Well, I don’t think you’re thinking stealth in the natural sense of the word. Perhaps discreetness would be more appropriate, if only because it’s very unlikely that a criminal mastermind is going to need to slip into the shadows like an up-jumped thug. That’s what the thug is for, you’ll recall.
P.S. You don’t seem to be from any country I can deduce (based on what you’ve said about the family taking on troubled kin). So, if you don’t mind my strictly curious asking, where are you from?
You must be newie 
due i tell im spanish every day. From old kingdom of Galicia. Happy to meeting you. Don’t worry i am friendlier than i seem =)).
Also i never play as a thug im a charisma full-time art con poisoner.
MC is a normal person, Stalin is not normal. Based on zombie movie, people who loses their close friend/family suffer something instead of becoming stronger. Daryl, Hershel, Rick, governor, Carl from the walking dead suffered when some people closed to them died, Shaun from Shaun of the dead had a deadly stand off when his mom died, I think MC is a normal person , hence no positive.
@817819 i agree. @Pepper your character is normal , ok . BUT DOESNT HAVE TO BE IT. You could be a psycho movie star druggadict a derilusion soldier or directely a white asian tatoo thug or a haker with sleep problems… So you havent to be exactly Walker dead people and i just remember larry and the bandits and the farm people of canivals…
@mara , those are fine example, however I still insist that if you picked a disadvantage there is no way you can easily gain benefit from it , like killing the nephew and become some zombie killing machine/ messianic prophet.
Everyone is different, yet there is still norm that is still followed even without laws, rules and authority.
@adjppm1227 first, thanks for bringing this up for discussion.
In choosing dependent, you accept responsibility of your sister’s 8yo son, so there is a direct tie to the child. You will not have options to disregard the child. There will be repercussions if you abandon, harm, or neglect the child. But there is also lawlessness in the apocalypse, so those repercussions must be more varied, like mental breakdown. There will also be benefits of having the child and caring for him, such as more skill points and increased morale. If you choose the dependent, it will change the game.
This child concept is in its infancy and though I have an outline and plans, feedback helps mold it.
You can overcome addictions, but there will be a period of detox in which you will suffer consequences.
As far as listening to feedback, you’re right–I do pay attention to feedback. Both Shoelip and Marajade’s feedback have led to big changes in ZE, so I’m happy to oblige positive changes.
RE: Vivian and Bailey: there are no plans yet to bring them back.
@Pepper thanks, I am going to fix the pronoun issues with Madison.
@timmy having a Navy SEAL or other Spec ops profession became too imbalanced. Choice of Zombies had such a character, and I’d rather not include that as IAP. But in Safe Haven, you can improve your character to such a point that you can mimic the skills of elite soldiers.
@Dead thanks!
@fo694013 I plan to fix all of that. I can definitely use insight on Army matters as my former Army-experienced consultant has not been available. I do have a consultant from the Marines but I am happy to hear from other sources. I’ll definitely PM you this weekend when I have time to work on SH.
@Doctor I’ll consider that as IAP though offering more skill points for $ seems unfair. I may add more missions for IAP though which indirectly raises skill points.
Something I would see is the option to define the police officer background like from soldier you have three sub-options. Maybe police could branch into beat cop, detective and maybe a k9 officer (cops who work with dogs)
I would say forensics specialist(including aspects of a coroners job),riot control and I like the idea for the K-9 unit.
Doesn’t SWAT do riot control?
Oh, I never noticed. Lol, sorry. I kind of skip over the bio parts. 
If we’re referencing the Walking Dead (I love that show!), then might I note that the death of people close to them did stimulate some people to act least be more successful? Look at Michonne. When her friends died, she carried around their decomposing corpses, but she was still a very successful fighter and even used their deaths in 401 to stimulate her return to the group. Recall that she was in the building where Rick and Carl had been and burst out crying, saying, to a certain deceased Mike, that she didn’t have the answer then but she had the answer now (as to why keep on living). Part of the reason she chose to live is because she didn’t want to die like Mike.
