Goblin Squad Member
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Preamble:
I've noticed a number of posts cropping up since the recent blog post about alignment. A lot of people are concerned about the direction the alignment system is taking, especially since it currently seems to want to push everyone towards being Chaotic Evil.
We all know that ethics/ethos is more complex than 2 sliding bars. People are complex beings that take a variety of actions for myriad reasons. At the heart of everyone's decision-making process, though, is the belief that one is always taking the best course of action available to them. The reason people make different choices given the same situation is often because of different priorities and knowledge. Whether you value your own comfort above another's is a huge factor in determining your inclination towards charity work.
Visible Issues:
Now, the primary reason for the outcry that I can see is that a whole lot of ways have been outlined to become evil and/or chaotic, but not much has been said on the matter of becoming lawful and/or good. According to the outlined system, if you see a merchant being attacked by bandits and leap to his aid, YOU SHIFT TOWARDS CHAOTIC. If any of the bandits die in the engagement, even if you did not deal the killing blow, YOU SHIFT TOWARDS EVIL. Thus the action of defending someone from bandits, clearly a Lawful Good act, has resulted in your alignment shifting towards Chaotic Evil.
This also creates the "Alignment Mountain" problem, where you will end up with a lot of players at the base of the mountain (Chaotic Evil) and a rare few at the top (Lawful Good) simply because climbing the mountain isn't something they have the willpower to do. If 90% of the players are evil, why bother trying to be good? You may still play as an honorable character, but according to the alignment system you are Chaotic Evil or close to it. The mechanics of becoming Lawful Good simply aren't worth the effort.
Possible Solutions:
The simplest solution I can think of is based on PC settlements. When a company of players forms a settlement, they determine the alignment of the settlement and the "laws" of the area. These "laws" can be used as a primary method of shifting player alignment. Especially in Lawfully aligned hexes, following those laws should shift in you towards being lawful regardless of the normal consequences of those actions. If one of the laws for an area is to attack players who initiate PvP against ANYONE, that would allow you to defend another player who is under attack and be considered a law-abiding citizen for doing so. It could in fact be possible for player guilds to be set up similarly, allowing players who are following the laws of their guild to mitigate or eliminate chaotic shifts. You could even mitigate abuse of this mechanic by making certain laws alignment specific.
I don't have as concrete of an idea when it comes to the good/evil axis, especially since the core concept of "Good" is placing great value on life itself. This is the reason, I think, that Paizo determined that killing is an Evil act. If anyone else has any ideas, please share them.
I think we need to know more about how players can maintain their desired alignment. What actions give us + lawful, what actions give is + good? I'm sure the Devs plan on making many ways to do these things that will negate ill effects from other actions.
Several people have become storm crows over alignment, when we still don't have all the facts. These aren't amateurs that decided to make a MMO. The GW staff has been through the creation process a few times, they have enough experience to know how to set up systems and methods that work. Once they lay out all the facts about the alignment system the majority of us will be satisfied that yes, such a system will work. Oh we might think a tweak here or there would help the system overall.
I'm awaiting the blog, tomorrow ;) hopefully we will get some answers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just a clarification, in the case of the merchant being attacked as the bandits would have flagged as agressors I believe (based on what I read) no chaotic shift would occur. Unless we hit first.
I believe you are correct. Whoever attacks first gets the attacker flag. As I read the blogs that is a simple mechanic that applies to all in the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Multiple Choice,
I've been one of the most vocal critics of the currently proposed Alignment system. My biggest criticisms center around the concept that Alignment in PFO is incongruent with how Alignment is designed and presented in Pathfinder itself.
In Pathfinder Alignment is a reflection of a CHARACTERS morale attitude. It is not intended as a straight jacket or a penalty/reward system to control a players behavior. Each alignment can encompass a broad spectrum of personal philosophies. In other words, Alignment is an entirely IC behavior.
In PFO, a major function of Alignment seems to be as a control to influence PLAYER interactions with other PLAYERS and reward/penalize on that basis.
