Tannim222 wrote:

I know in the game play team we discussed providing clear indications for what choices affect which portion of the tri-axis alignment.

If by this you mean that next to each dialogue choice the numerical change to each axis would be listed, please make such a display an optional feature. (Even SWTOR let the player decide whether to display the numbers behind the choices.)

I can understand that some might want that information, but I prefer decision points that make me think, "What would this character do?" and not "What effect will this have on the character's game numbers?" This, of course, assumes that you folks manage to avoid the ambiguity trap mentioned above.

In SWTOR, one can set in Preferences that any 'alignment' shifting conversational choices are highlighted with their Light/Dark effects. CoT is contemplating a more complex 'alignment' matrix, but it would be equally useful to have any significant choices highlighted to show their effects.

That said, cruel Devs that hide negative plots behind ambiguous, or even seemingly positive choices, should not be allowed to write for children, or Heroes.

Be Well!
Fireheart

That's just it! You don't know what consequences your actions will bring. Ever.

For example, let's say you are walking down a street and just ahead of you you spot a suspicious person walking behind a young couple. This person pulls out a gun. They aim it at the back of the head of the woman. What do you do?

1. Why does it matter? A choice is presented to you. It's a choice you make regardless if it's real or not.
2. They would be whatever powers you decide you want to have.
3. There are no other civilians around that can get hurt.
4 & 5. No relevance now.
6. Guns do lethal damage.

Tannim222 wrote:

I'm not on be comp team, but if it matters at all, myself as a player I would be plenty pissed if I were intentionally or inadvertently tricked by a dev team into changing my character's alignment. Based on my conversations with the comp lead he would not want to see this happen either. I know in the game play team we discussed providing clear indications for what choices affect which portion of the tri-axis alignment.
I know It was asked to include an optional warning message if any decision would result in a change in the opposing direction of the current alignment but do 't quote me on that being approved. It is late, I have a killer migraine, and I can't accurately recall the game lead's decision on that part at this moment.
The short of it is, decisions can and do matter. How a player views their character matters. And multiple layers of character development should be possible from consistently being the pure ideal hero, the dastardly bad guy, to the fallen hero, reformed villain, and anything between.

This all sounds perfect to me.

This game will be largely based on repeatedly doing the same missions over and over with different/the same characters. You'll KNOW what the consequences are after the mission has been live for like a DAY. Beyond that, if they have a test server, you'll know what the consequences are BEFORE it goes live. So just relax.

oOStaticOo wrote:

I would like to see multiple end outcomes randomly generated influenced slightly by alignment and decisions made throughout the mission. This way we don't always have the same end results every time.

Now that sounds interesting. You mean like if an evil character decides to save someone, that person might react with suspicion rather than the more grateful reaction they would have if a heroic character did it?

Exactly, Cinnder.

One man's Utopia is another man's Hell.

I really have a hard time thinking that the alignment system in CoT is going to be so hard/tricky that it'll be difficult to keep your character geared towards whatever alignment you want to maintain.

The idea that one "yes or no" decision will suddenly shift a "lawful good" type character all the way down into chaotic and/or evil territory seems highly unlikely, or at the very least should be incredibly easy to spot and/or avoid. For instance if there's a point in a mission that allows you to choose whether to set off a nuke that would destroy the city just for laughs then yes, if you choose to do that then you'll very obviously be seen as a "bad guy" to most people. But if for some reason you (the player) don't realize that nuking the city is a "bad" thing to do then it's only going to be your fault for suffering that kind of alignment shift.

For what it's worth I think there should be various missions that actually allow for those kinds of radical shifts if for no other reason than there should be quick ways to shift alignments up or down if you CHOOSE to do so. Maybe you've got an evil villain that you want to shift towards good and want to do it in a big/quick way. Maybe if you choose NOT set off that nuke you'll be able to quickly shift towards the good side.

