What makes a strong, likable character?

[Miez]

Colossal, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying completely. This isn't a whiney "there are no girls in games!" thread. I'm saying that it's harder to connect with female characters. Mentally. It's harder to feel the same level of affection for a female character as it is to feel for say, Guybrush or Ben Throttle or whatever.

PERHAPS this is because of the way they are often the characters that need rescuing, or PERHAPS it is because they usually appear more formal than the player character.

See, you're getting me wrong. ¬¬ I'm not saying that anybody is making games that are sexist or whatever.  I'm merely saying it's HARDER TO IDENTIFY WITH FEMALE CHARACTERS.

Yuf - maybe that's because you are female. I identify with female protagonists very easily: Sophia, that girls from TLC, Grace from the GK series. And I always play female characters when roleplaying. And neither of them is a whining, wimpy woman that needs to be rescued.

[GarageGothic]

GarageGothic for president

on second thought lemme add something:

LOL, I preferred it before the second thought

I took it that you ment if they portrayed a female wrongly people would get upset and say "why is the female lead so stupid" or some such. As in a designer fears to create anything but a strong female character for fear of the backlash that the game demonizes women.

Well, I think "demonize" is a very strong word. But I don't think they would get away with a female Guybrush. As somebody else said, she would probably be perceived as just another dumb blonde. Also, I don't think we'd have a character like Laverne unless there were two other player characters in the game (both male and just as imperfect as her).

Edit: In a way I can't help feeling that the modern female protagonist - April, Kate and, to a certain degree, Grace - are somewhat of a return to the non-specified characters of  early text adventures. More of an avatar through which to interact with the game world than an actual character.

[DGMacphee]

I think female characters don't HAVE to have flaws (although they help with some parts of characterisation).

I just think, above all else, female characters should be interesting entities like any other character, be it male, dog, fish, alien, or robot.

That's why I liked Zanthia -- she was interesting without being a sex-symbol or a male-reversal.

She could be feminine and masculine at the same time.

Also, she could be strong and flawed at the same time too.

In short, I find her an interesting and fun person with which I can have an adventure.

[SSH]

I really could identify with the girl in "Clan of the Cave bear" (if anyone's read it), but maybe that doesn't count cause it's a book, giving much more room for explainations and descriptions than a game.

Now there's a book with oodles of problem solving which would be ideal for turning in to an adventure game... anyone?

Just as long as it doesn't turn in to the tedious Jondalar-and-Ayla-meet-new-people-and-have-a-culture-clash-and-jealousy-problem---again thing of the fourth book (the fifth one was better, but still similar)

[Miez]

Speaking of female-protagonists-in-books-that-are-ready-to-be-turned-into-an-adventure: anybody read "Smilla's sense of snow" by Peter Hoeg? That would make a great adventure...

[GarageGothic]

As long as it's nothing like the movie

[Miez]

ah yes - the movie is TEH SUCK   - a blemish on such a great book.

[Meowster]

Hmmm...

Maybe I'm wrong in saying "harder to connect with". It seems most people connect with female characters... which is odd, because I always found it the hardest, and I know people who also find it hard.

Maybe the word I'm looking for is "sympathise". Is it easier to sympathise with male heroes, or heroes that are portrayed as childlike/clumsy?

I guess this thread should be renamed "What makes a likable character..."

[Las Naranjas]

This is somewhat unrelated.

Completely unrelated in fact.

But I'd like to share a snippit from the Bookwarez channel that I remembered after seeing Austen's name.

[17:38] <Torka> @find austen
[17:38] <disten96> !FSRV1 (martial philosophies) - Fm 20-3 Camouflage, Concealment, And Decoys.zip
[17:38] <Torka> @find sex austen

Remember to be specific when searching.

[LordHart]

If you want a strong female character, you can't go past Ripley from the Alien series.

Yeah, I know the character isn't from a game, but Ripley just rocks so god damned hard!

[InCreator]

about girls:
There ARE some nice female characters. For example, look at Passionate Patti from Leisure Suit Larry series... But adventure games are mostly based on LOGIC and not EMOTIONS...*ahem* ...what was the difference between men and women in reality?... Anyway, I hate women who carry a minigun or fight, such as Xena the warrior princess, Buffy tha vampire slayer, VIP (yeeeowh!) etc. They're not women anymore. More like a failed research project to cross sex and violence... But Ripley is excellent example of doing that right. She's no blonde long-legged sexy bitch. Just a human along metal cybermonsters, afraid and wanting to survive. In matter fact, didn't she cut her hair off in Alien 2?And still, everybody loved her. And she stayed woman - she even become mother of aliens... neat.


