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As you know, Healer has recently been prevented from using Heal or Energize to assist Evil characters.

This is a brute-force way to put an end to out-of-role role Play. Healer is intended as a Good-aligned Role, but folks were inevitably using Healers as assistants to Evil-aligned types while they did naughty things like kill merchants. It's inevitable that people will take advantage of opportunities like this. Yet doing so undercut the intention of the Role.

How could the Role be preserved in a less restrictive way? Ya'll have better ideas for solving this problem?

Note that the solution imposed is actually pretty reasonable in the TC cosmology. Luz's definition of "Good" is a militant one: she doesn't want her adherants assiting the Evil-aligned. My problem with it is that it (the solution) is so friggin' narrow.

Thoughts appreciated!

--Mark

Not being able to help players using evil character seems to take away some of the group play. I can understand if Luz is dead set against healers helping the evil aligned. But if it's a lack of role play, perhaps a smaller solution can be if healers are restricted from helping anyone on the Wanted list.

Another more drastic step is to create an accomplice charge for people in a room where a murder is taking place. Of course, a system where have to be set up where you have to caught a certain number of times before anything happens, for those unlucky enough to happen to be in a room when a crime takes place.

For healers, this could be fines imposed and restriction from using their healing skills. Or if a more drastic solution, the guild can kick then out.

Restricting Healers from assiting wanted list criminals sounds like a smart compromise.

Also perhaps assisting Evil coul cause alignment to drift toward Evil. Eventually the commands become compromised if the user is out of alignment.

Also here's a thought about Luz. Why don't you make her the conscience of Good in the universe, with a permanent memory. Like Santa Claus knowing if you've been bad or good. After a while she can start vetoing your commands based on your history.

It's a MUD tradition to have alignment drift throw your abilities out of whack. We'd planned to do this but it's been a back-burner kinda thing. Maybe it makes sense to implement it now?

Note the consequence, though. Since Skills are so central to TC, if your Skills are diminished by being out of alignment, your ability to do things to get back into alignment will be compromised to at least some degree.

Note also that the process of chosing to change alignment will be made more difficult. In TC you have to get out of alignment in order to Convert. Your alignment has to be Neutral +1000 to Convert to Good, and so on. The closer toward +1000 you go, the more your Skills are going to be diminished.

This is really good in a way because it'll discourage characters from arbitrarily converting, as they've been doing. You're gonna have to really want that Conversion.

Just thinking out loud.

--Mark

I like the idea of a god being able to veto commands, if they're clearly against the character's alignment. With this system, perhaps, you could remove a lot of the absolute restrictions from the game, and instead base 'permission' on location, alignment, and context-sensitive action (and/or more). For example, if a Good Warrior attacked a shopkeeper in the NW, his attack could be divinely deflected, or a response could be given like, "The gentle voice of Luz reminds you of your devotion to Good." If an Evil Warrior, however, attacked the shopkeeper, Nuit would allow it, and combat would ensue - but certain areas could be zoned as 'god-protected,' and Luz could still exert sway in protecting her own. Healers could heal Evil characters - but they would take alignment drift, and success could even be based on the characters' relative drift. If the healer is at +1000 Good, and an Evil Warrior is at +/-0 Evil, the heal could work, with little penalty. If the Warrior is at +500 Evil, though, there could be a 50% chance the heal would fail, and the penalty would be greater. Along with this concept could be items to indicate just _how_ Good or Evil someone is (glowing 'bright,' 'dull,' etc.).

Speaking as a person from the near future, after the drift penalties have been implemented, I can say that it's worked nicely, but when one gets near the extremes, the drift penalty can start to be crippling - it becomes almost impossible to attack or flee, and generally these two commands are the ones needed to correct drift! perhaps we need a nonviolent means of drifting (even if it's ridiculously slow by comparison) for the last 100 points of drift or so?

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