So was sitting down and thinking about some future characters for my story and was a bit unsure on how to proceed. First of I was not thinking of making the story a harem and was only planning to have a single heroine. The thought was to have the story revolve around the MC a heroine and a pet, however since the story is heavily influenced by DnD I sort of got into the whole party type of story mindset lately. This would mean that the story would have a fairly permanent party that goes together for most of the story. So for now these are my thought out characters for now. MC: high tier mage that has lived for hundreds of years, regains his youth and turns into a shota while being transported to another world. His characteristics are friendly/kind, but sort of arrogant with his nose in the air cause of his knowledge, age and previous powers. He is also sort of a mommas boy but would never admit it. He loves to gather knowledge and learning new things, and is also a genius with very high IQ when it comes to everything involving magic or learning new things. His EQ is very low and he often overlooks basic things, example he could easily learn how to build and drive a train but would forget it needs tracks to run on. Pet: genderless for the moment, see's and treats the MC like a gofer, but no one else is allowed to treat the MC badly since the pet see's itself as the owner and the MC as its pet so everyone has to look at the owner before misstreating the pet. It is the beast companion in the party. Female 1: Misstreated orphan girl that is very cute but because of a feature she looks scary and most ppl avoid her or recoil once they see her face. Early on starts following the MC to learn magic and becomes a magic archer eventually. Quite possesive of the MC but not the yandere type or maybe she is a little unsure how others will think of it . She is kind of the cold secretary/maid type of girl that follows her master but in secret sniffs his clothes. She is the archer of the party. Female 2: Older Nee-san type of girl that is a bit all over the MC early on, then keeps meeting him until she joins the party. She is quite barbaric and because of her strength and personality she is both avoided and mocked for it, because of her being unladylike and an old spinster. She is very forward with the MC but at the same time because of her surroundings she has while seemingly confidant and strong she actually has low self esteem. Going for the whole nee-san x shota feel here with the nee-san being afraid of the MC not liking her. She is the front fighter of the party. Now here is were I am a bit stuck, I thought about either A) not including female 2 and just keep female 1 and go with my old plan (on a side note fem 2 has already been introduced and included in the story while fem 1 is yet to appear) B) go with all of them, or C) include more companions to fill out the party. Some thoughts on companions. Mostly I thought about adding 1-2 more female characters since while bromance is nice I somehow feel that if there is a MC + heroine already in the party the male character would either eventually clash with MC or be a c-block for the MC, or I would have to include a love interest for the male character. Anyways without further ado. Female 3, Since the party already consist of a fighter, archer (sort of a rogue) and a wizard the only class left to make a basic party would be a healer/cleric. So she would be a healer but one that is a bit bi-polar and the complete opposite to a kind cuddly healer in that she loves to inflict pain and suffering (she's a demon) but most if not all her powers are around healing and supporting, so it mostly don't work out like she wants/plans. I was also thinking of because of the world setting having her be sent by the MC mom with the holy mission to procreate since both mom and son is now stuck in this new world and needs to rebuild their mage clan and make magic a main power in the world but because the mom is a total soncon she can only leave it to her son, so he needs to start making them mini me's. She would be the partys cleric. Female 4, My thought here was to make the pet gain a humanoid form since in the settings world monsters/beasts get's humanoid forms once they reach a certain lvl or if their of high enough rank (example being a dragon or phoenix). She would then pretty much kick the other girls down the totem to take the top spot when it comes to who's in charge, or at least try to since she see's herself as the boss. She'd be the tank/2nd fighter. Male 1, The BFF kind of character that is an enemy/douche at first but later on just seems to click with the MC and is a real bro. He'd be a real womanizer and often get the party into trouble because of his antics. Male 2, The silent loyal friend/follower/servant, because of some stuff the MC saves his life and because of that he starts to follow him around and eventually becomes a mainstay. My thoughts of him is like a humanoid german sheperd that only listens to the MC. Male 3, The tsundere type of character that just can't