I can't do this...

[Tharwen]

Sometimes I think about how it would actually feel to be the character I'm playing, and then when I realise how horrific it is, I go back to it's-just-a-game mode so that I can keep playing.

 

[Dedtoo]

in the airport scene in mw2 i thought something like: I have a big gun. Lots of unarmed humies. > AHAHA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!!

But other than that i'm usually a good ork.
Though if i have the option to let a bad guy live or die? STOMP, SMASH, CHOP! They are evil, and i get to have some fun

Also in Oasis in fallout i had to think for some time to choose. I wasn't going to kill him, that i knew. But the other options, were also kinda hard. I ended up growing him.

 

[Galad]

I've had some tough decisions in RPGs, but being unable to continue? Naaah. At some point I always remember it's just a game, and more importantly, choices are usually irrelevant to its storyline as a whole.

"No Russian" was ugly, and I don't just mean the ugly looking civilians, but it was in a way fun too. The "all hell is loose" kind of fun.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Silver in Fallout 3

She says Moriarty is lying, and, genuinely beliving her, I offered to just tell Moriaty she's dead

Then I found all the chems lying about her house, prooving (in some small way) that Moriarty was telling SOME truth. If he was right about THAT and Silver was lying, then what ELSE was she lying about? I murdered her and, roleplaying, positioned her body on the bed (having brained her in the kitchen with a bat) so it looked like she died in her sleep

One of the few Morally Grey missions in F3 (Everything else is KILL BABEEZ - CURE CANCER type affair)

 

[Therumancer]

Morning All,

Just a quick question for you: Ever had a moment where you couldnt do a simple task in a game due to a moment of morality?

Ive just been reading an article from 2006 (it popped up as related news to an Extra Punctuation Article) about Thief[/I]. In it, it stated that if you listen to the guards, they start complaining that the people above them have all the favours, Yet they havent eaten in days.

Now if i was playing that game, I wouldnt be able to kill that guard. If I was forced to kill him to progress, It would trouble me. A similar thing happened with the airport scene in MW2 (The First Time) - I only shot one Civi, and a few cops who were shooting me back - Now i know these "People" are not real, But if you stopped to think, If it were[/I] the protaganist in that game (which is supposedly the point to videogames).

Have you had any moments where your own morality has stopped you from progressing?

Incidently, I can quite easily grasp the difference between Real Life & games, But i do tend to get quite into my characters in games.

Well, I think this on some levels demonstrates the failings of modern morality and how practical it is in reality.

Simply put, reality is that nobody wakes up in the morning and decides "gee, I feel like being really evil today". Just because someone has bad things happen to them, or some validity to their point of view, does not mean that they aren't your enemy and have to be dealt with/killed.

This is incidently also what wartime propaganda (like we used in WW II) is all about. When you seriously go to war, the first thing you do is take control of the media (emergency powers) and demonize the enemy. That way when you send your troops, your thinking about Nazis with portable bone grinders, and human flesh lampshades, rather than about how their soldiers are probably just as sore and hungry as you, and themselves have families and limited control over the politics of the entire thing.

To put things into a certain perspective, your enemy is human, however that guard in Thief for all his whining is STILL doing his duty and on guard duty. Even if his life isn't perfect and he's not the epitome of cackling evil, he still needs to die. Real conflicts are never really dramatic conflicts between good and evil, but more a matter of "us vs. them". A point people rapidly forget. There was a lot of BS involved in turning World War II into a "good war" in the minds of the people, a lot of details are glossed over for a reason. Including the fact that Hitler was so scary not because he was an insane psychopath, but because he was highly charismatic and right about 99% of what he said, it was that remaining 1% that was the problem, and a lot of people listening to the rest not only got caught up in it, but believed that too given the sheer, overpowering charisma that Hitler possessed.

See, if you were ever going to make a more accurate movie like "Downfall" (of which I've only seen parts) you'd have to pick some guy who was really, really likable to play Hitler to truely convey the essence of World War II. All those black and white movies that you see if him ranting do not really show how, and why this happened. It also means it's nearly impossible to learn the lessons we should be taking away from that war.

