How to Make a Good Character

じ☆ve冰风

Introduction ​

Some time ago, I created a thread called "How to Create a Good Character". On this thread, I gave very brief tips on how to build a charismatic character for his plot, the problem is that my knowledge about it was not so broad and some of the things I said were based on hunches. Since, in the meantime, I learned more about storyboarding and character creation, I decided to do a more complete and dynamic version of the thread.

Motivations and Backstory​

The first thing you should establish is what this character wants and why he wants it (I recommend writing this down in topics in a notepad). For understanding get easier, I'll create a character as the thread will advance.
Motivations:
- Become a great musician
- Find your lost friend

Backstory:
During an incident in his hometown, he and his friend eventually separate. After 4 years, his friend is still missing and he is still in search of him.

Yes, they are very simple things, but according to the construction of the character, you can add more things. Before moving on to the next step, remember to give an age to the character.

Personality and Characteristics ​

Now let's go to the most important part, in my vision. Like I said on the old thread, his personality being cliché is not necessarily a problem if you build it well, but try to lightly avoid it. One thing I recommend you do is give 3 characteristics to this character, a good, a neutral and a bad one, to try to humanize it.
Features:
- He is polite
- He's relatively shy.
- He's a pessimist.

After you establish the 3, enter an external characteristic (A habit, mania and ect ...).
External Characteristic:
He pronounces certain words wrong.

Remembering that these characteristics may be related to the backstory of the character, which gives more depth to it.

Obstacles ​

Now we will set obstacles so that its development is not so short and easy. This obstacle must be related to your backstory and personality.
Obstacles:
- He has anxiety attacks when he plays one of his songs in public
- He is pessimistic about where his friend should be

Do you see? Both obstacles are related to his personality. If in case these obstacles are related to his backstory, it is even better, because it is another opportunity to enrich it.

Appearance ​

In establishing the above characteristics, you probably must have thought of an initial concept for him, that is exactly why I left this part for later, it is much easier to think about how the character will be aesthetically when you already know how he is inwardly. I will use Face Maker, a tool commonly used in RPG Maker games.
Appearance:
Spoiler

Function for Plot ​

What good is he being a good character if he has no reason to be there? You have to give a reason for this character being in the plot. Is he there to disrupt the protagonist, to be the protagonist, to help the protagonist?
Function for Plot:
In a certain part of the plot, we need to calm a monster with a certain song. He's the only one who knows it.

He has to be useful more than once in the plot, otherwise it becomes only a secondary.

Relationship with Other Characters ​

Your character needs to have an opinion formed by the other characters he met during the plot so that he looks more human and less NPC. This relationship with other characters should match your personality and perhaps your backstory.
Relationship with Other Characters:
- He wants to bring his best friend back because he's worried about him
- He does not like the character x because he does not have good musical taste
- He thinks character y it's a strange for doing certain things

I recommend that you make a note for each character and what the other characters think about it.

Name ​

Ironically, the simplest part was left to the end, I did this, because the name is almost always the thing that least interferes in the plot in general. The name that I am going to put is reference to a philosopher that I inspire to me, since it is more interesting to give names that have meaning for the creator.
Name:
Hoppe

The name can be your own invention or a word written in another language.

That's all!


本贴来自国际rpgmaker官方论坛作者:Irineu处,因国际论坛即将永久关站,为了存档多年珍贵资料,署名转载到本论坛存档,由于官方帖子为英文原帖，需要中文翻译请点击论坛顶部切换语言为中文就可以将帖子翻译成中文浏览,方便大家随时查看,原文地址：https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/threads/how-to-make-a-good-character.107464/