Alignment

[Mado]

Kai kai only teaching you Spirit Bomb or Kaioken if you had a certain alignment would make sence....but, I think the alignment numbers are stupid. I could bitch about them, but that's a little off topic.


Okay Reno, bitch away :p I made this thread so you can post 'on topic' and say why you don't like the current alignment. If there's a problem with it, we need to fix it.

[Ryujin]

My other post:
Perhaps have people choose a base alignment of +/-2 which would then decide where they go, but can be changed still by the decisions they make while alive.

I like this idea.

[Reno]

First off, I really don't have an answer for the alignment system. It will never be perfect. I think the numbers system is terrible though. Perhaps a "Neutral, chaotic neutral, whatever" system would be better but I don't know...PM's too tricky, we do whatever we want and are always thinking of ways to take advantage of...well, everything!

What's the oldest trick in the PM book? You "pretend" to be evil, but you are "really" good....right...I've seen this a million times...makes no sence to me...People think they can join the bad guys and help them out, but they are actually doing good guy stuff by spying on the enmy. How does a ref come up with rewarding negative or posative points in a game as open as PM? You can do whatever you want! So people are always thinking of ways to do evil stuff, but not be punished for it. Or the opposite way around. It almost seems like whoever talks to their ref the most, can get the most points. If I make it clear whatever I'm doing is good/evil, the ref will change my alignment more often. If I keep my mouth shut, they don't recognize my efforts as much.

If I'm on planet freeza, mostly bad guys, and the leader of the planet (Frieza) asks me to do something, and I do it....Do I get good or bad alignment? I'm just helping the leader of this planet out and I get bad points, what the hell? I get good points for helping frieza, what the cheese?
To be able to decide what's good or bad is tricky...

What if I kill an npc, steal his 100,000 credits? That sounds evil, but how evil is it? -.5? A few good acts later and I'm a good guy again, with 100k credits in my pocket. Nice.

I'm sure each ref naturally decides on giving points, and how much, differntly.

Maybe I'll post some stuff later...

[Ryujin]

I wouldn't have a problem with the neutral, chaotic, good, etc. system similar to D&D. All the ref would have to do would be to make sure if the player chooses something very against his/her alignment he gets changed to that alignment or punished for it.

Having a lawful good character would mean if you infiltrated the enemy, you couldn't follow orders to kill anyone. Having a chaotic good character would mean that you might be able to get away with this if it really was for the greater good. Maybe lawful good characters get a small discount at the shop, since the shop keeps appreciate you upholding the law. This might balance out not being able to do some other things.

[Reno]

I think giving people second chances or letting them go is what makes a very good alignment player. I don't seem to get rewarded for it much though... :(
again, the problem I see with a d&d style alignment rating system is that I could do evil deeds for great rewards, then work up my good alignment. It's bullshit. I kind of wish alignment had no effect on PM...

Oh, and when you get the good role players, things are insane. If you can role play good, and talk to your ref enough so he understand what your "character" is all about...you can pretty much doing anything with no alignment effects.

[Ryujin]

It is much easier to raise your evil alignment than your good alignment, so it should be very difficult to kill whoever you want, then just raise it to good status. Anytime you let someone survive that you've beaten to give them a second chance should raise your good alignment. Killing bad guys should only raise your good alignment if you are doing it for good reasons. I believe teaching and helping players and characters you don't know for no benefit to yourself should raise your alignment as well.

You should NEVER be able to completely talk your way out of evil alignment for killing good guys or innocents. Perhaps with very good reasoning your alignment won't lower quite as much, but it should still lower. I think having a +5 alignment should lower shop items by 5% and having a +10 alignment should lower it by 10%.

It might be easy to become evil after becoming good, but not the other way around. And if you go from good to evil, it should be very difficult to become good again.

[Reno]

Yeah...I wish alignment was just removed, or made easier...It's too difficult to keep track of...and we have multiple refs all doing it a differnt way....just makes for chaos.

[Ryujin]

I think I'll write a system for generic things that raise/lower alignment and how much it does, then run it by Mado. That way only certain circumstances will change by ref and it should be more consistent.

[Reno]

What if I start on planet vegeta, or frieza? Are all the masters there going to give me negative alignment? Are all of Earths masters going to give me good? What about how we role play our characters? Perhaps we are very good guys that want to protect everyone, but we are on frieza. We need moves to help, so we learn from the only local guys. We're not bad guys, we just need moves so we can protect. What alignment do we get? I could see how we could get Good, Bad, or none at all. Again, this is the oldest trick in the book.

