Scripted Alignment Changes

[Mulu]

Well, as I just posted in another thread, alignment is a broken feature in D&D. It was designed for a simple fantasy world of moral absolutes with little actual roleplaying where lawful good humans slay chaotic evil orcs by rolling dice. ALFA's playstyle is too complex for that approach. Best to involve alignment as little as possible.

[ç i p h é r]

Witch, in a fully dynamic environment, absolutely. But by definition, static quests are not dynamic, although they can simulate that to a degree, depending on the desire and competence of the programmer.

My point is merely this. When a builder creates a static quest, he throws together a conversation which DEFINES the context of the quest and the full set of possible dialogue options for both the NPC and the PC. So the variability you're talking - all the sophistication, complexities, and subtleties of role playing - just don't exist. You cannot apply that kind of wide open standard to a static quest where the script is pre-written, and more importantly, fixed. It's WYSIWYG. So when you pick an action from the dialogue, the choice can (and should) be judged strictly against the context offered to you.

In your example, there's no mission beyond saving that kid unless the quest was programmed to offer something more, so claiming you're saving the kid because you have some ulterior motive (to infiltrate the "guards") doesn't work unless that's factored into the context of the quest itself. Otherwise, the guard faction won't ever acknolwedge your actions. You're not defining the plot in a static quest. The author is.

[AcadiusLost]

Agreed, Cipher. A careful builder/scripter can give convo options that do allow you to use statics differently, say give two options to accept quest, one with the [lie] prefix, perhaps calling a hidden bluff check as well- but failing that, you will need to work with a DM to handle your "outside the box" take on the static- in which case the alignment hit can be manually adjusted at their judgement.

That said, alignment shifts from statics should be limited, and probably shouldn't be present at all on repeatable statics. (once a week patrol = 100 lawful?).

[HEEGZ]

that is an excellent point AL. repeatable statics shouldn't give a shift, though an appropriate shift for a one time static wouldn't be a huge issue.

[White Warlock]

To add to this discussion, the commission of a good act should have little effect on an evil PC's status. As well, a lawful act should have little effect on a chaotic PC's status. The reverse should not be true.

What i mean is, the travel from good to evil is far shorter than the travel from evil to good. You can rescue a child ten times, committing ten good acts, yet kill that child once and you are evil. I posed an example of this awhile back, i believe in the same thread Mulu mentioned.

[Keith Mac]

Best to involve alignment as little as possible.

Yup.

[Mayhem]

So I disagree. Alignment changes for STATIC QUESTS should be very easy to determine. If you hit a static quest, you're not acting out of some ulterior purpose. You're acting precisely within the parameters made available to you by the builder or scripter.

Absolutely not.

Take a city based "Bounty Hunting for Thugs" quest in which beating up a thug gives you an unconcius thug body to deliver to the local watch.

You might take this quest because you are a paragon of lawfulness and you want to bring down those that sow chaos and disorder. Lawful points!

You might take this quest because you believe doing so will aid those worse off than yourself - protecting the weak against the violent. Good points!

You might take this quest because you are a sadistic bully who gets his kicks from beating people up, but who doesn't want to end up on the wrong side of the law. Evil points!

You might take this quest because you want the cash, and for no other reason.

You might even take this quest because you by sheer chance you were attacked attacked by a thug, you've KO'd him, and you've decided you might as well pick up the gold since you were pretty close to the watch-house. Is there such a thing as "neutral points" that shift you towards neutrality no matter where you stand at the moment?

To say "You chose to work for the authorities, therefore you should turn lawful" is pure nonsense if the individual in question is doing it purely for the money.

****

To add to this discussion, the commission of a good act should have little effect on an evil PC's status. As well, a lawful act should have little effect on a chaotic PC's status.

There is nothing to suggest that Law is morally superior to chaos, so I disagree strongly with the idea that everybody should be struggling tooth and nail to be lawful against an inexorable slide towards chaos.

In fact, whilst it would be an unpopular view, I personally would argue against evil automatically being easier than good in D&D. In D&D good and evil are tangible forces that folk can choose to serve, if they so desire.

I'd expect, if anything, for the slide on both axis to always be towards neutral. Regular wilful deeds - good or evil, lawful or chaotic - should be required to maintain a status outside of neutrality.

[White Warlock]

To add to this discussion, the commission of a good act should have little effect on an evil PC's status. As well, a lawful act should have little effect on a chaotic PC's status.

There is nothing to suggest that Law is morally superior to chaos, so I disagree strongly with the idea that everybody should be struggling tooth and nail to be lawful against an inexorable slide towards chaos.

In fact, whilst it would be an unpopular view, I personally would argue against evil automatically being easier than good in D&D. In D&D good and evil are tangible forces that folk can choose to serve, if they so desire.

