Hi Everyone,
I just updated the Testing Branch with the new Personality and Relationships system, and I wanted to provide a brain dump of how it works and what's to come.
The Personality and Relationships system is accessed via the Family Tree panel.
My main goal has been to make the Clanfolk feel like real people living in an immersive and functioning world. We are getting closer, but a large missing part has always been interpersonal relationships. Clanfolk have always known how they are feeling, but now they know how they feel about each other, and why.
Personality and Relations are a major improvement that will tie directly into the new Clan Chief's decision making system as well as triggering and responding to Story Events.
Note: Those who want to try this out now can join the Testing Branch under Steam/Clanfolk/Properties/Betas.
High Level Details
- Some Quirks now have a personality component to them, like Optimist, Pessimist, Lazy, Hard Worker.
- Personality Quirks are sometimes more or less Compatible with similar or opposing Quirks.
- Clanfolk Compatibility is based on the combination of Mood, Personality, Past Events, and Family factors.
- Highly Compatible Clanfolk will tend to get along better and will make better Partners.
- Highly Opposed Clanfolk will tent to argue and will make miserable Partners.
- Relationship Events are interpreted based on the Compatibility at the time when the event occurs. This means that emotional state will modify how events are interpreted.
- Some Relationship events are permanent, like Familial Bonds and others a will expire over time, like bad conversations. In general, the more important the event, the longer it will remain in a Clanfolk's memory.
- Familial Bonds differ greatly based on where Clanfolk reside in the Family Tree. There can be Marriage Bonds, Sibling Rivalries, Angry Teens who are annoyed with their Parents, loving Grand Parents, or Outcast In Laws etc.
- Conversations are the main source of Relationship Events right now, but there will be many more in the future.
- When Socializing outside of work hours, Clanfolk will now weight talking to their Friends much more highly, but when working and making small talk, they will interact with whoever is closest, so this can lead to arguments on the job.
- Since some Relationship Events expire over time, keeping Clanfolk who do not get along apart will allow them to cool off naturally.
- On new maps, Clanfolk will start with a United Purpose this Relationship Event will last a few days and provides a good kickstart to the relations system.
- When speaking on the job, Clanfolk that like similar/enjoyed skills with tend to talk about those skills and form friendships.
- The most important thing to remember about the Relationship System is that opinions of other Clanfolk form over time and are further reinforced based on current feelings. The same event can be interpreted differently based on the relationship between the two Clanfolk.
- Confirmation Bias is alive and well within the Clanfolk.
- Phase 2 will be about adding more Relationship Quirks as well as Story Events that can trigger based on relationship states between Clanfolk and also with the Chief. A good example here would be a Wedding or a Funeral.
So the rest of post is going to be informative and also a little bit stream of consciousness. Details may change somewhat as I get feedback on this new system. I will explain what is in there now and why, and what I hope to build it into.
So pull up a chair if you would like more details and ramblings
Personality Quirks
More Personality Quirks are going to start being added with Phase 2. Right now, each Personality Quirk has an opposite quirk, like Optimist and Pessimist. This means that personality compatibility tends to be the same for both parties.
What I think could be quite interesting though would be Quirks that break this balance. Some relationships may seem great on one side, and awful from the other. I could also add an Opposites Attract Quirk for example.
There is a bit of non opposed quirking right now with Sibling Rivalry vs Sibling Bond. If one Sibling has a Rivalry, it does not ensure the other does, which tells a story on its own. Note: Half siblings will have an even greater chance of rivalries.
Another very important component to the Personality Quirks and their Compatibility is the Chief. The Chief picks who partners up, and now, some matches that may be great in terms of strategy may be terrible in terms of relationships. The Chief would need to weigh the result they want vs. the happiness of the couple and in turn their future support of the Chief.
Beyond that, I am currently toying with an idea that REALLY plays well with the Personality Compatibility system. I am likely going to start limiting skill maximums AND also inheriting them (along with some Quirks) Then there is strategy in picking couples to more likely produce children with desired traits.
So what this means is that not everyone will have the potential to become a logger level 10, and also two high level loggers would be much more likely to produce a high potential logger, BUT what if those two would just not get along as a couple. What does the Chief (you) do, and how will they react to it.
This is still in the idea stages, but I think will really make the partnering decisions even more interesting, and potentially heartbreaking as the perfect couple may just not be a couple that makes sense for the Clan's future.
Compatibility
Personality
Trying to figure out what makes people compatible and how I could simulate it took some thinking...
