manyeyedhydra
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Notes on the New Player Disposition
🕑 Added 2020-12-24 14:15:19 +0000 UTCHouse of Hellish Harlots v0.014 is doing away with Player Mindset. That means you'll no longer be asked to mess about with the mindset grid before entering each harlot's room.
The reason for this is because the mechanic is a bit too much needless faffing around considering it only really matters for about a 3rd of the harlots.
There will still be some form of player mindset, but it is now player disposition and consists of attributes set at the start and then fixed for the run (similar to the player physical attributes such as Strength and Willpower).
I'll cover some notes on current implementation and then go into the stats and what they (roughly) mean.
I've removed the Neutral middle state, so players will either be one or the other. This will make some of the existing harlot scenarios a little more dangerous, but I will try to balance it so there aren't too many harlot scenarios that are essentially 50:50 on survival depending on which disposition the player has.
Disposition is fixed at the start. Currently this is done randomly. Once I get around to writing the full introduction, there will be an opportunity for players to set these directly themselves. The advantage with this is players can tailor the House slightly to their own likes and dislikes as the harlots will respond differently depending on disposition.
While fixing disposition at the start does remove some interactivity (and make some encounters unwinnable), this is only temporary. The next NPC (The Doctoress) will sell the player potions to temporarily alter their stats. This will also include the disposition stats as well as the physical stats. This will allow the player to get that temporary Strength boost they need to avoid being crushed in Anna Boa's coils, or that temporary shot of courage so that Arana doesn't see them as prey. I think this will provide a more focused interactivity and be more fun than setting values before each room visit that may or may not be relevant.
The disposition pairs are largely the same as before:
SUBMISSIVE <-> DOMINANT
SUBMISSIVE
Not just a sub in the BDSM sense. This disposition likes the girl to take the more active role, one that most succubi are very willing to do.
DOMINANT
Again, not a dom in the BDSM sense. Because of the nature of the House and the succubi/monster girls in it, male-dom isn't going to happen. Players aren't going to be able to Rance their way through the House. This is a disposition that likes to take a more active role. Some succubi/monster girls will be receptive to it because being seductively submissive is how they like to lure their prey. And some of the more dominating types might relish the additional challenge.
CAUTIOUS <-> IMPULSIVE
I found the old cautious <-> bold was having too much overlap with submissive <-> dominant, so I tweaked it. Removing the neutral state also meant altering some text in existing scenarios. Bold is now DOMINANT + IMPULSIVE, which fits for those scenarios. I think combining base dispositions will work for other future personality checks as well.
CAUTIOUS
Likes to think things through before making a decision. Doesn't rush in without giving the situation careful consideration. Can be slow to react. Might be able to avoid some of the stickier situations in the House.
IMPULSIVE
Likes to live in the moment. The type that rushes to the party. Is fast to react. Will get on better with some of the succubi and monster girls that like seeing that in a man.
SLUTTY <-> ROMANTIC
SLUTTY
Likes sex. Likes being rude and crude. Is more about the fuck than wooing. Will be liked by succubi and monster girls that like to get right to the fucking.
ROMANTIC
Likes the lovey-dovey stuff. Likes to be classy. Appreciates the arts of seduction. Has a better chance of surviving the succubi and monster girls that like to 'play' with their food.
SERIOUS <-> HUMOROUS
SERIOUS
Is fully aware of the gravity of the situation. The stoic protagonist of an action movie. Appreciated by succubi and monster girls that think matters of sex and death should be afforded the proper respect.
HUMOROUS
A joker. Has a good sense of humour. The wise-cracking protagonist of an action movie. Some succubi and monster girls have a soft spot for humans that amuse them and this disposition is more likely to survive an encounter with them.
UNDECIDED 5th DISPOSITION
This one is open for now. In the original mindset grid it was represented by shy <-> outgoing and wasn't used anywhere. I think it overlaps too much with cautious <-> impulsive and I'm trying to remove overlaps where a check could just as easily be done against another stat.
The current forerunner to fill this slot is blunt <-> tactful. Barbarian fighty monster girl types will likely care about this (either respecting bluntness or being vulnerable to silver-tongued flattery). Exotic courtesan type succubi/monster girls might also be interested in this (either finding blunt honesty refreshing or naive depending on the girl).
Let me know what you think.
Comments
Many-Eyed Hydra
That's a possibility. I like Submissive <-> Dominant to make it clear, but it's not really in the conventional BDSM sense. Submissive sort of floats between (there are lots of text snippets that reflect the player enjoying being tied up and other light bits of femdom), but Dominant more accurately maps to not-submissive rather than actual maledom. A true maledom path through the house would likely involve the player being Dulcinea'd a lot by submissive-seeming, but scheming fey-type monster girls, but that would likely be for someone else to write. I like the sexy-dominant succubus types too much. I've put a note on the stats descriptions, but if there's still some confusion, that pair might end up being renamed to "passive" <-> "assertive", or something similar.
"active <-> passive" would be much less ambiguous than D<->S. ("Dominant" meant as active is also misleading in real life, whether on casual dates or in brothels. I therefore strongly recommend using "active" instead.) "submissive" could be a great ailment instead. "blunt <-> tactful" would be a very good disposition to define the character of the player.
Many-Eyed Hydra
I did wonder about 3rd vs 1st (well 2nd) person perspective. When I jumped in I went with "you" because I was thinking of the old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. The Japanese H-games nearly always have a named character (eg Luka in MGQ). I don't know which is better, to be honest. 2nd person puts the reader directly in the role, but causes disconnect when I slip in passages like "you think..." and the person reading doesn't. 3rd is watching the action happen to someone else, but can also widen the audience to people enjoying whatever the protagonist is subjected to. I think at this point I'm tethered to 2nd person as switching would require rewriting about 2 novels worth of text. Maybe something for whatever project follows this one (or a smaller mid-project if I find I need to work on something different for a while for a battery recharge). While it's not quite the same, the House should play differently depending on starting attributes as the optimal harlots to pick will be different. I'm also experimenting with tweaking the texts to be slightly different depending on the player character's disposition (the upcoming smother succufairy sisters do this). I think this is a potentially more flexible than different starting characters as it's a similar amount of work, but allows for more combinations of the 4 (likely to be increased to 5) character traits/dispositions.
sytpll
Many-Eyed Hydra
Potion system is needed to avoid situations where the player knows they are dead with the 3 options given to them and can't do anything about it. Making her an NPC moves it out of the main game loop. As with the Nurse and Elegant Woman, the player only needs to visit her if they feel they need to visit her. I'm hoping that will be an improvement to the current system. She was always going to be in because I knew there would need to be a way for the player to boost (or nerf) stats, otherwise there would be too many unwinnable harlots on any given run. This is just expanding that role. (She is also there to provide a player a way to convert semen to coins in a way I'm sure they'll enjoy. ;) )
Tiber Septim
Are you sure the game needs a potion system to change mindset? It kind of sounds to me like you are removing the unwieldy baggage of the old mind set system just to replace it with the unwieldy baggage of a potion system instead. I suspect that in a few months you will likely be removing the potion system for the same reasons as removing the old mindset system. :-)
