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Alignment shifting calculations
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Orodreth



Joined: 13 Mar 2003
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 12:47 pm    Post subject: Alignment shifting calculations
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Alright, I've read this "Alignments" thread and the older "Alignment" thread and I read Morrigan's recent lecture on culture and religion (awesome lecture by the way). Then I went and looked up in the real-world dictionary (flame me for using real world examples) for Good and Evil.

>Orodreth gets on a soapbox.

Now, I KNOW this is just a game, and we arent going to be able to code ANY and ALL possible nuances into the system, nor are we trying to emulate the real world (even though HR may seem more real to some people) and I KNOW that there are certain black and white differentiations that are easier to program than grey areas. But, BUT... I am concerned that the alignment system is skewed and too simplified at current, although some of the new additions are helping (and yes I know we're in Beta and things will change... which is why we have the chance to make large scale suggestions like this)

My number one complaint, and you have all heard this before, is that the vast majority of games use COMBAT as 1) an easy measure for granting experience 2) an easy solution to PvP justice 3) an easy "world event" or storyline model 4) a simple "reason" to advance your character and probably a few others that slip my mind at the moment. Oh, duh 5) a simple means by which to apply alignment and alignment shifts. Before you all jump on me, I must tell you that I am a fan of combat. I am just not a fan of combat as the solitary foundation of a roleplaying game. Think about it folks... we can go enjoy combat in ANY game, why you come back to play in Haelrahv? Ok, combat rant over, back to Alignments...

>Orodreth gets off a soapbox.

...

The common definitions of EVIL are:

1) UnLawful - ignoring or acting against the civil code of the area/group you are in/affiliated with.
2) UnMoral - ignoring or acting against the social or religious codes of the area or group that you are in/affiliated with.
3) Selfish/ Ruinous/ Destructive - which is pretty self explanatory, in that you ignore the plight of others and/or deliberately cause harm to others via direct or indirect means. Ruin or Destruction that is caused accidentally requires further granularity based on the path you took in choosing your actions could probably be classified as neutral if your role was unaware.

The common definitions of GOOD are:

1) Lawful - acknowledging or abiding by the civil code of the area/group that you are in/affiliated with.
2) Moral - acknowledging or abiding by the social or religious codes of the area or group that you are in/affiliated with.
3) Helpful/ Loving/ Constructive - assuming those actions assist others (selling ammo to a police officer is Good, but selling ammo to a serial killer... is Neutral at best).

...

Why do we even bother with alignment?

The consensus is that the majority of players are going to be neutral or shades of neutrality. Trevor has mentioned that becoming truly evil or truly good is hard to do in the HR system. He also mentioned that roleplaying a truly evil or truly good person is hard to do consistently. But the fact that there IS a model with the means to help roleplay is probably a great thing in and of itself.

The second reason, is because it can help separate "us" from "them". By creating alignment-specific locales, items, skills, spells, etc., there is an automatic reaction by the players to want what they do not have. So, aligning yourself within an alignment, gives you some goals to strive for, which is always a good (or evil) thing.

One drawback to having alignments is that it can give someone an excuse to behave a certain way (specifically referring to evil-ness). But with or without an alignment system, you are going to have snerts, so the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Overall I think a good alignment system will have the fallout of generating many backstory and roleplaying for players, and GMs. And it can help diversify the foundations of the game so that we aren't forced into combat only solutions to problems, and innovations can help make HR stand out from the crowd of other game worlds.

How do we implement a "fair" Alignment system?

For the sake of implementation, we have to simplify things in order to make them undertandable, measurable, code-able and connecting. So lets take both definitions and look at what it is about them that can be coded into an Alignment system:

1) Lawfulness - abiding by the civil laws of a given locale or group is considered Good while you are within group or location. Anyone that does not follow the civil laws are considered Outlaw or Evil. For the purpose of the game and this discussion, we will ignore the debate on whether individual laws are considered good or evil and save that discussion for a politics and lawmaking thread. The largest problem with implementing civil laws is that what is legal in one community may be illegal in another (example: marijuana in U.S. v Holland). But laws are clear cut black and white, they are ratified by a consensus or dictator and are on the books, so they are easy to code. In summary, being lawful is based on affiliation and location.

2) Morality - abiding by the moral code of a given locale or group is considered Good while you are within that group or location. Anyone that does not follow the moral code is considered an Outsider, Deviant, or Evil. There is a defined set of behaviors to which you will obey, period. The main difference is that where we might believe civil laws (in a free society) should be more impartial and fair, moral codes can swing widely and be extremely prejudiced. Moral codes are usually dictated by evolution, field experience, unwritten understandings, as well as organizations commonly religious in nature, but unlike civil laws, moral codes are far more subjective and can have incredible roleplaying flair (good or evil). (example: what is considered a domestic pet in one country versus a delicious meal in another country) In summary, being moral is based on race and affiliation and location.

