I am interested in any and all criticism!

[SimDing0™]

Somebody's firmly demanded that I post something to this effect to prove my manhood, or, uh... something. I forget. Anyway...

Players' thoughts are welcome! Given the growing tension around criticism of mods in some communities (although I haven't noticed any such problems here at PPG), I feel it's worth clarifying that:

- You do not need permission to comment on my mods, although I'd be appreciative if you could inform me if you've posted any off-forum criticism that I haven't seen. That's not to say I need to hear every time somebody says "don't bother playing any of Ding0's mods", but multi-page criticisms of Improved Goodberries, I'd like to read.

- Criticism does not have to be nice. If you really, seriously, hated something I've done, then I'd like to know why. Speak your mind, however negative it may be-- so long as there's some reasoning behind your opinion, that's fine.

- Disagreeing with me is welcome. No decision I make is final, so if you feel you have something to add to an argument, go ahead and post it. I don't guarantee that I'll agree with your proposal, but I'm always ready for a good fresh discussion.

- Argument does not have to take place in private. The forum's here for a reason. Sure, if you're shy or whatever, I'll be just as glad to speak in PM or e-mail, but a public discussion gives more people the opportunity to voice their views, so I encourage this where possible.

I hope that's cleared up any doubts about etiquette here. Thanks to Domi for suggesting this post, and thanks to anybody providing feedback.

[Drew]

Your ugly and you smell like fish.  Oh, wait you were talking about your mods.  Sorry.

[Lu]

   While I haven't played Virtue yet, the name of the author inevitably draws my attention to this forum (bow). Now,
 to the point. What really confuses me is the idea of alignment changes due to PC's actions. I agree that change of
 alignment may happen sometimes, but hardly more than once in a lifetime, and to few people only, and under extreme
 circumstances only, etc. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to restrict PC's dialog/action options, depending on
 his/her alignment? I'm finished for now, but do not expect to get away with it easily, SimDing0

 P.S.

Your ugly and you smell like fish [...]

Just curious what this is supposed to mean

[jester]

What really confuses me is the idea of alignment changes due to PC's actions. I agree that change of
 alignment may happen sometimes, but hardly more than once in a lifetime, and to few people only, and under extreme
 circumstances only, etc

Your actions shape your alignment or better they are a manifestation of your alignment. Virtue revives the idea that your actions actually matter which they did not oh so often in the plain game. There is always a vivid discussion about some actions (Whacking Rayic G. for Edwin for example), but as a whole I think it is THE quintessential addition to the game.

When it comes to dialogue choices I think that it would be nice, but is a lot of extra work so probably not worth it.

[Idobek]

I don't agree with restricting dialogue options based upon alignment (stats yes, alignment no). I think that actually restricts role-playing since you are almost being forced into the most "appropriate" reponse.

[NiGHTMARE]

   While I haven't played Virtue yet, the name of the author inevitably draws my attention to this forum (bow). Now,
 to the point. What really confuses me is the idea of alignment changes due to PC's actions. I agree that change of
 alignment may happen sometimes, but hardly more than once in a lifetime, and to few people only, and under extreme
 circumstances only, etc. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to restrict PC's dialog/action options, depending on
 his/her alignment? I'm finished for now, but do not expect to get away with it easily, SimDing0

If a character ends up changing alignments multiple times, it's most likely because the player isn't properly roleplaying said character

[The_Swordalizer]

After 3 forced Alignment changes the playes alignment should instantly, unchangably become Chaotic Neutral 

[Lu]

I don't agree with restricting dialogue options based upon alignment (stats yes, alignment no). I think that actually
restricts role-playing

  I hope it may actually add to role-playing, making the player more responsible for his/her choices. E.g. choosing
 a lawful good character but acting like an evil bastard doesn't look like role-playing to me

Your actions shape your alignment or better they are a manifestation of your alignment

