Maybe "persona" isn't the good word.
My point is that it is possible to impose the background, and impose things that happens to the character without imposing anything which would come from the character himself.
There is a big difference between "who" the character is and "what" happens to said character, and to write a story you only need the "what".
Am I that bad at expressing myself?
Do I really have to resort to examples (that I won't have time to do until perhaps days, considering how much work I have during Christmas...)?
There's no rush! The argument should be enjoyable. I love this stuff. Besides, the goal is to flesh out ideas, not change people's minds.
Not exactly.. i mean the "what" is almost always tied to the "who" in virtually any type of traditional story telling..
Like
what happens to Geralt in the Witcher 3.. Ciri is missing so he goes on a journey to find her because she's is like a daughter to him, it's part of
who he is. As he progresses through his journey, he makes it his goal in finding out everything he can that might help in his quest, like finding Yennefer or taking on the Wild Hunt, although the specifics are left to the player like who to ally against them.
Or how in Bloodlines, the protagonist, very much a "blank slate" is a new born vampire and must adhere to the very strict laws of that society. The story here as opposed to the Witcher 3 is not dictated by
who the character was before the player was introduced to the story but who he becomes and that is presented through events that tend to happen from around the character, like the attack on the congregation that judged his sire and ultimately changed your character's fate, without him or you having a choice in the matter, but that still happened to him because of
who he is. In this type of story your character dosen't set the "goals", nor do you, but the characters around you do and you, and by extension, your character, fill in the blanks purposely left out as to why you are doing said goals.
What you are asking for seems to be a very specific type of interactive experience that is more representative of sand-box games like Mount and Blade or Kenshi or the X series (which do have a plot but it's very much optional). That or you're asking for Bloodlines, i hope you're asking for Bloodlines
^This.
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I think I'm not highlighting what I mean by "narrative" strongly enough.
Writing "a story" requires only the "what".
Writing "a
good story" requires the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" delivered with the correct balance of
dramatic action to both create
suspension of disbelief and push the audience on a roller coaster ride to the
eventual conclusion.
Developing a clear persona for all characters involved --
especially the anchor character(s) -- is exactly what it's all about.
A game, especially an RPG, does not need a strong
narrative in order to make a strong
game. RPGs primarily get their oomph from the gameplay mechanics, focus on player agency, world-building, lore, etc. If we look back at the RPGs from the early '70s and '80s, they really didn't have much of a story. Rogue, early Wizardy or Might and Magic, Akalabeth / Ultima I-III, Final Fantasy I, Sword of Fargoal, etc. You were just a "whoever" that was given a task (usually in the instruction manual, not the game itself) and sent off to play around with a big ol', mess of mechanics until you figured out how to beat it. It's not that these games did not have a story, it's that the story was not the centerpiece -- the game's mechanics were. Narratives in most early RPGs were, just to clarify the point here, @#$%!ng piss-poor. Campy, underdeveloped, uninformed, badly written, full of stock characters and predictable, formulaic scenarios... (As a result, not very many people were big on RPGs. They were a niche market and remained so for quite a while.)
"Telling a strong story" was the province of
Adventure games: Kings Quest / Space Quest, Zork, Shadowgate, Maniac Mansion, etc. These games focused exclusively on pre-generated characters, or pre-gen'd
personas (like Quest for Glory). Either way, the idea of having established characters allowed for the "player" to understand motivations, emotionally invest in relationships between characters, and experience narrative impact more readily as it was being delivered through classical, storytelling techniques. (As a result, the Adventure game genre became a mainstream hit for almost 20 years.)
JRPGs were the first to start merging the two genres in a
big way that
really worked. The decision to create established characters for the Final Fantasy series, for example, was a gateway for entire swaths of mainstream gamers to delve into "RPG elements" within what was an Adventure game at its core. Now, "RPGs" were being developed that used classical storytelling techniques to create motivation that more players could latch onto.
There's the critical consideration for a strong
narrative. I cannot create a character that is directly involved in the
narrative (as opposed to being involved in the
gameplay or overall
story) unless that
narrative knows who that character is. In order to have the narrative react, I need to have them "written in". Scenes can't just be spawned out of thin air. If I allow the player to create a completely blank slate, I wind up with one of the following results:
1.) Persona and gameplay that is not defined in any way other than what the player envisions in their mind. There will be an overarching "story" perhaps, but there will be no
narrative other than what the player imagines. And it will be impossible to deliver it as a narrative, since there's no way the game can know where the story is going next. Minecraft. Daggerfall.
2.) The game will interact with the character on a one-note basis, meaning that regardless of what the player does, the narrative will continue apace without them. In terms of the story, they are primarily along for the ride. Almost all of the D&D Goldbox games. Dark Souls.
3.) I create a complete sandbox that removes all aspects of a beginning, middle, or end, and doesn't even attempt to deliver a set story. The game is wholly focused on its mechanics. Mount and Blade. Rimworld.
Alternatively, I develop an RPG that draws heavily from Adventure staples and create a player character that is an already-established persona within the context of the larger story. Now, I can start creating
narratives, whether linear or branching. I can't have
Cmdr. Shepard involved in dialogue that creates emotional, cinematic impact unless the game knows who
Shepard is and delivers the appropriate performance. I can't have a randomly created character arrive on the Isle of Mists, sit silently beside Ciri's body, and get tears to appear in the audience's eyes -- that needs to be
Geralt. Compare this to the relative emotional void of an NPC in Skyrim congratulating the player for defeating Alduin. There's no weight, there's no tension, there's no chemistry. It's flat lines delivered as neutrally as possible to ensure the intent is conveyed. There's no dramatic action in the narrative. It doesn't involve that, particular, player character. Those NPCs could be speaking to...well...
anyone.
TL;DR
It's not to say that a shapeless RPG is better or worse than a narrative-driven RPG. Despite what I'm arguing here, I actually
prefer games that are more sandbox in nature. I love a good story, but I think they often get in the way of good gameplay. (Not at all worried about CP2077, though, as I think CDPR's most salient feature is delivering astoundingly good narratives that
enhance their games.) My point is that a narrative experience cannot have blank-slate characters. That's like saying:
"We're going to throw a surprise birthday party, and it's going to be an absolutely epic event that we're going to film and everything! Awesome!!!
Who's birthday? I have no idea!
Boy or girl? No clue!
How old? Who knows!
What sort of music do they like? Couldn't begin to tell ya!
So, how do we know what to...? Impossible to guess! Alright everyone, let's make this the best birthday ever!"
So, if an RPG aims to tell a moving story through a narrative-driven plot, then the player character must have an established persona to be directly involved. If an RPG wants to create a blank-slate character, all narrative aspects immediately take a back seat. Liking one method over the other is a matter of opinion, of course.