I’ve been playing a lot of The Witcher lately. It’s a marvelous game, in nearly every respect: it’s got a combat system unusual to most PC RPGs, has a wonderfully expansive plot, and contains characters with a great deal more individuality than you generally find in NPCs. I’m sorry I didn’t pick it up sooner.
What it most conspicuously lacks, however, is exactly the thing its developers brag that it has: namely, maturity. I’m definitely not the first person to notice this. It’s got the most tasteless way of dealing with sex I’ve ever seen in a game, and the developers also seem to have bought into the idea that more swearing equals more maturity: as a result, the game has an NPC whom, after you make yourself disagreeable to him, will simply shout “DAMN! SHIT!”[1] every time you click on him, for no discernible reason. Later, he moves to “Fuck off,” which makes more sense—but doesn’t make the game feel any less like a thirteen-year-old’s idea of what adult conversation is like. But the game is fun enough to mostly make up for these problems, and I’ve become very used to simply tolerating the kind of sexist immaturity that the “sex cards” represent
As a creative writing student, however, I have other problems with the game’s maturity level—problems I’ve had for years with Biowaresques, actually. The game is in no way emotionally mature, and its characters are, if anything, childishly drawn. Specifically, in the 30 hours I’ve played through so far, Geralt of Rivia is never vulnerable.
Emotionally vulnerable, that is. I’ve had to sit through countless fiction and playwriting workshops on the topic: by any account, It’s pretty much essential for crafting a realistic person. Emotionally invulnerable characters feel like robots or idiots, and they make their authors look like self-inserting, power-tripping retards. They feel cardboard. Geralt has a sly enough tongue (and is forced into enough comic situations) to avoid feeling like cardboard, but he certainly gets close.
He never even looks this angry
I can’t decide whether this comes from the writing or from the total lack of facial animations. Dragon Age is the first western RPG I can remember playing that actually managed—every once in a great while—to give its main character realistically sorrowful facial animations. They actually did a much better job with Alistair, which is understandable, since he’s a companion NPC with a fixed personality. One of the main reasons he’s such a fantastic character is that he’s got believable emotional vulnerabilities, and that he actually expresses those vulnerabilities on his face. He looks sad, and he looks angry, and he looks as if he’s about to cry, and it looks real. (Unfortunately, many of these wonderful conversation scenes with Alistair had your character staring at him like an automaton.) On the other hand, while Commander Shepherd manages a moderately expressive voice, he doesn’t have a huge range of facial expressions. I’m pretty sure that he has stoicism… and more stoicism? I haven’t actually played ME2 yet, to be honest. Okay, so he occasionally smiles, usually while having hot alien sexy-times. But he never cries, not that I’ve seen. He certainly doesn’t cry as often as she should, considering the shit he goes through. He rarely even looks more than mildly upset. The box art is pretty much what you get with the man.
Doing strong emotions in visually-realistic videogame characters can be difficult, but it often seems like the designers aren’t even trying– when it comes to the writing, WRPG player characters, particularly the ones in the Bioware tradition, are rarely written in a way that takes advantage of the entire human emotional gamut. Unvoiced ones are generally more emotionally fluid than people like Shepherd, but they’re still pretty wooden compared to characters in many other game genres. Most WRPG protagonists have as much emotional breadth as the Prince of Persia has in his little fingernail.
I’m not sure why this is. Do developers think that giving the character real emotions will somehow alienate the actual human player—make them think they’re being told what to feel? This might be a valid criticism when it comes to RPGs where you’re supposed to ‘own’ the player character—games with those hackneyed morality systems, for example, or games where you create your own character. It does not make sense with The Witcher, where you play as an established character with a history and a fixed identity. Geralt is Geralt is Geralt. The decisions he makes do not define his personality, since he is written as if he already has one. We inhabit him—we play at having Geralt’s personality. This has become a legitimate way to do western RPGs, and all but the most irritating people have stopped complaining about not being able to make their own characters in every game with ‘RPG’ on the box. It’s okay to pretend to be someone else. To that end, Geralt should feel like a real, independent person with real emotions. But he doesn’t.
Geralt puzzles through a dramatic realization. Luckily, he has the best poker face in Temeria.
Frankly, emotional detachment has been the biggest unspoken foundational element of western RPGs since forever. It’s absolutely essential to the way we envision the genre: every lady in the village may come sobbing to you to find her missing husband or her lost cat or her special pendant or whatever, but the hero always crosses his arms grimly over his chest and answers in a tempered, even voice: “I’ll see what can be done, ma’am,” or “I’ll help if you pay me, woman,” or some such emotionally-alienating thing. Out of Bioware’s last ten or so games, all the big hits have been about stoic, militaristic characters who stride independently through a sea of sobbing townsfolk, solving their problems with a blank heroic stare plastered straight over their nobly-defined brows.
Not even prostitute-vampires can convince Geralt to change his facial expression.
Western RPGs are, as a genre, about being emotionally detached from the worlds we explore. That’s the voyeuristic glee we get from playing them. How else would we search through every barrel on the street, plunder every peasant household, or walk back to Mrs. Missing Cat and tell her that the cat was dead when we found it (when, really, we killed it ourselves, just to see what the game would do)? Western RPGs are about exploring a world without consequences. We love it best when the game plays at having consequences, when it pretends to keep stock of morality. Since we know we’re not really going to jail for anything, we experiment. We observe as the ripples our actions scatter. It doesn’t matter, since games aren’t real life, and we know the difference, right?
