Edit: "Alignment" has been replaced by "Resonance" Imagine a game where every item and every ability is tied to an Resonance. The player then has to choose whether to use a particular item or ability (including buffs from other characters in the game world) based on his or her Resonance goals. What is a Resonance? 1) In a fantasy context, for example, it could be a resonance with a specific deity. Each deity "sponsors" a set of abilities. The player could choose a specific deity at the outset, and would be rewarded with an easier time gaining Resonance with that specific deity. 2) There might be invisible or only partially detectable "taint" associated with a person's use of abilities, so that no matter what the Resonance of the ability is, accepting its use on your character influences your character not only by the Resonance of the ability itself, but also by the Resonance of the character using that ability. A subgoal or minigame within your Resonance could be to try to bring other characters into your Resonance. 3) A high rank in a particular Resonance could unlock special abilities specific to that Resonance. 4) Resonance would behave as mutually exclusive aspects of the character, so that gaining rank in one Resonance would automatically diminish all other Resonances to some degree. Alternatively, some Resonances could be chosen to be specifically complementary (destruction & corruption or healing & curing, for example) 5) Part of the game could also revolve around trying to change the Resonance of items, which might in turn affect the abilities they manifest. For example, a destruction-resonant character picks up a healing-resonant robe that restores HP to the wearer over time. The character goes through the process of changing the item's Resonance, and its aura turns to a cloud that inflicts damage over time to those nearby. [Edited by - liquiddark on May 3, 2006 8:29:46 PM]

As a game mechanic, I like building your character's alignment over the course of the game, as in KOTOR. Jade Empire was even better, because it wasn't necessarily light vs. dark, and the decisions you had to make were more layered; it wasn't always obvious which was the good guy response.

You could do some interesting things with a multi-layered alignment system, but the examples you provided seem too clear-cut. Corruption vs. curing is too analagous to evil vs. good, and I think that would hurt the quality of your story. I much prefer the Shin Megami Tensei series' concept of chaos vs. order. Chaos means both freedom and lack of restraint, while order can be both constructive and oppressive.

Your ideas are sound, but I hope you are also exceptionally creative with the content you present.

One thing to consider is that if you encourage your players to use only one alignment's items and abilities you are effectively cutting in half (or more fractions if there are more than two alignments) the percentage of your game's content each player will experience, with the result that for the same amount of work invested in content creation the game will only seem half as rich to the player.

i like the idea.

when you say "alignment", it seems your equating it to more of an "elemental or force" type alignment rather than good and evil.

the word alignment has a rather loaded meaning in games so in order to get a better response i'd flesh out exactly what you mean.


you could also include a dynamic such as "willpower".


assign a weapon a certain willpower based on its strength and have the player have a similar state, based either in level, or have it be a player stat that increases via use of weapons and "conquering" them. (depending on whether you are using a level based system or skill based system.)


heres a quick example.

item: +3 flaming longsword.(alignment fire)(willpower: 30)

player: Fred, of the frozen plains(alignment ice) (willpower: 40)


when first equiping this weapon a will check is rolled:

1-100:

item 40+will(30) = 70
Fred 45+will(40) = 85

so Fred wins.

then you have a graduated scale:

margin of victory.

100+ alignment abilities are combined creating a more powerful weapon(but only in Freds hands.)

50+ Fred's alignment manifests itself fully. +3 flaming becomes +3 icey

30+ Freds alignment manifests itself in a partial manner. +3 flaming becomes +2 icey.

10+ Both are changed, Fred's alignment moves up in ice and down in fire. weapon becomes +1 icey

10- as 10+ but alignment swing for Fred is more extreme and weapon becomes +1 flaming. continued use will continue to buld Freds fire alignment and reduce his ice alignment.





instead of reducing the amount of content you could create a huge analogue of weapons instead of digital flag type weapons. as well as make a players choice of weapons more meaningful.

The point about limiting content is a good one - but for some genres the fluid limitation of different types of item is a godsend - MMO's for example can stretch out a (reasonably large) item base considerably by limiting their use.

