Closed Discussion: Virtue

[Maiyannah]

This kind of ties in with the Dark Powers and checks discussion.

Heroes of Light and the core rulebook essentially define a scale of virtue for characters:

1. Blessed - People whom have passed a Test of Virtue or taken the feat end up here.
2. Moral - Good adults start here.
3. Innocent - Children start in this state of grace until they grow up, or do something terrible.
4. Penitent - Neutral adults level out here.
5. Unclean - Evil adults fall down to here. Also anyone whom have fallen to the Caress - the first stage of Dark Powers.
6. Corrupted - Second level of Dark Powers or below.

Thoughts?

Personally I think if we build this out a little to have 3rd/4th/5th levels for the dark powers, this can work as a much more thematic "Ravenlofty" morality system than the default D&D uses.

[Ouroboros]

I think this is a far preferable system to the dog's breakfast that is normal alignments. However this isn't so much a scale as a branching pathway.

Corrupted, Unclean, Penitent, Moral and Innocent are a fairly straight line, but Blessed would be branching off the side of Innocent and Moral in a weird side-option. It doesn't really fit in with the spectrum of morality on this list, as it's simply an achievable side-goal that weirdly jacks your current morality to a different setting; Innocents can choose to 'downgrade' to Blessed, as an example.

I'd personally just chuck Blessed in the trash and keep it as a clear line of moral progression, with Innocent being unattainable once lost. Whether we care to also apply the myriad bonuses the Heroes of Light rulebook offers for these moral standings is another thing to consider also.

Adding an additional lower tier for characters going beyond DP 3 is on the table, not entirely sure if it's worth pursuing rather than just saying it functions similar to Innocent in that once you drop below a certain point, you're irrevocably tainted even if you manage to redeem away all your DP effects.

[Maiyannah]

The idea of Blessed in the design goal - if not it's implication - is to achieve a state of goodliness that has bonuses as well. Whether that's a laudable design goal or not is something we can debate of course. However, I personally think it's a good idea: horror cannot exist in a land berefet of hope. You just descend into existentialism at that point.

I personally think it's best as a straight line going from Blessed to the Dark Powers as I described it. I'd probably come up with some titles to give DP3, DP4, etc.

I would say Moral is more or less just "padding" towards falling - but I do think we split out "Unclean" and the first actual level of Dark Powers.

[wilkins1952]

I think this is a good idea. Though I would have the scale be something like this

Blessed
Moral
Innocent
Unclean
Corrupted

Where people start at Innocent as a neutral Virtue. Then can move up or down the scale depending on what they have done. But once that innocence is lost it cannot be obtained again. Instead someone would move from Moral to Unclean. I'm also not opposed to the idea of making some "Good." Dark powers Where someone who does something especially goodly would be rewarded and cursed by the dark powers as well. Essentially the reverse of the regular ones. This would add more of a balance to the whole ideal of Darkpowers and reward those that do good as well as those that fall to evil.

[Ouroboros]

Innocent is at the top of the scale. It's an unachievable standard of moral purity that is only retained if you manage to not provoke a single DP check in your entire life. The moment you've provoked one, you drop down the scale and Innocent can't be re-obtained.

People shouldn't be starting at Innocent; they should be starting at Moral or Unclean, as dictated at chargen by some alignment-equivalent backstory questions. Maybe after logging into a character for the first time it provokes a dialogue tree and asks you a series of questions to gauge your character's backstory and world views, then assigns them to either Moral or Unclean accordingly. Innocent should be a special quality that isn't available as standard; whether we choose to implement it as an application, an optional generation option etc is another discussion.

Innocent as per the rulebooks is accorded a lot of very nice beneficial boons and a few niche maluses; mostly to do with lowered saves versus fear, horror, madness, etc. Implementing any of those systems is also another discussion in and of itself, but from a balancing perspective Innocent is awarded some fairly big sticks, with a toweringly high standard to retain them going forwards.

[Maiyannah]

People shouldn't be starting at Innocent; they should be starting at Moral or Unclean, as dictated at chargen by some alignment-equivalent backstory questions. Maybe after logging into a character for the first time it provokes a dialogue tree and asks you a series of questions to gauge your character's backstory and world views, then assigns them to either Moral or Unclean accordingly. Innocent should be a special quality that isn't available as standard; whether we choose to implement it as an application, an optional generation option etc is another discussion.

Personally, I would have it the same as the sourcebooks: native good-aligned characters can start there but outlanders cannot. It provides a bit of an incentive to play a native rather than the rather heavy skew towards outlanders we can observe elsewhere.

[Ouroboros]

Innocents maintaining their innocence until adulthood is an exceedingly rare thing; enough so that I don't think it should be a widely available default option. Beyond the concerns of potentially having a disproportionate populace of Innocents, which is it's own issue, you are then subsequently dealing with a high amount of characters that are bound to either roleplay a specific narrative archetypal role, or essentially adding more work for the inevitable characters that lose their Innocence.

It's also very worth pointing out that even in the rulebooks, Innocents are explicitly recommended to be for NPCs only; their lore writeup outright says that these characters are potentially world changing. I'm not particularly against offering it as an option for PCs, but making it a default option to select from a list feels like pre-emptively shooting ourselves in the collective foot. I'd also argue that Ravenloft Native Paladins would have similar considerations attached to them, but that's a separate discussion.

Another sidenote; the 3.0 Campaign Setting lists 'Innocent' as a feat available to be taken at level 1 by anyone, but then Heroes of Light defines the Virtue/Corruption scale and contradicts this by saying you cannot take Innocent as a feat, as it's a special quality. Personally I'm inclined to side with the Heroes of Light ruling on this and ditch the idea of having Innocent just be a feat.

[Maiyannah]

It's also very worth pointing out that even in the rulebooks, Innocents are explicitly recommended to be for NPCs only; their lore writeup outright says that these characters are potentially world changing. I'm not particularly against offering it as an option for PCs, but making it a default option to select from a list feels like pre-emptively shooting ourselves in the collective foot. I'd also argue that Ravenloft Native Paladins would have similar considerations attached to them, but that's a separate discussion.

Literally every monster PC possibility comes with similar warnings, and frankly I feel is somewhat the byproduct of poor balancing. I'm more akin to try to solve these problems than just say "nah mate"

Another sidenote; the 3.0 Campaign Setting lists 'Innocent' as a feat available to be taken at level 1 by anyone, but then Heroes of Light defines the Virtue/Corruption scale and contradicts this by saying you cannot take Innocent as a feat, as it's a special quality. Personally I'm inclined to side with the Heroes of Light ruling on this and ditch the idea of having Innocent just be a feat.

Well, if you want to have it at all, you must have it be accessible in some fashion, otherwise what's the point?

I'd say a feat is a preferable approach because it lets players opt in. The other option is to have it be the default, which has the problems you expounded.

[Ouroboros]

At minimum I think that Innocents should have a big disclaimer on taking them, informing players that it's pretty much putting them on notice to potentially fall from grace at a moment's notice if they don't cleave to the narrative role of the Innocent as much as possible. Again, I'm not against it being accessible to the player base, but I still don't think it should just be another option in a list somewhere without making people very much aware that it has a lot of responsibility attached to it.

[Maiyannah]

Well, if we make it a feat, we can put a big disclaimer in the feat description.
If they take it without reading the whole text, that's kind of on the player at that point.