I never liked items that where aligment specific, espically in game that ask the player choose whcih is good and evil since it predtermins which side is which and forces the player go along with that decision.

After all if you have your evil sword of slaying, and your evil armor of invcibility then your all ready predetermined the evil is a force of destruction.

Why not take a page out of Dr Suss, he wrote a book called the "butter battles" i think. It was about a war between to countries one who buttered their bread butter side up and the other buttered their bread butter side down. Are they really that diffrent? no, but they belive the other side to wrong and because of which they engage in a war with escalating weapons of destruction until they both create doomday weapons and wipe each other out.

So don''t have good and evil weapons if you really want to have something like make it more questionable. For instance you could have a sword of souls that drain the very essence from your enimies and traps it forever in the sword, another sword could be the sword of suffering that causes wounds that never heal.

I''d avoid of using the terms good and evil in your game and let the player decided for themselves which side is which. Espically if its non liner quest driven game in which you can allow the players actions to support one side or the other.
Afterall diffrent people have diffrent ideas of morality so let them decided which side is which after all one person my decieded the the neutral castle is evil simply because they refuse to take sides in the conflict.



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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

Also, go ahead and post your iffy judgement and moral quandries as well, I don''t want to miss any. Although including them may be difficult, but a worthy challenge.

More info on game:
The City provides neutrality, a good victim, a common enemy, and relativists(as a faction within the city). The whole ''exploration of an idea'' schtick is actually new. I was gonna use this engine to make another game whose purpose was to explore a theme, then realized I could make the first game also explore a theme. I mention that because I did write a story and there are things going on, it actually takes four parts. The first three parts each introduce a new continent, which also makes me think I can tackle a fundamental issue per part, maybe even allow a different metaphysical system to be installed per part.

On the subject of good guys doing stupid things for the sake of their alignment: an AD&D game I DMed, one of the players (playing a Paladin) was attacked by an assassin. Immediately he defeated the assassin, he went over and healed him. It took me all of about half a second to decide the assassin''s response: "Thanks mate" and stick a dagger in...

The Butter Battle Book was an allegory for the Cold War, and a commentary on the ludicrously self destructive nature of that conflict. It is perhaps the finest "children''s" book ever written.

Roland, your "invisible wall" is a world-building concern. The only solution to it that I can think of is to start with a creation myth and build the metaphysics of your world from the beginning of time to the start of the game. A heavy task, but one that can be simplified with a rudimentary metaphysical system.

The Christian creation story is actually pretty simple. If you just have the Creation and the Fall, you get people and evil in about a page and a half. Then you can install about a thousand years of history (not so bad, Australian aborigines have about 10,000 years of history, and if they''re right, you would hardly be able to tell the aborigines in the beginning from the ones right now), and use that time to form whatever nations and races you''ll be using. There''s nothing wrong with setting a game in a non-ancient world. In fact, a newer, younger world could be better, since the good/evil struggle will still be pretty clear-cut, but corruption and redemption could be just starting to infiltrate the factions.

But the Christian standpoint of course makes one side obviously right. I get the impression that that''s not what you''re after. A few modifications, a few idea from Norse, Greek, Chinese and African creation myths, and you could have better luck.

If you aren''t going to have one be right and one be wrong, then you should ditch the good/evil dichotomy and just go with factions and a reputation system. If you want to distinguish between baby-eaters and pillars of society, maybe a basic order/chaos system would be appropriate. Knights, zealots, kings and tyrants would prefer "order", while thieves, assassins, revolutionaries and mercenaries would prefer chaos.

The important thing is to remember not to equate order/chaos with good/evil. I remember in Tactics Ogre, if you refused to massacre the village in the beginning, you got a "chaos" alignment for your disobedience, and so later in the game you could become a Terror Knight. How does NOT killing people qualify you to be death incarnate? It''s a logical error. Likewise, if you whack the innocents, you can become an Exorcist. Super. I''ll start with my concience.

I think we''ve focused entirely too much on the good/evil element of your original post, RolandofGilead. Maybe if we knew some of the other ideas that can be explored through gameplay, we could offer more helpful advice. As it stands, we''re just fighting over philosophy, which can get ugly.

whew, I'm glad that someone else knew the book I mentiond. I would have felt very old if there where just several responese along the lines of "Who's Dr. Seuss?"


You also brought up another interesting point that I thought I should elborate a little more on. I am a fan of mythology and have many books on myths from around the world. But out of all the creation myths I've read from around the world only cristianty includeds the idea of good and evil being a part of the worlds creation. Most mythologies include free will, good and evil as a basic part of man and attach no divine orgin to those aspects of us.

Even the idea of good and evil is not something alot of cultures associate with seperate divine beings.

I could give some examples if you like but, you may want to reserch it own your own.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document



[edited by - TechnoGoth on October 31, 2003 3:17:34 PM]

quote: Original Post by Iron Chef Carnage
I think we''ve focused entirely too much on the good/evil element of your original post, RolandofGilead

Indeed, especially since I''ve never asked any questions regarding them(read carefully). I do further down possibly.

quote: Original Post by Iron Chef Carnage
Roland, your "invisible wall" is a world-building concern

Yes, I know, that''s why I posted. What do I put in place of that invisible wall? I like your ideas by the way. RPG players are used to hearing creation myths. It isn''t listed on
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
but every creation myth always involves a big tree. I would say it''d be fun to create an RPG that includes every cliche listed, but I already own it(Legend of Dragoon-it really does include every single cliche listed, each and every one-yet I still love that game-probably cause I don''t play enough RPGs).

