One-Shot Characters

[磯七ラスミ]

When building my worlds I think many roles that characters may occupy and portray. Sometimes I'm short in meaty characters and feel tempted to born a new one with the only purpose of filling the gap.

When is advisable to create a new character? (especially in late development)

Should it be made from a known trope so it doesn't need a lengthy introduction?

Cheers.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I personally think you should condense story roles down into as few characters as possible - not only does this give each character more depth, but it saves you a lot of development time. You aren't making new sprites or coming up with new names all the time. Plus, it opens up interesting stories you might not have had otherwise. For instance, if the character who runs the store is the same character the player gets into a conversation with while waiting for the bus, that starts creating a rich dynamic.

[talesoutoftown]

I also think that you should try to have the minimum amount of characters possible. The more roles a character plays, the meatier they get, but if they're doing too many things, the reader may get overwhelmed with how involved a multi-role character could be. At the point when it's too complicated for one character to do something is probably when you should create a new character. Then split the roles among them.