Goblin Squad Member
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I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Avari,
Using that rationale, why does PFO have to be "regular PF RPG" at all?
That bit of rhetoric aside....
Duly noted.
What is the probability that any large community (in the thousands) will not be inhabited by citizens that represent all walks of life?
I'll use this bit of real life, which a rarely do, but is stands to reason in a fantasy setting:
I live in a town of less than 10,000 residents. It is a quiet and mostly rural community of people that are generally lawful and good to neutral. Yet, at any given time we have up to the maximum of 10 child predators living in several locations in our town. These chaotic evil animals live among us. They shop in the same stores, walk the same streets and go to the same town festivals.
In a fantasy setting or any setting, it does not compute that one step alignment is even possible, let alone enforceable. A game mechanic can be created to do it, but that will no longer be a "sand box". GW would be creating mini theme parks within a sand box.
What if after EE and well into OE, there is not one settlement that caters to LG as a primary alignment? Where will the Paladins or LG Monks go for their upper tier training?
This discussion is pretty heavy. Have the offenders been to jail and served their time? Cuz that's pretty similair to getting banned from a settlement until your alignment is back in line. If not then they have not been found out yet and i think that's the key.
Conversely I'd say that a mercenary bandit company that is contracted to be a military wing of a nuetral good settlement is kind of like the US announcing that Blackwater is now an official US military wing. There would be unrest and cries of corruption, just like in PFO.
Honestly Bludd you should be a bit more thrilled about this blog, it gives high hopes for a true Chaotic Neutral settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I live in a town of less than 10,000 residents. It is a quiet and mostly rural community of people that are generally lawful and good to neutral. Yet, at any given time we have up to the maximum of 10 child predators living in several locations in our town. These chaotic evil animals live among us. They shop in the same stores, walk the same streets and go to the same town festivals.
Your town of 10,000 is at a much later stage in its evolution than any PFO settlement. Most of those residents are there because of history, or economic circumstance, or family ties.
A PFO settlement is more akin to self-selected group of colonists setting out to a new land.
I think the passengers on the Mayflower, or the followers of Joseph Smith that went with him to Utah, or the Jesse James gang of outlaws riding west for loot are much better approximations of the society within a PFO settlement than a diverse modern town.
Most members of those groups shared fundamental values and objectives. Dissenters would either not join in the first place, or would be ejected from the group.
EDIT: I would make the same argument to GrumpyMel.
The situations he describes are active cities with long histories.
A PFO settlement is literally a group of people going out to the wilderness and building the first houses and structures of a new settlement. Why would a LG group take an embedded thieves guild with them and build them a place to hide?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Your town of 10,000 is at a much later stage in its evolution than any PFO settlement. Most of those residents are there because of history, or economic circumstance, or family ties.
A PFO settlement is more akin to self-selected group of colonists setting out to a new land.
I think the passengers on the Mayflower, or the followers of Joseph Smith that went with him to Utah, or the Jesse James gang of outlaws riding west for loot are much better approximations of the society within a PFO settlement than a diverse modern town.
Most members of those groups shared fundamental values and objectives. Dissenters would either not join in the first place, or would be ejected from the group.
Yes a settlement's alignment is really dictated by its leadership (ie the characters). The peasants on the other hand, just get "unrest" and "corruption" indexes based on what the leaders do. I think it makes perfect sense unless you really wanna get all sociologist on it.
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No one was there to witness this, and while this would certainly affect his alignment (no arguement from me on that one) how would it affect his reputation in a negative fashion? If no one is the wiser, than why fault the guilty with something everyone can see to prove his guilt.
Reputation in PFO isn't so much about your character as it is about you. It is a way to identify griefers and also punish them. PFO is about having a reason to PvP that feels like a pathfinder world, instead of a game that is just a bunch of people who kill anyone they see. Does that answer your question?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
Then no town that has been portrayed in pretty much any fantasy work could be considered LG. Alignment of the town would represent the GENERAL attitude and expectations of the town populace and how the town is run, it wouldn't represent complete uniformity among the populace or complete success of enforcing those elements upon every subset and element of the town.
