Why I Love Creating Characters, and Why They Let Me Down

Dragon Age

I have a problem. I'm addicted to character creation.

Find me a game with a full-featured set of character options, and I'll gladly waste hours upon hours on it. I'll tinker with all the different classes, races, genders, and appearances. I'm even that guy who pulls on every slider for every facial aspect.

Ever play City of Heroes? I easily spent three hours on costumes before setting foot in Paragon City. I took so long making my Grey Warden in Dragon Age that my roommate had to leave the room due to extreme boredom. And I filled out the G.O.A.T. four times before leaving the Vault in Fallout 3.

And here's the worst part: I almost never use these characters for a full playthrough. They lie fallow, undeveloped, wasting away. And I think it's because their reality never lives up to their potential in my head.

See, when I create the avatar myself, I have all sorts of ideas and possibilities for him. I think of his backstory, his motivations, what he would think and do in given situations. But when it comes to playing that person in the game world, I never seem to retain that same emotional attachment. No matter how complex the dialogue trees or how many outcomes the game offers, I still end up feeling disappointed.

On the other hand, when I'm playing a specific role with already established characteristics and backstory, I find it easy to identify with -- even if the character is mute. I feel for Wander from Shadow of the Colossus much more than I did my half-elf ranger from Neverwinter Nights, even though the latter is by far the deeper "role-playing" experience. Even if the characters are shallow or silly, I end up remembering them more fondly than those I made myself.

I think this is a real challenge for video games -- they have to simultaneously allow for freedom of choice and individual play, while telling a cohesive and finite story. They have to let you make a character of your own design, and then make it fit the world and plot they've already created. Not an easy task.

For example, take the BioWare template. It doesn't really matter that my Jedi Sentinel in Knights of the Old Republic has four different dialogue options if none of them sound like something my Jedi Sentinel would say. I'd almost rather have the game just script it for me. Or -- and I know this is unrealistic, but I can dream -- even gauge what my response should be based on the other actions I've previously taken.

The thing is, no matter how much freedom we're given in a game, the ultimate authorship of the story still rests with the game's creators. Maybe that's why I'm OK with the linearity of a game like Final Fantasy 13, or the cinematic nature of Metal Gear Solid.

I don't mind being told a story. I just don't want to pretend I'm making my own when I'm really not.

Tags: Fallout 3, Metal Gear Solid, Shadow of the Colossus, City of Heroes, Final Fantasy 13, Dragon Age: Origins, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights

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Christian Higley

October 08, 2010

I spent three hours creating The 10th Doctor in 3D Dot Game Heroes. I played the game for two hours and sent it back to GameFly.

I sympathize.

Personally, though I agree that I don't "feel" for my created characters as I do for written ones, I do vastly prefer to build my own narrative in a game, rather than have one told to me. I feel that Mass Effect straddles the line and gets it right. There are certain things about Shepard that are set in stone: he/she's always the "good" guy, he/she always comes from one of a limited set of a backstories, etc. But as the player, you inform Shepard's personality, through your actions. You aren't creating a narrative from scratch, but rather, you're given a pre-made outline and left to fill it out.

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Layton Shumway

@Christian: Unfortunately (inexcusably!) I haven't played Mass Effect yet. That could very well change my mind; from your description it sounds like it strikes the right balance.

Kai Su

October 09, 2010

I'm with you. I am endlessly fascinated by character creation tools - almost any game that has one I will be interested in even if I know the actual game may be lacking or even downright terrible.

However, I'm able to seperate the character creation process from the character development in the actual game - in most games the customization is purely a matter of physical appearance, which I can accept as having next to no bearing on how the character will be interacting with the game world. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large the lack of connection I feel with custom-created characters compared with pre-defined ones is something I attribute to the open-ended design of most games that feature in-depth character customization options (non-linear western RPGs, MMOs, etc) rather than just because the character is created by me.

Ben Villarreal

I'm also glad to hear I'm not the only one who spends hours on this stuff, haha!

Andrew Wilson

October 10, 2010

I hate character creation for a more fundamental reason: there's no character creation tool which really lets you make an aesthetically pleasing character. The hair is the worst, it's basically several varieties of helmet-head or bed-head. Plus, in the kind of games that have it, your face is just going to be obscured by a helmet.

I also agree with Kai Su that I don't feel "connected" to my main character in such games. Part of that is that the characters in the game world generally don't respond to the player character unless they're attacking you. It's sometimes like you're a floating camera.