RPG Characters

[Silenity]

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Let's begin a discussion on the topic of RPG characters.
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However, not about the characters themselves but about how they are entered into the world and how they are played.
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As this is an RPG Maker forum let's also apply this to RPG Maker games!
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First subtopic is character selection.
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Character selection is when the game offers a pre-made variety of characters for the player to select.
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This type of RPG character is mainly seen in online action RPGs. Such as Diablo and Path of Exile.
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It's also featured in hack-n-slash games with RPG elements. Such as Dynasty/Samurai Warriors.
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What are your thoughts on character selection?
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What are the pros and cons?
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Second subtopic is character creation.
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Character creation is when the game allows the player to completely shape the character to their liking.
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Usually offering an undefined backstory for the character so that the player may create their own.
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This type of RPG character is mainly seen in single-player RPGs. Such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Dark Souls.
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What are your thoughts on character creation?
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What are the pros and cons?
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Third subtopic is single player.
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Single player is when the game has either only one character.
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Single player is sometimes paired with either character selection or character creation.
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You can see examples of this in games such as The Legend of Zelda, The Witcher, and Deus Ex.
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What are your thoughts on single player?
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What are the pros and cons?
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Fourth subtopic is player party.
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Player party is when the game has a party or troop. This usually consists of three or more characters.
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There are three common types of RPG parties.
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The first is the static party. The player is usually given the party at the beginning of the game and it never changes throughout.
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This is mainly seen in JRPGs such as Final Fantasy.
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The second is the custom party. The player is either given or allowed to seek multiple party members throughout the game.
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The player is allowed to change their party members at almost any time.
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This is mainly seen in JRPGs such as The Tales Of series and Chrono Trigger.
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The third is the army party. The player is given a few members and a very large party limit that they can fill throughout the game.
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This is mainly seen in tactical RPGs such as Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre and Disgaea.
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What are your thoughts on player parties?
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What are the pros and cons?
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Here is a template if anyone would like to just copy and paste it for their reply.
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Spoiler

Character Selection


Thoughts:


Pros/Cons:


Character Creation


Thoughts:


Pros/Cons:


Single Player


Thoughts:


Pros/Cons:


Player Party


Thoughts:


Pros/Cons:

 

[Ekanselttar]

Character Selection


Thoughts: I like to think this is the middle ground.You get a set of different characters to experiment with without wasting too much of your time fine tuning all the details.So yeah,I do like this type.


Pros/Cons:

• Easy to pick up & play without flushing too much time down the toilet
  
• Sometimes puts limits on the type of character you want to play
  

Character Creation


Thoughts: My favourite type,and with no doubt one of the most popular RPG character formats. (excuse the broken English)   It gives you complete control of who do you want your character to be.


Pros/Cons:

• The power to make exacly who do you want to make,a reflection of your creativity and personality.
  
• Sometimes a pain in the behind and extremly time consuming
  

Single Player


Thoughts: The most popular one in other genres.For RPGs,I hate this type (even though it's the one I implemented in my game) because RPGs,are,first and foremost, Role Playing Games,which means the core of an RPG is role-playing whoever you want to be not some person the dev shoves down your throat  (dayum,I'm just literally bashing myself )


Pros/Cons:

• No time wasted, sometimes makes place for great writing,without worries about who the player wants to play as.Great for 1st time game devs.
  
• Destroys one of the pillars of RP games.
  

Player Party


Thoughts: Another common one.I'll admit,I love this one. I do prefer the custom party,because you can toy with the Main C.'s personality by just choosing who to recruit by your side. E.ggsample : If you play an evil character,you recruit morally devoid mercenaries,thieves,or just shifty persons in general. The army party system is a mindfrick,as you need to manage 97 or so party members by yourself.


Pros/Cons:

• Surrond your character with whoever seems fit (custon party)
  
• Sometimes a mind boom-boom situation as you need to manage 100s of party members.
  

sorry if this seems a little underwhelming opinion,this is all I have to say.


tl;dr :

1. Middle ground
   
2. Like
   
3. Hate
   
4. Middle ground
   

 

[TheoAllen]

Interesting discussion. Although I may need to group them all in two categories


Pre-made Characters


This include, single, party, character selection. The reason why I categorized with only these two because I don't care about how I control / select the character. If they already a pre-made character, I usually just stick to the default name. And when I'm playing game with pre-made character, I'm not roleplaying. I'm enjoying the story. Applied in all single character, party, or even character selection type game. I believe all of the type has their own game mechanic I could enjoy.