I have to confess I like a DnD style 2D alignment (Anarchy vs Order, Good vs Evil) as opposed to a one-dimensional struggle. A game concept I had centred around the association of points in this 2D space with deities (with a catchment area around them) and plotting a players calculated alignment into that space to see who likes them, and who doesn't. I started thinking about this when working on Warhammer online (thinking of those pesky chaos gods here), and am thinking of firming up the concept for Bloodspear. More players in a god's catchment area the stronger the god (and its associated entities). Particularly pissing off a particular god, obviously would be a bad thing, as in fantasy type settings gods tend to have a pre-Christian hands-on kind of approach to things.

The problem I ran into was (and still is) the balancing the alignment cost of action triggers in the world (excluding combat and interpersonal actions which for the most part are entirely player driven, and thus only predictable with a relatively high margin of error, certainly before 'bedding in time') so that the deities involved would have comparable levels of power so that the world doesn't immediately devolve into an orgy of violence sponsored by the loveable god of Murder.

I suppose this concept really has to be tested in a live environment, preferably without the players knowing about the test (simply log alignment changes, don't apply them per se) and certainly never put into practice with players having anything more than a vague knowledge of their alignment (this god likes me, that god hates me).

Still it's a great concept, and I'd like to see it used and developed more. I think it can lead to a much richer game.

Quote:

Original post by _winterdyne_ The point about limiting content is a good one - but for some genres the fluid limitation of different types of item is a godsend - MMO's for example can stretch out a (reasonably large) item base considerably by limiting their use. I have to confess I like a DnD style 2D alignment (Anarchy vs Order, Good vs Evil) as opposed to a one-dimensional struggle. A game concept I had centred around the association of points in this 2D space with deities (with a catchment area around them) and plotting a players calculated alignment into that space to see who likes them, and who doesn't. I started thinking about this when working on Warhammer online (thinking of those pesky chaos gods here), and am thinking of firming up the concept for Bloodspear. More players in a god's catchment area the stronger the god (and its associated entities). Particularly pissing off a particular god, obviously would be a bad thing, as in fantasy type settings gods tend to have a pre-Christian hands-on kind of approach to things. The problem I ran into was (and still is) the balancing the alignment cost of action triggers in the world (excluding combat and interpersonal actions which for the most part are entirely player driven, and thus only predictable with a relatively high margin of error, certainly before 'bedding in time') so that the deities involved would have comparable levels of power so that the world doesn't immediately devolve into an orgy of violence sponsored by the loveable god of Murder. I suppose this concept really has to be tested in a live environment, preferably without the players knowing about the test (simply log alignment changes, don't apply them per se) and certainly never put into practice with players having anything more than a vague knowledge of their alignment (this god likes me, that god hates me). Still it's a great concept, and I'd like to see it used and developed more. I think it can lead to a much richer game.

it seems like youre focusing on the "Gods as avatar" instead of the "Gods as agents"


consider more a "the force is strong with this one" paradigm.

a gods power is derived from its agents.(which is your alignment thesis), the more powerful the agents the more powerful the God is in the net assessment.


thus a priest of the thunder god who has a flawless alignment with his diety would be more powerful than a priest of thunder who does not.


otherwise, as you pointed out, you run the risk of one god running the others out.

using this scenario you could have hidden religions(ala Bhaal in Forgotten Realms), who's followers are few but powerful.

Quote:

Original post by templewulf You could do some interesting things with a multi-layered alignment system, but the examples you provided seem too clear-cut. Corruption vs. curing is too analagous to evil vs. good

The basic difference in the system I am proposing is that alignment is to a type of force rather than a moral judgement. Destruction is neither good nor evil, it is simply destruction.

Quote:

Original post by sundandshadow One thing to consider is that if you encourage your players to use only one alignment's items and abilities you are effectively cutting in half

Part of the point of the thought experiment - which I neglected to point out in the initial post - is that the player should very much be asked to make hard choices regarding alignments. For example, they may not be able to defeat a particular enemy without a specific "buff", but that buff would be aligned with an entirely different force.

