Extras

Why do so many games waste resources trying to allow the extras to be people? A strong narrative requires, say, between one and a hundred well drawn characters, with a dozen major characters being plenty for most stories. There are also thousands or millions of extras, but the author of most narratives do not waste the audience's time with these non-entities. They are extras. They are part of the setting, not part of the narrative proper.

So why would any game think it would be a good idea to expend resources trying to provide depth to extras, instead of focussing on making the main cast stronger?

This is not an argument against procedural characters - indeed, I see no issue with extras being procedural characters if that's what the team would like, and implied narratives (where the player creates stories in their own head from the activities in a simulation) are an interesting area. But a narrative-driven game - which, in my opinion, should include any computer role-playing game not attempting an implicit narrative, is wasting it's time in my estimation if they are focussed on making extras into fully fledged characters.

Although Reluctant Hero is now in doubt as a project (alas), one of the features of this game's narrative design is that there are certain key characters who are identified to the player by a simple illumination effect. Everyone else is an extra. You can talk to the extras - because there is a procedural chat system that generates comments according to the state of the world (a huge but essentially simple ecological simulation) e.g. "I hear Taymuria is overrun with silverbacks" (if the silverback population is above a certain threshold) or "More miners killed in the Sundered Shield... You wouldn't catch me working there for all the silver in Corwenth" (if the miner population drops sharply). But it's all just stock lines; no real conversation. They aren't characters after all - they're extras. Why should we expect more from them?

Does anyone think that it is worthwhile to work on the extras instead of the main cast?

Comments

[Corvus]

It depends on the scale of the main cast, I suppose. Otherwise, I'm right on with you about this. I don't need personal life stories from every single character in the game, unless they lead to further gameplay possibilites.

Now if you've got procedurally driven extras which can comment on a great number of things, including recent player actions, town politics, crop yields, etc, I think players will find them delightful to talk to and utilize them to extend their own stories/gameplay.

It's a slightly different story (perhaps) with a MMORPG, if your main cast is primarily comprised of player controlled characters.

I'm sorry to hear that Reluctant Hero's future is in doubt. I was looking forward to it.

[Chris]

In an MMORPG, why would the player want to spend any time talking with extras when they could be talking to other players? Unless the quality of players is very low, of course. :)

I was looking forward to RH too... It may still happen, the games business is vague and mysterious, but it is at least 'in doubt' right now.

[Chico]

The illumination effect is a good idea... Some time ago a friend of mine was asking himself how to make clear the extra/main cast distinction...

As far as a more traditional approach to narrative is involved, I think the focus should be on main cast. But I do feel that extras shouldn't be completely generic, and each one should have some individual "flavour". Of course, given the deadlines and resources, I could be asking too much...

[Duncan]

In a book or movie the extras are indisputably background. The audience cannot interact with them, or even look at them more than the director (or author) wants. In a game, you can walk right over to an extra and (in most cases) initiate some sort of conversation. They are not major characters, but any formula to their conversation immediately reveals them to be shallow stand-ins. The world (which is what games strive to create an illusion of) suddenly has back-lot flat buildings and foam props. It becomes fake.

Extras don't need whole stories, but they need enough personality to generate the sensation of reality. If we can talk to them (and if they are there, we should be able to communicate - usually) then they should be able to hold their own in a conversation. At least up to a point. And perhaps if you push too much, they leave. Their reactions, like everything else in the world, need to fit the context so that the illusion is maintained. Even if there is no story there.

[Patrick Dugan]

I remember a great joy of the Baldur's Gate games and Planescape: Torment was hoving the cursor around trying to find who had names and who didn't. You'd get a bevy of people with names like Townsperson that would have stock trees related to where the inn is, for example, but then you'd stumble on characters, but minor ones, who were relevant in the context of a particular quest. Then there were the characters who could join (about 16 in BG and 8 in Planescape) and then the central NPCs, like Sarevok and Irenicus in BG, or Ravel and the Pharod in Planescape.

I think a good breakdown of character relevance is Primary, Minor and Ancillary, where the first constitutes essential material components of the social game, the second constitute nested scenarios, quests of the social equivilant of levles, and the last constitute cultural fodder, so to speak. Storytron characters are primary by default, but can be minor or ancillary depending on the sort of roles they can run. Whats interesting about Santiago's system is that all the characters are ancillary by default, in fact they're randomly generated, and its the player's political machinations that bring out certain exponents to become functional minor characters. I don't think he's got much going on in the way of personal drama, rather its more of a social drama.

[Patrick Dugan]

Speaking of tentative projects, I haven't heard of Relucatant Hero, is there a site I can check. I'd be very interested to hear about the procedural conversation system, it might help me figure out a system for Magic Circle, which uses a more cast-intensive approach to characters, but will probably have some extras for cultural peppering, but probably not so many side-quest Minor characters.

[Donald Gay]

What about the restrictions placed on the player's ability to express their own ideas in a game? When playing many RPGs where you can talk to so many extras with long backstories, it's such a big letdown that the player only gets to choose from a few prescribed lines of dialogue. It's either that, or the player doesn't have a voice, or is forced behind a 4th wall so they control a character that is not their own. I'd like to see a focus on developing some way to develop a system which would give players more contol over their avatar's social functions within the simulation. With the industry mostly geared towards visuals, I don't know how this will develop, but I'm hopeful. Maybe videogame history will follow that of movies, where after the fascination with the technical aspects of the medium cools down a bit, then new ground can be broken in non-formal aspects of storytelling.

