character introductions

[khumak]

It occurred to me recently after watching a Supernatural (TV series) marathon what bugs me about so many of the games on this site, inadequate character introductions. Too many of the characters in the games that I end up not really getting into just have boring characters and I think a lot of it has to do with how those characters are introduced.

This scene from Supernatural where one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse is introduced (Death) really struck me as a perfect example of how you SHOULD introduce a character. Whether they're a good guy or a bad guy doesn't really matter. What matters is that their introduction should be memorable in some way. I should have some sort of emotional connection to them, either positive or negative the first time I ever see that character so I have a reason to care what happens in their later scenes.

This is the only one of the horsemen I thought the show did justice to, although I like the actor they used for War after seeing him in Bosch.

Introduction of "Death":


What do you guys think? To me a major hero or villain should usually be introduced in a way that shows how much of a badass they are (both for good guys and bad guys). A love interest should have some scene qualifying them as a love interest. To me that means it needs to show off both their body and their personality in some memorable way. An intro that only includes some small talk is inadequate IMO. You don't get to know the character well enough to care anything about them.

The games I really tend to get into are the ones where most of the major characters have an introduction that makes me strongly like or dislike them for some reason right from the get go.

 

[woody554]

well that's a kind of easy character to introduce. an iconic heavy hitter with two thousand years of baggage and everybody already knows him. and still they went with a cliche pimp walk and o death on the background. it's all a little too on the nose perhaps. and you definitely can't introduce more than one character with an epic walk-in like this or it gets just ridiculous quick.

might've been much more interesting making him a 'normal' loser just trying to get through his day. with a celestial role thrust on him against his will. then again supernatural has done that a lot too. like god being just a normal asshole dude.

coen brothers movies have a ton of amazing side characters, with only a tiny part on camera. yet the introductions are amazingly impactful.

I guess it's really a lot about how good your character is. a good character is easy to introduce, it really writes itself. which is a problem because not too many of us are coen brothers or tarantinos. at best we're writing sandler characters, but without the heart.

here's a video someone made about coen minor characters.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[khumak]

Yeah my point wasn't that you should make every character into a badass, just that their opening scene should be memorable. In the case of Death, obviously it makes sense to show that he's a badass. You could just as easily showcase a dorky character by showing him making a complete fool of himself in front of a girl he likes or getting bullied by the local jocks or whatever.

Also it doesn't have to be the very first scene that they appear in, just the first scene where they play a significant part. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, just giving my 2 cents based on what I've noticed about games and other media that seem to do it right. I suspect someone with a writing background could rattle off whatever methods they teach in writing classes. I come from an engineering background so I didn't take much in the way of writing classes.

 

[Mimir's Lab]

I don't think a good character introduction can save a bad/boring character, nor do I think a bad introduction will ruin a good character. There should definitely be grand introductions to some of your star characters but if every one of your characters gets a similar flashy introduction, then it diminishes the effect for all of them.

For me, character introductions need only to fulfill two things: give me an idea about that character's archetype and give me something to look forward to involving that character. I say give me an idea about their archetype because an introduction should never be long enough to explain all the nuances of a character, so you should distill the essence of that character down to a digestible chunk. Even if your character cannot be represented by any one archetype, you need to start off from a point that is familiar to your audience. You have the rest of the story to show your character's nuances, don't do it in the intro.

As far as giving me something to look forward to, I call it seeding an idea. The writer sprinkles in hints of potential conflicts or points of interest in a character introduction that he can use later on to bring that character deeper into the story (if a side character). Executing this well is difficult, especially in the adult games format because you have to have the foresight to see where you are going to take the story and how that character fits into the story and then write an introduction that seeds their involvement in the story seamlessly.

Pulling that all off is great and all, but I think in the grand scheme of things, it has a negligible net positive gain. I think spending more time on developing an interesting character is a better use of time than trying to write a memorable introduction. A character doesn't become bad if their introduction is bad, you will always have more opportunities to create memorable and interesting scenes with them later on.

