

I find the issue with blank slates to be that the self-definition offered in such games is something of an illusion, because no matter how many decisions you make, the character still feels blank. They display no emotion, and I'm generally a little too aware that there's nothing to keep my character who was a goody-two-shoes one moment from murdering some hapless guy the next.

I'm thinking of the Elder Scrolls when I say that, but now that I think of it this is probably a problem with Western RPGs in general. The player character's role in the game is always fixed in some way, and yet the game proposes to let the player's self-definition have some meaningful impact on the game, which it rarely can because this sort of thing is immensely difficult to design. On the one hand, the player can be proposed a series of predetermined paths, in which case all their "choices" were foreseen and thus not really free; or on the other hand, the game world can let them interact with it roughly how they like, but then the world has the same issue as a blank slate character does - it tends not to respond to player choice in any expressive way. Which is fine for an MMORPG or something like Minecraft, since those are blank slate games, but it works out rather poorly with story-oriented games. Some games succeed in this paradigm, but I think that almost none of them actually gain strength from their non-determinism - either they succeed in story-telling because they are poor at really allowing player choice (e.g. Baldur's Gate), or they succeed at being a blank slate game because the story has the sense not to get in the way (e.g. Morrowind).

I would argue that even someone like Commander Shepherd is basically a blank slate in this way, and therefore an unsatisfying design choice to me. I can make good choices as Shepherd, but I never really get to feeling like Shepherd is a good person, and same with evil choices, since in the next conversation I know I can turn the whole thing around. Basically, I'm inclined to think that such "characters" are incapable of really being characters at all, as opposed to a silent protagonist, who at least has consistency, even though the player might fill in details in his or her head.

Aside: back to the topic of names - I've always found it strange that Zelda games let you name the protagonist, even though not only is his role in the game fixed, but he has an agreed-upon canonical name. Any thoughts about why this was done and what impact it has?

This idea about delusional control and self-definition (in-game) is interesting. I can swap personalities on a whim in Skyrim. Anyone who talks about the "freedom" in that game often dances around the subject of what gives him/her that freedom.

You need to create a map for the player to exist in - well the player's character. Say this map has 2 dimensions: evilness and courage. The player exists somewhere within that (2d) space. He may be courageously evil (self-serving), or cowardly good, etc. Every mechanic - every action the player can take - has a repercussion on that player's character's position in that map. Evil actions cause a shift and so on.

Then - here's the kicker - the player can only take actions that fall within a certain radius of his position in the map. So a good character can't do something too evil. He can do something a little evil, and work his way over if he wants. Simple system. Strong results.

The canonical "Link" name was an accident. Miyamoto said he called Link Link because he was a "link to the player" (paraphrase). That's my understanding. People then ran with it. The "G-Man" in Half-Life was named in a similar way. The game didn't give him a name, but the devs did, and it got out and stuck.

The impact is positive. You can play Link - the Link - if you want. Or you can play as yourself, like "Graham." Zelda catches the best of both worlds. Like if you want something for Christmas from your parents, get them to suggest it. Then they will feel better giving it to you, and if they choose something else they won't feel guilty. ... I'm kind of proud of myself for that analogy.

I actually think the Paragon/Renegade system is a step in the right direction; if you're never 'Renegade' to begin with, the later [read: awesome] renegade options are never open to you.

That said, I see it as more of a mini-game in and of itself, rather than an attempt at characterisation. Often, there's a trick to getting the optimal amount of renegade points out of a situation. Like the Conrad Verner side quest. If you just intimidate him straight up, he'll get offended and never want to associate with you again. You'll net a few renegade points. But if you encourage him towards his goal of potential Spectordom, then shut him down at the end, you get waaay more renegade points than before.

And Graham: I still think there are more tactical options in Bioshock than in Half-Life. Moreover, these tactical options (weapon choice; the Research Camera; hacking; active & passive plasmids) are more integrated into the world, into the narrative. They each have a history. And, as such, they feel more important to the player. They're designed specifically to give the players the opportunity to characterise their avatar in the world. The majority of tactical choices in Half-Life are not as deep or meaningful. I agree that, technically, the mechanics are more refined in Half-Life, but your choice of favourite weapon is going to make you feel like "pistol guy" or "SMG guy". Compare to "Sadistic fucker who likes to watch his opponents burn before cracking open their skulls with the wrench," or "Technological genius who hacks everything he sees and sends his army of fighter drones to do his dirty work."

