Modelling Character Needs and Desires

This is something that has been touched upon in previous discussions of either compelling a player to or rewarding a player for acting in character, and how to handle player behaviour contrary to gamism, such as fleeing from something in fear without taking control away from the player.

I think it's generally agreed upon that it's better to give the player a damn good reason to act in a way that goes against "succeeding" in game terms, rather than arbitrarily removing their input from player actions. So here's a specific implementation I've been considering:

All characters have Needs, and these are key variables that decrement unless the character devotes effort toward satisfying them, or avoids conflicting them. For NPCs, these represent a simple range of factors to drive sensible behaviours. A NPC whose need for food is not being satisfied will engage in activities to satisfy that need, or ensure it will be satisfied at an appropriate time. For PCs, these encourage the achievement of procedural goals based on negative reinforcement when Needs fail to be met. To draw parallels with the standard RPG model, Needs are like an internal quest giver, and the motivating "reward" is continued existence - get food, or you will die.

Desires represent more explicit Needs requiring no ongoing attention. Instead, Desires ask that the character fulfill specific (and generally undesirable) requirements, or incur increasingly negative consequences for inaction. Unlike Needs, Desires can be also be overcome by (specific) means contrary to fulfillment.

Last of all, Addiction is also a possibility. Partaking of physically addicting substances, or the over-stimulus of an enjoyable activity can result in an ongoing Need beyond the scope of convention.

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So basically, there is a layer of soft coercion. Minor penalties apply if the character doesn't satisfy their Need for say, Speed. Time spent below 100mph is time wasted, and so the speed bar decrements (Yes, just like The Sims).

Pretty basic stuff, which is intended to be leveraged into giving the character a purpose. However, the second layer is one of much more dramatic coercion, and that's where Desires come in. To continue the example, let's say a character has critically neglected their Need for Speed. At this point, a Desire is created, and falls into the short term category - Desire: Travel in a vehicle exceeding 200mph.

Notice how the requirement is now more difficult to achieve, than if the player was merely maintaining the Need. Ideally, the gameworld properly accounts for this extra risk. Higher chance to crash and burn, more likely to draw police attention, etc. Since it's a short term desire, the player has to act reasonably soon, but it's not quite immediate, so they can prepare somewhat for the event.

However if they fail, the slippery slope increases in angle - Desire: Exceed 200mph in a vehicle. Blindfolded. Desire: Exceed 200mph without a vehicle. :twisted: And so on, and so forth.

The last aspect is overcoming a desire as opposed to fulfilling it, and this requires social interaction and expressions of negativity. Also, in most cases, some sort of sacrifice. "I don't think I could resist the urge as long as I have easy access to my V8 Intercepter. Here. You'd better take the keys."

Ouch. So what do people think of the idea? How slippery should that slope be? Would people feel that the game leading them by the nose would conflict their own perceptions of the character they're RPing? Do you feel the need? The Need for SPEED? Do you like gladiator movies? Ever been in a Turkish prison?

You could have a reservoir of generalized "need food" that would act as a buffer and feed into the higher needs until expended. Call it "Will". Maybe iron-willed characters could essentially blow off the needs system, food or rest aside.

My pet idea on this has been "The need to take this fucking armor off, or I'll go insane." The cliche of an RPG guy that runs around in plate mail for friggin' cross-country travel is goofy.

You mean some kind of comfort stat?

Relevant

Yeah, comfort.

That thread's a year old almost to the day, and I still had that thought in the back of my head. I am awful.

You are awful.

Food & comfort = homeostasis

homeostasis in a game= maintaining the normal level of the PC's current stats.

If, say, the player is hungry, thirsty, or is chafing from wearing armor for an extended period of time, this could result in a detrimental reduction in specific stats. And I'm not talking about a piddly -5 strength or something. I mean serious effects that critically alter your character so that you must seriously consider having the PC search for food, or to take his armor off.

For example, if a warrior is wearing his helmet. Sure, he gets added protection, but at the cost of visibility and how hot and cumbersome wearing a metal helmet is. This could be reflected in reduced accuracy of your character's weapon (maybe affected by his weapon skill), and perhaps an increasing reduction in endurance, perhaps to represent the fatiguing effect continuously wearing heavy armor has. Am I making any sense?

