Thoughts on locking the main character?

[Aquachubolt]

What are your thoughts on forcing the main character to be in the party at all times? Is this good or bad?

 

[Diretooth]

Well, I rarely have more than four characters, my first game had five, and I simply used a plugin to allow more than four to be in the party at a time.
Assuming I were to have multiple characters beyond four, I would lock the first member for the sake of convenience. It is a nightmare to event cutscenes where you have event followers move around. It gets confusing. But beyond that, I like to include the amount of people in reserve to avert the concept of lazy backup. Why have your allies wait around while your main party lays dead or dying? It makes no sense.

 

[Llareian]

I really can't think of too many games that let you remove the main character from the party. Sure, some of them have times where there's a side party quest, and some games don't HAVE a main character.

If it's the MAIN character, it's their story, and they really should be in the party at all times (or MOST times). If the game can do without their presence, they're probably not really a main character.

 

[bgillisp]

I used to have the MC locked into place, but since a lot of my battle system (especially late game) revolves around the idea of swapping in fresh party members to replace those low on MP and/or HP, it felt odd to let everyone else swap out but the MC, so I dropped it.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I used to have the MC locked into place, but since a lot of my battle system (especially late game) revolves around the idea of swapping in fresh party members to replace those low on MP and/or HP, it felt odd to let everyone else swap out but the MC, so I dropped it.

FFX does a similar thing, but only in battle. It assumes the entire party is there out of battle.

I guess it depends on what the game is if you can "remove" the MC from the party. There's a part in Chrono Trigger where you no longer are forced to use Crono in the party, but that's because the tone of the game shifts. FF7 has parts where you aren't forced to use Cloud in the party, but you then shift to another member and xe are forced to stay.

It really depends on how the story is being told. In one of my favorite novels, the story is from the MC's perspective about maybe 50% of the time, with it jumping around to others (even the antagonist!) when necessary to telling the story. Of course games often have cutscenes where you see someone else doing something, but I've always likes the idea of multiple parties that the player controls. There are games that have done that, but they (from what I've seen) have multiple MCs because its basically multiple stories you are seeing with one important tie (usually the antagonist).

 

[TheSkullWolf]

my story is around my mc, sooooo he kinda has to stay lol

 

[gstv87]

there's a reason why it's called *the main character*, when there is a *main* character to be called that.
........just sayin'.

 

[Failivrin]

I think it can depend on the length of your game and the total number of characters. Chrono Cross had like fifty playable characters, but you were forced to include the MC, who was the "silent protagonist" type and not very interesting anyway. Including the MC in a fighting part of three meant the player would choose... two out of forty-nine possible characters?!
There were a lot of things wrong with Chrono Cross, but that's one I definitely remember.

In most games it's a good idea to force inclusion of the MC. You have to make sure the MC is well rounded in battle, a sort of jack of all trades. You can also reduce monotony by giving the MC a temporary handicap, or temporarily splitting up the party in the middle of the game. Those are fairly traditional development strategies, but of course it's possible to mix things up.

 

[kirbwarrior]

two out of forty-nine possible characters?!

Suikoden 2 did a similar thing, but with a party of six, making it possible to have incredibly varied parties, and actually rewarding you for wanting to change things up throughout the game. Honestly, I think 9 is too much when looking at something like FF7, since it's hard to want to use many of them with how things are set up (then again, with the materia system, only level really matters...)

 

[Darth Equus]

One of the problems with mandatory characters in the party, is that it may cause the ones "on the bench" (if any) not to receive any experience, thus forcing the player to bench the ones that have leveled up, train the inactive ones, and making grinding a requirement if they want to take advantage of specialized characters.

A solution to this would be to let characters in the reserve receive a reduced amount experience alongside that the active party gets; Xenosaga 3 and Feda the Emblem of Justice did this and helped alleviate "Neglected Character Syndrome". Final Fantasy X also made it easier by giving experience to anyone who caused any harm to the enemy, though this is probably old news, heh.

 

[bhindi1224]

Doesn't EXP for Reserve members do that in the database/system area?

