The impact of memories on our parafolk. (and mental health/therapy)

[Dizzardy]

So I was reading through the recent AMA with the devs on Reddit and the devs mentioned that they’d like to have memories that would affect relationships, emotions and personalities…

I was just thinking it would be cool if like a para that was cheated on in the past might then form romantic relationships slower because of that memory. (or when in relationships they might start rolling wants to do things to push their partner/love interest away, like if you set up a date and then they roll a want to not show up)

or if some sort of fear system returns, parafolk with a lot of death related memories (especially of parafolk who aren’t elders) could become more likely to roll death related fears. (and they may be stronger than usual) Whereas by default parafolk would usually only roll death related fears for elder parafolk. (unless they have a paranoid personality)

It could be interesting that if a parafolk has a memory of a house fire, they might start rolling fears of fire in general (like being in a room with a lit fireplace or sitting at campfire) Maybe they could have a unique moodlet that makes them uncomfortable around fire. (I don’t know if “moodlets” will even be a thing….though I assume there will be some kind of equivalent)

They could also go to therapy to help lessen the strength of different memories as well. Like when you send your parafolk to a therapy session, one of the options is to select one of their memories to work on/talk through.

Maybe initially when you send your parafolk to therapy they have to pick a generic talking option with their therapist but the more often you send them to therapy you unlock the ability for them to talk about specific memories that have affected them.

I feel like this could be an interesting way to hint at mental health issues for our parafolk without just slapping a trait that says “PTSD” on them. A sort of “show don’t tell” approach.

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On another note I was wondering if it would be interesting to have the positivity or negativity of memories be affected by other memories. By that I mean a memory could initially be considered a positive one by the parafolk but a later negative memory turns the original positive memory into a negative one. I’m not sure if I’m making much sense with this idea though….

I guess what I mean is….if your parafolk had a positive memory with a loved one….and then that loved one cheated on them (or worse was violent towards them) then that positive memory becomes either “negative” or “mixed” and then how that memory affects them will also change.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is….memories are as much about how we interpret them right now as they are about what actually happened…maybe even moreso. Which makes me think whether a memory is positive or negative for a parafolk should be something that can be changed depending on their life experiences. I’m not sure how they would work gameplay wise though.

[Tini96]

I really like these ideas and it would also bring in a lot more realism. If a Para has gone through a bad experience, he/she should be shaped by it and therefore might be suspicious of other paras he/she doesn’t know. Still he/she might try to get closer to others when she realizes that they don’t want anything bad for him/her

• This reply was modified 5 months ago by  Tini96.
• This reply was modified 5 months ago by  Tini96.