How to inherit the family curse
Hello again. In the previous article, we found out how to create something that looks like a character. Today we will try to liven it up.
Meet Eldon! As always, we have only a boring single dead guy. And I hope with a little effort he can find one or two friends. It’s not so complicated: filter all existing people by the following criteria:
- The same generation
- Not sibling/cousin
- Still not your friend
- And should have less than five friends.
These weird conditions are for avoiding duplication and other dull situations. I have no usages for friends yet, but it has a lot of exciting applications in the future. For example, we can isolate friend crowds. Or track secret or plague’s spreading. Hmmm, maybe I should make some detective mini-game inside this generator :)
Okay, Eldon is a social creature now. But still faceless. How can NPC be notable in any game? Yeah, huge yellow exclamation mark below their head. Any other options? Occupation? Yes. Exactly!
So, how many professions you know? Excluding CEO, managers, developers, and other blood-suckers. Blacksmith, merchant… erm. Actually, various video games use a very limited list of what people did for a living. I decided to start with professions for individuals. In the current version, I use 400+ occupations divided into twelve categories-”factions.” If you google a question like “who lives in my medieval village?”, you get a very straightforward answer: “farmers, farmers, and farmers.” Fortunately, I have 27 different farmers :)
But of course, a straightforward RNG knows nothing about job distribution in a medieval town. So I created a weighted list to illustrate this disbalance. On the other hand, the real picture is quite unexpressive, and I have more significant diversity than it should be. There is still a lot of work: Jacks of all trades, apprentices, organizations like church or army, etc.
Everyone is familiar with this guy: he stands on the town square and sells goods from his bottomless pockets. Do you ever ask yourself, “why does he stand here all day long?” Okay, it’s a simple question. How about “Why he is armorsmith?” I think your profession isn’t completely random, so as his. To show it, we need to create his whole family. I call it “enliven.” How does it work?
- If person.age >= 5, add 0–4 friends. Arguably, I know. The friend of mine suggests decreasing friends count according to age. You know, you have a lot of friends while you are a teenager, but you are lucky if you still have two in your thirties.
- And that’s all if the person is “generation zero”, else set occupation. Yeah, it’s up to twenty years old, and even nowadays, a lot of people have a job at this age. Maybe I will fix it. Or maybe not.
- There is an 85% probability of having a spouse. This number is from the astral plane. And it’s not related to age. Possibly, it’s too primitive. Also, add friends to the spouse.
- Again, the person has 5% to have no children. If he is lucky, he can have 1–4 children.
- Each of them will also be “enliven.” I mean, run this algorithm for each child.
So this function is about propagation from the given person to zero generation children. And if a person had parents during this process, he can inherit some curious attributes. Now I’m speaking about the occupation. This algorithm is also far from reality, but it’s better than nothing. 70% inherits one of the parents’ occupations category, and the probability of inheriting the actual trade is the same. I believe it’s somewhat reasonable; you tend to choose a familiar activity, especially if you have someone to teach you. But it isn’t a concrete rule.
You might notice that I don’t create parents for the first person and for the spouses. That’s because parents are a man from the current family and his spouse, who also need parents. And we have an infinite loop here.
Let’s continue with Eldon. This data set can be enough for a mute NPC, but if we want to communicate with him, our character needs personality. Grumpy healer, greedy inn-keeper, or nosy city guard can and will make your adventure more colorful. I choose to use traits for this purpose. And again, there are many more options than you can imagine. It’s about 650 features in three categories: positive, neutral, and negative. I’m still thinking about how many traits should have each character. I made the following decision: one for each category. It’s a lot of combinations, and it gets you and fairly enough hooks for a good story. Isn’t it?
A bright personality is an important detail, but a mysterious family secret or exotic vice of grandfather can be a better start for side-quest. So, it can be something like an inheritable trait. Also, with different probabilities for different gender pairs. For example, a mental disorder that can be inherited only through the male line. Or adultery, transmissible from a role model. I call it “tags.” Unfortunately, I didn’t find a suitable list of such tags, and I made it myself. There are only twelve: Addiction, Gambling, Hidden knowledge, Alcoholism, Mental disorder, Family secret, Curse, Disease, Cheating, Murdered (only for alive), Murderer, and Serial Killer (only for men, sorry, Rosemary West). I’m waiting for your suggestions.
Finally, Eldon has personality, motivation, and legacy. Oh, no, sorry. He was a meddlesome junky, his kin was interrupted, and his wife was cheating with some peasant. But it’s a nice story about the locksmith who made that unbelievable stubborn lock for the treasure chest.
In the end, an interesting fact: if you “enlive” twenty persons, it generates 1200+ persons and 550+ families (1/3 of it with only one member — 90 years old grandma).
I’m going to write the next article about family wealth and how families can be divided into several households. But it will be at least in several weeks. Stay tuned!
