I like the idea, but professions are pretty much just skill packages, and buying skills at character gen is pointless right now. You can only buy DEX once, but you can get skills through play or just by reading a book. Unless the system is rebalanced, Professions will either be pointless or a kind of self-imposed challenge.
The only thing I can think of is to give a professional reduced xp costs in their chosen skill(s)?
Some comments on Tankra’s suggestions:
[ul][li]Businessman: Making a briefcase larger than a backpack seems wrong to me. Maybe storage 30, volume 1? I.e., bigger than a messenger bag, but more encumbering.[/li]
[li]Outdoorsman: Why would a hiking backpack be more encumbering than a regular one?[/li]
[li]Handicapped: I’m slightly hesitant about this, just because vehicles can be a bit awkward to control. Probably not something I’ll implement, unless maybe I hear feedback indicating I should.[/li]
[li]Autistic: Doesn’t seem to match up to the autistic people I know (or live with). Maybe give +5 morale when alone, -10 when with people; remove the Intimidate penalty; and give a 50% chance of failed persuasion? That at least seems more plausibly autistic to me, whereas the version you suggested just seems like a doormat/social ignoramus to me. Also, needs NPCs first, as you say.[/li]
[li]Pothead: I was GOING to implement this… but then I realized that pot isn’t particularly addictive, in Cataclysm or in real life.[/li]
[li]Terminally Ill: Given the time scale we have, this seems like either a free point, or something that would piss players off once they finally make it to the one year mark.[/li][/ul]
Otherwise, they all seem reasonable. Most of them hinge on having that effective skill vs. actual skill split implemented, though, which would be good to discuss as a topic of its own.
Personally, I’d be interested in seeing a few more suggestions that have their gear as a strong part of why you’d take that profession, but if other people aren’t as interested in that, that’s fine.
Hi. I’m KA101, and I’m autistic. Can’t say I’m thrilled at that one item there.
[quote=“Tankra, post:18, topic:661”]
Lastly, the professions that give you +1 Build Points due to having a slightly lesser drawback:
Autistic - Automatically fails all Persuasion, Intimidation and Bluff checks[sup]4[/sup].
[sup]4[/sup] [size=8pt]This might be too obvious of a power player choice. Perhaps it should be omitted from the game until conversations with NPCs are actually meaningful.[/size]
[/quote]
Really.
That does explain why you dismissed my earlier post…but I’ve persuaded people a few times in my 28 years.
Even Snarling Voice & Terrifying fail before the power of my autisticness, I guess.
Soron’s proposal is a bit closer to our lives but I’d prefer one of those “effective”* -1 to Speech/Barter rather than a flat 50% auto-fail. We can (and do) most certainly learn to work with non-autistics. Isn’t always easy, so I’d suggest making the morale penalty kick in during/after interacting with NPCs rather than strictly based on their proximity. And that leaves out those of us who–believe it or not–enjoy interacting with others. (We’re a diverse bunch.)
*Not that I necessarily agree with the concept of virtual-skills, but that a forced 50% is rather arbitrary (and makes non-autistics look utterly inflexible to boot). “Uh, Tankra, maybe we shouldn’t stand around doing nothing in the middle of town at 1 PM, Day 1 of Spring?” Tankra stays put, because KA101’s Autistic.
Best, though obviously not the easiest, way to handle that would probably be to peg a random number (say, 1d6-4 or so) on each NPC on first encounter, with that being the morale effect on interacting with them in future. Some people are easier to get along with than others.
Actually, now that I think about it, there’s something else that bugs me about the proposal of adding an “autistic” profession: why should it be a profession at all, rather than a trait? It’s not something that occupies most of the person’s time, and the proposed version doesn’t really fit with the effects of the other professions on the list. The same could probably be said of handicapped and terminally ill, as well (although autism is a bit closer to home for me, given that my girlfriend has fairly strong Asperger’s).
And that’s a good point, KA101: it IS more that autistic individuals have to actively engage in learning about people, whereas non-autistic individuals can often pick it up intuitively. That could probably be better modeled in the current system by a skill comprehension penalty. I’ve also observed that my girlfriend sometimes finds human interaction stressful, and is more sensitive to stimuli, or lack thereof (although that could be compounded by her synesthesia).
Concur regarding trait/profession differential; IMO all the positive-point professions could be redefined as Traits. No reason a wheelchair-user can’t also work in an office. Same with Drug Addicts (well, at least for a while, depending on the drug), etc.
