Single-player games shouldn't have create-a-character features

[JemothSkarii]

Maybe it's because I love to write and create, but I adore blank create-a-characters. It allows me to play around and make different things. I remember as a child I loved the Fallout games, and I kept making all these different characters with different builds and skills. Even started making a 'role play' guide where I'd create a bunch of builds and write out things you could do with it. Hell, even in New Vegas I broke open a mod (called NCR CF) and made a Powder Ganger character who has a grudge against NCR and Legion and tries to sabotage both without outright open hostility.

Sometimes a pre-made character works better, sometimes a create-a-character does. It depends on what kind of story or even game you want. Your opinion are that it's shit because there's no backstory and such to it. But I personally love to make my own and adapt it to the world. Then you also get games like Fallout 2, where you have a vague backstory and right from the beginning you're proclaimed 'The Chosen One'. But you're only The Chosen One because of your ancestor. If you announce it to anyone outside of the village they think you're an idiot. There's even cut content you can restore where the former Chosen One tries to kill you for taking his spot. You're just some guy from a village who wants to find a suitcase. From there you can be someone who tries to be a big hero. You can just ignore things and do your quest.

Then again with the need for voice acting, choices and such are limited. Something which has upset me with Fallout 4. Now I can feel a bit more railroaded since responses and solutions and limited from a limit on lines and responses.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I disagree.
They don't need to refer to you by your name, they can just call you "Hey, Idiot!" or something like that. I wanna be who I want to be and do what I want to do. Not be strung along and be someone I don't want to be.
I will play the role of the character I create! No need for someone else to get in my way with their own character, because then I might as well watch a movie.

That said, if they feel like recording the dialogues multiple times for different names and once for a name they haven't recorded for, they can go right ahead, but it's not a necessity.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

The first Dragon Age and Mass Effect did it the best by actually letting you choose your backstory (Dragon Age gets extra respect because it lets you play your backstory.) That seems the simplest way to give your character some uniqueness.

The best example is Mass Effect because if I play as the "Butcher of Torfan" Shepard I act a lot differently than "Sole Survivor" Shepard.

It seems pretty easy to implement, because all you have to do is throw in a few lines later like "Hey, remember when you were a city elf and you killed that rich guy?" and chumps like me eat it up, because, yes, I did kill that rich douchebag, thanks for remembering!

 

[Hawki]

You have to admit that'd be a pretty fun spin on an RPG. The actual heroes are getting shit done elsewhere, and at best you are caught in their wake. I feel like it has been done but I can't name a game off the top of my head.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/268970/

Early access, but I remember seeing it ages ago. It fits the description of the protagonist trailing actual heroes.

 

[Something Amyss]

I fail to see how you get straight from create-a-character to "world revolves around character" as if they are the same thing. They hardly are, and there are plenty of games that have a set protagonist in which the world completely revolves around them, sometimes to a laughably overblown degree (e.g. Half-Life 2, all Legend of Zelda games, etc.) Games like The Witcher and STALKER could have accomplished what they did with create-a-character systems just like a Bethesda RPG could still be just as player-centric with a set protagonist.

Really, what you should be asking for is less player-centric writing, not the removal of a feature that aids in the role playing of, well, role-playing games, and can be used for fun in other genres.

I was basically going to say this. Self-insert and "Chosen One" stories are common in video games because of lazy writing, not because of created characters.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

pretty much; create-a-character is a holdover from pen and paper RPGs in an attempt to emulate them and facilitate role-playing...but that's impossible due to the different natures of them. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible for video games to have the amount of choice pen and paper games have due to the latter being up to the player and DM's imagination whereas the former has to limit choices and thus role-playing. In fact, "role-playing" in video games is not really role-playing; you're, at best, making a few dialogue options that are patronizingly simplistic or having to make shit up in your head to pretend like the character is more than just a blank slate who goes through no arc at all.

And that's the other thing; because games with that sort of system have to account for all sorts of choices which is why those stories tend to be very homogenized and watered-down. And it's not getting better; role-playing options have, at-best, remained static for years and there are no signs they're going to improve. This is why games where the writers remember to create a CHARACTER tend to stick better and feel like an actual narrative with a proper structure and character arcs.

