Character Creation W/ Humanizing Stories

[Mort2]

Yes. Welcome to the thread. Now how do you propose to do something more complex?

Thank you for asking, I think that good old unique and interesting characters that interacts with you and your party will be perfect, none of that new parsing one liner generic stuff, we expect to see from AAA A-RPG now days.

*deja vu*

[paultakeda]

Yes. Welcome to the thread. Now how do you propose to do something more complex?

Thank you for asking, I think that good old unique and interesting characters that interacts with you and your party will be perfect, none of that new parsing one liner generic stuff, we expect to see from AAA A-RPG now days.

*deja vu*

So how do you make unique and interesting characters given that you are generating a character using a character creation system? Don't get me wrong, it's totally possible. It just needs to be well thought out and hopefully things we write here will give the devs some ideas to work with.

[Mort2]

How I make it? I click on one of my Ranger slots and pick "Create a Character", I punch in the stats, choose a portrait and when I am done and in the game I role play the Character in my head, just like in Wasteland.

However, I can also pick a Ranger companion, I click on my Ranger slots and pick the other option, I choose one of the available Rangers that the Devs made, you know not just some stat list like before(we are not lazy), but some real character that will interact with me, has real dialogue etc you know like those in Bulder gates, or Planescape etc.

there are also Followers but those I come across much later.

[Prometheus]

(Emphasis mine)

Hm. The thing about party size and makeup you may want to take to the party size poll thread, as that talks about makeup of the party. Or petition Brother None to make a new poll (which he mentioned somewhere he was thinking about doing), where we can have options on how to fill up the slots.

I take it you want 7 slots, min 1 PC, max 4 PC, max 6 NPC?

Yes!

And the ability to start out with up to 3 Ranger NPCs from the beginning of the game.

I'm assuming that I can give NPCs orders, but that they may disobey them?

[Brother None]

Hm. The thing about party size and makeup you may want to take to the party size poll thread, as that talks about makeup of the party. Or petition Brother None to make a new poll (which he mentioned somewhere he was thinking about doing), where we can have options on how to fill up the slots.

We're not going to poll it because they've got this design fairly locked up, and I don't think they're going to deviate from the 4 ranger+recruits party concept.

[paultakeda]

some real character that will interact with me, has real dialogue etc you know like those in Bulder gates, or Planescape etc.

I'm asking you to define how this would work systemically because a pregen uses the same creation system as a manual gen.

By the way, you're not going to get all that you want because a PC is a PC. Your fully controllable NPC is more than likely not gonna be in Wasteland 2; Fargo likes his NPCs to be unpredictable.

[Mort2]

(Emphasis mine)
I take it you want 7 slots, min 1 PC, max 4 PC, max 6 NPC?

[/quote]
Like I said this a great option, it would give everyone who want an option to play FO1/2 style, with main protagonist and up to 7 NPC. However , the catch is that Fargo said that this would be a party based game and while you could finish it with only one PC, the game WONT be designed and balanced for it...

Which is why I think my option is better, it allows you the same, keeping the party and other mechanics of Wasteland.

I'm asking you to define how this would work systemically because a pregen uses the same creation system as a manual gen.

That is a leading question, there was never any talk of pre/manual gen. In fact I noted specifically that those Rangers would be like companions in baldur's gate Planescape etc... something that cannot be achieved through manual gen, but you already knew that.

[Prometheus]

Hm. The thing about party size and makeup you may want to take to the party size poll thread, as that talks about makeup of the party. Or petition Brother None to make a new poll (which he mentioned somewhere he was thinking about doing), where we can have options on how to fill up the slots.

We're not going to poll it because they've got this design fairly locked up, and I don't think they're going to deviate from the 4 ranger+recruits party concept.

So no chance for 3 Ranger NPCs or otherwise recruiting up to 6 other NPCs?

[paultakeda]

That is a leading question, there was never any talk of pre/manual gen. In fact I noted specifically that those Rangers would be like companions in baldur's gate Planescape etc... something that cannot be achieved through manual gen, but you already knew that.