Custom Characters


This should not be a half-assed custom character. I mean, if you could give a name to the character, so does with their appearance (or even story). Custom character is not always single character like Elder Scroll series, but could be also a party (the more reason why I categorized with this two). For example, XCOM (mainly tactic, but it has RPG Elements, as you also mentioned Dynasty Warrior). When I'm playing custom character type game, I'm roleplaying. I often use my original character name and try to act like my OC. For example, when I use the name "Cecilia" (one of my OC), I should learn fire magic and use it in the rest of the game regardless how hard it is. 


Tl;dr


All are about preferences. But I enjoy them all. Just need a right game design / mechanic to enjoy more

 

[Nebuerys]

Role Playing Games,which means the core of an RPG is role-playing whoever you want to be not some person the dev shoves down your throat

Actually, RPGs are all about players assuming roles in a given fictional setting and not necessarily whether they are forced to be someone with a backstory, or if they are given complete freedom to create one. In the end, it boils down to the player taking up the role of someone and playing as that character through the pre-written events of the game.

 

[Reavenator]

Single Player


Thoughts: The most popular one in other genres.For RPGs,I hate this type (even though it's the one I implemented in my game) because RPGs,are,first and foremost, Role Playing Games,which means the core of an RPG is role-playing whoever you want to be not some person the dev shoves down your throat  (dayum,I'm just literally bashing myself )

But that's not what roleplaying means. Role playing means playing a role, not necessarily creating it.


I used to play World of darkness (a role playing system, like D&D) with my friends, and we played pre-defined characters all the time.

 

[Wavelength]

I don't necessary have a lot to add to this interesting topic on character creation and party formation, but I did want to chime in about what the RPG genre is - I don't think it's literally any game where you "play a role" (because this is a useless distinction that would include Banjo-Kazooie, Theme Park, and Stuntman); I see a video game RPG as one that inherits a lot from live-action/pen-and-paper RPGs where the primary focus of the game is to breathe life into a character's personality and actions (rather than playing a game as an abstract entity with the goal of winning).

 

[SLEEP]

Spoiler

Character Selection


Thoughts: if theres someone cool, but i mean im not too keen. it sounds like the compromise between creation and set hero. but mostly feels like set hero for me. i wish pokemon didnt do this, although x and y also have customization with clothing and hairstyles durimg the game made it not so bad woop. 


Pros/Cons: eh. 


Character Creation


Thoughts: some of the games you used as examples have character creation as different ends. fallout allows character creation for roleplaying. dark souls has it more as an obfuscated difficulty selection tho.


Pros/Cons: anyway its generally good enough it can take a lot more dev time to do. dont do it if its beyond your scope advice 4 devs.


Single Player


Thoughts: theres the silent protagonist and the talkie one distinct in this category lmao. i like an excuse to say "talkie" dont let the term die.


Pros/Cons: easiest for a dev to do and its fine. if your char has or needs a set personality/set skillset, a set apparent fits. not so good for trying 2 play a role   but eh bnfbofna. im doing this 1 in my game.


Player Party


Thoughts: even player party still designates a hero. it would be nice if somebody could somehow write this to blur the protagonist more but that would be hard.


Pros/Cons: the party members dont feel like the ones who are meant to be you as much as the protagonist is. um afgbv


effort

 

[Milennin]

What are your thoughts on character selection?


I'm fine with character selection in games, as long as each option is equally viable and fleshed out.


What are your thoughts on character creation?


It's nice to have in some games, but not something I find necessary. Character customisation, on the other hand, I do like.


What are your thoughts on single player?


Speaking of single player as games with only one playable character: Well, it's much harder to make it work in a traditional turn-based RPG setting. Of course, it makes much more sense for games where you have can directly control your character in the middle of the action.


What are your thoughts on player parties?


They work perfectly for strategy and turn-based RPGs. For action games not so much (the AI generally sucks and is incompetent).

 

[Prescott]

Character Selection:


Pro: Gives the player some freedom, but also allows you the developer to control more aspects of the game, allowing for easier developing and possibly better story.


