Personality Traits and Character Creation(ish) Suggestion

Gameplay
#1

At the moment I’m aware there is no character creation and that’s fine, however I would like to give a suggestion. Excluding normal character creation is fine, but I’d like to have 1 thing included that would add a moderate amount more reputability as well as helps to personalize a character more. My suggestion is to include personality traits.

Examples
Honest - You are reluctant to tell lies, and when you do you’re a bad liar and discerning people won’t believe you. People are more likely to trust you.
Honorable - People tend to have more respect for you. You cannot loot the corpses of fallen enemies. You would spare the life of a person who surrenders
Dishonest - People are less likely to trust you, you get more variety of lies to tell, you are a more convincing liar.
Thieving - You have a natural affinity for stealing things, but people who know you know this so they keep a closer eye when you’re around
Charming - You have a smile that can make anyone like you, people are likely to give you better deals, people are naturally more attracted to you, unfortunately because people notice you you’re less stealthy.
Hydrophobic - You have an uncommonly high fear of water particularly drowning. You’re slower to react in rain, you try to avoid entering bodies of waters or fording rivers.
Arachnophobic - You have a strong fear of spiders and will avoid them at all cost. (If you’re captured by the enemy they could use this as a form of torture.)
Ugly - Most people are repulsed by you, and try not to look at you. You’re more stealthy because of it and other ugly people tend to like you more.

Those are some examples of how they can be effective for the story
Another reason to add them is in regards to sexuality, but I wanted to post it separate from the rest because the discussion is still going on in another thread. If you can choose your sexual orientation in this traits screen then heterosexuals would not be offended when the subject of flirting comes up. This would offer the best of all worlds.

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#2

I always love stuff like this. But I don’t know about ugly, thieving and the phobias. The protagonist doesn’t really look ugly, at least not what I’ve seen from pictures and videos. I rather think it should be some “fumbling with words” kind of trait, and mostly used in dialogues. Just like “charming” should be, I don’t see how people would find you easier sneaking about in the shadows because you have a nice smile and a way of words. About “thieving”, that isn’t really a personality trait, unless it’s kleptomania. About the phobias, they don’t seem to bring anything positive to the player. Being slow in rain seems annoying, and how often are you going to be captured and tortured with spiders?

Either the Personality Traits could work like in Fallout, where one trait has a positive side and an equal negative side, like the Jinxed trait - enemies have more critical failures in combat, but so do you. Or they could be like in The Sims: Medieval, where you have to pick two Traits, which are good things that concern just you, and one Fatal Flaw, which can be a good thing to you but impact people around you negatively. For example, you could pick the traits Fun-Loving and Eloquent which obviously aren’t bad for anyone, but then you would need to have a Fatal Flaw like Drunkard, so you would have to drink alcohol all the time. If your sims’ a bard character, it’s easy since he’s always in the tavern, but if he’s a merchant, he’s always away from alcohol. My favorite fatal flaw is Bloodthristy - you have to pick fights with people all the time. There are probably games with better trait systems, but those are the ones I can remember that I liked and I have played.

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#3

I don’t like things having a positive and negative together for the heck of it. But where it’s logical.
The reason charming would make you less stealthy is not because you’re going all ninja, but if you’re walking the market street and grab an apple people will likely notice because they’re checking you out. Whereas if you’re ugly they’ll be trying to avoid looking at you. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder you can’t judge if the guy is handsome by looking at him savage :slight_smile: you may think he looks sexy/hands/pretty/dandy, but someone else might think differently. Also since you’re only having a first person perspective you can easily imagine the character looking however people are treating him.

On your other point, yes the phobias are bad, but what’s wrong with that you don’t need to pick them, but some people might like the challenge of them. I posted these as examples not an end. So I hope we’ll see more phobias and more negative traits. Always having “Logical” outcomes. Like I said above traits do not need a positive and negative, but most logically come with both. Also thieving doesn’t have to be kleptomania it can simply be something you’re known for doing. But because you’ve been doing it a while you’re better at it, meaning you’re a faster cut purse, or a smoother pickpocket, but people who know you for this will keep a closer eye on you, of course npcs who don’t know you wouldn’t have this awareness (unless informed beforehand)

#4

Interessanter Thread. Ohne Frage. Aber auch einer der schwierigsten. Ich tüftle an genau diesem Punkt “NPC-Gefühle” schon seit Jahren herum. Vermutlich wird es in den nächsten 2 Jahren von der Entwicklung der Logarythmen her begrenzt möglich sein, eine gewisse Individualität errechnen zu lassen. Allerdings ist so etwas immer subjektiv geprägt, also die Bewertung liegt im Auge des Betrachters. Es gäbe (derzeit) einen aufwändigen Weg, der aber in einem RPG nicht umsetzbar ist. Sieh dich mal z.B. auf der Seite der Uni Augsburg um, da gab es einige Projekte in ähnlicher Richtung.

