I want to focus more heavily on roleplay, character development and plot in The Wizard's Apprentice 2. This is sort of new territory for me as my first module was heavier in the puzzle/action category and light on the roleplay. I was wondering if anyone knows hints and or formulas which help to flesh out a plot, character, or conversation more fully. So if anyone has rules they follow for making complete characters and such, I would be happy to hear them.
Thanks.
Devices for conversations, character development, and plot progression
Débuté par
M. Rieder
, déc. 23 2010 06:32
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#2
Posté 23 décembre 2010 - 06:48
nicethugbert
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Give the player dialog/action to express personality traits with. Where this usually gets difficult is in handling intentions. So there will need to be a way for the player to state his intentions. You could do this via dialog with party members, maybe even familiars and companions. The party members can act as the PC's conscience. So can others outside the party, even a PC's deity, via his holy symbol even.
But, then, someone will want to act against their party. The only way I can see that working is if the PC can dialog with himself. I guess this may require an object.
But, then, someone will want to act against their party. The only way I can see that working is if the PC can dialog with himself. I guess this may require an object.
#3
Posté 23 décembre 2010 - 08:54
PJ156
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I start with a background for the character, thier reason for being available to hire (not thier reason for joining - that is separate). I then think of one or two life events which will colour thier actions/attitudes. These are all independant of the plot at hand.
For instance my main NPC is from a poor village/farming background. She had an experience at the age of 6 where a giant spider attacked her house, killed her younger sister and then, when they could not afford to purchase a potion from the church, her elder brother died from the poison bite two days later.
These events colour her whole view on life and religion and gave her a healthy fear/hatred of spiders. When you meet her she is there for her own reasons and joins you becuase she has to to earn money which is what she is all about. She is family centric and very independant - when she disappears at the begining of PT II it is to take some of her earnings to her brother getting cash back to the family.
I dont think these need to be detailed but once they start appearing as reoccuring themes in conversations they start to give the character consitency and depth. The PC may or may not ever hear this background but should be able to infer it from the way the NPC behaves.
Keep the NPC talking, to each other through triggers, and to the PC through triggers and convo's. Allow them to have an opinion/advice on the current situation/plot proggresion. In part III of my mod I am experimenting with having a single question node - how are you feeling or some such, Which produce a series of responses depending on where you are in the mod. These will not be plot prods but developments of the personal story of the NPC.
You might also consider having the PC help with an aspect of the NPC's life, this could be a subquest but better if it is more subtle. The NPC above is one of the faithless, mostly because of the way the church of Lathander treated her father. A plot in PTIV will allow you to help her to come to terms with her past and embrace a religion before it's too late.
I also keep a record of how the NPC is treated and thier responses reflect thier view of you. If they like you, more convo lines open, if they don't their resposes are terse and some questions will not be available.
That's how I have handled this to date, I am looking forward to this thread developing.
I also like to let the NPC take the lead in conversations as well, when the PC approaches them to speak I have them open with a question, opinion or instruction. I think that makes them feel more real.
Cheers,
PJ
For instance my main NPC is from a poor village/farming background. She had an experience at the age of 6 where a giant spider attacked her house, killed her younger sister and then, when they could not afford to purchase a potion from the church, her elder brother died from the poison bite two days later.
These events colour her whole view on life and religion and gave her a healthy fear/hatred of spiders. When you meet her she is there for her own reasons and joins you becuase she has to to earn money which is what she is all about. She is family centric and very independant - when she disappears at the begining of PT II it is to take some of her earnings to her brother getting cash back to the family.
I dont think these need to be detailed but once they start appearing as reoccuring themes in conversations they start to give the character consitency and depth. The PC may or may not ever hear this background but should be able to infer it from the way the NPC behaves.
Keep the NPC talking, to each other through triggers, and to the PC through triggers and convo's. Allow them to have an opinion/advice on the current situation/plot proggresion. In part III of my mod I am experimenting with having a single question node - how are you feeling or some such, Which produce a series of responses depending on where you are in the mod. These will not be plot prods but developments of the personal story of the NPC.