3) Love/Hate Helpfulness/Selfishness Creation/Destruction Karma - Now these are really the roots of alignment. Polar opposites that are universally understood. But unlike civil laws and moral codes, these more abstract ideas of good and evil can be highly subjective and contextually troublesome to code. Take for instance, combat. The act of intentionally and nonconsentually killing something, is to end its existence. That act in and of itself we can objectively say is Evil. Likewise, the act of creating and bringing to the world a new child anyone would agree is Good, even if that offspring may eventually grow up to be a serial killer (that's their own problem right?). Karma might be a bit much to code (but we did implement traits and flaws...) We can generate numerous examples and have a lot of philisophical debate on this stuff. But if we provide enough points of reference, these abstract ideas of good and evil might balance each other out based on context.

In summary, Good and Evil in their entirety must be applied contextually, based on everything: race, affiliation, relation, laws, morals, location, action, implement, repitition.

...

Contexts

Race: Quite obvious, an individual race may have certain prejudices based on history. These prejudices can inform the moral code, and even civil codes. Examples may be hatred of another race, or predisposition to worship a certain animal that another civilization uses for food. Any modifier here should be switchable by the player, meaning that even if you are of a given race, your upbringing and education and current location can contribute to changes in your racial prejudices. So the player should be able to decide, like the trait and flaw system, whether to abide by or turn off their generic racial sterotypes regarding how YOU act toward others. Since you cannot "turn off" your race, except with masks and holograms, how OTHERS react toward you is not something you have control over.

Affiliation: (non-family public and private groups) Orgnizations and governments can have specific prejudices against other races and organizations and goverments. Like the racial context, the player should be able to turn off their affiliation flag, roleplaying dissent, or covert activities. If I'm a Llanfair citizen and I am in a foreign city hostile to Llanfairians, then I would want to hide that fact if I can. A simple flag can be things like clothing or jewelry that identifies your affiliation, which you can take off or put on. or you can just be a dissenter within your organization, and want to make change. So whether its a clothing item or some kind of player prefences flag, yes you should be able to turn affiliate codes on and off.

Relation: (family or like-alignment) A family may have certain laws or moral codes that differ from the location they live in or the government and race they are affiliated with. If I am evil and I give some stolen candy to my evil son, then one line of thinking is that my act is giving aid to evil, therefore my "gift" and "generous" acts are not considered good, but evil. This is where we get the idea of Lawful Evil, where you can be evil and still aid other evil people or abide by codes within your evil organization. This is the reasoning behind the Medic treatment alignment shifts as Morrigan has described. And this same reasoning may be applied to brokers and their clients. Along with race and affiliation, we all know people can rebel against the forces around them. Any relation should be flaggable so that you can set: Yes, I am against all evil alignment people. No, I am not against neutral people. No, I am not against Good people. Or... Yes I abide by my fathers "laws". No, I will not follow my mothers laws. So that if you do something against your mother, you will not be penalized. etc. (maybe you can only set this flag if you are adult age in game? hehe) No kid thinks THEY are evil, they think their parents are. And no parent thinks THEY are being control freaks, they just think their kids are out of control devils. Relation aspects are unilateral, whereas law and morals (below) are more consentual or group-enforced upon you.

Laws: As noted in relations, you can be Evil and still abide by laws within your evil organization. it is only the Good organizations and their laws with which you would be considered unlawful. Honor Among Thieves. Laws can be pretty cut and dried, objective. We have a city, this city has laws. If this is a Good city, then its laws are considered Good. Evil-doers on notice. If this city, or encampment is Evil, then its laws are considered Evil. Good-doers watch out.

Morals: Social codes of conduct, unwritten laws, theology, and the winds of change. Morals can change based on direction from citadels of morality (religious orders), social services, government, or most dramatically, based on public outcry warranted or as a witch-hunt. These morals may be handed down for centuries and can be embedded in racial prejudices, regional prejudices, economic prejudices, etc. Moral changes can be more subjective, and overruled on a case-by-case basis. Morals can also become Laws, making them more official and harder to modify. Moral codes are black and white, you obey or you are doing evil.

