hagscribes

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[hagscribes]

stop wishing therapy upon tv characters. sit back and enjoy the insanity. what did that one post say.. i don’t want them to communicate i want one to flush the other’s heart medication down the toilet. exactly. you should be rooting for the heart medication flusher.

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*pulls away from the kiss and looks away bashfully* i-i'm sorry but.. i don't like it when your giant blood spider watches us make out

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Ah, yes, I see you’ve taken notice of the fine knight I keep dangling in a big gilded cage above my evil throne. Quite the pretty little ornament the would be savior makes, wouldn’t you agree~?

What? No, it IS a big cage. That’s- it’s the standard size for a knight’s cage I’m pretty sure. NO I’m not going to invest in 500 square feet of dungeon, it’s ONE knight! I’m pretty sure knights live in hovels in the wild anyways which is basically the same- Look, the cage is quite literally gilded. He loves the cage! He loves obediently preening in the cage! Yeah well, when you capture your own knight you can keep it in whatever size castle you want to, but this one’s mine. Especially since you’re so obviously jealous of me and my cute and awesome knight anyway.

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Me going to tell my fandom (my Tumblr followers) lore about my oc that will shatter their hearts (I will get 2 notes)

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Leonora is a UI template for use with the Sugarcube story format in Twine.

Inspired by an imaginary cathedral by the sea and the distorted, sacred devotions of a woman who was once a girl there.

Did this template need three stories for its demo? No, but here they are anyway: there's flash fiction, a petite novelette, and a branching interactive adventure to show off everything Leonora can do. All lovingly written, coded, and styled by hand.

Features:

Mannerism-inspired design

3 built-in themes (dark, light, sepia)

Customisable title screen

Matching settings & save menus

Optional built-in Character Profile

Annotated passage guide, CSS stylesheet, and Story Javascript for easy customisation

Customisation guide included with template

Responsive design for desktop, tablets, and mobile devices

Includes both portrait and landscape styling for small screens

Download + play the demo on itch:

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Things Your Character Pretends to Be (But Isn’t, At Least Not Yet)

(Identity masks, coping roles, survival personas.)

The caretaker (but no one’s ever taken care of them).

The brave one (but they’re terrified all the time).

The flirt (because real intimacy is terrifying).

The funny one (because laughter hides the panic).

The overachiever (but they feel like a fraud).

The chill one (but they’re screaming inside).

The leader (but they never wanted the spotlight).

The rebel (but they just want to belong).

The calm one (but their thoughts race nonstop).

The loyal one (even when people don’t deserve it).

The loner (but they’re starving for connection).

The tough one (but they’ve never been allowed to cry).

The problem-solver (but can’t fix their own mess).

The grounded one (but they feel completely lost).

The logical one (because feeling has always gotten them hurt).

The “together” one (but they’re falling apart in secret).

The “nice” one (but they’re boiling with resentment).

The free spirit (but they crave structure).

The peacemaker (but they never say what they need).

The heartbreaker (but they’re terrified of being left first).

[hagscribes]

turning the knife inside yourself tonight queen?

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“In the melancholy forest dwells a sick god. In the dark forest the flowers are so pale and the birds so shy. Why is the wind full of warning whispers and the road dark with dismal forebodings? In the shadow lies the sick god dreaming venomous dreams…”

— Edith Södergran, from Forest Darkness (tr. by David McDuff), 1916

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anyone here want to bring out the absolute worst in each other?

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Hello dear, how are you? Sorry to bother you, I was wondering, do you have any tips on how to plan the MC's personality? I'm not talking about how to set personality points and stuff like that. I wanted tips on how to let the player build their character personality and then how to adapt the game around it... if that makes sense. Do you happen to have any tips on the subject? 🙏🏻

I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of personality stats, so I don’t technically have experience working with them. But they are a stat system at the end of the day, so here’s a few ways you can implement and write around them!

Choosing a System

First, you’ll need to decide how many personality stats you want and what kind of system you’re going to use. I’ve seen a few different systems in various IF games:

Personality stats come in opposing pairs (i.e. Assertive vs Reserved, Caring vs Aloof, Reckless vs Cautious). Stats are increased by certain choices during the opening of the game. Once the player reaches a specific point, the personality traits become locked, with one trait beating out the other in its pair.

Personality stats come in opposing pairs but are on a scale of 0 to 100 (i.e. Assertive would be 0 and its partner, Reserved, would be 100). The stats change throughout the course of the entire game, with different choices raising one stat while lowering its pair.

