Should big character gimmicks be done away with? (FE characterization/writing discussion)

[Thane]

6 minutes ago, eclipse said:

The best "cure" for this IMO would be limited support conversations.  Just because Sue and Alan are in the same army doesn't mean that they have to talk, let alone marry!

How dare you insult my OTP.

[Extrasolar]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

Eh.

Unless the next FE has a significantly smaller cast, I don't think we'll see the end of gimmicks.  The larger the cast, the more interactions need to be written, and trying to make 50 complex characters that interact with each other is asking for disaster.

The past FE games had some really wonky convos (like what was up with Lute/Knoll?), along with some amazing ones (hello Legault).  Likewise, the most recent iteration of Fates had some really wonky convos (hi Soliel) and some amazing ones (most of what comes out of Benny's mouth).  While one can argue that the ratio of wonky/amazing has gone down, the sheer number of convos that have been written more than makes up for it IMO.  Imagine having to write a conversation between, say, Rebecca and Oswin, and then somehow have the two of them fall in love - it would probably be really messy, right down to justifying Wolt's existence.

The best "cure" for this IMO would be limited support conversations.  Just because Sue and Alan are in the same army doesn't mean that they have to talk, let alone marry!

100% agreed on this point. FE conversations have proven that they focus on quality over quantity, and "everyone can support with everyone" has been disastrous on several occasions (Radiant Dawn support conversations being the most extreme and worst example of this, imo). Even the 3DS conversations fell victim to a lot of boring or generic conversations, or simply conversations that were inexplicable and awkward, because everyone had to be able to support with everyone. Taking it back to the days with limited supports means that they'll only have to write a support when they actually have something to write about, and that way we don't get characters that are simply incompatible being forced to be best friends because the plot says so.

(Disclaimer. Not saying that this'll mean we won't get a few odd or dud conversations, because we've had those to the beginning. I just see it as a way to cut down on the numbers of those, and we'll likely get more amazing ones out of the fewer.)

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

You're not wrong by any measure. I just wanted to present an alternate, objective, perspective so people can realise it's not down to the creators being lazy or bad at their jobs that we have characters like this. From an unobjective, personal standpoint I think they need to fix the problems with their main plots and characters first (of which there is much less excuse) before focusing on side characters.

While I definitely don't mean to call the writers lazy (I can appreciate the work of story writers and character writers, since I'm one of them myself), I can't help but think the part of it is the sheer ease of writing a gimmick rather than a more fleshed out personality, which they seem to be fond of leaning on. It's far easier to get across a Setsuna than a Soren, for example. One takes much more effort and craft to build up and portray, and the other is far simpler.

Well, I wouldn't say there are many problems with their main characters, at least from my point of view. Care to elaborate on what you think the flaws of FE's main characters are?

9 hours ago, Baldrick said:

Nolan is well read, perceptive, calm and sensitive about his age.

Vika is slightly apprehensive and conciliatory (I can only remember one conversation she had, not sure if there's more).

Yeah, the majority of the characters introduced in Radiant Dawn are woefully underdeveloped, and the limited supports of that game definitely don't help out in that regard...

Nolan is one of the more-developed Dawn Brigade units and one of the more developed new units in that game, even if he completely falls off in plot relevance halfway through Part I. We actually get more backstory in regards to him being a former merchant and whatnot...but it's still not amazingly deep. Aran got it the worst by far... I'll always dream of what could have been, should we had regular, fleshed-out supports and character development from them.

And as far as I know, Vika only had a single base conversation in Radiant Dawn. I honestly don't remember much of her personality at all - I think the conversation was about her being uncomfortable around Micaiah being a Branded? Which would explain her hesitant attitude. I'm not sure that's a part of her character in general, not that we got much of it in the first place.

10 hours ago, Augestein said:

A character being what could be described as "overly enthusiastic for his knightly vows" isn't a gimmick. That's who he is. The man is completely and utterly defined by being a knight, and he has the utmost of pride in the fact that he's a knight. That's no gimmick. A gimmick is literally something done to attract attention. And the dialogue when you first meet Kieran isn't really like that, just a man that's upset that he's in prison and he intends to find his way out. Once he's free, he can concentrate on what was important to him once again. And that's great. He's a simple man, but not everyone needs to be super complicated. Characters like Florina aren't and are just as well off as characters like Dorcas. 