We love it even more when a game manages to trick us into having an emotional response. We find that shocking and unusual—something strange for a genre which, for well over 20 years, has claimed to deliver the emotional goods. Why do we find the (DA:O SPOILERS) Alistair/Loghain argument so arresting? Honestly, it’s because we don’t actually expect this kind of thing from a WRPG. It carries real emotional freight. Years of KOTOR and the like, years of games that deliver ‘morality’ without emotion, have taught us to love the emotional detachment that WRPGs deliver. We love the idea of navigating a moral conundrum, but only because we’re not actually involved. Not on any emotionally significant level, anyway. We choose to play Jedi or Sith, but it doesn’t really matter: we’ll do both playthoughs just to see all the content. We may even try to roleplay the emotions we think the character should be feeling—roleplay on our own side of the screen, of course, since the characters themselves never look or talk as if they have human emotions.
Our WRPG characters never cry.
They are the manliest of manly men, even if they’re women. They’re blank-faced, grim-jawed, ethereal heroes. They descend from the sky to set the lives of villagers aright—even if those villagers are space aliens and the village is the Citadel. Triss Merigold can tell Geralt that he “raved” in a fever under her care—that he spilled the miserable contents of his tortured soul, et cetera—but we never actually see this kind of thing on-screen. His expression doesn’t even change when he’s bumping polygons with her. His expression doesn’t change when he’s laying down the law from on high, straight onto the suffering backs of impoverished peasants. He delivers all his lines in a gruff monotone, even though the NPCs around him often sound happy or sad. He sheds not a single grateful tear when he meets people who care about him. We intuit that he feels sorry for the poor and for those troubled by racism, but he doesn’t look or sound or, honestly, talk convincingly as though he does.
On the other hand, many JRPGs have got emotion down.
Case in fucking point, ladies and gentlemen. It is not, in fact, impossible to do this kind of thing.
We just need to be willing to make ourselves a little vulnerable every once in a while. Once our characters start to sob, we’ll start, too.
[1] This, of course, is Thaler, in Chapter II
kentsutherland
lauramichet
guestwriter
lauramichet
/ July 23, 2010Oh, I really should have included this increpare game, as it kind of makes my point:
http://ded.increpare.com/~locus/Starfeld/
JackShandy
/ July 23, 2010This is an interesting way to think about it. Video-game PC’s are generally designed to be the biggest mary sue’s possible.
Most Western RPG player characters are just cursors, really. Mouse Cursors. They draw a face on the cursor, sure, but they’re never reall more than your physical representative in the world. The conduit through which you can you interact with the characters that are actually interesting. The jesus to your god, I suppose, except that even jesus cried once.
Have you tried Vampire: The masquerade: Bloodlines? I seem to remember it being one of the only western-style choose-your-character RPG’s that had some really flawed PC’s. You could be insane of physically deformed, I remember.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010people keep recommending that game to me. It’s certainly on my list of PC RPGS To Play This Summer, since, stranded in LA without my XBox, that’s what I’ve been slogging through.
Lara
/ July 23, 2010The problem is definitely with the writing first and the graphics second. I’m kind of an emotional vulnerability addict, which is probably part of the reason that a lot of WRPGs just haven’t held my attention. (That said, good puzzles, plot, combat, or collector appeal can go a pretty long way.)
veret
/ July 24, 2010Oh. My. God. You just completely spoiled FFVII for me.
I think there are a several reasons why WRPG protagonists don’t emote, most of which you’ve already covered. Here’s one you missed. Myself, I subscribe to the blank protagonist theory you touched on, since it never feels entirely right to me when a character I created feels emotions different from my own (obviously this doesn’t apply to games where the character is predefined). That doesn’t mean they should never show emotion at all; I remember a point in Mass Effect 2 when my Shepard was grinning like an idiot–she’s less creepy than the default guy–and it worked really well because I knew the exact same expression was on my own face (this was the part where Garrus started talking about “reach” and “flexibility.” You know what I’m talking about). But unless developers can predict what essentially all of their players will be feeling at that exact moment, it just ruins the immersion.
Your mention of authors as “self-inserting, power-tripping retards” got me thinking: Isn’t this the point of those games? Players like to be the authors of their own stories, we all like to power-trip in games, and I know I’m guilty of acting more than a little retarded when it’s only the computer watching me. Is it possible Bioware and others know perfectly well what we want, here? For that matter, is this why some people have so much trouble taking videogame stories seriously?
Shoot, you made me go and ask two questions in a row again; that means this was a really good post.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010oh god oh god that picture
I think that the RPG genre is becoming an amorphous blob and is in the process of shifting to a place that has little to do with the RPGs of old and a lot more to do with Mass Effect. Take a look at Dragon Age 2: 3-response conversation system, ‘visceral’ console-friendly combat, and no more multi-race character creation. RPG has bled into enough games that other genres are now bleeding back into the RPG, and have been for a while. So: self-insertion in RPGs is going to take on the role it already takes on in other game genres. RPGs need no longer be about blank, faceless characters who become US; they can be about charismatic, opinionated people whom we inhabit. Believable emotional moments need not go hand-in-hand with facelessness and characterlessness. It’s good and bad for the genre: I’d love to play a game where I inhabit the voice of a clever, vocal, unique character. There’s a difference between that and ‘breaking the immersion,’ to the extent that ‘immersion’ means what we think it means.
doesn’t totally answer your question, but it’s what I got, yo.
searingscarlet
/ July 26, 2010In a way it is also why in a pair, protagonists of movies or TV shows tend to be less interesting than the sidekick, for the reason that the protagonists need to be “safe” to be able to be related by a wide range of audience, while the sidekick could afford a little bit more wack without the same constrain?
