What do you want the Cyberprotag to be like?

[kanonite]

Ahhh...that's because Cyberpunk 2020 has an actual rocker Role, the "Rockerboy". So, yeah, music is a big thing. Rockerboy also describes most charismatic type jobs, comedian, actors, even politicians.

Now, as to the theme of Cyberpunk and how your main character should reflect this, it's not Fallout-funny. It's not slapstick. I don't know how CDPR will show it, but typically it's pretty black humour.

There are few, if any, true Cyberpunk games in the last ten years. Twenty? Ever? The others have fantasy elements, (Shadowrun) or lack the 'punk, (Deus Ex) or lack the cybernetics/Edge (Watch Dogs). There's elements, but nothing so far that incorporates all of these into a delicious whole.

So I'm all in favour of humour, but keep the Cyberpunk edgy, dark, dirty feel.

The protagonist will hopefully reflect this.

Oooh! That's another argument against voice. Doing humour well is tough - and doing a badass well is also tough. Combining both? Yikes.

Yeah. I think its gonna be more Mirrorshades (balance between gritty and OTT) than strictly Black Trench (Deus Ex) or Pink 'Mo.(Watch Dogs 2)

 

[CTPhipps]

That wont fix the problem of the dialog being limited and dumbed down because of the VO they put in.

If you look at VO games, all VO protagonist end up with the same personality. You either get the tough fighter type, or you get the smart ass type. Rarely do you get something else and another reason I would prefer a non VO character. If they included VO, we will only get a male and female VO actors for the protagonist because of the vast amount of dialog they would have to record. Another reason the dialog will be one liners with little branching, because you have one guy and girl recording all these lines day in and day out. It is exhasting, time consuming, costly, and once something is recorded, the devs are stuck with it, they simply cannot go in and change something in the dialog or event since they would have to go in and have the VO rerecord again, which will be more money and time.

I'll see your bet and raise you Telltale games. Telltale games being RPGs about playing various predefined characters of a wide variety of fascinating characters with different sorts of responses to situations.

Particularly this guy.


I support the predefined protagonist because I think they tend to have better stories mostly because of the Telltale idea. I mean, yeah, Telltale has been on the rails a lot in recent years due to their heavy production schedule but some of their games really did an amazing job of being evocative of the settings they chose like Tales from the Borderlands.

 

[Suhiira]

That wont fix the problem of the dialog being limited and dumbed down because of the VO they put in.

True, but at least you can give your character the "voice" you want in your imagination.

 

[CTPhipps]

Bluntly, I'm going to argue that point about dumbing down.

All of those games also had the majority of *NPCS* unvoiced too because they have to REACT to the main protagonist saying all those things.

That means that if you don't voice the protagonist, you still have to have the NPCs react as if they were saying all that.

Which requires all those extra lines anyway.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Telltale games being RPGs

They are not RPG's, though. Just adventure games with CYOA elements.

 

[CTPhipps]

They are not RPG's, though. Just adventure games with CYOA elements.

My definition of RPG is based on choice and conseqquence.

The ability to affect your roles.

Less resource management.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

My definition of RPG is...

Mine's not like that. What do we do now? We're at an impasse here.

Seriously though, not wanting to start a "what's an RPG" debate, but... You can call any game an RPG and honestly consider it as such, that's your freedom, but I don't think it works quite like that. In the TellTale case, those games aren't even advertised as RPG's.

 

[CTPhipps]

Mine's not like that. What do we do now? We're at an impasse here.

Seriously though, not wanting to start a "what's an RPG" debate, but... You can call any game an RPG and honestly consider it as such, that's your freedom, but I don't think it works quite like that. In the TellTale case, those games aren't even advertised as RPG's.

It's not really an important issue either way.

Sure, they're not RPGs, I concede.

Instead, my point is we have had voiced protagonists with very distinct personalities who have a lot of character and choices in how to interact with their world. TFTBL's Rhys, for example, is a wonderful corporate douchebag and perfect as a cyberpunk character. I am, honestly, interested in who they would get to do the voice acting.

