Modeling Self-Confidence in RPGs

I apologize in advance if this post is completely wack.

Currently in most RPGs something like charisma is used to modulate social skills. However, the negative effects of low charisma and low social skills are usually abstracted to just 'failure' in a pass/fail check.

What if low charisma/self-confidence was actually portrayed, similar to how low intelligence in Fallout and Arcanum resulted in 'dumb speech?'

For instance, a person with very low Charisma would exhibit 'insecure speech text.' You could also have the character make a skill/stat check when talking to a person--a person with low social skills might find it difficult to get up the nerve to talk to a high charisma member of the opposite sex. "You failed your 'talk to the hot chick' skill check!"

Maybe this is just a bad idea. But I've been trying to think of ways to break RPGs out of the cliche: "The Adventurer talks to everyone they meet, and no question is too personal!"

Another idea: You need to get info from someone (an npc). But they have low self-confidence, and are too nervous to talk to your high-charimsa paladin. However the thief with the low charisma is able to move in and get the info you need since the shy npc doesn't feel as threatened.

I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure why a low charisma NPC would be more inclined to talk to a low charisma PC. Ideally, dialogue options should change based on a host of factors, including the PCs INT, WIS, CHA, etc. as well membership in factions and other in-game choices the character made. The idea of different characters having different dialogue options is a no-brainer. How exactly to implement it is of course the crux of the issue.

If you're going for that, the very first thing you'd need to do would be to abandon a single charisma stat.

If you're aiming for relatively complex interactions, you need relatively complex data (or combinations of simple data) to back it up. I don't see the sense of using any overall "charisma" stat in such a system.

Individual encounters should be based on many more specific factors.
Going from: "Talk to everyone" to "Talk to people with similar charisma" is hardly an improvement.

Any interesting model will need to abadon the generalized stat, and represent more finely tuned aspects.

I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure why a low charisma NPC would be more inclined to talk to a low charisma PC.

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The NPC with low self-confidence doesn't feel as threatened/nervous around the low-charisma individual. It would work something like an opposed skill check in D20.

Ideally, dialogue options should change based on a host of factors, including the PCs INT, WIS, CHA, etc. as well membership in factions and other in-game choices the character made. The idea of different characters having different dialogue options is a no-brainer. How exactly to implement it is of course the crux of the issue.

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Yeah, I agree. To suggest that our theoretical 'self-confidence' skill is modified only by charisma doesn't ring true. Int and Wis would come into play, I think, atleast. Some systems (SPECIAL) are more willing to modify skills by multiple stats than others (D20).

Maybe charisma should be dumped and, perhaps, be replaced with 'apperance' and then have the various social skills be modified by various stats.

What would you think if self-esteem had negative effects on carrying out certain actions, like fighting, sneaking. Should self-esteem be mostly fixed, or should it go up or down in accordance with the character's actions and choices?

How does The Sims handle this area? or does it at all? I keep thinking that The Sims could be inspiration for some stat mechanics for things like that, I don't know the game too well.

Maybe charisma should be dumped and, perhaps, be replaced with 'apperance' and then have the various social skills be modified by various stats.

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Some people will have one of the worst, most fucked up faces yet still have that personal magnetism, and some people are simply born losers who no matter how hard and lont they try, fail to do anything about it. Charisma shouldn't be dumped for an "appearance" and social skills shouldn't have the final say on the matter, imo.

The NPC with low self-confidence doesn't feel as threatened/nervous around the low-charisma individual.

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Probably the whole deal is related to how far you want to go with realism, as there are many people with low esteem who successfully hide it in social life and do better than talking to average esteemed people with little to no problem.

I think that high charisma represents high social skill. The OP seems to think it represents prestige. Someone with social skill would be able to change his speech and tone to make a shy person feel comfortable.

Charisma does not a Donald Trump make. Charisma makes you into a person people like. If you are a shy person you may not talk very often, but you're still more likely to talk to someone you like than someone you don't.

protobob said:

I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure why a low charisma NPC would be more inclined to talk to a low charisma PC.

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The NPC with low self-confidence doesn't feel as threatened/nervous around the low-charisma individual. It would work something like an opposed skill check in D20.