 

[woody554]

another aspect of it is realistic expectations for what we're capable of. we don't have to aim straight at the best introduction/character ever, we don't have the skills to pull it off anyway. too many nuances, and we're no masters.

maybe better start with something more formulaic, simple enough characters that we understand. like here's the hero, here's the villain, here's the girl they're fighting about. or, this is the warrior, this is the healer, this is the tank. it's amazing how many movies/series use the basic roleplaying game set ups, especially the successful ones. and when you understand your character is a warrior, it's easy to show who he is in his first scene.

when you understand your character is the healer, again very easy to show it regardless of the scene. a warrior will eat pancakes differently from the healer, you don't need an action scene to show it. doesn't matter if your warrior works in an office, he's still gonna attack his day, he'll always protect others.

then, just like mimir said, you add on that. maybe your warrior is weary of fighting, maybe your healer wants revenge, maybe your villain deeply cares about his dog even if he likes to torture people. and that's something you can show as introduction.

or the opposite. the first scene of house of cards does a great job at showing who frank underwood is in 60 seconds. I guess this might be what khumak was after?

first scene of house of cards:

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[anne O'nymous]

It occurred to me recently after watching a Supernatural (TV series) marathon what bugs me about so many of the games on this site, inadequate character introductions. Too many of the characters in the games that I end up not really getting into just have boring characters and I think a lot of it has to do with how those characters are introduced.

The problem is that few games effectively introduce characters, instead they present them, what isn't the same thing. It's the same difference than going to a party and having a friend say, "hey, it's my friend XXX, she's a XXX that I know from XXX...", and going to the same party, then talking with this person while having to discover everything about him/her. When it's not a full narration part, it's a scene that will still tell everything the player need to know ; or at least what the author expect them to want to know. Therefore, there's no place for a bound, emotional or not, to grow.
I'm not a fan of Supernatural (yeah, I know) so I can't say for it, but one of the most powerful introduction is Dark Vador in A New Hope. You know nothing about the character, yet you also know everything that is important. Exactly like for the introduction of Death that you pointed to, and exactly in the same way. No words needed, it's the situation, the music, and the camera angles and moves, that give you all the information you need. But, well obviously it's something that can't be done in a game ; at least in an indie game. You can't make a 1 minute cinematic just to introduce a character, and if you put musics on it, you've to deal with what you can get.

But in the end, isn't all this due to the lack of skill of the author ? They present the characters, instead of introducing them, because they don't know how to do otherwise, giving too much information because they don't know how to make them felt through the dialogs.
And also, they tend to see their characters' personality as frozen. Take the average incest game by example. There's always that sister that want her brother since years, while the mother is always fighting against her desire for her son. They'll have the same personality at the end of the game, than they had at the start of it, only getting ride of their inhibitions.
Of course, all characters don't have to see their personality evolve, it all depend of the story and what they pass through. But when it's something as important as starting a relationship with you brother or son, to keep my example, it's obvious that you'll change, and change a lot. A good example of that is probably Luna, from The DeLuca Family. She isn't the sole character evolving in the game, but the one for who this change is the more visible ; and all this without the need to say once that she's changing.

As insignificant as it can perhaps seem, it's those frozen personalities that lead to the characters being presented instead of being introduced. Since the personality is known from the start, why not say everything about it also from the start ? This will a changing personality force you to say only what's relevant at this time of the game, while talking about the changes when they'll happen. Therefore, it feel more natural to show them instead of explaining them.

 

[khumak]

another aspect of it is realistic expectations for what we're capable of. we don't have to aim straight at the best introduction/character ever, we don't have the skills to pull it off anyway. too many nuances, and we're no masters.

maybe better start with something more formulaic, simple enough characters that we understand. like here's the hero, here's the villain, here's the girl they're fighting about. or, this is the warrior, this is the healer, this is the tank. it's amazing how many movies/series use the basic roleplaying game set ups, especially the successful ones. and when you understand your character is a warrior, it's easy to show who he is in his first scene.

when you understand your character is the healer, again very easy to show it regardless of the scene. a warrior will eat pancakes differently from the healer, you don't need an action scene to show it. doesn't matter if your warrior works in an office, he's still gonna attack his day, he'll always protect others.

