Goblin Squad Member
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Fear the Boot did an interview or two with Mark Kalmes last December during the Kickstarter which brought most of us here. In their most recent episode, they discuss what it really means to be playing the 'good' guys in a game where most players do whatever is expedient and rationalize it however they must. Does the fact that players know it's all fiction tend to make them more callous and less empathetic? Does that actually help to model realistic cultural norms in a time and place where life is treated far more cheaply?
Yep, they opened ye olde alignment debate. Somewhere, a tin named 'Pandora' is oozing annelids. :P
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Fear the Boot, Episode 315 – playing the good guys
* (0:41) The dangers in lifting the veil.
* (3:24) Playing the good guys. Many players think they’re being good, even though their actions may not reflect that. The draw of shortcuts when getting to a goal.
* (6:57) The moral distance a game provides. The role of genre in providing moral context.
* (22:58) The role of GMs in guiding player-character behavior. The necessity of defining what it means to be good.
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Of course, BATMAN shows up, as he practically always does on this topic.
“Wayne’s Law: As a discussion of alignment grows longer, the probability of Batman being suggested as an example of any given alignment approaches 1.”
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I would counter that in this case, the reason actions some could regard as "callous" come about is more the environment than the anonymity. In a sandbox game, any action you take has repercussions, and any resource you obtain is being denied to someone else (whether actively, through banditry, or through denying them the opportunity to collect it themselves). In such an environment, with limited resources and potential danger from every other person (much like real life), it seems to be normal behavior for people to watch out for themselves, and protect their own interests. Different people will go about this fundamental goal in different ways, and how they determine their choices, and how others view them, generally defines whether that person's actions are of a certain alignment.
Basically what I'm getting at is, if this were a game where resources weren't necessary enough to be a point of contention, or where every other person was unable to do you harm, then everyone's need to protect themselves is satisfied, and they have no reason to be guarded against others. However, because this game will be different from that, and people will need to be distrusting of strangers and careful with their resources to protect their own interests.
It makes alignment a particularly interesting statement in such an environment. If the default human behavior in this environment is selfishness, is the normal human nature Evil by normal alignment standards? If not, at what point does the selfishness become Evil? And what of good; is that merely going against the normal survival instincts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Banesama I think they're talking more about tabletop than MMO in the podcast; anonymity isn't a factor. What I got from it was that (most) games are built around combat; combat is the primary resolution to almost any conflict in many games. I think the idea that the fantasy milieu is more prone to violent resolution is a red herring; most RPGs are just based in environments that allow violent resolution because they're war games at heart.
I do like their points that moral absolutism is key; the game/GM must define the model of good/evil. It's sort of up to players to build characters with moral centers. A character can be mostly good or mostly evil, but the player has to define his character's limits. Even then, a character can change in the course of a game due to events, that's good story-telling. It really doesn't matter if it's sandbox or themepark or tabletop, seemingly good characters will do evil acts if that's the only choice they think they have, so it's up to the game to allow good and evil options or choices.
They did have an interesting point - there can be in-game consequences to behavior; what happens around you due to your 'good' or 'evil' acts. There's also an internal consequence; what happens to your character based on the acts she has taken. I think PFO may advance this somewhat, with alignment consequences to specific acts. I think that a large frontier of consequences, internal and external, may be left for future game designs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The "killing the baby orc" bit reminded me of what my group of friends refers to as our "save the orc!" campaign. On the other hand, the same player who worried about the orc in that campaign also stabbed the mayor with a different character in a different campaign. Very different approaches to morality and proof that playing good or bad can be equally interesting, and equally complex.
This was a very good listen, and apropos to a discussion I was having elsewhere; I love serendipitous connections like that.
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During a conversation with a number of fellow players recently, there was a guess the alignment system would be too difficult to implement properly, that it would prove unpopular with the general public after open enrollment began, and it would eventually be abandoned in favor of a more "player controlled environment" where actions had no alignment related consequences at all. That in the interest of profits the entire alignment system would be tossed out to swell the subscriber rolls and assuage the players who would come in and complain about the characters being "judged" for what they did to other players.