Options in-game are always good even if they're options you wouldn't take but someone else would. I think once again we have a case of TheMightyPaladin having an opinion on something and deciding the game in-total should only work the way he wants it to regardless of what anyone else may want from this. We don't need an alignment system that'll keep us safe - we need an alignment system that'll make us think and make the right decisions because that's how we actively choose to RP the situation.

Comicsluvr wrote:

Paladin's concerns are perfectly valid.

Again we'll know more as the game develops but I still have a very hard time thinking this game will either force you or "trick" you into making alignment changes you don't want.

Now I could see where the game might even make it possible for you to fail some missions if you choose to stick to a specific alignment orientation so adamantly that it remains more important to you than anything else. But at that point you're choosing that strict outcome yourself so if you don't want to do missions that would force you to change alignments you could always not do those type of missions in the future. For instance if you want to remain a "Dudley Do-Right" you'll probably want to steer-clear of a set of missions that'll train you how to become the world's greatest safe-cracker or some such.

Again I really don't think the game will be able to force you to do anything you don't want it to. At any rate you could always abandon anything that makes you worried something like that could happen before you make a choice you don't want. *shrugs*

I think I will like the 3 axis system that is the current plan from MWM. I look forward to the challenge of tweaking a character's alignment to match my vision of them. I interpret Paladin's base concern as not wanting to lose control of his character through some ambiguity or out-right trickery in the writing of an adventure. Totally understandable.

However, I take issue with the premise that action heroes base their decisions on the certain knowledge of the outcome of their actions because they know "what kind of story" they are inhabiting. I submit that the vast majority of characters may have some superior knowledge/training/experience that allows them to overcome obstacles that others my not. (that's why its fun to be a Superhero!) And that the knowledge that they can get away with some incredible feat determines their immediate action. But good story-telling usually means that the hero, and therefore the audience, does NOT know the eventual outcome. The Hero, based on their expertise and knowledge imparted by the foregoing story, makes a difficult and risky decision and hopes for the best. Because the story (and at least an American audience) wants a happy ending, everything usually turns out to be alright. Sometimes it leads to an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" situation. (Watch an Indiana Jones movie. ANY of them) Which enhances the action and the excitement of the story.

I get that some people want the Spotless Good Guy, as wells as the Unrepentant Bad Guy from time to time, me included. If the story in a game has limited choices it's because there must be a limit somewhere and, lets face it, someone else is writing it. No matter how much effort MWM puts into their desire to allow us to "Play like we want to play" they cannot design for infinite possibility. If you want the perfect outcome and an infinitude of options you should stick to writing your own stories and publishing your own comics. For myself, I embrace the fact that I'm allowing another creative person to determine the world and the immediate situation of a character I have designed myself. And I look forward to immersing myself in the challenge of navigating that world and that situation armed with the knowledge and power of my character. If things get dicy, or I have to contend with unforeseen damage to my reputation, I will continue to fight the good fight. Secure in the righteousness of my intentions. Heil Google! oh...wait....

JayBezz wrote:

The only people coming up with these draconian strawman poll decisions are people here on the forums with no understanding of the system and its purpose.

At its core the "3 axis" alignment system will be a spectrum of alignment possibilities. I actually suspect it may turn out to be impossible for any single character to be pegged 100% "good" or "evil" on all three of these scales at any given time. So in effect TheMightyPaladin's concerns here might be academically moot because no one will be able to be absolutely "perfect" regardless of what they do.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

But the reassuring words I was offered seemed to be based on the premise that I didn't know how the alignment system was going to work. I found it a little condescending.

The thing is, you don't know how the system is going to work, and yet, you've already determined that it is flawed and cannot work. Your entire argument is bent toward that bias. Never once have you provided even a hint of how you think it might or could possibly work.