No more can the dichotomy clearly be seen then the fact that attacking and killing an Evil Elf NPC is considered a "Good" action by PFO but attacking and killing an Evil Elf Player is considered and "Evil" action. Exact same actions...different results. The only difference being the targets status of PC or NPC....a difference which is a construct entirely outside of the game world.
The other complication caused by the above system is that since it utilizes Chaotic and Evil shifts as a punishment for undesired player behavior (e.g. "Griefing"), any Player who selects CE as an alignment for thier character who is not a "Griefer" is subjected to the same penalties that are reserved for "Griefers".
Finaly since you have an automated system applying adjucations, you can't really allow for multiple philosophies or broad spectrums of behavior within a given alignment since automated systems are inherently limited to narrow interpretations.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...In Pathfinder Alignment is a reflection of a CHARACTERS morale attitude. ...In PFO, a major function of Alignment seems to be as a control to influence PLAYER interactions with other PLAYERS and reward/penalize on that basis....
I agree that the PLAYER should play their CHARACTER. But will the player be compelled to play their alignment the way you play your alignment. In another thread you have said that three players could all be LG and each of them play that alignment differently. I see alignment shift based on actions as a way for the PLAYER to know if they are playing their CHARACTER'S alignment correctly as defined by the PFO rules, not by Pathfinder PnP rules.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Harad
But the PFO rules are more concerned with controling Player behavior then with reflecting characters moral attitude. Under the schema, if GW determined that making blood sacrifices to Rovagug were an effective Anti-Griefing measure then PFO rules would require LG Paladins to do that in order to maintain thier LG status.
It also becomes a big problem with cognitive dissonence when iconic, classic and even stereotypical character types are suddenly unviable to play in PFO due to the difference in rules. It's kinda like having the NFL Online but you are not allowed to throw the ball. Alot of people are going to be like "Huh...that's not Football" and walk away in disgust because you can't do the things which are expected of Football and which make Football enjoyable.
So where is the righteous crusader against Evil?? Nowhere because Evil can simply choose to avoid engagements with anyone it doesn't want to fight....unless said person turns to "Bounty Hunting", then you can kill whoever you want Good, Evil or Neutral an infinate number of times as long as someone is willing to pay you.
How is that Pathfinder again?
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Goblin Squad Member
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In PFO, a major function of Alignment seems to be as a control to influence PLAYER interactions with other PLAYERS and reward/penalize on that basis.
This is BS. The major function of character alignment system is to create a living and a breathing world, to be more precise: an interactive virtual environment that takes in to account character behavior.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A major function of the alignment system is to create sides. Lawful Goods want to band together to make the "best" settlements. CEs will band together to punish the LGs for their attitude and prevent them from making it into a PVE game. CGs will band together because they have compatible play styles. "good" and "evil" as just nametags aren't worth fighting for, but the alignment system just might end up sorting people in groups based on what kind of game they want to play, which makes for a much more interesting social experiment.
The "righteous crusader against evil" doesn't go around murdering assumed wrongdoers without evidence. In PFO he will
-valiantly declare war on known evil settlements even if they are stronger
-certainly punish anyone evil enough to merit the Heinous flag
-possibly punish known criminals, attackers, thieves and trespassers
@OP: helping a merchant kill bandits is not "clearly a LG act" unless you know what is going on (maybe the merchant is a poison smuggler and attacked the rangers for finding this out). Attacking based on first impressions is rash (chaotic) and violent (evil-ish).
If the bandits have criminal or attacker flags, or if you belong to the same settlement as the merchant, then the situation is very different.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is a significant contextual difference between adventuring with a small party across the table from a living GM and adventuring with hundreds of other players where plyaer action is what can be quantified and the players' intentions are all part of their role playing (or lack thereof). Qualitative rules written for tabletop will similarly vary from programmable quantitative measures of alignment. There is no GM across the table to evaluate your actions based on your intentions and motivations, but the intentions manifest in the game environment as actions which can be measured and used by a computer program.
The things you do indicate the consequences of your moral choices whether you are deluding yourself into thinking you are good when killing someone or not.
