On Making Videogame Heroes, Villains Realistic

Thanks to the IGDA for its 'Culture Clash' column discussing the increasingly complex nature of heroism and villainy in videogames. The writer suggests: "The white hat/black hat dichotomy of heroes and villains (PC and NPC) in most games is no longer sufficiently believable to the player, but is still theoretically acceptable given the earlier limitations of the medium", and goes on to argue: "Audiences respond poorly to blatant noseleading, and increasingly demand escalating shades of gray." Do you enjoy stereotypical portrayals of good and evil in gaming, or do you find, as Daryl Zero needed to be told: "You realize... there aren't any 'good guys' and 'bad guys'... there are just... just a bunch of guys"?

Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[Absurd Being]

Good characterization (making those shades of grey) takes time. The player's time. So it becomes a tradeoff. To make a good story, you have to usually cut into the time you're actually playing the game (cut scenes, etc). At its forefront, the game is still the most important part. Otherwise you're just watching a movie. The key to all of this is finding some way to integrate the character development/story development into the game action itself.

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[fwitness]

Yeah, this goes with yesterday's article on episodic content. Games are still very much technology demos. Players want to see new graphics and cool new gameplay elements with each iteration. However, if we had a game that settled those up front, then released the story later, maybe then we could do more with character development.

Keep in mind that a significant part of any game (10% or so) still must be devoted to teaching the player how to control the main character. This would actually be an excellent time to start fleshing out the details of the story. Most games do this today, but some still offer the tried and true "training ground" which is exactly what it says it is, nothing more.

Have you ever sat there and watched your girlfriends favorite soap opera? Or someone else's girlfriends if need be. You can't understand a thing that's going on because of the massive amount of story development has gone in the years that you never saw. However, watch for a few weeks and you have a character that keeps people returning for *years*. Too bad most of the soaps out there have a story so bad I wind up watching Sesame Street to fill my mind with a more believable story. Anyway, episodic content would allow give the player more time in the story, and hence, character development.

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[ooby]

If 10% of any of the games I played were devoted to learning how to play them, they would be very short games. I would estimate that 10 or 20 mins in any game is ample time to learn how to play it. Given that games usually take longer than 4 hours to beat the first time (some take 50), that's less than 10%.

When it comes to character development, it doesn't always have to occur in a cut scene. For instance, in Max Payne, Max thinks about what's going on while you are walking through a building, or shoot-dod

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[fwitness]

Yeah, 10% is pretty high. But it depends on the game itself. Vice City is a good example. I'm not sure on it's entire length, but there is a lot of complex control there, with all the different weapons and autos/cycles. Probably takes a good 2 - 2.5 hours for a non-casual gamer to master. I guess that's probably more like 5%, figuring that the game is 40 hours or so. However, for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, I'm about 15 hours in and I'm *still* figuring out little bits of the control mechanisms on managing the party and such.

On the other point, Payne is a great example of how to do character development in-game, without removing the player from the experience. I think another excellent example is Metroid Prime. The only game I know of that has good character dev *without* characters. If you scan all the computers, which you do while playing, there is a huge story that you are finding out about along with Samus. That gives the game a great feel of investigation and suspense.

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[drakaan]

If all you ever play is FPS-type games, I can see how you'd think that. I've played plenty of games (Pick your favorite Mario-world title starting with the SNES platform, 1080 Avalanche, warcraft, starcraft, command and conquer, Master of Orion, etc.) where 4 hours is just a good intro into how not to get killed repeatedly or how to do something useful. If I bought a game that I could beat in 4 hours, I'd want my money back.

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[ooby]

When I was talking 4 hours, I meant games like Resident Evil. And even when I played Resident Evil games the first time, it tool me 12 hours. To support your final argument, a game that can easily be beaten in 4 hours is The Bouncer. I bought it used and still wanted my money back. On the other hand, it takes less than a half hour to beat Super Mario Bros.

Furthermore, Starcraft was released years ago and people still love playing it. Those four hours it took to learn how to build everything is just a dro

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[gl4ss]

there's no reason why the cutscenes couldn't feel like they were a part of the game(well, they wouldnt be cutscenes then I guess).

in truly immersive(from story point of view) game there's no cutscenes, you're 'playing' the game all the time, not solving a puzzle after another to see some video clips(wing commanders being prime example of play a mission, watch a cutscene genre).

if the cutscenes are worth watching then they're ok. but the good thing about that is that the game can still be good even if the

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[fwitness]

(a sucky game can't be salvaged with bunch of cutscenes though, even if they had porn).

