Shattered Kingdoms

The story characters are in defines them as much as the choices and motivations they make and have within it. Makes perfect sense, and that kind of environmentally mindful behaviorist framework is one of the more interesting advancements in behavioral psychology in the last century. Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark can be considered for their choices, but what would we think of those men if they made them in Ponyville? Robocop could be a golem or even undead in a magical campaign setting. Superman's an interesting example simply because of how super he is. We can have the modern day equivalent of the Nicean debate by asking if Superman's strength removes him from the realistic dimensions of morality altogether.

In SK, I just don't see a foothold for another good alignment to drive any part of the story. Dogmatic had a clear practical application; without some notion of pacifism and making it such that a good, pacifist character and the existing murderous, good characters could co-exist... some of the more interesting suggestions in the thread seem like tough sells.

Just want to point out that to judge my points by my character's actions and alignment is comparable to me judging your ability to tell the truth because you once played a harlequin. Let's not bring in evidence derived from our characters into an OOC debate yes? There's a reason that Galthryn acts the way he does and in my experience as a gamemaster and writer, he is still within his intended alignment, but that alignment is admittedly closer to lawful good rather than what principled is supposed to be in SK. That's my mistake in understanding what principled meant when I created the character, and not a mistake I can correct.

Your arguments about man of steel do make sense from that standpoint, but you're seeing what you want to see rather than what was intended. If you look into the director's intention and the character he wished to portray with superman in the movie, you will start to understand that it is not the 'perfect knight' personae that superman from the comicbooks often portrays. Not saying you're wrong, the differences are subtle enough and you can easily miss them, but yeah. The intention was to portray a less 'perfect' man with man of steel.

I've seen Galthryn from multiple perspectives in-game and literally zero of them have portrayed a good-aligned character in the main, let alone primarily. Regardless of your background, in the context of SK good alignments you don't seem to have any idea what good and evil mean in the context of the game. I stand by the fact that you're the last person anyone should ever, in any area, believe in when it comes to understanding of good alignments in SK.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. Like I said there is a reason for it, but it's not one you would know unless you really got to know the inner workings of this character. To sum it up, he's a very good actor

Good actor? Not so sure about all that. I think OA has a valid point here. What reason would an elf have to pretend to break alignment 24/7?

Well, the only reason I responded in this thread instead of in PMs to these allegations is because this is a public forum and leaving a comment like that unanswered generates rumor mills but, if you want to discuss the finer workings of creating a character and what caused what, feel free to catch me on YIM: Galthryn. Otherwise, feel free to return to the main subject of the thread.

I maintain my original points:
-I am not my character nor are my character's actions a fair judgment of my knowledge of my understanding of alignments.
- Man of steel superman was purposefully and methodically engineered to be a lesser superhuman character than the superman we know from other media.
- A third good alignment would allow more creativity for players who want to play good characters that have different priorities than what principled and scrupulous alignments offer, even though it might seem like you can stretch the term scrupulous to encompass them all.

Cheers!

Sounds like you are avoiding the topic at hand because you have no rebuttal.

Galthryn says to you 'Sometimes YOu have to write a poem, like, roses are red,
violets are blue, Flick the goods, and flick you too'

I don't think its considered stretching the scrupulous alignment. If you are a good person who does not kill others unless there is no option, one who follows the laws to the letter and spirit, you are principled. If you are a good person, but not that, then scrupulous applies. We don't need Principled Lite or Scrupulous Berry Flavor. It would be confusing to add a third because I would be unable to tell where the line in the sand is. In the three dark alignments, you have the psychopathic, the just mean, and the twisted. In the gray aura, you have a rules monger, one unpredictable, and one just plain self centered. I don't know if I've seen a really good way to explain a third alignment for the light aura. Even the pacifist idea still strikes me as it could fall into principled.

Pacifism, to me, could fall into a number of alignments -- it just depends on the motivation for being such. Are you simply too reverent to the idea of life to justify its taking? Seems light. Are you too afraid to suffer the consequences of your actions, whether by the long arm of the law or by simple retaliation from those who you've wronged? Seems gray. Forcing there to be one way to be pacifist (and defaulting it to good) seems kind of silly.

I feel like Principled and Scrupulous cover the range of good as far as SK goes. While, aesthetically, I agree it would be nice to have an even number of options on either side of the coin, I can't help but feel like every suggestion I've read already falls into one or the other that already exists.

All that said, I'm completely unopposed to implementing more pacifist alternatives to the grind to make it more possible from a gameplay standpoint. But really, at the end of the day, I'd rather "pacifist" be a class with some nifty title -- These adventurers would have little need for combat skills and spells, and could perhaps be given an assortment of abilities that make them a jack- or jill-of-all-non-aggressive-actions. They could be restricted to a few alignments that would make sense, as well, but I'm just brainstorming, here.

I can think of a number of spells that would be incredibly useful for a pacifist:

word of recall - to avoid smackdowns
create food and create water - no creature was harmed during the creation of these neato brownies.
cancellation/remove compulsion - again, no real detrimental or harmful use, but utility for the passive.
any of the healing spells.
sanctuary/protection - again, just to protect, rather than inflict any harm
identify - another something neat and utilitarian with no real harm available
spell ward - another attack negating magick
fly/invis - for escape and/or travelling with less being attacked by aggro NPCs in the wild and being able to escape them without killing them.
stoneskin - more attack negation with no compensating harm
resist elements - more negation
understand - no harm but offers the ability to study texts in various languages as a scholar might.
tongues - utility without firepower
mirror image - able to obfuscate themselves to keep from being attacked as easily
etherealform - more damage reduction utility spells

And actual skills:

dodge - damage avoidance, again
swim - just plain useful
meditation - got spells after all!
trance - (see meditation. )
haggle - yeeeees, without killing money will be a lot rarer, I'd think, so this would be much more useful
rescue - because saving someone
retreat - because you don't want to be cornered
self defence - seems obvs
climb - yes plz, more utility, more lack of damage
fast healing - after all those years not being beat constantly...
lore - maybe? kind of a wishlist thing for me
brew/scribe/herbalism - some neat productive skills which can be used when not killing.

I dunno, I can see where you're coming from on the drive behind it not being restricted, but simultaneously, it's hard for me to play anything but diabolic or unprincipled much. The idea of alignments being 'such' an ingrained and permanent thing prevents pretty much any real story of redemption, and that makes me almost as sad a panda as that neutral pcs can't be followers of Love. Like only lighties can think love is the most important thing. >.< Ah, well.