Yes, I did. I told you you can't have fully controllable NPCs, which is what you keep trying to put into character creation. "You're not going to get exactly what you want."

The NPCs you get like those in Planescape will be there but you will not be able to fully control them; they're NPCs, they have their own minds. You can have ranger NPCs and it's possible they'll even let you take up a PC slot if it is a ranger NPC (not clear on that point yet, but Prometheus is leading the charge on that one). Even so, you won't be able to control them the way you can a PC. That's just not how NPCs work in Wasteland (as per Fargo).

The PCs? They are controlled by you and you role play them. I want to have them be more immersive by including traits/perks, origins and demographics that can affect interaction and quest paths. But otherwise they are all of them me. That's a core tenet of a party-based CRPG. If you don't want this, then Wasteland 2's not going to live up to your expectations. Hopefully, you'll still play it and like it.

[Brother None]

So no chance for 3 Ranger NPCs or otherwise recruiting up to 6 other NPCs?

I don't know how the NPC cap system works. Maybe if a PC dies he opens up a slot for an NPC. Just don't know.

[Woolfe]

So how do you make unique and interesting characters given that you are generating a character using a character creation system? Don't get me wrong, it's totally possible. It just needs to be well thought out and hopefully things we write here will give the devs some ideas to work with.

Indeed, the crux of this topic...

So looking at dialogue (and bearing in mind there are other elements that "humanise" a character).

People tend to speak either to initiate a conversation(or a topic in a conversation) or as a response to something someone says or does.

Being that 1 side of the conversation will always be "computer" controlled, the speech patterns should be able to be developed.

For me it breaks down into

Who - Which character says it - This is mostly player choice. However there may be elements that effect the who. This is closely linked to why

Why - Why is it that particular character as opposed to another - Kind of linked to Who, but more specific, as in this specific skill or level of skill, or attribute, or trait or background, causes this specific bit of dialogue to occur.

When - When do they give the option to say it - So also linked with Who and Why. This structures when a character says something. So some elements might be available throughout the conversation, but others might only occur after specific circumstances have been met.

How - How do you make the character say something that is generic, but unique sounding. This is the big one. It would need to be pretty complex, but essentially certain elements of the "creation" should provide a baseline character interaction. Then this should be modified by "traits". Then during dialogue this would be further modified by checks on specific skills/attributes/traits/backgrounds related to the conversation.

[Inca]

Maybe there could be say 20 stock stories written with their associated quests, they randomly get assigned to the player generated rangers. Granted on a 3 or 4th play through you risk running into the same story twice, but by that time the whole game would not be really new anyway.

[Woolfe]

Maybe there could be say 20 stock stories written with their associated quests, they randomly get assigned to the player generated rangers. Granted on a 3 or 4th play through you risk running into the same story twice, but by that time the whole game would not be really new anyway.

I personally don't wnat specific quests for individuals rangers.

But, in regards to what you are saying, it wouldn't need to be completely random.

Instead you have specific combinations of stats/abilities/traits/backgrounds, that open up potential quest lines.

So the Medic Background opens up 1-5 potential "medic quests" But you have the "loner" trait as well, which whittles down the medic quests to 2.

Or you have an "orphaned" background, which opens up 1-5 "find your family" type quests. But you also have a high intelligence which makes 2 of those 5 quests more likely to occur, and you are a female, which removes one of those quests.

Does that make sense. Random is good in that it allows for differences even with characters that are essentially the same, but that doesn't mean the random element can't be reduced/modified based on stats chosen.

[Kide]

As said I like the way woolfe brings about this presonalizing of these charachteräs we create. As yes I want to still create them and decide what skills they have etc, but then having these kind of possibly different interactions in the game world based on these decions would definilty be awesome. Something that will make the really older style roleplaying games better in my eyes in many ways. Even though I did like my wizardry 8 group or might an magic group it just did not have anything like those aspects. No one in the elf village ever reacted to my 2 elf chrachters or anything, whitch kind of did make them more seperate from the world that they/ me explored.

