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Will We Ever Given Alignment Options?
daxiongmao87
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 58
I have my doubts, but I thought I'd ask.
This could be great for Foundry developers, as they will be able to create dungeons or quests to cater different alignments. Someone who wants to play as an evil character can be provided evil story arcs through the Foundry. Also this could add to some complex Foundry missions where an opposing aligned party could be thrown into some role play with potential PVP or competitive PVE since their agendas would cause conflict. I think this would be pretty cool.
This could be great for Foundry developers, as they will be able to create dungeons or quests to cater different alignments. Someone who wants to play as an evil character can be provided evil story arcs through the Foundry. Also this could add to some complex Foundry missions where an opposing aligned party could be thrown into some role play with potential PVP or competitive PVE since their agendas would cause conflict. I think this would be pretty cool.
Post edited by daxiongmao87 on
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So apart from being an RP flag, and using a few rare items, there is not much use to alignment.
4e mirrors older editions in that purpose, giving more freedom to DMs unlike 3e which was exhaustive and restrictive.
2nd ed as well (I believe 1st ed as well, but not sure since didn't play 1st ed). In theory, alignment is a tool that helps you decide how to play your character. In practice, it can be a straitjacket (contrary to what the books claimed) that bounds you to a specific, restrictive, and inorganic path, and are extremely subjective (particularly the law/chaos axis) and can derail game sessions with pointless arguments about what X or Y alignment would do on any given situation.
I tried to use them early in my campaigns (which tended to be RP-oriented) back in my PnP days, but eventually dropped them because they caused too many problems and I didn't feel that they were effective RP tools regardless.
I don't see why an alignment system would be required to do this. Just make the story with whatever moral slant you want and inform the player up front what your intentions are.
"Alignment don't decide who you are, you decide what alignment you want to take" -- yes... as in you choose the alignment you want your character to be associated with...
"So apart from being an RP flag, and using a few rare items, there is not much use to alignment." -- Rare items and RPing are two good reasons to have alignments. This can help create diversity among players by simply expanding and limiting what items are available to who based on the available quests (if they have alignment restrictions, which should be up to the foundry author).
I know some people out there would love to take part in a mission where you are to assassinate some high ranking politician in Neverwinter, or just a wealthy merchant.
So far the game already dictates what alignment I am (obviously non-evil), which is very restrictive in fluff/flavor options for characters. Not everyone wants to be a good drow, human, dwarf, etc.
No, they're bad reasons to have alignment. Tying alignment to items makes it mechanically relevant, which discourages roleplaying by making certain alignments superior, mechanically, than others.
And alignment is tangential to roleplaying, anyway. Anything you can roleplay with alignment, you can roleplay without. Alignment only serves to put artificial classifications on characters, discouraging depth and variety.
Why do you need alignment to do this?
So then don't do those quests (or justify it because being evil doesn't mean you don't do things that helps others; you just do it for your own selfish reasons), and do evil Foundry missions.
We already have far superior built-in roleplaying tools: background and diety. I could see adding a wider array of darker gods to the available pantheon, but alignment itself is better off gone.
You misunderstand me. My meaning was not that the item itself has alignment restrictions, but the manner in which the item is acquired. Nonetheless we stand at different points on this. For the sake of argument, I will bring in WoW. You have two factions with two faction-oriented gear (the gear itself technically did not have limitations, but the manner in which they were obtained). People were not turned away because there were no significance in superiority from one faction to the other. It's a mechanic that does work.
So far, and I may be wrong, but the Deity Affilication and character origins are all just fluff anyway, so stating what type of evil or what type of good you want your character to be in my eyes is just no different. It adds a little bit more personality to your character.
Alignments have always been part of D&D.
You missed the most important word - anytime.
You do not have alignment locked action, alignment locked races or alignment locked classes. Similarly I said RP flag - which means another flag or chunck of info like Biography. For now you can add it to Biography of the character and it would be same. RP is done by people - it needs freedom to prosper. Alignment should not restrict it.
You do not need alignment to assassinate. Even lawful good avenger can be hired to assassinate someone.
Can't someone also change their associated deity at any time? Would you rather have that part of the character creation be a write in instead of a set of options? Or would you rather have in-game mechanics that give your deity choices weight in the game? I'm being sincere, it's not rhetorical.
Even when you are Lawful Good, you might steal and kill - alignment does not stop you from doing it. Instead alignment reflects the actions you choose and do.
Changing deity is very drastic in PnP. It is ok to follow the deity of same dogma - or same alignment even when you don't worship it - but a change like from Torm to Bane is very drastic and not easy like a change in alignment. More so for cleric who will have to be hunted down by previous clergy.
