Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Day 29: FotLC through the 113 lenses from The Art of Game Design

Day 29 - Lens 87: The Lens of Character Traits
To ensure that the traits of a character show in what they say and do, ask yourself these questions:

What traits define my character?
As have come up before there are no real non player characters in the game and the players don't play distinctly pre-defined characters. There is nothing in the rules preventing players from roleplaying characters, but it's not really a part of the game. To some degree the trappings and theme of the game encourage the players to imagine themselves in the fictional future where the game is played.

The rules of the game are told from the point of view of a character referred to as 'The Teller'. They are part of the lineage of people who have passed on the rules and traditions of the game.  They are wise and sarcastic and cynical.

How do these traits manifest themselves in the words, actions, and appearance of my character?
For the player characters I guess I would have to ask what mechanics or mechanisms the game provides to allow players to express character. It would be possible for instance for there to be aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, etc. mechanics that the players could choose for the purpose of expressing their characters.

Which leads me to the idea of a game where players choose a role secretly at the beginning of the game and have a bunch of mechanics they can use, when the game is over everyone votes for which person they thought had which role and the players with the most correct votes win. Social deduction by mechanics.

The personality of the teller is only conveyed through words. As they are the narrator their voice rather than a description of them is used, but players seem to read the rules in the same way so I think they are conveyed clearly. Box art and promotional materials might also be used to convey this character.

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