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[GoblinCookie]

Toady agrees that, mostly, forcing a character on us is a bad idea. If we get to play as a storied hero from the off, uncontrolled emotions could be pretty immersive, alongside some vocal quirks. Faking emotions on top of that is pretty clever. Using that with standard adventurers is right out though.

You raise a good point though; how do Npc's know your faking? They've got to be able to draw up some kind of assumed psych profile of your character, based on your rumoured actions/dress/etc. It could be basically like the dwarf personality screen, with information gradually filling in as rumours spread and you do something character defining. Their should be some archetypal personality types NPC's may or may not shoe you into - so a renowned warrior is assumed to be a conan-y take no shit loudmouth, a necromancer is stereotypically a edgelord, etc etc.

Some of the more general personality archtypes could be premade by toady - scientist, lawyer, detective - while the ones that vary from world to world like wizards or nationality can be generated based off that world's history and stories.

Adventure mode needs us to be forced to be a certain character at least to a certain point (aka stuff we don't consciously control).  If not then we end up with everyone being the exact same person with a different name attached. 

Why pick a fake emotion when a real emotion will do?  The 'real' emotion at the moment is just as a fake as the fake emotion but it cannot be detected, we are picking stuff for gameplay mechanic reasons not because we feel anything at all.  If we decide to play out of character then we should be able to but we should be forced to pretend, we should only get to be genuine if we are actually playing in character.

[Scoops Novel]

Why not both?

Toady has talked about writing yourself into the world (i think), maybe through multiple choices like Adom. He's also mentioned starting people off as established characters in interesting moments.

[GoblinCookie]

Why not both?

Toady has talked about writing yourself into the world (i think), maybe through multiple choices like Adom. He's also mentioned starting people off as established characters in interesting moments.

We already pick the personality of our characters when we create them, so allowing us to pick who we are and then binding us to what we choose is basically the same as forcing a character on the player, which the devs are apparently against.  This is however a major problem when it comes to the whole matter of us pretending to be people that we are not.  Once that's in the situation occurs where, since we are able to be whoever we want to be it does not make sense to actually pretend to be someone when we can simply actually become that person and then become somebody else.  If we can behave as anyone we like, then who we are at the moment is a cynical matter of strategy; why pretend to be something when you can at the press of a button actually become the thing that we would otherwise be pretending to be?

It is actually a similar problem to the 'become a hated ruler and then have him commit suicide' problem, which is why we are forbidden from becoming existing historical characters.  The solution I think is actually to restrict what the player can do, not by outright stopping them doing it but by forcing the player to risk potentially revealing their true identity as a possessing spirit.  If you keep making people doing stuff they would not do, they will conclude at some point that they are in fact possessed by an evil spirit and then we can get 'exorcised'.  If we force people to do things that are REALLY out of character then we might sometimes simply lose the character then and there. 

The thing is that if you lose control of a character then the character goes an blabs about your existence.  The more aware everyone becomes of your existence, an idea which is spread like other ideas the more easily you can get cast out by those you possess.  Eventually certain places become warded against you, so it becomes impossible to assume the identity of anyone in said places.

[Scoops Novel]

We already pick the personality of our characters when we create them, so allowing us to pick who we are and then binding us to what we choose is basically the same as forcing a character on the player, which the devs are apparently against.

I'd forgotten about that. I think picking the personality is basically so that characters will act "in-character" when they're retired. There's no reason not to let players change that whenever they feel like it.

It is actually a similar problem to the 'become a hated ruler and then have him commit suicide' problem

There's no way to stop players from breaking the game if they feel like it. I think including that meta-game in the actual game is a viable game mode though.

The solution I think is actually to restrict what the player can do, not by outright stopping them doing it but by forcing the player to risk potentially revealing their true identity as a possessing spirit.

The game already has shades of this in legends mode. It would be nice to optionally manifest this (in addition to true roleplaying mode).