Player Mook: Difference between revisions
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These characters have no names, unless the player [[Hello, Insert Name Here|gives them names]]. They have no personality, and they don't act in the plot at all.
Essentially, they're [[Mooks]] and [[Red Shirt
This is a Player Mook. a [[Player Character]] that is a character strictly in the game mechanics sense. They can be defined by a few features that differentiate them from the Story Characters:
* The Player Mooks use [[You All Look Familiar|the same set of appearances.]] Often whatever class the generic character is will dictate how they look.
* If there are mechanics to raise and develop characters, Player Mooks can learn only "generic" abilities. While they'll have access to all the default classes and skills, the Story Characters often have a unique class, plus they can access all the generic classes.
** This is sometimes subverted in that there are [[Prestige Class
* While Story Characters come and go at the whims of the plot, you can make as many Player Mooks as you want [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit|within limits]] and dismiss them whenever you want if you desire to do so.
* Because their number and makeup is entirely determined by the player, these Generic Characters will never appear in a cutscene or do anything in the plot. The one usual exception is when they are first introduced, the one time in which the game can know who/what and how many they are.
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{{examples}}
* This is a common trope in Strategy [[RPG
** ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]''
*** Strangely, there are actually some specific, non-generic Mooks in the Final Fantasy Tactics games: In the first, the generic characters at the introductory monastery fight (that you keep once you get into chapter 2) all have set names. Also, the plot-relevant Chocobo, Boco, is otherwise just a generic monster (who has dialog when using "help" on his name in the formation screen while real generics just say "..."). The original release had exactly enough space to keep every named character, including these, and no more. In Tactics Advance, there are recruitable 'generic' characters with story ties which come with powerful skills pre-learned.
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** ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' and its [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Tactics Ogre]]''
*** In ''Knight of Lodis'', there is a way to actually ''turn'' a [[Player Mook]] into a named character. By following a certain sequence of events, [[Secret Character]] Deneb can "take over" a Player Mook's body.
** ''[[Super Robot Wars]]: Original Generation/Original Generation 2'' (Although they're always [[Guest Star Party Member
** ''Destiny Of An Emperor'' seemed like a pretty standard RPG based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story, until you realized that that's not HP, but soldiers! Wow, so many dead bodies!
** ''[[Wild Arms XF]]''
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** Though if you lost enough soldiers, you'd get faceless mooks with limited stats to replace them.
* Similarly averted in [[Valkyrie Profile]] 2. The einherjar all fall into four general categories (light knight, heavy knight, mage and archer) but they all have their own names and models and different stats.
* Possibly averted in ''[[Bahamut Lagoon]]''. The non-plot characters in there blur the line between unusually well-defined
* ''[[Diablo]] 2'' allows you to hire expendable mercenaries in town to aid you.
* ''Mario Superstar Baseball'' and its sequel, ''Mario Super Sluggers'', uses this trope like there's no tomorrow. In fact, the only [[Palette Swap
* The title soldiers in ''[[Cannon Fodder (series)|Cannon Fodder]]'' mostly play this straight, but they each have names, and they're so darned cute that they tend to provoke [[Video Game Caring Potential]]. Mind you, since this game attempts to avert [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]], an average player will see more than 200 of them meet [[Family-Unfriendly Death|Family Unfriendly Deaths]], each adding another tombstone to the hill on the pre-mission screen and deepening the player's angst.
* ''Star Wars Battlefront'' is this trope in spades - you even jump between random shmoes (somehow keeping your experience and bonuses) if your [[Player Mook]] gets wasted.
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* ''Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas''. Being awesome enough means one can recruit fellow gang members to assist on missions. They will follow, fire, pursue and then try to get in the car with you to go back home.
* ''Scarface: The World Is Yours''. The assassin, the driver and the enforcer. All have unique dialogue, look very different and controlled by the character. They can even get A.I. backup like Tony does (call for a car, the driver is armed). Bonus; they can murder civilians.
* ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'' does this over and over again. There's a generic Black Mage (named "Black Mage") and a generic White Mage (named "White Mage") who join you in both Ceodore's and Porom's chapters - between the two chapters, they're actually on your team about as long as Palom and Porom were in the original (and in the same places to boot!), but their generic names, nonexistent personalities, and lack of special abilities make them feel a lot more impersonal. In a similar vein, you get "Monk A", "Monk B", and "Monk C" in Yang's chapter; Edward's, meanwhile, has "Guard A", "Guard B", and "Guard C". Then again, this game has [[Loads and Loads of Characters]] to begin with, so it seems the game designers were just trying to give you some [[Crutch Character
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has the ghosts in the Phantom Train. Most ghosts are enemies but a few will offer to join your party. They have no backstory, a unique class, and a stat set randomly chosen from three presets. You can only recruit up to however many to fill your party; if they are KO'd or use their "Possess" skill they leave you party and you can recruit another one, endlessly. However, they always leave at the end of the level.
* ''[[Hellgate:London]]'' [[That One Level|confounded players]] with an [[Unexpected Genre Change]] in which [[Mook]] troopers had to be endlessly expended fighting through creatures that the players could, by that point, have strolled through themselves.
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