be honest and is actually the most kind and dere-dere type of character there is while always having a cold and cynical outlook as a front. The setting is heavily based on chinese fantasy/ancient time. So the whole big families, wives and concubines, marrying of ppl for power/connections has heavily influenced me to think about going the harem route since it feels true to the source (I might be wrong on this). However I don't like the whole dollhouse setup for harems, where MC runs of introduces new doll and brings her to the dollhouse and then leaves to search for more dolls or a power up, so if I am gonna make a harem I will have the ppl stay together for at least 90-99% of the story and flesh them all out. I also feel going over at most 5-6 harem members will make the whole thing very hard so I wanna keep it at most 3-4 (but yeah never know might just randomly like a charcter type to much :S). Not sure where I got it from but I remember reading that the standard back in ancient china was 1 main wife and 2-3 concubines. I am also thinking of adding children in the future, they will however not be a main stay but will play a substantial part and I will hopefully be able to flesh them out quite a bit. Anyhow any suggestions on characters or thoughts on what I've thought out so far is appreciated. On a side note my own thoughts/notes/plans on each character is of course much biggest just giving some small summary/explanation on them here. These are also "mainstay" characters there will of course be friends and short time companions, but these are characters that are around for pretty much 90% of the story.
idk it feels really cliche Why shota? and why is he a mommas boy for instance? What does that deliver to the story? And 5-6 harem members? This already sounds like a dull generic harem story tbh What does this story do that others don't? I don't see anything unique nor eye-catching.
Never said the story was anything unique or eye-catching, just asking for character suggestions, thoughts or feedback. When it comes to cliche I don't really feel that using cliche type of characters is wrong, and frankly every single type of character has pretty much already been made and turned into a cliche at this point so no use in making a story in that case since everything would be a cliche. On the MC, the shota part is mostly a try at a bit of a comedic part, not sure how it will work out yet or if it will be funny or not. The mommas body part is something I don't want to talk about but in short it is just a way to deepen the character it doesn't really make a big splash or something. I also wrote that I felt that 5-6 harem members were to much and would most likely keep it at 4 at most, I also stated I am still not sure if there will even be a harem or not. Also no idea why your asking about this since it has almost nothing to do with my post either .
At this point I only skimmed through rest. How lovely that male characters have only one sentence of description while females have [block of text] each. Harem is never an answer. As for parts quoted. Rather than describing the traits, the trick will be how well you'll make readers feel that about them. JP authors tend to literally use "She's really nee-san type of girl" or "She's really cute" narrative and finishing with that, rather than just put the character in the situation where she can actually and believably display such trait. Also, give bro's more love. It's never fun when there are are only females moistening themselves to MC without anyone to casually insult him for doing dumb shit. @Edit Not to mention, that secondary character turning badass in moment of need is always even more satisfying than MC being badass. Summarizing, don't do shit that people hate anime for. Other than that... you didn't really gave anything but: Char 1: This trait, that trait, that trait Char 2: This trait, that trait, that trait So there's not really anything that can be thought about. Looking forward to it when you upload it anyway.
The reason why the characters are fairly short is that I tend to write way too long comments and didn't want to write a citadel sized wall of text where each character had a page of information each. My plan before posting was to try and keep each char at 1-2 sentences each tops that would describe them or point at what makes them stick out (their traits), but that didn't work out until the male chars were I already felt I had started to post a wall of text. The story is already uploaded and at 11 chapters at the moment, having an exam tomorrow but free next week so probably gonna try and get it to about 15-20 chapters. Chapters are only around a thousand words each but nothing is set in stone yet and I am gonna revise the story in the next few days so might be a lot of changes done in it. I won't really decide to go harem until I reach at least 50-100 chapters, so for now I just wanna make some characters to have ready and waiting or at the very least thought out to some degree, so they can most likely be introduced in these 50-100 chapters.
