Character creation and stats

[DatBerry]

Im a fan of roleplay via mechanics instead of emotes for various reasons.

If any of you have played mount and blade, you would know of its character creation system, you choose your father's job, your upbringing and why you went on a journey etc, and those choices effect your starting stats and items, and then you're given a few extra points to add yourself.

So why not add a system like that here? A mixture of skills and stats, you would need the surgery skill and enough INT to perform surgery, and depending on how high your INT is, you can perform steps faster.

If your character lacks the skills to hack an airlock, you would stab the screwdriver into the panel, jamming it and shocking yourself, someone who' cant cook would make poorly cooked food, and straight out burn complicated recipes.

If someone joins without setting those skills he would get a standard set enough to do his job.

If someone tries to game the system by going for the highest skill set possible he would be forced to choose a demerit, like being a spoiled child who would not touch items stained in blood, or having crippling autism that forces you to move away from people.

The merits of such a system is not only helping you remember your characters limits in high stress times, you can RP being bad at something a lot easier and less awkwardly. E.g grabbing a gun and trying to shoot newcops, doing surgery as chemist, trying to bend a metal airlock with an axe as a nurse.

I can make a more fleshed out system for this, but im on mobile, and i would like feedback on the idea before bothering making one.

EDIT:

the system's basics:

Character history: you choose your family's history and class, your upbringing and education, depending on these you will get a set of skills and stats.

A descendant of a long line of mechanics > mid class family > went to community college > got apprenticeship

Will have decent stats and enough skills to do his job as an engineer, and maybe a hobby or two

The bastard child of some thug > low class family > worked in a port

Sketchy snowflakey cargo thug, he might not have any real skills but he could be good with his hands.

Skills: These are required to have any hope in doing some complicated work, like RnD, chem and surgery, and are aquired when making a character, depending on your character career, race and age, you might be able to add extra relevant Skills.

Some examples are:

[Chemist] without this, all chemicals would show as ??????? In all the machinery in the lab, good luck making imarazzledazzledine as combat nurse.

[surgery] without this, everytime you try to perform surgery you will get John Smith Cuts cluelessly at John Doe' s arm with the scapel!

[CQC] this would be for security members, antags and ERT, this isnt your average gym guy, you would have to have a dedicated history in self defense to have this, it would increase your push, disarm and resist chances and punching damage.

[Lazy] this is achieved by having no real skills at all, you will gain halloss faster but can sleep to heal faster, you will randomly get sleepy.

[spoiled brat] this is less of a skill and more of a demerit for making a very high class snowflake, you will be unable to Touch items stained in blood other than surgery tools if you have the [surgery] skill, you're also unable to fire guns without falling down unless you have [high weapon training] skill.

Character stats:this will be the harder part to add, it will have a bit more freedom than character skills and will effect if you can do something and how good you do it

Strength: your character's muscles and body weight, it will effect how strong you punch people, how much weight you can carry on your back and how tough you are to melee, having high strength means you punch harder, and your bones break harder etc etc.

Inteligence: most jobs depend on this, medbay, Engineering, science and so, having high INT will help you do steps faster, and in combat, give you higher chance of dealing damage to organs, cutting arms and damaging cyborg, rig modules and exosuit modules.

Dexterity: reduces your chances of failure, you will be able to strip people faster, and if high enough, pick pocket people, this will also help with gun handling and tools, with a high DXT you will hack airlocks and construct things faster.

Charisma: for a good time at the bar, i cant come up with any real ingame effects with our current features, but i expect heads of staff to have a high level in this, it may also reduce vendor prices.

Luck: the most important stat, everybody needs some luck, this will effect all your RNGesus based checks, you're less likely to break bones or get organ damage, unlikely to get the virus event, with extremely high luck you might succeed in things you lack the stats for.

[Zundy]

I would like this depending on what your fully fleshed out version is.

[Butterrobber202]

...or having crippling autism that forces you to move away from people...

 

I think this is invalid, everyone already has it.

Anywho, I do like this idea alot, I think it is neat and would be a great addition to Aurora, but it would take 52 and a half years to get it in due to the stockpile of already suggested suggestions.

