An idea for a decent in-game moral choice

[Dr Druza]

Here's something that I believe Yahtzee said or quoted:
"No one believes their choices are evil"
For me, that means no blue or red backgrounds, no clear indication of what is evil and what is not. Obviously, destroying Bambi's forest or a pre-school or what-have-you is bad. If its obviously bad, then I won't do it, if I'm being true to myself, and not just looking for a different experience, achievements, etc.

A moral choice system I'D like to see, would be one that you don't even notice. For example, say the player is armed and dangerous, but also capable of taking down assailants without killing them. No rewards (+50 "Good" points!) either way, although just shooting them might be faster. Say a maniac locks himself in a shed, holding an automatic weapon. You are tasked with dealing with him. Talk him down? Lure him out and shoot him? Spray the shed with bullets? No prompts, no advice from other characters, just the player making a decision. The less time to make them the better.
That's my idea anyway.
[/hijack]

Its 2:30AM and this post makes sense.

 

[Azureraider]

You've all made some good points (I knew posting here was a good idea).

How about this: the Flux proliferation is so bad that the only way you're sure to beat it is to use Flux? If you do, you cause a lot of destruction and people will hate you, but the threat is sure to be eliminated. Flat-out refusing to use your most powerful bad-guy-face-stomping abilities will result in you not being powerful enough to completely destroy the threat. You'll still 'win', but only succeed in containing the Flux. Other choices in the game could have their own effects on the ending too.

How's that sound?

 

[Racecarlock]

Hmm. Got some concept art? I'm not sure if using too much flux on a boss should cause a bad ending. How much is too much, and how much is too little? How are we supposed to know that?

It's just an idea I'm running out there to see if there's some merit behind it. But that is a good point; attacking the boss once with Flux should probably be alright, assuming you're not doing something ridiculously destructive.

Well, it wouldn't be a 'bad' ending, really. using all Flux, all the time would probably end with you thoroughly beating the bad guys, but then going into exile to atone for the destruction you caused. It's not a 'Chancellor Palpatine' choice.

Perhaps a good indication of when you've 'gone too far' in a boss fight would be a change in the music and/or ambient lighting.

I don't know, shouldn't we also get some kind of warning as to when we start to go "Too far"? Otherwise it would kind of just sneak up on people, and people don't like sudden failure or evilness pop out of nowhere. Hell, I found the RDR random "Save me!" people annoying, but it would have been much worse if I also lost honor for not doing the task, which I almost never do since most of them conveniently pop up right when I'm about to save.

 

[Dansen]

There just needs to be consequences for each decision made by the player in any moral choice system, which your idea seems to have so, It looks good to me

 

[lacktheknack]

Personally, I prefer my moral choices to be black and blacker. Your idea is decent, but it's a question of "Good is hard, evil is easy", where the route of least suffering isn't inherently different from the evil route except that evil is easy.

Now, if you came up with a true Hobson's choice, say, cause horrendous collateral damage versus the boss not being permanently killed, and made each decision uniquely bite you later, THAT would be a choice system I'd be interested in.

That's a hard line to walk. When does making choices having consequences become punishing the player for not behaving a certain way?

Personally, I say that if you're going to explore a morality system, you may as well go the whole hog and make everything as balls-out and nail-bitingly desperate as you can. There's no "punishing the player for doing things wrong" if he can't do anything RIGHT.

This doesn't wreck the game, though, by any stretch. In Geneforge 2, every major decision you made had world-spanning ramifications, and NONE of the endings were truly happy.

Well, there was one.

The one you get for killing everything.

Throughout the game, I kept pissing off factions I didn't want to piss off because I tried to balance my diplomacy, but it was impossible. Every interaction I had with a faction leader pissed off everyone else unless I cursed its mother or something. Every infraction I made made everyone respect me less, and it was hard to gain it back (impossible, in fact, without pissing off everyone else). The result wasn't an exercise in futility, it was simply forcing you to come down on the black or blacker side of the main issue:

If clones and genetic experiments gain sentience, how should they be treated?

A. Allowed to live

B. Killed

There's subtler nuances to each side, but this is the main conflict in the game.

The happiest ending comes from hitting the blackest of the black and achieving a moral event horizon, and it's a nasty, nasty route to take. Going the grayest route is ALSO a nasty route to take, and results in a pretty crapsack ending. Attempting to balance your stance will put you in danger and wreck your ending, even going so far as to have a "Nuke the World" ending if you decide to do nothing (which is an option). And yet it still manages to be an incredibly fun and rewarding RPG.

