Further research

Looking into how Black Isle tackled Character Development in Fallout and Planescape Torment, I have managed to gather two main differences so far.

Fallout you can choose a character and a corresponding backstory. As well as the ability to modify further or just create your own completely. Planescape Torment, you never know your actual name, and in the beginning you know absolutely nothing about yourself.

The twist here is, in Fallout, from what I have gathered, the characters backstory is not really important, or vital to the story or the development of the character. While in Planescape instead of using his amnesia as a good reason to not need to provide a backstory, the whole point and development of the character is finding out who he was, and how he reacts and develops from that. So it is like reverse development but at the same time he is also developing further himself by what he finds out and how the story unfolds.

Been reading a bit of Henry Jenkins - http://web.mit.edu/21fms/People/henry3/games&narrative.html - quite interesting.

I think I have a more focused view for this particular assignment now, the different approaches with Fallout and Planescape Torment. Had a quick look at Icewind Dale, it looks a bit too different perhaps to keep this really focused.

On a side note. A previous thing I wrote about The Bedroom Coder.

The Bedroom Coder