RimWorld

RimWorld

RomanceDiversified
Expanding Cultures and Definitions.
I like how different cultures have different attitutes when it comes to relationships. One thing I am curious about: Does character background define their culture? Because if so then I am thinking that this mod isa great opportunity to included a rewrite of the stock backgrounds (something the game desperately needs to begin with) to include clear notations as to what starting culture that will place that character into.

For example, a Medieval Lord obviously comes from a Medieval culture, but a Pirate Raider could be anything from Pre-Industrial to Glitterworld - so just having it say "[Spacer]" at the end of the description could help.

Once you do that I'm sure you'll notice that there is room for expannding cultures even further. A "Clone Vat Assassin" certainly sounds Glitterworld, but we could expand on that further to create a new culture type, "Clone Culture" that would include that background but could also add such backgrounds as "Clone Citizen," "Clone Doctor," "Clone Scientist," etc, with different skills. The point being that Clone Culture would always be Glitterworld level technology and automatically Asexual.

Then you could be cheesy and add "Amazon Raider" and the Medieval tech level that goes with it, along with an "Amazon Culture" in which females are very sexually aggressive and males are very meek & unagressive in comparison. Just throwing that out there beause it's obvious and proves a point.

Next you could have a "Missionary Priest" and have them come from a Prudish Culture where the chance of normal romantic interactions are minimal, but if they do end up in a relationship they're automatically faithful and are very quick to get married. And then this can be contrasted with a "Professional Playbeing" from a Hedonist Culture, which does the opposite - make them constantly seek romance, but fear commitment, and are very likely to cheat.

You could even include a culture for, oh I dunno, "Fauxhawk Culture" where no men are gay and all the women are secretely bisexual (but only if they're hot). People from that culture would have Industrial Age technology and suffer major social interaction penalities with both straight & gay women, as well as bisexual men, because they refuse to accept that such things really exist.

I'd like to reiterate that even backgrounds with no special culture modifications would still benefit from a rewrite, as even the same general career can end up with different skills based on the tech level of that carrer. For example, a Tribal level hunter would probably still be rounded out with a small amount of growing, medicine, and other useful skills mixed in. In comparison, a Glitterworld level hunter would be soley focused on shooting and maybe crafting to do their own gunsmithing (fewer skills, but higher level). Point being, again, that the same job description (background) can and should give different values at different technology levels.

One last note: I think there is also room for factoring drugs & alcohol into the relationship mechanics in very obvious ways, as well as creating new drugs that can increase or decrease relationship factors.
Last edited by nephilimnexus; 5 Dec, 2016 @ 4:45am
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SeveralPuffins  [developer] 5 Dec, 2016 @ 11:47am 
Hi! Thanks for the discussion- I really like the idea of shaping a few things beyond basic sexual forwardness by background. Prudish, but faithful is a really great example and I'd love to work it in!

Now, the sad part. The backgrounds, whilst readable for a modder, are not moddable as far as I can tell. I think this is because custom backgrounds were offered as rewards for more expensive packages when buying InDev RimWorld, which would then seem pretty poor reward for $20 if anyone with a smattering of C# could do it in five minutes. If they were (or are, and I'd love to learn that they are), I would totally go down the route you're suggesting, but as it stands it's basically a key word search, with colonial backgrounds being assigned to anything that doesn't use the words Urb, Tribe/Tribal, Glitter, &c &c.

As regards drugs and alcohol- I considered this, and initially GracieRocket (who requested this mod) and I talked excitedly about awkward drunken hookups for colonists, but I'm a little hesitant as I don't want to mess with issues surrounding colonist consent. One option would, of course, be to limit casual encounters to people who are similarly drunk/stoned, but it does need some extra thought to do properly. The idea of adding drugs that enhance or damage relationships is really interesting, though- having things that bring people together, or having relationships fall apart due to addiction pressures, is a great idea. I'm currently working on an update that will introduce dating (to improve mutual opinion and compatibility), which these sorts of mechanisms would fit well with.
nephilimnexus 5 Dec, 2016 @ 2:27pm 
Yes, that's what I meant. Pawn A has a drinking problem, but their lover, Pawn B, is teetotaler and dumps Pawn A over it. Or the reverse, where Pawn B (not a teeotaler) is more likely to pick up the same habits as Pawn A due to their relationship.

I've noticed while using ENB Prepare Carefully that there is already extra backgrounds loaded into the game, possibly from the mod itself. There are plenty of duplicates, with one "Mercenary" background giving one set of stats and another entry for "Mercenary" right after that gives a different set of stats. So someone out there is already changing/adding new backgrounds to the game. So it can be done - I just have no idea how. However, this also indicates that removing existing backgrounds might not be possible (otherwise they would have cleared out the duplicates, right?).
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