122: Who's In the Driver's Seat?

[Marty M. O'Hale]

Who's In the Driver's Seat?

"The problem is game writers refer to the "player character" as a single entity, when it's in fact a compound creature, like Jekyll and Hyde. And, as the poor doctor discovered, only one can be in control. Either the character is driving the game's narrative or the player is."

Marty M. O'Hale examines the difficulties of telling stories with games.


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[Katana314]

Well, we can make this much definite: You cannot FORCE a psychological state of the players, to try to synchronize them with the character. There's always gonna be a kid bunny-hopping on top of the NPCs, shooting everything. But it is possible to nudge them in the right direction, and hope things go smoothly.

While I didn't like FEAR much, I think it has the best example of the player state being synchronous with the character. By the end of the game, they pretty much know that you HATE Fettel. So, you are presented with Fettel sitting in front of you, no longer guarded, smiling up at you. You have a gun. The game expects you to shoot him; just about every player will. Thing is, it would be MUCH harder to get the player in the psychological state to "Refuse offer for power!" or "Save the damsel from falling!"

In this scenario I really think there's nothing for it; you're telling a story, with interactive gameplay. The story itself can only be so interactive. Cutscenes, forced scenarios...I think these are gonna have to stay around for a long time.

 

[robustyoungsoul]

Great to see a mention of Dwarf Fortress, although I disagree with the description "unapproachable". Yes the game is complex. Yes the interface has a steep learning curve. But every person that complains that games are too similar, too cookie cutter and much too simple seems to look at games outside the box like Dwarf Fortress and say "It's too hard". I keep hearing "graphics don't matter" but on the other hand I hear "The ASCII graphics are terrible" about the game.

How are more complex, deeper games with innovative gameplay ever supposed to get made when the most complex and innovative among them DON'T GET PLAYED? Everyone wants to consider themselves a discerning gamer, capable of picking the wheat from the chafe, but then when the game they say they want gets delivered, it doesn't get played, even by the people that said they wanted it.

 

[Gaz-L]

Just did a quick search for DF, but figured what it was by the comparison to The Sims. I'm not going to play it, not because I'm a graphics whore (I'm not, honestly) but because management games aren't my thing. Sims, Sim City, Civ, never liked any of 'em.

And I'll say one thing about the article. While allowing the player more blank-slate, self-insertion freedom and pushing character to the background may maximise gameplay, it also may alienate players who like to know why they should care about this quest, this world. True, it should be because 'you' are the one it's happening around, but in my case, I find it hard to make me think of myself as a catlike thief in Cyrrodil, so the PC having personality lets me empathise with him/her and thus with the other characters and the world.

I realize that this is a position that is anathema to a certain portion of gamers (and designers, if Will Wright's an indication) and gospel to others, but it's how I feel.

 

[clericsdaughter]

The way I see it, players should indeed have free reign over their character's actions and personalities--that is, after all, one of the main reasons why people enjoy playing RPGs, to create a hero that fits their own unique idea of what a hero should be like (or just whatever is most fun for them to play). Where the writer can have freedom to create strong characters of their own is among the NPCs, and as Bioware games like Baldur's Gate have shown, well-crafted NPCs that interact with the PC in interesting ways can be incredibly appealing to players, as they help them craft their own characters in the way they like by bouncing them off the other personalities. I always feel disappointed playing an RPG where I've imagined a great personality for my character, but few opportunities to express that personality through interaction.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

It seems fairly clear that there's a market for both player-driven and character-driven games.

I always project a lot onto the characters I play in CRPGs. I rarely get to choose a dialog option that says what I actually want my character to say, but I imagine them saying it anyway, then I imagine the NPC's response to that, and go on playing as if that was what happened. I did a lot of that in Oblivion, KOTOR and Vampire/Bloodlines. I ended up with experiences that felt a lot like a tabletop game. Character and player were very much in harmony. Of course, most of the really good character-driven stuff happened in my head, but I try not to get too hung up on that.

Perhaps we'll eventually see a hybrid game that will adapt to character choices like a tabletop RPG. Until then, I'll continue to add my own content in my imagination.

 

[sharp_as_a_cork]

Quite an interesting article. I enjoyed it.
This tension between player and character is best placated, in my opinion, in tabletop RPGs. In such games, you are free to create a character and behavior as you want, and the GM (assuming he's adequate) will adjust the happenings and the responses of NPCs to your actions.

But every person that complains that games are too similar, too cookie cutter and much too simple ...

While I've heard the first two complains, I have not heard the third, and I do not think they are related. In fact, I know a lot of people who won't get into gaming because of the complexity involved (ever try to teach a kid to play Civ?)

Now, developers, give me innovation, give me choice, but keep convoluted interfaces and too-complex systems to yourselves.

 

[shadow skill]

Just did a quick search for DF, but figured what it was by the comparison to The Sims. I'm not going to play it, not because I'm a graphics whore (I'm not, honestly) but because management games aren't my thing. Sims, Sim City, Civ, never liked any of 'em.

And I'll say one thing about the article. While allowing the player more blank-slate, self-insertion freedom and pushing character to the background may maximise gameplay, it also may alienate players who like to know why they should care about this quest, this world. True, it should be because 'you' are the one it's happening around, but in my case, I find it hard to make me think of myself as a catlike thief in Cyrrodil, so the PC having personality lets me empathise with him/her and thus with the other characters and the world.

I realize that this is a position that is anathema to a certain portion of gamers (and designers, if Will Wright's an indication) and gospel to others, but it's how I feel.

Exactly we already have games where the player character is a blank slate and they all seem to fail miserably at providing any kind of emotional connection to anyone in the game itself. The only games that seem to come close are the Oblivion's KOTOR's and (probably) Mass Effect's.

People need to go play The Darkness and realize that the game would have sucked total ass without the interaction between Jackie, The Darkness, and Jackie's girlfriend and the other characters. 2K did need to do more QA because there is a bug that actually prevented me from finishing the game. The problem with stories in games is all about emotional response, many of these nameless/faceless avatars are put in situations that do not allow for this. Furthermore at the end of the day the characters in games simply are not you, I would love to see games where you could customize the character model down to the hand they favored, and even the way they sounded assuming of course that the dev team used canned speech. It is details like this that will help story telling in games in the end.

 

[robustyoungsoul]

But every person that complains that games are too similar, too cookie cutter and much too simple ...

While I've heard the first two complains, I have not heard the third, and I do not think they are related. In fact, I know a lot of people who won't get into gaming because of the complexity involved (ever try to teach a kid to play Civ?)

And I know a lot of people who play board games rather than video games because they are looking for a greater degree of complexity.

We can exchange anecdotal evidence all day long, but that defeats the purpose. Your point is well taken though, perhaps games like World of Warcraft illustrate that people are not interested in a high degree of complexity. But yearly rehashes like Madden then seem to point to the fact that people aren't interested in much of anything new or interesting.