Goblin Squad Member
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IMO flags should last longer, I don´t know how longer but just 10 min to criminal flag and seconds to heinous is too short time. Even if it is increasing along the number of times the criminal acts it still a short time to begin.
10 min, deppending of the distance from the nearest settlement will allow a criminal to kill, steal the stuff from the husk/caravan and then hide in his hideout for some minutes. So he goes out and cannot be killed by good people that are searching for him , without impacting their alignment. Don't sounds very much fair.
Let's rethink this time lenght please.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm really not a rules-lawyer type person. I would appreciate/hope someone who that sees a major fault with the latest info (e.g. Grumpy, Quandry, Andius, etc) could offer up a succinct version of the issue (s) and a solution (s). I know I would be thankful. :)
There is now a lot of noise/snipping in this thread and it is starting to become difficult to follow the arguments.
Thanks!
Personally, I've come to understand and accept Ryan's position.
However, it's clear that there's a valid concern among those who saw themselves playing Lawful Good characters hunting Chaotic Evil characters. In fact, that dynamic was portrayed by Ryan as being a primary method of becoming and staying Good. Now we're being told that this is actually Evil. That's a pretty big change, and I think it's perfectly reasonable that people are concerned.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel
So you are going to kill someone because they say something evil but you don't have any evidence they did an evil act (a flag) just because they said they did.
Where is that good?
The evidence is that they've self incriminated themselves and stated thier intentions to repeat the act.
In fact, in RL if someone stated they just blew up a bus and stated they were going to do so again and had what looked like a trigger in thier hand....I sure as heck wouldn't wait around for the explosion before acting....would you?
So you're telling me anyone who has claimed they did something evil and claim they are going to do something evil again should be shot on site because "Oh they must be evil and it's ok to kill them?" That does not sound good to me that sounds very CE.
Are you kidding me?
Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
IC there is no giant cosmic (Attacker) flag or (Criminal) flag that sits over characters heads that our characters can see. Heck, even with Bounties and Criminals, it's quite possible that the individual could have been framed or falsely accused...how many times have you seen that RP scenario? It's far more plausable then a character who detects as "Evil" who will not due future harm if not stopped. Good characters act on the REASONABLE belief that there actions will prevent future harm to innocents. In a High Fantasy Setting that means DESTROYING EVIL wherever/whenever it can be found. Maybe in exceptional circumstances it may be possible to imprison or banish Evil instead of killing it...but it's very rare that said circumstances are possible and PFO mechanics will not allow it.
When was the last time in a tabletop game you had a PC walk upto a Party of Drow, Mirandize them. Put them in cuffs. Take them back to the surface so they could call thier lawyers and be given a fair and impartial trial based on the evidence???
Is that your impression of what "Good" characters are supposed to do?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel The fact is: You can go and kill any bad guy you want, but you just need to do stuff that tune your alignment back to good. The game will offer mechanisms to do that, probably some PvE way. Maybe a quest or mission. So what is the big deal. You go do justice the way you want and just reset your alignment and do it again.
but at least admit that the way you intend to play you are going to be chaotic. Maybe CG but definitelly chaotic.
But that's not enough. They want to be able to murder these evil people on their own terms along with taking no alignment hit.
I think the solution is to realize this, and change their settlement laws so that murder is allowed. That way there would be no alignment hit for murdering anyone. (If I'm understanding things correctly).You really could chill out on the straw-man arguments, you know.
FYI, your understanding of GW's proposed alignment system is just wrong: not having a law against murder has no relevance to Evil alignment shifts, just Chaotic. Your solution is relevant only to your strawman argument universe: nobody is asking to have no alignment repurcussions for murdering ANYBODY.I *AM* asking why there is no fight against Evil that a CG character would initiate but a LG wouldn't (i.e. Good but Chaotic)?
That just seems really bizarre to me, that Good is so subjugated to Law that it can't exist independently.
Whether or not it is ALWAYS Good to attack an Evil person does not conflict with if there are situation-specific details which make it sometimes Good to attack an Evil person (in a non-Lawful way)
GW has given no such indication there are any, and their responces so far have been pretty hostile to the idea of considering any such change. (Lisa's post may indicate a change there, obviously)
I very well may be mistaken about a hex with no law against murder not giving an alignment shift if someone kills another player.
But after seeing Ryan's explanation Here and Lisa's comments about this being an extremely early form of crowdforging, a number of comments are starting to look like the posters wanting to change the Paladin class to reflect their version of it as opposed to PF, or GWs version of the role.
I was in agreement initially, but as many people have pointed out, there is a simple solution to the problem. Killing someone who has no flags in a hex with laws against murder IS an evil act. So ther alignment shifts toward evil By a Small Amount. So instead of the Paladin performing some act of devotion, something paladins normally would do, they a trying to say that it shouldn't be necessary, that they should receive no alignment hit.