My ideal VA for the male protagonist would be David Hayter, especially after what happened to him with Phantom Pain.

 

[227]

Have you never played a Telltale game a second time? Almost nothing changes, and anything that matters that does change is immediately rendered insignificant.

That's not to say that they can't be effective stories anyway (though personally, I prefer something like Life Is Strange and find Telltale to be a bunch of talentless hacks by way of comparison), but touting the thing they suck at worse than the vast majority of actual RPGs is just bizarre. Even something as linear and terrible as Demonicon puts their stuff to shame.

And celebrity/recognizable vocal talent only exacerbates the disconnect between the character being "yours" when you have to also get past their prior work. Probably more expensive, too. I get that some people can't get past the idea of no voice acting because the stuff they like uses it (fans only ever seem to request more of the same instead of daring developers to push into unfamiliar territory in the hopes of creating something even better), but it just might make for a better, more replayable experience.

 

[Odinsauge]

If you look at VO games, all VO protagonist end up with the same personality. You either get the tough fighter type, or you get the smart ass type. Rarely do you get something else and another reason I would prefer a non VO character. If they included VO, we will only get a male and female VO actors for the protagonist because of the vast amount of dialog they would have to record. Another reason the dialog will be one liners with little branching, because you have one guy and girl recording all these lines day in and day out. It is exhasting, time consuming, costly, and once something is recorded, the devs are stuck with it, they simply cannot go in and change something in the dialog or event since they would have to go in and have the VO rerecord again, which will be more money and time.

I understand your point.
But for me no voice doesn't add to the variety, ok maybe I have a few lines of dialog more but this is not guaranteed. As far as I know FallOut games did a good job but there are many others that don#t (Skyrim, Dragon Age: Origins). Only because I can imagine the way my character answers, doesn't mean this is how the character is. He is still the badass hero. At least in the games I played.
So without a voice I win the possibility to imagine my own voice and personality. But the character acts still the same and I loose much of the immersion.

In a CRPG i want to have a good story and good choices and the possibility to develop my character. A voice makes the experience much more interesting for me. It is much more interesting to play the role of a well developed character (in case of his personality) than completely defining my own one. If i want this I can write a story or play P&P RPGs. Computer games are still far to limited to provide all features for completely defining your own character, or they end up as boring sandbox game or some MMO.

I value story and interaction way more and these are always limited.

 

[CTPhipps]

Have you never played a Telltale game a second time? Almost nothing changes, and anything that matters that does change is immediately rendered insignificant.

Telltale's flaw doesn't in any way impact the issue I've brought up.

That's not to say that they can't be effective stories anyway (though personally, I prefer something like Life Is Strange and find Telltale to be a bunch of talentless hacks by way of comparison), but touting the thing they suck at worse than the vast majority of actual RPGs is just bizarre. Even something as linear and terrible as Demonicon puts their stuff to shame.

They're still some of the best games on the market right now and best examples of voiced acting and storytelling.

And celebrity/recognizable vocal talent only exacerbates the disconnect between the character being "yours" when you have to also get past their prior work. Probably more expensive, too. I get that some people can't get past the idea of no voice acting because the stuff they like uses it (fans only ever seem to request more of the same instead of daring developers to push into unfamiliar territory in the hopes of creating something even better), but it just might make for a better, more replayable experience.

Yes absolutely. Voiced celebrity talent will go a long way to destroying the idea of a voiceless personality-less empty shell which the PC can project through. Anything to prevent that from being what is in the game. I want to be the person who directs the character and his or her actions but I absolutely don't want them to be someone who doesn't have a history, personality, and idealogy of their own. As stated, I basically want them to go the Geralt route as much as possible.

