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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8670059" data-attributes="member: 85555">It is a whole other topic but I think humans can both have things like hormones, past experience, etc that impact their impulses and thoughts, and still have a will and an ability to choose what they do with those impulses. Again, deep topic, but I don't know that we should sacrifice the idea of free will in a game discussion so freely <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Probably a topic for another thread though lol That said, I don't think the is a point that can be readily dismissed. People do have impulses, some people have issues controlling those impulses, people do have mental scars, and physical conditions that impact their mind. You either hand wave that or fold it all in somehow. I think giving NPCs flaws that help drive their decisions is something entirely appropriate when you are making NPCs (and something that ought to be factored into their decision making). Appropriate for PCs too. When people interact they usually aren't logic machines, how tired they are, how hungry, how much pain they are in, what their natural impulses are, etc those are all going to factor in. This is one of the reasons lots of games have character flaws (and usually mechanics to see those flaws are something the character can hold in check). Flaws and things like horror or fear checks, those obviously get different reactions from some people (a lot of gamers who share my sensibilities express a dislike of losing control of their character through these things). But even though I value social interaction and am not big on social mechanics, I view these mechanics as fair and highly plausible. Some people simply don't want to deal with all that though, so they are content to just eyeball how much that stuff is weighing on a PC or NPC when the character makes a choice (for example if I know my NPC is stressed because his organization is losing a conflict with another, I'm probably going to play him a little differently: even if there isn't any deep mechanical tissue to that aspect of play).</blockquote>

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