Character Traits

[M!NT]

This has come up time and time again so I figured I'll make a thread about it.

V3 will be adding hair and tons of new clothing items to help people make their characters more unique. It will add a localized damage medical system to make survival harder and more immersive. To add to all of this, I think adding a 'trait system' could help people make their characters even more unique.

How would it work?
Traits themselves would have listed impacts to skills and attributes. This requires that, for balance reasons, people have to select as many negative traits as they do positive traits.
They're selected at character creation and cannot be editable afterwords (except by admins through admin commands).
During RP, the player of the character can press a button (lets say F9 or something) that brings up a little menu. The menu allows the player to recognize specific traits to characters within a radius of them, similar to names and nicknames. Then in the enhanced description (press E to see full description) menu we could show the traits there.

Allow me to present to you an example to help illuminate this:

Lets say I go to make my character "John Smith". I plan on having this character be a staunch loyalist with the background I have in mind for him.
During character selection I select "Unabated Loyalist" trait.
During an RP scenario "John Smith" spends some time preaching on the 'glory of the union' or whatever.
I then decide to recognize the trait to all of the characters in talking radius because of that.
From then on, when someone pulls up the full description on "John Smith" they will see 'Unabated Loyalist' listed as a trait, alongside the description of the trait.

Questions to be answered in this thread:

1. Is this necessary? If not:
   1. Is there an alternate implementation that would work better?
2. What traits should we have?
3. Should different factions have different traits available at character creation?
4. Should only (cwu, cmu, citizen, reb, cp, etc) have traits? Like, should vorts have traits? If so:
   1. Should the selection be the same as it is for humans?
5. What happens if a character develops in a way that makes them become incompatible with their traits?

 

[Deleted member]

I quite dig this. Traits are a fun way to alter the way you change up your roleplay instead of blatantly enacting a generic character. Terranova was uniquely known for having a similar system, which is what I surmise this is being based on.

For inspiration, I'll toss in a file collated with the names and icons that Terranova used in their prime (before pulling a Hinderberg).

Spoiler: File

Traits.7z

1 file sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

we.tl

 

[Cocohop]

My issue with this is that it will lead people to create even more black & white characters. Imagine the following:

I make a rebel character with the trait 'Hates Scrombine'. For whatever reason, this character is treated well by every single CP they encounter. Surely, via RP & character progression, this character could grow more sympathetic to the combine, due to personal experience.

Moreover, if your John Smith character existed, and they kept getting their shit beaten out of, surely their loyalty would be less unwavering, right?

I'd like if traits were more relevant to background, and allowed someone to do things they wouldn't normally do. For instance, here are some trait examples.
- Former mechanic. This character has knowledge on cars & car repairs.
- Professional kick boxer. When fighting NPCs, this character rolls with advantage in S2RP if attacking unarmed.
- Ex-Track athlete. This character gets a +10 on RP speed rolls.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

Is this necessary?

TerraNova when it was still alive believed in the idea of such a visual constellation of traits that had a very minor, if not next to no impact on the gameplay itself. But what it definitely did was provide an exterior plating to the roleplay immersive environment that the server set out. It helped build the extravaganza that was the player character. It was an effective boundary push to think more outside the box rather than inside.

Now I foresee multiple uses - one is the gameplay element which, in my eyes, should have little effect on the player, as it's more a quality of life secure broadcast of who the character is idealistically made to be. The other is pushing it to be a full gameplay looping trait system which I don't think many people will be happy or at the very least angry about it being put to that motional methodology.

"During an RP scenario "John Smith" spends some time preaching on the 'glory of the union' or whatever. From then on, when someone pulls up the full description on "John Smith" they will see 'Unabated Loyalist' listed as a trait, alongside the description of the trait."

So, in my eyes - if this was purposely made to an RP tool as a 90 - 100% of its value, then I'd see it as a selling point to the server. But a trait system should not be a gameplay selling point and should stay far away from that as humanly made possible. It should be affiliated with how the player in conjunction RPs the character.

