Coming from Spearhead Games, Project Witchstone is a roleplaying game that intends to push the interactive storytelling even further beyond. The devs wants to capture the fun and freedom of a pen & paper RPG campaign in a living world that reacts to players’ actions. In the latest dev blog, the team tackles an incredibly important part of the game: narrative character creation.
“Defining your character is what puts the RP in cRPG, and is a crucial first step to any adventure. The imagination you bring to your character is what turns a bunch of stats and numbers into a living, dynamic person that can change the world. When you launch into your journey with Witchstone, you will immediately be able to define who your character is, not just the class you want to play.”
Players get to determine their ancestry and appearance as well as share the origin story with a key NPC. You can also decline doing so and go straight into the finer details. Through dialogue, you’ll have to answer the following questions about your character:
- What happened to your family?
- What kind of environment did you grow up in? Were you raised by politicians? Did you fight for survival in the wilds? Or did you enlist at a young age, knowing only the battlefield?
- What skills did you use to get by?
- Why are you traveling to Kalsundia?
Finishing this process will grant your character an archetype, specialty as well as skills, attributes and abilities to match your story. You can also go back and change things to your liking if you are unhappy with the end result. Additionally, the archetype does not set your behavior in stone. Even if your character is a charlatan, you can still choose to commit to honesty or pursue the art of the sword as a feeble scholar.
“With the origin system, you get the opportunity to describe in an action-oriented way how you want to play your character. Will you turn to violence only to a last resort, relying on mediating conflict between the warring factions? Will you lie and manipulate others to do your bidding? Or will you rely on your power to subjugate the island to your will?”
Previously the devs have also outlined how they envision the companion system to work.
