Player-Character Dynamics in Multi-Player Role Playing Games

This study, presented at DiGRA 2007 by Tychsen, McIlwain, Brolund, and Hitchens, examines whether richly developed, pre-defined character personalities in multiplayer role-playing games reduce player enjoyment. Motivated by the contrast between the "blank-slate" protagonists common in digital games and the player-tuned characters typical of tabletop Pen-and-Paper RPGs, the authors frame their work as an exploratory investigation of whether personality integration can preserve player freedom and engagement. The core question is whether complex characters undermine the sense of agency that players value.

The empirical design compares Pen-and-Paper sessions with Neverwinter Nights CRPG sessions, involving 51 participants in 10 groups across Australia and Denmark. Character and player personalities were mapped using the EPAQ model and the Agency/Communion constructs, with characters built under D20 rules. The instruments were validated through factor analysis and clustering. A revised sympathy measure, SYMPAmod, was developed as a one-factor scale with strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha of 0.795 for PnP and 0.826 for CRPG), and it correlated substantially with the FUN construct measuring gaming experience.

The central finding is that no statistically significant correlations emerged between player-character personality differences and the Fun measure. Personality similarity did not meaningfully affect enjoyment, and the authors conclude that character design quality, rather than personality match, appears to drive player satisfaction. Complex characters were readily accepted by adult and young adult players. The authors acknowledge that the study's scope, limited to multiplayer RPGs and a sample of roughly 50 participants, cannot establish that complex characters outperform one-dimensional ones.