I posted a similar topic in a thread about alignment, but after having some time to think about the mechanic, I would like to present here my idea about how PFO could run alignment and reputation.
Essentially, you would have two charts on your character sheet, allegiance and reputation. Allegiance would cover not only the traditional notions of alignment but also ideologies. Reputation would track your standing with various players, guilds, and settlements.
Allegiance:
For allegiance, the standard Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law spread would be used, as well as a few core ideologies. While I am still a little vague on the ideologies, I know natural forces (Air, Death, Earth, Fire, Life, and Water) will appear amongst them. Your character would begin play by selecting your starting alignment and/or ideology. Moral and ethical philosophies would be directly opposed to one another, so whenever you increase your standing with Law, your standing with Chaos decreases and whenever you increase your standing with Evil, your standing with Good decreases, and so on. Some ideologies may be directly opposed to each other as well (Air/Earth, Death/Life, and Fire/Water).
Because some classes have stringent alignment restrictions (barbarians, clerics, druids, monks, and paladins), these classes are expected to act in accordance with these alignments. However, like in the case for druids, maintaining a neutral alignment requires the balancing of both good and evil, as well as law and chaos. In a system that tracks the balances of these forces through “moral” actions and “ethical” actions, you find the game produces a group of people that will randomly perform evil or chaotic acts, not because it is what their character would do, but to avoid building up too much good or law.
Instead, why not add natural forces (Air, Earth, Fire, and Water) as an allegiance, and in order for a druid to stay true to their character, they must keep at least two of these natural forces within their top three allegiances. This way, they focus on performing actions that directly reinforce their connection to the natural world, instead of arbitrary juggling their morals and ethics to make sure they don’t lose their connection to nature (and thus their powers).
Clerics could be run the same way, instead of saying their alignment has to be within one step of their deities, why not add the option of declaring a deity or two ideologies. Each deity will have a number of allegiances (either moral/ethical philosophies or ideologies) and the cleric would strive to keep at least two of these in their top three allegiances. In this way, clerics would focus on performing actions that please/are in tune with the will and want of their chosen higher power. If a cleric chooses a lawful good deity, chances are they will be performing actions that not only please their deity, but also raise their standing with law and good, simultaneously decreasing their standing with chaos and evil. This also avoids the moral/ethical juggling dilemma, since so long as the cleric keeps his deity’s portfolio in his top three allegiances, he will be able to maintain his divine connection and his powers.
Paladins would have a harder time going about it, but they would be required to keep law and good in their top three allegiances. If they worship a deity, they should at least remain on good terms with their higher power, keeping their deity’s portfolio (which should contain at least law or good or both). Besides, if the paladin in performing good and lawful actions, and had selected a deity that is at least some part goodly or lawfully aligned, chances are they will keep their deity’s portfolio high on their list of allegiances.
Barbarians and monks would be required to keep law out of their top three allegiances or in their top three allegiances at all times, respectively. A barbarian rage could count as a chaotic action, thus mechanically balancing against law on behalf of the class, as a suggestion.
If we look at character creation, you would be able to choose your starting alignment and either a deity or an ideology you are aligned to. A character that begins play with a lawful good alignment and selects Iomedae (a lawful good deity with life in her portfolio) would have the starting allegiance list:
Good 100 (helpful)
Law 100 (helpful)
Life 50 (friendly)
Air 0 (indifferent)
Earth 0 (indifferent)
Fire 0 (indifferent)
Water 0 (indifferent)
Death -50 (unfriendly)
Chaos -100 (hostile)
Evil -100 (hostile)
So long as the character keeps Good and Law in their top three allegiances, they can enter into Paladin or become a Cleric of Iomedae when they gain their first level. If they keep Law in their top three, they could become a monk, but they would not be able to become a barbarian until Law was no longer a part of their top three allegiances.
As characters perform actions that either reinforce one or more of these allegiances (casting spells with certain descriptors, killing outsiders of certain subtypes, ect…) their allegiances will organically begin to take shape and will reflect the innate actions of the character. I feel this is a superior system than trying to assign alignment and attempting to control or shape character actions in reverse.
Reputation:
Reputation would consist of a list of every player character, guild, or settlement you have interacted with thus far in your game experience, and would be denoted as helpful, friendly, indifferent, unfriendly, or hostile. When you encounter a new player character, their initial starting attitude would be indifferent, but you could change your attitude towards an individual to reflect interactions you have experienced with that player (shifting it to friendly or helpful if they were of assistance or nice towards you, and shifting it to unfriendly or hostile if they were rude or grieved you in some way). Any player can see how you “feel” towards them, and you can see how any player “feels” towards you.
With guilds and settlements, your reputation may build slowly or plummet rapidly because of actions you perform. If you kill time trolling a certain guild or killing people in a certain settlement, your reputation with those guilds and settlements will decrease and become unfriendly or hostile. If you are helpful towards a guild or help fight off monsters in a settlement's hex, your reputation with them will improve to friendly or helpful. Each social shift should provide minor game benefits, such as guards coming to your aid quicker if they are from a settlement that is helpful towards you.
Unlike Allegiances which have opposed elements, player characters, guilds, and settlements would be independently flexible in how they view you. You could be loved by all, hated by many, or live a relatively anonymous life of indifference.
Anyway, long post over… just a thought.
Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really into the reputation system, this is something i don't think the game should handle. you shouldn't be able to go into a log(unless you keep a personal one) and see who has done what to you, for someone to get a reputation they need to stand out, not be a trend on a data table. If you want a reputation page, it should be player edited.
Allegiance isn't a good word to describe the 9 alignments, alignment is a better word. Allegiance implies a physical connection, 'Lawful' isn't a cause, it's a way of thinking, and you align your self to that way of thinking.
Deity and the 9 alignments are good enough tools to judge encounter behavior and archetype restrictions. Throwing in elemental ideologies complicates things too far, and would need to reflect cleric domains and schools of magic. the classic 6 don't fit well into the setting because they are too simple. A great mechanic for a pure theme park game, but not for a sandbox. The system will either be too simple, or to complex.
I'm not for anything that is 'auto-detected' by others, unless they can magically read your character. If your character is charismatic enough, you should be able to make people think you are anything. In other words, your background is secret. This is not to say there can't be visual giveaways to your allegiances, or disguises that cause hostile/friendly actions.
Personally, I don't want to see characters coming into the world with any definition whatsoever, including archetype, alignment or worship. A 'blank slate' if you will. And the revealing of 20 archetype merit badges suggests that you have to earn the first one.
I would like to see your actions getting to your first Archetype merit badge be in essence be like creating your starting character sheet in the PnP, except you aren't rolling dice and picking things off of lists, you are going and working to get theses things. I would support a system where you come into the game as an adolescent, and by your first merit badge you are an adult(this would add logic behind creating your attributes, actions 'growing up' determine your adult physical/mental characteristics). This would kill it for people who like writing extravagant background stories for their characters, but I would like system where every aspect of your character's background is created in-game. It doesn't really make sense to come into a setting at the same level as everyone if everyone has a different age and back-story.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The most challenging thing about implementing an alignment system is designing a system where a computer can actually judge what certain acts should have on your alignment. This is virtually impossible, in fact. Attempts to do it leave glaring loopholes and, ultimately, end up rewarding Paladins for behavior that any human being would recognize is evil, or punishing them for behavior that any human being would recognize is good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pheoran, this is a very good idea, but I'm not sure if it would work in PFO. First off, you mention "leveling-up" several times in your post. Remember, PFO won't have real levels, and there won't be any experience points; the Milestones will work a bit like levels, in that there are 20 Milestones in each class, but you work towards each Milestone, not just pick one when your experience bar fills up.
I like the idea of having to juggle multiple allegiances, but this is very difficult for a computer to handle. The problem with every morality system ever put into a game is that machines do not have common sense. Every action must be programmed with certain amounts of allegiance increases/decreases, and it would be all to easy for players to find the couple gaps or mistakes in this list of actions and use them as loopholes. You could keep patching the system, but it sounds like the dev team will have their hands full as it is.
I argue that alignment MUST be something that is tracked and monitored via an in-game mechanic because without some sort of alignment system, the game would suffer as individual players would lack the ability to monitor their own behavior.