What you're describing as "gimmicks" are adjectives that describe the character. Those aren't gimmicks. Just facets of a character. Haar being lazy isn't a gimmick. Ilyana's food on the other hand, is a gimmick, because she literally has no real adjective to describe her outside of her hunger pangs. A gimmick is literally something like Setsuna falling into traps. That's not even a personality trait. Gimmicky characters are just flat out bad. Like Setsuna being spacey would be a decent adjective for her, and her absentmindedness causes her to fall into traps or wander places she shouldn't wouldn't actually be a bad character. What's wrong with that, is that the gimmick of "I fall into traps" is all her character does. It over encompasses these other traits faster than anything else. That's not good.

I would argue that what you call character traits can be gimmicks. But this may just be a difference in our personal terminology. A gimmick character as I understand it is a character who has a large part of their characterization focused around one particular thing. This thing could be an item, could be a personality trait, anything like that. I'd say Haar has a gimmick - he's always tired. We see him being tired and falling asleep at random both in the main story and in many of his supports. It's a reoccurring trait and one central to his character. You literally cannot separate Haar from "sleepy," but that isn't the extent of his character. He's more than his gimmick, though, which is why I say he's a well-written gimmick character while Setsuna, whose personality does not escape her gimmick, isn't.

Oh, I would describe Kieran as far beyond "enthusiastic about knightly vows." The guy goes on about fighting giant scorpions, tigers, random sellswords jamming things up mysterious places on his body, talking about how his best friend is a coward and a knave... He's basically out there, in his own little world, and gleefully silly about it. The guy buries an axe blade in his own head (his own axe blade) and says it's nothing but a flesh wound. He's definitely in the neighborhood of gimmick in my opinion. He's basically proto-Owain with a little more airheadedness added in, without a "epic knight" gimmick rather than a "chosen one" gimmick.

I'd say he's definitely got a gimmick - airheaded, foolish knight. But he's a well-written and funny gimmick character in my opinion, in that we get to see multiple sides of him, not only in his introduction, but his conversation with Oscar and whatnot.

[Augestein]

3 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

I would argue that what you call character traits can be gimmicks. But this may just be a difference in our personal terminology. A gimmick character as I understand it is a character who has a large part of their characterization focused around one particular thing. This thing could be an item, could be a personality trait, anything like that. I'd say Haar has a gimmick - he's always tired. We see him being tired and falling asleep at random both in the main story and in many of his supports. It's a reoccurring trait and one central to his character. You literally cannot separate Haar from "sleepy," but that isn't the extent of his character. He's more than his gimmick, though, which is why I say he's a well-written gimmick character while Setsuna, whose personality does not escape her gimmick, isn't.

Oh, I would describe Kieran as far beyond "enthusiastic about knightly vows." The guy goes on about fighting giant scorpions, tigers, random sellswords jamming things up mysterious places on his body, talking about how his best friend is a coward and a knave... He's basically out there, in his own little world, and gleefully silly about it. The guy buries an axe blade in his own head (his own axe blade) and says it's nothing but a flesh wound. He's definitely in the neighborhood of gimmick in my opinion. He's basically proto-Owain with a little more airheadedness added in, without a "epic knight" gimmick rather than a "chosen one" gimmick.

I'd say he's definitely got a gimmick - airheaded, foolish knight. But he's a well-written and funny gimmick character in my opinion, in that we get to see multiple sides of him, not only in his introduction, but his conversation with Oscar and whatnot.

Yes you can. He's a soldier of Daein, and fiercely loyal up until the point that the commander he serves is killed. He's really easy-going as seen by his supports with Jill in PoR and even his recruitment conversation with her. Sure, he's sleeping in Jill's support, but the difference is that the supports aren't necessarily about him sleeping. Like with Makalov for instance, the support has Makalov gaining respect for Haar's "I don't give a whit about you" attitude and specifically not understanding that Haar just comes across as incompetent and isn't actually incompetent. In RD, he starts a delivery service which is more his cup of tea, but helps Elincia because he's actually kinda developed a bit of fondness for her over time. Compare that to Miriel where we literally don't learn anything about her outside of the fact that she studies. While her son, Laurent, has confidence issues, is a manager at heart, and is easily flustered. Meanwhile for Miriel, we barely get anything resembling human outside of her first scene where she pretty much calls Vaike an idiot for not remembering to bring his axe. 

He's a jock and a bit of a braggart. Proud of himself and what he does. If anything, I'd say it's a play on the fact that the red social knight is generally very serious about his job, and  the writer decided to have fun with this by making him so serious to the point that he becomes comic relief. If anything, red = serious green = casual is a gimmick. 

And that's what makes it not a gimmick. That you get to see multiple sides of him in his character interactions. 

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

While I definitely don't mean to call the writers lazy (I can appreciate the work of story writers and character writers, since I'm one of them myself), I can't help but think the part of it is the sheer ease of writing a gimmick rather than a more fleshed out personality, which they seem to be fond of leaning on. It's far easier to get across a Setsuna than a Soren, for example. One takes much more effort and craft to build up and portray, and the other is far simpler.