I can see the merits of such a system for basic needs - food, water, sleep... - and perhaps for comfort - shelter, armour.... I also think it could work for compulsion/addiction.

I don't think it'd work too well for things the character is intended to enjoy. Getting the player character to perform appropriate actions is only half the battle - the other half is getting him to do it for the right reasons. By adopting a system using only penalties, you're modelling character enjoyment through player penalty avoidance. That has entirely the wrong feel to it IMO. A reward might be equivalent to avoidance of a penalty, but it doesn't have the same feel.
A player who makes his character do the "right" things for totally out-of-character reasons, isn't roleplaying.

I'd say there are two better ways to go about modelling desires (as opposed to needs/comforts/addictions, where penalties are reasonable). The simplest would be to give rewards for satisfaction, rather than penalties for failure. This might be largely functionally equivalent, but it models the psychology involved in the character decision much more closely.

My ideal-but-impractical solution would be to go even further to model the situation from the character's point of view. Why do characters prefer some actions over others where there's little pragmatic difference? Because they find them more entertaining. So the best way to get the player to play in character is to do exactly that: make the activities his character enjoys more entertaining for the player. That way the player is doing the things his character would, for exactly the reasons his character would.

Of course this would mean having many activities for many characters be purposefully less entertaining than they might have been. Clearly this would suck for a game without great replay value. For a game with great replay value, I think it's worthy of consideration (in fact, of course, it's one element of great replay value).

The main problem is that you'd rather not encourage/allow players to spend a long time on an activity you've intentionally made less entertaining. Ideally I guess you'd try having most such activities be entertaining/interesting for all characters for a moment, but for characters who enjoyed that activity to have access to deeper levels of perception/interest/decision-making....

Note that this kind of effect already occurs in many RPGs - it just emerges out of a combination of factors, rather than by design of an atomic feature. E.g. certain skill sets not only make some approaches more practical for some characters, but also more entertaining: for one skill, low skill tends to give a lack of interesting options, so isn't much fun - higher skill gives more interesting, influential options, and thus more entertainment. [very high skill can often trivialize a challenge though - which is perhaps a problem, even if it makes some sense]. Combinations of high and low skills probably give the most interesting/entertaining play - which is why a character with strengths and weaknesses is more entertaining to play than a super character.
You could combine all this with some more tangible reward too I guess.

Impracticality ftw.

I'm definitely in favour of rewards rather than penalties for character entertainment though. The psychological difference is important here IMO.

That may be true for PCs, but it could be great fun to have an NPC who wants to always do something dangerous and stupid and goes into a sulk if you don't let him.

Perhaps bonuses for individual desire satisfaction, but penalties for overall dissatisfaction would work.

So a character doesn't lose out by neglecting any one desire, but will spiral into depression and despair unless he satisfies at least some desires. That also gives the player (or indeed an NPC) a wider variety of options. He's required to keep his character entertained in ways appropriate to that character, but not in a specifically prescriptive manner. [that needn't apply to compulsions/addictions - if the speed freak is intended to be an addict, it makes sense to have direct penalties imposed for that particular desire.]

I'd say there are two better ways to go about modelling desires (as opposed to needs/comforts/addictions, where penalties are reasonable). The simplest would be to give rewards for satisfaction, rather than penalties for failure. This might be largely functionally equivalent, but it models the psychology involved in the character decision much more closely.

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I definitely agree with that sentiment, although I think I've probably failed to explain my concept sufficiently. Perhaps:

Desires ask that the character fulfill specific (and <s>generally</s> thoroughly undesirable) requirements.

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...and perhaps "Desire" is misleading terminology. Maybe "Cupidity"? I just can't quite find the right word for wanting something, even though it's "wrong".

Basically, the idea is that characters and player characters are on the same page when it comes to chasing rewards, and there's no need to motivate or coerce a player toward positive actions by their very nature. However, as an extension of a basic system of needs, (psychotic) desires crop up if a primary need is significantly neglected.

For instance, a character who is starving and not merely hungry will begin to exert their own will over the player. Desire: Eat something that doesn't belong to you ...progresses into... Desire: Eat something considered inedible ... Desire: Feast upon the entrails of a fallen foe ... Desire: Kill a non-hostile to feast upon ... Desire: Eat part of yourself ... Desire: Eat one of your own vital organs ...