In modern America, there are many cities and towns which are generaly very lawfull, safe and where the laws are well enforced that still have a few neighborhoods that one would be a bit nervous about visting in the middle of the night.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
If it manages to enforce all its other laws and the guild is a fraction of the population, then yes it is. If the city doesn't know it, it obviously isn't suffereing because of it, thus the effects of the activites of the guild are negligble. So, actually, yes it is.
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About the "advantages" of lawful and good alignments:
as the blog says, they will be more vulnerable to corruption and unrest, potentially making them "worse" than chaotic or evil settlements.
Right there is a system with both pros and cons to either alignment. It's just a matter of balancing and tuning to get the system just right so that any combination of alignment is just as viable as any other.
If it has to be weighted slightly in favor of lawful and good for the sake of the community, then so what? Successful evil/chaotic settlements will have bragging rights due to making it "despite the odds", which could be seen as a fun challenge.
I am tempted to go either CN or NE and I wouldn't mind a ~slight~ disadvantage for doing so.
The point is, they can balance it so that there is a ~slight~ disadvantage or even no disadvantage. Extrapolating to "All except LG will suck" is a mistake and the system as described can allow for successful settlements of any alignment.
The tradeoffs can be negotiated, tuned, scratched or whatever as we go along.
It is a fine and bold system to start off with.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
Then no town that has been portrayed in pretty much any fantasy work could be considered LG. Alignment of the town would represent the GENERAL attitude and expectations of the town populace and how the town is run, it wouldn't represent complete uniformity among the populace or complete success of enforcing those elements upon every subset and element of the town.
In modern America, there are many cities and towns which are generaly very lawfull, safe and where the laws are well enforced that still have a few neighborhoods that one would be a bit nervous about visting in the middle of the night.
I dunno, Lothlorien? Camelot? Those are true LG fantasy settlements. I dunno what LG cities with thriving theives guilds you are talking about.
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@GrumpyMel: Maybe that could be a future Level 20+ thing for the highest developed Settlements and Nations to knock them off their perch: "The enemy within" - they become vulnerable to internal corruption after a certain scale it's impossible to enforce everyone?!
Atm, we're doing fairly well with:
Tinker, Tailor... I mean Soldier, Spy, Scout, Guard, Diplomat, Aristocrat, Commoner, Gatherer, Builder, Miner?, Assassin, Bounty-Hunter, Bandit, Inn-Keeper, Master Smith etc... ++?
I really hope to see the ability for players to play many roles.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I live in a town of less than 10,000 residents. It is a quiet and mostly rural community of people that are generally lawful and good to neutral. Yet, at any given time we have up to the maximum of 10 child predators living in several locations in our town. These chaotic evil animals live among us. They shop in the same stores, walk the same streets and go to the same town festivals.Your town of 10,000 is at a much later stage in its evolution than any PFO settlement. Most of those residents are there because of history, or economic circumstance, or family ties.
A PFO settlement is more akin to self-selected group of colonists setting out to a new land.
I think the passengers on the Mayflower, or the followers of Joseph Smith that went with him to Utah, or the Jesse James gang of outlaws riding west for loot are much better approximations of the society within a PFO settlement than a diverse modern town.
Most members of those groups shared fundamental values and objectives. Dissenters would either not join in the first place, or would be ejected from the group.EDIT: I would make the same argument to GrumpyMel.
The situations he describes are active cities with long histories.
A PFO settlement is literally a group of people going out to the wilderness and building the first houses and structures of a new settlement. Why would a LG group take an embedded thieves guild with them and build them a place to hide?
Because they have no idea who those individual(s) actualy are. This is standard fantasy trope. Even in very small villages, one will often encounter a character or two who are evil or not what they really seem to be on the surface. Virtualy every game, pen and paper campaign, novel, comic book or movie features something like that. To argue that it doesn't pretty much argues against the entire body of work of the fantasy genre.
