What makes Good Characters?

[LadyCrimson]

Sometimes people like to figure out a little more analysis into why they may have certain preferences and like some characters but not others. Considering not everyone thinks a single character is good or bad, well done/poorly done, I think there's a little more going on than within our psyches than just the generic "good/bad writing" answer.

[Orogun01]

A good character is above all interesting; I don't think Patrick Bateman has any of the attributes mentioned in the video and yet it is a great central character. You don't have to relate to him you just need to be curious about what's on his mind, and little by little you start getting a sense of him and the world he inhabits and you get him. That's suspension of disbelief, making an average normal person understand a psychopath, even if they don't like or agree with him.

If your character is interesting, people will want to know more about him/her otherwise it's just going through the same motions as the rest.

[AGX-17]

Quality stationery.

A well-stocked liquor cabinet in the billiard room. The head of a large African mammal mounted on the wall couldn't hurt, either. Nor could a commission from the British East India Company.

 

Handlebar moustache: +1 CHA (set bonus if paired with mutton chops.)

 

Quality cigars: +1 CHA

 

Wearing black tie attire as casual clothing: +3 CHA

 

Hindoo manservant: +2 CHA

 

 

 

 

1500th post on an internet forum -5 CHA

 

Edited February 26, 2014 by AGX-17

[gizmmo]

1. They must not be expendable. If any of them dies, their death MUST make you feel bad and sad. You shouldn't go 'meh', i can go back to town and get that guy i saw 10 minutes ago.

2. Characters must, MUST interract with each other. I remember Minsc in BG2 had a rat and everybody tryed to steal it, talk about it, pet it, what ever, and Minsc would always get mad.

That ranger freak...

Making characters interract with each other will give them a personality, resulting in attachment to them.

3. Character deaths must have a negative impact on party members, depending on how long they were in the same party and how deep they interacted so far.

4. When i look at the screen, i want to see characters not walking pixels with a sword. I want to care for them, i want to want them to succede.

5. Some characters need to feel different. I remember when Irenicus showed up, i knew serious stuff is going to happen. You could sense his power, taste everybody's fear.

[HoonDing]

These threads hauled over from Project Eternity forum are always a joy to read.

[Gromnir]

MCA wrote a blog entry on characters a while back which might be relevant to the topic.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-168-project-eternity-and-characterization/

 

And his vlog on the same.

 

chris has stated that "hook" is most important. am thinking this is reason for some chris character shortcomings. nevertheless, his blog entry is worth reading... even if his bestest written companions and characters were not actual optional and recognizing that kaelyn's foreshadowing attribute seeming came at cost of being 1-dimensional.  am thinking chris gets a little too much credit and not enough criticism, but he did give us ravel. 

 

as an aside, we will note that there is a peculiar line that needs be considered when crafting joinables-- 'least based on chris comments and board feedback. chris observes that companion should be useful And stroke ego of player. Gromnir is recognizing that these two aspects can be at odds, though not necessarily in an obvious manner. regardless of quality of writing, players will tend to have less interest in keeping the under-powered companion in his/her group. any schmuck can "win" a crpg as they is meant to be beatable by any 13 yr old with a pulse. nevertheless, as crpgs is games, there is a tendency to play-to-win when building characters and party.  so, powerful companions is good, right? not always. very frequent we has seen players express disappointment when a joinable is clearly superior to the protagonist.  the ego-lending/boosting aspect o' a companion may suffer if that companion is effectively emasculating a segment o' players. edwin from bg and bg2 could outmage any mage player. all the stat-building tomes is not gonna make you more efficacious than edwin. more than a few people complained 'bout this. "why play a mage?" so, is gotta be a bit annoying to try and craft companions that is efficient, but not too efficient.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Blarghagh]

 

Someone who never moves on from the same thinking throughout the narrative is boring and predictable. You know what he'll do next, because he did it last time, and the time before.

This is some of the worst nonsense I have ever read. Characters arcs will only ever work where the narrative demands the character to have an arc. Otherwise it is a disingenuous and pointless distraction that goes nowhere and desperately needs to be cut out. I am so sick of people demanding characters arcs where narratives do not demand it at all. How one note characters deal with a plot, or other characters deal with one note characters is more than enough dynamic for 90% of narratives and most shoehorned character arcs created due to awful claims such as yours are responsible for almost all bad character writing.

 

Here's an example: House was good because House always did the same thing - he was an absolute **** and had the clout to back it up and all the dynamic this show needed was seeing the other one note characters deal with it. This show became awful when they started adding character arcs to it because someone just like you decided House needed a character arc, absolutely ruining the character and narrative dynamic in the progress.

