Archetype was born out of the need to overcome creative lock-up when writing stories or creating new characters for games. It provides the random stimulus you sometimes need to prime your imagination, collected from surveying the common themes of more than 1,000 memorable characters from movies, books and games.
Each box of Archetype consists of 4 flavors of card decks, each representing one dimension of a character:
Roles - A character’s outward-facing place in the world around them.
Quirks - A notable physical trait that makes a character physically memorable.
Motivations - The inward-facing hopes and dreams of a character.
Goals - What the character is doing now.
Use them individually or all together to make a descriptive sentence about a new character that you can jump off from.
Who is Archetype for?
Writers, Game Masters, Artists, Actors or anyone who regularly invents new characters.
How do you use Archetype?
As a prompt for practice, draw a set of cards and write about or illustrate or act out that character.
As a tool for improvisation, grab a few cards to flesh out that new NPC or add flavor to a side character.
As a tool for critical analysis, explore the themes of a character by matching them to cards.
What genre’s does Archetype work with?
Archetype isn’t built for any specific genre, and descriptions were written to work across futuristic, modern, historical, or fantasy settings, though a few cards may need some literary license to fit into a particular setting.
Why did you make Archetype?
Many stories are made up of common human themes. I thought it was interesting to catalog them, and thought it would be cool to have that catalog in a deck format I could play around with.
Can I get Archetype now that the Kickstarter is over?
Yes, I’ll offer additional copies of Archetype for $20 on this website after all campaign rewards have been shipped (est. July). At that time, I’ll also be offering a digital print-and-play version for $5.
How can I get in touch directly?
You can email me at: archetype@rejamison.com
Archetype is my first Kickstarter project. I work professionally as a product manager, so am familiar with project planning and delivery to timelines, but this is my first time working with printers to produce a large batch of physical goods and handling bulk fulfillment of them.
My primary goal in the project is to bring something new and hopefully interesting to all of you into the world, so the quality of the produced product is my highest concern. If delaying the project a bit will achieve a better quality product and experience using it, then I would choose to delay the project.
The biggest risk as I see it is getting into the production calendars of the printers and delays they might face. I’ll be transparent with backers about these issues if they come up and I take full responsibility for any increased cost of shipping related to any project delays.
