Now I know we can read books to learn recipes, which is a great addition to cataclysm in my opinion. But if I can read to get ideas, surely I could write, even draw to gain ideas as well?
So here’s a quick idea I proposed: writing. I don’t mean of course writing your own little diary by typing it word for word, but perhaps finding some sort of pencil or pen and [a]ctivating it to find an option ‘write diary’ and/or ‘draw ideas’.
This could be determined by the player’s intelligence, as in how quickly they write/draw and the quality of it. Being illiterate obviously makes this idea inaccessible to those players. Writing a diary is actually something many survivors in the real world to do to stop boredom and, which will be much more likely in a zombie apocalypse, to retain sanity. Having a high intelligence could make writing a small diary on paper (which is in the game, acquire it by disassembling books.)
As for drawing ideas, you could design something of a certain skill (fabrication, electronics, mechanics, etc. But not skills like ‘melee’. Bruce Lee probably didn’t practice extreme drawing methods.) to have a chance to increase your fabrication skills, or even design a blueprint for a new recipe! The chances of this would depend on your intelligence, but both should be very low in general.
Also we could prevent this from being a grinding tactic by giving pens + pencils a number of charges, as no pen or pencil never runs out, as far as I know. You could refill pens by creating some sort of ink which would be crafted somehow, and a pencil could be [r]eloaded with charcoal. How many charges the pens and pencils could have, I’m not sure. Perhaps 20, each charge being one writing or drawing session which takes up an entire sheet of paper.
Just a quick idea, don’t pay too much attention to it, and suggest any way to make it better if you like. Have a great day all!
(P.S. bookworms, ever worried about going hungry while reading? That’s okay because if you disassemble the book when you’re finished reading it, eat all the paper for a very distasteful but quite filling meal depending on how large the book is. I know paper is only 1 nutrition and gives your character suicidal thoughts with it’s huge unenjoyable stat, but seriously. Make paper inedible please.)