Chapter 10. The Character Roster and the Sensory Roster

Rank characters before loving them, and transaction arrives before attachment.

The first screen is a star-tier chart and a draw-rate table. Before choosing a face to love, people begin calculating with their eyes who is expensive.

In the previous chapter, we chose the world this person would enter. Now we choose the character who will first translate that world.

The moment we think of a character as a graphic asset, the first screen becomes a catalog.

In planning meetings, characters are usually discussed in terms of how many types to make, how to divide their tiers, and who will draw their appearance. They are treated as pictures filling the screen and bait drawing people in. This view is not wrong, but it sees only half. Before a character is a picture filling the screen, it is an interpreter standing between person and world.

A world is abstract. Chapter 9’s world can convey whether it is warm or busy through color, sound, and mood, but none lands as quickly and concretely as a character. What a person first meets clearly is not the world but someone living in it. When a character springs up and giggles, they understand, “This is a safe and joyful place.” When a character stands solidly and stares straight ahead, they understand, “This is a world with weight.” Translating what a world is into human sensation is the character’s real job on the first screen. The character roster is therefore not a list of pictures, but a list of interpreters.

Looking at the Same Screen, Eyes Stop in Different Places

Enter a fictional character game. Suppose three characters appear side by side on the first screen: a soft rabbit, a majestic dragon, and an aloof cat.

Three people look at this screen. The first person’s eyes stop on the soft rabbit because they want to hold it, imagine it will feel fluffy, and want to protect it. The second stops on the majestic dragon because it inspires admiration and seems likely to make them proud to keep it by their side. The third stops on the aloof cat because it seems unwilling to come close easily, making them want to tame and explore it. The same screen catches three people’s eyes in different places. Not everyone is drawn in the same way: one is pulled by the urge to protect, one by aspiration, and one by the urge to explore.

This is the sensory appeal of each character. Every character attracts people through a different kind of sensation. Softness touches protection and attachment. Bouncy reactions touch playfulness and the pleasure of timing. Aloofness touches exploration and conquest. A majestic character inspires aspiration, a small and weak one care, and a fast one the thrill of speed. When putting a character on the roster, then, do not record appearance alone. Record the sensation through which the character attracts people.

If sensation remains vague, the roster uses different words every time. Group sensations into several clusters and use them as a tool. The sensations by which characters attract people on the first screen generally fit within eight clusters. This list differs from Chapter 6’s eight layers and Chapter 7’s eight experiencer types, so do not confuse them: protection and care, wanting to hold and guard; exploration and discovery, wanting to uncover and learn hidden things; aspiration and display, wanting to admire and show; play and reaction, wanting to touch and elicit a response; collection and ownership, wanting to gather and make one’s own; speed and mastery, wanting to become fast and skilled; connection and conversation, wanting to exchange words and feelings; and safety and comfort, wanting to remain without threat. There is no reason there must be eight. These are only commonly observed groups. If a ninth emerges from our team’s roster, add it. Collection and ownership may appear to contradict Chapter 8’s warning, but Chapter 8 prohibited naming a non-collecting heart “collection.” Collection and ownership here is genuinely for people who want to collect.

When imagining one character, identify which of the eight clusters activates first. One word then reveals which person that character beckons. When clusters overlap, this word “first” separates them. A soft rabbit appears to activate both protection and care and safety and comfort. If the first feeling is wanting to guard it because it is small and weak, the cluster is protection and care. If the first feeling is wanting to lean into it because it is large and fluffy, the cluster is safety and comfort. When the direction runs from me to the character, it is care; when it runs from the character to me, it is comfort. Readers should be able to identify one cluster for their own game’s characters. A character fitting none remains only a picture whose sensation has not yet been decided.

Once the sensation is decided, content follows, because sensation calls for content. Protection and care calls for dressing, caring, and raising. Exploration and discovery calls for conversations that open gradually and unlocks revealed one by one. Aspiration and display calls for collections and profiles stored and shown to others. Play and reaction calls for minigames and instant answers that respond immediately to taps. Each cluster calls different content, so choosing a character’s sensation almost determines the first action. Conversely, when a character’s sensation and content diverge, people feel a strange dissonance. Send a soft character that someone wants to protect directly into battle, and the person who loved that character feels uneasy receiving content the sensation never called.

The three characters of MEJE Aidong World demonstrate this roster. The puppy carries softness and attachment, so content about holding, petting, and caring fits it. The frog carries bouncy reactions and timing, so short play where taps produce responses and rhythms align fits it. The cat carries exploration and discovery, so content about inspecting corners, finding hidden things, and becoming close gradually fits it. Even within the same customization game, the three characters beckon three kinds of fans in three ways.

