Gah, the frustration of playing it good (rants and spoilers no doubt)

[Rataxes]

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with a few encounters where Bioware gave people trying to roleplay good-aligned characters pretty limited options. Take Melium by the Firewine Bridge for instance. Here you have an evil-aligned and obnoxious man with a short temper and some very desirable treasure approach you to brag about his skill. A perfect example of someone you shold be able to rid the world of with a clear conscience, but then it turns out that the only way to initiate a fight is to insult him followed by challenging him to a fight and acting as the aggressor. It's not something I could see a reasonably wise good-aligned person do, so the only option remaining is to act like you swallow his tripe and wish him good luck. Not satisfying.

Other examples, the druids vs Sashenstar. The good thing do to here is as I see it to side with the druids, since Sashenstar is behaving like an arrogant upper class idiot, but due to the way this part of the script is written, doing this makes you seem like an unscrupulous traitor. Also the band of adventurers in the area with all the basilisks. They're obviously evil and infinitly arrogant, but still there's no dialog option to have them be the aggressors, leaving a good and wise character no choice but to let them go.

Maybe it isn't necessarily evil to attack someone unprovoked or allow yourself to be provoked into a fight, but it still seems to me very uncharacteristic of a good-aligned character, especially a good-aligned cleric with high wisdom, to do so. I can live with some nice treasures being off-limits to good-aligned roleplayers, but cutting out some opportunities to kill bad guys through poor or limited dialog options is just a bit sloppy.

[ZFR]

Actually, there is also a completely opposite issue with evil aligned parties.

My evil party would kill anyone to get his items and money or simply to kill or to insult.

But sometimes the only dialogue option for a fight is "I'll kill you because your evil"

Now if I want to fight I have to choose this option which is stupid. I dont want to kill him because he is evil (I am evil myself).

There should be a dialogue option like "I'll kill you because I want your money" or simply "I'll kill you because I dont like your face".

I cant think of any particular examples but there are quite a few fights like that.

[ister]

I agree about Melium and the basilisk party. But Sashenstar? To me the obvious choice for at least a lawful good party is to oppose the druids. Defending civilization and law and order against anarchy and all that. I mean Sashenstar simply want to hunt, and you have these whacko druids telling him he can't? If I'm role-playing chaotic I might side with the druids, and if I'm (non-lawful) evil I certainly would (looks like more money that way), but I don't see how a lawful good character can possibly support the druids with a clean concience.

Anyway you get his sword no matter what choice you take.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

Originally posted by ister: I agree about Melium and the basilisk party. But Sashenstar? To me the obvious choice for at least a lawful good party is to oppose the druids. Defending civilization and law and order against anarchy and all that. I mean Sashenstar simply want to hunt, and you have these whacko druids telling him he can't? If I'm role-playing chaotic I might side with the druids, and if I'm (non-lawful) evil I certainly would (looks like more money that way), but I don't see how a lawful good character can possibly support the druids with a clean concience. Anyway you get his sword no matter what choice you take.

Ah, but Sashenstar was in this pickle to begin with because he himself was disobeying the laws that the druids had laid forth. As custodians of nature, it *is* their prerogative to do so. Furthermore, it becomes clear that Sashenstar is rather vengeful... His hiring you was a spiteful, evil act.

Depending on how you look at it, supporting him can be either lawful and good, or neither lawful nor good.

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by ister: I agree about Melium and the basilisk party. But Sashenstar? To me the obvious choice for at least a lawful good party is to oppose the druids. Defending civilization and law and order against anarchy and all that. I mean Sashenstar simply want to hunt, and you have these whacko druids telling him he can't? If I'm role-playing chaotic I might side with the druids, and if I'm (non-lawful) evil I certainly would (looks like more money that way), but I don't see how a lawful good character can possibly support the druids with a clean concience.

Well there are several things that tends to make me very unsympathetic towards Sashenstars cause.

1) He neglects to inform you that he and his friends murdered a druid.
2) He's coming off as ignorant and inconsiderate in his dealings with the druids. Both for ignoring their warning and for considering them savages while being clueless of the fact that as inhabitants of the forest they have a better claim to ownership of the area than Sashenstar.
3) With the line "being civilized men we realized it is well within our rights to hunt wherever we damn please!" his typical arrogant upper class attitude is showing off, acting like he owns the world.