V. Profane
/ July 24, 2010I don’t agree that Alistair is a great character. I don’t have any particular problem with him, but he comes off as a ‘Friends’-level ‘wacky guy’ to me. I wasn’t particularly convinced by either *****Spoilers**** his reaction to the death of whatsisface at the start or the reunion with his horrible sister (or the fade version). Or the prospect of him being heir to the thrown, for that matter.
I think there’s a lot to be said for leaving your protagonist fairly blank. This is where the real role playing comes in; not just class selection, level grinding and tree choices, actually putting yourself in your characters shoes. To me it would be jarring if my character started bawling at a point where I wasn’t personally affected.
I know GTA IV isn’t an RPG, but I was perfectly happy with Niko until later in the game when ****Spoilers**** it forces Niko to care about the McCreary sister and tacitly puts her on the same level of importance as Roman. I don’t want my character to be bawling over some NPC I found completely bland and unlikeable just because the story mandates her death (as if I was going to kill off lovable Roman!).
I guess it’s somewhat counter intuitive in these days of hi-res graphics and voice acted, facially animated (kinda), characters, but I think a large part of the R in RPG should be what goes on in your own imagination.
I’d rather play through The Witcher or Mass Effect 1/2 15 times than play any ‘emo’ Final Fantasy games.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010part of the problem with the way game narratives in general are handled is that we’ve started to assume that all emotional content must begin and end with players’ reactions to onscreen circumstances. Games writing is generally not confident enough to lead players through these circumstances in the way books and movies are– but it’s possible. It happened in the Sands of Time and it happens for many people in FF7, whether that appeals to every gamer or not. Both of those games give players sufficient reason to buy into the emotional story, so to speak.
Additionally, RPG has long ceased to mean what you seem to think it means. Now we play scripted roles as well as self-assembled ones, and we let the games do a lot of the heavy imaginitive lifting for us, and it still seems to work. Using misty-eyed memories about the term ‘rpg’ to defend ideals the genre doesn’t actually follow anymore doesn’t help us understand the way games work, or could work.
Hopefully Bethseda will remain the home of the empty-vessel RPG, because those games are awesome, but I hope that the RPGs that bother giving us real characters to inhabit start writing some personalities onto those characters. It’s a creative step they’re bound to take sooner or later, anyway.
V. Profane
/ July 24, 2010I wasn’t being misty-eyed because I’m fairly new to the genre. I think the first one I played was Mass Effect 1; I’m currently playing Dragon Age with no small amount of struggle with the learning curve. I just think a lot of the enjoyment of these kinds of games are the things you project onto the gaps left in the character writing.
I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to make an RPG type game with the same kind of ‘authorship’ of the protagonist, or plot, as a book or movie might have. Not to mention risky. If you decide to write a main character with, for instance, very strong political views you’re going alienate a lot people who don’t share those views. In a book or movie it’s not as important because you don’t necessarily need to be sympathetic toward anyone to enjoy, or at least appreciate, the work. In a game you nominally are that person, so it’s more difficult for the consumer to ignore the things they don’t like. Unfortunately the corporatism that has steadily sucked the life out of 95% of Hollywood output will probably have a similar effect on the ‘AAA’ games industry and make these kind of creative risks even less likely.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010you are right about the risk of alienating people– any game in any genre runs this risk. But it should be possible to write RPGs with broadly-appealing personalities. I think the wierd woodeness of The Witcher does more to destroy my feeling of being in a gameworld than a more fully-formed geralt would.
which is not to say that games with empty vessels aren’t important. My criticism mainly applies to this Witcher situation– the game has a firm character, but doesn’t actually fill him out. He’s unusual enough that I think it would have been a productive risk for them to take.
Morgon
/ July 24, 2010I don’t think this is a problem fundamental to western RPGs, I think this is a problem fundamental to the third person perspective in western RPGs. In those western RPGs without a third-person view (or without one by default), we don’t have faces and facial expressions to worry about outside of games that started zooming in on dudes we talk to…the only hints of emotion from any character are the scripted responses we can give. Everything else we have to build into the character — which is more like what, in my opinion, a western RPG is supposed to be like in the first place.
Bethesda games are particularly good at this, but I just wish the later ones that actually focus in on the faces of the people you’re talking to give more emphasis on those faces if they’re going to do it at all. Fallout 3 was better at this than Oblivion was.
Morgon
/ July 24, 2010I also note that this might be an emergent problem thanks to better graphics capabilities. Does anyone remember Baldur’s Gate 2 having this problem?
BeamSplashX
/ July 25, 2010The old-school WRPGs end up being more believable due to being further from the uncanny valley. I believe Shamus Young wrote that older RPGs could get away with using this sort of generic flicking-wrist animation for everything and we’d believe it since we’re so far away.
That sort of thing applies further out into the story, I believe. Granted, the writing in those games filled in a lot of gaps, even going into realms modern games refuse to match- describing scent. With that level of detail in the writing (and graphics far away enough to avoid conflicting with the text) the effect is greater than a game like Mass Effect or The Witcher.
lauramichet
/ July 25, 2010Yeah– the kind of emotional force present in the FFVII clip I used is possible only because the characters are reduced down to cartoons. They’re basically symbols or icons, Scott McCloud style. So they take the shortcut straight down to the foggy backs of our throats, and we don’t have to worry about whether or not they look real enough.
I’d love to see a top-class full-size RPG that eschews realism in favor of reduced and iconic emotional force.
BeamSplashX
/ July 25, 2010It’s funny that you say that; the designers of Dragon Age II said they are going for a more unique art-style that’s pared down and more harsh, but it really doesn’t look as unique as it should.