Con: Player may feel like they are being cheated out of completely creating their own character.


Character Creation:


Basically the exact opposite of what I said above. Player can create their own character which is great, but the story may not be as impactful.


Single Player:


Pro: Works really well in one-man-versus-the-world type of games, making the player feel like they are accomplishing something extraordinary. Difficulty is also very easy to set up.


Con: RPGs do not benefit from this at all. Ever played a one man RPG? I actually haven't. You can't have a single character that is good at magic, is a tank, and is extremely fast at once without terrible writing and design. A party gives that to you.


This one really depends on the type of game you're going for.


Player Party:


I really prefer the Custom Party route. I do really think that one or two of the characters should stay constant as the main(s), but I like to recruit other party members in case I need a mage for this, or a warrior for that. I really enjoy games where the characters interact with the main characters in the story as well, and aren't just planks of wood that can attack enemies.


Once again though, it really depends on the game you are going for.


Come to think of it, ALL of this really depends on the game you are trying to make. You should really just stick to what you think is best for your game.

 

[Reavenator]

I don't necessary have a lot to add to this interesting topic on character creation and party formation, but I did want to chime in about what the RPG genre is - I don't think it's literally any game where you "play a role" (because this is a useless distinction that would include Banjo-Kazooie, Theme Park, and Stuntman); I see a video game RPG as one that inherits a lot from live-action/pen-and-paper RPGs where the primary focus of the game is to breathe life into a character's personality and actions (rather than playing a game as an abstract entity with the goal of winning).

I didn't say an RPG is every game where you play a role. I just said that role playing in general doesn't mean creating a role, as Ekanselttar seemed to imply.


Nowadays, it looks like an RPG just means a game with stats, loot, and character progression. That's pretty all a game needs to count as an RPG.


And doesn't your your definition of RPG exclude JRPGs, since that in those games, you have no control over the character's actions or personality?


But, I'm going off-topic here, so I feel like I should contribute more to the discussion.


Character Selection:


Like what Millennin said, each option should be just as good. And that's the problem: depending on your game and how many character you can choose from, making sure all options are viable and fleshed could be very taxing. And if the characters all end up being bland, you might as well just use character creation instead.


Character Creation:


I'm not a big fan of this, most of the time. Games that use this option nowadays, like Skyrim, for example, don't really let you 'play as yourself', at least not directly, it just gives you an empty husk of a character that you can alter to make them look like yourself, and then you just pretend it's you. It's not really you, but since they don't have any personality, you can pretend they have yours. It only gives you the illusion that you are playing as yourself. If you enjoy the illusion, that's all fine and good, but it's still just an illusion.


But I would definitely prefer this to playing a bland or unlikable character. If the character has no... character anyway, at least let us customize them, and if they're unlikable, I think I'd like them better if they had no personality.


The game that did this option the most well recently was Pillars of eternity. Why? Because it barely had any voice acting.


When you're game is fully voice acted, every single line of dialogue costs money, and that means the dialogue needs to be short to make it affordable.


Since PoE had very little voice acting, the devs could give you as many speech options as they wanted to without too much trouble, and since you had a lot of options on what to say, you were able to breath some personality into your character. The same goes for some of the old RPGs this game was inspired by.


I actually kinda liked it there.

 

[TheoAllen]

Character Creation:


I'm not a big fan of this, most of the time. Games that use this option nowadays, like Skyrim, for example, don't really let you 'play as yourself', at least not directly, it just gives you an empty husk of a character that you can alter to make them look like yourself, and then you just pretend it's you. It's not really you, but since they don't have any personality, you can pretend they have yours. It only gives you the illusion that you are playing as yourself. If you enjoy the illusion, that's all fine and good, but it's still just an illusion.

I definitely understand this. Skyrim (and such game, fallout, kingdom of amalur, etc ...) is NOT a sandbox game. It just seems a semi open world for me which is not really open because you're still stucked in written quests and stories. The world is not gonna change if you don't do anything. Alduin is waiting for you to kill him.


If you ever heard mount and blade, that might suit yourself more. Because the world is dynamic. They changed even if you didn't do anything.