  But my question is, the former or the latter? If your alignment is formed by actions, then what's the meaning of
 starting a new game with a determined one? On the contrary, if your actions are a manifestation of your alignment,
 then, methinks, it makes sense to restrict player's options

[Idobek]

I hope it may actually add to role-playing, making the player more responsible for his/her choices. E.g. choosing a lawful good character but acting like an evil bastard doesn't look like role-playing to me

(Using a very baisc BG2 example.) Perhaps I have in my mind a story for my CHARNAME. I start out as a Paladin but slowly succumb to the evil of the taint. Without dialogue options to do this I have to kill innocents to lose virtue which kind of destroys my role-play.

[Lu]

 Forgot to finish my previous post and have no idea how to edit it, sorry

When it comes to dialogue choices I think that it would be nice, but is a lot of extra work so probably not worth it

 But how much work? It hasn't been considered yet
 Probably or definitely not worth it? The answer is important, I think

[SimDing0™]

I'd say that your character has to have done something before the game begins to justify the starting alignment. He/she can't just "be" a certain alignment without having done anything to warrant it. However, a character's actions ingame are going to be far more significant than anything that happened in their childhood (or even in BG1), and as such, I'd argue that these ingame actions should shape a character to a greater extent than whatever took place before the game started (which is represented by the alignment chosen at character creation).

If we consider, on the other hand, that alignment shouldn't reflect actions at all, but rather an innate tendency, I think the events that happen ingame are sufficiently out of the ordinary to make any PC consider their options in any situation and potentially alter how they react and think. Even good characters are bound to consider evil opportunities (and in most cases reject them), which is what the presence of the dialogue options signifies. And as Idobek says, I think it's quite reasonable that the taint corrupts a noble character, or a malicious one recognizes the error of his ways. Star Wars wouldn't have been much fun if Anakin hadn't been able to say anything evil because he started off chaotic good.

I hope that made some sense.

[Drew]

Your ugly and you smell like fish [...]

Just curious what this is supposed to mean

Not really supposed to mean anything.  I just think I'm funny, but Sim did say any and all criticism.......

[Lu]

  Actually, I only have one question, all the rest were simply meant to illustrate it. And the question is:
 alignment vs. (re)actions, what is primary and what is secondary? Quoting Jester: "better they [actions] are
 a manifestation of your alignment", and I dare suggest that the word "better" means some agreement between the
 two of us here (though I never know when Jester is serious)
  Anyway, I have a feeling that BioWare authors mean that alignment (i.e. mindset, philosophy, outlook -
 you name it) determines character's course of actions, not vice versa: "Your alignment determines how your
 character interacts with his environment" (Baldur's Game Gate Manual, p.9). So I'm afraid that making alignment
 easily shifting goes too far away from the spirit of the original game
  But I've never suggested that say, good persons should only be restricted to good options, have I?
 In real life a good person can choose smth that is/seems/turns_out_to_be  evil, same should be in a CRPG

[SimDing0™]

I don't find "deviating from Bioware intent" a terribly compelling argument, I'm afraid. Some of their design decisions weren't terribly good, and I don't think contradicting developer intent counts for much unless there's a reason the change is inferior to the original design.

But if you're not saying good people should be restricted, I don't understand what you are saying. Your argument seems to focus around the idea that alignment *should* dictate your actions, which by extension means limiting dialogue choices. Or are you saying that good people should be able to do evil things but not have their alignment change? In which case, I disagree just as firmly, because alignment's worth nothing if it doesn't reflect your behaviour at all.