That sort of thing. Any behaviour that a player in their right mind would never undertake since it flies in the face of metagaming. And to be clear, we're punishing a player for fucking up significantly by not tending to their needs. If the player isn't satisfying those needs because they haven't the resources, it leverages that situation to satisfy the need at significant moral cost/risk.

Good idea, sounds a bit like something from uni

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_h ... y_of_needs

Seems like a decent basis for RPG AI, though how you punish characters or players who ignore various aspects is a tricky question. I guess you don't want to be constantly having to remember to breath/eat/drink.

There are a few things to remenber.

Micromanagement is anoying.

One thing is needs and another is compulsive disorders.

I guess the frenzy in VtM has an element of this, where your "mana" doubles as a need bar with a loss-of-control failure condition (plus the complication of humanity).

I'm picturing a hybrid background/point buy character creation system where you are given needs and decay parameters based on your choices. You were raised in the hellish death pits of Blargh Mo Tak Tak, and you find comfort to be an alien concept, yet the lifetime of enclosed space has left you uneasily agoraphobic. You have a residual sense of inferiority, and interacting with higher social classes is a psychic strain. And so on. It all adds up as a way to inject more of the nature of the character into gameplay aside from how he kills shit.

Edit - I guess I've been ignoring the idea that was actually advanced here, the dramatic coercion of S8's desire system. I am awful again. It's hard for me to contextualize it, to be honest. You could have sort of specific questoids connected to certain needs - i.e. the character that picked the "sense of class inferiority" need (what an esoteric guy) might get a special interaction at some point that provides special content to really throw the trait into relief. Like, the character might uncontrollably stammer and make himself look like a fool in a pre-set situation. My imagination fails when I try to integrate a constant minor interest like a need bar with a bold, specific thing in a dynamic rather than scripted way.

Seems like a decent basis for RPG AI, though how you punish characters or players who ignore various aspects is a tricky question. I guess you don't want to be constantly having to remember to breath/eat/drink.

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Well the idea is that "conventional life" such that it is in this particular circumstance is pretty much homeostatic but like any homeostatic system, it's more about providing negative feedback when something goes wrong so it can be corrected.

To that end, micromanagement is frequently avoidable, and errors in the system are likely to rely on broad corrective procedures.

If say, the Need for Security is neglected, it's not a matter of finding and consuming a padlock every minute of play, it's about addressing a particular threat. If the Need for Food is neglected, then that's more than likely a result of either being isolated from a normal three square meal routine, or a lack of food resources within the community that normal supports the character.

I see - I think I was led astray by your initial speed example, which (for any remotely normal character) isn't a need.

If we're talking about needs, and further extensions under more severe conditions, I think it could work reasonably well. As things stand though, I can't see it being interesting outside of EXTREME situations. That's fine, but it means you'd need to have run-of-the-mill satisfaction be automatic/very simple/a by-product of actions performed for other primary reasons....

How would the psychotic desires react to satisfaction of the fundamental need though? For example, say a starving character develops an "Eat a human limb" desire, then finds a load of conventional food and eats it. Does he still have to rip the arm off the next guy he sees? Does the psychotic desire slowly wear off when the basic need is satisfied - so e.g. a few minutes after eating the food, he might still rip the arm off (or face "frenzy"/madness/prolonged paranoia...); a few hours after eating, he might still steal any food he sees (or face some lesser penalties); a few days later, he might buy much more food than he needs....

That would make a reasonable amount of sense to me, but I'm not entirely sure it'd make for great gameplay. The tendency would be to attempt satisfaction of the basic need, while avoiding the temptation/opportunity to kill/maim/steal etc. Perhaps that could be interesting, but if it often meant finding conventional food, then sitting alone in a hut for a week to calm down, it wouldn't be.

Of course, depending on the setting, there might be reasonable ways to indulge psychotic desires, without much of a problem - e.g. drinking the blood / eating the limbs of enemies.... Though perhaps indulging horrific desires too often could tip the character over the edge in other ways - e.g. killing, then eating enemy humans ends up pushing the "kill then eat people" psychosis further up the hierarchy. This would then mean that desire getting triggered much more easily, frequently - increasing the odds of it happening amongst friends.
Alternatively (/also), acquiring+satisfying many psychotic desires, could lead to a general desensitization to all psychoses. Once you've killed and eaten a few companions, compulsive stealing seems pretty tame....