I can't fathom the resistance to this simple solution. Playing a paladin is supposed to require sacrifices, it's supposed to be difficult. So maybe my post was somewhat harsh, i'll accept that. But I see no point in trying to convince the Devs to change something that hasn't even been made yet. As Lisa said, this process is ongoing and the thread has shown them that they need to take another look at the things discussed in this weeks blog, as well as the things discussed in this thread. Lets see what they come up with and go from there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
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Goblin Squad Member
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IMO flags should last longer, I don´t know how longer but just 10 min to criminal flag and seconds to heinous is too short time. Even if it is increasing along the number of times the criminal acts it still a short time to begin.
10 min, deppending of the distance from the nearest settlement will allow a criminal to kill, steal the stuff from the husk/caravan and then hide in his hideout for some minutes. So he goes out and cannot be killed by good people that are searching for him , without impacting their alignment. Don't sounds very much fair.
Let's rethink this time lenght please.
This is productive. It depends on "fun quotient of player logged for av. time of gaming session"; distance from "crime scene" to respawn and back again; how much timer is required to deter the proportion of the population and the therefore the frequency of some form of flagged actions... etc. What about who dog-eat-dog a chaotic or evil player's company is: As soon as they get flagged, they turn on each other? There's a lot of repercussions to the timers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One instance of the Heinous flag has been stated to only last for a small amount of time. However, in that same discussion it did not say it only will ever last that longHowever, when flags were first being discussed before there was a break out of all the different types of flag it was noted that how bad the act was and if you did it again while flagged would extend the length of the flag to the extent of it possibly becoming permanent.
That could work--if you're consistently doing evil in a way that makes you a viable target for LG characters, then that both allows LG characters to use force, but not at all times or without caveats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
No. You kill the criminal and your alignment shifts A LITTLE BIT towards evil. You still be a good guy and if you want you can go and make something (yet to be determined by the Devs) to move you alingment back to good that LITTLE BIT it moved to evil.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel The fact is: You can go and kill any bad guy you want, but you just need to do stuff that tune your alignment back to good. The game will offer mechanisms to do that, probably some PvE way. Maybe a quest or mission. So what is the big deal. You go do justice the way you want and just reset your alignment and do it again.
but at least admit that the way you intend to play you are going to be chaotic. Maybe CG but definitelly chaotic.
Not even. In an area where no laws exist (e.g. the wilderness) it would NOT be UNLAWFUL for a character to attack someone they believed was Evil and had future intent to do bad. It simply wouldn't register on the Law/Chaos axis unless it went against that characters personal code or sense of honor or perhaps the laws of thier own country.
It would be unlawful to go into a territory who's laws prohibited such action and commit it. But that's not the case described.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
No, it's just become very philosophical, the curse of Gary Gygax lives on!
Maybe one way to frame it is, the whole waiting for someone to attack first is to track over the long-term such initiators of pvp, being the key? For the single instance, of seeing a bad player in the wilderness and giving chase and bringing them down, maybe that's acceptable rarely, but not 100% of the time or even perhaps greater than 15% of the time?? So sure it does not make sense in the one instance, but cumulatively it adds up to even out?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
Its a moral decision with consequences.
You might hope that threatening the Assassin and letting him know he has been sprung will dissuade him.
You might decide to kill the assassin anyway (the evil hit may be minimal and acceptable).
You might walk away.
You might decide to try and disarm/sunder/grapple (the pathfinder equivalent of shooting the gun out of the bad guys hand I suppose).
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Goblin Squad Member
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No. You kill the criminal and your alignment shifts A LITTLE BIT towards evil. You still be a good guy and if you want you can go and make something (yet to be determined by the Devs) to move you alingment back to good that LITTLE BIT it moved to evil.
Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
So letting an innocent die when you could have prevented it is a GOOD action...
AND preventing the death of an innocent is an EVIL action?Are you SERIOUSLY trying to make that philosophical/cosmological arguement?????
That could work--if you're consistently doing evil in a way that makes you a viable target for LG characters, then that both allows LG characters to use force, but not at all times or without caveats.
One instance of the Heinous flag has been stated to only last for a small amount of time. However, in that same discussion it did not say it only will ever last that longHowever, when flags were first being discussed before there was a break out of all the different types of flag it was noted that how bad the act was and if you did it again while flagged would extend the length of the flag to the extent of it possibly becoming permanent.
Here is the quote from Stephen where he mentioned the heinous flag and how long it lasts. That quote can be found Here
Valandur wrote:
It would be beneficial for us to know how long the Heinous flag lasts provided no further heinous actions are committed. If nothing else, just a general idea would help.If its just something that will drop off after 15 mins, or if it persists for days will make a big difference.
Minutes, maybe even only seconds, not days.
