Chapter 3: Economy Characters

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Economy Characters (Vendors, Crafters, Quest Givers) for Character Concept Artists

Why economy characters deserve AAA thinking

Economy characters mediate the player’s time, resources, and narrative cadence. If their silhouettes and stations aren’t instantly legible, players stall, lose trust, or miss systems entirely. For concept‑side artists, this means designing readable roles—vendor, crafter, quest giver—at thumbnail scale before ornament. For production‑facing artists, it means packaging orthos, signage logic, collision nests, and emissive IDs so UI, VFX, audio, and level design can plug them into the world without hand‑holding. Treat these NPCs as “service heroes”: their clarity is a gameplay feature.

Role taxonomy and gameplay reads

Economy roles split into three service verbs: transact (buy/sell/trade), transform (craft/upgrade/identify), and direct (quest/guide/broker). A single NPC may stack verbs—e.g., a smith both sells and upgrades—but each verb needs its own read channel. Transact reads emphasize stock and access (stalls, packs, counters). Transform reads emphasize tools and process (workbenches, kilns, vats, enchanting rigs). Direct reads emphasize signaling and attention (banners, badges, glow scripts). In thumbnails, assign the strongest silhouette mass to the primary verb and reserve secondary cues for close range.

Silhouette grammar: anchor, interface, and reach

Design the NPC together with their interface surface. Vendors have anchors (carts, counters, pack frames) that widen the read and prevent confusion with combatants. Crafters own reach silhouettes that arc into the workspace—raised hammer, outstretched tongs, gloved arms over a bench. Quest givers hold attention devices that stand taller than crowds—staffs, pennants, lanterns, drones, shoulder perches. These macro‑shapes must persist even when crowds occlude details. For production, provide a distance‑read sheet at four scales and indicate which contour edges cannot be culled at LOD2+.

Class adjacency without role confusion

Heroes, tanks, strikers, healers, and supports interact with economy NPCs, and in some cultures an economy NPC might also fight. Keep class adjacency but avoid role drift. A guard‑smith can borrow tank breadth in pauldron forms, but keep the apron and bench dominant. An apothecary may echo healer arcs in bottle racks and halos of herbs, but avoid combat‑spell silhouettes. Controllers pair well with brokers and auctioneers—drones or flags signal market lanes—but keep the body calm and directive, not aggressive. Production can enforce this with an accessory whitelist per role and a small “do/don’t” plate for skins.

Stations as wearable props

The fastest read comes from the station silhouette. Vendors are often half architecture: canopy, rack, counter. Crafters are half machine: forge throat, bellows arm, alchemy hood, loom span. Quest givers are half signage: noticeboards, lecterns, projectors. Concept the NPC + station as a single creature; the station provides collision reliefs for idle, greet, and transact animations. Production needs exploded views with socket points (banner mast, hook rails), navmesh footprints for queueing, and resting nests for loose cloth and tails/wings.

Currency language and inventory logic

Show the economy diegetically. Coin belts, tally abacuses, stamped crates, sealed vials, rare‑item cages—all telegraph value. Keep rarity language consistent with the game: trim levels, gem cuts, rune counts, color banding. Vendors should display a “value gradient” from ground to eye level so players can scan quickly. Crafters stage raw‑to‑refined pipelines on the bench: ore bin → crucible → ingot tray, or herb rack → mortar → labeled phials. Production should reserve emissive IDs for transaction states (open/closed), affordability cues (soft glint on owned/affordable tiers), and limited stock (countdown slots that visibly empty).

Cooldown, hours, and availability cues

Economy NPCs often run on schedules or cooldowns. Visualize open hours with shutters, awnings, lantern states, and drone perches. Visualize crafting cooldowns with work‑in‑progress meters—smoldering ingots, bubbling retorts, runes dimming. For production, define three cadence bands (slow/medium/fast) and mirror them in audio loops that won’t fatigue. Include low‑stim variants: value pulses instead of strobes, mechanical ticks instead of chimes.

Gesture language and social range

Service gestures must read from across plazas. Vendors: wide, symmetric arm sweeps over the counter, catalog flips, weighing motions. Crafters: rhythmic hammering, stirring, calibrating lenses; head nods during progress bars. Quest givers: beckons, pointing at landmarks, scroll unrolls. Idle loops should bias inward to avoid accidental combat silhouettes. Provide three hero gestures per role with timing notes (greet, transact, farewell) and a seated variant for crowded interiors.

Costume, safety, and credibility

Dress to the tool. Smiths need heat‑proof aprons, forearm guards, and soot zones; alchemists need splash gaiters, vented masks, and ampoule racks; clothiers need tape measures, chalk and basting lines on sleeves; brokers wear ledger rigs and stamp seals. Build safety logic (goggles up/down, filter states, glove swaps) that doubles as state cues. Production should include seam maps that avoid clipping during large gestures and designate bone‑follow vs. surface‑slide for harness plates.

