Tracking the Good or Evil of a Character.

[BhelliomRahl]

I am currently working on a game where one of the key points is that the characters will have to make decisions which will either move them down the path of good or evil.  The path that the characters take will determine how their powers develop and how the world reacts to them.

 

I am looking for a method to track this and was wondering if any has any ideas.

 

My idea was a simple number system starting at 0 with additions for good actions and subtractions for evil.  These numbers could be used in relation to reputation and as a key for how the powers developed

 

 

[Steve]

One thing that leaps to mind is the Brownie Point system from the old Super Agents supplement by Aaron Allston. Doing good on missions got you extra Perks as your BP score went up.

 

The other notion is the Piety system from Testament, which tracked how pious a character was in regards to their god(s). Higher Piety characters got extra bonuses in doing different things.

 

Instead of going with simply good and evil, maybe call it Piety and Impiety. You could track each separately and add them together to see how good or evil a character is.

[Chris Goodwin]

How about treat it mechanically as a set of nested Transforms, and tracking the BODY.  There might be "levels" of the change, corresponding to Cosmetic, Minor, Major, and Severe Transformation.  Since it's probably Spiritual in nature, consider it to work against Ego rather than Body.  

 

The first Transform is Cosmetic.  When the character takes twice his Ego in Transform BODY, it gives him Distinctive Features: First Level Of Evil (or Good, as the case may be), or whatever you end up calling it.  This DF is only detectable by special senses (those being whatever the beings of the appropriate alignment have), but may also manifest in the character's personality (meaning people who know him well will know something has changed about him).  Perhaps this opens up some of the powers available to him as well.  

 

Once the character has been Cosmetically Transformed to the first level, the next level is a Minor Transformation.  It gives him a Moderate level Psychological Complication toward whichever axis they favor, and might open up some additional powers.  It also makes the Distinctive Features visible to most people.  

 

Once the character has been Minor Transformed, the next step is Major.  And so on, to Severe.  

[NuSoardGraphite]

Thats pretty darned good chris. i'm going to have to use that for darkside corruption when playing star wars or for unlife corruption in my fantasy game.

[Christopher]

How about treat it mechanically as a set of nested Transforms, and tracking the BODY.  There might be "levels" of the change, corresponding to Cosmetic, Minor, Major, and Severe Transformation.  Since it's probably Spiritual in nature, consider it to work against Ego rather than Body.  

 

The first Transform is Cosmetic.  When the character takes twice his Ego in Transform BODY, it gives him Distinctive Features: First Level Of Evil (or Good, as the case may be), or whatever you end up calling it.  This DF is only detectable by special senses (those being whatever the beings of the appropriate alignment have), but may also manifest in the character's personality (meaning people who know him well will know something has changed about him).  Perhaps this opens up some of the powers available to him as well.  

 

Once the character has been Cosmetically Transformed to the first level, the next level is a Minor Transformation.  It gives him a Moderate level Psychological Complication toward whichever axis they favor, and might open up some additional powers.  It also makes the Distinctive Features visible to most people.  

 

Once the character has been Minor Transformed, the next step is Major.  And so on, to Severe.  

Had a similar idea back in this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/87894-magic-makes-you-evil/?do=findComment&comment=2323300

 

There it was part of a side effect on certain magic. For your campaign it is a side effect for certain actions.

The biggest questions is propably if you want evil Characters to be viable, or want a system to prevent/discourage charactes from going "true evil"?

 

Westend Games Star Wars D6 had a nice approach to teh whole DS/LS thing: Everytime someone "called to the dark side", they get a Dark Side point. Jedi could also get DS points just from doing evil (great power and all that). Everytime they get a DS point, they roll a D6 against thier total. If they "make" the roll thier character becomes seduced by the dark side. However if the fallen jedi meet a LS jedi, they will build off DS points to some degree potentially turning good again (this basically means that Vaders DS points had been very depleted from the whole Jedi Hunt when it came to the final confrontation).

The game has two resources, Force and Character points. Character points are XP and a sort of "luck" resources at the same time. Force Points are very powerfull and double your skills for one turn. Normally Characters get character points based on result (like XP). Force ponts that were spent return if they were used "Heroically", return with one extra if used "heroically in the most important part of the adventure" and are lost if used selfishly.

"Fallen" Characters have different rules. They only get CP if they gain DS points.And the whole Forcepoint return is switched around. It is clearly a system to discourage going evil and encourage "walking the straight and narrow".