Moreover, the Governor is a prime example of what I mean by positive effect. When Michonne killed zombie Penny, and then Rick and his group (in his eyes) caused the loss of his power, the Governor went into relapse, but then used this loss to stimulate his hatred for them which allowed him to carry out very atrocious things. We may not see this as positive, but strictly from the perspective of the Governor, it may have been a necessary addition to his personality.
And I think it’s a like unfair to say the MC is a normal person. I don’t think they have the capacities of Stalin (undoubtedly, Stalin’s intelligence, perception, willpower, and charisma would have been astonishingly high), but I don’t think they have a split fifty down the line like an average person would. They have positives and they have negatives, and, as history records, these positives make them above average people in dangerous situations so long as they know how to use these benefits. All the average person would just die, for they have no positives to exercise. In the words of Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest who survive, nor is it the smartest who survive, but the most adaptable to change.” I think the only way to change is to have an above-average capacity to do so.
Looking at your latter posts, I would say:
That I almost agree with you except you seem to think that we are contesting that disadvantages *easily* gain benefits. Oh, of course not (at least, that’s not what I’m posing). Like you said, it’s odd that if you kill your nephew or he dies you become a killing machine; however, I still think in rare circumstances it’s possible. What I think you forgot to mention is that your personality twist and turns like a roller coaster and, honestly, you don’t have the mental capacities to really accomplish any of the humanities. Those being, history, science, the arts, philosophy, higher rhetoric, higher logic, etc., etc., which could be a strong stipulation against you in the long run. (For example, if you run into a group with a dilemma on how to punish someone, and you just blurt out, “Kill them,” even though I was a relatively minor offense, you might run into some problem with that group.) So it’s not as though you becoming a killer machine without repercussions. Of course there are repercussions. But sometimes, we learn in failure.
This is going to take some explaining, so bear with me please. (I have to go into objective and subjective clauses and . . . ugh . . . logic like this hurts me sometimes.)
Objectively speaking, your case for the dependent child is one hundred percent valid. I’m not allowed to discard alcoholism, thus I–the player–shouldn’t be allowed to just discard the dependent child. However . . .
Subjectively speaking, your case for the dependent child is a bit shaky. The MC was not warned that the apocalypse was coming; they had no conscious way of knowing this eight-year-old would be tagging along with them throughout the end of the world. All they knew was that this child would be with them for a few days while their sister was in treatment.
Since the game is told from the perspective of the MC, and not through an omniscient us, it seems like the only fair way of analyzing this is subjectively. That being said, I think that if you just alter the story very slightly–make the child a part of the MC’s life for years–it makes a much stronger case subjectively, for the MC knew that this child would living with them for a considerable amount of time as opposed to a few days.
Furthermore, on the concept of not allowing the MC to choose if they want to help the child during the apocalypse . . .
Objectively speaking, a valid case. As I’ve said, the player knew they were getting a child. However . . .
Subjectively speaking, this is pretty much breaking the MC’s free will, and defeats the point of choice games. Additionally, you never really verified how much the MC liked their sister. I adore would siblings–as an only child it’s actually human instinct to want them–but I know some siblings who simply can’t stand each other. For all we know, the MC and their sister may be very distant. Thus, the MC and their nephew may be very distant. I recall that I meet (in the sense that I would remember them) one of my cousins when I was thirteen-and-a-half.
A simple fix to the subjective problem would, again, be to make the nephew a more integral part of the MC’s life by having them be in their life, constantly or near-constantly, for a prolonged period of time.
Also, and the thought just struck me, that you’ve made the nephew incredibly dependent. They’re eight, after all. I would suggest bumping them up one or two years if only to make the incentive of having them around as a helper more enticing.
Forgive me for making this anecdote, but have you heard of the Greek tragedy of Damocles; or, specifically, the Sword of Damocles? The story follows along the lines of a Greek king, Damocles, who said that his life was so joyous that even Dionysus (the Greek God of Wine and Splendor) did not enjoy life as much as him. Dionysus replied by arriving to one of his feasts and tying a sword above his head by a single string, to show him how delicate his happiness was.