Also note, that while player settlements may start as a very small group of people settling the wilderness, they certainly wont END that way as the game progresses.
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Let's say there are 3 building tiers. Settlements can only build tier 3 buildings that match their own alignment, tier 2 buildings that are one-step from their alignment and tier 1 buildings that are two steps from their alignment. This would mean that a neutral settlement could cater in some way to all alignments. And I don't think that's a good idea.
I think settlements should only be able to build buildings that are one-step from their alignment. I think this is what the devs are thinking. That's why there is a one-step rule. Who would want to be a member of a settlement he can't train in? I'm not sure if this reasoning is correct though...
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If it manages to enforce all its other laws and the guild is a fraction of the population, then yes it is. If the city doesn't know it, it obviously isn't suffereing because of it, thus the effects of the activites of the guild are negligble. So, actually, yes it is.
No that doesn't make any sense. I am assuming that by THIEVES guild you mean an organization dedicated to THIEVING. If that organization is thriving and not being dealt with it will definately certainly bring down the alignment of the whole city.
Somebody starts selling drugs on the corner of your nice neighborhood it brings down the value of the entire neighborhood. Pretty simple really.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dunno, Lothlorien? Camelot? Those are true LG fantasy settlements. I dunno what LG cities with thriving theives guilds you are talking about.If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?I do think that Areks and Bluddwolf make a very good point here. The system is going to negate alot of the typical scenario's that most people familiar with fantasy role-playing are going to expect. The quiet peacefull neighbor that no one suspects of secretly being a necromancer. The LG town that has, unbeknownst to it, a Thieves Guild hidden in one of the poor quarters, etc.
The system definately comes with a cost in other areas.
Then no town that has been portrayed in pretty much any fantasy work could be considered LG. Alignment of the town would represent the GENERAL attitude and expectations of the town populace and how the town is run, it wouldn't represent complete uniformity among the populace or complete success of enforcing those elements upon every subset and element of the town.
In modern America, there are many cities and towns which are generaly very lawfull, safe and where the laws are well enforced that still have a few neighborhoods that one would be a bit nervous about visting in the middle of the night.
Uhm.... Camelot had Mordred and Morgana La Fey living within it as influential citizens. I believe the majority of Mordreds knights also hailed from Camelot origionaly.
Lothlorien was pretty special but I believe even it had Sauron the Deciever in residence for a short time.
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because at the end of the day the alignment system is being used as a mechanic to force choices in the game. As such i dont think that you can directly translate what actually happens to the game world. Sure in an actual city there are bad apples but you cannot code something like that into the game without doing something weird or watering down that choice.
In my mind I think of alignment kinda like your faction and less about accurately gauging morality.
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If a successful theives guild is running a racket in a LG town, then its not really a LG town is it?If it manages to enforce all its other laws and the guild is a fraction of the population, then yes it is. If the city doesn't know it, it obviously isn't suffereing because of it, thus the effects of the activites of the guild are negligble. So, actually, yes it is.
Imagine how much fun we might have in a town that's set up--mechanically--as Lawful Neutral, but whose City Council--in character--acts as Lawful Good, while we--as players--know there's a thriving Lawful Evil component to be found.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Because they have no idea who those individual(s) actualy are. This is standard fantasy trope. Even in very small villages, one will often encounter a character or two who are evil or not what they really seem to be on the surface. Virtualy every game, pen and paper campaign, novel, comic book or movie features something like that. To argue that it doesn't pretty much argues against the entire body of work of the fantasy genre.Also note, that while player settlements may start as a very small group of people settling the...
The standard fantasy troupe also dictates that when that good doer is discovered trying to force an elecetion in evil town, he is banned or killed or jailed. Same with evildoer in goodtown.
Now, if you want to ROLEPLAY and evil doer pretending to be an good person in goodtown, well I can think of several ways to do that.
