Why "Good" Character Creators Still Aren't Good Enough

I take an inordinate, staggeringly excessive amount of time on the character creator screen. Intensely Weighing the pros and cons of Nose 3 vs Nose 7, and toying with the forehead depth slider until 3 hours have gone by. I have even been known to re-roll a character after 10 solid hours of gameplay because "his face just isn't right". Yet every game consisting of a character creator worth its salt has yet to make me feel like this exhaustive nitpicking was worth my time.

I'll take Fallout 4 as an example. I commend Bethesda for presenting their character creator in a unique way that fits with their universe and allows me a new wealth of options to twist and contort my sole survivor's facial features a la the Mario 64 intro screen. I can create a handsome leading man or a disfigured human tragedy with bruising and blemishes rivaling those of Rory MacDonald after his Welterwight loss to Robby Lawler. However, Fallout 4 ties all of the NPC interactions to your character's stats and not their appearance. Meaning, you could take your unfortunate mutant, give him 10 Charisma and, Whamo! You're a lady-killing bachelor of the wastes!

Granted, there is humor in watching NPCs carry on normal conversations with your horrific player character as though his appearance isn't noteworthy. Even more so if you're willing to believe it's social norms and not limits of the game's writing preventing them from reacting to you. However, the onus is on the player to create this enjoyment for themselves. The game misses a golden opportunity to craft a more unique experience. The moments when previous Fallouts have offered unique dialog choices depending on your character's low intelligence or high brutish strength are some of the most rewarding and enjoyable out there. The times when scientists took a rude, patronizing tone with my intelligence 1 vault dummy drew me farther in and left me more satisfied with his journey through the game. But these tailored moments were in response to stat values and perk choices, and would be the exact same if my character had two completely different physical appearances.

Herein lies my problem not just with Bethesda RPGs but with many games offering character creation. Beyond just the paint job for the vehicle through which I experience the game, there is no gameplay influence to the choices I spend so much time making. Choosing between Exo, Awoken, or Human in Destiny offers no impact to your Guardian's journey other than "what does your space dude's space dude face look like?". Giving my vault dweller a Rick Ross body and an upside-down face changes nothing about how he engages with other NPCs or how he moves about in combat. The overall gameplay should do more to determine whether or not a character creator is "good" than the number of body parts it lets you customize. Shouldn't a fat character move and animate differently than one with a fitter build? And even if the Elephant Man had all the charisma in the world, wouldn't he have a little more resistance in seducing the bar's enchanting singer than one speech check?

I thought about this after watching Jeff and Dan play around with Black Desert Online, a game that many would consider having a "good" character creator. But all these customization options do nothing for me if the game doesn't acknowledge the crazy circus clown those duders spent 30+ minutes crafting. Given her appearance, NPCs would be pointing out where to get a haircut, or maybe have some of her bones reset. She'd have access to a weird and unique combat style given the unfortunate position of her limbs during her idle animation.

I guess I'm asking game developers out there to throw me a bone. Give this chronic nitpicker a reward for sifting through the 70 cheekbone styles you've provided. Maybe just a bit of ambient dialogue pointing out how "On Fleek" my "Eyebrow 51"s are. Penalize my vault dweller's jumping height in response to the large beer gut and tiny calves I tricked him out with.

Make my choices matter.

Do you duders agree? Disagree? Any games out there actually achieve this level of feedback?

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Won't happen due to the extra work involved. Bethesda's too busy spending resources allowing things like this to happen.

@csl316: It's a lofty ask, no doubt. And I'd hate to take away anyone's flying sabrecats but still... can't a boy dream?

Also thanks for reminding me of that incredible moment in GB history

That's an obscene number of variables to account for. Games aren't films, they aren't book, they aren't static. Every interaction like that has to be created and implemented and all those variables have to be accounted for.

Height and weight (and I think muscle level) have effects in dragons dogma from what i remember. Same for NBA 2k

I'm absolutely fine with character creators that serve purely an aesthetic function, but there is some merit to this concept in sandbox RPGs. This is one of the big differences between Tabletop RPGs and video games, but I'm not sure how economical it would be to tailor story or mechanics to character design in a way that is actually significant (because no one is going to care about ambient dialogue after 10 hours).

I'm also not on board with any situation where the character creator starts judging characters. If a game ever tells me it thinks my characters are too waifish to have 50 strength I'd be pissed.

