Well, IMO it's all been downhill since the days of Men and Magic, Monsters and Treasures, Blackmoor, Eldrich Witchery, etc...

And I'm only partially kidding.

The good/evil debate has apparently gone off in all directions. And if you ask me, the many examples (evil unicrons, good demons ...) just show what was brought forward in the earlier posts:  there is a reason behind archetypes / clichés, so don't break them without being sure the new idea is really a good one. (and that demands good backstory)

We discuss first and foremost a game and not literature - in Elemental it will be difficult/impossible to have a new well-thought out background and explanation to why, say, a deathmagic-wielding vampire on the map would join a good army. So, it will in my view not work. 

Why should a unicorn be good? There are a lot reasons, one being that it can only be approached by an innocent (and GOOD) maiden. Also, it's white, it's beautiful, it can heal the wounded, it is linked in harmony to nature and forests and tends to protect these. If it's evil the creature doesn't make any sense as of above. Why should  you open up Pandoras box by letting any creature have any alignment?

In Elemental I guess the question really is: can an "evil" faction just go an recruit a unicorn just like a good faction?

I sure hope not. Because there is no chance Stardock will have a stab of real-time interactive fantasy authors of highest class ready, or a superintelligent AI that will just come up with the necessary backstory and explanations in each possible case. We need some structure, so I'm not ashamed to say that tinkering with the archetypes should be done carefully and only for good effect. 

Surely you can see a difference between "adult" "pretend" and "childish" pretend? Strapping more guns to a gun in an effort to SHEWT MOAR is childish (unless it's in the most sarcastic sense, for hilarity). That is the Rule of Moar, which i loathe so vehemetly. It's when you add demons to a game because you want to play demons, developing a ridiculously contrieved retcon to accomodate the childish impulses of yourself or your customers. It's when you add every single feature that you can into a game without considering upsetting a perhaps delicate balance. It's when you strap guns onto guns with extra guns and go "I'm not dead, I shoot you with double guns!" ;"Well I shoot you with triple guns, nyah, nyah, pew, pew".

Creativity, 'make believe', Fantasy ≠ Childishness, retardation, nonsensical.

That, and I'm fickle to the extremes.

Addenum:

Of course it could happen, you just say "this vampire is good". But it does not make it a good idea. And quite frankly, you just wrote a paragraph about this character from the Coldfire trilogy that I haven't read, and I'm sorry but I don't get turned on. So, for me it doesn't work. This is a strategy PC game, and you won't have the time, nor the inclination to hear a backstory about each and every unit you randomly meet on the map.

Sorry, but I don' agree with most of this reasoning. About the maidens: just skipping a key part of a creature is hardly a good argument to why it would work as well as evil. It's just diminishing the power of the archetype.

About "white is good": why do you think Darth Vader is completely black while Princess Leia is dressed all in white? Do I need to say more? It's not a coincidence. Even if you don't like it, most people love Star Wars, and this aspect is one key reason. Even when I heard the "evil unicorn" idea launched, involuntarily I immediately saw a black unicorn with a blood red horn in my mind' s eye. These are the reactions you have to work with when doing good fantasy.

About healing being neutral: taking a "scientific" view (any power can be used for any purpose) doesn't help us in a discussion on what fantasies work best. It is the ACT of healing which is important. It implies that you help people, care for them. The act of destroying and killing could of course be used for good or evil, but the ACT of killing is more linked to evil creatures. Of course it's not an absolute rule, but it IS an important guideline. And it doesn't make the evil unicorn one inch cooler.

Guardian of nature: yes there are evil forests in literature, but that's not the point. The act of caring for and protecting nature/the environment I would say is more linked to good than evil in our society. Especially today with Climate change coming!

The last paragraph seems to say that after all maybe unicorns shouldn't be evil after all. So there at least I fully agree. And I have difficulties finding a lot of other good examples where Elemetnal would be a much better game if you turn the classical good-evil dimesion upside down. I'm not a purist, in no way, but I don't see the need for good demons and evil unicrons in this game.

Wouldn't the torture be the evil act here? Healing them isn't, you could just let them recover on their own over a few weeks, then torture them again anyway.

Healing someone so you can do something else to them doesn't make healing evil. As its generally portrayed, healing is an inherently good action.

I think people are muddling with the concepts of what really is evil and what really is good...

But if you recall, when he turned evil he became Saruman the Multi-colored/rainbow/whateveritwas, the point being that he wasn't "the White" any more.

Not surprising that I'd get the badguy wrong, can't stand LOTR.

I think evil should be hot pink.

Why?  Because people that paint their houses hot pink are evil fucking bastards.

This thread got weird, I can't help myself.

