Selectable Ranger Personalities

[jonny_p66]

I think this would work especially well with the mainly text based game and maybe with a few characterised voice samples.

So it's common if there are character voice samples to have a choice of different voices, but what if you could have a choice of personalities and a unique set of flowery full game text dialogue written for each personality (it could also just be a few added words here and there if that would take too long to make)?

There could be a sarky one, a witty one, a depressing one a la Xan from B.G., an angry one, an impatient one, or anything else the writers think would work.

Obviously npcs who can join your party would have their own personality and character, so this would just be for the Ranger the player creates himself who he wants to be leader of the party.

[Zombra]

I'm of two minds.

One, I am very fond of the "blank" player character, where I can completely fill in their personality in my imagination.

Two, the more I can customize a character with in-game options, the more memorable they become.

Bottom line, I would love to see this. I look at a game like Wizardry 8 which has 36 choices of voice actor for each PC, and it just has so much charm I can't resist. Even though in W8 the personalities have exactly zero impact on gameplay, each character really stands out in my memory.

The downside is that once you've heard them all, replay value is pretty much gone.

[paultakeda]

I'm with Chris Avellone on this one:

One thing I wanted to vent about concerning old-school RPGs like Eternal Dagger, Wizard’s Crown, and Wasteland, is the more you give a player the ability to customize their own skills (and stats, although in WL, it’s random), the more you can build a character you can role-play, and imo, you can do it much better than you can if you’re simply given an archetype or limited stat set.

Characters are more memorable when I get to imagine and create them myself. Picklists for personalities and archetypes are a crutch. Selecting a voice is all right, as this can help fill out a personality I have in mind, but a wholesale selection of personality is a no-no for me.
There's a lot more about this topic in the thread on creating characters with humanizing stories.

[Mulayim]

I loved Wizardry 8. Part personalities add so much to the experience. I don't think it hinders what a player has in his mind. Sometimes it is just delightful to hear them to say things you/your characters would never say. One of my kindest Wizardry 8 memories is this; I was afk for a while, then came back and resumed to play. One of the chars complained about waiting, and my wise samurai said "He who breaks the silence destroys a most precious gift." and I absolutely loved it. This kind of dynamic interaction presents a much better experience than the Icewind Dale type of voice acting.

[jonny_p66]

I'm with Chris Avellone on this one:

One thing I wanted to vent about concerning old-school RPGs like Eternal Dagger, Wizard’s Crown, and Wasteland, is the more you give a player the ability to customize their own skills (and stats, although in WL, it’s random), the more you can build a character you can role-play, and imo, you can do it much better than you can if you’re simply given an archetype or limited stat set.

Characters are more memorable when I get to imagine and create them myself. Picklists for personalities and archetypes are a crutch. Selecting a voice is all right, as this can help fill out a personality I have in mind, but a wholesale selection of personality is a no-no for me.
There's a lot more about this topic in the thread on creating characters with humanizing stories.

that quote chris avellone he's not talking about personalities though, unless you assume an archetype character has a set steroetype personality, e.g. a barbarian would be all machismo. which I suppose you might well assume that. but what he's saying is customizing your skills gives you a better character for roleplaying than one where u can just change a few stats or are given an 'archetype' meaning a stock barbarian or wizard or thief. but often those archetype characters won't have a personality at all, and the game dialogue will just be generalised for anyone. then it's so bland!

but if the personality isn't selectable or archetypal, it all has to be in the dialogue, and that usually ends up ham fisted at best, with the odd 'nice' or 'nasty' line of dialogue here and there. i'm fine with it, but my question is how can they write the dialogue for the whole game with a bunch of different character personalities in mind, meaning you can select from any given angle at any time? wouldn't there be 7 different responses for every dialogue? why not just select an archetypal personality character at the start and let the game flow with a given dialogue set for that character? it's like with mass effect nice and nasty, just sometimes thinking just get on with it! what's the game trying to do give me schizophrenia?

i think bottom line, chris just doesn't want to pursue a choice of characters with fixed personalities in dialogue because it's too much work writing them all!

you can't deny that that quote from him is very negative overall!

the poor dear is so over-worked!

[paultakeda]

I want to role play my PCs. The dialog prompts will be based on their attributes and skills, and there may be more than one response for a given attribute and/or skill. Hence the topic on a robust conversation system. What I choose from the myriad responses is due to how I am RPing my party. I do not need a personality selection to filter/add dialog options, they should be there due to the attribute/skill set and all options should show, and you RP accordingly. This is where the CRPG was far more creative in how you as the player played.