- Former mechanic. This character has knowledge on cars & car repairs.
- Professional kick boxer. When fighting NPCs, this character rolls with advantage in S2RP if attacking unarmed.
- Ex-Track athlete. This character gets a +10 on RP speed rolls.

One of the things I don't think is good for the server is how it affects the players to gain them some form of advantage. There's little way to automate it instinctively unless you link it with current systems which to me is still a detriment. While the more "black and white" characters thing is already widespread anyway, there isn't a key ingredient. That's why I suggest neutral character traits below which can be that bouncing betty to at least not produce metas into circulation.

What traits should we have?

Before I get into this - In my studies of Psychology, I ran an open empirical experiment regarding memory retention in conjunction with logogenic and imagenic scenes to determine the long lasting effect of how people sustained information. Logogenic information by itself was mostly a dry sponge between all of the volunteers that took part. Imagenic-logos in combination were almost double the retention level of information retained. So as to best first figure out how this looks:

A custom made image per trait with text looming around that would be vital to keep the attention span. Keep it small.​

Different colours between positive and negative traits. Neutral traits perhaps could be a silvery-grey colour if there is a middle ground option.​

Variety is impactful for this to work, but you don't need a massive list as if you're playing modded Stellaris with 5 million genome traits to pick from.​

Traits should be formally aligned to the universe, a differential sequencing of traits that COULD involve:​

Meyer's Briggs personality type / Enneagram Types? (Might be good for Combine documentation digitally for the human index. That is ONLY prevalent for documenting such a thing, because the CMU and Civil Protection if they ever conduct investigations COULD USE THAT.)​

Behavioural clauses from quirkiness, to depressive, inquisitive, mental fortification traits.​

Perhaps demeanour type?​

Is the character rebellious in nature, are they conformist like you said? Are they a hermit, do they need company?​

Are they impulsive? Are they patient, are they callous or agreeable people?​

​

LIST GOES ON AND ON...​

​

Should different factions have different traits available at character creation?

It is possible that certain traits should be shown as perhaps a form of consolidation. It's like if you were joining Civil Protection, new lists can open up that weren't previously available. The person that joined Civil Protection - are they By The Book? Are they Independent Thinkers? Power Hungry? Are they Sympathetic? There's a handful that you can go through, but the general gist is that if there would be different traits per faction - they should be smaller in number in comparison to the already available ones.

Should only (cwu, cmu, citizen, reb, cp, etc) have traits? Like, should vorts have traits? If so:

Should the selection be the same as it is for humans?​

Vortigaunt traits should be ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE to their own faction.

Maybe they hate humans? Maybe they're sympathetic to the human cause. Do they not like other Vortigaunts? Do they not care for the Vortessence and feel indifferent about the woven despite being connected to it? Are they in emotional control?

Many questions to put that into a mix, but only a Vortigaunt players know how their Vortigaunt is portrayed, and it should not be linked with normal human traits.

Factors to consider for Vortigaunts:

WISDOM, INTELLIGENCE, UNDERSTANDING, WOVEN CONNECTIVITY, WILLINGNESS, MYSTIQUE, PROWESS AND CUNNING.​

These are but examples to further elaborate on the Vortigaunt character. DeNuke will be able to point out far more, generally.​

​

What happens if a character develops in a way that makes them become incompatible with their traits?

Comes to a level of self awareness on the player, so that either resides on the player contacting staff about it being changed. All down to elements of Roleplay the character successfully goes through. Not much input here. Will leave that to other people to discuss.


Generally, I don't mind a trait system if it provides a benefit to the players that actively want to document more to their character, and make their immersion feel more alive in relation to interacting with other characters similarly. But if it ever comes down to touching gameplay with it, minimal use only, if not completely stomped.

 

[𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔮]

It's good, but also bad. I wouldn't mind it if it is added and I only speak a couple of concerns that came to mind; Isn't the server supposed to be going more towards RP in RPG? With this addition, in character, people would probably opt to not use their own vocabulary to explain how certain characters act or function, which might feel out of place for especially younger characters, whose education is questionable. IC people already call crafting components by the names they have been given e.g Adhesive, instead of glue, so do we need more of that?

