Are multiples perspectives too chaotic in rpg maker game? [Shifting Characters]

[Kupotepo]

First, I would like to apologize for irritating you with missing spelling and incorrect grammar in sentences. I write this thread on the phone.
When I refer to multiple perspectives, I mean when I would like to not follow a character or a group of characters all the time. I intended to present the world environment with different characters because they live away from one another. I see that has been done in final fantasy when the group of protagonist get separated by the cave collapse or separate by the waterfall.
However, I would like to up another step by a switch from a protagonist's perspective into [I just edited, sorry for inconvenience] [an opportunistic tragic character perspective. ] I think I will switch at the end of an act. When I mean an opportunistic tragic character, it is a character that is morally dubious, profit by choice, and survivalist.
Many novelists said it makes people lose the personal connection with a character. I think it is
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

I do not know independently what is your experience? Thank you for satisfying my doubts.

An additional note: flesh out the backstory of the villain that a protagonist does not, but the play knows. [I preferred this method for a corrupted villain by an evil force.]

Advantages:
+A player will be challenged by playing a detective of being truthful. The truth will be revealed in the end [Detective Conan!].
+Understand the magnitude of a situation because of a major event is with a limited view with not clear enough to a player.

Disadvantages:
+Insane headache for me than migraine. Reduce the main characters' importance.
+It is harder to establish deep emotional connections when you are working with multiple POV characters. You need to take the time to establish all your POV characters well enough that a player is invested in them
+ It may be challenging to keep the pace of the story moving quickly since you will have to tell a player is a dream in order to switch or travel in a dreamland which can be time-consuming.

The odd is kind of staking against Multiple POV. Please tell me more because I will update due to the multiple mistakes I have done.

 

[Tai_MT]

From a writing standpoint, it is quite tricky. Namely, the novelists say it loses personal connection with their audiences because of the way they tend to frame it.

See, most novelists who try to employ it, already have "villain" picked out. They have to spend time making you hate the villain order for you to "cheer" for the heroes. Right? If you don't properly want to see the villain get their "comeuppance", then the heroes don't have much of an impact at all. Are they even heroes?

So, you write villains as the usual cliches of super evil people whom the audience hates. Because, if you humanize them and try to make them not seem like all that terrible and just misunderstood... they're not villains anymore. And, your heroes don't look so heroic anymore. Or worth cheering on.

Some writers understand this is not the way you write a villain.

Personally, I love Stephen King. I also love Orson Scott Card. The reason I tend to love their work is because of the magic they weave with their characters. They have some works where someone is definitely evil and out to hurt people... and they have works where people are just people and what clouds the audience's judgement of who someone is... is just the perspective of the person we're looking at it through.

For example:

Orson Scott Card's book "Ender's Game" paints our main character's brother as a raving psychopath and sociopath who actively plots the death of his siblings and to rule the world. We only ever get the perspective of this character through our main character and his "innocent" sister who also has the same misgivings about the elder brother. The only perspective we get is that this guy is definitely a bad guy and shouldn't rule the world... and the only force that makes him even tolerable is the little sister deciding to work with him some and mellow him out a little purely by accident.

A later book, from the perspective of this brother during the time when he's trying to "take over the world" paints him as very reasonable and only using threats when absolutely necessary. He's never engaged in violence in the books (unlike in Ender's Game where at one point he is actually choking the main character to death... and another point where he is flaying animals in a forest and pinning them up for his sister to find) and shows a great deal of compassion. He spends the entire run of 3 books during this time period uniting the entire planet in the goal of "world peace" and "let's go colonize the stars instead of fighting over Earth". He sets up his government with very little corruption, he doesn't play politics all that much, is pragmatic, and never loses his cool. An expert leader with a hidden heart of gold.

Want to know what changed between the two books?

The perspective of the reader. We hate this brother in the "Ender's Game" series of books because of what he did and does to the heroes we're meant to be cheering for. We love this brother in the other series of books because he is the hero, uniting the world, solving problems, and preventing wars.

A perspective shift can work and work very well. You just have to write it well.

Stephen King does this in some of his own books. Allowing you to sympathize with the "villains" even if you don't actually agree with them at all and know they are dangerous to themselves and to others. A good book to read for just such an effect is "Needful Things". Very few of the people in that book are "good". Most have serious flaws that make them very dangerous. But, it's still easy to sympathize with many of them. Likewise, if you read "The Stand", you see the very same thing. You know who is a villain and why, but many of them are easy to sympathize with and you wonder "why are they on the side of evil?". Likewise, you wonder why some are on the side of "good" when they have seriously dangerous character flaws.

