Striking a balance between gameplay and characters.

[ginanubismon]

How does one start a topic like this? Well, here it goes. Since before I had started with AGS, which was almost five, or six years ago, I started off as a fanfiction "writer" and tried my best to bring most of my favorite characters to the adventure genre like I did with the so-called written form.

Which ended with failure, horrible and very nasty failure.

After that, a few hundred bad start ups and many annoying ideas C&C I had learned something odd. A taboo within all forms of Fan "writing", almost a sin in and of itself, creating an original character. It was new, dangerous and fun yet I was left out in the rain when it came to this. I only knew how to follow a very rigid set of rules set by what many call a camera, I think.

The challenge was fun but a little tiring on setting on a single concept, I grew tired on looking up writing tips on the net because they all have this problem with this hillbilly girl named Peg, or Jane-Lue or something. While I realize that the same writing tips apply to games, just like anything else, I had realized there is a balance to preserve, at least for the gamers.

On one hand, the character must be interesting and have something to relate to but on the other they must have something that the game can use, a skill like strength, detective skill, stupid luck or something that can be used in a game. Something that could be potentally over powering in any other media works here, and only here

My topic is a question, how does one strike the balance for gameplay while keeping a character from being so annoying/boring that the player will stop playing?

Sorry if it seems disconnected, but I tried my best to keep it all on topic. And thanks in advance for reading.

[Dudeman Thingface]

I suggest you read this (AGS) wiki article:

http://www.americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/Giving_Personality_to_Characters

It's not going to answer your question directly necessarily, but I think it's a great place to start for your question.

As for my direct answer, I think the answer lies in the premise. How interesting the character is, or how fun the gameplay is, lies solely on what you start off with. To keep the gameplay interesting, first, you must have an interesting character, because all of the gameplay revolves around who and what the main character is.
In order to strike a balance, I suggest giving a little backstory, and have the rest of the game slowly delve into who this character is. A majority of what defines a characters personality is (in adventure games) how they interact with the environment. Simply because, that is what you'll be doing for about 90% of the game.
In order to define what an interesting character is, all you have to do is be a little twisted with your interpretation. Such as Bernard from Day of the Tentacle. He's a nerd, yes, but he's an interesting nerd, why? because of what he brings to the game. In this case, humour. Your main character should be your main source of comedy/action/horror and all those other feelings (unless you have more than 1 main character, then you'll be able to share it around) in how they perceive and react to the world around them.

I hope that helps.