39 réponses à ce sujet

[Dasher1010]

Give us some defining flaw, make us have to do horrible things to please an LI and give us more hard choices that our PC will angst about later. Too many games have flat characters as protagonists. I'd rather see a protagonist who's way more flawed.

[Anvos]

Well my Cousland killed the mage circle for Morrigan so there is already atleast one such choice in the series.

[Wulfram]

I think flaws are up to the player to supply.

[caradoc2000]

The Jade Empire protagonist sure has a flaw. Even the NPCs are constantly reminding him of it.

[MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES]

HOW THE INTERNET GOT IT INTO ITS COLLECTIVE HEAD THAT EVERY CHARACTER NEEDS A DEFINING FLAW IS BEYOND ME.

[MichaelStuart]

I support having to make more hard choices, but I don't see how making choices counts as a flaw?

[nightscrawl]

Dasher1010 wrote...

... and give us more hard choices that our PC will angst about later. Too many games have flat characters as protagonists. I'd rather see a protagonist who's way more flawed.

--- minor SPOILERS for Wayward Son and The Last Straw ---



Behlen vs Harrowmont was always the worst choice for me in DAO, and I love that. Unfortunately, in the other two situations where you have to make such a choice, there is a third choice resulting in a happy ending for everyone (curing the werewolves by convincing Zathrian to parlay and traveling to the circle for help with Connor instead of sacrificing Isolde).

I never really felt that way about the choices in DA2, except perhaps Feynriel and choosing Dalish vs Circle, but that was only after having played through it once. Even the Big Choice in DA2 wasn't really that hard. Unless you are totally rabid anti-mage, Meredith is just too crazy to go along with (for me).

As far as a flawed PC goes, that's really subjective, and also bound by head-canon and RP that people have while playing. You can ascribe any motive that you want to your PC for doing various things, but the problem will come with having dialogue options that allow you to act those out. Unfortunately, they won't be able to cater to every possible variation that a player might want. If they tried, it would just feel limiting to a narrow scope, similar to current complaints about Hawke being Bioware's character, not the player's.

Or are you instead referring to a PC having the potential to be a "damaged" character? Damaged meaning something happened to them in their past, changing their behavior to what it is currently, and affected (usually negatively) how they interact with other people (trust issues, truth issues [not being honest with others], emotional detachment, etc)? This poses the same kinds of problems as those above. If Bioware were to write such a PC for us, not allowing us to determine how we want our PC to react to a given situation in their past, people would be annoyed for similar reasons.

[Andraste_Reborn]

Given some of the horrible things that my Wardens and Hawkes have done, I don't think the DA3 protagonist really needs more opportunities to be flawed. (An equal number, sure.) I've had whole characters devoted to running around murder-knifing as many people as possible!

I don't think the game should force you to play a flawed character. If you want to play as the one paragon of virtue in a dark fantasy world, I think that should be possible.

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

The first year in Kirkwall. Working as a mercenary could have thrown up all sorts of things for the latter parts of the game, as you can bet Hawke's employer had you doing unsavoury or immoral tasks now and then. A pity this was glossed over, allowing us to believe our characters had a clean slate despite spending months and months performing tasks for the seedy underbelly.

I agree that flaws should be up to the character to develop. The game should provide opportunities for these flaws or mistakes to be developed, then make use of them.

[nightscrawl]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...

The first year in Kirkwall. Working as a mercenary could have thrown up all sorts of things for the latter parts of the game, as you can bet Hawke's employer had you doing unsavoury or immoral tasks now and then. A pity this was glossed over, allowing us to believe our characters had a clean slate despite spending months and months performing tasks for the seedy underbelly.

100% agree!!

Granted, nobles' families might not always know who specifically (Hawke vs Red Iron) assassinated so-and-so, but I think some of them would know.

[whykikyouwhy]

Dasher1010 wrote...

Give us some defining flaw, make us have to do horrible things to please an LI and give us more hard choices that our PC will angst about later. Too many games have flat characters as protagonists. I'd rather see a protagonist who's way more flawed.

I guess it depends on how you are defining "flawed" and "flaws." All manner of things could be considered a flaw, depending on your perspective. If you played a mage in DA2, for example, other characters might regard that aspect alone as a flaw to/of your character and persona.