then, just like mimir said, you add on that. maybe your warrior is weary of fighting, maybe your healer wants revenge, maybe your villain deeply cares about his dog even if he likes to torture people. and that's something you can show as introduction.

or the opposite. the first scene of house of cards does a great job at showing who frank underwood is in 60 seconds. I guess this might be what khumak was after?

first scene of house of cards:

You must be registered to see the links

Yep that's a good one as well. It doesn't have to give you his whole life's story. It shows you what sort of person he is in like 60 seconds and it provokes an emotional response (at least if you're an animal lover). I couldn't get into House of Cards but I did see the appeal for some people. I did like the first several episodes and I usually do like shows that take the risk of making the main character seriously flawed (like Dexter, one of my favorites).

 

[khumak]

The problem is that few games effectively introduce characters, instead they present them, what isn't the same thing. It's the same difference than going to a party and having a friend say, "hey, it's my friend XXX, she's a XXX that I know from XXX...", and going to the same party, then talking with this person while having to discover everything about him/her. When it's not a full narration part, it's a scene that will still tell everything the player need to know ; or at least what the author expect them to want to know. Therefore, there's no place for a bound, emotional or not, to grow.
I'm not a fan of Supernatural (yeah, I know) so I can't say for it, but one of the most powerful introduction is Dark Vador in A New Hope. You know nothing about the character, yet you also know everything that is important. Exactly like for the introduction of Death that you pointed to, and exactly in the same way. No words needed, it's the situation, the music, and the camera angles and moves, that give you all the information you need. But, well obviously it's something that can't be done in a game ; at least in an indie game. You can't make a 1 minute cinematic just to introduce a character, and if you put musics on it, you've to deal with what you can get.

But in the end, isn't all this due to the lack of skill of the author ? They present the characters, instead of introducing them, because they don't know how to do otherwise, giving too much information because they don't know how to make them felt through the dialogs.
And also, they tend to see their characters' personality as frozen. Take the average incest game by example. There's always that sister that want her brother since years, while the mother is always fighting against her desire for her son. They'll have the same personality at the end of the game, than they had at the start of it, only getting ride of their inhibitions.
Of course, all characters don't have to see their personality evolve, it all depend of the story and what they pass through. But when it's something as important as starting a relationship with you brother or son, to keep my example, it's obvious that you'll change, and change a lot. A good example of that is probably Luna, from The DeLuca Family. She isn't the sole character evolving in the game, but the one for who this change is the more visible ; and all this without the need to say once that she's changing.

As insignificant as it can perhaps seem, it's those frozen personalities that lead to the characters being presented instead of being introduced. Since the personality is known from the start, why not say everything about it also from the start ? This will a changing personality force you to say only what's relevant at this time of the game, while talking about the changes when they'll happen. Therefore, it feel more natural to show them instead of explaining them.

Yeah a lot of games seem to rely on some long narration about an important character instead of showing you some sort of scene where the character is actually doing something that shows you who they are. I'm happy to read a long story about a character I that I have some attachment to, but reading the life story of some character before I have any reason to care about them just doesn't work for me.

I think this is why so many movies and TV shows open with a scene where the main character is involved in a scene that's either an action scene, some emotional scene, etc. They want you to immediately develop an emotional response to that character. They will usually do the same pretty early on with the main villain in the story. More minor characters won't necessarily get as dramatic of a scene but you still usually get something that shows some personality quirks or something. They're funny or awkward or have some other quirk that makes them unique so they show you a scene that makes you laugh or makes you feel sorry for them or whatever.

I agree that you don't need some dramatic introduction for every character but I would say for the major ones it makes sense to. Obviously coming up with a good scene like that might take some writing skills that some devs don't have but it's something to aspire to. Some of the games on here do a great job at making me care about the major characters right off the bat. Others I can play through the whole game and never care who they are, frequently just skipping the dialog entirely after I get far enough that I know I'm not into the story and just skipping to the sex scenes.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I think this is why so many movies and TV shows open with a scene where the main character is involved in a scene that's either an action scene, some emotional scene, etc. They want you to immediately develop an emotional response to that character.

