Shattered Kingdoms

And the request will be answered, "And like I would give that to you!" Or whatever they say to non-lighties. Rada, some certain individuals even explained away their killing of other lighties by using ruthlessness as their fallback.

The #1 fundamental concept of being a lightie, is the respect for life. Which means that if you are a lightie, you don't just go around looking to kill someone. Unless, they are currently threatening the lives of others, a lightie should not go around killing because that person might do it in the near future.

In SK, I would like to see where a lightie God would condone a killing of another just because they might do something. In fact, I would bet there would be at least a couple of them that would actually be angry about it.

I guess that would prove he's not scrupulous. I've only watched a few early episodes of 24, but from what I hear, I don't think he is "good" enough to be considered scrupulous. Where does that put him in our system? That's hard to say, but quite possibly Aberrant.


If you downplay the focus on honor, it sounds like it fits him best. Which really brings us back to the heart of this thread. If you act like Jack Bauer, regardless of your intentions, you might well be evil. Jack Bauer doesn't think of himself as evil, but many evil people don't.

I think that scrupulous probably does need to have the word "ruthless" removed from its description and exchanged for something less dark.

Then if we must ....

If you find a way to define the "Ultimate Codex of Lightie Behavior" and get everyone (or even a significant majority) to agree, I'd be totally in favor of rewriting the lightie help files around that.

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Frankly, I like the fact that the difference between lightie and darkie behavior in terms of morality is totally subjective. They're both fighting for causes (sometimes the cause is their own will) and who can really judge what cause is more "right" than another? What's the difference between a MC who fights for Imperial domination because he believes that the Council can rule more effectively than anyone else (and takes "some" taxes, luxuries, slaves and power in return) and a Hammer who crusades for total freedom and justice (which is of course HIS/HER idea of freedom and justice)?

Very little. The only real difference is that the lightie believes in a cause greater than themselves and that a darkie might believe in a cause, but DEFINITELY believes in themselves. It all comes down to a question of selfishness, which is the way I like it. That's why I dislike people associating "lightie" with true "goodness", because it's really not. I believe that is a misconception fostered by preconceived notions and not directly because of the help file at all.

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If you think about it, the concepts behind a cabal like the Hammer is pretty psychotic. "Fight for the Hammer's cause until death." Trouble is, the Hammer's "cause" is based on totally subjective terms ("light", "goodness", "purity", etc.). Whoever founded that organization basically gave a giant army blanket permission to kill pretty much anyone with enough forethought.

By that I do NOT mean that they can kill anyone "because they feel like it", but because the cabal is designed with an incredible amount of leeway. It leads to several "correct" implementations of Hammer philosophy. "Fight" doesn't even necessarily mean physical fighting, either. I would say that a Hammer that acted only in defense and went around digging wells or other absurd public works projects stuck to the spirit of the cabal as much as a Hammer that camped Losache courtyard for 3 hours and killed anything that moved.

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I continue mentioning the Hammer in a discussion on lightie alignment because I believe they are the ultimate, purist incarnation of the alignment of their leadership. For instance, Sorel led the Hammer much more differently than someone like Altheadion. The scrupulous alignment is probably the alignment with the broadest range of RP within its restrictions.

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Seeing as how D already said that he probably would remove "ruthless" from the help file, I'd like to address that. Even if ruthless gets removed, the rest of the help file doesn't make much sense if we're going to scrutinize it like that. If they're not ruthless, why are they willing to work with ANYONE? Why would they allow themselves to hurt innocents in the process? They have to have a "dark" edge to them in order to separate themselves from principled. They are NOT gray at all, since there is no personal selfishness involved, but simply a willingness to hurt others.

I see scrupulous chars as the kind of people to nuke Hiroshima. It sucks, it might not be morally right and it kills a whole shitload of people, but if SOMEBODY has to do it, the scrupulous chars would.

They're flexible. I could see a laidback scrupulous doing his business as it comes and a ruthless one actively pushing everyone and everything to perform it.