Personality stats are single stats more like skills, usually on a scale of 0 to 100. Increasing or decreasing one does not affect another stat. The stats change throughout the course of the entire game, with different choices raising or lowering the stat. This system is usually used when the game includes skill-based stats alongside the personality ones (like magic or combat proficiency).

**Scales of 0 to 100 are useful because they translate directly into percentages.

Be reserved with the number of stats you include. The more you have to balance and account for, the more challenging your coding and writing will become. It’s impossible to sum up everything about a person’s personality with stats, so focus on the ones that will actually play into the plot of your game and shape your player character’s journey. It’s better to be specific than broad.

Setting Up Personality Stats

System 1: Personality Lock

Define your personality stats in your StoryInit passage and set them to 0.

:: StoryInit

/* Pair A */ <<set $assertive to 0>> <<set $reserved to 0>>

/* Pair B */<<set $caring to 0>> <<set $aloof to 0>>

/* Pair C */ <<set $reckless to 0>> <<set $cautious to 0>>

As the player makes their choices, assign a different stat to increase to the choices that make sense for that stat. It doesn't have to be for every choice, but there should be enough choices for the player to feel like they are roleplaying.

:: A Passage

Something happens here.

[[1. Choice 1.|Next Passage][$assertive +=1]] [[2. Choice 2.|Next Passage][$reserved +=1]]

:: A Different Passage

Something happens here.

[[1. Choice 1.|Next Passage][$caring +=1]] [[2. Choice 2.|Next Passage][$aloof +=1]]

When you reach the point where you want to lock in your personality stats, you can do something like this:

:: Personality Stat Lock

Text here.

<<if $assertive >= $reserved>> <<set $assertiveReserved to "assertive">> <<elseif $reserved >= $assertiveset>> <<set $assertiveReserved to "reserved">> <</if>>

<<if $caring >= $aloof>> <<set $caringAloof to "caring">> <<elseif $aloof >= $caring>> <<set $caringAloof to "aloof">> <</if>>

<<if $reckless >= $cautious>> <<set $recklessCautious to "reckless">> <<elseif $cautious >= $reckless>> <<set $recklessCautious to "cautious">> <</if>>

[[Continue.|Next Passage]]

You don't need to use strings here, you could use a Boolean or numbers. If you are never going to print the $personality variables (i.e. display them as text in your game), then you might want to store the data in a true/false or assign it a number as it takes up less space in your game's memory.

Once the lock happens, you don't need the $assertive, $reserved, $caring, $aloof etc. variables anymore since they won't be used. You can unset them.

To call on your locked-in personality stats, use conditional statements.

System 2: Opposing Pairs

While you could assign a different variable to each pair in this system, I find its easier to use one variable for a pairing and put it on a scale of 0 to 100 with 50 being the midway point. Unlike the previous system, we're going to be using Math.clamp to define a range for the personality stats and stop them from going outside the range.

Like before, define your personality stats in your StoryInit passage. Here, we'll start with 50 since it's the mid-way point for each pair.

:: StoryInit

<<set $assertiveReserved to 50>> <<set $caringAloof to 50>> <<set $recklessCautious to 50>>

To increase or decrease a stat, you can do so like this:

:: Stat Change

Text here.

[[1. Assertive Choice.][$assertiveReserved to Math.clamp($assertiveReserved + 10, 0, 100)]] [[2. Reserved Choice.][$assertiveReserved to Math.clamp($assertiveReserved - 10, 0, 100)]] [[3. Caring Choice.][$caringAloof to Math.clamp($caringAloof + 10, 0, 100)]] [[4. Aloof Choice.][$caringAloof to Math.clamp($caringAloof - 10, 0, 100)]]

With Math.clamp, the first number indicates the amount the variable is being adjusted by, the second is the lowest point of the range and the second is the highest point of the range. In Choice #1, $assertiveReserved is being increased by 10 and is kept between to range of 0 to 100. In Choice #2, $assertiveReserved is being decreased by 10 and is kept between a range of 0 to 100. If the player selected Choice #1 and their $assertiveReserved stat was 95, the stat would become 100, not 105.