Well, I wouldn't say there are many problems with their main characters, at least from my point of view. Care to elaborate on what you think the flaws of FE's main characters are?

I should specify I mean in the modern games when gimmicky characters came into higher prevalence. Avatar worship, the wonky morals of all the Royals in Conquest (except Elise) and Azura's monumental laziness when it comes to saving the world are the one's you'll hear people complain about the most but I think one major flaw the last two games has is that they don't actually have all that many plot important characters in them. Lissa, Fredrick and the Fates Royals retreat if they die and stand around in most scenes saying one or two lines of dialogue but they don't actually do much to actually impact the plot. If any of them were taken out of the game it would change very little about it. In the older games there were more characters that felt like they had actual agency in the world and were involved in the conflict outside of the scope of the main lord, particularly in Radiant Dawn. Once these characters were recruited they would fall out of focus but they still make significant contributions to the plot and help shape the story. I'm talking about stuff like the Nyna archetypes, Saleh, Minerva/Miledy/Jill (wait are they an archetype?), Ranulf, Legault etc. Seen pretty clearly with the manakete girls, Tiki, Fae and Myrrh all had important roles in the lore of their games, while Tiki and Nowi in Awakening are basically there for no other reason than to have dragons. The sum contribution of Tiki's role in Awakening's plot could have been replaced with a stone slab saying "Get all the stones".

Another big issue is that due to the avatar worship and everyone agreeing with them, there's a lot less clash of personalities among the major characters on the protagonists side. Everyone basically agrees with each other and goes on their merry way while in the older games you had things like some of your group being racist in Tellius, Innes being a jealous ass and Merlinius disagreeing with Roy on basically everything he tried to do. It's small things but it goes a long way to solidifying that these are people with opinions and viewpoints that matter. There really should have been a lot disagreements going on in Conquest and Revelations but its kept pretty minimalistic. Did Ryoma and Xander even argue after teaming up in Revelations? I can't recall, if they did it didn't make a big enough impact on me. Their kids refusing to work with each other in Heirs of Fates I do remember. I think overall the writing in the modern era has much more competencecy in the DLC. Likely because there's less of it to get through.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Jotari

[Baldrick]

Don't want to deal with quoting rn, on phone

@Thane;

Base convos are a refinement of support convos, there's nothing the latter can do that the former can't, but people just felt they're missing out on support convos. If that's a good reason, how should it be changed? Removing supports would limit strategic options, writing convos for every support would just worsen the gimmick problem.

@extrasolar; 

the DB get a raw deal in general but the level of characterisation Nolan gets is what I'd aim for. To be sure, it isn't amazingly deep, but writing 40+ amazingly deep characters, along with plot/world building etc., simply isn't feasible.

 

[maybe]

18 hours ago, eclipse said:

While one can argue that the ratio of wonky/amazing has gone down, the sheer number of convos that have been written more than makes up for it IMO.  Imagine having to write a conversation between, say, Rebecca and Oswin, and then somehow have the two of them fall in love - it would probably be really messy, right down to justifying Wolt's existence.

The best "cure" for this IMO would be limited support conversations.  Just because Sue and Alan are in the same army doesn't mean that they have to talk, let alone marry!

yeah I think this is really the way to go

like part of the reason I enjoy the characters and supports in the games prior to awakening more despite not having as much to really establish their characters is because the supports are typically between characters who actually have a reason to talk to each other

like, one of my absolute favorite supports is wil and rath

there's not much to it and it's not particularly meaningful, but it's one of the times when it really does feel like these characters would actually talk to each other because they actually have something to talk about

in awakening you get some really nice supports like frederick and sumia, whose characters really complement each other well and you can honestly believe that they'd fall in love with each other

but then there's also things like Libra and Cordelia Carry Boxes And Then Get Married

[Dandy Druid]

I don't mind a good gimmick every now and then. Not every character can have huge, meaningful character arcs because there's so many characters. I'm Ok with having around 5ish gimmicky characters just to serve as comedic relief. It's war, so I expect some small amount of people to cope by using comedy (strangely enough, I don't recall that being a character arc- a jokester who's just merely trying to cope. IS are you taking notes?). The earlier games had less gimmicky characters and a lot more "normal" ones, but I do think that a lot of them go unremembered because of this. While I do think the last couple of entries may have more memorable characters, but that could also because they're newer and they're fresher in my memory.