Another possibility would be to tie some tendencies to situational factors - e.g. if the character is almost always hungry in, say, mountainous regions, his threshold for psychotic food-acquisition could be significantly lowered in such situations. That way the character could be a perfectly normal citizen on a Tuesday afternoon in a market square - but on Wednesday nights, under a half-moon, wearing a red scarf, on a hilltop... he could be a paranoid schizophrenic cannibalistic cross-dressing misogynistic drug addict.

I see - I think I was led astray by your initial speed example, which (for any remotely normal character) isn't a need.

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Heh, point taken. It was a fairly facetious example that struck me in the wee hours of the morning.

If we're talking about needs, and further extensions under more severe conditions, I think it could work reasonably well. As things stand though, I can't see it being interesting outside of EXTREME situations. That's fine, but it means you'd need to have run-of-the-mill satisfaction be automatic/very simple/a by-product of actions performed for other primary reasons...

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Well to give some context here, the five primary needs are:

Sustenance
Social Interaction
Security
Inner Harmony - the need to "be yourself" ie act consistently
Erstwhile Nature - the need to act like your pre-amnesiac self

...where the "three S's" are more or less there to culminate into communal goals, and to springboard difficult situations when isolated from the community. The final two needs are basically a gameplay mechanic to encourage a consistent moral outlook but also to throw that into relief against a previous life as memories are steadily recovered.

So yes, playing the game under normal circumstances will result in steady fulfillment of needs, and any threat to them should be foreseeable.

How would the psychotic desires react to satisfaction of the fundamental need though?

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There is some internal debate on this one. As you've observed yourself, the sensible diminishing of the Desire when the fundamental Need is fulfilled doesn't really contribute to interesting gameplay, but conversely, it doesn't seem fair to coerce the player into doing something redundant.

My inclination at this point is to account for this as part of the process of Overcoming a desire, reducing the "cost" of doing so.

Section8 said:

Inner Harmony - the need to "be yourself" ie act consistently
Erstwhile Nature - the need to act like your pre-amnesiac self

...where the "three S's" are more or less there to culminate into communal goals, and to springboard difficult situations when isolated from the community. The final two needs are basically a gameplay mechanic to encourage a consistent moral outlook but also to throw that into relief against a previous life as memories are steadily recovered.

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I'm not sure about these. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Inner Harmony basically prevents you from playing an impulsive (or apathetic) character, while the Erstwhile Nature forces you to choose your alignment in the beginning rather than letting the game "recognize" it.

Not taking control away from the player in situations where his character is desperate would be quite an achievement. I don't think it's possible without using some equivalents of the feelings the character may experience on the player in form of various penalties/benefits to motivate him. For example, if the character is tortured, the pain could be transformed into some permanent attribute(/whatever) loss, which wouldn't be pleasant for the player. However, it would no longer be pain but some arbitrary gameplay mechanic and a step towards metagaming. Simply taking the input from the player would be more appropriate here imho. Like was said about the Desires, there's a conflict between an interesting gameplay and the real effect not satisfying a need would likely have.

But I didn't want to be negative about this, it just doesn't seem completely right to me and I don't have any ideas at this moment how to make it better.

The biggest issue with that system is that is not dynamic, a person can alter its behavior ("needs") over the course of its existence.

That make it worst that D&D alignment since that one is dynamic, this system is more of a straitjacket since a character is always punished when moving outside its "needs".

Needs should only be physical needs ... eating, drinking and sleeping with perhaps preferences.

I'm not sure about these. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Inner Harmony basically prevents you from playing an impulsive (or apathetic) character, while the Erstwhile Nature forces you to choose your alignment in the beginning rather than letting the game "recognize" it.

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Inner Harmony I'm rethinking. The general idea was to encompass both a consistent moral alignment (to discourage player's simply opting for whatever action benefits them most) and also to act as a measure of "feeling useful". For instance, a fighter in peacetime itching for battle, or an intellectual who isn't challenged. But, I'm thinking it's more or less redundant. I'd rather have social consequences for moral backflips, and I think it's reasonable to assume that a player is self motivated toward activities they excel at.

As for Erstwhile Nature, it's a bit more complex. Within context of the system itself, you don't define your pre-amnesiac self in the beginning. You recover "memories" throughout the course of the game, and these recollections function in a pretty similar manner to Fallout's feats. It's admittedly contrived, but I think it has undeniable charm.

