For a while, I’ve been thinking about how the consequence traits in Spore correspond to frames of mind that the archetypes embody. You have the idealism of green, the opportunism of blue, and the refusal to compromise that is red.
- Shaman: Pure green, believes that everyone is part of a greater whole.
- Diplomat: Green and blue, believes in considering everyone’s interests to reach an outcome that’s best for everyone.
- Trader: Pure blue, concerned with profit above all else.
- Scientist: Blue and red, believes in cold hard facts.
- Warrior: Pure red, concerned with securing their own survival.
- Zealot: Red and green, takes idealism too far and tries to force it on others.
And then you have the “two of one” archetypes with a spin on their pure counterparts.
Cool, but a bit cookie-cutter (you’re railroaded into the same narrow set of government types and personalities as the AI).
So I thought of something similar based on how your species has evolved to make its decisions, by peers (innately social), by reason (innately observant), or by self-interest (innately competitive).
- Holistic Mindset: Evolved to factor the motivations of others in setting their own.
- Consensus Mindset: Evolved to be confident in the emergent majority of informed decision-makers best serving the greater whole.
- Reason Mindset: Evolved to base their decisions on the world around them.
- Pragmatic Mindset: Evolved to take the most practical approach to securing their interests.
- Aggression Mindset: Evolved to place self-interest above all else, giving them a ruthless streak.
- Dogmatic Mindset: Evolved to gauge the motivations of others, but only in the sense that ones contradicting their own are unacceptable.
Just throwing this out there. It’d just be neat to make evolutionary decisions matter in a way that’s still conducive to roleplaying (so one example of a dogmatic species could be the rabid fans of a particular music genre dead set on forcing it on the rest of the galaxy (woe betide anyone that didn’t evolve ears; they won’t let that stop them)).