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Original post by Garmichael A possibility would to make a chart. Sort of like <A href="http://www.politicalcompass.org/">The Political Compass</A>. Basically, As you answer questions, your position on this chart moves slightly in both an X and a Y direction. As you get into certain areas, your true political nature is determined. Also, I would reccomend filling out the 37 page personality test survey at <a href="https://wss.unicru.com/hirepro/C142/applicant.jsp?content=&Site=-3&k=no">Blockbuster's Online Application</A>. Here, It asks you a bunch of questions like "You perfer to be the leader of a group" and (my favorite) "It is maddening when a guilty criminal is set free." Take this, not with the idea of 'im answering these to make it look like i can get a good job', but with the idea of 'answering this determins what about my personality?'. Im sure you can make up a pretty simple chart if you look into some psychology and observe people around you. Sort of try to take that test pretending to be someone else you know. I dunno, I just think a Tree is too uni-directional and too definitive. Like, if youre at Branch X or whatever, you can only go on to a branch further along, and your character's personality is strictly determined. With a chart, you have sort of a big rectangle of personalities that a character can evolve throughout in mulitple directions depending on their actions. EDIT: I just noticed that I pretty much reitteratted Sun's post.

[lol] i'm a real libertarien communist.

Economic Left/Right: -6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.92

:)

From,
Nice coder

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Original post by Nice Coder [lol] i'm a real libertarien communist. Economic Left/Right: -6.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.92

Heh, ditto:
Economic Left/Right: -6.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21

heh, a little off-topic.
but Im a Centrist.
Its was -1.xx by -1.xx. I dont rmeember exactly


But yeah, I think this little test sort of shows how many different political positions there are, and how relatively close they are to eachother.

I think the same would work well with a Personality type test.

Suggest you look at a pen-and-paper RPG called GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System). You start character generation with a given point total, which depends on the type of campaign, and spend points however you like. Average physical and mental stats cost nothing; a high stat has a positive cost, while a low stat has a negative cost (i.e. increases points to spend on other things). The same pool of points goes for skills.

The interesting thing in this context is that you also buy advantages and disadvantages for the character. The bigger the advantage, the more it costs. When you take a disadvantage, you can have a better advantage (or bigger muscles or whatever).

The only catch is that dis/advantages must have some effect on game play. Other traits, while helping to round out a character, don't affect game mechanics.

Plotting a point on a Cartesian coordinate plane system is a little bit oversimplified for this system, I think. I remember a thread (a Wavinator thread, I think) from some time ago dealing with emotion modelling, and using The Thing as an example of what NOT to do. Some good ideas were described in that thread, and I think many of them would translate well into this concept. I'll find a link...

Fear and The Thing's failure at emotional modeling

Having offered that link, how about a sort of matrix? Have a spreadsheet, with rows being specific skills and columns being situation types or adversaries. Each cell would contain some value for the character's ability in that situation. If you spend a lot of time debating, for instance, then your "debate" row will be generally augmented over time. If you deal with bureaucracy a lot, then your "bureaucrat" column would increase in value. So, if you found yourself debating with a bureaucrat, you'd be quite formidible. On the other hand, your cell at the intersection of "wrestling" and "bears" would not be as impressive, so you'd leave that sort of thing to Zangief.

Some might use more than one condition. For instance, if you're boxing against a vampire in front of your boss, then three values would be considered, not just two. Being a great boxer would help, but knowing nothing about vampires or being nervous when your boss is around would be handicaps. During the course of the fight, you will be gaining knowledge of vampires, which is good, but you won't get any better at impressing your boss.

Training could be a very effective reinforcement technique, since the ideal response would be made available to the character before, during and after the stimulus. If you've ever applied the "delta rule" when dealing with simplified neural networks (I'm sure some of you have), then you'll have a general idea of what I'm talking about.

This system could effectively guage your ability at gunfighting against ninjas, debating in front of a huge audience, or running a marathon in the rain. The system could be customized to any set of conditions. I'm not sure how you'd go about detecting whic factors are present in any given situation.

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Original post by xor A bit OT: That pairing of good with bad traits reminds me of Fallout, and the lightside/darkside reminds me of Black & White. Both great games btw.

