Note that the focus is still on tropes common to RPG's, not characters in general. To that effect, my aim is for more of an MMO experience, where a character can start from scratch and have considerable freedom to explore the world, without being bound by some special destiny. So, it's a flat character in the sense of being an easily molded cypher, same as any MMO avatar. Contrariwise, characters defined by their special status - like Harry Potter's wizards, or the Jedi, or any number of young-adult fiction protagonists like Percy Jackson - are typically railroaded into fairly standard adventure plots, or even just boring soap operas. Meanwhile, the arbitrary separation from regular society only serves to put them in a position that would normally be performed by trained professionals - soldiers, spies, or scientists, for instance. What's the point of having special powers, if they don't come with an actual special purpose? I'd rather just have characters be soldiers, spies, or scientists, since they're not only much more egalitarian in theme, but are well-established adventure archetypes in their own right.
edited 30th Nov '16 7:05:34 AM by indiana404
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I don't get your point. A character can have whatever skill or power you want depending on the genre and function you aim for.
As I pointed out characters who defined by their skill or power more than personality are boring. It doesn't matter if they are James Bond or Mr. Fantastic. So you want to write a choose your own story style like the children's series Choose Your Own Adventure? But at the same time not offer a structured end narrative journey for the reader to insert them-self in? Stories don't write themselves. The character isn't going to do whatever the reader wants. There's still obstacles and goals you the writer has to lay out. That would never work in any worded format. No Man's Sky was developed with the intentions of letting the player do whatever they wanted. The only urgency they bounded to the player was the desire to explore a universe. Look how that turned out. Open sandbox fiction without structure is a dead sandbox to get immersed in. This is difficult, so why not just follow The Magician’s Trilogy if you want to explore the ramifications and deeper implications of a genre or trope?
You keep on generalizing random things with the word word soap opera. I am not sure if you really know what soap opera means.
What does the plots of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Percy Jackson have to do with a MMO?
If you use a blank state avatar why they venture out doesn't have to be limited to the chosen one trope. There's a billion other choices aside from "some special destiny". You're thinking in terms of tropes. Fall Out 4 is a vengeance plot under the dying earth subgenre mixed with some other subgenres. Fable is a discovery plot under the epic fantasy subgenre.
edited 30th Nov '16 7:50:22 AM by WolyniaBookSeries
Note, however, that both James Bond and superhero films these days focus too much on the main characters' status for its own sake, rather than as a way to advance the story. Bond being a Cold War dinosaur has been a sore spot ever since the Brosnan years, while cape flicks are all about heroes finding excuses to bash in one another, while their original motivation with regard to using their abilities is all but an afterthought. To contrast, even a brainless action bonanza like Pacific Rim knew how to keep the personal drama to a minimum, with the resident unusual ability of "drift compatibility" being quite flexible and inclusive in its availability - apparently, pretty much everyone could do it.
It's a matter of form versus function. When you spend far too much focus on what the characters are, the cost is usually paid by not enough attention to what they actually do. Think of the standard Blue-Collar Warlock. Can he do magic? Sure. Does he do magic for any purpose different from the scuffles of a traditional hard-boiled detective? Not really. It's simply a decoration in terms of function, hence why urban fantasy keeps inflating the stakes, so that the anti-social trenchcoat brigade members can seem important.
edited 30th Nov '16 7:21:22 AM by indiana404
The whole point of this thread was to collect ideas that, if used correctly, could potentially provide foundations for an interesting conflict from which everything else - characterization, end goals, motivations, et cetera - could be made. Like, say, if some unspoken rule of your average RPG game were to be suddenly broken and the world would react to it in a realistic manner, with some people abusing it, some trying to get things back to how they were before, and some just trying to cope with the sudden change.
What's so unclear about this?
You don't need to deconstruct anything to flesh out a character. That's a weird root to follow if you want motivation, goal, and characterization. For a video game a setting reacts to the player based on how you program it. That works differently in Table top role plays or just general online forums.
Secondly, any notion of realism has to fit the reality of your fiction, so it's real under this specific universe. Not all things in our reality would work or sound reasonable in that universe. Deconstruction doesn't mean making fiction look like our reality. A realistic manner?
I don't think there's anything from our reality real about "...abusing it, some trying to get things back to how they were before, and some just trying to cope with the sudden change." because that's just the narrative choice you chose. Sounds like there's some type of political conflict going on mixed with nationalism. Yeah fancy concepts to throw around, but here's come my repeating question. How would you weave them into a story's format?
Let's begin by writing a cast effected, dealing with, and causing the conflict. Forget about the conflict. First figure out who they are outside your idea of "...abusing it, some trying to get things back to how they were before, and some just trying to cope with the sudden change." because if that's all they ever worry about and that's all what defines them there will be issues later on. The only exception I except is if the character's function revolves solely around that conflict. Everything they express serves it.
