Posts belonging to Category Secondary characters
Posted by Ravyn on March 9, 2011
This was inspired by (and, in fact, supposed to be a comment to, before it turned post-length on me) the recent Hathor Legacy article “Pride and Possession”. In it, Gena responds to seeing a debate on whether or not Mother Gothel might not have been so bad after all (I’ll admit, this concept rather scares [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Character image, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Reviews and technique, Secondary characters, Symbolism, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: antagonists, Beauty and the Beast, Characterization, redeemable, responses, roleplaying, Tangled, writing | 
2 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on February 11, 2011
We know all characters need to be differentiated one way or another, but it’s particularly important for antagonists. After all, even in standard fiction, villains drive the story enough that it takes a really spectacular main character to make up for a bad one, and—well, since the protagonist in a game’s been outsourced to the [...]
Categories: Character archetypes, Character creation, Character development, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: antagonists, Characterization, differentiation, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on December 29, 2010
One of the most difficult elements of group dynamics is looking at the connections between characters and other characters’ relationships. After all, it’s not connecting to a tangible thing like another character, it’s doesn’t have the same consistency on the other side of the link as tracking a character’s relationship with the idea of the [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: characters and relationships, connections, group dynamics, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on December 28, 2010
Yesterday, I talked about group dynamics, and how they’re based around several types of connection within a group of characters. Today, I’m going to look more closely on the first and simplest kind of connection, the one that directly connects two characters.
So what sorts of things might connect two characters, either before or after they [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: connections between characters, group dynamics, groups, roleplaying, writing | No Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on December 27, 2010
We often find ourselves creating groups of people who are together for some reason or purpose. Protagonists, antagonists, neutral characters, potential allies, combinations of the above: these groups are all over the place. In order to make them interesting, we can’t just look at them as groups moving in lockstep, nor as sets of individuals [...]
Categories: Character dynamics, Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: character connections, group dynamics, groups, roleplaying, secondary characters, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on October 29, 2010
I talked a lot, a long time ago, about how to choose characters’ names. But what about when the character just plain doesn’t have one?
There are a lot of downsides for a character not having a name. For one thing, it makes it harder for the audience to refer to the character quickly (though to [...]
Categories: Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Names, Nonhuman characters, Player Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: nameless characters, names, roleplaying, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on September 22, 2010
Back in January, I proposed an exercise involving writing plot synopses for the story as it would be seen if centered around one of the secondary characters. At the time, I was mostly thinking about it in terms of caring as much about the secondary characters as the lead, but I’ve found another use for [...]
Categories: Character development, Characterization, Characters in the world, Concepts, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Plot, Secondary characters, Technique, Voice and Style |
Tags: Exercises, perspective, plot, roleplaying, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on August 23, 2010
One of the advantages I’ve always found of tabletop RPGs as compared to console RPGs is the ability to talk to one’s enemies, whether it’s face to face, by distant proxy, even (perhaps especially) in the middle of a battle. In fact, battle banter is one of the few situations in which I will almost [...]
Categories: Character archetypes, Character dynamics, Characterization, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Motivation, Secondary characters, Technique |
Tags: antagonists, conflict, roleplaying, willingness to talk, writing | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ravyn on July 12, 2010
While it may be technically possible in games, being able to completely quantify a character in clean, objective terms is difficult, and in a straight story, it’s next to impossible (and even if it were possible, you’d have to be careful how you did it). So for the most part, characters are often seen in [...]
Categories: Character image, Characterization, Characters in the world, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters, Technique |
Tags: character perceptions, roleplaying, writing, yardstick characters | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ravyn on January 27, 2010
One of the biggest problems people often see with secondary characters is when their creator doesn’t take much of an interest in them. I’m not saying they suddenly need to steal the story, but it helps to spend a little time in their heads, make them more than just caricatures on the page. Empathize with [...]
Categories: Character autonomy, Characterization, Characters in the world, Exercises, For Roleplayers, For Writers, GM Advice, Secondary characters |
Tags: original posts | 1 Comment »