I think we are both trying to say the same kind of things... By reversable, I was talking about oppinions of others. I was thinking that by killing people, your alignment tends towards the ''evil'' direction... You can modify this by saving a few villages from burning to the ground... If you are lucky, you may be able to erase all debt for your wrongdoing (this should not be 100% possible. The family and friends of the person you killed will want a damn good reason why you can still walk).

After just reading your message again, we both speak on the same level . And ''being a killer'' is not reversable, although ''being dead'' may be

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-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
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IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
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Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

So: Secondary ( and tertiary, and so on ) consequences should be influenceable in two directions, is really what you''re saying (and I''m agreeing).
If killing makes you more evil, there should be something that makes you more good, and so on for any secondary effect.


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I just had a thought (Uh, oh... look out ).

What if making yourself more evil would decrease your total ability to come good. Let me rephrase this... take that you have a <maximum good alignment> and a <maximum bad alignment> that are at the ends of the scales. By doing good things, your <maximum bad> alignment decreases, so you cant become totally evil. By doing bad things your <maximum good alignment> decreases, so you can't become purely good. Eventually, for a player who keeps balancing more towards evil, they will get stuck on a certain value when <maximum good alignment> = <maximum bad alignment> or very close to it.

I don't think I explained it very well, it is not a great idea, but it really traps those who cannot change thier ways

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI ) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Edited by - dwarfsoft on August 27, 2000 5:32:29 AM

Actually - perhaps thinking bigger, lots of consequences should be irreversible - I think this applies more to the idea of a storyline unfolding. But also, lets say you muredered (not killed) someone''s brother in order to obtain some kind of bonus or reward, the reward is equally balanced by the consequence of the violent action such as the hatred of many people. By allowing many people to be swayed back into favour, then there is no balance in the situation. Unless of course the reward was in some way destroyed. In which case this would only bring the situation back to neutral, not necessarily in total favour of the player.

It could be argued that this kinda sucks, but it does force the player into making much stronger more character orientated decisions in order to further the game and the character''s development - which I think is pretty important.

I do like your thinking Maitrek. You have an equally weighted system. It is almost perfect because you can use it in a prescripted system, but I am just wondering if you can define how an equally balanced system works if everything is randomly generated. I think this poses some problem, but if you are going to have definite quests, then they need to have been planned beforehand right? So it may just be that random placing of pre-scripted generic quests that I have talked of before...

Hmmm.

What was this topic anyway? Stats? We have now gone from Stats->Cause and Effect (concequence for actions)->Returning the Role to RPG''s Where to next?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

In my opinion I think that only the maximum good alignment should go down, after all for a person that''s been doing good all their lives, and suddenly goes out and slays the whole countryside, they should go down a whole way down to the "insane mass murderer class", and as a result they shouldn''t be allowed to get back up to their previous "enlightened good class" no matter how much repenting they have done...

But personally I reckon you''re not thinking this good-bad thing out enough, like in Ultima Online you had the good-bad scale once (1 dimension), then they brought in the karma and popularity scale (2 dimensions) and that sorta worked, but when working on a server program for UO (about 2 years ago) we thought up a 3 dimensional system for governing the good-and bad of a character... I forgot it now, maybe Maitrek will respark some memory of this.

-ciao

Dæmin
(Dominik Grabiec)
sdgrab@eisa.net.au

I was only suggesting 1D as an introduction to it... Because I haven''t seen too many games that use it.. I am interested about your 3D idea..

I have thought about other 3D ideas but mostly to do with magic systems (although I tend to stick with 2D for clarity). You could base it on kills the player has made, deeds that the player has done and also on some other (unthought of by me yet) value. Then you just take a certain position in this cube of values, if it lies in a certain volume then you are good, if another then you are evil. Shades of grey always add to confusion... hence FUN!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

I think the idea of impossible redemption is always cool, but I have a feeling it''d work betetr in a movie than a game. In a game the general want is to triumph in every possible aspect of the gaming world compared to say, trying to have a strong look at what makes up human thinking and forgiveness + massive religous undertones.

Can''t really remember how that old system worked. Probably was really good too - from my old prodigy days.

I don''t know how to perfectly balance the system that is a big problem, but I can say that I think the thread went from stats -> causes and effects because stats was always a way of controlling the player-character and cause + effect is perhaps a different way of controlling the player-character.

I guess it''d be a matter of a lot of solid scripting. For instance,
-the effect of doing such and such a quest is...
-the reward from this quest is...
-the cost of redemption for this quest is...

But even that would have to become somewhat flexible. Anything too rigid and the Player-Character will feel like he''s just being swept along by fate, and that annuls any sort of "control" that the player might feel he has -> which can detach the palyer from the game.

I am thinking that you should have a list of possible concequences. This is for both good and bad. Then, they can randomly be picked from the list, to add to a bit of variety. You should also have the ability to tie the quest with an NPC or a town or a world, or a race or whatever. It should be able to tie itself to the outcome of one of these things. Then, you can also have races that praise you, and races that dispise you... Towns that have banned you and towns that triumph at your return. This adds a lot of variability to a game.

About the 3D thing, what was the general gist of it? I suggested 2 possible values, allowing for a reasonably variable and fairly easily balanced system. Can you think of the third?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche

I wish I could remember. It''d probably be interesting but that was a couple of years back and as I recall Daemin had the notes, which are probably now being redistributed as waste in a garbage dump.

I think that sometimes a few irreversible decisions are in order though. Because I think that''s what can give a game it''s most variety for each player. Is for them to make long well-though out decisions on the direction they want to take which can make it more of an individual experience than if each decision had so little outcome that it could be reversed.