Can we play as a hyper-intelligent shade of blue?
Do you have any special alien powers? Also what kind of weapons can you use?
I mean… Can we still have options like Option 2, at least?
I want to be a Vulcan 
“We must conduct ourself with diploma-”
“Live long and prosper bitch.” -Me
sighs diplomatically -Embassy
@SirEdmund, things like skin color are just…uh…skins, so yeah that’s an area where lots of options are possible. Same with the “something extra” choices. Giving a player antennae or horns or ridges or spots is not a big deal codewise, doesn’t really affect most/any player interactions in the game, and gives the player some aesthetic control. So Option 1 is by far the easiest for me to code and is also the most flexible.
I am striking Option 3.
Only question is do I keep Option 2? I would have to keep it from getting too crazy, because it just streamlines the writing process for the MC to have hands to grab things, feet to use for running, a mouth to talk with, etc. But some multi-faceted eyes and/or scales would be easy options. Even features like wings or a tail wouldn’t be much extra trouble.
@Frogs, I haven’t decided yet about abilities. My thought is that you will be able to pick one or two unique abilities. You will also be able to customize your stats. I’ll give you a 1 in each stat to start, and I’ll give you 20 additional points to spread among the stats, capping each at 9, so that even if you’re awesome in a given stat, you still have a 10% chance to fail a check on that stat.
But building a “jack of all trades” character with a lot of 4s and 5s could actually be a solid build, as it gives you a decent % of passing a check regardless of the stats being checked. I like the idea of a “jack of all trades” character, and I think it’s a shame they are rarely viable builds in games.
I reeeeally want to discourage people from feeling they must specialize in just one area and then always go with their highest stat.
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Hmm I don’t know if this idea is good though, I really hate RNG combat/gameplay where you have no control over your character and if you fail you basically have to cheat by restarting until it changes. It can ruin replaying too, you could try to replay to get a different RO or something and then RNG would ruin your whole game.
The last COG game (the baseball one) also had a lot of negative reviews with most of them having to do with the RNG/percentage based gameplay.
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I saw some of the negative baseball reviews, so yes I’ll keep that in mind. I’m guessing some of it came down to execution and design, but I don’t know for sure.
Still, I’d say that the player always have control over the MC’s actions, but certainly not over the results. Heck, that’s true whether the author codes a check or uses a RNG. I figure in the ‘late game’ stage of many games, if a MC has a low Dexterity for example, they are going to fail a Dexterity check pretty much automatically. I’d like to give that MC a small chance to pass it, at least.
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Alas, I won’t be able to play as Globulus the sentient pudding. Curse y’all and your insistence on voting for fleshy protuberances!
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That’s a noble thought, but I also think that the other side of that–that if a player has been building up their hypothetical Constitution stat the whole game, and then they get to the end and woops, your work was for naught, you failed anyway–can get really frustrating really fast, and probably discourage replay. I’d be disinclined to get very invested in a gamebook where, if I come to a roadblock that I just cannot manage to get myself past, and I get on the forum to see what people have done to get through this issue and the answer is just “replay and hope the digital dice treat you kinder this time”, I’d probably be more likely to just set the game down
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Super-sexy, preferably blue/gray skinned male “space-elf” for me please. 
I like the devious, but still clever temperament of their Romulan cousins better. I also like a slightly more distinctive skin-tone then the Vulcans and Romulans got in Star Trek. The blue/grey/violet range would have my preference.
Sexy robot (designed for diplomacy with lesser/organic races) might be nice too. Of course the sexy robot/android thing used to be the Myrmidon. Still miss that one too.
I do like to have one great stat, two good ones, about two average ones and one bad/horrible one for my RPG characters, flaws are interesting too. Plus just like ourselves the aliens probably like to have their abilities and greatness in at least one thing recognised. All averages is just as boring as having all stats be super-awesome or having a character whose only option is constant failure, I try to avoid all of those.
That honestly speaks mostly to game design. It seems like we’re gonna have (reluctant) teammates to cover our asses here too, just like in all good party/group based RPG’s.