For undead, it's likely to just be the time it takes to summon the undead (maybe plus a little bit if the summoning time is really quick). By the time you can be like, "What? THESE undead, Mr. Paladin? I got these as a bequest from my grandfather. A terrible act, of course, but it seems like wasting them would be an even greater crime!" then the opponent is on shakier moral ground.
It'd probably vary for other stuff, and it's up for debate regardless. Guiding rule would probably be if you're clearly in the process of doing something awful and any LG court in the world would consider it open and shut, then you'd get it, but if you've put any reasonable doubt in between you and the act, you only have to worry about it if you did it somewhere where it also got you the Criminal flag.
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Goblin Squad Member
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AND preventing the death of an innocent is an EVIL action?
Its how you go about it that might be EVIL.
Killing, Torture, Genocide, Terrorism, Blackmail, Kidnapping ... there is a long list of activities that are EVIL even if the end result is achieving something GOOD.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the act of killing is evil, why is it less evil to kill evil and more evil to kill good? Should they not all be the same value? That is if we are talking about the act itself.
With the logic that killing some is not so bad, then why is the idea that killing some might be good not taken into account?
I think it would be much simpler and cleaner if they used the following rules.
1. You kill good you move towards evil.
2. You kill evil you move towards good.
3. Leave the rules in place for law and chaos. They still need to be flushed out more but I agree with much of what I have seen.
4. Remove the in game mechanical effects on alignment.
5. Leave the in game effects for reputation.
Basically this turns alignment into a pure RP thing where it belongs. Reputation I can see as a mechanic to limit some of the RPK alone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No. You kill the criminal and your alignment shifts A LITTLE BIT towards evil. You still be a good guy and if you want you can go and make something (yet to be determined by the Devs) to move you alingment back to good that LITTLE BIT it moved to evil.
Right so you stand around and let them press the button to see if the bus full of kids explodes before you do anything... that sounds like the "GOOD" act.
It's not a good idea to bring real world politics into this. There is sure to be someone somewhere reading this that has had a relative or friend shot by security forces because they "might" be a threat.
Let us be very clear that the D&D/Gary Gygax alignment system is not connected in any strong/rigorous way with real world politics and morality. (for starters there is no Christian/Jewish/Muslim one true god)
Fair enough...So in Pathfinder you encounter a scene where an Assasin is poised to plunge the knife in the back of an innocent....
According to Dak...apparently the "Good" thing to do is to wait until AFTER the knifes been plunged and the innocent dead before you act?
Does anyone think it's absurd we are even arguing this point?
So letting an innocent die when you could have prevented it is a GOOD action...
AND preventing the death of an innocent is an EVIL action?Are you SERIOUSLY trying to make that philosophical/cosmological arguement?????
Do you remmeber that is a game and not real life right?
Games are not perfect man... a computer cannot (yet) know what you are thinking while you kill someone (even if that person is evil) so the DEVs need to set some limits. Are that limits perfect ? No, but we may need to live with that and adapt.
For the sake of RP in a situation like that I would just pretend my alignment moved toward evil in that situation just because a was very mad at that guy and full of hate in my heart after I killed him. So I would do the attonement quest, or somrthing like that, and go back to my game affairs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...
However this is NOT just that...this is also an ALIGNMENT system....something that defines your characters VERY IDENTITY...a large part of thier CORE BEING....thier MORALE COMPASS and where they stand in relation to the Cosmology...and even who they are allowed to associate with.
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Why are you painting yourself as the victim of your alignment?
Your alignment doesn't decide your moral compass. Your alignment doesn't give you identity nor who you can associate with.
You determine your alignment. Your moral compass determines the actions you take that in turn dictate your alignment. You hang with people because your and their personalities resonate harmoneously.
Mel you are again putting the cart before the horse and wondering aloud why the world looks backwards.
I think it would be much simpler and cleaner if they used the following rules.
1. You kill good you move towards evil.
2. You kill evil you move towards good.
3. Leave the rules in place for law and chaos. They still need to be flushed out more but I agree with much of what I have seen.
4. Remove the in game mechanical effects on alignment.
You just mentioned a bunch of mechanical effects on alignenment that you want in the game, and then say you don't want mechanical effects on alignment in the game. OK.
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Goblin Squad Member
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WRT to killing to prevent a crime (probably an unlikely scenario in PFO)
The idea that the Ends justify the Means is a controversial one.
Avoiding current real world politics and looking historically ...
- Genocide as a means of securing homeland security is usually not seen as justified and is often a war crime.
- WWII style strategic bombing of civilian populations remains controversial but is not a war crime.
- Increased security and infringing normal civil liberties in times of high threat is usually seen as justified.
- Torture as a means of obtaining information is normally not seen as justified.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
If you hole up and do nothing, sure. If you get out there and fight, you might take an alignment ding, but you work it off and move on. If you're just out there hunting for black hats to whack, then you're becoming evil whether you admit it to yourself or not.
