Character Development

Let’s talk about character development (name drop). Have you ever made an NPC, or for you pretty players out there, met an NPC, that you wanted to like but you just… couldn’t? What about one that was so memorable that you and your friends joke about it as an inside joke or reference him/her/it for YEARS afterwards?!

A lot of the time, these memorable NPCs are founded in humorous anecdotes. I’m not a very funny person, so I’m not even going to begin trying to write a dissertation on the foundations of comedy, but what I will do is provide some of my limited knowledge and experience with making NPCs that are memorable, while highlighting the concepts that I use in crafting them behind the scenes.

At the end of this article I will present some examples for a few NPCs illustrating the techniques I use to developing powerful characters.

Breaking Bad

One of the best and most influential TV shows of our age. Part of what makes this show so powerful and moving is the incredible writing and character development that resulted in memorable characters that became household names. When I say Breaking Bad, anyone who has heard of the show is going to list a few characters: Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Mike, Saul Goodman. My belief on what makes these characters, and this show, is the powerful writing involved in every instance and encounter with these characters that made them who they are.

Part of what prompted this article is the fact that. Yes. I am rewatching Breaking Bad. It’s a great show, but let’s put a pin in the Breaking Bad thing for a sec. I’ll circle the conversation all the way around in a slightly meandering route. Don’t worry.

The Theory of Relativity

Do you remember watching a show or reading a book and not being able to keep track of which characters were which or worse, why you should give a crap about them or their dreams, goals, problems, and story arcs? There is a form of detachment that pushes the viewer or participator away that is created when a character cannot be related to, or worse is made to be relatable but instead turns out to be the Centerfold or Cringe or involve copious eye rolling whenever they are seen or mentioned.

I can’t be the only one who feels this way. I’m not going to call out the countless shows and movies I have sat down and attempted to watch but simply couldn’t force my interest long enough to keep from sitting on my phone scrolling through Reddit or Discord.

Being relatable is core to being memorable. Very few people, if any, go out on a date and talk about it as the BEST DATE THEY’VE EVER BEEN ON with someone they shared nothing in common with and/or had “entirely different personalities.” As a fairly average cross-section of the human species I can say that, with certainty, I have NEEEVVVERRR done this.

To hit this drum one more time before finally shutting up, I want to bring up that relatability is core in building relationships with human beings. For all you aliens out there looking at befriending a human, please take note. Even professional sales techniques of all forms with any kind of reputation and provable history of success point directly to needing to build a connection with whomever you are trying to influence in order to have any degree of success.

Here’s some basic concepts I’d like to bring up on making a character relatable:

Give the character a worthy description including at least 1 ‘thing’ from every one of the 5 Senses. Looks. Smells. Sounds. Touch. Hopefully not Taste, but you get the idea. Something simple like: “This tall, darkly handsome elf carries an expression of boredom on his sun worn face, draped in greasy locks of unkempt dark hair. As he draws closer, you catch a surprising whiff of roses, lavender, and anise.” I just wanted to fit ‘anise’ into a description to have you try to pronounce it. Thank you.

Grant your character the gift of a “quirk.” This quirk is often a personality trait and is extremely important in setting this character apart from the other guys. Quirks can take a few different forms, usually in the forms of vulnerabilities. Addictions. Nervous ticks. Conversational habits. “Bad Luck.”

An NPC with a “Schtick” can be super important. Mr. Burns from the Simpson’s was a caricature of a rich, evil, despicable human being, who also had impeccable comedic timing. Jon Snow’s schtick from Game of Thrones, in my opinion, is that he is a forlorn bastard cursed to be the whipping boy (or wiping depending on your preference) at the mercy of lazy writers and a set of directors that seem to have never tried to create an ending for anything in their lives that didn’t involve soul crushing disappointment.

Self awareness can be an excellent tool, key in crafting relatable characters. I think all of us to some extent know about our own troubles, quirks, and bad habits. Some people choose to own their flaws, some people try to hide or disguise them the best they can, and some people get eaten alive by self-doubt and worry. In all of that, one thing remains true: We all have at least some grasp on our flaws.

The character must have a relationship with at least one other character. NPC or PC doesn’t matter as long as the relationship exists, is evident, and creates some kind of drama within the story. A lot of these relationships are simply backdrops or tools to use that help to manufacture the illusion of a dynamic and living world. Some of these relationships are crucial to the movement of the story or plot. Either way, characters don’t exist in a vacuum, and are always in touch with someTHING or someONE else. Keep in mind that these relationships are often the source of drama, as it is in real life.

