I bet you're kicking yourself for not getting SoU now!!!

[Volourn]

Yes, it's not possible as is. However, they've said it can be done; but it would take major 'twinking" to accomplish the goal. At this point, they feel it isn't worth it. Now, I actualy tend to disagree with them on that point as if you are going to do prestige classes; you might as well go all the way with them.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

We should set up a pool for how long it takes some lone modder with too much time on his hands to do what Bioware says is too much work once again. Put me down for 2 weeks.

I'm curious, just what are those 75 people doing every day?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Patting each other on the back?

 

[Spazmo]

Hold on now--I've been hearing a lot about how only the base spellcaster classes--cleric, druid, bard, wizard and sorcerer--can cast spells in NWN due to a collective brain fart somewhere along the line.

However, the Blackguard is in SoU and he gets a selection of priest spells. So what's the deal? Does that engine limitation only apply to arcane spells or did they just bugger up the Blackguard and take away his spells?

 

[Volourn]

The Blackguard, like the other prestige classes, don't get spells. They get feats that simulate spells. They can't get spells lists like the "normal" spellcasting classes, or the actual pnp Blackguard.

And, yes, the bottom line is this is a "setback" for rules implementation. I'm not worried about it though as in reaity it doesn't effect the game except for those who have the rules be 100% like pnp.

 

[Spazmo]

Hah! They're only on the first expansion and they're already starting with the dodgy rules modifications and engine loophole exploiting. Way to program, Bio.

 

[Volourn]

They already did the dody rules implementation. Just like BIS with IWD2, and what Troika is doing with TOEE. All's the same.

 

[Spazmo]

They already did the dody rules implementation. Just like BIS with IWD2, and what Troika is doing with TOEE. All's the same.

Ah, no. The Troika people have been going out of their way to implement the D&D 3E rules as accurately and competely as possible. That's why Troika > BioWare, among many other factors.

No, seriously, how fucking stupid does Bio have to be to code such abominably stupid things into their engine? It boggles the mind!

 

[Volourn]

Really? I must be hallucinating about how they're implentating alignment then. Oh well.

 

[Spazmo]

How do you mean, Volourn? The party alignment thing? That's actually a pretty damned good idea. Parties with wildly different alignments--two steps away is too far--just don't work.

Aside from party alignment, I don't see exactly what Troika is doing with aligment that could be bad.

 

[Volourn]

You hit the nail on the head. There shouldn't be artifical limits on party alignment. Alignment is a tool; not a straight jacket. Parties with a wide variety of alignment should have role-playing consequences; not be allowed. Outside of paladins; party members hsouldn't even know each other's alignment at all.

That said, overall, TOEE does seem like it will be the best implementation of dnd rules ever. 'Tis one of the reasons I'm looking froward to it. The way it's handling alignment (other than the variant beginnings & endings) is very weak, imo.

 

[Voss]

Hmm. I got in the alignment discussion briefly at the Atari TOEE forums (briefly because the person I was discussing with wandered off), but I actually like the idea of the group alignment, and with different quests for different groups.
But I really like it being implemented differently- a person/group limiting their choices based on who they are rather than choosing from a selection of options that make no sense for those characters anyway.

The way alignment is often implemented (when it isn't ignored completely) produces a very schizophrenic role-playing experience which encourages the players to choose out of character choices to maximize their potential rewards rather than think about how the character would actually respond (a lot of the IE dialogue suffers from this- the standard selection of dialogue choices as one of : 1) good, 2) evil, 3) sarcastic, or 4) greedy.

And dynamically shifting alignments have always bothered me without serious mental problems, a person's outlook and attitudes on life simply aren't going to shift radically over a short period of time, if at all.

I'm not sure about the not knowing other party members alignment concept- spending time around someone for a while gives you a pretty good idea of their general attitudes. You may not know that they are extremely chaotic (99) evil (1) on the bioware scale of alignment, but you'd be able to recognize a radical difference in their attitudes and philosophy. And when you are in a constant life or death situation (like adventuring) would you really want someone like that watching your back?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Parties with a wide variety of alignment should have role-playing consequences; not be allowed. Outside of paladins; party members hsouldn't even know each other's alignment at all.
The way it's handling alignment (other than the variant beginnings & endings) is very weak, imo

I disagree. The party may not know each other alignment right away, but the actions will speak for themselves. Representatives of the 3 major alignments have different goals, different approaches, and different values; there is no way they would be able to work together, agree on a goal, and a way to reach it. What ToEE's doing is enforcing rules that should have been there in the first place.
Personally, I dislike any forms of alignments, but they're part of D&D setting, and all the rules governing them should be maintained in a CRPG.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I got in the alignment discussion briefly at the Atari TOEE forums (briefly because the person I was discussing with wandered off)

Care to start a new discussion or continue this one? http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1664

The way alignment is often implemented (when it isn't ignored completely) produces a very schizophrenic role-playing experience which encourages the players to choose out of character choices to maximize their potential rewards rather than think about how the character would actually respond .

