You know you\'ve played too many video games when you think about things like that, Cyl and Jakob...

Yes, that would be acceptable to me. That way people who don\'t want to use it aren\'t stuck with it. That also enables people who actually want to use it in-game still can - that\'s a better idea then making everyone use it or taking it out completely.

Also, I don\'t know if Drakky is still reading this, but I can\'t give anymore reasoned arguments for you - I\'m arguing from the point of Devil\'s advocate anyway, and I\'ve more than defended enough of other people\'s views of what good and evil can mean. If you really don\'t believe anybody except yourself can possibly, even a little bit, be correct, or at least have another valid view point of what good and evil mean, outside of \'good = nice\' \'evil = suffering\' then the discussion was really pointless from the start. I assumed you wanted to know about other people\'s ideas, I wasn\'t trying to dissuade you from yours. That\'s all I asked for myself as well, and I\'ve accepted time and time again that your definition of the terms is a perfectly valid one and many people would find it meaningful. This idea you have that no one else\'s concepts are meaningful, even to them, though, really is ludicrous, and I don\'t shy away from using that term in this instance.

I misrepresented myself when I said one cannot use reason with those terms, what I meant was that one could use reason to make those terms mean anything at all. One might reason that \'good\' has to be based on \'right\' actions - being good and doing good is doing things one ought to do. That is not an unreasonable definition of \'good\'. \'Good\' is as subjective as \'right\'. One might believe that what is \'good\' is what God decides is \'good\' - for instance: an orthodox Jew believes that doing the mitzvot of the Torah is good because God has said they are good. Things are right or wrong and good or evil depending on what God dictates in the Torah - the commanded actions are not always logical or explained (how can not eating one animal or another whilst eating another one - and seemingly by arbitrary standards - be described as either good or right?) but they are always good because God says so. Here, you will notice, right and wrong and good and evil are inextricably linked - one ought to do what God says AND what God says is right AND what God says is Good. You are not doing Good by doing Wrong actions. It is not a confusion of terms, it is simply a different definition of them than yours. One ought to do what God says because God says it - morality is defined by God\'s word. If God had said to Moses when giiving the Torah \"And all Jews must rape children, which he wouldn\'t because God is not only Good and Right, but also Loving (see, in this definition, welfare is separated from good/evil - which refer ONLY to whether God commanded it or not) but if he had, then raping children would be both Good and Right, though not loving or pleasant. The two things are unconnected. An orthodox Jew might say you are confusing your terms, because Good and Evil only refer to God\'s commands, not to whether the actions are pleasant or logical or increase welfare.

This is only one example. Just face it Drakky ol\' buddy, you CAN\'T be correct about this, because nobody can. It\'s non-falsifiable and subjective and dependent on individual believe. There is not one consensual definitive definition of the terms Good and Evil (just as you\'ve already admitted there aren\'t for Right and Wrong). Each person will have his own working definition, and there is absolutely no need for that definition to be based on the consequences of the actions, pain/pleasure debates or any of the infinity of other arguments put forward to explain what is good or evil. This debate has raged on since the dawn of humankind\'s conscience, why do you presume to be able to give the correct answer? The best you can do is give the answer you believe is correct, which I respect as applicable and meaningful to you and probably many others, but not to everyone, nor can it be. To me, for instance, you definition yields no meaning, nor to an orthodox Jew, nor to many other people.

You\'ve argued consistently that they should be put into the game based on their benefits, as you saw them, that they were useful to newbies and helpful to older RPGers. Haven\'t you?

And, then, how would you define a right action and a wrong action - which is what most people would call your good/evil, I suspect.

Also, you definition of good/evil is purely secularist. For religious folk good/evil depends on how faitful/permitted their actions are in their religion, for knights of the round table it was how closely their actions matched the chivalry archetype, etc,. Don\'t pretend good and evel are just simple concepts with a shared definition by everyone. No matter what your dictionary dictates.

With the equalisation of homosexual age of consent laws, the age of consent for both boys and girls is 16... although notice you still have to call \'em boys and girls, not men and women. Not that I\'m prudish about that stuff, people will do it when they do it, and law never has nor ever will change that, but still...

I just clicked \"report\" instead of \"reply\", so some moderator is gonna get mighty P.O.\'d at me...

Wanna play PS now, will retype my response later.

*edited to include \'reported post\' ;)*

Yes, sorry, but in posts previously I had stated my arguments against your reasons for including the alignment system, and I wondered whether you had a counter to them.

Also, Draclar, I\'m confusing good and evil with right and wrong (firstly, I simply don\'t believe that by an definition one chooses those concepts are as separate as you would wish to convince us) but I think both sets of concepts fall under the same banner of meaninglessness. One cannot be good or evil, just as one cannot DO good or evil, just as one cannot do something right or wrong. As concepts in themselves, in my belief system, they simply do not exist. And what is your thing with always being right? Since both are systems are non-falsifiable, it\'s more a case of neither of us being provable wrong.

But even if your system is exactly how everything works, that doesn\'t change my basic argument for not including them in PS.

Don\'t worry, mistakes happen :) --Karyuu

Okay, I really don\'t want to be dragged into a philosophical discussion about this, since it\'s all about the gameplay, but I reject the very foundations of those definitions. I don\'t think \'good\', \'evil\' or \'neutral\' have any meaning. I do not think a single person is good or evil or balanced - I do not think actions have meaning in that sense, I do not think \'values\' in that way exist. While people may seem themselves in one category or another I think the very categories themselves are illusory. There are no good or bad actions, only actions; there are no good or bad consequences, only consequences. I don\'t care if you accept or reject this view, and I don\'t want to be drawn into some sort of argument about it, you asked me a question and I gave you an answer. There are no categories, at least in my opinion, and you are entitled to your own (I guess... JK). However, I wouldn\'t wish to impose my philosophy on the gaming community as a whole, and I don\'t want the alignment system imposed on me or the community as a whole. What purpose does it serve? It doesn\'t help new RPGers, it gives them crutches so they don\'t have to develop their character, and it limits those of us who would do away with it. By not having any trace of it at all, those who want to use it are still free to (heck, they can even put it in their character descriptions themselves), but no one iis forced to.

They\'ve done a similar (or maybe the same) thing in Sims 2 - I haven\'t played it yet so I don\'t know how that works - so surely a similar system tied to skill stats isn\'t too difficult. Just working out how a stat decreases is the difficult part (and, I guess, what appearance should be bound to which stat, etc.).

But I like the idea that once you\'re good at something, if you stop practising you\'ll slowly become worse at it. So even if you become a great mage, if you then stop doing magic for a month, when you come back to trying magic, you won\'t be nearly so powerful as you were before. That\'s a brilliant idea, whoever came up with that one, because, by the time PS is in its final form, some of the characters would have had time to perfect almost all the skills (unless they get wiped :S) which would have the \"what now\" feel, and take away from the realism.