Alignment vs. Ethos

[The Zealot]

I offer my apologies in advance – this is going to be rather a long post…

This thread is somewhat related to the ‘why can’t healers be in justice’ debate, where the majority of responses centred around the justifiable claim that apprehending lightwalkers would be a breach of alignment. Following on from this, I began to wonder whether it would be feasible in the game (and within the rules mandated) to roleplay ethos as at least equivalent to alignment in terms of the direction any given character will take through life. This, obviously, applies most of all to lightwalkers, who are the only alignment expressly forbidden from PKing each other, and therefore must suffer ethos to be overridden.

I realise that the majority of interaction and, indeed, fighting in AR is based around the good-neutral-evil discourse, since this is the most obvious differentiating factor. Ethos is somewhat relegated to a secondary RP theme in the game at present, even though recent perks have been added to encourage more diversity in this respect (wild items and constables). However, the choice of ethos for me certainly, but also for others I imagine, centres more around these perks than it does around the interaction possibilities inherent in choosing a lawful / neutral / chaotic character.

The lack of ethos-restricted classes or races – which I am not necessarily advocating, since I have little clue as to the consequences of this – further reinforces the impression that ethos is good for the metagaming aspects of the MUD (joining Justice, perhaps, or taking advantage of wild attacks), but plays a less central role than alignment in the overall RP schema.

I am curious what other people think about the importance of ethos in the game, from a role playing point of view: can a character ever attempt to assert the supremacy of ethos over alignment? An example might well be a lawful elf healer teaching a chaotic storm giant to respect the law of the land (since it protects the innocent). In this circumstance is it viable for ethos – rather than alignment – concerns to drive the character?

You could choose to look at it this way: if I were to roll up an elf warrior, his alignment is fixed from birth (barring outcasting). Everyone will know he’s a lightwalker, including the character himself; discounting the detail of individual character personality, the only game-driven character choice is his ethos. From an in-character perspective, that is the only choice the elf makes throughout the course of the first (pre-game) 17 years. Since it is a conscious choice on his part, rather than the happenstance of his birth, would it not define the character as much as the temple he worships at?

[marsd]

In a nutshell, roleplay takes precedence before ethos. In comparision, a faith runs far deeper than upholding the law.

A person may be a devout christian, yet has no other means of survival other than stealing. He may hate himself for stealing, yet that's his life.

Just a teaser: There is news article today (lost the link) about a guy who burglared a woman's apartment in Tokyo and tied her up. He gave her a massage to help her relax until the banks' ATM open (reason being japan banks all close at night). What might that fall under?

[Vhrael]

Since I'm at work I don't have time to give this reply all of the thought and attention that I'd like (since I've thought about ethos and its in-game impact on several occasions and have several opinions or questions on various aspects of it), but here's a little bit. I might edit or reply again later...

For starters, imagine a straight-laced police officer that's always been a law-abiding citizen and has always tried to help people out when he can (lawful good). Then say that his daughter becomes violently ill with a painful disease that the doctors say will cost $2 million to treat and cure. The police officer, on his ridiculously low salary, couldn't ever afford to pay this, but he loves his daughter. He's faced with two choices: 1) come up with the money somehow, or 2) let his daughter die.

He's a good guy, but he respects and abides by the law... even enforces it. However, he loves his daughter too much to just let her suffer and die, so he decides to rob a bank and use that money to pay for his daughter's treatment. He's breaking his "ethos" (lawful) to satisfy his "alignment" (good). For the most part, this would be an acceptable breach, since most people could relate: "Oh, he loves his daughter and was trying to save her, so it's okay," rather than "I can't believe he broke the law! His daughter's life isn't worth that!"

In the game this is reflected with things like the [OUTCAST] flag. You don't see people typically getting outcast for breaking their ethos, but an elf slaughtering every squire and Noble that he sees will surely be labelled an outcast and have his alignment changed. Alignment is more definitive and central to a character than ethos is.

Think about it this way: which matters more to you, the difference between right and wrong, or the difference between order and chaos? Granted it could be argued that "without order, people would be doing more 'wrong things'," but conversely it could be said that "if everybody is good, then order will naturally maintain itself."

Generally speaking, people have the tendency to lean toward doing what is considered right; that is to say that most people have an inner voice (conscience, etc.) that tells them whether their actions are good or bad. The difference between order and chaos, or lawfulness and unlawfulness, is a thing defined by society as a whole in order to establish guidelines that protect people from those individuals that don't fit into the "generally speaking" category with everyone else (the deviants and those that are lacking and need to steal/etc. to provide for themselves).

Rather than continue the line of thinking that I'm going on, let me just finish for now with this:

Alignment (whether you tend to sway toward good or evil actions more often), in my opinion, is more central to a person/character's actions than ethos (whether they tend to obey or disregard the law more often). This explains why a) you choose alignment before ethos, and b) why more emphasis is placed on alignment with regard to cabals/coteries.

One other thing that I've wondered about with regard to how ethos is played out in the game:

- Could there be any distinction between various places and how their laws are followed? "Lawful" seems to mean that you follow Seringale laws, but other cities might develop laws (i.e. Valour) that your character might not believe in following. Doesn't seem that someone from another hometown besides Seringale should get scrutinized for breaking Seringale's law if they don't actually believe in following it... just a thought.

[Sethronu]

i think ethos is just as important as align. its kind of tricky sometimes because you need an idea of what kind of char you want to play before you play it. its just a matter of how well you balance your individuality with what is expected of you from other morts and imms. that's the hard part.

[formalism]

Hi. I hope my response helps. If you want an in-character comprehensive account of the issue of lawfulness vs. goodness, take a look at Homi's article published in the Mystique. Not sure which volume/issue it is in. With regard to lightwalkers, alignment generally takes precedence over ethos, and always takes precedence when it itself is at stake. You say:

[Ashr]

Philosophically, I don't think there's a difference between ethos/alignment. That is to say that it's easy for us to make a Lawful Good character and discern that he is both Lawful and Good, but if the character were to exist on his own, I don't think he'd be able to distinguish between the two. That is to say that what is unlawful would be un..good to him. Supposing he is trying to protect someone's life, he might mug someone to steal a needed item, which would be an unlawful act, sure, but, chances are, he would consider the act of mugging someone to be an evil act, so it would violate his goodness as well. It would only be that he considers the breach of his "alignment" worth the intended goal.

I realize that AR is more focused on align than ethos, but I'd like to see ethos become more prominent. Stuff like constables/wild weapons are neat, but I think that a Lawful Good and a Lawful Evil should probably share the same contempt for a Chaotic Good (who is violating the law), as he's still a criminal, good or otherwise. Chaotics (who are acting Chaotic) and Lawfuls should be at odds, even if they share align, in my opinion.

[Static Impulse]

While this is mildly from WOW, why can't a good aligned warrior be chaotic enough to begin killing other good aligned people in the name of the light? Something to the effect of the Scarlet crusade from wow, where the people are so wrapped up in their faith they fail to see they are killing innocent people for the "greater good." I've always wanted to do that kind of thing as a roleplay, but since the penalties are so severe...(IE, losing vital skills, exp, becoming everyone's enemy..ect.) I never followed through. I think there should be some exceptions to the ethos/align issue. Even if you need to speak to an Imm first.

[Vhrael]

I think one of the biggest problems there is enforcement. There aren't any in-game "checks" to keep a good-aligned character, even one sticking to his RP, from going too nuts with a storyline like that.