Magnus and Seba are back with a special Pressure Suit Podcast! Move over Gamer Word, because today we’ll be tackling the “ludo” in ludonarrative and how appearance, writing, presentation, and player customization can change the impact of a video game protagonist. Is character customization a way to enshrine player choice and enhance immersion? Or are set characters the better vehicle to tell compelling stories with deep narratives? Seal your locking ring, check your gauges, secure your line and cycle that airlock, it’s time for the Pressure Suit Podcast!
4 thoughts on “Pressure Suit Podcast – Character And Narrative”
Comments are closed.
How do the characters “muscles but not very smart” (characterizing the US? the Golem under Jew control?) and the “northern elf female type with guttural Scottish accent” (Scotland? – a suppressed part of the northern European soul?) act out together? A sort of hate-“love” relationship? The elf not at all too happy… How is the interaction between the two? Turbulent, I guess – might be quite realistic… regarding the actual turbulent (England vs Scotland) war time history – – – What do they say to each other? Anything at all? What’s the substance of the conversation?
Role-playing – extending into politics… affecting real life…
Not funny watching the same ole same superficial CIRCUS evolving around the “Trump character” (muscles but not very smart – big mouth, all fake, deceptive, non-reliant) and the “sheeple characters” (non-thinking, gullible, suffering from amnesia?) cheering him – – – The same outcome (or even worse) of the “game” is all too predictable. Depressing. It’ll make the just cause look REALLY bad. Who benefits? The “game” producers behind the scenes, the manipulators, the puppeteers, the profiteers. In real life and in fiction: always the Jews? They control it all?
Any value in playing such games? Investing a lot of time – for what purpose? None? What makes it entertaining?
When you watch children playing… they are creative.
Adults playing games – are they creative? What do you create? Modelling characters? What do you learn?
Excuse my questions – it is totally alien to me spending time with playing games. Do you live in an environment with not too many options?
YOU DO THINK A LOT (which is good & remarkable)… about that kind of things (and others)
My question would always be: What do you learn from that? If you don’t learn anything of value – it’s a waste of time. Can a waste of time be entertaining?
It can be – it depends. On what you want. Immersing yourselves in a fantasy world…
That’s what children like doing. Children who love reading lots of books (I was one of those).
But as an adult? Playing games?
Men playing games?
Attractive to who? What kind of women?
And the outcome?
In movies – you have a narrative & character modelling too –
Fantasy lines evolving around the characters… spinning the narrative – working with cliches and stereotypes – lots of exaggeration makes it funny – Maybe, even if you don’t know the language and cannot understand what is being said – Watching how the characters act, understanding the self-irony, the mockery with no ill intent makes it funny and entertaining – Germans do laugh about themselves – not only once, quite often in TV series (like the following one)
https://www.zdf.de/one/mord-mit-aussicht/page-video-ard-waldeslust-104.html
Do your games make you laugh? Wholeheartedly? Could you laugh about Americans being made fun of? Does it even happen on American TV? – It’s mostly Germans who get the dirt… “Nazi” Hollywood sewage all over the place, in movies, games, “History Channel”(run by J) – trigger moments – indoctrination – manipulation – reenforcing the same ole same lies
#Character and Narrative – The staged “game” – – –
Propaganda buzz words: “Transformation – Enrichment – Strength” through “Diversity – Inclusion – Equity” – D-I-E! Jewish Death spell: White Genocide! through multi-racial mass immigration and race mixing to create a “Eurasian-Negroid slave race with lower IQ easily be ruled over by the Jewish elite” (anti-white racist Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan) – – –
Transformed “anti-racist Devil incarnate” (resurrected from the dead / an alien landing from Argentina / CIA-MI6 version) brings Multiculturalism to Israel – – –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ltk2ydFVLQ
a transformation “which must take place” (Barbara Lerner-Spectre, Jewish influencer transforming Sweden into an “enriched multicultural paradise”) – Let them have their own poison – The only language they would understand?
is this where we post our favourite Chris, Claire and Leon copypastas?
Leon > Chris. RE5 Jill an RE6 Sherry.
Anyways, I would generally agree that a pre-set character is way more memorable than a blank slate. It was out of scope of this topic, but a customizable character would heavily contribute to a game with intricate mechanical systems, even long past the point where the story is interesting.
Fallout 4 was a great example of how not to do a customizable character, as they did not commit fully to either a pre-set character or a customizable one. The decision to have a voiced protagonist was half the reason the dialogue system was so atrocious, IMO, although Beth was on a trajectory of simplifying their TES&FO games for a console audience with each sequel. The Morrowind and Oblivion approach to dialogue was decent, I thought. If the rudimentary dialogue is all keywords, then the player can fill in the blanks with his mind, while more effort could go to the important lines.
Decent older games with customizable characters that come to mind are the old Fallout 1&2, Arcanum, Icewind Dale 1&2, Neverwinter Nights, Vamprie the Masquerade: Bloodlines.
Sure enough, you might mostly remember the stronger companion characters rather than your own OC, but those games gave your character a lot of dialogue. With VtM:B in particular, the game had a lot of replayability and dialogue variation, depending on your build. In those games, the blank slate character was given enough background to make him fit into the world and not be an absolute retard. I think customization and player character voiceovers don’t go together all that well.