It will be interesting to see how that situation develops, as most games that DO rollout with an innovative mechanic get pummeled by the WoWheads or EVEheads, and the developers are asked to "dumb down the game so I can play it MY way"!
I hope the alignment system works, and stays, and thrives. I'd love to see all the players who behave as they normally do slowly shove themselves into a corner of isolation as outcasts, shunned en masse by all the players that are attracted to the Pathfinder world, lore and play style that came to the River Kingdoms for the same reason I am attracted to it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All:
Yes, Fear the Boot is mostly a tabletop gaming podcast, but topics like alignment apply to any game that has some way of tracking how you behave and adjusting how the environment reacts to you based on your standing.
Keovar, thanks for this!
You're welcome!
I actually listen to a bunch of podcasts, but a few of the gaming ones are:The Walking Eye: Their most recent episode is about the phenomenon of Kickstarter, and they also do 'actual play' recordings of various games, reviews of those games, interviews with the game designers, and discussions of issues affecting gamer/geek culture.
Know Direction: They're about Pathfinder in general, mostly covering the tabletop version, but they also have the occasional PFO episode like their coverage of a PFO seminar at GenCon. Setting/lore information could apply to both PFRPG & PFO, of course. They also happen to be running a Kickstarter of their own right now.
And of course there's Gobbocast!, which is all about PFO. :)
(I was able to add Gobbocast to Feedly on my computer, but not on the iPad which I usually listen to podcasts on, and I can't add it to iTunes on either device yet. Any ideas?)
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It will be interesting to see how that situation develops, as most games that DO rollout with an innovative mechanic get pummeled by the WoWheads or EVEheads, and the developers are asked to "dumb down the game so I can play it MY way"!
Well it has been stated that PFO will set its aim for long-term success within a niched crowd of gamers. As long as the game is popular enough to continually grow (as per the business plan), I expect and hope that the "WoWheads'" complaints and demands to steer the game away from its vision will be ignored.
I believe GW are full aware of the long-term danger in conforming to popular demand in order to increase initial profits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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During a conversation with a number of fellow players recently, there was a guess the alignment system would be too difficult to implement properly, that it would prove unpopular with the general public after open enrollment began, and it would eventually be abandoned in favor of a more "player controlled environment" where actions had no alignment related consequences at all. That in the interest of profits the entire alignment system would be tossed out to swell the subscriber rolls and assuage the players who would come in and complain about the characters being "judged" for what they did to other players.
It will be interesting to see how that situation develops, as most games that DO rollout with an innovative mechanic get pummeled by the WoWheads or EVEheads, and the developers are asked to "dumb down the game so I can play it MY way"!
I hope the alignment system works, and stays, and thrives. I'd love to see all the players who behave as they normally do slowly shove themselves into a corner of isolation as outcasts, shunned en masse by all the players that are attracted to the Pathfinder world, lore and play style that came to the River Kingdoms for the same reason I am attracted to it.
Here's where I think Alignments works in stories:
1) Power is the representation of the character's outward growth
2) The best stories demonstrate some sort of alignment with their inner growth and I think this pretty much is what Alignment can be boiled down / reduced to. "Growth being negative or positive in this case ie "more of "it" towards a destination aka creating your own destiny".
3) In most mmorpgs you only have 1) and lip-service for 2) perhaps a minor narratative during a quest that is pre-cooked.
4) So why add this dimension? Well the intention is to put your character in an environment where it's actions have repercussions that the game world can record and modify the "destination" that character making for themselves.
5) Alignment works a bit like religion and seems strongly tied in fact to it. a) Those gods are watching your actions and will reward/punish you even when you are alone and no one is looking b) As well as living a physical reality (I hit you on the head with this sword = ouch!) adding this extra measurement is including a "religious reality" that characters are living which accords with relating to the rules used by other characters in the same group being SHARED ie 'playing by the same rules' and hence as a group sharing the same destination which for eg a LG settlement is to create order in the world and benefit the surroundings over the individual to illustrate it a little bit. This materializes as settlement DI aspects and the deities that like this rewarding such close obeisance to this "path/way of life to this destination". To describe the alternative the CEs are bit more self-serving to say the least: There's nothing but what I can consume and become more powerful in this moment before it's gone. Hence perhaps the genesis of conflict is established?