One of the problems I have with Fates for characterization is that they made the cast so huge, that tons of characters had gimmicks, and unfortunately, a lot of them were just repeats of Awakening. So instead of being their own character, they'd seem more like Awakening 2.0 in terms of characterization. Although I do think they did improve Awakening's tendency for some characters to be one-note and give a little more personality to flesh them out, but you had to get the right support conversation.

So while I don't mind a good gimmick, it's just that too much can be overwhelming and a lot of the time, there's no development on your average playthrough unless you get certain supports. I think a solution to this problem would be to limit characters on who they can support with, instead of everyone of the opposite gender. I think more focused supports can help this problem. 

[Luchi]

FE's main problem with its writing is that is just has too many darned characters. I'd be fine with a strat-game that gave me 20 ( or even 15 ) well-written characters who don't necessarily need to have complicated backstories to be compelling ( all of whom are reliable in battle, no more joke characters or units with lolBases ). The writers at IS could really take a leaf out of Yatsumi Matsuno's book...

[Salamud]

Having gimmicky characters is unavoidable as long as we have to make every playable character who isn't restricted to the Lord or Avatar able to support anybody else who's the opposite sex. And have the unit amounts we have in current games.

[NekoKnight]

7 hours ago, Baldrick said:

Base convos are a refinement of support convos, there's nothing the latter can do that the former can't, but people just felt they're missing out on support convos. If that's a good reason, how should it be changed? Removing supports would limit strategic options, writing convos for every support would just worsen the gimmick problem.

You seem to be looking at this with a rather black and white mentality. Either you choose between flexible gameplay or proper characterization? Nay, you can have both.

If you really want everyone to support everyone (and I must stress this is not necessary for strategic cooperation [see; Fates class pair-up bonuses]) and not force everyone to talk to everyone you could have battle supports (combat bonuses only) that could between any two characters and characterization supports (just conversations) between people who have a reason to talk to one another. 

Base conversations are not a refinement to support conversations, they are a supplement. And sure enough, they debuted in a game that had actual supports! It's easy enough to characterize the main character primarily through Base Conversations (Mist and Ike don't need to support each other for you to understand their relationship) but with so many minor characters, each with their own subplots and feelings, that's a tall order to include everything there is to say about them in Base Conversations.

[Ertrick36]

16 hours ago, Baldrick said:

Don't want to deal with quoting rn, on phone

@Thane;

Base convos are a refinement of support convos, there's nothing the latter can do that the former can't, but people just felt they're missing out on support convos. If that's a good reason, how should it be changed? Removing supports would limit strategic options, writing convos for every support would just worsen the gimmick problem.

If the base convos are a refinement of support convos, then let's have base convos tied to support levels.  Let's have some base convos that show up only when a specific set of conditions are met, say, the pair reach a B-rank support level and met a certain character.  And let's not have characters be able to support one another if they won't ever have conversations, because friends don't just say a single sentence to each other every so often; friends have full conversations.

It's stupid not to write convos for every supporting pair for this purpose.  A big reason why I was drawn in by FE was because I actually got a sense that I was bringing particular characters closer together by having them fight together, and they were actually getting warmer and warmer with one another in their conversations.  It wasn't just that I got to this arbitrary point in the story where things happened and they suddenly liked each other more; it's that I actually had them fight together, and they grew closer that way.  And not only that, but they fought a little better when near friends.  It's this... marriage of gameplay and story you simply don't get all that often in the gaming industry; it's very unique to this series.

The solution isn't base convos unless base convos are more integrated with the support system.  The best solution is, like eclipse said, to cut down on the number of supporting pairs.  Not everyone needs to support everyone of the opposite sex, and unless they refine the avatar's writing, they either need to eliminate the avatar altogether or remove some support options.  Supports aren't quotas to fulfill; they're a way to build your team and have fun along the way.  Naturally, you're gonna have some people who just can't get along, but you don't force 'em together anyway; you work around that.

And we don't need to have grand armies of 70, because we'll only be using about 16 consistently.  We only need maybe half that number, and even that might be a little much.

Also, I'm not disagreeing about having base convos.  I think they'd be fantastic; a great way to make the minor characters relevant.  It's just that I think the support system in Radiant Dawn is utter garbage because it essentially breaks friendships down to single lines of dialogue that are sometimes shared and numbers; base convos help show characters' friendships, but aren't dependent on support levels (at least, not many of them), so you don't have that sense of building friendships yourself, and they also don't cover every possible supporting pair.  We need not turn back the clock, but rather look at the best aspects of its history and apply them evenly to the game without going full to bursting.

[Baldrick]

18 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

that's a tall order to include everything there is to say about them in Base Conversations

No, it really isn't. There's no arbitrary limit on base conversations.

