Character Traits

[EvilBrage]

Give characters a little mechanical variation - advantages in one area at the expense of another. We can either pre-define these limits, or allow players to adjust their level of impact to a degree. Let's say we have a trait called "beefy" that increases damage done by melee weapons and unarmed attacks at the expense of speed - either we can define the exact limits of the trait initially, or allow players to decide how much speed to give up for how much damage with a special formula. Maybe you can only select one - maybe you can select multiple, as long as we can ensure you don't game the system.

Some example traits:

Bruiser: It's harder to move around, but you hit like a truck and take more damage than usual. Increased melee damage and pain threshold, decreased speed.
Small Frame: You're thinner and more frail than most of your species, but quicker as a result. Increased speed, decreased pain threshold and melee damage.
Handy: You wish you were born in a simpler time; you're good with your hands, but modern technology can be troublesome. Decrease materials required for manual construction, add arbitrary timewasting computer things(?)
Charismatic: It's a little easier to get people to see things your way. Permit a green message similar to vampire's presence, balance with a similarly minor downside.

You get where I'm going with this.

Alternatively, allow all characters to select one trait that imparts a small advantage - the goal here is mechanical variation in some way while keeping a level playing field.

[DaTimeSmog]

How about adding a skill system instead?

[wowzewow]

I'm pretty sure there would be a hard NO on Bay-like skills

...anyway, general consensus is to just...RP it out.

[EvilBrage]

The reason I tend to shy away from skill systems is the difficulty of implementation, whereas a trait will really only involve a narrowly tailored focus; "RP it out" is a fine concept, but it can serve as an excuse to refrain from any mechanical change. Sure, you could just roleplay the effects of bullets, but it's nice to have the mechanical encouragement to do so properly, right? I view traits in a similar light - sure, we roleplay that one character is taller than another, stronger than another, etc. but it would certainly be nice to have the mechanics to back that up.

Again, the goal here is just to get some mechanical distinctions between characters beyond their species. For the relatively low amount of effort, I think it's a promising avenue to consider.

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by EvilBrage

[Lady Fowl]

Are you suggesting a fallout type trait system?

[November]

I'd much rather have people be encouraged to roleplay their character's traits than be required to select from a list of mechanics. Mechanics are forced, arbitrary, and predictable. Roleplay is fluid, creative, and improvisational. I agree that it would certainly be easier to just create mechanical differences to display these things, but that comes at the expense of encouraging people to find creative ways to communicate those traits through roleplay instead.

I don't think encouraging competitive mindsets by introducing required balancing of these traits is something we need more of. What question are you trying to answer with this addition that justifies making a change?

[Carver]

Negative traits can be fun, as we currently have disabilities. I'm all for more negative trait options.

[N8-Toe]

I kinda like the idea of mechanical traits or differences, but I'd apply them based on job as well. Say what you will about bay's skill system. I enjoy that doctors are better at healing than random people, chefs cant fix walls, and people are mechanically better at their job. It really encourages cooperation. 

[BRAINOS]

On 13/10/2019 at 02:09, EvilBrage said:

Charismatic: It's a little easier to get people to see things your way. Permit a green message similar to vampire's presence, balance with a similarly minor downside.

hard no on this one in particular- absolutely, absolutely not.

as someone who plays a charismatic character, that is something you really have to be creative with to handle well and pull it off. even then, i can decide to put their foot in their mouth at a critical moment and make the failure a turning point for whatever event.

you can't just flavor text, "i'm charismatic," you have to have a certain energy and interaction with people around you.

i'm not saying this to be some kind of elitist, i'm saying this because the alternative is someone with the personality uncooked pasta who walks around, providing barely any interaction, but you keep seeing, "Titus McGrey is a smooth talker," in your chat feed every 3 minutes. it's jarring and makes you shake your head as you try and imagine how this guy who just hid in an o2 locker for four minutes and then popped out just to run to cryo is charismatic or engaging.

also, whenever i see the vampire's flavor presence i cringe and try to connect the dots. i usually fail, and it shatters my immersion as i roll with it.

charisma, realistically, can be polarizing. it's not always unanimous and the same thing that makes one group of people love you can make others hate you. this drives interesting dynamic, even outside of the character, as they can be brought up in conversation and get a positive or negative reaction.

being told what to think about a character based on flavor text instead of their actions and personality strips the authority of everyone to form a realistic opinion and even strips authority from the player in regards to how their character comes across as charismatic.

personality traits, in nearly all cases, should absolutely be RP'd out as it is mechanically impossible to make it believable.

[Hendricks]

Please allow me to limit my robustness by trading for gtfo skills.

[EvilBrage]

On 13/10/2019 at 20:12, DRagO said:

Are you suggesting a fallout type trait system?

That was the best inspiration I could find that would work with what we have; something with an upside and a downside.

 

On 13/10/2019 at 21:14, November said:

I don't think encouraging competitive mindsets by introducing required balancing of these traits is something we need more of. What question are you trying to answer with this addition that justifies making a change?

Why does a 4'6'', geriatric, spindly medical doctor do the same unarmed damage as a 6'3'' former spec-ops bruiser who stays in top physical shape?