Ever look into the stunning array of Japanese arcade/console games that feature what amounts to soft porn? Or how about anal intrusion [syberpunk.com] as an entire *game*?

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[gl4ss]

hah.. that game sure sums up the japanese.

and actually some of the games with explicit japanese nude drawings are pretty good gameplay wise(usually they have multiple plotlines too so you have to play them through like 20+ times before having opened everything, if you could combine that with western adventure games then you would be onto something brilliant).

Re:Video gaming's sorta like moviemaking.

[Xzzy]

> To make a good story, you have to usually cut into the time you're actually playing the game (cut scenes, etc).

Not always. Think back to Marathon. The terminals were part of the game, and were the major source of all the characterization. They were for the most part the "cutscenes" of the game, but they never EVER felt like one. Your mission info, the story line, the reasons the player should care about the story, everything, game from those simple text terminals. Finding a terminal was like a breath of fresh air, in the back of your head you were hoping THIS one would finally answer all the questions. But no, it just presented new problems.

Marathon was also amazing in the sense that it never really told you who you are. There were hints, which fans have since endlessly debated, but it left wiggle room for a player to assign his own values and virtues to the character he's playing. Marathon's sucessor in spirit, Halo, gives a decent example of how easy the balance is to screw up. Don't get me wrong I had a blast running through Halo the first time, but it is nowhere near the caliber of what Marathon was.

It's quite simple to summarize: Games cannot be missions with an obvious point A to point B. Even if there is only one route through a map, the player needs to be able to feel like he's charting his own course and cannot be aware of what is around the next corner. Marathon did that, Halo did not (well except in that map where you first discovered the Flood, that was an amazing mission).

Games these days are too commonly a narrative. It permits you do take care of the details of running from room to room but the story always tells you who you are and what is going to happen in well defined doses. The mark of a great game is one that does this, but doesn't reveal that it is doing so to the player. Games have to leave the "cutscenes" to dictating the problems of the current situation, and leave the resolutions to the actual play. If a game finds itself finishing a mission with a "tells all" narrative, it has failed.

IMO that is. ;)

Marathon did a number of things right

[0x0d0a]

I think that if I had to summarize the reason Marathon's story made such a huge impression on everyone (and spawned the massive Marathon Story) site and many thousands of posts of sophisticated discussion in two words, I'd use "subtle" and "deep".

Marathon made a number of very subtle, minor allusions, clues to figuring out the full story. It did not come out and simply say "Durandal is a bad computer who is insane. You need to work with him." or something like that. It let you discover the plot as you went through tidbits dropped. You couldn't just read the story by going through the terminals and appending one to another -- each is a non-chronologically sequential piece of information that generally fits into the story somehow. It's quite Myth-like, though with a far more complex story.

Marathon's plot is very deep for such a subtle one -- there are a *phenomenal* number of references to literature, history, mythology, contemporary weapons technology, psychology, etc, that you need to look up to understand fine points of what the authors were getting at. You might find yourself reading a news article on the sociology of a Martian political group that gives some insight into the background of what happend and the reason things occurred. Because it took such expertise to figure the story out, it spawned a vast number of (sometimes occasional) players who wrote interesting analyses from their own area of expertise to help the community figure out what Bungie had written.

Even better, you didn't *have* to pay attention to the story if you didn't want to. You weren't forced to rely on the story much to figure out what to do in the game. You could play Marathon as a straight action game if you wanted to, and weren't interested in the story, but if you wanted to get into the story, it was appealing and there. This made the game appealing to a broad audience.

If I could choose two more elements, probably less important, that made Marathon good, it would be darkness and plausibility.

The Marathon comments were frequently very dark (a trend that progressed as the series continued). They referred to deaths and killings quite seriously. They referenced massacres and insanity, and not in a offhandish way in the least. They also did not generally say "someone is insane" -- they let you figure it out for yourself, by reading their thoughts or what happened. One of the darkest is the infamous Gheritt White [mac-boy.com] terminal. This is one of the darkest and most disturbing texts that I think I've ever read in a video game -- much more intimidating than the short and violence-glorifying snippits in Postal. That single terminal alone spawned *vast* amounts of discussion and analysis [bungie.org]. When elements in Marathon II and Infinity (like the pocketknife/broadsword terminal) start their own story threads that start out reasonable and get darker, you can really feel a kind of shocked surprise. If you're playing by yourself, late at night and in the dark, (and have just survived creeping through dark hallways with silent things drifting down them and around corners and out of the darkness) your words are probably much like mine -- "Oh, *man*". The only games that I think have competed with Marathon in terms of slowly, horrifyingly uncovering what happened are adventure games -- like Myth -- and I've yet to see an adventure game with the subtlety of Marathon.

