Posted August 20, 2025 by Martin
How to use a character-driven approach to narrative writing for maximum effect
Silence fills the space station’s command center, broken only by Lord Vader’s approaching footsteps.
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, commander of the Death Star, the most terrifying weapon the galaxy has ever seen, turns to his second-in-command.
“Are they away?”
“They’ve just made the jump into hyperspace.”
Even after all this time, the Sith Lord’s unwavering confidence still sends a chill running down his spine. Tarkin has seen enough battles to know that luck always has a way of turning at the worst moment. Vader’s uncanny ability to bend fate in his favor with seemingly nothing but an impenetrable belief in his own ultimate triumph is an anomaly, albeit one that has benefited the Empire greatly.
Still, the Grand Moff cannot shake his own doubts quite so easily.
“You’re sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship? I’m taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work.”
The imposing figure standing at Tarkin’s side remains silent and motionless, as if such worries aren’t even deserving of acknowledgement.
A nervous cough breaks the silence. Tarkin turns around to face the sensor technician at the station next to them, who, Tarkin notes, is trembling with sheer terror.
“Ah, about that beacon, Grand Moff Tarkin, sir…”
“What is it?” Tarkin snaps.
“Well, sir, it’s, ah… The beacon has stopped transmitting. Sir.”
“How is that possible?”
“I, ah, perhaps they realized there was a homing beacon on their ship and disabled it? Yep, definitely not picking up a signal anymore. Looks like they’re gone. Poof!” The technician mimics a cloud of smoke disappearing with his hands.
Tarkin looks at Vader, fighting to suppress his mounting sense of dread. If the Emperor learns that he has let the princess slip from his grasp…
“Your plan has failed, Lord Vader.”
“The ability to track a spaceship is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”
“And how is that going to lead us to the rebel stronghold?!”
Vader finally moves, turning slowly to face Tarkin. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
As a master strategist, Tarkin knows how to pick his battles, and a direct confrontation with the Emperor’s favorite pet isn’t one he’s eager to fight. But there are other ways to salvage this catastrophe. Already, the pieces on the board are moving, rearranging themselves in the Grand Moff’s mind. Yes, there is a path. It will take patience, and cunning. Thankfully, he is nothing if not clever.
And Grand Moff Tarkin has all the patience in the universe.
In movies, books, and other static storytelling media, characters never have to worry about the heroes of the story going off-script. But in a dynamic narrative, especially in a TTRPG context, things rarely if ever go to plan. One of my favorite aspects of tabletop roleplay is how the world and its characters react to the players, and how the narrative adapts to the choices made at the table. In this blog, we’ll take a look at how you can use characters to both respond to your players’ actions and as narrative devices to create a compelling story.
We’re not going to talk about how to write villains and heroes; that topic alone could fill a book, and in fact, many good ones have been written on the subject. I’m not interested in dissecting the fine art of characterization. But what we will cover here is how to make effective, practical use of allies and adversaries in a dynamic narrative writing context.
We’re talking about dynamic storytelling, so we need to approach characters as dynamic entities that change and adapt to player actions.
Here’s how I approach that idea.
In the previous blog, we took a look at goals and how they fit into dynamic roleplay narratives. Remember, goals drive the story forward. As narrative devices, allies and adversaries affect the story by presenting goals that either interfere or align with the party’s goals. I like to distinguish these by sorting them into two buckets: character-driven goals, and circumstantial goals.
Circumstantial goals are usually focused on the environment or, well, circumstances that aren’t necessarily tied to a particular character’s ambitions (more on ambition and motivation later). For example, if the party’s village has been struck by a deadly disease and the players are sent on a desperate quest to find a cure, that’s a circumstantial goal. It’s not centered on any one particular character, it’s not part of any larger scheme, it’s just a circumstance that requires action.
Character-driven goals, on the other hand, are always attached to a character. A sorcerer’s apprentice making a deal with the players to help him complete his deceased master’s final spell so he can prove himself to the guild of spellwrights, that’s a character-driven goal. What sets character-driven goals apart from circumstantial goals, narratively speaking, is that they put the players either in alignment with or opposition to non-player characters. Sometimes these goals force players to make a choice of who they’re going to side with, reshaping the campaign’s decision space. These can be big goals, like defeating the campaign’s main antagonist, or small goals, like helping a friendly tavernkeep oust some rowdy revelers.
When you’re planning out your campaign’s core quests, it’s a good idea to switch things up every once in a while, going from quests that have character-driven goals to ones that have circumstantial goals. For example, the party needs to find a cure for their village (circumstantial), so they need an alchemist. The alchemist’s son has been kidnapped by a violent potion-skeptic and needs to be rescued (character-driven). To reach the anti-poxxers hideout, the party needs to find a way across the Ghoul Forest (circumstantial). And so on.
Of course, it’s perfectly fine to string a few character-driven goals together followed by a few circumstantial ones, and there’s no strict pattern to adhere to. You’ll develop your own rhythm. I try to have slightly more character-driven goals than circumstantial ones, but that’s simply my own personal preference.
Just like we discussed in the previous blog, whether you’re coming up with circumstantial or character-driven goals, think of how you can make these goals SMART.