Dredd's example captures what I was thinking about pretty well - I hadn't considered the willpower idea, as I was thinking of re-alignment as a minigame or adventure-quest of its own, but a simpler mechanic could work for a simpler game. Also, his point that "alignment" is a charged word is a good one. Think "Resonance" moreso than "alignment" - the character becomes more resonant with a particular world element, at the cost of becoming less resonant with most or all other elements, depending on the exact design.

_winterdyne_, I think that part of what has to happen in terms of the balance of powers is RoShamBo-ing your world, so that no single force can dominate the landscape. Discovering a way to make that work for any specific context is going to be problematic, but I think designing weaknesses and strengths in such a way that there are definite advantages to any particular combination of game elements is one of the core challenges of the working designer anyways.

Cool concept :D

But you said that if there are more people on one deity, the population under that diety gets stronger? Wouldn't that mean that everyone will try to stack on that particular deity for the sake of raw power?

I also like that "fire sword and Fred" system by Dredd. It seems hard but interesting. They do need RPG games out there where you can evolve your character between leveling.

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow One thing to consider is that if you encourage your players to use only one alignment's items and abilities you are effectively cutting in half (or more fractions if there are more than two alignments) the percentage of your game's content each player will experience

The incentive effect depends on the rules and the situations of the game; there can be many different feedback structures.

The easiest system, which is very common in games, is one-way specialization: developing the character in the same direction it has already taken is better than changing.
The tainting and level effects described by the OP are a straightforward positive feedback: the more you do something the more you become good at doing it, at the expense of other abilities; then remaining competitive at anything else becomes difficult.
Example: Dungeons and Dragons characters have one or more "classes" at different "class levels" that determine available powers and a "character level" which is the sum of class levels and corresponds to character experience. Every time a character gains a level he decides to which class it should be applied, and increasing the level of an already high-level class gives more benefits (e.g. gaining 2 powerful spells instead of 2 weak spells, or a powerful "feat" instead of its mediocre prerequisite).
Well-rounded characters do not have an edge: in combat and other situations, a multiclass adventurer can be almost adequate at several ways to solve the problem instead of very good at only one.
Interestingly, most D&D character advancement strategies focus on accumulating bits and pieces from different classes and exotic options to attain high power in one area (e.g. combat damage or variety of spells) at a low character level; it is another type of specialization.

Another option, as liquiddark explains in his second post, is encouraging specialization in the short term but change in the long term. This works if the game content requires a character to use most abilities and resonances sooner or later; it is not easy, especially without contrived situation and with enough forewarning to let the player modify the character.
Example: switching weapons and tactics in a FPS. In this case the time scale is short and the negative feedback against inappropriate approaches has a weak and slow component (running out of ammo) and an often desired component (increasing the difficulty of the game).

The richest rule systems can provide character customization through deep variety in basic character functions. Whereas in Angband a fireball and an ice storm (fulfilling the function of medium distance area attacks) differ mostly in who and what is more or less resistant to them, in a complex game a fireball could spread an aura of "destruction" and maybe "chaos" with generic effects (increasing the power of subsequent spells of the same alignment in the same area, sticking to items), scripted effects (predictably attracting the attention of specific NPCs like a balrog), special and whimsical effects (pushing bystander NPCs towards chaotic and destructive actions).
Then you wouldn't use a fireball because you have specialized as a fire wizard and it is the clearly optimal option, but because you prefer a fireball's resonances and peculiarities and you have a more complex purpose than blasting someone.

Quote:

Original post by moogle87 Cool concept :D But you said that if there are more people on one deity, the population under that diety gets stronger? Wouldn't that mean that everyone will try to stack on that particular deity for the sake of raw power? I also like that "fire sword and Fred" system by Dredd. It seems hard but interesting. They do need RPG games out there where you can evolve your character between leveling.

I thought of the problem of 'stacking', too.

One solution would be to have the alignment 'map' not be constant. If everyone is close to a single point, that area of the map starts to spread apart; what were once minor differences become major points of contention. This 'stretching out' of the one power area would also push other forces closer together on the map, making those areas more desirable (because you could gain the benefit of multiple 'forces' that are closer together).