Morality Mod [WIP]
wolpak
Member Posts: 390
I have started to expand upon a mod I was working on years ago that tried to make better sense of the reputation system and followers, but now expanded with alignment and charisma. Right now this is a work in progress, but I'd like to see if I could get feedback on what makes sense. So, here are the features of the proposed mod (some functional, some still in development.
-Alignment: This has always been a sticking point in CRPGs as you can be lawful good and steal and kill innocents and it doesn't matter in the game world. It has some impact on your party members, but I think it should be more significant. There are two parts to alignment, Morality (Good, Neutral, Evil) and Order (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic). I feel that morality is subjective and I tend to think that Good more means selfless and Evil tends to me more selfish. Order then determines how you fill those needs, within the rules or outside the rules.
-Reputation: First, good rep and bad rep aren't as black and white anymore. You will draw attention either way at the extremes, but the more notoriety you have, the more shops will give you discounts. Mafia bosses and Robin Hood both have bad reputations (well, depending on who you talk to), but both could be considered chaotic, but one is evil and the other is good (so to speak, it is relative). This is more focused on how you handle Order rather than your Morality. What this means is that store owners will give discounts on goods if you have extreme reputation and none if you are anonymous.
Reputation is also not static. It will move back to the middle with time. The more reputation you have, the slower it will move, but if you are slow to build reputation, it will keep you in the anonymous area longer.
Additionally, reputation will have a real life affect where if you have an extremely low reputation, Flaming Fists will come and track you down (as it is now). If you have a really high reputation, every spot where a flaming fist was called, an assassin will be called instead. The benefits of maintaining anonymity.
-Followers: A lot of this will have impact on your followers. First, Charisma will be the first modifier to how many followers you can have. Low Charisma, you are a loner, unless you have sufficiently enough reputation. People will follow a famous guy who is just a terrible person to be around. So, it's possible to keep followers who are of the same Order as you, with proper reputation, even with low Charisma.
Followers also care about your Morality and how it compares to their own. If you are good and they are bad, it will bother them. It will affect their morale (who feels great about following someone who is diametrically apposed to you morally speaking). This will cause them to have more morale breaks than before (which should make battle more interesting). There will be more things that have an effect on their morale, like, getting hit for a lot of damage. You go to 25% HP, and you don't even like the dude you are following, you will go into panic mode. Also, a players Charisma will have an impact on morale as well.
Certain followers will have a permanent impact on your reputation. Someone like Viconia used to temporarily lower your reputation. Now, she recenters it at 8 (instead of 10). Adjantis will recenter your reputation at 12 instead of 10. While they balance out each other, good luck keeping them happy on your squad.
The overall goal of this is to make reputation, alignment, morale and charisma be more useful, have real world impact and create another aspect to the game so many have played over and over. Any thoughts/advice would be welcome.
-Alignment: This has always been a sticking point in CRPGs as you can be lawful good and steal and kill innocents and it doesn't matter in the game world. It has some impact on your party members, but I think it should be more significant. There are two parts to alignment, Morality (Good, Neutral, Evil) and Order (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic). I feel that morality is subjective and I tend to think that Good more means selfless and Evil tends to me more selfish. Order then determines how you fill those needs, within the rules or outside the rules.
-Reputation: First, good rep and bad rep aren't as black and white anymore. You will draw attention either way at the extremes, but the more notoriety you have, the more shops will give you discounts. Mafia bosses and Robin Hood both have bad reputations (well, depending on who you talk to), but both could be considered chaotic, but one is evil and the other is good (so to speak, it is relative). This is more focused on how you handle Order rather than your Morality. What this means is that store owners will give discounts on goods if you have extreme reputation and none if you are anonymous.
Reputation is also not static. It will move back to the middle with time. The more reputation you have, the slower it will move, but if you are slow to build reputation, it will keep you in the anonymous area longer.
Additionally, reputation will have a real life affect where if you have an extremely low reputation, Flaming Fists will come and track you down (as it is now). If you have a really high reputation, every spot where a flaming fist was called, an assassin will be called instead. The benefits of maintaining anonymity.
-Followers: A lot of this will have impact on your followers. First, Charisma will be the first modifier to how many followers you can have. Low Charisma, you are a loner, unless you have sufficiently enough reputation. People will follow a famous guy who is just a terrible person to be around. So, it's possible to keep followers who are of the same Order as you, with proper reputation, even with low Charisma.
Followers also care about your Morality and how it compares to their own. If you are good and they are bad, it will bother them. It will affect their morale (who feels great about following someone who is diametrically apposed to you morally speaking). This will cause them to have more morale breaks than before (which should make battle more interesting). There will be more things that have an effect on their morale, like, getting hit for a lot of damage. You go to 25% HP, and you don't even like the dude you are following, you will go into panic mode. Also, a players Charisma will have an impact on morale as well.
Certain followers will have a permanent impact on your reputation. Someone like Viconia used to temporarily lower your reputation. Now, she recenters it at 8 (instead of 10). Adjantis will recenter your reputation at 12 instead of 10. While they balance out each other, good luck keeping them happy on your squad.
The overall goal of this is to make reputation, alignment, morale and charisma be more useful, have real world impact and create another aspect to the game so many have played over and over. Any thoughts/advice would be welcome.
Post edited by wolpak on
4
Comments
The plan is to have Oublek manage bounties and bribes to keep the random encounters from occurring for a week or so.
Additionally, events like an NPCS losing 50% and 75% of their life will lower their morality each by one. If Charname loses 75% or more of his health, the whole party’s morale drops by one.
Alignment will affect morale. For each step. You get a -1 to morale. If you are good or evil and they are neutral, -1 to morale and if you are opposite alignments, -2. This will make the bards song and spells to help morale, as well as managing your team efficiently more important.
HP < 50% (0-3)
HP < 20% (1-4)
Prot HP <50 (1)
Prot HP < 20 (1-2)
Negative State (1)
Cursed (0-1)
Fatigued (0-1)
BeenInParty (0-1)
If the number in parentheses is a range, then the specified character's morale will be lowered somewhere in that range based on a random number modified by the protagonist's charisma.
For example: A party member gets hit and passes the 50% HP threshold. A roll is made, determining how much (if any, morale is lost). For HP < 50%, it's a d8. Then either add or subtract the charisma modifier to that number and that's how much morale is lost, minimum of 0, maximum of 3.
1-2 = 0
3-4 = -1
5-6 = -2
7-8 = -3
Protagonist has a Charisma of 14 (every point over 10 is +1, under 10 is -1) and the roll is 5, no morale is lost. If an 8 is rolled, 8-4= 4, one morale is lost. So, if the protagonist has a charisma of 16 or more, you will never see morale lost if one of your party members loses more than 50% of their HP.
High enough charisma can offset losing morale triggers except in a few situations. If the protagonist's HPs fall below 50%, the entire party will have morale adjusted. Whenever these states are fixed (healed, cure poison, rest, the morale goes back up, except for Been in Party. If you keep on adding and removing a party member, it will piss them off, unless you are charming enough.