Idle Chatter Builds Character

[The Rogue Wolf]

What we say can reveal facts about the world around us. How we say it reveals who we are in that world. Too much dialogue is written from a "what" standpoint rather than "how."

As to the voice acting... I think the cardinal sin is recording lines in a vacuum, devoid of context. I can't tell you how disheartening it is to be playing an otherwise great game, but hear a botched exchange like:

"That guy is never on time."
"I know, it's like he wants to get fired."

And all you're left thinking is, given the context, it's obviously meant to go, "I know, it's like he wants to get fired." And it becomes obvious that the voice actor was working with half the script.

So much truth to this. It really shows sometimes, too, even with a single voice actor. Case in point: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. There were times where the main character would be in some mind-twistingly bizarre situation and would comment on something like he was making a snack recommendation to someone he didn't really like... but other times, there was a real sense of confusion and fear being conveyed. It was clear that the voice actor was actually making an effort but hadn't been given clear context on all of the lines.

Giving voice actors context and letting them play off of each other always helps, especially when the actors are good at what they do. Disney tends to grasp this.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Yahtzee, you hit that nail right on the head. The dialogue in Thief 1&2 is the reason I insist on keeping an old desktop that has been out of date for almost 10 years just to play them.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I think the problem with Silent Protagonists is that in the vast majority of cases the developers miss the entire point in having a Silent Protagonist to begin with. SPs are intended to be someone the player themselves can be in that world, but then they just railroad the character and thus the player into situations that are ridiculous and often completely avoidable if the player had actual input with little to no control over what they're doing, how they do it, or what they say in the meantime. In short, the player is never really given a chance to project their own personality into the game world. For instance, how many times in the story of a game with an SP do you find some NPC that wants you to do something, then you're given a "choice" between agreeing or refusing, and if you refuse they either ignore you and ask the question again until you agree or just say something like "you said no, but you really mean yes, so let's go?" In other words, with an SP the player is supposed to step into the shoes of a character but they're never actually given the chance to step into the shoes of that character.

This is why I like games like Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age Origins so much, since thanks to their dialog choice system they give me the chance to give my own personality to my SP to a certain extent. There are limits of course, but in most cases I can find something to say and do that I probably would have if I were in that situation.

 

[The Random One]

There's all this ragging on Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist, but what about Link (or as Yahtzee calls him, Fagballs)? He's the ur-example of the silent protagonist with a blank-slate personality. Even in a world where people talk only in text boxes (which sounds kind of existentially horrifying), not even Link can speak; he just wordlessly takes orders from anyone who makes the Action button say talk.

But as Yahtzee mentions on the article you are commenting on and therefore I would like to assume you have read, Link does speak in most LoZ games; it's just that his specific dialogue isn't shown. HL and I deduce Dishonoured don't imply their main character are speaking and let you imagine what they are saying, rather they imply they never speak at all.

 

[Purple Dragon]

i love the withnail and i comment and on reflection withnail may act like a drunken bastard yet is on of the most likeable, tragic and sympathetic characters i have ever seen in film

 

[ImperialSunlight]

There's all this ragging on Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist, but what about Link (or as Yahtzee calls him, Fagballs)? He's the ur-example of the silent protagonist with a blank-slate personality. Even in a world where people talk only in text boxes (which sounds kind of existentially horrifying), not even Link can speak; he just wordlessly takes orders from anyone who makes the Action button say talk.

Link is so firmly entrenched as a silent protagonist, the purpose of which is to allow the player to create a personality for Link and, in such a long running series, to make Link in any way a speaking character would create MASSIVE fan outrage. They don't want link to all of a sudden act completely contradictory to how they've always imagined him [one of the many flaws of the CD-I games and the TV series, which made him goofy and generic(not that making him dark and serious would really be any better)]. I don't see Nintendo of all developers, well known as they are for "sticking to tradition", to make such a dangerous move against the core fanbase for one of their biggest franchises.

 

[DanDeFool]

Also see, the only thing wrong with Chrono Trigger. It would have been a bit more interesting if Crono actually participated in the plot in more ways than just nodding his head, a few one to two word dialogue choices, and lots of killing things.

