Talking Projects

I consistently brainstorm about the projects I want to see completed. The one that I think about the most is a MUD that I want to play around with.

I've thought about all sorts of features I want to implement, but one of them that has surfaced over the past couple of weeks is the ability to roll a character as customized as you want it to be, and at any point, randomize the rest.

Say you have 5 steps in character creation:

Step 1: Choose your name
Step 2: Choose your race
Step 3: Choose your starting class
Step 4: Choose your stats
Step 5: Choose your alignment

Kind of a simple creation, but say you know you want a human thief named Doug and you don't care about the rest. I think it would be great to have a randomizer (aside: one that won't fuck you over as you progress through the game, which would take quite a few verification checks on each class so someone can't roll a mage with 2 int and 18 str).

Part of the reason I want this so bad is because I have been captivated by the idea of customizable coded and non-coded traits. By this I mean:

Coded: Abnormally tall (+height), abnormally short(-height), clumsy(-dex), diplomatic(+cha), strongman(+str, -dex), agile(+dex, -str), etc.

Non-coded: Drinking problem, hates water, afraid of sleeping outside, talks too loud, etc.

So there could be aspects of these traits that benefit a character, others that detriment in one way or another, and some that just make the character overall more interesting. While that would invite specific traits to be selected all the time by those who are only concerned with big numbers, the prospect of having a "random character generator" for anyone bored and looking for inspiration could be a fun aspect, especially for a MUD, wherein much of the draw is the RP element.

One of the more evil ideas I came up with while brainstorming some of these traits was a "lack of sense of direction" trait, which would remove the (north, east, south, west, up, down) exit lists at the bottom of rooms with (exit, exit, exit, exit, exit, exit). It wouldn't randomize the exits, partially because I think that would be a pain to implement and I wouldn't want it to be IMPOSSIBLE to play a character with this trait, just slightly more interesting.
I am absolutely certain that if I successfully implemented something like this, it would be never be picked. But it amuses the shit out of me and I might do it simply because of that.

Another thing to mention would be the inverse relationship between "negative" traits and "positive" traits. Pick a trait that will negatively impact your gameplay, such as the example above, and more positive traits become available for initial selection.