CEO, Goblinworks
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@All - we were shooting live dev blog footage today for the Kickstarter and a lot of this stuff got addressed (but at a fairly high level). There's actually enough new stuff in what was discussed that I want Lee or Stephen to do a Dev Blog next Wednesday before we put it up on KS just so we get the widest possible audience for the material.
But there's a bit I can share with you now because it's not really new and it's a good fit with the question about wars.
The designers are envisioning a system where you have two variables that track your action, Reputation and Alignment. Reputation is under the control of other players, Alignment is under your control.
Reputation is basically the Law - Chaos axis, and Alignment is the Good - Evil axis of the classic alignment graph.
When you do something people don't like, they can degrade your reputation, and vice versa. Depending on what triggers your opportunity to affect their reputation, reducing someone else's might also reduce yours too. We want to avoid the obvious problems of "reputation ganking" and alt-grinding your reputation.
When you take certain actions that the game world defines as being bad or good, it has an affect on your alignment.
The key idea of our design is how the collective Reputation and Alignment of its members affects a Settlement. Settlements that have a high Reputation have the "best stuff". Settlements that are Lawful operate more smoothly. So the "best" Settlement will be one operated with high reputation lawful good characters. "Best" being defined by some complicated n-dimensional matrix of availability of things like trainers, workshops, temples, markets, etc.
If a large powerful Settlement makes war on a small non-powerful Settlement, all the members of that big powerful Settlement may take Reputation hits. So over time the big powerful Settlement would shift towards Chaos and would become harder to manage, cost itself more in overhead, and certain kinds of assets would pack up and leave.
The more bad things you do to other people the worse your Reputation. If you hang out with a lot of folks who have bad Reputations, your Settlement's Reputation drops. The lower it goes the harder it is to maintain all the "best" assets you may have developed.
Regaining reputation is clearly something that the designers are going to have to spend a lot of time thinking about to avoid people abusing whatever system is built. And we don't want the Reputation system to be built so that you slide down a path you don't want and don't really understand - the idea that you'd take a lot of negative Reputation due to someone cleverly exploiting your ignorance of the game mechanic is exactly the kind of thing we're committed to avoiding.
But if you want to be a murderous criminal, we'll let you. And you can deal with the consequences of those actions as you find it harder and harder to find a place to sleep at night. Eventually you'll find yourself living with the dregs of society, running scared from bounty hunters, and a target of those seeking to find redemption from their own sins.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan
I would like to see the conditions for changing someones reputation be very strict, and only in one direction per instance. So someone can only choose the magnitude of the change, not what direction.
Players, as a group, are notoriously dishonest. If someone has done nothing to provoke anyone they should never see a reputation shift down. And I like that you are taking a stance against people exploiting the system, but the honesty of a player is a horrible variable to include.
I think the higher your reputation, the more you can affect others reputation, and the lower your reputation, the less you can change others. And there should be a threshold where you cant change reputation at all, maybe the bottom 10% of the reputation scale.
What if the big powerful settlement is declaring war on the smaller settlement, because the smaller settlement is constantly sending out raiding parties to attack the larger settlements convoys? I don't think the smaller settlement should be able to shift the larger settlements reputation at all. Justified war shouldn't carry a shift, and there should be defined 'acts of war' like raiding a convoy, that allow the aggressor to suffer no penalties if they declare war on the group that committed the act of war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you have to earn lawfulness, can you not start on a paladin training path until you get it, or do you start on the path but have none of the supernatural powers until you become Lawful? If lawfulness decays toward neutrality all the time, would you be able to keep yourself topped off while pursuing other things like crafting? Would NPC targets be effective targets to keep lawfulness up, or would you have to target players? What if people make 'target dummy' alts? Even if you can only get one law point from each per day, people might delete, recreate, and make themselves criminal, let you defeat them, and repeat.
What might be chaotic but not evil?
What about gambling, or getting drunk?
Pickpocketing evil people? What about neutral ones?
Fighting duels or wars in towns that have a peace ordinance? You may be in consensual PVP, but the locals may not be consenting to violence in their streets, and you could damage things.
Speaking of damaging things, what about vandalism and graffiti?
