How to remake friends and influence people

[Lephys]

Certainly some interesting ideas there... although if the trait identification was tied to a certain attribute or skill, it would make that particular attribute or skill imbalanced due to the fact that players investing in it would get better rewards, better quest solutions and a host of other benefits. In a dialogue-based RPG that wouldn't really work out that well for the players who didn't invest in this "trait identifcation".

 

Still, it's an interesting concept, it just would have to be implemented from the ground up to avoid imbalancing any one aspect of char development.

It wouldn't imbalance that attribute/skill any more than having a high Intelligence and gaining access to more dialogue options than "I didn't understand a word you just said, but I'll take your word for it" imbalances things. For what it's worth, I wasn't thinking of a "Determine NPC Traits" skill, exclusively. I was thinking something like "Sense Motive" or "Bluff," etc, supplying a slight boost to determining these things.

 

Also, many of them would be able to be determined by simply putting extra effort into asking about that person and gathering info. With the Cat Lover lady example, that's probably not going to make much of a difference (knowing beforehand how strongly she feels about cats), since you're not likely to start the conversation off with "Hello, ma'am! *pulls a kitten out of rucksack and punts it across the room*". However, if someone is Hot Tempered, that might be best to know BEFORE you begin speaking to them, and say things that would only mildly frustrate a normal person. On the other hand, there might be things about someone that you can't really learn easily by talking to people (Perhaps that they are Deceptive, since they'll have everyone fooled into telling you otherwise). In that situation, it would be to your advantage to be able to discern, while speaking to them, that they are indeed ultra-deceptive sooner rather than[/i] later.

 

So, it's not really a one-sided "win all" automatically-imbalancing button. It's simply two different aspects of learning about people, and a way to be better at one of them.

[mcmanusaur]

Now that we're to the point of throwing out all our cool ideas (which we may have otherwise been keeping to ourselves in the unjustified fear that they might be stolen), my idea was that there would be a "Traits" stage during character creation during which you can select some number of such traits to apply to your PC, which correspond to both knowledge/interests (such as ornithology, politics, or viticulture) and personality traits (like hot-tempered, neurotic, or arrogant sorts of things) that each influence interactions with NPCs. Knowledge traits would allow characters to converse with NPC about subjects that might otherwise go over your character's head, and any personality similarities might affect an NPC's base liking/disliking attitude toward your character. The personality traits would be modified by Charisma (with positive traits costing points and negative traits having a negative cost), Knowledge traits would be modified by Intelligence, and Skills would then be governed by Dexterity, which would then be separated from Agility.

 

If I had the resources and the programming know-how I would have already made this into a game.

Edited June 11, 2013 by mcmanusaur

[JFSOCC]

As much as I love complex characters, we have to work together as a team, and I hope to see a team dynamic.

[Lephys]

As much as I love complex characters, we have to work together as a team, and I hope to see a team dynamic.

Complexity in whatever numbers, 8D! Hear hear! *raises flagon*

[eschaton]

Now that we're to the point of throwing out all our cool ideas (which we may have otherwise been keeping to ourselves in the unjustified fear that they might be stolen), my idea was that there would be a "Traits" stage during character creation during which you can select some number of such traits to apply to your PC, which correspond to both knowledge/interests (such as ornithology, politics, or viticulture) and personality traits (like hot-tempered, neurotic, or arrogant sorts of things) that each influence interactions with NPCs. Knowledge traits would allow characters to converse with NPC about subjects that might otherwise go over your character's head, and any personality similarities might affect an NPC's base liking/disliking attitude toward your character. The personality traits would be modified by Charisma (with positive traits costing points and negative traits having a negative cost), Knowledge traits would be modified by Intelligence, and Skills would then be governed by Dexterity, which would then be separated from Agility.

 

I agree up to a point.  However, I think pure personality traits cut back on roleplaying.  If you want to play a hot-tempered character, you should pick hot-tempered dialogue options.  This gives you the option at some point in the game to "wise up" if you're having a bad time of it.

 

Now some traits I would not have an issue with picking this way.  For example, your character could naturally have a smooth, resonant voice which makes people more likely to  listen no matter what you say.  Or you could have a high, raspy voice, or a stutter, which sets you back.