The solution isn't to dumb this down into an Alliance/Horde faction system, it's to make those who want to protect others find ways to bodyguard more effectively, and to find ways to work off the little dings you take when you do have to fire the opening volley.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the act of killing is evil, why is it less evil to kill evil and more evil to kill good?
Because it isn't only the loss of life that is being measured, but the increase or decrease of good or evil as well.
Should they not all be the same value? That is if we are talking about the act itself.
Nope, not all are of the same value if there is good and evil.
With the logic that killing some is not so bad, then why is the idea that killing some might be good not taken into account?
The killing is not good in both cases, but where the increase in evil is counterbalanced by a decrease in evil then the whole act is less evil than it would be were the killing decreasing the good.
I think it would be much simpler and cleaner if they used the following rules.
1. You kill good you move towards evil.
2. You kill evil you move towards good.
3. Leave the rules in place for law and chaos. They still need to be flushed out more but I agree with much of what I have seen.
4. Remove the in game mechanical effects on alignment.
5. Leave the in game effects for reputation.
I think doing it like that would be a great loss.
Basically this turns alignment into a pure RP thing where it belongs.
No, it is turning the subject of one of the greatest conversations in history, human nature as good and evil, into a frivolity for the sake of expediency and convenience.
That would be a tragedy in itself.
We do not need more people with no idea of the difference between right and wrong (whether they hold assault rifles or butterfly knives) and we could use more people who will work together to possibly accomplish greatness.
Why not try and make the best of these tools we are being offered instead of dumbing it down into meaninglessness?
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Goblin Squad Member
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You just mentioned a bunch of mechanical effects on alignenment that you want in the game, and then say you don't want mechanical effects on alignment in the game. OK.I think it would be much simpler and cleaner if they used the following rules.
1. You kill good you move towards evil.
2. You kill evil you move towards good.
3. Leave the rules in place for law and chaos. They still need to be flushed out more but I agree with much of what I have seen.
4. Remove the in game mechanical effects on alignment.
No I list tools for role players and saying the rep system can be used like security status in Eve.
I am not a roleplayer. I look at the mechanics and balance. This Good gets this, evil gets that, chaos get this, law gets that is not going to work. People will min max and figure out what is the perfect one for their settlement and use it.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think he said attacking someone and getting the attacker flag moves you to chaotic, killing them is the evil part. So a CG character would be ok with starting the fight, it is just the "finishing" it that becomes the issue. I would LOVE for there to be some mechanic in-game where good character (or people who just rather not kill all the time) to knock out someone or otherwise just subdue them. That way, it isn't killing them and we don't get the evil for it, but we still "defeat them" and get the satisfation and MAYBE limited loot from it. Not sure exactly, it is just an idea, but there it is. I think someone had asked about this before.
What do we think? would this help those good people trying to stay good? Even being evil, expecially if I go lawful, I might have use for a knock out technique here and there.
I was thinking the same thing as I was reading the article. A very underplayed aspect of the pen and paper game is the use of non-lethal damage to knock out instead of outright kill foes.
Currently in most open PvP games there is no real distinction between 'good' PvP and 'bad' PvP. A bystander who jumps into a furball on behalf of the defender gets slapped almost as hard as the original atttacker. The down side is I see Chaotic 'good' griefers who just about assaulting and knocking people out (looting or no looting). Provided there is still some kind of alignment shift based on who you attack it could work out.
Chaotic Netural then becomes the home of the aggravatingly unpredictable, but said player isn't as likely to kill you dead and take every last bit of loot off your body, maybe just your pocket change and any lose items. This makes it distinct from Chatoic Evil and not just a way station along the path.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm really not a rules-lawyer type person. I would appreciate/hope someone who that sees a major fault with the latest info (e.g. Grumpy, Quandry, Andius, etc) could offer up a succinct version of the issue (s) and a solution (s). I know I would be thankful. :)
There is now a lot of noise/snipping in this thread and it is starting to become difficult to follow the arguments.
Thanks!
Personally, I've come to understand and accept Ryan's position.
However, it's clear that there's a valid concern among those who saw themselves playing Lawful Good characters hunting Chaotic Evil characters. In fact, that dynamic was portrayed by Ryan as being a primary method of becoming and staying Good. Now we're being told that this is actually Evil. That's a pretty big change, and I think it's perfectly reasonable that people are concerned.
I completely agree. I want to understand the counter-position.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I completely agree. I want to understand the counter-position.I'm really not a rules-lawyer type person. I would appreciate/hope someone who that sees a major fault with the latest info (e.g. Grumpy, Quandry, Andius, etc) could offer up a succinct version of the issue (s) and a solution (s). I know I would be thankful. :)
There is now a lot of noise/snipping in this thread and it is starting to become difficult to follow the arguments.
Thanks!
Personally, I've come to understand and accept Ryan's position.