A lawful good character defending himself from an attacker is not going to suffer negative consequences unless he is measurably inititing the attack. All he has to do is alow the bad guy to manifest his evil or chaos by attacking first.
The people who wrote the rules for Pathfinder are on board with GW's design for alignment, and rules written for tabletop will not directly translate into a programmable game.
If we have not yet learned what a player's character can do to promote lawful good alignment then we do not have enough information to justify any conclusion that 90% of the population will be evil.
Finally if it is your ideal of iconic role behaviors that the holy paladin is a killer who happens to have a delusional self-image and fanatical belief that his cause is Right no matter what he actually does then you are simply and completely mistaken.
Repeating your error does not make that error right.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that what Lord Daeron suggested is the best solution for PFO... every new character begins the game as True Neutral and then the actions of the player within the game changes his or hers alignment in either direction or stays the same.
I understand you want to give credit to LordDaeron for that suggestion and that is generous of you, but I would point out it is a very old idea that was discussed by many. LordDaeron is a very creative and valuable member but if we are going to assign credit for an idea we should have to establish an extensive research and documentation process.
There have been other attributions recently that were mistaken as well: just because someone first saw the idea pronounced by one or another poster does not mean that was the first time it was proposed. Many ideas have been discussed by many people since 2011, and possibly earlier.
The problem is that if somebody else suggested it earlier their contribution is being forgotten, which can damage the sense of community.
I wish to urge that none of us attribute an idea to anyone of us without actually going to the trouble to learn if we are slighting an earlier poster.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being
Still anyway the incoerence of needing to wait evil always to strike first. So you see a band grouping to attack a caravan and you need to wait they strike first to act. Absolutelly unrealistic in both game or real life. I hope they solve it.
Isn't that the burden of being Good? No mortal is omniscient. The good do not know that someone will attack until they do.
Why do you think it should matter when judging who is the instigator of a fight which participant struck first? Whoever struck first is the one to be castigated: nobody blames anyone for defending themselves.
Isn't that a real consideration?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not quite really. If that group is known to have attacked hundreds of caravans we still forced to wait and see them strike first?
Very unlikelly, at least for players who want to play some sort of "deffending the weak" role (not my case).
To wait evil strike first when you are sure they will attack is just stupid, not good. Especially in a context of fantastic fantasy.
And in a case you got a spy info that they will strike you just sit down and wait for them to attack? Only if we were dumb.
I hope that "champion flag" solves that, although I'm afraid that would be a system that still have some holes to allow abuse.
Lets see what GW have to present us in today's blog input.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We aren't talking nuclear first strike. Bullets from sniper rifles do not exist. It isn't attacking first to set your defensive stance or casting mage armor. If your opponent strikes first they are committed and you have an array of viable counters such as parry, deflect, and reposte. It is not as great an advantage in melee for tthe opponent to gain first strike so long as you are alert, skilled, and ready for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not quite really. If that group is known to have attacked hundreds of caravans we still forced to wait and see them strike first?
...
If you wish to strike first then you must be willing and able to afford the consequences. If you do not want to afford them the chance to not attack, if you want to take responsibility for the decision to actually engage, then you must also accept the responsibility for usurping their choice.
By striking first you are tkaing responsibility for the decision to engage in combat and denying your opponent the chance to rethink and choose to not attack.
If the player chooses to be not lawful and good they should not expect to enjoy the benefits of being lawful and good. Whatever your values are will define your alignment. If you think it is stupid to be lawful and good then don't expect to remain lawful and good.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being
Well I'm not sure striking first an evil group is exactly not being LG. Many will disagree. This is a very relative, subject even in alignment system.
You could say it is chaotic, but evil? I'm not sure I'm confortable with this point of view.
And a problem is that there is no mechanism (yet?) to allow you t attack if they just say no we will not refrain to attack, or to get the criminal to prision or any other form of nonlethal punishment so to stop someone from doin evil, the only way the game offers you is killing. Or just ask sweetly please Don't attack... Not very efective...