I recommend you practice identifying these concepts when you are watching a movie or TV show or reading a book. You will find, as I did, that the characters you like that you can remember their name for more than 2 minutes, are the ones that share many of the traits I laid out above.

Anchors & Changers

Let’s reel this back in to Breaking Bad and, by extension, every great movie or memorable character in pop culture. What I feel makes many of the characters so memorable is the fact that either they are a Changer or an Anchor. Let’s define what these concepts are.

Changer

A Changer is one that, naturally, CHANGES. Wooooo! Yes, it is very straightforward. A Changer is someone who changes throughout the story to become something different. Good guys don’t have to become bad guys, and visa versa, however, these Changers do go through some kind of metamorphosis that turns them into a different character. This new character should be one that is completely alien and foreign to the original character that if you were to compare the two of them, they would seem like completely different people. This change is executed best when it is slow, methodical, and naturally occurring.

Designing a Changer

When I design a character that is a Changer, I use my “3-5 Rule” to create what I refer to as “Change Moments” (real creative, I know). These Change Moments are the situations where you can point to the character and say, “Hey, this guy/gal/thing is different now…” I follow the process that I have laid out below.

The Start and the End

The first thing I do is create a Start and an End for the character. The Start, obviously, is who and what the character is when they FIRST meet the players, and the End is what the character BECOMES. For these two points, I use the concepts I previously discussed on how to create a relatable character to create a contrast between the Start and the End version of the character.

The Path

After coming up with a Start and an End for the character, as well as the defining traits of each version, I create between 1 and 3 Change Moments that show the transformation of the character. These are made with first, coming up with an Event, then modifying the traits of the character for this new transformation.

The change should be simple at each step. The equivalent of a generous person giving money to the poor that gets robbed and beaten within an inch of his life. Some people can take a moment like that and become stronger in the core beliefs and convictions while others shed what the perceive as weakness and replace it with a hardened, miserly, pessimistic demeanor.

The Event is very important. This is the defining moment that causes the change for the character. This Event does not have to be one that causes a character to become evil. Here’s some ideas for this Event:

Loss of a loved one.

A near death experience.

Coming in contact with an otherworldly being or power.

Being shown mercy when it is undeserved.

Overly cruel, torturous punishment for a crime or misdeed, or for no reason at all.

Poor Execution

Let’s talk about a poorly executed Changer for a second. Most of the time this involves the “saint turned villain” trope. One of my biggest problems with many “saint turned villain” tropes is that their evolution doesn’t make any damn sense. I’m going to take a shot at a forbidden subject here. Star Wars. Let’s talk about how Anakin, in the prequels, just turned into a bad guy out of NOWHERE because friends of his said not-nice-things to him, he knocked up a woman 20 years his senior, and went from killing murderous sand rapists to slaughtering an entire pre-school worth of children. Full stop. Some of you are nodding your head in agreement, and some of you handsome devils/devilettes are saying “Dirk, you’re crazy and stupid and no one likes you.” That’s fine. Fact of the matter is, this character‘s development was executed so poorly that it dragged down an entire franchise.

Next point.

The Anchor

Have you ever watched a show, and just saw the writing spiral out of control with subplots and side character arcs, half of which were completely meaningless or just outright forced into view because the writers smashed some cocaine and said, “LET’S HAVE THEM GET MAD OVER A MISCOMMUNICATION that could have been resolved 10 episodes ago WHICH WILL LET US REINVENT THE CHARACTER to make them not suck anymore!!!!” Either that, or the writers just needed to fill in airtime to rake in that commercial money.

Everyone can’t be a Changer. It just doesn’t work. It turns into a clustercluck, and a really messy one at that. You need to have the Anchors. The folks that stay constant throughout the entire experience. They don’t change, or if they do then it is in very small amounts that stay true to their character, and most importantly… they act as either a Catalyst for Change or a Stabilizer.

Catalyst for Change : These folks are important. They are the ones that prompt the Changers to do their thing, which is Change if you haven’t caught on so far. Catalysts can be villains by being the demon constantly wearing at the saints defenses until they collapse. They could be the saints that wear at evil Changers. My favorite, is when an evil Catalyst joins forces with an already evil Changer so they can buddy-cop their way to mayhem and an eventual ass kicking from some do-gooders. Hitting on the Star Wars example, Palpatine pretty much stayed the same character for 6 straight movies. Palpatine also was the Catalyst that pushed Anakin, the Changer, to become Vader through the promise of power and immortality… by murdering the child soldier members of a fanatical cult of space magic worshippers.