However, it's clear that there's a valid concern among those who saw themselves playing Lawful Good characters hunting Chaotic Evil characters. In fact, that dynamic was portrayed by Ryan as being a primary method of becoming and staying Good. Now we're being told that this is actually Evil. That's a pretty big change, and I think it's perfectly reasonable that people are concerned.
My personal impression only was Ryan was meaning more the hunting down of Chaotic Evil NPCs (trolls and the like) and countering Chaotic Evil player machinations in game. I believe that hunting down player characters just because they chose/became Chaotic Evil as an alignment was never meant to be encouraged at any stage.
Otherwise we may as well just play WoW.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way some people want the alignment mechanism to be is just good players having a free-pass to kill evil ones.
So if I was a griefer I would just do a good aligned char and start to kill EVERY player I met that is evil, over, and over, and over and over as I would get no alignment shif and no flag.
/It won't be a long way to evil be the oppressed side, so evil players would face two logical choices: quit the game or move to a good or neutral aligned char to be safe.
You cannot give any alignment a free-pass to kill anybody of an opposite alignment without consequences, or people will just abuse your system, period.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@LordDaeron,
The whole point of threads like these is NOT to take whatever GW puts forward and find some way to rationalize a way to play around them. It's to look at the proposed mechanics and critique them...find flaws, holes, exploits, logical incongruities and see if we can suggest improvements, yes?
So first we should try to see if we can come to some agreement on what the cosmological results AUGHT to be (which actualy seems to be the point of contention between me and Dak in this instance) ... then we should see if there is some way to make the mechanics better reflect the expected results, yes?
So forget the mechanics for a minute. What are the correct cosmoligical results?
The character has 2 options...throw a dagger at the Assasin and maybe kill them preventing the innocent from being slain.... OR
stand by and do nothing while the innocent gets slain.
You are the GM...Make the ruling Alignment wise.
Then we can take a look if there is maybe a better way to do the mechanics then GW has currentlty proposed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being I don't multi quote but I'd like to address one of the items you bring up. This is not about good and evil in the real world. I am actually quite the pacifist in RL. Well now I am but that because of age and experience.
This is about a mechanic in a game were sides will be drawn. The war between 2 settlements needs to be balanced. I see strong problems if one side has access to some forms of training, crafts, or NPCs and the other doesn't.
I also see balance issues when the people with the most PvP combat experience will likely be neutral or worse. Limiting their personal training tree's, roles they can choose, and gear they can buy.
I think a high reputation CE (I hope it's possible for some)character should have the same access as a LG character.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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@Ryan
I too am concerned about the alignment system and the flag system.
It might be because it sounds very complex, a lot of different flags each having their own set of triggers and consequences.
We are too.
-Combative/pvp minded players will feel they are forced to be evil, even though they like to play as good but also enjoy a healthy portion of pvp.
Most people who want to fight will likely do so as a part of struggles for territory, of which there will be many. I seriously doubt there will be any lack of action with reasonably little consequence to individual characters for those who seek it out. Warfare will be continuous, large scale, and challenging.
Virtually this entire 400+ thread focuses on the very small corner case of how does a VERY good character avoid ANY meaningful penalty when fighting VERY evil characters in very small engagements that randomly occur in the wilderness.
In the "real game", this whole question will very likely be a non-issue.
Such activity will be reasonably rare, will usually reflect metagame considerations like Settlements reconfiguring alliances and shifting to new territories, or "events" created by players for their own amusement.
-Good settlements will mainly hold crafters and non-combative people. Making it easy targets.
Any Settlement that isn't prepared to field a very good, very large combat force will be crushed. A Settlement that is full of rich economic assets and doesn't have a good army will have a very, very short life.
Realistically what is going to happen is that people who are good at organizing, good at communicating and good at social networking are going to have the most successful Settlements. Those people are not going to be the ones who are out seeking random "for the lulz" PvP. There will likely be a sizeable number of such Settlements, because the best of those organizers like to be "king". But they'll also have the social tools to network between each other and forge alliances that allow them to come to one another's aid rapidly when needed. Many of these Settlements will be "Good" aligned because the people who lead them and their immediate circles of friends like to think of themselves in that way, and the actions they engage in don't conflict with that self-view.
There will be one or two proportionately large "evil" groups, who will exist in a kind of protean soup, constantly changing names and leaders, but if you take a few steps back you'll recognize that it's basically the same people through all the permutations. The big "evil" groups will occasionally spark a big war, occasionally self-destruct (temporarily before they almost immediately reform), and are consumed internally with bickering and backstabbing like a bunch of teenage girls in a too-small highschool. (By the way, many of the people in these "evil" groups will operate under the philosophy that they are really the "good" group, and that the alignment system of the game is a joke, designed to highlight hypocrisy and designer stupidity, and when they're not out attempting to kill as many inexperienced and unprotected characters and destroy as many badly organized Settlements as possible, they'll expound on these "truths" at length in every forum available to them.)
