Chapter 2.22. Emotioneering Techniques Category 22: Revealing Complex Characters Through Their Actions

Chapter 2.22. Emotioneering Techniques Category #22: Revealing Complex Characters Through Their Actions

Talk is cheap and sometimes unnecessary.

This chapter focuses

on giving different facets to your characters, even if they have little or no dialogue in the entire game.

Sometimes you need to be able to portray a character either a character you play or an NPC as being multi-dimensional, even without dialogue. We've already seen how to do this when dialogue is used.

In previous chapters, we've talked at length about giving major NPCs a Character Diamond, which is a colorful combination of three to five Traits. (See Chapter 2.1, "NPC Interesting Techniques.")

We also looked at ways to get a player to identify with a role that has, as part of it, different Traits. (See Chapter 2.19, "Role Induction Techniques.")

One thing to keep in mind, whether the character is an NPC or one controlled by the player, is that the character's different facets or traits can sometimes be conveyed even without words.

This chapter doesn't contain techniques the way the other chapters do, but rather it focuses on applying principals learned elsewhere in the book to characters who don't speak or who rarely speak.