Marathon is also plausible. There were, to be fair, errors. However, Marathon's story underwent the most extensive analysis I've ever seen a story undergo. I doubt that books undergo such work, especially given the size of the crowd looking for errors. Like Snow Crash, much of the computer technology in the series is at least acceptably plausible. Real terms are used, references to current technologies are used. It means that programmers don't have to constantly wince when playing the game, which is truly wonderful and unusual for a st

Re:Marathon did a number of things right

[0x0d0a]

Argh. Bungie on the brain. Substitute "Myst" for "Myth" in the article.

Video gaming is not like moviemaking

[cgenman]

To make a good story, you have to usually cut into the time you're actually playing the game (cut scenes, etc). At its forefront, the game is still the most important part.

I think there is a key distinction that needs to be made... Character development does not necessarily equal cut scenes. Lunar had an awesome bit of character development at the end of the game where the player came across (the evil nemesis) Ghaleon's fairy garden. These fairies all thought their caretaker was the kindest man they had ever met, and was blissfully unaware of his dark ambition to rule the world. That didn't happen as a cut scene, that happened at a much needed heal-and-save rest stop. In the following game, Ghaleon joins your party for a short time, sacrificing his temporary reprieve from death to save the world he wanted to rule.

There are other examples, of course. When a key figure either defends / attacks a boss enemy, lurks in the trees following your character, etc. Hockey Mask guy (Rick) from Splatterhouse killed his own girlfriend, then went insane and jumped into the house's womb.

Most characters are tacked onto a game design... praying by ye-gods scroll boss then doing something original in the cut scenes. But they work much better when it is integrated into the gameplay. You could have Kain go into a lengthy diatribe against God and Able, and kill his brother in a cut scene, but you and your players would be better served if they were allowed to play a level as Kain fighting through an insane heaven / earth mishmash in his quixotic quest to dethrone an evil god. Perhaps the evil female love interest in the game takes good care of her mentally disabled brother (who helps her out in the fight), or the evil overlord's last words are to implore you to take care of his children (whom you kill in the next room). These things build original characters in a timely fashion that can be integrated into gameplay better than a 5 minute diatribe about their childhood. Want to show someone was abused? Give them a limp. Want to humanize the giant monster destroying Tokyo? Give them a Pukka charm bangle.

And if you want to flesh out a character's backstory in a cut scene... Don't. Think about your idea again and redo it in-game.

Game-dependent?

[Cychwyn]

Would that not depend on the kind of game you play? For RPG:s multi-shade characters would work very well, and I would appreciate the variation (not just grey, bring on the whole colour-spectrum!), but for shoot-em-ups, isn't part of the premise that the characters you are shooting by the dozen are totally evil? War-games would be different again, "enemies" in that sense are also just people, but there is a war on. I'm talking your average kill-everything-in-sight game where you would not necessarily be wanting to justify your actions other than by "but they're *evil*".

CBFD

[dmayle]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was an execellent example of this. Though it's shades of grey had more to do with winning and losing than with good guys and bad guys.

For those who aren't familiar, the game ends with Conker "winning" by defeating the bad guy, but his girlfriend died in the process, so the game ends with him at a bar, asking for a bottle of whiskey...

You can forget all of the dick and fart jokes, what made CBFD a mature title was it's thoroughly morose ending.

Re:CBFD

[kisrael]

More specifically (SPOILERS)

he lost his girlfriend, but then gets out of the final jam by breaking the fourth wall and promising not to report the game designer's bug if he gets saved. Afterwards, he realized he chould've and should've asked for the girl to be brought back as well.

Admitedly, that's darker than some endings, but I don't think it's all that deep. (I guess I forgot the post-credits return to the bar for whisky) And it definately doesn't make up for the poor writing and bad delivery that le

Re:CBFD

[Tetrad_of_doom]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was an excellent game on many levels. Not only was it one of the best platform games I've ever played, it was also the funniest, having the best in game paradies I have ever seen. And just when you thought the game was a comedy, bam, they hit you with a dramatic ending. I can't think of a character in the game that evil for evil's sake. Some of the villians were motivated by greed; some by the need of a new table; and at least one just wanted some sweet corn, but all the villians ac

Evil does not think itself evil

[wowbagger]

I've said it before, and I shall now say it again:

Evil does not think itself evil

While villans in cheap movies may rub their hands together and cackle about how eeeeeeviiiil they are, in the real world those who do evil do not see themselves as evil.

