As my specialty is mainly fantasy based, I will be mostly focusing on this genre for my first design. To start this project, I will be going through each step of what they are going to use, who they are, their specialty and segments of their life that will have a big impact on their behaviour. As they are going to be a main character for a wide opportunity for a storyline in game I will be going in depth with these details, where in most games they are fairly basic for example instead of a feature being listed as ‘Sexuality: straight’ I will be going more in depth about why this point matters to the character as it can affect interactions with others. Once I have these details I will then be focusing on writing the backstory by using the details I have as notes to show what places in their time line that came into effect then from that possible outcomes that they could have within the game as future references of how they play out if they were to live from the point the backstory ended.
The creation of this character was made based on the information written for a fantasy table top game called Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, from this game there is a wide range of stories, people, equipment, lands and creatures that have been developed for people to take this material word for word or as inspiration to create something of their own. For myself I am both a player of other people’s creations and upcoming Dungeon/Game master of my own with a title I call “A Deadman’s Last Word’s” where I take people through a world that is in corruption of a powerful force that controls people secretly in the shadows influencing many lives of others to get what they want. The idea of this game is to take my players through my world to uncover its secrets and rid the world of this evil while working together with a group of people who are spread throughout the world looking for sources of information to stop them.
For this character I am looking to create them to take the players on an additional rout where they could potentially make the world worse or better depending on their choices. It will also be an opportunity to ether have them as a main character they interact with throughout or one of the members can choose to play as them if they wish.
Image ref: https://ddb.ac/characters/28303838/TaH1EB - Created by me
From the development of this character there will be a product created for people to use 100% no matter what happens to them as D&D is all about choice in how you play. Things may stay the same or people may choose to edit some parts to best fit their own world if they wish. The way they are also played can also be changed for example, I have provided an example image of the character sheet from D&D beyond, which is a site to create encounters for battle, create character sheets and a place where all the information from the books can be found and with this feature and this document to support the online sheet it will be the main focus of this production.
Future production may be designed for printable use like shown above.
Image ref: Tabletop Simulator by Berserk Games - Available on Steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator/
For the secondary function of this character will be the art of their design to show off how I envisioned them as a person with a range of concept drawings of how they will look. From this they could also be imported into a game such as Tabletop Simulator where some people such as myself host sessions of dungeons & dragons digitally online so that way it can allow people to connect from other places in the world or save on travel as this game can also be played in our real world. From the image I have provided these characters can be placed within the game by use of image or as an Untextured/textured 3D character piece which has to be compatible with the Unity engine for it to work.
Here I have provided an image of more figures that Tabletop simulator supply in game but these ones are unique as they have animations.
Another feature that can be added with these player pieces is that states can be added to allow the use of emotions, outfit changes, colours and even animations that play using 3D models. In the images I have shown an example of how movable pieces work in Tabletop that have been provided by the game developers.
1. Standing still on the board idle
2. When you pick up the character piece, they start to slowly walk
3. When you move them while picking them up, they run
4. As it’s a wizard type, he throws his hand forward symbolising spell casting.
5. The fall to the ground as if they were hit and continue to stay down
6. Ready in a battle pose.
Here I have provided an example of using my own character image of how the states work with images and how I set it up with Trix’s helmet on and off. For now, this will be the type of creation I will be looking into making for the time being.
As for production in the real world a similar game to Dungeons & Dragons is Pathfinder and Warhammer which also uses the same features for their own games and with these, they create a range of character cards, token pieces and minifigures that they sell in packs to people who are interested in playing them. I will be also looking into developing something similar to those who wish to include my character in the game as almost like a DLC package.
Even though I’m currently looking into developing a character that can be used within a table top based fantasy game, there are other ones that are full playthroughs for Video Game based styles that are term based such as Divinity original sin and Baldur’s Gate that are also inspired by D&D. If I ever go through with developing my game further by looking into adding data on UI set ups, control compatibility and game mechanics I can produce it as a full-fledged game and have the character I create for this project as the main driving focus of the game.
Here I will be providing further images from these games to help inspire my work for this project, these could also prove useful in creation of the other characters.