[Dreamix]

I love this. A great way to stop the powergamers, and to give people general idea how things work. Mechanically and forcefully, of course, ex.: because what's the better way to teach non-chemists that chemistry isn't just simply pushing few buttons? Maybe this way we could restrict people from using wizard staffs, as well.

Also, liwefebz much.

B-but doggie-guy, what if my snowflake space lesbian nurse needs to go full assistant because there aren't any SSL-job slots available and I only have this one character and absolutely cannot play any other?

Of course, if such system ever gets coded in, people will be able to add a skill-point to whatever skill they need to have, that's outside of their target job. Judo-knowing engineers who also know a little meds are fine, but 18-year old scientists who know chemistry, xenobiology, gun-handling, EVA, surgery, -random other skill that takes years to learn here-, and are also buffed like a bear would not be possible.

Through, good luck convincing everyone to accept this, you fucking hitler :^)

[Mofo1995]

This idea has been brought up multiple times and every time it gets shot down. I'm not particularly for or against it, as it could cut down on powergaming, but I think there's a case to be made by going on an emote based system. Particularly, I feel that our current system gives me a lot of freedom to intentionally mess things up for the sake of incompetency roleplay. I think it's more fun to intentionally roleplay out messing something up than to have mechanics do it for me, because it's more roleplay that I'm actively doing. I also think there's something to be said about antagonists, would they just be free from such a system?

Like I said, I'm not necessarily against this. But I'm afraid it will either become A. Too constricting or B. Open free enough such that it won't have stopped anything. Lifeweb has a system of stats that works out quite well for it as a mechanic for roleplaying, but it's always assigned based on job rather than in any sort of character creation which works in that it removes the agency from the players so they cannot have any ludicrous stats. In our case, the task would be even more difficult because we give the power to the players to create. We also have other factors which increase the difficulty as we'd have to strongly consider various species and their strengths/weaknesses/capabilities. Such a system could wind up making skrell a legitimized powergame race if character creation mechanics followed lore. There's also the issue of IPCs who download different modules at a time for different jobs but are the same chassis, or even someone like Echo who is technically eight different chassis working different jobs, except one character slot.

These are just some small criticism, such a system has clear and obvious strengths which have already been outlined, and are worth considering.

[DatBerry]

Tutturu~

 

For antags, they would get the [syndicate Training] skill meaning they wouldn't require skills to perform surgery, chemistery etc, but would still depend on stats, antags would get extra points to spend, but if you prefer to ignore your INT and perform surgery you will have a hard time.

On the IPC issue, they will either have to make a character for each, or make a skill set loading and saving feature, which is unlikely, so if you want snowflake power rangers you will pay in character slots or change it every time.

As for races, i think skills will help a lot with making a difference between them and humans, and other races, skrell would have high INT but low STR and luck, unathi would have high STR and charisma but low INT and DXT etc etc, as for powergaming, we can add demerits in lore for skrell/diona who studied too much, like skrell who have their bones break easily, and diona who lose the ability to split after making so many connections with each other.

[Conservatron]

pretty sure something like this would need a ground up rebuild of the core ss13 mechanics, which is why it always gets shot down.

[Zundy]

pretty sure something like this would need a ground up rebuild of the core ss13 mechanics, which is why it always gets shot down.

 

That's why the dev's don't want to build it themselves as it'd be a massive time sink when they could do other things for quick, immediate gains.

However, if some one were to go ahead and do it I'm sure everyone would be fine with it.

[Carver]

I like it a little bit, but I do struggle to imagine someone so truly retarded (Aside from maybe a Tajaran/Unathi) that they would stab a panel with a screwdriver.

Would this be able to take into account hobbies, such as people who regularly visit the shooting range, or go hunting, or take things apart in their garage, or practice a martial art, and so forth? As Mofo said, this could end up too constricting.

[Nanako]

I've had thoughts about this kind of system, i'm not 100% sure if it's the best route, mofo has some good points. But also, its a lot of work. A Lot Of Work. A MASSIVE HEAPING SHEDLOAD OF WORK. You have no idea

 

pretty sure something like this would need a ground up rebuild of the core ss13 mechanics, which is why it always gets shot down.

not really a rebuild, just augmenting various mechanics and adding in stat hooks.

but there's a lot of mechanics. so many places.

However, if some one were to go ahead and do it I'm sure everyone would be fine with it.