One solution to alignment would be to simply remove it and all restrictions normally imposed on classes. This would mean paladins would have no alignment restriction and would lack an enforceable moral code. After all, who is going to enforce the moral code? GMs, who are expected to track every action of a character playing a paladin like omnipotent gods? Player characters, who are supposed to submit tickets complaining about the actions of a player, which would only catch up with said player AFTER the fact of the action? The paladin player themselves, who may not realize a certain action could be read by someone as unbefitting of a paladin (especially if they are new to the game and considering almost every action can be perceived differently by other players)?
Druids would be equally without checks or balances because they could, in actuality, never keep a neutral aspect to their alignment (which may be an outdated prerequisite for druids anyway) and may never take any action to protect or revere the natural world.
Clerics of a specific deity would be equally free to perform whatever action they wanted, only facing the same restrictions as a paladin might if a player character complains that another character is not behaving in a manner fitting a cleric of a particular god.
Barbarians and monks would probably be okay without an alignment restriction.
So, the main issue we see developing is there is no ramification for player character action apart from fallout attributed to a drastic event (one that then warrants a drastic consequence). When administering punishment for an action after the fact, the disconnect between the action and the consequence is already beginning to be established (it is in our human nature to do so). So, when a punishment is administered, it is more likely to either be too light of a punishment (which is ignored) or too harsh of a punishment (which causes negative feelings and may lead to reactionary outbursts of negative behavior, rage quit, or both). When attempting to shape behavior, in psychology, one may either try to modify behavior or extinguish behavior. Modifying behavior is only possible if the behavior is caught early on and is consistently and actively conditioned into a desirable behavior. Extinguishing behavior would be the aforementioned GM intervention, reserved for only the most hardheaded and troublesome player characters.
Additionally, my suggested allegiance system would introduce the concept of action and consequence to the player, thus setting an established expectation. By having full disclosure of what actions in game will lead to what consequence (being good can be a consequence just as being evil can), the player has the freedom to make informed choices about how they wish to play their character. This knowledge will lead to a healthier game world for everyone, because clear lines of action and consequence are explained.
One of the posters mentioned he would prefer characters coming into the world as a “blank-slate,” and I would be completely onboard with this. Starting all allegiances at 0 and letting them develop naturally would be a legitimate way of creating an organic alignment system, but in order to do so, you would still need guidelines to determine when and for what a character would be awarded a bonus or penalty to a certain allegiance.
While it lacks the tact of real life interpretation by a living person for each action the character takes, it provides a basic framework that helps coax players into the mindset of their characters. If your character is good, and knows doing X and Y will result in their allegiance to good going up, or X and Y will result in their allegiance to good going down, they will naturally perform the in-game actions that help support their perceived character alignment. These actions, while obligatory to maintain their allegiance to good, also help shape their behavior, giving them guidelines by which to base other actions that do not themselves hold any bonus or penalty to good or evil for being performed. This is conditioning.
While I am not saying EVERY action requires bonuses and penalties, I do feel a number of actions, as detailed below, could be used as baseline for determining allegiance growth and development for player characters:
Law: You increase law by killing Outsiders with the chaotic subtype, casting spells with the lawful descriptor, claiming bounties for NPCs or player characters.
Chaos: You increase chaos by killing Outsiders with the lawful subtype, casting spells with the chaotic descriptor, stealing an item from NPCs or player characters.
Good: You increase good by killing Outsiders with the evil subtype, casting spells with the good descriptor, aiding an NPC or player character (with buffs, heals, or combat support) who is not in your party.
Evil: You increase evil by killing Outsiders with the good subtype, casting spells with the evil descriptor, killing an NPC or player character without provocation.
Air: You increase air by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the earth subtype, casting spells with the air descriptor.
Earth: You increase earth by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the air subtype, casting spells with the earth descriptor.
Fire: You increase fire by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the water subtype, casting spells with the fire descriptor.
Water: You increase water by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the water subtype, casting spells with the water descriptor.
Death: You increase death by killing Beasts and Humanoids, casting spells with the death descriptor, killing non-combat creatures (like that random wandering squirrel or rabbit that is only there for background and ambiance).
Life: You increase life by killing undead creatures, casting spells with the healing descriptor, using skinning (or some other gathering profession) to utilize the remains of a slain beast so its death is not a waste.
IF, and only IF, you create an NPC system that corresponds to these allegiances, can you have a game world where actions, and consequences for actions, are immediately integrated into the game’s social/economical dynamic. For example, a player who has an allegiance to good should not be immediately attacked by Outsiders with the good subtype. After all, this makes sense; an angelic creature isn’t going to intentionally harm a good person or even a neutral person not actively engaged in an evil or hostile act. A character with an allegiance to evil (something goodly-aligned outsiders could detect?) would, however, probably be hostilely opposed by Outsiders with the good subtype. Likewise, evil NPCs may not be automatically hostile towards evil PCs (although this may be more or less attributed to the evil PC having a “reputation” that keeps other evil characters from actively engaging them hostilely), but against non-evil characters, they would probably react with hostility.
Getting away from the notions of good and evil, elemental allegiances could play out the same way, affording those who have a particular elemental affinity a measure of safety when confronted with an elemental that shares their affinity or an outsider that shares their ethical philosophy. This creates unique player character dynamics that follow an observable formula. Yes, it is a formula (it is not “natural”) but it helps to simulate an organic system that otherwise would be impossible to implement in an MMO.
*takes a breath*
Law: You increase law by killing Outsiders with the chaotic subtype, casting spells with the lawful descriptor, claiming bounties for NPCs or player characters.
Chaos: You increase chaos by killing Outsiders with the lawful subtype, casting spells with the chaotic descriptor, stealing an item from NPCs or player characters.
Good: You increase good by killing Outsiders with the evil subtype, casting spells with the good descriptor, aiding an NPC or player character (with buffs, heals, or combat support) who is not in your party.
Evil: You increase evil by killing Outsiders with the good subtype, casting spells with the evil descriptor, killing an NPC or player character without provocation.
Air: You increase air by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the earth subtype, casting spells with the air descriptor.
Earth: You increase earth by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the air subtype, casting spells with the earth descriptor.
Fire: You increase fire by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the water subtype, casting spells with the fire descriptor.
Water: You increase water by killing Elementals and Outsiders with the water subtype, casting spells with the water descriptor.
Death: You increase death by killing Beasts and Humanoids, casting spells with the death descriptor, killing non-combat creatures (like that random wandering squirrel or rabbit that is only there for background and ambiance).
Life: You increase life by killing undead creatures, casting spells with the healing descriptor, using skinning (or some other gathering profession) to utilize the remains of a slain beast so its death is not a waste.
I'm so against this line of reasoning...
I can understand allegiances somewhat, but there is this stupid line of reasoning with gamers and alignments. Killing bad guys makes you good, even if you killed good guys before, as long as you kill more bad guys you'll remain neutral.
No. Just no.
That's why spells like atonement are a godsend. How does killing things make you lawful? Like ever? I agree that maybe some actions should be used to judge a person's character, but killing on it's own is the most annoying base for judging someone.
I'd get behind a concise alignment system, but granular alignments just don't work at all with what it's supposed to represent.
Nobody should ever be half-good or partially-evil. Alignment should define who a character is. The only thing that should ever shift alignment are huge events, not tiny events here and there. If someone killed an innocent before and they remained neutral, the next time they kill an innocent they should not become evil.
Helping an old lady should not shift someone to good, even if it is a good thing to do. It should be the rescuing an orphanage from a giant fire that makes someone good.
Gradual shifts don't make the game more interesting and only add metagaming elements. It's the major events that get payed attention to, and only then should alignment be changed. If you don't like it, atone.
A lot of work went into these suggestions, so I hate to be negative, but I'm not sold on them. For one thing, I would hate to be forced to pick an artificial alignment at game start. For another, I would definitely prefer to be judged by other players purely and simply on my actions. In most MMOs this would not really be possible, but in the present case, it's virtually built into the game... So why look for something much more complicated, and essentially artificial?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alignment is some thing that is going to be in the game, and Ryan D. has already given us an example action of a program controlled alignment shift: killing a player unlawfully.