As others have stated, it can (and perhaps should, imo) boil down to how you play your character. Certainly you can choose certain dialogue and actions to woo an LI and then betray or reject them, thus lying to them the whole time prior in order to lead them down the path to romance. I think there's a lot of flexibility there in how you want to interact with the world presented, what direction you want to move your PC in.

So too, I don't know if I would care to see a lot of angst in the next DA. I enjoy drama, and difficult decisions can add to the narrative, but that's quite different from having a PC lamenting over decisions made.

[5trangeCase]

It's our character, we create our flaws. They do not need to be shoved down our throat. Really to describe a universal irredeemable "flaw" is to get into the realms of simple good and evil. Both my Warden and my Hawke were not virtuous but I find it difficult to pick out something as plain and easily definable as a "flaw" in their character. That is because they are complex characters, not action heroes.

[hoorayforicecream]

Dasher1010 wrote...

Give us some defining flaw, make us have to do horrible things to please an LI and give us more hard choices that our PC will angst about later. Too many games have flat characters as protagonists. I'd rather see a protagonist who's way more flawed.

Unless you allow the player to choose the flaw(s) themselves, the 'True Role Playing' brigade will complain that it would take away from player agency that the devs force such behavior onto the player character without their approval. But then several would probably complain that they feel forced into having to pick a flaw when some people genuinely don't have such, or just want to play an escapist fantasy rather than a more believable protagonist, and that their immershunz are broken by it. And so on, and so forth.

[Huntress]

Dasher1010 wrote...

Give us some defining flaw, make us have to do horrible things to please an LI and give us more hard choices that our PC will angst about later. Too many games have flat characters as protagonists. I'd rather see a protagonist who's way more flawed.

Then play da2, we all know how well and accepted that game was.. right? right?.

Here is a post talking about da2 "champion" and his flaws:

"Hawke has to be one of the most ineffectual serious protagonists I've seen."
http://social.biowar...index/8514310/1

Have fun.

[Maria Caliban]

He wants to play a flawed hero and you're recommending DA II, a game where the hero has no flaws.

[Aldaris951]

Maria Caliban wrote...

He wants to play a flawed hero and you're recommending DA II, a game where the hero has no flaws.

Your new display pic is kind of  "meh" at least when it was miranda it suited your forum personality

[Maria Caliban]

You don't see the desire demon avatar as fitting my personality?

[Huntress]

Maybe you're hawke am sure I can name 100 or more flaws of any of my hawke's.
I will give you just one.
1) Hawke cant save his mother from one of the many crazy mages in Kirkwall How about that? hmm? A champion that can save a city full of templars but not his Mother or siblings... No flaws my... pardon my french.

[Maria Caliban]

If Hawke's mother died to a personal failing on Hawke's part, that would be a character flaw. As is, at no point is does the narrative tie to death to any vice or weakness Hawke might have. Likewise, a human Warden can't save her family while a Dalish Warden can't save Tamlen, but these are never tied to any personal failings, so they're not evidence of flaws.

Having a predefined character flaw, which is what Dasher is asking for, is not the same as sometimes losing.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 28 avril 2012 - 05:08 .

[deuce985]

This is actually a good suggestion, IMO.

Seeing as how these characters are human(well, in DA2 at least) and I like to relate more to them...why can't they have flaws? Our PC is usually a reflection of us? At least, that's how I play my Bioware games. Partly what I love about Bioware games so much is how their characters can draw emotion out of me. Not many games can do that. Relating more to the characters is just going to create more emotional attachment for me. Why does the PC have to be so "perfect"?

Modifié par deuce985, 28 avril 2012 - 05:15 .

[Huntress]

Maria you are missing one point, Human noble wasn't a warden when it lost everything in fact he/she was going to have to fight it everyone with her mother and dog at lvl 2, am sure duncan would have left because the blight is way more important, Hawke on the other hand already had a party everyone in it had alot of experience, so as you can see you are comparing tomatos to bananas.

I like hawke don't get me wrong, it just people do not like hero's to fail or to make mistakes, many said: give the player the choice to make this mistakes, but at the end they will say it was the character weakness and not that was their own choices. maybe I don't explain myself well in english if so, I am sorry.

Modifié par Huntress, 28 avril 2012 - 05:20 .

[Pasquale1234]

All of my DA characters have bad hair, and some are walking fashion disasters.

Does that count?