Values, Conflict, and Consequences

[Nasikabatrachus]

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing a few things: playing RimWorld a tad more than I should, watching waves of raiders die at my colonists' feet, and thinking about what I would ideally like to see RimWorld become.

As the Xty-first wave of raiders charged through my minefield and into the hail of gunfire from my turrets and colonists, I wondered how a person in this situation would feel about what was going on. Who among my colonists would disapprove of recruiting one of the raiders who had just attempted to kill them all? Who would approve of a prisoner being executed, or one of their fellows being sold as a slave for some extra money? Who would be disturbed by a raider being shoved into a dungeon with some occupied gibbet cages? How do my colonists feel about being ordered to shoot a fleeing raider in the back? Do any of them ever question if it's right to shanghai random travelers who might be useful?

Though I have tried to shape my colonies and the duties of my characters according to what I think their values are, as a sort of role-playing by proxy, by, say, giving the best apartments on the map to the nobles and giving the guard-houses to the marines, in the end I can't avoid the fact that despite their sometimes dramatic variations these castaways are all fundamentally the same. They all react with unhappiness and fear to a prisoner being beaten or sold; they all like daylilies; they all welcome and accept each other, no matter how scurvy a dog or dainty a noble they be; they're all in for a social chat with any of the others.

The colonists are people with no values. Sure, they're nerds, or have illuminati connections, or are evil and famous, or hate technologyâ€"on paper. But that doesn't change how they interact with each other, how they feel about what the colony is doing, and what they think should be done. For the most part, they only come into conflict when they have literally snapped. Mostly.

Let me tell you about one of the most memorable things I've witnessed in RimWorld. It was very simple, but it was the most interesting single moment in the game so far. It was just after a raid. I had walled my colony off from the raiders: the colonists were sealed into the mountain behind a 1x4 capstone. Nothing was going to get through, so the raiders were doing their thing, mucking about in the wreckage of my walls. After a while, of course, the raiders start to starve and have mental breaks. One raider called West snapped and began attacking a raider called Rogers. Though Rogers was an assassin, he ignored West and was incapacitated. The other raiders left and I had my people take West and Rogers captive. Two for one! Right? I thought so, but after a period of recuperation, Rogers woke up and for him the fight was not done. Roger killed West right there in prison. He beat the man to death. Whoa.

What happened? Maybe Rogers was still hostile to West, despite both of them being prisoners and despite West no longer being hostile to Rogers. Maybe I had accidentally ordered a bunch of vicious beatings for West and didn't notice. I swear, though, I saw Rogers killing West. Whatever actually happened, I wanted to interpret it as an assassin taking vengeance on someone who had humiliated him and threatened his life. This is the kind of storytelling I want, not just the storytelling choreographed by the AI: an emergent story based on the dynamic interaction of character personalities.

I want to see personal vendettas that result in bloodshed. I want to see close friends who can't live without each other, and won't leave on the ship if the other can't go. I want to see the haughty noble take control with the help of some marines because he believes that he deserves control because of who he is, who demands regular beatings because he believes that fear and discipline are essential. I want to see the permanently grumpy commissar whose desire to execute prisoners is overruled by the peace-and-love majority. I want to see a colony that slowly becomes populated by more and more pirates and so becomes a friend to raiders and thieves. I want there to be a real difference between the kind of colony that would press-gang a stranger and the kind that would give them a meal and see them on their way.

After all, Firefly is awesome, but so is Battlestar Galactica, and the latter arguably bears more resemblance to RimWorld. What made Galactica (the remake) so enthralling wasn't the dogfights or the CGI fights with Cylons (but those were great): it was the conflicts of values between characters. Not just Cylon versus Human, but Human versus Human, and Cylon versus Cylon.

Okay, okay. We already know that colonist personalities are going to get more complex. The quirks are already right there in their profiles. What I suggest is something deeper that hooks into those personality traits, something that affects colonist loyalty, establishes a basis for relationships based on shared/opposing values, and which acknowledges the moral content of player decisions while also refraining from being the kind of Morality System that punishes players for making choices in the game world.

Instead of a Morality System, however, it's a Value System, because even Hitler had values, doncha know.

In addition to the usual stat generation, each character on creation is assigned a range of preferences for a fixed series of values based on their background and on the RNG. Each individual value's number ranking functions as a statement of the importance of that value to that character. I don't necessarily endorse Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, but I think it provides a useful framework for this system. According to Haidt, there are six major foundations for morality: harm, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, and purity. These are mostly self-explanatory, although ideas like "liberty" are of course highly culturally limited (A U.S. citizen will almost certainly think differently about the term "liberty" than a French or Chinese person, for instance). "Purity" is also somewhat of a wild card, as what is "pure" depends on what is viewed as contamination: in other words, it is affected by other values. The exact names of values don't necessarily matter, but what they should reflect is an individual character's individualism vs communalism, selfishness, sense of justice (i.e. do they require retributive punishment or do they accept rehabilitation without such), views on hierarchy, fairness, compassion, and the value they place on happiness.