I don't think we need to change the word "ruthless" so much as who it applies to. Scrupulous characters aren't ruthless to everyone all the time, but only to evildoers under critical circumstances. Again there's the example of Dirty Harry torturing the kidnapper in a desparate attempt to save the hostage.

My suggestion, with changes in bold:



I think this makes it clear that scrupulous people shouldn't be harming innocents intentionally, let alone being ruthless to them. At the same time, it still allows them to be savage to their enemies, work with evil characters to accomplish a goal, and so on.

I find Forsooth's suggestion the best possible option here.

To clear this out, the Ultimate Lightie Behavior thing is to me whatever really counts as good in the minds of people everywhere, on a fantastic, heroic level. The Good of western fairy tales, most religious texts, and generic fantasy. I have never met a person counting ruthlessness as a characteristic of fundamentally good behavior.

More likely the opposite. For good or bad, we are playing a heroic fantasy game, with defined lines between good and evil. Someone (Wert I think) had suggested taking off alignment as an option for SKs, but IF that were to happen, Taslamar would stop being the Bastion of Light that it is now. The Aghelian people would stop being considered so inevitably evil, and so on. We role-play within the parameters of an accepted, clearly (but not narrowly) defined setting.

"f they're not ruthless, why are they willing to work with ANYONE? Why would they allow themselves to hurt innocents in the process? They have to have a "dark" edge to them in order to separate themselves from principled. They are NOT gray at all, since there is no personal selfishness involved, but simply a willingness to hurt others. "

It seems that you just haven't really put much though in that if you wonder how it could work. They don't NEED a dark edge. They just need to be more relaxed, less stuck up than Principled people. Less discipline perhaps, less respect for the law or order, less forethought, less whatever, but not less good.

To work with everyone does not mean to be ruthless btw. A smart scrupulous character that cooperates with a darkie for some worthy goal does not necessarily have to result in the harm for others! He has a brain, he ought to use it so that yes, he will work with bad guys, but no, this cooperation won't harm good guys. That's all.


PS: The fact that the Hammer had had a lot of leeway is solely attributed to the IC tradition of players RPing it that way. Things might have been very different if the leaders/members saw it in some other way (e.g. fairy-tale romantic paladins instead of zealosu crusaders). I consider the subjectivity of ideals and the fact that a psychotic interpretation of "good" is allowed in what is supposedly the greatest defender of goodness and virtue in Pyrathia unreasonable. I can see vigilantes being scrupulous, but the Hammer has been RPed like that by players. If you Help Hammer, it looks more to me like law-abiding pargons of virtue. The gleaming knight riding from the castle to assist those in need.

"I really don't see a game's alignment as "complicated". The game even says "You are a 'good guy' and that darkie over there is the 'bad guy'"."

Exactly. And the good guys never, ever, -ever- kill (and try not to harm) their own guys. While bad guys kill everyone. This line of simple reasoning -still- does not compute.

Sure good guys kill good guys. Is it likely to happen? No. They usually have similar views, or at least are willing to work things out. However, my Nerina example is a circumstance where I could see lighties killing each other.

They are idiots if they can't find a way to work things out. And the lightie gods should come and smack them on the head if they start killing each other because they can't agree on something, but not if they are just idiots. The Hammer should have a hard task of waiting the bad guys to leave on their own, or finding them sometime else. "Destroying them NOW" is not so important as to destroy good people (who are obviously misguided) in the process. What, Pyrathia's gonna end if we don't kill them all now and do it tomorrow? (If the answer to this happens to be YES under some very special RP circumstances, then just get in there, stun every good person, and kill the bad guys, problem solved, but it's just going to be HARDER doing so).

Patience, young padawan, and then we have a good talk with the Zhensh, see if they are just stupid, and if they are just stupid, we fight the war on our own. If they don't help, okay, that's fine, we're the HEROEs, and we'll perservere even if other cowards don't help us. It's their choice afterall. If they ask for help, we might give it to them or we might not, so they can learn. We'll try to show them they are wrong, but we ain't gonna -kill- them.