 

Hell no.

If a random community member submitted a PR for this, skull would rightly tell them to fuck off. Because that PR would have to touch hundreds of files, and take weeks of his time to audit.

If something of this scale ever did happen (and i'm not saying it will, or is even being considered) it would have to be done internally, involving the whole dev team.

Adding it piece by piece in a modular manner might be possible, although things would be very unbalanced during a long transition period

[Zundy]

Shot through the heart...

You were my prime candidate for erps nanako-chan

[DatBerry]

I like it a little bit, but I do struggle to imagine someone so truly retarded (Aside from maybe a Tajaran/Unathi) that they would stab a panel with a screwdriver.

Would this be able to take into account hobbies, such as people who regularly visit the shooting range, or go hunting, or take things apart in their garage, or practice a martial art, and so forth? As Mofo said, this could end up too constricting.

 

Yes, after you choose your character history you get extra points to spend, depending on how empty and boring your life was and how much free time you had you will get points to add in other or the main fields you excel in, so you can make a beefed up medical doctor who cant do much outside medbay and have mechanics vouch for your character's competence.

 

ahhhh

 

We could rally up the support, then firstly work on the character history part, add in Skills and restrict a few things to them, and then slowly work on stats, the last part would take the majority of the work i'd believe, as it not only restrict things, it would modify the output depending on it.

[DatBerry]

Edited the OP to show a basic overview of the system, more skills and stats could be added, im also more in favor of replacing skills with secondary stats

[Zundy]

I like the frame work as written in the new OP.

But how to introduce it though, that's the burning question. Is anyone willing to take up the work?

[Ornias]

I actually really like this idea, the idea of making everyone have different capabilities is excellent.

I do have a couple of issues with it though:

1) It assumes that every skill has to be categorized into these areas. Suppose I have a very strong and very dexterous character, I expect that would mean I wouldn't be able to put up other scores to average because it would probably be a point-based system when it all comes down to it, even if the points are assigned through some form of story-telling. If the 'demerit' system works, this issue could be averted by allowing characters to be multi-talented but not be overpowered. If it doesn't, you'll just have an annoying limit which will frustrate less binary characters.

2) With the storytelling issue, it will mean that pretty much everyone's characters will be very similar in backgrounds if they possess certain skills (eg. all security have the path that highest boosts physical prowess, all surgeons have path that highest boosts surgery, etc.).

I really like the idea though. I do get sick of having to RP all deficiencies while sometimes others ignore it, and if done well this would be great. Also, keep skills.

 

he could be good with his hands.

[Dreamix]

Since the whole thing is here. Well, to be honest, I do not like this at all. It's too complicated, and would probably take too long to implement.

Ex: what if my character's past isn't on the list? Should I just use the "custom backstory"-thing? Can't everything in there just be "custom", instead of a static drop-down menu? Why is the 'history' part even necessary? You're trying to RimWorld too hard.

And the character stats, I do not like this one either. It's hard to read, and complicated. So, my character has 5-points DEX... What does that mean? I can't imagine adding STR and INT mods to everything.

 

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HOWEVER, I do like the "Skills" part. It's simple, and probably wouldn't need too much code into it. It could even work like the thing we have/had in our char creation screens, the 'skills' thingy, except this time it would be used.

For example, chemistry could have X levels (nicer names would be, well, nice):

- Totally does not care - 0 points added to this. This means, that the character is totally inept about this, just doesn't care, and will never even try to learn chemistry. Reagent names on the reagent dispenser machine will be blurred out or replaced with ???'s. That's for the security/engineering brutes, who just don't see chemistry as a needed thing.

- Slightly interested - 1? point? This means, that the character has heard about some chemicals and shit, but doesn't know anything about any of this. Reagent names are normal, but the character has a random chance to click a random other button on the dispenser. "Oh, sorry about the explosion, I'm not really into the whole chemistry thing. Was it potassium... And water?" The dispenser will also have a chance to"spill" some small amount of the chemical on the floor, or to add too much to the beaker. That's for nursing interns, I guess. Clumsy and inexperienced.

- Learning - 2 points? The character is actively learning, but isn't perfect. The dispenser will have a chance, probably small, to "spill" some small amount of the chemical on the floor, or to add too much to the beaker. That's for the normal doctors, who don't want to be the pros, and want that one precious point to add to robustness.

