The entire backstory in 4th Ed is a ridiculously contrieved excuse for "I wan play demuns without my GM complaigning, lol, btw can I has draguns two?".

The second being the rape of an entire setting. I don't see how anyone can even look at the red wizards without bursting into either tears or laughter. Or see an entire cosmology go "Oh, wait guise, Abeir was here all along lol!". To someone that has never experienced anything better, I understand that the 4th edition FR "Isn't that big of a deal" but to those of us that enjoyed the setting (which was by no means perfect) most of the changes are nonsensical flamboyance created to cater to increasingly erratic children of the 'modern' age, with an average attetion span of 42.3 seconds before moving on to the next lens flaer. It's a meaningless collection of MOAR!.

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.

I wouldn't call it Dumbed down as much as paired down.  Why is making combat simpler in this case a bad thing?  Having different rules for different attacks was stupid.  Static defenses across the board is something I would import into a 3.5 campaign.  The ruleset has nothing to do with how people choose to play the game, I've had a variety of game experiences in 4th ed. Hack n' slash dungeon romp not really being one of them.

Your claims that indulging childish impulses in a game of pretend is somehow destructive shows your level of pretentiousness.

I thoroughly enjoy both systems and the worlds.  I understand what the changes in 4th are about and like a lot of them.  The changes in setting and cosmology are cosmetic.  If you don't like the setting since its a game of pretend you can make it like it was before.

Although this whole conversation probably belongs somewhere else.  I just brought up the 4th ed UNcorns as a reference because we were talking about unicorns.

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. 

reminds me of a role-playing where I was the  player (usually am GM) where the innocent maiden of our group tried to get eaten by a kelpie.  (not so good horse creature)  and a hag ended up saving her.  However the hag, who originally planned to eat the girl herself, decided she was too amused by the innocent girl and used her to  get rid of the girl-eating compitition through a curse binding the kelpie to her as a servert.  (if the kelpie ate her or let her die, then serious bad-stuff of  unexplained nature would happen)

There way a point to this story.

I imagine an "evil" faction could enslave a unicorn or in some unlawful way bind it to their will.   Something along the lines of putting a magical collar on it and forcing it into battle for fear of something worse happening.  Its the same idea that the dragonmaw clan enslaved the red dragon flight in warcraft 2.  So an evil faction might be MORE likely to use a unicorn just because a "good" faction would be happy to leave it in the forrest it protects.

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.

:p

Addenum:

For sure. And like people have said before, archetypes shouldn't be smashed to pieces just for fun. There should be a reason for it, and there needs to be a good idea behind it. Having backstory, or short descriptions, of units in games is not only simple, but common. There doesn't need to be an essay with a timeline attached or anything, but a well-written short paragraph giving a well-thought out description is more than capable of doing the job (and is a must in my opinion whatever Stardock does with alignment).

I actually disagree. You kind of just described one of the protagonists in the Coldfire Trilogy (which I mentioned before), and it would take a matter of minutes to come up with a decent summary of his history to sufficiently convince you that such a thing like a death magic-wielding vampire joining a good army could happen. Self-interest and remorse are both very powerful incentives.

I'm not the biggest fan of innate alignment because it doesn't make much sense for most races/beings. Any race that has a choice (ruling out, for example, angels in the strictest sense) shouldn't be confined to such rigid alignment categorizations. 

First, the vast majority of fantasy that uses unicorns ignores the bit about maidens - it's a property that can easily be removed without changing the unicorn into something else entirely. Being white is hardly a reason for being innately good. I hate that stereotype. The power of healing is not innately good - it can be used to whatever purpose its wielder intends - for example, healing evil wounded people. Being linked to aspects of nature and forests doesn't make things automatically good in my book, either. There is an enormous number of stories with evil forests, evil aspects of nature, and even unicorns dwelling in fairly evil forests.

I'm not saying "unicorns should be evil in Elemental!" It was merely an example to make a point: rigid, innate alignment for non-human races is more often than not nonsensical and one-dimensional, and maintaining clichés and classic archetypes is not always the best route to take.