Intention is everything. Healing is merely a tool and can be used for whatever purpose the wielder desires, whether it's good, evil or indifferent. People often consider guns to be evil, for example, but really they're just a tool that can be used to commit evil acts, but also good ones. If a psychopath breaks into your home and shoots your child for shits and giggles, the gun is the tool used in an evil act. But if the police barge in and shoot the psychopath before he can hurt your child, I'd say the gun is the tool used in a good act. Healing is slightly different in that it cannot directly cause harm, but it can indirectly and in my opinion there is no difference as long as there is the intention to use it to cause harm. Like a gun, like a car, like a tranquilizer, and like the human body itself, healing is a tool that can be used for good or evil or anything in between - and intention is what makes these things situationally good or bad, not some inherent property therein.

The only way I'd ever consider something to be absolutely good or evil is if there is no way it can be used for the purposes of one or the other. Healing, therefore, does not fall under this category. Not unless Stardock restricts healing magic to good-aligned people and beings - but that would sorta suck.

Gandalf was "the Grey" most of his life but he was always a purely good character. And Saruman ceased to be "the white" when he became openly evil, and Gandalf fairly quickly thereafter became "the white" in his stead. Pretty much all of the main characters in LotR are either completely good or completely evil. All the members of the fellowship, including Boromir are completely good (the Ring drove Boromir mad, which doesn't count as being evil), as are all the elves in the story and others like Theoden and Faramir. Denethor wasn't even evil - he was also driven mad by using his Palantir. The Nazgul, all of Sauron's other servants and Sauron himself are purely evil. Then there are the Valar - purely good gods, and Morgoth - the ultimate evil. The only two characters that have any dimensionality in this respect are Saruman (who almost repented, and went to ask Gandalf for help and forgiveness when he realized how badly he had screwed up when the Nazgul came knocking - only to discover that Gandalf had already escaped from Orthanc - then dug himself in even deeper in a vain attempt of self preservation) and Gollum. In my book, LotR is about as pure a good vs. evil story you'll find.

Totally agree. Also, in Hindi custom white is the traditional color for funerals.

In my fantasy world, angels are demons are exactly the same but with two differences: demons are just angels that don't favor self control and are more emotional (which at the same time affects their appearance in different ways) and they use a different name (demon) to differenciate themselves from their "cousins". Their attitudes? Decided by me, desiring to play with the western traiditonal ideas about angels and demons (and I like the idea of winged human beings) with the twists I need for the story they are going to play.

And in Stardock's fantasy world (supposing there were angels and demons)? Maybe they are nothing but human and fallen mutations created by the dark energy used by old times channelers. While humans would be more functional and retain more human appearence, demos would be fallen mutations with... well, a fallen touch. After all they respect power above all so a creature with claws, fangs, horns... seems fitting.

And Unicorns in Stardock's fantasy world? They could be purely horses with one horn (because of weird evolution or a bored channeler). A plain simple horse with a horn. Or maybe just horses imbued with essence and mutated by some channelers to create a better war mount. The Beasts are mostly old times bioweapons after all.

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="9" id="2274929"]
Quoting the Gorgon, reply 8Of course it could happen, you just say "this vampire is good". But it does not make it a good idea. And quite frankly, you just wrote a paragraph about this character from the Coldfire trilogy that I haven't read, and I'm sorry but I don't get turned on. So, for me it doesn't work. This is a strategy PC game, and you won't have the time, nor the inclination to hear a backstory about each and every unit you randomly meet on the map.
RE the "this vampire is good" bit - you completely missed the point. That's hardly a convincing story or description, and thus utterly fails. Secondly, I didn't write a paragraph about the character from the Coldfire Trilogy, I told you almost nothing other than that you had vaguely described a character like him in very general terms, and that with a little bit of expansion could become a convincing and believable character.

Ok, maybe I missed your point. But my point is that this is a PC strategy game and not a trilogy of novels. If you meet a vampire on the map and you play a good faction with shining knights and life magic healers I don't think you should just get a message saying that it's ok to recruit the undead because they are fed up with their lich master or whatever Stardock cuold come up with as explanation. It would be ok to recruit them e.g. through forceful magic, magical items, in some cases maybe even with ridiculously high sums of gold. But not because "every creature has a choice" or "anyone can be either good or evil" or some postmodern, realistic crap like that which is the very antithesis of fantasy (yes that was a personal opinion ).  

Quoting the Gorgon, reply 8Sorry, but I don' agree with most of this reasoning. About the maidens: just skipping a key part of a creature is hardly a good argument to why it would work as well as evil. It's just diminishing the power of the archetype.
I would hardly call maidens a key part of unicorns considering they are almost always ignored across the board.