You might also consider having the PC help with an aspect of the NPC's life, this could be a subquest but better if it is more subtle. The NPC above is one of the faithless, mostly because of the way the church of Lathander treated her father. A plot in PTIV will allow you to help her to come to terms with her past and embrace a religion before it's too late.
I also keep a record of how the NPC is treated and thier responses reflect thier view of you. If they like you, more convo lines open, if they don't their resposes are terse and some questions will not be available.
That's how I have handled this to date, I am looking forward to this thread developing.
I also like to let the NPC take the lead in conversations as well, when the PC approaches them to speak I have them open with a question, opinion or instruction. I think that makes them feel more real.
Cheers,
PJ
Modifié par PJ156, 23 décembre 2010 - 08:59 .
#4
Posté 23 décembre 2010 - 09:29
Krozam
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Oh, I have so many ideas about this that I don't even know where to begin. I've always been disappointed by dialogue in all NWN mods and official campaigns. Many of them do some things right, but I have yet to play a mod that does EVERYTHING right dialogue-wise. That's probably because doing everything right would require insane amounts of work. Still, if I ever actually realize my module idea, I'm going to try.
A few ideas to start with:
- Use skill checks. Not just Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate and Lore, but also other skills. Since your mod is designed for Wizard, it's probably enough to use Craft Alchemy and Spellcraft in addition to those, since Wizard doesn't have such a wide variety of class skills and useful cross-class skills.
- Use description to support spoken lines. Including the PC's lines. Sometimes nuances are difficult to express without adding description of expressions and gestures. I'd use quotation marks to mark spoken lines, but using stars (* *) to mark actions should work just as well.
- Moral choices. That affect the alignment. And not just two or three, I'd want some varying degrees of good/evil and lawful/chaotic options usually. This is what the official campaigns usually do decently well: they give 4-5 options, not just the noble hero and the greedy jerk option.
- I'd want occasional situations where it's not so much about a moral choice but a choice of tone. The humorous reply, the passionate reply, the neutral reply, the cold-hearted reply... and my favourite, the badass reply.
This allows one to roleplay one's character with not only a moral character, but also with something of a personality.
These are all technical suggestions for dialogue. If it's about how to create personalities and depth for the party members and other major characters, that's a completely different field. I'm not going to go deep in there when I'm this tired, but basically, it all starts with a history. If your character has a history, he/she also has the basis of a personality. The rest comes with alignment, opinions, speaking styles and stuff like that. I may write more in depth about this tomorrow, if you're interested, but now I'm going to bed. Edit: The above poster, who posted while I was writing this post, exemplified well the imporatance of a thought-out history.
A few ideas to start with:
- Use skill checks. Not just Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate and Lore, but also other skills. Since your mod is designed for Wizard, it's probably enough to use Craft Alchemy and Spellcraft in addition to those, since Wizard doesn't have such a wide variety of class skills and useful cross-class skills.
- Use description to support spoken lines. Including the PC's lines. Sometimes nuances are difficult to express without adding description of expressions and gestures. I'd use quotation marks to mark spoken lines, but using stars (* *) to mark actions should work just as well.
- Moral choices. That affect the alignment. And not just two or three, I'd want some varying degrees of good/evil and lawful/chaotic options usually. This is what the official campaigns usually do decently well: they give 4-5 options, not just the noble hero and the greedy jerk option.
- I'd want occasional situations where it's not so much about a moral choice but a choice of tone. The humorous reply, the passionate reply, the neutral reply, the cold-hearted reply... and my favourite, the badass reply.
This allows one to roleplay one's character with not only a moral character, but also with something of a personality.These are all technical suggestions for dialogue. If it's about how to create personalities and depth for the party members and other major characters, that's a completely different field. I'm not going to go deep in there when I'm this tired, but basically, it all starts with a history. If your character has a history, he/she also has the basis of a personality. The rest comes with alignment, opinions, speaking styles and stuff like that. I may write more in depth about this tomorrow, if you're interested, but now I'm going to bed. Edit: The above poster, who posted while I was writing this post, exemplified well the imporatance of a thought-out history.
