Character Creation W/ Humanizing Stories

[paultakeda]

Er... I wasn't arguing "Why not" to do it. I am not sure why you are being defensive when quoting me,

I should have written, "Sure, why not?" as in, I agree.

[CanadianWolvie]

Oh text, how you fail us! Thanks for the reply.

[Kide]

^^ But as such I do not think the opening idea in this topic is a bad idea either, I am sure the developer's will make it the way they feel the best of adding such feature/features as they see best. This is only one possibility, whitch would make it "work". And I think there does not need to be voice acting for example in these "history" aspects as that would make it so that we would have to get a certan voice for a certan ranger, if we wanted a certan backround for them.

I would like have some voice acting with some NPC charachter's, and some form of voice for the PC charachter's a bit like in jagged alliance 2 for example, that they would say in battle etc. But their dialoques in certan region and regarding backstories do not need to have voice acting...

A long as there is a way to make ranger's have more personality and backround to them, one way or another I am happier, than just having one be the "medic, and another being the strong guy who carries stuff". ^^

[krellen]

"medic, and another being the strong guy who carries stuff"

Pff. My Medic always was the Strong Guy Who Carries Stuff.

[Kide]

I just said genarilazion, what came to my mind first etc. ^^ I think you got the idea though?

Still my might and magic 7 group... Well I had a human male Paladin, Dwarf female Cleric, and 2 elf's a Ranger and an Archer (male and female, maybe they should have had a relationship, or actually why not, but never thought it like that). I do remember them well, and still have the printed copy of the sheet that proved I completed the game and what level they were at the time. I still never at that time imagined that they would have argument's or why they actually had gotten together... It is just what people have gotten used to. I personally would like to have more impact of their backround and such in the game world. I just would enjoy that more. ^^

[paultakeda]

Heh. Honestly, in Wasteland it's easy. You're a member of a paramilitary outfit. You're in a squad because someone of higher rank told you so!

[Kide]

Indeed that is a different reason. And a lot more logical reason. Like in Xcom your soldiers fight because they have to, and they do their best. In jagged alliance you pay for the mercanaries, so that they fight besides you. Different envirment. ^^

[Gizmo]

Some interesting ideas in the OP... But I am a lot more partial to a solution like the one in Arcanum.

** Myself, I've no driving need of mutability for sake of the freedom to change it... The option to tweak the age (but only a few years if applicable) is a good example of this. I would not mind if the game bumped the PC's age to 50 + 1 to 15 as a requirement for a back story, but its honestly [to me] insignificant. I would prefer that the back stories be vague enough that the entire party could all take that history and still not know each other from their past; nor be more similar than as in Arcanum, if all the characters were half orcs with trust funds.

[krellen]

I just said genarilazion, what came to my mind first etc. ^^ I think you got the idea though?

I was making a grognard joke. Sorry.

[jurbanek]

"medic, and another being the strong guy who carries stuff"

Pff. My Medic always was the Strong Guy Who Carries Stuff.

I was a medic in the Army and I was the Strong guy who carried all the stuff. Had to carry loads of extra antibiotics for the gun bunnies with the drips.

[Gennadios]

There are types of in-game backstories I love and types that I find to be complete immersion breaking nonesense.

Jagged Alliance 2's personality profile was awesome in that apparently I'm a psychopath that can't be trusted with an automatic weapon, and Darklands was great in that you could plan out a characters entire social background and education.

Backstories I tend to hate are the ones where you get saddled with friends or family you don't know and can't really give a shit about.

Unfortunately, the second type is where I think this train of thought is headed, and I can't say I'm for the idea. As writers who try to make statements or some kind of humanizing morality plays ultimately can only write sh*t that's impressive to people of their own intelligence level or below.

I'd rather the devs avoid that minefield entirely and leave that sort of petty stuff to the imagination. The one reason I respected Fallout 1&2 more than BG or the later Bioware games is because you didn't spend an inordinate amount of time repairing broken marriages and retrieving paseant's lunch money. The player should have more important stuff to do.

[hiptanaka]

I don't like personality selection. My personality should be defined by what I do in the game, not locked at character creation. Backgrounds can be cool, though.

I would be happy with a classic approach; A roster with some pre-defined characters to chose from, but also the possibility of adding new ones. The pre-defined roster is good for two reasons: New players can select a few OKish characters and start playing right away, and it increases world coherency (it feels like there actually are a bunch of raiders in the ranger center, and the player controls a few of them).