Exactly, and this whatever will be this emotional response. It doesn't matter that you like or dislike the character, you aren't indifferent, so it's already to late for you. The interesting part being that this first emotional response isn't necessarily the one you'll have at the end of the story, and it generally make the character more interesting.
Take The Hound in Game of Thrones by example. He isn't really introduced as a good guy ; still Ned Stark seem to see more in him. And our feelings change while the story advance. The more we discover about him, the more conflictual are our thoughts ; how the hell George R. R. Martin dare to make us like him ? His personality don't really change, it's our perception of him that evolve.

More minor characters won't necessarily get as dramatic of a scene but you still usually get something that shows some personality quirks or something. They're funny or awkward or have some other quirk that makes them unique so they show you a scene that makes you laugh or makes you feel sorry for them or whatever.

Here, a good example can be Jar-Jar Binks. Whatever you like him or hate him, everyone still remember of him, while surely having forgot most of the other secondary characters. This just because of his introduction scene, because after this, the character is relatively flat, and here to avoid few deus ex machina more than anything else.

Obviously coming up with a good scene like that might take some writing skills that some devs don't have but it's something to aspire to.

Totally. Even when you fell, an introduction scene will still have a better effect than a simple presentation. This simply because it will give more life to your game, and involve the player a little more.
There's nothing more boring, especially when the game is a visual novel, than a long narration. And like generally they don't even have CG, or just generic ones showing the character "this part" talk about, how can the player feel interested ?

 

[Volta]

This is very interesting as a topic IMO, so many characters in games are a little bland these days, that said and without trying to be a cynic, people are often bland.

You don't need a badass entrance or explosions behind a character to denote that they are a badass. The biggest character moment if you can call it that in this particular supernatural clip is the way he brushes himself off after bumping the guy, it's dismissive, arrogant, aloof and mildly annoyed, which works particularly well for the character of death (i haven't and don't intend to watch supernatural, so i'm coming at this cold, as far as i can anyway), however we know he is death, just that alone prevents anyone coming to his character totally cold, same way with something like the show Lucifer, we already know he's the devil, nobody is going to be able to come at that cold, as such part of the work for that sort of character's intro is baked in with 0 work required, after that it's a case of specific interpretation, more on that later.

Moving to a thoroughly different medium i'm going to take Jeeves from Jeeves and Wooster as the antithesis to this, his introduction has him dominate a scene while being particularly understated, he simply announces himself as Jeeves, his new Valet and goes about utterly organising Wooster's life, no preamble, just gets on with the job as he see's it, it's only with repeated small glimpses of an at times highly manipulative nature that he has that we begin to see he is more than just a very capable valet and while Jeeves is a known character and caricature we certainly don't have the preconceptions of him that we do of death and frankly as understated as his intro is it is as interesting or more so than the example given.

This is part of what bothers me, many games reach for angels and demons, the old testament biblical themes and such and that means that it is easy to take premade and cookie cutter stuff and throw it into a game with little extra development, succubi are especially prone to this "out of the box-ready play" sort of thing. Now i like some of this stuff and i don't want to do the classic thing of "90% of everything is junk" but for any TCG player out there i think they'll know what i mean when i say it feels like uninspired net-decking. Anyone remember Terry Pratchett's interpretation of death, i bet you do, why?, it's an interesting twist and partial subversion of what we expect from Death as a character and Pratchett is a good writer, which never hurts.

I suppose it comes down to tropes as fast ways to set up characters, the setting you are using and how this character is supposed to bounce off of other characters. A low key entrance is good sometimes, "epic" is overused, at some point it will end up like anime power scaling where it becomes farcically irrelevant to the plot and is just a case of hype and hot air. That doesn't have to be the case though, if the character in question is a powerhouse/badass/edgelord and the characters around them see them that way then it makes perfect sense to introduce them that way, of course it's then up to the writer to make something of that, no intro alone will carry the character but it can certainly start things rolling nice and quickly.