There's no such thing as the player inventing choice - the choices are all there in the game - it's how he or she interprets those choices that matters.

That's probably because we're in a writing forum  :P  Ask a bunch of architects where they'd rather spend the afternoon, in a gothic cathedral or in a field of wildflowers, and see what they say.

Silent protagonists and blank slate protagonists are a time-tested approach when designing games. Plenty of players prefer them. I prefer them myself, if I had to say which.  Every time a character I'm supposed to be controlling does or says something I wouldn't have done or said myself, I withdraw from the immersion of the fantasy a little bit.

mysteriosum.

The tactical choices in Bioshock are just more obvious. I get the vibe you don't play a ton of shooters. Bioshock made the choices accessible. There aren't more of them. Most choices in that game are mechanically meaningless. They are choices more in a narrative sense....

There is such a thing as player inventing choice. That is all there is. Choice is about perception. A game can't make you see a choice. It can't make you not see one. All it can do is suggest.

In Bioshock, whether you kill an enemy with a wrench or a gun, the game doesn't care either way. In HL2 the situation is the same. But if you choose one tactical option over the other you get different results, as-in you kill faster, sustain less damage etc. ...

The choice in Bioshock is a fabrication. You could say the wrench attack has more risk but comes with more pleasure, in which case you are weighing mechanical value vs aesthetic. You are also wasting fewer bullets. So you're kind of making a mechanical choice, but not nearly as mechanical as those you make in HL2.

Think of Counter Strike vs Bioshock 2. Both of these games went multiplayer action-combat. Which fared better? The depth of play in HL2 is far greater. Bioshock offers narrative choice, but through the player's imagination. That doesn't make those choices any less meaningful. All choices are a fabrication. I'm the one that assigns a distinction between consequences of any set of choices.

What you need to do as a player in HL2 is assign meaning to tactical choices because you see how different each one is... because you understand the consequences of each. HL2 doesn't tell you what each choice means, like Bioshock does. It expects you to assign meaning on your own. But in exchange the choices actually make a mechanically measured difference. So in essence there is rich character in both games. Bioshock has it richer, but not by a lot. It depends how you perceive each game.

Be careful about saying which type of protagonist gives the most opportunity for character. There are more things to consider. ... This is a general statement. I know your opinion doesn't contradict it.

I see what you mean. I believe we are on the same page, and we seem to have different views of what certain words mean. Both games are different in how they treat their protagonist.

My friend just finished his first playthrough of Chrono Trigger recently. There's a theme in that game which they never fully explain, and has a lot of potential for interpretation.

I'm talking about the "Entity" they mention a couple of times. In Robo's end-game side quest, he spends 400 years tending a forest on his own. He starts to think about the events that have transpired already in the game, and comes up with an idea that some "Entity" is guiding the characters against Lavos. At the end of the game (in the "main ending" I suppose), Marle suggests perhaps the "Entity" is now at rest.

If you think of yourself as the "Entity" guiding the players - which you do, you control the majority of their movement - it becomes a very cosmic idea. The characters are almost aware of this sort of hyper-presence, some consciousness, which allows them to conquer the mightiest foe.

I also like to think about the console as part of this equation, or possibly the whole machine behind "Chrono Trigger". It's the developers who set the timeline to meet their ancestors, and their descendants, the machine that allows the experience to happen, and the player who leads the way.

I like things that are Meta, even just a little bit :)

EDIT: Here's a link! (http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Entity)

Well, that might be true, that we only use terms differently. My thing is the short-changing of good mechanics design for environmental. A good tactical choice by the player and a good narrative choice for the player are very different things. You can leverage one into the other and vice versa, but that doesn't make them the same. They give different experiences, and have to be used differently.

Meta is interesting. Dealing with the "role" of the player is tricky. Lots of games try different things with that. I like Earthbound's. Occasionally characters talk directly to the player, or allude to him. The photo shoots are tongue-in-cheek with reference to the player, and the pictures taken from them reappear in the credits - which is player focused.

This will sound superficial, and it is, but the danger games run into when they lock the player into an actor character, as you've defined it, is that often the character is in some way difficult to relate to. I have a hard time playing a game in which I'm asked to run around as someone who looks ridiculous or says and does things that are, for lack of a better word, stupid. The more room given to a player to insert themselves into the character, or at least to not mind them, the better. You might get lucky, but there is a good chance your idea of cool or interesting is... well, niche seems a nice word to use here. I can't tell you how many games I quit on quick because I was being forced to play someone who looked lame or acted a fool or to play some strange character class I wasn't interested in.