Where Did the Person Who Will Love This Character Come From?

Here Chapters 8 and 9 converge. After recording each character’s sensation, add one more field beside it: where did the person who will love this character live before coming here?

Someone who loves a soft character that stirs protection is probably deeply attached to dolls or accustomed to caring daily for a beloved person. The attachment and everyday companionship an idol fan brings are satisfied in this character. Someone who loves an aloof character stirring exploration and discovery resembles a webtoon reader who wondered what came next and turned one episode at a time. A character that gradually allows closeness shares the grain of a person who waits for the next part. Someone who loves rapid and thrilling responses may be accustomed to immediacy from endlessly swiping short-form video.

Write this down and the character becomes an entrance rather than a picture. It becomes clear which character to place first to catch a person from a particular origin on the first screen. If we choose to bring webtoon readers, we place an aloof, exploration-calling character at the very front, because it first signals, “There is something here you may like.” A character is both an interpreter of the world and a beckoning toward a specific origin. Chapter 5’s prior analogous experience now divides by character. Where did the person who will love this character live, and what did they experience there?

Draws and Tiers: The Convention of Lining Characters Up

Since this chapter handles characters, let us place one game convention at the checkpoint: the habit of acquiring characters through random draws and lining them up by tier.

In many collection games, characters are given through draws and ranked from rare five-star characters down to common one-star characters. Where did this convention come from? From the long tradition of collection-game design that creates value through scarcity and motivation through tiers. For many gamers the framework is familiar and even enjoyable, because it brings the thrill of beating low odds to obtain a rare character and the achievement of completing a catalog by tier. It works well inside games.

Ordinary people do not share this agreement. If an idol fan’s favorite is classified as a common one-star character, they feel insulted because the system has priced someone they love. If the first screen displays a star-tier chart and draw-rate table before a person has even chosen a face to love, they first read who is expensive before deciding whom to care about. If someone ready to attach themselves to a soft character encounters a draw-rate table on the first screen, transaction comes before attachment even begins. A gamer reads tiers as “motivation to collect.” An ordinary person reads them as “the rudeness of arbitrarily ranking what I like.” The same tier mark is fun to one side and aversion to the other.

The fees this convention charges ordinary people are broken attachment and payment pressure. If choosing a character to love in the first encounter immediately becomes a matter of odds and money, the person meets a product before meeting the character as an interpreter. Preserve the essence and change the form. In the first experience, do not make people draw characters; let them meet characters. Let the person directly choose the character drawing them in and form a relationship first. Instead of a tier hierarchy, show a horizontal roster whose members beckon different people through different sensations. The rabbit is not above the cat; they simply face different people. If scarcity and collecting motivation are necessary, those belong much later, after the person has already given their heart to a character. The first screen is where attachment begins, not where prices are assigned.

Recently, games within draw-dependent genres have begun turning in this direction. Duet Night Abyss is reported to make characters and abilities obtainable through play rather than draws, leaving random draws only for appearance customization. It shifts weight toward putting the object of affection directly in someone’s hand rather than leaving it to luck. Games retaining draws have also begun treating the first meeting differently. Some grant a choice allowing a desired top-tier character after a fixed number of attempts: luck operates, but the desired person still comes reliably into the hand. The two approaches share one thing. Before an object of affection, they lower the wall of probability. Borrow that direction on the first screen. At least when choosing a character to love, let the meeting happen through choice, not probability.

The industry uses another common answer at this intersection: the staged tutorial draw, a first gacha designed in advance to produce a fixed character or a high-probability top-tier one. Readers who must include a draw in the first session for business-model reasons should dissect the practice in this chapter’s language. Used well, it is a second-best meeting dressed in the clothes of a draw. If the meeting is fixed anyway, borrow only the performance’s flutter and immediately connect the resulting character to a relationship. Used badly, it becomes a choice pretending to be luck. Hide that it is fixed and stage a probability drama, and it provides neither attachment from choice nor thrill from luck. When people later learn that everyone received the same character, only the aftertaste remains that even the specialness of their first meeting was staged. If a first draw is unavoidable, choose one of two options honestly. If it stages a meeting, treat it as a meeting and connect directly to the character relationship. If it sells the thrill of luck, delay the draw until after attachment forms rather than putting it on the first screen.