Modifié par Krozam, 23 décembre 2010 - 09:53 .
#5
Posté 23 décembre 2010 - 09:57
dunniteowl
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First and foremost, congratulations on putting out your first module and well wishes on your current project! Obviously as a learning experience there is much to put under one's belt to make a module in the first place. Now for the learning curve of breathing more life into it, that's a good deal more subjective.
I am going to step aside from the Toolset technical portion of this and focus on Module as a Story Design.
1) You should consider the purpose and nature of each NPC you place in a module. Period. Start from the utilitarian view of: "Well, I gotta have a Healer at the temple, and I'll need two merchants at the bazaar, an innkeeper, a couple of informative lads and lasses and maybe a town drunk or something."
At this point they are characters without character. These are the "props" you need to set some of your scene and advance your plot. I like to think of this aspect and point of module story design as setting up a movie screenplay. You detail out the principal characters (you should already have your antagonist well in mind and of course your protagonists are going to be the players, which will vary and over which you have little to no real control other than through your dialogue and characters.)
2) You should look at your characters as part of a living, breathing ecology of a sort. If there's a small village involved, then obviously there's going to be a lot of folks that know each other all over the village. In a larger setting like a big town or small city, folks are going to know a fair amount of the people near them, what's going on in the whole place (for bigger events) and there are going to be some folks who know others in other parts of the city or larger town, but not everyone.
You use this sort of information to plan out how the dynamics of characters can play out. You don't have to storyboard everything (as detail oriented as I am I don't even do that) just give your ecology some sort of dynamic series of opinions, points of view and some interactions between characters will sort of start to evolve on their own (or hopefully, that would be the case.)
3) Now that you have your basic dramatis personae and your mise en scene (the initial characters and the primary stage setttings) you can start to see where relationships might occur. You can also start playing with "What does Tom Tom, the Piper's Son really think about being a stable hand for drunk old Mr. Coopersmith when the Liveryman isn't there to hear it?" "Does Mary Mary really act contrary? If so, why?" "What happened to make Mr. Nesbitt, the Innkeeper such a dour and glum proprietor?"
You just put a few of these together and pretty soon, other characters should start to sort of come into focus. To start this off, you take a character, like the aforementioned Tom Tom the Piper's Son, and give him a set of characteristics. Is he a hard worker? Does he like being told what to do? Why does he slink around Mary Mary's bedroom window in the late evenings?
Then take another character: "Mr. Nesbitt is a hard worker and believes that honest work and hard work are one and the same. He doesn't take shortcuts and doesn't think well of those who do. Also, Mr. Nesbitt used to be a pretty happy guy until his wife, the love of his life, took sick and died three winters ago. Now, Mr. Nesbitt's lost that joie de vivre and is a little bit angry also at the local healer, who, through no fault of her own, wasn't there to tend to poor Mrs. Nesbitt and keep her from dying.
You take a paragraph or two for each character that you know you're going to be using for conversations and bit parts (just like a play or a movie) and develop a little something about them if they are going to be something more than mere window dressing.
4) Putting them in the same room. This takes a bit of creative imagination when it comes to this part. You have two or three characters you've made up and now they're in the same room. Try to imagine how they would respond to each other and to a PC when the obvious questions and answers are to be bandied about. This will give you ideas about how to establish banter between characters (including companions and henchmen to the PC(party) as well as how they might interact in a cutscene conversation the PC observes on first meeting them.
Once you can establish this sort of basic character template, the dialogue *(at least for me) will almost write itself. The trick here, I guess, is placing yourself into each character's role for a bit and considering how they might respond in any given situation. This can be pretty hard to do sometimes, but I honestly feel anyone can do this if they can let go and just 'pretend' for a few minutes without being self concsious about it.
(As an interesting note, Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, would storm around his room and act out and speak his characters' dialogue and actions when he got stuck for what came next. He literally lived and acted out his adventures while writing them.)
