Idea: Personality Traits

[krng]

Hello EfU!

I'll get to the point: I think the 'perk' system is one of my favorite things in EfU right now. It adds so much flavor and context to a lot of what we do, it -really- does. For the first time, I feel that, playing as a sorceress, I've this entire 'path' set ahead of me; it might not be super clear, but it's way clearer than I've had to deal with in the past, in terms of 'gelling' a concept and a build together. Really cool stuff.

Riffing off that, I had this idea: What if we could pick, say, three out of a large list (40+) 'personality traits'? They'd work much like perks, but grant no bonuses (at least not initially, and if they ever come to grant bonuses, it could be very minor stuff - IE less work to implement, and more of a 'flavor' addition). Traits would be selectable from a dialog list much like perks, and you could also pick them out to receive the 'blurb' for each trait. That's all it'd take, really, for it to work on a 'flavor' level. From there, this new system or child of the perk system could be used to code in different new features, I think it'd be a cool springboard for that, but to save in coding hours, for critical bugs and other large things, I think just making it a 'flavor' option would definitely be preferable at first. From this point of view, I'd say these 'traits' would only really relate to social skills / interactions at first, since having them apply to purely mechanical skills might confuse players into thinking they offer bonuses.

Let me offer a brief example of how a perk would read:

Fast Learner

You've always been curious. At times, possibly at the expense of your own safety, you've even exposed yourself too much, poking your nose where it doesn't belong. In return, you find it takes you less time to learn information, usually, than others.

Minimum Requirement: INT 14

Mischevous

Whenever you find yourself at odds with someone, your mind will usually offer up notions of how to use comedy and ridicule to strike back, rather than violence. It has gotten you in enough trouble, from time to time, but pranks and jokes are the stuff of life, aren't they? You couldn't live without it!

Minimum Requirement: CHA 12

In my opinion, this would help players define concepts better. It would help to distinguish builds that at first might seem too similar, into two different, fleshed out personalities, with a system that would bake that into the character at creation. It might also prove invaluable to DMs, as they could at the click of a wand find out more about characters without having to read through player notes / ask / spend time knowing the characters. That could offer some interesting opportunities for interaction / rewards.


If this seems like too much trouble for little gain, I understand. Just a thought I had, felt like sharing because  it has to do with my absolute love of the perk system right now.