 

Seriously, go read anything on narrative construction and learn not to spout nonsense that you read on a fan fiction guide as fact.

[Monte Carlo]

Lots of inventory slots is always helpful.

[JFSOCC]

 

Someone who never moves on from the same thinking throughout the narrative is boring and predictable. You know what he'll do next, because he did it last time, and the time before.

This is some of the worst nonsense I have ever read. Characters arcs will only ever work where the narrative demands the character to have an arc. Otherwise it is a disingenuous and pointless distraction that goes nowhere and desperately needs to be cut out. I am so sick of people demanding characters arcs where narratives do not demand it at all. How one note characters deal with a plot, or other characters deal with one note characters is more than enough dynamic for 90% of narratives and most shoehorned character arcs created due to awful claims such as yours are responsible for almost all bad character writing.

 

Here's an example: House was good because House always did the same thing - he was an absolute **** and had the clout to back it up and all the dynamic this show needed was seeing the other one note characters deal with it. This show became awful when they started adding character arcs to it because someone just like you decided House needed a character arc, absolutely ruining the character and narrative dynamic in the progress.

 

Seriously, go read anything on narrative construction and learn not to spout nonsense that you read on a fan fiction guide as fact.

 

House is entertaining. But to say that there is any literary quality to that series is just plain pathetic. House is a type, not a character.

 

I'm pretty damn sure I know more about narrative than you do. And I tend to hate fan fiction. But you don't want to be taught, that's fine, stay ignorant.

[Blarghagh]

So you say, but you advocate Mary Sue writing with your claims and nothing else. As for literary quality, substitute House with "Holmes" and you have 100% the same argument in a literary sense. It's fine and well to dismiss claims by saying "I know more and your thing doesn't count", doesn't make you any less wrong. Go read a book about narrative.

[JFSOCC]

So you say, but you advocate Mary Sue writing with your claims and nothing else. As for literary quality, substitute House with "Holmes" and you have 100% the same argument in a literary sense. It's fine and well to dismiss claims by saying "I know more and your thing doesn't count", doesn't make you any less wrong. Go read a book about narrative.

You keep saying I should read a book about narrative, but I'm trying to explain to you that my breadth of experience probably exceeds yours. I've read many crappy books, and some good ones. I've also watched a lot of film, both crappy and good. I'm not saying your experience doesn't count, I'm saying mine does. And it does, btw. Call me arrogant if you want but when it comes to literature I will be offended if someone calls into question whether or not I can distinguish quality from pulp.

I don't like to use the word straw-man because it gets over-used, but you are using a straw-man argument if you say I'm advocating mary sue writing, which is absolutely the worst possible form of writing, and something I actively resent.

 

Mary sue means good at everything, no noticeable flaws and a character whose strengths (and weaknesses) have little to do with his or her history or personality.

And yes, Holmes and House are not that different. I don't think you'll hear me say otherwise. I liked the new Holmes (not so much season 3) because of the excellent acting of Benedict Cumberbatch and the modern take on his character. But it is still weak when you have no character development.

 

Maybe you've misunderstood or misread what I posted, I'm not trying to tell you what I say is gospel, but there are some basic things you need to understand about characters before you can ignore them and write your own.

[Blarghagh]

You may say that your experience counts and I may say the same. I don't mean to insult you, but your claim of experience doesn't mean anything to me. I don't mean that as a slight, but I do not know you and you may be a professor of literature or some redneck in a your mom's basement. I simply do not know and therefore your claims do not matter, and when I say you are wrong it is because in my experience your claims or wrong, not because I am making a judgement of you personally. Your misunderstanding of what a Mary Sue is (a Mary Sue is an author insert that is built for the writer based character to overcome or be assaulted by their real life shortcomings, it has nothing to do with how perfect they are and some of the worst Mary Sue's I've read are completely full of flaws to beg for sympathy including, for example, any character of Stephen King that is a writer who deals with addiction) further makes me unsure of your experience because your display of knowledge thus far hasn't shown it.

 

I don't mean to offend you, but I consider your claims to be wrong and I will speak at length in the defense of archetypes and against character arcs. I don't know where the idea came from that all characters require arcs came from but I've read it before and it is simply incorrect at worst and a gross oversimplification at best. I blame the popularisation of "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and its ridiculous notion of every story being "the Hero's Journey" via the explosive popularity of Star Wars for this misconception because the hero's journey is but one of three similarely clichéd characters arcs (The Hero's Journey, The Tragic Fall and The Shift Arc).