However, worship of deity is not considered very strict in 4e if they have overlapping dogma. So if it is about honor, your prayer to Torm as well as Bahamut will be answered. If it is about love, both Chauntea and Sune will answer to it.
Suffix to say that alignment of the task at hand is more important than the deity you worship, but you are never constrained by your alignment or forced to do anything.
Anyway. In my opinion an alignment is not necessary a reflection of your actions, but instead the label of your moral compass. Your ethics and principals you live by. Your actions are decided based on these ethics and principals.
I think it this way: "I am evil therefore I allow myself to do evil" and not "I allow myself to do evil therefore I am evil"
But it shouldn't be impossible to change....
Bah! Honestly I don't feel like 3E alignment could add anything to the game. However I could see a 'Good/Neutral/Evil Reputation" system (made up of course) working fairly well.
Perhaps have it scale 1-100 in each 'alignment' and have pre-set Foundry 'scripts' apply the changes through conversation or choices.
I'd love to see a way to make actions have an effect on the content we play and allow authors to carry that concept between different and completely unrelated content.
But personally I do not feel the standard alignment system would be sufficient. I'd rather see a system which shows the complexity of human nature and the alignment system just isn't it. It was and always has been an un-needed tool both for PnP Mechanics and for Video Game Mechanics.
This is the kind of thing that makes RP rich and eventful. In PnP -- as a DM -- I would give my players a chance to decide for themselves if Neverember were exploiting the populace or if he was good for Neverwinter. The way this game is written, it assumes that we all agree with Neverember which makes the Nashers immediate enemies of the players. But why? Their claim seems valid (from everything early levels tell you, anyhow) and this relegates players to be nothing more than tools of the city.
These are the ways in which alignment could come to play in this game. Alignment -- when used by a good DM as an RP tool -- allows for interesting story hooks and chances to explore the other side of a story. That's the kind of thing that could move this game forward from dungeon-crawler to true D&D in my mind.
That could be an interesting choice to provide, but the thing is "alignment" has absolutely nothing to do with that choice. What does it matter if you have "Lawful Good" or "Chaotic Evil" written on your sheet? Make the choices you want for your character. Maybe the Lawful Good character thinks Neverember is corrupt. Maybe the Chaotic Evil character thinks Neverember is a fool and easily manipulated, and thus useful to his own ends.
And why isn't writing "Alignment: Lawful Good" in your bio sufficient? Why does it need to be a concept recognized by the game's programming? Do you want the game to enforce choices on you based on your alignment? How would that be good for roleplaying?
Alignment doesn't "allow" for interesting story hooks or chances to explore the other side of a story. It does nothing to enable those things, and can only get in the way if it's actually enforced in some way.
I don't see the point in "alignments" tho.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Or at least it will have a "no alignment" option as well. The latter also goes for deities.
Right now player characters forced only into good or neutral deities but it's survivable because it's only a cosmetic trash and can be ignored. But with mechanical alignment everyone would be forced to good/neutral character in quests.
Becasue I'm sure that nobody would make evil alignments as options available for players, just like there is no evil deities for players.
You make good points, but ... if there is no "mandatory alignment system," I'm not sure why we couldn't have evil deities, since they're more-or-less a purely cosmetic choice. Beyond that, there aren't enough neutral deities, anyway.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Chaotic Good: Nashers are attacking, you defend yourself to the fullest! C-G Might assassinate if the greater good is served by the killing of the target.
Just look at the True Neutral gold spammers. We have the Chaotic Neutral chat crowd with their erudite variations on the “lawl buttz!” theme, the Neutral Good GMs with their big red “Close Ticket” button. There are the Chaotic Evil loot ninjas who would love you to believe the greed button is something other than another pass button.
And let’s not forget the Neutral Evil forum trolls who manage to turn “lawl buttz” into a written art form. There is the corporate influence which is hard to peg as Good or Evil but it’s definitely Lawful, especially if they are making the laws.
And finally we have an even slice of the player base and forum community who make Chaotic Good look quite chaotic indeed but good enough for government work.
But beyond these stereotypical alignment assignments I encourage you to step out of your box, take your alignment to a new level and give yourself an alignment nomen, show your true colors and let people know where you stand.
Nornsavant
friendly evil
The whole point is that the game doesn't allow for those choices, and those choices are ultimately role-playing choices for the player. So no, writing my alignment as "Chaotic Good" in my character sheet isn't sufficient because the linearity of the game forces me to play in a Lawful Evil way.
