How do I manage collisions between characters being moved around by their transform.position?

Questions & Answers
1

I chose to move my characters around with: transform.position += direction * Time.deltaTime.

This is because I want total control over my characters, (this would be harder with rigidbodies).

The problem is that no obstacle can stop a character being moved by transform.position

But how would I make my character fall or trip over if he gets too close to another character?
Would I have to make some advanced script to detect when his feet get to close to another character?

2

Yes. If you’re choosing not to use the physics engine for rigidbody movement, then you need to roll your own collision handling code instead.

Note that you can still use triggers on kinematic rigidbodies that you move yourself to test whether one collider enters another, say, but you won’t get detailed information such as collision contact points, so you won’t know if the character has tripped or bumped their head… just that some part of them has hit something.

3

On the object that you are moving, create a RayCast in the Update() and check for distance:

RaycastHit objectHit;
float distance = 1.0f; // This is the length of the RayCast

if (Physics.Raycast(transform.position, transform.forward, out objectHit, distance)) 
{
    if (objectHit.collider.tag == "obstacle")
    {
        Debug.Log("hit an obstacle");
    }
}