@ll_exile_ll said:
Regardless, I think an emotionless, passionless main character with little or no tangible ties to the world in which in the game is set is much more detrimental to good storytelling that any potential disconnect that could arise between the player and a well defined main character.
Except the player characters in Mass Effect/Dragon Age were never that because all their dialogue was written with that stuff in mind? Just because they're blank slates doesn't mean they stay that way, it's just on the player to decide which elements they want to reflect onto their character. That's fun in my mind, but it's obviously not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
I didn't mean to imply previous Mass Effect/Dragon Age games were guilty of what I was talking about. The issue I have with the idea of blank slate protagonists is that the balance between the player's freedom to personalize the character is inherently at odds with the game's ability to recognize it.
The Mass Effect series specifically does a pretty good job of acknowledging the way you've chosen to portray your character, with the trade-off being the very limited number of in game options you're given to do so. There's really only a handful of different ways you can choose to play your version of Shepard within the game.
Games that give a wider array of options in how you want to portray your character suffer the opposite, they aren't able to meaningfully acknowledge the way you're playing your character.
I'd much rather play as someone that isn't anything like me. The core idea of role playing is that you play a role, putting yourself into the mind of someone else, not making the character as much like you as possible.
That's exactly what I do too, as a fellow boring person, only I don't need the predefined character there to come up with a role to play. The last Shepard I played was a crotchety old man that I had nothing in common with, and by the end of the series I hated his guts. It's never been a self-insert thing for me, so it's a shame you seem so convinced that's all anybody wants to do with blank-slate characters.
It's not that I need a predefined character to role play, it's that I prefer games where the character has a more meaningful involvement with the story. The more defined a character is, the more personal the story can be. Blank slate characters give more ability to shape their backstory and personality, but there is a fundamental disconnect with the core narrative in these instances. Often these characters come across as passive participants in these major events despite their actions seemingly driving things forward.
Finally, as I said to someone else in the thread, I know not everyone wants to project themselves onto blank slate characters, but it is the common reason given by both players and developers. The explanation for the presence of silent protagonists by developers, for example, is almost always to allow the character to be a cipher for the player to project themselves upon.
I understand the appeal of fully customizing every aspect of your character and fully immersing yourself in the role, and there are specific types of games where I think that's the best route. However, the more story driven a game is the more I feel like a fairly defined main character is better suited. Other types of RPGs where interpersonal relationships aren't the focus (such as Bethesda games) are much better suited to blank slates.
Bioware games are so story driven and so dependent on character interactions to the extent where having a main character with more personality and personal stakes serves them better in my opinion. Of course, they've never had entirely blank slates, but moving even further towards predefined characters is a good direction for these types of games as far as I'm concerned.
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