There is one more convention to inspect beside draws and tiers: seeing characters only through performance. In game design, characters are often treated as efficiency units, parts evaluated by attack power, healing amount, and how many percentage points a composition gains by including them. This convention comes from well-designed combat systems, and experienced gamers are comfortable reading characters through performance. Distinguishing good and bad units is itself play to them. Newcomers do not share that agreement. To them, a character is not an efficiency unit but an object of relationship. Tell a person who stopped because they wanted to hold a soft character or befriend an aloof one, “This character is inefficient,” and it sounds like belittling the person they were beginning to love. A gamer reads a performance chart as “grounds for choosing.” An ordinary person reads it as “unwanted interference devaluing what I wanted to like.” The fee this convention charges is broken relationship. If performance intervenes before the relationship begins, the first encounter becomes comparison, not encounter. Preserve the essence and change the form. On the first screen, introduce characters through personality and sensation, not performance: not a strong character but one you want to hold; not an efficient character but one you keep wanting to talk to. Performance becomes meaningful only after the person and character are already on the same side and begin doing things together.

▶ Three Questions to Apply to My Screen

Does the first screen first let someone choose whom to love, or show tiers first?

Does our character act as an interpreter translating the world into human sensation, or hang there as only a picture?

Is the first screen laid with sensations that make someone want to look and touch, or with stars and probability figures? When faces come before tiers and sensation before numbers, attachment comes before transaction.

So Connect Roster to Sensation in One Line

Once we see characters as interpreters, the shape of the first-experience roster changes. For each character, connect four things: name and role; the sensation through which they attract people; the content suited to that sensation; and the origin of the person who will love them.

When these four connect in one line, we know whom to place at the front of the first screen. Put forward a character with the sensation favored by the primary immigration candidate, and provide content suited to that character as the first action. The roster becomes not a scattered picture list but one map threading origin, sensation, and content. The harmony of surprising new experience and comfortably familiar experience begins here too. A character’s sensation should be familiar from where the person lived, but the way they meet it should be new. Chapter 14 returns to the design of that balance.

Before closing this chapter, then, there is one question to ask of one’s game. Does the character at the front of our first screen beckon to the person we chose to bring first, or call the wrong person? Later, the character at which people remain longest returns the answer in numbers. Even before that answer arrives, we must look at the roster and ask once ourselves. If the intended candidate and the character’s beckoning diverge, the first screen addresses someone other than the person we meant to translate for.

This cross-check can also run backward. In a live game whose first action is already fixed, identify the sensation called by that content, then compare it with the sensation of the front character. If the first action is a play-and-reaction minigame but the flagship character carries the softness of protection and care, the screen calls with one hand and pushes away with the other. We saw the dissonance of sending a soft character directly into battle. One comparison reveals whether the same mismatch hides on our first screen.

Reference Content

Cases in other media where this chapter’s concepts are visible.

Video Games

Duet Night Abyss: The 2025 release removed character and weapon draws entirely, making every character obtainable through play and leaving random draws only for stat-free appearance customization. It puts the object of affection into someone’s hands rather than leaving it to luck.
Beginner choice guarantees in gacha games: More compromises now place a desired object of affection outside probability. Examples include banners where, when available for a limited time, players select a desired five-star from designated candidates and guarantee it at pity (Genshin Impact’s Chronicled Wish), and beginner selection banners where a desired standard five-star is guaranteed within a fixed number of attempts (Wuthering Waves).
Pokémon’s three starters: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle stand side by side as Grass, Fire, and Water. Players meet them through choosing what attracts them, not through tier. The split is so clear that starter choice is commonly discussed as a sign of player disposition.
Amber, the first companion in Genshin Impact: This bright, friendly archer joins for free at the beginning, conveying the world’s welcoming mood before her stats. The first character acts as the world’s interpreter.
Tamagotchi: Without ranking characters by performance, attachment forms solely through feeding, playing, and cleaning, making people care about an on-screen being. It exemplifies how protection-and-care sensation calls for care content.

The remaining reference content is collected in the “Chapter 10 Appendix” at the end of this chapter (collected as Appendix D in the book edition).

Design Note ▶ Try It Yourself

Choose three to five characters for the first screen of our game. Write four lines for each character.

The character’s name and one-line role. One sensation the character attracts—protection and care, exploration and discovery, aspiration and display, play and reaction, collection and ownership, speed and mastery, connection and conversation, or safety and comfort. One piece of first content suited to that sensation. One place where the person who will love this character used to live.

