PENTA Stats Overhaul!

If you've been following Morningstar since the beginning, you'll remember that the PENTA Stats are the core of our game just like SPECIAL is at the heart of Fallout.

PENTA was original conceptualized and work-shopped using Pen & Paper with my friends who are more familiar with GURPSs and D&D systems. Called PENTA just because it was a 5 stat system that used together created a mixed personality matrix to motivate a character's role. Fully intended for a computer calculating the outcomes, these 5 stats would determine the fate of your character's mindset towards the world, generating quests based on their motivations. 

Originally made of Aggression, Charisma, Intelligence, Endurance, and Perception, PENTA in October and November underwent a vital rebranding. 

Kent and I have talked about it at length for the past couple years through the concept, pre-production, and now into the prototype phase about having PENTA steer further away from its AD&D and SPECIAL/GURPS cognates, and come into is own as a unique system. 

Unlike those systems, the core 5 stats are much more about what motivates a character to act. These inherent personality drives are more akin to the Myers-Briggs personality types distilled down into the most irreducible parts for video-game AI than they are the dice rolls an speech checks of Fallout. There will never be a dice roll to check a character's Aggression to make a will save or gate dialogue options behind not having enough Empathy -- those will reside in the Skills.

Instead, whether or not a character in your party is thrilled to work in a metalsmithing shop and become the best blacksmith in the land, generating quests for rare metals and wood, seeking out tools from quality traders, and constructing new weapons to gain fame & money -- those are what PENTA drive as a gameplay mechanic. 

Emergent narrative drivers!

PENTA has also been acronym-ized by Kent as Passion, Empathy, Neuroticism, Tenacity, and Aggression. 

Passion!

Passion motivates characters towards hard work, unlocking tag skills which benefit from increased experience gain rate and mood boosts when performing tasks related to the passionate skill.

Motivations inspired: Desire for a Career, Desire to Acquire Tools, Desire for a Workshop, Desire for Career Knowledge

With high Passion your character will be driven to pick up tools and throw themselves into work, making things, studying, and developing skills. In addition to their experience gain rate increases in tagged skills,  they will also get a mood boost by learning and working on their passionate skills. If they're Passionate about crafting, expect them to spend long hours in the workshop and becoming your favored smith of high quality weapons, armor, and tools. If they're passionate about cooking or learning the lore, they'll be happiest in their bakery or study.

Empathy!

Empathy motivates characters to seek social connections, boosting social skills and negotiation attempts. They will be more affected by suffering in those around them but also gain more joy from their success. Those lower in empathy are less affected by violence and harming others.

Motivation Inspirations: Desire to visit family, Desire to make new connections, Desire to meet strangers, Desire to entertain others

Empathetic characters want to see people, and make them happy. This social orientation is best paired with your diplomats and traders. Despite not enjoying seeing others harmed, a good leader will see through combat operations with fewer causalities and happier troops. You'll want an empathy focused build to lean into these social traits and interact with people, develop friendships, and reduce suffering through medicine, food, and trade. The good mood of other reflects a good mood in them. But they are more open to harm by living in tough times, being in tune with their emotions as much a drawback as a benefit. 

Neuroticism!  

Neuroticism increases the likelihood of characters developing mental traits both positive and negative. Stronger neuroticism will unlock more potent traits to choose, at the risk of developing unwanted personality quirks. Increases work speed, and Intellect Skill bonuses.

Motivation Inspirations: Jealousy of fine items, Jealousy of relationships, Craving for isolation, Craving for self harm, Craving for substances

A little spark of madness can go a long way, and while initially viewed as negative, the character being more prone to severe mood breaks, they are also much more driven towards intellectual and artistic stimulation, producing finer quality items, working faster, and adding more humor & wit to their creations. They are also more immune to mood penalties, despite social issue generating more strife. Your scientists, priests, and artisans will benefit from Neuroticism, while soldiers and leaders may be plighted by the drawbacks. Thankfully, their mood is easier to handle with foods, finery, and drugs, as they are attuned to such vices. 

Tenacity!

Tenacity prevents motivation loss through fear, injury, and poor mood. Characters with Tenacity are less likely to break under pressure and will work longer before needing a rest. Tenacious characters are less likely to be intimidated, refuse to flee from fear, and will resist mental breaks.

Motivation Inspirations: Desire for hard work, Desire for great achievement, Desire to endure pain, Desire to reach goals

Tenacious characters are harder to break, while gaining less mood bonus from pleasure activities due to their thicker skin. You'll want soldiers and combat oriented characters to benefit from this personality trait. Expect them to generate a strong motivation to complete quest objectives and gain greater mood rewards for having done so. Tenacious characters are excited by hardship and won't break where others might. 

Aggression! 

Aggression motivates characters towards violence and harm, boosting combat experience gain. Mood impacts by harming others are reduced or reversed, gaining joy from use of aggressive skills. 

Motivation Inspirations: Desire for combat, Urge to harm others, Impulse to murder target, Need for domination, Thirst for Revenge

Aggressive characters get off on harming others and tapping into their wellspring of rage. Highly spiteful of jokes at their expense and disrespect, Aggression is the opposite of Empathy. They don't want to make friend, they want to kill them. Expect them to want revenge for insults, fly into a rage when denied some craving, and see big mood bonuses from winning conflicts. This can be balanced out with Empathy, and aggression can still provide bonuses for combat and work speeds. Be careful combined with Neuroticism, as these are most volatile characters, unwise to leave unsatisfied. 

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All of these images underwent serious dialing in before we settled on a style and coherent look that conveys their meaning while also staying visually coherent with our other art assets. 

They especially match the style of our mood meters! 

I'm hoping these images and their descriptive tool tips helps players make decisions in creating their characters and recruiting / firing party members. 

Players need the ability to glance at their PENTA stats and decide if this is someone they want to recruit to live in their town, join their caravans, fight for them, or if this is someone they fear will betray them, waste their resources, and be a problem. These images will help people new to the system intuit what it's about, hopefully before they make a mistake of investing all that time and effort into recruiting Gauis Octavius Flavius the Butcher, only to realize he's a physiologically unhinged serial murderer who ruins relationships and enjoys raiding towns for slaves and all their goods. 

Unless that's who they were into. :p