[Lu]

  "Should affect your choices" is not the same as "should dictate your actions". "Limiting dialog choices"
 doesn't necessarily mean "restricting to one option only". I hope it's clear now
  As for the first part of your post, I agree that nobody's perfect. However, the changes you mean to bring
 into the original game seem crucial to me, and I'm not sure whether it may add some lovely furniture into
 the "red brick house built by BioWare" (using JC's image), or damage the house
  As a whole, it wasn't my intent to suggest any specific changes to the mod, but I rather meant to reveal
 some doubts about what I think is really critical

[Drew]

I like the alignment changing aspect of virtue as it allows a few things that you otherwise wouldn't get in the normal bg2 experience.
First of all, you get feedback.  When you kill people that annoy you (Nalia's aunt, that jackass artist from the temple district, weimer's Solaufein(?)) your alignment is going to shift reflecting that generally killing people just because they piss you off is not considered a nice thing to do, thus showing that you either aren't roleplaying your character properly or your character is actually doing something people can normally do in life or pnp rules, namely, to change.  The question that needs to be asked is if alignment dictates action or vice versa.  In reality, alignment is just a label telling you how a character is likely to act in a given situation.  If you put a bottle labeled  "grape juice with a little yeast" in a cellar and leave it there long enough you'll probably want to change the label.  Hence why you wouldn't want to limit options.  People can become maniacal bastards.  Grape juice, a little yeast and some time become whine.  That's life.   At any rate, if you properly role play your character, your alignment is unlikely to change anyway with virtue installed.

[Lu]

 To Drew:
   I simply don't understand why a good person would want to kill someone who annoys him/her. Truly, I don't
 understand why an evil person would want to do it either. Beeing a crazy maniac is not the same as beeing
 of evil alignment, IMO

if you properly role play your character, your alignment is unlikely to change anyway with virtue installed

   It's not for sure that SimDing0 and a player see alignments alike. So one may play say, CG character the
 way (s)he feels it and have all of a sudden alignment changed

   Somehow missed it before (from Idobek):

Perhaps I have in my mind a story for my CHARNAME. I start out as a Paladin but slowly succumb to the evil of the taint

   I'd rather call it metagaming, not roleplaying

[fallen demon]

How is it metagaming, people can fall in the game world and it doesn't relly on out of game knowladge.

[Drew]

I was being a little tongue in cheek when I was talking about killing people because they piss you off!   The point I'm trying to make is that with virtue installed you are unlikely to experience any alignment shifts because having a 20 virtue score isn't really important  to keep your good alignment.  You may run into problems playing a paladin, but a paladin isn't a paladin if he isn't a pain in the ass to play!The tolerances for alignment shifting are actually set quite high so unless your idea of a good character likes to make the occasional unwilling human sacrifice to Tyr I'm pretty sure you won't be seeing your alignment change much, probably never. (except possibly at the very beginning of the game where your virtue is set right at the border line for an alignment shift, but at that point of a typical game it's unlikely you'll be given much of a chance to see an immediate virtue drop short of killing random commoners or siding Lehtinan in the copper coronet.)   In truth, virtue is pretty damn seamless.  My only real complaint is that I still would like to see more opportunities to lose virtue but gain reputation and vice versa, but those kinds of situations don't happen too often in vanilla BG2 so it really isn't Sim's fault.  I'm hoping to see some situations like that added to quest pack.....but this is the wrong forum for that. 

[SimDing0™]

  "Should affect your choices" is not the same as "should dictate your actions". "Limiting dialog choices"
 doesn't necessarily mean "restricting to one option only". I hope it's clear now

Not... entirely. So you'd advocate, for example, cutting out the really evil options from a good character, but leaving the neutral or slightly nasty ones in? I think here it'd tend to come down to player discretion-- perhaps you'd roleplay your character in such a way that the really evil stuff wouldn't apply, in which case you wouldn't choose those options, but I don't think it's inconceivable that somebody else's good character would suddenly do something truly unpleasent (pressure of the taint, confusion of loss of soul, any number of explanations), and so it's legitimate to have the option available.
Incidentally, Bioware were enormously inconsistent in the places they restricted options based on alignment. In vanilla BG2, your good character would have been able to say some ridiculously evil things with no repercussions, and a few perhaps less significant ones might have been restricted. So, in effect, the manual's still inaccurate because they didn't properly implement a system of alignment determining your behaviour anyway. I think Virtue's method, while still relying to an extent on the player behaving sensibly, is superior to a situation where a good character can behave horribly throughout the game and get away with it.

