Charecter story events

[evrett33]

One thing I think is missing from the storyteller system is more of a focus on individual colonists. Something to bring out the characters and help them move beyond "the guy thats good at so and so skill". What sort of systems do you think would be easy to build that could provide for character story individuality and have a meaningful impact on the game.

[EscapeZeppelin]

The Tale and addiction systems will probably cover part of what you're looking for in the next release. "Jody killed a man today and is very upset about it." Because she's upset she starts drinking to ease her mind. Now she stays drunk all day and her alcoholism is making everyone unhappy.

A lot more variation on colonist's behavior is coming in future updates.

[evrett33]

Since the tale system seems to manifest itself in art I'm thinking any contribution to character lore will be accessible too late in the development of the colony. So we are left with celebrations of beer and drug culture as the only way to expand on the individuality of the character ?

[Vexare]

I'd love to see 'journals' of some sort that you could put entries in for individual colonists on their character sheets complete with the date the event happened and then get the option to chronical/archive it if they die somehow (a colony library!). The Tales system seems similar and close to that so I look forward to hearing more about it in the new updates.

[wolfman1911]

I really wanted to do that on one playthrough. It was a whole colony of badasses, and Benton, the moody glitterworld surgeon who was reduced to little more than a janitor because we already had a full time doctor. As low as his morale always was, and as awesome as most of the other colonists were, he would definitely have to be the protagonist of the story.

Unfortunately, by the time I got around to writing it, too much time had passed, and I didn't have the requisite familiarity anymore. I did have this, though:

They came at us like thieves in the night, raiders like any other band, but these were somehow different. For one thing, they didn't just plot for a few days and then throw themselves at us, like the local tribesmen did, we might not have survived that. Instead, they built up a base, only the basics though. A couple of sandbag walls to defend, and a pair of mortars that would quickly become the drumbeat of our days.

Our colony was built into the side of a mountain, so they couldn't directly get at us. That said, all of our work aside from the forge under the mountain was done outside, whether that work was tending the fields, upgrading our defenses, or burning the ever increasing pile of bodies our foes left behind. They couldn't harm us permanently, but they could make our lives painful. Everytime we rebuilt a wall they knocked down, another one was hit somewhere else. Between that and a number of close calls, we knew something had to be done.

We found our opportunity when they slept. In our haste, we left a fire burning near our town. We hoped that what we came back to would be enough to get us through. Had they been awake, their sniper rifles would have torn us to pieces before we got close, but we managed to get the drop on them. One of them was wearing power armor, and we knew he'd have to be the first to die, so we set upon him and the other mortar operator like men possessed, they were dead before their fellows awoke. The whole thing was over as quickly as it had begun. We were alive and surprisingly unharmed, though shaken from the experience. We took their one survivor captive and began to head back.

Poor Benton, he's always been a soft touch, so it's not overly surprising that he tried to cast off on his own out of disillusionment over what we'd done. Taya wouldn't have any of that, so she grabbed him and led him back to the prison cell with our prospective recruit, darkly mumbling about "doctor's orders". He'll come around in time, after all, we either stand together or we die alone.

Mind you, to add insult to injury, Taya is that doctor that we already had.