And also like @Cocohop said, characters would be certainly more black and white as they'd have a limited amount of traits to choose from, and newer players would think they'd have to solely act by those traits.

 

[Kappatalist]

Traits are great but in my opinion only as a way to help character creation, and shouldn't impact any skills or roleplay, and they should be shown only to the player and staff maybe if they want to take a look. There's a command to check a characters info that this could be added to, and for the player they could simply show up under the F1 menu. They shouldn't be able to be 'shared' or anything, I feel like it's bloat and also the opinions of you by other players should be entirely up to what they think of you.

Should act like they did on Terranova, entirely 'aesthetic' / there purely to give players a basis to form their characters from and to help newer players stick to a few defining points of their character. I don't think this would make them black and white either, it'd only be a basic guide to give you some direction with a fresh transfer.

I'm against them having an impact on RP/Skills/Attributes or anything at all like that because I feel like the RPG elements take away a lot from the RP and turn it into something more semi serious, cool on fallout new vegas, but I don't really think it's fitting for a serious RP server where the focus should be on what players are actually doing with their story, not what a few numbers/words say they can do.

 

[ZeroPants]

Character development:

Character development should be considered when adding a trait system, people can be changed by their experiences. Let's say I make a character with the unabated loyalist trait, would it at all be possible for the character to lose this trait (or swap if with something else) through RP? What if my loyalist char has a change of heart? How would something like this be done? (I would assume this would be something char auths handle, you would list how your character lost or changed this trait, then if it gets accepted admins could change your trait, or perhaps you can just ask an admin to change your trait whenever.

Injuries:

The trait system could be good for med RP, if you fall from high up and break your legs, you could get a broken leg trait that could only be fixed by an experienced doctor. (trait injuries could reduce stats until they are healed)

Rules:

What rules are in place to stop someone from not following the traits they give themselves? What if someone has a trait that states that they are physically weak and they attempt to physically overpower someone? (this wouldn't matter if the "weak" trait only reduces the strength stat, because the system would be enforced on its own via /rolls)

What if someone with an anti-combine trait starts snitching on people for SC? (If someone has an anti-combine or rebellious trait and then starts taking pro-combine actions, it would be fun to give them a "traitor" in order to show that they aren't truly loyal to the cause they say they support, who knows.)

 

[M!NT]

Character development should be considered when adding a trait system, people can be changed by their experiences. Let's say I make a character with the unabated loyalist trait, would it at all be possible for the character to lose this trait (or swap if with something else) through RP? What if my loyalist char has a change of heart? How would something like this be done? (I would assume this would be something char auths handle, you would list how your character lost or changed this trait, then if it gets accepted admins could change your trait, or perhaps you can just ask an admin to change your trait whenever.

We could do an auth format for people to be able to change these things with development, because we don't want to have it be something people can do willy nilly. They should be semi-permanent.

Perhaps we should consider adding a menu for players to be able to make small adjustments to 'changeable' traits, which has a long cooldown. Like lets say for every 10hrs you RP on the character you can change 1 trait.

The trait system could be good for med RP, if you fall from high up and break your legs, you could get a broken leg trait that could only be fixed by an experienced doctor.

Lets leave this to the new medical system: https://willard.network/forums/threads/localized-damage-medical-system-overhaul.8408/

However, as rad said earlier, the traits can help with describing mental conditions and behaviors of a character.

Most people always play their character as sane during the IC applications for CPs so that they can get in. It serves an OOC purpose. Perhaps the CPs will use the CMU to identify character's traits and submit them to CPs as part of their application process. Maybe they have certain traits they're looking for and certain trait combinations that would mark a character as unfit for being a CP.

What rules are in place to stop someone from not following the traits they give themselves? What if someone has a trait that states that they are physically weak and they attempt to physically overpower someone? What if someone with an anti-combine trait starts snitching on people for SC? (If someone has an anti-combine or rebellious trait and then starts taking pro-combine actions, it would be fun to give them a "traitor" in order to show that they aren't truly loyal to the cause they say they support, who knows.)

This is something that is hard to enforce already. Time and time again I see people put something on their char's bio that conflicts with the things the character does. Hopefully traits will help people make their characters be more consistent. I imagine that if a character majorly conflicts with their traits without a reason to do so (aka: having developed out of them) then it could be considered FailRP.