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<s>But the Paladin would have a better shot at beating that opposed skill check than the Thief. I'm trying to think of a situation where a low stat is preferable to a high stat, but I can't think of any (unless you're a masochist). For example, I noticed when I was younger (i.e. low-self confidence) that it was easier for me to talk to ugly girls than pretty ones. But now, with my higher-self confidence, it is easier for me to talk to both of them.</s>
Edit: I re-read your situation. I was misunderstanding it. N/M.

Maybe charisma should be dumped and, perhaps, be replaced with 'apperance' and then have the various social skills be modified by various stats.

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Yeah, the more different data points you have, the more accurately you can represent your character. A computer facilitates all the calculation, so cRPGs are much better than PnP for systems with a lot of stats or skills. We shouldn't necessarily feel beholden to our PnP roots for everything.

That being said, more stats make it more difficult for the player (they have to build the character in the first place), so you need to strike a balance. Also, I think there could be 2 or three social "characteristics" (e.g. Charisma, Comeliness) and then several social skills (e.g. seduction, smooth-talk, bluff, intimidate, etc.) These skills could be modified by one or more of the social characteristics (and/or possibly some physical/mental ones - e.g. intimidate modified by strength).

denizsi said:

What would you think if self-esteem had negative effects on carrying out certain actions, like fighting, sneaking. Should self-esteem be mostly fixed, or should it go up or down in accordance with the character's actions and choices?

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I like the idea of a fluctuating self-esteem. Not only could low self-esteem negatively impact actions, but repeated failure could also lower self-esteem. That would prevent cases where repeated failure of doing something (like in MW) had no negative side-effects.

denizsi said:

How does The Sims handle this area? or does it at all? I keep thinking that The Sims could be inspiration for some stat mechanics for things like that, I don't know the game too well.

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I don't remember Sims 1 but Sims 2 has an Aspiration stat, which is raised and lowered by fulfilling the Sim's wants / fears. If their Aspiration goes into the red they are less likely to do as they are told and will tend to break down crying.

I'm not sure how well that specifically would translate into an RPG game, but I think you're right in that aspects of the Sims (or similar) would be a very good inspiration at least for NPCs in a sand-box style RPG. Sims take notice of their surroundings and can interact with objects around them according to their interests. They can form different types of relationships with other Sims (which aren't controlled by a simple "I will give you money until you're my bestest friend ever!!!" interaction like in some games). They have needs which they can fulfil themselves (up to a point).

That is the sort of thing I would have expected from Radiant AI (had it been done correctly).

Self-esteem is a load of psychobabble hooey spread by a generation of whiny babies who weren't beaten enough as children, and I don't care to see such nonsense in my video games!

I dunno, what you're saying doesn't make a lot of sense. Take one reserved person, add another reserved person, what do you usually get? Uncomfortable silence. Take a reserved person, then add a talkative one and what do you usually get? A conversation. It's not so much about who looks like a movie star or who has a more impressive resume, it's who's willing to break the ice and then able to keep the conversation going. It generally works out that way, so having a charisma stat as far as social skills and who you decide to talk to representing your outgoingness seems fairly realistic without being tiresomely unwieldy. If you don't like the talk to every group of pixels because they exist part, people can react to you approaching them inappropriately. Making small talk with a stranger at the bus stop is fairly acceptable, picking someone's front door lock and barging in on them watching TV to ask their thoughts on the latest kidnapping isn't.

Also, there's an important difference between people who are "shy" but actually want to talk and those who are just plain antisocial and rebuff attempts at conversation.

Charisma should never be just about looks. In Arcanum, they used Beauty instead for initial modifers to reaction, which makes more sense to me.

I think you could model it quite well... I see no reason (other than balance issues, but that's for the game design to sort out) not to have several related skills in this 'field'.

Just for example, here are five I can think of

- Looks
General attractiveness. More meaningful if you're a female perhaps.

- Confidence
Self belief and self esteem, essentially. Could effect your chances of getting information from high status or high confidence characters. Nobody gets any favours when they ask like a pansy!

- Empathy
Ability to understand how others think and feel, see the world from their point of view. If you have a high confidence and low empathy, you have the typical arrogant self-obsessed type. High empathy is the equivalent of being good at 'charming' people, since you can read them well.

