Does a guy playing Tomb Raider self-insert as Lara Croft? Do people "self-insert" as Arthur Morgan when playing Red Dead Redemption 2? I'd say not usually.
Some people, yeah.
Self-insertion isn't ubiquitous to all video games , its usually restricted to a certain subset of them which lack well defined personalities to get in the way of thinking of "yourself" as the person in the game. I simply play all games the same way you'd play a fighting game, or Mario, or a TMNT game or something: the PC is just an entity I'm controlling.
If it is a blank slate RPG it is definitely the intention to self-insert. I'm also talking about the context of a RPG porn game, not necessarily all games. I don't think a well defined character stops self-insertion, just makes it harder for some people.
There's a big difference between being a viewpoint character and being the center of attention. One doesn't necessitate the other. I don't like stories where it feels like one single character is the only active force of the entire universe, it makes that story seem artificial. The MC can be the focus of some scenes. The MC shouldn't be the focus of EVERY scene. I think that some stuff should happen independently of the MC's control.
I may have misinterpreted here. I was thinking about being the center of attention relating to porn scenes in a porn game, not necessarily the non-porn scenes. I see the benefit in balancing the focus of scenes.
If a character is introduced in a sexual way in a porn game, then they should be focused on the player character. I don't think it follows that because in a normal RPG a shift of focus at times to another character can be good means that it is a good idea to shift the focus to another character having sex unless the intention is voyeur, cucking, open, or polyamorous relationship.
For example, I think the PC being able to "deny" other character's relationship is silly. It should be something you either encourage or ignore, but not forbid. It gives you an outsized amount of control for the purpose of stroking the player's ego at the expense of the veracity of the in-game universe (and, to add, an amount of control that can't possibly be consistently replicated throughout the game).
Stroking the player's ego isn't a bad goal for a porn game. I have different expectations for a porn game. An ignore button is the easy way for the writer to not write a path they aren't interested is doing, which isn't a bad thing. If there are characters that are intended for polyamorous, open, voyeur, or cucking content then that should be made clear early on so that a player is able to invest as little time in them as possible if they aren't interested in it.
I don't really think this is true. Self-insertion is at direct odds with an interesting character, I really don't think it's possible to do both.
It's not a requirement for me. Generally, I don't self-insert as exactly me. Sometimes its someone who I wish I could be. I think it depends on the person, though. There is likely variability in ability or desire to self-insert that is affected by similarity of the character. So, the more concrete you make a character, the more you decrease the proportion of people who would self-insert. but its certainly possible.
I've seen people complain when, say, the PC declares their love for a character and the player doesn't feel the same way. I've seen people complain about the PC's tone in certain scenes, that its too angry when the player hasn't directed them that way. I myself have disliked scenes with Gweyr, where the player is sympathetic to her estrangement from her family despite me thinking she kinda deserved it.
There are too many shackles in place caused by people expectations of a self-insert character to give them an interesting personality. Gotta pick one or the other.
You can have a concrete characterization within the choices the player makes. For example, having the PC declaring love for a character after choosing to have sex with them is probably a bad idea, worse if they haven't even had sex. Generally, love is related to a pursued romance option. I think the bigger issue with those complaints is a lack of build up to the declaring of love. Generally, most players who wouldn't love the character would have stopped pursuing the progression and wouldn't have an issue. If of course, they went through the scenes until the PC declared love and the player was convinced they didn't love them, and then complained, I could see what you mean, but I don't think that's generally what happens.
I'm not really sure the context of anger you are talking about. For me, when it comes to the PC being angry in responses, the issue I have with it is that theres really nothing you can do. It is actually worse when I'm self-inserting and also personally would be angry, because now I'm resonating with the anger the PC feels and I can't do anything about it. This usually happens in Tobs content for me, and is part of the reason I've not played a single Kinu quest. The big issue with Tobs content is the PC lacks agency because of the linearity of the narrative, which comes out as the player character being weak. This doesn't cause issues with me self-inserting, it just isn't interesting to me. The whole Kinu stepping out of the parents shadow theme doesn't make up for that lack of interest.
Is the issue with Gweyr the lack of ability to self-insert because of Tobs writing the player character with more definite characterization? What I've gathered from the complaints about Gweyr I've seen is that the player character is railroaded into acting stupid because Tobs wanted to write a good reason for Gweyr to have been exiled, but then couldn't figure out how to justify why the player character, and the player, should be sympathetic, and just decided to force the player character to be sympathetic no matter the choice?