I agree with that, but it's hard to blame the players when quests are done so poorly that you have only 3 basic choices: accept the reward, refuse the reward, kill everybody involved.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You hit the nail on the head. There shouldn't be artifical limits on party alignment.

Yeah, there should. You shouldn't have a paladin running around with a chaotic evil barbarian as his bestest friend and pal. You shouldn't have a lawful party running around with a chaotic thief, robbing everyone blind. It'd be utterly silly to have good guys and bad guys together in one party for long, simply because they're not going to cohere with one another. The same thing goes with having the lawful guys palling up with the lawless.

[/quote]Alignment is a tool; not a straight jacket.[/quote]

It's both. When you select an alignment, you're basically agreeing that is how you're going to play the game.

Outside of paladins; party members hsouldn't even know each other's alignment at all.

How hard would it be to figure out that someone won't break the law? Or won't rob people?

 

[Astromarine]

That's true *for CRPGs*. In a PnP session it might be great storytelling.

 

[Volourn]

Gah. I can't believe this. People don't go around with their alignment tatooed on their forehead. And, like I said SP, a paladin is a special case since it can detctec evil right away. A paladin shouldn't be trying wih evil period or it loses its paladinhood. End of story.

And, no, it's not both. Check the dnd rulebooks. It specifically states it isn't a straightjacket; and is just a tool. It's in black and white.

I mean, seriously, "evil" people often pretend to be 'good" to get what they want. What if it's a thief who is so greedy he'll do anything to get rich including hurting others or pretending to be something he's not. He could easily sneak into a normally a good aligned party with relative ease. There are so many examples where parties of varying alignments could concieveably work together. There have even beene xamples of this thoughtout the history of dnd inside both novels and the rulebooks. But, heck, let's not let that get in the way.

Alignment is aprt of the rules of dnd, and should be 'enforced"; but not every person of every alignment acts exactly the same. I thought that was obvious. Nor, do they advertise it. In fact, it'sconsidered a major faux pas to even casta detect alignment spell and has even led to battle inbetween two sides that were both good.

Go figure.


P.S. Oops... Post is much longer than I thought it'd be. HEH.

 

[Sabotai]

It's all back to the discussion "Should action determine alignment". Can good be turned to evil and vice versa?

I tend to agree with Volourn here that all alignments can be included in a party, but with the exception of a Paladin and evil characters, since a paladin can detect evil at the moment of joining. Why should an evil character be unable to join with some good aligned characters (unless of course when the good aligned party has a detect evil spell and don't want any evil characters trotting along)? The evil character might have reasoned that it could be to his own benefit to join a party (maybe because he wants to betray his fellow party members later on in the game, Yoshimo anyone?). It's how the evil character acts after joining a party what's important. If an evil character (but also a good character) starts stealing, good characters might kick him out of the party. An evil person (got tired of typing character) can choose "good aligned" dialogue in order to keep appearance up, in order to profit in the future. And if he means it, his alignment might even shift towards good.

The big problem with this kind of party treatment is that it's almost impossible to implement in a CRPG, especially if dialogue determines alignment. In this way all quests require different dialogue for party members because of varying intention. To illustrate my point, if you just rescued a damsel in distress and refused a reward, this might shift the alignment of all party member towards good. However this "doing good" thing was not the intention of your chaotic evil thief; he only went along to keep up appearances in oder to achieve a future goal. His intention was clearly not good. It's not doable with every quest to create seperate dialogue for him along the lines of "No, I refuse this award for rescuing you" (but not meaning, so my alignment won't shift towards good).

It seems Tim Cain c.s. encounterd the same problems whilst creating alignment specific quests and alignment specific behaviour. Which person decides the alignment of the party? The spokesperson? What if the person who accepted the quest has a different alignment than the spokesperson accepting a reward? I understand why Troika went with a party alignment.


Edit: changed award in reward
*shakes head* have read to many BioWare press releases...

 

[Vault Dweller]

I mean, seriously, "evil" people often pretend to be 'good" to get what they want. What if it's a thief who is so greedy he'll do anything to get rich including hurting others or pretending to be something he's not. He could easily sneak into a normally a good aligned party with relative ease.