Possibly my biggest gripe of all is that self-interest is almost always ignored. Frankly, if I, a good guy, confront a being or group of beings that tend toward the evil side with the options of being destroyed or joining my ranks, I expect them to seriously consider the latter. Likewise if I'm some evil bastard presenting the same choice to a group of unicorns that prefer roaming freely in their flower forest, I would also expect them to consider self preservation as an option. Or even if I were to say, "I'll let your forest flourish, I'll even help it out with magic, if some of you unicorns join my ranks - but if you refuse, I'll burn it to the ground," well that should be powerful incentive. I don't expect Stardock to be able to implement a system complex enough to allow such detailed interaction, but merely having alignment be one factor among many in interactions between various peoples and beings would go a long way.

If they have to have rigid, absolute alignment (which I suspect they will for the sake of time, effort and simplicity), then at least don't make it be the only factor.

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.

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.

I would hardly call maidens a key part of unicorns considering they are almost always ignored across the board.

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. 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.

And tell me, when you think of evil people, do you think of black people with blood red eyes? I'm guessing no. And in many cases the evil human[oid] antagonist is portrayed as handsome or beautiful - why can't the same be true with non-humanoid beings? Evil can look pretty, and good can look ugly. I understand that people have preconceptions, but in my humble opinion, people's preconceptions are boring and old and I'd rather something fresh and new. Whether that's something completely original or a new take on an old idea, I don't care, as long as it's done well.

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.

We may be used to healing being stereotypically good, but that's no reason for healing to be considered an innately good ability or for anything capable of or connected to healing to be good. Healing is as useful to an evil general as it is to the nicest good-two-shoes in the world - being able to shoot fireballs out of his face isn't going to do him much good if his army atrophies away due to wounds and casualties. 

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. Nature includes things like thunderstorms and floods and plagues and avalanches and volcanoes and rip tides, and mosquitos and black flies and venomous creatures and plants. Nature can be beautiful and peaceful, but evil can be as capable of enjoying beauty and tranquility as good is. Mindless evil, maybe not. But sophisticated, intelligent evil - definitely. Additionally, an evil being that requires a thriving natural environment to survive would logically be a caretaker of nature. 

I'm not saying Stardock should turn the classical good-evil dimension upside down. I'm saying that Stardock should change some things up. I'm not even arguing that unicorns should be evil, or even neutral. I'm saying that such a thing can be done, and done well. It could take some people a little while to get passed their preconceptions, but if implementation and descriptions are well-done, then I think only the most willfully stubborn people would continue to object.

And again, good demons would be as stupid as evil angels (angels in the strictest sense - servants of some inherently good god or avatar). Demons should be inherently evil, like angels should be inherently good. Unicorns, however, are a different matter entirely, as are vampires and the majority of intelligent fantastical beings. And really what I want to see is for alignment to be a fuzzy thing - just like humans represent the whole spectrum, so should other races. And sort of next to the good-evil spectrum, off to the side, is the category "totally self-interested." Anyone so self-interested would do whatever is best for them, be that good, evil or some shade of gray. If something like this is too difficult to implement, or if it's just not going to be implemented, I'd at least like to see some originality even if just for the sake of freshness. I don't Stardock to just randomly alter the alignments of all the traditional archetypal creatures for the hell of it, I want them to make calculated, though-out decisions while thinking "how can we make this interesting and new, while keeping it believable?"

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.

Please pardon me for aiding this severe threadjacking, but on the black-and-white/good-and-evil thing, I have to mention again that Gandalf was "the Grey" for most of his extremely long life--i.e., you're mistaken if you think that LotR is a pure good vs. evil story. Tolkien was a serious Catholic, so I can accept the idea that he might have thought he was writing a pure good vs. evil thing, but the text itself is just not that simple.