 

I will repeat that the narrative overrides all. If characters do not require an arc for the narrative, the arc is going to be superfluous and unneccesary and very rarely will there be a good narrative with more than three characters with arcs (protagonist, deuteragonist and antagonist) and most good narratives will have at most one or two. If you want a literary example, I present T.S. Elliot's The Once And Future King, which on a whole has solely the arc of Arthur. Merlin, Galahad, Mordred and Morgause are all archetypes who do not exhibit character growth because it is the story of Arthur and only his arc is important, the other characters exist as static characters for Arthur to come into contact with for his own growth. Even Lancelot, on which the most lengthy part of the book focuses, begins and ends the same. The narrative demands only the arc of Arthur, and no others. At the same time, Merlin remains the bumbling yet wise wizard with his "living backwards in time" gimmick, yet he is by far the most interesting character in this novel without having an arc.

 

I do agree that a good arc can make a character much more interesting, but it is simply put not neccesary and it is infeasible to add arcs to all characters, even those with major roles in the narrative, and doing so leads to disingenuous writing, loose plotting, superfluous sidetracking and bad characters. In Romeo and Juliet, the only arc that matters is that of the two lovers and it is, in fact, of paramount importance to the narrative that their family members remain static and unchanged - their characters and the narrative only work because they have no character arcs.

 

If you want a more recent example, take Breaking Bad, a show that is lauded for it's great characters and the great arc of it's main character. This show is an great example of long form narrative, it has five seasons and consists out of many hours. This entire show, with dozens of characters, has arguably only four characters that have arcs, and I'd argue even less (Walter, Hank, Skyler and Jesse, though I would contend Jesse doesn't have one and the events of the show reveal his personality rather than changing it in a meaningful way). Everyone else responds to how these characters act based from their set, unchanging perspective - Saul remains the slimy but loyal businessman out for himself, Mike remains the consumate professional - they are one note characters, yet Saul and Mike are two of the most interesting characters on the show. What is important isn't their arc, their purpose is to facilitate and respond to the arcs of other characters. They do not require arcs because the narrative doesn't require it.

 

This is not to say that I am against character arcs completely. Very few examples of fiction exist that work where no characters have character arcs (House is the only example I can think of from the top of my head). But the idea that all good characters require a character arc, require growth and change, is simply incorrect and I scratch my head as to how this has somehow become conventional wisdom. I hold on to my conclusion that a character arc is neccesary and beneficial only if the greater narrative demands it, otherwise it is at best unneccesary and at worst detrimental to the character and the story.

 

EDIT: For grammar and spelling errors.

Edited February 28, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[JFSOCC]

You may say that your experience counts and I may say the same. I don't mean to insult you, but your claim of experience doesn't mean anything to me. I don't mean that as a slight, but I do not know you and you may be a professor of literature or some redneck in a your mom's basement. I simply do not know and therefore your claims do not matter, and when I say you are wrong it is because in my experience your claims or wrong, not because I am making a judgement of you personally. Your misunderstanding of what a Mary Sue is (a Mary Sue is an author insert that is built for the writer based character to overcome or be assaulted by their real life shortcomings, it has nothing to do with how perfect they are and some of the worst Mary Sue's I've read are completely full of flaws to beg for sympathy including, for example, any character of Stephen King that is a writer who deals with addiction) further makes me unsure of your experience because your display of knowledge thus far hasn't shown it.

From wikipedia:

Mary Sue stories—the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm-wrestling.

...

...

"Mary Sue" today has changed from its original meaning and now carries a generalized, although not universal, connotation of wish-fulfillment and is commonly associated with self-insertion. True self-insertion is a literal and generally undisguised representation of the author; most characters described as "Mary Sues" are not, though they are often called "proxies"[6] for the author. The negative connotation comes from this "wish-fulfillment" implication: the "Mary Sue" is judged as a poorly developed character, too perfect and lacking in realism to be interesting.[7]

It's often an auteur self-insert, but it doesn't have to be. The idea is that it is a character with no discernible flaws, except maybe those which are universally acceptable and unlikely to have a bearing on the plot, such as a fear of heights.

 

I don't mean to offend you, but I consider your claims to be wrong and I will speak at length in the defense of archetypes and against character arcs. I don't know where the idea came from that all characters require arcs came from but I've read it before and it is simply incorrect at worst and a gross oversimplification at best. I blame the popularisation of "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" and its ridiculous notion of every story being "the Hero's Journey" via the explosive popularity of Star Wars for this misconception because the hero's journey is but one of three similarely clichéd characters arcs (The Hero's Journey, The Tragic Fall and The Shift Arc).

OK, there are clearly a few misconceptions here.