@dookierope: That's totally fair. And there's no way I'm not gonna be able to armchair design a solution. I would like to check out games that have tried this on a smaller scale though to see what's out there now. Maybe it's something that can be built on going forward

What the merely aesthetic character creators do allow for are tiny, weak calved, toddler bodied player characters to jump as high and punch as hard as you please. Which I admit is a feature that I wouldn't want to go away either. But if the game were allowed to judge you through dialog/ambient dialog and NPCs that react to your "waifishness" but then let you spec into 50 strength anyway, and let you throw sick 50 strength uppercuts at the NPC buillies, it'd be totally rad**.

**pieintheskydisclaimer

Lots of games have specific reactions based on your gender/race. I think being too meticulous would actually be detrimental, especially if we're talking about big gameplay consequences. Take your weight example: how far would you take it? If you have a beer gut, a heap of gold jewellery, 10 kilos of hair product, a really big nose, etc... would you get to a point where your character is inherently unable to move?

Cosmetic stuff would be fine though. Maybe if you have some kind of glasses/hat/accessories that are tagged as being 'ridiculous', then characters might say "woah, what the hell are you wearing??" or something like that.

Also, there was definitely some acknowledgement of what you're wearing / got equipped in Undertale:

I totally agree. The problem with those character creators is the ludo-- ludonar-- ludonarra dis-- ack! Nevermind!

The most recent game that I noticed this the most is in Dragon's Dogma. It's not explicitly said, but the story seems to kind of assume that the player is of a certain age, while I am playing a fairly old man. I feel like some parts of the game would be a little weird if the main character is an underaged person. I also noticed in the few hours of Black Desert that I played that some of the NPC refer to my character (a Valkyrie) as a man. They don't really have gameplay repercussions (Dragon's Dogma does account height and weight into the gameplay, at least), but it does make it look like they didn't think the character creation options through that well.

I think character creators in text-heavy games like interactive fiction and simulation games are more successful in this factor. They are often more focused in character concepts rather than direct appearance and accommodate them through writing. But then it's easier to do since you don't often get to see them visually and it's often less granular. Something like Crusader Kings come to mind. I also like how in games like CK and Fallen London, the character creation is sort of an ongoing process with the player filling in the blanks as they come up and developing the character further.

This was the case in the Fable games, or at least 2 & 3. Though you couldn't customise your character's face, the clothing you would wear, alongside whatever facial hair and accessories you would put on, would bring about reactions from the populace.

And if we were to also include the less granular cosmetics customisations such as race and gender, then Dragon Age: Origins is a prime example of a world that'll react differently to your character based upon such variables.

I have to agree, games reacting to the players work is a must for the future. Of course it has to be within certain boundaries. I can image a person making themself in game and being quite proud until all the NPCs start to call your creation ugly, fat, or too pear shaped.

At the very baseline, I think character creation as a process need to ask a few more questions at the end of the process before the player commits. The obvious questions are gender, sexual orientation, and age that the player must choose to define these variables. But I also think the player should define how they want the NPCs to 'see' the character in terms of body image, attractiveness, intelligence.

Sonce, it is up to the player, only they can insult themselves. The player makes those choices, not the game, so any NPC reaction are defined/locked by the player's choices. If the player wants a obese character thought of as thin that is up to the player. If they want to define their character as beautiful or ugly that is up to the player.

This may seem too complex, but keep in mind much of this is just used for flavoring and wording that just slots into the use of gender, pronouns, and other choices that some games already track. The above system is just more accurate by being explicitly defined by the player.

I probably wouldn't want games to judge the created character's appearance, but it could probably be handled pretty well by a Fallout 1/2 style perk system (there may even have been perks like these in those games, though you had pretty limited influence over the how your character looked in those early Fallouts). I absolutely seem to recall some 90's RPG where you could choose something like "exceptionally ugly", which would lower your charisma and change some dialog but give you additional weapon proficiency points or stuff like that, but I can't recall right now if it was Fallout or some other similar game of that era.

@fisk0: I suppose that's not too dissimilar to setting your character's intelligence to the lowest possible in Fallout, which dramatically changes how characters react to you:

As people said before, having extra animations for different body types and so on would probably be too much work, but I think you've hit on something I've always felt with this post. Regarding how NPCs react to your character, I've always kind of lamented the fact that you're very rarely given more than a binary range of options. Instead of NPCs remarking on my goodness or evilness, I'd like to see a game where the lines between responses are drawn across character archetypes. If I'm a rogue, I want people to be initially distrusting of me and occasionally charmed by me. If I'm a royal prince, I want people unhappily kowtowing to me and occasionally throwing chairs at me in protest. I want a game that accounts for my outward appearance as a specific archetype, even if I'm attempting to break the mold by being good/evil. I want my characters to be prejudged or misunderstood by the people who rationally come to those wrong conclusions. Again, more work, but it's how I feel about character customization nonetheless.