But for me no voice doesn't add to the variety, ok maybe I have a few lines of dialog more but this is not guaranteed. As far as I know FallOut games did a good job but there are many others that don#t (Skyrim, Dragon Age: Origins). Only because I can imagine the way my character answers, doesn't mean this is how the character is. He is still the badass hero. At least in the games I played. So without a voice I win the possibility to imagine my own voice and personality. But the character acts still the same and I loose much of the immersion. In a CRPG i want to have a good story and good choices and the possibility to develop my character. A voice makes the experience much more interesting for me. It is much more interesting to play the role of a well developed character (in case of his personality) than completely defining my own one. If i want this I can write a story or play P&P RPGs. Computer games are still far to limited to provide all features for completely defining your own character, or they end up as boring sandbox game or some MMO.

On my end, no voice takes me out of the game every single damn line, reminding me I'm playing a video game and not in an alternate reality.

 

[darcler]

I vaguely remember there was this idea of being able to print out your character sheet after finishing CP2077 and keeping playing as your character in PnP sessions. I don't know if it will come to fruition, but if it would, then I can't imagine having predefined characters in the game. It would just be silly if everyone in each group played as Mr. X.

But I digress.

What I would like to get - knowing that totally unrestricted customization is not possible - is to have a group of defined characters to choose from, or templates if you will. Each of them would have his/her overall backstory that can be supplemented with a bunch of details, and each of them would thus have certain affinity for various roles. Someone who's been raised on the streets would be more apt to become a Fixer or a Solo, a member of a wealthy family would become a Corpo, and so on. This would provide replayability without the risk of each playthrough being the same, plus the voice actors would be able to give appropriate performance for each role. Perhaps there even could be as many voice actors (x2, for each gender) as there would be such template characters.

Still, it'd be a hell of a task.

 

[Mebrilia]

RPG are not supposed to be movie you are not supposed to watch a story you are supposed to Roleplay in a setting... Having a preset character is more about cosplay than roleplay.. what defines the depth of a character and the overal world is the Writing... Not the voice acting.... If the writing is bad you are going to have a super dull boring experience... (Fallout4/Skyrim)...

Who played pen and paper and CRPG of the past knows exactly how an RPG should be... what should offer....Say "Don't turn this in to what is an rpg argument" when in the past people were able to recognize a rpg... is an argument created by marketing to justify the dumbing down of roleplay elements for game in order to appeal at who of rpg don't give a frigging damn...

Again.. RPG are not supposed to be interactive Movies...
For a great RPG voice acting is not necessary good writing is...
THere are plenty of example of great rpg with story and interaction so in depth that make you feel connected with the character you create and all those examples have silent protagonist and just a little voice acting...

Planescape:Torment
Shadowrun Dragonfall
Shadowrun Honk kong
Torment tides of numenera

And so on and so on...

What we have now is action games with roleplay elements...
And so you have a shepard a predefined character that have his own personality and not the personality you decide... Basically you can be two things in mass Effect.. A super heroic hard ass soldier or a Scumbag that plays badass and act over the top. And as you can see you have little roleplay elements here Mass Effect is more an interactive Movie than a rpg.. Same can be say for THe walking dead series...

And people that claim that have need to have a voice protagonist to keep engaged in the storyline and relate with the character don't even know how you proper Roleplay a character

 

[Sardukhar]

And people that claim that have need to have a voice protagonist to keep engaged in the storyline and relate with the character don't even know how you proper Roleplay a character

Doooooon't do this. Let me say it again. Don't do this. Don't decide for others what proper role-play is. That leads to trouble around here. You can say what you think proper role-play is or how you do it, but others experience varies.

I will say that I've absolutely played and run games with predefined characters. Totally doable and a lot of fun, if for no other reason than you can start playing sooner. Totally the thing at conventions. You going to tell Mike Pondsmith he's not running a role-playing game because he handed out pre-gens to his players at a con? No.

And, again, the whole, "this is a book, this is a movie, this is a game" argument is a dead-end. Definitions obscure as much as they illuminate.

 

[Mebrilia]

Doooooon't do this. Let me say it again. Don't do this. Don't decide for others what proper role-play is. That leads to trouble around here. You can say what you think proper role-play is or how you do it, but others experience varies.