When you’re writing narrative-driving characters, you must be mindful of their internal consistency. In a nutshell, this means that the characters should think and act in a way that makes sense and has as few contradictions as possible. Some contradictions are fine; people are messy and complex. But if one of your villains is the Newcastle Puppy Kicker, then it wouldn’t make much sense for that villain to engage in a burglary spree to finance his regular cash donations to a dog rescue.
Characters as narrative drivers work best when they’re highly internally consistent. This allows players to figure out and eventually exploit your characters in a way that aligns with your story, either by making a steadfast ally to help them in their quest or by puzzling together the antagonist’s evil scheme just in time to thwart them.
The point of an internally consistent character is that the goals associated with that character make sense. For example, it would make sense that the Firelord would burn down a forest to flush out the brigands hiding within those woods; it wouldn’t make much sense for him to flood the forest.
I’m not going to go too deep into the complexities of different character archetypes, psychology, characterization, or theme in this blog. That said, I think it’s useful to be able to answer a few key questions about your narrative characters.
Being able to answer these questions will help you set up character-driven goals that don’t break your players’ immersion and won’t come entirely out of left field or seem unrealistic. More importantly, by having a good understanding of their internal world, you also gain a much more interesting and nuanced understanding of how these characters will react to your players’ choices.
Especially for major narrative characters that you’d like to play a big part of your campaign’s plot, I find it useful to work through their SMART characteristics just like I would for a goal. Beyond self-image, ambition, and ideology, this will give you a very concrete idea of what your characters want, how they’re going about getting what they want, and why.
With goals for your players, you want to communicate as much of each goal’s SMART characteristics as possible. But with characters, you should feel free to withhold as much of this as you see fit. For example, your players may never know why the Clockwork Baron made it his mission to inventory all the spoons in his fiefdom, his motivation remaining a weird, unsolved mystery. Sometimes, solving one of those mysteries can become a goal in itself.
This exercise is primarily intended to help solidify your own understanding of the people populating your world so you can sketch out roughly how they will adapt to the narrative as it unfolds and evolves.
For better or worse, having an ally turn into an adversary or an adversary into an ally is a powerful narrative tool. Darth Vader yeeting the Emperor to his death is a moment that’s seared into every Star Wars fan’s brain, as is Shepherd’s shocking betrayal in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In pro wrestling, this is called a heel turn (when a good guy goes bad) or a face turn (when a bad guy joins the good guys).
A common way to initiate a heel turn is by revealing a character’s previous deception. Turns out that informant who’s been feeding the party intel was a double agent this whole time, or the king’s advisor is secretly an apprentice of the evil void wizard, or the ship’s science officer is actually a synth. If your campaign leans on themes such as paranoia and mistrust, this can be very effective, but the element of surprise makes the setup tricky. If you don’t foreshadow the heel turn in some way, it can feel jarring and random; if you telegraph it too obviously, your players won’t be surprised. Players will usually want vengeance or justice after this kind of turn.
Another approach to heel turns is the gradual corruption/slippery slope style. This works well for characters who are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goal, arguing that their noble ends justify any means. These characters usually begin the campaign in full alignment with the players, but gradually their goals diverge until they are in full opposition to the party. Maybe there’s another adversary who is slowly feeding this character with ideas that set them on a path of eventual betrayal. Either way, this type of heel turn works well in campaigns that ask big moral and ethical questions and focus on deep character exploration. Knowing who the character used to be, players may be open to finding ways to redeem the turned character or otherwise bring them back to the party’s side.
The easiest way to pull off a face turn is via the enemy of my enemy, introducing an even greater adversary who is in opposition to both the players and the character you want to turn, placing the party into an uneasy alliance with their former adversary. However, beware of power creep when you introduce the new adversary; they don’t always need to be even bigger and more powerful than the character you want to turn, and if you escalate too much your players will end up fighting god. Which can work with some campaigns, but probably isn’t a great fit all the time. This kind of turn doesn’t require the turned character to necessarily change their ways, and it can maintain a fun bit of tension between the players and their erstwhile opponent, as it’s usually only a matter of time before the character turns against the players again.
Another common turn is the shifting allegiances face turn when an adversary breaks with their own and now seeks an alliance with the players. This could be a result of the character gradually realizing that their goals are misguided, sort of like a reversal of the gradual corruption/slippery slope turn, or it could be revealed that this character was on the party’s side all along, like a reversal of the previous deception turn. This can be an especially satisfying turn when it’s the players precipitating the character’s change, using force or charm to win an adversary over to their cause.
A successfully executed heel/face turn makes for dramatic narrative. A word of caution, though: Don’t add this kind of twist into a narrative unless it makes sense and maintains the character’s internal consistency. This is why having a good understanding of plot characters’ self-image, ambition, and ideology as well as having a solid grasp of their SMART characteristics is crucial. If you want to set up a heel/face turn, use those tools to check your writing for structural weak points. Save this kind of plot twist for key narrative beats, the big moments when the whole story shifts.
