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[Stats]
  Strength: 14          Can't do much archery with low strength, and carrying car parts is a struggle even at 14 strength.
  Dexterity: 10         Minimizes the ranged penalty without spending more points than necessary.
  Intelligence: 12      It'd be nice if this could go lower, but that really hurts you on upper-level books.
  Perception: 10        You can spot all traps at this level.

[Skills]
  I don't select any of these as every skill is trainable in-game, and every point spent here is a point you can't spend on 
  something that can't be attained in-game.

[Profession]
  Novice Martial Artist:  I end up going with this, because it earns you a point and doesn't have negative starting gear 
  (just not that good of starting gear).

[Traits I Use]

  [Positive]

    Fleet Footed:      The speed boost on flat ground is nothing to sneeze at. This makes you much better to outrun threats.
    Night Vision:      There's no reason not to grab this; it's extremely useful in dark areas and at night.
    Packmule:          This is the best trait in the game; a 40% boost to your carrying volume.
    Quick:             If you can only pick one, Quick or Fleet Footed, go with quick. It gives you an extra 10% of action 
                       points, which means you can attack more often, and run further per turn. Combined with fleet footed, 
                       it means that only the fastest enemies can keep up.
    Robust Genetics:   Only necessary if you plan to mess around with mutations, but absolutely necessary if you do.

  [Negative]

    Animal Discord:    Animals hate you more, there is no doubt. But I find that the real assholes you have to worry about 
                       (bears and moose), will tend to attack even if you go the opposite and have animal empathy. So to 
                       hell with all of them, you're just going to kill them anyway.
    Clumsy:            Makes you a little louder when walking around and more likely to set off traps, but traps are relatively 
                       rare (and easily set off by throwing a stick on them) and I find that critters and zombies tend to follow 
                       you more by smell anyway.
    Forgetful:         I turn skill rust off, so this is basically free points. I wouldn't use it if skill rust was on.
    Glass Jaw:         In my experience, if my head health gets so low that glass jaw actually makes a difference, then I'm 
                       already dead. Helmets also give great protection to heads.
    Heavy Sleeper:     As far as I can tell, this is actually a positive trait, as it makes you less likely to wake up during 
                       the night. You'll wake up anyway if something bites on you.
    Insomniac:         Although I use it, I'm actually not sure how I feel about this one. Normally I don't notice much of a 
                       difference, but every once in a while it becomes a pain to get to sleep without some sleeping pills. Of 
                       course, once you have a little cooking and a gas mask, sleeping pills become stupidly easy to get.
    Lightweight:       It says negative effects, but really it just keeps you drunk/high/whatever longer.
    Poor Hearing:      I've honestly never been able to tell a difference between a play-through with and without poor hearing.
    Strong Scent:      Makes you easier to track; I use it, but it might not actually be worth it for the single point.
    Truth Teller:      Most NPCs are dicks and need shooting anyway, so I don't care too much about lying to them.
    Ugly:              NPCs that care about this are getting shot anyway.

[Traits I Don't Use, But You Might Consider]

  [Positive]

    Add. Resistant:    It's pretty expensive at three points, but this pretty much allows you to down a ton of drugs at once or 
                       on a semi-regular basis, without worrying too much about addiction.
    Fast Reader:       It's only a point and it greatly reduces reading time. Given the new importance of books in the game, this 
                       might be something I start to pick for future play-throughs.
    Pain Resistant:    This is pretty self-explanatory; I tend to avoid it just because of the prevalence of pain killers in the 
                       game, and also because I usually back off combat once my pain hits the upper limits of what aspirin can handle.
    Parkour Expert:    I find this isn't as necessary if you take both Quick and Fleet-Footed, but if you don't take those, then this 
                       can give you a great upper-hand when leading zombies onto bushes and other choke-points. It's only a point less 
                       though, so you really are better off spending an extra point for one of those over this.
    Strong Back:       This would be a great trait if it only cost a point less; but at 3 points, there's better places to put your 
                       money, so to speak.
  [Negative]

    Far-Sighted:       It basically makes it a pain to use any sort of eye protection if you have this trait, but otherwise it 
                       doesn't really have any draw-backs. If you take this, always combine it with near-sighted for a total of
                       four points to spend.
    Near-Sighted:      Same deal as far-sighted; if you take this, you should take both. There's no real reason not to.
    Pacifist:          This makes the early game a pain, as you'll always be at incredibly low morale. But you only need to kill 
                       100 of an enemy before you no longer have morale penalties for killing them, which makes common enemies 
                       quickly have no effect with this trait. A great place to gain four points if you can deal with the low morale 
                       for a little while (or at least until you find some drugs).
    Trigger Happy:     A great place to pickup two points if you never plan on heavily using firearms. A terrible choice if you 
                       do eventually want to use them though.

[Traits That Are A Bad Idea (because they're implemented badly)]

  [Positive]

    Substance Tol.:    This just means that drugs don't do as much for you; yes you don't get negative effects for as long, but 
                       you also miss out on the positive effects. This is absolutely a trait that belongs in the negative category.
    Gourmand:          This would be a great trait if it worked, but I've dug through the code and can find no reference to it outside 
                       of the JSON declaration file, which makes me suspect it literally does nothing.
  [Negative]

    Hates Food [X]:    These are just downright dumb; they don't just give you a morale penalty, they flat out make you nauseas and 
                       throw up if you eat these foods. These really should have been implemented as two points traits that just gave 
                       you the morale penalties. As is though, stay away.