Would picking class/stats without a prompt be a bad thing? What about (mostly) static personality stats?

Game Development Writing and Content
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As I am trying to write something, I had questions that popped in my head about formatting (I think it’s formatting anyways) and stat/class systems.

  1. Would asking a player to choice his ‘‘class’’ before starting that game look lazy and a weird way to integrate it?
    I feel that no matter what way I add this ‘‘class’’ system, it would spoil some mechanics early and ruin the ‘‘wtf’’ moment. But if I don’t do that, the intro wouldn’t have enough personalized flavour.

  2. What about personality traits? Would it work fine if they weren’t introduced, but shown at the beginning so the player would have a different reaction to the intro. Or would it be better to add choices in the intro for the reactions instead and add the traits more fluidly later on.

Not because I wanna be lazy about it, but it would change the intro’s ‘‘ambience’’ and reaction by a bit

3.1. I’m also thinking about making it less ‘‘choices affect stats’’ and more ''your personality stats affect your reactions with your own choices. Which, tbh, sounds REALLY annoying to make, but it seems more realistic for personalization so that’s my problem. Any thoughts on that?

3.2. And so far, as it’s gonna be mostly fixed stats, some drastic choices would affecting them only.
I’ll prob make em in bold or somthing, so you wouldn’t have to go restart if you screw up your character traits by accident. Does that sound like a fair idea or would that make it annoying?

PS: Don’t expect a prototype in any form anytime soon though xd I’m aiming for a really long and finished ‘‘book’’ before going public with anything. Can always edit and scrap stuff later, as long as their is a good base.

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Could you add some template classes for players to pick during the intro which then evolves later into the classes that spoil things?

For example maybe players can choose to be a warrior, a mage and a scout but during the story they become.a knight, a summoner and assassin.

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Oh, it’s not that kind of medieval-based classic classes, it’s more a ''your character might go mad quicker if he’s this and that, but be resistant ‘‘x’’ ‘’.
But your idea’s quite good actually, maybe like you said, and then a ‘‘are you sure you want this’’ later one, after the obvious spoilers. Might be immersion breaking, but it’s probably better than ''ok, go back and restart the whole thing. xd

Thanks!

Another question, if someone know about that:
4. Would a save system be a thing that’s on the COG game maker thing in finished games?

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Yeah I suspected it wouldn’t be by the fact it could spoil things but it was the easiest way of showing what I meant :slight_smile:

Good luck with this :slight_smile:

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Many games let you choose your character before the game itself starts. HG/COG has a preference of integrating it into the story, but in many mainstream rpg’s this isn’t a restriction, and its very doable in the choicescript language, so go for it. Many players have expressed that its emersion breaking for them, but if the writing in the game proper is good enough, people would probably overlook it.

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It’d be jarring to me. You could easily have a scene where your character is waking up from bed (or maybe going to sleep for once!) and puts their weapon next to their bed. When you pick the weapon, you pick your class.

Depends on what the personality traits are and how you plan to implement them.

I personally don’t like the sound of your choices getting pre-chosen unless your MC is character locked with a fixed personality. I might be quiet 84% of the time, but maybe one time I want to say something.

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Eh depends entirely on how you execute this. If you’re going to give some plausible reason for the MC to be thinking about what “class” they are or want to be then no. If you’re just going to ask out of the blue, then yes. But then again, if it’s really that important that this happens, I think you shoudl just go for it. Better to have one thing that looks lazy at the beginning of the book than have an intro that people don’t understand at all.

Not something I’m a fan of. I hate when games have stat checks based on personality stats. I suppose it does make sense sometimes, but usually this just leads to me having to figure out which choices will raise the stats that I’ve already put the most into. I prefer having personality stats just be there for players who want to see how their MC’s personality changes through the game, but not have the stats affect out choices or anything.

Someone who is normally very peaceful could go through some sort of event that completely changes their outlook on the world and could suddenly become someone who supports violence. Having choices based on personality stats doesn’t support the idea of organic growth through the story, as it locks the player into playing the same type of MC they had at the beginning of the book, which would inhibit character development.

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Yeeah, makes sense. I’ll try of a way to not dude that, but worst case scenario, I would indeed take lazy over ‘‘shit intro that alienated some of the readers’’.
It would be more of a flavour thing though, not complete alienation I don’t think, but I dunno, not completely finished the intro yet, so I’ve lots of time to fix the lazy intro vs bad intro thing.

x

For personality affecting choices, I didnt mean for it to be stat based choices, I meant for it to be rather somthing like this:

‘‘If you’re stoic, then your afraid would bemilder, than say an emotional reacting afraid’’
Also am not a fan of stat based choice decision xd

But people have usual ways of being, like a stoic guy wouldn’t just become a complete emotional mess at the end of a game in the same way an emotional guy would be. I meant it more as a flavour within a flavour, not a ''if your personality is more like this, then you can’t react that way cuz.