There are two options, one is policing alignment by players, which is very open ended and very target-able for exploiting. Or you can have actions in the game determine your alignment, which is less open for issues, and just needs extensive testing. There is no DM or GM that can judge you in an MMO, people are going to have a hard time adjusting to the PF PnP they know and PFO in the MMO setting. A fully player controlled sandbox is asking for failure, there has to be some measure of guidance and restrictions to prevent the world from going out of control.
A computer controlled alignment system can work, but it has to be much more in-depth than Pheoran's examples. Alignment of your target should have no impact, being lawful/good does't mean you senselessly kill chaotic/evil babies. The reasons behind why you are doing things should drive your alignment shifts. There is going to be PvE in the game, and I'm guessing it will be a huge part of developing your character. Missions can be tailored to shift your alignment. If you go to cleanse evil from an area, you get a good shift. If you assault a fortress of robbers, you get a lawful shift. If you desecrate a holy sight, you get an evil shift. If you rob a peaceful village you get a chaotic shift. You could have alignment shifts for selling supplies to a npc group of a certain type. If a settlement is attacking other settlements, they get a chaotic shift. There are countless actions that the computer can monitor. All we need is a list of them and to do extensive testing on each one when the game makes it into alpha/beta testing.
Possibly add two flags to NPCs and players, call one Purity, and the other one Order. Allow the values to fluctuate through positive and negative ranges. The more positive Purity, the more 'good' you are. The more negative Purity, the more 'evil' you are. The higher your Order score, the more lawful and 'in control' you are; the more negative it is, the more 'out of control' you are.
Those would roughly correspond to the range of alignments, with perhaps a small section above and below zero allowing for neutral simulation. Adding or decreasing them would be handled directly when you kill a mob, for instance. Higher Purity mobs are not inherently dangerous, and do not warrant killing, so when you do, you take a hit to your own Purity. Basically compare player vs NPC scores, and if the two are on the same side, you are basically behaving in a manner that is contrary to your professed belief system. It can be taken to mean that as your Purity and Order scores decrease, it becomes easier for you to commit some fairly nasty deeds. So for a few short examples:
Lawful Good Paladin kills a werewolf. Because the werewolf is chaotic evil, he gets boosts to his own Purity and Order scores. If he killed a child that was Neutral Evil, he'd take a hit to his Order score for killing a child, but a boost to Purity because the child is evil. (simplistic I know) Also he'd take further negatives to his Purity because killing that child probably was not the only option.
A city with an alignment of Lawful Neutral is the latest home away from home. A Neutral Good thief decides to break into and rob a home while the owners are away at a banquet. Because the city determines the overall focus at that point breaking the Law would place a negative to his Order score however his Neutrality means his adjustment is not as severe as it could be, but because stealing in and of itself is not inherently good or evil, no change to the purity score. Indirectly the system manages that by applying the changes each time the thief picks a pocket, picks a lock, or sells stolen property at any time later, which is easily flagged by the system AS stolen when he takes possession of it. This means that even if he travels to the neighboring city where the alignment is Neutral, fencing stolen goods still hits his Order score. Now if he donates some of his ill gotten gold to an orphanage a la Robin Hood, his Order score will not change, but his Purity score will rise.
These are very basic examples, but do show how it can be coded into the system with a minimum of fuss. It would require some finessing, but I think the starting point is certainly present.
First, I wish to address some of the issues that have been raised thus far in this little hypothetical discussion.
@ Skamander: There is nothing negative about constructive criticism, and if no one argued against my PoV, I’d probably start playing devil’s advocate against it myself. I hope to sell you in a few of the areas I wish to discuss later in this post.
@ Ragnarok Aeon: As I stated in my post, you would increase/decrease your allegiance by killing OUTSIDERS of a particular subtype, not humanoids. Outsiders, by definition, are composed of the essence of whatever subtype they possess and are absolute in their resolve to spread whatever essence they are comprised of. An Outsider with the evil subtype, is purely and irredeemably evil, and a character who destroys it is directly decreasing the amount of evil in the world (and, by association, increasing the overall percentage of good verse evil). Even an evil character who destroys an evil Outsider is performing a good action, even if their motives are not good or honorable. As the Book of Exalted Deeds says, “these deeds are not inherently good, since they can be performed selfishly or in the interests of evil. Even so… [the act] cannot help but lead the villain closer to repentance and redemption.”
While killing humanoids would increase your Death allegiance, I hope to explain a little more clearly my line of reasoning and dismiss some of the preconceptions my vagueness might have unintentionally created.
@ Valkenr: I wholeheartedly agree, anything that may potentially come of this idea would require extensive play testing and much clearer examples than the ones I am posing currently. However, what I am seeking to create is not a mechanic that polices players entirely, but one that has specific concrete examples of good, evil, law, chaos (as well as representative concrete examples of the other allegiances) and helps condition players into the roles they themselves wish to play. While I take a more humanistic approach to psychology, I will speak briefly from the psychodynamic viewpoint. In essence, if the ID represents trolls and griefers, the SUPER EGO represents these game mechanics. Both will work together to inform the EGO of the player’s character (arguably as well as the player themselves) and bring about a more balanced view of the gaming world. I believe, with great certainty, that trolling and griefing stems from a lack of development of the SUPER EGO, and by giving the SUPER EGO tools to inform the EGO of the consequences of its actions, players will be less prone to following their ID and disrupting the game world for kicks.
@ Probitas: I believe your sentiments regarding NPC standings verses player “alignment” has merit that warrants further brainstorming. Namely, I feel any NPC could be targeted by a player character, regardless of whether they were friendly or hostile towards the character, allowing that NPC to fight back against the player character regardless of their actual alignment.
On a side note, Probitas, I don’t believe PFO would allow for the death of children in the game. While I personally believe such mechanics would be warranted to keep immersion and RPing elements intact, the fact is we will more than likely see one of two scenarios unfold: either children will be removed from the game entirely, or children will be immortal. The later of the two is the most likely course of action, which is disheartening, because I feel the invulnerability of children causes a sense of disconnect from them as NPCs, whereas if a child could come to harm in game (albeit with the same respawning capabilities as adult NPCs and player characters) there would be more incentive to not only safeguard them against NPC or player character attack, but also to avenge them if they are killed. While videogames in ages past have allowed for the death of child characters, mostly to enhance the realism of the game world, most modern games (notably Bethesda’s Fallout 3 and Skyrim) shy away from it because of the real life moral and ethical issues game designers would ultimately have to face. While a number of D&D, Pathfinder, and other third party supplements introduce child NPCs that may, over the course of an adventure, be put into peril or even come to harm, the level of danger, descriptions of events, and actual outcomes (read: actual chance of a child NPC coming to harm) are determined by the GM. This determination is often based on the maturity level of the group and how comfortable each individual is with the harm or death (albeit simulated) of minors.
ALLEGIANCES AND ALIGNMENT
Firstly, I would like to clarify the difference between allegiance and alignment.
Alignment describes a character’s moral/ethical code of self conduct using the exclusive terms of Chaos, Evil, Good, and Law. Allegiance would best be thought of as how the world at large views the character based on the character’s in-game actions. A character may see themselves as Lawful Good (their alignment, which could be denoted someplace on the character’s “character sheet” or other public RPing biography), but if their in-game allegiances show they perform more chaotic or evil actions, than the character would either be deluding themselves, undergoing a catharsis, or demonstrating abnormal behavior.
For the purposes of this post, I will use the term abnormal behavior, defined as “any action that does not directly or indirectly support or enhance a character’s self concept.” For a self-described chaotic character, random behavior (which to a lawful character would appear abnormal) is actually normal behavior, and acting in a lawful manner would be constituted as abnormal because it does not directly support or enhance the chaotic character’s self concept.
In addition to the moral and ethical allegiances (chaos, evil, good, and law), the elemental forces (air, earth, fire, and water), and the natural forces (death and life), I would like to add two more allegiances which I believe will help clear up some (or backfire and produce even more) issues. I would add civilization and nature to the list of allegiances. Since all allegiances are opposed forces, we can define them not only individually, but also collectively with their opposed force.
Chaos/Law: Chaos and law represent the axis of ethical ideologies. One cannot be both chaotic and lawful, but either exists within extremes of these ethical pursuits or in some balance between them. Some settlements may frown on chaotic or lawful individuals, but by and large no society will openly oppose an individual based purely on their allegiance to either side of this axis. Outsiders of the opposed subtype, however, would be openly hostile to any player character (or Outsider) they detect as chaotic or lawful.