Location: If an action is taken in an Evil place, then the resulting alignment shift can be based on the location and its inherent alignment (See evil and good cities below in LAWS). This is true of holy sites and unholy sites. Or sacred historical sites, which may be governed by a society, yet is not within that cities direct control (consider historical battlegrounds). Using certain objects or actions at a specific locale may also penalize or enhance an alignment shift. Trevor has hinted at this. One problem is that a holy site to one religion, is generally considered unsacred or even unholy to another religion (convert those heathens). So your affiliation should play into the locale modifiers.

Action: If I steal candy from somebody's baby, I am not causing destruction, but I am ruining that baby's good time. An evil act for sure you say, give me one evil alignment point. Now, if I go and give that same candy to my own child, thereby increasing my child's joy, everyone in the room would claim I was a doting father, give me one good alignment point. As described in the abstract, all actions should have simple black and white alignment shifts, and hopefully the computation of all other factors will balance the system out.

Implement: Most objects are neutral in that the object can be used for good or evil. Consider Poison... its sole purpose is to kill things. Used to kill a human/darju etc. and poison is considered Evil. Used to kill rats or mosquitos and poison is considered Good. Some specific objects may have an alignment of its own, such as holy relics, illegal items (law and moral context there) or things with only one intended purpose (action context there). Collecting guns or poison or virus strains does not make a person evil. In general, most objects are neutral and alignment shifts are governed by the action taking during their use and all other contextual factors. And if you have read this far, I congratulate you on your patience and will give you 1,000 in cash in game if you visit me and mention what paragraph you read this offer in.

Repitition: Tending towards evil is pretty easy, as every act of selfishness or destruction is pretty obvious and convincing. Guilty as observed. Tending towards good is much harder, since the evil or neutral person might be trying to "trick" us (since they aren't good),so one simple act is not enough to atone for their ungood ways. Redemption requires greater effort. This is as Trevor explained in the HR system.

...

Example:

If I am a Good Eolai, unaffiliated with any organization, and I kill an Evil rabid dog outside of town, using a neutral weapon. The alignment shift (negative toward evil, positive toward good) might be something like:

+1000 ... I start aligned very good
-1 ... but my race detests destroying wildlife
-1 ... and commit an offensive attack
+0 ... the dog is dangerous, but I could have avoided it
+1 ... resulting in destruction of a creature of opposite alignment
+0 ... used a neutral weapon
+0 ... in a neutral location
(nearby town has a bounty on rabid dogs, but I'm outside jurisdiction)
= result is a drop of one alignment point but hardly any change
-5 ... if I went and killed the whole pack of dogs (repitition of each action)

Example:

I am an (self-described) evil Darju, living a solitary life and I am part of an anti-alteri organization, and I plant a home-made bomb that explodes in a Jaddan city, destroying an Alteri temple and killing an alteri priest.

-10 ... started neutral, slightly evil
+0 ... my race is indifferent to Alteri
-1 ... my organization morally approves killing Alteri for political gain
-5 ... my organization rewards verified Alteri killing (glorification and prestige)
-1 ... commited an offensive attack
-0.5 ... destruction of a creature of neutral alignment
-10 ... action considered illegal in this town
-10 ... used a weapon designated as evil
= result a drop of 27.5 alignment points by this one action, perhaps knocking me up an evil rank and if they have witnesses or forensic proof, made an outlaw in that city
... unlikely to repeat this action soon (repitition) but if I did, I might lose my affiliation since they do not approve of wanton aggression against Alteri, only limited killing for political gain.

...

EPILOGUE

I wrote this all up without much game balance testing (brain fart of the day) but hopefully there is one or two things in here that might help make the Alignment system more flexible or provide ideas for implementing alignment shifts in future professions, races and items, etc.


Last edited by Orodreth on Sat Feb 19, 2005 4:13 pm; edited 2 times in total
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soundless
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:59 pm    Post subject:
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i always viewed alignment more as viewed as good or bad by society, as opposed to being truly good or evil (which can be another story).
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Orodreth



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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 2:36 pm    Post subject:
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I agree with the societal conditioning, which makes it more complex, and in-line with the most recent lecture from Morrigan regarding haelrahv's history, the races, religions, and the regions and their own motivations.

Absolute Good and Evil are probably beyond the flesh, but since we are dealing with the flesh and cultural conflicts/evolutions, alignment can be quite the ropey knot.
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:14 pm    Post subject:
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maybe i always saw good/evil in haelrahv as more like lawful/chaotic.
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:34 pm    Post subject:
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I think it'd be kind of neat to see a Fable-esque alignment system. Minus all of the loopholes.

Yeah, that'd rock.