1. Archetypes are great, for types, characters need to be deeper than that. An Arc can be many things, by the way, it doesn't mean a character has to become diametrically opposed to what he or she was. Nor does it have to be a positive. If you've seen Tropa de Elite, for instance, Matias' personality doesn't change greatly, but over the course of the film you do see him lose some naivité, change his attitude towards casual drug use and users to mirror that of his commander more, and ultimately at the conclusion, his willingness to kill even when it is morally questionable, completing his corruption.

2. I'm beginning to hate the heroes journey with a passion, it is ALL that is coming out of Hollywood these days. Here you have a great greek tragedy (Oldboy) and it gets turned into a simple revenge flick following the tropes of the heroes' journey (Oldboy remake)

And I will never argue that every story needs to be one. But if you think tragedies have no character arcs, you are sadly mistaken. If you think there are no tropes and clichés for other story types, you are still sadly mistaken. The Heroes journey has its uses and it a good starting point for learning how to write characters, and I would never discount it, especially not for writing for role playing games.

 

I will repeat that the narrative overrides all. If characters do not require an arc for the narrative, the arc is going to be superfluous and unneccesary and very rarely will there be a good narrative with more than three characters with arcs (protagonist, deuteragonist and antagonist) and most good narratives will have at most one or two. If you want a literary example, I present T.S. Elliot's The Once And Future King, which on a whole has solely the arc of Arthur. Merlin, Galahad, Mordred and Morgause are all archetypes who do not exhibit character growth because it is the story of Arthur and only his arc is important, the other characters exist as static characters for Arthur to come into contact with for his own growth. Even Lancelot, on which the most lengthy part of the book focuses, begins and ends the same. The narrative demands only the arc of Arthur, and no others. At the same time, Merlin remains the bumbling yet wise wizard with his "living backwards in time" gimmick, yet he is by far the most interesting character in this novel without having an arc.

So only Arthur is a character, the rest are types.

I haven't read TS Elliot's work, so I can't really comment on the portrayal of Merlin. Tell me, what ways is he interesting?

Types can be interesting, but not to build a story around.

 

I do agree that a good arc can make a character much more interesting, but it is simply put not neccesary and it is infeasible to add arcs to all characters, even those with major roles in the narrative, and doing so leads to disingenuous writing, loose plotting, superfluous sidetracking and bad characters. In Romeo and Juliet, the only arc that matters is that of the two lovers and it is, in fact, of paramount importance to the narrative that their family members remain static and unchanged - their characters and the narrative only work because they have no character arcs.

Not all personages require arcs, but that's because not all are characters.

Their families don't remain unchanged, actually. When the coffins are presented to these families they recognise their folly, as the closing words

PRINCE

 

This letter doth make good the friar's words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death:

And here he writes that he did buy a poison

Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal

Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.

Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!

See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

And I for winking at your discords too

Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.

 

CAPULET

 

O brother Montague, give me thy hand:

This is my daughter's jointure, for no more

Can I demand.

 

MONTAGUE

 

But I can give thee more:

For I will raise her statue in pure gold;

That while Verona by that name is known,

There shall no figure at such rate be set

As that of true and faithful Juliet.

 

CAPULET

 

As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie;

Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

 

If you want a more recent example, take Breaking Bad, a show that is lauded for it's great characters and the great arc of it's main character. This show is an great example of long form narrative, it has five seasons and consists out of many hours. This entire show, with dozens of characters, has arguably only four characters that have arcs, and I'd argue even less (Walter, Hank, Skyler and Jesse, though I would contend Jesse doesn't have one and the events of the show reveal his personality rather than changing it in a meaningful way). Everyone else responds to how these characters act based from their set, unchanging perspective - Saul remains the slimy but loyal businessman out for himself, Mike remains the consumate professional - they are one note characters, yet Saul and Mike are two of the most interesting characters on the show. What is important isn't their arc, their purpose is to facilitate and respond to the arcs of other characters. They do not require arcs because the narrative doesn't require it.

I don't disagree. I never said every single person in your story needs to be fleshed out. But Walter, Hank, Skyler and Jesse certainly did.

 

This is not to say that I am against character arcs completely. Very few examples of fiction exist that work where no characters have character arcs (House is the only example I can think of from the top of my head). But the idea that all good characters require a character arc, require growth and change, is simply incorrect and I scratch my head as to how this has somehow become conventional wisdom. I hold on to my conclusion that a character arc is neccesary and beneficial only if the greater narrative demands it, otherwise it is at best unneccesary and at worst detrimental to the character and the story.

 

EDIT: For grammar and spelling errors.

