Do you like Everyman/Audience Surrogate protagonists in games?

Do you like them because they increase immersion by being a representation of you, the player? Or you dislike them because they\'re completely flat and have no interesting characteristics?

...or do you not care at all?

an everyman is only a problem WHEN they're boring, uninteresting characters.

i really don't care either way, but i think relatability is very overrated as a metric for what makes a good protagonist, in games or otherwise.

Do not care at all

It depends on the series to be honest. Sure it's justifiable in Pokemon, but when overused it kinda of defeats the purpose when it's overused.

Right now I'm leaning between "don't care" and "this was an waste"

Depends on the game type, really. Obviously it doesn't really matter one way or another in games where the story isn't very important in the first place.

Otherwise, it depends. If it's the type of game where the main enjoyment is the player playing off the world around them and getting immersed into it, such as Papers, Please or The YAWHG, then I'd say it's actually something of a good thing, as it allows the player to be more easily immersed into the world around them.

If it's something where the main gimmick is the game's an open world with lots of choices (some Choice Of Games games, some Elder Scrolls and Fallout Games, etc, etc), then it's generally a necessary thing to do — may not be the most interesting option, but it's the only way to let the player have their own choices without running into some major Gameplay and Story Segregation.

If it's just a linear RPG or visual novel or the like, though, then I dislike the "Everyman" character type, and vastly prefer more interesting characters as the player character.

i feel like you're conflating everyman with "silent protagonist". they're not the same thing.

homer simpson is an everyman, but he's not silent.

Depends, as ever, on the game. In something that has basically no plot, or at least a plot I'm not going to be paying attention to, a vague defined everyman is probably the best choice since anything else I'm just going to forget. But if him being a space monkey leads to some more interesting space segments, okay, sure, why not.

In more plot-focused things, it'll vary depending on whether they want to tell the story of Whoever the First, craft an interesting story around him, so on. If, instead, the focus is on the world around Whoever, it's probably best to deliberately mute the character so I step in, gaze at the pretty lighting. In RPGs, where you're meant to have choice and complete control over your character, someone not too defined is probably for the best.

Not to say, however, that an everyman is needed for such things. E.g.: Planescape: Torment casts you in the role of an aged amnesiac immortal, with only scarred skin which was filled with the tattoos of past lives. Also, you had a skull for a codpiece and wore no shirt, which was an odd fashion choice for anyone from any time. Still, even though you weren't really an everyman as generally referred to, the Nameless One (that's the protagonist, so called because, shockingly, he had no name) still ended up as something of a blank slate for you to imprint a personality and choices onto.

Nor not to say you can't make an interesting character piece on an everyman, but he'll probably need to be well-defined nonetheless to pull it off (which defeats some of the point of being an everyman and removes some of the audience surrogate elements, though may be a character easy enough for people to get involved with).

edited 5th Feb '15 12:50:08 AM by Lavaeolus

I prefer no personality at all (i.e. not even implied dialogue) or a defined personality. My personality is far enough off from the norm that I'm not going to identify with an everyman

To be honest, I don't think I'm a very interesting character, so silent protagonists/audience surrogates aren't satisfying at all. If you're going to have a character in your story, make them an interesting one.

There's also the strange phenomenon where games that let you make choices are forced to have those choices be meaningful, which means the character ends up as some kind of weird Mary Sue that has the universe bend over backwards to accommodate them. When your story structure makes it literally impossible for the character to ever experience powerlessness, that kind of limits the emotional involvement I can have.

edited 5th Feb '15 1:13:53 AM by Clarste

No, I don't. I don't like protagonists that have to have everything explained to them, and I prefer characters being competent within their own setting instead of "suddenly" realizing competency somewhere else. Of course, it's a bit different in games like for example certain Shin Megami Tensei-games, where it's a central plot point that all the protagonists are everymen put in a special situation. That's interesting.