The players of this game are too smart. We have learned from playing over the years.

[Ryujin]

First of all, players will never start on an evil planet. So by the time they get to Frieza or Vegeta they don't 'have' to have the moves taught there. I believe Quinko and I came up with a very good system for being good or bad on Vegeta and having very different experiences, but being able to learn moves.

Helping the bad guys further their goals or kill people will always result in negative alignment to some extent.

There are ways to be good or evil on the starting planets and still learn moves without going against your alignment as well. I would give an evil player a very slight alignment boost for helping good masters, because no matter what their intentions are they're still furthering the cause of good.

[Reno]

hmmm, so Earth and Namek are always going to be the starting planets now? No chance of Vegeta or Freeza being one? I can remember in the past just randomly picking, basically, where any planet could be starting. Doesn't matter really. I know I had quest from a master on Earth and he want me to kill bandits. ok, I know the bandits are bad guys, but should I really go kill them just because someone promised to teach me a move in return? That sounds evil to me...

I agree with your post, I was always like that. If you do evil, you are evil...There was no twisting it with me. But that's the stubborn kind of ref I was...

[Ryujin]

Ummm, when I had Fringil ask you to kill bandits or bad guys on Namek, he gave a story about how they had been harassing the town and way laying travellers. Then they would attempt to jump you. That doesn't seem evil to me for killing them. I gave an added bonus to alignment for figuring out how to capture them.

[Reno]

I'm not sure why we even have an alignment system...or why it's even revealed to the members. If a ref wants to use numbers to keep track, hey that's cool. To each his own.

Why would good masters help a bad member, and why would bad masters help a good member?
If you run into Goku, and you are evil, Goku's not going to want to help you by teaching you moves, no matter what you do for him...maybe when you you rid yourself of all the bad alignmnet and are on the good path, he would start quests for you. Bad guys are a little different, howver. A bad master would hire you to get the job done, he doesn't care if you are good, bad, neutral, whatever.

Ahhh, the confusion...The better the ideas we come up with, the more complicated everything becomes. And simplicity was the goldren rule of PM.

[Epyon]

I'm not sure why we even have an alignment system...or why it's even revealed to the members. If a ref wants to use numbers to keep track, hey that's cool. To each his own.


I think that if we're going to have an alignment system based on points like they do in Bioware games, it should be invisible to players and their actions are what affect it and it's tracked by the ref.

The D&D system could work if everyone understood what it was and how it's supposed to work and decided to role-play their characters as they'd chosen their alignments. In this system, there aren't any points and a person is expected to act consistently in a manner that reflects alignment.

[Reno]

I'm not really a fan of discounts for good alignment people, or certain races. Why would a random shopkeeper give you a discount because you did something that he never heard about? Maybe if your character became really famous, and most of the planet knew about him, you could receive a discount, but eh...

I don't think good alignment getting discounts would work really, what if you traveled to an evil planet? You still get the discount? Wouldn't it be the opposite there, where the really evil get discounts because of their fame?

Hey, side note...Anyone think the Saiyans might have ended up being a good race? They are usually considered evil, but I wouldn't consider the human race all the good...
Sure the Saiyans eraticated the Tuffles, but this might have been because of pride/honor, a saiyans biggest weakness. The saiyans lived in the shadows to the advanced tuffles. It was the full moon that gave them the advantage. Whose to say they were even able to control themselves during their oozaru state? Could have been an accident killing the tuffles just like Goku accidently kills his grandpa Gohan. Not much is known about the saiyans from the time they took control of the planet and when frieza arrive. Frieza forced them to work for him, doing his evil deeds. The saiyans even revolt against frieza. Vegeta, the prince of all saiyans, eventually becomes a good guy. Saiyans weren't bad, just victim of circumstances. ;)

[Reno]

Didn't Vegeta and/or Piccolo go to hell because of the evil deeds they did while alive? Even though they switched sides and became very good guys, helping to protect the universe, they still go to hell. Once an evil bastard, always one...

I think the same kind of logic could be applied to PM for the next dimension. If you wanted to keep the same number system for alignment, you could say once you reach a certain point, no matter what you do, you are going to Hell when you die. Or something along those lines. Just throwin' out ideas...