Traits are great but in my opinion only as a way to help character creation, and shouldn't impact any skills or roleplay, and they should be shown only to the player and staff maybe if they want to take a look. There's a command to check a characters info that this could be added to, and for the player they could simply show up under the F1 menu. They shouldn't be able to be 'shared' or anything, I feel like it's bloat and also the opinions of you by other players should be entirely up to what they think of you.

I understand where you're coming from with this. I see that people don't want them to impact skills and attributes. I'd like for them to, as it adds depth to our somewhat shallow mechanics. If enough people don't want it then we could leave it out at first.

I think they should be shared though, as that adds a good bit of value to people that might play multiple characters. Sometimes its hard to keep track of what each characters knows specifically about another character's personality. To be honest, I see little reason why not to do that as it gives the player more information about the characters they interact with.

 

[Belgg]

This has come up time and time again so I figured I'll make a thread about it.

V3 will be adding hair and tons of new clothing items to help people make their characters more unique. It will add a localized damage medical system to make survival harder and more immersive. To add to all of this, I think adding a 'trait system' could help people make their characters even more unique.

How would it work?
Traits themselves would have listed impacts to skills and attributes. This requires that, for balance reasons, people have to select as many negative traits as they do positive traits.
They're selected at character creation and cannot be editable afterwords (except by admins through admin commands).
During RP, the player of the character can press a button (lets say F9 or something) that brings up a little menu. The menu allows the player to recognize specific traits to characters within a radius of them, similar to names and nicknames. Then in the enhanced description (press E to see full description) menu we could show the traits there.

Allow me to present to you an example to help illuminate this:

Lets say I go to make my character "John Smith". I plan on having this character be a staunch loyalist with the background I have in mind for him.
During character selection I select "Unabated Loyalist" trait.
During an RP scenario "John Smith" spends some time preaching on the 'glory of the union' or whatever.
I then decide to recognize the trait to all of the characters in talking radius because of that.
From then on, when someone pulls up the full description on "John Smith" they will see 'Unabated Loyalist' listed as a trait, alongside the description of the trait.

Questions to be answered in this thread:

1. Is this necessary? If not:
   1. Is there an alternate implementation that would work better?
2. What traits should we have?
3. Should different factions have different traits available at character creation?
4. Should only (cwu, cmu, citizen, reb, cp, etc) have traits? Like, should vorts have traits? If so:
   1. Should the selection be the same as it is for humans?
5. What happens if a character develops in a way that makes them become incompatible with their traits?

Sounds good as an idea, but at the same time it sounds like a bit of meta to me, like as soon as you see someone with the Unabated loyalist trait you'll know he's not a rebel (When, if he was simply pretending, he would not be able to show up as a Unabated loyalist)

This could be fixed by allowing fake trait f3's (Like there are fake names now)

 

[Belgg]

The trait system could be good for med RP, if you fall from high up and break your legs, you could get a broken leg trait that could only be fixed by an experienced doctor. (trait injuries could reduce stats until they are healed)

This would be a great fix to the medical system we have now

 

[Deleted member]

I quite dig this. Traits are a fun way to alter the way you change up your roleplay instead of blatantly enacting a generic character. Terranova was uniquely known for having a similar system, which is what I surmise this is being based on.

For inspiration, I'll toss in a file collated with the names and icons that Terranova used in their prime (before pulling a Hinderberg).

Spoiler: File

Traits.7z

1 file sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

we.tl

In addendum to this, I believe that the trait system should follow the basic premise of positive, neutral, negative, and ideological traits. Certain negative traits could even have corporeal impairs on the player, for instance, a "Four Eyes" trait, prompting you to wear glasses, or even an "Uneducated" trait, giving the denotation that you're illiterate. Traits should all be insubstantial to attributes and skills. I do not believe you should be given the prerogative to arbitrarily "reveal" traits to others either, instead, they should act as mere genetically determined characteristics of your character, giving a more clear-cut indicator of their stance and personality.