I'll try my best to go over your concerns here. Not that I expect them to be fully alleviated, I don't believe that will occur until you've experienced the system through play.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

1) Honor
The possibility of being tricked by a vague situation or a situation where there IS NO right answer concerns me more in player made content than official content. But it's still a concern either way.
I don't have any reason to trust that the devs wont try to trick or trap me. The devs in COX did.
Remember Praetoria: it was an official part of the game and it was built around the idea that everything there was grey and there were no real good guys.
You were forced to align yourself with either the authorities or the rebels and both of them were bad.
There was no option to go it alone.

I agree with you over your concern of being tricked and I've stated that I too would be upset were it to happen to me. That being said, it is not the intent of the game that is being designed. You cite Praetorian content from CoX as example. The truth is that part of the game was purposefully intended play with fuzzy lines of morality. An example from our own history would be the Revolutionary War. The colonist militia were the bad guys to the British Regime, while the British Regime were the bad guys to those seeking indepenence. In many ways the militia conducted acts that were considered dishonorable. So not only were they considered criminals, they were considered dishonorable ones at that.Yet, to the militia, they were doing what was necessary for a good purpose, indeed U.S. history consideres those who approved and indeed participated in the actions against Britain to be heroes. It isn't cut and dry, black and white, but many grades of grey, some of which appear white or black based on the filter one is using to view the actions. But this has little bearing at how CoT would play.

If we were to use Praetoria as a basis, applying CoT's alignment system, the writing would have to be much more diverse, affording options on both sides (actually all 4 as there were sub-factions within each faction). The writing would have to provide options of choices that affected all three of the alignments both positively and negatively.

Or, it could be that Praetoria content would be content that was only available to those of a particular set of alignment variables, and not others. While there would need to be equitable content made available for those alignment variables that did not fit within the paradigm of the Praetorian content.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

2) Law and Violence
Players cannot be clear on what the outcome of a course of action are likely to be, because there are no clear standards we can base our expectations on, it depends on what the writer has in mind, and there are going to be a lot of different writers with different ideas about how it should turn out and how to judge the person who did it.
That's why I used the John McClain example:
When John threw a bunch of explosives down an elevator shaft, the results were totally up to the writer.
Will it end up like the movie? a big but harmless explosion that actually has no effect on the plot.
Will it end as it would in COH? all the bad guys are beaten and the civilians are saved because there is no such thing as collateral damage.
or will it end like it might in real life, the explosion kills almost everyone and burns down the building killing everyone else.
The effects of throwing the explosives will determine if throwing them is:
a dramatic, but pointless expression of outrage,
a good way to save everyone.
or a violent and unlawful act,
John knew what was going to happen, but unless the writer tells us, we won't, all we'll know is that we're going to be judged based on the results.

I've stated that all choices given will provide an indicator on how it will affect alignment prior to the choice being selected. Using your example again, the game writers would need to provide multiple options for what is going to happen with the bomb.

A very brief (and really simple) example could be:
Throw it down the elevator shaft and kill them all! Gain Dishonor, Gain Violence, Gain Unlawful
Diffuse the bomb and find a way to deal with the rest of the goons. Gain Honor, Gain NonViolence, Gain Lawful.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Another minor concernThe Law Axis
Finally, there is a lot of overlap between the law and violence axes. I can't imagine many situations where either would be effected without effecting both. But here's one:
In most MMOs we get a variety of dropped items by beating the bad guys, I expect that to be true in this game but it raises the question, how are we getting stuff from them? Are we robbing them? is it lawful for us to take dropped items? Aren't we at the very least removing evidence from the scene of a crime, and making it more likely that the bad guys we beat will escape from prosecution?

In general, drops won't affect alignment at all. If the alignment system were that obtuse it would definitely hinder general game play and the health of the over all game (only those ok with theivery would be getting drops in your example).

Instead a mission may offer a choice at some point: You come across some evidence linking so-and-so to a crime:
Take it to use for your own ends: Gain unlawful, gain dishonor
Report your find to the authorities: Gain lawful, gain honor

Later...
You receive a clue drop based on the evidience obtained at the crime scene and figure out what so-and-so is up to and its bad.
You go and stop so-and-so, get him to the breaking point where tempts you with a bribe. Do you...