- Extroversion
Not quite how shy or outgoing the character is (we have that), but how talkative or good at keeping a conversation going they are. This might extend to the ability to sound genuine when passing compliments, as opposed to the forced compliment from a quiet character, which plainly just sounds like he/she is out to get something. A low confidence but extroverted character would be one of those people who has trouble starting conversations with strangers, but never stops once they do.

- Frame
Not sure whether to include this,as it's fairly similar to confidence, but I think different enough to justify. It is the 'control' of a conversation. Bringing someone into your world - persuasiveness and dominance. It would be affected by the 'status' of the character, and/or physical size and where the conversation takes place - e.g, you talk to a member of royalty in the palace and you are unequivocally in their frame, no matter how self-confident or extroverted you are. I'd imagine this attribute would open up options to command people to simply 'do something' for you, or just plainly answer your questions.

Ego may be another useful stat. It's possible to be ugly and awkward yet still have a big ego. These people happily approach others to talk thinking they are gods gift, yet may lack socail skills.
Charisma in D&D terms was never meant to represent physical attractiveness alone. A chasismatic leader is someone that others are prepared to listen to and follow - even die for. This is not a factor of beauty alone, but how they inspire and make others feel, from the lowest to the highest in society.
Naturally in todays media lit world, good looks are considered one of the top things, and no doubt many people would happily see their favourite movie/pop/sports star become the leader of their country, despite lacking any skills in that area, and despite even being able to string coherent sentences together unaided.

The problem is, to get to a deeper system means more stats - and this may turn a lot of people off of a game. Stat groupings may works - which is what I think charisma is an example of. Skills would be more heavily linked to a sub element of a stat- social ettiquette for example may be affected by charisma/personality, but it is a skill someone can develop. As is the ability to speak confidently.

So - charisma could be an overall rating of:
Beauty/looks - base level. Hard to improve other than clothing/items maybe?
Confidence (shy/extrovert)
Ego (opinion of self? May be covered by confidence?)
Fame (definitely an attribute in how others deal with you)
Empathy (understanding of others)

But then, is empathy a chasisma element, or a form of intelligence?
Should intelligence be broken down into?:
IQ
Wisdom
Empathy/EQ (EQ being the emotional variant of IQ)
Education/Knowledge (? Different to IQ which may be natural, but similar to wisdom? Or could wisdom be considered to be common sense?)

Then, should you group physical attributes?:
Strength
Dexterity/Agility
Constitution/Health

This way you would end up with three main statistics:
Physical attributes
Mental attributes
Personality attributes

At an easy level, that's all you need maintain - if the main statistic is the average of the sub elements, then at simple level, all sub elements are the same as the main statistic. However, for those that wanted better control, they could adjust the individual elements.
How this would work in game I don't know - maybe that's why the standard style stats system has lasted so well.

Anyway, I think I've digressed a little...

It makes very little sense to have "personality" attributes. Personality attributes don't define a character's physical limitations. A character isn't incapable of doing something because his personality is one point short, as opposed to having a CPU that doesn't satisfy minimum requirements, not enough RAM, or too small of a hard drive. In most cases, they aren't even real. Besides, isn't the player supposed to be supplying the personality?

No, the player is playing a Role. Part of that role is the 'created' personality. You want the game mechanics and world to support that role, because if they don't then you might as well be playing Oblivion. Or writing a story in notepad.

If you have game mechanics which allow meanginful consequences for and/or development of physical attributes, surely you want the same for mental attributes?

Sure, the game could offer you *every* option in dialogue and you could 'choose' to fail a persuasion test because you're roleplaying someone who isn't persuasive enough, but where is the fun in that?

You choose your role. The game enforces rules on you pertaining to that role. The challenge of the game is to live by those rules, and strive to do as well as you can.

Norfleet said:

It makes very little sense to have "personality" attributes. Personality attributes don't define a character's physical limitations. A character isn't incapable of doing something because his personality is one point short, as opposed to having a CPU that doesn't satisfy minimum requirements, not enough RAM, or too small of a hard drive. In most cases, they aren't even real. Besides, isn't the player supposed to be supplying the personality?

