Hello,
I know that Toady and everyone else is more interested in Fortress Mode right now, but I had an idea I thought I should put down.
I think it would be cool if adventurers had "thoughts" similar to the dwarves in Fortress Mode. I don't meant that the adventurer should be a big wuss and go crazy if his pet puppy gets killed. Rather here's what I had in mind:
1) At character creation, the player choses some options to flesh out their character's motivations/personality. You could, for instance, explain what it is that your character wants: Fame/loot/a dissolute lifestyle free of work/etc. etc./revenge on a person, group of people, race of creatures, etc. etc.
2) When playing the game, you would have a stat that somehow tracks the moods of your character. Your mood would effect how quickly/well your character learns new skills and improves old ones. For instance, if your character really wants revenge, their mood would allow them to train weapon skills etc. quickly. But if they failed to get revenge after a while, they could become depressed, and it would be hard to improve skills. (this would be necessary to avoid an exploit. Or perhaps your character needs to go boozing and wenching (or the equivalent of man-wenching) every now and then. If you just keep killing things and storing up loot for no reason (pretty much how every RPG in history works) then you won't indulge your character's spiritual needs, and they won't be able to advance their skills/etc. very well.
Just as a side note, I think the whole idea of just making your character act a certain way so that you can claim you are "roleplaying" is just dumb in a single player game. If you have a computer game, then you shouldn't have to play make-believe to make it more fun.
What I am proposing is a game mechanic not so much to force you to "roleplay", but in order to make the game more challenging and fun. One thing that always annoys me about conventional RPGs/Roguelikes is the whole "quest for loot" syndrome. This system gives you something else to play for- a story that you and share with people on the boards here. A unique playing experience each time you play... etc etc.
Also, since we (presumably) don't want an EXP or levelling system, I think that the psychological system would balance the game out so that you can't max out all skills as legendary by using an exploit. Right now, its not a big deal since the game is in alpha, but in the future, there should be some kind of mechanic in place to prevent this. I think the one I have described here would be fun!
Anyways, I know this kind of thing has been address in the dev logs. I just wanted to suggest how it might work.
Author
Topic: Mood and character motivation in Adventure mode (Read 651 times)