Accept the bribe and let him go? Gain unlawful, gain honor (you honored your word to let him go after taking the bribe), gain Non-violence.
Take the cash and kill him for kicks? Gain unlawful, gain dishonor, gain violence.

Decline the bribe and...

Hand him over to the authorities to be put on trial and go to prison? Gain Lawful, Gain Honor, Gain Non-violence.
You kill so-and-so to make him pay for his crimes. Gain unlawful, gain violence, gain Dishonor.
Continue beating him senseless and call the authorities assured he can't escape will all his limbs broken multiple times. Gain Lawful, gain violence (honor / dishonor is a wash not affected).

Again, this is a very basic example of what has been outlined by the intent of the alignment system. Point being, the player will be told what choices will affect which portions of their alignment.

Greyhawk wrote:

TheMightyPaladin wrote:
By the way. Not that it matters, but I would have opposed the American Revolution. I believe it was unjustified.

I've stayed clear of this discussion because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Not anymore.
From my perspective you're a villain down to the core.
Either that, or dangerously ignorant of history.
Just my personal opinion, of course.

In games I play in the Term Lawful Stupid is used when talking about Paladins. He is not evil for feeling that way, he is lawful for feeling that way. Loyal law abiding person that believed the crown was in the right was in my eyes a good guy even if I'd have been a revolutionist myself. Revolts by definition are illegal.

I do not agree with TMP often and I find him abrasive and other less then nice things some posts. I however will defend him when I feel his is unfairly targeted.

I believe Marvel had a Registration Act. Captain America was against it Ironman was for it. Which one of those two is the villain Greyhawk?

I'm bad at doing embedded quotes, but I couldn't let this one go without a comment:

Tannim222 typed "Accept the bribe and let him go? Gain unlawful, gain honor (you honored your word to let him go after taking the bribe), gain Non-violence."

BWA-HA-HA-HA! You take the bribe and GAIN honor?!?!? How is that the honorable thing to do in any way shape or form? "You're so honorable because you DIDN'T lie to the CRIMINAL and take his bribe only to sell him out later because, you know, that was the RIGHT thing to do. For him, the criminal." It occurs to me that if you feel like the guy wasn't doing anything "wrong" then you'd either let him go and look the other way as he "escapes" or or take him in let the legitimate authorities sort out the whole mess, hoping that he will be exonerated after all. Either way, I don't think "honor" should be gained by TAKING the bribe there. In my book, once you take the bribe you ought to gain DIShonor whether you sell him out afterwards or let him go and keep your mouth shut. Selling him out probably get's you MORE dishonorable if he wasn't doing anything "wrong" whereas keeping your mouth shut might be construed as "dishonorable" if you KNOW he has plans for a death ray and intends to sell it to Dr. Doom.

Splitting hairs, I know, just had to get that off my chest...

Brighellac wrote:

One thing this thread shows without doubt is the wide range of opinions on an alignment system. It may be useful to have the mission writers read this thread before writing missions that impact alignment.

If anything it highlights that there will likely always be "questionable" alignment situations no matter how well thought out the various missions are going to be. This is an unavoidable consequence of the Devs trying to "hardwire" into a MMO game reward outcomes that can't be debated on the spot like they can be in a PnP game with a live human GM.

Regardless I still contend there will be enough leeway and flexibility in the overall game that even if there are few problematic cases they can mitigated/fixed as needed without calling into doubt the entire alignment system.

oOStaticOo wrote:

I do not believe that anybody should ever be 100% good or 100% evil, it's just not possible.

While many people can accept the idea that a character pegged at 100% goodness or 100% evilness on some kind of universal alignment scale is a philosophical/practical impossibility there are those who don't want to be burdened by that knowledge and would rather to stick to idealistically moral absolutes.

