[DEVBLOG#182] So, What's your story? (Patreon)

Hello folks and welcome to a rather unusual devblog!

In this devblog I'd like to announce that we are openly working on a new mod adding backstories to the game. Since backstories are something there is never too much of, I'd like to request assistance. This is your chance to take part in the development of the mod and have your ideas for backstories end up in the mod.

You can follow the link below to the google form used to collect submissions, and underneath that link I will walk you through the process of submitting your own backstory.

LINK 

Alright, so as you open the form, you will be greeted with following screen:

This is just a short introduction into what the project is. You can feel free to disregard it and move on, as it's more of a call to action than an instruction.

This is a crucial question to determine who the backstory is for. Childhood backstories usually are less impactful stat-wise, but more impactful when it comes to what work types they disable. Adulthood, on the other hand, usually heavily affect the stats, but rarely the work types allowed/disallowed.

Title and Short Title tell us what the backstory is. It should reflect the description. Title short should closely reflect what the actual backstory is, but should be condensed to just one word. Some examples in vanilla RimWorld: Message Carrier (Messenger), Medieval Minstrel (Minstrel), Space Tactician (Tactician).

This field is for the actual description of the backstory. They usually don't exceed 3 or 4 sentences - we don't need a book, we need something interesting, sweet and short. In order for us to properly incorporate it into the game, you should replace following words with the tags:

Name of the pawn - [PAWN_nameDef]He/She - [PAWN_pronoun]Him/Her - [PAWN_objective]His/Her - [PAWN_possessive]

This means we don't need to go through your backstories and do it ourselves, and it also guarantees the proper pronouns in the text, as pawns can have different genders.

This is the field representing the tags for this particular backstory - meaning on what type of pawns it's allowed to spawn. Tribal is all the neolithic tribes, Outlander is the outlander factions, Pirate is the pirates, Offworld is the starting crashlanded colonists, Outsider is... I'm not sure, but it sounds intimidating. Imperial ones are for the Royalty Empire, and Medieval ones are for VFE-Medieval pawns.

Skill gains allows you to tell us what skills this backstory increases or decreases. On average, backstories increase skills by about 8 points. We really don't want you to whack +7 skill to every single skill, this is not fun, nor this is realistic. Leave blank skills you don't want to affect.

What work types are disabled with this backstory? Usually, backstories DON'T disable work types, but sometimes they do. We all know the incapable of violence pawns, or the ones incapable of firefighting. Just make sure it fits the backstory. A medieval knight incapable of hunting doesn't sound great.

You might be able to dictate what passions the pawn has. I say might, because that part isn't coded yet. Make sure you don't go too overboard with passions, and only pick the ones applicable to that particular backstory.

Next up you can pick what trait is disabled with that backstory, and what trait is forced. Vanilla backstories very, very rarely do this, but in case it fits your backstory, I'm giving you a chance to do so. An example in vanilla is some backstories giving pyromaniac trait.

That's about it for this post. Feel free to submit as many entries as you want, but make sure they each follow the rules!

Thanks very much!