I suggested in another thread creating a "draw weapons command" that may be a solution. By drawing weapons you just send a message: If you attack this caravan we will attack you too. And would have enhanced defense if they attack you first. And before attacking the enemies should draw weapons too so you would know they are going to attack and can try to strike first.
Sounds like a solution to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Drawing my weapon is not attacking, this is true, and it would help you to not be caught flat-footed. This was pretty much in line with my thought that allowing evil to attack first prevents alignment shift without giving too great an advantage to evil since a nuclear strike is not in the cards.
Other hand unsheathing your blade is provocative. 'Don't pull it unless you mean to use it' is a reasonably common rule for unholstering/unlimbering firearms these days, and it isn't a stretch to imagine it was similar in the old days for people to be very wary and feel threatened by someone unsheathing their weapon.
Perhaps there should be a mechanical effect associated with preparing for combat that will reduce the chance and value of alignment shifts? If I attack a man while he has no weapon readied there should be a more severe consequence to my doing so, where attacking someone who has unsheathed their blade and set their shield seems much more reasonable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What drawing weapons is also a cultural issue. I remmember in the Babylon 5 tv series how a missunderstandig reggardind the charging weapons lead to a war between human and mimbary. For the Mimbary charging weapons was just a sign of respect, for the human that was a threat and one stupid gunsman just striked first.
That example I just pointed, actually, is one that contradicts all I was satating before, lol. I just called stupid one who did just what I said would be acceptable to a LG to do.
I'm kind of playing the "devi'ls advocate" in this subject as I'm not sure what vision is the one I agree. I don't agree totally to any of two. There are always exception that make me unconfortable to support any side of this discussion.
You see, that is a very tricky subject...
Goblin Squad Member
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The Arguments
To be fair, we'd be having these arguments no matter what they proposed. Alignment has been the source of stupid arguments between players and DMs for better than three decades now.
I'm ready to give the computers a shot. Even if I don't agree with the lines they draw, at least there'll be a codified set of rules that nobody can argue their way out of.
We need more information to judge the details, but these arguments have only made me confident that alignment is a better addition to Pathfinder Online than it has been to tabletop games.
Lawful Acts
I could see attacking flagged law breakers being a lawful act, but the more important one is probably settlements like you mentioned.
Assisting in the running of a settlement or doing work for a settlement, could easily be a lawful act. A chaotic settlement probably has less people (or even no) people active this way, but taking time to work for your community is lawful, even if the community itself is chaotic.
I imagine praying at or donating to the temples of lawful gods would be considered a lawful act.
On the lower end of the scale, official commerce could also be a minor lawful act. If you go to a settlement with a sales tax and purchase items, paying the tax rather than finding a fence, that's coloring in the lines.
In a general sense, I'd any acting interaction with a settlement's laws (like taxes or buying plots of land) could grant lawfulness. Meanwhile, the laws that exclude certain actions would grant chaoticness if broken.
Good Acts
Good is a sticky issue. Traditionally, good is seen more as the absence of evil, which creates some of the issues you're discussing above.
Killing certain monsters will assuredly be good. This will probably include a lot of monsters, but almost has to include undead, evil outsiders (devils/demons), and evil dragons.
Helping the downtrodden (read: NPC townsfolk) is another classic way to be good. In a perfect world, they'd have small problems that you could solve like little quests. Even without a system like that, however, giving them stuff or helping with their tasks and turning down payment could be a good act.
Healing magic is traditionally associated with good, so it makes sense that healing non-evil people would grant "goodness." There always need to be some restrictions here (like 1/day per target), but it can work out.
Again, I imagine praying at or donating to the temples of good gods would be considered good. A system where you can "pray away" evils might seem silly on the face of it, but most religions accept prayer as a minor form of penance.
Being a Paladin
So, taking my collection of ideas as a whole, to be a paladin you'd want to:
-Work to improve your community
-Pray in temples of your god or goddess
-Donate to those temples, your community, and to downtrodden individuals
-Kill monsters, especially undead, demons, and evil dragons
-Help the downtrodden and turn down offers of payment
-Heal non-evil people
-Avoid killing people unless it's necessary to interrupt or avenge a chaotic/evil act
-Obey the laws of the community you're in
Sounds about like what you'd want a paladin to be doing. It's not perfect, but if the numbers line up correctly, you'll have people (on average) acting more like paladins online than around the tabletop.