The thing is... if you want a perspective shift to work, you have to make the villain a hero of their own story. That story has to be something worth championing to the reader as well.

As for the specific gameplay element you want to try... I've got a game planned specifically with that as the primary game mechanic in mind. You swap between two parties on different sides of a brewing conflict and the audience won't know who is "in the right" until the end when one party beats the other. I adopted it as a personal writing challenge, because it can be difficult to do. Writing a story where there is no villain until the end. The side you play as does heroic things while you're in control, but the side you're not playing as, you hear and see the the terrible things they're doing and strive to prevent them.

The thing is... you can't have this perspective shift if you paint one side as the definite villains. Because, to make them effective at all, the audience can't like them in the least.

 

[Kupotepo]

@Tai_MT, I appreciate for your time. I would like to summarize the back of what I understood. It certainly insightful of you that I do not wish to go into the head of Kefka Palazzo, the psycho clown. I see where you come from: Shadow Lord (XI) yeah it is kind of really difficult to care about it or event humanized. I agree that is no way to go.
When I talk about shifting perspective, I refer to the human villain or something that is capable of a higher form of emotion and reasoning such as Vayne Solidor (XII) and Ardyn Izunia (XV). Instead of displaying cutscenes of villains action, just let players play them and see what terrible thing they do. Do you think it terrible idea? Thank you again for responding to my questions.

 

[Tai_MT]

So what you're asking is if players would enjoy playing a character actually doing terrible and evil things? Seeing the conflict from their point of view?

I don't know, I'd wager they wouldn't. Just based on the amount of people who play "the good guy" in video games when morality choices are introduced (even if we don't track those morality choices in the game). People want to think of themselves as good and heroic (or at least, most Gamers do). So, we tend to default to that state of mind when playing a game.

It might leave a bad taste in the player's mouth if they have to watch the evil guy do evil things and move them around and fight with them and play as them while they do evil things.

I'm not sure anyone would want to play as the guy who burns down an orphanage with all the kids inside for any length of time. Even if you find good reasons to justify this behavior.

To be the villain, they have to do bad things worthy of being the villain. If they're the villain, you probably aren't going to want to see their perspective of things. But, if they're just people making choices that the player doesn't agree with, yet are somehow sympathetic... they're no longer a "villain" and are instead just people engaging in tragic behavior who could've aspired to more if they'd just made the right choices.

Those are really the only two outcomes you can have with a villain and a perspective shift. Or at least, I've never seen a third outcome. The villain is monstrous and does terrible things to make the audience hate them so when the heroes triumph, it feels all the sweeter... Or, the villain is humanized so the audience can sympathize with them and as a result just becomes a tragic character we must defeat mostly to put them out of their misery... and they're not even usually the biggest threat you'll face, just a minor obstacle.

 

[Ellie Jane]

One way to subvert it would be to have the player have a way of listening in on conversations. Perhaps they have some sort of magic orb that lets them listen to what the big bad guy is saying, or as in *Final Fantasy VII* perhaps they just climb a vent and literally listen in on a meeting. You get the enemy's perspective but you don't get that feeling of "why would I be able to hear this?"

In Final Fantasy VIII the player occassionally collapses and wakes up in the body of other people and plays as them.

Or perhaps just premonitions. I had the weirdest dream...

 

[Kupotepo]

@Tai_MT, thank you for clarify and explain. I see it called a tragic character. I got you now a villain is irredeemable character. If a character is an opportunist, is consider tragic character who made bad choices?
@Amy Pond, thank you for sharing your knowledge with me. I think I misclassified a character is a tragic character by making bad choices. I will clarity questions soon ok. Sorry for confusing.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I think there are some examples out there of playing as the villain for some amount of time. The ones that come to mind off the top of my head are at least one of the Tales of games, FF2, that's all I can think of at the moment. Although, those situations are slightly different than what you're talking about, because the villain is a member of your party until they part ways with the hero.

But you get perspective from the villain when you can play as them, or at least see things from their point of view in a cutscene. I mean, most villains don't see themselves as the villain usually. Some of the Atalier games let you choose which main character to play as, some of the Romancing series games let you play as different characters who would meet up later. I think there are a lot of examples of games out there that do this thing, and some do it very well.

I would say that switching between hero and villain as playable characters would be an interesting mechanic. Hell, you really don't even have to make one or the other as the hero/villain. You let the player play out the narrative and decide for themselves. Maybe even let the player choose at the end which party they would like to play as for the final battle, and they have to battle the other characters. You present both sides of the story well and let the player decide who is right or wrong. I believe the multiple perspectives is only going to be chaotic if it written or executed poorly, which leaves it all in your hands as the dev. I don't think the idea of it is chaotic at all, just another form of story telling.

