Among the most powerful things that humans can make is a story with a compelling character arc. We are mirrored in the characters of our stories and through this mirror we can see parts of ourselves we can’t otherwise see. Can’t because of shame, or fear, or pain or pride. The characters in stories offer the safety to identify with parts of ourselves that are too dangerous to identify with directly. When we watch characters change in stories we have the opportunity to experience and evaluate those changes without the danger of committing to them personally. It can be incredibly fun. Especially so when changes are strung together into a plausible series, or a character arc.

Over the course of human history certain story types and specifically recognizable strings of character changes, arcs, have been loved and found powerful over and over, in different stories with different goals. These patterns, these commonly loved arcs are archetypal character arcs. The character arcs in many stories throughout history fall into a few recognizable archetypes. The most commonly known archetypal character arc is the hero’s journey, but it’s far from the only one.

For a much deeper and extensive discussion see the series of articles on Archetypal Character Arcs by K.M. Weiland. They’ve influenced this mechanism directly.

So here it is, a mechanic you could use with just about any game to introduce archetypal character arcs. It’s a mechanic I’ve been working on for my high fantasy game in progress, Treacherous Winds, and it’s turning out to be nice and independent so I’ve extracted it to be used in any game you want.

In order to highlight how a character changes over time and to help the table focus on the aspects that make up character archetypes, character arcs consist of a series of sets of questions and the fictional results of asking them and seeing them answered.

The arc rules often refer to “the players”. That always means everyone at the table including GMs, if any.

Some questions are related to the answers of other questions. In these cases the questions will be nested.

In this article I’m covering the first of three arcs I’m designing for Treacherous Winds. I’ll publish the other arcs here as well as I create them.

Act One: Ask the other players to focus play on understanding your home or mundane life and your place within it.

When you and the rest of the players have answered four of the following questions through the course of play, move on to Act Two.

Act Two: Ask the other players to focus play on a disruption of your home or mundane life and the introduction of a villain.

When you and the rest of the players have answered four of the following questions through the course of play, move on to Act Three.

Act Three: Ask the other players to focus play on the struggles and difficulties that force your personal growth and challenge your sense of identity.

When you and the rest of the players have answered three of the following questions through the course of play, move on to Act Four.

Act Four: Ask the other players to focus play on the seemingly insurmountable struggle against villainy, both internal and external.

When you and the rest of the players have answered four of the following questions through the course of play move on to The Climax.

The Climax: Ask the other players to focus on the ultimate resolution of the insurmountable struggle from Act Four.

When you and the rest of the players have answered the following question through the course of play, win or lose, succeed or fail, move on to Act Five.

Act Five: Ask the other players to focus play on how the lessons you learned in Act Four and The Climax can be used to understand who you really are deep down.

When you and the rest of the players have answered at lease one of the following questions you have completed the arc.

I’m assuming that every PC like character or every protagonist (however your game defines that) will have their own arc. Each character arc asks the players to focus on them! You’ll have to be adults and share the stage with each other while also helping the rest of the players to remember where you are in your arc when you do have the stage.

Act One is designed to introduce a character to a story. If you want to use this with characters you’ve already introduced, consider answering the earlier questions in flashbacks, or take liberties with the questions and treat them as loosely metaphoric rather than specific.

Arcs are designed to be the progression system in Treacherous Winds. A clever table might find some method of tying arcs to your games progression system if there is one.

This is the Youthful Arc but in your game, as in many literary characters that follow a youthful arc, the character does not need to be young. Playing the Youthful Arc simply means starting from a place of safety and deference then, through struggle, finding your independent identity and power.

In future articles I’ll publish a Maturity Arc and a Transcendence Arc. I might even publish more if I have good ideas about more. Please reach out and let me know what arcs you’d like to see and if I’m inspired, I’ll write yours up as well!

If you want to follow along with the development of Treacherous Winds, the high fantasy game that inspired this mechanism, you can read the Treacherous Winds rules in progress, and join the Treacherous Winds play test Discord server. You can also find me on Bluesky @jessebmiller.bsky.social

I hope to see you there, hear your thoughts, and how it goes in your game!

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