After writing the four lines, add one more: a sentence describing the character through sensation rather than performance. Instead of “a damage dealer with high attack power,” write something such as “a fluffy child you want to hold and keep caring for.” This sentence, translating stats into the sensation a person will feel, determines how the character appears on the first screen. When finished, circle the character favored by the primary immigration candidate. That character is the interpreter who stands at the front of the first screen.

The true signal is when nothing can be circled. If the roster has no character with a sensation the primary candidate likes, there are three paths. The cheapest is redefining the sensation of an existing character and turning it toward the candidate. The same appearance can carry a different sensation if its first action and manner of speech change. If that is insufficient, create a new character with the sensation. If there is no capacity even for that, return to Chapter 8 and reconsider the primary candidate itself. The worst option is drawing the first screen without deciding which side to fix.

This roster grows into Appendix B’s Character Roster and Sensory Matrix. On the first screen, do not rank characters by tier. Let the person who will love each meet them first.

One-line summary: Before a character is a picture filling the screen, it is an interpreter between world and person. Every character attracts through a different sensation, calls for different content, and appeals to people from different origins. Connect these four in one line and we know whom to put first on the first screen. Rank characters through draws and tiers, and transaction comes before attachment begins. Next chapter: We have decided whom to welcome, into which world, and through which character. Now we examine the person’s “state” before the first screen. They are not focused, are in a noisy place, and came here by giving up other content. Experience has a fee. We move to that fee.

Chapter 10 Appendix: Reference Content Collection

This collection examines whether the chapter’s argument also operates outside games: before a character is a picture filling the screen, it is an interpreter translating the world into human sensation, and each character calls different people through one of eight sensory clusters—protection and care, exploration and discovery, aspiration and display, play and reaction, collection and ownership, speed and mastery, connection and conversation, and safety and comfort. In addition to the section’s central cases, the remaining examples are grouped by medium from video games to offline life. Each ends with “what to examine,” describing what designers should observe. The reading method is simple: in each case, see which sensation, rather than ability or tier, makes people stop before the character.

Video Games

Overwatch: In this 2016 team shooter, people viewing the same roster are drawn differently: some to a weighty tank who blocks the front with a shield, some to a damage hero who dives quickly looking for one decisive hit, and some to a support who keeps allies alive. Each role carries a different play sensation. The weight of aspiration and display, the thrill of speed and mastery, and the reward of protection and care call different people on the same screen. Examine whether characters on our roster divide the sensations among themselves or all wear different clothes over one sensation.
Agent selection in Valorant: In Riot’s 2020 tactical shooter, agents divide into role groups such as Duelists and Sentinels. Someone who enjoys direct fights is drawn to Duelists; someone who enjoys laying traps, guarding the rear, and frustrating opponents is drawn to Sentinels. They choose a character through the grain of play, not tier. Examine how role-group names indicate behavioral grain rather than performance figures, and whether the first choice screen asks not “What is strongest?” but “How do I want to play?”
Villagers in Animal Crossing: Hundreds of villagers with no combat stats at all divide only by eight personality types and speech patterns—lazy, peppy, snooty, and others—so every person finds different villagers to care for. The villager people keep talking to remains more memorable than a strong one. Examine how a favorite arises through connection and conversation alone even on a roster without an ability field, and how the number of personality types is the number of kinds of people the game can call.
Villagers in Stardew Valley: In this 2016 farming game, relationships deepen through gifts and heart events independently of combat and farming ability. Each person chooses different villagers to befriend and marry. They are objects of relationship, not efficiency units. Examine how, when relationship content is separated from efficiency, people treat characters as partners rather than parts.
Team Fortress 2 class silhouettes: The nine classes of this 2007 game were shaped with distinct bodies and poses so they can be distinguished by black silhouettes alone. Heavy’s large body looks impossible to knock over, while Scout’s thin legs look fast but weak, foreshadowing personality and play sensation. Valve is known to have made silhouette recognition a principle of its art direction. Examine whether appearance alone, without explanatory copy, reveals which sensation a character calls—speed and mastery or safety and comfort.
Off the Hook (Pearl and Marina) in Splatoon: The host duo of Splatoon 2 (2017) pairs loud, direct Pearl with calm, technical Marina. Their opposite grains divide which one draws each fan. Eyes stop at different places on the same screen. Examine how placing the two side by side without ranking turns the split into preference rather than conflict.