@claybrez: I guess this is something that tabletop rpgs can provide so easily that we take for granted. The closest I have seen this done has been Skyrim, where the town guards will sometimes comment on your character's skills as you pass by. Giving a "Stay out of trouble sneakthief" or "Think you could enchant this old sword for me?" depending on which skills you have specialized in. And even allowing townsfolk to make different comments depending on your character's race. However, I would like to see your character's appearance have more impact than small pieces of ambient dialog. Perhaps even providing large quest consequences or rewards depending on your archetype.

This idea wouldn't work, certainly not in the near future anyway. There are two big problems that I see.

Problem the first: How do you teach a computer how to interpret whether or not someone is attractive? Why is this particular configuration of facial features so much more attractive than that almost identical configuration? There is a reason why humans have a whole bit of their brain dedicated to processing facial features, we all look nearly identical.

Problem the second: What sort of comments do you want npcs to make about the PC? Lets say you make a fat pc. Do you think it's ok for an NPC to walk up to you and say 'Hey there fatty fat fat chops! You're a real fat fucker aren't you?'. I don't think people are gonna be ok with that. The same thing applies if they are ugly. What about if your character likes cross dressing, should NPCs comment on that? This whole thing would just be too potentially divisive in an age where computer games get knocked for being too juvenile and old fashioned in their attitudes.

Maybe if you had a system that generated their appearance based on their stats? Stronger characters are more muscled etc. Where you'd hit a problem there though is what do you do with charismatic characters? Make their avatar prettier? Is that all charisma is? Ya I dunnow. I don't think this kind of thing would work.

Look if you're saying putting sabrecats into orbit isnt a worthy use of dev time you're just plain WRONG my friend.

How about a game world where it's like that episode of the Twilight Zone where you are considered hot if you have a pig face, so you have to add some garish feature to your character to be seen as pretty? There are ways you could get at this stuff if you want to do it a bit differently than most out there.

If you had a new RPG in say the Witcher universe where you made any character, imagine if you could choose elf or dwarf but then experienced the persecution and racism that both face in the games (perhaps though getting alternate benefits like the aid of Scoia'tael). It could be much more than "hey are you attractive" and that seems like the worst way to go at the issue. But that can be simplified even. Hair matters a lot. Perhaps you need a certain fancy hairstyle and outfit to be seen as good looking around the rich part of town. Even that kind of thing would be novel to most games with character customization.

As far as bodies animating and mattering, as mentioned by @oursin_360 I have to shout out 2K. Especially 16 this year is really impressive that way. They finally have the length and wingspan of the players done accurately and it makes a big difference to the game. The really tall, long players really feel like it this year, especially under the rim where they can finally very easily finish just about any dunk if they have an angle. Also the tall players with jump shots shine by shooting over guys finally. The animation still works really well with it too and you can kind of see how it works if you play the game for hundreds of hours like I do. Occasionally you see a big guy like Kareem get his long arm caught on some guys head and it kind of bugs for a second but even that usually adjusts into some kind of animation. Hopefully that technology keeps spreading down the line.

I think derogatory comments from NPCs are ok if they fit in the world they have crafted. If a group of raiders or a skeezy underground gang were calling me a fat loser as I walked around their camp, I'd think "Man those guys are dicks" and be left with the sense that this world has more character to it. I'd assume the priest at the shrine to Kinareth wouldn't be throwing serious shade at my character's full figure. I don't think I'd like it if everyone were bullying my character because I don't think that would contribute to a game world that is well realized.

Good post and I would like that as well. I was kind of hoping that Pillars of Eternity would be that way because they gave most of their sub classes so much background. Like imagine if the Bleak Walkers were treated how they should be given their lore. But it's a bigger thing to attempt and I hope developers do.

You're right about more work. It'd be cool to see this kind of thing in something much more sim/sandboxy like Mount and Blade or I think there should be more games in the style of Way of the Samurai in the RPG space that could do cool stuff with the world reacting to you since it would be a shorter, but replayable, RPG.