In Paladin's OP he says the following:

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

This is fine if you want to play some deeply flawed morally ambiguous hero who might cause just as much death and destruction as the dangerous villains he fights, but if you want to play a superhero you're screwed.

This statement strongly implies that his working idea of "superhero" equates to something that would somehow always have to be at 100% good. I suspect that he would consider a hero at even 95% good to effectively be "flawed" and less than perfect - again working under the assumption that 100% "perfection" is a realistically possible state of being.

It boils down to a matter of definitions/degrees and it could very well be that Paladin is having a hard time accepting that this game will NOT be dealing in those kinds of artificial absolutes he seems to want here.

That said, a "create your own superhero universe" game could be an interesting project for much, much later.

(One thing at a time. So many "the next game" ideas are out there already. And "the next game" is no more than a twinkle in our eye until we have at least a couple expansions of this one under our belt. Which means getting it out in the first place, first!)

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

Tanim, I appreciate most of your response and you have resolved my problems. I will withdraw my objections.
but the opening paragraph was just wrong man.

You've apparently taken something I've said as on offense, and for that I honesty apologize. It was not my intend to cause any hurt, I merely meant to eludicate an observation based on statements you've made.

TheMightyPaladin wrote:

I do. And I read all of the links you gave me and responded there.
Also I have said in this thread what I think the alignment system will be like. (which you claimed I had not)
So please don't try to insist that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I get that it's not set in stone yet. Which is why I bothered to start this thread.
If I thought it was too late I wouldn't bother.
I was only responding to what has been made known to us.
I can't do any more.
And If I'm expected to to less, then why bother telling us anything before the game comes out?

I was not insisting you don't know what you are talking about. Only that you didn't know how the system (as in the entirety thereof will work). What is given in the updates we have thus far are meant to provide minimal information to provide a basic understanding of design intention. When I said you didn't know how it worked, I only meant in the sense that only a basic description of the system was provided. If game developers provided indepth details of every system they intended to place into a game, they probably would never get the actual work done. The updates give only what is necessary to convey the idea.

It's like my how my 8 year old son knows what a car is, and that there's a pedal to make it go and a brake, but he doesn't know how it all actual works. He'll have a better idea when he drives one, a even better understanding as his general knowledge of automobiles increases, and even more understanding if he read manuals. But for now, if I were to bring up the concept of a car with him, he has the basic idea of what I'm talking about. It is at least an example of what updates are suppossed to do.

Again, I'm truly sorry if I offended you in any manner. And I'm glad you seem to have a better grasp of what the intent of the system is based on my very basic examples. Keep that critical mind of yours sharp when you actually get to test and / or play the game as feedback will be essential to those working on the game.

I think "honor" means something more than "honesty". If a dastardly villain says "I'm going to kill you for no good reason." then kills you, that isn't an honorable act, no matter how honest he was about it. The honorable thing would have been not to kill someone if you have no particularly great reason to do so.

Just my two cents, but I have a real problem with calling unabashed villainy "honorable" simply because nobody's being duplicitous or ambiguous about it. So if that's the way that axis is going to work, you should call it the "honesty" axis, not "honor", I think.

Cute Kitsune wrote:

I believe Marvel had a Registration Act. Captain America was against it Ironman was for it. Which one of those two is the villain Greyhawk?

Ironman. Registration is always a bad idea. It is always a preclude to some form of oppression, even if the oppression is not performed by the original creators of the Registration Act.

History is very clear. Registration always leads to oppression. It is the #1 tool of tyrants. I even oppose a national census. Very dangerous. Metadata in the wrongs hands never, ever ends well.

Greyhawk wrote:

Cute Kitsune wrote:
I believe Marvel had a Registration Act. Captain America was against it Ironman was for it. Which one of those two is the villain Greyhawk?

Ironman. Registration is always a bad idea. It is always a preclude to some form of oppression, even if the oppression is not performed by the original creators of the Registration Act.
History is very clear. Registration always leads to oppression. It is the #1 tool of tyrants. I even oppose a national census. Very dangerous. Metadata in the wrongs hands never, ever ends well.