For instance, we assume any character can shoot a gun, but as he progresses, our protagonist recalls experience with a handgun in his previous life, and his skills come flooding back. He is now a more effective gunman, ideally by providing him additional tactical options (called shots, controlled bursts, etc).

So in effect, the player is developing two characters in parallel, and given the selective recall, basic recollections will not conflict with past and present selves.

However, the idea is to provide skill trees/chains that extend skills with recollections that also include morality. So take for instance:

• "I had significant experience with handguns..."
  • "...and my gun club had access to a motza of exotic firearms.
    • "I tried out every single one."
    • "I much preferred large bore pistols."
    • Etc.
  • "...I even took a life once."
    • "And vowed to never do so again."
    • "I shot a kid."
    • "Wait, not just one life. I've killed dozens."
      • "Maybe even hundreds."
    • "I can't wait to notch up another."

The rule of thumb is, the more reprehensible the act, the more it enhances your present character, but the high moral cost is reflected through a need to resort to Erstwhile Nature. Maybe that's not a problem because your post-amnesiac self is a child-killer too, but the good guys are going to find things a lot more difficult.

Not taking control away from the player in situations where his character is desperate would be quite an achievement.

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The challenge of design/implementation is definitely a motivating factor for me...

I don't think it's possible without using some equivalents of the feelings the character may experience on the player in form of various penalties/benefits to motivate him.

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... and my intention is to do just that with increasingly more demanding (and also more punitive) Desires. I blame myself for being vague, but I really ought to stress that failure to fulfill a Desire within the alloted time does incur penalties in addition to more dramatic Desires.

[edit]

The biggest issue with that system is that is not dynamic, a person can alter its behavior ("needs") over the course of its existence.

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Not true but again, admittedly vague on my part. One of the key features of character development is the idea of a "daily" period of introspective reflection, that basically functions as dialogue with one's self. To that end, I'm hoping to give the player opportunity to both develop their character outside of direct social interaction (after all, who reveals the inner-most facets of their personality to complete strangers?) and also to enable the game to track to some degree the type of character the player wants to role-play.

--
And that's exactly why I want to have these sort of discussions, because ultimately these ideas are being commited to writing, and I need to get the right mix of concise design brief and big-picture context. So keep it coming.

Drakron said:

The biggest issue with that system is that is not dynamic

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Who said it isn't?
For a start, the idea of "consistency" is inherently dynamic. For other aspects, there's nothing to say that different characters don't have stronger/weaker needs, or that the strength/priority of such needs don't vary over time.

Also, there's no consensus that the ideal situation is to start with a character who is either a moral blank slate, or arbitrarily morally malleable. A straitjacket is one extreme. The other is the "freedom" for every character to be morally/socially equivalent. The middle-ground is preferable.

Section8 said:

... and my intention is to do just that with increasingly more demanding (and also more punitive) Desires. I blame myself for being vague, but I really ought to stress that failure to fulfill a Desire within the alloted time does incur penalties in addition to more dramatic Desires.

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No it's fine, I think it was clear from your post. I just repeated it to get to the point about some character feelings being impossible to map to the player feelings, and the need to impose such penalties or benefits which wouldn't necessarily be implicated by not satisfying the character needs in the gameworld - hence the mention of the metagaming.

I think in such cases it makes sense if the character stops listening to the voice of reason (represented by the player who is safe and comfortable and can make calm decisions) and starts acting desperately/impulsively/on his own. Trying to give the player reasons to behave like his character would want to leads to creating new rules as an imperfect mapping of the character's needs to the player's needs.

I feel the fact that at some point simply satisfying a Need is not enough (because of the Desire) is an example of a penalty which is created for the player as a substitute for a missing "feeling interface" rather than being the consequence of the character's actions in the gameworld.

Thanks for the clarification of the Erstwhile nature, it sounds interesting.

One of the key features of character development is the idea of a "daily" period of introspective reflection, that basically functions as dialogue with one's self. To that end, I'm hoping to give the player opportunity to both develop their character outside of direct social interaction (after all, who reveals the inner-most facets of their personality to complete strangers?) and also to enable the game to track to some degree the type of character the player wants to role-play.

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I'd love to see that in action, or "storyboarded". I have a hard time visualizing multiple concurrent never-been-implemented brainstormed systems otherwise. Is this a real project? Don't tease me.

