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<H1>Re[2]: [MUD-Dev] Alignment (very long)</H1>
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<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>
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<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- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
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<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>
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<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>
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