Game design: Player character 'personality flaws'

What do you think of the idea of having personality weaknesses as part of a character design system to balance out the usual stats - strength, intelligence etc? The only CRPG (PnP are different) I can think of that has these is Realms of Arkania.

For those who haven't played RoA you have seven ordinary ability scores which tell you how awesome your character is and seven other scores alongside - Curiosity, Violent Temper, Avarice, Superstition, Claustrophobia, Acrophobia, Necrophobia if I remember right.

When you're designing a character at the start you can trade between these two types of scores at a price of two-for-one. So if you increase Strength by 1 you must increase a personality flaw by 2 points. Or you can do it the other way, decreases your flaws at a cost of ability.

In the game the personality flaws change your dialogue options and are checked at certain points. Example: you have to cross a long rope bridge over a plunging canyon you roll for acrophobia (maybe modified by 'positive stat' Courage). If a character fails he/she doesn't have the guts to cross. If the rest of the party crossed either you have to abandon that character or try again, delaying the party. You can modify the score for example by getting drunk which lowers your inhibition.

When you level up points can be put into either increasing your abilities or lowering flaws.

Why haven't other CRPGs taken this up? Is it a good idea for a game?

The main criticism I can think of is that if you the player decides to do something you should be able to try to do it and the game shouldn't place restrictions on your 'freedom'. I think that's a LARPer mentality but I can see how it could be annoying.

I think disadvantages have traditionally been hard to protect from powergaming. GURPS has a lot of problems with that, and Daggerfall also. The RoA system seems to have that beat since the disadvantages are specific and generic (and you have an entire party), but for point-buy and single player systems they're hard to balance. Obviously one can make a character "in good faith," meaning that you consider character creation extra-game to some degree, but it's better to make a robust system that can support gameplay. That's the only problem I can see with it, aside from character creation complexity trending downward in new games.

Victoriana the PnP game did it quite well.

It's been awhile since I played, but damn the character creation abilities of that game kicked ass.

After you make your dude you have 'Option Points' to spend on various things, including how much starting money you have. For roleplaying reasons and to get more Optional Points, you can pick Disadvantages.

You could have like tobacco addiction, glass jaw, and stuff like that. It came into gameplay quite well.

There was Physical, Mental and something else for Disadvantages. You could have up to 3 and had to pick 1 of each category, if you wanted 3. The Eldren race (like elves but modified for the setting) had an extra Mental problem tacked on, so they usually had 2 problems. Their race was rather insane.

That game was all quite unbelievable for me, it had incredibly good roleplaying and combat and it all meshed together perfectly.

I think they are great. When people start they usually have a picture of the character they are making and think up interesting personality traits (more focused with PnP systems). But in a game all the humanity of the character bleeds away pretty fast when it all feels like a waste of time.

This is especially true with other players, you can think up an alcoholic Dwarf but if you play it out you are getting nothing but a disadvantage and it will only come up when convenient.

I like rulesets that take personality into account, from addictions to being noble. It has players play the role they created instead of metagaming everything, same reason that low intelligence players don't "roleplay" knowing less dialog options but it is the world reacting to the character.

Off-hand, I'd say it sounds a bit gimmicky to me. If they were made an integral part of the gameplay, I suppose they could work, in a Call of Cthulhu type game for example. IMO they work better in PnP games, if the players enjoy the role part of RPG's.

However, in a CRPG I think it could easily add a lot of complexity without adding a lot of depth or gameplay value -- in order to make the personality flaws mean anything, you'd need to develop special dialogue options for them, and do a lot of testing to see that it balances out. There's a considerable risk of getting Oblivion with wacky dialogue options.

Given limited resources, I'd be inclined to prefer that the effort goes into deepening and improving the game in more traditional ways.

Personality disadvantages based on trading off points posits that positive traits are always counterbalanced by negative ones, such that no character can possess herculean abilities without achillean flaws.' From a realism point of view, I oppose such irrational assumptions. I can understand a mage having low str for never having exercised, but slapping a claustrophobia disorder for hyper-intelligence? Doesn't make sense.