That's a question you can't answer with the current system; so long as we're on the topic of competitiveness, let's not pretend that a minor mechanical trade-off could ever compare to that provided by the actual antagonist of the round. If you're worried about the limited capacity of a trait and its impact on your personal style of play, you could always simply not select a trait - but don't expect to do more damage than someone willing to put their money where their mouth is by selecting a trait that provides increased melee damage at the expense of XYZ.

The trait system is not a replacement for roleplay, but a byproduct thereof - individuals should not select the "quick" trait while RPing themselves as the aforementioned 6'3'' spec ops bruiser.

 

6 hours ago, BRAINOS said:

hard no on [charisma] in particular- absolutely, absolutely not.

Don't get caught up on the single example; you make a convincing case against the inclusion of personality traits in the list, but there will invariably be someone who asks why they all have to be oriented towards combat or movement speed - my point in providing the example was to expand the discussion beyond mere combat applications.

 

6 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

I kinda like the idea of mechanical traits or differences, but I'd apply them based on job as well. Say what you will about bay's skill system.

Ironically, I disagree with differences based on job. A character does not become any less mechanically inclined when he joins as a visitor than when he joins as an engineer - it's still the same individual, after all.

[Carver]

18 hours ago, N8-Toe said:

I kinda like the idea of mechanical traits or differences, but I'd apply them based on job as well. Say what you will about bay's skill system. I enjoy that doctors are better at healing than random people, chefs cant fix walls, and people are mechanically better at their job. It really encourages cooperation. 

Please no, this is the single worst part of Bay's system. The 'Oh I'm suddenly retarded and worse at doing everything because I'm off-duty'. I'd sooner take after the Polaris skill system, where skills are character-specific rather than job-specific.

[November]

On 15/10/2019 at 04:37, EvilBrage said:

Why does a 4'6'', geriatric, spindly medical doctor do the same unarmed damage as a 6'3'' former spec-ops bruiser who stays in top physical shape?

That's a question you can't answer with the current system; so long as we're on the topic of competitiveness, let's not pretend that a minor mechanical trade-off could ever compare to that provided by the actual antagonist of the round. If you're worried about the limited capacity of a trait and its impact on your personal style of play, you could always simply not select a trait - but don't expect to do more damage than someone willing to put their money where their mouth is by selecting a trait that provides increased melee damage at the expense of XYZ.

The trait system is not a replacement for roleplay, but a byproduct thereof - individuals should not select the "quick" trait while RPing themselves as the aforementioned 6'3'' spec ops bruiser.

I agree that the question is unanswered, though I'm not of the same mind on the solution.

Specifically, I'm wondering why this system of bonus + detriment is better than a slider or point based system (such as the skills tab, but with actual mechanical function). I don't think the trait system could be robust enough to facilitate as many character types as a more open ended system could without becoming incredibly bloated. It would also be much easier to tweak and balance a slider system, as the counterbalance is player discretion and general god-modding rules instead of mechanical downsides.

What I want to avoid are characters that are very good in their role due to their mechanical selections instead of their roleplay ability. I worry this effect would be most pronounced in the very mechanically heavy roles such as Security.

To acknowledge bias, I am very anti-mechanic in general, in that I would rather promote that finding a non-mechanical way to accomplish something is most often better than using the game to accomplish a goal. If you want to make a system like this truly "opt-in" for players similar to me, I would recommend that characters who choose to have no traits are slightly better across the board than someone who has opted-in (such as a +0.25 across the board, where traits are generally +1 on their upside). Without this adjustment, even though there is a downside to selecting a trait, there would be no downside for opting into the trait system.

[EvilBrage]

43 minutes ago, November said:

If you want to make a system like this truly "opt-in" for players similar to me, I would recommend that characters who choose to have no traits are slightly better across the board than someone who has opted-in (such as a +0.25 across the board, where traits are generally +1 on their upside). Without this adjustment, even though there is a downside to selecting a trait, there would be no downside for opting into the trait system.

Right, but then the act of abstaining from choosing a trait becomes a choice in and of itself - adding a new "meta" layer to one's decisions. There's already no downside to opting out of the trait system as presented - you won't receive a boon, but you won't suffer a bane either. You'll still outrun bruisers, outpunch those with small frames, and still be more technologically savvy than the handy folks.

I'm fairly indifferent to the number of traits we have, and whether the choices we have to make regarding them are static or a gradual slider - so long as a choice is there and any choice will carry with it upsides and downsides. I'm also fairly indifferent to the idea that a department will favor particular traits over others; it makes sense that security would staff people with more muscle than the medical department, after all. If individuals select traits that are entirely incongruous to their character design (your flavor text says you're a skinny 4'11'' girl but you take the bruiser trait) that's something we can address within the present ruleset already.

No advantage presented can change the core fact of SS13 that being able to click with alacrity - being robust, in other words - will put you in a league of your own.

I am not suggesting massive bonuses by any stretch of the imagination; I can't imagine the bruiser trait giving you more than 5 extra points of damage per melee attack, or small frame giving you more than a 10% speed bump over others. These won't shift the formula of the game in any radical direction, but they will be noticeable.

When traits are regarded as "nice to have" rather than "must have" or "useless," that's when we'll know we succeeded. It will come with growing pains, yes, but I anticipate you will come to appreciate how we can encourage players to act in a realistic manner through the application of mechanics such as these.