How do you make your character iconic?

[Zoltar]

So you guys are as close to professional game makers as I'm likely to see so let me ask. How do you make people like your characters enough to emulate them, want to make Waifu's of,  and or dress up like them? Like them so much they'll pay 50$ a pop for a figurine??  TELL ME THE SECRET!.... Please?

[drenrin2120]

They have to be relatable. They have to have motivations, emotions, and flaws. They have to behave like breathing, thinking human beings.

Character development is hard, it's something I've struggled with since forever. This also falls more under story-telling and writing then purely game-dev theory, though there is a slant you could take or consider when creating playable characters. Meaning, there are different ways to write characters depending on where and how they are being represented. Regardless, I'll talk about just basic character theory, as I understand it. A good character needs to be well-written regardless of the media format they are represented in, seems redundant enough, right? I've spent lots of time writing background stories for characters. Background stories that may never be talked about in whatever story they are presented in. I do this in an attempt to really get to know the character and their motivations, their reasons for their actions. I don't know if this is good or bad advice, probably debatable, but I go into developing a character with the idea that as I write, the story, the setting, the people they interact with, will tell me about them. I do not go into it trying to force or shoe-horn in things that I want, personalities, tendencies, attitudes, patterns of behavior. No, these things must come naturally, and the character can tell you a lot about themselves if you ask the obvious questions and move on to more complicated subject matter. There are basic things you do have control over when writing a character. Such as age, race, gender, height, appearance, hair color, etc,.etc,. Of course, depending on how strict you want to be, even those things might be dependent more on where they come from in the world they reside in. Taking these basic facts we can say something as simple as, "Since as long as our hero Alex can remember, he has always wanted to be a soldier."

A pretty benign fact about our example character.

So you go through this process of asking yourself probing questions such as, "Why has he always wanted to be a soldier? Was his family poor or wealthy? Maybe they were more like semi-wealthy merchants? What are his siblings like? Is he educated? What kind of society does he live in? What kinds of people have influenced him through out his life?" Almost as if you're interviewing them. How would they respond? Why would they respond in the way they do respond? Would they respond at all? If they did, what would they say?

In this manner, characters can tell you more about them then you can just make up on the spot. Of course... you still have leeway to make things up. Obviously, the character isn't literally going to respond with all the answers as to why they're so awesome and memorable. But framing character development this way might help you in the creative process - a sort of guide. It has helped me before, when I find myself in creative slumps, to push through and come up with new ideas about characters that weren't immediately obviously without sitting down and wondering about their past. It also creates continuity, so your characters feel more natural. Their progression as human beings feels real and believable. Where they come from, how they feel and why they feel that way... it all seem more natural and... well, relatable.

Being able to relate to a character is the easiest way to create memorable characters. But also, as the writer, you have the ability to create situations which make the audience feel a certain way about a character. A good writer can use this to their advantage and manipulate the audience. A good writer can make the audience loathe an otherwise sympathetic character, or vice versa, if they so choose. Take the novel Ethan Frome. When I read this in highschool, I ****ing hated the two protagonists, Ethan and Mattie. I thought they were whining, sniveling idiots who should have just stopped bemoaning their situations and found a way to run off and elope with each other already. "Enough! Get on with it! Take this 100+ page novel and water it down to about five paragraphs. Done!" I also didn't understand the story at the time, so I'm not sure if that example counts as the author purposefully misleading the audience. But when I returned to the book in college I saw the tragedy in the story and I felt, for the first time, real empathy for Ethan and Mattie. I felt sympathy for them. I gave a **** about what happened to them, so when the terrible thing at the end of the book happened, I felt something. I felt sad. More importantly, I studied the way the characters were written by the author. They were purposefully portrayed in a confusing way. For instance, Mattie Silver's appearance is never fully described in the book. She's always obscured by shadows or behind curtains, windows, walls, or looking down. Her face is never depicted. And that was entirely on purpose. And then we realize Mattie is only ever described from Ethan's point of view. We only ever get his perspective. And suddenly, a simple story or forbidden love in a poor mountain village becomes more mysterious, it has hidden angles and depth.

