Hey Swarmer,

I recently wrote a detailed analysis of character in gaming, especially where achieving the best possible story is the goal:

VG Story Design

Hope it helps!

After spending a lot of time thinking on it, I do believe that the best RPG experiences cannot come from SPs. Instead, a number (not to many though) well crafted characters of different personalities with the player identifying with one but still having choices which make a large impact on the actual story is a way to involved characters. Such a story would start off by giving the player a taste of each character and giving them some form of option to switch (at the same time avoiding a cliché way of doing such) and which will recognize the characters that the player most/least identifies with and have the view point moved towards/away from them.