If by “skill comprehension penalty” you mean “learning skills slower (or faster, depending on the trait/profession)”, yeah, I can agree with that, and support its use more broadly. Professions with a skill-book certainly ought to be able to assimilate it faster.
Sensory issues vary w i d e l y between individual autistics, so one fixed bonus/penalty seems inappropriate. Picking a problem a’la Martial Arts Training, might work.
Can’t speak for your girlfriend; I’m not her. (Speaks well of your taste in significant others, though.) I’m not synesthetic, so here’s a brief personal perspective: I can’t abide tobacco smoke or coffee shops. Smoke tiles would probably penalize as one density worse, as a quick estimate (I’d need to look at the code to confirm). Very Smelly NPCs may or may not be an issue: encountering one would be OK but rooming/sharing living space with one for a week was not.
Noises depend on what kind of noise and whether I can tell it’s coming. Practical example: I would probably gain morale in a Thunder Storm. One of my colleagues hates that horrid weather, though, and I watched her curl up in a safe corner to get away from the Crashing Boom Bang attacks. Our systems are wired differently, and that’s no reflection on either of us.
Clothing/textures can be an issue. I’d never wear Shorts, for instance, because I don’t like the idea of going around with my legs uncovered. (Especially if I’m going through windows/shrubs/underbrush/mutated poppy flowers/etc. Yikes!) Someone else might despise scratchy clothing like Dress Shirts. A third might have a favorite Peacoat and have morale problems if they take it out of inventory for more than (say) a minute or two. (Unequiping fails: might be changing clothes or otherwise safely retaining control of the coat.)
There’s something to that pressure & squeeze stuff. I don’t mind lifting weights, and have been asked to simply press on one of my colleagues so as to help him feel better at a stressful time. (Carrying weight over 50% of max-load would give a morale bonus?)
And lest anyone doubt my diagnosis, look at that wall o’ text. Autie carrying on and on and on here!
Bottom line: Autism, and certainly its sensory issues, resists being easily simulated in-game.
Hmm… that’s actually a very good point. Rather than introducing a new mechanic, why not just use the skill comprehension mechanic to model professions being more effective at their skills? And then maybe start them off with, say, 1 rank in the skill, so that they’re not a complete beginner (and for electronics/mechanics, so that it’s feasible at all).
Did not mean to offend at all, and I apologize if that was the effect it had. I know that autism is a spectrum disease and that there are a wide variety of different manifestations, which means that most people who are autistic are extremely functional and as you both say are able to do everything that non-autistic people do. I was referring to the type of autistic person who is incapable of functioning socially at all. There might be a better term to use but I don’t know what that would be. I don’t mind removing it from the list completely; this was very much a first draft type of thing.
You’re probably right about that. I was just trying to balance it out with having a crappy (as of now) set of skills, as well as the fact that briefcases require a free hand to carry. Storage 30 sounds good.
Well, hiking backpacks usually are much larger and longer than regular backpacks. I guess they would fall under the category of military rucksack, but it seems like a bit too much storage to give to a Profession that starts with a pretty good skill. As well as a rolling mat. I think to make it fair it’d be best to just give the Outdoorsman a plain backpack and no rolling mat.
Yeah that was a pretty significant disadvantage on that one. But that’s the point to it, really, it’s an added challenge to have to deal with the wheelchair. I don’t mind if you don’t implement it though; actually it might work better as a negative trait instead.
You’re right, pot is not particularly addictive. However, it’s possible to form an emotional dependence on it. I know a fairly significant amount of people who need to smoke joints regularly in order to keep their normal state of being. It’s not as addictive as nicotine, that’s for sure, but I know that my pothead friends would definitely get some sort of morale penalty if they weren’t able to smoke for a prolonged period of time.
Yeah I can definitely see this one going awry.
That could work quite well actually. Not sure exactly how skill comprehension works, but I assume it just multiplies how fast your experience is transferred into skill points. You could give a Profession +100-150% skill comprehension for its related skill if that’s less trouble for you, and we’ll see where that brings us.
The way I see it, it’s quite a bit more mundane if all you get is a few pieces of loot from having that Profession. One to two items will definitely help shape your character, but in the long run it won’t change how you play all that much, as compared to being specialized in a certain skill.
Apology noted, Tankra. You’ll be getting a PM, though.
