With alignment I mean the moral and ethical value systems of an individual character or a faction of characters (a race, a people, a guild, a clan, what have you), just like in Dungeons&Dragons and the like. Now, continuing on that analogy, in this discussion the good-evil-axis would be the ethical alignment and the lawful-chaotic would be the moral alignment. The moral alignment is relatively simple, at least if we take it to mean the lawful-good-axis of the d20 system. If you obey the law (where law can be thought of as any set of rules of society, not necessarily written law), you are lawful. If you break the law, you are chaotic. This doesn't work everywhere, however, as humans and orcs can have laws that differ from each other drastically. The other faction would consider the player's character lawful while the other chaotic. So this is inadequate in that sense, as just having one number will make you an enemy of the state universally. On the other hand, let us consider the ethical alignment. Usually, the ethical alignment is absolute, fixed by the game designer, and usually it is of the mentality of "it is evil to kill, it is good to protect the innocent, etc.". Now I'm not trying to claim that this won't work in D&D nor am I trying to enforce an alternate philosophical view of the world on anyone, but consider a game world in which ethics is defined with regard the society. That is, ethics is not absolute. For instance, Klingons value honour above life. Killing is not necessarily evil as long as it is done with honour. (Now I'm going to forget the separate moral and ethical concepts and just consider one alignment concept, for the sake of simplicity.) So the alignment axes wouldn't really be axes after all. An alignment would really be some sort of representation of the character's/faction's value system. If the alignments of two characters/factions are similar enough, they would be co-aligned and would consider each other good. Otherwise they would consider each other evil (or simply something in between, like "neutral", as the value systems could differ in different degrees). And they will react to each other as determined by these evaluations. How about reputation? Let's assume a character reputation measures how well the character is known, without any qualitative properties (a high value could mean being famous or infamous as well). The higher the player's character's reputation, the better known are his alignment values. Let's take a couple of examples. If the character is a well known serial killer (or why not a parallel killer for a change) with a high reputation in an area where life is valued above all, no one will sell him goods, the guards will capture him on sight etc. (he will be as of the evil alignment in the d20 system). In an area where life is not as valued, but rather valour and honour (serial killers can be honourable in my opinion at least), he can be celebrated as a hero (ok, maybe it's a silly example, celebrating a serial killer as a hero and all that, but it works for now...). As another example, you shouldn't be able to join any guilds you aren't co-aligned with. Instead, if your alignment differed greatly from theirs, they should shun you or even try to destroy you. Does this make any sense? And how would you model the ethical and moral value systems in a way all this would be possible? I was thinking of having a list of possible values from which to give out appropriate combinations to characters according to race, culture and profession with set priorities. Another problem would be determining the difference of alignment of two factions.

The definitions of right and wrong are a result of the common beliefs and understandings of the people who make up the whole of society. Within these confines, criminals are considered people who deviate from social norms.

Morality is a difficult thing to quanitfy, since its really determined by the relative baised opinions of a particular faction/cultures views. In this instance, the only way to differentiate between one factions Ethics over anothers would be their common standings on specific actions, and the reasoning behind those actions.

A way to differentiate between factions would be to have a list of particular actions of interest, like murder, helping, stealing, selling contraband, etc, and setting values for these actions for each particular faction. Each faction would then in turn have lists of Allies and Enemies based on race, and the different standings they have on said actions. The players reputation would include which of these actions he's performed, and which factions he would be associated with.

The players previous actions might limit the player from joining a particular organizations however, so naturally the player might get in good with a particular faction by making ammends, or proving himself by performing particular actions (like helping catch criminals, doing time, or performing ritual sacrifice, whichever).

Implementing something so complicated in a game could spell trouble, that is, if the lines are fuzzy. Considering a lot what makes a character good and evil, calm or chaotic, would be from character interaction and reaction, a lot or resources should go into AI and in my opinion, dialogue; written or voiced. How the player plays this game, which direction or directions he goes, will obviously ultimately be decided in what the player feels like doing in the game. However, his intention and method will be guided by characters reactions to him. Therefore, a lot of time and effort would have to be put into other characters manner and actions in this kind of system.

Also, with many paths being crossed, a lot progammed foots are going to be digitally stepped on. Most gamers want to feel like they can go back and do something different. Basicly their in-game desicions aren't final, they can change something they didn't like. That is the essence of really of why people play games, to escape the reality of things like this. Lately some games promote this moral choice system though, making this point of no return/consequence system more acceptable in the gaming world. You're obviously talking about something a great deal more intriquite than what has come before. And it just might work, but a lot of time would have to get into this idea to get it done right. Even something starting off as so free and open can become something disgustingly linear.