At any rate, all my rambling aside, the basic point is that reality is not straightforward, and thus if your going to survive, compete, and get anything done, you can't operate in a purely black and white fashion.

It's truely sad, and what makes a game like "Thief" a work of gritty, dark fantasy, it's not portraying things as all white vs. black, but at the same time making it clear the conflict is both nessicary and inevitable.

If you couldn't do something like that if the need arises, I understand your point of view, but at the same time you might want to re-consider your morality and standards of right and wrong.

Apologies to those who disagree, but those are my thoughts on the subject.

Face it, reality blows chips. Things like "high fantasy" exist to get away from that by being very clear. ONE of the things that makes dark fantasy, dark, is that it shows things in a much more realistic context where nobody is usually entirely good or entirely bad (except for maybe demons and creatures like that).

 

[Meggiepants]

The final choice in The Pitt, which I will not spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Suffice to say it's a lose-lose situation.

That is one of the worse moral situations I ever encountered in a game.

At first I thought it sucked because I didn't know what to choose, but then I realized how great it was. I think more games should have these morally gray options instead of, "kill the kitten or save the kitten?"

The only problem with that ambiguous choice is you are awarded Karma based on your choice, which means the developers decided which of these choices was better, which in a lose/lose situation there should be no right choice. You should have gotten no Karma, good or bad, regardless of what you chose.

I also have only played renegade Shepard once and wouldn't have done that if it weren't for the fact that ME always allows you to do the right thing even if your choices are mostly renegade. I can't do bad things, but I can be mean to the characters that wind me up. That renegade play through was tough!

I've found it is much easier to do Renegade in many cases in ME. Mostly because you aren't really doing anything morally reprehensible. Like when:

Spoiler

When you have the choice to kill the guy working on the gun ship to save Garrus. If you don't kill him, you are going to have to fight that gun ship full strength, and you end up killing all those people anyway by the end

Some of the choices were harder in ME, but there were a lot like that. I still play Paragon most of the time, so much so that someone gifted me a Paragon t-shirt recently.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

The final choice in The Pitt, which I will not spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Suffice to say it's a lose-lose situation.

That is one of the worse moral situations I ever encountered in a game.

At first I thought it sucked because I didn't know what to choose, but then I realized how great it was. I think more games should have these morally gray options instead of, "kill the kitten or save the kitten?"

The only problem with that ambiguous choice is you are awarded Karma based on your choice, which means the developers decided which of these choices was better, which in a lose/lose situation there should be no right choice. You should have gotten no Karma, good or bad, regardless of what you chose.

I'm pretty sure you didn't lose or gain karma for either choice, they just gave you a mean little message no matter what you chose!

 

[Jenova65]

The final choice in The Pitt, which I will not spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Suffice to say it's a lose-lose situation.

That is one of the worse moral situations I ever encountered in a game.

At first I thought it sucked because I didn't know what to choose, but then I realized how great it was. I think more games should have these morally gray options instead of, "kill the kitten or save the kitten?"

The only problem with that ambiguous choice is you are awarded Karma based on your choice, which means the developers decided which of these choices was better, which in a lose/lose situation there should be no right choice. You should have gotten no Karma, good or bad, regardless of what you chose.

I also have only played renegade Shepard once and wouldn't have done that if it weren't for the fact that ME always allows you to do the right thing even if your choices are mostly renegade. I can't do bad things, but I can be mean to the characters that wind me up. That renegade play through was tough!

I've found it is much easier to do Renegade in many cases in ME. Mostly because you aren't really doing anything morally reprehensible. Like when:

Spoiler

When you have the choice to kill the guy working on the gun ship to save Garrus. If you don't kill him, you are going to have to fight that gun ship full strength, and you end up killing all those people anyway by the end

Some of the choices were harder in ME, but there were a lot like that. I still play Paragon most of the time, so much so that someone gifted me a Paragon t-shirt recently.