What does this mean in practice? This is speculative, and may not be entirely consistent, but I'd like to put forth an example of how this might work.

Character 1: Stone, Oaf, was born a Medieval Slave and grew up as a Medieval Farm Oaf. Living in a feudal society, Stone was taught that he owes his fealty to his Lord, ingraining a deep respect for authority in Stone. As a result, his preference range on the authority and loyalty values is limited to 14 or above (out of 20). In game, Stone will be receive a strong colony loyalty bonus if a Medieval Noble is around (and in charge?), and may have relatively low loyalty if he is around a bunch of egalitarian midworlders. Coming from a hierarchical culture, Stone values hierarchy and retributive justice.

Character 2: Singh, Pirate, is a Vatgrown Pirate. Singh hates technology, is Evil, is extremely selfish, and extremely hierarchical.

At first, Singh is captured in a raid, and though the player would like to recruit Singh, other colonists like Stone feel Singh must be punished. After supplying Singh with a few vicious beatings, Warden Stone feels better about Singh and recruits him after some friendly chats. Being a bully and disliking Stone, Singh bullies Stone and other colonists until all fear Singh and elect him as colony leader. Realizing this will make a great screenshot, when Singh demands to re-name the colony, the player re-dubs Crashville as Botany Bay. Still carrying a vendetta against Stone for those vicious beatings, Singh finally has Stone arrested and executed, making Singh ecstatic. Having the greatest stake in the colony as it exists, Singh is now maximally loyal. Sure, he may start beating the other colonists if his daylilies are dead, but no one will fight to the death like Singh.

I've referred a number of times to certain colonists becoming the leader, by hook or by crook, so I'll clarify now that although I think colonist Values naturally lead to some kind of quasi-governmental arrangement, and would be a great expression of colonist Values (including Dwarf Fortress-style leaderless anarcho-socialism (until the Nobles arrive, that is)), it's not an integral part of the idea. This also assumes that colonists will have potentially quite strong personal feelings about each other, which, well, of course, right?

Values do lead to a number of interesting possibilities, government and property-divvying style among them. If a Noble gets in charge, that likely means the Noble will demand the biggest, prettiest bedrooms and the best food and equipment. Values also lend themselves to the notion of reputation, meaning that as the colony grows and makes contacts and trades outside the bare necessity of survival, it develops possibilities based on the actions taken by the colonists themselves.

For instance, right now just about every player will arrest and recruitâ€"or sellâ€" travelers simply because it's useful for the colony's survival. There is essentially no difference, right now, between the player and a raider. Values would force the player to make a choice with both immediate and lasting consequences. Depending on their values, colonists will either have their loyalty boosted or eroded by the decision to waylay a stranger, and the operation of these values lays the groundwork for dynamic interaction with the wider world. Perhaps if the player is scummy enough, it could open up the possibility of positive relationships with pirates and raiders. After all, you'll do anything to get home, right? Alternately, be such a goody two-shoes, but ruthless against raiders, and perhaps there will be a reason besides the number of your turrets that 60 of them have just landed outside and are baying for blood.

If you've read all of this, I'm sorry. After all, though, this is NaNoWriMo. I apologize for any rough or incoherent bits, and being super rambly, as I'm not a great editor, and I look forward to everyone telling me how bad this idea is and why it won't work.

[starlight]

I like the idea of values. Not commenting on the specifics since there will be many variations of what could be implemented.

IMHO, you could start by having:
1. A colony leader.
2. Implementing personal likes / dislikes: Nobles like nobles. Oafs like oafs.
Raiders converted to colonists are initially disliked by all.

I also think this kind of system is very hard to balance, though perhaps easier to superficially implement.
(Refer 12-year-old children becoming mayors in DF since they are the most social).

Hence, would think this would be one of the later priorities.

[windruf]

it's rim world.
there is no law, except my gun. there is no tolerance, except my alcohol tolerance.
Everyone who thinks other is...
always welcome!
i can always use some brave people!
for you we have:
nice clean beds _{in my harem}
fitness  rooms _{at the pole in our strip bar}
creative work _{hauling derbis}
and nice  retirement _{in our bioreactor} 

i'm second this
there will always be central worlds: with democracy, tolerance, and politcorrectness
and there will always be some agrar worlds: more traditional and religious
and it would be nice to see them to quarrel about homo wedding 

and yes. it would be nice to see different colonists to think different about the same event.