6) And that is the other function of alignment with or without explanation there is a world at odds about gaining material power and how it's used which keeps groups at odds with each other and perhaps opens different approaches to this side of the game; in fact usefully stopping groups becoming huge blobs maybe as different proportions of alignments favor different particular alignment choices???
I think that summarizes Alignment. The question is how well would players do all this for themselves without some of the IC prompts that Alignment as a game system is offering? And how at odds with how players will organize themselves with how Alignment determines they should organize themselves? I think those are the questions EVE players might be looking at skeptically? But eve seems particularly aggressive and that is perhaps only half the interest of PFO where claiming resources to solve economic problems should be about half or greater of the affairs of the gameplay as well as innovation/invention in complex social and infrastructure progress that achieves economic gains as well as war can ie better social organization leads to better innovations/invetions that are as effective economically as being aggressive/warlike (and maybe more so if you can pay other to fight for you also)? So perhaps Alignment will work to shift some of the emphasis though as it's game for entertainment combat/war will still be a large/majority part of the game (!).
I don't think there is a need to worry about the mainstream. It looks like wow providing oodles of combat via quest content followed by raids and LoL provides that much cheaper, faster and socially? PFO is possibly going to have combat but in part only so is not really going to be that attracive to those players especially if it takes time and money to persevere with any progress in the game? You might get some players who graduate towards sandbox mmorpgs from that?
I think it's more how much player's organize themselves matches with how well the dev's are able to design alignment and reputation towards social gameplay inputs and outputs that the player's take to and can make use of perhaps incentivized by pouring their gains into their infrastructures and what that allows according to these and if they want to be aggressive then go for the alignment/rep combo that maximizes that? Eg settlement of 200 needs at least 175 to be LG to access the upgrade to the Windmill 3000 that boost the settlement DI by 40% in various measures but losing even just 1 person down to 174 and the Windmill does not work and may start to deteriate as the deity is displeased? So if alignment differentiates between aggressive/competitive and inventive/cooperative - it might just make for a great and complex game that involves political mmo to a high level and 4X to a high level too via emergence from thousands of player's working out their social rating as well as their power (xp) rating?
Much easier said than done and we'll have to see if Alignment (and the other systems) has as much promise as all that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An excellent link, Keovar. I always appreciate discussions surrounding the fact that the definition of being Good is completely separate from 'Fighting Evil'. Fighting evil may be something Good characters do, but there is so much more depth to the alignment that is usually glossed over.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any chance Nihimon could add this to the important links? This is a good listen for any new posters.
Glad to. It's now listed in Popular Player Threads.
On a side note, I've put out a call for suggestions in the Community Greetings! -- Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links thread.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Any chance Nihimon could add this to the important links? This is a good listen for any new posters.
Edit: Apparently there's also a Playing Evil podcast. I need to track that down and give it a listen too... although probably not while at work.
Not sure which one they were referencing, but I found these by searching their site.
http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/2681 (Part 2 - http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/2686)
and http://www.feartheboot.com/ftb/index.php/archives/99
Haven't listened yet, may do one over lunch.
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Goblin Squad Member
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During a conversation with a number of fellow players recently, there was a guess the alignment system would be too difficult to implement properly, that it would prove unpopular with the general public after open enrollment began, and it would eventually be abandoned in favor of a more "player controlled environment" where actions had no alignment related consequences at all. ...
I hope the alignment system works, and stays, and thrives. I'd love to see all the players who behave as they normally do slowly shove themselves into a corner of isolation as outcasts, shunned en masse by all the players that are attracted to the Pathfinder world, lore and play style that came to the River Kingdoms for the same reason I am attracted to it.
I think the idea that alignment and reputation can't be implemented might be some part wishful thinking and some part lack of imagination. Every time the developers give us a deeper look at the process I'm somewhat surprised by the amount of thought they've put into the concepts. The PFO alignment system wasn't sketched on a napkin over chips and beer one evening. It was worked and reworked over a good amount of time. It will be tweaked and adjusted even after EE launches.
