I say make them separate stats. Attractive or even gorgeous people do not necessarily have high self-esteem and confidence. Many people in fact do like to prey on attractive people with low self-esteem.
I think you should at least keep physical appearance/beauty and confidence/self-esteem separate stats.
Some things like some choices of fashion for example could influence both stats. It would take quite a bit of confidence to go against the norm in a high-school environment and just wear your own style. What physical appearance would likely influence is whether you are perceived as a style icon who totally rocks the outfit, a weird but harmless, eccentric, or an antisocial freak, for doing so respectively.
If so, while physical appearance is certainly malleableâŚit is usually so only over an extended period of time.
A fitness regimen, better diet, plastic surgery, hair transplant (or even having the right wig made) all take more time than a week. The best you can do for physical appearance in a week is a tv reality show style makeover. But that sort of thing usually consists of basically just a new wardrobe, haircut and better makeup. In other words what you can do in a week is attempt to show of the appearance youâve already got in the best possible fashion ((pardon the pun)) and utilize that to its greatest effect.
Therefore I would make appearance more of a trait ( a skill in your interpretation) and set its base level to something like
Demon 85, Vampire 70, Werewolf 60, Goblin 40, Wendigo (I think either 50 or 30 depending on just how thin and corpse like the Wendigo is supposed to be).
After that the only events that would really influence physical appearance directly would be things like clothes hair and makeup changes and a the negative end of the scale possible disfiguring wounds.
For the clothing choices in the demo maybe add or subtract something like the following values
Sexy +30, Whatever -20, Neat & Tidy -10 (but only because this is high school, in the business world this would actually be the most neutral and nondescript choice), Trendy +30, Casual +/- 0.
If you so desire the effects of this could be further influenced by a fashion sense skill that would measure how well you pull it off. Letâs say fashion sense is a skill that can be anywhere from 0 to 100.
The different outfits would then need to be measured against this skill to see whether your choice actually achieves what you intend to do. For example:
Sexy - needs at least 60 fashion sense to pull off successfully in order to receive the stated bonus. Otherwise it could become tacky/slutty and give a -10 to -40 penalty instead
Whatever - doesnât require any fashion sense but with a very high fashion sense might be able to make it look bohemian/artsy or poor but cool possibly giving a slight +5 bonus. it could also be the one instance where having naturally good taste might work against you if desperately want to blend in with the hobos.
Neat & Tidy - needs low, maybe 20 or so fashion sense to make sure the outfit fits right and you donât forget to iron the shirt.
Trendy - needs 40 to 70 fashion sense, that together with the base beauty stat determines how well you can rock the current styles and maybe apply your own touch to it. At 40 fashion sense you would do okay and get half of the bonus for your carbon copied from a magazine look.
Casual - needs 30 fashion sense to achieve the goal of not standing out too badly in a high school environment. Higher skill might give a slight additional bonus for being able to choose casual wear that actually complements your body.
Of course, feel free to ignore any or all of this at your leisure.
I think you should have them be opposed stats. Confidence is typically something you have or gain through experience, not consciously practice. Being confident is a personality type, not a skill
Plus, it would open up two ways to play. Either be super confident, or a nervous wreck. Both equally playable, instead of having it to be where if you arenât confident then you have stuff shut off from you
Making Confidence (or Attractiveness) opposed traits doesnât feel right,
unless youâre specifically making something like it hubris/humility - not sure what could be the thing for Good looking/Not so good looking (if youâre going with appearance as subjective, it doesnât really make sense to call one extreme a positive term). And having them opposed to each other makes no sense at all - sure, there are peoplew ho are physically attractive but with poor self esteem or highly self-confident but not very good looking, but being good looking tends to reinforce confidence, not diminish it.
@Interestedparty Whatâs wrong with having stuff shut off from those who arenât confident enough?
I mean I donât think a person should be punished for roleplaying as someone who is as a shy person.
Making confidence a skill also doesnât feel right. You donât practice confidence, itâs part of who you are.
Also confidence is the opposite of shyness, so it would make sense for them to oppose each other. I agree that confidence/shyness and attractiveness/repulsive should each be their own stat, though.
@Interestedparty Who said anything about punishing people for roleplaying a shy person?
I mean, if being shy meant that you would invariably fail to solve the main challenge/s of the game that would be one thing, but a character who doesnât have (number pulled out of the air) Confidence =>50 having âI hit (Hunter/Artemis) in the face.â available in the name of being âequally playableâ feels just as bad. Thatâs not making it equally playable (but still different), thatâs making it meaningless - and I donât think itâs worth tracking and changing a number that will never influence anything for good or ill, or a more enjoyable experience to realize that playing a highly confident jock is the same as a jock with no self-esteem as far as the game is concerned.
And Iâm not sure I agree you donât practice confidence. It might not be a skill in the sense painting or shooting hoops is a skill, but itâs not something where you either are shy or youâre not and youâll never be able to become less shy (or more, though that wouldnât be exactly improving).
