Colonist backstorys

[Mikhail Reign]

Since colonists now can live to ripe old ages, and also come to you at some pretty young ages, I suggest a modification to the existing backstory template.

Currently there are 2 backstorys: child and adult. As it works now, children(ish) colonists (16 is I think the youngest I've seen) come complete with adult backstorys, even tho the childhood backstory sort of seems like it would take place in the 6-16yo age bracket.
Likewise the adult age bracket doesn't really take into account old age - a 72 year old spacemarine seems about as likely as a 16 year old surge  who was also a cave miner.

What I suggest is in addition to the current childhood and adult story's we include a 'senior' bracket (or whatever is the best name) to cover the later stage of life - from around 50, give or take 5-10 years.

A key reason for this is not just to cover age discrepancys in the stories, but to pave the way for us to 'write' a colonists backstory. An example for what I mean is: a 16 year old colonist, who wouldn't have an adult backstory, would a time after joining your colony, gain the adult trait 'colonist'. A similar thing would happen with older colonists - a 65 year old, who was a miner as a child, and a space pirate as an adult would also now be a colonist as a senior.

I could expand on this with a further idea that instead of a generic 'colonist' trait, they got a trait that was representative of their time spent at the colony, purhaps by comparing point spreads of the existing traits to their current skills (trait X which gave a plus 3,4,3 for traits A,B,C respectivly, would be given to a colonist who had those as their highest traits). On the other hand they could come from a list of 'got it from being in your colony' specific traits - traits they couldn't spawn with.

This would a add in the elements of: younger colonists, while less experienced, could 'grow up' as a member of your colony; and older colonists would be more 'stuck in their ways', less likely of change but have later life experience; and the people of the in between ages are capable of make small shifts if direction if they are pushing that way.

[Vas]

Backstories are the things that happened BEFORE the crash.  What they did as a child, and what they did as an adult before getting on that ship and crashing into the planet.  They are not related to what you do after you land.  A 16 year old landing on the planet, having a senior backstory?  That's just silly.  If anything, when you land and you are under 18, adulthood should remain blank and give you a +1 to all fields that you are capable of.

[Mikhail Reign]

I think you read the post wrong - what you said is basically what I said. I don't think children should arrive with adult back stories, and using my suggested system, adults wouldn't arrive with senior back stories, but would GAIN those back stories when they have been 'writen'.

A 16yo arrives with 'cave miner' as a childhood trait - after 3-5 years slaving away in my mines they would gain the 'miner' trait as an adult back story, because they are now an adult(ish) and they spent those years mining.

The same would go for an 47yo adult - they would arrive with a childhood and adult backstory, but no senior, tho if they stayed at my colony long enough they could 'write' their own senior story

[Adamiks]

Backstories are the things that happened BEFORE the crash.  What they did as a child, and what they did as an adult before getting on that ship and crashing into the planet.  They are not related to what you do after you land.  A 16 year old landing on the planet, having a senior backstory?  That's just silly.  If anything, when you land and you are under 18, adulthood should remain blank and give you a +1 to all fields that you are capable of.

Eeee.... This is a suggestion not question.

Anyway +1 for this suggestion, we can say that 16(i had 15 once!) old guy is still a child not adult.

[Matthiasagreen]

"Adolescence is an invention of the 21st century" -The Governor (The Walking Dead)

As puberty has usually started by the age of 15, they would no longer be considered children. Some cultures even consider adulthood to start as early as 12. If you take out the idea that there is a stage between being a child and being an adult, then you have to consider which a 15 to 16 year old would fit into. I would argue that if 12 is the end of childhood, then an adult background could be somewhat plausible for a 15 year old.

Obviously this is all my personal opinion and I can totally see the opposite argument, but I find it strange that our society today has determined that there is this timeframe between your childhood and your adult life where you are neither, yet you are expected to act like both at different times. If we treated our youth like adults and expected them to act like such, instead of giving them an excuse to act out as teenagers, because they are "trying to figure themselves out," we wouldn't hve so much of the porblem of adults never wanting to grow up.

And I apologize for turning a small game mechanic into my own little soap box.