<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long) --> <!--X-From-R13: Fenivf Qnfrl <rsvaqryNvb.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 19:15:51 -0700 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 13910.000423@io.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 200004202029.QAA01759@hutch.East.Sun.COM --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:efindel@io.com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00542.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00545.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00544.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00550.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00543">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00543">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00543">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Travis Casey <<A HREF="mailto:efindel#io,com">efindel#io,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 21:51:10 -0400</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI> <LI><em>Sender</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu">mud-dev-admin#kanga,nu</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On Thursday, April 20, 2000, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services wrote: [snip most] > There are many interesting moral subtleties that I am still trying to work my > way through. One is the fact that two people can have a high regard for life, > yet act very differently upon their values. For instance, I think the Amish > place extremely high value on life, thus their pacifism. However, the patriot > might place a similar value on life, but choose to fight to protect it. Perhaps > one values life in a passive way and the other in a more active way. Or maybe > one values life-through-peace and the other values life-through-chaos. Perhaps > a lawful/chaotic modifier will help resolve this. > The other issue is the issue of motive. If an assassain does a bunch of really > good deeds so that he can gain the trust of his mark, is he really doing good? > Should the system be changed to handle this, or should the "good" actions > detract from the assassain's "evil-ness" and adversely affect skills? Well, I'd gotten most of the way through writing a long reply when I got to these two paragraphs. (Note to self -- read all the way through long posts *before* beginning replies to them.) I think that these two problems would most likely come up too much to allow an automatic implementation of a system like this very useful. To really judge someone's actions, you need full knowledge of the context of them -- what that character knows/believes about the world around him/her, what's happened previously to the character, etc. To go over the two examples you gave quickly: > Once we give every character a values profile, the next step is to give each > significant action in the game an appropriate profile as well. Knocking another > character unconscious and taking a small amount of gold from them might result > in a values profile of H-1, W-1. Killing someone from your own town and > removing from their body a priceless gem might result in H-5, W-4, P-3. To find > out how well an action lines up with a characters stated value, you could simply > multiply the value categories of the person and the action and sum the results. > If Bubba the merchant, with the values given in the example, were to kill > someone from his own town and remove from their body a priceless gem, the math > would look like this: I can hit a lot of variables just in these two examples that could affect the profiles given: - What if that "small amount of gold" was all the money the first character had, and he needed it desperately (say, to pay off a debt so he won't go to prison) -- and the robber knows this? Wouldn't that reasonably give it a worse values profile? What if that were true but the robber *didn't* know? - In the second example, what if the gem is being stolen for some other reason than money? E.g., what if I'm stealing it *back* from someone who stole it from me? What if it's a crown jewel, and I'm a guardsman who knows the person who has it is the thief? - In the second example, what if I don't know the person in question is from my own town? For that matter, why should I feel loyalty towards someone just because they're from the same town -- that's a hidden assumption there. If I was abused by the townspeople, branded a thief unjustly, and cast out by them, I may feel no loyalty towards them at all. What if I rob someone without knowing how much money they have? Should I get moved less towards "greed" because I was unlucky enough to choose a victim who didn't have much money? What if I just want to knock someone out and rob them, but accidentally kill them? I could go on in this vein, but I think the point is clear already. A second concern -- not all players are ready to define their character's personality in detail at character creation. On rec.games.frp.advocacy, they have the terms DAS and DIP -- Develop At Start and Develop In Play. These are two basic ways of developing a character's personality. Some people don't really know what they're character's personality is going to be like until they've played that character for a while. A system such as you describe is going to be a poor fit for that sort of player. Since this has all been negative, it's probably sounding like I hate your idea. Honestly, I don't -- I'm just not sure that it'll work well in practice. However, I don't think that any purely mechanical alignment system can reflect the realities of how people are. :-( -- |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel#io,com> ZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me. |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' '---''(_/--' `-'\_) _______________________________________________ MUD-Dev mailing list MUD-Dev#kanga,nu <A HREF="http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev">http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev</A> </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="00492" HREF="msg00492.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00542.html">Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] defeating twinking through game mechanics</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00545.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00544.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00550.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00543"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00543"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>RE: [MUD-Dev] interesting article on world size and finance</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00504" HREF="msg00504.html">RE: [MUD-Dev] interesting article on world size and finance</A></strong>, John Bertoglio <a href="mailto:jb@pulsepoll.com">jb@pulsepoll.com</a>, Sat 22 Apr 2000, 04:13 GMT </LI> </ul> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00492" HREF="msg00492.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Thu 20 Apr 2000, 22:07 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00532" HREF="msg00532.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></strong>, Christopher Allen <a href="mailto:ChristopherA@skotos.net">ChristopherA@skotos.net</a>, Sun 23 Apr 2000, 21:46 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00544" HREF="msg00544.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment</A></strong>, Spin <a href="mailto:spin@fastlink.com.au">spin@fastlink.com.au</a>, Mon 24 Apr 2000, 18:47 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00543" HREF="msg00543.html">Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></strong>, Travis Casey <a href="mailto:efindel@io.com">efindel@io.com</a>, Mon 24 Apr 2000, 02:15 GMT </LI> </UL> <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00550" HREF="msg00550.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Mon 24 Apr 2000, 18:47 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00551" HREF="msg00551.html">Re: Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</A></strong>, Paul Schwanz - Enterprise Services <a href="mailto:Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com">Paul.Schwanz@east.sun.com</a>, Mon 24 Apr 2000, 18:47 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00475" HREF="msg00475.html">[MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"</A></strong>, Timothy Dang <a href="mailto:tdang@U.Arizona.EDU">tdang@U.Arizona.EDU</a>, Wed 19 Apr 2000, 22:53 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="00494" HREF="msg00494.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Simpson's "In-Game Economics of UO"</A></strong>, F. Randall Farmer <a href="mailto:randy@communities.com">randy@communities.com</a>, Thu 20 Apr 2000, 23:43 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>