I'm emphasising the importance of narrative. Mass Effect was a game with a narrative but it fucked that up with an asinine character development scheme. Can you imagine Bioshock with a character selection scheme? Halo without being Master Chief? Memorable games are like memorable stories insofar that a strong lead character is of the utmost importance. If your narrative needs a girl as the lead, be damn sure the player is actually playing a girl.

I can't make any sense of your argument whatsoever. I may be too distracted with the very loud TF2 voices coming from the other room. Are you talking about games where characters are in high positions instead of being subordinates? Because I'm pretty sure you can have a good lead character that isn't the player, and that they don't need to be the same gender.

I'm not going to continue until I can get you to explain just a bit more. Trust me, I make a much better argument when I understand what's being said.

a) Games where the player isn't playing as the lead role suck (TES: Oblivion - Martin Septim gets to be a motherfucking dragon and you have to watch whilst he tears an immortal deity a new asshole)

b) The strength of a character has nothing to do with their fictional social standing. It's not a literal "strong" character, it's a strength in terms of vivid characterisation.

Let me dissolve my opinion into a digestion solution having strained off the rhetoric:

Non-casual games have stories. A story is a series of events connected by common themes (both abstract concepts and characters are considered common themes). Stories require narrative. A narrative is how the common themes of a story are presented.

A weak narrative implies a weak story. (To some, a weak story implies a weak game) A character is part of the narrative. Strong narratives require strong characters (amongst other things).

Players experience the events of the story. Players often act as a character in the story. Players act as part of the narrative. Significantly altering the narrative weakens it.

Players should not be able to deviate significantly from the narrative. Players should not be able to make changes to the basic identity of the character. Players should only be able to make limited changes to the behaviour of the character.

Exception: If the player is able to meaningfully deviate, it should be done in a way that makes it clear to the player that the narrative has been bent/broken (for example, an in-built speed run mode or arcade mode).

Changing the gender of a character is a pretty major modification. A game in which the player can control the gender of any major character is, therefore, a game in which the player can drastically weaken the narrative. This can lead to a badly received game.

The original point Glen brought up was if playing as a woman is undesirable to men or visa-versa. I'd say that's unlikely to be the case. If your story is strong enough, it won't matter who the character is.

I have a few friends who play the Robot Unicorn thing sometimes…that's about it though.

@Juju - Are you saying that a good/strong narrative/story within a game is one that a player must follow rigidly? (since you mentioned that players should only experience events of a narrative without being able to significantly alter it)

What about games where the main characters aren't necessarily the ones you play as eh.

Like MW2, two of the characters you actually play as are killed.

Or maybe I'm also missing what's being said.

You have an interesting view of the story. And many games are just playable books, really. But that's not everything there is to it either. Despite your description, you're incredibly vague. Nowhere before did you mention character customization and player freedom as part of the issue. You're talking specifically about games that have stories as fleshed out as books, and while those are good, that's not really what all games should strive to be as you seem to be implying.

If you're trying to make an epic story that will steal the hearts of each of its players, this is great advice. But it doesn't apply to everything.

Having seen Juju's point, here's my advice. Take his if you're trying to produce a clever, innovative, and dramatic story. But for all other cases, it really shouldn't matter. The Portal character could've easily been male as well. She probably wasn't chosen just from Juju's method. Characters are characters. Who you choose as your lead should be based on many factors besides who would have an impact. Many side characters can have an impact too, and they can be much more noticed than the leading character.

I choose my main character based on several reasons:

- Who should be the most open to the reader (you can have a closed main character as well, but this is my strategy, not an overall). Depending on your perspective, the main character needs to convey his/her thoughts to the reader, or the reader knows nothing.

- I choose a male many times because I'm not a female, and have little experience writing from a female perspective.

- The character should probably be one of the ones who develops the most over the story.

- The character, being the one readers see most, should have traits that people can share with somehow.

I can think of many things that contradict my points, but like I said, this is how I go about it. There are limitless possibilities, and my point is that you can't see them all without experimenting for yourself or reading a wide variety of books.

Feel free to continue this. I can go on and on about this stuff. The reason I'm interested in game design is because of the chance to tell great stories.