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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 3:46 pm    Post subject:
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I want Lertig to be Chaotic Neutral. The whole alignment thing is tough to answer IMO. I remember the days of playing D&D and arguing for hours over whether something was good or evil. Or whether someone was being Lawful Neutral. Fun times. NOT. It wasted precious moments that we could have been Role Playing. I still have a group of friends I game with. In our aging wisdom, and years of gaming experience, we have come up with our set of rules for judging alignment. I think the key factor to determinging alignment is GREAT Role play. It's hard for me to agree with a system that says if you perform X action then you are Y alignment. There are exceptions to every rule. In Dr I remember the fun days of being a Paladin and having someone threated you, advance you, and when they got to melee, if you hit first you got a soul hit. That annoyed me to no end. Anyway, did I make any sense? I think I just rambled.
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:24 pm    Post subject:
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The power-gamers in my old gaming group were consistently Chaotic Neutral, for no other reason than that, after we thoroughly punished evil and saved the day, they were still free to impunitively kill off benign NPCs for their items and boss them around.

For the rest of my life, I'll always grit my teeth and develop an eye tic every time a character does something transparently selfish and justifies it by saying, "Hey, I'm just playing my alignment."

More directly, I think You make the Alignment. The Alignment doesn't make You.
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 4:27 pm    Post subject:
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Gotta love people like that. When I think of say I want Lertig to be CN I mean CRAZY. I try to bring about that unstableness in game. One minute he's happy and then he's going off the deepend. I don't if im being effective or not.
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 Post Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 11:53 pm    Post subject:
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Orodreth, you have a lot of time on your hands and not nearly enough to put all of your creative thinking into.

I am impressed by how easily and often you create systems.
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Orodreth



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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 1:29 am    Post subject:
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Lertig, I agree that putting hard numbers to of all the things that could effect alignment is a chore for the player to comprehend at first glance and may seem more a burden than a reference point, but... lets take your DR Paladin example.

Yes, if a paladin strikes first at any time, they take a soul hit. Sooo, its imbedded within the alignment system that you as a paladin need to follow a code of law or ethics within your guild (which DR could use far more extensively than they currently do). -- If a player taunts you, a Paladin might smile back and offer a witty retort. If a player advances on you, a Paladin might respond by retreating and saying, "I do not want to fight you. Save your strength for the invasion." And if a player takes a swing at you, THEN you can hit back, but not to kill, only to disarm or incapacitate them. What I'm getting at is that a system can HELP you to roleplay.

A system can also help to enforce the aspects of alignment and shifting within the alignments. YES I agree that its easier to play an alignment then to have to negotiate what you can do, when and to whom on which day of the week, depending on whether you're wearing the right color socks. BUT a system allows the GMs to not be involved with every single character that wants to shift alignment. A GM does not have to assess whether that character has been good or not and true to their alignment. The system lets everyone else know that you are abiding by the codes of your alignment.

The system that I'm proposing takes into consideration Affiliations, Races, and Relations in order to allow for evil Paladins who maybe take an alignment hit for striking first, but once battle ensues, they can kill anything that moves (berserker paladin group) and gain an alignment bonus (toward evil) and good Paladins who can strike first (and gain an alignment bonus for it), if they are attacking the right person for the right reason. Yes, it would require some indocrination by the players within certain paths...

The system is there to say, look - everyone is a blank piece of paper. that paper just happens to now be X width and Y height and this group of people write with blue markers on their paper and this group writes with black markers on their paper. What YOU draw, using those tools is your roleplay.

Besides, the computer (server) is there to crunch all those numbers for us so that we dont have to constantly refer to die rolls and charts and stuff. So lets use this medium for its advantages.

On the flip side, I do recall Trevor saying that under certain circumstances he (or some assigned GM) could manually crank a player's alignment one way or another if it was justified for gaming events, roleplay etc.

So we CAN have a system that is the best of both worlds... systematic management for the plebians and a GM helping hand for those players that REALLY want to roleplay to the hilt.
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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 2:16 am    Post subject:
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If the sentient spirit were really that oversimplified, it'd be a sure bet that Earth in general wouldn't be the cesspool of hostility and resentment it is now. At the risk of coming off like dialogue from the Matrix, there are two things you didn't take into account: Choice and Free Will.

It's not the crunching of numbers, it's taking what's supposed to be just for fun and grounding it into the dirt by using abstract integers and minutiae variables like whether I'm a card-carrying member of the Woman's Union of Coffee Cup Sculptors to set the standard for the bearing of my moral/ethic axis.

