Disposition

NPCs react to you in 1 of 3 ways, or what we call Disposition levels (DL), ranging from giving you no tags to ask about (Closed), some (Wary), or all they have (Open). DL table is pretty simple:

Closed: no tags to ask about

• DL 1 - 8

Wary: a select amount of tags from their total

• DL 9 - 16

Open: all available tags and situational check tags

• DL 17 - 24

DL is a combination of NPC and PC personality modifiers, so both player characters and NPCs can dislike or like each other automatically. Which is to say if you make or find an unsavory character, they will be the ones lowering DL when talking to NPCs. Adversely if an NPC has poor social modifiers or background advantages/disadvantages they’ll be influencing the poor DL. So in this way the player is always trying to mitigate a low DL regardless of the one causing it, as they’re the ones trying to get information.

Modifiers for Disposition Level:

• +/- Advantages
• +/- Disadvantages
• Character Sex
• Character Ethnicity Group (in our alternative world just East-Asian or Mix)
• Logic similarities

Creating the DL is sort of Superficial: the game! Importantly, it allows us to have pre set ‘randomized’ NPCs in the game that the player can always understand how to react to with the rules in place.

Disposition Example

So for a simple conversation example the player tries talking to a non-hostile thug stationed near a dilapidated building.

A Closed DL would have the thug tell the player to shove off.

A Wary DL would present a piece of dialogue with limited tags, like [building] and [gang] to then be able to ask about.

An Open DL would give the player full access to the NPC tags, like [building], [gang], [trouble] and [missing], maybe allowing him to give the player warning that there is another gang nearby who is planning another raid on the area, and a few of the other guards went missing after patrolling through the building nearby. An easy cue for the player to venture into the dilapidated building with a little bit more caution.

In this situation, to give the player a voice, you could explore the building and head back to the thug, showing him a CiWar dog-tag of a gang member found in it to initiate the idea that you checked it out.

From outside combat you can use the same ‘SHOW’ action for an item to anyone to initiate dialogue about the item if they know anything about it or will react to it. For instance inconspicuously navigating a hostile base under cover and showing fake identification to every guard you see for good measure. You can also initiate a conversation with any of the other rolls we talk bout below, or new ones you can train for.
​