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Not really. The player in an RPG is guiding the character. In table top roleplaying the skill is sticking to the character, and the DM will (should!) reward this accordingly. So if you're playing a stupid barbarian, you don't put forward strategic masterplans, if you're playing a quiet wizard, you keep your tone low. Of course, it's easy to downplay ones own abilities with regard to intelligence and personality - playing them up is harder. How do you come up with a plan that you yourself are not actually clever enough to come up with? In those situations the DM should be giving hints and ideas to the clever characters.
In a computer RPG the same should apply - conversation options should be limited to the characters speech skills and chasisma/personality, maybe hints could be available for intelligent characters (though it's hard to penalise a dumb character for a player being intelligent). Otherwise the stats simply represent (as is normally the case) how well people can cast/avoid magic (intelligence/wisdom), and how well people like them initially (charisma).

I've never heard of a game where someone rolls for pure personality. How would you even assess a value for personality in a point-based system? Once again, tradtionally, players have always supplied their own personalities of choice. How would you even measure personality traits on a continuum and ascribe that any meaning, anyway? At what point have you entirely algorithmically determined what exactly any given character should do and excluded the player from the game entirely, thus undermining the "game" part, thus undermining the "playing" part, and thus eliminating the "role"? It's not a game if you can't play it, it's not playing if you can't play it, and there's if you're not playing it, there's no role, and all you have is a movie generator, where you input a character's stats and personality and watch him run through your plotline without you!

Norfleet said:

I've never heard of a game where someone rolls for pure personality. How would you even assess a value for personality in a point-based system? Once again, tradtionally, players have always supplied their own personalities of choice. How would you even measure personality traits on a continuum and ascribe that any meaning, anyway? At what point have you entirely algorithmically determined what exactly any given character should do and excluded the player from the game entirely, thus undermining the "game" part, thus undermining the "playing" part, and thus eliminating the "role"? It's not a game if you can't play it, it's not playing if you can't play it, and there's if you're not playing it, there's no role, and all you have is a movie generator, where you input a character's stats and personality and watch him run through your plotline without you!

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Not really no - you still control the character, and you make the decisions for the character, but the options available should be dependent on the character and his statistics. You are not playing yourself, you are playing another role - part of that is to act accordingly. The system can help by offering options that suit your character.
As I said, for personality it would really affect the ability to persuade others to follow you, or your choices in a conversation.
Intelligence is pretty much limited currently to how well you can cast or avoid spells - but you could, in theory, have hints available at certain points for high intelligence characters.
You could also have a stat for observation - high observation may make certain objects stand out (highlight them in some way - traps, levers, key items etc.)
The whole point of a role playing game is playing another role - it should not be totally dependent on the skills of the player.

Lots of good ideas/discussion here. One of the reasons I've been thinking about such things is that I wonder if adding more of a psychological bent to character development would in result in a more interesting, mature and in-depth CRPG.

But then I've always been more interested in RPGs that have a more introspective, psychological bent--Planescape:Torment being a prominant example. There were lots of interesting things going on in PS:T, such as the use of the Wisdom and Intelligence stats to open up more in-depth psychological dialogue. The whole gist of the game being about something more personal than 'yet-another-save-the-world-epic' was really refreshing to me.

But then I'm one of those introverted overly-instrospective type of people.

Charisma is nonsense.

Throw out Charisma and replace it with a leadership skill that allows you to get better and worse reactions based on the points you spend on leadership. Geneforge has leadership built into the game. Either that or include bonuses built into the initial character build advantages and disadvantages.

protobob said:

Lots of good ideas/discussion here. One of the reasons I've been thinking about such things is that I wonder if adding more of a psychological bent to character development would in result in a more interesting, mature and in-depth CRPG.

But then I've always been more interested in RPGs that have a more introspective, psychological bent--Planescape:Torment being a prominant example. There were lots of interesting things going on in PS:T, such as the use of the Wisdom and Intelligence stats to open up more in-depth psychological dialogue. The whole gist of the game being about something more personal than 'yet-another-save-the-world-epic' was really refreshing to me.

But then I'm one of those introverted overly-instrospective type of people.

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It could add a new level/dimension to the game, as long as it affected the NPC's accordingly. They would have to react to each other, and to the player appropriately, and the player should only be able to converse with NPC's at a level according to his stats and skill. It certainly wouldn't work very well with a simple WIKI system, unless the player still has WIKI comments, but it is interpretted by the NPC according to the stats/skills of the player (and even then some feedback should be given to the player to indicate what he actually said/asked based on his stats/skills).

