Atomkilla
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2011
- Messages
- 715
This may be slightly offtopic - but how many RPGs exist where you play as a well-written male character?
Depending on your definition of well-written - several or none at all.
This may be slightly offtopic - but how many RPGs exist where you play as a well-written male character?
It is not uncommon in the jRPGs that inspired PS:T. For instance, one of the first major jRPGs, Phantasy Star, featured a female protagonist. Final Fantasy III/6 focuses primarily on two female characters (Terra and Celes). Valkyrie Profile, contemporaneous with PS:T, is about an immortal gathering tormented souls to fight alongside her. Septerra Core, which like PS:T is an American RPG inspired by jRPGs, features a female protagonist.
Can't think of any wRPGs, though I doubt that would be true if Chris had been allowed to run with the female-protagonist Last Rites, since many would have followed in his lead (as they did with the male-protagonist PS:T).
This may be slightly offtopic - but how many RPGs exist where you play as a well-written female character?
Almost every RPG I remember playing was... customizable character.
Which games are you referring to?many would have followed in his lead (as they did with the male-protagonist PS:T).
This may be slightly offtopic - but how many RPGs exist where you play as a well-written female character?
And I mean female character by default, not a game where you can chose character's sex and build it from there.
I'm really intrigued by this ATM as I don't think I've considered it ever before. Almost every RPG I remember playing was either male character or customizable character. Not a single female-fronted one comes to mind (on the other hand, I'm sleepy and running on caffeine fumes, my brain isn't in top shape). Well, Horizon Zero Dawn does, but I have trouble calling that game an RPG.
While I like your theory, I think he just meant to say that he would've preferred to give players the options of choosing between a male and female character.As I understand from Chris Avellone's recent post on the Vice forums ("we didn’t have much choice in making the Nameless One a male, which I didn’t support"), the Last Rites vision doc we've seen came after management required the story to be changed to be about a male protagonist and babes, rather than the female-centric story that Chris originally pitched. That vision doc clearly came after TNO had been locked into being male. (There's no way that vision document could reflect a "choose your gender" iteration.)
Dex was all right.
There's also Anjali and Katarina from Dungeon Siege III.
Besides Dex there was Septerra Core - which is a FFVII clone made in the West - and Zanzarah, the Pokémon meets Quake game.
There's also Venetica, but it has some ridiculously sexist clothing (game's best armor is basically a night gown), so I doubt it counts in this regard.
EDIT: Transistor, if you consider it an RPG, and Child of Light.
The best written female protagonist is obviously Lara in the Tomb Raider reboot.
Oh I'm so traumatized about all the violence on this island
*Proceeds to murder 500 people"
Well, maybe. But I refuse to take what he said as bad faith or a mistake. Everything in these threads has shown that Chris is as careful and thoughtful with his posts as he is with his fiction. He said he "didn't support" "making the Nameless One male," which certainly doesn't sound like, "With 20 years' hindsight, but without considering any of the consequences of such a change, we should've allowed a choice." Hopefully we'll get an answer from the oracle himself and can stop speculating. But if there were a female TNO story, I think it would be amazing to learn a little more about it.My theory is: he designed it that way since the beginning, thinking about a male characters, hot babes as companions and all that stuff and without even thinking about a female perspective (we're in the 90s, so nobody in the press would criticize a game for not having strong women or whatever), then years later he thought "mmm I could've added the option to play as female" (maybe because someone complained about it or asked him why he couldn't roleplay as a woman) and said that it would've been better, without thinking how TNO as a woman wouldn't make much sense without re-designing half of the game.
Well, the only person I'm entitled to speak for is myself, and I was certainly inspired by PS:T to make Primordia. But I'm pretty sure I've heard other writers over the years speak of the game's impact on them. And other games show PS:T's mark. For instance, I think MOTB (which is plainly intended to have a male protagonist, even if there's a nominal choice) is strongly inspired by PS:T. And I think there were plenty of writers who were inspired not to make a PS:T knock-off but to make some game; and I bet those were disproportionately male because PS:T is written to speak specifically to men.Which games are you referring to?many would have followed in his lead (as they did with the male-protagonist PS:T).
Besides Dex there was Septerra Core - which is a FFVII clone made in the West - and Zanzarah, the Pokémon meets Quake game.
He wanted to support both genders and make TNO and the companions more customizable:(Or would the player have chosen gender? I had always figured that the predefined TNO was a jRPG-inspired decision to break from the norm in make-your-avatar or main-character's-a-cipher wRPGs, so I assume not...)
Sometimes resources also drive gameplay as well – we had to make a lot of choices in Planescape: Torment based on limited resources, so that affected the scope of narrative and gameplay as well.
As an example, the companions in Torment often did not have the budget for a wide range of armor and weapon sets, so we made narrative reasons as to why they didn’t switch their weapons (hey, Annah, always just liked stabbing people, Morte only gets teeth because he has no arms and taunts because VO is easy, and Vhailor’s always been an axe-man). This resource-starvation got a little claustrophobic when it came to the Nameless One, as one of the unfortunate things about the character is I’d preferred more customization and allowing for both genders, but we simply didn’t have the resources to do it.
Hm. It's even harder for me to imagine a gender-choosing PS:T than it is to imagine the game with a female protagonist. The latter is a different, but definable game. I don't really see how you can have the same plot arc for both. "We're going to tell a highly personal story, the same way, regardless of TNO's gender" doesn't seem likely to work?
Anyway, hopefully Chris will stop in to sort it out. It would be nice to hear how the plan was going to work. (The Last Rites vision doc is clearly meant for a single-sex TNO, so the decision must've been made before then.)
Best written female character in a videogame is Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3.The best written female protagonist is obviously Lara in the Tomb Raider reboot.
Oh I'm so traumatized about all the violence on this island
*Proceeds to murder 500 people"
Have you played Kotor 2, also by MCA, by any chance? Because that game (which incidentally is also about a protagonist haunted by their past) attempts to do that to some extent, with your gender choice affecting whether one of two gender-exclusive companions can join you and changing your interaction with some of the antagonists. Whether it succeeds at that is another story.Hm. It's even harder for me to imagine a gender-choosing PS:T than it is to imagine the game with a female protagonist. The latter is a different, but definable game. I don't really see how you can have the same plot arc for both. "We're going to tell a highly personal story, the same way, regardless of TNO's gender" doesn't seem likely to work?
Primordia is an adventure game though, which typically have fixed protagonists. And while MoTB may have been inspired by PS:T, its protagonist certainly isn't. Just compare the scope of both games; MoTB has you dealing with interplanar politics and coming face to face with several gods (one of which you get to destroy), whereas I don't think PS:T has even a single mention of any deity (apart from the god of Portals being name-dropped like once) due to how focused it is on telling the personal story of the Nameless One.Well, the only person I'm entitled to speak for is myself, and I was certainly inspired by PS:T to make Primordia. But I'm pretty sure I've heard other writers over the years speak of the game's impact on them. And other games show PS:T's mark. For instance, I think MOTB (which is plainly intended to have a male protagonist, even if there's a nominal choice) is strongly inspired by PS:T. And I think there were plenty of writers who were inspired not to make a PS:T knock-off but to make some game; and I bet those were disproportionately male because PS:T is written to speak specifically to men.Which games are you referring to?many would have followed in his lead (as they did with the male-protagonist PS:T).
Have you played Kotor 2, also by MCA, by any chance? Because that game (which incidentally is also about a protagonist haunted by their past) attempts to do that to some extent, with your gender choice affecting whether one of two gender-exclusive companions can join you and changing your interaction with some of the antagonists. Whether it succeeds at that is another story.