Customizable Character

[Sander]

Re: Skills and traits

I think there should be more skills and traits, not a whole lot more, but enough to create more diversity in Player characters, and I liked the individual squad member tweaking that was available in Tactics.

Fallout is not a 'party' game. Realy, it isn't. It's about the lone warrior who faces the wastes, and possibly encounters some somewhat like-minded people who may be willing to help him somewhat.
Being able to completely determine what they do and how they do it is ridiculous, though. They're supposed to be people with their own will, their own actions and what they want to become. Not a secondary PC.

Heres an example; Perception could be divided into Awareness (modifies trap recognition, "hearing" enemies in the next room etc.) and Vision (Modifies the obvious visual actions, Sniper, Scouting, chance of special encounters)

...
What?
That's absolutely ridiculous. Mainly because Perception is part of the main character system, which is already balanced. Perception in its current incarnation is well-balanced. Splitting it up into multiple things makes it completely underpowered.
Plus, why would you need to do this? What is your motivation to change this other than 'I like it this way'.

Toughness should be moved to the Traits section, and not be a perc.

Why?

How about Reasoning; modifying how quickly you build up more intellectual skills like Doctor, Technician (repair) Barter, use of energy weapons, lockpicking, driving, etc. (similar to Skilled, but a trait)

You mean a perk, Skilled is a trait.
Also, why? I mean, yes, it could exist as a perk, but there are already several perks like that (and effectively increasing the spead with which those skills increase is incredibly unbalancing.)

 

[Lord 342]

Someone mentioned about a thief... A good thief would probably have a way of standing just so... looking innocent yet all the time ready to put the snap on something bright and shiny... or introduce something bright and shiny to the space between the ribs of someone else. A capable fighter would stand differently; surveying different things. Similarly somone with a commanding personality would also stand like this. A mongoloid idiot (let's face it, we've all played a stupid game once or twice) would hunch over, only dimly aware of anything not obvious.

So we'd have something like this:
Whatever skill is highest wold determine the stance, the rest would weight the idle behaviors.
Melee skills: straight stance, ready for action. pretty much standard Video Game character stuff. Idle behavior: Punch fist into open hand.
Charismatic or good speech: Stands straight, legs closer together than the above. Idle behavior: Crosses arms & surveys surroundings.
Theiving skills high: easy stance, not taught but not lazy. Very aware. Idle behvior is frequent: looks left and right. Occasionally nods after.
Idiot: Hunched over; slack-jawed. Idle behavior: Scratches self; looks around blankly, sneezes.

So if you had high charisma but also a good fighting ability you'd frequently cross your arms and occasionally punch you open hand. I realize this is all just idle animations but the little shit helps the game feel immersive.
There could be others, for perception, dex, etc, but only certain people stand markedly differently from joe average.

 

[Pop]

This all sounds a lot like the kind of thing Lion's Head does with their games, and by "their games" I mean the two with which I am familiar, Fable and Black and White. In both games the appearance of your character (or creature/avatar, in B&W) was altered depending on his actions in the game world. For example, having your B&W creature help farm and heal villagers would cause the color of its fur to turn "lighter", and their posture would become less slouched and more regal, whereas if it ate humans and wantonly destroyed shit, it would become "darker" and it would slouch and look generally severe. Evil always looked cooler.

But, considering Fallout has up to this point been a universe that had no considerations of good/evil alignment (reputation notwithstanding) we're talking about something more along the lines of the stats system in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. In that game, the stronger you made your character, through strength training or whatever, the larger and more imposing he would look. People would react differently when they saw him and would go down faster when he initiated melee combat.

The problem I see with this is that the most "desirable" character, that is, a strong and resilient one, looks only a certain way, and unless you're good enough at a game that you can play a character without considerable effort towards making him physically capable of surviving hard battles, your characters will all end up looking pretty similar. I imagine it would also be pretty frustrating if you start a game with a certain look for your character in mind, only to have your character change involuntarily and irrevocably as the game goes on. Personally, I'd rather play as a slim, fast kickboxer than a hulking Mike Tyson-type, and if your character's stats determine his build then I'd have to settle for my kickboxer to be considerably less strong than Mike Tyson. Creating my ideal character would therefore entail limiting his potential, and that's just nutty in a role-playing game. RPGs are all about potential. It's what makes them fun. Why can't he be just as strong, but not as huge? I'd rather not be constricted like that. If you're going to take a PC's appearance out of the direct control of the player, you might as well not give him any say at all, and we all end up playing Planescape again.

All that out of the way, temporary changes in appearance depending on the state of the character would definitely be cool. Changes in posture dependent upon hit point status is pretty easy to pull off, but I was thinking more along the lines of, say, getting addicted to drugs turning your skin splotchy and pale, making your eyes dart, and making your motions jerky and nervous as withdrawal sets in.

 

[Endless Void]

Why bother customizing everything about your character's looks? I just can't quite get it.

After all P&P games mainly depend on player's imagination. As Fallout is a P&P style game, giving the customizable features will only limit your imagination. Sorry for all the "graphic addicts" out there but having realistic graphics with all the "kewl" details doesn't really make me feel inside the game. I'd rather leave my character's appearance to my imagination than seeing it fully applied to the game. It's kinda like prefering radio over TV.

edit: Y@ my native language is really retard

 

[RPGenius]

I'm a fellow old school whore.
However, having my low strength, low con character stand tall and strong with bulging muscles killed immersion for me, in a way.
I always imagined him as a cautious, meek type, who would stand slightly slouched, and be very alert for any signs of trouble.
His proud, manly stance killed it a little, and since it was a character I run in a lot of RPGs, I didn't want to make large changes like gender.