What other misdemeanours might disrupt a peaceful society without actually harming good and neutral people?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Mbando I did put alot of things in there that just sounds evil/good/chaotic/lawful you actually missed one of the big real ones.
Kill every member of an evil sydicate in the name of asmodais. this would actually be a good act seen by the game because you are killing evil. the reason I choose to word it this way was to make people think it was a trick question. unless the game recognises why you kill it will still register evil being destryed by you. well unless you are a cleric useing spells with the evil descripter the whoal time which might even it out. you got most of the others right. for the most part. maybe not for the reasons you think though. keep guessing guys I would like to hear more.
No, Arlock, it's not a trick question, you just don't understand the game design. Serving an evil god is a de facto evil act. In fact, Ryan's already addressed this specific issue:
So getting ahead in an evil Settlement means that you're constantly making enemies out of your peers. Sure, you may be strong enough to keep squashing them when they seek to take you out, but you're going to be forced to keep dealing with challenges to your power. The more 'evil' you do, the more those challenges should spread.
Want to advance that Temple to Rovagug so that characters that cast divine spells granted by Rovagug can get a new spell level? Well Rovagug wants blood on his altars. A lot of blood. And it turns out that the blood of the worshipers of Asmodeus is PARTICULARLY desired by Rovagug...
Of course GW might change things right now, but as of now, alignment isn't about ethics, it's about metaphysics. It's about De rerum natura in Golarion.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan:
I just posted the above and then saw your post, which raises the question of how evil settlements get to be evil and still be effective. So let's say a settlement of worshipers of Rovagug want to sacrifice the clergy of Asmodeus from another settlement to propitiate their god and advance their power, how do they do that and not lose reputation?
As a person playing a paladin of Peace Through Vigilance, I want that evil settlement of Rovagugians to be strong and effective antagonists.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do love the concepts discussed, it still just remains to be seen how it will work out exactly. Most of the initial player base and veteran players may be honest, but a vast majority of people are not and I would hate to see my reputation get massacred when everyone in one settlement down votes my reputation because I got into an argument over vent with one of them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Ryan:
I just posted the above and then saw your post, which raises the question of how evil settlements get to be evil and still be effective. So let's say a settlement of worshipers of Rovagug want to sacrifice the clergy of Asmodeus from another settlement to propitiate their god and advance their power, how do they do that and not lose reputation?As a person playing a paladin of Peace Through Vigilance, I want that evil settlement of Rovagugians to be strong and effective antagonists.
I was sort of wondering this as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Chaotic Good = Robin Hood, 'good' rogue, 'The Rebel Alliance', someone who has no regard for the laws, but still helps people.
Stealing is Chaotic, not evil. You can be good with no regard for laws. You can trespass and steal all you want and you won't shift evil.
Stealing is or isn't evil depending on what you are stealing from whom and for what reason.
That is why I find it so hard to translate into game mechanics. Most thievery is evil but how can the game establish what is and isn't? Maybe it could be based on the alignment of the owner?
Stealing is a non lawful=chaotic act. It does not affect you on the good-evil axis
You'll get the hang of it just like everyone else who has been playing under this system has for the last 30 years.
Whoever said batman NG is wrong, Batman and Robin Hood are the quintessential Chaotic Good examples. Chaotic Good is the classic anti-hero archetype. It's polar opposite, Lawful Evil, is sometimes the anti villain archetypre ie: the Godafther, Walter White,
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the higher your reputation, the more you can affect others reputation, and the lower your reputation, the less you can change others. And there should be a threshold where you cant change reputation at all, maybe the bottom 10% of the reputation scale.
This feels right to me. I wonder if google's page rate system has some insights. They've tweaked their algorithms from time to time, to cut page manipulators. Odd comparison, but that "very reliable" input type for weighting seems useful? I have to say I was beaming reading those quick details about Alignment and Reputation. V interested in the Wednesday blog!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Whoever said batman NG is wrong, Batman and Robin Hood are the quintessential Chaotic Good examples. Chaotic Good is the classic anti-hero archetype. It's polar opposite, Lawful Evil, is sometimes the anti villain archetypre ie: the Godafther, Walter White,
Wayne's Law:
As an discussion of alignment grows longer, the probability of comparisons involving Batman being assigned to every possible alignment approaches 1.There have been so many versions of the character, and alignment interpretations are so varied, that you can't just refer to Batman as a singular concept and compare him to a personal alignment interpretation (which you mistake for being universal).
