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On Morality, Alignment, and Reputation

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Sand_Trout
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On Morality, Alignment, and Reputation

I've been thinking about Heroes, Villains, Good, Evil, and Publicity; especially how these things would apply to any attempt as a morality/alignment system that CoT might choose to adopt. Attempting to mechanically define morality within a game context is inherently tricky because even the best thinkers in history haven't hammered out the ins and outs of ethics, not to mention possible PR problems. CoH/V actually had a rather novel means of addressing this issue through the Going Rouge mechanics, but there is still room to improve, and MWM has acknowledged that ethics of superheroes can vary widely even between characters that are ostensibly heroes or villains. I suggest that CoT differentiate character "Alignment" in two key ways: Motivation and Reputation. Motivation to be decided early by the player, and Reputation to be determined by which missions they undertake.

Motivation will be an almost inherent aspect of any given character that is relatively constant throughout their career. Heroic and Villainous characters will necessarily be highly motivated characters in order to become Heroes and Villains; otherwise they'd probably be doing much safer things. Therefore, a character's primary motivation can be established very early, even at character creation, in order to provide the initial direction and flavor. These could also be used in place of the CoH Origins, since as far as I'm aware, they aren't necessarily sticking to an Origin type mechanism for aguments and whatnot.

The most obviously heroic is what I call "Protection", where the character is driven by a compelling need to protect someone or something. This has also been twisted to villainous deeds as demonstrated by Magneto, who wants to protect mutants from Humans, or Sentinels, who were created in order to protect humans from mutants. As I'm thinking of it, this would include the protection of ideals, not just people, items, or places. Mission flavor would include rescuing prisoners taken legally or illegally, disarming weapons of mass-destruction, or punishing those that do harm to a particular group.

The most obviously villainous is what I call "Dominion", where the character is driven by a compelling need to control or dominate. Not all Rulers are unjust or act out of selfish desire though, as shown by T'Challa, the Black Panther who is king of Wakanda. Missions Flavor would include establishing a contact network, running protection rackets, working *with* the police to round up troublemakers, and assisting and/or blackmailing politicians.

There is "Retribution", which I will say encompasses both Justice and Revenge. It's plainly easy to see how this may lead one towards either heroism or villainy. As this motivation will necessarily be the most openly violent, I would toss general Anger and Hate-based motivations under this umbrella. Missions would be the more classic "Beat up a bunch of baddies, let the Medical Examiner sort them out."

"Ego" would seem to be the domain of villainy, but just any many Celebrity heroes (EG: Tony Stark and arguably Batman) could fall into this category. I would suggest greed, hedonism, and personal freedom would fall under this category. Any missions for this motivation would necessarily gain a character fame or infamy among the community with a focus on Damsels (either kidnapping or rescuing) and Heists.

Lastly, what is likely to be the most controversial, I will call "Mania". This would be the domain of characters that act out based not necessarily on desire so much as what would typically be classed mental illness or outside compulsion. Most of the best known entries in this category are villains (particularly Batman's Rogues Gallery), but there is also Deadpool (though that might also be Ego on his part...). These missions would be thinks like humiliating some villain by plastering embarrassing information on billboards, creative mass-murder, and procuring chimichangas.

Once a character's Motivation is determined, their Reputation is what assigns them their position on the Hero-Villain spectrum, at least as the public and their contacts are concerned. Let's look at the context of the original source material (comic books). Many of the most popular comic book characters have incredibly complex and detailed examinations of their personal ethics, motivations, and relationships. However, this was not (usually) done in a single issue, or even run. Many of these characters have been developed over multiple decades and writers to become the heroes, villains, anti-heroes, and anti-villains that we know today. Along these lines, I think that it is important that the player get a sense that their own character's moral progression is recognized over time, rather than an instant label of "Megalomaniac" or "Defender of Peace, Justice, and the American Way".

Players should be able to identify if a mission, and/or mission contact is on the Up and Up or Down Low with regards to the Reputation they will receive for taking, and completing, the mission as described.

Up and Up missions will mean that the community views the mission as lawful and/or justified. Therefore, these missions will increase your Heroic Reputation within your Motivation.

Down Low missions will be viewed as evil and/or criminal acts by the community. Therefore, these missions will increase your Villainous Reputation within your Motivation.

Note that I'm basing this on the perspective of the community, not the actual morality of the mission in question. Beating up or Killing a man framed for murder would grant you Heroic reputation in the eyes of the Community, while blowing up the laboratory of Literally Hitler disguised as a hospital would grant your Villainous reputation.

Additionally, I don't think Villainous and Heroic reputation should counteract each other, but rather, there may be certain, relatively uncommon, missions that are Damning or Redeeming. A Damning mission would decrease your Heroic reputation instead of increasing your Villainous reputation. A Redeeming mission would be the inverse, reducing your villainous reputation instead of increasing your Heroic Reputation. These missions would necessarily be counter to the character's Motivation. An Ego motivated character might need to work in a Soup Kitchen (Redeeming) or become the scapegoat for a corrupt politician (Damning), as these are humbling or humiliating, respectively, and run counter to the actions that gained them their Fame and Infamy.

The reason for this being that allowing parallel Villain and Hero scores allows for a more nuanced means of describing alignment as well as allowing characters access to missions and potentially other in-world consequences. For example, Criminal mobs will be more aggressive toward a character with a high "Heroic" reputation, while Police/Vigilante mobs will be more aggressive toward a character with a high Villainous reputation. Therefore, if you have both reps high, you're very likely to get attacked by anything and everything. However, certain contacts might only give missions to characters with a sufficiently high Heroic or Villainous Reputation, thus providing an incentive for players to increase one or both, if they don't mind the Malta and SWAT teams gunning for them.

There might also be badges/titles unlocked for characters with high Heroic and/or Villainous Reputation, based on their Motivation. For instance, a character with the Protection could earn the titles "Guardian", "Terrorist", and "Fanatic" for Heroic, Villainous, and Both, respectively.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

TroublesomeKnight
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Joined: 11/08/2013 - 17:09
Have you looked at the old

Have you looked at the old kickstarter updates? They already have their own idea for an alignment system.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/629385

It's a bit less complex than what you're suggesting, but still better than a "good" vs. "evil" axis.