Opinion on forced true neutral starting alignment?

One thing that's disappointed me in several NWN role-playing mods is how irrelevant the alignment system is. Sure, your decisions have an impact on your alignment, and certainly there are good vs. evil decisions, but your alignment seems to rarely be referenced. If your evil, shouldn't certain NPC's be a bit intimidated and submissive towards you? Likewise, if you're good, shouldn't they be more friendly and assertive? Obviously, a character's reputation plays a part in this. After all, NPC's must know some of the protagonist's good or evil deeds before they can decide how to behave around them. This means, early in the story, it's okay to dismiss the protagonist's alignment, but later, your alignment should mean something! The issue is it's hard for a developer to gauge the magnitude of a player's overall deeds when a player locks himself into Chaotic Evil or Lawful Good to start a game! It's made worse when the player commits an evil decision when they're already Chaotic Evil -- your alignment can't be any more evil than that, so the impact of your decision feels a bit negated.

Onto my point: I'm considering adopting a Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic approach where the player is locked into a true neutral alignment. Decisions will impact their alignment over the course of their story. A starting alignment provides me a base-line, so I can better direct some of the content.

This alignment restriction also makes sense from my story's perspective. Your character is a young woman who has lived a fairly sheltered life under her father's roof. As she exits her final year of home-schooling, she's uncertain about her future as her father pressures her into joining the Church of Knox. She knows very little about what lies beyond her city's walls. Many of her adventures were spent inside the pages of fictional story novels. Due to her inherently benefiting from her father's wealth and prestige, she lacks a morale compass regarding concepts of money and power. Basically, it's impossible for her to be Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, because she doesn't know what good or evil really means.

I find the protagonist's lack of understanding interesting from a character-study perspective, as she will be tested by various authoritative figures, most notably her Church's instructor, Malakai Varus, who isn't shy about taking advantage of her. Several more opportunistic characters will await the protagonist. How you confront them will shape the kind of woman she becomes.

Anyways, I'm aware some people hate being forced into a starting alignment, so I'm open to your thoughts. Of course, it's your decisions that will matter the most and not necessarily your alignment. Your alignment will simply be one of the consequences reflected by your decisions.

Game of Thrones is love. Game of Thrones is life.

I recently finished watching a little show needing no introduction called Game of Thrones (GoT). Prior to scripting my story, I admittedly had never seen the show. I decided to discover what all the fascination was about, and like everyone else, the show left a huge impression on me. I imagine it also left an impression on the author for the NWN mod, Demonheart, by Lamb, as she shares the avatar for Melisandre in the board game version of GoT. I love the show's tension, ironies, and plot twists, evoked in the most mundane or inopportune moments. I enjoy how indiscriminately GoT kills its cast, keeping viewers on edge and reminding them no one is safe. It's a world governed by deception and death, exposing the dark side of human nature.

I've learned my universe shares certain similarities, so marrying some of GoT's concepts seems only natural. GoT has caused me to give my script an extra pass, and I've realized some of my mod's conversations lacked tension. I don't consider this a set-back, as most of my scenes already were pretty tense, but some needed a bit more spice. GoT is unique in that it respects the time of its audience -- I want to do the same with my mod. Seemingly boring scenes should invoke emotions, and most characters should have accentuated personalities to make them memorable. Even if you think one of my characters is an asshole, pussy, sadist, or straight-up idiot, at least it invokes an emotion. Maybe you'll be hoping that person dies. Maybe with your choices, he or she actually can!

There are a few things GoT does I will refrain from, as I feel it doesn't fit the context of a mystery adventure. First, having too many major characters muddles a good mystery. I am striving for lots of characters, but most are minor, and are there to make the protagonist's city feel alive. Second, switching narrative perspectives is rarely used in mysteries. For example, how often does the narrative switch away from Sherlock Holmes, or Phoenix Wright? The fun of a good mystery is stepping into someone else's shoes and experiencing things exclusively from a fixed perspective. Thankfully, most NWN mods use a fixed narrative anyways, so this will feel natural to the player.

If you haven't watched the show, just watch it. Don't let the amount of episodes scare you away from it, like it initially did for me.