Okay are there 3-4 adjectives that fit them well well but not most other characters in the same genre have? If not think again. Once finished work up to the world around them. If you can't write a paragraph about who they are without bringing up the world around them I doubt I would care a lot.
Urban fantasy has a lot of versatility, so the stakes can either be externally driven by a grandiose conflict or internally driven by a smaller, personal conflict. In fact depending on the writer an urban fantasy story may exclude magic. It's not a requirement. If magic does exist it's almost always hidden because well it's being used in an urban setting. In some rare cases it's known, being a mundane component to life.
edited 30th Nov '16 8:36:38 AM by WolyniaBookSeries
So imagine you're going through a decent urban fantasy series like The Dresden Files or Supernatural, noticing that slowly but surely the Monster of the Week stories that actually focus on pseudo-mythical adventures fall back in favor of family dramas and apocalyptic angst - the first is something you can get from any other series, the second simply never pays off, all while devouring every other sub-plot like a hungry Cthulhu having the munchies. Notice how in both cases the main characters' inherent speshulness grows as the soapiness also ramps up, It's no mere correlation, believe you me.
It's similar to how Harry Potter was not just a wizard, but a speshul wizard, a sports star, a Brilliant, but Lazy prodigy with extremely rare abilities - a power fantasy through and through. And yet he starred in six books of boarding school antics, topped with the most basic of MacGuffin collection plots. Simply put, Rowling invested everything in the character and his supporting cast, to the point that the actual story was a cookie-cutter changeling fantasy ending with Harry living the life of a government paper-pusher... only he's a magical government paper-pusher, that makes all the difference.
To contrast, try picking up something in the vein of Monster Hunter International - the series is an RPG just waiting to happen. The masquerade is barely functional, the main characters belong to a fairly common professional field (no guesses as to what that is), family dramas are all but inverted with just how easygoing the characters take everything, and while there seems to be some build-up to a grand fight, the focus right now is on anthology books starring random hunters having their own adventures. It's pretty much the series I'd have done had I not chanced upon it already.
Essentially, Dresden, Potter and the Winchesters had inflated power, but lacked an inherent purpose. The monster hunters are all about purpose, and rather than any inherent power, they rely on guns. Lots of guns. Seriously, Hellsing isn't so in love with guns. And as RPG's and games in general are all about giving players a purpose, this is the model more suitable to work with. Evil looms. Cowboy up. Kill it. Get paid.
edited 30th Nov '16 9:27:54 AM by indiana404
@Wolynia Book Series: "I don't think there's anything from our reality real about that"
So you're saying that if, say, the physics that prevent you from picking up things much heavier than yourself no longer applied, then real life people would not very quickly start abusing it, leading to potential chaos?
And yes, I know, everything you say about characterization is correct. But the point of the thread is to find things from RPG games that, if acknowledged in-universe and looked at with realistic approach, could lead to some interesting scenarios. It's not that much different than if I just went and said "hey, throw me some ideas that I could use to develop a story".
Don't ask me how I am going to use these ideas in practice, because this is for me to figure out on my own. It's as if I said "Please give me ideas for a story set in the wild west" and you kept asking "How are you going to make characters and meaningful story out of this?".
Although, you did bring up one interesting subject - how would you describe a character without bringing up the world they live in even once?
edited 30th Nov '16 12:18:58 PM by ZuTheSkunk
Show an affirming flame
I'd argue that the setting around a character is an absolutely crucial part of storytelling. Remember that this setting isn't just the protagonist and the few other characters they interact with; presumably there are other people too, and even if they're offstage, they still exist and need to be accounted for.
In addition, I'd argue that there is literally no way you can complete divorce a character from their social setting. Their worldview, their attitude, their history—all of that is affected by the physical and social setting you place them in. That in turn means that you need to put some attention to making that setting consistent, since it will have a role to play in the story.
Because here's the key: Realism might not be needed. Consistency absolutely is. That means that, when you mess about with the background rules in order to tell your story, you should at least put some thought into how it'd affect the other people—the ones on whom the camera isn't trained right now. If they're too obviously just 2-D background props who are blown over by the first question, that would detract from your story as a whole. Living characters against a living world make for an excellent story; living characters against a poorly-thought-out painted backdrop, less so.
edited 30th Nov '16 1:48:47 PM by SabresEdge
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Precisely. The aforementioned immature mentality is such because it typically removes the agency of billions of people - governments, militaries, even random strangers stumbling upon the supposedly hidden world, or having to deal with unearthly threats. Offhand remarks about how people are stupid and helpless without the designated heroes merely engage in circular reasoning over elements the writers themselves have introduced.
To that effect - and here's an obligatory RPG element that can be deconstructed - what happens in a world where player and non-player characters are immediately obvious, so the PC's are the only ones ever tasked with anything important, while the NPC's just sit around in their villages and wait for the next hero to arrive and do their chores for them? Will there be some social stratification in place, or even some internal classist system within the PC's themselves? Will character interactions start looking like MMO chat messages - "Party needs healer. Better not suck." For that matter, the average MMO playerbase can easily serve as template for how real people would act in the circumstances of an RPG... and my, it's a sight to behold.
