Fable, D&D, and Alignment Points (I'm going to regret this.)

[Prak]

So, Fable's Albion could map into a D&D campaign setting pretty well. I think I'd branch out and do more of a "Based on" or "expanded from" than a direct conversion, but it could present a good world in which to run a game. The Hero's Guild set up alone is useful enough for a lazy MC to steal.

The real question is, how to transfer the alignment system, specifically the "evil deeds make you grow horns, good deeds give you a halo" bit. Should a running tally of good vrs. evil deeds actually be kept, even if only by MC? The actual effects I'd simply work like Fiendish Traits from ToF, but the question is "how do we determine when those effects come in?"

Also, I just now definitely want to keep track of points in some way, just because I can use the terms millihitlers and kilonazis.

[Chamomile]

The Hero's Guild suffers from the major thematic problem of "why does this exist?" It doesn't care whether the heroes it turns out are villains or saints, so it has no ethical basis, and it doesn't really seem to be making any kind of profit off of the people it raises as heroes. Never mind all the various other holes in the plot (why did Maze wait until you were a powerful, grown hero to try and kill you, for example), the question of "what's in it for the guild" is one you have to answer. Potentially, "all the heroes they raise owe them like 100,000 GP for being raised by them" could work. The guild makes a profit and your PCs have a common motivation from the word go.

As for a morality system, this is one thing where tabletop RPGs have a clear advantage over video games, so it sounds like a really good idea to exploit that. GMs can make ad-hoc decisions as to whether or not an action is good or evil based on the complexities of human morality, instead of just saying "that guard was Good-aligned so killing him gives you Evil points." A straight good/evil system still seems like wasted potential, though.

If you want to go with straight Good and Evil, it's fairly easy. Just give a few listed examples of common things PCs might do that are nice and less so and how many millihitlers should be given or taken away for doing them (i.e. "lying for personal gain: 1 millihitler, stealing for convenience: 2 millihitlers, killing for convenience: 5 millihitlers").

I'd recommend branching out to something like the Magic morality, though. Black would run on kilonazis, Green runs on kilohippies, White runs on kilosaints, Blue runs on SCIENCE! and etc. etc. Black wreathes you in shadow and gives you horns, Green turns your skin to plant and makes your hair into leaves, White makes you glow and gives you (purely aesthetic) wings, Blue gives you weird runes and glowing eyes, Red lights you on fire.

EDIT: Also, the sample number of millihitlers I gave assumed that a full Hitler was the upper limit, but it occurred to me soon after posting that you'd probably want to give out just one for most evil acts and two for really egregious things (rape, torture, burning down orphanages), and then have something like ten or twenty be the Moral Event Horizon.

[Prak]

I kind of always assumed that when a quest card shows up, the person who put it in is putting forth the monetary reward, and the Guild keeps a percentage or flat fee. It also seems to be Albion's version of a standing Army, given that when Jack of Blades is activating gates at the end of the first game, apprentices and guards are battling minions and such while you go after Jack.

A more diverse system could be interesting, I'd have to work out lists of deeds and traits.

On millihitlers, I figure a Hitler is equivalent to the killing of 21 million people (seems to be the number for the full death toll attributable to Hitler). So a millihitler is something like 21,000 deaths, while a Nazi is equivalent to 1.2 deaths (21 million divided by the number of Wehrmacht servicemen between '39 and '45, 17,893,200), and thus a kilonazi would be 1200 deaths.

[Chamomile]

Thinking about this more, I'd go with something like a reverse-Humanity system from White Wolf. You start out at zero in all things, and you can go up by performing increasingly ambitious/self-sacrificing/passionate/logical/environmental things. So, "killing someone to steal their shoes" would be, say, 6/10 for Black, while "brainwashing a population into being your willing slaves" would be 9/10 and "exterminating an inconvenient race of people" would be 10/10. You may or may not keep track of all at once. Keeping track of them all would be best, but might be too much bookkeeping, so you might just pick one or two and keep track of only those.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I'm with Chamomile. In playing Star War D20 for a long time, I've come to dislike the Dark Side point system, since it's bean counting and leads to questions like "how many DSPs does the Emperor have?".

When you perform an evil act, if it is significantly more evil than any of your previous evil acts, you go further down on the Good/Evil track.

