Should Players Expect Alignment Freedom?

gornonthecob

I thought of an interesting topic while posting on another thread.
I mentioned that, in the first act of my campaign, I tried to give players a full range of alignment choices in which you could kill or torment various NPCs. In the end, however, all those evil choices were meaningless since that player has to make the 'Good' choice in order to complete the quest.

That brought up another thought. In tabletop D&D, the Dungeon Master (generally) sets guidelines for the players before the game starts, such as "Only good aligned characters" (so that the story flows easier.)
In the case of Neverwinter, Cryptic (our dungeon master) has set that alignment choice for us.
-We can't worship evil gods.
-We can't murder guards.
-Rogue's can't pickpocket people.
-We can walk around freely in the city.
Ergo, we must be Good aligned. (Maybe Neutral in some cases)

Then we have the issue of "God-Modding" (Telling a player what they feel, think, or do.) If you haven't heard the term before, it's a very taboo thing for a Dungeon Master to say "You know you should follow the river.", or even "You feel an overwhelming fear when you open the door and see 5 ghouls." Because maybe that player doesn't know to follow the river, or maybe they never feel fear.


The question then arises: Should foundry authors feel obligated to include evil choices in their quests? Should I placate the various people who believe that their character is a God-like mass murderer who commands a Tarrasque? Or do we, as Foundry Authors simply say "No, you are a good aligned character as set forth by the parameters of the game, and you are expected to act accordingly." Are we justified in saying "You see a young girl trapped under heavy debris, you feel the urge to help her."?

What's your take on this?

lolsorhand

Depends. Sometimes you can tell the player that they do feel something. - But it really depends on the situation, and what task is at hand. I also don't delve to far into this, though part 5 of my campaign will give the player three choices for three different endings. (If all works out as planned, it's about the detail limit nothing else.)

koboldbard2

Cryptic has already said all characters are good (or at worst, in the 4e parlance, unaligned but "good").

gornonthecob

lolsorhand wrote: »

Depends. Sometimes you can tell the player that they do feel something. - But it really depends on the situation, and what task is at hand. I also don't delve to far into this, though part 5 of my campaign will give the player three choices for three different endings. (If all works out as planned, it's about the detail limit nothing else.)

That sort of dodges the question. Should we, as the story-tellers, even offer evil choices, or do we accept Cryptic's baseline in that "All players are good aligned."

I know the obvious answer is "You are the story-teller. Tell it however you want to tell it." But I'm more interested in the mindset of the other authors here. How many of you are writing your campaigns WITHOUT options for evil players, and more importantly, why?

gornonthecob

koboldbard2 wrote: »

Cryptic has already said all characters are good (or at worst, in the 4e parlance, unaligned but "good").

Can you provide the source? I would like to see that. Thanks!

lolsorhand

It doesn't dodge the question, if you read what I wrote.

"though part 5 of my campaign will give the player three choices for three different endings."

Most probobly Evil, Neutral or Good. - But I have never been much for aligments in all honesty, but it's epicly fun to play them out nontheless.

runis12

In my quests, I use the formula:

1. Kind Response
2. Humorous Response
3. Flirt Response
4. Aggressive Response
5. Response to Item In Player's Inventory (if applicable/relevant to main story or side-quest story)

The aggressive responses aren't exactly evil, but are generally responses of anger, berating someone, or impatience. I realize that nobody can be truly evil unless they're a secret A-hole wandering the streets of our cities, so I thought the "aggressive" response would be as close as I could get to making "evil" responses. That's my take on it anyway!

koboldbard2

gornonthecob wrote: »

Can you provide the source? I would like to see that. Thanks!

Hard to find in all their press and forums, but they did say it.

gornonthecob

runis12 wrote: »

In my quests, I use the formula:

1. Kind Response
2. Humorous Response
3. Flirt Response
4. Aggressive Response
5. Response to Item In Player's Inventory (if applicable/relevant to main story or side-quest story)

The aggressive responses aren't exactly evil, but are generally responses of anger, berating someone, or impatience.

I really like that. Good players can get angry, and maybe a little mean, but they'd never cross the line. It gives players who WISH they were evil a chance to be mean. Good stuff, runis.

delthanin

I try to get the following or some variation if I can:

Neutral Good default/I just press 1 for everything response
Lawful Good/Honorable/Knightly response
Neutral mercenary/Just doing this for money response
Chaotic/I am pretty much Belkar from OotS response
Quest/NPC/Item/Faction/Class specific response.