[These "Evil" groups, by the way, create a ginormous amount of content for everyone else. They're the dynamo that drives the action in the game.]
In between will be a vast sea of constantly generating, growing, collapsing and reconfiguring Settlements that never seem to be able to make much headway or which focus on things like being high-end crafters or mercenaries. Whenever they get too big or too organized, they get stomped on, and they won't have leaders who are adept enough to hold the entity together under a concentrated assault. The territory they hold will often be associated with one of the larger good or evil groups - they will hold territory by permission, not by will, and in turn they'll owe fealty and obligations to their patrons. These groups will have alignments all over the map (as befits their various leader's opinions of who they are and what they are doing). Once in a very long while, a young upstart group will break out of the pack and grow large enough, fast enough, to stand as a peer to the other large entities, and that will force considerable reconfigurations in the balance of politics, diplomacy, war and economics throughout the whole game.
This, by the way, is pretty much how EVE developed over the years, I'm not just making this up out of my imagination.
-A paladin will mainly be a pve content player. As it is hard to do pvp and stay within the alignment requirements.
I think this is likely true but certainly not absolute.
-players not affiliated to a player settlement/organization (and therefor not able to be pulled in a war) will be able to target LG settlements players in the settlement hex and not be punished if they do hit and runs.
They'll lose Reputation and slide towards Chaotic Evil. They'll therefore become content for defenders and bounty hunters, and they'll find that the places where they can live tend to be crappy.
Remaining bound to an NPC Settlement will limit their access to training. As they slide further towards Chaotic Evil, and as their reputation drops, they'll find that they are forced to relocate to very undesirable Settlements. Those Settlements will likely be a long way (physically) from the Good aligned Settlements, making the trek from their respawn points to where the "targets" are increasingly hard.
Most players will likely find this very unsatisfactory.
-for each crafter going out of the settlement hex to gather resources you would need several people protecting the crafter and mining expedition
We absolutely want this to happen.
still be overwhelmed by the evil players.
Your guards suck, your logistics suck, your command & control sucks, and you need to rethink your operational plan if this keeps happening. The harvesters always have the biggest advantage: They can simply go somewhere else if a particular area becomes too dangerous.
Because in my opinion there will be a lot more evil players than good due to the alignment system. (this is just how it feels from reading the blog and the posts here)
As I've said before I think most characters will tend towards chaotic good. The number of humans who really enjoy mindlessly killing others is much smaller than people think it is, but the damage they can do to a community or to a game design that doesn't anticipate their actions is massively disproportionate to their numbers.
RyanD
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Goblin Squad Member
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@LordDaeron,
The whole point of threads like these is NOT to take whatever GW puts forward and find some way to rationalize a way to play around them. It's to look at the proposed mechanics and critique them...find flaws, holes, exploits, logical incongruities and see if we can suggest improvements, yes?
So first we should try to see if we can come to some agreement on what the cosmological results AUGHT to be (which actualy seems to be the point of contention between me and Dak in this instance) ... then we should see if there is some way to make the mechanics better reflect the expected results, yes?
So forget the mechanics for a minute. What are the correct cosmoligical results?
The character has 2 options...throw a dagger at the Assasin and maybe kill them preventing the innocent from being slain.... OR
stand by and do nothing while the innocent gets slain.You are the GM...Make the ruling Alignment wise.
Then we can take a look if there is maybe a better way to do the mechanics then GW has currentlty proposed.
So you tell me, how they should do that?
The way some people want the alignment mechanism to be is just good players having a free-pass to kill evil ones.
So if I was a griefer I would just do a good aligned player and start to kill EVERY player I met that is evil, over, and over, and over and over as I would get no alignment shif and no flag.
/It won't be a long way to evil be the oppressed side, so evil players would face two logical choices: quit the game or move to a good or neutral aligned char to be safe.
You cannot give any alignment a free-pass to kill anybody of an opposite alignment without consequences, or people will just abuse your system, period.
Better watch out, you'll be playing with the Scarecrow, or is it the Tinman? One of those yellow brick road types... <g>
I agree with your point. We don't need to open up more ways to abuse the games mechanics when tying to fix something that's not yet been created and might not even be broken.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I completely agree. I want to understand the counter-position....
Personally, I've come to understand and accept Ryan's position.However, it's clear that there's a valid concern among those who saw themselves playing Lawful Good characters hunting Chaotic Evil characters. In fact, that dynamic was portrayed by Ryan as being a primary method of becoming and staying Good. Now we're being told that this is actually Evil. That's a pretty big change, and I think it's perfectly reasonable that people are concerned.
I don't know whether I can help very well but at least I feel fairly comfortable with what I have taken away from what Ryan said.
Whether what I took away maps well to his meaning is beyond my paygrade. But I'll offer up my take on things for whatever value it may hold.
It will be only lawful and good to attack and kill chaotic evil player characters under certain specific conditions, which so far i believe are declared war and if they have recently committed heinous acts.