I feel the fact that at some point simply satisfying a Need is not enough (because of the Desire) is an example of a penalty which is created for the player as a substitute for a missing "feeling interface" rather than being the consequence of the character's actions in the gameworld.

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Well it is and it isn't. It's a meta-construct intended to coerce the player into behaviours that run contrary to meta-gaming, as a result of failure to satisfy an abstracted character requirement. It is consequent of the player's inaction as opposed to character action, which I agree is quirky, but I think it also bears fruit as a product of the gameworld.

For instance, harkening back to this recent discussion, I see the system under discussion as a good way to hook into the idea of "No Food = Cannibalism". Admittedly, you could let the player resort to it of their own desperate accord, but what about NPCs?

I don't like the idea of NPCs considering other characters as food, albeit food that is weighted as a very low preference. That's asking for trouble, and even though I'm generally an advocate of dynamism over excessive scripting, I think in this particular case, it's better to have a tighter rein on the dynamics that lead to something as extreme as "civilised" folk resorting to cannibalism.

And so, instead of a completely dynamic system that should resort to extreme behaviours in extreme need, I'm opting for a middle ground of sanity checked scripted checks that become steadily more extreme. The fun part is that sanity isn't necessarily a pre-requisite for NPCs, and so the exception to the rule means that every now and then an NPC will make the jump directly from "We're out of ice-cream" to "Braaaaiiiins!"

I'd love to see that in action, or "storyboarded". I have a hard time visualizing multiple concurrent never-been-implemented brainstormed systems otherwise. Is this a real project? Don't tease me.

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It's not a real project yet but the intention is that it will become one. For now it's the transition of ideas from my mind to a wiki, with the occasional stop over at the Codex forums. I'm trying to restrain myself from announcing it to the world, because it is purely conceptual at this point, but I'm excited about working toward a tangible whole rather than merely spouting off unconnected theories every now and then.

As for the introspection mechanic itself, I'll do my best to nutshell it. First of all, I want to give a much more tangible structure to the passage of time. It seems that most RPGs consist of wandering about, doing anything and everything, and only eating/sleeping/socialising when it becomes a necessity. The classic "I need to get my spells back" sort of shit, or even Bioware's "yay i dinged back 2 the ebone hwak to unlok NPC story!1!!" nonsense.

I'm aiming more for the considered approach of Jagged Alliance 2, where time was a resource to be spent wisely, and an assault on a single coordinate might amount to a night's work. I want my characters (PC included) to sit down to breakfast, consider their goals for the day ahead and then go about their business. At the end of the day, they all sit down to dinner, work out what they've collectively achieved, relax and then head off to bed.

Making it to the end of each day drives character progression, which steers things away from traditional level/reward systems, for better or for worse. Instead of clicking the "Level Up!" button when you've accumulated enough XP and dicking with stats, advancement is achieved by talking to yourself as you wind down for the night.

The main part of that, as I've touched on briefly, is the recollection of your Erstwhile Self. These recollections function in a very similar manner to say, Silent Storm's skill trees, but are framed as dormant skills/traits from your erstwhile existence, and are chosen through inner monologue/dialogue, intentionally keeping the actual tree structure and consecutive skills under the hood.

So to sum up that side of things, the player "advances" by awakening dormant abilities, and as previously mentioned, the greater enhancements tend to come with an attached morality.

The other facet of introspection is the rationalisation of significant events during the passage of the day, and of pending goals/events. So for example:

• Dave ended up in the infirmary today...
  • ...poor guy. I wish him a speedy recovery.
  • ...but I guess it could have been worse.
  • ...and good riddance to 'im. Here's hoping the morgue is next.

Pretty simple stuff. It shows the game visibly reacting to events within the gameworld, but also modifies various social variables. In this case, the options range from demonstrating a friendly attitude toward an NPC and healthy empathy to outright dislike and sociopathic behaviour.

I haven't nutted out the exact details of social variables, but the intention is to sketch out inter-character reactions and moral attitudes. Ultimately, I'd like that to hook into the dialogue system, so more options in line with the "genuine" personality the player defines through introspection are available.

Buh. Anyway, this thread is rambling a bit. Hope that lends a little more context to the multiple threads of discussion that are emerging.