Just to get to the bottom of it I just checked Unicon in "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy" (could be called The Bible in this case): Virginity is, together with the healing horn, taking up most of the paragraph and featured in most examples of unicorns in literature. I can add as a more modern reference the classic film Legend by Ridley Scott where Mia Sarah plays the maiden (Tom Cruise has the other lead role ...). Mayby maidens have no place in D&D4, but I certainly haven't and won't forget.

Quoting the Gorgon, reply 8About "white is good": why do you think Darth Vader is completely black while Princess Leia is dressed all in white? Do I need to say more? It's not a coincidence. Even if you don't like it, most people love Star Wars, and this aspect is one key reason. Even when I heard the "evil unicorn" idea launched, involuntarily I immediately saw a black unicorn with a blood red horn in my mind' s eye. These are the reactions you have to work with when doing good fantasy.
I'm a fan of the [original] star wars trilogy, but Leia dressed in white and Darth Vader dressed in black is not what make it good.

No - a lot of its attraction lies in the fact that it skillfully uses classical archetypes from human myths, many of them related to good versus evil. And it is a fact that white is more linked with good in Western culture than black.

White can symbolize good, and black can symbolize evil (and it often does in fantasy - LoTR is another example). But Star War and LoTR are two classic cases of Good vs. Evil - you're one or the other without shades of gray and without different perspectives. One side is right, the other is wrong. This can be a very powerful storytelling tool, but it also gets boring (to me) when it's used over and over. And white can be convincingly evil - the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is a prominent example of evil dressed in white.

Yes, the White Witch is a wonderful example of how you can make a unique character like that work, but why: I would say because the white in her clearly symbolises her cold heart and soul: she is the classical Snow Witch, turning people to stone, she has no heart ... Then it makes sense.


Quoting the Gorgon, reply 8About healing being neutral: taking a "scientific" view (any power can be used for any purpose) doesn't help us in a discussion on what fantasies work best. It is the ACT of healing which is important. It implies that you help people, care for them. The act of destroying and killing could of course be used for good or evil, but the ACT of killing is more linked to evil creatures. Of course it's not an absolute rule, but it IS an important guideline. And it doesn't make the evil unicorn one inch cooler.
I don't understand the bit about a scientific view. Healing can very easily be used for cruelty and evil. It allows you to torture someone to the brink of death, heal them, torture them to the brink of death, heal them, etc. There was even a Stargate episode where Ba'al did just that to Jack. On the topic of Stargate, the sarcophagi can heal any wound and even bring back the dead but they strip away part of the soul every time they're used.

You are of course right that healing can be used for good or evil like I also already tried to mention. But the point here is that applying a REALISTIC view is the opposite of what fantasy is deepest about.  The whole point with a fairy tale is that you learn something about the human condition that goes beoynd and is not dependent on  a logical, scientific,  realistic thinking and world view. If it's just a WW2 war movie with fireballs I don't think it's the strongest form of fantasy. If it's just a realistic societal drama but with dressed-up Kings and queens, that's just selling a product through the popularity of fantasy. People today are so immersed in modern thinking that some of them seem to miss the point that it's not about what is true in the real world, it's about storytelling and fantasy.


Quoting the Gorgon, reply 8Guardian of nature: yes there are evil forests in literature, but that's not the point. The act of caring for and protecting nature/the environment I would say is more linked to good than evil in our society. Especially today with Climate change coming!
Bah. I want to play Elemental: War of Magic, not Elemental: Climate Change!! I don't care about modern problems or concerns, I want to play a fantasy game in a fantasy world. And I don't think nature is inherently good, I don't think forests and trees and flowers are inherently good, and I don't think beings and creatures who care for and protect nature are inherently good.

I think what you are saying is that you don't think so in real life. But why not Imagine it for a moment and live in a fantasy world, which is much more thrilling and has more meaning than the somewhat sad world you just described. Also, I must say that in many classical fantasy books, nature is indeed good: LOTR and Thomas Covenant even has it as elemental points! And I think it's the same in mythology and religion: it is seen as good to care about mother Earth. Your atheist and logical view is hardly inspiring for  a  fantasy tale. After all, if there is a Higher Power, protecting the beauty of creation might very probably be a GOOD act.  In fantasy at least we can pretend even if we might not believe it in  our grey everyday lives. ...

No I didn't. I said the majority of intelligent beings shouldn't be inherently good or evil. Majority ≠ all. My point was that in the common archetype of angels, they are the servants of a purely good god and their actions are the will of said god. So unless the god is fallible, then the actions of his angels must also therefore be good. If the cease to carry out the will of their god, then they cease to be angels and become something else. Again I was just using the common archetype, and saying that if Stardock wanted into implement angels in such a fashion they should be good with no equivocation. Stardock could, however, choose to implement angels in a totally different way (like the method you mentioned in your next paragraph). And that is exactly my other point - angels are one of the most common archetypal being, and yet look at how many different takes on them people have mentioned just in this thread! Standard archetypes should not be gospel - altering some of the characteristics of the standard fantastical being is very doable, and IMHO often preferable.

