Hmmm... One possible way of implementing Wavinators idea, would be instead of making the player completely incapable of performing the action, make them hesitate. Thus, in the ex-gunfighter turned priest example, if the character came into a situation where he would
have to kill, he could possibly freeze up (moralizing/hesitating) for a short period of time. If this were a tense situation where time was of the essence, perhaps the intended target would have the time to get away, or disarm the character... In a less tense situation, perhaps it would merely give the player a visual cue that doing such a thing is against their character (but they would still do it). The cold blooded character would just do it, without a chance for hesitation.
In other situations, perhaps this could be used for NPC interaction. If the greedy player were trying to
pretend to be charitable to improve their reputation, NPCs seeing the player hesitate would perhaps have a chance to put two and two together (an extra check of the perceptive skill perhaps) and not give the player a reputation bonus, or even a penalty...
I see this sort of thing all the time in the "suspense" movies my wife likes to watch...
Wouldn''t force the players hand, but would give them something to think about. If they really
did want to change, as their motivation shifted, this hesitation possibility would go away (and be moved to the opposing motivation). Perhaps there would be a period of "inner turmoil" where the player would have the hesitation factor working in both directions for a certain motivation.
Sandman,
Chemically enhanced design
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The antagonistic/opposing motivations would work great for NPC interactions. Some sort of motivational matrix, which could be applied either to the players real motivations, or the players reputation to get the NPCs opinion of the player. Although a greedy player may still not want to team up with a generous character... There could be tension when the generous player is giving large amounts of money to the poor (which the greedy player would rather have to himself...)
hmmm, maybe call it a Virtual Motivation Manipulator
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What if we took it from a slightly different angle. Perhaps the Motivation Manipulators could also push for events to be in alignment with the players motivations as well, rather than just making life difficult for the player... Then the more the player either opposed or went along with the mechinations of the VMM, the stronger it would get, and the more the player ignored it, the weaker it would get. They would never disappear completely, so if the player started activating its mechinations again, it could come back...
Just brainstorming here. You could almost base a "magic" system off of that - the players actions would affect the potency of their spells (which would work through the VMM). For example, a healing spell would work through, say, the "Generosity/Charity" VMM. If the VMM were hostile, you would probably just irritate it more, and it could cause some entirely different effect, if it were amicable, it might try to bring the effect around for you, and if it were weak, the effect would be feeble.
I will have to think about these VMMs some more...
-pwd