Animated Film

The emotion characters in Inside Out: In the 2015 film, Joy is yellow and star-shaped, Sadness blue and teardrop-shaped, and Fear thin like a single exposed nerve. The creators are known to have shaped color and form so each emotion reads immediately. Appearance is the heart each character touches. Examine whether our characters’ shape and color convey the intended sensation at a glance and whether personality remains when form is hidden.
Carl and Russell in Up: The 2009 film shapes stubborn old Carl as a square and innocent boy Russell as a circle, letting the contrast of two forms make both readable without an ability explanation. Examine how shape language is the cheapest means of translating personality.
Minions / Totoro: Without a line explaining ability, softness and playfulness immediately touch protection and care and play and reaction. Examine what remains to attract people when specifications are removed from a character introduction.

Literature

Winnie-the-Pooh’s friends: Laid-back Pooh, timid Piglet, bouncy Tigger, and gloomy Eeyore beckon different readers through different temperaments in the same forest. They are remembered by personality, not performance. Examine how the spectrum of temperaments becomes the spectrum of readers and how broad the temperament range of our roster is.

Live-Action Television and Drama

Favorite-character splits in ensemble casts: Even while watching the same drama, viewers’ hearts remain with different characters. It is common for a supporting character, rather than the protagonist promoted by producers, to create a phenomenon. Examine how popularity follows character grain rather than screen time or setting, and how the person before whom viewers stop becomes the measured value of the sensory roster.
Sesame Street: This children’s program, begun in 1969, divides sensations among puppets on one stage. Elmo carries connection and conversation through eye contact with young viewers. Cookie Monster carries play and reaction that erupts when touched. Big Bird’s large, clumsy nature inspires protection and care. Children of different ages and temperaments each meet their interpreter. Examine how to place several interpreters in one world without letting their sensations overlap.
Pengsoo: This penguin trainee from EBS’s Giant Peng TV (2019) began on a children’s channel but is often said to have gained an adult office-worker fandom through a personality that speaks without inhibition. Examine how a character’s sensation, not the target field in a planning document, determines whom it calls, and what signal appears when the intended origin and the origin that actually gathers diverge.

Music

Favorite-member splits in idol groups: Even watching the same stage, different people are drawn to vocals, dance, kindness, or stage command, dividing their preferred members. Popularity of the group as a whole and each member’s fandom run separately. Examine how different charms, not a ranking table, call different people, and how the prototype of the character roster already exists onstage.

Manga and Comic Books

Character popularity polls in boys’ manga: In reader polls for weekly serialized manga, the strongest character does not necessarily come first. The character that touched people does, and protagonists are not rarely surpassed by supporting characters. Examine this rare device that numerically demonstrates performance and popularity as separate axes, and whether our game can measure them separately.

Webtoons

Webtoons driven by characterization: The first episode lets readers meet a person to love through expression, atmosphere, and speech habits rather than stats or world explanation. Examine which sensation appears first in the opening episode and whether attraction precedes information.

Theme Parks and Spatial Experiences

Character greetings in Disney parks: Visitors choose favorite characters to meet around the park. Lines form before popular characters, but these lines are made by each person’s heart, not a tier chart. Examine how the meeting is designed before transaction and how the first point of contact is “going to find” rather than “drawing.”

Character IP and Merchandise

Sanrio’s My Melody and Kuromi: My Melody’s gentle loveliness and Kuromi’s mischievous edge call different fans through opposite grains. Both are known to compete near the top of annual character rankings. Examine IP operation that makes divergent popularity read as a difference in grain rather than superiority.
Kakao Friends’ Ryan: This maneless male lion joined in 2016 and is known to have quickly become the flagship through one quiet, dependable grain without an ability setting. While Apeach carries play and reaction on the same roster, Ryan carries safety and comfort. Examine the division where characters within one IP take different sensations and call different people, and the flow through which those sensations call for content in stickers and merchandise.

Offline and Everyday Life

Everland’s panda Fu Bao: Born in Korea in 2020, the panda is often said to have inspired phenomenon-level attachment not through tricks or rarity tier but through widely shared scenes of connection with keepers. People stopped before scenes of receiving and giving care, not before an ability. Examine the path through which protection-and-care sensation grows into attachment through care scenes, and whether a character game’s first screen should show a specification chart or a moment of care.

General Apps

Microsoft Office’s Clippy: Introduced in Office 97, this paperclip assistant aimed for connection and conversation but became disliked by interrupting work with unsolicited interference. It was disabled by default in early-2000s releases and eventually disappeared. Examine this counterexample: merely placing a character does not make it an interpreter. If the character’s sensation and actual behavior diverge, the interpreter becomes noise.