Evil/Good: Evil and good represent the axis of moral ideologies. One cannot be both evil and good (although, without evil there could be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes), but either exists within extremes of these moral pursuits or in some balance between them. Some settlements may actively oppose good or evil individuals, but by and large most societies will allow good or evil characters into their city (albeit under close supervision). Outsiders of the opposed subtype, however, would be openly hostile to any player character (or Outsider) they detect as good or evil.
Air/Earth/Fire/Water: Each elemental force is opposed by an opposite. Air is opposed to earth and fire is opposed to water. Unlike moral and ethical philosophies which may be tied to alignment, an allegiance to an elemental force is merely an expression of one’s affiliation or sympathy. Someone with an allegiance to air might specialize if flight-based magic or be obsessed with wind and flying creatures. Someone with an allegiance to earth might find comfort in underground environment. Someone with an allegiance to fire might just want to watch everything around them burn to the ground. Someone with an allegiance to water may love rivers or the open oceans, seeking out a life where they can be surrounded by what they enjoy. Obviously this would have very little impact on a character’s ability to enter into society (except maybe if a character cannot control their pyromania). However, when dealing with elementals or outsiders that have the air, earth, fire, or water subtype, an individual may be ignored by elementals that share their allegiance, while specifically target if they are “viewed” as opposed. For example, someone with an allegiance to Earth might be able to explore the depths of a caverns unmolested by the earth elementals that reside within, but they would be specifically targeted by air elementals as if they were an earth elemental.
Death/Life: Death and life, while related to positive and negative energy, are not explicitly based upon it. Instead, death and life refer to a reverence or lack of reverence for living creatures. When someone kills a humanoid creature, their allegiance to death increases. When someone heals a humanoid creature, their allegiance to life increases. Someone who spends their entire adventuring carrier killing other humanoids may become callous towards death and killing. This doesn’t mean they would kill anyone for any reason, it just means they have little trouble getting over the fact they kill on a regular basis. Someone who spends their time healing others, either as a dedicated healer using divine magic or through the use of heal checks, would naturally develop an affinity for life and the desire to avoid physical violence or death. Life and death would not carry any societal ramifications, but it may be a clear indicator to other player characters that someone with an allegiance to Death has no issue (and some experience) killing others, either out of necessity or for profit. An allegiance to death might also be necessary for gaining some merit badges related to necromancy.
Civilization/Nature: Civilization and nature, I believe, illustrates the struggle of PFO better than any other allegiance. Settlements are beginning to form, the natural world struggles to hold back the encroachment of humanoid societies, and player characters may find themselves stuck in the middle of these two opposing forces. Certainly for druids, at least, the natural world would take precedence over civilized society. For more urban characters, or those interested in utilizing the vast resources of the untamed wilderness, their focus will be on enhancing civilized settlements to better fill the needs of those that dwell within them. As characters engage in rooting out the natural predators of a hex and strip the land of its resources, their allegiance to civilization would increase, while those that seek to enhance the natural world, respect its bounty, and never take more than what they need would increase their allegiance to nature. Most player characters may strike a balance somewhere between the two extremes (especially if they rely on the aid of a druid in their adventuring). Someone with an allegiance to nature will more than likely find they are welcome into any settlement, but they will probably be viewed as an outsider simply visiting for trade. Someone with an allegiance to civilization, however, may be viewed as a bigger threat (at least in numbers) outside the walls of their “civilized” cities.
These twelve allegiances cover a broad array of ideologies, deity portfolio elements, and creature types. If characters began play with 0’s in each allegiance, or had minor boosts to certain allegiances depending on their chosen alignment, deity, race, and starting skill package (I imagine everyone will start with at least some skills at character creation), they could have three allegiances to represent the way people view them in the world. Because these scores would be smaller at first, a character could begin to shift their allegiances rather quickly at character creation, but once established, it would be more difficult for them to “fall from grace” in a particular area.
CONDITIONING
Part of the value of allegiances lay in their ability to perform operant conditioning on behalf of the gaming world. While the semantics of good and evil may be readily argued in the real world, luckily for us, the world of Pathfinder is filled with deities that have laid out pretty straightforward rules about how they view chaos, evil, good, and law. These deities act as pseudo-gamemasters and apply minor shifts in a character’s allegiances based on a number of in-game actions. While it would be breaking the forth wall to say NPCs are aware of every action a player character takes, it would be more accurate to say when a character gains a relatively high allegiance (one of his top three), he has cultivated a reputation in the world, even if that reputation is based on hearsay and speculation at best. Likewise, an elemental may not know that you destroyed a bunch of elementals composed of its opposed element, but it just has a good feeling about you, so it doesn’t bother you. On the other hand, if you kill a bunch of fire elementals, well… fire elementals are just going to always seem to have it in for you.
As for conditioning desirable player interactions with the world, I do not mean conditioning all players to be lawful and good. Because a sandbox game is so open, players must have some means of determining not only right from wrong, but what side of it they are currently standing.
EVE used security status to determine how secured systems responded to characters, keeping “pirate” characters out of high security areas and starting zones to allow player characters a chance to learn the mechanics of the game before they could become targets for space pirating. However, the mechanic allowed for player characters, if they wanted to, to engage in piracy as a legitimate playing style. They could do this because they were given a concrete method of determining how the game world (and other players) viewed them. This also allowed them to cultivate a sense of self identity or concept, which allowed them to avoid abnormal behaviors (those behaviors that do not directly or indirectly support or enhance their concept of self).
If we begin by giving players very straightforward, logical systems that influence their allegiances (something concrete that they can see, interpret, and ultimately predict), they can make informed decisions about how they want to play their character, and what repercussions they can expect from not only the game world but from the gaming community as a whole. I don’t think anyone would have an issue with a character who was evil, so long as the game world recognized him as evil and the player recognized himself as evil.
The examples I gave previously for when and how a player character would increase/decrease an allegiance were based on what little information I know about PFO. As more information comes to light, I’m sure more appropriate actions could be used to more accurately adjust allegiances. One suggestion from this thread, however, I really liked.
The idea of player character initiated “quests” to raise a particular allegiance would be beneficial to the system, so long as the quests themselves force the character into actions that were wholeheartedly dedicated to that particular allegiance. A player should not be allowed to simply “donate cloth” to an NPC to increase their allegiance to good (especially if the cloth was gathered by evil means). I would enjoy seeing a mechanic that sent the player to perform an action that was directly tied to their allegiance (perhaps slaying a demon or devil in order to raise their allegiance to good).
Anyway, I’ve talked enough for one post, and would really like to hear more ideas on how or why this would or would not work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is absolute folly to try to create a computer program that can judge the morality of someone else's actions. It's surprisingly difficult even to get 12 random strangers to make a meaningful judgment.
I want there to be meaningful alignment, but until you can start describing how a computer will judge these actions, you're not going to get anywhere. And the greater likelihood is that you will end up coding in your morality, which may be utterly at odds with someone else's vision of Lawful Good, and cause them to quit the game in disgust.
I expect there will be very few actions that actually have any bearing on your alignment automatically, and most of those will probably revolve around Murder and Bounties. I also think it's perfectly reasonable for Moderators to adjust someone's alignment as part of a punishment if it fits.
It is absolute folly to try to create a computer program that can judge the morality of someone else's actions. It's surprisingly difficult even to get 12 random strangers to make a meaningful judgment.
I want there to be meaningful alignment, but until you can start describing how a computer will judge these actions, you're not going to get anywhere. And the greater likelihood is that you will end up coding in your morality, which may be utterly at odds with someone else's vision of Lawful Good, and cause them to quit the game in disgust.
I expect there will be very few actions that actually have any bearing on your alignment automatically, and most of those will probably revolve around Murder and Bounties. I also think it's perfectly reasonable for Moderators to adjust someone's alignment as part of a punishment if it fits.
I would agree that it is near impossible for a computer program to judge the morality of someone else's actions. That being said, that is not what I am posing PFO do. What I am suggesting is taking concrete examples of universally accepted ethical, moral, and ideological behaviors (as set forth by the world of Pathfinder, and not myself) and using those to help player character make informed decisions in game.