 

[CommanderL]

after spending 60 hours on my recent fallout new vagas roleplay

everything my charcter did was a reflection of who he was as a person

he grew from a bitter person who wanted to make money and as long as it wasnt to immoral didnt care what he had to do
he hated people and just wanted to be alone

over time he made friends and grew into a hero willing to sacrifice money to help others
even throwing down ten thousand caps to start a clinc to help fiends get clean of drugs in westside

and all this was because I was willing to roleplay

His Utter hate of the brotherhood of steel come due to events in one of the mods I had
He had sided with them becuase they seemed like the best option at the time and then they betrayed him
then when exploring he accidently ran into there bunkers and they demanded he went with them
he refused and they opened fire and he then decided to blow up the bunker and wipe them out

He felt guilt about the killing but decided it was for the best

thats the beauty of single player created charcters you get to decided who that person is
what drives them

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Personally I like character creators in games. Although I won't pretend the problems you describe don't exist, they do. As others have said Mass Effect handled it quiet well with you always playing as "Shepard," but who your Shepard was was up to you. You even get to choose a backstory which effects certain conversations and events throughout the game (at least in the first one anyway). Sometimes I don't want to play as a fixed character. I only played the first Witcher and never got that far, and frankly I hate Geralt. I don't want to play as Geralt.

 

[Ishal]

Hmmm... Nope.

In fact, what you state in your OP is one of my main criticisms of the The Witcher III and will be stated as such when I finally finish the damn thing.

I would never advocate for the opposite, for all single player games to have a character creation screen. But I do tend to prefer those types, and focusing inward on many of these types of games is going about it wrong.

One of the things that makes me laugh most when I hear stuff like this is when it's in reference to Far Cry 3 or 4. I absolutely love it when they criticize the game for lacking in the main character. My response? Who the fuck cares about the main character? Have you even seen what they're going for? Who is on the cover for 3? It's Vaas, and some guy who is buried in sand. That might be the protagonist, but I can't tell. Either way it doesn't matter because the focus in on Vaas. Same with 4. It's Pagan Min who is on the cover. This is a gooooood thing. Because they are what matter in a game like that. In an open world game it's everything else that matters, not you. The whole purpose of an open world game is to engage the player with the world, and the world should be well crafted first and foremost. After that, it needs to be populated with interesting characters and quests. Characters who should be voiced, I might add.

In an interactive medium, 99% of the time we are piloting a character through the world to experience it. That's what these games are, especially the open world ones. They are shared experiences between the player and the developers. Shared because I'm not just reading about Geralt riding through Oxenfurt, like in a book. Rather, it's me who's piloting Geralt through Oxenfurt. I'm the one in control. Which is why when I see Geralt react a certain way in the story, or for a quest. I somewhat feel put out. I'm the one saved those children, I'm the one who got the horses out of the burning barn. I'm the one who killed the Noonwraith. Yet, here I am watching Geralt take credit for it and react in ways which might be different to me. At best it's a minor inconvenience, at worst it's distracting when poorly crafted. Geralt is a barrier that prevents me from interacting with the world. Perhaps it is small, but it is there nonetheless.

On Geralt himself, I'm not sure how I feel about him yet. He's okay.. just okay. I'm not finished yet, so that may change.

In their purest form, the strength of games is their interactivity. The more padding that is placed in, voiced protagonists, characters we're forced to play as, cutscenes, bad forced dialogue options. The more of these things that are placed in, the more barriers are put up between the player and the world. For some who seem comfortable with aping aspects from other mediums, that's okay. To others, it's just extra baggage. Baggage that can sometimes bloat the budget.

 

[lacktheknack]

Not all games are the same.

Some are meant to be player-centric, and others are not.

You know exactly where I'm going with this.

 

[Mutant1988]

I specifically avoid Witcher because I'm not allowed to create my own character.

So... No, games can have character creators or not. It's a matter of preference and neither option is inherently superior to the other.

You can't genuinely say that character creators are what makes the world revolve around your character anyway. That's down to the narrative and the gameplay. If your character wasn't in some way involved with important affairs, there wouldn't be much point playing as them, would there? Whether you are a personal avatar or take the role of Steve Mchero is irrelevant.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Then every last game with create a character in single player would be lead by a guy, and to that I say, emphatically, fuck that in every way but the fun ways.

I mean sure 2015 is great for female leads, and 2014 wasn't terrible, but lets look at the 13 years before then. I play on console coz modding is a severe pain in the ass as is having a console rig constantly updated, and dealing with crap ports, and modder's slipshod work at making the female skin believable.
A lot of these games came to console, and the industry's had a long running bad habit of being afraid of female leads. Hell, the new monster hunter-esque game coming out had Sony nervous because of the female protagonist so we're STILL not quite over that shit. I still trust the game industry about as much as they'll give me 5 billion dollars right now to keep the trend of not being scared of female leads going.