While the druids struck me as being rather fair in their dealings. They give you a chance to rethink your decision and they don't attack you for not helping them, they attack you for saying "we can't let you kill him", which sounds alot to me like "we'll fight you if you try to kill him". I can see a good character going either way here, what I object to is the dialog that comes with siding with the druids that makes you appear like a deceitful traitor, especially when it is Sashenstar who's the deceitful one for not giving you the full story before asking for help.

[ 03-15-2005, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[ister]

Well as I said you get his sword either way.

Illumina, I see no reason whatsoever why the druids have more authority to establish the rules of the land (around Sashenstar's family house no less) than what I would presume is the authorities in Baldur's Gate. You can say that they have the perogative as "guardians of nature", but they set themselves up in that role, and we all know that they themselves don't give a hoot for the law (after all they are neutral, and want to maintain their precious balance between law and chaos). I say that if I'm a lawful character (whether good or evil) they are on extremely shakey ground in asserting their rights on Sashenstar's family cabin. He's got tradition on his side as far as I can tell - his cabin has been there for a while and he claims that he hunts here regularly. If I'm LG that matters to me.

To me, as LG, the Druids ARE the savages here. Sure, Sashenstar is asserting his upper class perogatives, but if I'm LG I'm all about upper class perogatives. Structure and order are the foundation of the common good. There are all sorts of obligations that these nobles need to fulfill to the common good, but their role, and perogatives are essential to society.

As to murdering the druid - it's reasonable to suppose that this was in self defense as Sashenstar claims. We don't know one way or the other, but this incident can serve to reinforce my impression of Sashenstar as on the side of law and order. Or at least the druids as being opposed to it.

Also I have agreed to defend him. Having done so I can't really go back on my word unless there is some pretty good evidence that he's in the wrong. And the fact that he neglected to tell me about the dead druid (he didn't exactly lie about it) doesn't really rise to that level of proof. If I do side with the druids I really am betraying him if you think about it.

Finally the druids always strike me as being very presumtuous about the whole affair. If we can't hunt here, where can we hunt? And, as a matter of fact, I just slaughtered a whole pack of wolves within the last hour, who's to say that the druids won't treat me the same way they are treating Sashenstar?

Now would it be nice to have a dialogue option that says "Why didn't you tell me that you had killed a druid?" so as to side with the druids more easily? I think so. But I think it works well as is - as a lawful character I think you ought to side with Sashenstar.

Still it's certainly possible to role play it the other way - but I think you're behaving as CG (or CN) in that case. You don't put as much order on the structure of society as most people do - you're chaotic.

Anyway I generally go with Sashenstar. He's under a lot of stress when you first meet him, and nothing like so prickly and haughty in Baldur's Gate. Always struck me as a nice guy in a bad spot.

[ 03-15-2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: ister ]

[mad=dog]

As I see it there are two aspects to an alignment and both of them reflect your relation to the world. Occationally they may conflict and that is where interesting roleplaying starts in the world of pen and paper RPG.
A good example from BG2 is the when you encounter Valygar Corthala. What would a Paladin do? His lawful aspect posibly combined with the honour of an agreement tells him to slay him whereas his good behaviour tells him something is fishy. It is very reasonable to assume the character would in fact fight Corthala with some restrictions (e.g. not using party members and make it a duel).
Edwin is a an example where the conflicts are boiling over. His selfishness (Evil) and his need for companionship (Lawful) is erupting quite often making him almost schizofrenic.

As for the examples at hand and the roleplaying aspect therein... The Paladin class have a power called Detect Evil specifically for this. A normal priest can use it as well. This will often reveal the proper cause of action.

As for Sashenstar I'd say a lawful good character would have a conflict between the honour of an agreement and the agressive behaviour of Sashenstar.

[Azred]

The main problem is that Baldur's Gate is not designed to be completely universal. That is, the designers could not create dialogue options to suit every alignment and/or class for every situation. No game to date has ever been designed to be truly flexible; perhaps in the near future this might be possible. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[timothy trotter]

you have to admit, they did a good god, but i doo agree, there should be more options to be evil, i like it when you just insult people and they get crank and attack you. but there should be options to say, 'they look like nice shoes, what size do you take? oh really, so do i. mind if i have them? oh then ill just have to cut them off you then!"