Thank you for the reply!
C1 Terseness, additions
I’m in agreement with @RedRoses on Chapter One. I think if were hinted a bit more that the PC is a bit on guard, then the transition towards their Chapter Two personality wouldn’t be so abrupt.
The bit with the player having the first case being a bit… off’s good, I think it adds to the ambiguity of the job. I think a bit regarding constraints over not being as thorough as they might like would probably go some way in assuaging those who wanted to do more on the trial front.
Nice to hear! Though on a related note, I don’t recall it being mentioned in the text (i.e. outside of the stats pages) that there’s still ongoing fighting, especially in Scotland. I think that it would be pertinent to expressly mention that (Pym’s pamphlet mentions that the Scots “fight for the cause”, but people who don’t know much about the WTK might not know that’s actual open fighting) along with any information about Royalists/Parliamentarians that’ll go into the earlier chapters. Even if the PC is away from the fighting, ongoing conflict has different repercussions compared to one which has largely died off – and they might get the wrong impression from the flask in Chapter 3.
Personalities
I absolutely agree here. But, I also think that can lead to a major conflict between powergaming and roleplaying when it comes to personality-based stat checks, which I think is the root of the issues I’ve raised.
On the one hand, having such checks gives variations between playthroughs and playstyles, which is a good thing. However, I feel it can run the risk of choice selection becoming a formality. The more personality shows up in stat checks, and the harder these are to pass, the more incentivised a player is to push to the extremes so as to pass as many checks as possible, rather than on a roleplaying basis. This is especially the case with COG, since there’s no save or back function.
I think Hexfinder is particularly affected by the conflict between powergaming and roleplaying because of the personality stats themselves. Most games seem to have something like idealistic/cynical, merciful/ruthless, pragmatic/honourable, emotional/stoic, trusting/suspicious set of personality traits where it’s relatively easy to place oneself/one’s character on a linear scale and moving to one extreme or the other isn’t that difficult for role-playing purposes. How much more merciful is someone at 55% and someone at 65%?
However, I don’t think zealotry, adherence to authority and political beliefs are so easily translated to a linear scale, especially given the charged atmosphere of the setting and historical basis. While an idealistic response may fit for all characters who are slightly idealistic, there are different grades of adherence to authority with significant differences between them, and likewise for the other options.
In addition, while avarice and paranoia are relatively cut and dry, these “ideological” traits are somewhat broader and muddled between each other. As mentioned, Zealous isn’t just someone who’s dedicated to their work, but has a strongly religious element. Skeptic largely concerns magic, but also has some religious facets, with mentions of being against faith or cautious of condemning things as heretical (which arguably also has an anti-authoritarian bent?). Authoritarian is a follower of any type of authority.
I still think these traits should be kept in some way – they make the roleplaying interesting and more immersive. I think this is also why I felt some of the options were too overt, especially the “Skeptic” choice discussed above; in hindsight, the overly-Skeptical response mentioned above may be very strong, but clearly establishes it as not being “Indifferent”. I think it’s also why I mentioned the “tiers” of personality options, because there’s a major difference between a mild skeptic and a major skeptic.
I feel like there’s also the unconscious suggestion that in order to achieve a certain outcome, you need to beeline for certain personality traits. Like someone who wants a Royalist ending must have high Authoritarian and Royalist, while someone who wants a Pontifex ending needs high Zealous and Pontifex, which consequently dissuades equivocation. While in other games you might have a hint as to what being on one end of a mercy/ruthless slider will do, you don’t know how it will affect the course of the plot. While in Hexfinder from the start it seems like some stats will inevitably be connected to the longterm course of the plot.
I think this is significant because importance of the personality stat checks themselves. I think if there were fewer of them which had a significant impact upon the plot, then it wouldn’t be so much an issue. Where if the majority of impactful statchecks were based upon attributes, and with some exceptions, personalities would be there for flavour or the occasional stat check. The demo so far - especially Chapter 3 - seems to pin personality stat checks as being as nearly equal in importance as attribute-based ones.
A related idea would be to sort-of separate personality traits and “ideological” traits. Like how Royalist/Parliamentarian and Pontifex/Covenant are separate from the other stats, but bundle Skeptic, Authoritarian and potentially Zealotry with that. These would affect plot points but come up less frequently in stat checks. The remaining personality checks would come up as frequently as they do now.
Alternatively, perhaps faction relations could be spun off into their own relationship stat like with the other characters, keeping the personality traits and Royalist/Parliamentarian and Pontifex/Covenant as just tendencies? Where having those traits be high would make it easier to get a certain ending, but you could still achieve it with high raw stats and judicious choices. This would model the difference between a bootlicking Royalist (high Royalist + Authoritarian + Royalist relations) and a less-enthusiastic one (high Royalist relations, but the other two stats are lower).
I think that or lowering the importance of personality checks vs attribute checks are the only ways I’ve seen it done, really. For the former, I think Metahuman, Inc did it pretty well, in that sometimes a middle-ground personality worked best, others an extreme personality worked best. It also had partial successs if I recall correctly. However I do admit that it only had two personality stats to keep track of and it was particularly complex.
All of this was a bit hard to put to words, so apologies if it’s a bit disjointed. Hope it was somewhat useful at least.
Same goes for whatever you choose as a first destination - 
