In this post, we'll pick up where we left of in the last one. As a reminder, this was the list of elements that make a story I presented:

• an overarching plot (what is the driving force behind the unrolling of events?)
• character evolution (how did the story's events change the characters?)
• back-story (what did you find out about the characters' past?)
• world building (what did you learn about the world in which the action takes place?)

We've already talked about plot and world building, so this post will be all about characters.

Characters

Before continuing, it is important to discuss what characters are and how they behave. A character is any agent that plays a role in the story. There are two main kinds of characters (in a game): player characters (or PCs) and non-player characters (the infamous NPCs). These two types of characters must be handled in very different ways. For instance, you can make an NPC however you want, giving it any kind of back-story and personality the story requires. With a PC, however, you have to make sure the player is aware of the PC's back-story and personality. You also have to be aware that some of the player's personality and way of being will inevitably bleed into the character, and you have to account for that in the design of the story.

PCs: ensuring players know them

As I just mentioned, a PC's back-story and personality is most likely unknown to the player, which can be problematic. For example, imagine a PC that's a member of a secret organization. The PC should, for instance, know the organizations ideals and goals. But how can the player know it? It turns out there are a few tricks one can use to make sure a player knows all they need to know. The most used method is to have a PC which is completely new in the game's world (this can be applied in a broader or a narrower scope). In the previous example, the game could start with the player joining the organization. That way, the PC wouldn't be expected to know anything, and would even be taught valuable information. If you think carefully, you'll find that there are lots of games that do this. However, this method can be very limiting when creating a story. So, what other options are there? For starters, you can find excuses for the player not to know anything: maybe they have amnesia, or perhaps they're actually impersonating their twin brother, because someone needs to cover up his death. But what if you want the PC to know things? Well, maybe you can just expect the player to know them. This won't work for every game, but throwing the player into a world they don't know, while everyone around them assumes they know it can give rise to interesting gameplay. Anyway, the important thing to take away is that you can't fill your PCs with back-story and personality traits and expect the player to follow them like rules.

Back-story

Back-story is very important. A character, be it a PC or an NPC, has got their own personality and way of being, which will inevitably be altered by their past life experiences. For a game, the best way is to have some sort of outline of a character's life. How far back it goes really depends on the character. For some, you might have to go all the way to their birth, while for others, a few years may be enough. Once you have an outline, you'll have to tell it to the player. There are many tools you have at your disposal to do so. You can have dialogs between the PC and the character in question, where the character hints at, or even remembers his past. But you can also suggest it through the character's actions. For instance, if the character is hesitant to go on a boat trip, the player might guess something bad or sad happened to him or to someone he cared about inside a boat.

Character arcs

Maybe you want your game to focus only on the main plot. But maybe you need something more to tell. Why not give some importance to a specific character? That's what a character arc is: a smaller story focused on a character, which somehow relates to the overall plot. Character arcs can be very useful to make the player care about a character, to fill in some empty spaces in the story (there's an idiom for this in portuguese which I particularly like: "encher chouriços", lit. "to fill sausages"), and to foreshadow or explain something in the plot.

Character evolution

While the past has an effect on a character's personality and way of being, the present must have one as well. Because nobody will like a character that stays the same throughout the story. Instead, a character should change due to what happens to him (keep in mind, change doesn't need to be for the best). This doesn't mean a character has to change wildly, sometimes just a small change is enough (and in a few special cases, no change at all is the best option, but only if it makes sense - and those cases are very rare).

Final thoughts

After writing these two posts, I realised that, to some, I might sound like I'm stating set in stone rules for making the story for a game. But that is not at all my intention. These should be seen as my personal opinion, and advice for those who care to listen. At the end of the day, any way of making a story is right, as long as the story's good. That said, I hope you enjoyed reading my rambling about story-telling. Next time, we'll go back to the technical stuff, although I'm not sure what I'll write about. Until then, goodbye!