So, I have this game I’m working on, and since this isn’t a ChoiceScript-specific question, I’ll ask it here. I have a bunch of stats, yes? No big surprise there. The running theme with my stats is that all of them sound nasty, they’re all the result of the protagonist’s history as a drug-fueled hitman-turned-warlord. So as an example, instead of Investigation and Charm you have Stalking and Scamming.
I have two problem stats. One is knowledge of medicine, and one is knowledge of bureaucratic protocol and law. Now in both cases, it’s easy to imagine things which are not only bad but horrifying which would entail these fields of knowledge, conducting back-alley surgeries to implant drugs or weapons into the stomachs of helpless peasants in exchange for helping them flee their cruel cartel overlords to greener pastures or using Saul Goodman-esque legal trickery to help a wealthy pedophile escape legal retribution. The question for the vignettes is not whether medicine and law can be used for evil, but just how evil chargen can be before the audience is rendered completely incapable of sympathizing with the protagonist no matter what the mitigating circumstances were. But the question for the stats themselves is: What do I call these things such that every time you use them, it reinforces that these skills were conferred by a dark past? You can’t use the Stalking skill without being reminded that you learned how to do it while kidnapping the children of a drug lord’s rivals, but Law can sound like Atticus Finch as easily as Saul Goodman, and Medicine sounds downright benevolent. While we’re at it, Scamming isn’t that great either. I’d like something that’s slightly less scoundrel and slightly more loan shark - from backstory alone, the protagonist should come across as just shy of completely irredeemable, not a Han Solo loveable rogue type.
