[net.games.frp] modular refereeing update; also, a new idea for alignments

dorettas@iddic.UUCP (Doretta Schrock) (11/19/85)

[I am not Doretta Schrock.  She sits over there.  I am Mike Sellers]

I am getting together with a group of (6 other) old college buddies, as
I described before, and we are going to attempt the modular refereeing idea.
(My original posting asked if others thought this was possible, etc.)
So far, we seem to have avoided most of the pit falls and it looks to be an
exciting weekend.
Basically, our super-ref has [*very* roughly] outlined the whole adventure
and assigned each of us a part to run (we are all experienced refs, and have
a common set of rules; in addition we have assigned a rules arbiter in case
of severe disagreement).  Each of us only knows about the part that he is
running (we are all male...SO's are being left at home :-( ), and, aside 
from a few design requirements, are being left to our own devices.  These
requirements take the form of setting, major items found, etc.  In my part, 
for example, I am to design the smoking ruins of a small city that has just 
(within the past 3 days) been trounced by a troll army.  There is a castle
above the city on a crag that has not yet been taken over by the Evils (it
is/was a major stronghold of Good and has defenses the Evils are not eager
to attempt without more knowledge).  The Party (of unreasonably high level
characters) will, somehow, know to go to the city.  There, somewhere somehow,
they will find: a) the Chalice of Wisdom, b) a small gold key (8" long) with
a number 4 on it, and c) a small stone carved face with a padlock through 
the lips.  Where/how they find these things, what the items actually *do*,
who the NPCs are (wait till they meet my demon-lord troll commander!), what
the city and castle look like, are all up to me.  The only other restriction
is that it must be playable within 60-120 minutes (60-90 is optimal)!  This
is only because there are six of us running sections, and we are not as young
as we used to be :-).  Anyway, it seems to be proceeding well, and no major
difficulties have arisen yet.  It should prove an interesting weekend...

I know this is getting long, but I wanted to elicit replies on an idea I had
regarding ALIGNMENTS.  The idea is to make it a percentile scale (don't "n"
yet, it gets better), with Most Evil being at 01 and Most Good being at 100.
Different races have cultural ranges (hobbits normally go from 60-80, orcs
from 10-40, etc.), though exceptions are certainly possible.  NO ONE starts
out any more evil than, say a 20, or more good than an 80.  Scores higher or 
lower must be developed.  As your character goes on, his or her actions may
change the current alignment value.  The referee judges whether or not an
action is more than 5 or 10 points (better or worse) away from the character's
current value.  If it is, the character's alignment goes d6 points in that
direction.  Also, it is likely that if a character spends time with others
of radically different alignment that he or she (or occasionally the others)
will slip in the direction of the peers (can you say 'peer pressure'?).  Thus
a good character will usually not want to run around with a bunch of more
evil people, since his alignment will probably slip in their direction.  There
are all sorts of other uses for this, too.  For example, what if you had to
have a certain alignment value or better to get into an order of knights, or
to get to the next experience level (for paladins, say), or if you had to 
have no better than an alignment of 15 to join an evil force. This would make
it so player's played their character's alignments not just as restrictive
values, but as things to be developed like any other ability.  Evil characters
would always be on the look-out for things to do to make them more evil (and
maybe they gain some other kind of power or prowess by doing so), and good
characters would want to stay away from evil deeds and do good things (or 
perhaps lose Wisdom points or something).  Neutral characters (45-55 range)
would probably take great care not to stray to either extreme, lest they 
become like these other fanatics :-).
As you can see, this idea is not fully developed, but I would like to see
what people think of it.  Also, can anyone think of a better name than
"alignment"?  Ethos, personality, morals, and others have been suggested,
but I'm not real happy with any of them.  Suggestions?  Comments? 
[Flames will be sent directly to the Great Bit Bucket in the sky.]

		Thanks for listening/reading/not drooling
			Mike Sellers