But As seen on Larry, women make good npc's!

about strong character:
I think character will get strong by his story in the game. Player should live through characters lucky and unlucky days, right next to character. This gives connection between Player and game. I don't think comedy games are easy ones to get a strong char. Serious, deep games sound better here - like Gabriel Knight for example.

[Dave Gilbert]

about girls:
But adventure games are mostly based on LOGIC and not EMOTIONS...

In some cases, yes.  But adventure games are also based on STORY, which requires good characters to make it work well.  

...what was the difference between men and women in reality?... Anyway, I hate women who carry a minigun or fight, such as Xena the warrior princess, Buffy tha vampire slayer etc. They're not women anymore.

Well, they are still women, but they are now women who act like men.  It's difficult to compare action heros to adventure game heros.  They are two complete different animals.

But As seen on Larry, women make good npc's!

Heh.  Good LOOKING npc's, at any rate!      They are funny, but you don't take them seriously.  As you say, InCreator, in comedy games you aren't meant to look into the characters too deeply.  Drama is harder to do.

[InCreator]

Actually, I don't think that linking player to a character should be too difficult. Let's take an example  from absoulutely non-adventure game - Samurai Shodown (a.k.a. samurai spirits) . I don't remember characters name, but I liked guy with wide blue pants and a sword. He acted like he's sick or something. Once, when I won another round, the guy started to cough and -- coughed blood. At the end of the game he died... As any other fighting game, there was very little connection between player and actual character but still, i felt sorry about him, though he was just a digital fighter.

Then again: two games that really kicked my brains in and made me "live" with character, were Half-Life and little known-but superb adventure game KGB (a.k.a Konspiracy)

[Ginny]

I find it much easier to identify with females than with most male characters - and if I have a choice between a male and female player character, I ALWAYS choose the female. HOWEVER, I often find male characters more INTERESTING than female, and I think this is where we are missing the point.

I agree completely, and I also think that is why I honestly connect more with male characters (being female of course ). I connected to Manny and Guybrush much more than April, not to mention Kate. I agree that making these females more flawed and not neccessarilly emotional (i.e. turning a male personality into female without changing it, for example) would make them much more interesting and easy to connect to for females as well as males.

[Meowster]

Maybe it's a female thing... we find it harder to connect with other females? Or maybe males write unrealistic female models that we can't connect with? And how many times can I say "connect with" in one thread? Is there an alternative phrase I could use? I'm starting to get dizzy. Is it the end of the world?

I've noticed a lot more females with this whole connectivity (is that even a word?) problem.  

Maybe it has something to do with the WAY we connect. I noticed that a lot of girls tend to have this thing where... oh god. They think they can CHANGE a guy. Notice girls always like bad guys like Spike from Buffy, because they think they can change them. Even I'm guilty of this. My second boyfriend was... well, and I thought.... ANYWAY.

Do males tend to perhaps look at characters on a more simple basis as in, "He's a good guy" or "He's a bad guy", (Okay not THIS shallow but you get my drift, hopefully.)  and females perhaps tend to look at it differently IE., "He's a bad guy, but he's just a poor confused young man who needs to be loved" or "He's a good guy, he just, er, needs a hug."

OR...

Maybe we just like simple, easy to read characters? Most males are written as pretty open and honest guys, whereas girls tend to be more complicated.

I'd have to take the Final Fantasy games as an example... I found myself loving Rinoa because she was a little bit mischevious, happy, open and outgoing. I liked Squall because I knew he was good REALLY, he was just lonely or whatever. In FF...the next one, I liked Zidane because he was mischevious and happy and outgoing, and I liked Eiko because she was naughty. I didn't like Irvine because of his face.

Or something, I really don't know what I'm talking about at all. I'm just really interested to see how the genders react to characters.

