Balance of Good and Evil

[Deimodius]

In my campaign world, the gods (D&D pantheon) are battling for control of one particular world, known as the "last world" because whomever controls it can bring back one of the two progenitor gods (good or evil).

The gods themselves can not touch the world directly, and must work through their agents to spread/combat evil, and spread/combat good.

What I need is a mechanic for measuring and tracking the overall "good" or "evil" of the world to determine who may win the battle.

For example, my GF suggested a simple system of alloting a number of "balance" points to each side, then roll two d20s at the end of every in-game day, or month. One die represents Evil, the other good. The winner of the role (highest wins) gets to take a numbe of balance points equal to the difference of the roll from the loser.

Thus, if each side starts with 1000 points, and Evil rolls a 16, but Good only rolls a 9, then Evil gets 7 points (going to 1007) while Good loses 7 points (dropping to 993).

This of course could go one for a very long time with no one side beig victorious, so the Heroes and Villains of the world would have an impact on this struggle. For example, if the Heroes thwart the villain's plan, there is no bonus to good, but there is likewise no bonus to evil. If the heroes thwart the villains' plan _and_ kill the villain and many of her henchpeople, then there could be a bonus to good. If the villain succeeds with her plan, then there is a bonus to evil.

I was also thinking of using the Taint rules from UA, so that at the end of each adventure I total the PCs' taint points, get the average, and apply it as a bonus to evil.

Of course this idea is still very much in the working stage, which is why I need your help. Is this a workable mechanic? Can you think of how to make it better, or something different? Maybe you already have a mechanic to do the same thing?

NEway... I'm off to watch Spider-Man to psyche myself up for Spider-Man 2 tonight.

Thanks!

 

[Nifft]

Personally, I'd use the proportion of the earth's surface that is either hallowed or unhallowed. (Of course, the Druids and Fey oppose both...)

So, you have teams trying to build and preserve Light/Dark Temples to control specific areas (say, at "ley nodes" where natural power lines cross).

Hmm. Sounds like a fun video game, and maybe even a fun D&D game.

-- N

 

[Fieari]

Funny you should mention that. I am writting something similar as a proof of concept for some game engine design things I'm doing right now... capture territory by playing through levels, and in a manner reminiscent of Go, surrounding other territories captures land. Makes choosing which level to go to next very very interesting indeed.

Err, that was completely off topic though. At any rate, the die rolling thing doesn't seem all that interesting to me personally, but that may be just because I'm a huge fan of strategic game theory, and like to see games that have depth, if if they're games inside of games, like this thing you're describing here. Hallowed or Unhallowed would work quite well, but you could extend it slightly.

Hallowed/Unhallowed ground supports a certain amount of area around it where the people are either good or evil. Make up a ratio of groundopulation that makes sense for your world. Now then, any given population center might be fought over for control. Once hallowed ground is dedicated to a certain section of the population, that dedication cannot be change (although NEW ground can be founded). So if Good and Evil are competing over a single city, that city is in doubt until something "epic" happens to bring it fully from one side to another. The sort of things the PCs could work with, or the villianous NPCs.

The side that loses doesn't exactly lose the hallowed/unhallowed ground, as that ground is still in effect so far as the spell effect as described in the PHB is concerned, but for controlling territory, it is now worthless. The people that ground is trying to work for are not held under its sway anymore.

This calls for some tactically interesting choices at all times for both sides. At any given moment, we could be doing any of the following:

1) Hallowing/Unhallowing more ground (costly) to gain new territory.

2) Hallowing/Unhallowing ground in the vicinity of the enemy to wrest control from the enemy (very risky, but very rewarding, see Sun Tzu's thoughts on the value of your supplies and the value of your enemy's supplies)

3) Try to attack the hallowed/unhallowed ground of the enemy directly, to reverse polarity. (Tactically preferable to #2 in terms of risk/reward {same reward, less risk}, but if the hallowed/unhallowed ground is hidden from the enemy well enough, this option may as well not be available in most cases)


Also, for zones in doubt, inceasing the size of the hallowed/unhallowed ground can increase your chances of controll of that area, but this is the equivelent of upping the ante, because the other side can do likewise... and whichever side wins has just lost a considerable amount of hallowed/unhallowed ground, as well as time, as well as resources. The more effort you put into a specific location, the more you lose if you lose. When is a good time to cut your losses and run?

And plotwise, this can be a way of spontaneously making things harder on your PCs if they're flying through a particular mission too easily. Just say the enemy is upping the ante a bit. The players might respond in kind, or they may keep trying to plug on through, hoping to make the other side lose more for less cost (ground dedicated to weakening the other side's hold is dedicated to the same set of people that a previous set of ground was dedicated to, and so if you win, the new ground can't be rededicated and you've still lost potential territory, in a way). And of course, this tactic can be used by either side, so if the players want and have the ability, they can.

And, as Nifft already mentioned, you have fey as wildcards... they'll through wrenches into the works for sure.

 

[Nifft]

Oooo, one last note from my campaign: where you are born determines the origin of your soul. IMC, if you're born on the Prime, you're "Free" -- you have free will. The Archmage-General recommends that pregnant women avoid visits to the Abyss.

Extending this idea to your setting, have people who are born in a Hallowed / Unhallowed area be either Tainted (Tiefling) or Blessed (Aasimar). Those who are born on an unaligned node are still special, but they get elemental powers instead (Genasi).

(Having it be Node-based instead of surface-area-based means you can have small, well-defended key locations, which are more amenable to small party tactics than surface-area, which requires a huge standing army, or cultural warfare, or something like that. Look at the price per unit area of Hallow and decide how big your Nodes are, based on how much you want them to cost PCs to acquire.)

-- N

PS: Fieari, I look forward to your game! Please make it usable on Linux...

 

[Deimodius]

Thanks for the ideas, y'all.