Creator VS Character Identity

[Kain Nobel]

Introduction

This is kind of an oddball topic, but I'll start it off by clarifying that I am not making a game about myself, but... there is an issue I need to figure out as far as separating my identity from the lead character I am designing. I mean I am I and he is he and whatever is whatever but...

Funny thing is I've never thought about my lead character's name. Okay, maybe once like six years ago I thought about his name; I started calling him Chance, but then I hated that name as I realized that is the name of the betrayer in Syphon Filter 2... oh, and the dog from the movie Homeward Bound. Anyways, from then on I kind of thought like "fuck his name, we'll let the player decide, we'll just call him Kain for convenience, a sort of default name." Is this lazy design?

The Importance of Character Names in Games

Should it really matter what your lead character's name is... or any of the characters for that matter? It seems that most/all RPGs have characters whom names can be changed, but I kind of seen it a few different ways depending on the game...

Legend of Zelda

This game is a freaking identity crisis only because in all games you play 'Link', who is in fact not Zelda, and moreso the fact that there is a game I think which Princess Zelda isn't even in it. You can change the name to whatever you want, still doesn't change the fact that I'll forever know him as Link.

Final Fantasy series...

In early Final Fantasy titles, while the creators (as far as I know) did give characters names, they were always changeable so I don't really think it mattered as much. I always changed the names in the earlier titles (up until FF6), because who the hell wants to run around as a guy named Butz? (Haha, Buttz, getit?). However, later titles, for one reason or another, I kind of found it absurd to see somebody renaming Cloud, Tifa, Barret, etc... to anything different, that kind of thing makes me want to drive a spike through somebody's heart. I'm not sure the reasoning or psychology behind this, maybe its because the games from 6 and on were a big deal, but their names started to actually matter to me.

Shining Force

While the first game was epic I barely remember it, but I remember in SFII the lead character's name was Bowie. I hated that name, it didn't bother me to name him Aurthur, but everybody else had great names; Sarah, Chester, Sir Astral, Rhoads, Lemon, Kaizen, etc. Everybody aside from the lead character had a memorable and respectable name, you can say them and I immediately know exactly who you're talking about.

While I'm at it...

Does there really need to be a 'Lead' Charactor?

As I get deeper into writing, while my 'lead' character doesn't really lose any importance, he tends to share a lot of the lime light with other folks who are also major players in what goes down. I know that in alot of games, you always have the one guy (or gal) that acts as the player's avatar in the world, but my game passes the baton between a few 'lead' characters. Should I emphasize and let the player know, "hey, there IS a main character in this game and he is..." or does it really matter?

Being that my game revolves around life in a military conflict, I've started focusing less on a single person and panning out to focus on leaders and their interaction with their teams, as well as some internal bantering here and there. If there was a lead character, it would be mainly two groups; the assault team and the recon team, some personalities would stand out brighter than others.

Conclusion

I'm going to stop here, I think I'm thinking too hard on trivial bullshit right now haha. Just discuss what you think about character development, if having a leader is important, if you think names are important and why, etc.