I don't think that the design has gotten to the point where GW doesn't watch these boards any more. But I imagine that when people post things explaining how the alignment, reputation or other systems will or won't work, the folks at GW put it through a mental review or checklist. Sometimes their answer is "nope, thought of that already", sometimes it's "woo - that's a new idea, we need to make sure that doesn't happen", and sometimes it's "er, that's not what we spelled out in excruciating detail last month - how did this guy come up with this?". Sometimes they explain where we're off, sometimes they don't.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In most MMOs the story is treated by the players as furniture. There tends to be little personal investment in whatever plotline the designer used as his story's driver. Yet it seems to me that story, the myth, pretty much feeds the whole 'good' side to every tale. It may well be that Golarion has the material plots are made of ready to hand. My latest read, Dave Gross' King of Chaos actually happens in part in and around the Inner Sea and the River Kingdoms, and especially toward the Worldwound to the north. Certainly there is plenty of material to give us a fairly clear-cut Good-vs-Evil setting. If we can only play well enough to get players to personally invest their interest in a tale well told.
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For me, story is the reason I play.
I'm the exact opposite.
I tried - I really, really tried - with SWTOR. I was even excited about their new way of telling the story. But it left me cold.
I'm playing TERA with my wife right now - it's part of my repayment for her playing DarkFall with me - and I don't spend 1 nanothought on the story. It's utterly meaningless to me.
In PFO the actual deeds we do will be our story, and it will be far more meaningful than any Theme Park.
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...I don't spend 1 nanothought on the story. It's utterly meaningless to me.
So would that extend even into ignoring the setting during character creation? I've seen people playing crap from a LotRO elf named "Spudzilla" to some guy in UO called "computerdesk", and naming is just the easy example that comes to mind. It's obvious that the players are never going to roleplay, because they've made characters that are incoherent to the setting, and can't even be roleplayed. But it's worse than that, because their existence is actively immersion-breaking for anyone who sees them. I suspect that I won't spend a lot of time in strict roleplay mode, but I'll create characters that fit the world so they can be roleplayed and at least don't act as a walking disruption.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For me, story is the reason I play.In PFO the actual deeds we do will be our story, and it will be far more meaningful than any Theme Park.
That is what I mean by story. My character's story and how it fits with lore and the story of other players. Sometimes I find the story of the PF arcs less enrolling than I would like. Kingmaker is the notable exception as I get to help the players create new story in each chapter so far (running #4 at present).
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Goblin Squad Member
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That is what I mean by story.For me, story is the reason I play.In PFO the actual deeds we do will be our story, and it will be far more meaningful than any Theme Park.
Sorry I misunderstood.
I work with a guy who is really into experiencing the story created by the game makers. When he picks up quests in an area, he only picks up one at a time so that he can be more immersed into the story.
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Story is character based, not mechanical, but the setting will decide what is good or evil.
I wasn't intending themepark story, but the environment has considerable lore that should inform our play. To what degree, and how deep or restrictive that might be remains to be seen. But if we are going to talk about conflict, especially good/evil/law/chaos conflict as a setting then we should be considering the context of Golarion as the 'story so far'.
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...I don't spend 1 nanothought on the story. It's utterly meaningless to me.So would that extend even into ignoring the setting during character creation? I've seen people playing crap from a LotRO elf named "Spudzilla" to some guy in UO called "computerdesk", and naming is just the easy example that comes to mind. It's obvious that the players are never going to roleplay, because they've made characters that are incoherent to the setting, and can't even be roleplayed. But it's worse than that, because their existence is actively immersion-breaking for anyone who sees them. I suspect that I won't spend a lot of time in strict roleplay mode, but I'll create characters that fit the world so they can be roleplayed and at least don't act as a walking disruption.
Naming for me is very important in an MMO. I always try to use a name that fits the setting and names of groups I think of joining is even more important.
The other night I'm reading global chat in Darkfall and there is a Luke Skywalker recruiting for his clan. For me it was even more sad that he was getting people to join his clan.
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The story for a game is very important. The great thing about Pathfinder as an MMO is that others have already created the story and alot of it... except in the River Kingdoms.
Also naming is just as important.
Thats why SWTOR is the best single player MMORPG on the market. The story is great... the MMO part is a complete waste.