+5 Sacrifice your life for others
+4 Risk your life for others
+3 Save someone's life without expecting a reward
+2 Give up a fortune for someone else
+1 Give up your personal gain for someone else
+0 Don't harm anyone, but don't help either
-1 Lie or steal for personal gain
-2 Enrich yourself at the expense of an entire town or more
-3 Kill someone for personal gain
-4 Kill a large number of people
-5 Genocide

However, in order to go backwards, you must perform a Good act to cancel it out. For instance, if you were at -3, you would need to commit a +3 act to get back to +0

[Chamomile]

The problem with that system is that it is functionally impossible to be at +5 unless the setting has fairly easy resurrection, which kind of moots the point of giving your life for someone anyway. It could also probably benefit from being stretched out to -10 through +10, since virtually everyone is going to be at +4 or -4 within three sessions under that system, and will likely never budge after that point.

[hogarth]

I haven't played Fable, but in games like KotOR I think that the alignment system is usually kind of dumb, in the sense that kicking 50 puppies is supposed to be the equivalent of 1 baby rape (or whatever the exchange rate is). And likewise, you spend all of your time looking for opportunities to be a jerk just to pump up your jerk rating -- being a jerk should be its own reward, goddammit!

At the very least, I hope you avoid the case where being "neutral" consists of being nice half of the time and being an asshole half of the time.

[Hieronymous Rex]

At the very least, I hope you avoid the case where being "neutral" consists of being nice half of the time and being an asshole half of the time.

I don't get your meaning. What else would it be?

[PoliteNewb]

At the very least, I hope you avoid the case where being "neutral" consists of being nice half of the time and being an asshole half of the time.

I don't get your meaning. What else would it be?

Being neither nice nor an asshole most of the time.

If you are nice for half the week and a complete tool the other half, you aren't neutral, you're bipolar.

However, in order to go backwards, you must perform a Good act to cancel it out. For instance, if you were at -3, you would need to commit a +3 act to get back to +0

You should have to do MORE good to cancel out evil. Paraphrasing Frank in another thread, if you build 50 bridges you're Johnny the Helpful Carpenter. But if you rape one kid you're Johnny the Pedophile. Negative things should count more...not least because many things that people consider "good" are considered a default for living in a reasonable society.

I'd recommend branching out to something like the Magic morality, though. Black would run on kilonazis, Green runs on kilohippies, White runs on kilosaints, Blue runs on SCIENCE! and etc. etc. Black wreathes you in shadow and gives you horns, Green turns your skin to plant and makes your hair into leaves, White makes you glow and gives you (purely aesthetic) wings, Blue gives you weird runes and glowing eyes, Red lights you on fire.

I fully support this idea, because it is awesome. One minor caveat...Red shouldn't light you on fire, because that makes it really hard to hang out at the tavern and sleep with chicks. Red gives you scales and sharp teeth and fiery eyes with slit pupils and smoky breath, and maybe dragon wings or a tail or something.

[Hieronymous Rex]

Being neither nice nor an asshole most of the time.

If you are nice for half the week and a complete tool the other half, you aren't neutral, you're bipolar.

But "bipolar" isn't anywhere on a morality track. Unless your saying that it should be? I see no reason that such a person can't just be left at Neutral.

You should have to do MORE good to cancel out evil.

This seems to fit, then: If you are -4, committing a +4 act will bring you to -3. You have to step backwards progressively.



About the color magic: It would be simpler, but keep the flavor if there is still a single track, but your class (or something else) determined what sort of changes you undergo. For instance, a druid or other nature related class would, if good, grow leaves and bark, and if evil, will grow stinging nettles and have rough, dead looking bark.

[hogarth]

Being neither nice nor an asshole most of the time.

If you are nice for half the week and a complete tool the other half, you aren't neutral, you're bipolar.

But "bipolar" isn't anywhere on a morality track. Unless your saying that it should be? I see no reason that such a person can't just be left at Neutral.

To clarify, I meant that, at the very least, that shouldn't the ONLY in-game way to be "neutral".

I slightly prefer the "Mass Effect" method of tracking "nice" and "nasty" points separately, I suppose. But you still end up with the dilemma of "Jesus only skull-fucked one baby, so I guess everybody still loves him".

[Hieronymous Rex]

Is Prak is OK with the added complexity, a separate Nice/Nasty track might work. Also, you can call yourself Nasty Good.

[Quantumboost]

But "bipolar" isn't anywhere on a morality track.