A strong case for some of the Dark Knight versions of Batman being lawful evil can be made, as long as you understand 'lawful' to mean consistent and structured, rather than literally following the letter of the rules in the lawbooks of a particular place.
Unfortunately, the more it has to be qualified and explained, the weaker the power of any metaphor or analogy becomes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure if "casting cure wounds on a thief who is on the run" IS evil. What if you're a healer of one of those groups that believes it is their duty to heal ANYONE in need? I think that would make you lawful good. Mechanically it would make you a criminal though.
It's complicated!
If there is grey status in PFO AKA actions that temporarily flag you criminal while your alignment is still high enough that you would not be consider unlawful or evil. (And I can't think of any way to have a working alignment system without grey status.) Then here is how you do it.
Healing/Buffing/Anything helpful you do to evil characters flags you as criminal. However you only take an alignment hit if they do something that causes them to lose alignment within a short timeframe of you taking this action.
So, if you run across a wounded chaotic evil in the forest as a neutral good cleric of Sarenrae, take pity on them and decide to heal them. You are marked as criminal. It wears off in short order and since there is nobody around... no big deal.
However, if you run across him while he is fighting some lawful good players and start healing him... you get flagged as a criminal, allowing those lawful good players to kill you without consequence. Should he actually succeed in killing those players while you were healing them, you lose the alignment as if you were in his party/organization and helping him attack them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure if "casting cure wounds on a thief who is on the run" IS evil. What if you're a healer of one of those groups that believes it is their duty to heal ANYONE in need? I think that would make you lawful good. Mechanically it would make you a criminal though.
It's complicated!
If there is grey status in PFO AKA actions that temporarily flag you criminal while your alignment is still high enough that you would not be consider unlawful or evil. (And I can't think of any way to have a working alignment system without grey status.) Then here is how you do it.
Healing/Buffing/Anything helpful you do to evil characters flags you as criminal. However you only take an alignment hit if they do something that causes them to lose alignment within a short timeframe of you taking this action.
So, if you run across a wounded chaotic evil in the forest as a neutral good cleric of Sarenrae, take pity on them and decide to heal them. You are marked as criminal. It wears off in short order and since there is nobody around... no big deal.
However, if you run across him while he is fighting some lawful good players and start healing him... you get flagged as a criminal, allowing those lawful good players to kill you without consequence. Should he actually succeed in killing those players while you were healing them, you lose the alignment as if you were in his party/organization and helping him attack them.
I suppose in the scenario I created, the healer would try to heal BOTH fighters, which means either could attack them without penalty. haha.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Reading the description @51 and viewing the related video on the kick-starter I actually have to wonder if there isn't a danger of making the world TOO 'nice'.
If the best settlement perks are available on the lawful and good ends of the axis then does it not stand to reason that lawful good settlements will be the most successful in the game? If there is a meaningful imbalance then it would be difficult for a Chaotic / Evil settlement to attack a LG one... and as attacking can shift a settlement (and everyone in it) towards chaos the LG settlements would also have a strong dis-incentive to ever attack.
So isn't the likely outcome a bunch of settlements trending towards LG and constrained in size as they grow out to the borders of their neighbors?
Mind you, I understand and agree with the need to control PvP griefing... the consequences of 'bad action' in a game will always be much less so than in real life and thus some will take the opportunity to misbehave in a 'safe' environment. However, if the game is structured such that these players are then so disadvantaged that they can't compete with the 'virtuous' players you could effectively be eliminating meaningful conflict... at which point why have PvP at all?
It's a difficult balance to be sure. The plans outlined here seem like they MIGHT indeed be sufficient to reasonably control the player nastiness which has brought down other PvP games... but doesn't that also inherently decrease the level of human conflict which drives player involvement?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ah yes, an alignment discussion, or as I like to call it, the Curse of Gary Gygax.
One thing that I think is being missed wide here is that chaos/lawful and good/evil are two separate axis. So far i have seen it being tretead like a single range.