That is is the final point though, is the expediency of an out of the box character pre-set worth it or is the extra time to setup a more original character worth it, IMO yes but you can't do that for every character by any means, for an adult VN i'd say that if the character is a core member of the cast then it is certainly worth it to spend the time on them, if they are a fringe extra then no, it's those mid way characters the minor LI's or significant male characters that won't get too much screen time that are the tough call, there isn't a right answer, something that is "by the numbers" but good is better than something that is original and bad, so i guess it's down to taste really.

 

[khumak]

This is very interesting as a topic IMO, so many characters in games are a little bland these days, that said and without trying to be a cynic, people are often bland.

Obviously not everyone is a superhero or the life of the party. The point I was trying to make was that you need an emotional response to the character to really get to where you care what happens to them and you can still introduce even a character with a relatively boring existence in a way that does that. IMO, it's a lot easier to do that by showing that character actually doing something that showcases their purpose in the story before getting into background on them.

For instance the main character in Office Space is about as boring as they come. He sits in a cubicle updating dates for bank software and suffering through managers droning on about mission statements and TPS reports. If you didn't know it was a comedy and that was all you had to go on, nobody would ever have bothered watching it. But they play up his experience of a typical boring day at a meaningless job such that it's relatable for those of us who have boring jobs ourselves (which is most of us). They just take the typical BS that most people have to deal with every day and take it to the point of being ridiculous. It's a comedy so that works well for the movie.

This is part of what bothers me, many games reach for angels and demons, the old testament biblical themes and such and that means that it is easy to take premade and cookie cutter stuff and throw it into a game with little extra development, succubi are especially prone to this "out of the box-ready play" sort of thing. Now i like some of this stuff and i don't want to do the classic thing of "90% of everything is junk" but for any TCG player out there i think they'll know what i mean when i say it feels like uninspired net-decking. Anyone remember Terry Pratchett's interpretation of death, i bet you do, why?, it's an interesting twist and partial subversion of what we expect from Death as a character and Pratchett is a good writer, which never hurts.

Well very few artists create entirely original works. Most of them borrow from the previous work of other artists. Why invent a completely new monster when everyone knows what a vampire is? You can put your own spin on it but using something that's been done before means you don't have to completely reinvent the wheel.

I suppose it comes down to tropes as fast ways to set up characters, the setting you are using and how this character is supposed to bounce off of other characters. A low key entrance is good sometimes, "epic" is overused, at some point it will end up like anime power scaling where it becomes farcically irrelevant to the plot and is just a case of hype and hot air. That doesn't have to be the case though, if the character in question is a powerhouse/badass/edgelord and the characters around them see them that way then it makes perfect sense to introduce them that way, of course it's then up to the writer to make something of that, no intro alone will carry the character but it can certainly start things rolling nice and quickly.

The protagonist definitely does not have to be a badass. Nor does the villain. They usually are if it's an action movie or TV show, but you can just as easily have some other type of conflict going on like a crime drama or something. In that scenario you'd be more likely to want to have a scene showcasing the competence of your hero as an investigator or something and on the flip side establishing the villain as being good at whatever it is he does. He might be a badass, but he might just as well be a skilled thief or something.

 

[Domiek]

Although I agree with the meat of this thread, it's part of a greater overarching Hobbyists with little to no experience/background in every aspect of game and story design are significantly worse than their professional counterparts specializing in one particular thing.

Overall it's a good discussion.

 

[khumak]

Although I agree with the meat of this thread, it's part of a greater overarching Hobbyists with little to no experience/background in every aspect of game and story design are significantly worse than their professional counterparts specializing in one particular thing.

Overall it's a good discussion.

Yeah I've spent a lot of time trolling youtube looking for videos about writing tips since I don't have a writing background myself. There's a guy named David Stewart that has a bunch of videos on the writing process that I found useful.

 

[anne O'nymous]

The biggest character moment if you can call it that in this particular supernatural clip is the way he brushes himself off after bumping the guy, it's dismissive, arrogant, aloof and mildly annoyed, which works particularly well for the character of death [...]