That said, IMO it's all about how the everyman character is used in the plot and gameplay. Certain featureless protagonists can be fun because they let you have much more control of the PC, for example in some visual novels. But in others, it just makes the character comes across as bland and uninteresting.

Depends largely upon the game being played, but in general I tend to like protagonists with just enough personality shown over the course of the game that you get an idea of who they are without making things too specific to be unrelatable or closed to interpretation by the player.

For example, I'd be a liar if I said that Rayman was the most obviously developed character in the world (and honestly, even certain parts of his personality jump around depending on the game), but that doesn't detract from my enjoyment because I can impart parts of myself in to fill out the gaps. Same applies to Tiny.

Of course, there's also the off chance that a character is almost entirely defined by the creators; this, obviously, is more beneficial in games that put a heavy focus on the story but puts a damper on their relatability to certain folks. When it works, though, it's great, because you still feel like you're playing a part in their story. (Raz comes to mind as an example of this, as does Nate Drake.)

Personally I'm more for allowing a degree of customization where instead of, say, Gordon Freeman or someone else's idea of a hero, you are that hero yourself. Being able to do something like, just for example, you, yourself, fight Brock Lesnar. Something you would never do and if you could it'd be a Curb-Stomp Battle, but what sounds better? Jane Shepard doing all the awesome things she does in Mass Effect or tsstevens, Waxing Name, wehrmacht, ect, or if you like say Sarah Michelle Gellar doing all those awesome things in Mass Effect?

Hate them and I find the whole perspective of an audience needing a surrogate character to be silly.

Does April Ryan count?

I'm mean in the first game, she more or less saves two worlds through quick thinking rather than use of force.

Well... Maybe?

It depends on whether we mean "Regular person caught up in game's events" everyman or "Devoid of as many character traits as possible as to fit in with as many situations as possible" IE the Action Genre Hero Guy. The latter is becoming pretty annoying.

Down with the blandness! No more everymen!

In games where the protagonist is supposed to be a representation of you, like in Elder Scrolls or Pokemon, it works alright, but if they were to do it to, say, Tomb Raider or Xenoblade, the narrative would just fall apart. So it has its places, it should just stay in those places.

I don't mind everymen, but it'd be nice if the everymen actually WERE everymen instead of The Everyman? Like, a Bob from Middle Management who's prostate cancer is in remission gets stuck having to survive an alien invasion type of thing, or Sally the Auto Intern with student debts up to her ears accidentally gets roped into mafia shenanigans. Ordinary people with ordinary ambitions; distinct hopes, fears, and joys; not blank slates.

Audience surrogates can go diaf if there's no customization involved.

edited 8th Feb '15 10:09:48 AM by Bur

I absolutely hate them.

I don't want to play a game where I feel like "this character could be me in the real world." First of all, I'm insulted that the developers would presume to know what I am like in real life. Second of all, I play games to escape reality. In other words, to do things I can't do in the real world and experience things that don't exist in reality. Being an artist, I like to see developers use their imagination and create fantasy characters and settings. Here we have a medium with literally endless possibilities and if all they're doing is just going for "average Joe" protagonists instead of the Bad Ass hero with the occasional and reasonable flaw, I say "what's the point?".

This probably doesn't apply for every character though. After all, I liked Nathan Drake (though not because I felt connected to him). However, at the same time I really hated Jason Brody.

"diaf"?

That stands for "Die in a fire"

Why do people hate this trope so much? I wonder what owuld happen if we did have a game about an actual everyman character?

Presumably because the main character is the one you spend the most time with, so if they're defined entirely by being "ordinary" instead of being an interesting person in their own right, the work itself suffers.

I suppose there might be some wiggleroom for an audience surrogate with an interesting character, but that might also be a contradiction.

^^ It is. If the player character is an audience surrogate, by default if the player character is found to be special, it nullifies and contradicts the notion of audience surrogate. (And incredibly cheapens the experience after the first go.)

That's the biggest problem with the concept. By definition an everyman character/audience surrogate is not special.