neutral goodies

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tabot
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neutral goodies

Postby tabot » Wed Apr 28, 2004 1:59 am

I might be wrong and missing something here..

but at the moment, after killing a few nasties (ok.. alot of nasties :) at say the brownie minotaurs for a while, for me to stay neutral I have to kill countless innocents to regain neutral.

Now from rp perspective the minotaurs are trying to rape Caliport.. I can justify my reason for killin them.

But after "saving Calimport" I have to go slaughter a bunch of children and wives to head back to neutral.

Not sure what the answer is.. just pointing out the rp problem.

Maybe I shouldn't be.. so sensitive?

EDIT: could someone plz justify why I have to kill hundreds of innocents after protecting my grannies home town? I would kill a bunch of goods if their "policies" were damaging CP. ie. prolly doesn't need a code change.. just explanation to clear my concience :)
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Postby Snurgt » Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:19 am

I think maybe if you are going to really embrace the RP aspect of it, you shouldn't have to do things against your nature to stay neutral. If you are going to go good, based on defending your grannie, maybe thats your nature, and you shouldn't fight it! Just embrace your goodness and go good.

Having to kill good things to go back neutral doesn't seem to be really 'RP', it seems artificial, and maybe wanting to stay neutral for secondary gain of eq or something.
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Postby Gurns » Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:45 am

If you are "neutral heading toward good" or "just barely good", you might try killing neutrals rather than goodies. That may work faster.

In terms of RP... *shrug* Align measured as a number isn't something that lends itself to sophisticated moral reasoning. Just the opposite, in fact. So you either have to mostly ignore it, or decide you're good at heart, or find some neutral or good mobs you can justify slaughtering.
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Postby Ruggak » Mon Jul 26, 2004 7:28 pm

From the 3rd Edition D and D rules, true neutral WILL commit acts of evil to maintain balance between good and evil as they Will commit acts of good in the name of said balance. Example you just saved a village from a overwhelming hoard of orcs. By doing so you significantly weakend their forces and left them open attack by human forces. You will then join their ranks to fight the humans. There are plenty of good aligned mini mobs that are not women and children of your worried about RP. Elven warriors and pixies in GC are great good aligned mobs.
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Postby Artmar » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:17 pm

If you try to apply RP reasoning to alignment on this Mud, then most players would end up in an Evil category - willing to kill anything that moves if it gives them enough XP/cash/EQ. I don't think that it would even be possible to create a good RP-based alignment engine - seeing as the same action performed by you can be sometimes considered good, evil or neutral based on your intentions only.
Take that brownie minotaurs case: you did it because:
1. You intended to save Calimport - good action
2. You got paid for it (but if you didn't, you wouldn't care) - neutral
3. You wanted to work off some steam, and killing those weaker than yourself is so much fun - clearly evil
(and of course the same action can be seen as evil, good or neutral depending on who's watching, so you might end up having different alignments in different cities)

But in direct answer to your question, Tabot: "defending Calimport" is a good action, it's not like these brownie Minotaurs broke into your house and threatened you directly.
Treladian
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Postby Treladian » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:57 am

Ruggak wrote:From the 3rd Edition D and D rules, true neutral WILL commit acts of evil to maintain balance between good and evil as they Will commit acts of good in the name of said balance. Example you just saved a village from a overwhelming hoard of orcs. By doing so you significantly weakend their forces and left them open attack by human forces. You will then join their ranks to fight the humans. There are plenty of good aligned mini mobs that are not women and children of your worried about RP. Elven warriors and pixies in GC are great good aligned mobs.


I don't know where the heck you pulled that from . . .

From the 3.5 description of neutral alignments:

"Lawful Neutral, “Judge”: A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.
Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

Neutral, “Undecided”: A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.
Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.
Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

Chaotic Neutral, “Free Spirit”: A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.
Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal."


Anyway, alignment in the mud isn't really something that makes much sense. It's basically just in here for mechanical purposes, ie unholy weapons zap you if you're not evil. The mechanism for determining what makes you evil, good, or neutral doesn't lend itself to a lot of reasoning and in a number of cases mobs that really should be neutral are flagged evil so that paladins don't find themselves without things to fight.
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Postby Sesexe » Tue Jul 27, 2004 2:19 am

I always thought it was kinda a shame that they only have good/neutral/evil alignment scale. With no chaotic, or lawful, just can’t get the variety of alignment types as in D&D that other muds have done.

Lawful and chaotic could be as useful as good/evil in terms of affected spells and restrictions on equipment, even mob aggro types.

