jillabender wrote...
I'm back! ^__^
Welcome!
In Exile wrote...
You're right that the mechanics of the VO in DA2 don't necessarily, in themselves, prevent me from imagining things about my character the way I described.
But it's not entirely accurate to say that I'm not relying on any content in the game in my example. When my imagination adds nuances to the Dark Ritual scene, I'm building on details that are explicitly provided in the game - my PC leaving Morrigan for Zevran, her later touching affirmation of friendship with that same PC, and the dialogue choices where my character can express reluctance when Morrigan proposes the Dark Ritual.
Right, I don't want to make it seem that I was implying that what you're doing is in a vacuum. Rather, the problem is something like this:
Game NCPs => PC => Your Imagination
The end is your imagination. For me, that's not very satisfying because, essentially, I can make anything up. I don't like it when a my imagiantion is constrained. My ideal is a feedback loop, like so:
Game NCPs => PC => Game NPCs => PC
Now, a game without controlling the PCs dialogue could go like that too. But what's fun is having the reactions emerge. If the game doesn't let me express that choice in-game, then it's not a choice basically.
In fact, when my character expressed reluctance, Morrigan responded "Why? Because of Zevran?", so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me to imagine that having broken up with her for Zevran would add to my character's complicated feelings about agreeing to the ritual. It's the fact that what I imagined grew out of details in the authored narrative that made it feel organic to me, instead of, as you put it, bricked off from the rest of the narrative.
I can relate very much, because I approach games the same way. What I'm having trouble following is why it is that the absence of a voice helps this process along.
Again, you're right that the mechanics of the VO don't necessarily, in themselves, prevent my being able to use my imagination to elaborate on a character's motivations. But when I don't feel a strong connection to the character, I can't really get inside the character's head well enough to imagine his or her motivations in a satisfying way.
I can relate to that entirely. I guess where I'm coming from is that the absence of VO and the character actually being part of the game world is what prevents me from getting inside the character's head. In DA:O, there's no head to get inside. There's just a mass of writing whose possible intentions and effect I basically have to divine out of the blue.
With Hawke, I just don't feel the same kind of connection. As I said earlier, there were many points where I had the feeling that I was meant to see Hawke as feeling sadness, concern, or powerlessness, but it didn't quite come through in the writing or the performance. That's not to say I didn't have fun playing Hawke, but I felt that the presentation of Hawke was missing the subtle details and nuances that would have allowed me to know Hawke well enough to imagine why he or she might be motivated to do or say certain things.
Okay, I understand now. I thought you were saying VO was the problem, rather than that Hawke the character was the problem. Yeah, I get that. I found Hawke jived with what I like to RP well, moreso than most characters, but what I like RP isn't the traditional hero like Shepard.
In general, Hawke felt more vaguely defined to me than Shepard, and I found myself wishing that the writers had given themselves more freedom to make Hawke a more specific character, with a more firmly established personality. Of course, it's possible that it wasn't a conscious decision to leave Hawke's personality more up to the player to define, but simply that the writers didn't have the time or resources to develop Hawke the way they would have liked. Or maybe it was a bit of both.
It was a conscious decision, btw, DG confirmed in pre-DA2 that Hawke is meant to be less defined than Shep.
In short, I find role-playing the most satisfying when I can really step into the role of a character, imagining how my character experiences the events of the story and making choices from the character's point of view. With a character like the Warden, I'm stepping into the role of a character I created. With a voiced character like Shepard, I'm stepping into the role of a specific and compelling character provided for me, and I can shape how she develops as a character. But I can't quite get into the role of Hawke, because he or she feels lacking in the kinds of details and nuances that would really inspire me to use my imagination to build on what's already there.
For me, Hawke is the ideal. Shepard is a bit too fixed, so it feels like a tight fitting suit. The Warden is a thing - it's an object, it's not a character, because there is no character. Now, don't get me wrong - in the origins, the Warden is absolutely a character and I can totally RP a CE vs. a DN totally differently.
But once you get to Ostagar, anything that's unique or personifying about the Warden vanishes in thin air. There's just a block of emotionless plot driving brick that's moving forward, and trying to attach motivation to it doesn't work for me because the game doesn't let me express that motivation in any way.
In short, I enjoy both voiced and silent protagonists, for different reasons, but I don't find that DA2 offers quite what I look for from either. It's not necessarily the mechanics of the VO as such that get in the way of my preferred approach to role-playing - the mechanics on their own probably wouldn't be a problem if not for my difficulties with the way Hawke was presented in terms of the writing and performance.
Thanks for sharing! It was insightful.
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