Any tool in the wrong hands is bad. Homeless registration can be used to oppress. A shovel is no more evil then a knife but in wrong hands can bash in a skull. Yet a knife is a more effective tool for wrong hands and there for considered a weapon by more easily able to end a life in so many ways.

Place those same three tools in the right hands and you have, More effective handling of management of where food is needed as homeless shelters were required to register how many homeless they supported, a garden full of fresh veggies, a kitchen with cut veggies ready to be served to the homeless thanks to that registration.

Your blaming the tool for the wielder of it. Think about the evil MWM could do with your credit card info when you give it to them. They know your name / address and more. At some point we have to trust someone somewhere a little. So the question is not, why is registration such a bad idea? Because you ... very rightly ... don't trust it to be used properly. The question is how could one regulate the tool and those who use it so that it wouldn't be used for ill by the wrong hands?

The interesting thing to this is, we are actually agreeing on the core of it. We just disagree on Ironman being a villain from his stance alone. He is doing the right thing for the right reason for the wrong people. Captain America is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons for the right people.

Cute Kitsune wrote:

*snip*
The interesting thing to this is, we are actually agreeing on the core of it. We just disagree on Ironman being a villain from his stance alone. He is doing the right thing for the right reason for the wrong people. Captain America is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons for the right people.

IMO, Ironman was doing the wrong thing (supporting the incarceration of metahumans who had not been convicted of any crime and imprisoning those people in a hostile environment) for the wrong reason (the data Reed Richards had was inflated as the result of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damage_Control_%28comics%29#Corruption_at_the_top]the actions of a relatively few people[/url], trying to drum up business). Captain America was doing the right thing (opposing the violation of the rights of people).

Only thing saving Ironman from being a complete villain in my opinion during that period is that he may not have realized what Walter Declun was doing and/or how that affected Reed's data, so he may have honestly believed his actions were saving the world.

Greyhawk wrote:

Society functions best and provides the widest distribution of resources when each individual is empowered to provide for themselves. Cooperation, not conformity, is the natural state of human society. The more regimentalized a society becomes, the more quickly it collapses when confronted with an unanticipated stress. The more regimentalized, the less freedom there is to even contemplate the existence of unanticipated stresses, which increases both the likelihood of those stresses occurring and the likelihood of them being unrecognized until collapse has become irreversible.

Wait, isnt that the backstory for much of the Gold Side from CoH/V? ;)

Interestingly, there are supporters of the American Revolution who would agree with The Mighty Paladin's assessment that George III gave the colonies lower taxes and more freedoms than US citizens today enjoy. They would point this out as a serious, serious problem, and a reason to change modern tax and liberty-encroaching policies, [i]not[/i] as a reason to state that the Revolution was unjustified.

And, in the interests of not derailing this further, nor turning it into a political debate, I will stop there. I just felt that mentioning that there's an alternate way to look at the same agreed-upon facts was...important.

Percentages are the basis for the comparison. And like I said, people agree with TMP's assessment, but draw a near-opposite conclusion therefrom. Debating whether they're right or not is really a topic for some other forum, or at least the general discussion subforum. (I have to clamp hard on this, myself, as politics and policy are subjects I will gleefully spend hours discussing.)

Cute Kitsune wrote:

If you remove the data manipulation aspect and you treat it as factual data that was 100% truth does that change you view? The story was written one way but it could have been written the other. I stand by the statement he did the right thing (legal) for the right reason (to protect people) for the wrong reason (scumbag liar). He just had the misfortune of being manipulated by the wrong hands. Had the story gone the other way. C.A. would have been doing the Wrong thing (illegal) for the right reason (Freedom) for the wrong people (meta humans that were out of control).

Not by much. I consider the Registration Act as presented in that storyline to be a both unconstitutional (though supported by in-canon precedent as far as registration goes, but not the Negative Zone prison) and far in excess of what was needed to solve the perceived problem.