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It’s not always true, if you max a stat or get it to a very high level you should be able to pass every stat check that is based on this stat, so you sort of control the results too. It’s the reward for investing in that particular stat.
CCH has a pretty interesting stat system actually, while you had 1 main stat you had 2 other strong stats that are viable to use so you could succeed in most situations. You weren’t really a purely specialized character.
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I think it would be interesting to maybe give the option to have inhuman things like tails or extra eyes give gameplay effects, such as maybe your second set of eyes lets you see an extra spectrum or two of light, so maybe you notice something that you wouldn’t otherwise, or maybe you’ve got wings that can help you get up a ledge faster.
That said, I could also see why you might want to avoid that, as it would obviously add a lot of work to coding. Also it’d probably need to be balanced somehow, in order to stop the player from just making themselves into a many winged/eyed/tailed monstrosity that gets every “unique body part” bonus that they can.
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I think the features could give both advantages and disadvantages.
For example a tail could be used to snatch and hold things or as a weapon to simply slap things with it. But you’d be susceptible to others grabbing it and it would be awkward to get into tight places or try to sneak with a tail.
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@hustlertwo, lol
@HomingPidgeon, yes I see both sides of it too and I will definitely keep those thoughts in mid. But like another poster said, MC will have teammates in virtually every scene so failing a task will not = huge earth failure and end of story. It probably just means someone else steps in to solve the problem. MC might get a bit less personal glory (or maybe misses out on some resources), but again not a huge deal.
@idonotlikeusernames, sexy blue or gray skinned alien with pointy ears = you can absolutely have that!
And I actually anticipate your alien character being fairly kick ass in whatever areas you focus on.
@Frogs, I see what you’re saying, but it’s actually considered horrible game design to let a player just max a stat and ride that stat to a successful finish. I would think it’s pretty boring too.
I hope to tempt people into perhaps using a low stat when there appears to be a high reward possible. Let’s say an alien MC with Brilliance of 3 is challenged to an alien-equivalent-of-chess contest. Let’s say it’s 100 credits to enter, but 1000 credits if you win. Would you risk 100 credits for a 30% chance to win 1000! I think most would! But it might depend on circumstances.
@Gwenstn, and your last comment about people making monstrosities had me laughing, and I had already thought if that issue. I would make it clear in character creation that picking “Reptile Body” gives you the “Tail” Ability but eats up one of your Ability slots.
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When RNG is involved you remove player agency. I have always had absolutely horrible luck when it comes to RNG. I despise RNG in my CYOA games. It takes control out of my hands and puts in to a Random Number Generator algorithm.
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Don’t forget the male part, wouldn’t want to play a “female” only race like the Asari after all. But you already were committed to giving us a gender choice for our alien mc’s, correct?
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yes @idonotlikeusernames, everyone gets total gender and orientation choices.
@2xs, I think I disagree. I mean, player agency means the ability to take action, not the ability to control the results of said action. And by nature of the limitations of any game design, there will always be limits on what you can choose to do, and what can possibly happen as a result. Really, the game designer is the gamekeeper of results.
But I don’t want to get too focused on the RNG stuff. That’s just a small part of this. I want to focus on the story. I’ll work on it tonight!
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I would prefer hidden stats checks, like what is used in Fallen Hero for some choices than RNG. Make my choices be the determining factor not some algorithm.
It would be a good idea to try it, but what if you had an achievement for winning that chess tournament and you had high brilliance but still failed? Then you’d have to replay it all over again and might fail in the second time too and get really frustrated
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I think RNG is fine so long as it’s used appropriately. Which is to say,in the situation you suggested, I fully agree RNG would be a poor fit there. Honestly, I think the most important part of including RNG into a story based game is that it’s not detrimental to the story. Sure, you won’t lose a chess tournament to RNG, but maybe you miss a shot and the story takes an alternate route.
I think so long as it avoids putting the player into a “losing” situation, it’s fine. Essentially, the most important part of properly implementing RNG is, ironically, that the player doesn’t feel like they got screwed over by RNG.