[MUD-Dev] Alignment

[Matt Chatterley]

On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Jeff Kesselman wrote:

> At 02:08 AM 8/25/97 PST8PDT, Matt wrote:
> >Yeah - although I like the implied take on chaos/order in Moorcock's
> >fiction writings. I would sum up my view of it as being "Chaos must be bad
> >because it is the absence of order, and anarchaical, Order must
> >be bad, because it is the total absense of order, and is far too
> >confining. Therefore balance is the only true 'good' state."
> 
> Me too.  In fact oen of myu favorite long standing campaings ran on thsi
> principle (and basicly on m,orcock's metphysics.)  My own world design for
> my MUD private MUD project was similar.  In both cases though thats a level
> the players dont foetn, if ever, really deal with directly.

Right - ideally the players would (or characters I should say) be dimly
aware of this balance in some cases, and rarely be introduced directly to
it (usually after whatever happened was over?).
 
> >Having two views of alignment should be sufficient for roleplay - what the
> >character thinks of his/herself, and what the rest of the world (globally
> >and locally) think of him/her.
> 
> I like these, but they are really "reputation" and "self-image", not
> alignment in the traditional sense.

Yup. Or 'How others think you are aligned' and 'How you think you are
aligned' - its a fairly moot difference (although you can quibble over the
meaning of 'alignment' in this context for ages).
 
> >
> >For Caffeine, I will probably require a third view (the actual innate
> >'alignment', taken from the point of view of the 'creator' of the world),
> >for a few things - notably magic which modulates based on where you stand.
> 
> Heh. So thsi becoems efectively YOUR opinion fo the PCs.  Personbally I
> fidn that perfrectly reasonable, Im an old believer in DMIG.

Essentially, yes!

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Speak softly and carry a big stick." -Theodore Roosevelt