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because at the end of the day the alignment system is being used as a mechanic to force choices in the game. As such i dont think that you can directly translate what actually happens to the game world. Sure in an actual city there are bad apples but you cannot code something like that into the game without doing something weird or watering down that choice.
In my mind I think of alignment kinda like your faction and less about accurately gauging morality.
^This
I think attacking or defending the alignment model as presented from a roleplaying standpoint is a mistake. I also think it misses the point.
Unless I am misreading developer intent.
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Imagine how much fun we might have in a town that's set up--mechanically--as Lawful Neutral, but whose City Council--in character--acts as Lawful Good, while we--as players--know there's a thriving Lawful Evil component to be found.
You sir, fully understand this gift we have been gifted. Merry Christmas!
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Goblin Squad Member
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If it manages to enforce all its other laws and the guild is a fraction of the population, then yes it is. If the city doesn't know it, it obviously isn't suffereing because of it, thus the effects of the activites of the guild are negligble. So, actually, yes it is.
No that doesn't make any sense. I am assuming that by THIEVES guild you mean an organization dedicated to THIEVING. If that organization is thriving and not being dealt with it will definately certainly bring down the alignment of the whole city.
Somebody starts selling drugs on the corner of your nice neighborhood it brings down the value of the entire neighborhood. Pretty simple really.
Uhm...no settlement is 100 percent effective in enforcing all it's laws upon all it's citizens. What you are asking is something which pretty much doesn't exist either in reality or in standard literature. Lets assume you have a settlement of 700 player characters, which is entirely concievable even with PFO. If you have 7 thieves, that only ends up being 1 percent of the populace....the other 99 percent of the citizenry could be entirely Lawfull and Good and simply not have been competent to catch and identify those 7 thieves, yet.
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Uhm...no settlement is 100 percent effective in enforcing all it's laws upon all it's citizens. What you are asking is something which pretty much doesn't exist either in reality or in standard literature. Lets assume you have a settlement of 700 player characters, which is entirely concievable even with PFO. If you have 7 thieves, that only ends up being 1 percent of the populace....the other 99 percent of the citizenry could be entirely Lawfull and Good and simply not have been competent to catch and identify those 7 thieves, yet.
That's why there is an index.
Hey if you want try to crowdforge a certain % of non one step aligned characters in a settlement go ahead. Sounds like a head ache for guilds though.
I think for the sake of the overall game design which is alignment factioned settlement warfare, that's a small sacrifice though.
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Look people can agree with the system from the aspect of game mechanics and trying to reinforce certain player behaviors. I might choose to debate the efficacy of that, but it's certainly a defensible position.
However to pretend that such a decision comes with no costs or downsides or to pretend that it's justifiable from a role-playing standpoint simply isn't defensable from my standpoint.
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Look people can agree with the system from the aspect of game mechanics and trying to reinforce certain player behaviors. I might choose to debate the efficacy of that, but it's certainly a defensible position.
However to pretend that such a decision comes with no costs or downsides or to pretend that it's justifiable from a role-playing standpoint simply isn't defensable from my standpoint.
Fine then. You do have a point. But it is justifiable from a roleplay standpoint and the alignment game mechanic that reinforces roleplay is exactly the most important aspect of Pathfinder Online.
This is the boldest attempt to codify roleplay in an online game, BY FAR. It would be silly to hold it up to the light of every fantasy troupe and roleplay example and expect it to pass every storytelling test. Especially in the context of an alignment faction warfare game.
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Because they have no idea who those individual(s) actualy are. This is standard fantasy trope. Even in very small villages, one will often encounter a character or two who are evil or not what they really seem to be on the surface. Virtualy every game, pen and paper campaign, novel, comic book or movie features something like that. To argue that it doesn't pretty much argues against the entire body of work of the fantasy genre.
Even fantasy stories can get a bit over the top, when every few months a new evil is found lurking in the town. After a while I just have to roll my eyes at these little innocent hamlets that are just chockablock full of unimaginable evil plots and cults. It's like an evil clown car - I thought there were like 50 people in town but then there's a satanic cult, and a bandit gang, and those smugglers, and another cult, and etc, etc.