Lawful Good---------Nuetral------------Chaotic Evil.
I suggest if for simplicity's sake that's what your dealing with then just throw out one axis and call it Lawful-Nuetral-Chaotic.
Ironically, that was Gary Gygax's original AL system.
He started with L/N/C and that was it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Arlock: Alignment in PFO, as the Devs have described it, is about the real world, not the moral world of intentions. So in the example from Ryan that I quoted above, sacrificing evil worshipers to your evil, competing god is, well, evil. So serving Rovavgug is evil, even if it means killing evil worshipers of Asmodeus.
But that's from a quote from a while ago--maybe it will change.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Who says competition between LG nations leads to war? There could easily be a race to build the first [cool thing].
It doesn't necessarily lead to war, but it often does. What means are used to resolved it should be determined by the players involved, not the game mechanics.
A couple examples I could give are the US Revolutionary War and US Civil War.
Between the 13 Colonies and Great Britain. Which one was evil? Not which one was in the wrong but which was actually an evil nation?
And in the case of the US Civil War, consider that the Emancipation Proclamation would have allowed any states that rejoined the Union voluntarily by January 1, 1863 to keep their slaves. So if you remove slaves from the equation who was evil and who was good?
I think the answer in both instances is neither. War is evil but in order to partake in it, neither side has to be evil overall. That is sort of like saying someone is evil because they start a fight in a tavern and someone ends up dead. Passions can boil over and create tragedy even if neither side was entirely evil.
So I think declaring war against a nation that is not evil should be considered an act of evil, but it shouldn't be prevented by game mechanics, and it shouldn't make the nation who does it automatically evil.
If you have one or two wars you are maintaining with good or neutral nations but otherwise you are a very lawful good nation you should probably be able to stay that way. If you are maintaining five to ten wars with good/neutral nations with yours as aggressor... it should drag you down to neutral if you are working your butts off to stay as lawful good as possible, and pretty much force you evil if you are not acting lawful-good in every other way, and building orphanages, healing the sick, and spending 75% of your time pleasing good aligned deities in every way possible.
So mainly lawful good nations will have to maintain peaceful relations with most nations, but they can help other neutral/good nations fight a defensive war without penalty, and they can enter into an aggressive war sometimes if they really need to.
This system ENCOURAGES good aligned nations to settle disputes peacefully but does not require it of them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It leads to war because the facade of lawful good is shed when it's no longer convenient to do so. That's what history says anyways.
The purpose of a Lawful Good society is to provide an anchor to keep us from slipping back into the Chaotic Neutral jungle that we've spent most of our history trying to rise out of.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to be able to give somebody positive reputation as well.
You will be :)
From Goblinworks Blog: I Can See for Miles:
3) Players can choose to rebuke or reward other players in terms of Reputation and Alignment, either increasing or decreasing the attribute respectively. This costs the player giving the rebuke/reward Reputation or Alignment, and you must have a higher Reputation/Alignment than your target, but it lets you reward other players for good behavior or punish them for bad behavior. This costs Reputation/Alignment in order to stop people from just doing it willy nilly. If you choose to reward someone for good behavior, you get a minor buff as a reward for being a generous person.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It leads to war because the facade of lawful good is shed when it's no longer convenient to do so. That's what history says anyways.The purpose of a Lawful Good society is to provide an anchor to keep us from slipping back into the Chaotic Neutral jungle that we've spent most of our history trying to rise out of.
And every nation in history has said that about themselves. And yet they all go to war. Except Switzerland, and everybody knows they're neutral :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really like the idea of CG being penalized relative to LG, as the reputation system seems to do.
Having a system where Lawful v. Chaotic gives your settlement different trainers/facilities/whatever is great because it gives LG settlements a reason to ally with CG settlements to share access to some of the alignment restricted services.
What I really don't feel comfortable with is the implication that chaotic is just worse than lawful, which is the distinct impression that I am getting from some the description of how the system works. Please back off from this road since it it absurdly reductive and in the long run will harm interesting interactions between LG and CG and CN by limiting the viability of non-evil chaotic settlements. I could be wrong in my reading of the system, and if I am, what sort of bonuses would a chaotic alingmet grant, either to an indevicual or to a settlement? There need to be both pros and cons to being chaotic, not just cons as the plan seems to be now.
