Wheel of Emotions
While searching for interesting visualizations for role-playing games, I found what turned out to be psychologist Robert Plutchik’s diagram of emotions, and thought it is a great way to help determine how an NPC’s attitude to players may shift over time. I then posted on reddit about it and someone linked me to this other blog post that goes into more detail.
Later, another post pointed out the wheel shown here which is thought of as an aid for writers but could be used for similar purposes.
I’m a fan of the pretty color wheel one in the linked post. I found it a couple years ago and have used it as a jumping-off point for exploring how characters experience and communicate (and manipulate) emotions.
Where roleplaying NPCs is concerned, I’ve rarely found need for more than about four emotions — fear, anger, hope, and despair — four opposing emotions commonly represented in D&D. They’re perhaps best characterized by spells and class features sprinkled through the game, like Cause Fear/Turn Undead, Barbarian Rage, Bardic Music/Good Hope, and Crushing Despair.
–Dither