clippedwolf

I choose dismemberment hoping for realistic violence. I don't want cartoony bodily explosions all over the place, but I'll take certain spells making a fantastic mess out of enemies.

Would it be a positive change if they regularly bonded with each other? In the Baldur's Gate series their were plenty of pairs of characters who had bonds, only Minsc and Aerie created a bond. What about trios, quartets, and quintets, the PC either being part of this group or a spectator to it? All of this is a prelude to the age old idea of peer pressure and groupthink. http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html If there is companion alignment change I think that certain characters would be more susceptible than others. A classic psychological experiment on the frightening powers of authority is Milgram's experiment. In the 90's they redid the experiment, they also included women. The results were the same, most people will do things that are against their personal morals when they can shrug off responsability to an authority. The participants that ended their participation in the experiment felt a high degree of personal ethical or religious responsibility. http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm Going back to game mechanics: What about each companion having a constant opinion about each other? Given time their banters will strengthen their bonds with each other, or sow the seeds of discord. Strong bonds with multiple characters, who have strong bonds with each other, with different looks on the world would set the stage for "character alignment change". You make a moral decision and if a character's "alignment" is opposing that of his/her friends their is a chance of change via a moral slide (up or down) unless that character is strongly opposed to the decision and you have conflict instead. Other games have had similar events like this, but it was between you and an individual with the group just happening to be there. I'm talking a dynamic group with the player character as the leader.