Charisma makes you into a person people like

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That is nonsense. If that were to be the case, then it would translate into a simple and stupid loved/hated, hot/not kind of distinction, which can't serve any purpose short of giving NPCs varying tolerance or favour levels to have them interesting and not carbon copies of each other. Once you are willing to go that far, high charisma=loved, low charisma=hated is too simplistic and absurd in an environment full of other complex variables.

If we go by the dictionary definition for charisma, which says "a personal attractiveness that enables you to influence others", it's a general modifier for social skills at best, and that's how it's usually been done in games, and it works, much more so in some games than others.

However, I think the stat mechanics would depend on the kind of game you're aiming. Take Call of Cthulhu. Now, I didn't play the pc game nor the table top one, but I know there's a stat which affects how much stress you can take before you start to get dizzy or lose control. Close Combat series had troops which wouldn't listen to your orders if their stress level hit the floor, and would do stupid things or not do anything at all.

Generally, I thnik such mechanics could work well for most CRPGs as long as they are there as a part of character creation only in the form of side-stats, like the advantages and disadvantages in Daggerfall, perks and traits in Fallout and backgrounds in Arcanum (though they were quite limited in my opinion).

High empathy is the equivalent of being good at 'charming' people, since you can read them well.

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Another non-sense. Being empathetic is about observation and insight, which is mostly passive, as opposed to "charming" which requires action, in the form of gestures, speech or what have you.

You can exploit people through communication. You can exploit them better if you are empathetic. Same goes for "charming people". Exploit or charm part takes other things to accomplish. Doing things right, a total stupid, unempathetic asshole can initially charm a girl too, and not just the dumb girls. You can be very empathetic and still be a total asshole or disgust people as well.

Ego may be another useful stat. It's possible to be ugly and awkward yet still have a big ego.

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True but unnecessary. Ego is about character. It's a part of what affect motivations. If you had an "ego" stat, you can just as well let the game itself and watch it. In an RPG, ego is supposed to be an emulation the player does. Otherwise, what purpose a high or low ego could serve in the first place?

Someone calls you a name, and you can choose to do something about it or ignore it. Now this may be a wrong example but, a "big ego" person will most likely go after whoever called him names. This is a direct choice. In a game, it has to be the choice player chooses to do. Form of those choices can vary depending on the stats though.

The problem is, to get to a deeper system means more stats - and this may turn a lot of people off of a game

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Exactly. In my opinion, you can have all the stats in the world to simulate a character for NPCs, but only for NPCs, and that is if you are going after a sand-box model. Finally, if you aren't going to have a randomized (randomization to save time for creating NPC characters with motives) and "emergent" (emergent as in characters having enough complexity driving them through the world, they will carry out certain social activities on their own without everything preset by the developer -reason for the randomization) world. Otherwise, all this complexity is totally uncalled for. Games with limited scopes have been doing already for how long. Unless you want MSRPG (for massively single-player). Additionally, such complexity could find its usage nicely in a MMORPG model as well.

-frame ... you talk to a member of royalty in the palace and you are unequivocally in their frame, no matter how self-confident or extroverted you are

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Unnecessary. Been done without the complexity. Factions, reputation, disposition, consequence of some quests or the former factors combined etc. In one simpler form or another, it's been and still is around.

It makes very little sense to have "personality" attributes. Personality attributes don't define a character's physical limitations. A character isn't incapable of doing something because his personality is one point short, as opposed to having a CPU that doesn't satisfy minimum requirements, not enough RAM, or too small of a hard drive. In most cases, they aren't even real. Besides, isn't the player supposed to be supplying the personality?

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Indeed (for the last sentence), however it's not wise to write the whole deal off. Even if you create the über realistic omg-teh-graffix-so-rael!!1! game with realistic everything (moves, gestures, mimics, voice, speaking tone and all the shit in the world), you simply can't expect the players to notice such differences on their own in an RPG.

The player character has to have the qualifications to notice when someone might be lying, or what might be the perfect things to say to a person in a certain mood. You, as a player, can not commit such observations. Once these options are given to you as a part of your character's insight, then you can choose to be an asshole and say the exact wrong thing on purpose, or say something irrelevant.

Lots of good ideas/discussion here. One of the reasons I've been thinking about such things is that I wonder if adding more of a psychological bent to character development would in result in a more interesting, mature and in-depth CRPG.