I am quite comfortable with some of the renegade choices in 2, like the mechanic and Elnora the cocky little Eclipse initiate (man, but I do like shooting her) I just can't be mean to people asking for help etc.

 

[faspxina]

I can't kill a "little sister" and everytime I try acting like a bad guy in games that make you choose I usually end up restarting as a good guy, although when I play "God of War" it kinda messes with my sense of morality...

 

[Insanum]

Well, I think this on some levels demonstrates the failings of modern morality and how practical it is in reality.

Simply put, reality is that nobody wakes up in the morning and decides "gee, I feel like being really evil today". Just because someone has bad things happen to them, or some validity to their point of view, does not mean that they aren't your enemy and have to be dealt with/killed.

This is incidently also what wartime propaganda (like we used in WW II) is all about. When you seriously go to war, the first thing you do is take control of the media (emergency powers) and demonize the enemy. That way when you send your troops, your thinking about Nazis with portable bone grinders, and human flesh lampshades, rather than about how their soldiers are probably just as sore and hungry as you, and themselves have families and limited control over the politics of the entire thing.

To put things into a certain perspective, your enemy is human, however that guard in Thief for all his whining is STILL doing his duty and on guard duty. Even if his life isn't perfect and he's not the epitome of cackling evil, he still needs to die. Real conflicts are never really dramatic conflicts between good and evil, but more a matter of "us vs. them". A point people rapidly forget. There was a lot of BS involved in turning World War II into a "good war" in the minds of the people, a lot of details are glossed over for a reason. Including the fact that Hitler was so scary not because he was an insane psychopath, but because he was highly charismatic and right about 99% of what he said, it was that remaining 1% that was the problem, and a lot of people listening to the rest not only got caught up in it, but believed that too given the sheer, overpowering charisma that Hitler possessed.

See, if you were ever going to make a more accurate movie like "Downfall" (of which I've only seen parts) you'd have to pick some guy who was really, really likable to play Hitler to truely convey the essence of World War II. All those black and white movies that you see if him ranting do not really show how, and why this happened. It also means it's nearly impossible to learn the lessons we should be taking away from that war.

At any rate, all my rambling aside, the basic point is that reality is not straightforward, and thus if your going to survive, compete, and get anything done, you can't operate in a purely black and white fashion.

It's truely sad, and what makes a game like "Thief" a work of gritty, dark fantasy, it's not portraying things as all white vs. black, but at the same time making it clear the conflict is both nessicary and inevitable.

If you couldn't do something like that if the need arises, I understand your point of view, but at the same time you might want to re-consider your morality and standards of right and wrong.

Apologies to those who disagree, but those are my thoughts on the subject.

Face it, reality blows chips. Things like "high fantasy" exist to get away from that by being very clear. ONE of the things that makes dark fantasy, dark, is that it shows things in a much more realistic context where nobody is usually entirely good or entirely bad (except for maybe demons and creatures like that).

You see ive had that thought (About the WW2 nazis) - If its a moment where its "Kill or be killed" - Even if the enemy is charismatic, I have no quams with turning them into swiss cheese.

But i see the point you're making, And i agree with you.

 

[Meggiepants]

The final choice in The Pitt, which I will not spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Suffice to say it's a lose-lose situation.

That is one of the worse moral situations I ever encountered in a game.

At first I thought it sucked because I didn't know what to choose, but then I realized how great it was. I think more games should have these morally gray options instead of, "kill the kitten or save the kitten?"

The only problem with that ambiguous choice is you are awarded Karma based on your choice, which means the developers decided which of these choices was better, which in a lose/lose situation there should be no right choice. You should have gotten no Karma, good or bad, regardless of what you chose.

I'm pretty sure you didn't lose or gain karma for either choice, they just gave you a mean little message no matter what you chose!

Really? I need to play through the Pitt again. If that's the case, then they did it right.

I am quite comfortable with some of the renegade choices in 2, like the mechanic and Elnora the cocky little Eclipse initiate (man, but I do like shooting her) I just can't be mean to people asking for help etc.

