What if you could choose the Avatar's Personality?

[Jotari]

So an idea I've seen floating around lately is the ability to choose the Avatar's personality at character creation, which would change the script slightly and affect certain things like supports. Personally I think this is a great idea. It could really add to the customisation and replayablity of the game. It could also help with the general issue people have of the cast being so avatar centric (since most of the cast wouldn't be singing their praises at any given time and there would be something more substantial to say about them if they have distinct personalities). So what do you think of this idea? Would you like to see it? What parts of the game should it affect? How many personalitiles should their be and, most importantly, what personalities could they have?

[Roflolxp54]

It may be great but it can be troublesome for localization teams. Heck, the localization team for Awakening couldn't be bothered to keep the lines in for mute Avatar.

[Moblin Major General]

So an idea I've seen floating around lately is the ability to choose the Avatar's personality at character creation, which would change the script slightly and affect certain things like supports. Personally I think this is a great idea. It could really add to the customisation and replayablity of the game. It could also help with the general issue people have of the cast being so avatar centric (since most of the cast wouldn't be singing their praises at any given time and there would be something more substantial to say about them if they have distinct personalities). So what do you think of this idea? Would you like to see it? What parts of the game should it affect? How many personalitiles should their be and, most importantly, what personalities could they have?

So, a Western RPG style avatar? You certainly aren't the first to come up with this idea. It's a good idea, although unlike a lot of newer WRPGs, FE isn't open ended like they are, as restrictive as being open ended certainly can be in some of them.

[Jotari]

So, a Western RPG style avatar? You certainly aren't the first to come up with this idea. It's a good idea, although unlike a lot of newer WRPGs, FE isn't open ended like they are, as restrictive as being open ended certainly can be in some of them.

Haha. I don't claim to have come up with it at all. Like I said, it's an idea I've seen floating around suggested by multiple people. There just hasn't been a dedicated thread about it as far as I know.

[Rezzy]

I think as long as the avatar can support with everybody, they wouldn't want to come up with unique supports for each personality, though if they ditched the match-making sim and let the avatar supports with about 7 units per personality type, it might be feasible.

[NekoKnight]

We need a dialogue wheel where our conversation choices are "Saintly", "Puppy kicker" and "Snarky Asshole".

This has been an idea I've suggested before, and I think it will be a good way to step away from Avatar-centrism. Like Rezzy said, it would work if you limited their support pool down to 5-7 people, something similar to the GBA era games. If I were designing the game, I'd give the players 3 personality types to choose from that would have unique support options. Essentially, the Avatar would be 3 separate characters that you can choose one of per play through. The personality type would be almost exclusively relevant to supports because the Avatar would just be a minor character, story-wise.

What sorts of personalities would they be? That's a tough question, as it would take the time and consideration of writing an entire character. But to speak of it in general terms, an extroverted personality type, an introverted type and something else. It's an Avatar character so hopefully people could find at least one personality they can relate to in some way. Personally, I'd like my character to be intelligent and snarky, less focus on all-loving-hero-fights-for-my-friends.

Edit: Etrurian said it best below. Fire Emblem already has a few common protagonist personalities types that would work well.

Edited October 22, 2016 by NekoKnight

[Etrurian emperor]

If they base the Avatar on one of their lord archtypes than I can see this feature being added fairly easily.

The lords are generally divided into the thoughtful young men like Marth and Eliwood, honest louts like Hector and Ike, and the more insecure ones like Seliph and Eirika. At the starting screen it would be just a matter of choosing between these three and you're ready to go.

IS even had some practice in doing this. In Hector mode some of Eliwood's lines are given to Hector instead who gives a bit of a rougher edge to them.

[Sentinel07]

Honestly, in my opinion, I think they should take a page from Atlus and just make the Avatar silent with dialogue options.

I just feel like that's the best way to give the player some control, without the problem of having to write for multiple personalities as some have mentioned. At the very least, that would keep us from any more Corrin problems.

And as games like Devil Survivor show, you can have support-like conversations even if it's just one character that's doing most of the talking.

[saisymbolic]

In theory, it sounds like a pretty good idea but, in practice, it may be somewhat more difficult. I know it has been mentioned that IS could allow us to choose an archetype typical of our previous FE lords, but what if I want to play a personality that does not fall into those specific categories? I personally want to play as a egotistic, pragmatic smart ass of a lord/soldier that eventually develops into a jerk with a heart of gold throughout the narrative and their supports.

