Do people agree with any of these points regarding intangibles and randomness?

I agree on both points, especially number one. Knowing the effects just allows for a formulaic strategy that always works.

I'm all for randomness as long as it makes sense and/or is consistent. Like leader personalities in Civ 5, keeping results within a reasonable range is the best approach.

Seems like I'm just reiterating what you've said..

Well they seem to make sense for me.  I know that if you have options that give largely positive or negative consequences, it certainly doesn't help the game if you know exactly what you are getting each time.  Either all options (even compassion and fame) need to have negative as well as positive consequences, or it would be better to keep intangibles entirely hidden, and randomize within a range how much each option is worth each time, as well as the chances are for each outcome when that hidden intangible counter is high enough.

Agreed. Player doesn't need to know what's going on under the hood. It takes away the magic in favour of math. If you want to tell the player something at least make it vague, like: loved - neutral - hated, cruel - neutral - kindly, famous - not well known - forgotten.

I agree completely. I think things going on behind the scenes that the player doesn't know about (and can't manipulate) keeps the magic alive. I know I have said this in other threads, but I think King of Dragon Pass is a great example of how to implement this concept.

I disagree.

Primarily on point 1.

Point 2 is negotiable, but I also don't like the idea of luck determining the result.

There's not much point in hiding the numbers, the gist of the choices will become known quickly anyway and having them visible makes it much more obvious to the player that she/he is making relevant choices that have immediate (and long term) consequences. I'm a big fan of tangible (read visible) results for actions, even if it happens to concern intangible variables.

Furthermore I hope that the designers take up the opportunity to implement spells/items/unit-abilities that key off the intangibles:

• The item Hammer of Justice deals +1 damage for every point of righteousness
• The spell Cruel Edict deals tactical AOE damage that increases by +1 for every point of cruelty
• The unit trait Loyalty grants +1 hp to the unit for every point of compassionate

...

OP's suggestion does make sense in a primarily linear environment where the player faces the same quests with the same choices in every game. However, instead, SK promises much much much content (with supposedly hundreds of quests already in the game). In such an environment it is important for a player to know what decisions she/he's making and what impact they have.

As I've mentioned in the "Sorcerer King: Week 1" thread, showing all the variables could definitely work if there's pros and cons to each one, which it seems there are.  And if there's lots of content, it might not matter, say if you're always compassionate, because what you get from that varies from game to game.

Question is, is sucking up to the SK when he questions you about your expansion counted as the "cowardice" stat?

The problem is: are we treating intangibles (1) like quantifiable RPG attributes (like str, dex, int) or (2) like some vague factors operating in the background. If player can check their numerical value the answer is (1). 

The bottom line;

Whichever method provides more variety, replayability and fun is the way SD should go with this.

The best solution is to make it an option to hide intangibles, and even an option to control the randomness of them.

it depends on what type of game you want it to be

if it's a strategy game, then the player needs to be making informed decisions

randomness is ok, but it needs to be informed randomness (eg. 50% chance of outcome A. 25% chance of outcome B. 25% chance of outcome C)

if experience gives you more information, then by definition a player is not making informed decisions from the get-go and the strategy part of the game is worse

it's different for adventure games

We don't plan to hide the intangibles. One of the reasons for this is that it's important for players to know the variables that the game is playing with.  Otherwise, they'll think everything is random.

It would be nice to have the option to reveal or hide the intangibles, I think. Or at least have the intangibles viewable by mouseovers only. Just my opinion, of course.

Will there be an "x-factor" to intangibles? Some factor or other to provide some variation from game to game?

Fair enough. But did you consider making it a little vague by representing them using words instead of numbers? It could something be like this: none, very low, low, average, high, very high, extreme. I just don't like the idea of numbers all over the place.