Hello everyone,
This will be my first go at actually trying to formulate a system, hopefully you´ll find it promising.
I gave the problem of implementing TN as an active alignment (oposed to something you are while being passive) a lot of thought, this is what i came up with.
Note: i don´t think this will be in the mvp, and it doesn´t have to.
But i think a solution for the following should be found before druids will get implemented.
Although i won´t play one, the possibility to play a TN druid in a meaningful (and the alignment is a big part of that) way should be there.
The Problem:
The extreme parts of the alignment grid are kind of easy to define; in a very minimalistic way:
- good is helping others
- evil is being egoistic
- law is conformity
- chaos is individuality and freedom
These are black and white pairs.
It is possible (and already has been done) to identify certain actions in the game that belong to either of these extremes.
TN on the other hand is refraining from acting in any of the extreme ways. It is a lot harder to define actions in the game (that can also be coded) that will qualify as TN.
So to simply integrate TN the same way as all other alignments is much more difficult.
My proposal:
doctrine/dogma:
You follow a certain religion/philosophy.
To do so you will have to follow a list of commandments and avoid a list of sins.
Failing to do so will make you unbalanced.
Unbalanced
You acted contrary to your believes. This left you in a state of inner turmoil.
Every time you commit a sin or brake a commandment of your belief system you accumulate unbalance points disequilibrium/imbalance/maladjustment).
These points add a percentage to all alignment shifts.
So if you are balanced and commit murder for which you´d go 1,000 points towards evil, you´d go 1,200 points towards evil if you were unbalanced:20
or something like that.
to become balanced again you need to atone.
Atonement
if you are unbalanced you need to atone to get your inner peace back.
to do so you have to refrain from sinning and concentrate on actions that your belief considers "positive".
What is it good for?
Well, apart from, hopefully, giving TN something to actively influence their alignment it would be a system that works for other belief systems as well.
i think it could be used by gw to promote/disincentivy certain activities, even more so if you don´t have to be a priest character to choose and follow a religion/philosophy.
TN is a very narrow alignment, it is the thin line between the extremes of the other alignments, actively following it should be a hard thing to do. This system might make it a bit harder to do so as it becomes easier slip into another alignment if you are not careful.
What is missing?
I still haven´t thought enough about actions that will make you more TN.
For that i think the following link will provide a lot of information about the TN
alignment.
Taken from the linked page:
The True Neutral Sins
1. Trying to persuade others to take a stance on a moral or ethical issue.
2. Failing to assist a friend or ally.
3. Killing for any reason other than survival.
4. Breaking your word to a friend or ally, unless life is threatened.
5. Needless torture.
6. Making a sacrifice for someone unrelated to you.
7. Refusing to kill when important to your survival.
8. Betraying an ally or friend, unless life is in danger.
9. Showing mercy to a dire enemy.
10. Taking sides in a conflict that doesn't affect your survival.
From that list what i think might be coded are 2,3,5,6,7,9 and 10 but i´m no programmer so, what do i know. Additionally, at least for druids, stripmining should be a sin for TN - summoning abominations and creating undead should probably be too.
The problem here is that these are mostly actions you should not! do to stay TN.
Activities i can think of to make you TN, for a druid or follower of the green faith at least, would be:
-destroying undead and abominations
-hunting necromancers that create undead (heinous flag=should be no problem)
-hunting stripminers -> maybe they could get a defiler flag that druids can detect?
As you can see the whole thing is still a work in progress, but that is as far as i got on my own.
Now i look very much forward to your input :)
p.s. as this is a possibility considering the number of threads in this forum, if anyone else had the same idea before me, please point me towards the thread.