I wouldn't worry as much about alignment quite as much as archetypes that might make sense in your quest. Alignment is just one part.

theninja0

I would put choices in if it could effect the story. However as of right now, foundry quests are forced to be linear.

I know that when I play other foundry quests I just try and find the orange option every time because I know the other choices don't do anything.

alorayuy

Yea, sadly because of the linear nature of the Foundry quests, making aligned choices won't really matter, so the best you can do is having responses that are more emotionally aligned as opposed to evil/good/chaotic/etc... I did one quest recently (the quest itself was a little "meh") where the choices were all listed with brackets [ ] that told what style the lines were being said in. One was like [Serious], then [Dramatic], and [Sarcastic]. So say your quest sets up "little timmy fell down the well," your responses could be: Well that's not good at all! [Serious]; Oh no! Little Timmy must be terrified! [Dramatic]; Down a well? Doesn't that seem a bit cliche? [Sarcastic]. They'd all get you to the same point, but just add flavor.

As far as DM story-telling where you tell the player how they feel or nudge them in a direction, I hate that. Neverwinter is based on D&D, so I get into my D&D mind-set when playing. I don't want the DM (author) telling me what I feel. There is only a few exceptions to this: 1) saying the air feels cold, or humid, is totally fine because that's explaining the atmosphere not the player. 2) If you have a sequence where say a mindflayer is influencing the player's mind (saw this in a quest and it didn't bother me) where the text in a dialogue is explaining how you feel weak, or feel like your mind is melting, or what not. And... that's actually all I can think of off the top of my head. lol

But yea, basically let me decide where I want to go in the quest or how I want to feel about situations. So I'm trying to make a quest that won't rob the player of making those choices themselves.

zovya

I let the player roleplay their choices in my quests. I get tons of positive feedback from players refreshed by the idea they get to participate rather than being told how they feel. And their choices do really matter, even in the end. They can choose to kill or ignore every NPC in the quest, except the main characters of course. And the player can choose to let the end boss live or not.

I never thought about good/evil alignment however. I was modeling the dialogue system after a Bioware or Bethesda game. Which I LOVE btw.

I also like Lovepeas' dialogue response choices of Serious/Dramatic/Sarcastic.

boomba66

Evil as a DM is really hard to run. As a veteran table top Dm I have tried to run evil campaigns in the past. The nature of evil is not one that shares decisions well or works as a team. Usually within a session or two the players try and kill one another and the campaign ends with one player left alive and the rest pissed off they have nothing left to do that evening.

In terms of gaming world with a single player campaign there are plenty that have had an evil flare. In fact the most popular current mission im pretty sure you play about as evil as it gets. However, if your telling a story like I am where your helping a GOOD GOD prevent the freeing of a great evil, it would be very hard to have evil choices fit in. Doesn't mean there isn't moral dilemma's on what the best decision is or the type of good guy that can be played. I give 3 dialogues when possible Anti-Hero type, Snarky sarcastic James bond type, and good old boring paladin/knights chivalry code type.

With over 20,000 published stories now in the foundry there will be Good Evil and Neutral mods.

lolsorhand

boomba66 wrote: »

Evil as a DM is really hard to run. As a veteran table top Dm I have tried to run evil campaigns in the past. The nature of evil is not one that shares decisions well or works as a team. Usually within a session or two the players try and kill one another and the campaign ends with one player left alive and the rest pissed off they have nothing left to do that evening.

In terms of gaming world with a single player campaign there are plenty that have had an evil flare. In fact the most popular current mission im pretty sure you play about as evil as it gets. However, if your telling a story like I am where your helping a GOOD GOD prevent the freeing of a great evil, it would be very hard to have evil choices fit in. Doesn't mean there isn't moral dilemma's on what the best decision is or the type of good guy that can be played. I give 3 dialogues when possible Anti-Hero type, Snarky sarcastic James bond type, and good old boring paladin/knights chivalry code type.

With over 20,000 published stories now in the foundry there will be Good Evil and Neutral mods.