So, to sum up, it's about making both options bad ones, play Geneforge for the cream of the crop of this choice system type.

 

[lacktheknack]

You've all made some good points (I knew posting here was a good idea).

How about this: the Flux proliferation is so bad that the only way you're sure to beat it is to use Flux? If you do, you cause a lot of destruction and people will hate you, but the threat is sure to be eliminated. Flat-out refusing to use your most powerful bad-guy-face-stomping abilities will result in you not being powerful enough to completely destroy the threat. You'll still 'win', but only succeed in containing the Flux. Other choices in the game could have their own effects on the ending too.

How's that sound?

That's a better idea, actually. I'd tweak it more, but its still better.

 

[Azureraider]

Snip

That does sound good. I'll have to check that out.
I personally like the endings to the original Deus Ex. Each one was justifiable, depending on who you agreed with, and they were all about making the best out of a situation that was mostly bad. Of all the (very, very few) things, Invisible War did right, I'd say the ability to build (admittedly shallow) relationships with the various NPC groups was the best.

Hmm. Got some concept art? I'm not sure if using too much flux on a boss should cause a bad ending. How much is too much, and how much is too little? How are we supposed to know that?

It's just an idea I'm running out there to see if there's some merit behind it. But that is a good point; attacking the boss once with Flux should probably be alright, assuming you're not doing something ridiculously destructive.

Well, it wouldn't be a 'bad' ending, really. using all Flux, all the time would probably end with you thoroughly beating the bad guys, but then going into exile to atone for the destruction you caused. It's not a 'Chancellor Palpatine' choice.

Perhaps a good indication of when you've 'gone too far' in a boss fight would be a change in the music and/or ambient lighting.

I don't know, shouldn't we also get some kind of warning as to when we start to go "Too far"? Otherwise it would kind of just sneak up on people, and people don't like sudden failure or evilness pop out of nowhere. Hell, I found the RDR random "Save me!" people annoying, but it would have been much worse if I also lost honor for not doing the task, which I almost never do since most of them conveniently pop up right when I'm about to save.

Shouldn't be too difficult to implement some signal for that purpose. Perhaps a bit a dialogue or a sinister guitar riff.

 

[Tortilla the Hun]

I think there should be some sort of adverse effect for allowing the battle to escalate to such extreme proportions, some sort of system that gauges the amount of destruction you're causing that affects the NPC's opinion toward the main character. Regardless of whether or not you're fighting for some greater good, people are going to get a little angry if you're using their brand new mini-van to crush some enemy into dust.

 

[lacktheknack]

Snip

That does sound good. I'll have to check that out.
I personally like the endings to the original Deus Ex. Each one was justifiable, depending on who you agreed with, and they were all about making the best out of a situation that was mostly bad. Of all the (very, very few) things, Invisible War did right, I'd say the ability to build (admittedly shallow) relationships with the various NPC groups was the best.

Geneforge specializes in that. Except the shallow bit, getting friendly with one faction can result in totally game-changing events and affects everything else.

http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/geneforge2/index.html

Try it... the demo is spectacularly large and gives you a great feel of whether you'll like it or not. (You don't need to play the first game, and it's almost better if you don't, as your character has no idea that the first game even happened.)

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

I think the problem about morality is that you can't enforce good or bad choices.
You need to leave the player the decision if his doing was evil or not.
Don't establish shades of grey blending from good to evil.
Give the player the choice (even only 2 ones) and slowly and invisbly let it spin towards the desired alignment.

 

[Iron Mal]

Snipped for brevity.

I think you have some interesting ideas although I do have to address the issue of the monsters getting stronger as you do through 'catalysation'.

Similar to when you gain empty levels in an RPG, the idea of monsters getting stronger directly in tandem with you could result in the bonus being obtained also becoming somewhat useless.

Picture a first person shooter where you start with a normal handgun (let's say it does 10 damage) and start fighting normal guys (let's say they have 50hp). Five shots equal one kill, fair enough but let's say halfway through the first level you encounter a shotgun (let's say it does 20 damage), great! Bigger gun should make the game easier, right?

Wrong.

Now imagine that elite guys start coming out now insted (let's say they have 100hp), this results in us being effecively back where we started in termsof difficulty rendering both the player's and the enemy's 'upgrades' useless (since they effectively cancel each other out).

As for how the morality of all this should play out others have made better suggestions than I can think of but that's merely one gameplay consideration to keep in mind.

Sounds like it could be interesting, keep up the good work.