Got this pointed out to me on Twitter: it purports to be a way to generate a character for Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds ahead of time. I’ve fiddled with a bit, and if it’s accurate then it’s telling us some very interesting things about the game. In more or less order:
- It’s drawing from classic tabletop RPG elements. The attributes appear to be selected at origin and then locked in; you have a certain number of build points, which is enough to boost some attributes without penalty. More build points can be gotten by reducing attributes, not that anybody’s going to do that in a video game unless they’re bored or Obsidian made a mistake in their math somewhere.
- There’s a starting character class that seems to give various bonuses to skills.
- Skill points and perks seem to be determined by level. You get skill points every level, and a perk every other level.
- Perks are grouped by tiers.
- You can take a disadvantage that will allow you an extra perk.
- Level cap is apparently 30.
So, basically: this is old-school stuff. Reminds me a bit of Fallout: New Vegas, which should shock basically nobody. I’m still a little jaundiced about a game about ruthless megacorps that got made by a company that was just purchased by… Microsoft; but what the heck. Make it mod-friendly and nobody’s gonna kvetch too much.