In SWOTR, decisions you make are either light or dark and it affects the story that you face in the future, and I do like that. I do like that I can choose to follow the path set before me (and reap known rewards) or that I can deviate, suffer a few penalities now, and then face new rewards later. Neverwinter Nights did this, PnP D&D does this (if you have a good DM).
Maybe not call it "alignment" but "allow-me-to-make-my-own-decision-ment". Or, yes, provide some benefits for playing alignment (just as a good DM does in PnP).
You can roleplay either of those things as-is (just pretend they're knocked out, not dead, if you want).
I meant that assuming that the game provides choices about how you approach things, why would it also need to support alignment?
This is different than D&D's alignment system.
In SWTOR, you just make decisions as you go, and you build up points that are used to drive consequences based on the aggregate of your choices. It's an abstract way of mechanizing action and consequence on a large scale. It's not defining who your character is, just tracking what choices your character has made, and adapting the story accordingly.
D&D's alignments are things you choose at character creation, that defines, a priori, who your character is. Except that it doesn't really work because 9 (or 3, or 5) well-defined categories for the entirety of morality is impractical.
A SWTOR alignment system in Neverwinter wouldn't be terrible, but I actually think it's hostile to roleplaying, because it ends up producing "wrong" choices from a mechanical sense. You're forced to choose between roleplaying the character you want to play, and playing the game well.
Rules are restrictions. More rules for roleplaying restricts roleplaying.
Sure. I just disagree with the idea that somehow alignment is necessary for players to have a variety of choices.
If all your looking for is more ways to approach quests, I'm all for that.
I'd say a better DM in PnP doesn't use alignment at all.
Reward for roleplaying a creative, coherent character, not for how beholden they are to some alignment. Alignment is a bane to creativity.
I wanted Shar as well on my tr. They could sell alignment armors, dye kits, down the road different mounts by deities, tons of ways for them to make $$$$ which is the main goal so I hope that they consider the options.
Holy HAMSTER. Did you guys seriously lock in ONE Alignment for the entire campaign? I always let player alignments shift and let them know when their actions were taking them along the sliding scale that is each axis. The game even has the appropriate results of alignment shift spelled out in it. From Paladins losing access to power if they move a hint from LG or Clerics losing their spells and supernatural/spell like class abilities if their alignment moves more than 2 points from their God (except specific gods who accept wider alignments) to Monks no longer being able to advance in that class if they're no longer lawful.
And weapons and armor and magic items that have different results based on who is wielding them that shift with a player's alignment as well. Spells and Monsters and interactions that all change.
Anyone who holds their alignment as a straight jacket doesn't understand D&D very well. It's a guide. It's what people would "Probably" do in a given situation based on the traits they set themselves out with at the start. But people Change. And people do things that are out of synch with their character from time to time when the situation calls for it. You might find the sweetest guy who'd never hurt a fly, but you endanger his loved ones and he'll beat you until you'll never walk again.
Alignments as Straight Jackets. Heh. Noobs.
-Rachel-
LG - you don't kill steal, you don't use exploits, if you do, you are BANNED for life
CE - you do what you want, but can't party with anyone who is Lawful (and they wouldn't party with you) you can't go into town and must survive on random NPC (not even a town of your own)
Alignment tied to items is kinda "pointless" since people will min/max and choose alignment that will make them the "most powerful" as possible. Plus it just create more mechanics that the game doesn't need (or introduce more bugs)
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
This is what I'm talking about.
To be fair, in 3rd Edition it was sort of a "strait jacket," in that the guidelines tended towards advising DMs to be strict about holding players to their chosen alignments. This was particularly true of those classes which had "hard" alignments, like Druids & Paladins. But RPGs -- & especially MMOs -- have evolved away from that.
I don't think that "alignment" is appropriate for MMOs ... but since it's all a very cosmetic thing, I really do wish we had more deity choices available to us, & it would be kinda cool -- again, just cosmetically speaking -- if we had more "national origin" choices available. For example, I would have loved to have my CW come from Thay & worship a more Neutral/Evil deity, but neither of those options is available. Also, none of the Deities really "feel right" for my Halfling TR ... Tymora, sort of ... Selune, sort of .... none of the others work, & even those two aren't wholly appropriate.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
LG is now (roughly), doing the right thing, for the betterment of society
G is now roughly, Doing what is right because its the right thing to do.
E is Doing something for yourself.
CE is doing something to harm others.
All four might save the world from Asmodius taking over, but all 4 would have differing intents.
LG - The people of the world need protecting, and I am the hero to protect them.
G - The world is a good place, and needs protecting, even if people die, it needs saved.
E - I have no other worlds to go to, so I must save this one to survive.
CE - If I don't save this world, someone else will rule it and make it harder for me to be the one to destroy it, and all reality with it.