While good and evil can be argued to the ends of the earth, in Pathfinder, certain core principles are universal to the concepts of good and evil. I wish to use the most clear and concise core concepts of these ideologies in order to illustrate game world consequences (as stated before, being good can be just as detrimental a consequence as being evil). I feel that by providing a guideline for behavior (after all, your character can behave anyway they deem fit), we can avoid unnecessary player vs. world and player vs. player issues.
All this goes back to allowing players to make an informed decision about their actions, and this information will help to subconsciously direct non-consequence related actions within the game.
I believe the meaningful alignment you are looking for can stem from this approach since player characters will have the opportunity to see how their actions directly affect how NPCs and, to a lesser extent, player characters view them.
For example, could we agree that killing an evil outsider is, if not a good act, at least one that hinders evil? If so, you could create a mechanic that, instead of awarding XP like most MMOs, awards a penalty and corresponding bonus to your evil and good allegiance. Now, you may not be a good person, but each and every time you kill an evil outsider, you are inadvertently weakening the forces of evil in the world and, thus, strengthening the forces of good. Likewise, if you killed enough evil outsiders to significantly raise your allegiance to good, most NPC factions would recognize your actions and believe you to be “good.” Good deities may certainly recognize your commitment to fighting evil outsiders, even if being good is not your intention.
Now, as far as roleplaying your character goes, you could put that you are Evil down on your character sheet, but most NPCs will react to you as if you were goodly aligned. Even PCs that see your self-proclaimed alignment might be able to see your allegiance, especially if they possess the ability to detect good or evil.
This is only a one dimensional example, but it shows how a concrete concept can be transformed into a system that informs the world of a player’s actions. Even these actions, however, do not drastically change a player character’s allegiances over a short period of time. Rather, they are slow and steadily build on a character’s concrete actions.
After all, actions speak louder than words.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really into the reputation system, this is something i don't think the game should handle. you shouldn't be able to go into a log(unless you keep a personal one) and see who has done what to you, for someone to get a reputation they need to stand out, not be a trend on a data table. If you want a reputation page, it should be player edited.
I agree with this...as has been mentioned many times, the game cannot truly be expected to recognize good actions from bad. A company of LG paladins might see destroying one of their own as an understandable sacrifice if it resulted in the destruction of a greater evil. So, would that be a good act or evil (considering killing other PCs is normally considered evil). If a "good" player was acting evilly, perhaps killing innocents...would another player who came and defended the innocents be tagged good or evil? The list of possible confusing scenarios is endless. Let the players/characters tag each other. Put "Good" and "Evil", "Lawful" and "Chaotic" buttons (similar to FBs "Like" button) on the UI in a manner that makes it easy to assign to specific characters in your field of view. Maybe add some limit that you can only tag a character once in some amount of time to help prevent abuse. This way it takes acts that are great enough to draw others attention to change your alignment (think little steps per tag). It actually requires players act a way to get the alignment they want...and gives them the alignment they deserve.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Why are we conflating a discussion about players with a discussion about characters?
Let the player set their characters alignment by fiat, and change it at some nontrivial cost. Provide and limit tools to the character partially based on alignment. Forbid a lawful good character from murdering at all, refining the definition of 'murder' as needed.
Or allow the player to define alignment by fiat, and have no mechanical effects tied to alignment.
The middle ground, trying to tie only a few abilities unrelated to behavior to alignment, fails- why can't a monk be a serial burglar? Why can't a bard behave in a lawful manner?
Obscenely long read. (So I didn't.)
Before you post another Russian epic, allow an old timer like me to point out that allegiances and reputation have been optional add-ins going back to the crude 1st Ed character sheets, independent of alignment.
They also show up in different ways in other games. But a rose by any other name...
You're not going to convince the publishers or a majority to get rid of alignment, so just stop already.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pheoran Armiez, I see where you're going with this, but I still think it's a long way from being meaningful. Let's just assume for a moment that I agree with you that "killing an evil outsider is, if not a good act, at least one that hinders evil". If that's the way the game has to measure how good I am, then I can game the system by doing that while at the same time doing other things that are manifestly evil, but not something the game can measure. In that case, every other human being that sees my actions will say "Wow, he's really evil", but the game is telling them I'm good, and in some cases forcing them to treat me as if I'm good, even though they know I'm not.
@ DeciusBrutus: I agree player characters should be able to set their alignment to whatever they feel reflects their character, but limiting player action because of alignment is going to make people mad because they will feel it is arbitrary, and implies they are not responsible enough to not murder someone without game intervention. It would also not allow them to react to special circumstances in the game that may require them to perform an action against their alignment.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, bards may be of any alignment.
@ Brunnwald: I’ll be quick. I’m suggesting PFO use a psychodynamic psychological approach to condition a player’s SUPER EGO with immediate concrete reinforcement to overcome the ID and inform the EGO more appropriately so as to avoid abnormal player character behavior which leads to dysfunction in the gaming world.
Alignment, set by the player, is a completely different concept.
@ Nihimon: I only provided a one dimensional example on the good/evil access, namely to avoid another… how did Brunnwald put it again?... oh, yeah… “Russian epic.” My question to you is, and this might help get more to the point, what evil action are you contemplating taking that the game would be unable to recognize if it is concrete and universally (according to Pathfinder) evil?
I would also, at this time, like to divorce “reputation,” defined as how liked or disliked (honored, exalted, revered) you are by certain individuals or settlements from the discussion. It is a separate mechanic from the allegiance mechanic I am presenting here, and its presence, I feel, sidetracks the discussions on allegiance. It is my fault for feeling both mechanics could be discussed within the same thread.
Concise enough, Brunnwald? (^_^)
Killing an evil outsider bears little meaning in alignment. In abyss devils fought demons and they killed each other often, but the act doesn't make them become good nor neutral. (well that's what I remember about the Dnd, not sure if they remain the same in pathfinder)
There can be random events that provide players choices / consequences that slightly change their alignments (saving innocent npcs from danger/hunger, causing riots in town, thieving, robbery, murderer, etc.) If you kill bandits for fun, it's not necessary a "good act." If you act under the order of the authority however, the act may make you more lawful, vice versa.
Shifting a character towards good should be also much more difficult than walking the evil path. Killing random monsters shouldn't change alignments too much as well (like in New vegas everyone becomes a saint by killing raiders...)
@ Mirage Wolf: I would argue that devils, being wholly evil, are incapable of shifting their moral axis (they are permanently set with evil as one of their top three allegiances). Even if they performed a hundred good acts, completely against their nature but for the sole purpose of shifting the way people view them, they are still wholly and irredeemably evil and will be treated as such.
Player characters, on the other hand, are not.
I like the idea of quests or events that could provide increases to certain allegiances, and would also agree that killing wandering monsters, bandits, or natural creatures would not warrant an increase to good or evil.
I believe if both good and evil are given concrete mechanical devices in game, evil will automatically manifest as an easier path because it requires less discipline and relies heavily on influence from the ID.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Nihimon: ... what evil action are you contemplating taking that the game would be unable to recognize if it is concrete and universally (according to Pathfinder) evil?
An example: I as a Lawful Good Paladin am aware that a Lawful Good organization is investing a large portion of its treasure in secretly transporting goods, and then I tell a Chaotic Evil organization when and where this is happening.
Don't be snide and petty and pretend that it's all about me "contemplating taking" this action. Be honest and understand that there is no possible way the computer could ever recognize that what I've done is Evil and adjust my alignment accordingly. Also, recognize that other players might well be aware of what I've done and be upset if their characters are forced to interact with me as if I'm "Good" even though they know very well that I'm not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Killing an evil outsider bears little meaning in alignment. In abyss devils fought demons and they killed each other often, but the act doesn't make them become good nor neutral. (well that's what I remember about the Dnd, not sure if they remain the same in pathfinder)
There can be random events that provide players choices / consequences that slightly change their alignments (saving innocent npcs from danger/hunger, causing riots in town, thieving, robbery, murderer, etc.) If you kill bandits for fun, it's not necessary a "good act." If you act under the order of the authority however, the act may make you more lawful, vice versa.
Shifting a character towards good should be also much more difficult than walking the evil path. Killing random monsters shouldn't change alignments too much as well (like in New vegas everyone becomes a saint by killing raiders...)