Characters that don't elicit a reaction from the audience are badly written characters. It doesn't have to be sadness. It can be any emotion, it just has to be something. It can even be annoyance, but be careful, characters can be overwritten. Those types of characters become cliches and tropes. They are worse than unrelatable characters. They are worse than badly written characters. The audience can be lead to hate a character, but they should never hate a character because they find them annoying, useless, or hindering to the over all story. Easy example: Jar Jar Binks.

Nobody likes that fuckin' prick.

Heroes and heroines are often written from sympathetic points of view. Which creates interesting moral dilemmas on the part of the audience. For example, and this is kind of a crap example, Walter White from breaking bad was an easy character to feel bad for in the beginning of the series. He had terminal cancer, his family was falling apart, his son was crippled, he was in severe debt... So the audience feels bad for him. He seems like a nice guy, so we forgive him when he does otherwise terrible things... until he starts becoming a megalomaniac and then... Bam! He's suddenly the antagonist. He's not sympathetic. We don't like him. He's the one driving the conflict for our new sympathetic protagonist, Jessie. Or was Walter White really the antagonist the entire time? I like Breaking Bad because it makes the audience question why they ever forgave Walter White for some of the horrible things he did in the first place. It's also super-awesome sauce character development. Which brings me to my last point.

Character development is god damn important. It's a simple concept, through out the story, each character changes or doesn't change from who they were in the beginning. It can be a subtle change, or it can be drastic. When people experience new things, it changes them, this has to be reflected in the story arc. As basic as it is, I think this can be the most difficult part of writing a good story.

I don't know if I'm just rambling at this point, but I love this kind of stuff. I am also no expert, so I would suggest reading up on professional writers and learning the theory they practice. Point in case, writing a story doesn't happen without characters. Characters tend to drive stories forward and if you want lovable protagonists and memorable love-to-hate villains, you must remember this. Your audience is not stupid, they can tell when a plot is being forced, when the characters' decisions don't make sense, when things happen seemingly without consequence or without the main characters acting as a force that pushes the plot forward. Telling a story is a complicated machine with multiple moving parts that threaten to collide and smash eachother to bits at any moment. Getting it to flow smoothly and coherently is where the skill of great writers lies.

This can often be a problem when making RPGs because each character has to have a reason to stay in the party. They also have to serve a purpose. If characters are joining the main party for seemingly odd or benign reasons and then end up sticking around, risking life and limb to fight monsters and dangerous bosses who's existence rends no consequence to them, while never filling any plot roles... why exactly are they there again? And why should the player care about them? What other stories, shows, books, or movies, have character parties like this? Not really any. Most complex narratives have multiple different story arcs occurring at the same time. RPGs are unique because right from the get-go, they force you to break one of these rules I just outlined; not forcing the story on the character.

Also, don't be intimidated, even though you will be intimidated. It's daunting stuff, nothing but time and practice can make you better, and you'll always feel like you're not good enough, but that's okay. If you ever feel like you've 'made it' or you just fuckin' dandy at whatever you're doing in life - if you ever feel you are beyond criticism - I'm sorry to inform you, but you've become a pretentious dick and nobody likes you.


So yeah! Uh... long *** rant is long. Sorry. I hope this is of some help, and as I said, I love this kind of stuff, so feel free to ask any question you want and I'll see if I can be of any help or atleast point you in the right direction.

[Prpl_Mage]

Dren pretty much covered it.

Simplified though: If your crowd is people watching anime then the requirements are pretty low. They can be any type of Mary sue with DDD cups and a silly personality. For some reason people like that. If it's fancy and can kill stuff, game.

Otherwise in videogames the character needs to be good, as in you want to use it. Otherwise they will most likely be forgotten just like that. The most memorable characters are the ones that stood out in battle and in the story. Like Vivi in FFIX, he's basically just a FF1 black mage when it comes to the design, but you will remember that little fella.

And when it comes to cosplay and figurines, well their looks need to kinda match the recipient's taste. You won't find a lot of people dressing out in an ugly outfit just because they like the character or buy an ugly figurine. Likewise, people will hopefully not dress like Ivy from soul calibur if they don't usually walk around in corsets and high heels. Or maybe that gives them an excuse... Hmm. Anyway, when it comes to female popularity among males, well the amount of exposed skin is usually the deciding factor at least.