5) Take notes. In the words of Stan Lee, 'nuff said there.
dunniteowl
(junior thespian stage actor, stagehand, stage crafter and one time temporary director of a play.)
I am going to step aside from the Toolset technical portion of this and focus on Module as a Story Design.
1) You should consider the purpose and nature of each NPC you place in a module. Period. Start from the utilitarian view of: "Well, I gotta have a Healer at the temple, and I'll need two merchants at the bazaar, an innkeeper, a couple of informative lads and lasses and maybe a town drunk or something."
At this point they are characters without character. These are the "props" you need to set some of your scene and advance your plot. I like to think of this aspect and point of module story design as setting up a movie screenplay. You detail out the principal characters (you should already have your antagonist well in mind and of course your protagonists are going to be the players, which will vary and over which you have little to no real control other than through your dialogue and characters.)
2) You should look at your characters as part of a living, breathing ecology of a sort. If there's a small village involved, then obviously there's going to be a lot of folks that know each other all over the village. In a larger setting like a big town or small city, folks are going to know a fair amount of the people near them, what's going on in the whole place (for bigger events) and there are going to be some folks who know others in other parts of the city or larger town, but not everyone.
You use this sort of information to plan out how the dynamics of characters can play out. You don't have to storyboard everything (as detail oriented as I am I don't even do that) just give your ecology some sort of dynamic series of opinions, points of view and some interactions between characters will sort of start to evolve on their own (or hopefully, that would be the case.)
3) Now that you have your basic dramatis personae and your mise en scene (the initial characters and the primary stage setttings) you can start to see where relationships might occur. You can also start playing with "What does Tom Tom, the Piper's Son really think about being a stable hand for drunk old Mr. Coopersmith when the Liveryman isn't there to hear it?" "Does Mary Mary really act contrary? If so, why?" "What happened to make Mr. Nesbitt, the Innkeeper such a dour and glum proprietor?"
You just put a few of these together and pretty soon, other characters should start to sort of come into focus. To start this off, you take a character, like the aforementioned Tom Tom the Piper's Son, and give him a set of characteristics. Is he a hard worker? Does he like being told what to do? Why does he slink around Mary Mary's bedroom window in the late evenings?
Then take another character: "Mr. Nesbitt is a hard worker and believes that honest work and hard work are one and the same. He doesn't take shortcuts and doesn't think well of those who do. Also, Mr. Nesbitt used to be a pretty happy guy until his wife, the love of his life, took sick and died three winters ago. Now, Mr. Nesbitt's lost that joie de vivre and is a little bit angry also at the local healer, who, through no fault of her own, wasn't there to tend to poor Mrs. Nesbitt and keep her from dying.
You take a paragraph or two for each character that you know you're going to be using for conversations and bit parts (just like a play or a movie) and develop a little something about them if they are going to be something more than mere window dressing.
4) Putting them in the same room. This takes a bit of creative imagination when it comes to this part. You have two or three characters you've made up and now they're in the same room. Try to imagine how they would respond to each other and to a PC when the obvious questions and answers are to be bandied about. This will give you ideas about how to establish banter between characters (including companions and henchmen to the PC(party) as well as how they might interact in a cutscene conversation the PC observes on first meeting them.
Once you can establish this sort of basic character template, the dialogue *(at least for me) will almost write itself. The trick here, I guess, is placing yourself into each character's role for a bit and considering how they might respond in any given situation. This can be pretty hard to do sometimes, but I honestly feel anyone can do this if they can let go and just 'pretend' for a few minutes without being self concsious about it.
(As an interesting note, Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, would storm around his room and act out and speak his characters' dialogue and actions when he got stuck for what came next. He literally lived and acted out his adventures while writing them.)
5) Take notes. In the words of Stan Lee, 'nuff said there.
dunniteowl
(junior thespian stage actor, stagehand, stage crafter and one time temporary director of a play.)