The concept art is pretty sweet, though. If only they had the guts to go with the style presented in the art, they could do just what FFVII did.
Karrius
/ July 24, 2010I’ve got to disagree with your portrayal of The Witcher. It’s no more sexist than Bioware games. Consider, in Bioware games, all this happens:
-You’re able to turn two women who hate each other into best friends who want a threesome, without even trying. (Jade Empire)
-If you, as a commanding officer, agree that you really like your subordinate, and right before a major mission pledge to them that after this is all over, you want to be with them, you do not get credit for “Completing a Romance”. If you boink them despite all good sense and responsibility, you do. (ME1)
-You can’t 100% complete the game unless you sleep with all four potential romantic party members. For each one you do, you get an ACHIEVEMENT. Yay achievements! (Dragon Age)
Instead, sure, Witcher has its sex cards. But these are a replacement for the sex scenes. And while a lot of times you’ll be offered sex, most of it either has good justification (Triss), or is a blatant attempt at trying to manipulate you that you probably SHOULDN’T do (not going to name names here, due to spoilers). There’s no real “reward” for sleeping with people unlike in Dragon Age, and the named NPC women all contain their own personalities and keep them throughout. Yes, it is kind of weird that there are sex cards for sleeping with random strangers, but this isn’t anything that Fable hasn’t done either, and I didn’t hear nearly the outcry for that. Instead, Witcher just seems to get the hate for being a sexist game, while other, more popular members of the industry get away with far worse.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010the problem with the sex cards is that they make the whole act into a question of objectification and possession. As in, “ohoho, I sexed up this lady, now I get to keep her lewd collector’s card.” it turns it into a trophy hunt. Which is alienating and childish.
Karrius
/ July 24, 2010Don’t achievements, or a replayable sex scene whenever you want have that same effect, though?
I mean, I see your point, and agree the “gotta catch em all” mentality is not good. But the game doesn’t encourage you to try and get them all, and it is in fact impossible. I view them more as an alternative to the (generally awkward, and sometimes outright hilarious) sex scenes. And in that point, I see it as an improvement – as an example, I found Dragon Age’s sex scenes to be horribly mood breaking. A card of Triss looking at me coyly as the screen faded to black, however, was not.
lauramichet
/ July 24, 2010I see your point. this is one issue where, I suppose, personal differences in what players find uncomfortable would lead them to prefer different ways of dealing with it.
I, personally, would take the awkwardness of DA:O’s underwears-on sex scenes over these cards any day–mostly since I find the whole idea of bribing an NPC to have sex with my character to be inherently hilarious, and the process itself removes me enough from the game-world that I’m already no longer immersed.
Karrius
/ July 24, 2010(I hope this appears in the right position, this comment secion is weird – but this is a reply to the “I see your point” comment)
Is it the combination of the sex cards, and “screw anyone”, together, that cause the problem? For example, Fable basically lets you marry almost anyone, as far as I’m aware, with little to no interaction beyond bribes and muscle flexing – is that acceptable or not? If we replaced the sex scenes in Dragon Age with, say, a single picture of Alistair shirtless, or Morrigan sitting seductively in her tent, would that be acceptable? Is it only the combination of the two, with the cards being persistent (would it be better if they wern’t?) that causes problems? If so, that I can more easily understand, although most people talking about the game don’t seem to hit on the point, and only focus on the fact that the cards contain nude pictures.
kentsutherland
/ July 24, 2010Can you have sex with men in The Witcher? Or are you just a studly man collecting female sexual partners for your sexy-time card deck?
Do you mean to say that DA:O, Fable, and ME are just as “sexist,” or are you saying that they are similarly immature when it comes to their portrayal of sex? I don’t think that you have much of an argument that they’re equally sexist, because if you can choose which gender you want to sleep with, or get a sex-change and then sleep with your bi-sexual husband, it isn’t sexist.
Karrius
/ July 24, 2010You cannot have sex with men in The Witcher. Geralt, however, is an established character from a novel series – it would be the equivalent of giving a gay sex scene to Conan, or turning Sherlock Holmes straight. ;)
You do have a point that the options presented in other games make it “less sexist” in some ways, but there are some considerations. Equal options for both genders came relatively late to Bioware games – Baldur’s Gate had a nice variety of male romance partners, but pretty crappy (IIRC, only like 1 in BG2?) male ones. Jade Empire had 2 romance partners for straight men, 1 for straight women, 1 for gay men, and 1 for gay women. It also had the threesome, only open to straight men. Dragon Age’s equal choices for both genders is a relatively new progression.
But yes, I suppose I should be arguing that the Witcher isn’t sexist, and that other RPGs are more sex-focused, or something.
Tellurian
/ July 24, 2010Come to think of it, the only games that have some emotional relevance to me are not RPGs.
First title that comes to mind would be Silent Hill 2.
And that’s a) no RPG and b) a Japanese game.
The second title now is a lot more recent. Heavy Rain. And that one as well is no RPG. And, well, not helmed by an American lead dev.
But in Heavy Rain it’s at least possible to make real choices in terms of emotional development of the characters. Still I don’t think this game’s approach to emoting characters will bleed back into “mainstream” RPG.
It’s true though that Bethes… Fallout 3 (!) was good at *hinting* at the main character having emotions. Or rather leaving enough blank space there for that impression. Also, it’s one of the rare instances where a game provoked genuine emotional reactions from me, the player. Which is a rare enough thing to do.
theprettiestboyontheplanet
/ July 24, 2010I have to imagine that some part the staggering emotional detachment of so many games stems from the fact that they are largely marketed to young men. If broad cultural stereotypes are to believed, young men are almost entirely incapable of empathy, and developers seemingly play into this belief to avoid alienating members of their target audience.