From my understanding, you don't self-insert as the player character, but you disliked the Gweyr scene anyways. Wouldn't this indicate that the issue is outside of self-insertion?
This is pretty much what I'm saying. There's not enough interesting choices to make your blank slate character take the hit in personality. And the dev team is too small to give you the amount of choices that would make it worth it, at least to me personally. Hell, multi-million dollar companies have struggled with this same thing.
I don't think the issue is that the team is too small, I think the issue is that focus is deliberately on writing more content for less choices and branching paths for extended word count on a single path.
Coincidentally I agree with Sav here. Characters that make the PC the center of their whole lives make me uncomfortable, because the player can't logically reciprocate, which makes the relationship seem massively unequal. I can't take the PC pretending to have a deep, lasting relationship with a single character, then turning around and saying basically the same thing to 20 other chicks while the first one waits back at home for the PC to give them some attention again. Harems kinda creep me out.
Which is why I enjoy when NPCs do their own thing sans the PC.
Would it make you comfortable to create a single character that you devote only to Brienne then? That way, that PC would be reciprocating and fully focused on Brienne, and there wouldn't be any hypocrisy or unequality?
You might just be because I have no problem conceptualizing a character based off all the choices in the game and my own ideal in this setting. They don't all have to be pivotal choices to fit what my character would do. And I already said the problem is when they do take choices and force dialogue on you, which we see a lot with Tobs and why his content gets lambasted so much.
I guess I have an issue of coming up with a head cannon and running away with it, so I'm good at coming up with a character, but then I get frustrated when I get off the rails. That's also mostly related to Tobs content though.
The main villain is focused on you due to sheer happenstance (literally just standing in the right place at the right time) as opposed to you just being generally super awesome.
In a way, the main villain is focused on you because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. But, the reason you are in the right place at the right time is because you do possess a special quality no one else in the tavern does: courage. I would have said empathy as well, but its possible to want to help Cait for selfish reasons (like a reward) if you are playing that kind of character.
I'm obviously not talking about game mechanics. Game mechanics don't shape perceptions of characters. If they did, people in this very thread wouldn't be irritated by how the game treats them in the story because the mechanics treat them the same either way. Mechanically, literally everyone is an unthinking unfeeling doll when you aren't around - that's not how anyone, in this topic or any other one, actually perceives them, because mechanics don't shape character perception.
What you see shapes your perception. What you don't doesn't tend to. That's why, mechanically, characters being unthinking unfeeling dolls doesn't affect how people perceive them. This is why sequels can alter people's enjoyment of an older work, unless they haven't seen or heard about it from other people. The less you see, the easier it is to compartmentalize it. People generally can separate game battle mechanics from story using suspension of disbelief, but there are cases when there is such a disconnect between game and story that it causes ludonarrative dissonance. The fact that that phrase exists indicates that probably someone experienced a change in perception of story based on gameplay.
The gameplay is almost invariably completely independent of the story. If there's a cutscene where your character gets beat, it doesn't matter how high you level up - your character gets beat.
I don't think automatic defeat cutscenes are good game design. They might be the best way the writer has of moving the story along, but its more a concession due to limitation of paths.
Story trumps gameplay, always, when it comes to shaping perceptions and personal taste in how characters are handled. Almost nobody's personal tastes take gameplay into account.
I think that story is a more important factor than gameplay for characterization, but an ideal would be to use gameplay to strengthen characterization. Usually though, fun gameplay is more important than that so concessions are made, and the story can make up for any dissonance. Go to far in the gameplay, though, and it can start overriding suspension of disbelief.
None of that is answered. None of it is referenced again (besides the fact that the MF is fast). It doesn't matter, because we don't need to know.
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Or when Han meets Lando, they, in a short period of time, reference several events in their shared past that we get no detail on. Just vague references that let us know that there are things and places outside of the scope of this story.
That's all worldbuilding, and good worldbuilding.
That worldbuilding has a direct explanatory effect on elements directly affecting the story. They serve a purpose, and as you indicate are usually one liners that aren't overly expositing. The issue with CoC2 is that it has large exposition dumps.