Of course, people can pretend having a different goal in mind. An evil thief can join a good group in hope to rob a place the group is heading to, but the moment a group would stop him from robbing the place, he would no longer have an interest to be in the group.

There are so many examples where parties of varying alignments could concieveably work together. There have even beene xamples of this thoughtout the history of dnd inside both novels and the rulebooks.

I agree, and the situation I described above could be handled in many different ways in pnp, but crpgs are very limited in this regard, so it makes a lot of sense to enforce some rules to prevent abuses.

 

[Spazmo]

That's true *for CRPGs*. In a PnP session it might be great storytelling.

Nope. Trust me on this one. Even when two players with characters of differing alignments are the bestest of friends, there WILL be a problem, assuming they're playing their character true to alignment. And there is nothing more frustrating to the Good group than having their Evil or Neutral theif decide that, dammit, he doesn't want to save the king's daughter. It's just not fun.

Volourn, you make valid points about some people hiding their alignments. That's why ToEE will have up to three NPC party members at a time who can join the party and who keep their alignment and motivations secret. But the core party, the player created characters, have no buisness being of wildly different alignment. If they were, the group would have probably fallen apart long before anyone ever got to Hommlet.

 

[Voss]

The catch is, with something like that, how long can someone pretend to be good? Are they really able to keep up the act on a day to day basis? And when do they decide its best to serve their own interests?

What I really like about the approach Troika is taking, is that you don't need to pretend to yourself that your evil character is really doing things for his own benefit- and saving the kingdom really is in his best interest- as opposed to getting dragged a long by the way the game is scripted. The BGs are the prime example of this the good/evil path thing is little more than a pretence, since you get forced on the main quest whether you want it or not. Or whether you want to join the villain or replace them. Putting initial restrictions on alignment will end up giving more options, because it is provided for from the beginning.

And VFault Dweller, thanks to the direction to the other thread.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

This is also a single-player game, so it makes sense that there is an overriding principle guiding the party's actions (a.k.a. you). Unless you're schizophrenic, it seems silly to try and roleplay several wildly different alignments. You're given command of the party as one cohesive unit, so it makes more sense to assume a bit of a common bond. Bringing up PnP, this isn't so much like the DM saying all the different players have to be similar alignments, it's like saying your character's henchmen, who you will end up controlling directly, should be of a similar alignment to your character, otherwise there wouldn't be the implicit trust that the rules assume when it comes to henchmen. Having NPC's with different alignments, and who can hide them, is a good idea, though.

 

[Volourn]

Henchmen can lie, betray, and leave the PC any time in pnp. They are not automations.

Still, this probably won't be a crippling weakness for TOEE; but it is a dissapointing weakness from my pint of view. Then again, other than the most assured weak story it'll have, it's one of the few things I dislike about this new game.

 

[Monte Carlo]

I suspect that many of us are veterans of alignment discussions on various forae over the years, especially if like me you are a D&D player.

My own personal view on alignment is that you either (A) Rule Zero it and don't use it (I've played loads of perfectly cool D&D with no alignment in it whatsoever) or (B) you use it for what it clearly is within D&D...a rules mechanic.

Some of the endless, boring, navel-gazing, quasi-ethical discussions I've read on this are really just so much pointless pissing in the wind. Only TB versus RT is more boring.

1. In D&D, like it or not, alignment is real. Good & Evil exist as tangible behavourial axes.
2. That means bad people are, really, BAD. Not only are they bad, but they will promote badness.
3. Good people are good. Yep, it says so on their character sheet! They will do good stuff and generally oppose the bad people.
4. Neutral people are the moral bi-sexuals of D&D and tend to have their cake and eat it.

So, really, why worry? Just deal with it or dump it...either is easy.

As for ToEE, well not only does the party alignment thing seem consistent with the spirit of the D&D alignment rules, it is also original and has the feel of a cool house rule to boot. So I am perfectly happy with it for what it is. I'm not sure I'd want it in every D&D game I ever played, but it seems cool for this project and I look forward to see how it works. I'd rather have that rule and 50-60 different end slides than an any alignment party and only have half that number of endings.

Cheers
MC

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Gah. I can't believe this. People don't go around with their alignment tatooed on their forehead. And, like I said SP, a paladin is a special case since it can detctec evil right away. A paladin shouldn't be trying wih evil period or it loses its paladinhood. End of story.

Like Aribeth didn't do in NWN.. Anyway.. Most magic classes have alignment detection spells, Volourn. It's not like a cleric in a party won't be casting one of it's alignment based spells and notice something's up. "I just cast DETECT EVIL.. Hey, lookie there, Jim the Thief is glowing. I wonder what's up with tha.. HEY! HE MUST BE EVIL!"