I think you’ve made the dependent child something to this fashion–that they are so delicate that a single mistake could “cut their string,” if you will. Perhaps making them a bit stronger would be better; that way, the MC is allowed to trust them to survive not independently, but rather, temporarily in high-stress situations when the MC themselves might be threatened. Because, let’s face it: making the MC kill themselves to save the child, or making them go into a situation which they cannot escape to save the child, is unfair. Of course, if after this capability of the child to survive independently for let’s say ten minutes of fighting was added, if you still failed then you would suffer serious penalties, higher than the previous ones.
P.S.
Glad, because I really didn’t like either of them and being forced to live with them throughout the apocalypse would be . . . regrettable.
@Jimd if I could make a suggestion why not make the selection of a child seperate from the challenges then make an attachment to him a challenge?
Interesting concept, in my opinion. Could you elaborate on that a little bit more? Maybe give an example? (And I’m not asking for the text walls I give; I just like to type. :P.)
Impertinent Edit:
(Me no double-posty.)
Well of course they wouldn’t be a twelve-year-old James Bond. I’m simply suggesting they be a normal eleven-year-old, or ten-year-old or what have you, who acts normally in this type of situation. And insofar as I can see, that would still be a handicap; but it’s unrealistic to make a handicap so severe that they need the MC for everything major. I’m not asking the child to kill ten zombies with a butter knife, I’m just requesting that they be smart enough to hide for about ten minutes while I fix the problems I’m having. If you’ve ever played Choice of Zombies, imagine Kayden. Kayden isn’t trying to be some super hero all the time, but they at least aren’t standing in the middle of the road while my car is coming (actually, they’re smart enough to hide in a tree).
@adjppm1227 is a handicap have a nephew, has to be negative to survival lol. same as cleptomania short fuse or being blind. If nephew is a 12 james bond spoil all the challenge. Clem is like 8 and is badass i love her if Marcus is just half awesome i would care it proudly
edit @817819 Good idea ! this way all will be happy 
Well let’s say you do a prechallenge scene where the sister asks the player to take care of his/her nephew while she recovers. Then if the player accepts make one of the optioanl challenges something like attachment to the child, this would allow you to keep the child as a challenge and would still allow the player a reasonable amount of freedom.
@Nocturnal_Stillness I am pretty locked as this stage on professions since the fully customized option is available now.
@adjppm1227 I haven’t explained the history with the child yet and generally dislike stories that introduce thorough background details so early in long exposition. I had to do a bit of that with Jaime and I hated even 2-3 lines of it. So you don’t know much about the nephew yet and some of what you suggest falls in line with my plans. Depending on profession, the MC has shared a lot of time with the child, and he looks up to the MC.
Re: choice in CoG games. A writer can only handle so many choices, so limiting choices is not the same as limiting free will. An example of the latter would be a fake choice that leads to the same result with the illusion of choice. Limiting choices is necessary but good choices reflect reasonable and even interesting options an MC could take. It wouldn’t make sense in the context of the game to abandon or harm the child but in some instances, neglect may lead to it. I am not going to include options to hurt the child purposely (no Lizzie’s in my game!).
The sister and MC are close; she left her son with the MC.
I admit, this idea of an 8yo came to me when I took in my 8yo nephew for a summer. He is an extremely independent child as during the school year, he lets himself in the house to wait for his sister (15yo), and the two manage not to burn the house down. My sister, a single mother, has instilled a lot of great values in those kids.
Some of the rest of my answer is hidden in future updates, and they’d be spoilers. I do offer NPCs who help care for the child, and there are some choices for save X or save Y but not to the point of total sacrifice. People hated those scenarios in ZE1.
I’ll be curious when chapter 2 comes out how you feel the relationship develops.
@817819 I’ll think about it, but again it comes down to balance. It’s the same with pets. My philosophy with Safe Haven is that a soldier with master ranged weapons and survival can be as effective as a social worker or teenager, when the whole game is considered. I balanced dependent as a challenge, so changing it takes some major coding, believe it or not.