Personally, I'm more of a fan of black slate units.

Also, this should be attached to tactical turn-based combat...

Predetermined, as it actually allows for your units to have some sort of character and narrative drive. Even X-Com realized the importance of not having an entirely blank slate character. The nicknames your troops can get is essentially the game's way of giving some window into the personality of the soldiers, independent of what you want them to be.

Not going to lie, for a second there I was intrigued by seeing a thread bout Ehrgeiz.

Damn it @beachthunder.

Also I like good writing and characters in games so definitely pre-determined units.

To be honest, I like a mixture of both. There needs to be some type of personal story arch involved between the characters for me to really get through a turn-based strategy game.

It depends on how much room I have to get attached to the characters. In an Xcom or Fire Emblem permadeath scenario I definitely lean towards the predetermined characters, letting their personality and style make me attached to them in a shorter amount of time, while the disposable soldiers in Xcom didn't do much for me.

I do however get incredibly attached to my blank slate characters in games like Disgaea where I level them up and customize as much as the main characters, and I'm guaranteed to use them for dozens of hours.

lol ok, a little disappointing this wasn't somehow about Ehrgeiz. (That campaign mode, eh?)

I'm for blank slates usually. Even when given starting characters in Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM I usually get rid of em all so I can start fresh with true blankies, as I call em.

As a minor aside, I think XCOM/Fire Emblem is on the edge of being a funny comparison as the latter has far more emphasis on relationships and inter-character stuff than XCOM, and ultimately it's that stuff which makes the predetermined characters relevant at all I think.

I like fleshed out characters, to an extent. The ideal (sadly, because no other series has followed its lead) is what Jagged Alliance had, with characters with personalities and their own quirks, but without actual story relevance that makes their deaths actually negatively impact the game experience.

It would be neat if X-com found a sort of middle ground on this by developing voice sets based on a character's behavior. Like, you get the gravelly, grizzled voice for the front line assault unit who's taken a dozen hits over his career, the calm, emotionless voice for the guy with lots of long distance kills, maybe the cocky voice for the guy with lots of low percentage hits and evades.

I think it's important to care about your units, and having predetermined characters is probably better for that. I don't have a problem with blank slates though, if they find a way to inject them with personality then that's totally alright with me. They did some of that in the last Xcom, and I hope they go a little further with it this time.

Final Fantasy Tactics Style-

Some Pre-defined Hero Units and a host of Blank Slate customizable ones.

Honestly, the most I've ever been attached to characters is when they've been my own. In the last Xcom, there's definitely a huge sense of pride when your characters level up, especially your main character at the end of the game.

I prefer my turn-based tactics Front Mission as hell. Interchangeable parts + preset character specialties.

Protip: Don't go try to track down Dog Life or Dog Style. Just...don't.

@beachthunder: weird, I moved it for you.

i prefer blank slate characters in almost every instance, not just in this particular genre.

Video game writing is generally not up to par with the stories you get when creating your characters from scratch, especially in stuff like Wizardry where stats and alignment let you blank slate characters interact with each other in interesting ways depending on how you chose to act in different situations.

I have way more fondness for my Wizardry, XCOM, Jagged Alliance and Fallout Tactics parties than any of the pre-determined parties of Bioware or Square-Enix games.

That's a hard question. I like both. I get into the characters in games like fire emblem and become attached to personalities, on the other hand, X-com allows me to tell my own story every time. I'll give FE style the edge.

FFT style: full range of standard customization options while retaining unique combat traits and individual plot significance.

I like predetermined more. I'm just really bad at coming up with names, as evidenced by my giantbomb dot com username.

@beachthunder said:

I feel like Xcom was one of the best examples of blank slates because they did a good job making you care about them, but I also think a lot of that was mechanical investment rather than character investment. The little personality touches definitely added an element of the latter as well though, which is why I'm hoping for more of that this time.

Blank slate is garbage, just like in everything else. Especially considering the best story ever in video games was in a tactical RPG, and another in the top 5. I really want chararcters that I have absolutely no connection to whatsoever that have zero personality, that seems like a perfect molding for a story.

Note: Obviously I'm ignoring supporting units that aren't plot relevant, no problem with them existing; but the absence of a plot isn't a good idea when you've got the best framing device in the medium.

Aside: Just talking about the plot relevance, it is more difficult to make a game with non customizable units that is excellent but still quite possible. However tactical RPGs are predominantly customizable on that front so the question is largely irrelevant.

the original x-com is my favorite game of all time, but I prefer something like Jagged Alliance 2 characters. Though if the premade characters dont fit my taste then I would rather have blank slates. Depends on the game.

Yeah, this is exactly what I want. I voted for Predetermined because they are the anchoring aspect, tying the blank-slate characters to something meaningful. I don't mind either system.

I like my turn-based tactics characters like I like my coffee: Blank as the check in the film "Blank Check".

I like both, but for different reasons.

I feel pre-determined units work well in a game where you're supposed to get to know your troops on a more personal level and especially when those characters can die permanently, like Fire Emblem. I still remember feeling bad about letting a unit die in one of the GBA Fire Emblem games. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance have a good mix of both pre-determined characters and blank slate guildies that aren't really supposed to get their own story/personality because they're just there to work for the guild, not really caring about the main characters. Something like X-COM is all about blank slate troops, but the troops feel alive in a way that most blank slate tactics games don't care about. They gain nicknames over the course of their career, which leads to the player caring for their units on a deeper level since they feel like their troops are actually human, not just faceless nobodies you brought in to fight the aliens.

Then we have the straightforward, bread-and-butter tactics games like Advance Wars. There is no greater definition of faceless, blank slate troops than games like Advance Wars. Sure, there are pre-determined generals that have their own unique bonuses and stories, but the troops you use in battle are nothing but faceless troops that have no names, no personality, nothing to care about. Aside from not wanting a unit to die for tactical reasons, there's no reason to care if Rifleman C gets offed by Artillery A, just buy a new Rifleman and get back out there.

As with most things in the RPG sector, it really depends on how much imagination the player has.

I've found that a lot of people who lack imagination are the ones who complain when the game doesn't explicitly hold their hand and tell them everything.

I enjoy a game exponentially more when the game leaves chunks of blank information to activate my imagination. That way, I fill in the blanks however I choose and my personal story is of far more interest to me than anything some other person could have come up with. In the original Xcom I had two characters that I would always pair together on ops because of their loadouts. I then, naturally, imagined they were a couple since they were a man and a woman. Halfwayt hrough the campaign, the guy was mind controlled by an alien and murdered the girl. IT was 10 times as emotionally affecting to me as Aerith dying in Final Fantasy.

i know this is pretty old but, oh well. i prefer pre-determined units, but with blank state choices for development, eg ramza final fantasy tactics, completely blank state characters are fine, but i'd rather have a story, something like dark wizard is fun because you have your main lord, and theres a little bit of a story, however your entire army consists of completely blank slate units and it lets you just kind of use your imagination and kind of create your own story i guess lol.