Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering™

Chapter 2.9. Emotioneering Techniques Category #9: NPC Character Arc Techniques

NPCs can grow and change—but hopefully not easily.

This chapter

discusses techniques that, when applied, give an NPC a Character Arc.

Quite often in a film, one or more characters have something wrong with them. More specifically, they start the film with what I call a fear, limitation, block, or wound (FLBW). For example, they:

• Are a coward.

• Are irresponsible.

• Lack ethics.

• Are self-destructive.

• Feel guilty over something they've done.

• Have low self-esteem.

There are a vast array of possible FLBWs.

Let's say the character's FLBW is that he has no idea who he really is as a person. He might have felt this way all his life, or maybe some devastating experience happened to him last ...