The pusher on the corner doesn't see himself as evil, "Yo, I'm just givin' folks what they want."

Saddam did not see himself as evil, "I am maintaining order in my country - this person is a threat to that order, and to prevent others from becoming threats I must make an example of him. Uday, turn on the wood chipper."

Darl McBride does not see himself as evil, "I am running a business. This is my chance to make money."

If you want your villans to be believable, try to get inside their heads and make their actions make sense from their perspective. It's taxing, it's scary, but it makes for a believable villan.

Funny...

[*weasel]

Tolkien seemed to do just fine with caricaturized good and evil. I believe Sauron and Saruman were well aware that they were unquestionably evil.

It's bad story that gamers don't like. Characterization is part of that, but really, how characterized was a disembodied eye?

"lidless, wreathed in flame," was about it.

But the story (for most people) was captivating, despite its apparent 'simplicity'. 'Believable' villians are only a requirement if you're trying to craft a 'believeable' story.

and even then, self-delusion is not a set-in-stone requirement (Hannibal Lector).

As with any storytelling, there are no set rules, there are no silver bullets - there is only what works and what does not work. And no-one can tell you which is which by description alone. You must read the work to know where it lays on your subjective scale.

Trying to adhere to structure or processes that were defined via hindsight, doesn't guarantee future success - so why bother?

(You may argue with 3 act play, 9 part story, joseph campbell, et al. - but the overbundance of crap stories that adhere to those structures and the instances of good stories that don't use them already prove my point)

A storyteller should get inside every character's head, to make sure they're well-written. But self-justified evil is not a prerequisite of a well characterized Bad Guy.

it's also important to note the distinction between the disillusioned bad guy who thinks he's doing good, and the Bad Guy who realizes that his actions will be seen as evil, and perhaps are evil, but he still feels a compulsion to execute them anyway (the Borg, any Mob Boss, etc).

Re:Funny...

[wowbagger]

There is a world of difference between

"believing yourself to be evil"

and

"believing society believe you to be evil."

For example, while Hannibal know that he was viewed as evil by society (he was crazy, not stupid), he did not believe himself to be evil - he was a sociopath; he had no personal concept of evil, just "what do I want to do today?" (or rather, "Who do I want to eat today?")

Most fantasy villans believe their actions are correct, usually because "I am destined to rule", or "I will bring order to the world".

True, there are the crazyevil folks - the "I want to DESTROY EVERYTHING MUHAHAHAHA" types in fiction. However, crazyevil (and I am deliberately combining those two words) people aren't as threatening simply BECUASE they are crazy - they end up doing something stupid and thus losing. The Hans Gruber (Die Hard 1) bad guys, who are in control, cold, calculating, are FAR more dangerous than the Riff Raff "YOU NEVER LIKED ME!" crazyevil types. Riff might shoot you with the ZZ-Top AntiMatter Lazer (again, I misspelled that deliberately), but Hans will coldly let you think you are going free then blow you up.

Re:Funny...

[jbert]

Disagree. Saruman had lots of excuses for what he got up to. At least initially, he was doing the "we need power to fight power" argument.

Re:Funny...

[*weasel]

I seem to remember it more along the lines of "we need to be on the side that's going to win", though I'll admit I haven't read the books in years.

But my point was more along the lines of, when it was shown that Saruman was unquestionably a Bad Guy, Tolkien never characterized him as misunderstood.

Saruman wanted to let war and industry advance at the expense of purity, friendship and nature. Tolkien pulled no punches in staunchly characterizing war and industry as pure Evil.

Saruman knew Fangorn forest t

Re:Funny...

[bugbread]

I agree with you, but I think you may be mischaracterizing the initial parent. He isn't saying that evil people must be misunderstood or have valid motives, but that they must believe that they are not evil. In that sense, I agree with you, that they don't need to believe that they're not evil, as there are examples of good fantasy, etc. where characters realize they are evil (I'd say Sauron was a better example than Saruman). However, it's like breaking the fourth wall, or making your cowboy dress all i

Re:Funny...

[Rallion]

You have absolutely no idea how hard it is to resist the LotR debate. But that post would be many pages long.

Re:Funny...