Really I think that more or less there is going to be little to maintain such a concept. What is the difference between saving NPCs from thieves/robbers/murderers and going on a thief/robber/murderer massacre?
Secondly how many complicated intricate alignment tests can you weave into a sandbox... and how do you apply any meaning to it? If joe the ultimate jerk PK, leader of the guild "the tyrant army" that specifically ceases and captures the kingdoms of every group he finds weaker then himself... but helps the NPCs in his towns, is considered good that is a bit of a break from the point of alignment.
I also second the idea that Killing evil is not doing good. A non-discriminatory psychopath, is still pretty darn evil no matter how you look at it. I wouldn't consider it nuetural for a character to defeat the great lich that doomed kingdom X, and then stab the king in the heart as he is knighting the character.
IMO the closest to a sane system for alignment, could be building types. What if based on alignment of a town, and grant different types of bonuses. say a town being LG granted it better defensive walls, or assuming NPC troops exist, higher defense troops, paladin orders etc... Investing in or using these buildings could shift your alignment in the direction of what things you use most.
While a CE town may have access to items to permit necromancy, perhaps slave labor to set up seige weapons faster etc... Working with undead, or slaves could shift your alignment more towards the evil side, as could simply signing up for residence in a town that heavily uses such tools.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just wanted to point our...Lawful and Chaotic are just as opposed as Good and Evil. I keep seeing the mention of Evil killing each other...Good can be just as guilty if you consider the extreme LG versus extreme CG. Imagine if an in-game war erupted between Law and Chaos.
I really don't see an option other than player feedback. When you see someone do something that makes you go wow! Either Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic, you rate them such...and they are the sum of their rates. As previously mentioned, make it so you can only get one rate from any one character/player in a month to avoid abuse (and each rate is a really tiny tick on the scale).
Alternately, if towns/cities can make laws (and we know NPC cities can at least), it does make sense that that those who violate those laws would shift toward chaotic. I do see how the law/chaos spectrum could be more easily automated. Perhaps Law/Chaos can be automated and Good/Evil is player feedback...
(But, as was previously mentioned, If they do make alignment variable, I don't think class/archetype should be bound by alignment in PFO...automated or player driven, it would be too easy to abuse to have it define your character such)
An example: I as a Lawful Good Paladin am aware that a Lawful Good organization is investing a large portion of its treasure in secretly transporting goods, and then I tell a Chaotic Evil organization when and where this is happening.
“I as a Lawful Good Paladin…”
This is the alignment you have chosen to play for your character. However, if you have acted in game, thus far, according to the tenants of your alignment, then your Law and Good allegiances should be relatively high. The world at large views you as Lawful Good.
“…am aware that a Lawful Good organization…”
Also an alignment the organization has chosen to play or be associated with. If they have acted in game, thus far, according to the tenants of their alignment and have not performed any OVERTLY evil or chaotic actions, their allegiances to Law and Good should also be relatively high. The world at large views them as Lawful Good.
“… is investing a large portion of its treasure in secretly transporting goods…”
I’m not sure I see what the problem is with secretly transporting good or why your character would care. I will assume for the sake of the argument that they are either illegally transporting contraband or they are a part of a guild that is somehow opposed to you, even though you are both Lawful Good (which can happen in Pathfinder). Either way, transporting the goods as well as the discovery of the transporting of the goods is all done in a non-concrete manner that cannot be quantified by the game, and thus cannot be qualified by the general populous. For all intents and purposes, the world at large doesn’t know they are smuggling goods.
“…and then I tell a Chaotic Evil organization when and where this is happening.”
Okay, so here is the fun part.
We will pretend, for the sake of argument that you happen to know how to get information like this to a Chaotic Evil organization without identifying yourself. An anonymous post on the community boards, an alt acting as a messenger in game, or maybe a RL friend plays a Chaotic Evil character in the aforementioned Chaotic Evil guild. Either way, stuff goes down, the Lawful Good guild you were targeting gets attacked on their “secret” route, and evil wins the day. Does the world at large know you were responsible for this action? No. Does the Lawful Good guild know you were the one who arranged to have their route targeted? Probably not. Does the Chaotic Evil guild know who tipped them off in the first place? Maybe, maybe not.
Now, if the Chaotic Evil guild does figure out who tipped them off, or even just has a vague idea, that could be bad for your character if word got back to the Lawful Good guild. They might even have their own suspicions about a traitor in their midst or some sort of information leak. However, just like in real life, all of the evidence pointing at you in non-concrete, and thus authority figures in the game world cannot punish you, society at large may not believe that you (a bastion of law and goodness) could ever do such a thing, and you yourself may only have committed such an act because of your own personal reasons. Should you be punished for a transgression like that (I mean, it was pretty underhanded and arguably unlawful, if not evil)? Probably. However, your station as a lawful good paladin awards you some safety and a little wiggle-room when it comes to non-concrete actions, such as this.
On the other hand, if this was just one of MANY such instances of you sending evil guilds off to do your dirty work, player characters will more than likely figure you out, will raise their voices together against the corrupt paladin puppet master, and ultimately your god (read GMs) will cast you out of good’s graces until you can atone for your misdeeds.
This system provides more RPing opportunities than you can shake a stick at.
Oh, one more thing… ALLEGIANCE IS NOT ALIGNMENT!
I figured I should shout it to make it clear for further posts. Your allegiance is how NPCs in the world VIEW you, on the whole. It is not a hard and fast rule, but rather allows you to see how your actions in game are perceived by the general population.
Also, I will fully recognize that other players might well be aware of what you've done and be upset if their characters are forced to interact with you as if you're "Good" even though they know very well that you're not. This may motivate player character to engage in non-concrete actions against you, such as a smear campagin, infiltrating and disrupting your oraginization, or engaging in the same manipulative tactics you yourself have engaged in. Just like in real life.
Now, are there any CONCRETE examples of good/evil/law/chaos?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think you understood me.
I will assume that they are either illegally transporting contraband or they are a part of a guild that is somehow opposed to you...
Why are you complicating anything by making these assumptions? My example was simple and to-the-point.
Either way, transporting the goods as well as the discovery of the transporting of the goods is all done in a non-concrete manner that cannot be quantified by the game, and thus cannot be qualified by the general populous.
Are you serious? Just because it can't be quantified by the game (which is my entire point) doesn't mean it can't be qualified (?) by the general populous.
How about if I publicly shout "Hey, evil guys, the LG guys are doing their transport right now over here!"
All the players can instantly see what I've done, and they know I should be considered "evil" for doing it, but the game is utterly ignorant of it.
This was my whole point!
My question to you is... what evil action... the game would be unable to recognize if it is concrete and universally (according to Pathfinder) evil?
I can only assume that what you really meant to say is "what action that can be analyzed by the computer can't really be analyzed by the computer?" Tautology win? Or Tautology fail?
Okay, so you, as a Lawful Good Paladin, decide to, for no good reason, shout out "Hey, evil guys, the LG guys are doing their transport right now over here!"
All the player characters see/hear this. Society at large doesn't care (after all, what is the NPC baker supposed to do about the ranting paladin? That is what other player character paladins are for.). People either ignore you or report you. In the later case, your god (read: GM) would probably send you an IM telling you to knock it off or else they are going to strip you of your lawful good alignment. Either way, people in the game aren't going to group with you because you come off as a griefer, and you either make nice outside of the game mechanics, or you roll a new character and try not to troll people.
The game (NPC reactions to you) ignore it not only because they, as you have stated and I have agreed, cannot quantify your actions, but because they have no power to do anything. Therefore even if they could qualify it what would they do? Luckily, they don't have to. PFO isn't a completely automated system they are looking to create. There will be other player characters and GMs who can help you if you have issues. What this system provides, however, is a means by which concrete actions of a player can be measured and tracked.
Allegiance would be a tool, not the game itself.
Also, when I refer to the general populous (NPCs) I am thinking in terms of traditional fodder NPC characters who, by their very nature, cannot stand toe to toe with most player characters (marshals excluded).
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Goblin Squad Member
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All the player characters see/hear this. Society at large doesn't care (after all, what is the NPC baker supposed to do about the ranting paladin? That is what other player character paladins are for.). People either ignore you or report you. In the later case, your god (read: GM) would probably send you an IM telling you to knock it off or else they are going to strip you of your lawful good alignment. Either way, people in the game aren't going to group with you because you come off as a griefer, and you either make nice outside of the game mechanics, or you roll a new character and try not to troll people.