Aren't we all?

I mean, think about your statement taken to its conclusion; the "best game" would be the one which challenges as few of its players' preconceptions as possible. It can be weird for the character you're controlling to have his/her own personality, but there are many legitimate reasons to give a game a strong, developed protagonist.

Right but there's a danger there too.

Take Japan for instance. That culture is more focused on "group harmony." So people are taught their whole lives to respect the needs of others and bend to their will, as a priority, before engaging in self-expression.

Ok, in the west we express more, as a priority. Extra Credits did an ep. on this.

So, games. Any character we can't associate with is bad. This is true in movies, books etc. The solution isn't always to give power though. If you give freedom then the player has the same power to make _bad_ decisions. If you let a kid do whatever he wants he fucks up his life. Same thing with players.

You have to find the happy medium. And where the fuck is that? The player has to do things that _make sense_. So if you write a character, you have get the player to empathize. You give the player freedom, the players' decisions have to "make sense" in some way.

If you do a little of both everything needs to line up.

This might take a lot of behind-the-scenes algorithms in a game, but wouldn't it be great to be physical towards an NPC either negatively or positively? This has been crudely solved already but bare with me, guys!

Games are expressed physically. When you play a game the first thing you try to do is smash everything to see if there's treasure inside it. But what if you could interact softly instead?

EXAMPLE: You approach a stray animal in the street. Press A to pet it. Hold R1 + press A, and instead of stroking the cat your physical actions are more aggressive. Apply this to every character in the game. When you approach an enemy you would always hold R1 and attack, but if you approach a shop keeper pressing A would let you flirt but holding R1 + pressing A might let you rob the shop instead.

This is just an alternative to choosing dialogue trees. I guess this has already been solved in games because by drawing your weapon in certain games turns you into an aggressor whereas keeping it sheaved lets you interact nicely with NPCs instead.

My point is, it shouldn't be as simple as 'draw sword and swing at it'. I want it to be more complex in the game but as simple as holding down a trigger for the player.

I like more nuanced control over enemies, interactions etc. We don't see it a lot because it is tough to implement. The more nuance of control the player has the more nuance the software's reaction needs to have to his/her input.

One of the most interesting things I've discovered recently is how different narrative modes are employed in different mediums, confusingly a lot of Games I've played flip-flop between the first and second person.

During tutorials, "you" refers to the user.
During decision-making scenarios, "I" refers to both the main character and the user.

I don't have much to contribute but I'm keen to get involved

In FF12 after the epic opening, a character tells you to press TRIANGLE to open the menu. What, the fuck.

There's a neat divide presented in FF6. Kappa, an imp, or Mog (the moogle) - before he joins your party - speaks to the player directly, as "you." Everything else is "I," but only when speaking outside of that black screen that Kappa and Mog used as their meta-game home.

I loved reading this thread, it's a very interesting topic.

The Paragon/Renegade thing is something I've been wanting to implement in one of my games. I've also been trying to find a happy medium between a blank slate character and an actor. I would love to develop a system where the player could choose the character's general response to an NPC's dialogue such as 'agree', 'strongly agree', 'disagree', 'strongly disagree', and then have different dialogues for each choice. Ideally this would work with the paragon/renegade system so that you could steer the character in your desired direction and slowly mold his character the way you want it. Unfortunately this would require a ridiculous amount of alts for dialogue. And it doesn't fully address the issue that the character might still handle the situation in a manner that would distance the player.

Runefrog, that sounds like an awesome idea to me! I don't think it would require a lot of programming, but again the issue would be in content generation. It would require doubling the animations for interaction, etc. Still, it would be an amazing feature!

I love when there's a set characterization (the actor) with a game character, but the only problem with that is sometimes it's hard to give them a personality and in some situations, their personality is left as the blank slate/silent (or they were intended to be that in the first place), and the secondary characters are much more interesting to see (and sometimes to play as). Take Mario for an example. Mario's both a blank slate and a silent character, but these days with multiple characters getting the spotlight, you truly see that Mario's pretty boring compared to the rest. Heck, Luigi, originally just a two player clone of Mario has more personality than Mario!