[0x0d0a]

I dunno. I'm not a LoTR expert, but I'd say that Sauron isn't even much of a character -- he's kind of an abstract, a general badness. He never even personally *enters* the story. The only thing that really comes in is his gaze or a few remote words that act in kind of a vague hand-of-God mode -- you don't understand God's character from him lighting a couple of piles of soaked logs on fire in the Bible, you know? You don't expect the Devil to have character development, even if he exerts energies in a

Evil does not NORMALLY think of itself as evil

[voss]

Evil like good is not uniform.

Re:Evil does not NORMALLY think of itself as evil

[DjMd]

Ah, but Evil's uniforms are uniformly better than Good's uniforms.

Re:Evil does not think itself evil

[dwbassett42]

I agree with this point of view also. I like a quote of Orson Scott Card's, "Every villian is the hero of the story told from their own point of view." I think this applies for every character in the story, not just the protagonist and antagonist. Card explains how he uses this idea to make his characters realistic, instead of just making 'cookie cutter' characters.

Please, no "realistic"!

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer my villains to be the moustache-twirling, top-hat-and-cape wearing villains of yesteryear. You know, the type who tie young maidens to the train tracks, twirl their handlebar moustaches, and laugh that villainous laugh, "mwehehehehehehe!"

Deus Ex: Invisible War

[kaellinn18]

I think I agree with the point being made here. Deus Ex: Invisible War did a wonderful job of providing you a story with nothing but shades of grey. Technical difficulties aside, this is the only game I know of where there is no clear right/wrong path (feel free to suggest others). Even the first Deus Ex didn't do that. Playing even the first few maps of this game, you are confronted with a lot of possible paths you can take, most of which conflict with each other. I actually had a difficult time making decisions (as I probably would have if presented with similar choices in real life). So, yes, I believe that the future of gaming (or at least more realistic gaming) lies along this path.

Good examples

[mwheeler01]

a good example of bad guys who really weren't all that bad, save one is almost every character in Knight's of the Old Republic. A game that can be played in under 40 hours by me and takes the time to set up believable villians, most of which have very human sides to them. Another good example IMHO is Max from Max Payne. He could be considered a villian through the eyes of some but his motivations for what he does are so understandable that he's the hero in the games. This is a question of where do you draw the line between good and evil?

KotOR as a good example

[EddieBurkett]

Knights of the Old Republic did a decent job of portraying the NPC's in a mixed light. Of the *bad* guys, Canderous was the only one who came across as hyperactively violent, and that translated to an interpretation of his actions as *evil*. HK-47, while definitively evil, was a droid, so he was programmed as such, and his dialogue was mostly used as comic relief. The interesting thing about KotOR, though, is how the arrogance of the Jedi is portrayed. Bastila is so bossy and uptight when you finally meet her that, even though she's *good*, she almost seems like she should be evil. (I suppose that could be called foreshadowing of a sort.) I do agree with the article, though, that KotOR's method for *role-playing* as the PC is lacking. Having played through as light and dark, I found myself taking the over-the-top EVIL approach too often, to ensure my dark side status, as opposed to a more natural *evil* reaction. The problem is, as described with the kitten situation, there was always the blatant good option, the mercenary good option, and the KILL KILL KILL evil option, and I would have liked a more subtle method of being mean. I suppose I don't care would have been good, but picking that means not completing whatever task is at hand. I guess the ultimate problem is that in the choice between role-playing and completing a task in the game (be it attempting to do all the quests or maintain dark side mastery), I chose the tasks. Ultimately, that should not be such a visible choice.

Re:KotOR as a good example

[bugbread]

One of the things that bugged me about KOTOR was that there was that the Good/Evil hierarchy clearly placed "Cartoony Good" above "Actual Good" and "Cartoony Evil" above "Actual Evil". One example (which I'm sure I'm remembering wrong, as it's been a while, but which is nevertheless analogous to the kinds of choices in the game) is when you find a stowaway on your ship. If I remember right, you get the choices to kick the kid off the ship (kinda evil), tell the kid you'll try to find her parents, or tell

Re:Good examples

[0x0d0a]

Max is interesting, but remember that he isn't actually all that complex.

The idea of much of the content in Max Payne is to build up a stereotypical character from film noir/comic books. It's not unenjoyable, just that it shouldn't be confused with being all that sophisticated.

The reason we see Max Payne as "fairly good" is that most video games are "fairly bad" when it comes to characters.