[Epyon]

Didn't Vegeta and/or Piccolo go to hell because of the evil deeds they did while alive? Even though they switched sides and became very good guys, helping to protect the universe, they still go to hell. Once an evil bastard, always one...

I think the same kind of logic could be applied to PM for the next dimension. If you wanted to keep the same number system for alignment, you could say once you reach a certain point, no matter what you do, you are going to Hell when you die. Or something along those lines. Just throwin' out ideas...

I do believe Piccolo did.

[Rikter]

I like the idea of giving people with good alignment a discount. I think that if you become good enough you could gain up to a 20% discount on items when maxed, but it should be alot harder to raise/lower alignment. So basically if you keep doing good deeds you would become more renown like in fable or something, and if you were more evil you would be looked down upon or even frighten people at your sight.

Althought a major problem with this is if you are evil...and careful about it...you should have no visible gains to townsfolk unless you commit your deeds out in the open. That could be easily followed by using (parenthesis) to show your actual alignment and your base alignment could be what the people see.

[Cloud]

I know the golden rule of PM was simplicity, but now that we're all a bit older I think it is okay if we make the game more complex.

I think alignment itself should only have a role in whether you go to Heaven or Hell. I think the idea here is every player leans one way or the other with their actions and should be treated as so. I really only say this from personal experience. As playing an all good character, I feel like I haven't recieved any tangible reward for my choices. I've come across many situations, however, where the evil decision would make me very, very rich. And with money comes power, with power comes the bitches.

When it comes to Masters and what quests are available to a character, I think we should work on a Fame / Infamy system. As you complete quests, people around the planet will hear of your good / evil deeds and react accordingly to you.

Example: "Sure, maybe you saved lil Susie from getting run over by a car, but you also killed the Pope while he was shittin' in the woods. I don't know if I can trust you. Perhaps you won't get this quest to save my son who is trapped at the bottom of a well. But I do believe my wife has been cheating on me with Larry from work, you wouldn't mind offing him for me, wouldja?"

Your fame / infamy would be different on every planet. You could be the warrior of light on Earth, but the Scourge of Humanity on Vegeta since I doubt gossip travels between planets. This will mostly be based on how you handle quests and how you go about your killin'. Murdering in cold blood is pretty bad, but killing another to protect someone.. not so bad.

It's just a thought.

[Epyon]

I think Cloud hit the nail on the head.

And as far as the discounts go, I agree with Reno. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but the way you act and the things you do should cause people to treat you differently.

[Dalun]

I would only want a real simple alignment system and then let the refs control based on that. For instance the good characters getting discounts on items idea. Why not let the bad characters get discounts cuz of their evil reputation? The storekeeper could be afraid and give a 20% discount to help appease the evil character.

Also, would this affect the moves learned? i.e. Goku had kamehameha and vegeta had gallic gun, but they were really about even in terms of moves. Would you make it so only good characters could use Kameha and only evil use Gallic. I feel like you would have to keep everything in proportion. like if The spirit bomb can only be used by good chars (as in the series) then there has to be something to balance it out on the evil side otherwise you're distorting the game based on good actions versus evil. I think each should have similar terms and powers to avoid OPing one side over the other.

What about neutral chars or characters that switch alignment? What if you want your character to start out bad but then redeem themself or have them start out good but then their quest for power turns them evil. Should they be punished by not being able to learn good/evil moves or having them become obsolete based on there alignment rating?

I just feel like it gets pretty complicated pretty quickly... either a simple system or just let the ref modify your characters story based on what you're decisions have been would be the easiest way to do this.

[Ryujin]

That's exactly what we try NOT to do, is give the same thing to multiple sides and call it by a different name. Whether its race or alignment specific.

[Dalun]

That's fine (makes much more sense logically and story-wise), but you still have to make sure to balance it to be fair to people who want to go either way. All I'm saying is that complicates matters a lot and makes it a lot more difficult to balance everything out.

[Cloud]

The way that it balances is that when you're evil, if you want something, you take it. Why would you go into shop and buy stuff when you can simply kill the shopkeeper?

[ville616]

The way that it balances is that when you're evil, if you want something, you take it. Why would you go into shop and buy stuff when you can simply kill the shopkeeper?

