RPG Design For Beginners Vol. 2: Archetypes

Back again for Volume 2. My disclaimer from Volume 1 still applies: I’m no RPG expert, just a guy who’s been doing his best to make one and wanted to write down what I’ve learned so far. (Also, wow, it’s been almost a year since the Vol. 1 post…) Today let’s talk about Character Archetypes. Characters usually play a big role in RPGs. They’re, obviously, a huge part of the fun for a lot of people. There’s a lot of different characters to consider in an RPG: the playable party, the big bosses, the enemies, the shopkeepers, and all sorts of other NPCs. But for this post I’m only going to focus on playable characters and enemies. Instead of trying to think of every character as a bespoke, three-dimensional person with intricate quirks and mechanical depth…it’s easier to start with an archetype you want to aim for first. Then you can build on it later to make it more specific. This archetype will be a combination of their mechanical role (the rules and stats that determine what they do in…