 

[The_Grass_Man]

No bro, I won't have a system choosing what my traits are. The human brain is limitless and everyone should differ from each other, having a limited trait selection will destroy whats left of our humanity; Therefore making technology win and have complete control over us. If you do add this system you will doom us all to an eternity of mental control from the machine, I will resist to this and will take drastic measures so that my children may live in a world dominated by nature and with no traces of technology. Meglio vivere da uomini liberi ma poveri che da schiavi ricchi, PER LA PATRIA E PER IL FUTURO

 

[Kappatalist]

I understand where you're coming from with this. I see that people don't want them to impact skills and attributes. I'd like for them to, as it adds depth to our somewhat shallow mechanics. If enough people don't want it then we could leave it out at first.

I think they should be shared though, as that adds a good bit of value to people that might play multiple characters. Sometimes its hard to keep track of what each characters knows specifically about another character's personality. To be honest, I see little reason why not to do that as it gives the player more information about the characters they interact with.

The mechanics should be shallow in my opinion. The mechanics shouldn't be the 'meat' of the 'pie', the focus should always be on the RP and how it can complement it. Crafting for example sucks - it encourages players to focus on scripts and items instead of writing out good stories and RPing with one another outside of "HELLO DO YOU HAVE SCRAP METAL?" (- 80% of the time when I talk to someone nowadays it's about scripts in some way, it's very noticeable and gets tiring pretty quick)

And I don't think it should be available for anyone other than the player and staff to view their traits because like I said - it's down to the other players perception of a character, people aren't lumped into "LOYALIST" and "REBEL" or "IDIOT" and "SMART" categories for example. From what I remember we have player notes and /setnickname which both help with remembering facts about other characters, if anything being able to make notes about a specific character would be a better way to go about this problem.

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

doom us all to an eternity of mental control from the machine

----------------------------------------------

Like any development suggestion, I feel it's necessary to at least get all of the ground breaking "how far can this go" motivations documented, and then appropriately scaled back with a balanced submission from everyone. There's obvious keen interest in this from people other than myself but it's hyper-important to be aware that making this anything more than a "visual aide et al" will cause great confusion. But I will stand by that I think personality types could be really insightful, and the only way to see that accessed is through technology accessed by Combine affiliates which makes for interrogations [an example] to be more flexible in how to handle each character (given they know how to deal with them).

I feel like the RPG elements take away a lot from the RP.

We're going to be scaling back on RPG elements that are considered to be a detriment in the creative freedom of the player. Though we are at a stage where optics is a huge concern for new and old players.

The mechanics should be shallow in my opinion. I don't think this would make them black and white either, it'd only be a basic guide to give you some direction with a fresh transfer.

This. Goes hand in hand with the suggestion even I made that just accepts it as a visual encompassment. Feedback, either way, will determine the state of acceptance or denial levels so please keep that coming.

Most characters end up being schizophrenic drones by the end of the day anyway that shift through the trash for components to make chemical weapons and barrel bombs with little RP.

 

[ZeroPants]

I understand where you're coming from with this. I see that people don't want them to impact skills and attributes. I'd like for them to, as it adds depth to our somewhat shallow mechanics. If enough people don't want it then we could leave it out at first.

I think they should be shared though, as that adds a good bit of value to people that might play multiple characters. Sometimes its hard to keep track of what each characters knows specifically about another character's personality. To be honest, I see little reason why not to do that as it gives the player more information about the characters they interact with.

Something like this could also be done in a different way, like how fallout does character creation. While stats seem like they would only really affect gameplay, stats can have a huge impact on how you solve problems.

I'd like to have a system where you start with 4 skill points you can spend when making your character, each stat starts at 0, so the most balanced character would have stats of:

1 INT
1 AG
1 STR
1 PER

This character would be boring to play, a jack of all trades is a master of none. This encourages players to make flawed characters, like:

5 INT
0 AG
-5 STR
4 PER

A character like this would be disintegrated in any combat situation due to strength debuffs but is capable of crafting things others cannot, a build like this would encourage intelligent characters to work with strong characters.