#6
Posté 23 décembre 2010 - 10:25
Ingthar
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Krozam wrote...
Many of them do some things right, but I have yet to play a mod that does EVERYTHING right dialogue-wise. That's probably because doing everything right would require insane amounts of work.
Sigh. Sad but true, it's impractical.
But to give a hint, as requested, in my humble opinion you should offer at least different replies in dialogs. Those may but do not need to lead to different trunks of your dialog tree. Just give the player the vision of a different outcome. This is highly practical and most of your players (who just play the module once) won't notice it.
About making characters, you may want to focus on motivation and opportunity first (remember many a thriller where the detective checks both for any suspect). Mix in some history, as mentioned by PJ156, and you get a fleshed out NPC or companion easily.
And if you use companions, just give them some standard dialogs so the PC gets to know them, and, as mentioned before, some interjection in other dialogs.
By these simple rules the characters will come to live without too much work on your side.
#7
Guest_Chaos Wielder_*
Posté 24 décembre 2010 - 01:21
Guest_Chaos Wielder_*
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There has been quite a bit of good advice thus far(I guess NWN2 modders are frustrated writers, as if there were any other kind).
In any case, I think what many games miss are "intimate" moments with characters. No, not when the chain mail bikini drips slightly, her tepid, nubile form becoming visible if only for a fleeting, breathless, moment...what were we talking about? Oh, characters. I mean this: many times characters are 'called' upon to speak by the player at specific sections and, well, that's it. Their life is those few moments when their boss called(reminds me of a job I once had). So, consider having your character say something revealing--not *too* revealing--and go from there. Maybe you 'rest' and, right as you're shuffling back to being awake, you see them tidying up a prayer shawl. That says so much about who they are--religious, not ostentatious about it, and considerate of your schedule, also willing to take time out of their break to do their duty--without you or them ever having to "say" anything at all.
Also, I *highly* recommend faux-dialogs between characters and yourself. Euun the wolf became who he was by talking to me over a bitter cup of coffee(it was a magical, albeit cold, morning).
In any case, I think what many games miss are "intimate" moments with characters. No, not when the chain mail bikini drips slightly, her tepid, nubile form becoming visible if only for a fleeting, breathless, moment...what were we talking about? Oh, characters. I mean this: many times characters are 'called' upon to speak by the player at specific sections and, well, that's it. Their life is those few moments when their boss called(reminds me of a job I once had). So, consider having your character say something revealing--not *too* revealing--and go from there. Maybe you 'rest' and, right as you're shuffling back to being awake, you see them tidying up a prayer shawl. That says so much about who they are--religious, not ostentatious about it, and considerate of your schedule, also willing to take time out of their break to do their duty--without you or them ever having to "say" anything at all.
Also, I *highly* recommend faux-dialogs between characters and yourself. Euun the wolf became who he was by talking to me over a bitter cup of coffee(it was a magical, albeit cold, morning).
#8
Posté 26 décembre 2010 - 11:05
M. Rieder
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Thanks everyone for answering with such excellent advice. I am already applying it and I'm starting to feel more comfortable with my characters and conversations.
@Chaos Wielder
what would be an example of a faux-dialogue?
@Chaos Wielder
what would be an example of a faux-dialogue?
#9
Guest_Chaos Wielder_*
Posté 27 décembre 2010 - 12:20
Guest_Chaos Wielder_*
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I mean you talking with your own character. Like, pretend you invited them over to hang out or have dinner. What would they say? How would they react to knowing they're going to have lasagna? These are, for the most part, trivial investigations on your part, but they help develop the character to a more meaningful and pronounced level.
#10
Posté 27 décembre 2010 - 01:59
Shaughn78
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The best way to help develope the companion's personality and character is to scrap the SOZ party chat. It does have it's uses, but in my opinion those uses should be very sparse. As soon as you let the player make any of the companions dialog choices you are esentially sucking out the companion's personality and soul.
The player may be able to influence the companions conversation choices, but should never be able to select what they say. It would be a very complex system that would allow all the companions to have different conversation options in a SOZ party chat without choices conflicting with their personalities.