It goes way further than that.
The guy who involuntarily hit him start dying the instant he finished to brushes himself off. The two are obviously linked (more obviously since it's Supernatural). Therefore, "arrogant", yes, but not at all "dismissive", or dismissive of human's life. He haven't just brushed himself off, he also brushed off this man's life. Therefore, no, he isn't mildly annoyed, he's pissed off. It's just that he have a total control of his emotions or, more surely, that he have a total lack of emotions, and therefore of empathy.
From my point of view, what his introduction scene show, is that an insect came to trouble what was a decent day, he solved the problem, then returned to what he was doing, as if nothing happened. And the fact that it was an human being that he surely never meet before, and that just slightly hit him, is important and justify this comparison with an annoying insect ; it's what humans are for him, annoying insects that he tolerate as long as they aren't too annoying.
Like I said for Dark Vador, it tell nothing about the character, yet tell everything that you need to know.

[...] however we know he is death, just that alone prevents anyone coming to his character totally cold, same way with something like the show Lucifer, we already know he's the devil, nobody is going to be able to come at that cold, as such part of the work for that sort of character's intro is baked in with 0 work required, after that it's a case of specific interpretation, more on that later.

Why ? Both Death and Lucifer are the fictional version of what is already a fictional character. I come as emotionless face to those two characters, that I come face to any other characters. Give me a flat Lucifer, and there were some really flat in movie's history, I'll stay emotionless. Totally miss the introduction of the character, and whatever how goodly Lucifer will be depicted and interpreted, whatever how evil he can be, I'll laugh at him for the whole movie. This simply because the introduction scene killed the character.

[...] we certainly don't have the preconceptions of him that we do of death and frankly as understated as his intro is it is as interesting or more so than the example given.

What preconceptions are you talking about ? Not only it's a purely cultural thing, but it also differ from a person to another.
In Japan, Izanami is the goddess of the death, so what's more near to the occidental Death. But her also being goddess of the creation make her arrival less feared ; it's not the sign of an end, but more the sign of a new start. In Hinduism, it's Yama, god and judge of the dead, that is near to Death. Yet he don't really have a bad reputation. He's the first to die, the one who shown the way for any other after him ; therefore the one that permit us to pursue the reincarnation cycle.

Death as shown in supernatural is clearly an occidental representation of the character ; the cold emotionless reaper. But like I said, there's peoples, like Shintoists and Hinduists, for who Death being like this isn't necessarily something natural. And it's where the introduction scene play an important role, and why this one is effectively well handled. It's a character named Death, that is a cold and emotionless life reaper, dot. It's what the scene show and how everyone, whatever his culture and his own view regarding Death in real life, will see in this character.
But put another introduction scene, one that don't put this coldness and his lack of emotion at the first place, and then only occidental viewers would understand the character, because he fit their preconception. While others would struggle to understand his reactions, because he don't fit their own preconceptions.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Although I agree with the meat of this thread, it's part of a greater overarching Hobbyists with little to no experience/background in every aspect of game and story design are significantly worse than their professional counterparts specializing in one particular thing.

Well, time for me to remember that when I talk about subjects like this one, it's not a criticism of authors ; this even when I say that they "lack of whatever" or things like that. I myself have a good theoretical knowledge, and still lack of many things to make this become something more that just theoretical.
But presenting my own views, confronting it to what other things in a constructive debate, is what help me be less purely theoretician and, I hope, sometimes also help hobbyists improve their own abilities.

 

[khumak]

It goes way further than that.
The guy who involuntarily hit him start dying the instant he finished to brushes himself off. The two are obviously linked (more obviously since it's Supernatural). Therefore, "arrogant", yes, but not at all "dismissive", or dismissive of human's life. He haven't just brushed himself off, he also brushed off this man's life.

That's the part that really made the scene work for me as well. Much more-so than if they had made him some sort of combat monster type. To him, killing is no more effort than wiping some dust off his coat and a human is no more significant to him than an insect would be.