Also, I'm just going to express my hope again that Stardock doesn't make all evil ugly and scary, brimming with spikes and claws and fangs. It makes evil so much less interesting than you get by giving evil the same breadth as other alignments usually get.

See, I like your train of thought. Breaking an archetypal mold to make it fit better within the world of Elemental is the way to go.

See, in my opinion that totally depends on what vampires are in the world of Elemental. If they are your standard, evil shape-shifting light-fearing murdering vampires, then I agree. But if Stardock decides to make them something else? Then it's not so clear. What if in the world Elemental, people retain their entire mentality when they're transformed into vampires, and just gain the physical traits of vampirism. What if they don't actually suck blood but drain life through other means. And what if they can drain life from any living thing, and not just people (by whatever means, biting or magical or whatever)? That doesn't make them much different from people - people have to kill and eat living things, too. Personally I would still probably call such a thing a vampire, but in this case a good person would became a good vampire, just with different physical needs than humans. They could thus be very willing to help out the side of good, and the side of good could be very happy to have their help. And the same goes for an evil person turned vampire.

If you take the standard vampire, however, then having any vampire willing to join the forces of good would be much rarer, if it'd happen at all - it'd essentially have to be a special event. But that's not what I'm talking about.

In the original mythology unicorns are extraordinarily solitary, and maiden or no is completely unlikely to join any army, good or evil, whatsoever. And yet unicorns are seen in all sorts of roles in all sorts of stories and games that are completely unbefitting to this original mythology. All conceptions, including archetypes, change over time. Frankly I think this is a good thing or we'd still be in the middle ages; but for conceptions to change someone has to come along and change them. Sticking with the original myth gets old and boring, because there are no surprised and nothing new.

If Leia were dressed in green and Darth Vader's outfit were maroon, I'd have enjoyed the movie as much. The attraction lies in the uses of classical archetypes, an interesting story, interesting characters and interesting mechanics (the Force, pretty much). The movie didn't do well because Darth Vader wore black. Yes, white is more linked with good in Western culture than black, but that's beside the point. You're the one saying you want to get away from realistic views and conceptions from the real world - well this is one of them. White does not always mean good, nor should it always; and same with black. Elemental is a fantasy game, and fantasy worlds don't have to conform to popular preconceptions - if they always did they'd get repetitive and boring.

So except in special cases where the color "makes sense" to you, everything white has to be good and everything good has to be white? That's so boring, and so one-dimensional.

I have no problems with a being connected to healing being inherently good. I have problems with every being connected to healing in any way being inherently good. I don't really feel a need to convince you of this, because it's really just a personal preference and I'm very happy to let you prefer different things than I do, but it bothers me that you seem to think that a being with healing powers needs to be good or it ain't fantasy. You're the one talking about how you don't care about the realistic view, but then you go and talk about things that do and don't make sense - which boils down to applying a realistic view to something.

No. I'm saying that I don't think it needs to be so in a fantasy world. Fantasy is all about imagination. It's not about conceiving a world by applying a strict set of rules and limitations. Fantasy does not need to be good vs. evil, white vs. black, pure vs. corrupt. And even if it is, it doesn't need to be absolute. This is done all the time, and it works very well and can create a fantasy world as rich and as interesting as your standard good vs. evil high fantasy fare. I am a big fan of High Fantasy, don't get me wrong - but I enjoy other forms of fantasy just as much.

I don't see how the existence of an evil being that cares for nature is going to make a fantasy world less thrilling (as an example). Honestly I think it'd achieve the opposite. Yes, if there is a Higher Power that is inherently good and loves and protects nature, then loving and protecting nature would very probably be a good act. But there could be no higher power, there could be many conflicting higher powers (very common in fantasy worlds). Hell, there could be two Higher Powers that each care very much for nature (could be for different reasons or the same reasons, or just because it's their nature to love nature) - but one could be evil and one could be good. Or there could be a fickle Higher Power that couldn't really be called good or evil, or even neutral, that is the lover of all things natural.

If the devs say, "Oh, well any creature that loves and protects nature must be good, because nature is good, and nature is good because that's just the way it usually is" I'll be extraordinarily disappointed. However, if they say, "In our world, nature is an expression of goodness and beauty, loved by the good and pure and reviled by evil, and so beings that protect nature must be good and those that defile it must be evil" I will be satisfied. I will also be satisfied if they take an unconventional approach, as long as it' well-thought out and well implemented.

My point is not that we should turn everything upside-down and give the finger to traditional archetypes. My point is that Stardock shouldn't limit themselves by being afraid to be unconventional, as the greatest successes often begin as being very unconventional.