 

[Wavelength]

If the main character is significantly and qualitatively different from all other characters (examples that come to mind immediately are Persona, where all the main character potentially has access to every persona in the game whereas allies only have access to one, and Phantom Brave, where the main character can inhabit the battlefield permanently while she summons her allies to the battlefield temporarily), then it makes sense to force the player to keep the main character in the party.

If the main character plays mostly as "just another character" in battle - like in most Final Fantasy games, Tales Of games, or Super Mario RPG, then I like the ability to put the main character on the bench. This allows the player to experiment with a far larger number of possible party combinations, leading to more customized and potentially more interesting gameplay in combat. If your main character is a warrior and your player wants to try a four mage composition, why not let them?

Story believability reasons are usually not an issue here, because most RPGs do not look at your current party composition when creating cutscenes, etc. You are supposed to believe that while only 4 (or 3 or 5 or whatever) party members are participating in combat, everyone (including your bench members) is there with you and can appear in any scenes that take place.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I just remembered Dragon Quest 4. You can take the main character out of the party (mind, you don't want to...). The rest of the party is hanging out in a wagon out of battle. If the entire party wipes, a new party jumps in with the remaining living members.

Final Fantasy 4: The After Years constantly plays with party composition (even to the point that the MC leaves so you control only Mysterious Man. It's a weird game). Later on when the party starts to get higher than 5, you can change it around all you want without regard.

One thing to really focus on; What is the "party"? What are your allies doing when not part of the party? Are reserve members not with you? Are they sitting five feet away, knowing you got this? If everyone is with you and you are merely bringing some fraction into battle, no need for the MC to be forced in. Otherwise, it usually makes sense that they have to be part of the party.

Final Fantasy X also made it easier by giving experience to anyone who caused any harm to the enemy

Actually, if they take any action whatsoever, they get exp. Mid-game "grinding" use that for max value.

 

[Wavelength]

One thing to really focus on; What is the "party"? What are your allies doing when not part of the party? Are reserve members not with you? Are they sitting five feet away, knowing you got this? If everyone is with you and you are merely bringing some fraction into battle, no need for the MC to be forced in. Otherwise, it usually makes sense that they have to be part of the party

I do enjoy when there are ways to switch your party members within the battle, whether it's a command you can use or a mechanic where reserve party members will jump in for fallen ones. This can be a lot of fun, and gives the players reasons to use their entire party.

Additionally, some games make the reserve party into a mechanic, allowing them to provide support abilities for the active battle party (without being able to actually swap in) or having them do something else while you're fighting/adventuring (think Phantom Brave's "While You Were Away..." bonuses for certain job classes).

I also think there are some battle systems that just work better with a small party size like 3 or 4 (or even 2), and often a standard battle system can better achieve the golden middle ground between "challenging" and "quick" with a 3-member party where the other 6 reserve members can't jump in. If a boss needs to defeat 9 party members in order to beat you, then it's not going to be challenging enough to be engaging if it can't even KO 3 members, whereas it will probably be too much of a long slog if it's KOing 7 or 8 of your guys before you take it down.

Some game designers actually try to justify or "handwave" why only a few of your combat-capable members are actually doing the fighting.

• I've seen ideas on these boards for explaining that there are lots of other 'little' enemies around that your reserve members are taking care of so your main party can fight the bigger bad guys, which is kind of cool.
• I liked the justification that Persona 5 (which limits the size of the party you can bring into a dungeon) gave, which is that the party "will draw too much attention" if there are too many of them running around - this sounds cheesy out of context, but since the game is themed around burglary and actually uses Alert Levels as a dungeon mechanic, it actually feels great in-game.
• Something I plan to do in one of my future games is to justify a max party size of 3 (out of 6 characters) by explaining that everyone is going to need someone to rescue them and take them home if they fall in battle (in this game, defeat in battle does not result in a Game Over; it merely ends the in-game day without any further progress and you have a limited number of days to accomplish your goals). If all six characters were fighting and fell in battle, there would be no one to save them from the monsters that want to feast on their unconscious bodies!