Re:Good examples

[mwheeler01]

I agree he's kind of an homage to many character's in noir fiction. However my point was that his actions as a vigilante could just as easily put him in the roll of a villian in another crime dram. I think it's also worth pointing out that in The Fall of Max Payne you can acutally see an arc to his character which is unheard of in most action games of the same ilk.

Portrayal rather than nature

[Jon Peterson]

I think it's fine to have wholly evil and wholly good characters. The weakness is that these are usually portrayed unsubtly.

Games that indicate a character is evil by simply making them have some dastardly scheme to nuke the world, or by showing them killing innocent people and laughing, are just being lazy. The same goes for hereos and good characters.

So, in a game like Baldur's Gate II, I think it's fair to say that Minsk is basically a 100% good guy - but he has an interesting character so it works wel

Reminds me of an Interview

[Prien715]

The idea of a flawed hero reminds me of something Kevin Spacey said:
"'So in this film you play a flawed character,' and I go, 'as opposed to every human being in the rest of the world?'"

Gray characters are more interesting not only because they're more believable, but because they cause the player or viewer to reflect more on life itself. A movie or game which serves as a ringing endorsement for the status quo is really quite boring.

Planescape:Torment

[der_joachim]

(spoiler alert:) The Nameless One faces three "end bosses", a purely good one (an angel), a purely evil one (a hag) and a purely neutral one (a previous incarnation of the Nameless One himself IIRC). Just like the alignment system of 2nd ed AD&D. However, every one of them behaves in a manner atypical of "their" alignment. The hag played around with Nameless because she loves him and the angel has been corrupted into imprisoning an entire plane of existence.

Other incarnations of the Nameless One were either very good or very evil (one of them taught Ignus to burn haha).

Of course, finding out about the Nameless One's history was the point behins the whole game, and it is still the single best game I've ever played.

Re:Planescape:Torment

[Flyboy Connor]

Actually, I thought it very funny that the angel wields a sword that is restricted to Lawful Good alignment. While your own alignment in the game, being the Nameless One, shifts according to your actions, the angel, while performing outrageously evil acts, remains fixed at Lawful Good. The design of Planescape Torment is so good that I assume this is intentional, but it still is weird. I mean, Fall-From-Grace did fall from grace and was no longer evil. Perhaps this is because for Grace it was a conscious de

Of course they're evil...

[iainl]

Why else would I be shooting them? This isn't just about Good and Evil, but decent characterisation generally. Well crafted characters make a plot-based game better, without a shadow of a doubt.

But when your job is to shoot everything that moves, there's a lot to be said for "because they're evil" as a motivating factor. Mind you, I'm normally prepared to settle for "because you'll get a high score". Its why so many classic shmups involve Aliens; there isn't as much need to question why they need shooting, as they are just "the baddies". Intense moral dilemmas have their place, but vertical scrollers aren't it.

Re:Of course they're evil...

[Cychwyn]

Another aspect would be: how much time do you want to spend in one go with the game? If it's to fill a gap here and there (lunch-breaks spring to mind), then a completely developed story will be wasted, or even get in the way of the quick-fix game. How much do you remember of a detailed story, where the slightest detail matters, a week later? Perhaps not as much as you would need to fully enjoy a chromatic game. For the dedicated all-nighters and RPG-addicts, a fully developed story with believable, thou

Steal from the TV multi-episode industry

[0x0d0a]

Remember what TV series frequently do with multiple episode story arcs? They have a quick introduction to where the story left off when they resume. It'd be pretty easy to include an option to "brief me on the story". When you combine that with a Neverwinter Nights-style journal for more complex games and the ability to "look" or "get info" on something or someone and see a description and things that you've learned about it, you can pretty much stop and go whenever you want.

Remember that lots of people

Speaking of Sephiroth...

[Ukoku]

I've been saying for years that in the next Final Fantasy, you should play the antagonist. You know, you go the whole game trying to save the world, but in the end you realize you're the bad guy....

Then again, I think when they reach FFXX, the would should blow up after you save it.

But this discussion brings to mind what most game discussions do - the most important factor of a game is that it's fun. If it's got terrible graphics, no plot or development, or any other lesser quality, who cares? If you

MOD PARENT DOWN - parent is a dirty racist

[IshanCaspian]

nt

Shades of grey

[illuminatedwax]

Actually, in many Asian countries, like Japan and especially Korea (oddly enough, big "story" video game producers), they do not have the simple black and white notion of "good" and "evil" that we have. Instead, it all just comes down to a difference of opinion, or rather, that difference creates evil This thought process actually is a theme in some games, one off the top of my head being Final Fantasy VIII. For information about the Korean mindset on evil, read "Think No Evil" by C. Fred Alford.