How would you become more chaotic? Kill lawfuls, and vice versa.

It would be like a dual alignment scale. Half of it is for chaotic/lawful, the other is for good/evil.

Be kinda neat for RP too I suppose.

Ah well.
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Postby Iaiken Toransier » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:01 pm

Treladian wrote:
Ruggak wrote:From the 3rd Edition D and D rules, true neutral WILL commit acts of evil to maintain balance between good and evil as they Will commit acts of good in the name of said balance. Example you just saved a village from a overwhelming hoard of orcs. By doing so you significantly weakend their forces and left them open attack by human forces. You will then join their ranks to fight the humans. There are plenty of good aligned mini mobs that are not women and children of your worried about RP. Elven warriors and pixies in GC are great good aligned mobs.


I don't know where the heck you pulled that from . . .


Damn, me either!

I know that the alignment system is open to interpretation, but that is one hell of pinball explaination. The best discussion I ever had on alignment was on the contradiction of alignment present in character religion.

eg. An elven cleric worships Correlon Lorathien (Chaotic Good) and follows all of the tenants with religious fervour and desires to be just like his deity. With this adherance to a way of life, could the character not then be concidered lawful good by living in accordance to some external ideals rather than by thier own drives and desires? Paladins have to be lawful good, but who says that they cannot be servants of chaotic good dieties who need honourable and reliable souls whom they can charge with tasks worth doing?

Then the second thing that bothers me the most is perspective and alignments.

eg: Using true neutral.

True neutral is where most people fall into, from those who just do good things and tell little white lies, to those people who just try to keep to themselves and never get involved, then those who have to battle with thier concience so that they can think of themselves as an adiquate human being. Yet another person just might be appathetic. Still, they would be concidered true neutral because they simply lack the drive to commit to good or evil and they ignore both thier driving feelings and their concience. They just are. Then what of people who approach life with akashic focus on self, with respect to others they are totally neutral, but to themselves they could be concidered "Lawful Good" through adherance to tenants of building a strong mind, body and soul in persuit of a perfect self.

That is quite a few extremes that all fall into the same alignment.

For roleplaying purposes (pen & paper) I tend to use more of an allegiance system like that out of D20 modern. The character can pick three or fewer allegiances; these are people, ideals, law, chaos, good, evil, greed, religions, organizations and so on and so forth, even simple groups of likeminded people. I've found with this system people act more on motivation through allegiance than they do on governance by thier alignment. Alignments are too subjective, objective and perspectively oriented to be of any use to a person playing a character. You can call a player playing a paladin a bad role-player because he simply has a different view on lawful good than you do.

To me, Lawful Good does not have to be a "crusader", it can be a Paladin who does good things (maybe not even noticable) just for the sake of doing them. They can be kind, without that "better than thou" attitude, instead having a humble and loving view of the world. They live thier day to day life by the law and do the right thing by upholding the law when the situation arises. Traveling the world as a knight errant, living as an example, doing good and fighting only to defend those who cannot defend themselves. This is vastly different from a haughty and righteous paladin who wreaks deliberate holy vengeance upon the percieved evils of the world. One will die trying and the other will live doing, which is better is open to oppinion.
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Postby rylan » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:37 pm

Neutral aligned clerics are wussies. 'nuff said :P
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Postby moritheil » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:35 pm

Am I the only one who finds the recurring use of RL examples from peoples' lives in a discussion of MUD align somewhat bizzare? Not that it's automatically inapplicable, but that it just feels strange.

I would argue that a supremely selfish being who refuses to help others avoid getting slaughtered when it would cost him next to nothing, just because he didn't feel that the profit was enough, is at least pushing evil, if not evil already. Because if you have a standard for evil that is too far beyond that, then the only ones who are evil are the ridiculous, B-grade movie style "I will eat your babies and rape your family" type villans.
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Postby Artmar » Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:38 am

moritheil wrote:I would argue that a supremely selfish being who refuses to help others avoid getting slaughtered when it would cost him next to nothing, just because he didn't feel that the profit was enough, is at least pushing evil, if not evil already.


Let's be frank - most of people are like it. If something bad is going on, they will want nothing to do with it (even if it would cost them nothing to help). Even if actually asked for help, lot of them would say, that it's not their problem. Does it mean that most people are evil?
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Postby Ashiwi » Wed Jul 28, 2004 1:19 pm

Which case was it where the woman got raped and murdered on the sidewalk while all the people who lived around it and heard it happening didn't even bother calling the police?