[Killer Shrike]

Well...I put together this document years ago for my D&D to HERO conversion...titled "Alignment Considerations"

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/alignmentConsiderationNotes.aspx

 

 

While it is specifically focused on helping people convert  alignment from D&D (or ween off of the concept or drop it altogther), it does have some relevance to any sort of campaign where capital G good and capital E evil or other "alignment" vectors are a thing.

 

 

 

That aside, coming at this directly, there are some considerations.

 

Do "alignment points" primarily help or hinder a character or are they passive or otherwise assumed to self-balance for a zero sum consideration?

 

 

If they are just a "thing" intrinsic to the setting the best way to handle it (IMO) is as a campaign groundrule independent of standard HERO System character management. Track the points on paper (and perhaps hand out tokens as a tactile prop) and manage it that way. Any sort of expendable token mechanic can be done this way, without disrupting anything else and as long as it is consistent to the campaign and theoretically affects all characters equally (or said another way all characters have equal opportunity to interact with it, though some might choose to leverage it more or less than others), it shouldn't be destabilizing and doesn't necessitate a lot of mechanical overhead.

 

However, alternatives include:

 

If you are going for a moralistic interpretation wherein "goodness" is desirable and the loss of "goodness" is inherently bad you could create a new secondary characteristic called "Virtue" which is a pool similar to BODY and only "heals" by doing "good works" or similar, and track "evilness" as damage to "Virtue"; a character at negative values for Virtue is by definition "evil" and the depth of the negative value measures how evil; a character at negative their Virtue max is no longer playable as a PC and becomes a GM controlled character (equivalent to a character being negative their Body total resulting in death); as a characteristic Virtue is interactable with via adjustment powers, though the standard "1/2" effect for defensive abilities might apply as you see fit.

 

If you prefer a more bipartisan approach to evilness, you could track it as a stance meter. The HERO System doesn't natively have a slider-like mechanic for anything, but you can easily add one to suit your purposes. Define the extreme ends of the slide, and some number of intermediate steps with equilibrium in the middle. If you keep the levels relatively few, like say Morality: [irredeemable: -3, Blackhearted: -2, Untrustworty: -1, Unbiased: 0, Trustworty: +1, Virtuous: +2, Reighteous: +3]  (labels to taste), you can also use the scale value as a modifier to 3d6 resolution rolls while remaining harmonious with the bell curve...just flipping the polarity if the action being modified is deemed "good" or "bad".

 

 

 

 

If it is intended to primarily hinder characters, and presumably some more than others, then you should consider leveraging existing hindrance mechanics already in the game before adding a new one.

 

Adding or worsening Complications are the most obvious way to deal with a hindrance concept and should probably be considered first, but it is not the only way. You might look at Long Term Endurance and characteristic damage and impairment as other tools the system provides to hinder characters.

 

 

If it is intended to primarily help characters, heroic action points or an equivalent is a way to go. Perks is another; see Favors as an example of a 1 use Perk that a GM can award for events in play. The Luck variants also offer options for expendable boons.

 

Anyway, I've got to run, but hopefully something in there was helpful.

[Rebar]

 

If you prefer a more bipartisan approach to evilness, you could track it as a stance meter. The HERO System doesn't natively have a slider-like mechanic for anything, but you can easily add one to suit your purposes. Define the extreme ends of the slide, and some number of intermediate steps with equilibrium in the middle. If you keep the levels relatively few, like say Morality: [irredeemable: -3, Blackhearted: -2, Untrustworty: -1, Unbiased: 0, Trustworty: +1, Virtuous: +2, Reighteous: +3]  (labels to taste), you can also use the scale value as a modifier to 3d6 resolution rolls while remaining harmonious with the bell curve...just flipping the polarity if the action being modified is deemed "good" or "bad".

 

 

This is a pretty good idea. The closer you stick to existing game mechanics, the less work you'll have to do to flesh it out, and the less your players will have to climb the learning curve.

 

Treat it like a 9th primary characteristic, say Virtue, with a starting value of 10, and you have a CHA roll system already in place. Just add modifiers to taste. The games mechanics for modifiers will provide guidance.

 

Alternately, treat it like a naked modifier, +0, that gets applied to rolls and things. (Don't forget 18- fumbles, and 3- critical hits!) 

[Steve]

Does Evil try to tempt characters in any way? Or are the concepts of Good and Evil impersonal and not attempting to "recruit" characters?