So how do you measure when someone is shy? At what level do you cross from shy to confident? If we have confidence as a skill, then what happens if you are roleplaying as shy but choose one or two parts where he/she puts their foot down? Then you have the confidence skill and the character is ruined.
And what if you have another character who you consider would be confident, but they donât fight that much because they see conflict as pointless. Theyâre still confident, but they donât get the skill because they donât fight back or you just didnât train it.
If you want to roleplay âa shy ______â one or two choices of putting your foot down shouldnât âruin itâ and prevent you from picking shy choices in the future, if you want to roleplay someone who is a âconfident _____â increased confidence shouldnât require picking actively aggressive/belligerent options all the time (or even often). _____ for the type of monster in question.
Making it something whether you âare or arenâtâ means thereâs no way you can change it from its initial position, thatâs all it does.
Iâd treat it like how you can have spared or killed one of the bad guys in Jeantownâs Guenevere game (not sure how much is safe to even put in spoilers or Iâd elaborate on that) - if you choose in a potential fight "Walk away because âI donât need to prove myself.â, you gain Confidence. If you choose âWalk away, I donât want anyone to get hurt, even (other guy).â, null, and if you choose âWalk away, Iâm afraid heâll beat me.â - you get the idea. Ideally as nuanced as possible.
Maybe it just shouldnât even be a stat then. Just let the person roleplay as they want and and have what patterns you display effect how people talk to you instead of having certain choices be opened or locked based on what the game thinks your level of confidence is
Also, I think @idonotlikeusernames has a great idea for how the appearance thing should work. I second that idea
I disagree. I think certain choices should be locked (or opened) based on confidence - you can still roleplay as you want without having the game bend over backwards to avoid limiting the playerâs options ever at any point.
It would be possible to be confident without being into fighting, but pushing for something that entails conflict in a given situation might still need confidence.
And Iâm not sure what attractiveness is intended to model - as in, what being âAttractiveâ does besides âIf Appearance over Y, people respond positively.â. Appearance as a stat is one of the things hardest to make sense of for me, especially when I couldnât even begin to guess on even a personal way of rating between two distinct styles that I both like.
But when you have certain options locked off because the game thinks it knows how your character is, thereâs a lot of room for error. It can ruin roleplaying. For example, my vampire was the type who thought himself superior, but was still polite to people and tried to find nonviolent ways out because he thought violence was illogical. But, when I confronted Hunter, the option to talk things through was locked because of what the game thought my character was like. Things like this happen in a lot of games when it tries to guess what your character would and wouldnât do instead of letting you decide
My belief is that an option should never be blocked off unless your character is physically or intellectually incapable of doing something no matter how hard they tried. Not because the game decided your character wouldnât do that
As for attractiveness, I think that would just affect how people react to you first seeing you and/or your ability to persuade people. Not much else
No mode is going to be perfect, but the model of not having a model is no exception. All it does is say that your personality doesnât actually mean anything - that the shy coward can confront Hunter just as well as a bold extrovert. And I use bold and cowardly in regards to fearfulness - âI donât get into fights or anything that illogical.â is not cowardly, âI donât get into fights or do anything that might get me hurt.â is another pony entirely.
Iâm not saying that all games handle this well, but there is a list as long as I am tall of things that some games handle poorly that I still think should be used - just done better. Having personality broadly limit your options - so a character played as honest to a fault throughout the game canât turn on a dime and start lying when the player wants to pick the Lie like a Persian Rug option, say - is something I think should be implemented rather than eliminated.
And in the context of this game (high school, with big events coming up even beyond the actual plot), I think how confident a character is in him or herself is worth being considered.
Iâd prefer to not have a stat for confidence at all. A shy person can step up and confidence can be shattered. And choices judging you even if you do it for different reasons.
Having a stat at all and having it be rigid, unchanging, and incapable of being influenced by anything are two different things.
A character who has made bloodthirsty choices in Choice of Broadsides doesnât have to pick only the bloodthirsty choices forevermore, but it does influence what happens if you pick telling stories to the West kid.
Doesnât mean itâs the wrong choice (after all, s/heâs only one of the three possible sub-subplots).
Demons arenât really creatures of flesh and blood, theyâre almost ghost like in a way. So yeah, while Iâm pretty sure they canât be killed Iâm sure they can be confined. Donât know about you, but infinite imprisonment would be a fate worse than deathâŚ
âŚfor me at least. Maybe itâs your cup of tea, Iâm not here to judge you.
I donât know why i have only just discovered this game or really why i am only now starting to use these forums. But from what i have played so far this game is shaping up to be really good . i think that the choice of monsters is good, i had never en heard of Wendigos before this game and from what i have seen their pretty interesting. i canât really find anything to properly criticize at the moment other then maybe the clothe options but then itâs only the lack of a Gothic option. The choices available are brilliant and actually affect later choices and your relationship with other characters which i do enjoy in games like this. I do believe that this may just turn into my favorite game in this format when itâs completed.
Decent chance this has already been answered before but, are vampires in this actual undead? I know theyâre immortal and drink blood and all that jazz, but do their hearts stop beating and are they all corpsefied and gross?
