This is a general usage guide

In general, there are no hard-rules on how the tracked attributes should be used. This guide should be treated as suggestion on how the stats can be used.

The intent behind Devious Attributes is to provide framework for mod creators to track devious (and not) attributes. Also, Devious Attributes provides an API to register player decisions that happen in other mods, with stats being calculated accordingly.

So, cut the introduction, how the stats actually should be used? First and foremost, common sense should be used. What I mean is - if in your mod you want to have additional dialog options that are only available to a very proud character, you can use "Pride" stat to test if such dialog option should be available. If you have some action that involves speaking in front of a crowd, "Self-esteem" stat value could be used to check whether the player character would have severe stage fright and will be unable to speak on the stage.

That said, I will now go through stat descriptions and how they can be used.

• Willpower
  • In case of processing player decision to answer or deny master/dom request, willpower should be used to determine what kind of response options are available (not enough willpower, and the player can only meekly refuse).
  • Any punishments that involve pain/devious acts/forced sex, etc. should decrease the willpower - for example, whipping scene would be a hit to willpower, since pain weakens resolve. Again, common sense should be used here - think what a dungeon master would do in a pen & paper RPG session.
  • any struggle with restraints, be it trying to lockpick shackles, or wiggling in effort to untie ropes should be governed by willpower : it should require certain amount of willpower to even start struggling, and the chance for success should be tied to the value of the willpower itself. For example - a player with chain shackles on legs and hands tied with rope can try to fiddle with shackles - requires 30 willpower units, can try to struggle with rope ties on hands - requires 15 willpower units. Chance of success is related to the amount of willpower before struggle, so for willpower = 60 before trying to struggle and lock-pick skill of 40, there is 50% chance that the struggle will succeed.
  • Any act of kindness, compassion, love or heroism could be used as plot device to increase willpower. For example, a sympathetic guard in a dungeon that brings extra meal to PC prisoner - such event can be used to increase willpower
• Pride
  • Should be decreased for any kind of humiliating/demeaning player act
  • Should be increased for any instance of player refusing, being heroic or doing what a PC might consider a good or noble deed. For example, completion of a quest where PC saves a village from large and evil dragon could grant increase in pride
  • Could be used to determine if a dialog can show extra dialog options that someone proud could say
  • High pride values could be used to determine if a punishment has extra effect on stats (someone with low pride will have their will weakened faster than someone very proud)
• Self-esteem
  • The same as pride, could be used to determine if a dialog can show extra dialog options that someone charismatic and self-assured would say
  • Any humiliating/degrading act can (and should) decrease it (hooks are in place for processing player decisions, but if for example a player in a dialog sees insults and doesn't react in the dialog strongly against insults, self-esteem should be lowered) - Any act that gives profit to PC, any act where PC acts according to their organization would increase self-esteem(Thieves Guild -> steal, pickpocket, Dark Bortherhood - doing killing etc)
• Submissiveness
  • Calculated value. Should be used as a kind of "progression" score of master/slave relationship. For example, for submissiveness 0%-25% there would be only interactions A and B, and only punishments X and Y. For submissiveness 25%-50% there would be interactions A,B and C, and punishments X,Y and Z
  • Should be used similarly to pride and self-esteem - to provide additional dialog options if the value is in certain range
• Obedience
  • Any acceptance of commands by player will increase obedience.
  • Should be used as kind-of "punishment" stat. For example, 75% or more obedience - cannot initiate struggle with bindings at all (feasible since obedience goes down slightly each day), high levels of obedience can provide extra hit to pride/self-esteem.
  • High obedience -> should give no options to refuse requests from a master (in such occasion, the player would be forced to wait for obedience to go down, while trying to avoid too large punishments)