What I mean there is that you won't see paladins in most tabletop groups taking a break after losing their temper and killing someone to pray for penance or turn around and give the loot they found to a poor family. But even a relatively simple set of automated rules can encourage people to think about good like their paladin should.
Cheers!
Landon
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think that what Lord Daeron suggested is the best solution for PFO... every new character begins the game as True Neutral and then the actions of the player within the game changes his or hers alignment in either direction or stays the same.I understand you want to give credit to LordDaeron for that suggestion and that is generous of you, but I would point out it is a very old idea that was discussed by many. LordDaeron is a very creative and valuable member but if we are going to assign credit for an idea we should have to establish an extensive research and documentation process.
There have been other attributions recently that were mistaken as well: just because someone first saw the idea pronounced by one or another poster does not mean that was the first time it was proposed. Many ideas have been discussed by many people since 2011, and possibly earlier.
The problem is that if somebody else suggested it earlier their contribution is being forgotten, which can damage the sense of community.
I wish to urge that none of us attribute an idea to anyone of us without actually going to the trouble to learn if we are slighting an earlier poster.
The idea itself is whats important and if you want to assign credit to someone else then name that person.
The idea behind that everyone begins as True Neutral is that you don't automatically start as Lawful Good but you have to earn it and having to earn things is a good mechanic in an online game who builds on it's community.
By the way, I have thought up a name for one of your ingame characters... Venomtongue, good isn't it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Traditionally, good is seen more as the absence of evil
Interesting: The tradition I have is that evil is the absense of good. Where there is any good, the good is there but the less of it present the more evil the condition.
My tradition does not account for evil deities. Perhaps similarly defining Good by the absence of evil similarly discounts good deities.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being
Still anyway the incoerence of needing to wait evil always to strike first. So you see a band grouping to attack a caravan and you need to wait they strike first to act. Absolutelly unrealistic in both game or real life. I hope they solve it.
I'm going to avoid alignment for the moment. I think there is deliberation by the devs in making any offense have a built-in variable negative cost to your alignment ie not a binary: -ve cost or 0 cost. but a smaller -ve and a larger -ve, so that even offense of minor discretion will stack up if repeated often enough.
So you may not have to wait all the time for evil to strike, but most of the time depending on how good you are and how bad (contextually permissable) your target of offence allows.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...
The idea itself is whats important and if you want to assign credit to someone else then name that person...
First I would reference the Additional Rules section of the Core Rulebook:
"Changing AlignmentsAlignment is a tool, a convenient shorthand you can use to summarize the general attitude of an NPC, region, religion, organization, monster, or even magic item.
Certain character classes in Classes list repercussions for those who don't adhere to a specific alignment, and some spells and magic items have different effects on targets depending on alignment, but beyond that it's generally not necessary to worry too much about whether someone is behaving differently from his stated alignment. In the end, the Game Master is the one who gets to decide if something's in accordance with its indicated alignment, based on the descriptions given previously and his own opinion and interpretation—the only thing the GM needs to strive for is to be consistent as to what constitutes the difference between alignments like chaotic neutral and chaotic evil. There's no hard and fast mechanic by which you can measure alignment—unlike hit points or skill ranks or Armor Class, alignment is solely a label the GM controls.
It's best to let players play their characters as they want. If a player is roleplaying in a way that you, as the GM, think doesn't fit his alignment, let him know that he's acting out of alignment and tell him why—but do so in a friendly manner. If a character wants to change his alignment, let him—in most cases, this should amount to little more than a change of personality, or in some cases, no change at all if the alignment change was more of an adjustment to more accurately summarize how a player, in your opinion, is portraying his character. In some cases, changing alignments can impact a character's abilities—see the class write-ups in Classes for details. An atonement spell may be necessary to repair damage done by alignment changes arising from involuntary sources or momentary lapses in personality.
