I'd prefer to put evil against good with some neutral in there to make things interesting. Maeva will have plot for all 3 sides, and plenty of dynamic quests from kidnappings to rescues. What you do will help determine what alignment you end up. I also account for chaotic and lawful. (blatantly taken from d20, which I owe a lot of my inspiration to) Committing crimes and initiating combat makes you more chaotic. (You can still be lawful and slay a lot of creatures, as there will be plenty of things that will be agro towards you right off the bat anyways) Using services in towns like shops and temples makes you more lawful. There are chaotic gods, but they have less organized temple functions, and probably won't be doing anything that the average adventurer wants to stop in and take advantage of.

Programmers usually make a story for a "good" alignment because most people are used to the "hero" story. Evil still needs some sort of motivation, and, generally, it ends up following some sort of "goodly" agenda, just by different means. As for neutral, the way I see it, more RPGs are more of a neutral slay anything that moves for the sweet sweet equipment and experience it gives, which is totally not a "good" alignment way of doing things. People try to remedy this by making everything in the world evil and nasty or just plain aggressive, which is ok for gameplay, but terrible for realism

This is the reason that, in general, the "evil side" is selected as your enemy: it allows players to face monsters, when being evil allows you to be be a monster (sometimes), but you just fight the same ol' humans up until the very end... In other words, it's a lot harder to make a whole RPG with a story about evil killing good, because evil is usually "mindless destruction", especially because in order to be "evil", they really can't have a cause other than "kill everyone", when "good"'s causes to defeat evil are unlimited.

Elation wrote:

Sim City
The Sims

Tell me how to turn evil in those. =)

Oh, I really don't consider that evil (well, you, the creator is evil, but not the "main guy" himself).

Like in The Sims, you were the Sims "master", or whatever. Sure, you could torture him, but the Sim himself couldn't be evil. =)

Unless there's a feature where you can go around stabbing other Sims I missed out on...

Xeal wrote:

Why do programmars make RPGs with a story for 'good' alignment? Why not 'evil','neutral'? Somebod should make a game about elimating the 'good' side.

Why bother with good and evil when you can strike off in new directions and do something original?

If you're in a fantasy setting and have a panoply of creatures and environments, why not base everything on affinity and reaction? That is, some creatures will be natural allies or enemies of other kinds, and to varying degrees; perhaps some friendship will be strained, or some enemies can be known to work together. Instead of including "law" for good and evil, base everything on how your own race/guild/clan/unit is affected. In such an RPG a player could effectively play as any creature, whether one of the "people" races or a monster type.

Say you have vampires: A vampire will try to kill for its own good, but if it overpredates, it will hurt the other vampires in the community and will also provoke stronger reactions from the human population.

Consider this setup overlaid on a standard RPG environment. A thief will cause minor problems to the community, but will also benefit his family and any partners by providing income. A centaur can slay wolves in the forest as much as he wants, but trafficking pelts with humans is something he should keep limited if he wants to stay in the good graces of most other centaurs. A dwarf who gets into a fist fight with an elf would probably be applauded by his friends, but killing an elf would be way over the line.

Lummox JR

What? The *player* was evil- it's nothing to do with the sim itself. I said players were naturally evil.

Once I made this kid and his dad take turns to stand on one tile of land surrounded by swimming pool, whilst the other treaded water 'til it was his turn again. It was pretty funny.

Do you mean something lik Evil is how you interpret it?

Fallout 1 and 2 lets you choose your own path, and its alot eaiser to just be evil, from what Ive learned in the game.

Funny I read this post, since I *JUST* installed Dungeon Keeper 2. Bascilly your a demon overloard who is running a series of dungeons, think of it kind of them kind of like NetHack.

You have to set up the rooms, design traps and level up your monsters, then you let the hero in and you gotta kill them.

Its pretty fun.