Why do so many of our characters fall flat? In his weekly game design column, Activision's James Portnow explores why so many videogame characters turn out to be "anemic marionettes."

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A lesson in character

Today’s topic is character.   Why do they seem like cardboard plot devices or, worse yet, impediments to the action?  Why can’t character carry a game like it does for so many TV shows or movies?

The easy answer is that that is not what video game characters are for.  They are meant to be empty vessels that allow a player to step into the experience.  Consider Mario or Sonic or Samus; we know little about these characters and don’t care.  They are an easy bridge between ourselves and the game.  But it does us a disservice to claim that that is all that characters in videogames can be.  There is nothing wrong with the true empty vessel, but when we talk about character today we’ll be talking about it in the more traditional sense.

So why do videogame characters so often fall flat?  Why do they so often seem like anemic marionettes?  Why is character so rarely the focus of games?

If I had definitive answers to these questions I’d go make my million dollars and never talk to any of you again, but, until then, here are my thoughts.

Standard Story Structure

Many people have long lamented the lack of story in games.  I’ve often heard the argument that videogames have forty hours to do what film does in two.  This is a naïve way of looking at our medium.  Let’s examine how stories are usually told in games.

moscalloutI’ve often seen entire cut scenes be, essentially, a recital of facts./moscalloutMost games today use a “story-action-story” structure where ninety percent of the story is told outside of the game play.  Moreover, the time allotted for the story is commonly about 2% of the game (in the typical 40 hour game you’ll usually find about 50 minutes of “story”).  On top of this, we have to remember that the story is often chopped up into 3-5 minute segments and that these segments are experienced at intervals ranging from a couple of hours to a couple of weeks.

This means that it’s much more realistic to say that we have 50 minutes to do what movies do in two hours; we just have to do it in a fragmented episodic bursts…  I think at this point it seems reasonable to ditch the movie comparison.  We are a different medium and will have to learn to tell our tales in a new manner (as does every generation).

But what does this mean in regards to character?

The Dangers of Exposition

Plot dump does not for character make (take that standardized grammatical structure)!

Because of compressed nature of storytelling in most videogames (games which use the “story-action-story” structure), it is very tempting to use our character’s few lines for exposition or “plot dump”.  The amount of dialogue in games is often so compressed that we feel the need to use what little of it there is to explain what’s going on (i.e. the backstory).  Unfortunately dialogue is one of two key components we use to judge character (the other being action, which we’ll get back to later) and exposition gives us little or no insight into the nature of the speaker.

If we must use exposition (and it is at times unavoidable), we’d do better to make sure we do it from our character’s perspective.  I’ve often seen entire cut scenes be, essentially, a recital of facts.  I’d rather find out later that some of those facts were wrong or that some of those facts were seen through the lens of the character (telling them) than to simply be presented with the information the developer feels I, as a player, need to make the story coherent.

The true key here is that opinions tell us more about a person than the facts they know (1).  Our characters need more opinions.  If we can start demonstrating a rational behind those opinions, we’re golden. However, given the current formula, that’s probably more than we can ask from anything but the most indulgent RPG.

A New Standard

Most of you have probably already heard me harp on this topic, so I won’t stay here long.  I’ll simply say that we need to start conveying as much story as possible through the action so that we don’t have to sacrifice play time for story time.

The problem so far is that most game developers seem to think they have to convey meaningful ideas.  Rather we should look for actions that contain meaning.

Archetype vs. Stereotype

But back to character… One of the major problems for the game industry is that we tend to end up with stereotypes when what we’re looking for is archetypes.  If you look at almost all of the most memorable videogame characters—Kain Highwind, Snake Pliskin,  Frog, Max Payne, &c—they are all archetypical.  The problem is that the line between an archetype and a stereotype is very subtle and, as established above, conveying that subtlety in the limited context of a videogame is often too much to ask.

Playing Against Type

A stereotype is a cliché or a caricature whereas an archetype is the epitome of something familiar.  The funny thing about an archetype is that it usually requires that the character play against type in some fashion.  Take Odysseus: he’s a free spirited trickster that only wants to get home and settle down. Take Frankenstein’s creation: he’s a monster that’s more human than the human in the book. Take Howard’s Conan: he’s a savage barbarian who’s shockingly intelligent (2).  The same is true of all of the great videogame characters.  

Clearly this isn’t all that’s required though.  I can name dozens of videogame characters with traits that went against type and yet still remained as clichéd as ever.  A lot of this is in the execution. I’m simply saying that the pure white hat will never really seem vibrant and alive.

That said, I will name one danger I’ve seen game designers overlook:  I’ve noticed that often we pay too little attention to the effect the setting has on our characters.  Place Snake in GTA and he becomes a cliché.  Give him all the same personality traits, dress him in street clothes and forget about all those metal gears and we’re left pretty much with just a guy who does what he wants.

The great thing about Snake is that he’s your archetypical individualist caught in a life where he can never really be free.  He’s the guy who pretends like he doesn’t really give a damn and yet saves the world time and again.  It’s the context for the character as much as the character itself which makes Snake the captivating hero he is.

(1) This rule only goes for general facts; esoterica tells us a lot about a character as well.  If a character can recite Shakespeare at will or has an in depth knowledge of both Bonsai and Astro-Physics it tells us a lot about them, though this usually only serves to color how they convey the more general information that the player actually cares about.  

(2) I know I’m doing horrible injustice to all of these characters by oversimplifying them, forgive me.