The response to the financial failure of Sands of Time handily illustrates my point. The charming, emotive protagonist and playful rapport of the first title were replaced with a top-class sneering jerkface and such shining gems of dialog as “you bitch!” in an attempt to attract dudes who skipped the first one. Because that is what we like.
Ashelia
/ July 25, 2010I’m not sure I agree completely. RPGs as a whole may suffer from this lately–not just western RPGs. When Aeris died, was it really less emotional than in Mass Effect 2 when your team can die?
After playing FFXIII, I actually feel like JRPGs are completely alienating. I used to love RPGs of all types, but that title made everything stupid and even funny. The woman dies in the opening and it’s so cliche, and her son is emo about it for half the game. It’s really not a nice emotional representation. He sobs and shakes in an almost comical way. Meanwhile Vanille kind of makes weird noises and giggles a lot while trying to push him to confront Snow.
So I wouldn’t agree it’s a WRPG thing nor a JRPG thing. I would say it’s a general gaming thing. Emotions are hard. Games don’t always convey them well, if at all.
BeamSplashX
/ July 25, 2010Using FFXIII seems a little unfair, since it’s a pretty decadent game, even by Square-Enix standards. Despite its best efforts, it can’t even match the boss fight in Final Fantasy V where Galuf flat-out refuses to die. There’s a good amount of character to that moment and it’s done entirely through game mechanics, which plenty of good JRPGs still do.
lauramichet
/ July 25, 2010people seem to be under the impression that I am hating on wrpgs in favor of jrpgs, or that I only want to play games where the main character cries, etc.
if I had left out the FFVII comparison, not only would I not be attracting so many hits from a certain forum, but people might have been more receptive to my idea that emotional alienation is an important part of the way wrpgs tell stories and encourage player exploration.
But I think that it’s a valid thing to point out, and I’m glad I did. The soap-opera goopiness of some FF stories may have its downsides, and the game mechanics themselves may tend to be pretty damn dull, but they’re trying to do character differently, and it works in many important ways. Works for those games, of course. They treat their characters like characters.
Ashelia
/ July 25, 2010@BeamSplashX I don’t think using FFXIII is unfair because this article used Witcher. Basically it was comparing apples to oranges–or rotting apples to fresh oranges. She brought up FF7, which is one of the best FF’s, but then brought up one of the worst WRPGs to critique. That doesn’t work well. She should have used FFXIII and The Witcher side by side, or used FF7 and Planescape/Mass Effect/whatever else.
@Laura The problem I think I had (I don’t know nor speak for anyone else, and comments below me seem hostile) was your exact comparison of FF7. You compared, again, GOOD GAME to BAD GAME and it’s kind of unfair. It would be like if I compared some no name indie FPS to Team Fortress 2 and said that indies cannot produce good titles or something. Not sure how to extend the metaphor well, but the point is more you chose the pinnacle of JRPG (FF7, Suikoden, all that 1995-2005ish era stuff) to some no name WRPG. The Witcher may have been decent, but it was based on a novel and it was a first game in a series. It was pretty much awful compared to a BioWare RPG or any other refined WRPG. It was far from the essence of an WRPG.
Anyway glad you’re getting recognition on a forum and you’re happy with your post. I was just trying to explain because I don’t feel you’re seeing its point. This also wasn’t meant as a hateful reply–I love your blog ever since we both got featured on Crit-Distance, it’s how I found you two. Good stuff I agree with… MOST of the time :)
lauramichet
/ July 25, 2010the forum response is sexist and negative.
I used the witcher because it’s what I’m palying now. if I’d been writing a paper and not a blog post, I would have used evidence from KOTOR and other bioware titles.
and I agree with most of your stuff too– except I think The Witcher is actually pretty good. But I get your point.
BeamSplashX
/ July 26, 2010@Ashelia:
I haven’t played The Witcher, but I can say I’ve heard enough good things about it to want to play it when my computer isn’t trash. But I can see where you’re coming from: FFXIII is representative of the absolute excess of a stereotypical JRPG (predictable characterization, obvious linearity, cutscene fetishism) while The Witcher is the same for WRPGs (false maturity, stat-heavy, absent characterization).
JRPG Are Rook The Same
/ July 25, 2010Why didn’t Cloud just use a Phoneix Down on Aerith?
JRPG Are Rook The Same
/ July 25, 2010Also did she drop any good loot? :3
JRPG Are Rook The Same
/ July 25, 2010Seriously though, re-write this piece after you learn what can change the nature of a man…
Ironyuri
/ July 25, 2010You have a point about emotional attachment but you fail to go into enough depth. Your focus is mainly on The Witcher and more recent rpgs and the fact you draw a comparison to Final Fantasy as emotionally engaging sheds light on your breadth of knowledge on the topic.
-max-
/ July 25, 2010Check out Planescape Torment.
Morgon
/ July 25, 2010I’m pretty sure most people here, including the author, have played Torment.
I’m also pretty sure that a game that came out almost 11 years ago is not representative of the current state of the industry.
Harbour Master
/ July 26, 2010In addition to Morgon’s point, despite being one of my all time favourite RPGs of all time (I had to put all time in there twice just for the love), I never got the impression of The Nameless One – under the auspices of the player – as anything other than stoic.
There *were* moments, but most of the emotion derived from the player’s own reaction and interpretation rather than that of TNO himself. Although this emotionally drained character fits perfectly within the tapestry of the game.
Feel free to correct me on this one, though, been about five years since I played it. I would advise marking moments as SPOILERS although this is a pretty dangerous thread as it stands.
