Character Arcs that Changed Beyond what you Desinged..

[Dalek Caan]

The title probably doesn't do enough to explain the point of this thread so basically, have you ever created a character and beforehand planned out their motivations, morals and the endgame of their story but at some point in the game something happened that changed how you where going to play out the rest of the game?

For example, my character in Skyrim called Sarri, a Female Dark Elf, was going to be the following things:
- Hero.
- Mage.
- Heavy Armor user.
- Believes in Freedom so chooses Stormcloaks.

I followed this to the letter for roughly 25% of the total time I was playing but then I started interacting with Stormcloak followers and while some where nice the rest where kinda racist. They weren't big fan of elves for some reason, especially Dark Elves. So rather than stick with them and their king who would rather let her kind wallow in the gutters I signed on with the Empire and helped them retake Skyrim.

Around that time I also helped turn Azuras Star into it's Black Soul Stone version and rationalized that as long as I used Bandit souls it wouldn't be evil, just morally grey. From there my goal had slowly turned into helping the people of Skyrim into me gathering powerful magiks and artifacts no matter what I had to do.

SO over the course of the game my Dark Elf changed from selfless hero to power hungry mass murderer. Maybe the Stormcloaks where right about evles, or maybe/more likely their hate turned me into a monster.

 

[MysticSlayer]

My first Command Shepard was supposed to be a completely upstanding guy. I gave him one of the rougher backgrounds (the one where he was part of a gang) and decided to make him someone that was really trying to atone for his past sins by doing good. Among this included no killing unless in self-defense, don't take revenge, etc. Essentially, he was supposed to be a pure Paragon. And for the most part, he stuck to this very well.

However, over the course of the first game, something happened. Part of it was probably listening to Garrus and Wrex too much.Part of it was seeing the Council as a group of morons that cared for little outside of their own interests (something that was later fully solidified in the second game). Part of it was being presented with the Kaiden/Ashley choice. And part of it was certainly due to Udina and the Council forcing me to stay at the Citadel. In the end, my Shepard became more willing to let out his anger, only obey authority as far as it benefitted himself, kill people if he saw it as necessary (though he still avoided revenge), etc. I even made him seem more than happy to side with Cerberus simply because he felt it was for the common good, and that is something that would have made him appalled at the start of the first game. In the end, his moral code became much more about what he saw as for the common good rather than some black-or-white standard. However, he was rather partial to his friends, and that caused him to break the code a few times.

In the end, my Shepard went from the rather standard too-righteous-to-be-real hero who thought he understood the ways to take down evil to a rather complex guy that was just trying to figure out how to win a fight he was slowly starting to believe couldn't be won. Did I plan that arc? Absolutely not, and if you had told me from the start that is how things would have gone, I would have laughed. Did I prefer how things turned out? Certainly, and one of the things I loved about the games was how they managed to get me to follow a character arc I never intended to go down.

 

[Lilani]

I made a Kajiit in Skyrim named Rosa who was supposed to be a morally ambiguous dual-dagger wielder who chose the Stormcloaks because they weren't the ones trying to execute her and she always thought the Imperials seemed a bit too orderly. She was going to be a thief and assassin, but subtle and never known by name.

Somehow she became a warhammer wielding mass murderer who kills everybody she can get away with killing. By that point I'd already made a couple of characters that tried to maintain an appearance of following the rules (even one that never stole anything ever), so I guess by the time I made Rosa I was ready to raise hell.

 

[The Wykydtron]

My Mass Effect arcs pretty much go as planned cuz the Paragon/Renegade system can be a bit stifling like that (except pushing a guard through a window 10,000 feet up as a conversation interrupt option, full Paragon be damned cuz that shit was awesome) but my planned Fallout: New Vegas arcs can go to pieces the second I get to Vegas. I once had a female character whose final character motivations boiled down to "do it for Benny" because yes, that guy did shoot you in the head but eh, you got over it and he's a pretty swell guy after all y'know? I was never one to see much point in going full vengeance mode.

Kinda sad that he's 100% impossible to save, even if you go into the Legion's camp and slaughter everyone in a uniform he somehow manages to die. I never bother finishing those games, I get a picture of what the character would end up being then leave it forever.

I also had a total sociopath who killed everyone in the casino in Primm because they interrupted his peaceful stealing from the safes in the back rooms. Fuckin' scrubs, all of them.

 

[Ryallen]

This is probably going to be the only answer like this in the entire forum, but no.