Everything looks too perfect. You gotta have some bad or terrible aspects in a character in order for them to have a positive character development. All you pretty much mentioned are roles and surface personality. Also, are you really gonna go for a harem? Harems can easily make a story more "fun", but can easily ruin it at the same time.
A cliche is bad. Especially when it comes to these types of stories. You can do more with your characters if you just stepped out of your comfort zone. And it's bad because your characters seem one dimensional. Are these attributes permanent to them? Are they gonna evolve as people? And when I mention evolve, I don't mean "I have gained this new body and all of its memories. This body's parents are very good people, and have shown me much love. For them i will therefore cast aside my previous self and embrace this one and love them wholeheartedly". This isn't character devolpment. And it sounds like that was what you were going for
Thats true, I honestly thought I wrote some good + bad attributes/traits but to be honest I don't always feel like a story must have character development sometimes it's enough with story development or story diversity, this story is a bit of a test pilot for me but also a learning experience since it's the first story I will showcase to the public from scratch. But to point out at what you mentioned, I feel like the MC will not have as big of a "character" development as the characters around him, it remains to be seen however. The biggest development MC will have is mostly handling being in a hormonial body while having the mind of a middle aged man. This means he will have awkward situations but also emotianal outburst and irrational thoughts because of his body.
Ok. Female 1 feature should be half charred body from being a combat orphan. She should be main girl. Female 2- scrap the low esteem part and make her the moral support of the group. Also give her a dead little brother backstory that she killed.She shouldn't become a harem member, just party member. Female 3- Nice description for her but give her a mace/ whip technique and make her yuri for the mother. Male 1- Scrap the enemy/ douche part and make him an overwatcher that handles all the dark/illegal aspects behind the MCs. Male 2- Definitely has BL feelings for the MC Male 3- Should be the information person that likes Female 3. Both are doomed romances. Pet- Like the idea would read for the pet but the pet should be a reincarnator as well with hazy memories of the past. Ultimately ends up being the final boss.
Ehm I am going for the person with magic powers gets transported into another world not sure how it became the generic wuxia master gets reborn inside of a loser kids body. To mention Fem 1 features This is pretty much her starting feature except that instead of irises and pupils her eyes are completely white so people gets scared when they look at her face or meet her gaze. Also she was born that way, she can see but she was abandoned and she has to keep her eyes shut to be able to beg for scraps. Since once she opens her eyes she scares ppl away. Also my plan from the start and for now is that she will be the only romance partner the harem trope is just a thought for now.
To be honest with you, this entire post was just asking to be flamed. Almost never a good idea to ask vicious wolves on the internet to critic your work. I mean I myself never really liked the 1 guy multiple girls setup unless it's comical in nature like Konosuba. It's times like this that makes me aware of the author's choices in the work and makes me go, "What are you seriously going for this?" From there, it's a downward spiral of doubt and lack of confidence in the author. I mean I hate to say it but the reason I don't want to read Arrogant Young Master Template anymore is because I realized it had too many female characters in it and the MC is literally the only male character who's actually relevant, the rest were just lackeys, enemies, or off the screen for most of the time.
So... what's the end goal of the story? There is a saying, "If you aim at nothing, you're bound to hit it!", so how would the story end? Once you get that, you can work your way to it. A lot of iskeis fall flat on this because very often, the end goal is either non-existent or the purpose of the MC is just to exist, hence the story goes nowhere and repeats arcs. As for the "characters", don't get too scope locked into their stereotypes. While overall, people do follow their gross characteristics, unless that person is acting all the time every day, they WILL act out of character frequently if they are real people (Especially females. Sweet on normal days, angry dragon with a toothache on PMS days lol). Honestly though, your storyline and dramatis personae sounds generic and cookie cutter already. For goodness sakes, add another couple so that every girl in the damn story isn't out for the MC's dick.
That would make her more mysterious and exotic than scary to people in my opinion. Burn scars because of eyes then?