Think about the damage this notion could have done if implemented earlier, and I'd say that can safely be applied to the future:
We'd never have fem-shep: Mass Effect is a shooter. Long have I heard, and I still hear the argument "Women shouldn't be in military games on the front line" so even in a futuristic game, I can see that mentality still come through. We barely have people going against this mentality -now-.

I'd never have enjoyed:
Saints Row: If I wanted to be some violent guy thug, there's GTA for that. Create a character was the biggest draw for me. Would it have stood out as much without it?

I wouldn't have given much a crap about Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Dark/Demon Souls, Dragon's Dogma (which still kinda counts?), and a list of other games that at least gave me some hope for the industry because, lets face it, for over a decade the industry's been afraid to step out of the straight white guy box.

Look at your game library, and see how many -make you- play as a woman, especially from start to finish.
Lets say they're somewhat common? Look at the genre they represent. If you passed over games because they made you play as a guy, lets look at how large that number is, and what sort of experiences that got passed over for it.

Yeah, being comfortable in my avatar is that important to me coz it's long been a luxury to me. Maybe when it stops being an intensely rare (*Shakes fist at console exclusives*) treat, I'll stop enjoying the treat as much.
I mean we all know male protagonists don't always get the best writing, and a large amount of female playable characters suffer it as well, so yeah, gender does play a role in things. I'd rather play a poorly written woman than a poorly written guy because it's just more enjoyable.
I'm not saying I won't play as a guy, but not many games have male protagonists in stories worth giving a damn over.

I don't have the words (that at least won't get me banned) to express how poorly I think of this idea. You can argue it, but you'll never convince me this is a good idea. Not right now anyhow. Maybe in a few years if the gaming industry gets the stick out of it's ass regarding who can be playable in a game, and starts beating the people that argue for nothing but the straight white guy (basically the status quo people argue for when they argue against any sort of inclusion) over the head with it.

I realize in Witcher 3, you can play as Ciri, but lets be real here, she's only playable a fraction of the game in a linear set of missions, and likely doesn't get any free roaming action because her skillset is just too different. It's a joke to think that she gets any sort of relationship on par with any of Geralt's. What makes playing the game solely to play as her worth it?

Being shunted into a smaller part of the game isn't exactly uncommon, even these days if you want to play as a woman. Arkham Knight, Arkham City (Catwoman's story was painfully short), The Last of Us, The upcoming Assassin's Creed game, Infamous Second Son (Has the DLC last light which is ok, but hollow past the story), etc. Expecting me to gamble a full game price for a game I would probably would only tolerate as well for a fraction of the game is just absurd.

Also consider this. There's already a ton of single player games what already lack create a character (And most of them are male protagonist only). Wouldn't those be considered as lacking create a character? What is the difference, here?
You have GTAs, Assassins Creeds, basically every shooter on the planet outside of multiplayer, Uncharteds, and basically all the games out there. What experiences are you missing that only create-a-character single player games are you missing?
If you don't like create-a-character games, then at the least, maybe, be more selective about what you buy?

 

[Ariseishirou]

I used to think this way, and as a result, was firmly entrenched on the "J" side of the JRPG/WRPG debate. I wanted to see a character's story play out... ...but that just made me vaguely frustrated when I was given small choices that never really mattered in the end (e.g. you can choose all kinds of dialogue towards Rinoa in FF8, from "I love you!" to "I can't stand you, god damn" but it doesn't matter - Squall ends up with her in the end no matter what) and eventually, I switched to WRPGs, for the most part. To be sure you definitely have to put more effort into defining who your protagonist is and what they're all about, but IMO, it's worth it in the end - especially if you end up with more freedom of choice as a result.

(My favorite JRPGs - like Chrono Trigger and SMT:Nocturne - have silent protagonists with vast amounts of freedom of choice anyway.)

 

[mavkiel]

Eh the flip side are people who look at Geralt and just walked away from the game. They didn't particularly want to run around like some hulking brute with girly hair.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I think this is actually an interesting example of when technology works against the game.

For example, having a 'choose your own character' feature in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 worked great for me, but both of those games relied very heavily on you using your imagination. Characters were essentially just represented by a still-picture, they had very little spoken dialogue (your character had no spoken words), certain actions were simply read about in the text, and characters didn't show facial expressions or emotions. In other words, it was a lot like reading a book: it required your imagination to flesh out the visuals of what was happening.

As technology has gotten better, this actually works against it. It didn't bug me in the slightest that my protagonist never spoke in the Baldur's Gate games, but it did in Dragon Age: Origins, because in DA:O everyone else spoke ALL the time. Plus they showed facial expressions, emoted, you watched their actions, etc, so it became really off-putting that your character was basically a mannequin.

