Importance of Main Characters for VNs?

[PrettieAngel]

My question is, how important do you think having a well-defined main character is to making a good VN? (As I'll be more likely to develop GxB games, I'm looking for opinions mostly on female characters, but all feedback will be appreciated.) Is it necessary for the player's character to be deep, have a developed background and decent complexity already existing at the start of the game, etc.?

As for the main character themselves, do you prefer it if they're more 'average' in their setting, or if they're 'special' in some aspect and stand out from the rest? Provided that it fits with the plot, is there one that draws your interest more? Also, are there any special traits/ attributes you like to see in main characters? I understand that balance is important, but are there certain types of characters you prefer playing over others? Please let me know of any thoughts on this, thanks!

[Aleema]

Depends on how deep you want the story to be. If you want to have a deep story, have a deep main character. If they're blank pages for the player to write, then there should be strong gameplay, personality-defining moments. Or else they're just the narrator to a story, I guess. And if it's first-person POV, why would we want to know the inner monologue of someone who as basically no emotional investment in anything? I would say, yes, it's "necessary" to put effort in one character as much as you do any other, main or not. Unless they're generic for a gameplay reason.

Draws my interest more: MCs with character. Specialness is not required, but be warned that if you write a female MC and make her special people will be yelling "MARY SUE!" from a mile away -- whether or not it's true or applicable that the character be self-insert. =P

[Auro-Cyanide]

Yes, I am all for character development in all mediums. The only exception would be when you have a player defined character (name, appearance etc) because in that case a player would role play and any prior development of the character could clash with the players point of view.

I like my main characters to be well defined. I want to know what motivates them and how they see the world. This does not mean I want to read through pages of back story. The characters personality and their motives should be clear simply by how the talk and how they react to things.

Take Rock Robin for example (thanks Aleema). You can tell simply by the way Robin acts and talks as to what kind of person she is and this goes a long way to explain why people react to her the way the do. That was one of the best things I liked about the demo was that there was so much character is the writing. When the writing doesn't have enough character it can be pretty boring to read, especially if there is a lot of it. The Main Character is usually the narrator. Please make them interesting. I don't want a robots view of the world or my view of the world. I want THEIR view of the world.

If you are writing a GxB (or any kind of pursuing game) I think the main character should have some kind of special point, otherwise it is just weird for people to be attracted to them, especially when you have so many high profile people (eg, school president, bad boy, school idol etc). However I am a strong advocate of well rounded characters. I despise character types. Character should be written as complete people, not as specific aspects of a single personality (unless that is your point). The should have strengths and weakness, good and bad points. If you have trouble with it, try imagining if you meet your character in real life. What kind of details would you have to add to make them seem real?

Anyway, that is my 2 cents worth.

[Marcelo_Orlando]

I think that you should make them human. Don't put to much into listing things that you think people would want to see. Don't worry about making your character "deep", I think we've seen enough of the posterboy \ postergirl type characters. Make your characters human, give them a personality and from that point think about how that character would act in different situations.

[PrettieAngel]

I never thought the before game details of a main character were too important, personally, so going by what some of you have said, I think there might be some extra work to put into them than I would at first worry about. I don't know how much it'll have an affect on my current project but I'll definitely keep this in mind for future endeavours.

I'm fairly worried about Mary Sue-ness, which is the reason I'm reluctant to include anything out of the ordinary for such characters (and it doesn't really feel that right for me either, as their creator), but sometimes I get the feeling that this makes them somehow less intriguing to a number of people? I think I'd prefer to use little more than 'ordinary' beings for main characters. As a player, does this type tend more to give the impression of being shallow/ not well thought out or not worth the effort of playing out a story as?

Anyway, thanks for your responses, everyone! I'm glad to know more opinions on this matter, as they seem to differ from mine.

[papillon]

There are many popular main characters in published works who are accused of being MarySues by people who hate them, and there are many terrible main character in fanfic that tried really hard to avoid the traditional MarySue pitfalls but ended up making the problem worse. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiSue

You generally don't want your main character to be a sparkling angel of wonder with no downsides. You also don't want your main character to be utterly dull (or horrible) and completely lacking in upsides.

You can make *something* interesting and unique about the character without having to give the character glowing orange eyes or pink feathered wings. Maybe the character has a talent which is not particularly relevant to the setting, so most people aren't that impressed by it. If you'd gone to my high school and been, say, personally ranked third in the state for varsity golf, that's a talent and everyone in the school would know about it but most people simply wouldn't care. A few people might care. The love interests might care. But the rest of the school isn't going to follow you around fawning over you because you're fairly good at a sport they find boring.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Marcelo_Orlando makes the best point, write your characters as humans. Mary Sues only become a problem when the characters are not well rounded. For instance they are usually pretty, popular, have a dark past, everyone falls in love with them and they have no actual flaws. They don't come across as human to the reader and thus it is very hard to connect with them.

You should try to think of your characters as people. The back story is not really important to tell the reader unless it has something to do with the story, but it is important to you because it will help you decide what influenced your character to grow up the way she did. Maybe they had a very happy family and so now have strong family values and thinks of marriage. Maybe they came from a broken home and so has a tendency to distrust the term forever.

