{
  "tab": "other",
  "section": "characterArchetypes",
  "title": "NPC Archetypes (Advanced)",
  "summary": "Keyed personality scaffolds for character background generation. Each archetype is a structured prompt block with **Drives, Traits, Morality, and Relationships** sections.",
  "uiLocation": "Other → Advanced → NPC Archetypes",
  "uiSubtitle": "\"Character archetypes for NPC Details generation\"",
  "editor": "JSON only (key → string map)",
  "sizeLimits": [],
  "related": "npcs - archetypes are referenced when generating NPC Details for unnamed NPCs",
  "wikiUrl": "/other/characterArchetypes",
  "schema": {
    "_type": "record",
    "domain": "string",
    "codomain": "string"
  },
  "body": "## Example\r\n\r\n```json\r\n{\r\n  \"Survivor\": \"Drives: stay alive; keep the people they have chosen to care about alive.\\nTraits: pragmatic, observant, slow to trust.\\nMorality: situational — lines drawn by experience, not principle.\\nRelationships: distrusts institutions; trusts demonstrated competence.\",\r\n  \"Scholar\": \"Drives: understand how the world works; preserve knowledge that power would prefer buried.\\nTraits: intellectually confident, practically underequipped.\\nMorality: believes understanding is inherently valuable regardless of consequence.\\nRelationships: loyalty runs to ideas more than to people.\",\r\n  \"Operator\": \"Drives: get the job done, get paid, move on before complications follow.\\nTraits: professional, efficient, allergic to drama.\\nMorality: contractual — the client and the agreement define the limit.\\nRelationships: respects competence; resents amateurs; networks deliberately.\",\r\n  \"True Believer\": \"Drives: serve a cause larger than the self; expand its reach.\\nTraits: focused, articulate, hard to discourage.\\nMorality: derived from the cause; ranks principles above persons.\\nRelationships: warm to fellow believers, instructive to potential converts, dismissive of the indifferent.\",\r\n  \"Opportunist\": \"Drives: position for the next advantage; avoid being on the wrong side when the music stops.\\nTraits: charming, observant of leverage, willing to discard plans for better ones.\\nMorality: instrumental — every rule has an exception for the right price.\\nRelationships: cultivates many shallow ties; deep loyalty to almost no one.\"\r\n}\r\n```\r\n\r\n## Behaviour\r\n\r\n### Population DNA\r\n\r\nArchetypes serve as the population \"DNA\" for the world -- consulted on the fly when generating unnamed characters, not a per-NPC assignment. The more entries you define, the more varied the character population feels. Worlds typically define 15 or more archetypes to avoid a homogeneous feel.\r\n\r\n### Pairing with playable builds\r\n\r\nPair with `traits`, `skills`, and `premadeCharacters` for playable builds. Archetypes are personality templates, not full PCs.\r\n\r\n### Empty-section crash\r\n\r\n> **⚠️ Warning:** Leaving `characterArchetypes` empty (`{}`) causes a hard engine crash when `generateNPCDetails` fires for a **strong / elite / boss / mythic** tier NPC. The same applies to `locationArchetypes` (`generateLocationDetails`) and `regionArchetypes` (`generateRegionDetails`). The engine throws if any of these are empty when it tries to pick a random entry. The schema does not warn for this. Define at least one entry in each section.\r\n\r\n### Tier gate\r\n\r\n> **📋 Note (`characterArchetypes` tier gate):** Archetype selection is only invoked for `strong` / `elite` / `boss` / `mythic` tier NPCs during `generateNPCDetails`, not for `trivial` / `weak` / `average` tier NPCs. Ordinary-tier NPCs draw their personality from trait quirks and `aiInstructions.generateNPCDetails.custom` instead. Worlds with only low-tier NPCs will not hit the empty-archetype crash even if `characterArchetypes` is left empty -- but the validator still recommends defining at least one entry as defence-in-depth against later content additions.\r\n\r\n### Override and suppression\r\n\r\n> **📋 Note:** To override or fully ignore the engine-selected archetype inside `generateNPCDetails`, see [Behavior suppression and archetype override](/appendix/ai-advanced-techniques#behavior-suppression-and-archetype-override) in the Advanced AI Techniques appendix."
}