I'd expect, if anything, for the slide on both axis to always be towards neutral. Regular wilful deeds - good or evil, lawful or chaotic - should be required to maintain a status outside of neutrality.

Well, it's already been determined you like to argue for the sake of argument, but... for the sake of argument, allow me to debunk your noobletness.

Being lawful is inherently more difficult. To be lawful, you must adhere to laws, or rules. In this, you must not merely restrain your actions so as to not break laws, or rules, but you must essentially strive to know what the laws, or rules, are. In being chaotic, you ignore laws, or rules, and act in whichever direction your whim pulls. Furthermore, being lawful poses an obligation of ensuring 'others' maintain lawfulness, whilst being chaotic poses no such obligation.

It goes with little say (but in this case, i will say alot) that good follows a similar suit to that presented by law, in that to be good one must adhere to treating others well, and respectfully, and 'work' to encourage (even enforce) others to behave in a good fashion. Being good virtually requires a constant and definitive effort to gauge the feelings and emotions of others.

In 'standard' societies, both law and good inherently present little to no negative consequence, whilst chaotic and evil present plenty of negative consequence. However, in standard societies the nature of 'pain' vs 'pleasure' leans heavily to 'pleasure,' primarily because the 'consequence' of pain is delayed, whilst pleasure is immediate. Considering this, it must be recognized, and accepted, that chaotic and/or evil actions provide immediate pleasure, whilst lawful and/or good actions provide delayed pleasure. In fact, in many cases, lawful and good are maintained due to fear of pain (consequence), as opposed to seeking pleasure.

Chaotic and evil behaviors are selfish by default, and thus do not possess the dependency of striving to know a region's rules, or a person's feelings. They are both antisocial behaviors, and thus hold no external 'knowledge' and social 'awareness' dependencies. In fact, the only reason why a chaotic and/or evil person would obtain said knowledge or awareness, is so they can further enhance their pleasure (exploitation) whilst avoiding pain (consequence).

Last, it is important to understand that 'pleasure' and 'pain' are not merely external factors, but chemically induced internal factors, of which 'pleasure' poses the hook of 'chemical addiction.'

[ç i p h é r]

Take a city based "Bounty Hunting for Thugs" quest in which beating up a thug gives you an unconcius thug body to deliver to the local watch.

You might take this quest because you are a paragon of lawfulness and you want to bring down those that sow chaos and disorder. Lawful points!

You might take this quest because you believe doing so will aid those worse off than yourself - protecting the weak against the violent. Good points!

You might take this quest because you are a sadistic bully who gets his kicks from beating people up, but who doesn't want to end up on the wrong side of the law. Evil points!

I don't think you understand. You assume there is an infinite spectrum of possibilities, but that's not the case when you're dealing with a pre-written script. Consider the dialog below:

Constable:
We have a growing problem with some local gangs. They are disrupting the peace, blantantly disregarding our laws, and threatening the good folk of this community. But we simply lack the numbers to address this problem and restore order. Will you help?

You:
1. I cannot in good conscience stand idly by in your hour of need. I would consider it my duty to help. What would you ask of me?
2. I cannot walk away when there are people in need. You can count on me to help. What can I do?
3. What a pitiful lot you are. *sigh* But how can I pass up an opportunity to "render" justice? *snickers* If you want your problems permanently removed, you've found your man.

The motivation behind each of these choices is clear. As I said, YOU don't decide what the possibilities are. The author does. So there's no uncertainty about what the alignment shift should be, if there should be one at all. In the example above:

1. Shift towards lawful
2. Shift towards good
3. Shift towards evil

I do agree however that players could act out of character and possibly abuse the system. To me that's the best case against scripted shifts. But then again, that's what logs are for, so I'll just conclude with this. To each their own.

[Nyarlathotep]

I don't think you understand. You assume there is an infinite spectrum of possibilities, but that's not the case when you're dealing with a pre-written script. Consider the dialog below:

Constable:
We have a growing problem with some local gangs. They are disrupting the peace, blantantly disregarding our laws, and threatening the good folk of this community. But we simply lack the numbers to address this problem and restore order. Will you help?

You:
1. I cannot in good conscience stand idly by in your hour of need. I would consider it my duty to help. What would you ask of me?
2. I cannot walk away when there are people in need. You can count on me to help. What can I do?
3. What a pitiful lot you are. *sigh* But how can I pass up an opportunity to "render" justice? *snickers* If you want your problems permanently removed, you've found your man.

The motivation behind each of these choices is clear. As I said, YOU don't decide what the possibilities are. The author does. So there's no uncertainty about what the alignment shift should be, if there should be one at all. In the example above:

1. Shift towards lawful
2. Shift towards good
3. Shift towards evil

I do agree however that players could act out of character and possibly abuse the system. To me that's the best case against scripted shifts. But then again, that's what logs are for, so I'll just conclude with this. To each their own.