Just think of yourself. What aspects of your life do you think contributed to the way you behave now? It will be the same for your character. Knowing these kinds of points will help your character come across as a person and will help you write what actions they would take in certain situations. If you know your characters well enough then they tend to write themselves in a way.

A non-Mary Sue doesn't mean they can't be special. I think when people try too hard for their characters not to be Mary Sue's, they create very unappealing characters. It is best not to think about it too much and be more concerned with the character being human.

Frankly, exciting things are more likely to happen around interesting people. It is common for 'escape from reality' stories to have a very normal person in exciting circumstances (eg. the normal girl that all the boys fall for) but it isn't that likely. I prefer for the main character to be interesting (my opinion, everyone has their own preferences). My characters tend to range from powerful to insanely powerful because I like to make them jump through hoops. I find it interesting. So don't be afraid to create interesting main characters, just be sure to make them human. Give them flaws and personalities that some people may like and others will hate. It should be fun to create characters that buzz with life and paint the story for the reader. If you do it right, the should colour the writing of the story and make it much more interesting to read.

[Aleema]

Oh god ... oh god I want glowing orange eyes. I want it right now.


I agree that boring, completely ordinary MCs are just that: boring. This wouldn't be their story if they weren't the MC, and I hope there's some reason we're following their story. "Mary Sue" came from fanfiction where an original character invaded someone else's story and took it over as the most important (and beautiful) person. In a story YOU have written, I find it hard to not justify a main character being special in their own story. It might be stupid to read if you make the characters unbelievable, but that's true of any story any time. Dating Sims get off the hook because they're less about story, and more about everyone liking them (thus being a perfect vessel for MarySue/GaryStu), but anti-troping for the sake of anti-troping makes an author lose an important tool. Write a story you like, make a character you're proud of, above all.

[Sakura02]

I agreed with what's been said thus far

Personally I like when the character has some sort of personality, based on their backstory and story setting. VNs are interactive novels, which means you need to think of it like a story first, write like you were writing a book and then decide how you want the player to effect the ending. However, if you do what the player to effect personality make sure you give the player choices very early in the game and then write the different paths according to how the player responds to certain situations.

[Marcelo_Orlando]

Above all else YOU should enjoy making your game and be proud of your story and the characters within, because if you don't like what you've created why would anyone else?

[SusanTheCat]

Here's a question.

If you are going the route that different personality types would give you different story paths, you you prefer have the personality set a) at the beginning or b)each step is it's own choice.

To explain:
a) At the start of the game the player chooses a personality type to play by some method. e.g. blood type, astrological sign, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, weird fortune telling thing from Ultima VI

b) Choices made in the game affect hidden stats - aggressive/passive, energetic/apathetic

I prefer choice a from a developer and a player point of view. I can tweak the story lines and the MC stays consistent all game.

Susan

[Poketto Kunoichi]

I prefer developed characters. I see myself as a voice inside guiding them in the direction I want them to go to, or someone who controls their destiny, not my avatar.

As for specialness, I think it really depends on the setting. In a world where angels coexist with humans in this realm, I wouldn't mind the character being an angel. But if the character is a vampire catgirl and the story takes place in New York... just no. I love original characters with eccentric personalities, funny quirks, and such, as long as it doesn't seem like you're trying too hard. A good example would be Yuichi in Kanon. I would prefer not to play as sweet, submissive characters though. It would be annoying to go throughout the whole story just suffering, unless that's the whole point. I'd prefer a strong lead.

[PrettieAngel]

Thanks for the continued input! I've looked a fair bit into Mary Sues and think I have a pretty rounded idea of what makes them, so I understand that a balance of good and bad things about a character are important to make them more seem more human. I guess my problem with this is that because of the great number of people in existence, there must be also be a great number that are not exceptional in some area, or 'special', the way I see things. I try to imagine them as humans and what they would be like if they were real, but there certainly are many people I am familiar with who are not outstanding in any area, in regards to abilities/ aspects more applicable to everyday life (I guess this is different for everyone, but I hope my meaning here is clear enough). That's not to say I don't like them, but it seems to me that it's more or less true.

I'm now going back with the main character in the VN I am currently working on, to give their background more detail and define the reasons for them being the way they are. Would this be a good idea at this point despite it perhaps not having much affect on the actual way the story progresses? I guess for me, it takes a lot of time to grow fond of any characters I create, and there's usually just not enough in the amount it takes for a story's end (not exclusively VNs, as I only recently began working on my first). Would it be a better idea to develop characters before even beginning any concrete work on a project? Again, thanks everybody!

[Auro-Cyanide]

The main reason it is important for at least you to know your characters history is because their history will dictate their actions in the future. If you know who the character is and why they are that way then you will be able to anticipate what they would do in certain situations. It will help you write the story, what kind of things will happen, how the character will react to each other etc. Most VNs are character driven (because the are 1st POV) so the more unique the perspective the more interesting the story will be to read. If the background of the character is solid, then their actions will make consistant logical sense (hopefully) and will make the whole plot stronger.