A better solution, I think, would be to develop a full-fledged personality system with traits that aren't so obviously gameplay handicaps.

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

The problem is that a lot of "advantages" and "disadvantages" in RPG systems come down to just differences in stats (-1 CHA, +1 DEX). And usually slight differences that don't matter in the long run. So any character who chose a certain set of traits would end up no different from others. If having certain traits gave rise to significantly different gameplay or dialogue options, people I think would get them even if they were included handicaps.

kingcomrade said:

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

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We have, like every other discussion about roleplaying games and features.

What about the possibility that having a high level in a skill or attribute has an increasing negative effect? For example, having a high Intelligence might decrease your reaction to less intelligent people (a wizard is feared and hated by the peasantry), or increasing your weapon skill might give you blisters from the practice, which does some kind of damage (distraction, or something similar) and has a negative effect on your reactions to shallow characters?

Exit

kingcomrade said:

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

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KC, you're so cool.

DarkSign said:

kingcomrade said:

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

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KC, you're so a tool.

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Fixed.

kingcomrade said:

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

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We've had and it was a good discussion too. Can someone find a link? I want to make a sticky thread with links to all good design discussions.

Thanks a lot.

The previous thread was mostly about weather to take away control from the player for vices or not.

I think a better idea is a mental health/willpower bar that you can fight things for a while but if you don't recover you won't be able to take it forever. This operates like how losing all HP "takes control away from the player".

Top Hat said:

For example, having a high Intelligence might decrease your reaction to less intelligent people (a wizard is feared and hated by the peasantry),

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Hey, that's a good idea. Of course, 99% if not 100% of game developers would say that it's not important enough for the extra effort.

BTW, welcome :D

Human Shield said:

I think a better idea is a mental health/willpower bar that you can fight things for a while but if you don't recover you won't be able to take it forever. This operates like how losing all HP "takes control away from the player".

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This is one way that I've thought about giving the player an incentive to stay in character in my hypothetical graphical-yet-text-based cRPG. The only things that I would do to expand on your idea would be to:

(a) break the mental health/willpower bar into two bars--one associated with short term adrenal/physical stress (which would be depleted by phobic reactions and any other fight/flight response from the character) and one associated with long term stress/depression (which would be depleted by the character's failing to act in accordance with his beliefs). The first bar would negatively influence most skillchecks (e.g. chance to hit, persuasive ability, etc.) but positively influence some (damage, awareness, etc.) and, if low for an extended period of time, drain the second bar.

However, I'm not sure what a good way of giving consequences for binges with a low long term stress bar good would look like. At the moment, I merely have it slightly decreasing the outcomes of most all skill checks, though it does seem that there is a more intuitive way out there somewhere.

Also, in my partially imaginary system (which would keep track of which personality traits the character acts in favor of / against), bottoming out on the second bar could cause your character's 'personality' (read: flaws and advantages taken at character creation) to change in accordance with whatever caused his breakdown (which would, by necessity, take control away from the player and be at least somewhat socially visible). For example, if a character with full points in the 'religious' boxes was continually forced to act against his religion, he might end up losing it and having the points he had in 'religious' being transferred to 'alcoholic' (after the appropriate player input-less sequence, of course).

I don't know if I've done my ideas justice in thses examples, but you guys can be the judge of that. So, any thoughts?

gluon said:

I don't know if I've done my ideas justice in thses examples, but you guys can be the judge of that. So, any thoughts?

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A great post. If I were Bethsheba, you'd be in and Todd would be out. But I'm not.

I like the system you propose but wouldn't it make sense if being stressed short term (fight/flight response) lead also to bonuses to skill checks, eg those related to combat? I mean, that's the whole evolutionary point to adrenaline when you think about it. Otherwise, looks pretty good.

Would you make these mental health bars (short term and long term) invisible?