Players who frequently have their characters change alignment should in all likelihood be playing chaotic neutral characters."
Thus alignment is not immutable, but is changeable.
I agree with you it is the idea that is iportant, but I should be remiss to fail pointing your attention toward a conversation between Darcnes and several others in a thread Hobbs the Short began on Alignment.
Note we were discussing a very wide range of considerations, to include such things as alignment decay (which introduced an idea that over time without positive action the player character would tend to entropically decay back toward simple neutrality (as opposed to 'true' or active neutrality.
It was an idea essentially sourced in the interaction of quite a few members of this community.
Please understand my objection is absolutely not intending to slight the very valuable contributions of our threadmember LordDaeron.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being
Still anyway the incoerence of needing to wait evil always to strike first. So you see a band grouping to attack a caravan and you need to wait they strike first to act. Absolutelly unrealistic in both game or real life. I hope they solve it.
Isn't that the burden of being Good? No mortal is omniscient. The good do not know that someone will attack until they do.
Why do you think it should matter when judging who is the instigator of a fight which participant struck first? Whoever struck first is the one to be castigated: nobody blames anyone for defending themselves.
Isn't that a real consideration?
It's called "reasonable belief". If you are familiar with real world law enforcement as you seem to be...then you know the term.
Combine that with divine magic which infallibly tell you the true nature of a being, you've got a pretty strong case.
A simple automated program such as PFO will use is incapable of judging or understanding "reasonable belief" it can only make a simple binary determination of something happening AFTER it happaned. In other words it can only determine that someone is about to murder you AFTER you've already been killed. There is no "ANY reasonable person would believe X"
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Goblin Squad Member
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...
Combine that with divine magic which infallibly tell you the true nature of a being, you've got a pretty strong case.
Except while it is programmatically possible to divine the immutable alignment of a programming object's alignment property it is not possible to do so for the person guiding a player character.
You will have no idea that in five years that character will save a nation of orphans when he converts, assuming he stays with the game long enough to grow up. Your presumption of a fallible 'reasonable cause' could drive him from the game, especially if his daggers are still sheathed when you self-righteously decapitate him with your greatsword.
A simple automated program such as PFO will use is incapable of judging or understanding "reasonable belief" it can only make a simple binary determination of something happening AFTER it happaned. In other words it can only determine that someone is about to murder you AFTER you've already been killed. There is no "ANY reasonable person would believe X"
That is right, our programming cannot reliably predict human choices. Problem is you cannot either, nor can a law enforcement officer. However a law enforcement officer can reliably tell when he is under fire, and you can relaibly know when you are under attack, and the computer program can also know when you are under attack and implement conditional consequences for the attacker. Those are things that can be done.
Alignment decisions are under the authority of the GM, in this case GW as advised by Paizo, not your subjective hunch about what is right.
Mel if you are an officer of the law you cannot wait to learn whether that suspect in the dark alley intends to fire: if he has a deadly wepon you have to fire first and you will have been trained to go with your best judgement on a case by case basis. I understand that.
But here we have a situation and environment that must be moderated in ways that can be automated, and that limits how the game can be built. The players must be willing to conform their in-game behavior to the requirements of the game designer and the limitations of their ability to program.
A simple automated program such as PFO will use is incapable of judging or understanding "reasonable belief" it can only make a simple binary determination of something happening AFTER it happaned. In other words it can only determine that someone is about to murder you AFTER you've already been killed. There is no "ANY reasonable person would believe X"
But a not so simple automated program is ALL we have to rely on. That IS the method GW will use to judge players actions and intentions and assign alignment shifts. So arguing that its ineffective, or incapable gets us nowhere. Rather argue what methods can refine the automated programs capabilities as well as what additions can allow the program to, as accurately as possible, judge a players actions in relation to their desired alignment.
Pondering what a players character knows in the game ie. IC, as well as what the character doesn't know, OOC, might be useful in a PnP campaign. These distinctions have no place in a MMO that will be run by a program, not a human DM. Likewise a human DM can be swayed by logic, whereas a program cannot. So attempting to justify an action based on logic alone really doesn't advance the cause of creating a MMO that meets the needs of the developers and the players. Unless the use of that logic is tied with a proposed solution to the problem being addressed.