Here's another part of that Avellone blog post:

G.I.G.0: Stands for “Garbage In, Garbage Out,” and his name reinforces that there’s something flawed in this character’s intrinsic android programming, since the last character is a “zero” not the letter “O.” I saw him as a damaged android the Rangers deem only worthwhile for reconnaissance in hazardous areas, notably because it seems like he’s been damaged already (“past warranty” is what G.I.G.0 occasionally says, although no one’s quite sure what he means when he says this - they assume it’s a location in the game, and who knows, they may be right).

While G.I.G.0 will respond to his name when addressed, he will remind each new speaker once that “G.I.G.0.” is not his original designation, which has left some inhabitants of the Wasteland to wonder what kind of nation this “Desig” may be and if all the residents are like G.I.G.0.

He's doing that in WL1. And he's enjoying himself. That's how you play a classic CRPG. You are not force fed the personality.

I'm going to quote krellen from another thread:

While I'm generally of the opinion that being a GM is something that can be learned and is not inherent to anyone, this may be one of the defining skills that separates true GMs from the still-learning. Having been a game master for several decades now, the skill of holding disparate (and often conflicting) character personalities in my head comes close to second nature for me now. For those with less experience doing so, which likely includes all gamers from the 90s on with no table-top experience behind them, I could see how this could be an alien concept, and thus why those of us arguing for it might be hard to understand.

[jonny_p66]

but if you are roleplaying all the personality in your head, how do u input it into the game? as in the turn of phrase of a given character? and how do you know there will be a text option that fits with what you want to do or say? whereas if you pick personality type at the start, you know the dialogue will be written to suit, and you have more fun, because you know what to expect, and you know you wont come unstuck with it.

e.g. pick impatient personality, and all the dialogue is just like 'yes yes boring, come on get to the point!'!! hilarious!! so much fun!!

[Woolfe]

but if you are roleplaying all the personality in your head, how do u input it into the game? as in the turn of phrase of a given character? and how do you know there will be a text option that fits with what you want to do or say? whereas if you pick personality type at the start, you know the dialogue will be written to suit, and you have more fun, because you know what to expect, and you know you wont come unstuck with it.

e.g. pick impatient personality, and all the dialogue is just like 'yes yes boring, come on get to the point!'!! hilarious!! so much fun!!

Go check out the http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=574 thread. This exact sort of thing was being discussed heavily there.

[paultakeda]

but if you are roleplaying all the personality in your head, how do u input it into the game? as in the turn of phrase of a given character? and how do you know there will be a text option that fits with what you want to do or say? whereas if you pick personality type at the start, you know the dialogue will be written to suit, and you have more fun, because you know what to expect, and you know you wont come unstuck with it.

e.g. pick impatient personality, and all the dialogue is just like 'yes yes boring, come on get to the point!'!! hilarious!! so much fun!!

The dialog options are there to display intent. Well written RPGs provide for all options, from sarcastic to intelligent to well meaning to whatever. It is your decision to RP it the way you feel your party would act. Having a robust conversation system as proposed in the thread I linked to allows you to see all the various options based on attr/skill and possibly background metric stats. So your dialog option of being impatient? Maybe it's there because one of your party members has a high IQ or a low one, or it's there simply as an option so you can role play. The rest is up to you.

I realize this can be a hard thing to grasp, as per krellen's observation regarding newer gen players who never had to RP a party or even a main character if you're used to JRPGs and 21st century WRPGs with a named PC, but this is what has been missed; I'd bet it's what made publishers balk at Fargo's proposal for a classic CRPG and why it was Kickstarted. This is niche, but it's niche only because many gamers have never experienced this type of roleplay in a modern RPG. Imagine a 21st century RPG that does this -- it makes me salivate. Meanwhile, every single suggestion of dumbing down a character to a stereotype, archetype and/or personality just means, to me, more of the same.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing Shepard or Grey Warden with Destiny, but the classic CRPG where you get to imagine what you want and the game lets you, even because of sheer absence of anything else, it is at this point the breath of fresh air that Chris Avellone is currently reveling in as he replays WL1. This is what I want in WL2; this is what I believe what Fargo meant when he said he wants to bring back the classic CRPG full of creative play and difficult moral choices. Is it anachronistic? Only to publishers and folks who don't want to give a classic genre a chance. Give it a chance. You may like; and even more, you may prefer it.