Hmm… that’s actually a very good point. Rather than introducing a new mechanic, why not just use the skill comprehension mechanic to model professions being more effective at their skills? And then maybe start them off with, say, 1 rank in the skill, so that they’re not a complete beginner (and for electronics/mechanics, so that it’s feasible at all).[/quote]
I understand the concern with providing more than 1 rank in a skill, the fact that one character point currently buys two ranks (last I knew) notwithstanding. That said, I still hold that not all skills are equally useful, and certainly not at all points in character development. If players wouldn’t be willing to buy two ranks of the skill under the current system, paying the same point for one rank, faster/more efficient leveling, and possibly a useful item seems like a tough sell to me.
I’ll throw out Logger (Construction/Wood Axe) or Carpenter (Construction/Wood Saw) as professions I’d consider based on starting gear. Of those Tankra listed, the only one I’d seriously consider would be Athlete, but that’s for the Dodge, not the Aspirin, and without a better understanding of the skill-comprehension mechanic* I’d rather just stick with rank 2. Mechanic is tempting for the skill & Cook for the frypan but neither seems worth a character point to me.
*For instance, is XP more/less efficient? Do skill-uses let more/less XP kick in (thus, bigger boost, but limited by available XP so high-level skills still level more slowly?) How does this affect book use, since my characters take Fast Reader?
Skill comprehension:
Okay, looking at the code, it appears that skill comprehension is the probability that a practice session will result in transferring XP to the skill, in chunks of (1+level). Which means that skill comprehension above 100% is irrelevant. Honestly, I’d consider that a bug or mis-feature, given that skill comprehension defaults to 80% and Fast Learner is a 3-point perk. Probably pre-dates DDA.
I still like the concept of a learning rate increase for professions, though (it’s easier to code and somehow feels like it would be more easily balanced), so I think I’ll look into adding that.
After considering stuff, it seems like having many professions give a skill boost and some useful, characteristic items could be a good way to go? Yeah, I like that personally, and it seems like it fits well with Tankra’s list, as well.
In DDA 0.4 pre(2) release there are 4 professions implemented, but they only give you some gear (as far as i get), but nothing else, except chain smoker which gives you addiction. Maybe add some advantages/disadvantages for professions, like mechanic would construct/repair wehicles faster, scientist would have free acces to labs, cop have no restriction about breaking in, NASA astronaut would start near broken shuttle in the middle of nowhere, but in (space) power armor and some gear which is necessary in open space, such as laser pistol (it’s more of a joke, but who knows). But everyone would have some penalties, for example cop would have morale penalty for breaking in, mechanic would have difficulties with entering restricted areas like bunkers and labs, scientist would have some sort of disase which must be cured (some sort of Z-virus), as for astronaut… well he don’t know anything about what happened and need to gather some info (in first day he sees zombies as NPCs).
I like the idea of a scientist having a science card at start
BUT
such a scientist would likely be a Z already. Same idea for cops, etc. If your profession was one that would be involved in actively containing the outbreaks, rather than being evacuated, so far the devs are OK with presuming you died in the containment.
As for Soron’s proposed system, I’ll support the idea, though reserving judgment on the implementation.
Being a junior lab tech who ran away wouldn’t be too horrible though. But yeah, generally we’re going to assume soldiers and cops were out fighting the infection rather than holing up in an Evac Shelter.
The 4 professions included in the current version are intended as sort of a preview of what the system will be like eventually. I do agree that it would be good to give the professions long-term benefits, as well, and what I plan on trying is giving them a boost to skill learning. However, that will require testing to get right, and I’m current busy testing a change to skill comprehension.
If this is implemented i want a porn star job that gives me +10 starting points but none can be put in skills, also the character gets horrible STDs.
Please update the prof code to be understandable for addiction stuff. An intensity multiplier isn’t going to help me, who doesn’t know C++, figure out how to give a meth addict x turns of addiction. Could we also get mutation support for non-trait mutations? It’ll allow for stuff like starting as a hazmat worker who got caught in an accident and is well on the way to becoming a Troglobite and so on. The easier it is to just copy/paste from the raws into a prof def template the easier it is to pop out easy to implement proffs. For example,
{
“ident”: “miner”,
“name”: “Miner”,
“description”:
“You were working on an Archaeological dig, helping some college hotshots dig for artifacts, when word of the Apocalypse reached your superiors. After reaching the surface you raced off to your hometowns’ Evacuation shelter in the hope of meeting your signifcant other.\nYou start out in a Miner uniform with your trusty flashlight and a canteen all in your trusty work pouch”,
“points”: 1,
“items”: [“hat_hard”, “glasses_safety”, “mask_dust”, “jumpsuit”, “tank_top”, “gloves_leather”, “jeans”, “boots_steel”, “flashlight”, “canteen”, “leather_pouch”]
// TO-DO: Half fill the canteen with water when it’s possible. Maybe adjust point cost. Add “pickaxe” back in once it is no longer a joke item
}
How does intensity relate to addiction duration? Can’t you just do a give “disease”, set duration to “x” with an option for x-y rng?
