Establish any variation in generated player characters

[cubap]

Whatever the initial set is for characters (#1), there should be some variation in auto-generated characters. It probably shouldn't be as complex as rolling for attributes D&D-style, but the chance for characters to exist on the fringe of capability is intriguing.

[cubap]

Locke (and Chip) had some great ideas around this. Where not only may there be some attributes that wander outside of average, but that a sort of "feat" system be in place where classes of skills come much easier or supernatural powers are granted that are not picked or known at the outset.

[cubap]

Suggestion for balance, so that any dirth in one area represents a boon in another. This may be a balance nightmare, but the general idea is sound, I think.

[cubap]

Possible bizarre talents:

• Photographic memory leads to great mapping, story-telling
• Underwater breathing (if we enable underwatering)
• Green thumb knack for agriculture
• Tank with huge strength or resilience
• Eats anything with maybe some odd Kirby side-effects, if someone gets code-happy
• Workhorse amazing endurance makes for a super travelling merchant or hunter (sustained high speed movement) in early game and development of construction, crafting, and heavy labor-type skills

Their discovery should almost feel like a glitch, but have real repercussions in gameplay

[cubap]

Physical alterations:

• +/- arms or legs for new inventory options and challenges in tool use or skill development
• sensory adjustments like blindness or super-hearing that affects awareness and perception, but may require typing of stealth characteristics

[cubap]

Basic variation:

• most characters would start on the weak side of average, since strength is trainable and would adjust. Early in the game, a string character would be able to more effectively use crude tools for brute force tasks.
• endurance, also trainable, can have a wide spread and should probably trade off closely with focus, so someone with less abilities to endure exercise would excel at mental skills in early game.
• health should have a narrow bell, since it can be very frustrating to get through early game with unbalanced damage allowances without other obvious reasons for it.
• metabolism can be a coefficient for hunger and thirst, but this might not be worth the time to code.

[cubap]

Habits:

Related to #3 and #41, until a user intervenes or retrains, the greatest variance may be possible in the initial settings for ali, aggro, etc. to determine non-forced decisions. The thresholds for actions can also be set quite widely, since they can be easily retrained, meaning one character may stop other tasks and search for food at hunger>60, but another might wait until 90+. This would affect what they spend their time doing, where skills develop, and is a built in risk/reward model for survival. An AI with a high threshold would spend a lot longer on other tasks, but in a low-resource environment, would easily starve, causing a natural grouping or "ethnicity" in different biomes.

[Caliber08]

Brainstorming other non-normal traits...

• narcolepsy
• phobias (encounter with trigger causes some temporary decrease in focus or endurance, e.g.)
• disease resistance
• extreme comliness causes distraction (decreased focus) in others
• animal handling a la horse whisperer
• allergies (eating or possibly exporure causes decreased health)

Super-human possibilities (it may be cool if these things started out as uncontrolled and could be trained as other skills ...

• leap
• fly
• invisibility or extreme camouflage
• pyrokinesis (and other mental kinetics... aqua-, tele-)

[cubap]

A million yesses to allergies and phobias.

I like the idea of uncontrolled traits that get better managed as well. There may be a substory there...

Kineticism will be a challenge because it would need it's own physics, but leaping, stealth, and others here would work really well (even naturally happening) because it is just an extreme case of something we'd need to code anyway.

[ladmeyer]

Cool idea: Different vocal chord capabilities cause differences when speaking...