It's not for sure that SimDing0 and a player see alignments alike. So one may play say, CG character the
 way (s)he feels it and have all of a sudden alignment changed

And similarly, there's no guarantee that Bioware and a player would have seen reputation alike in the original game, so you could be trying to roleplay your chaotic good character and suddenly find yourself with a reputation of 3. They had to make certain decisions on where reputation changes would take place-- and I'd dare say did so with substantially less discussion than various Virtue changes undergo now.
But, as has been mentioned several times, Virtue changes are incremental enough that if you're going to change alignment, it typically will be because you've performed a number of actions reflecting that alignment, so one situation where the player wasn't thinking along exactly the same lines as me isn't going to wreck a character. But it would, perhaps, encourage the player to think more about the BG2 would, and consider why they lost that single Virtue point-- either that, or uninstall the mod in disgust.

[Idobek]

Perhaps I have in my mind a story for my CHARNAME. I start out as a Paladin but slowly succumb to the evil of the taint

I'd rather call it metagaming, not roleplaying

The only metagaming (perhaps) going on here is that I have assumed that BioWare isn't going to remove the Bhaalspawn/taint thing from CHARNAME (it being the only point in keeping the same main character). All this was present in BG1 and I think I'm justified in using that experience to base a character's path on. If suddenly it was revealed I had no taint then, of course, I wouldn't use it as part of my story. I can, for example, use drinking to affect my PCs personality change, I still need the dialogue options to affect a non-violent fall. And I do mean all of them, drunks are erratic.

[Lu]

  Not exactly a quote

Lu: I hope it's clear now
Sim: Not... entirely

   Looks like trying to be brief makes my posts obscure. Let me explain what bothers me, imagining the following situation:
  An evil bastard gave money to a homeless child and let the child go. Why would he do it? I see three possibe
 explanations:
  A) He knew/thought that it would profit him better
  B) He acted against his alignment. In this case, the EB will start to regret it soon, saying to himself
 smth like "Why did I do that? Was I out of my f******* mind?"
  C) Something is going on, his attitude towards the world is changing to non-evil
  In cases A and B he remains an EB has always been
  Assuming that the meaning of the term 'alignment' in your vocabulary is the same as in BioWare's (though it may
  be not so), case C is what Virtue mod deals with. The fact is, there is no story in the game that explains these
 changes (critical changes, I may add, for alignmet = personality, IMO). If you think it's no big deal, than fine.
 But I think it a big deal
  I hope it's clear now

 To Idobek:
   What about BG1, where you don't know that you are a Bhaalspawn? I know that Virtue is a BG2 mod, but it affects
 the concept of the wole game
   Anyway, making up and playing not a character but a story can be thought as metagaming, IMO

[SimDing0™]

   Looks like trying to be brief makes my posts obscure. Let me explain what bothers me, imagining the following situation:
  An evil bastard gave money to a homeless child and let the child go. Why would he do it? I see three possibe
 explanations:
  A) He knew/thought that it would profit him better
  B) He acted against his alignment. In this case, the EB will start to regret it soon, saying to himself
 smth like "Why did I do that? Was I out of my f******* mind?"
  C) Something is going on, his attitude towards the world is changing to non-evil
  In cases A and B he remains an EB has always been
  Assuming that the meaning of the term 'alignment' in your vocabulary is the same as in BioWare's (though it may
  be not so), case C is what Virtue mod deals with. The fact is, there is no story in the game that explains these
 changes (critical changes, I may add, for alignmet = personality, IMO). If you think it's no big deal, than fine.
 But I think it a big deal
  I hope it's clear now

Under certain circumstances, Virtue has to guess the player's motivations, yes. But, as stated above, this is also the case with Bioware's decisions regarding reputation. I endeavour to minimize situations where the player can realistically be given inaccurate Virtue changes. While occasionally they may be given one that hasn't quite guessed their motivations accurately, this isn't going to make a whole lot of difference unless they persistently act this way (also mentioned above), and I doubt there are enough "unclear" situations in the game to totally alter somebody's alignment based on mis-assessment of obscure motivations.