Using conversations are the best way to bring companions alive and add personalities to them. Have them interupt conversations, talking to both the player, the NPCs and even each other. This will create a lot of conditions and drop throughs, but the end product will be worth it. From different post I have found, a lot of players will not always take the time to go through the companion's conversations or go back and check it for updates based on the story. Having the companions jump into conversations or having triggers start conversations between the player and other companions is a good way to get your companion information out.
Many post have already emtioned the need for a back story. The more important they are, the more developed their history should be. Most of the time the history of a NPCs will never be revealed to the player. Little bits and pieces may show up in conversation, but it's main use will be helping you to create the NPCs responses.
DNO mentioned characters without characters, point #1. You create an area and we have these cookie cutter roles to fill: healer or priest, arcane merchant, smith etc. I would challange you to remove one of these roles if it doesn't necessarily fit the area or the curent story. As you are building an area and creating the characters if you get to one and you just can't get a story of why they are there, or how they fit in with the rest, don't force them in. That character doesn't belong and leaving them out will break the standard mold a bit but it will also create a more interesting area and story .
The player may be able to influence the companions conversation choices, but should never be able to select what they say. It would be a very complex system that would allow all the companions to have different conversation options in a SOZ party chat without choices conflicting with their personalities.
Using conversations are the best way to bring companions alive and add personalities to them. Have them interupt conversations, talking to both the player, the NPCs and even each other. This will create a lot of conditions and drop throughs, but the end product will be worth it. From different post I have found, a lot of players will not always take the time to go through the companion's conversations or go back and check it for updates based on the story. Having the companions jump into conversations or having triggers start conversations between the player and other companions is a good way to get your companion information out.
Many post have already emtioned the need for a back story. The more important they are, the more developed their history should be. Most of the time the history of a NPCs will never be revealed to the player. Little bits and pieces may show up in conversation, but it's main use will be helping you to create the NPCs responses.
DNO mentioned characters without characters, point #1. You create an area and we have these cookie cutter roles to fill: healer or priest, arcane merchant, smith etc. I would challange you to remove one of these roles if it doesn't necessarily fit the area or the curent story. As you are building an area and creating the characters if you get to one and you just can't get a story of why they are there, or how they fit in with the rest, don't force them in. That character doesn't belong and leaving them out will break the standard mold a bit but it will also create a more interesting area and story .
#11
Posté 27 décembre 2010 - 02:26
Krozam
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Yes, I agree about the SoZ party chat. It's useful because it allows you to make full use of your companions' skills, but it does make it a lot more difficult to give the companions their own personalities. I'm not sure what the tehnical limits of the old dialogue system are, but it'd be neat if it were possible to have the companions use their strong skills in conversation either automatically (after the PC fails his own skill check?) or at the PC's suggestion.
#12
Posté 27 décembre 2010 - 02:30
kamalpoe
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I had a bunch of relevant stuff I'd posted in another thread. cutting and pasting:
My companions all have written out backstories I developed for them. The backstory doesn't all show up ingame. But when the npc is fleshed out to that degree, as a writer you know them in a way. Once you know the person, they're usually not that hard to write. Laisera has a "one note" personality because she's well, psychotic. As a result anything you ask her about is filtered through this note.
Other companions are more nuanced. They have multiple themes and how they feel about a particular issue depends on which theme it might touch on. For instance Kvas the gnome is a chaotic evil theif. Since he grew up in the Beggar's Nest post OC he blames heroes and do gooders for his impoverished status, the Nest being left to fend for itself while more vital parts of the city got rebuilt. He also hates the gnome stereotype that they're all at least slightly insane (seriously, has an important npc gnome ever been played on the level in any DnD computer game). He spent enough time at the brothel in the Beggar's Nest the madam knows him by name, making him very mysoginistic. Despite that, he has a strong family connection and cares for his mother and younger sister (his father died in the war against the King of Shadow), despite the fact that his younger sister is a good aligned innocent. As a throwaway detail, go to the right places and it's revealed he's addicted to the drug Black Lotus (though there is no ingame effects of this).
