How to work with a lot of characters?

I know this is technically for writing and what I'm talking about is this idea of a game I've been working with for years but this is more or less the story aspect of it.

In my game/story/whatever I have a lot of characters. 50+(30 playables/protagonists, 21 antagonists, and a few optional encounters) and with how I want the game to be, I want to encourage people to play with all the characters as well as optional development for all of them but this is for the main story.

In your opinion, how would you deal with a lot of characters? I know a lot of people I talk to end up saying "There is no potential for this to work" and even go as far as saying that I need to utterly forget and scrap the entire idea due to the character length. Like since this is supposed to be a game, I believe I can get more freedom to how the story would be but still, would like to know how you people here would deal with this.

How would you all deal with this issue?

Either don't have a lot of characters or get more than one writers.

Seriously, there's a physical limit on how many characters a writer can work with.

Pared down to basics, I'd say that the first step is to start getting organized. Fifty characters is a dizzying amount to work with, game or otherwise; if you don't keep an eye on everyone, then the whole thing might fall apart.

So figure out everything you can as efficiently as you can. For example, a game like Chrono Cross also had a huge amount of playable characters, but some were vastly more important than others. I'm guessing that you know who the biggest movers-and-shakers are in your game, so prioritize them. Do as much as you can to flesh them out, and make sure that they've earned the right to take center stage.

After that? Divide, and divide, and divide again. Break off characters into categories, so you can keep track of them all and make the differentiation process a little easier. Again, Chrono Cross kept its characters separate by way of elemental attributes, so you could do the same if your game allows it. If not, separate by classes. Separate by skills. Separate by traits. Gender. Age. Nationality. Alignment. Role in the plot. There's no wrong way to do it, but getting as much sorted out as you can may help in the long run.

Of course, it's the execution that matters most. Now, if my understanding of Fire Emblem (such as it is) holds water, then working with a huge cast means that you probably won't have the time or resources to develop every character in full. That's kind of a problem, but not a deal-breaker; it just means that you have to know what you're going to do with which character, and — more importantly — know how to get the most out of him/her/it in a short amount of time. It'll be up to you to add some flair to each character, though (again) there's no wrong way to do it. You'll just have to consider each character individually, figure out what can be brought to the table — plot-wise, design-wise, entertainment-wise, whatever — and then make sure that even the shortest amount of time is worthwhile for an audience.

I don't envy anyone who decides to take on so much at once, but I respect your ambition. Good luck on your end; you just might need it.

Well at least I'm getting better responses than I last talked about this to people. Usually I get quite a bit of negative/hateful comments so this is a nice change of pace regarding the character amount.

Are you certain you need 30 player characters? 21 antagonists I can imagine, but do you have all the 30 mapped out and are you certain they're all distinct enough so that your players wouldn't say "oh, it's just character XYZ in different clothes/with different hair" several times?

If 30 characters it is, I would say peek a handful - say, 10 - of your "main" players and have other 20 be unlockables that you can then go with through stages already passed with the main 10. If that's not applicable, divide them into herds and have not 30 people, but, say, 6 Five Man Bands each with its own storyline.

You can also make every storyline "path" separate, so that if players love team A and like C and D, but hate B, they can play through A first, then go over C and D and leave B alone completely. This way, completing all storylines would not be a (tedious for some) requirement, but something for people who either like all plots or want to achieve 100% completion.

If you want to keep all 30 in one place, then the only genre I can see this working in would be RTS or other strategic kind of game, because that's simply the only one when the player would have high enough "vantage point" to manage them all.

edited 28th Jan '16 8:17:01 AM by Kakai

The whole 30 character is for gameplay purposes since you are supposed to make a party of 6 of them and yeah, gameplay-wise the characters are supposed to be different. I did make the story for them first but I feel like I can find some way to develop most of them to an extent, even if it's say... optional sidequests or as a friend of mine suggested, "Different characters will react to different areas or scenes" as a way to flesh them out. And none of these 30 characters will be optional as you'll eventually get them all before the end.

Though this brings up one issue: Story versus Gameplay here. Though given how this is the "Writer's block" the story is the number one priority for feedback here and stuff. I did go with someones suggestion a while back of picking a "core" group and develop them and everyone else the player can optionally trigger the character development for. Just an idea there but something that sounds decent to start off with.

If you're supposed to just chose 6 out of 30, then the "easiest" way would probably be to flesh each and every single one of them with some personality and story, and then simply figure out how they'd interact with each other... which means that you have, uhm, 435 interactions to map out... which looks like a lot, but hey, 30 characters. It's basically this: you have to figure out who your characters are and how they act, then present the opportunity for them to join the party and figure out and program what their relations with the rest of the group would be regardless of who the player decides to travel with.

That is an undertaking I would be willing to try out and in a way, it could also be fun doing all of these character interactions together.

Ignore dRoy. Any writer with enough determination can do anything with their own writing, and make sure they're doing it in a great but enjoyable way.

But I recommend having certain character herds, even though you can change these parties up, character herds for their in-canon interactions can work well. Or at least groups of friends, or like, partners. This can work well with making sure everyone is balanced, personality-wise. The loners can be done right too, but don't make everyone a loner(unless you really want to).

You should also try to make sure everyone has certain tics/habits, or something unique to them. Characters should have certain types of humor, or none at all, some sort of personality, likes, dislikes, and etc. Make your characters people, not puppets(unless they're a puppet, in which case, make them a people puppet, but not a puppet puppet, unless they're a puppet puppet, in which case, they're probably not an important character, or even a character at all).

There is no limit to your imagination outside of what you're willing to do. Organize their roles, but make sure their personalities are messy. By this, I mean, make sure everyone is different, but people can share similarities. You can have two characters like puns, but you should acknowledge that they both like puns, and maybe show them interacting with eachother because of this.

I also know its a video game, or a video game concept, but try to think of these characters as characters that can fit in anything, because that's what a good character can do. Also, be sure that unless this is a comedic game, everyone has a comedic and serious side.

But, if you don't want a character to be comedic, you don't have to, but that serious side should be universal for all fifty characters. There can be exceptions, but more often than not, a good character needs something that can be taken seriously.

But yeah, this is just what I think. Don't overwork yourself, but make sure you love everything you're making. Don't make fifty characters because you need to make fifty characters, make fifty characters because you want a huge group of amazing people in this awesome experience. Sounds cliche, I know, but its true, most good writers should love their own work.

Here's how you do 50 characters, don't, and i don't mean that in a smug way. I mean don't write all 50 at once.

Think of it this way, marvel has hundreds of characters but they don't all show up in a comic at once. instead you have teams, and the teams may interact with each other, and characters may splinter off to interact with other teams, or just people from other teams thus reducing 50 people to manageable groups for character growth and story telling.

so chapter one you talk about team, A,chapter two Team B, chapter three, team A and D against antagonist C, and so on. The best part of this is if people don't like say team A, you can push them out of the lime light and focus on Team B.

With how I'm doing it with my game I'm separating it by a few "Scenarios" where there's three/four main PO Vs that you go through until all of them are together. That would be like the first half of it I imagine.

Not sure if that'd be effective but at least during the whole scenario it'll put a focus on the group of characters there.