I'm also still curious as to how vanilla BG2's behavior works better than Virtue's. As already mentioned, an evil character can play through the original game picking all the good options and suffer nothing for it-- thus, there's just as much (arguably more) scope for alignment to fail to reflect personality in BG2 without Virtue as there is with. And as you say, alignment should = personality.

So, thank you for clarifying, and I think I understand what you're saying now, but I think my previous arguments still cover it fine.

I'd also like to ask a question based on your concept of static alignment determining actions.
My character is of a noble spirit, doing good along the Sword Coast. Upon learning of his Bhaalspawn taint in BG1, he endeavours to suppress it, and is regardless proclaimed a hero in Baldur's Gate. However, in BG2, when he is kidnapped and sees his friends tortured before his eyes, rage, and the overwhelming taint stimulated by Irenicus, begin to consume him. He descends onto a path of destruction and evil, exacting his revenge on innocents around him, and ultimately ascending to godhood with the domain of vengeance, wreaking terror throughout the realms.
What alignment is he throughout the series? Without Virtue, you can choose one answer.
(Note that this is the obvious case. If we're distracted by the semantics of the story spanning two games, I'll create a similar scenario compressed entirely into the timescale of BG2.)

[SimDing0™]

And I'd also point out that Virtue would cover both B and C in your example, not just C, since any evil character who's prone to outbursts of generosity probably has some goodness hidden within him anyway-- and if he really is just "out of his fucking mind", then he should be moving towards chaotic neutral in either case.

[Idobek]

Taking up thr metagaming argument again.

What about BG1, where you don't know that you are a Bhaalspawn? I know that Virtue is a BG2 mod, but it affects the concept of the wole game

Having no idea what the plot of BG1 was when I first played it I used a NG fighter and reolplayed a NG figher to the best of my ability. I may or may not have succeed if a virtue system is in place but we'll never know. I gave him more of a personality than BioWare provided though. (See below.)

Anyway, making up and playing not a character but a story can be thought as metagaming, IMO

I am playing a character, my character. You appear to be saying that because I have already played the game then I must be meta-gaming if I give my character a personality.

Let's remove this entire conversation to a RPG I've never played. I create a PC if the game hasn't given him a background, I do it. If the game has given him a background I still add a few personality quirks. While I am doing this I think about how his background and these quirks will affect his decisions, his ability to handle stress in the short term, his ability to handle stress in the long term, etc. I could go on. I then make some broad decision about how an adventure would affect him and try to roleplay him in that manner. I have never played this game yet I have outlined a a PCs personality and decision making process. Is this metagaming? Should I not do this and make it up as I go along?

Sometimes I play as myself and react as I think (or hope) I would when presented with a given situation. I know my personality, I know how stress affects me and simulate that in-game too.

In my Paladin succumbing to drink situation I look at his background (BG1), think about his quirks, think about that whole host of other things I consider, and make a broad decision on where this character is going to go personality-wise during the course of BG2. If this doesn't prove possible because of the course the game has taken then so be it.

We are never going to agree on this point for the simple reason that once you have played a game once you can easily end up metagaming. I try very hard not to but I still find myself buying certain pieces of equipment before I embark on a quest because I know they're useful. My PC doesn't know he's going to need them and I only realise what I've done when I notice Keldorn's had the Shield of Balduran all the way through the Unseeing Eye quest. Damn!

That is what I consider metagaming. Not defining my PCs personality and possible future paths to take with it.