A new theory: Substitute for personality?

In one of my IRL games we're trying something new. I'd implement it in one of my games, but I'm not planning on running anything new for a while.

But here's the idea: Beliefs and instincts. On the sheet, each player picks a few beliefs (say, 3) and an instinct or two.

Beliefs are general guiding principles. They could be related to the character's overall goals or just general ways of dealing with the world. They give the player a direction to RP in and give everyone a succinct idea of what the character is about. Examples of beliefs would be "It's only wrong if you get caught," "The past has an answer to everything; you just have to know where to look," and "(insert faction here) is too caught up in infighting to make any real change."

Instincts are just that. They're the first thing that's likely to occur to your character in a given situation. So, if your instinct was "When entering a room, check for traps," and the GM tells you there's a spike trap, you can reasonably say that you avoid the trap by citing your instinct. Another instinct might be "At the first sign of trouble, ready my sword."

Meanwhile, the general consensus seems to be moving toward personalities being baggage on a sheet that frequently gets ignored. I think this might be something that could be shorter and sweeter, without the high chances of being ignored right after the sheet gets made.


Thoughts?

Seems like a good idea to me.

Seems pretty good. The only way I can see for instincts to go wrong is if someone deliberately uses them to their advantage. You know stuff like "Has a knack for spotting danger" could easily be warped into "I KNOW WHERE EVERY BAD THING IS IN THIS DUNGEON BECAUSE INSTINCT".

Could just be my paranoia, but one would need to watch out for those things.

Yeah; that wouldn't be an instinct; that would be a skill. But good GM and common sense would be necessary as usual, yes.

However, an instinct like "I always check the ceiling" can be a reasonable thing for someone with a "danger sense", and would help them avoid bad things.

Being more of a civ type RPer myself I can't see how I could use this for newly starting nations. Although I could toss it into the spot about your faction's leader. Although I can't immediately say what relevance it would have. Beliefs most likely, instincts, that may be iffy.

For a general or officer more likely as those people are at such a fine micro-manageable level it would make sense, such as being sure to roll out with AA or something to that effect.