[Zombra]

*heroic post*

*resounding applause*

[Son of Max]

The dialog options are there to display intent. Well written RPGs provide for all options, from sarcastic to intelligent to well meaning to whatever. It is your decision to RP it the way you feel your party would act. Having a robust conversation system as proposed in the thread I linked to allows you to see all the various options based on attr/skill and possibly background metric stats. So your dialog option of being impatient? Maybe it's there because one of your party members has a high IQ or a low one, or it's there simply as an option so you can role play. The rest is up to you.

I realize this can be a hard thing to grasp, as per krellen's observation regarding newer gen players who never had to RP a party or even a main character if you're used to JRPGs and 21st century WRPGs with a named PC, but this is what has been missed; I'd bet it's what made publishers balk at Fargo's proposal for a classic CRPG and why it was Kickstarted. This is niche, but it's niche only because many gamers have never experienced this type of roleplay in a modern RPG. Imagine a 21st century RPG that does this -- it makes me salivate. Meanwhile, every single suggestion of dumbing down a character to a stereotype, archetype and/or personality just means, to me, more of the same.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing Shepard or Grey Warden with Destiny, but the classic CRPG where you get to imagine what you want and the game lets you, even because of sheer absence of anything else, it is at this point the breath of fresh air that Chris Avellone is currently reveling in as he replays WL1. This is what I want in WL2; this is what I believe what Fargo meant when he said he wants to bring back the classic CRPG full of creative play and difficult moral choices. Is it anachronistic? Only to publishers and folks who don't want to give a classic genre a chance. Give it a chance. You may like; and even more, you may prefer it.

*THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE*

[krellen]

Sometimes it is just delightful to hear them to say things you/your characters would never say.

This is actually something I would absolutely detest. This is precisely what I don't want. Once the developer has decided what my character would say, it has become the developer's character, not my own.

A lesson rarely skipped in good discourses on being a game master is "god-modding" (also used in online, GM-less roleplay): essentially, never ever dictate the reaction of a character that isn't yours. You can describe all the sensory inputs you like, but even as little as "you turn your head to view so-and-so more closely" is out of line - it's not your character, and you have no right to make that character turn their head, whether you're the Game Master or not.

You'll see this borne out in well-written pre-published adventures; only very rarely will the "blurb" section of a description dictate anything (even emotions) to the player characters. For example:

"You enter the crypt. The air is stale and dank, smelling of ancient rot and centuries of decay. The darkness is oppressive, almost heavy, as if seeking to drown out the feeble light of your torches by weight alone."

Not:

"You enter the crypt. It is dank and smelly. You recoil from the stench, and tingles of fear run down your spine as the darkness presses in around you."

A good game master will never (without in-mechanic reason, such as spells or mental powers doing just that) dictate a character's reactions to the player, and neither should a game developer trying to recreate the same experience.

[Mandemon]

And here us why I think it's the problem here.

We have 4 characters. Each one has no personality or anything outside players head.

In fact, you could even play single character with all the same skills and combined stats. Because you can either make balanced team, AKA über character or you can make specialized team, AKA specialized character.

You could replace 4 with 1 and game would change little to none. Who is talking? Does it matter, since party acts liek single entity. None of "your" characters exist outside your head.

Of course, there are people who like that. Me, I don't mind if characters are not 100% under my control. If having game tell me character is terrified instead of me thinking alone it, I don't mind. In fact, it would enforce role-playing. You would assume a role. You would play that role.

I mean, if I think one of my characters is geeky nerd who is afraid of darkness, does that translate anyway in to game? No. Unless I self-impose restrictions what does it matter? I can pick up or drop characteristics whenever how it benefits my game.

What I'd like to have is little general personalities. Not game telling me what they think exactly or how they act directly, but general "this guy is greedy" and his personal dialogue and occasional comments could reflect that.

This is more of difference of "What is role-playing" than generational gap.

To me, I assume role. I take a character and play out his role. If my character is scared, play him like that.

To you, it's having a character sheet and it shows what you can do and what not.

[krellen]

This is more of difference of "What is role-playing" than generational gap.

To me, I assume role. I take a character and play out his role. If my character is scared, play him like that.

To you, it's having a character sheet and it shows what you can do and what not.

I'm not sure it's possible to be more wrong.

You cannot enforce role-playing. If you're forcing it, the player isn't playing a role; the person doing the forcing (so in this case, the developer) is playing the role.

If you feel like you can just drop personality traits/flaws on your whim as it suits you, and that's fine, it's not the fault of the game not "enforcing role-playing" - it's the fault of you being a bad role-player.