What works in a fantasy story or CRPG or TT game with a handful of protagonists doesn't necessarily scale to an MMO with thousands of protagonists. MMOs that try to follow the fantasy trope and treat the player as THE ONE fall flat because the players know that they are just one of many.
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This was something UO was useful at in allowing simulation. So you had characters wandering around looting other people's houses or pick-pocketing them. I've seen very funny videos of players doing these things.
But maybe the problem with that is letting the genie out of the bottle in game terms? Ie if one character can use such a system then any number potentially could.
The idea that the largest settlements become more vulnerable to this sort of thing *could* (said with great trepidation) add fun to the mix?
What I'd hope is that Evil-Chaotic settlements (or various admixtures to that intent) will have all sorts of crazy business going on in their settlements: Thieves, murderers, black markets etc etc etc?! IIRC Elite's "Security Status" worked a bit like that for some planets eg Narcotics was highly lucrative smuggling operation!
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What works in a fantasy story or CRPG or TT game with a handful of protagonists doesn't necessarily scale to an MMO with thousands of protagonists. MMOs that try to follow the fantasy trope and treat the player as THE ONE fall flat because the players know that they are just one of many.
That's the biggest weakness of both The Secret World and SW:TOR. They both have excellent storylines, to the point that the single-player story overshadows any multi-player options. I played both games and enjoyed them as a single-player game with some limited grouping instead of a true mmo.
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This is the boldest attempt to codify roleplay in an online game, BY FAR. It would be silly to hold it up to the light of every fantasy troupe and roleplay example and expect it to pass every storytelling test. Especially in the context of an alignment faction warfare game.
I frankly think that the PFO alignment system might end up being more internally consistent than PF or AD&D.
Having said that, if someone wants to seriously role play a villain hiding in a settlement, it certainly seems possible. As the blog says: only characters within one Alignment step in both their Core and Active Alignment can join the settlement, and if your Core Alignment falls out of that range you are forced out of the settlement. So core alignment represents the cultural norms of the settlement, like No kicking dogs. No swearing at old ladies. If you can act like you belong, then you're maintaining that core alignment and your active alignment can wander where it will after you join the settlement. That sounds like real role-play to me.
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If GW doesn't force people to play their alignment then most will act in such a way as to make alignment a joke, like in every other mmo I can think of.
Not force to play their alignment, but their alignment becomes what they have done. Unless they get rid if the core alignment, players will never truly be their alignment. There will always be an artificial mechanic that shifts them back.
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If you have 7 thieves, that only ends up being 1 percent of the populace....the other 99 percent of the citizenry could be entirely Lawfull and Good and simply not have been competent to catch and identify those 7 thieves, yet.
First level wizard spell "See Alignment"
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/see-alignmentWhen you are selecting the people you are allowing to officially join your brand new settlement in the wilderness, you have your wizard glance at them.
If they don't match the alignment, you kick them out. If their alignment is obscured, you kick them out.
Depending on how paranoid you are, repeat the process as desired.
Meh, this is why I don't really like alignment systems in RPGs. They're great for two dimensional cutout characters but I'd argue most people are driven by motivations rather than principles. I could see various towns within a nation having to have a one step average alignment difference otherwise why are they really banding together except in the most dire circumstances. A town on the other hand is made up of all types. Settlers may have a common motivation but I'd never argue they have a common alignment. Anyone of any alignment can be in a real world religion and thus persecuted for it (one of the many reasons in history for relocation). Now granted the God of a fantasy setting may not take a liking to the individual upon death but I doubt they'll get banned from a church unless caught in a contrary act. Then again I'm not really here to argue for realism in a fantasy setting.