-5 INT
5 AG
5 STR
-1 PER

A character like this would be incredibly powerful in melee situations, capable of overpowering nearly anyone due to their strengths, however, their lack of intelligence would make it difficult (or even impossible) to craft useful equipment, and they would need to rely on other people to make gear for them.

If players work together, they can negate each other's flaws, and an intelligent character can make advanced weapons that strong characters are only capable of using, this enforces the idea of teamwork.

This idea could be done via the trait system, and while it seems like a gameplay thing more than an RP thing, it isn't, stats are a useful tool when writing out a character.

 

[vortist]

i like this trait system idea but
1. traits should only be seen from only the player with the traits and the staff team
2. this might be a super horribly thought out idea, but what if traits were randomised? this would prevent people from creating Johnny Rebel characters or Captain Combine characters too.
3. traits should have special buffs and debuffs like the above comment mention

 

[M!NT]

1. traits should only be seen from only the player with the traits and the staff team

I'm pretty firm on keeping it so that players can recognize their traits to other characters, and those other characters can see whichever traits have been recognized in the enhanced description. I see no reason why not to.

2. this might be a super horribly thought out idea, but what if traits were randomised? this would prevent people from creating Johnny Rebel characters or Captain Combine characters too.

We should let the people make the characters they want to, not characters made by RNG

3. traits should have special buffs and debuffs like the above comment mention

Agreed

 

[Belgg]

And I don't think it should be available for anyone other than the player and staff to view their traits because like I said - it's down to the other players perception of a character, people aren't lumped into "LOYALIST" and "REBEL" or "IDIOT" and "SMART" categories for example. From what I remember we have player notes and /setnickname which both help with remembering facts about other characters, if anything being able to make notes about a specific character would be a better way to go about this problem.

I agree, if you add these trait things you won't see much originality, and instead, people just rping what the system tells them they need to rp

 

[Belgg]

Something like this could also be done in a different way, like how fallout does character creation. While stats seem like they would only really affect gameplay, stats can have a huge impact on how you solve problems.

I'd like to have a system where you start with 4 skill points you can spend when making your character, each stat starts at 0, so the most balanced character would have stats of:

1 INT
1 AG
1 STR
1 PER

This character would be boring to play, a jack of all trades is a master of none. This encourages players to make flawed characters, like:

5 INT
0 AG
-5 STR
4 PER

A character like this would be disintegrated in any combat situation due to strength debuffs but is capable of crafting things others cannot, a build like this would encourage intelligent characters to work with strong characters.

-5 INT
5 AG
5 STR
-1 PER

A character like this would be incredibly powerful in melee situations, capable of overpowering nearly anyone due to their strengths, however, their lack of intelligence would make it difficult (or even impossible) to craft useful equipment, and they would need to rely on other people to make gear for them.

If players work together, they can negate each other's flaws, and an intelligent character can make advanced weapons that strong characters are only capable of using, this enforces the idea of teamwork.

This idea could be done via the trait system, and while it seems like a gameplay thing more than an RP thing, it isn't, stats are a useful tool when writing out a character.

Sure... It'll work just fine.-.. *John rebel be -5Int -5AG -5Per +19STR*

 

[Kappatalist]

This idea could be done via the trait system, and while it seems like a gameplay thing more than an RP thing, it isn't, stats are a useful tool when writing out a character.

It's definitely a gameplay thing and restricting what people can RP. It's another step towards an RPG style gamemode which I think is inherently an awful idea and what's caused Willard so many problems in the past. A useful tool like you said would be what I and Rad-X suggested of it being merely a guide for players to make their new characters, but doing this is clearly a gameplay change.

I agree, if you add these trait things you won't see much originality, and instead, people just rping what the system tells them they need to rp

Nah, I agree that traits should be added but only available to yourself and staff.

As I said previously, it should be a guide for new players to help make their characters because they might struggle to pick out a unique personality and it's also a constant reminder of what they picked/wanted for that character.

I don't think it will ever turn someone into a robot RPing a handful of traits but even if that's the case that's only because they weren't playing a character with any sort of personality before which ig only makes it a step forwards anyway.

(With the caveat that staff don't force anything on players and let them do what they like and as they like with their character)