However, I'm not sure what a good way of giving consequences for binges with a low long term stress bar good would look like. At the moment, I merely have it slightly decreasing the outcomes of most all skill checks, though it does seem that there is a more intuitive way out there somewhere.

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Well, what happens in real life when you've undergone stress for long periods of time? Sometimes it results in psychological damage. Maybe this is a bit too serious, but perhaps you could add a chance that the character "abuses his wisdom/intelligence" etc a la Nethack, so attributes may drop permanently. Maybe there could also be slightly different dialogue options for stressed characters.

Vault Dweller said:

kingcomrade said:

Haven't we had this discussion three or four times before?

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We've had and it was a good discussion too. Can someone find a link? I want to make a sticky thread with links to all good design discussions.

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There was a thread called Levelled Monsters and Loot that would be a really good one to stick in such a, er, sticky.
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Elwro said:

Hey, that's a good idea. Of course, 99% if not 100% of game developers would say that it's not important enough for the extra effort.

BTW, welcome :D

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Gracious thanks for the welcome. Tips Top Hat.

It always struck me as being bad game design in regards to the general physical principle that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Actually, the idea came about while designing something for an adventure game (which may only ever exist in my mind), where the character's frame of mind is most essential: for instance, if they become too depressed, they kill themselves; but if they are too happy they start irritating others who aren't so happy.

I was impressed by RoA and its negative attributes (although I've only ever gotten around to playing the third computer game). It seems strange that you have a character who can only get better, but never develops an arrogance about his abilities, or is a champion at her skill but the time she spends in practice doesn't make her more lonely just because she has a high Charisma.

Sorry, but I do tend to waffle on a bit.

Exit.

I quite like the idea of attaching “flaws” to things often associated with meta/power gaming, the obvious benefit is that it’ll help curb such gaming styles, but also the neat thing about this is that the traits will generally be easier to measure (you could track avarice by how much loot they whore), as well as ensuring that the player will be presented with plenty of opportunities to actually play with their flaws (again, there will be plenty of opportunities for your character to deal with his wanton greed, as the opportunities have already been set up, on the other hand something like Fear of: Oranges will have limited opportunities, as more often than not the problem will only occur during set pieces).

Here are a few examples of flaws to illustrate my point:

Wrath
Pro: Character gets a bonus to damage, and gains willpower when striking someone down.
Con: Character must spend willpower to refrain from striking someone down, and will find it hard to have a conversation that doesn’t end in violence
Measure: Character will lean towards this trait more whenever they use excessive force (such as gunning someone down who has surrendered or is fleeing), and ending conversations with violence. Characters will lean away from this trait when they do the opposite.

Curiosity
Pro: Character gets more XP for discovering areas, new information, etc. Character will also gain willpower when they do.
Con: Character will lose willpower whenever they fail to discover something new (such as failing to open a container), and will suffer a penalty to awareness when there is something curious nearby (such as a locked container).
Measure: Character will lean towards this trait whenever they explore/break into areas/containers that are not related to any quest or plot they are undergoing. Characters lean away when they do the opposite.

Slylandro said:

gluon said:

I don't know if I've done my ideas justice in thses examples, but you guys can be the judge of that. So, any thoughts?

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A great post. If I were Bethsheba, you'd be in and Todd would be out. But I'm not.

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Thanks!

Sylandro said:

I like the system you propose but wouldn't it make sense if being stressed short term (fight/flight response) lead also to bonuses to skill checks, eg those related to combat? I mean, that's the whole evolutionary point to adrenaline when you think about it. Otherwise, looks pretty good.

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gluon said:

The first bar would negatively influence most skillchecks (e.g. chance to hit, persuasive ability, etc.) but positively influence some (damage, awareness, etc.) and, if low for an extended period of time, drain the second bar.

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Of course, in such a system, I would also provide a way for more combat-oriented character a way to somewhat get around the negative influences of fight-flight. In my hypothetical game, the stat 'Discipline' determines how much stressing situations affect the player. A character with a high discipline would able to handle his gun steadily as ever even in the most dangerous of situations, whereas the same character with a low discipline would notice that his aim had gotten quite a bit shakier than usual.