An interesting system which will promote playing a role for sure but so does every other RPG. It will however drive a larger difference between playing a role and roleplaying. The burgeoning good group within Pax is going to be harmed by this system. There are more than a handful of us that desire to play and RP good aligned characters. I imagine most wish to play with our friends as I do. My character will likely be mehanically neutral and in RP goodly so that, that may happen. It all depends on the system but we'll have to work it so that we take evil hits occasionally, which are out of the norm, to neutralize our active alignment. This may mean occasionally randomly killing an npc or some other evil deed. If that's how it ends up then I'm okay with that. I'm fine with playin a meta-game one way and RPing a completely different way if necessary. There's going to be some of that regardless of any alignment system.
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If you have 7 thieves, that only ends up being 1 percent of the populace....the other 99 percent of the citizenry could be entirely Lawfull and Good and simply not have been competent to catch and identify those 7 thieves, yet.
First level wizard spell "See Alignment"
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/see-alignmentWhen you are selecting the people you are allowing to officially join your brand new settlement in the wilderness, you have your wizard glance at them.
If they don't match the alignment, you kick them out. If their alignment is obscured, you kick them out.Depending on how paranoid you are, repeat the process as desired.
As the Devs had said months ago, that will lead to a very select and small settlement, making it vulnerable versus other more inclusive settlements. See Ryan Dancey's posts about big town and other big town.
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First level wizard spell "See Alignment"
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/see-alignmentWhen you are selecting the people you are allowing to officially join your brand new settlement in the wilderness, you have your wizard glance at them.
If they don't match the alignment, you kick them out. If their alignment is obscured, you kick them out.Depending on how paranoid you are, repeat the process as desired.
I feel sorry for the wizard's time wasted in the endeavor, though I suppose it will help the economy with all those peasants out collecting eyes of newt. One does feel sorry for the local newt population, though.
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Your alignment in PFO does not have to be the inner core of your actual character's persona. It's more a measurement of how others view you and you want other to view you.
If you want to be the corrupt politician with the upstanding public persona then keep a high reputation, set your core to LG and then hide your bad things or roleplay them outside the mechanical system. Spread them out so your active doesn't stray to far.
Come on guys, we've got lots of cloth to cut here.
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If GW doesn't force people to play their alignment then most will act in such a way as to make alignment a joke, like in every other mmo I can think of.Not force to play their alignment, but their alignment becomes what they have done. Unless they get rid if the core alignment, players will never truly be their alignment. There will always be an artificial mechanic that shifts them back.
So you have to join a settlement within 1 step of your core alignment not your active alignment? Then a settlement will consist of people who are more than 1 step away in the alignment they are playing, or do I need to reread the part about how far you can drift. I didn't see any limit on how far you can stray from your core alignment. It makes all the difference if membership is based on core alignment not active.
EDIT.. I am wrong ,membership is based on core and active alignment being within one step.
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Settlers may have a common motivation but I'd never argue they have a common alignment.
Why wouldn't they? If there was a simple, cheap way to tell if someone was compatible with the philosophies of the group, why wouldn't you test them before they joined?
There are more than a handful of us that desire to play and RP good aligned characters.
Why is your "good aligned" character choosing to purposely invite people who "have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient" to join them in your settlement?
Why would you trust your life and safety to someone whose actions are directly opposed to your own moral code?That is literally what you are asking for when you want NG and NE to be in the same settlement.
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I feel sorry for the wizard's time wasted in the endeavor, though I suppose it will help the economy with all those peasants out collecting eyes of newt. One does feel sorry for the local newt population, though.
Newt breeder is a promising career path for a young lad in the river kingdoms.
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I agree with Merkaile about not personaly liking alignment systems very much in RPG's (even tabletops).
I suspect that PFO's will end up as fairly meaningless and a whole lot of work for little practical result and may end up driving some RPers and players away from the game.
- I don't think it will really end up doing much in practice to stem RPKers and Griefers away from the game...and may even end up being a tool for griefers to exploit.
- I expect it will hamper RP and RP plots.
- I expect people will mostly find ways around it to end up doing alot of what they want to do anyway.....and the mechanic will simply end up being an annoyance to those who actualy care about it.
