Before proceeding, it behooves us to define what a character driven story actually is. My own definition of such is as follows: A character driven story is one in which one character drives the plot, often as a result of specific personality traits or goals that he possesses. The plot does not direct the character, but instead he directs the plot. There is no villain to create situations that provide motivation for the character to act; he acts himself, and the plot (or rather, the world) reacts to him. I should also add that a character driven story can have more than one character in this situation.
This is best illustrated with hypothetical examples: A classic story might feature a villain that burns down the protagonist's house, and thus gives the progatonist a reason to chase the villain and fight him, when the hero might not have wanted to do so on his own. The villain performs the act, and the character must react to it. The villain's motivations for the act are unknown, but the hero's motivations are clear (vengeance/ justice/ whatever). Eventually, the villain's motivations might be revealed, often as a part of the final confrontation, but that's besides the point.
In a character driven story, the villain in the previous example would not need to exist. The protagonist might burn down his own house, maybe as a result of mental instabilies or some other specific form of mental reasoning that the audience may or may not know about as the act unfolds. The burning of the house would then spur the protagonist into action; he may decide to flee and find a place of seclusion to learn inner peace, for example. Or he may find he enjoys the act of murder and do it again, to someone else. Either way, the point is that the hero is his own antagonist. He needs no villain to motivate him into action. He motivates himself into action. Note that this does not automatically mean that a villain does not need to exist, it just means that a villain is an optional extra.
It follows from that reasoning that a character driven story cannot exist without its titular character- that is, he who motivates himself. I use that a yardstick for determining whether or not a given story is character driven. If one can remove the protagonist from a story, does that story become untenable? Does it fall apart without the protagonist in question? If the protagonist can be removed and replaced by someone else, then it is not a character driven story. Examples are, as always, best here. Dragon Age Origins is, by my definition, not a character driven story. Your Warden is not indispensible to the tale. If he or she had perished during the Harrowing, Alistair would have taken over. He would have formed the alliances needed to face the Archdemon, and he would have fought it. Whether or not he would have suceeded is not relevant; the point is that your Warden (and more importantly, his morals, philosophy and personality) was not a critical aspect of the story. Central, certainly, but not vital. As an addendum, it is worthy to mention that the Archdemon functioned as the villain: it performed the acts that motivated the heroes into fighting it.
Dragon Age 2, on the other hand, fits the bill of a character driven story; it just so happens that Hawke is not the driving character. Rather, the plot is driven by the characters of Meredith, Orsino, Anders and Anders. These are the characters that are indispensible to the plot. Imagine, if you will, what would have happened if Meredith had been killed during the Qunari assault in act 2, and then been replaced by Knight-Commander Greagor. Would act 3 have come to pass? What if a templar squad managed to pin and kill Anders in act 1? Would act 3 have come to pass then? DA 2 had no Archdemon type villain because one was not necessary to drive the plot. The characters mentioned before drove the plot.
DA 2, therefore, is a character driven story, but it also illustrates the problem Bioware faces when it comes to writing such stories. For better or worse, Bioware has cemented its reputation on the grounds of creating a strong illusion of player choice. Generally this manifests in the form of presenting player chracters (and by extenstion, players) with situations that have multiple outcomes, and then allowing players to choose the outcome that best suits them. Consequences, good or ill, are presented later. Similar choice extends quite deep into a Bioware game; players are free to define their character's personality (often in response to the personalities of other, fixed characters- NPCs), but what does this do to a character driven story? With at least two different personalities that can be expressed in-game, it becomes monumentally difficult to allow such choices to drive the plot, ostensibly because so many potential plots can exist. And what about three personalities? Or four? Or five?
This freedom of choice inherently renders a player character non-vital to the plot of the story being told. Other characters must fill in that gap. Other characters, who may or may not be influenced by the player character, become that indispensible component of the story, driving the plot based upon their personalities or traits. Player characters become spectators, and by extension, players become spectators.
That leads me to conclude that Bioware cannot make a character driven story with the player character (and thus the player) serving as the vital story component, without whom the story cannot be told. When Bioware tries that, we end up with DA 2, wherein characters that are not under the player's control or direction become indispensible to the plot.
What do the rest of you think? Is it acceptable to sideline the player character if that is the price of receiving a solid character driven story? Should Bioware stick with traditional hero vs. villain stories, as most of their previous games have done (in which no-one is vital to the story)? Share your thoughts!
Addendum: I should also add that your definition of a character driven story does not match mine. If this is the case, please tell me what you define a character driven story as.
Modifié par SnakeStrike8, 30 mars 2012 - 03:35 .
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