So yeah that is what I would prefer. I do also understand what mort2 is trying to say, but... I don't know, I still would prefer this kind of system over having ready personalized chrachters for me to choose from, as it really would not make them that diferent if done well... They would not exactly feel like jaheira might have felt like in baldur's gate, but.... Well it is just different style of gameplay. Here you have 4 chrachter's where one of them might die etc, and it does feel a bit different kind of world. I don't think this system can be as well compared to icewind dale series for the reason that there was pretty mutch nothing but the straght main story line to explore in icewind dale. On the other hand for example in might and magic 7 you were just able to win harmondaleäs castle that was in ruins and you needed to find dwarf to fix it and first clear it from those pesky hobgoblins and that way went deeper into politics of the country. It was more open ended, as I think wasteland 2 will be too. You are just put into the schoes of the rangers that need to go out and explore and maybe make their own life safer and such. Nor as narrative path as in icewind dales, so charachter's will kind of feel more personal in this kind of envirment already to me at least...

But yeah as said I love the idea put worth by Woolfe.

[Drool]

I don't know how the NPC cap system works. Maybe if a PC dies he opens up a slot for an NPC. Just don't know.

I just be happy if cloned NPCs turned into fully-controlled PCs...

[paultakeda]

I don't know how the NPC cap system works. Maybe if a PC dies he opens up a slot for an NPC. Just don't know.

I just be happy if cloned NPCs turned into fully-controlled PCs...

Now THAT's an interesting thought. I never tried cloning Vax (or any other NPC -- or if I did, I don't remember). Could it be done? And if so, was the Vax clone fully controllable?

[Drool]

You can clone NPCs, but they keep their NPC status. Once again, my attempt to make Ralf viable were thwarted.

[Mort2]

New update:

I did want to give some detail on what the definition of a party based game was since there seems to be some confusion. In specific terms you will be creating and customizing four Rangers at the start of the game and typically you would give each of them different skills to create experts in certain fields. Skills in Wasteland range from lock-picking to bomb disarming to even toaster repair. This creates the dynamic of having players taking very different approaches to exploring the world. In addition there will be three slots for non-player characters to join the party. They will be similar in most respects to a player created member except you will not have 100% control over them. They will have quirks that could range from momentary indecision with them not firing their weapons at an opportune time, to being trigger happy and wasting ammo or even stealing from your characters. This opens up a wide range of possibilities on which NPCs you decide to have join your ranks.

The highlight:
1. You create your four Rangers at the start of the game.
2. NPC which are similar to player created members.
3. quirk system.

Disappointing, not only we get less NPCs, but those that will be are going based on JA2 like "personalities" system, they will have quirks, so not only we get stat of sheets but also Fallout, baldur gate and PST quality of NPC is out of the window.

BUT hey we are going to get quirks! they are going to waste ammo and shit. It indeed sounds like Fargo want to make Icewind Dale in a post apocalyptic world, after akk he did said that it was one of his favourites. Good old RPG my ass, just another one using the name Fallout to get some more money, like Bethesda.

[Brother None]

Disappointing, not only we get less NPCs, but those that will be are going based on JA2 like "personalities" system, they will have quirks, so not only we get stat of sheets but also Fallout, baldur gate and PST quality of NPC is out of the window.

His comment does not preclude them having backstories, unique dialog and comments, related quests, etc? You're jumping to conclusions. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're concluding too much based on too little.

And the way you keep hammering away at the JA2/F:Tactics comparison is just obnoxious and childish. Just because you don't like or have no experience with excellent party-based RPGs doesn't mean the lack of character history/personality turns this into a tactical game with RPG elements.

[Drool]

It indeed sounds like Fargo want to make Icewind Dale in a post apocalyptic world

No, it sounds like he's making Wasteland 2. Just like it says in big letters at the top of the page.