I will say that I've absolutely played and run games with predefined characters. Totally doable and a lot of fun, if for no other reason than you can start playing sooner. Totally the thing at conventions. You going to tell Mike Pondsmith he's not running a role-playing game because he handed out pre-gens to his players at a con? No.

And, again, the whole, "this is a book, this is a movie, this is a game" argument is a dead-end. Definitions obscure as much as they illuminate.

Having a predefined character is not roleplay Sardukar... more like cosplay..... Dismissing the argument and say.. don't do this let's being politically correct... is plain wrong sorry i played games with preset protagonists too... The whole mass effect saga for example and even planescape torment (that have a preset protagonist with a lot of past lifes on his shoulder) but when you are creating your character design his manner to act and react to the world that is roleplay...

Having a preset protagonist force you to be a spectator not part of the world..

And again you did another mistake the example you provided is totally out of context... Mike was at a conference giving premade character is a nice example to show of how system works and is a total different thing because is a smart manner to introduce people to the setting and also to make people see how the rules work...

Definition of RPG is not obscure at all for what play pen and papers and are used to play CRPG in past.. Is not like is some abstraction or something that can't be defined was already there but for the sake of streamlining and dumbing down they mixed different kind of game under RPG

You can find the RPG tag even in game that clearly are not RPG..
Example?

ARK: survival evolved.

 

[Sardukhar]

You can find the RPG tag even in game that clearly are not RPG..
Example?

ARK: survival evolved.

Sure you can. But that does -not- make your definition, or theirs, correct. It's just how you see it.

I also don't think you've seen a lot of convention role-playing, if you think the Mike example was a one-off. He's done that MANY times. It's standard procedure at role-playing games conventions. Character creation takes too much time, so a GM hands out pre-gens, ( pre-generated character) for them to play with. It has little to do with how the system works and totally to do with time and plot design for the adventure.

Pre-gens are also common in most RPG books for people that just want to get into the game. They get a character background to, you know, role-play and they go with it.

That is absolutely fine and common. Some people prefer pre-gen characters, they say it makes it more interesting, challenges them to try something they wouldn't pick themselves.

Also, don't mistake anything I say in blue as political correctness. If it's in blue, it's a Moderator's order. It's something I think will cause bad feelings and upset, which is against the Rules. If you debate it in public, that's against the Rules. This leads to infractions and bans.

You're totally free to debate roleplaying, how you think we should role-play, how you like to role-play, just don't accuse people of anything. That's against the Rules.

 

[Mebrilia]

Sure you can. But that does -not- make your definition, or theirs, correct. It's just how you see it.

I also don't think you've seen a lot of convention role-playing, if you think the Mike example was a one-off. He's done that MANY times. It's standard procedure at role-playing games conventions. Character creation takes too much time, so a GM hands out pre-gens, ( pre-generated character) for them to play with. It has little to do with how the system works and totally to do with time and plot design for the adventure.

Pre-gens are also common in most RPG books for people that just want to get into the game. They get a character background to, you know, role-play and they go with it.

That is absolutely fine and common. Some people prefer pre-gen characters, they say it makes it more interesting, challenges them to try something they wouldn't pick themselves.

Also, don't mistake anything I say in blue as political correctness. If it's in blue, it's a Moderator's order. It's something I think will cause bad feelings and upset, which is against the Rules. If you debate it in public, that's against the Rules. This leads to infractions and bans.

You're totally free to debate roleplaying, how you think we should role-play, how you like to role-play, just don't accuse people of anything. That's against the Rules.

Of course i am sorry if sometimes i could use tones that seems harsh but is mostly due to the fact i am not native english and this lead sometimes to write things in a manner when i meant a different tone...

Premade characters or even adventure in conventions is actually a common thing for the goal of demostrating how the system work and having a premade protagonist means also have the opportunity to show how the system and the setting works but again is more a marketing thing that is as i defined very smart and useful to draw the interest of the public...