I think we probably define characters differently. A character is as deep, nuanced, and changeable as a real person. A type is changeless and stale. Edited February 28, 2014 by JFSOCC

[Blarghagh]

Your conclusion seems accurate - I consider every representation of a person that has an effect of the narrative to be a character. What you define as a type, I define as a character fitting a type.

 

I didn't say tragedies don't have character arcs, in fact, I mentioned the Tragic Fall character arc that most tragedic characters follow as an opposite arc of the hero's journey. I can't comment on Tropa de Elite because I haven't seen it, however the character arc you describe sounds like the shift arc where a character overcomes not outward forces and changes radically (Hero's Journey) but gains different perspective or role.

 

Regarding Romeo and Juliet, I'd say the family change is outside of the main narrative because the story of the lovers has already concluded. You are right however, I forgot that in the end they change their minds, at a point where this no longer matters, so I will concede that I was wrong in claiming the families in Romeo and Juliet had no change (though I'd stretch to call it an arc).

 

With our differing definitions out of the way it would we mostly agree. Adjusting into your terms my point would be "not every important person in a narrative has to be a character, it depends on their role in the narrative" and I think the same applies to writing in RPGs. Whether a "type", as you call it, is stale, is a subjective matter - I find types to be, in fact, remarkably useful for creating the illusion of a living world for a reader, viewer or player and as a way to bounce the characters that have arcs into differing perspectives and the inclusion of a lot of types will create a world much more realistic* than a lot of dynamic characters.

 

*Based on Dunbar's Number. Whether you want to or not, there is a fixed number of people one person can know and the human mind will merge people based on similarities into a single "person" even when they are truly not. This is why stereotypes exist, and why types are useful in creating a realistic world because a real person is literally able to only see people as types.

Edited February 28, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[JFSOCC]

I'm glad we've talked this out

[Orogun01]

So we have lawyers,scientists, coders and aspiring (or professional) writers on this forum. Any 3D artists?

[Blarghagh]

*raises hand* I'm a halfway decent modeler and a good character animator. I've taken a lot of classes in writing and narrative design (and some acting as well) because as an animator I'm the one responsible for telling the story (except for the times I've worked on games, where you're only a walk-cycle machine).

Edited February 28, 2014 by TrueNeutral

[Nonek]

Facial hair.

 

Rex turned to Luthor, his long mustaches quivering with rage as his jaws strained and bulged. Luthor relaxed back into his armchair, a kittenish smile on his lips, one hand caressing his immaculately sculpted and oiled goatee. For a long frozen moment they held in this position, the only sound Rex's hand squeezing the doorknob in a stranglers grip, Luthor raised one eyebrow in sardonic amusement and crossed his legs, checking the crease in his immaculately pressed trousers for any imperfection.

 

"What's the matter old boy, cat got your tongue?" He asked, twirling the tip of his VanDyke with an expert flourish.

 

Rex pulled himself to his full impressive height and looked down on his brother, his lips involuntarily puckering and snarling as he tried to master his rage. Resolutely he thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, as if to keep them away from his opponents neck, and threw back his head with a prideful explosion of pent up breath. His mustaches blew and shook with this movement, lending the gentleman an air of leonine magnificence, Luthor's eyebrow climbed higher still. 

 

"Were you not my brother Sir, I would beat you to within an inch of your insolent life!" Luthor's slender manicured hand caressed his goatee with more eager strokes, while Rex's huge paws looked set to tear off the poor cloth of his waistcoat.

 

"Come now brother, why so perturbed?" Luthor asked, false innocence dripping over his gaotee'd lips with the practised ease of an accomplished bounder. "'Twas only a biscuit!"

 

"MY BISCUIT SIR, MINE!" Rex roared, his mustaches flying with a winged grace like unto the Valkyries flight.

[Malcador]

Trauma, lots and lots of psychological trauma.

[ManifestedISO]

Evidently, lies, deceit, and gossip add gritty realism to game characters, and can now be coded. 

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/game-characters-are-better-when-they-gossip-and-lie/

 

 

Edit for relevant quote:

 

 

Brusk has been working on models to introduce socially competent non-player game characters who can understand natural language, rather than characters using goal-driven dialogue where the player is limited to a number of predefined response alternatives.

Edited March 1, 2014 by ManifestedISO

[Orogun01]

Evidently, lies, deceit, and gossip add gritty realism to game characters, and can now be coded. 

 

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/game-characters-are-better-when-they-gossip-and-lie/

Makes sense; you often have to make judgement on the veracity of what people tell you, most of the time it's inane and doesn't really matter but on a life or death situation it becomes indispensable to distinguish between false and true hence you're more involved.