I would want CG to be equally optimal and viable for a settlement or chartered company to be. I want there to be potential tension in an alliance of good settlements when the CG guys go hire CN mercenaries to do unpleasant things to their evil foes, or for there to be an option for when an LG company needs something done that they need plausible deniability about. Having LG contract with CG who then passes the job onto CN provides that deniability and insulation from an alignment hit. This kind of meaningful interaction will be hampered if there is a pervasive idea of chaotic as lesser then lawful. I would argue that it is generally better but that is an alignment thread for a different time and place.
I assume that this view of chaotic<lawful is born out of a desire to have LE be a reasonably viable alignment, and thus needing to use the Law/Chaos axis of the alingmet diagram to screw over people who want to be CE.
I know that the relative erasure of CG and LE and the automatic correlation of lawful and good is a trend and also reflects the original more limited way of thinking about alignment, but I really think that GW is better than that and can and should create a proper, full spectrum of alignment in the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Saint Caleth: you can spin it around and say LG are being rewarded for putting in more effort to "regulate/organise/apply the rule of law" - which requires more players operating in more structured ways? Something like that. I think there is another angle that chaotic will have wider diversity of player alignments operating so that's one "upside". It's all still high level stuff. To retain LG there are more conditions to sustain so I think as well that is another counter-balance to contend with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What I really don't feel comfortable with is the implication that chaotic is just worse than lawful,
umm, the implication that civilization is better than anarchy? the implication that a well planned and governed system works better than just winging it? Or the implication that society works better if people follow the rules than if they do what they want?
The question is whether efficiency is just better than freedom.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't really like the idea of CG being penalized relative to LG, as the reputation system seems to do.
Having a system where Lawful v. Chaotic gives your settlement different trainers/facilities/whatever is great because it gives LG settlements a reason to ally with CG settlements to share access to some of the alignment restricted services.
What I really don't feel comfortable with is the implication that chaotic is just worse than lawful, which is the distinct impression that I am getting from some the description of how the system works. Please back off from this road since it it absurdly reductive and in the long run will harm interesting interactions between LG and CG and CN by limiting the viability of non-evil chaotic settlements. I could be wrong in my reading of the system, and if I am, what sort of bonuses would a chaotic alingmet grant, either to an indevicual or to a settlement? There need to be both pros and cons to being chaotic, not just cons as the plan seems to be now.
I would want CG to be equally optimal and viable for a settlement or chartered company to be. I want there to be potential tension in an alliance of good settlements when the CG guys go hire CN mercenaries to do unpleasant things to their evil foes, or for there to be an option for when an LG company needs something done that they need plausible deniability about. Having LG contract with CG who then passes the job onto CN provides that deniability and insulation from an alignment hit. This kind of meaningful interaction will be hampered if there is a pervasive idea of chaotic as lesser then lawful. I would argue that it is generally better but that is an alignment thread for a different time and place.
I assume that this view of chaotic<lawful is born out of a desire to have LE be a reasonably viable alignment, and thus needing to use the Law/Chaos axis of the alingmet diagram to screw over people who want to be CE.
I know that the relative erasure of CG and LE and the automatic correlation of...
That's pretty much the definition of chaotic in the alignment system. You have more personal freedom but you are odds with the law. I think the system makes all the sense in the world. Chaotic Good is the Batman/Robin Hood archetype and that means the local authorities want to arrest you. You are the vigilante, the anti hero. That is a difficult role to play realistically and this system gives you the chance to do it.
The quintessential CG settlement is Robin Hood's merry band and that's what CG settlements will mostly be, brigand outposts of adventurers. All of the chaotic alignments are individualistic, they are not nation building alignments and this sytem will capture it better than any other game ever has.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Note that Robin Hood can't just walk into the tavern and order a meal, or participate in the archery contest without a disguise.
Yup, Chaotic good doesn't mean you cheated on your taxes, that's Nuetral Good. Chaotic Good means you have complete disregard for the laws of society and only answer to what is "good".