- I expect it will end up pretty much divorced from how people actualy view other players and characters within the game.
However, we absolutely no that it's a core assumption on how the game is being built....so I really don't expect it to go away.....at least not unless it becomes an obvious and absolute disaster when implimented that GW see's is clearly driving away lots of otherwise perfectly acceptable players.... I'm not convinced that it will have such an extreme effect as that....but that's what experimentation is all about. We'll get to see how it turns out in practice first hand.
It's a matter of perspective/opinion. I'm not that familiar with the setting but I'd see it as not passing the cost benefit analysis to test the alignment of a large group. I don't see magically trained people as a common commodity to be used in something like this.
I'd argue that the US is somewhere in the LE/LN realm. Before anyone gets bent out of shape by this I'll say that I've served my country and chosen to live here. I don't like everything my country has done and downright defame some actions. I don't see myself as within one step of either of those alignments but as I stated earlier I think the 9 alignment system is wholly simplistic. I could easily move somewhere else but chose to live here and enact change as I can. The best way to do this is from within the system rather than being forced by an outside entity. My good aligned character is trying to change things from within and counterbalance those that take things too far in the name peace, prosperity and protection.
There is some difference between being born into a system and forming one from anew, yes, but I still don't think things would be as homogenous as far as alignment goes. The puritans weren't all good people any more than those prisoners forced into the Carolina's were bad. One was forced and the other was semi-voluntary, true.
I'd like to see the system where there was a certain percentage of deviation from the one step rule allowed if the one step alignment rule stays in place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's a matter of perspective/opinion. I'm not that familiar with the setting but I'd see it as not passing the cost benefit analysis to test the alignment of a large group. I don't see magically trained people as a common commodity to be used in something like this.
I'd argue that the US is somewhere in the LE/LN realm. Before anyone gets bent out of shape by this I'll say that I've served my country and chosen to live here. I don't like everything my country has done and downright defame some actions. I don't see myself as within one step of either of those alignments but as I stated earlier I think the 9 alignment system is wholly simplistic. I could easily move somewhere else but chose to live here and enact change as I can. The best way to do this is from within the system rather than being forced by an outside entity. My good aligned character is trying to change things from within and counterbalance those that take things too far in the name peace, prosperity and protection.
There is some difference between being born into a system and forming one from anew, yes, but I still don't think things would be as homogenous as far as alignment goes. The puritans weren't all good people any more than those prisoners forced into the Carolina's were bad. One was forced and the other was semi-voluntary, true.
I'd like to see the system where there was a certain percentage of deviation from the one step rule allowed if the one step alignment rule stays in place.
Well the other point is that most people don't generaly live where and around who'm they live out of choice but rather of neccessity. This would be even more true in a frontier setting. Though in that we are starting to stray a bit from high fantasy into low fantasy/reality.
The mayor of your average frontier village might think the blacksmith is a complete scoundrel.....but he's also the only sob within 50 miles that can shoe a horse.... so he puts up with it because it has become a neccessity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is the possibility of creating a meta gamed settlement?
Let's say fir the sake of argument, a settlement needs 10 unique characters to establish a settlement. Furthermore let us say that a settlement has 10 positions set up to monitor the various DIs of that settlement, and each position grants buffs to the settlement.
The settlement is created with 10 members, all the same alignment and all high reputation ( they never "play" the game, they just manage). Everyone else that enters the settlement is a "visitor" and lays for access to training.
Those dedicated to defending the settlement, are in-game visitors, but actually meta gamed full citizens. Their actions outside of the settlement are not calculated in the settlement alignment or reputation. These meta gamed citizens are actually risk free of being war decc'd, being members of NPC settlements. But in this player settlement, they pay for training as a visitor, but are reimbursed as a citizen. In times of siege, the settlement leaders log in to grant the buffs.
This is basically the EvE equivalent of a Holding Company. Immune to reputation and alignment shift, for the most part.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'd like to see the system where there was a certain percentage of deviation from the one step rule allowed if the one step alignment rule stays in place.
