Well, I always DM-ed back in tha day and I kinda followed the whole "alignment tracking chart" thingy from the Dragonlance campaign, only I didn't let players know what their alignment score was or how certain actions swayed that. This meant that the players could build quite a nasty reputaion for themselves if they weren't careful... and then wonder why they were hunted by the people

Also, I had like almost 50 different character kit/class choices from different locations in the two geographical continents I had in my campaign, and this was not counting what would have been had I continued to build the world.

SilentThief

[ 01-01-2005, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: SilentThief ]

Still that point system would be based on your own ethics morals and values. you cant objectively call someone evil or good. someone like hitler is seen as evil by 99.9% of the sane population of the world but still he believed himself he did a good thing by his own ethics and morals, and at that time a part of the german population agreed with him. this might be a very extreem case, but it illustrates how subjective "evil" and "good" are. We also come to a point where you'd have to decide whether or not you are still "good" if we went out and killed "evil" people (boondock saints for example, or even the death penalty). how could a spell (because thats my main issue, spells like protection from evil) determine what morals and what ethics are the correct ones? how can something so subjective be objectively measured?

[ 01-01-2005, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]

that is a good point, and one I hadn't considered before. I would say then (if I were DM-ing again) that the "prot. from evil" spell then wouldn't affect, say, some thief who steals or a fighter who kills people now and then but instead might protect from stuff like undead, demons, evil artifacts (or someone possessed by one). I'm gonna have to re-think this one if I ever DM again.

You are right on the whole subjective point, that it is something that is open to widely different views and interpretations.

3rd edition seems much simpler to me.

THACO is completely mindboggling to me.
To hit armor class of zero. So if your THACO is 3, and an enemy armor class is -5, you need to roll an 8 or higher to hit the enemy???

... see it aint that hard [img]tongue.gif[/img]

the problem with the allignment system as it stands now is that paladins in a huge part depends on very strong evil/good allignments. decreasing the power of spells that depend on good and evil will greatly decrease the powers of a paladin :/

Allignments should not be told to the players..

You as the DM should keep track of how much the players are shifting towards good or evil, they players should not pick their alignmets at the start of a champaine, but should start with a neutral rating, from their use their actions to work out if they are acting in a good way or an evil way, from your position as the all seeing one..

Prot. from Evil works by the karma, undead have bad karma (violation the natural order of the world will do that to a person).. So rather than think of it as somone deciding to put a shield aganst who they think is evil, but as the caster opening a connection to some spritual plane..

Good and evil are subjective, you the DM are not.

Back to the topic at hand..

I like 2nd edtion, but in the way people like steam engines, Nice to look back but I want to go to work on the newer one please..

I like third ed. I've played both, (CRPG for 2ed, also reading through the sourcebooks). I can honestly say, 3ed kick the crap out of 2ed. I agree with Q'alooaith, alignments shouldn't be told to the players.

<span style="color: lightblue">Exactly. Alignment is metadata: it should be defined by the character rather than defining the character. The emphasis should always be on a good story - even things like strength scores and weapon stats and even levels shouldn't be anything the player needs to know. The description of an item and the actions of the character should be adequate - if the fourth wall needs to be broken, something is wrong.

Thus, which ruleset do I prefer? Neither. In my experience, both focus too heavily on the numbers and the dice. Although this may be different in a PNP game: I have only had the experience of dnd-based computer games, of which I've yet to see a realy good implentation. I think an ideal to strive for is a cross between Quest for Glory, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment . Your alignment is adjusted automatically depending on your actions; your stats raise automatically depending on how you use them. Party members do their own thing, rather than being directly controllable by the player. But I think that the character record in these games is poorly implemented. It should idealy be a picture and the biography, nothing more. I think that hiding details such as the alignment and class from the player actually opens the way for more advanced implementations, and a more generally fun experience.

We had our second day of the new champaign yesterday. I was a great gaming day, actually. Everyone was really using their characters well.
One funny part was when our Armor totin' halberd weildin' 1st lvl mage, took down an orge with one swing. The ogre had taken a bit of damage, then took a critical from the mage and failed his system shock.