It's a tricky proposition when you try to find real life examples but some examples of people who would see themselves as chaotic good would be: Julian Assange, PETA eco terrorists, abortion clinic bombers and revolutionaries of all ilk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm really hoping neutral good and and chaotic good aren't penalized TOO heavily but some penalty is needed. We are only one step from lawful good. We will still have a lot of restrictions on what we can and cannot do.
I'm hoping that as a Neutral-Good town we will be a fairly well organized and not too high of upkeep town... but if you walk into the shady parts of our settlements on the outskirts... there are thieves, there are smugglers, there are fences, there are people who deal in information or can write up an official looking document for you which may not be true etc.
Access to these kind of services may be more expensive than it is in a Chaotic Good town, just like a lot of other things will be cheaper in lawful good towns. But our neutral good town will just be a more well rounded place where it's easy to find MOST of what you are looking for as long as it isn't evil.
They probably won't hang signs on their doors outright declaring what they are like they might in a Chaotic Good town. You are probably going to ask around a bit before you find out that the tavern bard is the one who can forge a document for you. But they'll be there.
There should be a few things that will be better in neutral good towns than anywhere else as well in order to make it worthwhile for a neutral good kingdom not to fully segregate into lawful good and chaotic good settlements. In a lawful-good town if you need information you go to a private investigator. In a chaotic good town you would go to an information fence. In a neutral good town they are likely to be one and the same thing making them the best people to go to for information.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's pretty much the definition of chaotic in the alignment system. You have more personal freedom but you are odds with the law. I think the system makes all the sense in the world. Chaotic Good is the Batman/Robin Hood archetype and that means the local authorities want to arrest you. You are the vigilante, the anti hero. That is a difficult role to play realistically and this system gives you the chance to do it.
The quintessential CG settlement is Robin Hood's merry band and that's what CG settlements will mostly be, brigand outposts of adventurers. All of the chaotic alignments are individualistic, they are not nation building alignments and this sytem will capture it better than any other game ever has.
What I'm wondering is how well the personal freedom benefits of being chaotic will be implemented, or how they will stack up against what Lawful settlements get as awarded bonuses from the game itself. So Chaotic characters won't pay taxes, and can "do as they please", but only the lack of taxes is something actually afforded by the game itself.
Will Chaotic characters have any sort of bonuses or options afforded them specifically because they are Chaotic? I guess I wonder if there will be options to affect the world given to Chaotic characters, perhaps not on the scale of two organized Lawful nations going to war, but something notable and worthwhile.
Ostensibly, Chaotic and law are opposing ideals/forces, but it sounds like Chaotic groups won't have any real resources and ability to oppose Lawful ones.
Will it be possible to really embody a revolutionary? To carry out an actual agenda of freedom and chaos against the establishment?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let's keep in mind that being "Chaotic" is in itself disregarding rules and laws. Without adherance to some form of rules or laws you don't have a society and without society can't have a settlement per se.
I think that's what the devs are getting at by saying the more chaotic a group is, the less their settlement will function effectivly.
I see no possiblity that a chaotic evil character would even function in a settlement or company for that matter. They ignore laws and seek only to cause suffering on others. What place could they possible have in a community, and what group would want them? Even another CE character wouldn't really want to be around them.
Chaotic Neutral, IMO, wouldn't seek community because they don't agree to rules and don't care for others success. Chaos is not evil inherently, and their neutrality is not evil. I see them more as true loners.
Lawful Evil would be the only option I can see as viable to communities. They enforce their edicts with heavy hands and strive to cast their dominion over their surroundings. Most of these should be ruled by an individual or single evil family poised to use their subjects to their own ends and silence opposition quickly. They know that laws are tools to enable their reign and use them accordingly.
These are the nations we'll need to stand against.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm hoping that as a Neutral-Good town we will be a fairly well organized and not too high of upkeep town... but if you walk into the shady parts of our settlements on the outskirts... there are thieves, there are smugglers, there are fences, there are people who deal in information or can write up an official looking document for you which may not be true etc.
Access to these kind of services may be more expensive than it is in a Chaotic Good town, just like a lot of other things will be cheaper in lawful good towns. But our neutral good town will just be a more well rounded place where it's easy to find MOST of what you are looking for as long as it isn't evil.