I think what the issue here is that most players, I include myself, consider the scripted response of their character to be an OOC game mechanic and not the actual IC response of their PC. For example if someone who always played a dwarf PC with a thick moonshae accent lets say were to accept a quest that included the character's verbal response few would consider the change in word choice and language IC, rather it would be assumed that the PC responded in an IC appropriately way. Similarly if the quest giver refers to all he talks to as male few assume that the NPC is consitently making mistakes as to the genders of those he is speaking with.

I've always assumed the response to be whether or not my PC accepts the task, ultimately the motivations of the PC is always under the control of the player, save in rare instances of magical compulsion.

Even in the given example of choices there is ambiguity in motivation. An evil PC could choose any of the responses, in fact most would lie and choose 1 or 2. A bitter or jaded neutral or good character could choose option 3, that response is more indicative of cynicism or a nasty disposition than moral outlook. Words reveal attitude and personality not motivation which is why under most circumstances cripted changes aren't a good idea.

[Mayhem]

I don't think you understand. You assume there is an infinite spectrum of possibilities, but that's not the case when you're dealing with a pre-written script. Consider the dialog below:

Constable:
We have a growing problem with some local gangs. They are disrupting the peace, blantantly disregarding our laws, and threatening the good folk of this community. But we simply lack the numbers to address this problem and restore order. Will you help?

You:
1. I cannot in good conscience stand idly by in your hour of need. I would consider it my duty to help. What would you ask of me?
2. I cannot walk away when there are people in need. You can count on me to help. What can I do?
3. What a pitiful lot you are. *sigh* But how can I pass up an opportunity to "render" justice? *snickers* If you want your problems permanently removed, you've found your man.

The motivation behind each of these choices is clear. As I said, YOU don't decide what the possibilities are. The author does. So there's no uncertainty about what the alignment shift should be, if there should be one at all.

So you can only take this quest if you agree to say in character the exact words that the builder has decided on, hey?

You might as well have a selection of answers saying:
I take the job for good reasons
I take the job for evil reasons
I take the job for lawful reasons
I take the job for chaotic reasons
I take the job for reasons not aligned with any particular philosophy
I turn down the job.

[Audark]

Also, unless everything is either impecably written, or blatantly simple, quest conversation options can be ambiguous, for example an answer for law vs an answer for good, or a chaotic type answer being perceived as an evil answer.

I much prefer quests to give no inherant alignment changes and have a single answer, either accept the wuest or reject it. Then you can RP your own motivations. Theres no harm in a non-alignment changing static, but when a static doesn't perform as you'd expect and you get alignment points that seem out of character, it is annoying.

I'm of the opinion to let players rp their own motives, and push for more DMed alignment change instead of coding this into statics. I'd rather avoid any hassle for the propective players.

[Mayhem]

Chaotic and evil behaviors are selfish by default,

Utter, utter nonsense. A chaotic good character is not selfish, or he would not be good. A chaotic good fighter seeking to free the local populace from the oppresive lawful evil regime of the local baron is not selfish.

Get your head out of basic edition, where if you were chaotic AND evil, or lawful AND good, and get with the programme, old timer

[psycho_leo]

Unless its something blatant I am against scrpted alignment changes. A static tat makes you kill an innocent person should give evil points no matter your motivations. But a static that makes you hunt down a criminal or something along those lines is always open to different interpretations.
So, in short... Yay for DM alignment shifts and Nay for scripted alignment changes.

[White Warlock]

Chaotic and evil behaviors are selfish by default,

Utter, utter nonsense. A chaotic good character is not selfish, or he would not be good. A chaotic good fighter seeking to free the local populace from the oppresive lawful evil regime of the local baron is not selfish.

Get your head out of basic edition, where if you were chaotic AND evil, or lawful AND good, and get with the programme, old timer

So, this is the best you can do to counter my 'entire' well presented argument? pfft...

The easiest example of chaotic good being selfish is in the simple understanding of chaos/law, presented contractually. A contract is an agreement between two or more parties to adhere to a set of rules. Were one party to break said rules, a breach of contract ensues. We take this understanding to examine credit cards, bill payments, and other financial obligations, and we run headlong into the great differentiation between the polar extremes of chaotic and lawful which, in this example, have little to no good/evil associations (unless the contracts were entered into with the 'intent' to not abide by said obligations. I.e., fraud).

The immediate thought posed by this is that of responsibility vs. irresponsibility, wherein someone who pays their bills, and reimburses lenders, is responsible, while someone who does not, is irresponsible. Delve further into this understanding and you are posed with external obligation as opposed to internal wants. I.e., consideration for others and adherence to laws/rules vs. selfishness.