I think alignment systems can be neat, but are there a lot of good ones that aren't basically just reskinned "good vs evil"?
Non Good/Evil Alignment systems?
I think alignment systems can be neat, but are there a lot of good ones that aren't basically just reskinned "good vs evil"?
no
local reputation > moral alignment
No exceptions.
Just look up games with a shitload of factions
I remember this browser game, part of a series, had war in the title
Like Gay and Straight?
moron.
Well there the Dawn of War 2 system. Technically the Imperium isn't good but Chaos is far worse.
Wdym? Chaos is the only morally consistent choice.
Chaos in Warhammer is extremism, they take the basic emotions and twist them to their logical extreme. Chaos only purposes is to eat, they just happen to feed on emotions.
Look to Bethesda on all the ways to do it wrong that includes not having an alignment system.
Not many.
Broken Roads haven't played it though
Alignment systems will always be good and evil you can always attempt to reshade this to anarchy/order or whatever but the results will always be the same for three reasons: Deadlines, Developers inability to impulse control their political views to make something nuanced and interesting, and the amount of work it would need to basically give flavoring afteraffect of your decisions impacting the world.
It would be cool but I can't think of any rpg which really broke Bioware's mold of
Option 1: Good guy.
Option 2: Evil guy.
Alpha Protocol had some cool ending variance yet in every single case it was objectively better to spare your enemies than kill them. You encounter this line of thinking in many rpg stories, like the Skelliger sucession in TW3 or the Deus Ex serial killer quest, where if you takeout the first hostile presented to you, he proves a red herring but if you spare him he leads you to the real enemy. This ferments a mentality where merciful restraint is always the wisest course.
Mass Effect specifically was pozzed because the "evil" option was to further mankind's wellbeing while the "good" option was to subvert the interest of your own to a federal polity.
Shin megami tensei has interesting alignments that vary a bit in how they are presented, Devil surivor arguebly has the best outcome for each alignment
I find it unite interesting that the alignment system in Star Wars The Old Republic doesn't really express between Sith=Evil and Jedi=Good.
>Play BH
>Get to one mission where imperial officer wants me to kill some guy who has been cheating with his wife
>Go meet the wife
>End up sparing her because I thought it was "a good thing", and she seems to regret it a bit.
>Go meet the guy who cucked my employer.
>Guy is obviously a prick and a Sleazebag
>Definetly should kill this guy
>Light side option is sparing the guy
>Darkside option is killing the guy and actually do my job
>wtf.jpg
>End up sparing him too because I thought "it was a good thing"
>Mako gets pissed, especially because I should have killed the guy.
>Start reading some lore
>Lightside of the force pretty much goes for peace, preserving life, not really stating you should be a good guy
>Darkside option goes for expressing feelings with absolute honesty, with the stronger the emotion, the stronger the power, so not really being an evil c**t.
>Stopped worrying about playing a good Bounty Hunter with the moral compass of Samus Aran and start shooting whoever I don't like or clearly deserves it instead of because the game tells me "it's what a good guy would do".
It really gives me more room to roleplay my toon in the game.
I find it kind of moronic how light and dark side even matter for non sensitives. If you are not connected to the force it is more like a charakter trait and gaining dark or good points should have no real effect. Because force sensitives might sense your emotions but thats about it. The thing that makes the light/dark side thing interesting is that the dark side of the force draws power from raw emotion with the Sith being hardcore darwinists so gain of power is above all which will make them do evil, fricked up shit to gain more intense emotional input, they go crazy over that and have a wide array of actual different consequences force wise (not becoming one with the force at death, magical tuberculosis-cancer-aids etc.). For a normal guy tho? You can follow a sith like philosophy but there will be never up nor downsides besides mundane ones.
Same with the light side. Light side jedi are basically doing some ultra tai chi that makes them calm and stoic beyond what mundane people can even comprehend. A smuggler following a jedi doctrine is just a guy who isnt that much ptsd ridden than sociopathic bounty hunter. For force sensitives their actions have wide ranged implications and consequences outside their control which is what makes their decision to strictly follow a path so important and deviations so dangerous. While non sensitives are kind of bound to do whatever by design. No one would get their dick chopped off by a glowing hatchet to save a puppy. A jedi kind of has to or hes in serious trouble. While a sith would be forced to flay the puppy, chop his dick of himself and rape a make a wish cancer mom with it while snorting coke out of her gouged out eyesockets.
That is what it is in theory, but in the game they'll still give a light-side guy an angelic halo and give the dark-side guy demonic cracks all over his face.
>good = allowing wives of space nazis to ride the galactic wiener carousel at light speed
>evil = not allowing space nazis to be cucked
ftfy
Ok.
I like how ME alightment isn't a spectrum, but you gain permanent points in both. Doing renegade doesn't "undo" paragon points and vice versa. Wish they did more with that nuisance.
Easily done way is to have it be about temperament as opposed to ethics. So in other words Law vs. Chaos, which Warhammer does quite well actually as most every faction is malevolent in some capacity.
Alpha Protocol beat the piss out of Mass Effect almost before Mass Effect.