 

[Wavelength]

I didn't say an RPG is every game where you play a role. I just said that role playing in general doesn't mean creating a role, as Ekanselttar seemed to imply.

I wasn't directly contradicting your statement so much as just responding to the general, popular idea (which is at least close to what you and Neb stated, although not identical) that an RPG video game is "a Game where you Play a Role".  Even professional VG writers use this extremely vague definition sometimes, because no good defintion has ever been popularized.

Nowadays, it looks like an RPG just means a game with stats, loot, and character progression. That's pretty all a game needs to count as an RPG.


And doesn't your your definition of RPG exclude JRPGs, since that in those games, you have no control over the character's actions or personality?

My definition of an RPG video game, again, was "[a game] that inherits a lot from live-action/pen-and-paper RPGs where the primary focus of the game is to breathe life into a character's personality and actions (rather than playing a game as an abstract entity with the goal of winning)".  Because the live, improvisational nature of P&P role-playing is so tough to translate to video games, it's usually the more "gamey elements" of P&Ps like (as you mentioned) stat-based strategy, emphasis on inventory, and character builds that video game RPGs inherit, rather than the storytelling methods that were at the heart of P&P role-playing.


So no, I don't feel that JRPGs are excluded using this definition, though I'm glad you called me out on this since I definitely put too little emphasis on what gets inherited in my first post.

 

[Reavenator]

I definitely understand this. Skyrim (and such game, fallout, kingdom of amalur, etc ...) is NOT a sandbox game. It just seems a semi open world for me which is not really open because you're still stucked in written quests and stories. The world is not gonna change if you don't do anything. Alduin is waiting for you to kill him.


If you ever heard mount and blade, that might suit yourself more. Because the world is dynamic. They changed even if you didn't do anything.

I'm a bit confused. What does this have to do with what I said? I was talking about character creation, I didn't talk about game worlds and never complained about Skyrim's world being pre-written. In fact, I prefer pre-written quests with some depth to them to many samey generic computer-generated quests. The latter might make me playing longer, but the gameplay needs to be really good so that I won't get bored. Could you maybe explain the connection to my post?


But speaking of mount and blade, I think character creation works best there, because the game doesn't have any narrative anyway.


And I already have Mount and blade warband on steam, actually, but I never felt like playing it.

 

[TheoAllen]

I'm a bit confused. What does this have to do with what I said? I was talking about character creation, I didn't talk about game worlds and never complained about Skyrim's world being pre-written. In fact, I prefer pre-written quests with some depth to them to many samey generic computer-generated quests. The latter might make me playing longer, but the gameplay needs to be really good so that I won't get bored. Could you maybe explain the connection to my post?


But speaking of mount and blade, I think character creation works best there, because the game doesn't have any narrative anyway.


And I already have Mount and blade warband on steam, actually, but I never felt like playing it.

Because you mentioned "don't really let you 'play as yourself'", and " It only gives you the illusion that you are playing as yourself". Of course they don't let you really play as yourself because the fate of your character is already determined. Unlike sandbox game where you decide yourself how you gonna play your own character. Or at least that was the point I got from your post.

 

[Reavenator]

Because you mentioned "don't really let you 'play as yourself'", and " It only gives you the illusion that you are playing as yourself". Of course they don't let you really play as yourself because the fate of your character is already determined. Unlike sandbox game where you decide yourself how you gonna play your own character. Or at least that was the point I got from your post.

Ah, I see. That's not what I meant, however.


What I meant is that if you can't express your own personality in a game through a character, that character is not really a representation of you. Just an empty puppet for you to play the game through. It doesn't matter whether you're going through pre-written or computer-generated events, you're still playing a puppet. As of now, no game is capable of legitimately allowing you to play as a representation of yourself. And I don't expect that any game will in the near future.

 

[TheoAllen]

Lol, ok I understand your point. If that's the kind of illusion you're talking about, indeed there will be a game that really satisfy your criteria


Even kids play with dolls are also illusion of playing a role. The difference is, in video games, you play on platform, while dolls you play manually with your hands. However, that's how game works.

 

[Reavenator]

Lol, ok I understand your point. If that's the kind of illusion you're talking about, indeed there will be a game that really satisfy your criteria

I don't really expect any game to achieve this. It would be awesome if a game does, but I'm not making any demands.