[MrColossal]

arrrrgh

it's thinking like this that perpetuates the stereotypes in the first place

i had a chat with my girlfriend about this and she agrees with me, that people act like people and gender has so little to do with it that it's almost pointless to bring up

an extremely stereotypical view on women would be that they are more worried about emotions than anything else. they'd rather see a story about relationships and growing up and people overcoming cancer for one more night to celebrate their brother's birthday who just came out as being gay.

an extremely stereotypical view on men would be that they would rather see something exploding and people being torn in two and eaten alive by zombies than anything else.

why can't people just be people?!

why do you have to look at everything so closely and find a reason men and women are different. I can think of tons of games where the characters were written as bland terrible nothings both men and women.

You really have to give examples if you're going to make a statement like "Most males are written as pretty open and honest guys, whereas girls tend to be more complicated." because it's really a case by case basis that these things have to be judged. How complicated was Rosella in King's Quest? How complex was Jill Valentine? How complex was Duke Nukem or Guybrush or Graham or Cedric or or or or or...

i can't really think of many characters at all that had a complex emotional or personal drive, "I want to be a pirate" isn't complex neither is "I must survive." Not even Manny had that complex of a personality. He had a little bit of mystery but it was basically "I like Meche, must save her!"

"Well, they are still women, but they are now women who act like men."

tsk tsk dave....

[Unilin]

I think the problem stems from facial hair.  Men have it, women don't.  Mostly.  I mean, there's this one girl in my class who could really use a shave, but that's beside and slightly to the back of the point.  Everyone knows that it's true that a character is better, more sympathetic, easier to identify with and generally just more rock awesome if he has facial hair.  And the more, the better.  Bonus points are awarded for good style, like mutton chops or a handlebar.  When women start growing beards, they'll be better characters.

[Quintaros]

Stereotypes are about generalization and whether or not they have any basis in reality they are bad for storytelling because specificity is so much more interesting.  

[InCreator]

MrColossal, I think that ...

why can't people just be people?!

...is just a nice dream about happier world. People learn to divide themselves by gender very soon after starting a life on this planet. We live by the roles which are strictly set by our gender - isn't it? Men must be strong, smart and successful, earn lottsa cash and get the prettiest girl... girls should be pretty and make a good wife/mother/whatsoever and so on. Isn't our civilization built on that (at some points)?
Yeah, people CAN be just people. But It doesn't work in the world we're living (*khm* The world WE MADE so far). This just a pretty dream that doesn't work well in reality, just as communism or God's ten commands in the Bible. btw, It's a good thing to sit here at chat to each other, because according to Mother Nature -- aren't we supposed to eat each other or something?

As always, I see things through my wacky sense of humour, so I could be totally wrong, but I think different points of view makes things more challenging.

To end my monologue, I think that identifying yourself to a female character is SURELY easier than doing same in real world. Of course, if creator of the game doesn't happen to be man, who is complete genius, psychologist and who also has been a transvestite for half of his life... well, then he maybe really happens to create a life-like simulated female character... Isn't there centuries-long whining about "I don't understand women" and vice versa- going on? Maybe the problem is hidden excactly there?

So, what I'm trying to say with all this server-space-wasting weird piece of text is: "Maybe we can't find connections with female characters because problem is in ourselves, not in female characters being not good to star an adventure game and being connected with.". After all, this is just a bunch of pixels, right? And whatever we do - it's still our imagination that does the trick.

Oh hell, I can't stop once I started.... this gave me an idea: Let's take a girl and let her to make an adventure game, about herself to have full 'girl' effect. The game should be text-only, and let's hide every hint from player that main character is a girl. Now, let's have some men to play it. The game itself should be interesting and deep enough to make them draw lines between game character and themselves. Is connecting with female easier then? Interesting experiment or stupid idea?

[PureGhostGR]

 Doesn't it all depend on the cultural background each and every one of us carries? Not everybody can read the same books or like the same colors. The same goes with accepting certain characters, being female or male, stereotypes or not.

To answer the original question, I think that the story can bring you to like even the most dislikable characters and vice versa. All characters have a background which justifies their presence. The trick is to get the player to see through the eyes of the character even for a moment in order to get him/her to become likable.

I remember the Zanthia character from Kyrandia 2, which would give witty replies.. she has a strong temperament (sp?), and that made her likable..

I guess it is the combination of making characters that have a strong presence (flavour) in them.. and a story that allows you to pick up that flavour. Innevitably you grow to like the character afterwards..

just my 2c..