psychology helps with many aspects of
game design it's useful for
understanding player behavior knowing
what motivates a person and even working
in a team but we rarely talk about its
utility in terms of character design
today we're going to talk about a
psychological typing system that James
often uses when he's working to flesh
out or better understand his characters
it's called myers-briggs or the
myers-briggs Type Indicator if you want
to be all formal about it it's based off
of some of Jung's work where he starts
to break down some psychological
dichotomies he felt that a person tended
towards certain psychological
characteristics and when they did so
they tended away from or were weaker
with certain other aspects of the psyche
that personality traits or at least some
of them were balanced as if on a scale
it's usually explained like handedness
if you're right-handed that doesn't mean
you can't write with your left or even
that you can't become very proficient at
writing with your left hand it just
means that it takes a lot more work and
effort that you're naturally inclined or
perhaps better put naturally proficient
with your right so you rely on it
whenever you can you go to it without
thinking when someone tosses you a ball
you don't think about which hand to
catch it with you automatically go after
it with your dominant hand unless you
absolutely can't and are forced to try
using the hand you're less used to and
in Jung's view parts of our personality
our psychic makeup function the same way
well in the 40s in order to help women
figure out which wartime job they were
best suited for to women Isabella Myers
and Katherine Briggs began expanding on
and trying to apply this idea until in
the 60s they refined it to the point
where they published what we know today
as the myers-briggs Type Indicator
now before we get into what it is and
how its applicable to character design I
just want to make a couple of
disclaimers first I'm not saying that
this system is true just that it's
useful like any personality typing
system it paints in broad strokes it
helps you to get a handle on people or
situations rapidly it can aid
understanding but like anything that
attempts to categorize people it can
often be incorrect and even more often
simply gives you a useful outline which
you'll have to fill in yourself you
don't want to take the results of these
tests as a 100% accurate diagnosis of
someone's personality doing so may well
lead you to making assumptions that are
worse than simply not having the outline
at all but like I said it's useful for
the broad strokes second disclaimer I'm
definitely not saying that this is the
only or best way to flesh out or define
a character's personality there are tons
of great methods storytellers have used
but this is one good place to start and
James has found it useful on many
occasions ok so what is myers-briggs
it's a
set of for dichotomous psychological
categories that when put together should
tell you a lot about a person the four
categories are introversion versus
extraversion sensing versus intuition
thinking versus feeling and judging
versus perceiving so let's talk a little
bit about what each of those means in
myers-briggs terms first introversion
and extraversion the key with
myers-briggs is to remember that even
though each category has two opposed
strengths just because you're strong and
1 doesn't mean you can't do the other so
in myers-briggs an introvert is somebody
who draws energy from quiet time alone
or with small groups of close friends
whereas an extrovert is someone who
finds crowds and meeting new people and
group activities energizing both can
operate in the others field but they
find it draining tiring and they have to
go back to what suits them to recharge
in general I also like to think of this
dichotomy as something like asking the
question is your internal life more
important to you your thoughts your
feelings and emotions or is your
external life more important to the
happenings of the world the regard of
other people events places real
happening things a second is sensing and
intuition these are the perceiving
functions they define how you deal with
input from the outside world
a person who's dominant in sensing
trusts the things they can examine with
their senses in our modern world they
rely on data in fact they tend to be
meticulous and care about things being
done right the process is just as
important as the end result
someone who's dominant in intuition on
the other hand tends to go with their
gut they're capable of fantastic leaps
of logic that can bring them
extraordinary results but can also lead
them astray often they'll know an answer
before they can even explain how they
know even with very logical subjects
like math they're much more concerned
with the end result than the process and
they tend to look for theories or ideas
behind the data rather than finding joy
and processing and utilizing data itself
third thinking and feeling these are the
judging or decision-making functions
they determine how you act on the data
you've taken in someone who's dominant
in thinking is concerned with
objectivity they prefer to make
decisions that they view as logical and
removed calculated they work very well
within systems or within a defined rule
space often giving themselves such a
framework for their lives even if
they're not consciously aware they're
doing so someone who is more inclined to
feeling tries to see a problem from
multiple perspectives and is often not
concerned or cannot even conceive of an
objectively correct approach to many
problems where humans are involved they
tend to put weight on the empathetic or
emotive aspect of the problem although
when creating characters it's important
to note they don't always have to be
doing so in a good way
often they'll come to a people solution
to a problem where a dominant thinker
would come to a logical one and finally
judging and perceiving this category
gets pretty complicated and actually
tells you about how a person uses the
two previous categories for our sake
let's just say that someone who's
judging dominant likes resolution and to
know where they stand
someone who's perceiving dominant on the
other hand likes to leave their options
open and for first not to close down a
choice unless they really have to of
course we're doing all of these
categories a woeful injustice right now
what we've given here is just the barest
overview if you plan to apply this to
your writing you're going to want to dig
in more and explore you to the possible
types understanding all of the
subtleties that we've glossed over but
by going through each of these pairings
and figuring out which of the 16
possible personality combinations your
character belongs to you'll have a
strong archetype to start from it will
give you a place where you understand
your characters motivations and psychic
makeup its purpose is to force you to
think through your character and give
you a starting point to work from a
stereotypical character is
one-dimensional these 16 types are
highly archetypical and may all without
some further adjustment seem like tropes
you'll recognize but having myers-briggs
based characters ensures that you avoid
the cardboard personality or the
character who's all about one thing and
it will give you a set of tools to use
when you're making storytelling
decisions let's say your character is at
a grand ball they're suave charming
greeting everybody but you know they're
an introvert feeler so in your next
scene you have them dodging out as soon
as it's tactful in order to have a
meaningful conversation with a close
friend on the palace grounds and
confessing how much they miss the
simpler life they had before or maybe
you have a scene where your character's
boss asks them to up production at a
factory
are they the sense8 thinker type then
maybe they pour over the data streamline
the flow of resources bring in more
efficient machines or maybe they're an
intuitive feeler in that case maybe they
go talk to the people working the line
and then improve communication by
getting the right people from disparate
parts of the company talking together
for me
myers-briggs helps keep my characters
consistent and in character without
keeping them from being interesting it
gives me something to fall back on what
I don't know what decision a character
would make in a given circumstance or I
can't quite figure out what they do next
unfortunately to really use it you're
going to have to dig deeper than the
gloss we've been able to give you here
but hopefully it's piqued your interest
enough to look up the different types
and understand the interesting
subtleties of how a character acts when
they have to or choose to work outside
their type just remember this is a star
point not an end I'll see you next week