This is what turned me off Chrono Cross as well. You expect me to play through a 100+ hour RPG where my main character is nothing but a cardboard cutout to be dragged along by the side characters? Maybe some other time, thanks.

 

[Vault101]

ah..dammit! I havnt played dishonoured yet and going into a game without any pre conceived Ideas is important to me...*sigh*

I agree about the dialouge/exposition thing, then again ita hard to do because lets face it....players are prettymuch sociopathic cats in terms of attention span and behaviour

 

[2fish]

I never understand the fear of giving a character a voice/character. I understand that some games are better with an blank check character (skyrim) but if there is a story and any major relationships at least let me understand by having my character talk about them.

Without my character talking it is up to me to make up every emotion and at that point I am playing a robot who is trying to figure out what emotions are correct for this event.

For all those who haven't seen "Benny" I'll just leave this here:

Thanks that kept me from having to think too hard about who benny was. As soon as I saw where they were standing and the basic conversation I remembered Benny.

Best part about the arrow guards is helping the winner along by putting an arrow in him. I know not very thief like, but hey he was using same very naughty language.

 

[-Dragmire-]

What we say can reveal facts about the world around us. How we say it reveals who we are in that world. Too much dialogue is written from a "what" standpoint rather than "how."

As to the voice acting... I think the cardinal sin is recording lines in a vacuum, devoid of context. I can't tell you how disheartening it is to be playing an otherwise great game, but hear a botched exchange like:

"That guy is never on time."
"I know, it's like he wants to get fired."

And all you're left thinking is, given the context, it's obviously meant to go, "I know, it's like he wants to get fired." And it becomes obvious that the voice actor was working with half the script.

Argh! That irritates me so much! I love Bard's Tale to bits but I sigh in frustration at one particular scene of bad voice direction.

A part in the game has the Bard irritated at an ongoing joke of alliteration to which he becomes a part of at the end. After he realizes this he says the line, "Now I'm doing it.". This line is said as a plain fact with no inflection(I might be misusing this word) of his voice. Clearly the line is supposed to go, "Now I'm doing it!" stressing the word 'I'm', the lack of a proper delivery ruins an otherwise amusing scene.

 

[5ilver]

I think the problem with Silent Protagonists is that in the vast majority of cases the developers miss the entire point in having a Silent Protagonist to begin with. SPs are intended to be someone the player themselves can be in that world, but then they just railroad the character and thus the player into situations that are ridiculous and often completely avoidable if the player had actual input with little to no control over what they're doing, how they do it, or what they say in the meantime.

I agree with this. Throughout Dishonored, I couldn't help but think "Why a silent protagonist when I'm not given any choice at all?"
And no, killing or not killing people is not a real choice. If you want the good ending- you don't kill anyone (enjoy having TWO ways of doing this instead of the 12+ for a violent playthrough) and vice-versa. Collecting supplies is not a choice either- you ALWAYS want the health/ammo/gold.

Ironically, I think RPGs in the past had a lot more choice.
Shouldn't characterization and choice be improving along with graphics etc.?

 

[LobsterFeng]

There's all this ragging on Gordon Freeman being a silent protagonist, but what about Link (or as Yahtzee calls him, Fagballs)? He's the ur-example of the silent protagonist with a blank-slate personality. Even in a world where people talk only in text boxes (which sounds kind of existentially horrifying), not even Link can speak; he just wordlessly takes orders from anyone who makes the Action button say talk.

Yes but you can see him responding with emotion and such even during the text only cutscenes.

 

[charliesbass]

Spec Ops: The Line is also a good academic study for those who care about game writing, with Fourth-wall breaking sequences, character arcs, and the idle chatter you hear from the soldiers before you're going to kill them.

 

[Cyrus Hanley]

Some silent protagonists work and others don't. Link and Gordon Freeman are probably the foremost examples of ones that do work, in different ways. For Link we have the benefit of seeing his face emote and his body language. For Freeman we rely on interactions and dialogue with other characters in the game world to characterise him, and they do form a subtle personality.