Anyway, like I said, how is it reasonable that the symbols representing good and evil(the castles) are run by so many beings that have such a variety of viewpoints on their respective sides? Shouldn''t they be run by whoever is correct? I suppose "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" makes sense in that context.

rmsgrey: yes, 999 out of 1000 times, that would probably happen, but that''s the whole point of ''goodness'', to have faith.

Which brings up a quality I myself associate with real evil, the inability to redeem, and a quality I associate with good, the level to which one can forgive and love(that is why Christ let himself be crucified, in case anyone was wondering). How does that affect the game? I don''t know if absolutely unredeemable is necessary since there would be many characters who will of course get killed off way before they ever even have a chance to change. Basically, how could you tell someone would never ever ever change? (That is to say, as far as my game goes, is it a moot point? It seems so.)

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth I could give some examples if you like but, you may want to reserch it own your own.

I would like, thank you.

Don''t forget that there are many people living in side a castle each with their own view point and opinions, the reason they live in that castle would be because they associated themselves most with that faction. That doesn''t mean people in the castle can''t have radically different goals or visions for the future of their faction. Generally organizations are run by individuals who are able to distinguish themselves from the rest and can take leadership, whether it is by election, usurpation or appointment.

You’re clearly taking a heavily Christian view point for your game not that there is anything wrong with that of course. I think it’s important for you to define what is good and evil in terms of your game. Since for instance you use the phase evil being someone who will never change. Which implies a rather rigid order and society something which is the opposite of the usual representations of which good=order and evil=chaos.

Also you state that good represents love and evil represents unredeemable does that mean that the leaders of the two factions are the ones who posses the most of these qualities? Wouldn''t that mean that no matter what evil did which would probably consist of escalating atrocities that goods'' response would simply say "I forgive you"? Also why would so called “good” faction carry weapons of war? Since there all about love and forgiveness doesn’t that also imply non violence?

I see this leading to a great deal of unsatisfactory game play and lacks story. It might be better to come up with two philosophies or two interpretations of a single philosophy. It can be as detailed as you desire but they should describe the basic ideology of both sides sufficiently to allow an individual to decide which faction they belong to.

You can then use that to devise game play ideas for your game. After all not ever “evil” person is going to be mass murdering baby eater, and not every good person is going love everyone and forgive every slight.

Here are some creation myths for you to consider I won''t get too detailed.

Norse: In the beginning there was a great chasm with fire on one side and ice on the other. When they met they created Ymir and a cow. From the ice the cow licked came the father of Odin and from Ymir''s sweat came the frost giants, eventual Odin slew Ymir and his blood killed all but one of the frost giants. Then Odin use Ymir''s body to make the world.

There where many Norse gods and they where not all knowing or all powerful. In fact Odin leader of the gods trades one his eyes in order to drink from the well of wisdom. The Norse Gods where active gods who protected and aided mankind. The frost giants are the enemies of the gods, and on ragnorock the Frost giants while break from their domain and wage war on the gods and in the end only a 4 of the younger gods while remain and two humans, but the world will be reborn and begin a new.

In Norse mythology the frost giants aren’t seen as evil anymore then Norse gods are seen as good. They are rivals and enemies, more then anything the frost giants are manifestations of the forces of nature cold and ice that threatened to consume the Vikings world. While the Gods are manifestation of civilization able to withstand and beat back the forces of nature.

Greek:

Greek mythology the world is created as a result of the battle between Chronos and chaos. Later Chronos is killed by one of his own children named Zeus. The Olympian gods lead by Zeus don’t really have a nemesis, there is some interfamily politics that about it. They cause problems for mortals from time to time.

Also in Greek mythology having to much of something is considered a sin. So an individual who was to intelligent, to beautiful, to talented, or to strong would inevitable be punished by the Gods because of this.

Chinese:

According to Chinese mythology the universe began as an egg in side of which was Pan Gu who slept for 18 thousand years. When he woke he broke forth from the egg which later became the world which he then separated from each other by holding them apart and growing until he died and his body became the world. People come about much later and are made by a goddess since she finds the world empty and lifeless she makes two kinds the first are hand sculpted but she realized that it would take to long to populate the world that way. She created a second larger batch by splattering mud on the ground, thus creating two classes of people, or Nobles and peasants.

There numerous myth which involve the bureaucracy of heaven, there a countless celestial clerks for instance.

Those are just a few examples of creations myths from three separate cultures, you can see from them the idea of order overcoming chaos to create civilization, as well as lack of personification of good and evil.


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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

Would everyone please stop putting words in my mouth.




Perhaps this would also help the discussion, no character has a faction attribute. All the major players use the belief system within their AIs to make decisions.

perhaps you need to reiterate your idea because you say there are no factions an yet there are two castles. arn''t those factions? Arn''t people who live in the good castle and follow the ways of good considered members of the good faction? If not please explain.

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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document