While a peaceful guy could become violent, I still feel it’s very unlikely to be the same kind of violent then, say, an already aggressive man. One might be more passively (or reluctantly) violently with one more actively or somthing along those lines. Someone’s main personality traits don’t usually make a 180, unless it’s a really traumatic thing, so I dunno.
Does that make more sense?

As more the ‘‘seeing stats grow’’ I can’t say I’m that big of a fan, cuz choices are often interpreted in different ways. Someone feel this and that are ‘‘x’’ stat, so it isn’t ‘‘growing my character the way I want’’, so I end up picking all the’‘stoic’’ reactions over ones I want, cuz stat increase.
But I guess every stat system has its perks and downsides.

Thanks for the reply though, I do like having other’s opinions. :ok_hand:

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1.Yeah, though so. I isn’t really a class thing precisely, but it’s kinda hard to explain so I’ll try writing more of those classes differences first. They are more mind-based than skill based though.
The ‘‘dementia’’ subgenre is kind hard to explain, so sorry about that xd

  1. Fair enough, I’ve seen lots of way, and most of them, apart from the ‘‘set personality characters with illusion of choices’’ ones, I personally don’t mind anything, but yeah.

  2. Kinda gonna refer to my answer to your post neighbour, Augustus for the answer there. After the x. Feel free to comment on that answer, or if you’ve more critics, that’d be neat.

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Ah, I see. I saw the word ‘class’ and assumed something like RPG classes (rogue, mage, barbarian, etc.). My apologies. I’ve had DnD on the brain.

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It’s all good xd Should have been more precise, and use more than just quotation marks there xd

But yeah, class usually is DnD classic rpg ones, so makes sense xd

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Hello there. I hope my opinion would help you. :blush:

No, I don’t think so. I’m not really that particular on that. If you choose to integrate it in the first scenes, do so; if you choose to put that choice before the game, why not?

Either way works, and I don’t really have a hard preference one way or the other. :thinking:

I would prefer that, in the beginning, there would be a brief explanation of these personality traits. This would make the reader/gamer conscious of the fact that their choices would affect their personality.

I believe there are some games where choosing (for example) what to say in a conversation with an NPC doesn’t have an effect on stats whatsoever. On the other hand, some games do.

This idea has its merits, and is realistic; however, I don’t like the thought of your hidden personality stats influencing your decision making.

Maybe these personality stats could be used to make certain options unchoosable? Or maybe it could affect how the MC reacts to their choices.

For example, a merciful MC would refrain from using violence, and certain violent options would be unavailable, yet this MC may still choose other, less violent choices. Or maybe a balanced merciful/violent MC and a violent NC may choose violent choices; the former would express regrets on their choice, while the latter would not.

If I understand this correctly, then the warning in bold would be very helpful. Readers/gamers may think that a seemingly inconsequential choice may actually have severe ramifications.

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Hey to you as well :raised_hand:
1.Ok ok, yeah, guess everyone has different views on that, so might as well just go about it in a way I feel better about in that case xd

  1. Oh, I didn’t exactly mean like that, but that is a pretty good idea actually, I’ll add that to my ‘‘system ideas’’ doc. But I mostly meant that you’d pick ‘‘this and this traits would be none-changeable (apart from some bigger personality defining choices that could sway the traits), and say, like you said, add a description next to it so the player know what it’ll make your character act a bit like outside of choices’’.
    More like, your character in a lot (if not EVERY) games have a bit of a set personality you know, outside of your choices? That’d kinda make them be more like the traits the player’d pick at the beginning.
    Say flirty or rude, well the player character then would either be a bit more friendly-flirty or ruder than ‘‘default usual personality kind’’. Not sure if that’s clearer there?

  2. Oh yeah, that’s kinda what I was going for, ‘‘affect how the MC reacts to their choices’’, mostly. I wouldn’t want them to be hidden though, it’d be a clear selection with, like you said earlier, a small description to help pick.

But you’re actually explaining it more clearly and accurately than I did xd Apart from lock some options part, but that could be a good thing, locking some up. I wouldn’t be sure what would make 100% sense lock out, but I could see myself doing that for some options maybe, if they made no sense for the MC’ personality.

4.Oh yeah, it’d be clear. And I’d def try to make it an obvious ‘‘big personality lifechanger event’’, not just ''being rude to hidden bad guy made you become a rudeass outta nowhere xd
Something tragic or just obviously not a ‘‘flavour choice’’.

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Ah, I see what you mean here! I would say that this is a very good idea; it allows the playable character to form some sort of consistent traits throughout the game, while also leaving room for changes to those traits.

Edit:

A playable character can, and does, change throughout the game’s events. That would show the character development.

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Ok ok, yeah I’ll try doing it then, can always ask for ‘‘what do you want to do, in a way’’ beta testing comments to make it more fluid and personable anyways, as it would be a first for me. Can’t be perfect on a first try, but I’ll try to not do too bad either ahah

Oh yeah, they can change, maybe I’m the only one that has a VERY static and consistent character personality no matter what xd Thought it wasn’t that uncommon, but apparently I seem like the odd one’s out there. xd

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