DISCBlackknight

Then why add it at all in a game based on a tabletop where creative roleplaying, regardless of alignment, can yield rewards. This seems like a copout idea of their intentions, or, if accurate, a copout on their part.

Actually, I'm playing Baldur's Gate through again, as evil aligned PC with evil aligned NPCs. Baldur's Gate does not work this system "right." Sure, the town guard attack me, and sure some conversational tidbits and the dreams I have point out my inner darkness as a character. However, bumping up the cost of items at stores a ludicrous amount is simple favoritism. There's far more incentive for a shopkeeper to charge me LESS as an evil PC than as a good PC. What I mean to say is this: An evil PC that murders, betrays, and generally raises chaos should (if anything) be given DISCOUNTS out of fear, or tribute to avoid being SLAUGHTERED by me. I shouldn't have to pay something like 100,000+ gold for a simple +1 magic item for no other reason than I murder people who disagree with me. Good players could recieve discounts, however, aren't seedy shopkeepers more likely to try to take advantage of their good nature? On my evil playthrough I'm relying on drops/quest rewards for potions/igear, I simply cannot afford to dish out hundreds of thousands in gold for crap items. It is not balanced, and there is nothing fair about it, especially when compounded with the lesser total quest rewards I'm getting for being evil. Trying to argue that playing Evil in BG does NOT yield less net quest rewards over the course of the game is straight up false. The game rewards you for being good, plain and simple. Also, making a subtly nuanced alignment system sounds great in theory, but the amount of effort to make choices/consequences that are "realistic" would seem, to me, to take such a great amount of effort/care that every RPG I've seen with an alignment system is really just good/evil (Dichotomy is simple). So I'm just hoping it's balanced dichotomy.

Not sure if this has been really addressed before in here, if it has please link to the thread and close this. In many Bioware games, and, indeed, RPGs in general, when rpesented with choices/options in conversation or for resolving quests, the "good" choice is almost always the choice that nets the biggest/best rewards. I dislike seeing this dynamic, and I hope that this game addresses that. Just because the "evil" way can be the quick and dirty, doesn't mean it should quantifiably net less reward for the duration of a campaign. Example: Do a quest to retrieve a clan's legendary sword for them, they offer you some gold and their loyalty. Maybe I want that sword, and the clan's allegiance is nothing to me. So maybe I take that sword, worth 3x as much as the gold, but then the clan tries to ambush me later in the game, as opposed to helping me defeat some Big Bad, or reclaim some player housing option (retake a fortress) Just my two cents from my gaming experiences, but I usually play games through at least twice, once as a good aligned, and once as evil (if allowed).