--Stephen

Re:Shades of grey

[bugbread]

Hmm...I don't know about Korea, but regarding Japan: They do definitely have a concept of evil, and even phrases like "embodiment of evil". A better statement would be that they don't harp quite as much on those issues in fiction, and in real life they don't assign "evil" to religious concepts like "Satan". Evil is just evil, not the product of an evil god. But that definitely doesn't mean that they don't use the concept of evil itself. If a parent kills their kid for crying, you can bet damn well that

Like Good Books

[robbway]

(disclaimer: opinion, of course)

Characters, no matter whether good, evil, corrupt, silly, stupid, super-intelligent or whatnot, need to be believable and contextually relevant. Contrary to popular belief, characters need not be complicated, nor should they resemble human characters. That's because most of the people you meet and interact with are known on a very superficial level, like characters. The rare few, those you are close to, have many facets, and none of those are easily classifiable.

In a book, like in a game, the characters you have most contact with should be more than superficial, and the rest can be extremely superficial. The goal is the ease the reader's/player's acceptance of the fantasy you're spinning. The only problem is that really human-like characters seem a bit neurotic and wishy-washy. I believe that's why the main character's are always so driven in the plot. They're still polarized towards a goal no matter how deeply the character is described.

Good and Evil are relative...

[ArcticPuppy]

...but if the gaming industry wants the ones who played their games through childhood to keep playing their games, they need to improve their titles storylines A LOT. In many, many games it shines through that they probably were written by anti social nerds, barely capable of having conversations themselves, not to speak of implementing it in their games.

Re:Good and Evil are relative...

[0x0d0a]

Agreed.

The metric that video game plots and characters are judged by is wildly generous when compared to, say, movie equivalents. I hear people all the time saying that "Final Fantasy games have good plots" or "Final Fantasy games have good characters". Well, dammit, Final Fantasy really, really sucks in *both* areas compared to a good movie.

Some of that is because lots of games are intended to be played by children, and game authors (Nintendo produces a lot of these) find that it's easier to present fo

Why do you need "Gray"

[JavaLord]

"The white hat/black hat dichotomy of heroes and villains (PC and NPC) in most games is no longer sufficiently believable to the player, but is still theoretically acceptable given the earlier limitations of the medium", and goes on to argue: "Audiences respond poorly to blatant noseleading, and increasingly demand escalating shades of gray."

Of course it depends on the story you are trying to tell, but if you watch most movies you will see "pure good and evil" in the characters. Why? That makes them more compelling. Take for instance, Darth Vader. Ultimate badguy, down to the outfit. If he were a "shade of gray" through the movies then his turn at the end of Return of the Jedi wouldn't have been as piviotal as it was. (It turns out now, with the prequals they are showing his "grayness").

Ultimate "Bad Guys" and "Good Guys" are more compelling because you don't see them in the real world. Even Ultimate good guys have their flaws, and ultimate "Bad Guys" usually don't believe they are bad in real life.

In the end, as a gamer I don't care what NPC's are like, they should be whatever the storyline dictates they should be. The "Ultimate bad guy" is a bit cliched, but it's still fun. I'm more worried about what I can do. If I start acting evil, I'd like to see NPC's react differently because of that behavior.

Gray would make the game compelling

[underground alliance]

It would be best, as they are doing with Star Wars, to show the bad guy's progression from gray to evil. That would be very compelling and help you to feel as though you actually were a part of the story.

Last Zelda wasn't bad

[drewmca]

A lot of the Zelda games have had your typical "muwah ha ha" type of bad guy, completely removed from any real humanity. I thought that the Windwaker had a nice touch in the confessional speech by Ganon near the end. "I suppose...I suppose I coveted that wind." Didn't stop him from trying to kill you or from being a nasty bastard, but for a moment you could see things from his perspective and it was a lot more interesting than the end boss in most games as a result.

Thanks for the spoiler warning

[gasaraki]

Really.

Re:Thanks for the spoiler warning

[drewmca]

Waah. If you didn't know you were going to face Ganon in the end, then there's nothing I can do. I didn't tell you more than you couldn't guess.

Seems clear to me...

