Recreation adjustment

[Robc]

This suggestion adds flavor and as such probably won't rank high on priority but...

I remember when I first started playing RW... ages ago.  A pawn charged over to my first table and sat there by himself (or herself, don't remember) in an otherwise empty room while scoring "relaxing socially" mood improvement.  Ok, ok,  I thought, I talk to myself sometimes... and I answer too, and its fun.  I'm not sure I'd call it "social" really but I'll go with it.  Then I wondered after building my first chess table... what happens when two players sit down and play together?  I couldn't wait for this to happen... seemed to be forever before it actually did happen.   To my great disappointment, nothing really.  Multiple pawns at the horseshoe pin?   Watching TV, poker?  playing pool/ billiards...  all really nothing.  Each individual gets their individual mood buff as if the interaction did not even happen.  Social interactions (which are varied and fun in game) it seems are completely decoupled from social mood recreation actions.  While being easier to code no doubt this always struck my as both a discontinuity and missed opportunity.

How about instead...

If(pawn is relaxing socially) AND (pawn has neutral/positive social interaction with other pawn) THEN mood buff improves or advances quicker
If(pawn is throwing horseshoes) AND (other pawn is throwing horseshoes at same pin) THEN mood buff improves
etc...

Alternatively and more complex...  relaxing socially without a partner only yields meditative class mood buffs since that would match us humans more in the real world (I know that matching reality is not a requirement for the game but it is nice when it can be done).   In which case relaxing socially (for real this time) buffs will happen much less often and the buff needs to be adjusted upwards.  I tend to set all my pawns to recreate at the same time because it looks cool for them all to be hanging out in the rec room together, and yes this fosters other social interactive events (eg fights, romance, etc.).  But I think a little reward on the mood buffs as well would be a nice touch.

Now the loner trait could be made more interesting too... invert or otherwise adjust the buffs so that meditative recreation is much much more important and the real social buffs do very little to support their mood level.  You could go so far with this as having any social interaction at all give a small mood debuff (or does vanilla already do this?  I don't know).  This would encourage us to put our loners in isolated jobs away from the rest of the crew perhaps with their own isolated rooms, etc.  Quite different from the ascetic but unique.

Add a "competitive" trait, now playing against others in any of the games should really improve their mood.  You could also add "competitive arrogant winner" and "competitive sore loser" for even more interest.

Anyway, just flavor.. thought I'd share.  Cheers.

[5thHorseman]

I always imagine they're on RimBook or something.

But no I really like your idea. I also like the idea that several pawns would organize - say - poker night or a pool tournament, or just realize that I put those pins vertically 5 tiles apart and go back and forth to play.

[Serenity]

Yes please. It might have gotten a bit better, but people playing chess or poker by themselves is still weird