The one element Rimworld needs the most: Romance! Love! Sex! Breakups!

[Likif]

New to the Rimworld experience, and enjoying it a lot! Rimworld is unique in that it is like a Sims/Simcity/RTS-hybrid. Which brings me to my suggestion:

Romance!

People living closely together tend to develop emotions towards each other: Getting together, makin' babies, splitting up, becoming enemies, what not. It's a very big part of human life, so in the context of creating a 'storytelling' game this is the biggest missing element. And with the mood parameter it wouldn't be a major undertaking to implement, but very entertaining and engaging, I think. And women might find such an element even more entertaining than men, so the game would broaden its appeal.

Friendships and animosities would be similar, but not as complex.

Specific mechanics suggestions

Characters would randomly develop attitudes toward other characters, with conversations greatly increasing the odds:

- Likes / Dislikes character X

This could be on a scale, for example: To like, to be friends with, to be in love with. To dislike, to be hostile towards, to hate.

Being in love with someone eliminates the chance of falling in love with other characters.

If two characters of different genders like each other, then this could happen for a positive mood effect:

- Romantically involved with character X

This has a large positive mood effect, especially in the beginning of the relationship. If only one of the two characters is in love with the other, and a relationship is not formed for a while, then a negative effect is applied:

- Unrequited love, with character X

If characters in a relationship have a royal bed, they would sleep in it together for another mood bonus.

- Sleeps next to love interest X

If they cannot sleep together, then there is a smallish negative mood bonus.

- Unable to sleep next to love interest X

Then there is a chance that the relationship can end, which would have a fairly large negative mood effect for a while:

- Broke up with character X

This also has a large chance of either negatively affecting the character's attitudes towards each other, bringing it down to friendship, or in certain cases, it could instead create Animosity which would trigger 'Unpleasant conversation" instead of regular conversations with the character in question, as with the 'Abrasive' trait.

If the relationship goes on for a while, the chance of it ending is reduced.

Then you could also have Jealousy occur where a person falls in love with someone who is already in another relationship. This would be a negative mood effect, of course, but also triggers unpleasant conversations with the objects of jealousy.

You could have a small chance of (jealous) characters breaking up other relationships and forming a relationship with a character they are in love with. This would incur a large chance of creating animosity between the two characters in the new relationship and the one abandoned - especially if he/she is still in love.

And for really spicing things up, you could then have a very small chance that jealousy creates a brawl or even a murder....

If a character dies, then a negative mood effect happens for other characters who liked that character on a scale, so if a character was in a relationship with the dead character, they have a large negative factor applied:

- Lost a friend/lover

Traits

You could have a lot of entertaining traits that affect the odds, such as:

- Attractive / Unattractive (increases/decreases odds of other people liking the character)
- Charismatic / Dull (same as above, for added colour)
- Promiscious / Shy (increases/decreases odds of relationships happening, but also breakups)
- Faithful / Unfaithful (increases/decreases odds of jealous characters breaking up a current relationship)
- Forgives easily / Holds grudges (increases/decreases odds of animosity)
- Homosexual (only forms relationships with characters of same gender - not incompatible with jealousy!)
- Bisexual (forms relationships with characters of both genders)
- Homophobic (increases odds of disliking characters in homosexual relationships)

What do you think?

[TheClassiness]

This has already been confirmed to be added into the game eventually, but I strongly support that the relationship system should be in depth. Currently the pawns are mostly the same, with some strange quirks like Psychopath and Sanguine, but otherwise they're all the same. With this, an actual in-depth story could form. One colonist dying doesn't just give the "Witnessed ally die" debuff, it sends a shockwave throughout the colony, like it should. Although I'd also be interested in seeing a "Blames X for Lover's Death" or "Lover is injured" debuffs as well.

[Professor Cupcake]

+ all of my 1's.

Characters are the foundation of storytelling. A game that claims to tell stories not allowing its characters to realise themselves in any meaningful way seems a bit odd.

I'm pretty sure this is already coming, but I really want this to float at the top of the suggestions until it's actually here

[keylocke]

yea, it's been one of the most requested features..
along with dynamic traits system, since character growth is important to story telling.

otherwise, story gets stagnant very fast and the drama remains underwhelming.

[Likif]

Seems there is support!

[Asero]

Seems there is support!

As long as it's not turned into a Sims clone. 

Not that I have anything against the Sims since I wasted a good portion on my life on that game. If some of the elements from the Sims are included I want it to fit in with the harsher environment that have already been established in the Rimworld universe.

That pretty much means no happy endings or 'they lived happily ever after' either...