Further, I don't see a productive outcome in forcing hard code over free will, and what sounds a lot to me like the game equivalent of racial profiling -- if the historic actions of a concentrated people are the benchmark for a culture in general, then the Deep South dictates we all start wearing white hoods and burning crosses (that was a deliberately overblown example; in context, go tell a Darju "Hey, stupid, don't you know you're supposed to hate Alteri... just because."). Not to mention that I don't want to have to memorize the procedure of showing the secret Darju hand symbol of righteousness and hopping twice to the left before I headbutt a borkin warrior, just to keep my alignment from dropping a couple points.
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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:15 am    Post subject:
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While I am all for more and interesting systems, making them THIS complex (and using DR as an example makes me hurt) is...frivolous. I don't think alignment should ever become so important that it makes or breaks gameplay. A person may be a mass murderer, but will run into the street to save a baby from getting hit by a car. Should this shift alignment? Should it even matter?

Yes, the alignment system is cool, but it's unreliable. The system assumes that each player will always abide by their alignment and from the history of roleplay, we know this isn't true. A good character might be in the hands of a player that is having a bad day and go slaughter cute little woodland creatures.

Yes. Alignments are good. No...they shouldn't take so much energy to figure out. The less complex something is, the better it is and the more interest it will gather.
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Orodreth



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 Post Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 3:54 pm    Post subject:
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No system that is built is going to account for all the possibilities.

If you read the areas that I specified for the Racial, Affiliation and Relation aspects, I recommended that there be flag that the player can turn off the default (or turn on the default) so that you can play to the racial/affiliate stereotype, or rebel against it (without suffering alignment penalties).

[note: I went and looked and the flag was only mentioned in the Racial aspect, so I updated the Affiliate aspect slightly and added several sentences to the Relation aspect]

But I agree wth Zamde, and I'll go a step further... if everyone would just roleplay, or simply roleplay better, then we wouldn't need an alignment system at all. You just pick your alignment (for others to see) and then manage your own roleplayed ethics. All we'd need to code are local jurisdiction laws and a justice system based on each city/regions laws. I'm all for this model too - it would let the staff drop all alignment projects or upgrades and move another project up the priority list.

But the system I'm thinking of, takes into account that some players in the Women's Coffee Club are going to be anti-tea, no matter what anti-coffee information is given to them. Yet other Women Coffee Club members may be more open minded and actually drink tea. You would be able to set the flag to a degree of ethics you agree with for your affiliation in the Women Coffee Club:
[ ]Stubbornly for all existing Women Coffee Club rules
[ ]Follow by some rules but not all, and remain pragmatic
[ ]Stubbornly against WCC rules, yet maintain my membership
Each affiliate can have these "for, neutral, against" checkboxes that the players use when they join - and you can modify these onec a month or so. It basically manages your Reputation and alignment shifts that would occur.)

And I agree with Kit, this is after all a game, and we want to have fun. But if you're playing IN your alignment, then you should already be having fun since you worked toward that alignment to begin with... if you're a mass murderer and your alignment is -1000 or whatever and you go save a child from being run over... that single action shouldnt shift your alignment, hell no. This is why I have "Repitition" in the system. If you're a loyal trooper and one day you just get pissed and run off to hack up a good little forest faery and nobody is there to see it... again one selfish little action is not going to shift you. Now, if you were that loyal trooper and you were pissed off and you go back to your barracks and shoot at everyone or wire an explosive to blow up the commander's vehicle, and then say "Sorry guys, I'm just having a bad day." My system is designed so that yeah, obvious unlawful actions WILL shift your alignment.

The complexity is behind the screen. The player should only need to know that their actions and the context for those actions will have an effect on their alignment (and to be clear, this is also a kind of Reputation system). In order to make players aware of that, we just need to generate some backstory "news" stories within each profession, afifliation, etc. that shows what happens when players do X or Y, generating in-game public relations is not a problem.

I alluded to this before: I think 99% of the people in the game will gravitate towards neutral, neutral good or neutral evil given the actions they do and the roleplaying that I've seen. If we only have a handful of people that want to go all the way and play mostly good or true good, or mostly evil, or true evil, then lets just allow those people to petition the staff to manually set their alignment, and everyone will trust that they roleplay it to the hilt. I think 1% of the players WOULD do it well.

(And I'm not trying to insinuate that by creating an alignment system, the GMs don't trust the players to roleplay their alignment appropriately. But if I was a GM, uhm... hehe I wouldn't trust the players based on anything they told me they "would do"). Who knows, maybe all our major actions are recorded, so that the GMs can bring up our history and determine whether we've been naughty or nice?
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