Kvas and the themes in play:
At one point you can meet a middle aged female gnome who needs your help for something that's probably beneath your care. If you refuse to help, Kvas will step in and insist you help because the gnome reminds him of his mother (family theme). If you let him insult adventurers you meet, he will almost invariably make crude remarks about any females in the group or do the same if you ask him about a female party member (mysoginistic theme) . Later on when you get the stronghold he insists to the majordomo of the stronghold that something is done for his mother and sister (family theme again). He tends to spout off about gnomes and stereotypes as well.
A brief example from another companion: the half orc Mu'tasin. One of his themes is his heritage. Raised by orcs, he's sensitive about his heritage since he was an outcast in the tribe because of it but not really accepted in human society either (heritage theme). Theme in play: In one quest, the questgiver suggests you stop an orc soldier who is in love with a human to stop things. Before you can accept or say no, Mu'tasin flat out decks the questgiver for suggesting such a thing is unnatural.
Once the npc is developed enough, how they think and react writes itself, they become "real" people. Obviously this level of detail is only needed for major npc's and the larger the mod the more this needs to be done. No need to write out a backstory for 'potion merchant'. 'Potion merchant' may not even need a trait at all, and if you decide to given them one it's usually a one note thing like hating elves or something.
My companions all have written out backstories I developed for them. The backstory doesn't all show up ingame. But when the npc is fleshed out to that degree, as a writer you know them in a way. Once you know the person, they're usually not that hard to write. Laisera has a "one note" personality because she's well, psychotic. As a result anything you ask her about is filtered through this note.
Other companions are more nuanced. They have multiple themes and how they feel about a particular issue depends on which theme it might touch on. For instance Kvas the gnome is a chaotic evil theif. Since he grew up in the Beggar's Nest post OC he blames heroes and do gooders for his impoverished status, the Nest being left to fend for itself while more vital parts of the city got rebuilt. He also hates the gnome stereotype that they're all at least slightly insane (seriously, has an important npc gnome ever been played on the level in any DnD computer game). He spent enough time at the brothel in the Beggar's Nest the madam knows him by name, making him very mysoginistic. Despite that, he has a strong family connection and cares for his mother and younger sister (his father died in the war against the King of Shadow), despite the fact that his younger sister is a good aligned innocent. As a throwaway detail, go to the right places and it's revealed he's addicted to the drug Black Lotus (though there is no ingame effects of this).
Kvas and the themes in play:
At one point you can meet a middle aged female gnome who needs your help for something that's probably beneath your care. If you refuse to help, Kvas will step in and insist you help because the gnome reminds him of his mother (family theme). If you let him insult adventurers you meet, he will almost invariably make crude remarks about any females in the group or do the same if you ask him about a female party member (mysoginistic theme) . Later on when you get the stronghold he insists to the majordomo of the stronghold that something is done for his mother and sister (family theme again). He tends to spout off about gnomes and stereotypes as well.
A brief example from another companion: the half orc Mu'tasin. One of his themes is his heritage. Raised by orcs, he's sensitive about his heritage since he was an outcast in the tribe because of it but not really accepted in human society either (heritage theme). Theme in play: In one quest, the questgiver suggests you stop an orc soldier who is in love with a human to stop things. Before you can accept or say no, Mu'tasin flat out decks the questgiver for suggesting such a thing is unnatural.
Once the npc is developed enough, how they think and react writes itself, they become "real" people. Obviously this level of detail is only needed for major npc's and the larger the mod the more this needs to be done. No need to write out a backstory for 'potion merchant'. 'Potion merchant' may not even need a trait at all, and if you decide to given them one it's usually a one note thing like hating elves or something.
Modifié par kamalpoe, 27 décembre 2010 - 02:31 .
#13
Posté 27 décembre 2010 - 07:23
M. Rieder
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This is all very good advice. I'm still listening if anyone else has any.
