Alright, my question is simply this, what does alignment mean in the CF world? Now, I've played ADnD, which seems to be (for the most part) what the CF Alignment system is based on, and I could likely tell you precisely what the textbook alignment is of each combination and give several examples, however, and I'm sure many of you have noticed, there are many, many gray areas.

For one, Lightwalkers are able to, time and again, go on a murderous rampage and stay Lightwalkers because they believe that the person they're murdering is bad. Now, the reason I see for that being allowed is because there's a war mindset in this world, same reason there are murderous Svirfs and Druids. I have no problem with that, and this post isn't a rant or flame or anything, it's actual curiousity.

What does it take for someone's alignment to be changed? How much does a person have to do to be in risk of such? Is it simply a matter of the alignment of the victims the person targets, or is there more to it?

I'm also curious of sphere deception characters. Tiatan was borderline evil for a very long time, in my opinion, but I feel he truly was neutral. Other sphere deception characters might not be. If I had a sphere deception character who was evil and pretending to be neutral or neutral and pretending to be good, under what obligation would I be to have them have their true alignment? Spells like detect good, detect evil, and know alignment, as well as the nexus power, are very powerful against such a character, were they to wear their actual alignment and not the one in which they were pretending to be. It would, more than likely, completely destroy their story. The only way to defend against such an ability would be to avoid those people completely, and that's nearly impossible to do, if you still want to interact with people.

I suppose the more important question is, can a person get away with roleplaying one alignment when, in their hearts, they know a character is of a different alignment? What would it take for the Imms to change the character?

Finally, how many lightwalkers can a lightwalker kill to lose their lightwalking status? What sorts of justifications does a lightwalker need for killing lightwalkers to stay light? How murderous does a neutral need to become before he'll be changed to evil? What would an evil need to do to no longer be considered evil?

These are just some of the questions I had after having played a sphere deception character, a lightwalker with no qualms killing other lightwalkers, and dealing with murderous battleragers and outlanders. If anyone has any other alignment questions they'd like to ask, feel free. I'm just starting this for a discussion on alignment so that it may be better understood. Enjoy.

>Alright, my question is simply this, what does alignment mean
>in the CF world? Now, I've played ADnD, which seems to be
>(for the most part) what the CF Alignment system is based on,
>
>
>For one, Lightwalkers are able to, time and again, go on a
>murderous rampage and stay Lightwalkers because they believe
>that the person they're murdering is bad. Now, the reason I
>see for that being allowed is because there's a war mindset in
>this world, same reason there are murderous Svirfs and Druids.

I can't figure out what you mean here. Lawful good paladins don't go on rampages through an orc army threatening a nearby human settlement in ADND? Lawful good elves don't fight bloody wars with lawful good dwarves in ADND? Usually those two races are more at odds than not.
Perhaps a classic case: A lawful good sheriff, if he's on the strong side of lawful, won't ignore the depredations of a Robin Hood figure. Both are good aligned, but their choices and committments find them at odds. This happens all the time in both ADND and Carrion Fields.


>
>What does it take for someone's alignment to be changed? How
>much does a person have to do to be in risk of such? Is it
>simply a matter of the alignment of the victims the person
>targets, or is there more to it?
>

While experienced in ADND, I'm a slowly maturing newbie on CF, and have been for years. However, I think it's pretty clear from Imm comments and forum posts that alignment is judged pretty much on how the objective consequences of actions reflect intent. Obviously there is more to it in CF than just the alignment of the target, because the Sunwarden can fight a good aligned tribunal, or even dwarven miner, etc, just as an example.

In real life, 'good' isn't a single monolithic intent. It can't be, because the world is more complex than that. Priests who value telling the truth have always sheltered refugees against persecution, because they prioritize human life and freedom from injustice higher.
Ethics are a complex set of prioritizations and relative importances, not just a simplistic assignment of some values to "good."

Similarly, in carrion fields, variations in role of Lightwalkers must answer the question of: within the vast set of things that are 'good', which are more important? Ethos does a good job of highlighting some of those decisions. Which is why it's easy to see why a lightwalking tribunal might view slaying a bunch of outlaws who seek to topple civilization as necessary. Other choices can be viewed the same way. Within the loosely defined set of objective standards of good, which values are more important?


>
>might not be. If I had a sphere deception character who was
>evil and pretending to be neutral or neutral and pretending to
>be good, under what obligation would I be to have them have
>their true alignment? Spells like detect good, detect evil,
>and know alignment, as well as the nexus power, are very
>powerful against such a character, were they to wear their
>

Again, I'm not sure what you mean here. Sphere deception is not a joker in the alignment deck. The character's alignment is the character's alignment. The character must always "have" their alignment. I can't even think of why a deception would be relevant here. Thinking of deception out of context doesn't really make any sense. Think of a priest pre Civil War sheltering refugees in the Underground Railroad.

>I suppose the more important question is, can a person get
>away with roleplaying one alignment when, in their hearts,
>they know a character is of a different alignment? What would
>it take for the Imms to change the character?
>e

Again, this sounds very unclear to me, either due to phrasing or because it's an ill posed musing. See above. It sounds to me like the question is: "I'm a sphere deception neutral good human warrior. I'm going to walk around killing innocents left and right to earn my 'spurs' with team evil. At what point does this character lose his alignment?" Erk. I know you mean something more thoughtful than that, that's just the best I can figure out the words without further clarification.

