Scars of War - Clothes Maketh the Man

Gareth discusses the potentially controversial idea of clothing adding social modifiers in Scars of War at the official blog:

Normally in games, clothing other than enchanted gear or armor is pretty much irrelevant. If you acquire a gold ring as part of your loot it is generally only worth what you can get for selling it. There is no inherent worth to keeping or wearing said ring because it has no relevance in the game mechanics besides its gold value and the space/weight it takes up. Similarly for things like silk shirts, fancy pants etc.
You can of course play dress-up if you want to and wander around in different costumes, but this is only amusing for a while, and really only amuses the people who like to see what their characters look like in different get-ups. Wouldn’t it be cooler if there was some game mechanic reason influencing your choice of what clothing to wear, like there is with armor?

More information.

Really interesting idea, imho.

I believe that social orriented components are the next "big thing" within the next 10 years or so in gaming.

I think it has begun with romances, but it still needs to be more seriously implemented in RPGs.

The SIMs is imho only a sign where it might lead to. I even dare to say that looking at the SIMs is a look into a far, far away distant future of C-RPGs.

I don't remember which game it was, but there was some situation where you had to leave all big weapons and the armor off and wear something fancy for a party. Of course, there was not more mechanical reason behind this than to let you run into a trap where you had to fight without your usual gear. But I like this general idea.

If I see a trend, then it's more or less that behavioral stuff like this gets less common. You won't get stolen from, because "it's not fun" (and generally I agree). Most of the time, you don't even have to put your weapon down when you talk to people, compared to games where you were not allowed to wear weapons in town.

Defining different sets of clothes that can be swapped with one button would help a lot with getting rid of tedious side effects.

"Hard to be a God" had a form of this where the clothes you wear determined how people treated you. It is pretty useful to wear certain sets of clothes in that game because of that.

In the game Fable clothing has some social modifiers. More specifically a Scariness and Beauty modifer. This modifier decides how the people in the world interact with you. There's also a side-quest or two where you need to wear a specific set of gears. Eg. a quest where you need to wear the complete shining plate armor set.

Arcanum had social modifiers as well. I know you could were a dinner jacket made people like you more.

Originally Posted by Loburian
Arcanum had social modifiers as well. I know you could were a dinner jacket made people like you more.

Just like in real life!