If thats the case the refs would have to limit what you can take instead of taking everything in the shop

[Reno]

from what I can remember, they do limit it. Very much. May not make a whole lot of sence, but some things like that need limitations for the sake of the game. The refs aren't stupid. ^_^

[Ryujin]

They limit it if they can. If you see a jar of sensu beans or there is a dock full of ships, then they're gonna be there to steal if you did it right.

Of course, anything could have beacons on it to track you, self destruct sequences, or it may have to be shipped in from outside of the shop.

But if I'm reffing you and I say 'there are 3 ships out back' and you kill the shop keeper, the ships don't just magically disappear... And if you figured something out that i didn't think about, congratulations, you're rich now.

[ville616]

from what I can remember, they do limit it. Very much. May not make a whole lot of sence, but some things like that need limitations for the sake of the game. The refs aren't stupid. ^_^

Thats cool I figured the refs did that but i wasnt sure

[Dalun]

In terms of the balancing I was talking more about the moves if you're making moves good/evil specific (like spirit bomb) and you want to make each side have different moves (i.e not just like gallic gun vs. kamehameha). Obviously I don't have SB yet so I'm not sure how it functions in PM but I'm just saying you would need to have the unique moves balance each other out or at least have unique moves that give an advantage to each side. I don't think that would be too hard to do, but just gotta keep that in mind.

[Reno]

I don't see why any move, besides spirit bomb, should have an alignment requirement to use.

If the master that teaches the move requires your alignment to be at a certain point before he'll teach you it(Or start his quest for it) however, that's understandable. Although I think the whole point of the quest is too prove your trust.

[Reno]

If the refs insist on keeping the alignment the way it is and cotinue to show the members on their page (Or hide it from us, doesn't matter), I think every increase/decrease should be marked down on our page (Or in secret on a notepad) with a short detail of how we got this gain/loss to alignment.
This would help the ref know exactly what we have been up to without them having to remember every single members previous actions. It would also help when a player switches planets/refs. The new ref can see exactly how they have played in past. Same for the next dimension. If the ref in control there isn't sure just how good/bad the member has been, he can look back at all their past alignment gains/loses to figure out just what should happen to him.
It would also work well if a ref isn't sure just how much alignment the player should gain from something. He can look back at how much he gained/loss for previous stuff, which will give him a good idea of how much he should gain/lose for his current actions.

[Epyon]

The way that it balances is that when you're evil, if you want something, you take it. Why would you go into shop and buy stuff when you can simply kill the shopkeeper?

Because if you kill the shopkeeper, everything in the shop turns out to be a cardboard cut-out.

[Mado]

If the refs insist on keeping the alignment the way it is and cotinue to show the members on their page (Or hide it from us, doesn't matter), I think every increase/decrease should be marked down on our page (Or in secret on a notepad) with a short detail of how we got this gain/loss to alignment.
This would help the ref know exactly what we have been up to without them having to remember every single members previous actions. It would also help when a player switches planets/refs. The new ref can see exactly how they have played in past. Same for the next dimension. If the ref in control there isn't sure just how good/bad the member has been, he can look back at all their past alignment gains/loses to figure out just what should happen to him.
It would also work well if a ref isn't sure just how much alignment the player should gain from something. He can look back at how much he gained/loss for previous stuff, which will give him a good idea of how much he should gain/lose for his current actions.

Ryujin sent me an email with a good base for how much alignment you gain/lose based on certain actions. And if a player does something not on the list, then the ref needs to keep track of what the player did and the reasoning behind giving/taking that much alignment. I like having an alignment simply for keeping track of how good/evil a player is being, and having it effect a select few things in-game. I don't think it's a good idea to have certain masters teach or not teach a move based on alignment (other than the Other World) because how would a master know if a player is evil or not? If a player is openly evil and let's everyone know it, then that's fine, but if no one knows that they've done evil things...

Because if you kill the shopkeeper, everything in the shop turns out to be a cardboard cut-out.

Lol, I can't just let you have everything in the shop, now can I?

[AkuTenshi]

I just posted in the otherworld forum about Kaioken, and I dont know whether to keep it there, or here, so ill just post in both places.

Good people (+8) have Kaioken, only king kai can teach it (players cannot).

