Creating Emotion in Games: The Craft and Art of Emotioneering

Chapter 2.5. Emotioneering Techniques Category #5: Group Interesting Techniques

Get rid of boring aliens and Boy Scouts forever!

This chapter discusses

ways of making groups^[1] groups as small as a squad or as large as a tribe or even an entire culture fascinating and intriguing to the player.

^[1] Here the term "group" refers not to a few friends who might know each other, but instead to any collection of people who have, to some degree, their own distinct, collective identity. "The Celts" are a group, for example, as are "the Marines."

When you create a major NPC, you can make that character interesting by giving him or her a colorful grouping of Traits. The same goes for a group. To make the group interesting, of course, the mixture of Traits has to deviate from expectations and clichès.

Whereas major NPCs usually can't support more than five Traits, a race or a culture or any other group that's been around for a long time can. Even still, to stay consistent, I call these groupings of Traits a "Diamond." I suppose the term "Trait grouping"would be much more accurate, though.