: These folks are important. They are the ones that prompt the Changers to do their thing, which is Change if you haven’t caught on so far. Catalysts can be villains by being the demon constantly wearing at the saints defenses until they collapse. They could be the saints that wear at evil Changers. My favorite, is when an evil Catalyst joins forces with an already evil Changer so they can buddy-cop their way to mayhem and an eventual ass kicking from some do-gooders. Hitting on the Star Wars example, Palpatine pretty much stayed the same character for 6 straight movies. Palpatine also was the Catalyst that pushed Anakin, the Changer, to become Vader through the promise of power and immortality… by murdering the child soldier members of a fanatical cult of space magic worshippers. Stabilizers: Stabilizers are unique, as well as crucial to helping the Changer have a contrast that puts their metamorphosis in perspective. Instead of prompting a Changer to act and become something different, they are often the ones holding them back from their metamorphosis for good or bad reasons alike. Meandering back to my Star Wars example, Anakin’s beau acted as a Stabilizer for him by being one of the few plot devices left keeping him from becoming Darth Vader. That and the need to sever his legs and broil him in lava, but I digress.

Putting it Together

Anchors and Changers work hand in hand. They compliment each other. Neither one is better than the other for pushing a story forward, and both can, and should, be memorable. These characters are made to make each other shine and show evidence of a dynamic, living world. Let’s put these concepts that I’ve laid out to work and make them useful.

How Many?

Each noteworthy NPC should be bundled in groups of 3 to 5, linked by common goals, interests, and relationships. Normally, I put 1 or 2 Changers at the center of this, and then an equal split of Catalyst and Stabilizer Anchors. Any less than 3 and you risk not providing enough contrast between the Changers and the Anchors l, not to mention the metamorphosis of that Changer, and any more than 5 and the story itself is put in danger of becoming needlessly bloated, complex, and tedious. Complexity can be a good thing in some respects, but in a lot of ways it just causes frustration in the writing process and loss of interest for the players. Neither of which are good outcomes.

Before I go much further, I do want to remind you of what I previously stated: Practice identifying the concepts outlined above in pop culture because they are evident in every story whether they are implemented well or not. Turn on your favorite TV show or start up a movie and try to pick apart the characters. Try to identify which characters are the Changers as well as who and what type their Anchors are.

Back to what I was trying to explain. Let’s put the concepts previously discussed into action. What I do to keep track of Changers and Anchors is fairly simple. I pick up a pack of 3x5 index cards and burn through them. The multicolored ones work great for organizing NPC groupings, but I’m not a flashy guy so I just put a number on my plain black and white cards.

On the front, I record the info that makes this character relatable as well as a note about whether the character is an Anchor or Changer. Lastly, I include relationship info on how this character connects to the others in its grouping.

On the back, I include the information pertinent to the story and game development, i.e. how the character fits in to the world and what makes them relevant. I include the character’s goals, achievements, and ambitions.

Throughout the campaign, your characters will undoubtedly go through revisions. Record these revisions on our index cards so you can remain consistent and maintain the continuity and identity of your characters. When one seems to be lacking in having the desired effect, kill them off and replace them with something better. Practice and experience is one of the best teachers.

That’s it. It’s almost too simple. I know.

You know that story of the machine repair tech, right? An expensive and extremely important machine breaks down in a factory. The foreman calls for the regional repair technician to come and fix it. When the fellow arrives, he turns the machine on and listens to it intently. He nods. Then he opens one of the panels and hits a mechanism with a hammer. Almost magically, the machine starts performing within tolerance again. The relieved foreman asks what the cost is for this simple service, to which the answer was a ludicrous amount of money. The technician explained that the hammer may have been minimal in cost and the process seemed simple in observation, but the cost of the knowledge and experience to know where and how to swing it is where the true cost lies.

Thank you for reading. I hope these things can be of help to you for your games. If you’re looking for some examples I use in my games for how this is implemented, please join us on Discord. For an in depth scoop on how we designed things behind the scenes, please support us on Patreon

Thank you for reading,

Dirk

Critical Game Mastery