Show an affirming flame
If we discuss MMOs in particular, I must recommend Halting State. The internal economies of MMOs and how they're managed plays a large part in the plot—how to manage inflation due to the constant influx of gold, balance drops, and incentivize players to stay instead of upping sticks and moving to another, more fun MMORPG. The key part of an MMO economy isn't wealth, like it is in the real world, but fun, so the "economy" has to be modeled accordingly.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
Uh flat characters aren't flat because of their special abilities
unless they are developed mainly in terms of them; e.g. listing out the characters and their superpowers. chances are a super being to be that does not captive the audience before gaining superpowers won't do so after. this means we must focus on their characterization, action, dialogue, backstory, dynamics, etc... if someone is boring in the first chapter, 30 minutes of a film, first five cutscenes why bother with them an hour later? you know people have personalities, behaviors, and goals. if those three aren't the focus then... you got a cardboard box. how do you portray each one via the techniques from prose, video games, and film? each medium functions differently though devices/tropes are universal.
Truthfully the term flat character means a character who has only one trait, emotion, or action to express and by default of this archetype's function will not move from it. E.M. Forster never coined flat character as a derogatory term. It's neither bad or good. Gollum and Mike Ehrmantraut are flat. However, some people find when a flat character is the protagainst the story suffers as a result. When flat characters take up the most amount of time boredom kicks in. On the other-hand, the one blah blah doesn't have look and sound nondescript. Good writers try to disguise this archetype's function through a goal, personality, or behavior. Agnes Mary Winstea doesn't feel like she only expresses a concern for the The Butcher because her function demands it but because whenever she plays the role it's the highest state of arousal for her; that's part of motivation.
You can have no superpowers at all and still end up with flat characters. You can focus more on your thematic premise and still end up with flat characters like in Atlas Shrugged; a book in which everyone becomes mouthpieces for rhetoric. Yeah those types of fiction are informational but not emotionally entertaining. People don't want to be lectured to death.
What? How does writing about the wizardry world from a muggle's perspective make the fiction more adult. I bet someone on fanfiction already wrote it. Another thing in the Harry Potter verse magic is kept hidden:
‘But what does a Ministry of Magic do?’
‘Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there’s still witches an’ wizards up an’ down the country.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we’re best left alone.’
- Hagrid and Harry.
"The persecution of witches and wizards was gathering pace all over Europe in the early fifteenth century. [SNIP] "Let the Muggles manage without us!" was the cry, as the wizards drew further and further apart from their non-magical brethren, culminating with the institution of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1689, when wizardkind voluntarily went underground.
Tales of Beedle the Bard - page 40 to 41 - US Collector's Edition
As the witch-hunts grew ever fiercer, wizarding families began to live double lives, using charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families. By the seventeeth [sic] century, any witch or wizard who chose to fraternise with Muggles became suspect, even an outcast in his or her own community. Among the many insults hurled at pro-Muggle witches and wizards (such fruity epithets as 'Mudwallower,' 'Dunglicker,' and 'Scumsucker' date from this period), was the charge of having weak or inferior magic.
Tales of Beedle the Bard - page 43 to 44 - US Collector's Edition
Influential wizards of the day, such as Brutus Malfoy, editor of Warlock at War, and anti-Muggle periodical, perpetuated the stereotype that a Muggle-lover was about as magical as a Squib. Brutus wrote:
'This we may state with certainty: any wizard who shows fondness for the society of Muggles is of low intelligence, with magic so feeble and pitiful that he can only feel himself superior if surrounded by Muggle pigmen. Nothing is a surer sign of weak magic than a weakness for non-magical company.'
Tales of Beedle the Bard - page 44 to 46 - US Collector's Edition." -
Dumbledore
In terms of the narrative function this unmasked world has it gave rise to people like Voldemort. Also normal everyday people won't know what to do with Death Eaters except scream in horror as demonstrated in the Half-Blood Prince. Ministry of Magic wiped people's memories. Weaponizing magical stuff muggles found wouldn't go along with Harry Potter's theme of love even if anyone did learn how to. Don't forget the people who make magical decisions and laws are shown to believe magic shouldn't be accessible to or used on muggles. Lastly the franchise takes place 90% on England. Magical guns and troll bombs there? The setting is not America. All of this is within a specific context we cannot ignore. Within the Harry Potter verse it's not realistic someone would do "scientific experiment and extensive research into reproducing their abilities independently." It does not match the narrative context, therefore it's left for fanfiction or discussions outside universe. Neither would help J. K. Rowling next Harry Potter unless she decided to make it part of the context
edited 30th Nov '16 7:42:50 AM by WolyniaBookSeries