Condiments
/ July 25, 2010The western RPG you’re looking for is called Planescape: Torment. I would consider it the pinnacle of narrative in RPGs, and videogames in general. Its philosophical, emotional, and well written beyond what many games can hope to achieve.
It has a set protagnist like the Witcher, but avoids the pitfalls of modern animation and instead illustrates things through the written word. It also has one of the most fleshed out protagonists in videogame history. Its a strictly personal tale, following the Nameless One’s(the main character) quest for identity and eventually redemption.
The game requires a lot of reading, but its really the best videogames has to offer in terms of narrative. WAYYYY better than any jRPG I’ve played.
Give it a shot. :)
BeamSplashX
/ July 25, 2010Laura, do you think WRPGs could become the masters of emotional alienation? Not by accident, as it seems to be in most of your examples, but as a real mode of showing situations where this kind of distance exists?
As a side note, Dynasty/Samurai Warriors forms a distinct contrast with these games. Gameplay-wise, they want you to mow down tons of identikit soldiers, but they also really want you to care about the named, important characters. I can’t speak for how well it works for Japanese audiences, but the dissonance is really too much for the West to accept it. But they should be accredited for being one of those games where men and women alike kick copious amounts of ass and still need a good cry now and then.
If you care for an example, one character’s ending (mind the voice acting): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqcAPfbk9OI
BeamSplashX
/ July 25, 2010Oops, that one was in Japanese!
Garfunkel
/ July 25, 2010Yeah, considering your examples are shitty teen-emo dramas from Japan and even shittier recent suck-fests from Bioware, I say your article is as relevant as would be a blogpost named “History of Classic Movies” with movies only from the last decade. Good luck with your graduation next year if your university work is as sloppy as this. But hey, you want to write as “gaming journalist” and even children know that those hacks are as close to real journalists as weathergirls are to meteorologists.
Here’s a free hint in how to improve your article: play more western RPG’s to have a proper, comprehensive knowledge of what has been done before. Do avoid huge generalizations like “Western RPGs are, as a genre, about being” when your examples showcase barely the tip of the iceberg, as it is. Some games that show the hollowness of your argument are Planescape: Torment, which has been mentioned already, Fallout, the original one, Fallout 2, to nearly as much of an extent. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Arcanum both have strong emotional scenes. And let’s not forget the golden oldies – Gold Box and Ultima-games were not just about numbers and pixels killing other numbers and pixels.
Morgon
/ July 25, 2010It’s amazing how badly some idiots out there like this one can fail at basic reading comprehension. Did any of you morons fail to read the word “Biowaresque”, or was that just conveniently forgot in the frenzy that gets whipped up every time someone mentions the S-word.
These people are like lemmings over a cliff.
BeamSplashX
/ July 26, 2010Fallout? That’s pretty much made to have a fill-in-the-blanks player character, so I fail to see how it could be a good example of an emotive avatar. You practically have to press the cry button if you want emotion (which is great in its own way).
Now that I think of it, a cry button would be AWESOME to have in a lot of games. Some sort of compromise between Fable II’s abstracted emote system and attitude-based dialogue options of BioWare titles.
lolopinionslol
/ July 26, 2010Did you not make it to the end when *SPOILER* the VD is kicked out? It was very simple, but that’s all it needed. No unnecessary, stomach-churning melodramatic tear-shedding. I can see how it would not be enough for a soap opera/JRPG fan.
Garfunkel
/ July 26, 2010Apparently you didn’t play the game. Yes, it’s a great RPG for it allows the player to play different types of characters. It does not dictate you your emotions, it confronts you with various situations and allows you to react differently to them. If you need your game to spell out in block letters what you and/or your character should be feeling at each scene, well, there’s no hope, I guess. Maybe stop gaming and return to the soap operas?
BeamSplashX
/ July 26, 2010@lolopinionslol:
I didn’t say Fallout failed to elicit emotion from the player, but the actual ingame avatar doesn’t emote. So it’s not a good comparison with a game like The Witcher. You could just as easily associate the Dweller walking away at the end with saying “Screw all of you, living in the Vault is no life at all.”
In Fallout, you play yourself to a certain degree- not necessarily the real you, but the character is you. In The Witcher, you always are Geralt; you step into someone else’s shoes. The lack of confidence Laura is talking about is the game’s fear of having Geralt be upset because you might not be. Granted, player empathy is a difficult thing to guarantee, but having characters express a wider range of less risky feelings like wonder and indecision are good building blocks towards the biggies.
zi00mbal
/ July 26, 2010You are kind of expecting crpg to be opposite of what they are supposed/meant to be, thus – fail. Fallout gives such a variety of well-written dialogue that it allows you to be angry, humorous, good-willed, cheeky, dimwit etc, it also avoids being “oh looky, looky, you’re supposed to cry now”, thus – win. How can anyone except crpg to be emo-heavy with shite like the linked FF7 scene is completely beyond. Unless it would be an crpg about weary intellectual-wannabe youth and emo-undergraduate would be one of the possible character classes with special skill of explicitly suggesting other characters when they should be sad. Pretty cool idea for a game, I’m sure bioware will pick it up soon.
zi00mbal
/ July 26, 2010How can anyone expect crpg to be emo-heavy with shite like the linked FF7 scene is completely beyond me – this is how this sentence was supposed to be.
BeamSplashX
/ July 26, 2010@zi00mbal:
Choosing how you feel goes back to my statement about the cry button. A game might not make me feel sad at all, but I could still choose to make my character cry if I thought it appropriate or smart at the time (so, not like real-life emotion, but it’s still cool anyways). I don’t see how that’s the opposite of what a CRPG is supposed to be (ignoring the fact that games don’t fit into neat little boxes of what they’re supposed to be anyways).