 

[Kupotepo]

@HumanNinjaToo, thank you for responding. I see you refer to a betrayal character. I agree that is an element in FF of a double agent. I remember that FFEXVIUS that the sword master in the world of Paladia betray the main character and gain with the emperor at the end. It is suprising me because it only show me later.
I thank you for support it is a new experiment hope I can do not confuse who is who. That is sound good for execution of the game. It is true it is about how good you are, everything is possible.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I can't remember which, but one of the Tales of games had a party member that left about 1/4 of the way into the game, then he becomes the villain. In Tales of Vesperia, the knight captain hero guy ends up being the main villain. And I don't know how I forgot about FF Tactics, but Delita starts as your friend, and then becomes a frenemy(?). Not really the villain in that case; but, a great story existed in FF Tactics with a very convoluted idea of right versus wrong. I hope you go far with this idea, it's a very interesting story concept I think.

 

[Kupotepo]

@HumanNinjaToo, thank you for your support. I wait for other people's input for now because many people here are educated and innovative. A long moment please, I will create a poll.

 

[MushroomCake28]

Like you said, there are some advantages and some disadvantages, so it all boils down to what you are trying to achieve. Sure, multiple perspective can make people feel less connected to a single character (the main character), but sometimes it doesn't matter because the multiple perspective is the point of the story. If you're looking to create a complex and thrilling series with lots of mystery where the truth is discovered at the end, or were there are massive plot twists, then multiple perspective is a very good way to do it.

However, not every style is for everyone, and that's totally fine. Multiple perspective with mystery and plot twists is for a certain kind of audience, and not everyone will enjoy. So it's important to define what you are trying to achieve and who is your target audience.

EDIT: I'm not voting because there is no good answer in my opinion. Different answers can all be justified on a case by case basis.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Kupotepo A villain isn't necessarily an "irredeemable character". A "villain" usually exists in stories where it's "the heroes' journey". That is, you have a set of heroes out to stop the big bad. In such stories, you can't have the villain be "likeable" or even "sympathetic" because it tends to make your heroes... well... not heroic.

With that being said, you can have villains in other types of stories. In some stories, the "villain" is just the person your group is fighting against because they disagree or they want something. Final Fantasy 12 starts out this way. You are playing a group of rebels who want to overthrow the kingdom because the Main Girl doesn't want to be ruled by them. That's it. You go through the game and find out that a lot of things in the country are actually better with "the villain" running things. You find out that they're actually treating people really well.

Until later, when they shift tones and it turns out the people who run the country are irredeemably evil and corrupt. The second half of the story... isn't written well. I mean, the first half isn't either, 'cause it lacks anything to invest a player into the plight of the characters you're playing as... But, you can see the potential that exists in this set up.

At first, nobody is "the badguy", or rather... the country that invaded and won is "the badguy" because they invaded and won, and we're supposed to ignore all the good things they're doing for your country. It's an interesting dynamic that they kind of shot themselves in the foot with... by writing it poorly.

 

[Kupotepo]

@MushroomCake28, thank you for stopping by. I fear of discontinuation of the story and I prefer plot twist to boredom.
@Tai_MT, thank you for the explanation. You are convincing me that the conflicting narratives are counterproductive to the overall game's mood. How do you feel about the backstory for NPCs? I see cut the perspectives it not support the main narrative.

 

[CraneSoft]

In an RPG, I'd say it's generally not recommended to go beyond 2 or 3 perspectives (and even then most people I see don't like dual protagonists as it breaks immersion), else you risk creating a very disjointed way of storytelling where it's impossible to balance the importance of one without gimping another.

Once a player gets attached to one, suddenly switching POV to another complete stranger without any connection just feels like a reset more than anything. Unless, of course, you are talking about some uber-powerful Sephiroth-class final boss character to establish the mood.

With that said, multiple POVs CAN work in a multi-work series, where the audience most likely already knows about the POV characters enough they are qualified to be main-character material in their own chapters.

 

[Wavelength]

For a single chapter? Two's company; three's a crowd. Keep it to two.

The exception is if the entire point of a single chapter is to show the perspectives of every character during a certain time. This can be fine as long as most chapters are single PoV and the goings-on are sufficiently interesting.

Finally, note that you can employ way more than two PoV's over the course of a game, and occasionally switch between them. Just don't switch too frequently.

 

[Kupotepo]

@CraneSoft, thank you for responding. Thank you for giving a substantive answer to how much is appropriated. You are correct that multiple POV is greatly enchanted by being an established game maker.
@Wavelength, thank you for a substantive answer. I see that the main perspective is present most of the time and minor perspectives are only present in important events.