Yeah, I agree about that, it's sounds like it.
For your education, Fallout is based on the GURPS roleplaying system (just like Neverwinter Nights is based on DnD3.5)
In GURPS, those personality traits are called Advantages/Disadvantages.
To be more precise, characters can not only acquire skills with their XP, but they can also acquire those Advantages. Some cannot be acquired after creation of your character. Some Disadvantages can be "bought back" (Disadvantages give you more points to create a character) after creation (the Disadvantage "Sworn Enemy" for instance, could be bought back, meaning the person after you would leave you alone, die in an accident, etc)

If you check out the GURPS lite PDF, you should get a good idea of what the possibilities are, I am sure [grin]

As for Wavinator's idea, I like it :)
I must point out above for the fact that, yes, I am pretty sure that people would willingly choose disadvantages if they know that this allow them to choose an advantage in compensation.

I really like the idea of separating experience points and "personality points".
as this would prevent munchkinism: people buying all those little disadvantages that they know are rarely much of a problem, just so they can get more points to use somewhere else...
Making some (dis)advantages only available if required conditions are met, or if a certain level is reached is another possibility.

Although I really like the idea of a morality compass (didn't we already discuss that quite a while ago, as a replacement to the old DnD alignement system), I'll wait until I see something a bit detailed before giving my opinion (which I already gave in that previous thread, anyway [grin])

Disadvantages can be really fun to roleplay. I played a campaign of Ragnarock once. IIRC that system gives you a 90% chance of having some sort of insanity, and if you have one it gets worse as you gain ExP. My character had kleptomania, and I had a ball randomly walking of with my teammates' stuff. Another character had hebephrenia (inappropriate laughter) and so she would burst out laughing at all the really serious moments, like in the middle of an argument.

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I remember a thread (a Wavinator thread, I think) from some time ago dealing with emotion modelling, and using The Thing as an example of what NOT to do.

Hmmm, this is a bit too self-referential for my tastes. [lol]

Seriously, I do like the idea of a matrix, but what worries me is that not only is this a huge tech investment (in terms of detection), I wonder if sometimes it's not better to just be overt. A radial mental tech tree should inspire you to want to explore it, wonder where the other links go, and how they affect gameplay. It would also have the benefit of being deterministic, which ironically is something you may want as an anchor if there are a lot of uncertainties about gameplay all around you (which is something you've warned me about quite a bit, btw.)

This really boils down to the old skills debate: Level by doing or level by chosing. I think the later is an easier implementation (though I know this whole concept still could be clumsy as presented).

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Original post by sunandshadow I don't think it's actually true that people develop new personality traits as they age - a winning smile, for example, is something a person either has or doesn't have by the time they're a young teenager (barring dental work). As I understand it, a child starts out with a basic personality type determined by genetics, modified by whether they form a secure or anxious attachment to their parents. Children as young as 4 have distinct personalities. These personalities simply specalize more as the child grows depending on positive and negative reinforcement and traumas, and a person's personality is fully developed and unlikely to change by the time they're 18.

Maybe I'm using too much of a pop psych idea of personality.

What happens to characters in stories that undergo major shifts in philosophy, outlook or intent? What would be a better word for this? I'm thinking of the detective that sees so much crime and corruption that their morality begins to decay; or the soldier that sees so much death that they become an apathetic soul late in life; or the bitter anti-hero who's heart is redeemed by forgiveness from community or the love of a good partner.

Whatever that's called, that's what I'm trying to capture, but with a strategic overtone, not just a dramatic one.

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Original post by Wavinator Quote: Original post by sunandshadow I don't think it's actually true that people develop new personality traits as they age - a winning smile, for example, is something a person either has or doesn't have by the time they're a young teenager (barring dental work). As I understand it, a child starts out with a basic personality type determined by genetics, modified by whether they form a secure or anxious attachment to their parents. Children as young as 4 have distinct personalities. These personalities simply specalize more as the child grows depending on positive and negative reinforcement and traumas, and a person's personality is fully developed and unlikely to change by the time they're 18. Maybe I'm using too much of a pop psych idea of personality. What happens to characters in stories that undergo major shifts in philosophy, outlook or intent? What would be a better word for this? I'm thinking of the detective that sees so much crime and corruption that their morality begins to decay; or the soldier that sees so much death that they become an apathetic soul late in life; or the bitter anti-hero who's heart is redeemed by forgiveness from community or the love of a good partner. Whatever that's called, that's what I'm trying to capture, but with a strategic overtone, not just a dramatic one.

A 'dynamic' character is a character who undergoes a major shift in goal or method. Your examples are actually examples of toggleing an existing personality between its 'healthy' version and its 'damaged' version, not examples of developing a new trait.