Code: Select all

Good
  | Good        Bipolar/Goodevil
  |
  | Neutral     Evil
  |
  +----------------------- Evil

IT IS NOW.

[Vebyast]

You should have to do MORE good to cancel out evil.

This seems to fit, then: If you are -4, committing a +4 act will bring you to -3. You have to step backwards progressively.

I can see that happening. Committing an evil act will move you as many steps as the act is evil, but a good act will only move you if you commit an act as good as the step you're on. So, no matter how many +2s a -5 guy does, he'll never get to -4; he has to do a +5 to get to -4. If you're at -3, you need a +3 to move you to -2, if you're at +3, you have to do a +3 to move to +4. However, if you're at +3 and you commit a -4, you end up at -1.

The only problem I see with this is that it's path-dependent. If you commit a -5 followed by a +5, you're at -4; if you do a +5 followed by a -5, you're at 0. Is path-dependence something we want?

[fectin]

You should have to do MORE good to cancel out evil.

This seems to fit, then: If you are -4, committing a +4 act will bring you to -3. You have to step backwards progressively.

I can see that happening. Committing an evil act will move you as many steps as the act is evil, but a good act will only move you if you commit an act as good as the step you're on. So, no matter how many +2s a -5 guy does, he'll never get to -4; he has to do a +5 to get to -4. If you're at -3, you need a +3 to move you to -2, if you're at +3, you have to do a +3 to move to +4. However, if you're at +3 and you commit a -4, you end up at -1.

The only problem I see with this is that it's path-dependent. If you commit a -5 followed by a +5, you're at -4; if you do a +5 followed by a -5, you're at 0. Is path-dependence something we want?

Wouldn't that put you at +4? That also explains how the forces of good can be such dicks: once you've done a good enough thing, lesser evils roll right off of you until you commit genocide.

Also, that makes atonement a little saner.

[Soda]

On millihitlers, I figure a Hitler is equivalent to the killing of 21 million people (seems to be the number for the full death toll attributable to Hitler). So a millihitler is something like 21,000 deaths, while a Nazi is equivalent to 1.2 deaths (21 million divided by the number of Wehrmacht servicemen between '39 and '45, 17,893,200), and thus a kilonazi would be 1200 deaths.

They should start using this metric.

Hindenburg = 0.03 kilonazis
Hurricane Katrina = 1.5 kilonazis
Hiroshima and Nagasaki = 205 kilonazis
Black Death = 83,333 kilonazis or 4.8 Hitlers

[Chamomile]

About the color magic: It would be simpler, but keep the flavor if there is still a single track, but your class (or something else) determined what sort of changes you undergo. For instance, a druid or other nature related class would, if good, grow leaves and bark, and if evil, will grow stinging nettles and have rough, dead looking bark.

The whole point of the color magic is dodging the problem every good/evil karma system runs into: You're ultimately left with a choice between being Hitler or Mother Teresa since there's no value in occupying the middle ground and no distinction between a druid who regularly kills people for trespassing in his forest and a gangster who regularly kills people for trespassing in his turf, even though these characters have radically different motivations (the druid is defending nature and the gangster is maintaining his position of power).

[CatharzGodfoot]

...distinction between a druid who regularly kills people for trespassing in his forest and a gangster who regularly kills people for trespassing in his turf, even though these characters have radically different motivations (the druid is defending nature and the gangster is maintaining his position of power).

Bullshit. The druid is just a terrifying redneck killing as a power trip.


IMO, actions on a good/evil axis should be permanent. If you eat a thousand babies and become a demon, no amount of good you do should make you non-demonic. You might gain angelic traits (as a 'risen demon'), but you're still a goddamn baby eater even if you aren't eating them right now and feel bad about having eaten them.

Similarly, once you're an angel, doing evil shit shouldn't make you non-angelic. It should just turn you into a creepy fallen angel.

The one way I can think of for getting rid of good or evil is time. If you're in retirement after being a volunteer firefighter, your angelic traits will slowly fade. A reformed and risen devil will eventually become an angel, but it's a slow process of waiting years for its demonic traits to disappear.

[PoliteNewb]

This seems to fit, then: If you are -4, committing a +4 act will bring you to -3. You have to step backwards progressively.