Part of the controversy is how long the heinous flags last: official word currently is 'not long' to paraphrase. In this matter I am comfortable because there is still that period of time when they can be terminated with relative impunity. War is a special case that does not appear to be in contention, at least not yet.
But then we have the issue of combatting evil outside those two sanctions.
As the most extreme case let us continue to use the Paladin as our example. The Paladin, last I knew, is only lawful good despite the objection that paladins can be devoted to any god and therefore must only remain the alignment of that god. But the Paladin I know is LG so that is what I would use as our arena case.
If the LG Paladin loses his LG alignment then he also loses his iconic Paladin abilities like aura of good, bless, smite, turn undead, whatever. He essentially becomes a weakened fighter if he falls.
So it is really really important for a paladin to know what his alignment is and how close he is to the edge of another alignment. It is also critically important that he not stray from the straight and narrow, so many here want it to be true that it is good to kill evil, even if that evil is another player character.
So at one time Ryan apparently said that hunting CE is the primary way LG gains LG alignment.
Now Ryan has said that hunting down and terminating with prejudice a CE Player Character is an evil act unless that evil PC is under a criminal flag (or war, etc.).
Then he came back after a bit of our, um, conversation and pointed out that it is a different thing to kill a CE monster than it is to kill a CE Player Character.
Notice that is significantly different from saying you fight CE to gain LG but killing CE is evil. The difference is in the Player Character.
So here's the problem: that player has every bit as much right to role play a ce character as any paladin has to role play an LG character. It is just as evil to try and force that player out of alignment or ruin his gameplay experience as it is for him to force you out of yours or ruin your gameplay experience.
Whether his character is evil or not. Period. End of story. If you are going to terminate him expect the same negative consequences to accrue to you as they do to him. And if you continue doing that sort of thing you will find yourself a CE character and make do with being the content for other players.
Did I get that right or not?
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Goblin Squad Member
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The way some people want the alignment mechanism to be is just good players having a free-pass to kill evil ones.
So if I was a griefer I would just do a good aligned char and start to kill EVERY player I met that is evil, over, and over, and over and over as I would get no alignment shif and no flag.
/It won't be a long way to evil be the oppressed side, so evil players would face two logical choices: quit the game or move to a good or neutral aligned char to be safe.
You cannot give any alignment a free-pass to kill anybody of an opposite alignment without consequences, or people will just abuse your system, period.
I don't think I have read anyone saying no flag. I might have missed it. I am fully against the idea of sliding to evil for killing evil. I do however support bounties, death curse, and criminal flags for killing.
These mechanisms are on the Law vs' Chaos axis and I believe I stated to leave them in place. Then again I am not all of the people against this. So if you wanted to play a LG character you would not have to worry about sliding to evil for doing as you say but every other mechanic is in place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being
Why do you think that killing CE players will ruin a LG paladin?
As it is now, killing evil will just shif A LITTLE BIT the alignment toward evil, not make him evil instantly, and the DEVs are going to create mechanisms to reset that alignment move.
What prevents a LG paladin from killing a CE player (or several) and just control his alignment bar (or something like that) and do the stuf he needs to move back to full good alignment?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Elorebaen,
We kind of have multiple issues going on here but I'll try, at least, to summerize one (from my perspective).
One of the tennants of the High Fantasy genre is the classical struggle between Good and Evil. Each strives to destroy the other. Evil does so because it's in Evil's nature to destroy. Good does so because it's the ONLY way to effective prevent the harm that Evil will do to the World.
Champions of Good go out into the world to PROACTIVELY go out into the World and do battle with Evil. That's one of the Classic Hero stories in Fantasy and in fact, what a very large number of Pathfinder/D&D Campaigns are about.
The expectation I (and I think most people will) have is that when a Good character goes out into the world and defeats a character who they KNOW to be utterly Evil and who is, in fact, Evil and WILL do Evil unto others if left unmolested is that the GOOD character has commited a GOOD action. The problem is that under the proposed mechanics the OPPOSITE result is assigned by the system. The system adjucates this as a Chaotic and Evil action.
The system does so because ATTACKING and DEFEATING another character is automaticaly adjucated a Chaotic Evil action regardless of who the combatants are, save under a few conditions which are trivialy easy for the Evil character to avoid or apply only to a few specialy chosen (bounty hunters granted a bounty) individuals.
Since a characters alignment is an important facet of that characters identity and even controls what Chatered Companies/Settlements that character can be a member of...that concerns me greatly from a RP perspective.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What prevents a LG paladin from killing a CE player (or several) and just control his alignment bar (or something like that) and do the stuf he needs to move back to full good alignment?
Sounds pretty Evil thing to do to me.
Then again whenever I played Paladins they were more Stupid/Good believing that even the most evil of characters was "redeemable" and should be given a chance to repent and pay their dues.