I agree with the person above me. Dialogue choices would be a good start. If anything, I would add a handful of multiple choice scenarios during character creation that would narrow down the personality into about five categories: lawful-neutral, lawful, neutral, chaotic and chaotic-neutral. Maybe even just the cardinal three. Depending on the alignment best fitting the choices selected during character creation, it would determine which dialogue choices that can be said during the narrative, which characters can be supported, perhaps which side missions that can be unlocked, what the epilogue text would say at the end and possibly which classes can be chosen for the Avatar to start in.

If you're going to allow me to choose my character's personality and attributes, I want them to actually change game play in a manner more than just rehashing the same dialogue choices but in a different tone of voice.

But that's just my humble opinion.

Edited October 24, 2016 by saisymbolic

[vanguard333]

I think having set personalities would be a great idea. One idea I had would be, to prevent "I don't want to play any of these personalities," keep the personalities simple. Another idea I have is to have a character traits tree sort of like the asset/flaw system but not affecting stats. It would sort of work like this:

(Not necessarily the categories I would use, nor the amount of categories I would use):

Upbringing: poor (farmers and such), middle (knights and such), noble (do I need to clarify?)

Quality(s): kind, honest, daring, careful, altruistic (selfless), strong-willed, smart

Fault(s): inconsiderate, dishonest, cowardly, reckless, selfish, easily-swayed, scatterbrained

You could choose one of the three upbringings, one (or two) qualities and one or two flaws. You cannot pick contradictory qualities/faults (example: you can choose careful and cowardly, but you cannot choose kind and inconsiderate or altruistic and selfish).

This is just one way it could be done. It would affect one's support conversations and some dialogue.

[Jotari]

I think having set personalities would be a great idea. One idea I had would be, to prevent "I don't want to play any of these personalities," keep the personalities simple. Another idea I have is to have a character traits tree sort of like the asset/flaw system but not affecting stats. It would sort of work like this:

(Not necessarily the categories I would use, nor the amount of categories I would use):

Upbringing: poor (farmers and such), middle (knights and such), noble (do I need to clarify?)

Quality(s): kind, honest, daring, careful, altruistic (selfless), strong-willed, smart

Fault(s): inconsiderate, dishonest, cowardly, reckless, selfish, easily-swayed, scatterbrained

You could choose one of the three upbringings, one (or two) qualities and one or two flaws. You cannot pick contradictory qualities/faults (example: you can choose careful and cowardly, but you cannot choose kind and inconsiderate or altruistic and selfish).

This is just one way it could be done. It would affect one's support conversations and some dialogue.

Speak for yourself. I consider myself kind but monstrously inconsiderate. Great idea though. That would lead to seemingly a lot of personalities but if you just made it so certain conversations are open or closed based on the presence or combination of certain variables then it wouldn't actually be all that hard to write for.

[NekoKnight]

I know people want to relate to their My Unit or "avatar" but I don't think they should fix the relate-ability issue with making the avatar simple or mild. Mild is what we have already have in Kamui, nothing offensive but nothing interesting. Better to make a character interesting at the risk of alienating the player, than a shallow self-insert. In regards to Vanguard's idea, I think you could use that flexible trait selection to create a unique support pool for the Avatar. Say, some characters will be on your support list if you selected a personality trait, or maybe certain characters would require several character traits for them to be potential partners.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

I do like the idea and I think it could help with the issues that many have had with other avatars, I do however disagree with the notion of limiting the supports based on personality. For me, I was always curious as to how the main cast in FE7 interacted with my tactician. The small lines that some of the characters had at the start of the map left me wondering how they would interact with my tactician if he was an actual unit engaging in combat along side the army. In my opinion, just leaving the avatar to only support the whole cast and keeping the limits like before works better. All the ideas here are cool, but I think Eturian's idea of basing the personalities on their lord archetypes, alone with just being able to choose certain lines when the time is needed, are the best ideas for the avatar's dialogue and how the avatar should be represented in the story.