Thats how I see things. But I've never claimed to be 100% correct, so I await more information from the developers and hopefully some proposed solutions that will satisfy a majority of the players.
The true problem with any alignment system is that PFO will follow whatever its programmers decide. What that system will fail to realize is that people have differing ideas as to what is good or evil, or more accurately how we all divide the gray area between them.
Perhaps once upon a time the world was black and white, but it's been varying shades of gray for a very long time now and a computer just can't judge situational ethics like a live DM would.
In a black and white world when your faced with a lesser of two evils choice your screwed either way.
PFO seems to be trying to remove the "ends justify the means" mentality that most of the world runs on these days.
Personally I'm done thinking about alignments, the Devs have a year+ to figure it all out, and either I'll play or I won't
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I'm just getting a bit frustrated with this whole situation. Personaly I think they would have been much better off without an Alignment adjucation system and a bigger mistake tying it to the Anti-Griefer system.
However, if they have to go with said system, I see 3 problems which are potentialy addressable.
1) Goods inability to be proactive in defending against Evil.
I think this could be served with a Protection system. Allow Good to place areas, objects or players under thier Protection. Remove the Burden both financial and practical from the Victem of getting a Bounty. Triggers immediately upon attack. Serves as a Deterrent to would be villians that there WILL BE consequences for agression here. Allows the Good character to be altrusistc rather then seek moniotary rewards. Lasts significantly longer then Attacker flag so perpetrators can't play go hide in the woods for a few minutes while we unflag. Can be held by Chartered Companies in addition to individuals. Still requires bad guys to strike first but is more proactive and mitigates repeat offenses.
2) Players who choose Evil alignments being lumped in with Greifers even when they are not.
Reputation flag should count more in terms of Alignment for penalties against Evil settlements.
3) Folks getting dinged for honorable duels, combat training or situations the computer can't adjucate well.
Allow victems of attack or kill the opportunity to WAIVE the attackers alignment shifts if they felt attackers actions were warranted/justified. Sure griefers and jerks won't use it but at least there is some opportunity for decent and honorable PLAYERS to be able to weigh in, in an intelligent manner on thier fellow players actions.
Example: I attack and kill Joe and Joe recognizes that he was being blindingly obvious he was about to attack me...he can waive my penalties if HE thinks the kill was justified.
That's all I got.
Or a more modern day example. Recently someone walked into a park with a loaded semi automatic rifle he was legally entitled to have and carry.
Would you consider the person who called the police on him to be over-reacting?
In an open carry state, yes the caller was overreacting. But people are taught to fear guns like they were venomous snakes, who at any moment will strike. It's sadly funny to see people's reactions, they really feel that guns will just stand up and start shooting on their own.
In an open carry state, yes the caller was overreacting. But people are taught to fear guns like they were venomous snakes, who at any moment will strike. It's sadly funny to see people's reactions, they really feel that guns will just stand up and start shooting on their own.Or a more modern day example. Recently someone walked into a park with a loaded semi automatic rifle he was legally entitled to have and carry.
Would you consider the person who called the police on him to be over-reacting?
Hmmm...Not going to touch this one except to say I think you are posting on the wrong thread. You might try NRA.com. If you'd like to talk to me about this, please send me a PM.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well.. Unless you were walking to the range or a gun show, I'd personally prefer that they would leave the rifle in the truck's gun rack. I would be very clear on potential lines of fire and if something were to start then where the nearest cover would be and if I had an angle of approach to try to disarm them if they started shooting.
Handguns, not so much. If someone has a holstered weapon on their belt then there is absolutely no laws being violated. Again I would be aware of the threat and have a plan in place to deal with it, but that is years of self-defense and firearm safety classes at work.
Completely irrelevant to and game discussion though, so I suggest we shelve the topic.
It doesn't affect alignment, so yea it's not that useful to the topic <g> speaking of topic, where is the blog! :p