[MUD-Dev] Alignment

[Adam Wiggins]

[Jeff K:]
> The one thing alignment DOES do in the AD&D system is serve as a rather
> brute force balancing agent.  If you are going to allow evil PCs (as our
> OLRPG does) then alignment becomes an issue because the strongest character
> types in the game are NOT evil types.  I consider this necessary to keep
> the world from disintegrating as well as to overcome the basic advantage
> ruthlessness has...

Hmmm.  What basic advantage does ruthlessness have?  In my experience
behaving in a basically 'evil' manner tends to accumulate you many
enemies and no friends, while being 'good' gets you the opposite.
It seems to me that this gives someone who is 'good' (== makes lots
of friends) a severe advantage, since he/she always has strength of
numbers and friends to help him/her out?