They probably won't hang signs on their doors outright declaring what they are like they might in a Chaotic Good town. You are probably going to ask around a bit before you find out that the tavern bard is the one who can forge a document for you. But they'll be there.
There should be a few things that will be better in neutral good towns than anywhere else as well in order to make it worthwhile for a neutral good kingdom not to fully segregate into lawful good and chaotic good settlements. In a lawful-good town if you need information you go to a private investigator. In a chaotic good town you would go to an information fence. In a neutral good town they are likely to be one and the same thing making them the best people to go to for information.
This is what I would optimally want to see. Not really a straight penalty for not conforming to the alignment system's idea of lawful, but a system where sometimes the CG characters might have to visit LG settlement for training and services, but almost just as often the LG characters would have to make an equivalent trip to the CG town.
I am asking basically the same questions as Suviont and it would be my first real disappointment with GW if there are not equivalent sets of bonuses for both ends of the lawful-chaotic spectrum.
I also think that the most efficient at fighting LE nations should be the CG rebels and freedom fighters who can sabotage and kidnap and assassinate and all of the guerrilla warfare techniques that LG would probably have too many scruples to follow through with. LG armies should be great as blunt instruments to slaughter all the CE scum hiding in the woods, but CG guerrilla warfare of attrition should be more resource efficient at attacking the similarly lawful armies of the LE nations. Large, set-piece field battles between lawful armies will obviously happen, and they'll be awesome, but it should be clear that the cost of LG v. LE is higher than that of CG v. LE.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let's keep in mind that being "Chaotic" is in itself disregarding rules and laws. Without adherance to some form of rules or laws you don't have a society and without society can't have a settlement per se.
I think that's what the devs are getting at by saying the more chaotic a group is, the less their settlement will function effectivly.
I see no possiblity that a chaotic evil character would even function in a settlement or company for that matter. They ignore laws and seek only to cause suffering on others. What place could they possible have in a community, and what group would want them? Even another CE character wouldn't really want to be around them.
Chaotic Neutral, IMO, wouldn't seek community because they don't agree to rules and don't care for others success. Chaos is not evil inherently, and their neutrality is not evil. I see them more as true loners.
Lawful Evil would be the only option I can see as viable to communities. They enforce their edicts with heavy hands and strive to cast their dominion over their surroundings. Most of these should be ruled by an individual or single evil family poised to use their subjects to their own ends and silence opposition quickly. They know that laws are tools to enable their reign and use them accordingly.
These are the nations we'll need to stand against.
I'm not sure where this idea of anyone who is chaotic as automatically being anarchist wackjobs is coming from. People like that are absolutely going to be chaotic, but depending on how the alignment rules for joining settlements wind up, Chaotic Good nations will have to be viable settlements to provide a place where Good characters can work with super-mercenary CN types when they need to.
Chaotic does not mean a disregard for laws, I think of it more as a disregard for tradition. A Chaotic Good character follows most of the laws happily, they are just more utilitarian in their ethics and ready to call bullshit on stupid laws and mores that are doing more harm than good in order to acheive their aims (altruistic for CG and indevidualistic for CN).
A Chaotic Good town can absolutely exist. It would be more lenient about shady people hanging around than a Lawful Good settlement. It would probably have lower taxes, and would certainly be far more likely to be a democracy than a Lawful Good settlement. In fact, it is probably a better place to live than a LG settlement because they are more likely to care about protecting your privacy and human rights. That is why there should be equal and different bonuses for chaotic settlements compared to lawful ones.
My go-to example of a Lawful Good government is Singapore. It's a first world country and is a great place to live, since the government works to make sure that everyone has an education, a job and a house. On the other hand, they have very thin protections of basic rights, the media is heavily censored and you literally get whipped for certain misdemeanors. Lawful Good means that it is run by good guys but it is still a police state and probably a dictatorship.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Caleth,
No, not all chaotic are anarchists. Many just don't even consider laws or rules. Hence they tend toward chaos.
A CG town could exist, yes, but I'd suspect it would change the rules often (for GOOD reasons) and operate less effectivly because of the ever changing chaotic nature of their community.
Anarchist would lean towards evil in my opinion. They break the rules in defiance of others to claim they are not subject to the wants and needs of the community. It is one of the pinnacles of selfishness, really.