[Chris]

Hmmm... where to begin. :)

Duncan: you suggest: "If we can talk to them then they should be able to hold their own in a conversation." I completely disagree! If anything, I argue the opposite position: you shouldn't be able to talk to them at all - because it doesn't makes sense for your character to talk to extras. Now if there *is* a reason to talk to them - they are soldiers in your army, or they work for you, then maybe you have a case. But I can see no (narrative) justification for being able to talk to every nobody on the street. And if you can, then players end up feeling strangely *obligated* to talk to every nobody they meet. If fantasy stories were written like this, no-one would read them!

The game consists of a certain set of resources: spending development resources on making extras communicate is (I contend) a waste of development time and money. Those resources could have been spent on something useful!

Let's put this another way. In a typical day, you pass by several thousand people you don't know (extras in your life). How many of them do you have a conversation with, and what are the natures of those conversations? I suggest they are as follows: (a) purchasing conversations i.e. shops (b) what's the time? (c) getting directions and maybe (d) gleaning local knowledge. That's all you ever do with a stranger. You don't stop some random person in the real world and ask them their view on the socio-economics of post-imperial Africa. At least, most people don't. :) Why, then, expect a conversation with an extra in a game?

If your concern is that non-conversational extras undercut immersion (reveal the world as fake) wouldn't it be better to not talk to them at all or, as in GTA, to have them speak comments in passing but to lack the ability to engage in a focussed conversation?

I'm open to the possibility I've overlooked something, but from a strictly narrative perpective, I don't think there's much of a case for extras being talked to at all!

If you find, after reading this, you are in strong opposition, take a moment to look through your reasons. I'm completely open to counter arguments; even (especially?) those of the form "even though it's not realistic, when I play such-and-such a type of game, I find myself *wanting* to..." etc. :)

Chico: extras should have individual personality? Waste of resources, I say. :) The extras in a game like GTA have hit the balance right to my mind: faceless extras, who have some personality but only because they are made in classes. They are not individuals, they are just slightly differentiated. :)

Patrick: I'm not that interested in placing major characters into classes (although clearly one can do this!) My concern is cutting the resources dedicated to developing extras down to the minimal sensible quantity. :)

I can't point you to a site for Reluctant Hero, although I might post about this game some more if there's any interest... It would be interested to see whether people consider it's central play ideas interesting.

The chat system would be no help for you with Magic Circle. RH had a rather nifty ecological simulation engine (*everyone* in the game world is in the ecology e.g. there's a population of miners, traders, thieves, wolves, elementals etc. that varies dynamically based on the other elements of the ecology). The chat is a side-effect of the ecology; it has no meaning outside of this context.

Don (may I call you Don, or do you prefer Donald?): "it's such a big letdown that the player only gets to choose from a few prescribed lines of dialogue." I'm not a fan of player elicited dialogue choices (dialogue trees et al) as I find them to be insanely tedious to construct and rather disappointing to play. I'm amazed that some players love them so much! (What is the draw, I wonder...) I much prefer a topic driven approach, as in Discworld Noir, whereby you have a (dynamic) set of topics and you can choose what to talk about this way, instead of being given line by line choices, but that's just me I'm sure.

"I'd like to see a focus on developing some way to develop a system which would give players more contol over their avatar's social functions within the simulation" Yes, I'd quite like this too! But *not* with the extras. What would be the point? :) If I ever get to make my game adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (I am dying to make a Jane Austen game!) this sort of play focus would be essential. Don't hold your breath, though! People are not stepping up to fund such lunacy yet. :)

Thanks for the comments everyone!

[Duncan]

Chris, I both agree and disagree with you. I said that extras “should be able to hold their own in a conversation”, which I would like to revise. Extras should be able to respond appropriately to attempts to communicate. They should also exist unto themselves and add atmosphere to the scene appropriate to the world, or effect desired.
Basically, by having extras in your game you are trying to generate a particular effect. You are trying to convince the player that they are in a town, or city, or on a bus, or somewhere other than in front of their computer. The extras generate background information that is not plot critical, but necessary for the suspension of disbelief and the desired atmosphere. When encountered in non-interactive media these encounters are limited because they are not plot critical. Any non-critical information is typically removed for reasons of pacing and focus. Putting all sorts of other conversations into a movie would make the movie hours longer, and detract from the story trying to be told.
With games, the same thing happens, but because the focus is more on player encountered story, rather than directorially controlled story, the pacing tends to be slower and amble more.
Perhaps I should get back to your example. In daily life, there are hundreds of extras, none of which we typically talk to unless it is directed. But we could, and we would get a response. Typically this response would be a strange look, and them hurrying on their way. Occasionally, you might be able to get information, or elicit comments from strangers. More often, the reward for random communication is too low to encourage us to continue or repeat the process.
Not so in games. Because the cast of extras often numbers in the dozens, instead of the hundreds, it is much easier to talk to everyone. Extras also tend to mill about purposeless. People don’t. People have things to do and places to be and getting in their way is usually a bad thing to do.
I would argue that the use of extras, and their level of responsiveness, should be dictated by the story being told. In most cases, I agree with you: extras should not talk. But they shouldn’t talk because the player shouldn’t be trying to initiate contact, not because they can’t due to lack of scripting or inability. Extras should be impossible to corner, and when they are should quickly extricate themselves (and even leave), keeping to the context of the game. Extras should be in inaccessible areas. Or extras should just be omitted whenever possible. If you can create a scene with the same level of atmosphere and feeling, without using extras, then you should. Because using extras poorly will break the believability of the world.
Alternatively, conversation with companions should be in place to detract from the desire to communicate with random extras. When you travel around with a group of people chances are you talk with them, possibly on a constant basis. Why would you strike up conversations with strangers when you have people you know, and have relationships with, close at hand to converse with? It is not the extra’s fault that the world and social interactions of the game lack definition. I would posit that talking with extras is often a player’s attempt to elicit natural communication from an incomplete world.