- Professional - 3 points? Every value is 100% normal. There's no randomness, no room for game mechanic-induced errors. No spilling or stuff. It's just the pure player's skill. That's for the legitemate chemists, probably?

Comments: Just imagine the chemistry lab. Two chemists out there. One has dirty floor under him, spilled chems on his labcoat, his tricordrazine has a bit too much dylovene in it, and has left-over sugar from when he was making inaprov. He either tries to fix his errors by spending more time on making the actual meds, or he lives with it, since the meds aren't perfect, but also won't really hurt anyone. The professional is all nice and clean, his meds are as perfect as the player behind him. You see the difference between the "learning", and the "professional", as it's clear.

The second example, physical combat. Or robustness:

- Total pacifist - -1 point, as in, adding one to the pool, instead of removing them. The character will be unable to attack anyone, except when in some kind of crit. That's it, that's for the pacifist characters, or IPC's programmed to be nice, or something. I dunno.

- Disgusted by blood - -2 points, as in, adding two to the pool, instead of removing them. The character will be unable to attack anyone, and will get a slowdown-debuff when there's blood in their sight, and will also get ocassional red-font message that they're feeling uncomfortable. Your normal, non-badass

- Normal - 0 points. Just a normal humanoid being, slightly lowered attack values and hitpoints. Just slightly.

- Fit - 1 point. Just a normal guy who's sometimes doing push-ups, maybe. Hitpoint and attack values normal.

- Martial arts practicioner - 2 points. Is training karate or was taught judo by the character's grand-grandfather. Or just a cargonian thug, I guess. More offense power. More stuns, when administering metal bats to shitcurity's head.

- Brute - 2 points. Better hitpoint value. The brute, the tank, the juggernaut. Can withstand more hits, and shit. Less stuns, and more taser shots needed to down this beast.

Comments: Security will have a harder time taking the brutes down, but a smart normie will still have a chance to take down the karate guy.

These two were just examples of what the system may be. There may be enough points to max out 2-4 skills, of course. So there WILL be less-binary, multi-talented characters. I may create an entirely new thread, if needed.

THOUGHTS?

[DatBerry]

Since the whole thing is here. Well, to be honest, I do not like this at all. It's too complicated, and would probably take too long to implement.

Ex: what if my character's past isn't on the list? Should I just use the "custom backstory"-thing? Can't everything in there just be "custom", instead of a static drop-down menu? Why is the 'history' part even necessary? You're trying to RimWorld too hard.

And the character stats, I do not like this one either. It's hard to read, and complicated. So, my character has 5-points DEX... What does that mean? I can't imagine adding STR and INT mods to everything.

 

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HOWEVER, I do like the "Skills" part. It's simple, and probably wouldn't need too much code into it. It could even work like the thing we have/had in our char creation screens, the 'skills' thingy, except this time it would be used.

For example, chemistry could have X levels (nicer names would be, well, nice):

- Totally does not care - 0 points added to this. This means, that the character is totally inept about this, just doesn't care, and will never even try to learn chemistry. Reagent names on the reagent dispenser machine will be blurred out or replaced with ???'s. That's for the security/engineering brutes, who just don't see chemistry as a needed thing.

- Slightly interested - 1? point? This means, that the character has heard about some chemicals and shit, but doesn't know anything about any of this. Reagent names are normal, but the character has a random chance to click a random other button on the dispenser. "Oh, sorry about the explosion, I'm not really into the whole chemistry thing. Was it potassium... And water?" The dispenser will also have a chance to"spill" some small amount of the chemical on the floor, or to add too much to the beaker. That's for nursing interns, I guess. Clumsy and inexperienced.

- Learning - 2 points? The character is actively learning, but isn't perfect. The dispenser will have a chance, probably small, to "spill" some small amount of the chemical on the floor, or to add too much to the beaker. That's for the normal doctors, who don't want to be the pros, and want that one precious point to add to robustness.

- Professional - 3 points? Every value is 100% normal. There's no randomness, no room for game mechanic-induced errors. No spilling or stuff. It's just the pure player's skill. That's for the legitemate chemists, probably?