Also, the colors for good and evil in any given story should work for that story. Think about wedding dresses as a sideways example. In many European, a 'proper' wedding dress is white. In many Chinese weddings, the bride is dressed in red. Both colors mean "fit to be married," but there are different local details to explain why each color is appropriate symbolism for that highly abstract criterion.

So, for the game, if good and evil need colors, I want the artists to be OK with the parameters as a common task limitation, and for gravy, I'd like to see a few hints in the text content about why the colors are what they are. (I won't worry if the latter doesn't happen; writing as a craft hasn't yet gained much status in PC games.)

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

Let's not forget Saruman the White Which was big deal when Gandalf became the White after his little Balrog encounter..

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.

Sure, but it still shows that white is not inherently good Though admittedly, Saruman isn't a very clear cut case since he has been good for quite a while.

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.

I'd like to see a hot pink house.. nobody around here is that insane.

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.

Some people are walking pro-abortion plaques. 

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.

I admit I was sorta baiting folks with that--but only sorta. Sure, the main protagonists are, for the most part, 'good' or 'evil.' But for the LotR itself (do you think even a near-majority of LotR readers have read the Tolkien apocrypha?), there are plenty of details (Tom Bombadil, Ents) that smack of capital-n Neutrality. Then there's the end of the story being the beginning of the Age of Men, who are most definitely not 'purely good' or 'purely evil.'

[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. ...

sorry about the quotes all messed up above, I'm going to sleep now!

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.

I don't think Star Wars would have been such a big hit if Darth had been dressed in white. Or pink. Maybe as a comedy ... But since we agree on thinking the movie draws so sucessfully on archetypes I don't see why you find it difficult to accept that the colours are indeed a part of the archetypes. I don't think that argument is even controversial. I have read it in several books about movies and scriptwriting ( I can recommend e.g. The Writer's Journey). But you are of course entitled to another opinion.

When I say we should get away from a realistic thinking in fantasy (and accept e.g. that magic or divine powers exist, or e.g. that absolute good or evil exist in the fantasy world) this naturally doesn't mean that you shouldn't draw on (real) mythological history and archetypes when you create the world/the game. Of course not. I don't really see why you mix these two up, they are two completely diferent things.

Yes, like we both have said fantasy can be done like that. And it could work well or less well. But I think it should be noted that fantasy, especially the most popular and well-liked fantasy, are about good vs evil, and often portrayed in an archetypal, if not absolute, way. E.g. LOTR. After all, that is perhaps the key point of a fairy-tale: giving a strong message about good and evil through a story, where such attributes are clearly represented through characters and creatures.

Anyway, for the discussion on Elemental it would be better to get down to what creature alignment would actually mean in the game. I gave an example of it: the vampire on the map. Another I gave was on the unicorn. For me, the game would certainly not risk feeling "old and boring" just because you have evil vampires and good unicorns in it. If Stardock works well on the Factions the game will feel new and fresh. If they also throw in some new and fresh creatures and things we've never seen before, perfect! Heck, if the game (graphic and gameplay) is well done the game could feel new even if it only reused the most worn-out archetypes (which I don't recommend, but just to get the point across).

I have never said a being with healing powers must be good - only that you might need to come up with a better explanation for an evil tree hugger than for a good one. The discussion was about the unicorn: yes it would be possible to create an evil unicorn, but if it keeps it's powers and look (traditionally more linked to good) you would need to explain the creature to the reader/player. Who might or might not like it.

An archetype/creature making sense or not is not dependent on a reality check (= realistic approach). I was just saying that the White Witch, which is a character I really like, makes sense to me as a white, evil mythological creature. Not because I have a realistic explanation for it, but because it feels right: the parts fit well together. Why it feels right could be linked to how the author thought when he invented his creature, as well as to my own culture etc, but that's another story I won't go into.

Just to try on my side and close the debate , getting somewhat lengthy ... , I agree that new takes on old stuff CAN be good and make a book / game more exciting. But changing the archetypes should in my view be done only for a good reason. And it's not necessary to apply a realistic approach to good/evil, creation, evolution etc in a fantasy game.