Fallout isn’t more clever for letting you choose how you feel; it’s going for something different entirely which has its own benefits. Playing as Geralt, however, can be less satisfactory than being Cloud because we don’t know as much about Geralt from playing as him. Sure, most JRPG characters react to many emotions predictably, but at least we get to see those emotions. How does Geralt act when he’s scared? We don’t know since we never see him scared.
Alistair
/ July 26, 2010http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=47176
You have some fans.
lauramichet
/ July 26, 2010I have link tracking. I’ve been aware of that since it started.
Harbour Master
/ July 26, 2010I can’t access that link through work, but Google tells me everything I need to know with the forum page title.
This kind of thing is inevitable as you get a wider exposure. We agree to disagree to agree to disagree, and you’re wrong, so there.
I can just imagine the shit that would go down if Kent published his piece now on the potential racism of Fable II’s good/evil skin colour scheme.
lauramichet
/ July 26, 2010…or if I posted the article kent just barely prevented me from putting up two weeks ago about how much I detest ‘gamer’ culture as it stands on the internet?
Harbour Master
/ July 26, 2010Uh… maybe.
Now I’m wondering if this missing article was the progenitor of “Can we stop using these words?”
Oh God what I have done. Discussion getting all meta. More about site than content.
theprettiestboyontheplanet
/ July 26, 2010As a dude, Kent would probably get 308% less flak for posting something like this.
That unreleased article sounds fascinating, though I can easily understand why you decided against putting it up. Still, the incredible misogyny, racism, homophobia, and anti-intellectualism which surrounds gaming culture today is immensely disheartening and shameful. Something is deeply wrong with a community which so frequently responds to unpopular ideas by making personal attacks.
Switchbreak
/ July 26, 2010Hmph, I avoid forums like this so much that when I am reminded of their existence it just makes me twice as sad. I try to imagine how fragile an overgrown man-child would have to be to have this kind of threat-response reaction to some honest observations, and I have trouble doing it.
ANewPoster
/ July 26, 2010@lauramichet
You seem to have missed the fundamental difference between games and other media – games involve agency. This is something which is particularly the case in games such as (W)RPGs, as the agency necessarily extends beyond gameplay to the narrative.
In a movie or book, essentially all of the details are placed before you. Yes, there might be subtext or other things hinted at but what is seen or read is not going to change just because you are reading it as opposed to me. (Our interpretations of it, or reactions to it, might differ but that is not the same thing.)
In a game, however, I shape my own experience. In a RPG, my choices for my character should have both narrative and gameplay consequences. This is true whether I play as myself or adopt some persona. In such an environment, having NPCs react emotionally to situations or to your actions seems fine – indeed, in many games, NPCs seem too nonplussed towards your actions. However, having the protagonist emote creates the danger of losing agency. This is because the protagonist may not be feeling the same emotions as the persona with which I have imbued him/her.
Like V. Profane stated, I think that Kate in GTA IV provides a good example of this. After the first compulsory date with Kate, my Niko completely ignored her. When I finally took her call, she said something like “you must really hate me”. This was a good (if small scale) example of emotional reactivity. Later on, however, Niko suddenly started caring for her. Why? I don’t know. My Niko didn’t care for her but the game’s Niko did, even though Kate herself had earlier recognised that Niko this wasn’t the case! The emotionality (or, more precisely, emotional voyeurism) of showing Niko attached to Kate robbed me of some control of Niko.
In your reply to V. Profane (who, as note earlier, raised a similar point), you stated that “Games writing is generally not confident enough to lead players through these circumstances in the way books and movies are”. It is a mistake to assume a deficit of ability when a deficit of motivation is also a plausible explanation. It is just as plausible as your argument to say that a lot of WRPG writers COULD write such scenes but CHOOSE not to (e.g. because of the position I am advancing).
As has been suggested elsewhere in these comments, ironically, it is “realism enhancing” features that are causing the problem here. Having a voiced protagonist, and seeing your protagonist’s react (e.g. in dialogue or cutscenes) causes problems when the protagonist is being written without a “true” emotional experience in mind. Stoic is a safe cover under which the player can infer whatever emotional state is applicable to the persona being played.
You might say that agency, at least in a narrative sense, doesn’t matter to you. That may be true but it doesn’t alter the fact that there are many others like me to whom it does matter. Consequently, you need to be careful that you don’t confuse emotional immaturity with preference for different types of experiences. This does not, of course, mean that immaturity in games is non-existent…
Morgon
/ July 26, 2010I think the ultimate problem here, and what is being written about, is that a certain class of western RPGs have given up shaping our own experience a long time ago.
Geralt is an established character from a popular series of Polish novels; this game is way more about playing in the world of the Witcher in the shoes of a character everyone already knows as it is shaping our own experience. To me, that reason alone makes it inexcusable that Geralt of the game has such a poker-face.
Rzepik
/ July 26, 2010FYI
Due to mutations Witchers are partially devoid of emotions.
zi00mbal
/ July 26, 2010So you give a decent action rpg and bioware copy pasta as representatives of western rpg genre and contrast them with FF7 as an example of emotionally heavy rpg… Okaaaaay…
The only comment I can leave here is what was already suggested before – play some more games. Especially if you want to write about them.
Karrius
/ July 26, 2010Can anyone here who thinks the original post is wrong post one example conversation, scene, or dialogue where the *main character* in a western RPG actually shows some emotion? Rather than just throwing insults about? Just one example will be fine.
zi00mbal
/ July 27, 2010Could anyone give a good example of jrpg doing a touching scene nicely? FF7 as a paradigm of emotional scene in rpg? Really? I mean – REALLY?? There’s such thing as maturity you know.
