Main Character's Backstory?
This is a poll.
So, thus far, the MC has been purposefully kept vague, generic and without a proper backstory. You have been able to specialize his personality traits a bit at the beginning of the game, which will affect some dialogue choices and the rate at which some Dominas like/dislike you, but that's about it. This has been done so it's easier for the player to self-insert and project themselves on the MC.
However, I'm not going to lie to you, this has kept the storytelling back a bit. If the MC doesn't have anything (specific, with name) that he loves or hates, if he has no named family or loved ones back home he is fighting for, if he barely has any personality at all, it's harder to write plot points that have high impact to him on a personal level. I think the plot suffers a bit because of this.
However, this is an RPG, and self-inserting or roleplaying characters of different backgrounds in subsequent playthroughs can be important. A more detailed MC could make the storytelling a lot better, but hurt replayability. An example of this is the writing of the Witcher 3 vs the replayability of Skyrim (just an example obviously, Domina is nothing like those games). Player choice would still be a thing even with a detailed MC, now more than ever with the remake, so you could still stir your MC in the direction you want regardless of the MC's background. But the MC's reactions to various situations would be stronger and more pronounced if he had a detailed set personality.
I am impartial to this and have gone back and forth with it multiple times. I am legitimely curious what the fanbase would prefer.
Comments (5)
Technically Raa's section already adds a little bit of backstory to the main character with the option to choose relatives to suffer, so you can't just be an unmarried total orphan only child since you have to choose something canonically I assume. Basic backstory should be mundane and focused on their family and the impact of being taken from them and never seeing them again. The specific details of the family structure could be chosen by the player. I'm not sure what other background could be established in lore without somewhat hurting the self-insert.
It could be cool if instead of a proper backstory, you expand on the personality traits. Could have different small background elements change in the MC's history that explains why he's a coward or why he's brave. Gives more depth to the character while still leaving then vague in other places. Since you expressed not liking the idea of picking the traits at the beginning, maybe you can have the traits be handled more naturally via dialogue options as they become relevant? (i.e, Katrina teasing you about your family back home, you can have options to choose that interact with your history, such as giving the caring trait if you pick option 1, or a loner trait if you pick option 2, etc.) Overall though, I think we are all excited regardless of which direction you go. With how much of your life you've been putting in to this, its the most important that you like where it ends up.
I understand why writers would make the male protagonist's background and personality vague to non-existent in games like this. But I always appreciate it when they do go out of their way to give him some depth. In the game Nezumicon, one thing I liked about the male lead is he constantly teases Clarice over having a big butt and has a troubled history that he doesn't want to talk about. Nothing huge, but sure beats having a protagonist who's one-dimensional.
Maybe you can do both (here’s my thoughts) maybe instead of adding personality at the start and just keep it simple as family and friends back at home and what he/she use to like doing back at home. then over time in each of the realms he develops a new personality either being confident/ frightened and all that depending on your responses to the Dominas and let’s say you don’t build up your characters personality enough you get the bad ending ending the game early for that ending by doing this I believe it’ll make us more In tune with the character we are playing and thinking of the characters as ourselves if that makes sense
Yeah that's a great way to do it. I've kinda grown to dislike the concept of choosing personality traits at the start anyway, I think it's much better if you grow them organically throughout the playthrough. I don't think I'm gonna do an early gameover if the player doesn't do x thing though, unless it's VERY clearly explained that this can happen to the player from early on.