[Radiant head]

a custom personality based on say the meyers-briggs test (or i prefer big five) would be cool, but god what an impractical nightmare it would be to develop all that for a minor part of the game.

persona-esque silent protagonist would definitely work. sort of an in between of robin and mark.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Radiant head

[Jotari]

I do like the idea and I think it could help with the issues that many have had with other avatars, I do however disagree with the notion of limiting the supports based on personality. For me, I was always curious as to how the main cast in FE7 interacted with my tactician. The small lines that some of the characters had at the start of the map left me wondering how they would interact with my tactician if he was an actual unit engaging in combat along side the army. In my opinion, just leaving the avatar to only support the whole cast and keeping the limits like before works better. All the ideas here are cool, but I think Eturian's idea of basing the personalities on their lord archetypes, alone with just being able to choose certain lines when the time is needed, are the best ideas for the avatar's dialogue and how the avatar should be represented in the story.

The issue with keeping a support on every unit is that it'd be a monster of a job to write every support in the game with each personality, and it'd be even harder to justify them given the fact that, unless you have a generic every day nice guy, a lot of character personalities simply don't gel well enough to make for an interesting support. Limiting the supports based on personality would make for more diverse and interesting supports overall. The avatar would still be able to support with everyone in the cast, just not all at once.

[Loki Laufeyson]

I really wish this was a thing and i rooted for it hard for Fates. My guys are rarely Lawful Good goodie two-shoes types. My default MU in Awakening is actually a snarky asshole. My guy in Conquest is just an asshole. Please let me play Actual Assholes, FE! That would be really cool. Sure, it would be a localization nightmare to have like, three different personalities you could pick that affect scripts/supports. but IT WOULD BE SO GR9 OMG.

[Cornguy]

I think as long as the avatar can support with everybody, they wouldn't want to come up with unique supports for each personality, though if they ditched the match-making sim and let the avatar supports with about 7 units per personality type, it might be feasible.

I had pretty much the same idea, locked away in my hypothetical "Awakening hindsight" folder. That support convos could've been better written if we were a little more limited in choice, and that we could've gotten at least 3 different personalities, just limit the support pool for each personality. There can be a little overlap, but I think we would've been much better off.

Different endings for each personality could've been cool as well, but that could be pushing it.

[Topaz Light]

I've sorta toyed with a return of New Mystery's Past/Present/Future selection, along with replacing the Avatar's lines with dialogue options instead, which would relegate them to a supporting role in the plot, and, yes, would present opportunities to play your character as an asshole of both "snarky" and "just an" varieties. In this instance, the Avatar's supports would play out more like dialogue trees, in which you would get to sorta dynamically interact with the character to raise support rank with them (and also sorta have control over whether the support was romantic or platonic, and to some extent what gets talked about). It'd be a ton of text to write, but the end result would be really cool as long as they didn't dive headfirst into using it for the gross kind of fanservice, which I... don't exactly trust modern IS not to do.

Ah well...

Edited October 29, 2016 by Topaz Light

[Metal Flash]

I think it`s a very cool idea, but I`m worried about how it would be handled. The dialouge tree option in particular worries me, Sure, it sounds cool, but I`m worried that IS are not able to implement it well. It also feels like extra unneeded work, to me at least. I would prefer that they do something similar to the Past/Present/Future selection from FE12 and the Avatar would have a personality based on your choices. That`s how I feel at any rate. Overall, cool concept, but not sure how it would be handled.

[Jotari]

I had pretty much the same idea, locked away in my hypothetical "Awakening hindsight" folder. That support convos could've been better written if we were a little more limited in choice, and that we could've gotten at least 3 different personalities, just limit the support pool for each personality. There can be a little overlap, but I think we would've been much better off.

Different endings for each personality could've been cool as well, but that could be pushing it.

If you mean different endings like different cutscenes and a different result of the final battle then year, that'd be a bit of work. But different endings in terms of the text that appears before the credits would be trivial to implement.

[MissShake]

I think that this is a great idea. Let's be honest here, the Avatar aspect isn't going anywhere, and I think being able to pick a personality type would make it more interesting. Seriously, I've had to make headcanons for my Robins/Corrins for me to even really give a shit about them.

I had pretty much the same idea, locked away in my hypothetical "Awakening hindsight" folder. That support convos could've been better written if we were a little more limited in choice, and that we could've gotten at least 3 different personalities, just limit the support pool for each personality. There can be a little overlap, but I think we would've been much better off.

Different endings for each personality could've been cool as well, but that could be pushing it.

That's such a good idea, but I can also seeing the fans of the more, uh... anime aspects of Awakening and Fates getting annoyed at the restrictions being put in place.

Also, if we assume that the children aspect stays in place, would Avatar's kid have a different personality based on your chosen personality?