I know that this is really going off on a tangent from the thread's initial question, but I do think that there is a lot of overlap between the two topics - any question of "should I lock the main character in the battle party?", taken from a framing rather than mechanical perspective, needs to consider the concept of "what IS the reserve party, actually?".

 

[bhindi1224]

@Wavelength That would make an awesome battleback. Think of your other party members fighting random baddies while you're focused on your fight.

Edit: Or even better, imagine your MAIN party character fighting a boss while you control the reserve guys clearing the rest of the area.

 

[Wavelength]

@Wavelength That would make an awesome battleback. Think of your other party members fighting random baddies while you're focused on your fight.

Edit: Or even better, imagine your MAIN party character fighting a boss while you control the reserve guys clearing the rest of the area.

Haha! That WOULD be an awesome battleback!!

This idea of your reserve members giving you "covering fire" by fighting offscreen baddies isn't my idea, but I forget who said it, or where on the boards I first saw it. And I thought it was a really cool 'cover story', if you will

 

[kirbwarrior]

I've seen ideas on these boards for explaining that there are lots of other 'little' enemies around that your reserve members are taking care of so your main party can fight the bigger bad guys, which is kind of cool.

That reminds me of boss fights I've seen where you are fighting different parts "simultaneously" with each party. If changing things was fast enough, you could have "simultaneous/sequential" for every fight in your game. Then, like you said, if one party dies, the others pack up, grab the bodies, and high tail it out of there, knowing they are outnumbered.

I remember hearing about another game where you and your party are two different units. The main character is awesome and takes on battles by xemself, but the rest of the party is actually inside the main character's soul (mind? some kind of personal space), fighting off battles from another direction. The plot changes back and forth, and the player can even decide when it changes (sometimes having to deal with one once the other has caught up).

Many rpgs have sidequests, unrelated to the plot. I could see where the game is set up so you have to use reserve parties to do sidequests so it's done alongside the main plot. For instance, the main party goes into the dungeon to catch the thieves, while the reserve party can decide to help the witch get ingredients or rustle up cows. The main character is dealing with the plot and is always in the main party, but the secondary party is made up however you want.

 

[mauvebutterfly]

I think this depends on the focus of your game. If it's heavily story-based I'd actually prefer the entire party to be locked at all times (except maybe endgame/postgame.) If the game has a huge focus on battles and character builds, it's probably best to let players select who they want in all party slots.

 

[Tai_MT]

I'm doing this both ways. I find merits to both. However, it's because I do it based on what the story is meant to be.

The main game I'm working on does not allow you to remove the "Main Character". The reasons are... The entire game world ceases to exist if at any point, the story isn't about him. The story, the world, the characters, the conflicts, the triumphs, and the goal at the end... revolve around him. It can work no other way. So, he's locked in the party and locked to Spot 1. But, he plays in combat more "independent" of the other 8 characters. Some of his skills can play off of other skills... or other party members can play off of some of his... But, all his skills are built as "stand alone" or as "combo most frequently with yourself". This lets players customize the rest of their party members as they wish. They can bring 3 magic users, 3 rogues, 3 warriors and a rogue or magic user... they can mix and match their types, based on skills... etcetera. Basically, I let them decide how to run combat, with the only condition being that the main character is always part of that combat. However, if you let him fall in battle and never revive him... it's not a game over. So... I guess if you REALLY want to not have him in combat, you can. But, you still can't swap him out.

One of the other 5 games I'm working, revolves around a group of main characters. The story being told doesn't belong to any individual. It belongs to all of them. You can assign characters to tasks, to your party, etcetera. They each have their own shared story to tell. The story is about the jobs they take, the world they live in, the people they work for, and some political intrigue. It isn't about running around, main character slaying dormant evil creatures, saving damsels or towns, or anything like that. So, it works better to not lock anyone into the party. Swap them out as necessary or as you like. It works well because the story is of the player, doing things, not of the characters, doing things. The characters are along for the ride.

 

[Tohisu]

In my opinion, (I'm gonna repeat what some people already have said) it all depends on the role the main character has.
If the story is all about a group of heroes, better unlock the main character.
If all the story is about the hero, well... I guess his place has to be locked.