I don't really agree with your point on law vs. tradition either. I don't think chaotic characters value either much at all. Nor do they consider themselves bound by many.
My idea of a LG town is one where there are set rules, everyone knows what they are, and those found breaking them are counceled to encourage rehabilitation while being given a voice as to why they chose to break the rule. As I see it, there is no real world example. The Good, don't tend to whip people with canes. I'd rank Singapore as LN.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Caleth,
No, not all chaotic are anarchists. Many just don't even consider laws or rules. Hence they tend toward chaos.
A CG town could exist, yes, but I'd suspect it would change the rules often (for GOOD reasons) and operate less effectivly because of the ever changing chaotic nature of their community.
We are just going to have to agree to disagree then. I see a CG town as making up for that efficiency loss by being more free and open both economically and socially.
Anarchist would lean towards evil in my opinion. They break the rules in defiance of others to claim they are not subject to the wants and needs of the community. It is one of the pinnacles of selfishness, really.
I don't really agree with your point on law vs. tradition either. I don't think chaotic characters value either much at all. Nor do they consider themselves bound by many.
The way I see it, the most quintessentially Chaotic thing you can do is to perform civil disobedience when you see an injustice. That is not selfish, that is principled. When that is the Civil Rights movement it is CG. When it is wide-scale contempt for copyright and intellectual property law, it is probably CN. In every case, chaotic people are happy following the vast majority of the laws, only breaking the ones that they think are stupid or wrong. I have always seen the law-chaos axis of alignment as the difference between Deontological and Utilitarian ethics respectively, not any broad generalizations about who is selfish and who is more civic minded.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A Chaotic Good character follows most of the laws happily, they are just more utilitarian in their ethics and ready to call b*&$!*&@ on stupid laws and mores that...
No you are wrong that is the definition of NUETRAL good. If you have been playing chaotic Good to mean that then you are home brewing a watered down Chaotic Good. This is a game mechanic designed to deny characters and NPC's access to magic and items. Chaos means chaos, you live outside the law and pay NO HEED to the law of the land only your moral compass. If you pay attention to laws ona utilitarian basis that is the very definition on Nuetral Good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Chaotic does not mean a disregard for laws, I think of it more as a disregard for tradition. A Chaotic Good character follows most of the laws happily, they are just more utilitarian in their ethics and ready to call b*$@+~@@ on stupid laws and mores that are doing more harm than good in order to acheive their aims (altruistic for CG and indevidualistic for CN).
I consider that more Neutral Good. To me chaotic implies a very "Down with the man!" type of attitude. They aren't just people who will wave aside the law if they feel it is needed. They will actively avoid being pinned down by any law or code unless they feel it is needed.
Chaotic good characters are why The Empyrean Order changed the phrasing of our rules from "Honor any agreement you make," to "Don't make agreements you don't intend to keep."
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Goblin Squad Member
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They probably won't hang signs on their doors outright declaring what they are like they might in a Chaotic Good town. You are probably going to ask around a bit before you find out that the tavern bard is the one who can forge a document for you. But they'll be there.
Andius, dear, do try not to reveal all of my secrets.
-- Alantia Nightfall, Bard
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Goblin Squad Member
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When that is the Civil Rights movement it is CG. When it is wide-scale contempt for copyright and intellectual property law, it is probably CN. In every case, chaotic people are happy following the vast majority of the laws, only breaking the ones that they think are stupid or wrong. I have always seen the law-chaos axis of alignment as the difference between Deontological and Utilitarian ethics respectively, not any broad generalizations about who is selfish and who is more civic minded.
The Civil rights movement is a perfect example of the differences between CG/LG/NG in the face of an injust society.
LG would go get a permit to protest, and make a LEGAL protest. that is not being chaotic, that is having a different opinion. A LEGAL protest by the KKK would be an example of lawful evil.
NG would fudge the lines, a peacful protest despite not getting the permit. Maybe some graffitti or a sit in that pushes the authorities to the brink.
CG is more radical, they might bomb or steal or hack a website, but genrally they will not kill unless in self defence. Once you cross the line to murder you have entered the good-evil axis.