Take the content of any given support conversation and make base conversations around it. The advantages of this are:

- The characters can talk about the plot beyond their join chapter.

- Other non-lord characters can contribute

- You're not limited to precisely 3 or 4 conversations

Btw, if you want to appeal to precedent, the precursor to support conversations were Genealogy's events. Some of them were activated based on love points, but all of them were activated based on chapter progression.

 

8 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

 It's just that I think the support system in Radiant Dawn is utter garbage because it essentially breaks friendships down to single lines of dialogue that are sometimes shared and numbers; 

You mean you didn't like how RD implemented it. If a future game had RD's support system, with your idea of base conversation triggered by gaining support levels that functionally replace support conversations, you would be satisfied. (Incidentally, Soren telling Ike his backstory in RD worked like that. It was functionally an S-rank support that didn't lead to marriage.)

Edited April 3, 2017 by Baldrick

[Refa]

Didn't FE12 combine FE9's support system with base conversations?

[Ertrick36]

12 hours ago, Baldrick said:

You mean you didn't like how RD implemented it. If a future game had RD's support system, with your idea of base conversation triggered by gaining support levels that functionally replace support conversations, you would be satisfied. (Incidentally, Soren telling Ike his backstory in RD worked like that. It was functionally an S-rank support that didn't lead to marriage.)

Yes, I would be satisfied if some of the base conversations were triggered by support ranks; not all of them of course, as base convos serve other purposes, but a decent number of them.  I am aware of the conversation at the end between Soren and Ike; I don't know what it entails aside from what you've said, but I know that it's triggered by support ratings in both PoR and RD, among other things.

In fact, I think with them putting in other conditions (like, say, reaching a certain plot element), the support-dependent discussions could be made relevant to the plot as well.

Spoiler

Like after you get to the point where Eliwood's father dies in Blazing Blade, characters who've gotten support rank C or better with Eliwood (which would pretty much just be Hector and Lyn at that point) will console him while offering their own tales of overcoming sorrow.  Or when Marth's band of merry heroes defeat Michalis in SD, discussions with Minerva and Maria open up for those who they've reached higher levels of support with.

 

9 hours ago, Refa said:

Didn't FE12 combine FE9's support system with base conversations?

Yeah, kinda.  Though PoR's convos were less limited among the actual cast; there weren't too many supporting pairs in New Mystery.  I mean, Ike has seven support options, while Marth only has two (your avatar and Caeda).  Though for that, I primarily blame New Mystery's daunting cast numbers; it literally has just as many playable characters as FE Fates does, if not more.  They had to dedicate most of their support writing in three convos for every character with the avatar, which is yet another way the avatar ruins the game.

Regardless, I think it's part of why those who've played New Mystery sing it's praises so much, while SD gets the short end of the stick.  Though it's now getting better for SD, which is good because I don't think it really deserves all the flak some people give it.  But yeah, New Mystery and PoR are the only games that had both actual supports and base convos.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I'm curious, for anyone who has read a ton of supports in 13 & 14- how do the same sex ones hold up? Does the greatly reduced quantity mean significantly higher quality?

I want to bring up Jill given the discussion on Supports and Base Conversations.

She gets her introduction, three base conversations, a boss convo with her dad, and her Mist and Lethe supports, all of which trace her development from “bleed the half-breeds!” to ultimately defying her father. The unusual move of making it possible for Jill to betray shows how difficult the decision to fight her father is for her.

And even after Shiharam dies, Jill gets yet another base conversation, plus her Lethe A, an alternate Mist A if you didn’t get it pre-Shiharam, and the entirety of Haar for denouement after her arc’s climax at Defending Talrega. (She even gets an Ashnard boss convo.)

In short, adequate marshaling of all available character-developing resources, including Base Conversations and Supports, can accomplish amazing things.

Yeah, you can't actually see every support of Jill's in a single playthrough, but nonetheless you can get a fair bit.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

Jill is probably the best implemented side character in the entire series.

[saisymbolic]

I honestly think it's fine to have a "gimmick" or particular trait, but it needs to be balanced out with having an actual personality and backstory. Backstory, in particular, is important - even to side characters or villains - as it is the foundation for their entire character. I swear, some writers just need to go online and use some temple character bio to get started. They are a lifesaver - hell, I even use them for some preexisting characters that I like that need some backstory or development.

So, for the topic, I didn't actually vote. I think it's fine to have a "gimmick" - there's nothing wrong with it, so if IS writers still want to use them, I won't flip a table if they decided to. All I ask is that they take the time to develop the characters into more than just a single, encompassing trait that drowns out any other semblance of a personality.