Several threads, plus some time in game has had me thinking about many of the underdeveloped back stories and motivations for NPCs. Very few, if any, of Skyrim's NPCs got a fair shake when the writers contrived their character development. This is evidenced by a lot of the debate that arises over who they are or what they really care about. I'm just curious...

Which NPCs would you most like to have really gotten to know?

Which NPCs were you most disappointed that Bethesda didn't flesh out more?

Personally, given the significance of some characters to certain quest lines, I was really let down with how little we actually get to know about them. Tolfdir and Mirabelle, for instance, have literally no backstory whatsoever. I'm just finishing up the College of Winterhold quest line again, and I'm pretty sad that they are both so two dimensional.

Who do you wish you could have learned more about?

Tullius
Rikke
Ulfric
Galmar

I find the character development is appropriate for a game. This isn't a book, where characters require a very high degree of development to make it worth the effort to read...or even a movie, where some degree of character development is required to make it worth taking the time to watch. Games are almost totally plot driven, since that is where the player fits in. Character development is a distant...something...not second because it is definitely behind setting as well as plot. Maybe third.

I certainly don't expect the depth of a book character, but some of them literally have nothing. In fact, in a bizarre way, many of the vendors have more of a back story than quest line NPCs. Adrianne and Belethor both have more character development than Tolfdir.

I've read a lot of what writers have written about writing. On developing characters I've learned this: a major character in a story has to be written in a multitude of ways to be remotely lifelike.

Watch people. Start with a simple family of three. The mother is not the same person when the father is home as she is when he is not. No doubt she would be yet another person if the child weren't there. Actually two others, one when the child isn't there but the father is and another when she is by herself. The writer has to account for four different aspects of this character before she ever leaves the house...if she is a main character...otherwise she won't be realistic.

Now enter the game instead of the story. The writer/programmer has absolutely no knowledge of the main character, because that's up to you. So there's no way to develop the NPC facet that interacts with the main character. There is no 'when you aren't around' facet to any of these characters, because the game is a single person narrative. So basically the NPCs are no more developed as characters than the furniture is. That isn't a failure of the programmers, it's a limitation of the medium.

I agree, except for Ulfric. I think he's the most fleshed out NPC in vanilla Skyrim.

More of the Jarls.
A bit more of Torryg.
Alduin

There's a few more that don't come to mind yet.

paarthy is a character i would have to have learned more of his backstory

Some others:

shahvee

talen jei and keerava

the caravans

elisif

just to name a few.

I feel the most fleshed-out NPC in the game is definitely Ulfric, though Cicero has a decent amount of information about him available.. Probably about even. Of course this is not counting Serena, who is the most in-depth NPC TES has ever known.

Some I would love to know more about would be:

• Babette, the child-vampire from DB
• The Redguard from DB, whose name escapes me
• The Khajit caravans in general
• All of the Orc Strongholds + members within (Still believe there should of been an Orc-based DLC)
• All of the professors at the College of Winterhold
• The court wizard of the Blue Palace. Can't think of her name, but she is a vampire. She had so much potential but only gave a simple 'go kill these people for gold and level-training' quest.

Esbern...such a waste of Max von Sydow.