I believe that the technology actually does exist to algorithmically determine whether a set of facial features would be considered attractive - sort of a machine learning approach to the process, and it would be interesting to see how well that could be mechanically incorporated into a game. At the same time, there is potential for some unintended consequences. What if a person meticulously tries to recreate their own features and the algorithm decides that NPCs will treat them as fuck ugly? What kind of outrage with the socially sensitive will it create if the game rewards you for creating a virtual Barbie with all the game's NPCs buying you gifts and giving you a pass (pun intended) when you try to bluff your way past them?

I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, that is sort of an interesting direction for you to go, but the number of people who actually want NPC's reactions to their character to be something other than "Yeah, this person is heroic and attractive enough to bang" is probably pretty small. That is, aside from the ones who don't care at all.

@saladbone: Hey I agree with you, they could certainly add some good flavour. But no studio is going to bring a game out in 2016+ with dialogue like that in it. Not a fucking hope in hell. It's way too risky and public opinion could turn really hard on a game where a character could be fat shamed or bullied etc etc.

What immediately springs to mind is Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas

While not being a character creator in the way you envisaged, it did enable the player to "sculpt" CJ to be the way they wanted. Depending on the way the player chose to have their CJ appear, it would have many gameplay consequences from simply determining his ability to climb the terrain to even which NPC he would be able to date and receive rewards from (some had preferences of body type).

All the way through, NPCs would also comment on not only CJs appearance in negative or positive terms, but also the appearance of the vehicle he was in.

That's a good call too. Too bad they abandoned that because it was really interesting. That "sculpt" thing you bring up is an interesting approach that isn't used often enough. It allows for some of this idea with a baseline for what the character has to be, which probably helps.

Skyrim had lots of different things that guards could react to with a line of dialogue, and your character race was one of them. Also things like weapons and skills.

So you could imagine them doing that for hair style or scars and things like that.

Although I don't see them having NPCs just straight up call your character ugly. What if someone tried to make the character look like themselves!

I'd like that always if it was just quips here and there or some really mild stat boosts but nothing too serious. Whether male or female, I try to make my characters as super hot as possible for in a good or evil (the beautifullest half-demon, overly pale woman with blood red eyes and cracking skin/scars you've ever seen). To some degree it'd be cool if that mattered but then in another way I don't want to be locked in to gameplay systems and permastats just because I wanted the character to look cool.

Especially when I'm probably having to make the character before I've played the game and even know how I want the stats or how I'll need them to make my build (which I may not even have a real plan for until like 5-10 levels deep) work.

@wacomole: yea yea totally the kind of thing I had in mind, thanks! I wonder if this could be scaled up to a player character with more customization options available.

The give and take between customized, tailored game feedback and the subsequent increase in limiting factors has been interesting to read through in everyone's responses. I guess that balance just varies between the kind of game the developer wants to make.

I'm thoroughly surprised that nobody has mentioned the poster child for this issue: Spore. That game was supposed to be one where all your little tweaks and customizations were important for the development of your creature, in a similar fashion to, say, evolution; instead, everything boiled down to a five-point scale of slowly increasing numbers in borderline brain-dead interactions that were often a binary decision. Your careful creature creation was rendered utterly meaningless, because a blob with ten of the highest-level parts hastily glued to it and turned backwards and inside-out would destroy your anatomically correct recreation of a superpredator in ten second flat. What a miserable excuse for a game and a terrible way to force Will Wright out of the industry entirely.

God could you even imagine the shitfight that result if a player made a character that is what they are attracted to but the gamw determined it ugly? Honestly in RPGs if your bodytype doesnt match your spec that's kind of on the player. If you want your character to be ugly spec low char to go with your burned face. It seems an odd complaint to say "when I deliberately subvert the system it becomes subverted". Or play a halforc in Arcanem.

You guys all bring up valid points that I honestly didn't consider. However, I don't want the focus to be strictly on the game's ability to intuit "attractiveness".

Like @artisanbreads said:

I think there are opportunities to give feedback to the player in a way that is rooted in the world they heave created. But I can't ignore something like public outcry and I would only hope the public wouldn't get caught up in the sexy headline of "This Game Thinks You're Ugly" and appreciate what the game is going for.

A computer can't tell when you're ugly.

What if a game let you decide your starting stats, class, etc., and then let you decide your appearance with restrictions based on those? That could work.

I am not really for this whole concept, though. I have always played Dark Souls as a short, scrawny woman who wields ultra greatswords.

Character creators were neat in the 90s, but now I don't care. I rarely see my characters face and don't want to bother taking an hour to make a face. Just give me good defaults or a cool hat.