Just like goals, it can be useful to think of characters along lines of hierarchy, with more narratively significant characters situated higher on the ladder. I sort characters into buckets labeled Extras, Minor, Major, and Core. When I put together factions or locations, I try to have a few Extras and Minor Characters, and one or two Major Characters for each. Core Characters are reserved for the campaign’s key factions and locations.
Extras: These are the commonest of common people. Depending on your campaign’s setting, these could be simple townsfolk, dockworkers, office drones, or any other character that doesn’t really warrant a detailed backstory or even a name. A typical example might be a night guard preventing the players from sneaking into (or out of?) the morgue, or a barfly the party’s thief is trying to pickpocket to steal tickets for the duchess’ ball. Don’t worry about their SMART characteristics or their self-image, ambition, and ideology.
Minor Characters: These characters often represent either an obstacle or an asset for the party’s goals. They’ve distinguished themselves in some way that has allowed them to rise above the significance of an Extra and should have full SMART characteristics, even if they’re very basic. They should have a name or perhaps some kind of recognizable rank that sets them apart.
Major Characters: Quest-level character-driven goals should be tied to one or more Major Characters. These are your major narrative drivers, so having detailed SMART characteristics and a basic self-image, ambition, and ideology write-up is helpful. Try to understand what drives these characters and how they will pursue their goals.
Core Characters: Aside from the players, these are the most narratively important characters in your campaign, so you should understand them really well. I find it useful for these characters to have detailed, clearly defined SMARTs and self-image, ambition, and ideology. Performing a heel/face turn with these characters can be a campaign’s high point, but must be planned carefully.
Two things to watch out for here: plot armor, and command.
Do not mistake this hierarchy for a command structure. For example, don’t read this as “Extras report to Minor Characters, Minor to Major, and so on.” It can work that way, but there’s nothing stopping you from having a Core Character be a relatively obscure member of a royal court or a lower-ranked officer in a military organization, or the head of a House Major as a Minor Character in your campaign.
Second, let’s talk about plot armor.
There’s a saying in TTRPGs: If you give it stats, they’ll kill it. Practically, this means no character is ever safe from an early and unexpected demise; anything with stats can be taken down by the players. As you’re developing all these nuanced and well written characters, you may get attached to them. Some GMs then begin to stack the narrative in such a way that their characters are safe from the party’s wrath (or insulated from the party’s screw-ups). They’re invincible because the plot demands it. Y’know: plot armor!
So what happens when you hinge a narrative on a Core Character, and the players decide to eliminate that character?
My advice: Let them.
Don’t make it easy, of course. But if the players manage to deal with a key character early in a way you didn’t see coming, don’t constrain their decision space to take that victory away from them. There’s always another bad guy ready to fill the power vacuum, always another unexpected hero to fulfill their destiny. If you’re well prepared, the death of a character doesn’t need to mean the death of the campaign’s narrative.
Let’s put this all into practice. I’ll walk you through how I draft two characters, one Major ally and a Core adversary, for my Fallout campaign, using the ideas outlined above to establish their identities, then coming up with a few goals related to these characters.
One of the places I want the players to visit is Rodentopolis. Years ago, a herd of nutria were exposed to a variant strain of FEV that leaked from a nearby pre-war research lab, which mutated the critters and gave them human-level intelligence. It’s a bit of an homage to Fallout 2’s uplifted Deathclaws (and to a lesser extent Brain of Gecko). Let’s start with Farthinker’s self-image, ambition, and ideology.
This gives us a pretty good idea of her general vibe. Let’s fill in some SMART characteristics for her.
This gives us a couple of narrative hooks: Investigating the missing items, tracking the missing people, uncovering the nutria thieves, learning about Rodentopolis, and fighting Trash-Tooth.
The Knights of the Burning Cross are one of the core adversaries of this campaign. They’re a pre-war military remnant with ambitions to establish an authoritarian nation in the gulf grounded in the group’s twisted ideas of genetic purity where mutants of any kind must be hunted down and enslaved or eliminated. They’re few in numbers, using power armor and other recovered military technology to punch far above their weight. Violet Ledoux is the daughter of the group’s current leader, a fearless warrior blinded by a zealous belief in her cause.
Charming. Let’s go into her SMART characteristics.
Here, possible narrative hooks are: Discovering a group of slain mutants, Knights pressuring gulf settlements to hand over supplies, running into Violet and her Knights while investigating a vault, and Project S.H.R.I.K.E. being unleashed by Violet.
If we want to set up a face turn for Violet, we could explore the idea of how the Knights’ plans for humanity’s future are directly contradicted by the group’s actions, which cause nothing but death and strife and chaos. Also, the threat of Project S.H.R.I.K.E. might serve as an “enemy of my enemy” twist that might create an uneasy truce between New Atlantis and the Knights of the Burning Cross.
Now, I can start dropping those hooks into my narrative map for the gulf campaign and start fleshing out some of those quests.
We’ve differentiated circumstantial and character-driven goals, explored two ways to flesh out narrative angles for characters, how to turn characters from allies to adversaries and vice versa, and how to order characters in a hierarchy to better understand where and when to use them.
Next time, we’ll go over factions and locations in a narrative context, and how to flesh out your world to feel well and truly alive.
Until next time!