All the characters I write contain elements that I love encountering in games when I play, so playing my games is, in some ways, a tour of character archetypes I like, haha! I’ve probably said some of these before, but:
- Characters who are ambitious but hapless
- Con artists, spies, deceit; uncovering layers beneath an external facade
- Characters who are glamorous and indolent - maybe they have some inner pain going on or maybe not
- Someone with an intense live-fast-die-young attitude (though without, well, actual death - though maybe the risk of it!)
- The weirdo4weirdo dynamic mentioned over here… and pretty much all of that post really
- Something where two NPCs are bound together for whatever reason (magic, unusual upbringing, debt, intense friendship etc). Each romanceable individually, but the other one is still prominent in the romanceable one’s life. (This is probably so specific that I will do it myself at some point.)
- Characters who are parents or caretakers, especially if they’re romanceable
- Characters who are committed to a cause, work, or person to the detriment of other aspects of their life (if the cause is a not-great one that they can be persuaded from or leaned into as a power couple, that’s cool too)
- Characters who are lying to themselves about something but don’t realise it
- a relationship, romantic or otherwise, where an NPC and PC can be equal parts of a team, whether that’s being a kickass power duo, mutually having each other’s backs in an emotionally supportive way, or some other dynamic
- less of an archetype, more something on the wishlist, but characters who have gone through some life or work changes before the game starts, so there is a strong sense of their previous life (this could mean characters in their mid 20s or older, or might just mean a younger character who’s gone through something notable)