[Angst Badger]

To tell the truth, I've never considered the topic of good versus evil in my favorite games. Of course, my favorite game is Galaga, and there's really no ambiguity about who my enemies are: they're anything that moves. It's entirely possible that, instead of the implicit assumption that I'm defending my homeworld from hordes of invading bugs, that I'm actually invading bug-space with the intention of dropping a gigantic bomb on their homeworld, but as the levels appear to repeat endlessly with increasing di

Bah!

[dasunt]

My deity tells me good from evil:

• Sacrificing your own race on an altar: Evil[0]
• Kicking your puppy to death: Evil
• Eating said dead puppy: Evil
• Sacrificing co-aligned unicorn on altar: Evil
• Praying at someone else's altar: Can be Evil
• Sacrificing the deity's high priest at his own astral altar: Very Evil

Actually, now that I think about it, my deity is more interested in what is wrong then what is right...

...And yet I am willing to risk life and limb to get him the damn amulet.

[0] I don't care what the spoilers say -- chaotic characters summoning demon lords is a VERY BAD THING, and is a sign that the chaotic gods still think its evil, but want to give you just enough rope to punish yourself.

Characters

[CashCarSTAR]

It depends on the game really. The only game where characterization should matter, is really a RPG, which should have a deeper story.

Most RPG baddies are motivated by a search for power. Now what they would do with this power is up in the air. Would they be evil? Yeah, most of the time. However, they might not see it that way. They may see themselves on some sort of divine quest, or that they're preserving society. And yes, there are the true crazies.

Off-hand...

FFX, Seymour was after power, he wanted to

See also...

[carou]

See also What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of NPCs?" [gamasutra.com], an article by Ernest Adams discussing the behaviour of programmed characters, and how they can be modelled in terms of emotional state.

Games/Books/Movies I enjoy the most ...

[CFTM]

I do not pretend to believe that my view on this subject is at all representative of the gaming populace in general but my favorite hero has always been that of the ordinary hero. Phillip K. Dick was the master at creating these characters, these ordinary-to-sub-ordinary heros are what made Dick's stories so wonderful. It wasn't superman, it wasn't "the one", it was just an ordinary individual placed in an extraordinary situation. Dick did this so incredibly well, look at books like "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep", the book Total Recall was based off of (I forgot it's name, but he was not supposed to be good ole Arnie, if my memory serves me he was a hair stylist ... just an ordinary man), "The Three Stigmata's of Palmer Eldrich" and a variety of Dick's other stories. These heroes were often amoral, they did not have some cause of moral righteousness to fight for, rather they were besieged with the existential question of how do I make life authentic and to survive.

To me these are the fascinating stories that compel me to continue reading/watching, unfortantely I can think of no games that transfer this notion over and quite possibly it's not indicative of the medium but mono-shade characters are boring. They do not force me to contemplate the nature of the character and understand who they are and why they do what they do. I've always been fascinated by what makes us human, and what constitutes humanity. Are we merely the sum of our parts or is there a greater unseen entity that influences who and what we are. These characters offer an opportunity to explore the intricacies of human nature and I believe to come to a better understanding of who we are.

That being said, the unfortante truth is I do not believe the majority of video game players agree with me, a game of this nature would be slow to develop and focused on story and not flashy effects. There's nothing wrong with this, I often play games such as FFX-2 just to see the cut scenes and where the story goes even if the characters do not interest me. But I would love a game that delved into the plight of an average individual struggling to survive, something that stimulated me intellectually and forced me to take a look at what makes us all human. If any one can think of a game like this, please respond with the title.

Grey Areas before?

[kenixkil]

Actually. I think that the whole issue of villains being good AND bad goes back to Marvel comics. Before their leap to the forefront in the sixties, most comic characters were either very good or very evil. With FF, Hulk, and especially Spider-Man, you saw heros that didn't always win, and villains who weren't totally evil. That is part of the reason that they were so successful and have been, is that drawing such a Black/White distinction isn't totally believeable to most people who mimic the character

At least 1 bad guy

[DeadboltX]

I think you need at least one main bad guy in a story. The main bad guy might not be the one you encounter at the end and you may never encounter him, but he is the one bad guy that causes your goal. Inspector gadget for example.. There is an uncountable number of henchmen. Are the henchmen bad? Who is to say, maybe they just want to earn a wage. It is Dr. Claw who is the one "for certain" bad guy, he is the cause. In addition to a 1 main bad guy it is important to have grey characters for depth. In LOTR,

What about...

[GregThePaladin]

Castlevania? The premise is simple: whip the hell out of everything that moves, because it's ALL EVIL!