Dev Take Tuesday - Characters and Causes

I recently started watching The Expanse, a SyFy television show adapted from a series of Hugo Award-nominated books. Interestingly, the sci-fi world of The Expanse originated as a backdrop for an MMORPG, and later a tabletop game. Funny how a narrative spark can travel through so many mediums until it finally catches fire. I adore the show so far and especially its worldbuilding. I think there’s one big game dev takeaway from the show for me, and that is the clear and clever distinction between characters and causes.

Before I continue, I should explain that I’ve only seen the first several episodes of the first season so far. My current opinions of the show and its characters could very likely transform as I watch the rest of the first season and move on to the second. That being said, I doubt that the general principles I see at play in The Expanse will disappear, as they seem essential to what makes the series—and the world—tick.

Anyway, the show makes sure to distance its key characters from any of the causes in the show. The near-future world of The Expanse features three principal factions at odds with one another: Earth, Mars, and the “Belters,” people who live in asteroid belts and whose bodies are fundamentally different from a constant low-gravity environment. Each of these factions looks out for itself first, which leads to a lot of moral gray areas. At this point in the series, none of these factions’ causes seem entirely trustworthy or completely just.

Expanse characters Josephus Miller, Chrisjen Avasarala, and Jim Holden (image found on Ars Technica)

However, there are characters to root for. Like each of the major factions, the show’s main characters— Belter detective Josephus Miller, ice hauler Jim Holden, and UN executive Chrisjen Avasarala—also meander through moral ambiguity, but ultimately they act as independent agents from the systems they’ve been placed in. This agency allows them to follow a personal moral compass instead of a dogmatic creed—a premise that seems to drive the show.

As a game dev, I want to make stories that pair well with gameplay mechanics. I think that the narrative principles at the heart of The Expanse also apply well to the main characters in a video game. It’s fine to include powerful factions in your video game narrative—the power of these types of factions creates a potent friction that advances plot in meaningful ways. A random non-essential NPC can represent a fanatic cult. An enemy grunt can characterize a powerful political machine. But key characters, and especially player-controlled characters, should be distinguishable from their causes. If these characters are freed from your game world’s larger forces, you’ll empower your players and allow them to exert their own force in your interactive narrative.