Forgive me, for I have summoned a wall of text.

I believe that a morality system that's as tangible as a red and blue bar isn't typically what can be considered good morality, but that's based on what morality has in store.

The core reason as to why morality plays an important role in a game, to the degree that a stat is dedicated to it, is usually because the game has a system in place that would invoke bonuses and specific abilities or gear based around that morality (see inFamous and the need to be evil to do sith-style chain lightning). Allowing you access to certain traits when your character 'becomes' that kind of person does provide some incentive to not sit on the fence, but can also provide problems with immersion, as the game is no longer your story, but rather the story of a guy you're guiding around, not to mention your choices no longer being story-based, but made due to the need for specific gear.

Again, on the flipside, there is a valid reason as to why it persists, and that's to offer the player a clear sense of progression, at least in terms of acquiring the previously mentioned gear, abilities etc. If the morality system was invisible, the player would have no idea why or how they would receive such items. Inversely, if the morality system was visible, but you gained nothing from it other than the game telling you how good or bad you are, then the system loses its purpose, and would be much better served through the reactions and interactions one has with the environment around them.

From experience in things like DnD, the morality system that MWN seems to capitalise on isn't strictly the difference between Good and Evil, but rather Law and Chaos. In another sense, I see some similarities (not many, mind you) in Fable 2's system where one could be good or evil, but also Kind or Cruel, leading to possibilities of extremist and violent good guys or diplomatic and courteous villains.

The thing about Paladins in general is that they find themselves locked into the Lawful Good option, as they strive to do good by the world, and judge that good by a strict code set forth by the God they choose to follow, the Order that the grew up with in training or something discovered in their youth. How they act by the code, however, can be radically different depending on that code, or their interpretation of it. In addition, that code by which they follow doesn't always coincide with the Laws of the pervading government.

Superman vs The Elite is quite possibly the best example of a Lawful Good character struggling with the continually ambiguous nature of the modern day, it's a terrific story, one of the great examples of why Superman is still a likeable character in my eyes, at least, and is definitely worth the watch/read. It also acts as something that allows such characters to have a development arc: what happens when the code they well and truly believe in presents a flaw, one so significant, it contradicts a sizeable amount of what they stand for? What happens when they realise, or are made to think that the system is broken?

I think the core problem in any game in which Morality is present, even with this design, is that players who are too aware of it will feel 'shackled to the morality of the writer', if that's appropriate. While it's good to try and provide something that doesn't have a solid edge to it, it's going to be nigh impossible to provide enough choices that could permit a player to be well and truly comfortable with their decisions lest we have designed the most powerful AI known to man, and provided appropriate fail-safes to prevent true sentience/sapience/whatever it will be.

Lawful Characters needn't always be good, but rather neutral because they will only ever follow a set of rules, regardless of its metaphysical implications (Judge Dredd) or evil because they impose and enforce the laws by which they wish to live by (Lord Recluse and Doctor Doom). While Hyperion was still considered a villain, a large part of him was Lawful.

So, for the most part, it's a matter of thinking about how your character would handle a situation. I can tell that it will definitely make the game VERY RP friendly, if the system as described goes through. After all, a Hero is not something you can rightfully call yourself, it is a title bestowed upon you by others, at least that's how I view it.

I suppose my only concern would be how the system would be impacted by standard mechanics. For example, would an Enforcer with the Surprise Attack Mastery lose points in Honor by not starting a fight face to face? Would an Operator recieve the same penalty by not fighting one on one and having dudes back you up? A little bit of a complex aspect, I know, but I am dreadfully curious.

I have question that I feel has not been answered.

I the Anti Villain group with TheMightyPaladin. He wants to "Disable to nuke and dispose of the core." Lawful NonViolent I want to "Disable the Nuke and Keep the Core for later use." Unlawful NonViolent. How does the story play out if we are the only 2 on the mission and we disagree?