Whenever I start a game like this, where you can create a character from scratch, I always know what's going to happen in advance. (I look it up on Wikipedia. It's a problem, and I refuse to get help for it.) The only games that I've played with that much wiggle room in terms of character development would be Mass Effect, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and Dragon Age. I don't think I've ever went a different route because I feel like it, if only because I know that the decision that I made would be the one that I would always make in good conscience, and I'm incapable of purposefully hurting people who haven't done anything to me. And even then, I have a hard time killing my enemies when they're at my mercy. The only time that I killed a prisoner was Loghain in DA:O, and even then I almost let him go. I always go Paragon in Mass Effect, if only because Paragon always offers the best rewards overall. Fallout has a Karma system and I'd rather not be reminded that I'm a bastard, and the Elder Scrolls never interested me enough to form my own character like that, if only because I've only found success playing as a guy with two weapons and the heaviest armor I can find. Seriously, I could never take magic seriously because of its slow rate of growth, its abysmal damage per second, the awful charge times for every spell past the basic ones, and the fact that companions will always, and I mean ALWAYS get in the way of my Firebolt when I shoot it at a dude in a cave.

As for character stat arcs, like start a thief end a thief, that almost always ends up being changed halfway through the game. Dragon's Dogma was an especially heinous offender of this. My first playthrough of the game I started as a mage, as I usually do. The instant I hit the town I immediately went to the inn to change my class to something useful, as the mage and sorcerer are awful classes for players. I tried the Mystic Knight, who carried around a giant ass shield everywhere to defend against enemies. And then I saw the skills, immediately killed myself to reload my save and switched to the magical archer class and stuck with that until I stopped playing the game from sheer annoyance at the terrible quests that they have.

 

[FPLOON]

This has happened multiple times while playing Corruption of Champions... The one time I ended up playing as a male and I end up changing genders half-way through the playthrough...

Other than that, in Persona 3, I didn't expect to form a relationship with the first female social link I could obtain at the time...

 

[The Madman]

My first Fallout 2 character ended up being pretty fun. I was going for a Han Solo sort of charming rogue but ended up with a chaotic neutral prostitute with a bad drug problem. The stat buffs from those drugs are just so good for a struggling character focused more on dialogue than fighting, I was getting my ass handed to me without them, and since it was my first game I didn't know any tricks for making lots of money and because drugs are expensive I became desperate so one thing kinda led to another... Good times!

Otherwise I have never managed to complete a 'good' playthrough of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, even when last time I played the game I specifically intended to play through as a good guy and all that... but in the end I can't do it, I just can't. The good guys in that game are just so insipid and annoying they deserve to all be crushed beneath my boots as I laugh at the remains of their pathetic burning world.

 

[DeadProxy]

Nothing too major.

In my first experience with Mass Effect, my "ideal Shep" was a ginger male who was generally a good guy to those who deserved it, and a bad guy when someone tried to get smart with me, while he enjoyed being an asshole at times, (pushing that guy out the window...every damn time). It was probably near the middle of the game that I started to get really attached to my Shepard, because 1. Shep looks great as a ginger and 2. The glowing scar was just the perfect size to fit his face without being all disfigure-y. So once I decided that THIS is how my Shep is going to look the rest of the game, every conversation from that point onward was solely to preserve that look. Surprisingly, the narrative I set out for Shep fit this need perfectly, because I was already making a somewhat even amount of para/ren choices.

The one thing I was really happy about, was that on my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2, because of playing like that, I had enough Paragon and Renegade points to have access to all but 3 options of dialogue throughout the whole game. I couldn't Paragon-patch things between Miranda and Jack, paragon-save Tali at her trial, or either option during Liara's chase during the Shadow Broker DLC.

Sadly I've not been able to recreate that feeling in subsequent ME plays, which was sad.

 

[Zhukov]

My main Commander Shepard was a pretty simple character.

Be polite, be a peacemaker where possible, give second chances where possible and only use force as a last resort. But when using force, be as aggressive and efficient as possible.

I stuck to that without difficulty.

Then along came ME3. It did a really good job of selling me on the whole all-or-nothing end-time scenario. My decisions started to reflect that. After all, where's the value in playing nice when everything and everyone is headed for the furnaces of war regardless? So I started making increasingly pragmatic decisions. Then I started making downright ruthless ones.

Didn't even notice I was doing it until the glowing red scars started to show.