Personally, I believe they all bear a share of that guilt, because that kind of apathy makes things like that possible in the first place.
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Postby Iaiken Toransier » Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:27 pm

moritheil wrote:Am I the only one who finds the recurring use of RL examples from peoples' lives in a discussion of MUD align somewhat bizzare? Not that it's automatically inapplicable, but that it just feels strange.


I don't see where anyone used this type of example. I was simply citing non-specific examples that could be from anywhere, literature to rl to role-playing.

moritheil wrote:I would argue that a supremely selfish being who refuses to help others avoid getting slaughtered when it would cost him next to nothing, just because he didn't feel that the profit was enough, is at least pushing evil, if not evil already. Because if you have a standard for evil that is too far beyond that, then the only ones who are evil are the ridiculous, B-grade movie style "I will eat your babies and rape your family" type villans.


Refusing to help others when they themselves are in no danger and being too frightened to do anything about a dangerous situation are different; one is a concious decision and the other is an emotional response. But from the statement above I would concider such a person "Neutral Evil" to be sure, assuming that they would always react to such situations in a similar fashion. However, a netrally aligned persons concience might weigh so heavily upon them for such an act of selfishness that next time the opportunity presents itself they do act. (as per my one citing)

In the real world, the vast majority of people would fall between true neutral and neutral evil, there are very few genuinely good people. Goooooooo capitalism! *two thumbs up for greed selfishness* </sarcasm> So let's not talk about that in a thread about RP alignments.
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Postby Sarell » Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:23 am

I find having to flatten TP after every zone as a druid boring.

Now - to keep with the vibe of thread, my RL perspective ... I go smite whatever I possibly can to take their treasure to highten my own power, and due to this I start to turn good, so I have to kill some animals or my druid god won't be appeased. Sure I need to find the balance between smiting good and evil to keep them on par (eventually I hope to kill off everything clearly), it sure is cool that after smiting a plane of demon lords and raising avernus that I can kill ants to keep the balance tho, people underestimate the importance of ants.... *grins*
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moritheil
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Postby moritheil » Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:02 pm

Artmar wrote:
moritheil wrote:I would argue that a supremely selfish being who refuses to help others avoid getting slaughtered when it would cost him next to nothing, just because he didn't feel that the profit was enough, is at least pushing evil, if not evil already.


Let's be frank - most of people are like it. If something bad is going on, they will want nothing to do with it (even if it would cost them nothing to help). Even if actually asked for help, lot of them would say, that it's not their problem. Does it mean that most people are evil?


Does deciding whether most RL people are evil influence whether or not most MUD characters or NPCs in a fantasy world should or should not be evil? If you want further discussion of this, let's take it to the "RL stats" thread in the Gen Disc forum. You might want to look at Cirath's post there, too.


Anyhow, I think of align downtime as a price that has to be paid to play certain character classes. Just as old-school paladins and rangers couldn't group with outcasts or evils, and current ones have to maintain good alignment, so too do druids have to maintain neutral alignment. It is, in a sense, an extended version of the fact that you have to spend time to memorize spells and practice skills - all of them are time sinks necessary for keeping your character functional.

Now, granted, some people might sign up to play the class without realizing it. This is easily fixed by putting a warning in the class helpfile.
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Postby Artmar » Fri Jul 30, 2004 12:32 pm

moritheil wrote:Does deciding whether most RL people are evil influence whether or not most MUD characters or NPCs in a fantasy world should or should not be evil?

Not in regards to MUDs, certainly (as they're severely lacking when it comes to any reasonable alignment system, and not exactly realistic either), but Your opinion, to which i responded also didn't apply to MUD behaviour, did it? (pen & paper RPG fantasy worlds are another matter, but that would be for a completely different discussion and thread)

Anyhow, I think of align downtime as a price that has to be paid to play certain character classes. Just as old-school paladins and rangers couldn't group with outcasts or evils, and current ones have to maintain good alignment, so too do druids have to maintain neutral alignment. It is, in a sense, an extended version of the fact that you have to spend time to memorize spells and practice skills - all of them are time sinks necessary for keeping your character functional.

Or like class eq restrictions - a part of that class' definition. It also helps add flavour to classes like Paladin.
As long as the information on align restrictions is clearly labeled in help files, it is simply one more factor to think of when deciding upon a class to play (and if it may seem silly sometimes, like in Tabot's case... well, it's a game, certain simplifications are to be expected)

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