Evil players (-8) could have "Negative Karma", a move i believe used by Omega Shenron, but im gonna change the ability a lil. With it you could bring out a negative energy which would lower the pls of people around you (which would be able to counter Kaioken, or lower the other players PLs, making you stronger during the fight. This could be an effect that hurts anyone of good alignment in the battle. This move could or could not add to your pl, but I feel like that would be too much if you could lower everyones and also gain pl for yourself, but this would be up to the refs.

Just an idea. Also, everyone needs to choose whether they will talk about the move here or on the otherworld, cause if you dont then i have to read about it on two boards. Whatcha think?

[Syaoran]

leave the moves part for changing death, yes they are related to alignment but not the topic at hand

[Ryujin]

I don't think that's a bad idea, Aku, but it still has a lot of big downfalls to kaiouken that I can think of right away. For one thing, that move should only take away PL from good players around you, which is already a disadvantage. That actually makes more sense as a good move, since theoretically good guys should never be fighting each other, but bad guys might be. I also see some strategic ways kaiouken would be much better, but I don't like giving away strategies on the boards.. =]

I wouldn't mind kaiouken being HARDER for bad guys to learn... I mean, I know it would be possible to learn it from a good player who has learned it, but that's quite the disadvantage.

[Mado]

Any other thoughts or ideas for alignment?

[Sephiroth]

I'm against the idea of alignment. I think characters that respond in smart ways and adjust their sides to better themselves in the moment add to the game. It could also get confusing if someone changed and suddenly lost a move or two.

[Mado]

I'm against the idea of alignment. I think characters that respond in smart ways and adjust their sides to better themselves in the moment add to the game. It could also get confusing if someone changed and suddenly lost a move or two.

No one would lose a move. The only thing alignment would do is determine if a master would teach you the move or not. If you're good/bad enough to learn it, learn the move, then decide to go in the opposite direction, you'd still have the move.

[Sephiroth]

Then why even do it? A master isn't forced to teach someone a move. I was never a fan of having a member walk up to a master and say, "Teach me this."

In DBZ, if someone walked up to Roshi, he'd want to get to know them first, make them do random tasks for him. That would be to get to know them and decided if they are worthy of learning a move. That can be determined by the ref playing the master. I feel like all this would do is remove power from the ref. Someone could switch their alliance as necessary to learn moves or something - or they could just do it and not have to worry about some number game.

[Mado]

Then why even do it? A master isn't forced to teach someone a move. I was never a fan of having a member walk up to a master and say, "Teach me this."

In DBZ, if someone walked up to Roshi, he'd want to get to know them first, make them do random tasks for him. That would be to get to know them and decided if they are worthy of learning a move. That can be determined by the ref playing the master. I feel like all this would do is remove power from the ref. Someone could switch their alliance as necessary to learn moves or something - or they could just do it and not have to worry about some number game.

I've been doing that as well. And I also made players on King Kai's planet catch Gregory and Bubbles first before being able to learn Kaiouken and Spirit Bomb. But even for normal masters on earth I've made players go do some sort of task(s) before the master would teach them the move. Plus, alignment isn't so easy to gain/lose like that. Only just do I have players even close to either +10 or -10, and this round started a few months ago.

[darkrtreaper]

Wait but what if your netrual which place in the other world would you go to.

[Reno]

Yeah...There doesn't seem to be any official rules for the other world that carries on from round to round. I don't think they'll tell us anything about either... :-/

[Mado]

Nope, gotta die to find out ;)

[Dalun]

I've found it hard to gain alignment (being a good char). I dunno how easy the evil char's get it but I'd guess much easier. I also would guess that completing quests helps. I've kinda done the quest without talking to the master in a few cases. Repeatable quests would also be nice. By this I mean if you've done or contributed to the whole then you still get a gain from the master once you talk to them (unless the gain is just the move, in which case I guess I'm still doing fine).

[Reno]

Oh yeah, I have found it a whole lot easier to get evil alignment. You have to really work hard to be considered good.

[cmaster17]

NO ITS NOT! I gained. Good alliance and I wasn't even trying!

[Teen Gohan]

NO ITS NOT! I gained. Good alliance and I wasn't even trying!

You gained it because you're with me and I'm doing all of the good stuff, so I guess I'm rubbing off on you...but what it probably really is that you are kind of forced to do the good stuff since that is what I'm doing like I can't stop you from killing some random guy that we meet but as of now you're just "following the crowd" and since your with a crowd of only good guys it would be harder to gain evil alignment.

[cmaster17]

Forget that! I'm going evil! I don't care!