 

[corey]

So we'd have something like this:
Whatever skill is highest wold determine the stance, the rest would weight the idle behaviors.
Melee skills: straight stance, ready for action. pretty much standard Video Game character stuff. Idle behavior: Punch fist into open hand.
Charismatic or good speech: Stands straight, legs closer together than the above. Idle behavior: Crosses arms & surveys surroundings.
Theiving skills high: easy stance, not taught but not lazy. Very aware. Idle behvior is frequent: looks left and right. Occasionally nods after.
Idiot: Hunched over; slack-jawed. Idle behavior: Scratches self; looks around blankly, sneezes.

i like youe ideas but some of them would be retarded looking condidering he's in a butch ass killing world.the sneeze thing would make him look like has no immune system whatsoever.the other stuff for the dumb character i liked though. i like the other stances also except the punching empty hand bit was alittle gay to me.i've never seen a big muscly dude just stand there and punch his hand.i liked your ideas though.

 

[RPGenius]

I reckon it'd be a idle animation, like the knife flip and gun twirl, done if you stand still long enough.

 

[Lord 342]

I reckon it'd be a idle animation, like the knife flip and gun twirl, done if you stand still long enough.

Exactly. Of course this is the sort of thing he'd do if he was weilding a weapon. Someone with little skill with it might fumble it. So if you had 20% small guns you'd twirl your pistol and it would go flying and the guy would run and pick it up, then look around like "I meant to do that"; or if you had 20% melee weapons you'd drop your knife sticking straight up between your feet. Funny!

The stance thing should effect weapon discipline as well; of course your skill would be the ultimate determinate of if you hit anything and how well, but someone with a 9 ST would be hold his Medium Machinegun nearly at the ready whereas someone with only a 5 ST would hold it low and heft it up to shoot.

 

[Robert Czarwolski]

a cool thing would be skill based ANIMATIONS!!!!!!! -NOT- clothes, every clothe is a player choose, every clothe will have impact to some skill or stat ( texudo give +20% speech or +20% gambling, gray spec-ops stealth uniform will give small guns +10% and sneak +20% ect...).... About skill\stat based positions would be coooooooool ( a high sneak caracter sneaking will walf cralw, possibiliting low detection and medium speed....... Tha kinda-of thing...

 

[Goweigus]

Well I don't remember Oblivion all too well. I just hope the Fallout 3 characters are nothing like theirs. From what I gather they were emotionally retarded, all ugly, and just stood around. Though I cant compare this to Fallout, i am just hoping Fallout 3 kicks NPC quality up several dozen notches from Oblivion.

I like these ideas about gun twirling and stuff. Reminds me of games like Conkers Bad Fur Day (N64) where he had many different animations if you just let him sit there for while. he'd do stuff like play gameboy, yo yo, drink, lall kinds of stuff. These things would work great for NPCs, I'd imagine though it'd be more limited for the Player Character.

Lest of course you could choose to do certain things. Go through some menu of expressions do gun twirling, smoking, drinking, (speaking of which I do hope food is an essential part to the game (there was food in Fallout but it didn't seem to do much)), um flicking some guy off and starting a fight with him, hit on some lady and do her (screen black out ), all kinds of stuff

 

[GatewaysToAnnihilation]

Well if character is customizable, you should have more or less options depending on what stats you invest in.

I vote dread locks hairstyle! And more ethnicity, no offence to the white folken here, but I am tired being a broad shouldered pasty white guy

True...

 

[Mutateman]

Well if character is customizable, you should have more or less options depending on what stats you invest in.

I vote dread locks hairstyle! And more ethnicity, no offence to the white folken here, but I am tired being a broad shouldered pasty white guy

As a broad shouldered, pasty white guy... no offense taken.

I, too, hope there is more diversity in the PC's look. It would be a nice feature.

 

[Ashmo]

Well, originally ethnicity was planned for Fallout 1, or so I hear...

 

[Mutateman]

Well, originally ethnicity was planned for Fallout 1, or so I hear...

It would have been a nice addition, but not a necessity.

Please, though, no playing as a talking Deathclaw, Super-Mutant, or Ghoul!

 

[Starwars]

If they decide to release a construction set with the game, like they did with the ES series, you just know you're gonna see mods for playing every possible lifeform in the Fallout world.
Radscorpions, plants, brahmin...

As for customizing the character... Well. I'd be happy to have a few faces to choose from.. Skin color would be nice, but doesn't matter to me really.

More clothes to wear would be a good addition as well, but again, it's not really that important.

 

[yevinorion]

Well Pop mentioned Fable, and I think I'd go a bit further into that because in that not only did your character's appearance change based on alignment (good/evil), but if you upped your physical related stats (strength, etc) you get beefier, if you upped your agility based states, you get leaner and taller, and so on.

I think something like that could be well implemented. Of course, the mention of GTA: San Andreas is warranted as well, since in that the system is implemented in a way that allows the reverse to happen as well, so the transitions are not just one way.

But back to the OT, I definitely think being able to customize my character's initial looks would be a great addition. Even if it's simple things, like skin colour, hair style, etc. I don't need to be able to adjust the width of each individual lip.

Armor and clothing are a non-issue, since those will be affected by in game items anyway. Although it would be nice if they were more individual pieces rather than one full suit. I always hated in FO games looking exactly like an NPC.