How many characters do you have total in your game?

[Bernkastelwitch]

I saw an older topic I made of me discussing on how to manage an RPG with a lot of party members so I decided to do a slightly different topic to see how others RPGs are like...

If you put together all your party members, Named NPCs, antagonists & Bosses, and even Optional or Sidequest characters, how many characters do you have total in your game? And this can include variations of the same character if you so choose.

I am curious how many named or important or semi-important characters people make in their RPG.

 

[ScorchedGround]

Well... since my game is not finished yet I can't say how many characters there are going to be total.

But I can say that I have about 30 characters that drive most of the story-progression.
(This includes the protagonists you play, the antagonists and all story relevant NPC's)

I doubt that this number will change as I have most of the story planned out by now.

I might add some or even a lot of side-characters though. Not sure yet.

 

[ramza]

In my rm2k game from... oh god, 15 years ago, I have 5 PCs (playable characters), one major big bad, and 3-4 minor villains. Named NPCs... there were a lot. I'd say at least 20, probably higher, but, it's been a loooooong time.

The never finished rm2k3 sequel had 26 PCs, 3 major big bad guys, 2 slightly less major big bad guys, and probably a hundred or more named NPCs, and the world was only 1/6 of the way built, so there was a lot of room for more.

You'll note that I said I never finished the sequel. Let this be a lesson to all: for a one-man project, scope can be a real problem. I always loved huge games with a hundred hours of gameplay and dozens of characters, but I wasn't capable of committing the thousands of hours it takes to build one of those.

 

[gabrieldiastche]

So, in my actual project I am working with only 20 characters I think...
Because the whole story it's only in one city, here is the trailer, you will notice that the trailer basically shows most of the characters that you will have to interact, the other are only to help you achieve the quests and main story plot.

 

[Milennin]

In my first finished game, I'd say around 15 important characters. 3 main characters (+1 secret main character), 2 antagonists, and the rest just NPC's that all play a role in one or multiple quests.

My RM2K3 project has 4 main characters, 3 antagonists and 1 important NPC. The game starts you off in the middle of nowhere hence the low number of characters, despite having several large areas to wander around in. There were going to be a lot more characters, I just never got around finishing it.

RTP doesn't really have any characters. There are 9 playable characters, but they never speak, nor do they have names. The 4 end bosses have unique names, but also never speak, lol.

My MV project currently has 7 playable characters. At least 7 important NPC's, but there's a lot more that are going to be playing a role in something. Also 1 antagonist, so far.

My MZ project has 4 main characters, 1 antagonist (maybe +1 more, later on). And probably leaving it at that. Kind of going minimalist on this one. If I'm adding more, it won't be a huge number.

 

[Renkai141]

If you are looking to balance ur game, it all depends on the character's uniqueness.
If you play a game with 20 characters. let's say it's a battle game, with a division of 5.
5 different tanks, 5 different damage dealers, 5 different supports, 5 different cc ers.
Let's make the roles true for this instance and how complicated your game to be.

1 normal tank(taunts and ****), same one just with magic. A tank that relies on life steal, a tank that does almost to no damage but can prioritize defense, a magical tank(does magical damage type with the utilities of taking hits)

Another example;
Ninja, they do critical hits with multi hits(ur damage dealers). Then u got a mage with magic, then u have your dark knight that can do both magical and physical damage, then ya got your 1 hit wonder kind of type(which is not multi hit its just 1 strong hit style). Then your arrow multi aoe sort of character.
That's just for one instance.

Play around with the types of characters, that's how I like to balance my game. It sets up for an instance of character differences. If you are making a game about running, how different can the characters be? and so forth. The point is; don't have 3 sword users, all be the same with no differences aside from stats. Try to use different kits to further reflect their mental way of doing things and have characters... be characters.

 

[Cythera]

Ah...20? Ish?
4 party members, 2 very powerful side characters you get on your team for short scenes (and for fun), 1 side character that teams up with you for one fight, and her wolf (do animals/monsters count here? If so, that 20 just become 35+ haha). 6 important NPC's. 1 antagonist, 1 sidekick, and 1 pet monster. And 2-3 side NPC's, with me being hesitant to count 1 of them because she just points you in the direction of quests and legendary weapons.
So yes, excluding animals/monsters, around 20 Then a ton of unnamed NPC's that end up with elaborate backstories anyway because I cannot make an NPC without giving them history and dreams and quests - jeesh, I hate making town NPC's...

 

[AdeptusUK]

Just the protagonist!

 

[Icelord888]

Interesting topic, for my game it was arround 50-ish, 5 playable charactares(that may or may not be in your party) 1 very important but absentee character 3 important antagonists with 4 or 5 lesser ones, 3 more important characters 5+ sidequest important characters and well the rest are merchants and immersion fodder.

 

[FirelordMaria]

I have 29 for now.
I only have 4 main playable characters for now (but I'm thinking about adding temporal characters), lots of random NPC's that I haven't counted yet, but only 15 of them are actually important, 3 bosses who are just... Bosses, and 7 villains who actually are important to the plot.

PS: When I was 12 I wanted to make a HUUUUGE game with more than 200 characters, welcome to the boulevard of broken dreams ;-;

 

[Icelord888]

PS: When I was 12 I wanted to make a HUUUUGE game with more than 200 characters, welcome to the boulevard of broken dreams ;-;

Making a game with 200 characters isn't that hard, but even making a quarter of them relevant is hard.

 

[Scribblestick]

Let's see. I have four party members, and that won't change. I have seven named ally NPCs at home base, as well as a handful of unnamed NPCs to flesh out the world. I have three named major antagonists, one named minor antagonist, and a bunch of disposable lackeys. I expect to add one or two more named antagonist a little farther down the road, and a few named characters that only show up from time to time.

 

[bgillisp]

My last game had 11 playable characters. However there are a lot of NPCs, and I got 3 - 6 bosses most chapters (some are monsters), a few key NPC's, some key villains = waaaaay too many to count.

I just know I had 30 in my actor tab of the database as I used that to store critical NPCs and all of the villain names so I didn't mistype them.

 

[stramin]

My project begun with 4 main characters and 2 secondary only, because I wanted to tell a story more than a game...

But the project grew and grew, I was adding more stories, flashbacks, side stories, and including more characters.

Actually my game has 8 main characters, there are 2 extra characters I think will become main characters, if that happens they will be 10 main characters, and I am totally sure I don't going to add more main characters than that.

There are 14 named secondary characters, 6 of them are or were enemies at some point, I know this number will increase because I going to add an extra area soon.

Bosses and Optional/Sidequest characters? I didn't count them, they are a lot!

There are 12 towns and 52 dungueons (counting the new area).

1 Boss each 3 dungueons = 17
1 or 2 hunting prey bosses per dungueon = 52 ?
3 sidequests per town = 36 (but I think I going to remove the most of them)