Everyman

From IFWiki

An everyman is a character, usually the protagonist of a piece, who is portrayed as normal and undistinguished in order to better allow the audience to identify with him; although they may accomplish great acts, they are the inverse of a hero. In IF, everyman generally refers to a PC who is minimally implemented and has little characterisation - though usually only if these serve some useful purpose.

Contents 1 Classic Examples 2 Characteristics 3 Advantages 4 Disadvantages 5 See also 6 Links

Classic Examples

• Colossal Cave (William Crowther and Donald Woods; 1976).
• Spider and Web (Andrew Plotkin; 1998; Z-code).
• Zork (Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling; publisher: Infocom; 1980).

Characteristics

• The player character may have a default description - 'As good-looking as ever' or 'You look about the same as always' are common. If a non-default description is present, it will almost always be short and give little information.
• The player character will usually be assumed to be male, although some games play on this assumption.
• The everyman tendency is particularly common in puzzle-heavy games and earlier IF.
• Everyman games will often lack complex NPCs.
• The PC is quite likely to be given a profession, allowing the author to define and motivate them with their role rather than their personality or background.

Advantages

• In games where the focus is not on character, an Everyman protagonist allows stronger focus on the things the game considers important.
• Everyman protagonists allow the player to identify more easily with the PC, allowing greater immersion.
• It was a convention of early IF, and hence will be accepted - or even expected - by many IF players.
• Everyman PCs avoid the problems of knowledge conflict and motivation conflict.

Disadvantages

• Everyman characters are by their nature not memorable, interesting or compelling as characters. They are thus a difficult choice for plot-driven or literary IF.
• Avoiding characterisation can easily be seen as laziness on the part of the author - since many poor-quality, underimplemented games have Everyman PCs by default, it is easy to be damned by association.

See also

• AFGNCAAP

Links

• Discussions about the player and the PC on the rec.arts.int-fiction news group:
  • Specific vs non specific main character (Apr 1994)
  • Main character being ill defined (Sep 1996)