With EITHER method of GM or player policing systems, are both doomed to fail. GM policing, what if the paladin has a vent server and is in a room with the evil crew, betreying his friends from outside the game. The players and GM's can suspect, they can note that the last 10 transports in a row that the paladin knew about were ambushed, but nothing can be proven, and I really hope a GM requires actual proof before acting on things, otherwise we have bigger issues to worry about, from power tripping GMs, to players tricking or manipulating the data. Top that off with the question of, how large of a player/GM ratio do you really think we can expect, 1 GM per 10K players online at the same time is WAAY larger of a labor cost then most MMO's can afford but assuming such a ratio, if 1% have something to report an hour... that is 100 cases in an hour per GM, can you honestly expect fair judgements at that rate?
Now player policing without the GMs is even more prone to abuse. How do you determine a good from bad report, how can you distinguish between someone doing something so henous that 100 people are offended, and 100 people who randomly chose to grief one person by filing reports together. IE a goonswarm style attack.
Bottom line alignment has to be kept pretty simple, and for the most part, inconsequential. Class abilities cannot be given or taken away from alignment, because short of a system so deep and complicated that the players have no way to ever figure out how it works, all systems can be gamed. Bottom line chaotic evil can be drifted to by unlawfully killing people, and being evil may bar you from good NPC towns, but appart from that alignment can't have too much purpose, short of possibly differences for towns of alignments assuming they are balanced with eachother.
@ Onishi: I do concede that GM and player policing systems are not ideal. We are looking at a game mechanic that has never really been addressed seriously before in an MMO. Most games can get away with cut or dry good and evil, and even EVE online had only high or low security (with low security players often having alts with high security status that acted on their behalf). Any way PFO proceeds, I can guarantee they will fail to control everybody and they will fail to satisfy everyone. However, I do feel it is worth trying.
I also second that players policing players without GMs is probably about the worst system we could have, but also keep in mind that PFO is going to start off with a low population that slowly grows overtime. I imagine a number of those starting individuals are going to be GMs, and perhaps PFO, like EVE, will implement a moderator system to reward players who have proven themselves consistently and reliably knowledgeable about the game and helpful towards other player characters. In this way, as the population of the server grows, PFO can assign player moderators (who have undergone some sort of evaluation and testing process) the role of enforcing player griefing at the local/micro level.
Either way, a lot of what I am hearing in this thread are examples of exceptions to the general populous of PFO in their intent and interest in game play. I truly feel that the majority of players who want an immersive RPing experience are not going to perform abnormal actions. While vent and other means can be used to conceal one's motives and non-concrete actions, the same opportunities exist in the real world and in the Pathfinder game itself (this could merely be the manifestation of it in the MMO).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pheoran Armiez, I appreciate the fact that you're agreeing with me, but I don't really understand how you're saying this makes you right.
My whole point is that any automated alignment system can and will be manipulated in ways such that the entire player community recognizes that someone is evil, but the game treats them as good, and potentially even forces those players to also treat them as good.
This is why I have repeatedly made the point that you simply cannot automate this.
@Pheoran Armiez, I appreciate the fact that you're agreeing with me, but I don't really understand how you're saying this makes you right.
My whole point is that any automated alignment system can and will be manipulated in ways such that the entire player community recognizes that someone is evil, but the game treats them as good, and potentially even forces those players to also treat them as good.
This is why I have repeatedly made the point that you simply cannot automate this.
My point is the fact that it CAN be manipulated helps MAKE it a great tool for roleplaying.
Assume for a moment that people are stupid (yes, you may assume me into this group because it may make you feel better ;P).
Now, say you have an evil player character who would love nothing more than to get into a good city and hurt good people. What would happen if this character tried to walk into the city? They get attacked by the town guard because they are evil (both as their stated alignment and because they have an allegiance to evil). Well, that won't work... but wait! He can change his alignment to good. Now, if he tries walking into the good city... the guards still attack him because he has a reputation for being evil. Well, crap... that didn't work out. However, what if he changes his alignment to good, and then begins performing concrete actions that are overtly good? Yes, it would take a pretty long time, but if he went on a crusade to vanquish evil outsiders, each mighty battle spreading the word of his heroic and good deeds across the land, eventually his allegiance to evil would decrease and his allegiance to good would increase.
Around 200 slain demons later, he walks into the good city, with his professed good alignment and allegiance to good protecting him from NPCs. The general populous has forgiven him of his crimes of the past, seeing him turn over a new leaf. Player characters may not fully trust this "change of heart," but until he does something wrong, they can't openly oppose him without suffering ramifications themselves (and maybe a few of his former victims are more than willing to take a shot at him anyway). An evil character walks amongst sheep ripe for the slaughter, biding his time until he is ready to strike.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think an alignment system of the type described is going to be practical to impliment for PFO. As a GM/Player in PnP, I always considered Alignment as not so much about WHAT the player did as to WHY they did it... INTENT. A computer simply can't measure INTENT.
I think if PFO is going to have an alignment system...best to let the player pick...and not have it make any meaningfull impact on gameplay mechanics...thus no reason to meta-game it. It's there purely for flavor.
Now a standing or reputation system with certain NPC Factions is fine. A computer can measure (to some degree) if a player performs specific actions that the organization likes/dislikes....as long as that's kept to easly quantitfiable behavior.
If you killing "bandits" within a certain organizations territory and not killing "citizens"... and your helping construct that organizations city walls.... they don't neccesarly care that you are doing it because you are a cold hearted SOB that simply thinks he can get more wealth from bandits....and fantasizes about throwing kittens off tall walls. They just care that your helping them do the stuff they want done...and not doing the stuff they don't want done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't understand how having PCs do it...if the system is set up to minimize abuse is a bad way to do it? It is society that rates people...and this will be the case in such a system.
Alternately, and the only objection which I think that logically stands against the PC driven system, is the fact that Golarion has absolute judges. The gods of Golarion may not be all powerful or omniscient, but they probably monitor their own. And, each deity embodies their particular alignment. Why not let the players choose their deity...and each deity has a set of rules, and character alignment changes due to that? This way, the only set of rules which they are beholden to is that between themselves and their deity. A neutral god may not care if you go murder people...meaning a follow of that god doing so would not push you evil. As you leave a particular gods realm of alignment due to breaking their rules, you get offered a new set of corresponding gods, based upon where you fell off the chart. The gods could "visit" you (or you visit them) upon your next death and you need to choose to know what temple you rez at. And, some gods may not have interest in you based upon your history, bouncing between alignments too much may only leave you with the interest of chaotic neutral or neutral gods...
And, if the automated system missed stuff...well the gods are not God...they are not omniscient.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Pheoran Armiez, I appreciate the fact that you're agreeing with me, but I don't really understand how you're saying this makes you right.
My whole point is that any automated alignment system can and will be manipulated in ways such that the entire player community recognizes that someone is evil, but the game treats them as good, and potentially even forces those players to also treat them as good.
This is why I have repeatedly made the point that you simply cannot automate this.
My point is the fact that it CAN be manipulated helps MAKE it a great tool for roleplaying.
Assume for a moment that people are stupid (yes, you may assume me into this group because it may make you feel better ;P).
Now, say you have an evil player character who would love nothing more than to get into a good city and hurt good people. What would happen if this character tried to walk into the city? They get attacked by the town guard because they are evil (both as their stated alignment and because they have an allegiance to evil). Well, that won't work... but wait! He can change his alignment to good. Now, if he tries walking into the good city... the guards still attack him because he has a reputation for being evil. Well, crap... that didn't work out. However, what if he changes his alignment to good, and then begins performing concrete actions that are overtly good? Yes, it would take a pretty long time, but if he went on a crusade to vanquish evil outsiders, each mighty battle spreading the word of his heroic and good deeds across the land, eventually his allegiance to evil would decrease and his allegiance to good would increase.
Around 200 slain demons later, he walks into the good city, with his professed good alignment and allegiance to good protecting him from NPCs. The general populous has forgiven him of his crimes of the past, seeing him turn over a new leaf. Player characters may not fully trust this "change of heart," but until he does something wrong, they can't...