It can be pulled off though, either making them fight for a common goal. (Something far away that will take time to reach.) And by the time they do reach it, they might have become friends. (Though the evil alignment in DnD is wierd imo. You can be a murderer and still have friends, might sound wierd but yes, atleast in the real world. Soldiers fighting in wars, sometimes have to make difficult decisions. And that does not make them evil.) It's a complicated question though.

But can be done I believe. (Mostly depending on the characters and how the players portray how "being evil" is. - People gather to likeminded folk. So if a group is "evil" they could become friends, since they see many things alike. And can all put aside morals.

boomba66

lolsorhand wrote: »

It can be pulled off though, either making them fight for a common goal. (Something far away that will take time to reach.) And by the time they do reach it, they might have become friends. (Though the evil alignment in DnD is wierd imo. You can be a murderer and still have friends, might sound wierd but yes, atleast in the real world. Soldiers fighting in wars, sometimes have to make difficult decisions. And that does not make them evil.) It's a complicated question though.

But can be done I believe. (Mostly depending on the characters and how the players portray how "being evil" is. - People gather to likeminded folk. So if a group is "evil" they could become friends, since they see many things alike. And can all put aside morals.

Agreed, but like I said when it comes to making a foundry mission your a little more limited depending on the type of story your telling.

If your telling one about being the servant of Bane. Your telling a tale of dnd evil.

If your telling an open ended war and politics story choices certainly can go any which way.

koboldbard2

lolsorhand wrote: »

It can be pulled off though, either making them fight for a common goal. (Something far away that will take time to reach.) And by the time they do reach it, they might have become friends. (Though the evil alignment in DnD is wierd imo. You can be a murderer and still have friends, might sound wierd but yes, atleast in the real world. Soldiers fighting in wars, sometimes have to make difficult decisions. And that does not make them evil.) It's a complicated question though.

But can be done I believe. (Mostly depending on the characters and how the players portray how "being evil" is. - People gather to likeminded folk. So if a group is "evil" they could become friends, since they see many things alike. And can all put aside morals.

I made a 30 hour long campaign for evil characters. It has about 15,000 plays and is widely praised for giving a way to realistically play evil characters. You can have slaves, or free slaves because slavery is against your personal code for instance. Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil are not that hard to portray. The problem is only that evil characters generally drive plot, rather than react to it. When you're evil, you have your master plan and it's up to you to figure out the details to make it happen. When you're a good character, people tell you to go get the sword of doom from the caves of chaos because you will need it to defeat the big bad.

lolsorhand

Generally yes, but a good character can be a fighting force for good, and quite active. Just as an evil character. (Evil characters has just as easy to get told where to go, and what to do. As any good-sides character.)

It all depends on how it is portrayed. Good, evil, neutral. It's the same thing with most, Neutral probobly has the hardest cases to be a driving force. The story resolves around that character for most time. (Depending on the aligment) Baldur's gate 2, Minsc is Chaotic Good, He simple follows his own heart whatever happens.

You have Jahiera (Probobly failed spelling.) Who is very Neutral, but leans more towards good than evil. It all depends on how the storyteller portrays it. It can all work.

rogu3ish

I really think it depends..in my latest quest I really wanted to work in the ability to be either friendly or hostile to NPCs, and have that impact the story as you go. I had to jump through so many hoops, especially when crossing maps, that I just couldn't pull it off without things being clunky. That combined with the linearity of the objective set caused me to just give up. It's too bad really, because the subject matter really could have lent itself to significantly different outcomes based on player choice.

I ended up turning the quest more into a story with little or no roleplay. Some of the dialogs have roleplay opportunity, but especially at the climax of the story it's pretty much on rails.

I want to take another stab at it in the next quest.

lonnehart

Maybe in the next quest I create I'll give the player an objective, but then they'll have a choice how to get through to that objective. Of course, I'm turning off the sparkly trail so the player will have to figure out where the paths are. One or two obvious paths to choose from, and the last one being hidden (and making it the shortest path).

mytgroo

Can do evil actions in Foundries if you want. Some foundries are a bit evil. Also can get evil titles if you look for them. In addition can create evilly aligned guilds. Some guilds aim to be played as evil.

Some gods are considered neutral worshipped by both good and evil. Tempus is one of them in the MMO.

Assume that all players are nonaligned until actions prove otherwise.

Would like to see factions-- not alignments where you can join certain groups in opposition to each other.