>Finally, how many lightwalkers can a lightwalker kill to lose
>their lightwalking status? What sorts of justifications does
>a lightwalker need for killing lightwalkers to stay light?
>How murderous does a neutral need to become before he'll be
>changed to evil? What would an evil need to do to no longer
>be considered evil?
>

Interesting continuance, see above. How many DEA agents does a good DEA agent have to shoot in the head while undercover trying to bust a narcotics operation? How many innocent children?

<i>Similarly, in carrion fields, variations in role of Lightwalkers must answer the question of: within the vast set of things that are 'good', which are more important? Ethos does a good job of highlighting some of those decisions. Which is why it's easy to see why a lightwalking tribunal might view slaying a bunch of outlaws who seek to topple civilization as necessary. Other choices can be viewed the same way. Within the loosely defined set of objective standards of good, which values are more important?</i>

Carefully, here. Although a LG Tribunal might see slaying those outlaws as necessary, what this creates is an internal conflict between the character's Orderly motivators and the Light motivators. If the character continually prioritizes Order over Light and gives no sign of an internal conflict in values, then I'd question whether the Light component is even a value. If not, then I'd say that person is playing a neutral.

><i>Similarly, in carrion fields, variations in role of
>Lightwalkers must answer the question of: within the vast set
>of things that are 'good', which are more important? Ethos
>does a good job of highlighting some of those decisions. Which
>is why it's easy to see why a lightwalking tribunal might view
>slaying a bunch of outlaws who seek to topple civilization as
>necessary. Other choices can be viewed the same way. Within
>the loosely defined set of objective standards of good, which
>values are more important?</i>
>
>Carefully, here. Although a LG Tribunal might see slaying
>those outlaws as necessary, what this creates is an internal
>conflict between the character's Orderly motivators and the
>Light motivators. If the character continually prioritizes
>Order over Light and gives no sign of an internal conflict in
>values, then I'd question whether the Light component is even
>a value. If not, then I'd say that person is playing a
>neutral.

There are situations where this example is correct, however your conclusions are not. For a particular role, you might be correct. However, while I believe it is a true that a role must answer the primary question of: within the objective standards of 'good' on Thera, which are most important...it is not necessarily true that the
order of priority in ethics a character has must show internal conflict to validate or display the prioritization.

For example, take the hypthotical priest in the situation I outlined in my prior post. He doesn't have to show a conflict between lying to unjust authorities (early christians in Rome come to mind) and protecting refugees in order to properly show that he does value telling the truth, but he values human life more.

The idea of internal conflict as necessary is a false one. What he does need to show is that in the absence of a higher priority, he will value the truth. In your example above: in the absence of a true threat to civilization which the lawful good sheriff believes is the best way benefit everyone, or other higher priorities, he must show that he does value the other components of good.

I don't really see someone with the moral integrity of Galahad showing a lot of internal conflict while they move through their choices.

to the immortals than it does to the playerbase. Comments in Naloril's pbf suggest that at least some players are all too eager to ignore their alignment if they have a thinly-veiled excuse, whether it is goodies killing other goodies or evil types who are chummy with their allies.

I'd think sphere deception would work a little better as an evil than as a good or even neutral. I recently had a sphere deception evil who just acts however he thinks will get him what he wants. Sometimes you can take this far and sometimes you have to hold back a bit.

One thing I was quite proud of was ranking with a couple goodies on Mount Calandayrl. But yes, it can be extremely difficult especially at higher ranks when most goodies have detect align. But I gladly ranked with goodies at lower ranks and that suited him just fine. I found it more interesting though to try and make this character act and react to other characters' personalities, deceiving then in simple ways. Talking to a giant or orc? Talk stupid. Speaking with am Elf? Speak intelligently. Speaking with that dark elf who thinks he's really mean? Act mean as well. Most of the time just talking all cheery to everybody, like that sick neighbor who you never suspect is a serial killer.. muahaha. Playing along with all the cabals as if I was out to help only them. Things like that. This sorta worked because I didn't play the character too much and he was a hiding class. Also the dios boards messed it up when a log of him gets in there a couple times. It also helps to be an ambiguously aligned race.

Again though, as an evil I justified this because he cared zero for those around him. With a neutral I wouldn't have felt able to "trick" people as much. As a good, well, probably not at all. Unless it was tricking evils? Hrrm..

Anyways sorry for the digression there, probably didn't answer any questions you posed though, really ;-)

Here is how I have viewed things for the past several years (prior to that alignment was a bit murkier).

1. The information under "help alignment" is the best guide. Those descriptions are fairly general guidelines for alignment/ethos combos.

2. The information in "help alignment change" is important. Essentially, roleplay your alignment. Unfortunately if you want to deceive someone, you shouldn't do it by picking good then acting evil (even as sphere deception) unless you want to suffer the consequences and get turned evil. The imms will change your alignment if you are seen regularly acting in ways contrary to your alignment.

3. Detect good and evil are just a pain, and if people could roll up evil characters that appeared to be good, there would be chaos. Chaos I tell you.

T

It gave me a decent idea on how this is viewed, though perhaps Linolaques is right and the post was too long, in which case, I'll just have to make some characters to push the envelope and really find out, though they should be interesting. I suppose brevity's never been one of my strengths.

I really expected more response than this.

I can only speak for myself, but it seems like a LOT of work to read a long post on a very broad subject and construct a cogent reply.

If it was one question or something, or a nice terse scenario I probably would have read it and possibly replied, but I opened it up and thought: This is going to make me think more than I want to right now. I'd rather go look at hottt pix on myspace or something.

Sorry, you probably put a lot of work into it and it's probably pertinent--just thought it might help you to know why one person (and possibly others) didn't read and respond.