I like the idea of having Professions be more situational than what I proposed initially. I was debating when I posted the suggestion whether to call them “Professions” or “Backgrounds,” and I think I like the idea of Backgrounds better; it’s probably more fun and more varied. I’ll explain what I mean by the distinction between the two.
A Profession describes your character’s career choice and role in the pre-apocalypse world. It’s interesting to have but somewhat flat because it doesn’t really describe what you were doing immediately before/during the Cataclysm, just what you were doing your whole life before that. As such it has more of an influence on your skills and attributes.
A Background on the other hand describes not only your career, but also what you were doing immediately before/during the Cataclysm, and so Backgrounds would have more of an emphasis on gear, which I’m sure would please Soron and probably make things more interesting.
Examples of a Background could really be anything, as long as they describe your character’s situation just prior to the present situation. Commodore’s suggestion is a perfect example; “Failed Test Subject” could be a background in which you start with nothing but a mutation and a Hazmat suit with very little else. If you’re seen the show Walking Dead, the protagonist in the first episode would have the “Forgotten Patient” background, and a character with this background would start with some hospital clothes as well as some wounds, and nothing else.
I could come up with any number of these but I’ll just give a few to maybe inspire others to come up with more:
“On a Business Trip”
“Hunting”
“At My Cottage”
“On a Ski Trip”
“At the Ballpark”
Basically, these Backgrounds would answer the question: “what was your character doing just before the Cataclysm erupted?” The assumption here is that the events cascaded forward at a tremendous speed once the zombie pandemic was released, and your character’s initial position during these events is relevant, because your character is still wearing what he was wearing when everything turned to shit.
I can very well imagine how Backgrounds and Professions can mutually co-exist, with Professions giving bonuses to skills and Backgrounds giving you a set of clothing/gear. However, having to choose both as well as everything else might make for a heavy character generation system (not necessarily a bad thing). What could be done to mitigate this is to just have players choose Backgrounds, and your Profession can be simulated by what skills you choose to invest in at the start. To return to the Walking Dead example, the protagonist there was a Sheriff with the Forgotten Patient background, thus a character attempting to mimic that would merely just invest 2-4 ranks in firearms at character generation.
Thoughts?
Repostan:
If its not too much trouble keep up the template like you did with the proff.json. Maybe add a Give mutation “mutation” and a give disease “Disease” with “duration”. Option for specified malfuction of a bionic, etc.
Can we get support for damaged/reinforced clothing as well? Like a mercenary hired to guard the evac with better gear and ex-trader hobos with tattered top hats and ragged suits?
Oh and specific martial arts/ artifact effects. Stuff like non-disease duration netherworld attention and bad weather can make some opportunities for -point challenge proffs. Like a cursed medium or something
But especially the disease duration part for fun stuff like a 201600 turn (2 weeks) meth withdrawal or something making you have to actually suffer for those munchkin points
@Tankra
The backgrounds stuff will come into play once not starting at an evac shelter becomes an option and you can have stuff like starting in the outbreak at the police station with the Cop profession or as a swat at a riot at the town center. The Proff & BG’s could work but it’ll require conditional submenus or there’ll be possibly munchkin issues like going like pro wrestler prof and a riot bg to get the gear. Keep throwing out ideas though. Didn’t think of a camper/hitchiker one.
Obviously a feature that would make you start in different settings would make backgrounds much more intricate and fun, but a low-tech solution for the time being would just be to have every background’s description implictly end with ‘’…and then you found an evac shelter.‘’
Isn’t it possible some cops/soldiers ended up on baby sitting/protection duty so ended up at an evac shelter?
Or were either lucky enough or good enough to survive long enough to see the battle was doomed and went AWOL to end up there looking for others?