And examples were given. The first location in Planescape Torment will give you plenty of emotion, written and executed infinitely better than this teenage-emo fest.
Oh, and a small clue, because some poeple seem to clearly forget – emotion does not include only whining, crying and despairing. Escpecially not those things presented on a Gumibear tv series level.
Harbour Master
/ July 27, 2010Which bit of the first scene in Torment does the TNO express any emotion? My memory is rusty.
Karrius
/ July 27, 2010You did not post an example, and posted only insults. Please try to at least be somewhat mature about this discussion, especially if you’re going to throw around immaturity.
And no, I don’t even LIKE the Final Fantasy games. But I do recognize they at least attempt to do something that western RPGs don’t.
And to provide an example, just to show how it’s done – in Mass Effect, when talking to the council, ESPECIALLY in the first meeting about Saren, Shepard is basically furious and practically seething at points. He feels the council that rules the galaxy is harboring a traitor who killed humans, just because he’s they’re super-cop, and so insults the council and calls them names. Only, the problem is that doing so is utterly stupid given the circumstances, and completely illogical. It’s one of the things that turned me off of the game, but it DID show emotion.
There. Now you provide an example, and show some maturity yourself.
Karrius
/ July 27, 2010Also, just to defend one JRPG, and show some RPGs DO do it right -
Suikoden 3 has plenty of good emotional moments. When one of the main characters loses a friend early-game, he gets understandably upset, both with sorrow and anger. In the late game, Chris, a female knight, shows little patience for the flirtations and sillyness of a spy she’s working with. A guy I can’t remember the name of, who owns a castle, flips out with worry kinda easy, or gets overwhelmed with hope, or gratitude at people he thought wern’t his friends.
ETC. There are plenty examples of main characters acting like, well people. Yes, a JRPG is different in that it doesn’t really give you choices about your character, but a lot of times, neither do western RPGs, no matter how much they pretend to.
Scrooge
/ July 27, 2010Neverwinter Nights, Oriinal Campaign. Quite crappy, actually. Mainly the judgement part. That foreign bitch who worked for the villain and spent most of the game pissing me off is the oppoing lawyer. She accuses my character of burning down a village and slaughtering every single inhabitan – a rather exquisite pleasure that he hadn’t ave the chance to enjoy, since some other asshole did it.
So yeah, we debate. And I can be polite, reticent, a wise-ass or – as I did – humiliate the bitch with utmost despise and badly-written sarcasm. Sure, my character was bawwwwwing over some dead critter or famine in the third world, but he expressed his disgust for the woman pretty well.
Scrooge
/ July 27, 2010Also, the point you’re missing here is that there is a delicate balance between character reactions and player reactions. Consider the possibility most wrpgs nowadays actually strive for the latter. It’s pretty much the reason we have shitty achievements that make you feele you’re special and talented, or romances in every goddamned game so SOMEONE shows attraction for you – and they even try to appeal to EVERYBODY, inserting gay relationships and questionable friendships.
It doesn’t matter if you’re into that, the point here is that they don’t try to attract players by giving them an interactive book – they prioritize the player’s reactions and feelings. And it’s much easier to reach a bigger audience by going light than forcing drama down people’s throats.
dhex
/ July 27, 2010“…people might have been more receptive to my idea that emotional alienation is an important part of the way wrpgs tell stories and encourage player exploration.”
it is, but part of the problem is the use of the term “alienation” rather than something more neutral-sounding like “blank slate”. i get your point, mind you, i just think you’re completely wrong; melodrama is what makes jrpgs insufferable nightmares (an anime boot stomping on choices and consequences, forever), and the future of the wrpg so terribly bleak. (with some minor exceptions, like if age of decadence ever comes out)
obviously, it’s more a matter of taste. what’s more alienating than a weepy teenage boy or girl protagonist to an adult game player? (or to this one, at least)
the blank slate may not be completely believable, but certain recent games (kotor 2, mask of the betrayer, bloodlines of course) have come close to coming up with an ideal manifestation of a choice-making machine in a more reactive environment. an “evil” that’s not evil, but self-interested. a “good” that’s more than just being a saint. etc. noble goals.
alpha protocol was a good stab at trying to blend the two (meaningful choices and a solidified, non-blank-slate main character) but it was a mixed bag. good on obsidian for trying for a world less black-and-white – it gives us high hopes for salvaging something useful from fallout 3.
BeamSplashX
/ July 27, 2010“what’s more alienating than a weepy teenage boy or girl protagonist to an adult game player?”
The thing is, almost all of us were whiny as teenagers. Although we realize now that a lot of those problems weren’t as big as we thought they were, we at least remember what it was like to feel that way. Considering the unimportant nature of things I got upset about back then, I can be pretty sure something major like seeing a loved one murdered would make me react in a JRPG kind of way (with more swearing).
On the other hand, I’ve never been face to face with death and I can unfortunately be pretty sure I wouldn’t be stoic about it, let alone a wiseass. So it once again slips into a more common power fantasy, though JRPGs provide the fantasy of cutting away adolescent emotional issues with a giant honking sword.
lauramichet
/ July 27, 2010Because the system notifies me via e-mail every time a comment is made on this blog, and because I don’t want to change that system, I’ve made the decision to close comments on this particular post– I simply don’t have the time or energy to continue monitoring them.
for future reference:
http://xkcd.com/386/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eristic
Nevertheless, I gave you all a good run. It is, frankly, more than was ever required of me.