[MUD-Dev] Alignment

[adam at treyarch.com]

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Richard Ross wrote:
> I've been playing a range of different MUDs for quite a while, and they all
> seem to have alignment systems that are something of a joke...  it's either
> far too easy to swing between absolute evil and absolute good (on one mud I
> played it took six kills to go from -1000 (satanic) to +1000 (angelic)!), or
> it makes no difference what alignment you are anyway.
> Instead, I came up with a scaled alignment system.  The basic premise is
> that if you're alignment is down there with Lucifer it's gonna take a lot
> more than a few slain goblins to lift you up to St. Peter's level.  Then I
> hit a problem.  Is the reverse necessarily true?  If you're good, doesn't
> committing an evil act hit you harder?  Slaying a newborn child may be the
> evil guy's normal pasttime (none or a slight alignment shift) but if the
> good guy does it he can expect his alignment to plummet.
> [snip]

There's lots of good discussion about this in the archives: do a search for
"alignment", and possibly "deity" or "favor".

In my case, I use a favor system, which I think I described in fair detail
in several posts on those threads.

A quick summation:

  There is no good or evil.  There is favor with X number of factions, where
factions are usually represented by an immutable figurehead such as a deity.
In many cases, building favor with one faction or deity automatically reduces
favor with another.

  As you suggest, I've got it set up such that it's much easier to fall
out of favor than to get back in.  A wrong step by a follower of the One
True God will generally cause that follower to be on their knees at the
altar begging forgiveness for quite some time.

  And, best of all, you can't tell your own favor with a faction at any given
time - you must rely on what others tell you, which may or may not be accurate.
(Of course, for factions headed by deities which directly grant favors, when
your deity stops listening to you you can be pretty sure that you're out of
favor.)


I was going to stick in a link to the web page describing the system from
a player standpoint, but then I just realized that I've never gotten around
to writing such a thing, and should probably do so.

The closest bits are here, under "priest" and "crusader":

http://dusk.org/BloodDusk/guilds.html

and here, under "theology":

http://dusk.org/BloodDusk/skills.html


But do that archive search, that will probably turn up the most good stuff.

Adam





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