I never did like the sanctimonious/pious/self-righteous revivalsit bible thumping style Paladins.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being I don't multi quote but I'd like to address one of the items you bring up. This is not about good and evil in the real world. I am actually quite the pacifist in RL. Well now I am but that because of age and experience.
This is about a mechanic in a game were sides will be drawn. The war between 2 settlements needs to be balanced. I see strong problems if one side has access to some forms of training, crafts, or NPCs and the other doesn't.
I also see balance issues when the people with the most PvP combat experience will likely be neutral or worse. Limiting their personal training tree's, roles they can choose, and gear they can buy.
I think a high reputation CE (I hope it's possible for some)character should have the same access as a LG character.
Didn't mean to be pointing it at you personally Ludy.
I understand you want CE settlements to have equal training facilities with LG settlements. I don't think it will happen and I think it is for good reasons. However there may be something that has not been said.
It is possible if you get that advanced that other opportunities may open up for the veteren CE player that are not dependent on your poor settlement. For example the gates of hell have just opened up fairly near the region we will be inhabiting and it is conceivable that certain 'other' training opportunities could become available to the CEs. I don't know if that is in the cards or not. Just recommending to not limit your horizons.
But currently last word I heard is that there is little reason to play CE unless that is what you enjoy, because you will be the game content for other alignment players.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel
maybe the solution is just a mechanism to allow to good chars to just fight but not kill the evil in the end, as has been suggested by many people, including me in several threads. You may be able to just surrender o inprision an evil char and not get any alignmente penalty by doing that. I'm sure the DEVs will at least consider that option.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Elorebaen,
The expectation I (and I think most people will) have is that when a Good character goes out into the world and defeats a character who they KNOW to be utterly Evil and who is, in fact, Evil and WILL do Evil unto others if left unmolested is that the GOOD character has commited a GOOD action. The problem is that under the proposed mechanics the OPPOSITE result is assigned by the system. The system adjucates this as a Chaotic and Evil action.
No ..we obviously played under different DMs.
Or you played in online MMO's one or the other.
In Living Greyhawk (this was THE official pre-pathfinder 3.5 Wizards of the Coast official world-wide campaign) actions had consequences. My level 10 Paladin was actually jailed and almost had to do an atonement (her actions were reported to her church) because their unicorn bonded mount killed some thugs that were bullying innocents. (it did not help their cause with authorities that they initially pretended the unicorn was just some random magical beastie that had wandered into town).
It is absolutely NOT the standard practice in all areas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Wow. Not sure what to say. There goes my whole chartered company's concept.I think this is likely true but certainly not absolute.
-A paladin will mainly be a pve content player. As it is hard to do pvp and stay within the alignment requirements.
If you issue a war against every evil group around your settlement you can still keep you charted company concept IMO. Just do it through war.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The big "evil" groups will occasionally spark a big war, occasionally self-destruct (temporarily before they almost immediately reform), and are consumed internally with bickering and backstabbing like a bunch of teenage girls in a too-small highschool.
Ouch!
(By the way, many of the people in these "evil" groups will operate under the philosophy that they are really the "good" group, and that the alignment system of the game is a joke, designed to highlight hypocrisy and designer stupidity, and when they're not out attempting to kill as many inexperienced and unprotected characters and destroy as many badly organized Settlements as possible, they'll expound on these "truths" at length in every forum available to them.)
Dang. . . you sound so jaded when you talk about the evil side of the equation! You're probably right, but I still like to think there are plenty of people out there that are wanting to play evil characters from a cool "story" or "RP" perspective.
I think it would be awesome if the River Kingdoms fell under the orderly rule of the church of Asmodeus . . . a chicken in every pot, but a boot on every neck. Is that something you foresee as possible given the design you are moving forward with?
Thanks for the attention you're showing this thread, btw. I know I'm not the only one who enjoys being part of the creative process.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you issue a war against every evil group around your settlement you can still keep you charted company concept IMO. Just do it through war.
Well obviously, or catch them in the act of aggressing when they are an attacker and group with the victim.
But the complaint seems to be from people who want the right to gang-bang anyone with an evil descriptor even if they are out collecting flowers in the garden near their own house.
what does being jailed have to do with alignment, specifically good/evil alignment?
paladins can easily run into problems on law/chaos issues, regardless if it is good or not.
i don't understand why you're bringing up 'actions have consequences'...
at minimum, you have one more person who wants to kill you.
players who want to go around randomly killing EVERYBODY will move to chaotic evil.
players who don't do that, but only seek out evil forces to combat
(murder and necromancy/slavery is the only evil causing actions we know of so far)
...should have the exact same consequence? even though they are pursuing different actions/goals?
If you issue a war against every evil group around your settlement you can still keep you charted company concept IMO. Just do it through war.
well, that sounds very lawful.
so what about chaotic good, for whom formal declarations and legal statuses should be less important to their dedication to good?