What we say can reveal facts about the world around us. How we say it reveals who we are in that world. Too much dialogue is written from a "what" standpoint rather than "how."

As to the voice acting... I think the cardinal sin is recording lines in a vacuum, devoid of context. I can't tell you how disheartening it is to be playing an otherwise great game, but hear a botched exchange like:

"That guy is never on time."
"I know, it's like he wants to get fired."

And all you're left thinking is, given the context, it's obviously meant to go, "I know, it's like he wants to get fired." And it becomes obvious that the voice actor was working with half the script.

So much truth to this. It really shows sometimes, too, even with a single voice actor. Case in point: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. There were times where the main character would be in some mind-twistingly bizarre situation and would comment on something like he was making a snack recommendation to someone he didn't really like... but other times, there was a real sense of confusion and fear being conveyed. It was clear that the voice actor was actually making an effort but hadn't been given clear context on all of the lines.

Giving voice actors context and letting them play off of each other always helps, especially when the actors are good at what they do. Disney tends to grasp this.

This is one of the reasons why I'm really looking forward to BioShock Infinite.

 

[Tallim]

At least Samuel had some kind of personality in Dishonored.

Meanwhile all the guards have died of lung cancer from all the cigar's they've been having....

I liked Samuel as a character. Probably the only one who seemed "real."

I didn't understand all the smoking either, I'm pretty certain I either heard or read something in game that said people who smoke succumb to the plague faster than those who don't which really doesn't fit with what we see. If it had helped prevent the spread then it would make more sense.

Perhaps I'm remembering wrong though.

 

[Rad Party God]

I'm definitely enjoying my current playthrough of the Thief series (maybe I'll get Thief 3 instead of Dishonored), they're definitely a breath of fresh air simply due to the subtle and infrequent dialog of Garret, even simple stuff like "It's a long way down..." makes him incredibly likable and it definitely surprises me that such a masterful game in storytelling came from the late 90's, heck, not even many modern games do that anymore, the last FPS were it had a likable character speaking maybe was Prey with Tommy Domasi expressing his concerns about his girlfriend, his doubts about the spiritual world and the fucked up situation he's in.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

A shame the AI is very weak for a game trying to do more.

 

[kyogen]

I prefer Corvo as a silent protagonist. I can play him as entirely different types of characters without having to bother with a potentially contradictory voice persona. I also think it works better for a character who is never seen in the third person.

The voice acting in Dishonored struck me as rather well done. It comes across to me as subtle, intelligent, and measured--not at all dull. I don't need an exaggerated and oversimplified delivery to tell me how to react to an in-game situation. The actor's performance in the peeping scene is fine, and he's even better on one of the audio logs when he's discussing human experimentation. No, there's no Benny, but the game isn't as lighthearted as the Thief series, either, and it does have The Heart. Perhaps her dialogue could have been expanded even further, but I really enjoyed the fact that players have to remember to use it. Player agency matters on multiple levels of gameplay, which I appreciate.

 

[uzo]

As far as Gordon Freeman goes; I like consider the HEV Suit commentary as being Gordon's admittedly feminine, emotionless voice.

Think of it: youngest graduate from MIT, barely out of university and already running ground breaking physics experiments, and impervious to any kind of social interaction. The man sounds pretty damned ASD to me.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

I still thing Mass effect nailed the line between dialogue for exposition and dialogue for characters sake.

One of my favourite things to do after a mission in those games was "do my rounds" and talk to everyone to see what they had to say.

Jeah, i did the same. After every mission there was the obligatory talkshow

For me Shepard was the perfect balance between a character on his own and as a player-avatar. Specially the whole moral/choice dilema one had.
When i had to fell the decision at Virmire in ME1 the first time i was sitting infront of my screen for a few minutes thinking "Fuck, i'm screwed, what to do.. what to do..". But sometimes you heard stuff from your chosen backstory or other people who knew/know you, so you could explore the person you were playin' by yourself.

Shepard is the new Gordon Freeman.