Shattered Kingdoms

Somehow I knew that little exchange about dogmatics would start something like this... >_>

Salandarin: I think it makes for plenty of flexibility while at the same time having guidelines that you must follow. Thankfully because it's a game this is not so muddy and [REDACTED] as talking about how it goes in real life.

It's simple. In-game, having a "good soul" (which is in fact a thing that you have always, or you don't) is determined by your desire to act by the various virtues set forth by the lightie gods (whether your character gives a crap about them themselves or not). It means that on the large part you subscribe to that sort of stuff (generosity, love, selflessness, the power of friendship, blah blah blah) However, as someone said, the road to hell is... etc. People are able to make mistakes even if they have all of the best in mind. In fact they could do something as bad as killing an innocent or what have you; but you're still a lightie if you were logically acting on light-aura values along the way. Being overzealous at times, the classic Hammer example, works too. It's just that you were mislead or misinformed, or even just plain wrong and stupid about a decision somehow. As long as it's due to legitimate RP.

Note that I said "logically"... if you kill people and eat their bodies because you think you're God, and they're becoming a part of the Holy Host, and that this is the greatest thing you could ever do for a person... then I think your character is called Diabolic since that's insane. But you get the idea.

It's because alignments are behavioral guidelines, and behavior begins with intentions. It's pretty hard to be a lightie that constantly screws up while always trying to do the right thing (unless you're really unlucky), but it's allowed to happen here and there.

Keep in mind this is all out of character. We're talking about what color the soul is, which in this game is about as changeable as the color of your eyes. I don't think it's actually acknowledged by any character IC that souls are unchangeable or that people are defined more by this or that. Knightly codes have meaning because being able to maintain that sort of conduct is another type of discipline. Having good intentions all the time might give you a nice colored soul but being a Paladin means having the whole shabang: action and intention. Their actions are measured, and they do fail in their code at times and are punished. People are allowed to fail and make mistakes while remaining lighties, though. It pretty much just has to remain within reason, since conversions never happen and you need to eventually adhere to the guideline.

I have no idea what you said I've been playing too much of so obviously I haven't been playing it!


and to Enishi...

I have played characters who were grey, where something drastic happened to them that made them change. It took a RL year of RP to get acknowledged by the faith she pledged herself to.

SK is set up for people to never change and grow but they do.

I recently heard someone tell a greybie, "You are unprincipled and will always be."

There are people who will go off of your aura no matter what. Your aura should be a reflection of your actions. Your alignment a reflection of your upbringing.

As for how to code it, you put it on a point system, actions are put on a point system, etc.

Considering people recently felt that a lightie killing a lightie was WRONG, when that said attacker was not in the "It crowd" but didn't bat a lash when a light in the "It crowd" did it to an unpopular lightie, what does that tell you?

We've already made mention of help files having to be changed because of how people were playing their characters.

Knights of the Old Republic.

Like any number of games of its sort. You become a Jedi, but your actions dictate your "aura" as you go along. You move through shades of good and evil. Mass Effect is like that too, and a slew of others.

*shrug*

Ive played muds like that. ALignemtn becomes a joke, I played a LoTR one and I had been a member of several factions, one being a guard of rohan, then on the same chatacter went neutral ans was in a mercenary guild, and then changed again and was evil and an assassin of sauron... it really takes away from the RP of a character to change alignments. I remember in the merc guild, going from good to evil to back just to use certain swords. it could be done easily enough if you knew the right things to do.

I much prefer the static alignments here.

I like motion between alignments, but it has to be heavily restricted. These are major changes to a character. Anakin in Star Wars III is an example of how not to do it. First, he was a little bit corrupt from the beginning. ("much fear in you yada yada" (or yoda yoda)) Second, the change from fighting the Sith to massacring the Jedi kids was still ridiculously abrupt given the cosmology.

I'd suggest these limits:

* Only one change in the life of a character.
* Change has to occur while the character is still developing: He must not have reached Mentor, and must not have a religion flag.
* No change for races/classes with alignment restrictions. Their character is fixed early.
* New alignment can't be too far from your old one. For example, principled can't go to anarchist, miscreant, or diabolic.
* Alignment change to be administered by a religion HP or HF, as a result of hefty roleplay.

I think this has some advantages. Young characters won't get so completely judged by their aura. Newbies not used to our alignment system have a chance to fix mistakes. And of course, alignment change can make for some great stories. At the same time, we won't have idiocies like a Hammer of Light leader suddenly going diabolic.

I like it, but isn't the Hammer already darkie?