Comments: Just imagine the chemistry lab. Two chemists out there. One has dirty floor under him, spilled chems on his labcoat, his tricordrazine has a bit too much dylovene in it, and has left-over sugar from when he was making inaprov. He either tries to fix his errors by spending more time on making the actual meds, or he lives with it, since the meds aren't perfect, but also won't really hurt anyone. The professional is all nice and clean, his meds are as perfect as the player behind him. You see the difference between the "learning", and the "professional", as it's clear.

The second example, physical combat. Or robustness:

- Total pacifist - -1 point, as in, adding one to the pool, instead of removing them. The character will be unable to attack anyone, except when in some kind of crit. That's it, that's for the pacifist characters, or IPC's programmed to be nice, or something. I dunno.

- Disgusted by blood - -2 points, as in, adding two to the pool, instead of removing them. The character will be unable to attack anyone, and will get a slowdown-debuff when there's blood in their sight, and will also get ocassional red-font message that they're feeling uncomfortable. Your normal, non-badass

- Normal - 0 points. Just a normal humanoid being, slightly lowered attack values and hitpoints. Just slightly.

- Fit - 1 point. Just a normal guy who's sometimes doing push-ups, maybe. Hitpoint and attack values normal.

- Martial arts practicioner - 2 points. Is training karate or was taught judo by the character's grand-grandfather. Or just a cargonian thug, I guess. More offense power. More stuns, when administering metal bats to shitcurity's head.

- Brute - 2 points. Better hitpoint value. The brute, the tank, the juggernaut. Can withstand more hits, and shit. Less stuns, and more taser shots needed to down this beast.

Comments: Security will have a harder time taking the brutes down, but a smart normie will still have a chance to take down the karate guy.

These two were just examples of what the system may be. There may be enough points to max out 2-4 skills, of course. So there WILL be less-binary, multi-talented characters. I may create an entirely new thread, if needed.

THOUGHTS?

 

I like this because its simpler to add, but the current list is for experience in fields, it doesn't cover physical and mental differences, but i guess it can"t be helped.

Maybe after this system is added we could work on basic stats, or maybe not depending on how people like this or if we actually get it working.

[Skull132]

pretty sure something like this would need a ground up rebuild of the core ss13 mechanics, which is why it always gets shot down.

 

That's why the dev's don't want to build it themselves as it'd be a massive time sink when they could do other things for quick, immediate gains.

However, if some one were to go ahead and do it I'm sure everyone would be fine with it.

 

If a random community member submitted a PR for this, skull would rightly tell them to fuck off. Because that PR would have to touch hundreds of files, and take weeks of his time to audit.

If something of this scale ever did happen (and i'm not saying it will, or is even being considered) it would have to be done internally, involving the whole dev team.

Adding it piece by piece in a modular manner might be possible, although things would be very unbalanced during a long transition period

 

Half wrong, half right, my friends, both of you.

The easiest way to implement a system like this is to physically find every single object that would require a skillcheck to use, and add that in. Couple this with a stats system, and voila. No massive dunking rewrites required, but, it's still a dumb amount of work and needs to be execute without a fault. Also it'll be 3 months of crying about how some stats are better than others.

But all of this has to come after: The androids from Polaris, the new map, the diona, the economy. Oh, and after a public vote. If it gets greenlit then, then I don't mind going paperwork behind it.

It's also my personal opinion that such a system goes against the spirit of SS13. But I can stow that as is necessary.

[TrickingTrapster]

Mmmm. While I do think it's a good thing to make players unable to do things their characters would be unable to do (Don't you dare do my work better than me, assistant!), can't that be (mostly) implemented with the skills tab that already exists? I mean, they are variables that are being kept track of, they can be used for something. "OH, but, Mary sues and stuff!" No, that's both against the rules, and mods and admins can actually check people's skills to see if they are. I like the idea, but I think it makes a lot of unnecessary detours.

Edit: Plus, the current skills system even keeps track of age versus possible experience. Having a lot of skills maxed as an 80 year old guy will net you a way lower rating than when you do the same with a 17 year old intern. Will this new system do that, if it goes through? I guess it should, or we get the station full of 17 year olds with maxed out INT performing perfect surgeries all day long while having a full stock of self-made peridaxon. Something to consider there.