I realise it's just a graphical effect determined by a number, but seeing the evidence of my decisions etched into Shepard's face actually hit home in a funny sort of way. Consequently, I dialed back the ruthlessness a little. By the end, the scars had almost completely faded.

Not exactly Tolstoy when it comes to character arcs, I know, but it's all I got for ya.

 

[Phlap]

Skyrim is for the Nords, OP.

In the years since the game came out, my own personal politics have started to affect my Fallout: New Vegas playthroughs.

Initially, I decided to ally myself with the NCR, going so far as to rope the BoS into whatever uneasy relationship I was placing them into.

Nowadays, my playthroughs end with me being pro-independent Vegas. I just can't see how the bloated bureaucracy of the NCR could ever possibly stumble it's way into becoming a nation the size of the current USA without collapsing under the weight of it all. As crazy as Caesar is, his criticisms of the NCR aren't exactly unfounded (not that the Legion isn't worse in almost every way).

 

[Ihateregistering1]

In Mass Effect 2, I started out being a paragon, and then realized the scars were totally bad-ass looking, so I went Renegade.

In Dragon Age: Origins, I started out as a total goody two-shoes, but then I really wanted to get with Morrigan, so I started becoming a lot more callous and cruel. Same thing with Viconia DeVir in Baldur's Gate 2 (I guess I have a thing for bad girls).

I started out as a good character in Fallout 3, and then I discovered the "Cannibalism" perk. Yeah, the game got pretty dark after that...

 

[Eomega123]

I tend to play games making the decisions I personally feel are right, so 'planned runs' don't usually happen until at least the second play-though. I do have a few stories though.

My second play-through of Telltale's 'The Wolf Among Us' I tried for a silent-stupid-psychotic-bad-detective Bigby (Always pick the silent option if able, never search for evidence, always come to the wrong conclusions, always take the most violent option possible) but the silence started to get grating after two episodes since it let other characters verbally walk all over him, which didn't really jive with the 'psychotic asshole' dimension of his character. So around episode three he transitioned into insulting everyone and beating them up, which was fairly cathartic after my 'good-cop' first play-through, since everyone in Fabletown is an ungrateful tool.

The first time I beat Invisible Inc (the pre-release version) I was using the team of Deckard and Internationale, and I didn't pick up anyone else. I hadn't killed a guard that entire run, and while I was undermanned, I was feeling alright getting nearer to the final mission. Then, in the penultimate mission, Deckard got shot as the two were running back to the exit elevator. Fortunately Internationale was able to knock out one of the guards and revive Deckard with a de-fib lance. Then, a few feet from the elevator, Internationale got shot, and Deckard got spotted as he was running up to use their last med-gel to revive her. For those who don't know, in Invisible Inc when you're spotted you get a single AP to attempt to rectify the situation before you are shot. Deckard used his last action to revive Internationale, and was promptly killed. Internationale, now being watched by the guard, was able to use her action to duck around a corner and out of sight, eventually managing to get behind the guard and knock him out, clearing the path to the elevator. But guards were about to storm into the room, both the de-fib lance and Internationale's weapon were recharging, and there wasn't time to drag Deckard into the elevator for extraction. So she ran over his corpse, grabbing the piece of tech off his body they'd come there to steal, vaulted into the elevator, and got the hell out of dodge.
I had been keeping a gun in storage. I hadn't needed lethal force and wasn't planning on using it. Internationale took it on the final mission. I figured with only a single agent my odds were against me, so I adopted a sort of suicide mission mentality. Internationale didn't spend AP peeking through doors or predicting patrol routes. After watching Deckard die both her and I were pretty disillusioned with the silent non-lethal route. Instead she'd walk into a room and shoot anyone that noticed her. Somehow the stars aligned and I actually managed to find and extract the courier before getting discovered and killed. I won the game, but it was a pretty hollow victory.
My next run, using Internationale and Banks, I found Deckard in a detention cell. That was a beautiful moment.

My character in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was supposed to be a great hero who would bring peace to the land. Instead he became a kleptomaniac hoarder who never actually got around to finishing his quest.

 

[Metalmacher]

My DA:O dwarf noble became from a cocky, fight-loving chick with revenge on her mind, to a person who wants the keep everyone alive around her, enemy or ally. But at the landsmeet, when she was forced to choose between her love Alistar or saving Logain, she chose Alistar and that experience made her bitter of the world, and so she decided to die at the final battle, to make her love Alistar pay for the grievance that he caused her.