[Narvis]

I'll have to agree with the OP, but with some reservations. I'd like to see the crewmembers personalized and the suggestions are quite good, but I'm not sure about the questlines included in it. Not that I don't like them, just that there's some things to work out first

What I mean is that reading about the original Wasteland (never played it myself though), the wasteland is harsh. Really harsh. Meaning that crewmembers are likely to die and be replaced (if not for save&reload). In this case those crewmember depended sidequest may become quite a burden. Then again, it could be made, that only the starting members have quests, but then that save&reload becomes too appealling.

So as good as it sounds, I'd have to say no to the side quests on this one for now. Unless someone has some good ideas about that

[whosdriving]

i would perfer something along the lines of the system used in arcanum but having the background afect dialog and posibly offer a unique way of solving a few qusets. the key to it though is to make it optional like it was in arcanum (and yes i know that game had only one main charictor instead of 4 but i dont see it being an issue)

[Woolfe]

The simplest idea is to actually not base extra "quests" on the characters at all.

Instead you base it on skills and stats.

So if you have a certain combination of skills and stats, the quest becomes available. So lets say one of your players has a high str and a high skill level in pugilism.

You might be wandering through a town, when a shady character comes up and says that he thinks you could make it in the bare fist fighting league. Then if you so choose you get a side quest where your high pugilism player has several fights by himself with NPCs. The rest of your players become cheerleaders/team support.

Or perhaps you have a high beuracracy skill. You are talking to one of the local administrators, and you recognise that he has been doing the dodgy on the books.

Lots and lots of options, and NONE of them rely on a "pre created" story for a particular character

[Narvis]

The simplest idea is to actually not base extra "quests" on the characters at all.

Instead you base it on skills and stats.

That makes more sense, it makes it more fun to try different combinations of skills while not wandering too far from the original Wasteland idea.

Personalization of charcters would still fit with this idea, as crewmembers with different character traits would react differently on skill based quests depending on their own preferences. Even though that would mean implementing some kind of crew dynamics, maybe with changing attitude towards the acting squad leader (which could be changed in case he dies, or just if player wants it so).

[Kide]

That idea of quest's been availbale if you have enough of certan skills would work. And seems like a cool idea to me. Then the possibly backround thing and stuff that you might like to still choose woud not have any quest lines in it whitch would be fine with me.

Still if I can choose where my person has come from and there would be some in that area who would then talk to this chrahter that would be a really nice thing and just as mutch differentation between these different chrachter's as possibly. I just prefer it myself.

Hmmh.... if you can add some kind of personality trait to them like a loner etc, that might be nice to have some reflection on what kind of dialoque options the person has for example that would differ from another person. Of course it would be more work, but to me that would really bring more feeling to the game and more personality to all of the member's of your party.

[paultakeda]

The simplest idea is to actually not base extra "quests" on the characters at all.

Instead you base it on skills and stats.

So if you have a certain combination of skills and stats, the quest becomes available. So lets say one of your players has a high str and a high skill level in pugilism.

You might be wandering through a town, when a shady character comes up and says that he thinks you could make it in the bare fist fighting league. Then if you so choose you get a side quest where your high pugilism player has several fights by himself with NPCs. The rest of your players become cheerleaders/team support.

Or perhaps you have a high beuracracy skill. You are talking to one of the local administrators, and you recognise that he has been doing the dodgy on the books.

Lots and lots of options, and NONE of them rely on a "pre created" story for a particular character

I can see how a background selection can be quest specific but character agnostic, like if a character is stated to have been raised in Needles would mean Needles residents would interact in a different way. Saying he was a ruffian would make residents treat your party with suspicion, or if he came from an influential family you would get a different reaction.

This would not be precreation as they are still based on some metric, much the way gender dictated bathroom entry.

[Woolfe]

Indeed, and whilst it is simple, that doesn't mean you can't have complex mixes.

To get quest XYZ you must have completed the following.

Have a Stat of Y

A skill of X

Spoken to Z in the past.

Their are literally endless possibilities. It does take a little bit of work to ensure that the conversation etc is smooth and not disjointed, but so does any interaction like this.

[KentAble]

This sounds a lot like how Arcanum had backgrounds and traits. Which I liked very much. If they had more to choose from that would be even better since you have at least 4 characters to cover without each replay seeming the same. If you want to take it a step further you could have a childhood, teen and adult background to choose from just to spread out the categories. Each would have small bonuses or penalties or other quirks (because you know cRPG player love their numbers and give min/maxers even more fun). Or if you choose none you could write your own (text box here style) and have no bonus or penalty. The quirks really made for a different experience for some characters in Arcanum.