I myself joined one of those dimostration stand when at Lucca Comix and Games here in italy there was a stand on Numenera... I took a premade character in order to learn how the system work and the setting is... But beside that my intention there was not to immerse myself in roleplay but more about learning...

I was not accusing but i can see people are really confused on the matter and this is again mainly because the tag RPG in modern gaming were used basically also in game that had little or no roleplay elements just to draw more attention for the public and that is a pratice i personally despise...

I just wanted to point out that in roleplay you usually have to live your character in first person while in many games (witcher3 included) labeled as rpg you are nothing more than a spectator because the character is not yours is created by someone else thus your are again a spectator and you don't have many choice on how your character will be...

You can't define his personality
You can't define is view on the world
You can't define how it acts
You will have decision but always related on how the premade character handle the word...

So as you can see is something more close to cosplay than proper roleplay.

 

[Sardukhar]

Of course i am sorry if sometimes i could use tones that seems harsh but is mostly due to the fact i am not native english and this lead sometimes to write things in a manner when i meant a different tone...

Well of course. Fair enough. We have certain scenarios around here that trigger stupid fights, and that was one of them, thus my warning. That's all. No biggie.

You can't define his personality
You can't define is view on the world
You can't define how it acts
You will have decision but always related on how the premade character handle the word...

So as you can see is something more close to cosplay than proper roleplay.

There's an argument for this, but I'd argue it's relevant more in cases like Witcher 3 with Geralt than a character whose backstory is picked, but who you can develop going forward.

It really depends on the flexibility of the character, I think.

Let's say that yeah, you get handed Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk. Well, that's not very flexible. You know his history, his choices, how he acts, his attitudes, everything. You are role-playing, but it's a much more limited role. Like cosplay, as you say.

Now let's say you get handed Dianne "Hammerdown" McPhee, ex-IRA bomber, grew up in Belfast, has two sisters and a brother, speaks three languages, hates football, likes lacrosse, ( of all things) and is missing her left eye. She currently works under false credentials as a low-level data processor for the NSA and has four online cover identities that she roams the Net with. Hammerdown is a modern Netrunner/hacker with a messy past and already pre-selected skills.

But, you can determine what her choices are from here on out. Nice, nasty, lying, honest, prefers ice cream over pizza, whatever. All that is up to you.

So that's what I wouldn't mind in terms of pre-gen character. More flexible.

Geralt, who I like playing, did feel like mine, but it took awhile. Even now, I don't like hearing how other people play him. Because they are all wrong. So yes, it was harder to role-play Geralt, in large part because of all the choices he made before I got there.

On the other hand, I did -have- to role-play him. For sure I would not have picked Yen, but I knew Geralt would have. So that was interesting.

Our cyberprotagonist, at worse, will be more like Hammerdown, I think. A pre-selected past and some background. The rest would be up to you.

 

[CTPhipps]

Planescape: Torment is a bizarre thing to hold up as an example of "freedom" given you can't define a thing about the Nameless One other than his class and actions since the whole point of the story is discovering your very specific backstory of being a reincarnating mutli-personality immortal who looks like 12 miles of bad road meets Danny Trejo.

Or...well, Danny Trejo.

 

[Sardukhar]

Planescape: Torment is a bizarre thing to hold up as an example of "freedom" given you can't define a thing about the Nameless One other than his class and actions since the whole point of the story is discovering your very specific backstory of being a reincarnating mutli-personality immortal who looks like 12 miles of bad road meets Danny Trejo.

Or...well, Danny Trejo.

Coolest thing anyone has mentioned in this entire thread. Did you know he used to be an armed robber? Boxing champ? So badass.

Anyhoo.

PST was more open in terms of how you can define your -current- personality. You can be a good guy, a bad guy, mischevious, solo player, group worker, etc. You've had so many pasts, you're really everyone.

Also you could choose his class -and- his stats. Made a big difference in play.

Also also you could solve quests and problems with not only violence but also talking or exploring or stealing. Many, albeit not at all. That's what I miss in modern RPGs - freedom to try different methods. And freedom to fail.