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Might work only in an randomized & emergent sandbox model.

Throw out Charisma and replace it with a leadership skill that allows you to

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You said it yourself: leadership skill. Charisma is usually an attribute. Realistically, leadership is something you can learn. Charisma is not. General direction of your actions might lead you to behave different in a natural way as to lead others to think you are charismatic. But it's not something you learn, as with a skill. A leadership skill might be affected by a charisma attribute however, and that is a different story.

It could add a new level/dimension to the game, as long as it affected the NPC's accordingly

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I'd say as long as it affected the NPCs only.

denizsi said:

...randomized...randomization...randomization...randomized...

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Couldn't we just go with "procedurally generated", or "not hand-crafted"?
That's the important aspect here - randomness / non-randomness is a side issue.

This: "procedurally generated" == "randomized" == "lacking any structure / design / meaning..." is annoying.
[I know that's not what you're getting at, but it still manages to bother me ]

You said it yourself: leadership skill. Charisma is usually an attribute. Realistically, leadership is something you can learn. Charisma is not. General direction of your actions might lead you to behave different in a natural way as to lead others to think you are charismatic. But it's not something you learn, as with a skill.

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I don't think that's a reasonable view.

Pretty much all "attributes" (whether strength, intelligence, wisdom, charisma...) do change over time. They just have a larger initial variance in the population (since everyone has them, but no-one is born as e.g. a locksmith), and tend to change to a lesser extent - under normal circumstances.

I do think it's reasonable to model things with fixed attributes and changing skills, but that's what it is - a simplified model. The idea that attributes remain fixed in reality is simply not the case. In an RPG this is probably more true, since the player character tends to get exposed to a wide variety of new experiences and situations. Put a real person through that, and they'll change - in terms of attributes as well as skills.

I think people sometimes prefer to keep attributes fixed, since they see two alternatives:
(1) Fixed attributes.
(2) Attributes which change arbitrarily (according e.g. to unrestricted player choice) over time.

That's not the choice. It would be perfectly reasonable to have initial class / race / background... affect the base amounts / rates of change / min/max... of attributes, but still allow them to vary.

Of course there ought to be a good reason to include such variation in a system. It shouldn't just be done because it might be realistic.

However, arguing against useful attribute change on the basis that it's unrealistic is not reasonable. If you can't think of at least one person / character whose charisma changed significantly over time, I don't think you're trying. [of course all such changes can probably be viewed as changes in e.g. leadership / wisdom / persuasion / appearance / intelligence / oratory..., but if you take away all this, what exactly do you mean by charisma?]

I Pretty much all "attributes" (whether strength, intelligence, wisdom, charisma...) do change over time. They just have a larger initial variance in the population (since everyone has them, but no-one is born as e.g. a locksmith), and tend to change to a lesser extent - under normal circumstances.

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And I acknowledged that but I may have failed to emphasize it enough, to phrase it right. You read a book and learn how to cook. There isn't anything similar for building charisma that easily and I believe I pointed to that.

Couldn't we just go with "procedurally generated", or "not hand-crafted"?
That's the important aspect here - randomness / non-randomness is a side issue.

This: "procedurally generated" == "randomized" == "lacking any structure / design / meaning..." is annoying.
[I know that's not what you're getting at, but it still manages to bother me Smile]

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I have my reasons for not using those other terms. A bunch of procedurally generated thugs beat me back in high school. But I can see we probably think alike on that matter.

However, arguing against useful attribute change on the basis that it's unrealistic is not reasonable. If you can't think of at least one person / character whose charisma changed significantly over time, I don't think you're trying. [of course all such changes can probably be viewed as changes in e.g. leadership / wisdom / persuasion / appearance / intelligence / oratory..., but if you take away all this, what exactly do you mean by charisma?]

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Hey I didn'y say or claim any of this.

I have my reasons for not using those other terms. A bunch of procedurally generated thugs beat me back in high school. But I can see we probably think alike on that matter.

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The whole "random = weird/stupid/crazy" thing also bothers me. I don't know why people can't just leave the word be and say what they mean instead.

Hey I didn'y say or claim any of this.

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I was interpreting "learn" to mean "progress in". I see now that you meant the active process rather than the progress/stasis.

I'll continue my hunt for straw men elsewhere .