Section8 said:

It's admittedly contrived, but I think it has undeniable charm.

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Agreed - it's not something I'd like to see in every game, but I'd say it could work well at least once. I don't think there's much wrong with contrivance - so long as it fits the feel of the game/setting/character....

The rule of thumb is, the more reprehensible the act, the more it enhances your present character, but the high moral cost is reflected through a need to resort to Erstwhile Nature. Maybe that's not a problem because your post-amnesiac self is a child-killer too, but the good guys are going to find things a lot more difficult.

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I think that's a very interesting way to balance things. In particular, it can give some natural balance to the tendency for a game to favour a nice-guy approach [i.e. that being friendly generally gains you more than being a bastard - simply because things tend to make sense that way].
Of course the nasty+power vs nice + allies deal has been done before - but it usually feels directly contrived. Using this kind of system to achieve the same end moves the contrivance a little further away: you can have an uncontrived world because it's based on your contrived system.

The worry I have is that many players will tend towards the nice-guy memories, and that this will make for less interesting gameplay - no highs (options/power) and lows (Erstwhile horror), but an uneventful middle-ground.

Perhaps you could throw in the other side of the coin sometimes - i.e. situations where the nice-guy choice gets you options, but leads to undesirable (if nice) behaviour.
For example:

• "I was a generous, likeable guy..."
  • "...but a terrible businessman."
    • "My winning smile got me out of some scrapes."
    • "Luckily I inspired loyalty in capable deputies."
    • Etc.
  • "...I could never resist giving stuff away."
    • "I helped out the poor of the city - I know those alleys like the back of my hand."
    • "I gave all my money to the temple - the scholars there taught me..."
      • "...much about our history."
      • "...discipline and willpower."
    • "I once gave all my possessions to struggling villagers. In return..."
      • "...they showed me various survival techniques."
      • "...they laughed and left me with nothing. That day I learned to spot racketeers."

So in this case, being pulled towards an Erstwhile Nature doesn't make the character do evil/nasty stuff - just undesirable stuff. E.g. making reckless/terrible business decisions, giving away a load of gold/items, or other bouts of thankless generosity. As compensation, the character gets charm / loyalty / street-smarts / lore / willpower / survival skills / savvy....

I think it'd be preferable to have this sort of possibility included. It's nice not to have to be an utter bastard to be interesting.

galsiah said:

I'd say there are two better ways to go about modelling desires (as opposed to needs/comforts/addictions, where penalties are reasonable). The simplest would be to give rewards for satisfaction, rather than penalties for failure. This might be largely functionally equivalent, but it models the psychology involved in the character decision much more closely.

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For simplicity and a practical implementation, I'd actually combine both into a single comfort system as per Zomg, a general "feel good" value.
I imagine a bipolar system that defaults to zero, providing a general bonus or penalty to skill checks, saving throws etc. I'm not thinking of any "big" effect, although it would gain relevance through its universality.
I also find the compensation opportunities intriguing. Characters feeling good may endure all kinds of hardship more easily.

The main problem is that you'd rather not encourage/allow players to spend a long time on an activity you've intentionally made less entertaining. Ideally I guess you'd try having most such activities be entertaining/interesting for all characters for a moment, but for characters who enjoyed that activity to have access to deeper levels of perception/interest/decision-making....

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I think it would be sufficient to detach the character's enjoyment from the player's. If you want to implement entertaining activities (minigames?), their entertainment value - or the player's success - doesn't necessarily have to be relevant for the character.
If the player enjoys such an activity, he can chose to do so, but a character not interested in it may simply not profit from it. You could also offer the option to skip an activity - like Oblivion's lockpicking - so the player can fulfill the needs of his character without wasting time on an activity he doesn't like.

I'm definitely in favour of rewards rather than penalties for character entertainment though. The psychological difference is important here IMO.

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Absolutely. And in the same vein as my initial statement, one could combine both effects. Food may provide nourishment as well as "comfort" or even additional boni. Gothic experimented with that, although I felt it was ultimately a gimmick and not elaborated enough to be a thoroughly interesting game mechanic. Collecting apples for permanent strength increases isn't what I have in mind.



I'm not sure what to think of Section8's ideas, though. Sounds interesting, maybe slightly gimmicky. I don't think it fits to well into a common RPG, but a game designed based on them may prove an entertaining alternative.