Audio/VFX hooks (visual‑first design)

Tie soft VFX to stations: ember drift at forges, vapor wisps at alchemy hoods, motes around quest parchments. Reserve discreet emissive channels for “ready to interact,” “craft complete,” and “quest available/turn‑in.” Avoid VFX that read like combat—keep scale small, cadence slow, edges soft. Provide audio notes (hum, clink, rustle) and thresholds for crowd mix so service reads persist in noisy markets.

Camera and UI integration

FPP reads rely on station edges, signage, and the NPC’s hands; TPP reads favor full storefront silhouettes; isometric reads favor dorsal canopies, color banding on counters, and ground decals. Design diegetic UI that nests into the station: price slates, rotating placards, hologram tags. Production needs decal masks for ground footprints, signboard materials with swappable glyph textures, and a policy for culling canopy cloth without losing the role.

Accessibility and crowd readability

Markets are visually loud. Use redundant channels: icon shapes on banners + color bands on racks + positional audio at stations. Adopt color‑blind‑safe palettes and ensure emissive intensity caps prevent glare bloom. Provide a low‑stim market mode: slower cadence, fewer particles, bigger sign icons. Production deliverables include an accessibility paragraph and alternate texture set IDs.

Mobility archetypes: fixed, roaming, event

Fixed vendors integrate with architecture—permanent stalls with lockable shutters. Roaming vendors carry wearable stations—pack frames with fold‑out racks; beast‑borne panniers with canopy arms; drone swarms that unpack into kiosks. Event vendors appear for limited windows—festival carts with thematic trims. Concept needs fold/unfold sequences for roaming/event types; production needs collision volumes and path hints (leashes, idle nodes). Ensure silhouettes remain readable mid‑transition.

Integration with combat spaces

Economy NPCs often coexist with danger. Create safe‑zone silhouettes: lantern halos, ward circles, or guard leashes that discourage combat silhouettes from overlapping. If a vendor can be attacked in some modes, provide a panic posture and a collapsed station silhouette that still reads “service offline.” Production must define shield collision priorities (ward > cape, counter > weapon trail) and navmesh adjustments when crowds form.

Faction identity and regional variance

Vendors are culture carriers. Repeat faction motifs on canopies, rack endcaps, coin stamps, and measurement systems. Regional variants remain structurally consistent but trade surface language—desert awnings vs. tundra windbreaks, clockwork benches vs. arcane plinths—so players can navigate by silhouette memory. Production should supply a kit of parts with swap IDs and a style card describing edge tightness, filigree density, and allowable trim levels.

NPC tiers and noise budgets

Tier economy reads to narrative importance. Background hawkers: simple verticals, single banner color, minimal emissive. Named vendors: richer stations, two‑tone canopies, unique banner icon. Legendary artisans/quest givers: signature negative spaces (tall pennant, haloed lectern), bespoke props, curated emissives. Document a noise budget per tier—max accessories, texture complexity, and particle counts—so markets remain navigable at distance.

Testing loops: silhouette → blockout → crowd poke

Start with three tiny silhouettes per role (transact/transform/direct). Build low‑poly blockouts of NPC + station and drop them into a crowd scene. Run stress tests: heavy fog, night torches, festival confetti, combat VFX bleed. Evaluate at four distances and all camera modes. Adjust canopy shapes, banner icons, emissives, and cloth flags until reads survive chaos. Production should capture presets and share them as “market worst‑case” tests for future content.

Common failure modes and fixes

Combat confusion: station props read like weapons → soften edges, reduce forward vectors, anchor the body to counter or stool.

Signage clutter: too many mini signs → consolidate into a single strong banner + ground decal.

Unreadable crafting state: progress looks like idle → add mechanical motion and heat/steam ramps; show tool position changes.

Occlusion with tails/wings: capes block counters, wings clip signs → carve reliefs and resting nests; set collision priorities.

LOD pop: canopy or banner disappears first → keep role identifiers in the LOD whitelist.

Production handoff (written, not just drawn)

Deliver a short narrative of service (“What do they sell, transform, direct?”), silhouette rationale, orthos of NPC and station, seam/closure maps, socket/attachment diagram, fold/unfold sequence (if roaming), emissive mask IDs (Interact_Ready, Crafting_Active, Quest_Available, Quest_TurnIn), decal packs for priceboards and ground footprints, collision and navmesh notes, accessibility alternates, noise budgets per tier, and three timing briefs for greet/transact/farewell gestures.

Case prompts you can run today

Design three economy characters sharing one body plan: a vendor (pack‑frame cart with fold‑out racks), a crafter (portable forge with bellows arm), and a quest giver (bannered lectern with messenger birds/drones). Stage each in idle, engage, and busy states. Then produce a night‑market pass and a festival‑day pass and verify reads without UI. Write one paragraph per design explaining how players know what to do in two seconds.

Closing

Economy NPCs are the game’s human (and non‑human) interface. When their silhouettes, stations, and states read instantly, players move through systems with confidence—spending, crafting, and questing without friction. Concept and production share the responsibility: you author the service grammar, they make it indestructible under crowds, particles, and cameras. Build them as service heroes, and your world will feel alive, usable, and worth returning to.