I was thinking the other day of a couple new traits after watching something on tv. What about claustrophobia & agoraphobia?
The character would become more and more anxious unless they were either near or away from some sort of structure/enclosure. Maybe their perception & dexterity would drop as a result. They’d be too preoccupied with their fears to notice as much going on around them or to focus on anything requiring fine dexterity (like crafting). What do you think?
Hmm, maybe. I’d rather it be a moral penalty than a stat penalty.
What about Arachnophobia? Anytime you see a giant spider, take a huge morale penalty.
Same would go for fear of insects, whatever that phobia is called.
And of course, fear of darkness, which post cataclysm is ENTIRELY rational because god only knows what might be hiding in the shadows.
Social phobia, if you have too many NPCs around you, you take a penalty to morale, stats, or skills like speech.
The social phobia could be considered part of agoraphobia. Social situations and even travel can fall under that by definition.
I don’t think fear has been explored or considered for the game yet. I’m curious to see how that might be implemented, but at the same time I’m a bit skeptical of how it would mesh with the rest of the game.
There are some enemies (or at least one) that give a morale penalty (I think) if your character makes eye contact with them, but that’s more being horrified than being terrified. You might have nightmares about it, but you can still kill it with fire.
If someone with severe arachnophobia was faced with a giant web spider, they would go ballistic. They probably wouldn’t even be able to fight anymore.
Just imagine what someone with acute entomophobia would do when faced with an anthill. I’d say that’s basically game over.
Someone with strong nyctophobia caught unprepared when the sun sets would probably be completely paralyzed and likely have a full meltdown long before sunrise.
I’m not sure these would be very fun, and just making them morale penalties is a little shallow. You’d have to get creative and find a middle ground.
Its an intriguing idea in my opinion. I feel like it should be spiced up a bit before properly considered putting it into the game itself.
We should at least add Arachnophobia.
Claustrophobia might be a good one too. I’m not sure how it would be properly implemented due to the unspecific size of each tile (a zombie hulk fits in one tile but two bunnies can’t occupy the same one)
I came up with a similar idea months ago. I recall people didn’t like it when it had a result of crippling fear of something. A fear system would be great. But nobody liked it enough to mention if it was something that would be added.
I guess it was a scary idea 