BioWare - Scripting Its Classics @ CVG

An article called The BioWare Technique - Scripting its classics sees BioWare writers Drew Karpshyn and Mike Laidlaw discussing their approach:

BioWare create character bibles for most of the personalities in their games, and settle on three levels of importance - major, medium and minor. "Minor characters are typically the barkeep, where I'm not so worried about his family history, as in any interesting personality quirks he has - he's short and round, maybe has asthma..." says Laidlaw.

"But as a character grows in significance to the story we flesh them out a lot further, largely because we want these characters to be 3D, to resonate properly. You have to make sure that they have enough depth to go beyond [does lame tough guy voice] 'I am a guy with a gun!'

 "The bibles then allow the artists to get a real grasp on the characters so they can then come in and provide concept art and models, and give their feedback," continues Karpyshyn. "Quite often you'll find they actually take what you were doing and emphasise a particular element that you had mentioned, such as push a character's appearance to be more humorous or more sinister - and it really helps us create that link between what you see in the game and the words that we're putting into the characters' mouths."