First off, checking Personality Quirks obviously made a lot of sense, similar personalities tend to get along, and opposites tend to conflict. I for example am quite introverted, and I am much happier sitting in silence with someone than making small talk. If I know the other person feels the same way, it is very comfortable, if the other person is outgoing on the other hand it becomes stressful because there is pressure to maintain some level of small talk.
So Similar Personalities are Compatible, CHECK!
Mood
Next I thought of Mood. Thankfully Clanfolk has a robust Mood system so that is easy to track. I know from personal experience, the worse my mood, the bigger of a deal I will make out of any negative event. But this lead to further thinking that was less obvious.
Past Events
So when stuff is going wrong and ANOTHER thing goes wrong of equal magnitude, it does not FEEL like equal magnitude, it feels worse, and the next one is even worse. So my PAST experiences are adjusting my interpretation of the event. This, I think, is the coolest part of the new system and makes the Clanfolk think emotionally like people. They develop opinions and have confirmation bias!
This means first impressions can play a very large role in how two people end up interacting! Two people destined to be friends due to very compatible personalities will likely always drift there, but those people just on the edge could go either way and the first few interactions and then subsequent confirmation bias ends up defining their relationship.
Family
Somewhat embarrassingly, this one did not occur to me right away. I had actually spent a couple days prototyping different methods to show relationships between a wide array of people at once before I finally settled on the Family Tree because in the end it was important to know how the people with the relationship were related. Even the words are similar and it went over my head until I was testing.
So anyway, I had a little popup window at that point showing Compatibility with Mood, Personality, and Events components, but it just felt wrong when I saw it in the tree... All things being equal, I personally would give a Family Member more benefit of the doubt than a stranger, and I needed a way to represent that feeling.
Well a very nested "if then" function later, we had a Family Compatibility Factor as well. I never knew just how many weird facets there would be to track beyond Parent and Child. There are also Grand Parents, Grand Children, Siblings, Half Siblings, and Blood Relatives vs Outsiders. Probably more, but there are only so many curly brackets.
Beyond that, Familial Bonds change over time, and I wanted to represent that as well. So a Parent's Bond with a new baby is very strong, but over time it would still be there, but be less overwhelming as children become able to better care of themselves. On the other hand, many children go through a phase where they just cannot stand/understand their parent's foolishness. So we needed that too.
I would actually like to have some quirks come into play here as well as ALL children are not the same and some parents smother while others are aloof. So there are many options here that all tell a story as well.
Relationship Events
Relationship Events can be just about anything that a Clanfolk has feelings about. There are Familial Bonds that are permanent fixtures in Relationships, but also things like Conversation, though temporary can change how Clanfolk feel about each other, shaping how the next conversation will be interpreted.
Events like Weddings and Funerals would also be great opportunities to distribute relationship events. Even something as simple as caring for a baby while the parents were too busy elsewhere could start to trigger a change in relationship. Tending someone's wounds as well. Even a nice meal.
It could be that a Clanfolk has a Caregiver Quirk, which makes them form bonds with those they take care of. Right now, the opportunities here feel sky high. As long as we have a theme and a way to detect it, it can become a personality trait and then further differentiates the characters. So yeah I love this system right now. :)
I also like the idea of Grand Gestures. In some cases, the Chief could set up opportunities for some large scale Relationship Event, as an example the Wedding above. Once married, the couple will have one of these Familial Bonds: Good Match, Wedding Bond, or Bad Match.
Now in the case of a Bad Match, (which we picked because we needed these two together to breed the next generation of super logger) we couuuld cushion the blow. Imagine a grand wedding right before the Permanent Bad Match relationship event was applied. The Bad Match event would be muted by the fact that the couples' moods were very high and there was this recent grand event. The compatibility of the couple would temporarily be high, right when we need it when the memory was formed.
So whereas the Bad Match could be a permanent large negative effect on the relationship, the fond memory of the wedding limited the relationship damage. In numerical terms a -100 becomes a -20 in their memories. A -20 is easily overcome, but a -100 is an anchor.
Beyond that, some Relationship Events could even be passed down through the generations. Imagine some family member being passed over as Clan Chief. (because their potential for intimidation and persuasion were very low - another positive for the skill limiting and inheritance) So going down the generations, this becomes a family story and a relationship event for all descendants, though likely diminishing over time. This could also lead to factions forming within the Clan, and eventually branches wanting to leave.
This then leads back to the Chief, persuading/intimidating them to stay, or not!
Back To Work
Ideas and comments are very welcome! I am going to get to work on Relationships and Personality Phase 2 next, and then I will start prep work to push Update 15 with all this new Testing Branch content (Clan Chiefs, Personality, Relations, (and perhaps a new Skills inheritance system.)
Thanks very much for your support!
Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.