The main character, I’ve found, is the hardest for people to be able to design. The main reasoning behind this is that everyone wants to make their main character so unique, so different, and so badass that people will want to worship him. As Kyle_Katarn pointed out in my last tip, this is very difficult, in fact damn near impossible. Well, that’s half right. It’s very difficult to impossible to do if you’re going in with the wrong mindset. Do not go in trying to make a character who is an elite badass emo with a heart of gold. Do not go in trying to make a character of pure chivalry who does as he’s told until it starts to conflict with his moral conscience that makes him go against the people who gives him his commands for the greater good. And for god sakes do NOT go into it wanting to make Cloud from FF7, because he was a bad idea from the start and still IS a bad idea.
*cough* Anywho, the ideal main character is one that is HUMAN. You know, the dominant species of our planet. The people who are never perfect from the start and actually have to live and learn and grow. Even if the character is already supposed to be well developed, you still have to do this. In fact, it makes it harder, because that means you have to develop and already developed character. It’s kind of like telling a 50 year old man to grow up. But this case is usually when this already developed character will often be in the wrong, and his development will lead him to be in the right eventually, and face down the evil at the end of the game.
The first thing you need for your character is basic concept. This is the concept that is involved with the story premise: “[XXXX] is a young man/woman who, after (blah blah blah) must (blah blah blah).” We’ll use an example of my own. Young man, about twenty-four in age, short brown hair, blue jeans, black shirt, sawd off shotgun for a weapon. The world is post-apocalyptic, so he wont exactly be a happy-go-lucky person. Most would expect me to make him pessimistic about the world’s shape. This time, no. He wont be happy or sad. He’ll be…content. He is content with the world’s current state and tries to live his life as he wants. We shall name him: Alexander.
Now, Alexander is so far off to a good start. Now what we need is a background story that coincides with his personality. “Alexander was born into the world as it is now, so it is all he’s ever known (which explains why he’s content with it). He grew up hunting monsters outside the city with his father. He learned from a young age that the monsters outside the city were too fast and too strong to take down at TOO close of a range. So he decided upon a rarely used but very powerful Sawd Off Shotgun, because it’s mid range, and has a lot of power, able to blow off limbs at a certain range unless the area is armored. After turning eighteen, he left his hometown to wander the world, and see what is has to offer, returning every year on his birthday to see his parents.”
Alexander’s starting to seem like a pretty real person. Now we need the game’s story. What makes him to what he must do. His motivation, and etc. Let’s think of a nice story that drives him. Maybe he wants to become a great wanderer, known for exploring the world and mapping out areas once unknown to the world. Or maybe his parents are killed by some kind of psycopath that has a higher goal in mind. For the road less traveled (successfully), we’ll go with the former. This actually gives us a good choice of gameplay execution, but that’s for another tip. Now, let’s see what we have.
“Alexander is a young man who strives to be the worlds most famous explorer. Froma young age, he always wondered what was beyond the desert horizon that surrounded his town and so far only showed him monsters of great terror and power. There is still so much we have forgotten about our world, since it was so long ago that it was destroyed. Alexander wants to reach the corners of the globe and eventually become famous for a discovery. Maybe, the discovery of what happened to our world.”
People always tell me that I create some awesome stories and characters. You all just read what goes on in my mind when I create these stories and characters.