I can see that happening. Committing an evil act will move you as many steps as the act is evil, but a good act will only move you if you commit an act as good as the step you're on. So, no matter how many +2s a -5 guy does, he'll never get to -4; he has to do a +5 to get to -4. If you're at -3, you need a +3 to move you to -2, if you're at +3, you have to do a +3 to move to +4. However, if you're at +3 and you commit a -4, you end up at -1.

The only problem I see with this is that it's path-dependent. If you commit a -5 followed by a +5, you're at -4; if you do a +5 followed by a -5, you're at 0. Is path-dependence something we want?

Wouldn't that put you at +4? That also explains how the forces of good can be such dicks: once you've done a good enough thing, lesser evils roll right off of you until you commit genocide.

Also, that makes atonement a little saner.

NO. The point is that evil acts count for more than good acts. It takes a lot of good to redeem you once you've gotten pretty evil, but it only takes a little evil to ruin all your goodness.

Climbing to the top of the pedestal is hard, as is staying there. Falling off is easy.

[Chamomile]

Bullshit. The druid is just a terrifying redneck killing as a power trip.

You've decided to assume that, yes, and the Druid would be getting both Green and Black points for that, but the gangster would be getting only Black points. People can have motivations more complex than "evil jerk" or "unironic hero." And no, "evil jerk who happens to be fighting an even more evil jerk" does not count.

Similarly, once you're an angel, doing evil shit shouldn't make you non-angelic. It should just turn you into a creepy fallen angel.

The one way I can think of for getting rid of good or evil is time. If you're in retirement after being a volunteer firefighter, your angelic traits will slowly fade. A reformed and risen devil will eventually become an angel, but it's a slow process of waiting years for its demonic traits to disappear.

This, however, sounds like a cool idea.

[...You Lost Me]

I totally didn't read this conversation at all, so this idea may already have been stated.

How about deity points? You have an overarching god who awards you points based on your actions during the day, and whether or not they fell in line with what that god wants of you.

Instead of good/bad, there's a god that wants you to kill elven children, cut down old trees, but donate to charities that help non-elves.

[Prak]

I totally didn't read this conversation at all, so this idea may already have been stated.

How about deity points? You have an overarching god who awards you points based on your actions during the day, and whether or not they fell in line with what that god wants of you.

Instead of good/bad, there's a god that wants you to kill elven children, cut down old trees, but donate to charities that help non-elves.

Actually that makes a certain amount of sense. But it may just be better to do it by philosophy, so that characters that don't worship a particular god (most of the ones I see), still get their alterations.

...also it'd be the same as good/evil for a game based on Fable because there are only two (completely made up in universe) gods, Avo and Skorm.

[hogarth]

NO. The point is that evil acts count for more than good acts. It takes a lot of good to redeem you once you've gotten pretty evil, but it only takes a little evil to ruin all your goodness.

Climbing to the top of the pedestal is hard, as is staying there. Falling off is easy.

Reminds me of Marvel Superheroes -- if you killed someone, your Karma would drop to 0 instantly.

[Prak]

So, I'm working on this, and figured I'd pull out every previous attempt at similar good/evil point stuff I could find, and it raises a question or two.

First: should alignment points be resistable? Dragon magazine did redemption/temptation points. The way they worked was that when a "conflicted" character (I guess one that did something against their alignment) did a redemptive or tempting act, like, say, hugged their little sister (yes, seriously), or killed an innocent, they made a check or save (wisdom or will, depending on the group's decision). If they failed, they got a point. So, should you be able to resist the taint of goodness that you encounter because you're a dark, evil drow anti-paladin who just happens to love his family, or should you gain alignment points every time you do something fitting, FINAL DESTINATION. ...and can reverse it by doing opposed acts.

Second: How much granularity should there be? Too much, and players are keeping track of very small numbers till they get to a 1000 or so. Too little, and it's difficult to show a moral difference between Bestow Curse and Create Greater Undead (as an example). What's a good number? 50? 100?

Edit: Also, I've been working on the flavour aspects, trying to get everything worked out outside of mechanics, and I've realized, integrating the Magic colour wheel is going to be difficult...

[Chamomile]

Too much, and players are keeping track of very small numbers till they get to a 1000 or so. Too little, and it's difficult to show a moral difference between Bestow Curse and Create Greater Undead (as an example). What's a good number? 50? 100?

Seriously, 15 is about your limit unless you're making a video game. More than that is much too difficult to keep track of.

Also, the Magic colors were A) Mostly an example and B) Intended to be tracked separately from each other, not as a set of opposed axes.