[MUD-Dev] Alignment

[Jeff Kesselman]

Having said i hate alignment, now let me tell you where I HAVE seen it work
well...

Thats wher there is both a game mechanic and world-metaphysical reason for
it.  Which is to say, when it quantifies soemthing that really needs
quantificatiov and has ssytemr esults.,  An excellt example is the Hooror
doman in the m,ulti-genre system TORG.  In this "world" all chaarcters are
rated by their level of corruption/purity.  The world tries to corrupt
characters and the mreo corrupt they become the mreo control they lose.

A simialr thign exists in teh AD&D Ravenloft envrionment.  ironivly, though
its  expressed  in terms of the AD&D good/evil scale it really IS a simialr
corruption/purity measure.

In Call of Cthulhu one could consider oens sanity level a form of alignment
scale.

In general the slide to depravity is an important theme in horor and msot
good horror games embody thsi in a mechanic.

On a slightly different vein I believ ehte game Bushiod had an "honor"
ranking.  TORG's Fantasy world Aysle has a Valor kind of ranking.

Alignment for ist own sake or just to pigeon hole charcters I personalyl
find primitive if nto outright pointless. Where it IS useful is where it is
well inetgrated into the game in order to embody a principle organizing
structure of the campaign or world.

JK
Jeff Kesselman
Snr. Game Integration Engineer
TEN -- The Total Entertainment Network -- www.ten.net

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