Role-playing is a skill, like any other. And like any skill, you have to practice it to master it. Having the game "enforce role-playing" is like riding a bike with training wheels. Some of us have been doing this long enough we don't need training wheels.

[Mandemon]

I guess actors don't play any roles either then. I mean, they don't do what they want, they do what their characters want. The one playing the role must the writer instead then.

Look, we have different opinions. Just calling me "wrong" because I don't subscribe to idea that "role playing is playing AFGNCAAP who acts the way I want, but has nothing else that defines him or her outside my own head. That s/he can be replaced with another character with the same skill set and no difference can be detected" and all "personality" comes from nowhere.

Then you must also admit that game is already doing it wrong, since it says we are Desert Rangers. That is forcing a role on a character. You are a Desert Ranger. That comes with certain details that you can't make up. Like is s/he or not a Desert Ranger. You don't get to pick that.

You already are given a role. You are a Desert Ranger. Is the entire game premise now suddenly bad thing?

Not to me.

You want to call me completely wrong, fine. But then so are you also.

[krellen]

I guess actors don't play any roles either then. I mean, they don't do what they want, they do what their characters want. The one playing the role must the writer instead then.

The best actors frequently go off script, and these off script moments often make the final cut and become a defining moment for a character - for example, Han Solo's "I know".

[paultakeda]

You already are given a role. You are a Desert Ranger. Is the entire game premise now suddenly bad thing?

Yes, but what kind of ranger? You can interpret this in many ways. No one told Chris his android GIGO wasn't a ranger, right? You play the roles within the confines of the plot. RPGs allow you to be very free with the type of characters that fit the role enforced by the quest. Being a desert ranger means nothing beyond being of one faction/polity.

You have a role, but you can create the characters. I want that creation to be as free and expansive as possible with regards to personality and background. Others don't. Luckily, for them, they get the pregens.

[Woolfe]

I guess actors don't play any roles either then. I mean, they don't do what they want, they do what their characters want. The one playing the role must the writer instead then.

The best actors frequently go off script, and these off script moments often make the final cut and become a defining moment for a character - for example, Han Solo's "I know".

Also most A list actors essentially play slight variations of themselves. Mostly because when they get to a point people start offering them parts that are written for them. Its also why they so often get typecast.

But then you get the good ones, who can play quite significantly different characters. (as opposed to roles that a character fits).

But that is silly anyway, we aren't talking about Actors. Actors are not technically roleplaying as we discuss it. Why because they have a script, and a director telling them what to do.

So we really should leave actors out of this argument.

[Zombra]

Yeah. Actually, playing a role and "role-playing" are two distinct things.

If you want to compare role-playing and acting ... role-playing is more like improv, where you are trying to act like a certain character without the benefit of a prewritten script. The DM doesn't tell you, "You're scared and you say this." He says, "Something scary happens," and you say, "I'm scared and I do this!"

Playing the role means choosing the action or dialogue option appropriate to a character. If the game chooses the response for you, you're not role-playing; you're just watching the movie. Dig?

[Mordul]

If the game chooses the response for you, you're not role-playing; you're just watching the movie. Dig?

This.

The general feel in this thread as I understand it is the OP wants members of his Desert Ranger Squad to add additional comments within the game that support a pre-defined personalty set up with the character generation.

Others prefer the total control of the blank slate approach. The character reacts exactly as the player dictates (within the scope of possible choices e.g. good/bad, smart/dumb, skilled/unskilled).

I know that Mass Effect 3 is a taboo subject for many, but I want to bring up how Bioware initiated an idea of allowing three levels of control. Story(Roleplaying)/Normal/Automatic(Cinematic).

Now I don't believe the OP wants his story TOLD to him so most of us would probably take Cinematic of the table. But how much control are the people on the forum willing to give up to hear the story inExile wants to create for us?

Personally I have played a lot of RPGs that use skills/attributes and I would love to see them in a game like this, so how about we include some personality tags in conversations. In NWN you could choose options based on your alignment (Law/Chaos,Good/Evil) how about we ask for something not quite so diametrically opposite. They have already worked on Nice/Snarky. How about a few like Arrogant/Pious/Shifty? I know that it would be too large an undertaking to rework EVERY conversation, but you might be able to combine a few, say a ranger with high INT/PER notices that the leader of the biker gang responds better to machismo than subservience. On the next playthrough an Arrogant sonuvab**** might have that same option right on top.

Personally I think more choices is never a bad thing, but I'm hesitant to add random comments from my PCs. But I also know that I would be disappointed if my NPC tagalongs keep up a running commentary while my crew is silent. Confliction.