Sovy Kurosei said:
Lord Chambers said:
Do you disagree that portraits, when only given to important NPCs, represents a break of the fourth wall? Maybe for you, you don't notice. I think most people are like me though, and think "oh, he's got a portrait, I better listen up. I better save before talking to him. I better not to attack or kill him. Or maybe I can recruit him?" It's not game breaking, but I don't like having to meta-game and special portraits give me no option.
You can say the same thing with dialogue. "Oh, he talks a lot. I better save, not attack him, maybe I can recruit him?" So should all characters have equally detailed dialogue or none at all?
A fair comparison if you don't really understand what I'm saying. I don't have problems with the narrative revealing who the important characters are. I think that's part of it's function. In other words, dialogue is part of the gameplay. You do it. You read it. It part of the game's essence.
Conversely, things like interface are outside of that narrative. They aren't gameplay. They aren't what urges you to sit down at your computer and play. An interface is a necessary sort of evil so we interact with the game. Narrative elements like characterization shouldn't be part of it ideally.
You are welcome to disagree with this, but I think the majority of RPGers respect the plot of games and recognize, if they're critical thinkers, when they are getting information external to the setting. For me that's kind of spoilerish and annoying. As a designer, if your resources limit who you give unique portraits to, then you will communicate the importance to an NPC to the player the instant it pops up. This can be limiting, meaning you can never have the player bump-in-to the important NPC on the road. He will know by the portrait he is going to meet that person again.
If the promise of future run-ins is conveyed through dialogue, then the NPC may as well have a generic portrait and the player will react the same. If promise (of future run-ins) isn't conveyed through dialogue or some narrative means in-the-setting then the player is going to consciously game (either saving or not killing or whatever). He may do this anyway, but at least then it's because he understood the dialogue and not because te portrait was a flashing neon "important" sign reminded him he was playing a game. I think that is a fundamental flaw in game design, even if the majority of the times it's not gamebreaking to know who the important NPCs are other than to break your immershun.
There are some workarounds. Perhaps if you want the player to bump into an imporant NPC early on, without revealing his important immediately, you give him a robbed portrait that doesn't show his face. Then later when he has you strapped to a torture device he reveals His True Self. Or, you can play on player expectations and make an obviously important NPC die unexpectedly. For instance, anyone not familiar with the plot of Oblivion probably wouldn't have expected Uriel Septim to get killed considering he was voiced by Patrick Stewart. In Fallout 3, players not familiar with current developments will expect that Liam Neeson is going to be a reoccurring character since he's such a prominent name. Here I'm talking about celebrity voices, but it's exactly the same as unique portraits. In both circumstances letting outside design resource issues dictate narrative elements inside the game is sloppy and possibly limiting as a designer and annoying for the player.