Maybe there's room for this to be crowd-forged.
Settlements alignments will already have two mechanical effects: corruption and unrest. Maybe there can be another effect, discord, which increases based on the fraction of out of place people in the settlement and the total number of cliques/alignments present.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though in that we are starting to stray a bit from high fantasy into low fantasy/reality.
The entire premise of the game has already done that. When I think "high fantasy" I think of a small band of heroes who work to overthrow a great (usually inhuman) evil. I think of King Arthur, Lord of the Rings, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Riftwar Saga, and The Wheel of Time. None of those stories have control of land and conquest as a primary theme (even though the main characters of those stories end up as rulers).
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CEO, Goblinworks
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A couple of things to remember. Being physically in a Settlement is not the same as being a "member of the Settlement". Settlements are both physical places, and social entities. You could go to a physical Settlement and interact with other characters there and not be a member of the social entity that is the Settlement's membership. Some Settlements may have very relaxed policies about who can visit them - especially if they seek to profit from trade or transit. So the idea that you could be an "evil" character in a place with lots of "good" characters is totally in keeping with the game mechanic.
You have to assume that if one person knows you are evil, that information will spread rapidly. So keeping an alignment "hidden" will be very hard. In game characters may not know but out of game there will probably be databases that players can easily search. The more notorious a character becomes the more likely its alignment will be widely available. The trope of "hidden evil" is very hard, maybe impossible to simulate in an MMO.
The idea that you could be one alignment and misrepresent yourself to the Settlement social entity and gain admission to it is REALLY hard to simulate. What will happen is sudden, shocking betrayal. Characters will be groomed to have the necessary alignment to gain admission, will behave perfectly responsible in all respects until the moment is right to cause maximum chaos and damage from sabotage, assassination or theft. There is no way to control for this mechanically, it is all metagame thinking and it will happen. The only upside is that such actions will usually be one-shots. Nobody is going to trust such a character again. The time required to do this level of social engineering and infiltration is enormous and most players simply won't be capable of doing it, so such events will be rare even if they're spectacular.
And I'll remind everyone once again that "alignment" is not relative. It's determined mechanically by the Gods of the Golarion pantheon (i.e. us) and actions are good, evil, chaotic or lawful because we say they are, not due to some external logic or observational bias. There is no Batman.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is the possibility of creating a meta gamed settlement?
Let's say fir the sake of argument, a settlement needs 10 unique characters to establish a settlement. Furthermore let us say that a settlement has 10 positions set up to monitor the various DIs of that settlement, and each position grants buffs to the settlement.
The settlement is created with 10 members, all the same alignment and all high reputation ( they never "play" the game, they just manage). Everyone else that enters the settlement is a "visitor" and lays for access to training.
Those dedicated to defending the settlement, are in-game visitors, but actually meta gamed full citizens. Their actions outside of the settlement are not calculated in the settlement alignment or reputation. These meta gamed citizens are actually risk free of being war decc'd, being members of NPC settlements. But in this player settlement, they pay for training as a visitor, but are reimbursed as a citizen. In times of siege, the settlement leaders log in to grant the buffs.
This is basically the EvE equivalent of a Holding Company. Immune to reputation and alignment shift, for the most part.
But their members are not. In order to provide advanced training, the settlement must enact laws that prohibit low rep characters from entering. NPC guards will attack them. NPC trainers at the facilities will not talk to them. Grafting halls will not function for them. This can not be bypassed by the settlement rulers. If the law is not in place, the high end facilities will not work.
The in-game constraints on having functional high-end training facilities will override any metagame attempt to bypass them.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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So: this idea that you can train at a Settlement not your own?
Makes no sense.
If we allowed that mechanic, then a True Neutral settlement would be created with a really high rep, would open its doors to everyone and charge fees for access to the Settlement, and there would be no mechanical correlation between your reputation and your character abilities.
Assume you train skills at the Settlement you are a member of. Settlements are not universities.