Interestingly thread. Without question. But also one of the most difficult. I tüftle “NPC feelings” for years around at exactly this point. Presumably it will be to a limited extent in the next 2 years of the development of Logarythmen ago to let calculate a certain individuality. However, something is always a subjective, so the rating is in the eye of the beholder. There would (currently) a complex way, which is not feasible but in an RPG. Look at you times such as on the side of the University of Augsburg in order, as there were some projects in a similar direction.

#5

When I see people stealing stuff at marketdays or such, I notice them not because they are handsome, I notice them because I just happened to be looking at the person doing the deed. If someone is remarkably ugly, people will look at the person a lot, I guarantee it. No one is not going to be noticing Sir Elephant Man walking down the road stealing apples. And I don’t consider being a thief a personality trait. Shall we also add bard and knight as traits? You could say “Charismatic” is the bard’s trait and “Honorable” is the knight’s trait, those are personalities, a way of being. But is “Thieving” really the thief’s trait? Is thieving a personality? I’d say kleptomania is more of that part, and it helps the thief in his career of thieving, just like the bard’s way with words help him in his career of writing songs and wooing people. I wouldn’t say “Songwriter” or “Lute player” are personality traits.

The point about negative traits. I am all for negative traits. But they need to have noticable impact in the game and they need to be kind of desirable, even if they are bad. Kleptomania would be a negative trait, but it would be desirable in that it helps you steal valuables. “you’ve been doing it a while you’re better at it, meaning you’re a faster cut purse” sound more like that would be a skill you gain experience in as you use it, which is what will be in the game already.

Arachnophobia… I don’t see when that is going to give anything in the game. Like, when you go down a dungeon, if your character sees a spider on the wall, you will lose control of him and he’ll do a high-pitch shriek that alerts the guards? How often are you going to be captured by someone who thinks putting a spider on you is a way more effective torture method than putting fire on your feet or something?

So yeah, my way of thinking is how The Sims did it. I never played it much, but I liked the Traits and Fatal Flaws. You pick two traits which defines your character from other characters, they are beneficial to you and they don’t hurt nobody (The “Evil” trait doesn’t hurt anybody, but your sim would take enjoyment out of seeing others getting hurt, so it works well with the “Bloodthirsty” fatal flaw, the desire to pick a fight with others.) Then you pick one Fatal Flaw, and it don’t necessarily have to have a negative impact on anyone like Bloodthirsty is. You could be a Compulsive Gambler, you just need to gamble everyday to not get sad, or you could be Cowardly and don’t like to go out at dark and run away from fights. I’m not saying Kingdom Come should have traits exactly like this though, because The Sims is still a game about taking care of people’s need, and KC is not. But I like the idea of “two positives, one negative” as no one is perfect, and no one is imperfect either.

#6

yup I still disagree with you.

#7

How about being left handed? As I’m a lefthanded person myself, I would love to see a game that lets you choose what hand will be the more dominate.

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#8

I actually don’t think traits like this are a good idea. I feel the player should have plenty of freedom to play his or her own way without having to decide before hand. Let’s say you pick a trait that says “thief” only to realize you don’t like stealing, or maybe you aren’t so good at it. Without the traits you just try something else, with it you might be able to adjust your focus but your character page would still have the word “Thief” in big glowing letters even though you haven’t even tried to steal something for 80 hours of game time.

#9

I’m inclined to agree. I think personality traits should be the kind of thing you have to actually roleplay, rather than just some text on your character screen (especially for things like ‘arachnophobia’, which would hardly ever come up in game anyway). Though I guess it couldn’t hurt to have a pre-existing reputation with certain NPCs, especially if you’ve been living in the area all your life.

#10

The way I see it are these traits you choose are part of his background. If you choose theif it doesn’t mean you need to steal. Just that you used to steal and you became known for it.

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