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BACKGROUND STORIES FOR NPCS
Posts
tpasmall
228
tpasmall
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CloseI can appreciate just wanting to get a game done, but my reason for getting into this, into making a game, is to bring to life the story that's in my head. So why would I want to rush through it? I want it to be believable, immersing. I want to be able to feel a part of the world I'm creating, and I want anyone who plays the game to feel the same way. I'm less interested in the game aspects of my game, and more interested in the working out of the story.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, yeah, doing work takes time. But that's true of literally anything that makes your game better.
The question I guess, then, is how much does NPC characterization matter to you personally. And if you don't think it matters very much, I can't really argue, because I kind of agree. I think it does help a lot in games where your goal is to create an immersive world, but doesn't help a lot in games where your goal is to create an immersive event-driven plot. And I kind of think it can actually be really distracting (and possibly even problematic?) in games where your goal is to create an immersive character-driven plot. If you are trying to draw the player's focus to something or someone, making everything else interesting isn't a particularly good way of doing it.
The question I guess, then, is how much does NPC characterization matter to you personally. And if you don't think it matters very much, I can't really argue, because I kind of agree. I think it does help a lot in games where your goal is to create an immersive world, but doesn't help a lot in games where your goal is to create an immersive event-driven plot. And I kind of think it can actually be really distracting (and possibly even problematic?) in games where your goal is to create an immersive character-driven plot. If you are trying to draw the player's focus to something or someone, making everything else interesting isn't a particularly good way of doing it.
LDanarkos
430
I don't even think about doing this with my NPC's, aside from the few that matter a lot, but it's something that should be done. It's good to bring your world to life and not have everything just be one-dimensional and hollow. It is always good to fool the player into thinking that every NPC has an entire life, a whole story, a relationship status, drama, friends, enemies, ambitions, and all of that. You don't have time to map out the entire life of every NPC. You have to give the player a little taste, and that little hint should be enough for the player's imagination to take over and fill-in all of the gaps. For example, in Star Wars Episode 3, we see the jedis going underground and the empire rising to power. By Star Wars Episode 4, the empire is in total control, and the rebels are fully hidden. What happened in the interim? Well, you don't see it in the movies, you can either read the novels, or you can let your imagination try to figure it out, as long as it starts with point A and ends at point B. I think that's the trick, is if you want a player to fill-in the gaps, you should give them a starting point and an ending point and ask them to fill-in the middle. So maybe we know where character A is right now, and we also hear from character B that they used to be friends, but that was a long time ago, and 15 years ago character A was doing ______. Or if you give the player some indication of an NPC's personality (i.e. are they goal-oriented, are they sex-crazed, are they lazy, are they pleasure-seeking, are they damaged goods, are they truth-seeking, are they revolutionary, etc.), then the player can assume A LOT about that character's life based on what the life of this type of person is usually like.
