Hi all,
I tinker with making rpg's also.. and am trying to implement a system of personality traits into my game to give the characters and NPC's a bit more flavour and introduce new aspects to gameplay..
there is an idea in the threds already about 'traits' ~ but they were based on the attributes of the characters (ie: various comments about how much strength or agility your character had) that's not a bad idea, but i do not think they are actual *personality traits*
i was thinking more along the lines of ACTUAL personality traits.. (the hard part is defining them into categories!?)
SOME TRAIT IDEAS
bad-tempered
alcoholic
depraved
grumblebum
quick-thinker
heart of stone (1)
heart of darkness (2)
hates (race/item/place/person/etc)
likes (race/item/place/person/etc)
fears (race/item/place/person/etc)
etc
etc
these ones are not so much based on the attributes, but you could easily introduce that aspect (ie: a trait called 'brute-strength' or 'divine-might' might a require certain strength score)
also, the traits could belong to a certain hierachy (ie: heart of darkness could evolve into heart of stone)
all the traits are based on alignment and data of this nature.
I would also like to connect this to a random background generater, so each character (and NPC) is truly unique.
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so what do the traits mean? how do they work?
well.. something like heart of stone might require your character to be chaotic or evil aligned (it's not really the trait of a good char is it? :P) it could include modifiers for your character such as..
HEART OF STONE (lvl 1)
a) character able to ignore most sickening sights and perform most evil actions
b) character able to murder and perform indiscriminate attacks
c) character able to resist emotions and other forms of emotional exertion
d) etc
and when the trait evolves into heart of darkness
HEART OF DARKNESS (lvl 2)
a) character able to resist fear type attacks of most monsters
b) character able to ignore any sickening sight and perform any evil actions
c) character does not recieve morale loss from party member death
d) etc
things like ALCOHOLIC would work in such a way that the character affected could be influenced to perform certain acts by the promise of alcohol or does certain things when under the influence (ie: a sub-trait that emerges when the character gets drunk?)
the character might try to enter a tavern whenever he/she walks past one, and of course there is the addiction to the alcohol in the first place. (how much does the character require to drink each day? why do they drink? etc)
smart utilization of the personality trait system could also offer a way to introduce various side-quests and other quests..
eg)
a) the player unit meets an NPC warrior called sally
b) sally joins team
c) over time a friendship of sorts will develop
d) sally is slain in a fierce battle
e) player unit grieves loss of friend sally
f) player unit starts to drink excessively
g) player unit gains the ALCOHOLIC trait
at the point between (e) and (f) some game checks will have to be done.. what traits does the character already have? imagine the potential for gameplay here?
if the character had the trait 'hopeless romantic' they might try to seek out a cleric or such to ressurect the slain friend sally, if the character was 'honor bound' they might automatically spend the next few game turns digging a grave for the fallen friend before continuing on, etc etc etc.. and some funny alternatives come to mind for a character who is 'depraved' :P
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^ with lots and lots of modifications like this built into the many various traits, i think the capability for gameplay has been expanded greatly!
the game could become a little more like 'the sims', well.. umm, maybe not.. i don't want to have my character throwing Tea-parties for the neighbourhood imps and such.. but i DO like RPG's to have more than just combat, maze exploration and item gathering..
hope this can be expanded upon?
Ben from Oz.