I've also marked out a similar stat for the long-term stress bar--'Confidence'. A character with a high confidence would be able to act against his held beliefs and preferences without too much of a psychological penalty, whereas a character with a low confidence would be sent into depression by straying out of line only a little.

Would you make these mental health bars (short term and long term) invisible?

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At the moment, I would make them at least somewhat visible, as the character is likely to be able to judge with at least some accuracy the mental state that he's in. I probably wouldn't show it to the player as a mere quantity, but rather in categorical terms (e.g. rather than 'mood = 100' or 'mood = 0', 'mood = great' and 'mood = suicidal').

I think if we're going to attach any consequences of note to hitting zero on either of these bars, it should important to give the player some idea of where he stands. Human Shield's analogy to HP is somewhat apt here: would an invisible HP bar make the game more fun or sensible?

Well, what happens in real life when you've undergone stress for long periods of time? Sometimes it results in psychological damage. Maybe this is a bit too serious, but perhaps you could add a chance that the character "abuses his wisdom/intelligence" etc a la Nethack, so attributes may drop permanently. Maybe there could also be slightly different dialogue options for stressed characters.

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I tried to partially address this in the last part of my post. Hitting the bottom of the long-term stress bar could result in a situation like this.

Algernon, a humanitarian and pacifist of delicate mental constitution (and also the player character), has recently been severely shaken by actions that the player has made him go through (e.g. killing misbehaving proles for his new law enforcement job). When he learns that his next case involves the barbecue of a rioting mass of poor folk, the player can either (A) have Algernon protest against or refuse to follow his orders and face the consequences, or (B) go along with the orders.

If the player chooses option B and Algernon bottoms out on his long-term stress meter, then Algernon will not likely be the same person when he comes back from the barbecue. In terms of gameplay mechanics, the traits 'humanitarian' and 'pacifist' that the player would have chosen for Algernon at character creation would be swapped for other traits that match the character the way that the player has been playing him more closely. For example, 'humanitarian' (psyche bonus for donating to/helping the poor/underpriveleged, psyche penalty for acting against their interests) may be exchanged for 'disillusioned' (any psyche bonuses gained are now twice as small) and 'pacifist' may be exchanged for 'violently tempered' (similar to what Hotsnack described as 'Wrath').

The goal of such a system would be to make the player character more dynamic than is usual for nonlinear games (even if it would end up only as a cheap George Lucas-esque type of dynamic).

Also, note that in the above system, each of the flaws and other personality traits comes in four degrees--Algernon might be a very humanitarian person (humanitarian: 4), but only somewhat of a pacifist (pacifist: 2). These different degrees would go into the calculations determining how much devating from the character's beliefs damages his mental health, and therefore would help the player create a more nuanced character (hopefully without imposing too much of the 'tyranny of choices' upon him).

*Edited for grammar 'n such.

Top Hat said:

Actually, the idea came about while designing something for an adventure game (which may only ever exist in my mind), where the character's frame of mind is most essential: for instance, if they become too depressed, they kill themselves; but if they are too happy they start irritating others who aren't so happy.

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In Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy if your character gets too depressed he can commit suicide. I think the same thing happens in Eternal Darkness if your sanity meter runs out.

In the Call of Cthulhu p&p rpg there is a mechanic that has negatives as it increases: mythos is your knowledge of otherworldly type stuff, but as it increases your max sanity goes down.

I've never been a big fan of rules for character flaws, in PnP gaming or in CPRGs.

In the case of the RoA flaws, those are character traits which really should be roleplayed, and not a score that dice are rolled against to determine if your character can do something.

It steals control away from the player if his or her PC overrides the player's decision to refuse a reward because his Greed score is 7. Or if the PC has a fear of the undead, and during every such encounter, the PC keeps running away in fright.

If you're going to use game mechanics to handle character personality aspects like these, you might as well just go the whole way and define all of character's personality traits in the game mechanics, and watch the game play itself like The Sims.