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From: db@cstvax.UUCP (Dave Berry)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: alignment
Message-ID: <268@cstvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 00:03:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: cstvax.268
Posted: Tue May 28 00:03:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 14:10:25 EDT
Reply-To: db@cstvax.UUCP (Dave Berry)
Organization: Comp. Sc., Edinburgh Univ., Scotland
Lines: 80

From a set of rules I started once upon a time ....
(With acknowledgements to Trevor Mendham & others).

.SH
Creating a "personality".
.PP
Personally, I prefer to create character's personalities myself, and
only make general notes to remind me between play sessions. However,
some people prefer to generate initial personalities by mechanistic
means.  One reason that this may be preferable is that it encourages you
to play characters with differing personalities. Some new players have
also said they prefer a guide to help them create a character because
they haven't done it before. 
.PP
This system can also be used to create sketches of NPC personalities.
Finally, some players involved in many games
like to have a quick summary of a character's personality available,
and use a description of the form given here, even though they supply
the values themselves. This can also be done when specifying a
character in an adventure to be used by someone else.
.PP
This system assigns two numerical values to each of the following traits:
.DS
Morality (Evil - Good)
Honesty (Chaotic - Dependable)
Restraint (Hedonist - Ascetic)
Politics (Individualist - Collectivist)
Faith (Agnostic - Devout)
Humour (Depressed - Manic)
Optimism (Pessimist - Optimist)
Politeness (Obnoxious - Charming)
Sociality (Aloof - Gregarious)
Helpfulness (Meanie - Angel)
Cunning (Direct - Subtle)
Involvement (Passive - Active)
Greed (Altruistic - Miser)
Temper (Cool - Hot)
Self-importance (Diffident - Egomaniac)
Trust (Suspicious - Gullible)
Bravery (Cowardly - Heroic)
Libido (Frigid - Randy)
Appetite (Anorexic - Hobbit)
Drug use (Straight - Junkie)
.DE
.PP
The first of the two values indicates the degree to which the character has
the named trait, from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). For example, if your
character has a 0 value for drug use, he or she will never touch drugs and
might well disapprove of its use by others, while if he or she has a 10 value
he or she will rarely be sober.
.PP
The second value indicates the variability of the first number, from
0 (constant) to 10 (highly variable). Thus if your character has a 10 value for
drug use, he or she would go on occasional binges, interspersed with periods of
no drugs at all. In this case, the relative frequency of the two extremes is
given by the first value. If this is 0 it means that your character goes on rare
binges, whereas if it is 10 it means that he or she occasionally
has periods on the wagon.
.PP
Unless you are creating the personality yourself,
both numbers are generated by rolling 2D12-2. If you can't fit a personality
around the results either roll again or modify them until you can. Try and
change as few values as possible.
.PP
Most of these values depend to some extent on the norm in the society
the character lives in. For example, a society may encourage suspicion
among its members (or its members could encourage it amongst themselves,
whichever you prefer).
This could be represented by rolling a D20-10 to get the values
for this trait instead of 2D12-2, treating negative results as 0.
Each society created for the game could have a set of die rolls used
to generate these (or other) traits.
You can interpret drug use as indicating narcotics, tobacco, alcohol,
valium, heart pills, vitamin tablets, diet pills or whatever fits your society
best.  Indeed, most of the traits I've selected are open to some interpretation.
The resulting 'personality' should not be regarded as even approaching a 
complete description of the character!
-- 
	Dave Berry. CS postgrad, Univ. of Edinburgh		
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