To show different results in your game depending on which pair is higher, use a conditional statement:

:: Passage

<<if $assertiveReserved >=51>>Assertive result here. <<elseif $assertiveReserved <=49>>Reserved result here. <<else>>Result for if Assertive and Reserved are equal (i.e. the stat is at 50).<</if>>

**I'm using >= (greater than or equal to) and <= (less than or equal to) because that's how my brain works, but you could also write it as > (greater than) and < (less than):

:: Passage

<<if $assertiveReserved > 50>>Result for if the Assertive trait is dominant. <<elseif $assertiveReserved < 50>>Result for if the Reserved trait is dominant. <<else>>Result for if Assertive and Reserved traits are equal (i.e. the stat is at 50, the midpoint).<</if>>

System Three: No Pairs

This is very similar to System Two, just without pairs. This system assumes that the player is going to have a little bit of each stat and the stats will not play off of each other the way they do in System Two. I'm going to set them to 50 and work on a scale of 0 to 100, so we'll be using Math.clamp again.

Because this system doesn't use pairs, I'm going to get rid of the second personality stats.

::StoryInit

<<set $assertive to 50>> <<set $caring to 50>> <<set $reckless to 50>>

:: Stat Change

Text here.

[[1. Assertive Choice.][$assertive to Math.clamp($assertive + 10, 0, 100)]] [[2. Reckless Choice.][$reckless to Math.clamp($reckless - 10, 0, 100)]]

:: In a Passage

<<if $assertive >=50>>Shows an assertive personality thing. <<else>>Shows something else.<</if>>

<<if $reckless >=50>>Shows a reckless personality thing. <<else>>Shows something else.<</if>>

You could switch it up depending on the context of the scene and have different thresholds for different results.

<<if $reckless >=80>>Shows an EXTREMELY reckless thing. <<elseif $reckless >=60>>Shows a RECKLESS thing. <<elseif $reckless >=40>>Shows a LESS RECKLESS thing. <<elseif $reckless >=20>>Shows a SLIGHTLY RECKLESS thing. <<else>>Shows a NOT RECKLESS thing.<</if>>

Displaying Personality Stats

You will likely want to display the player's personality stats somewhere in your game. If you have stats that function on a scale, you could use the progress or meter elements and adjust the styling (see here). Vahnya's and a.w. morgan's SugarCube templates have an alternative way of displaying stat bars through JavaScript that are more similar to something you might find in ChoiceScript games.

If you're not using a scale, you could use a conditional statement and text:

:: Stat Page

Player Character is <<if $assertiveReserved is true>>more assertive than reserved<<else>>more reserved than assertive<</if>>, <<if $caringAloof is true>>caring rather than aloof<<else>>aloof rather than caring<</if>>, and <<if $recklessCautious is true>>reckless rather than cautious<<else>>cautious rather than reckless<</if>>.

Accounting for Different Personality Stats in Your Game

Writing for different personalities in your game is the hard part. You need to keep track of all possible variations of personalities and write different results/outcomes for each. Consistency is key here. If a certain type of action is defined as being "reckless" at one point in the game, than it should also be defined as "reckless" the next time the player encounters that type of action.

There's a lot of different things you can play with here:

Locking the player out of certain choices based on personality stats (i.e. you're not "reckless" enough to do this action) [I would only do this with systems where the player can gain points back, not the system where you lock the player into their personality stats and they can't change it later. Take care with conditional locks because sometimes all you'll do is aggravate players.]

Showing different reactions to an event based on personality stats

Recording how many times a player takes a certain personality stat choice and adding flavour text later when they choose an option that doesn't align with their typical choices (i.e. a reckless character suddenly taking a cautious option)

Hope that helps!

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Saints of Little Faith, Megan Pinto

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reminder that if you ever meet a sweet, morally good, chivalrous knight: it's your most sincere obligation to corrupt them. "but my vows," this, "this is against the rules," that. if you haven't completely fucked up their entire code of conduct and destroyed all ability to discern right from wrong without you being the one to tell them by the time you're done with them, then you need to up your game. inside that pretty, rule-following chained dog of a knight is someone yearning to be set free of their self-imposed shackles, and it's your duty to help them get there.

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Trouble in Mind, Lucie Brock-Broido

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Very poor timing on my part to decide to fully transition "Fire Gods" into an IF project right before I have to go pick up my brother from the airport for a week-long visit.

Anyhow, I've decided to merge Fire Gods with an older idea of mine revolving around the disgraced apprentice of a grand enchanter. The player character would be said apprentice, who now years after being banished from their former teacher's court finds themselves in the middle of the mage world again.

I'll be porting over the magic system from Fire Gods into this concept and I'm very excited for how that will influence the culture around magic in this world.

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Catherine of Aragon in every episode :

Plague (2x05)