Or you could avoid all that and simply not impliment an alignment system or not have the guards check the alignment system when the player walks in. Problem solved. All the city guards would really need (or make sense for them to care about) would be if there were any warrants active for that player having broken that cities laws....or possibly openly declaring allegiance against some power that city was at war against.
Guard - "Good, Evil...ugly....who cares, keep your nose clean and your hands to yourself while your here or you'll see the inside of the dungeon. You want to go out and torture kittens in the Wilderness...I ain't getting paid to worry about that."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Additionally, with the divine based ruleset determining alignment (as described in my post above) not only can their be rules which violate each gods standing, but their can be things which they like. A god who had creation or crafting in their portfolio would probably like their followers to craft...and doing so would strengthen their alignment, perhaps offsetting rule violations.
Of course, I am not sure how non-deists (as silly as this is in a world in which the gods are actual inhabitants) would be handled in this system.
If they remove alignment, they have to power down the classes like Paladin and Druid, and any other alignment restricted classes, as those classes have those alignment restrictions in exchange for the benefits of that class.
I think if the alignment system is going to be removed in favor of ease of play, yet factions are going to be used, you may as well label every one evil, because apparently what you do has little meaning unless it's either for or against your faction (or yourself), and that means any act is alright if it's for your side, and not good if against. That's not sane behavior, because it means everyone is actually role playing a psychopath.
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others. It is defined in different ways, but can involve a lack of empathy or remorse, false emotions, selfishness, grandiosity or deceptiveness; it can also involve impulsiveness, irritability, aggression, or inability to perceive danger and protect one's self.
That seems to me to be exactly the way some people wish to run their characters. No alignment means exactly that, no morals at all. And no morals means you do what you want when you want to do it, just like the Chaotic Evil alignment. If the PFO MMO won't police player behavior beyond factions, then any Paladins in the game WILL be a joke. A pretty bad one. Even the most vile person has some redeeming qualities, they may love their wife, or their children, but psychopaths have no redeeming qualities. I also figure that if the game won't strip players of class ability for behavior clearly out of bounds of their alignment inside certain classes, you may as well get rid of those classes entirely.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of people clearly don't understand what role playing means. It's not about jerking the puppet strings into behavior YOU want. It's about following the rules of that puppet. I think a lot of players of DnD lately are meta-gaming their own characters.
Purity and order??????
Yeah, then we get Dirty/Tainted instead of evil. Just brilliant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they remove alignment, they have to power down the classes like Paladin and Druid, and any other alignment restricted classes, as those classes have those alignment restrictions in exchange for the benefits of that class.
Uhh... that is pretty obviously going to be the case. For starters balance is not intended to come from the P&P ruleset, power levels, the skill and ability system, what abilities are present and different, will almost certainly not line up 100% with the P&P game. If they carry over 50% or more of the abilities of the P&P game, and only make 50% of them from scratch as new abilities that match the flavor of the class as closely as possible, I will be happily surprised that they could make it even that close, the majority of the goals for the MMO do not line up with the goals for the P&P game, as a result mechanically I expect huge differences. On the concept of meeting their goals for a 20/20 multiclass not being significantly stronger than a single 20 pure class alone, it requires a system that is fundamentally DRASTICALLY different than the P&P ruleset.
Real world DM's who watch and know what your character is doing 100% of the time at a 4:1 player/DM ratio have a heck of a time attempting to judge and appropriate alignments... Which do you think is more sane, a computer program to attempt to emulate it, or have GM's be able to make fair calls with a 1,000-10,000:1 player GM/Player ratio. Bottom line, alignment has to have a fairly insignificant overall effect on a character, a shift in allignment cannot whipe out or eliminate half of any classes abilities, because the 3 options are "A rushed overworked GM will be forced to make really quick judgement calls with poor information", "Players will vote on your alignment, in which case a paladin may fall due to 100 enemy players deciding they want to make him fall out of spite", or "An automated system, that will either be gamed by the class with restrictions itself to ensure he can do what he wants, or it will be gamed by opponents who will force him to make choices that guarantee his fall".
Roleplaying in PFO will likely be an optional subgroup. The dev's themselves have already mentioned that they have no intention of policing role-play, but may introduce tools for players to form their own communities of RPers. I imagine outside of guilds/alliances that chose to be RP, there will likely be more non-RPers than RPers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they remove alignment, they have to power down the classes like Paladin and Druid, and any other alignment restricted classes, as those classes have those alignment restrictions in exchange for the benefits of that class.....
1) They are not using the PnP rulset as a base, so basing anything on how it will effect balance of that ruleset is starting off with an apriori assumption. Frankly I think using alignment restrictions as part of the consideration for class balance was a bad move for PnP as well...but that's aside from the point.
For the purposes of this discussion we assume that they are going to be internaly balancing class/character abilities against each other without factoring in things like alignment or other things that a computer ruleset would have difficulty handling.
Yes, you likely will have "Evil" and "Chaotic Neutral", etc, Paladins. I don't see any more of a problem with that then having "Evil" and "Chaotic Neutral" Clerics. There are dieties of all alignments in the setting, no real reason why the Lawfull Good ones would be the only ones to have warriors dedicated to thier service. When you think about it, functionaly, that is all a Paladin really is...a warrior dedicated to a particular dieties service and in return gifted with a certain set of holy powers by that diety.
2) There is no reason that not having an "Alignment" system will end up with everyone being Evil or a psychopath (although I really think the term you were looking for was more sociopath then psychopath.) Most MMO's don't have alignment systems and they don't turn out like that...nor does Real Life. In fact a game with a factional system but lacking any sort of Alignment system would be the closest model to what exists in our world.
Just because a game doesn't model an alignment system doesn't mean that players will behave in an amoral manner. In fact, engaging in some behavior just because the game rewards/punishes you for it is pretty much the opposite of role-playing....and also rather the opposite of the moral definition of "Good" (IMO).
3) People will RP thier characters in the fashion they choose because they happen to enjoy Role-Playing....as it should be. Frankly, I'm not sure I've ever played an MMO with an alignment system....and most of the PnP campaigns I've played also haven't used alignment rules very much....and more often then not I end up RPing a character that is "Lawfull Good"....I don't see that as some sort of penalty nor is it actualy harder for me as a player (frankly I think it's tougher to RP "Evil" well). I do it because it's what I enjoy.
4) In an MMO community, characters will develop thier own reputations, regardless of what label is applied on thier character sheet. In the sort of game that PFO is looking to be, a characters actions and behavior will VERY MUCH have an effect on them....because you aren't playing the game alone but as part of a community...and I rather suspect you won't be able to accomplish all that much of significance on your own without the support of other players. You won't really need to look at someones character sheet to tell what someones "alignment" is.... because what really matters is how they interact with the other player characters in the world.
Most MMO's don't have alignment systems and they don't turn out like that...nor does Real Life.
Wait a sec... you DON'T have an alignment in real life!?
Just kidding.
Wow, I take a little time off and the thread doesn't die without me? My egocentric view of the world is crumbling around me.
I think there are a lot of really good ideas being presented here about what can, can't, and should be done to tackle the slippery slope of alignment. I believe, after long consideration, it would be best to leave the mechanics out of it. Entirely. Yeah, I know, I was pushing mechanics pretty hard, but our computer brains aren’t sentient enough yet, and I’m pretty stumped on how to handle neutrality in all this (read: lazy).
I think GrumpyMel posed a good idea that NPC guards should only really be worried about whether or not you have a bounty on your head (maybe regionally), but otherwise look the other way when a character enters town... you know, so long as they don't start killing people. I'm pretty sure swift and immediate justice will be enough to deter most players from overtly evil acts in civilized areas.
Also, this is going to be a community. If someone is an [expletive], than their colors will shine through and they will be treated accordingly. That is pretty good as far as player vs. player policing goes. As far as alignment for roleplaying, I like the idea of maybe adding that to your character BIO sheet (a little something for the RPers and storytellers).
Finally, when it comes to classes and alignments, to expect a 100% (or even the stated 50%) retention of the PnP stuff is stretching it. I'm sure they will find a way around the whole druid/paladin thingy, and it will be pretty unique, and people will either love it, hate it, or something in between. That much I know (see how I covered the odds?).
BTW, I'm a Neutral Good Human Male College Student (psychology/sociology gestalt archetype) in RL.