So now that games can have 500K lines of dialogue (or whatever) emotive and expressive characters, etc. it becomes more and more bizarre to play a blank-slate silent protagonist who you just have to imagine giving a voice to constantly.

 

[Foehunter82]

The issue with "Chosen One"-style games is that there are a lot of people here in the States that this sort of thing resonates with. Why do you think some older stories in other media have been rewritten to reflect this? Spider-Man (in the recent films) was rewritten to be someone that was destined to become a superhero. The Ninja Turtles went through the same thing in the Michael Bay film. "Predestined," "Prophesied," "Chosen" heroes are what sells here in the States now, apparently. It has become an entirely too common thing, and I think that if everyone took a closer look at it, they'd realize that's why we all take issue with it now. It has absolutely nothing to do with the physical appearance sculpted by a player, crafted by a developer, or randomly generated by a computer. It has everything to do with poor, and often, very lazy writing.

I've heard a lot over the past year about different issues within the gaming community, and many push the "for art" and "I want a good story" arguments, so here's something I think everyone can get behind: Developers need to stop being lazy when it comes to development, and quit taking shortcuts with the writing. Story doesn't mean anything if I've heard the same story a hundred times before from multiple sources over the past couple of years.

 

[Ishal]

The issue with "Chosen One"-style games is that there are a lot of people here in the States that this sort of thing resonates with. Why do you think some older stories in other media have been rewritten to reflect this? Spider-Man (in the recent films) was rewritten to be someone that was destined to become a superhero. The Ninja Turtles went through the same thing in the Michael Bay film. "Predestined," "Prophesied," "Chosen" heroes are what sells here in the States now, apparently. It has become an entirely too common thing, and I think that if everyone took a closer look at it, they'd realize that's why we all take issue with it now. It has absolutely nothing to do with the physical appearance sculpted by a player, crafted by a developer, or randomly generated by a computer. It has everything to do with poor, and often, very lazy writing.

I've heard a lot over the past year about different issues within the gaming community, and many push the "for art" and "I want a good story" arguments, so here's something I think everyone can get behind: Developers need to stop being lazy when it comes to development, and quit taking shortcuts with the writing. Story doesn't mean anything if I've heard the same story a hundred times before from multiple sources over the past couple of years.

It's not just because of the perceived laziness. Though I admittedly can't speak to it appearing in other media since I watch precious little of it.

It's because gaming is interactive and puts the player in the story. And who exactly is going to want to play some random sod in a story and not the hero? Keep in mind all that entails. Being "The chosen one" very often entails more than 1) Be the Hero 2) Get the girl and 3 )Beat the baddie.

It also means they get to travel most places in the story, most interesting places best of all. Because that's what the hero does. In the Witcher 3 Geralt accepts an audience with the Emperor of Nilfgaard, then finds himself going to occupied Radanian places like Oxenfurt, and eventually schmoozing with King Radovid. It means having characters interact with you. This is even more important if you are playing a game that has an established source outside of the game itself. Like say Game of Thrones. Of course the players are going to want to interact with the characters there. Yet often to have that happen they must first be someone who'd be worth talking to in the first place. That there is a limiter as well.

Ultimately, to me, a game's story is always second fiddle to the gameplay and mechanics. If I'm not engaged with fun or interesting mechanics, then you've already lost me. Story can enhance this experience, yes. It can even be weaved into the gameplay in some instances. But if you're truly looking for a good story, look some place other than gaming.

 

[Jeroenr]

The level of character creation maters as well.

To me, creation beyond gender, body size, and game specifics(class,..) seems a bit pointless.
In some games the creation section seem like a game on its own.
Like in Skyrim you can tweak you face in great detail, but within the first 10/15 minutes i was wearing a helmet(or only was looking at the back if my head)

Also often i just want to start playing the game and not be bothered with it.

 

[Scarim Coral]

It depend on the game really especially if it has vocals in it.

I mean I can get what you mean since I do tend to find self created main character to be bland like in Guild Wars especially when they have to used nickname to refer to your character.

On the other hands games with no voice cast is not much of a problem like in Fire Emblem: Awakenning or Dragon Quest 9: Sentenal of the Starring Skies. Your character names is still refered in text.

Granted it would be an amazing day if someone did came up with a technology that has the cast saying your character name no matter what it is (even the funnies one) without it sounding too robotics.

Either way, the game doesn't break for me just cos the self created character is abit bland due to the flaw of it all.