I felt so bad the first time I played and didn't kill the Eclipse initiate, who then turns out to have been bad. I was scolded by Grunt.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I know what you mean. I was playing Assassins Creed 2 yesterday, and I was playing a mission where I was supposed to clear a bunch of areas of guards. One of them was talking about how someone else should have relieved him of his shift a while ago, and that his wife would kill him if he missed dinner again. At which point, I stabbed him in the face.

But I admit, if I were in Ezio's shoes I might hesitate there. Maybe kill the other guards and give him a fat sack of coins to keep him silent, or just hang around until he gets relieved of his duty. I do occasionally feel sorry for all these guards, they're just doing their jobs. It's not their fault that their bosses tend to be evil dictators.

 

[Jenova65]

The final choice in The Pitt, which I will not spoil for anyone who hasn't played it.

Suffice to say it's a lose-lose situation.

That is one of the worse moral situations I ever encountered in a game.

At first I thought it sucked because I didn't know what to choose, but then I realized how great it was. I think more games should have these morally gray options instead of, "kill the kitten or save the kitten?"

The only problem with that ambiguous choice is you are awarded Karma based on your choice, which means the developers decided which of these choices was better, which in a lose/lose situation there should be no right choice. You should have gotten no Karma, good or bad, regardless of what you chose.

I'm pretty sure you didn't lose or gain karma for either choice, they just gave you a mean little message no matter what you chose!

Really? I need to play through the Pitt again. If that's the case, then they did it right.

I am quite comfortable with some of the renegade choices in 2, like the mechanic and Elnora the cocky little Eclipse initiate (man, but I do like shooting her) I just can't be mean to people asking for help etc.

I felt so bad the first time I played and didn't kill the Eclipse initiate, who then turns out to have been bad. I was scolded by Grunt.

Lol, I didn't kill her either first coupla times, but then I thought ''Screw this she is a little *****, she is going DOWN!''

 

[Smallells]

The most I ever get is regret. Occasionally I act overly-dramatic but I've never really hesitated except to be stubborn. 'No Russian' wasn't hard, it's a video game. To bring an example to mind; in Dragon Age the part where Duncan dies (it's not really a spoiler since it happens within the first 2 hours) I was shouting "No!" at the screen. But that's it. Games, and for that matter movies, are all emotionally detached for the most part.

 

[Kursura]

Im a little worse than you. For a while in Halo 3, I would actually go through Sierra 117, counting the marines I had with me and trying to keep them all alive. Everytime I took a head count and one was gone, I restarted a checkpoint. It was so wierd. It was like I had it in my head that they were actual people I wanted to keep alive!

I had something like that in the game Hidden and Dangerous. You control any one of four commandos on missions to attack nazi outposts, factory's etc. Providing one survived you completed the mission but I always have to do it with all four, for every single mission (not easy). Even on the very last mission where I lost one 2 seconds before the end, I had to reload and save him.

It was probably because you got to choose 8 out of about 40 at the start, each with their own character description, so it was more personal (Smith and his 100% accuracy was always there).

 

[Agrosmurf]

I mowed down civilians with a smile on my face in MW2, Prototype, and Infamous. I killed my sister in Fable, consumed all the little girls in Bioshock one/ two, and gunned down just about everyone in all of the GTA games. They are just games. With fake people.

But somehow I had trouble fucking up other people's gaming experience in WOW. (When I played. I was always being asked to pull bosses on people, or to kite bosses in on raid parties. But I just couldn't do it. Just knowing that it would force some Cheeto-eating nerd to throw his headset out his window was enough to stop me.

 

[Ieyland]

Oh come on! Do we not have an evil bastard on this forum?

I do what I think is right, but I do shoot whoever is in my way or if I don't like them.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

There've been a bunch of times back in the old days where a guard would be bitching or something and I'd just be like, "No, he gets to live, have a nice day." I can't even think of any of the games off the top of my head, but I do remember that type of thing. Ironically, MWII or the city level (with the tank) in Goldeneye never gave me issues. It's always that random guy who says something human. If I have to kill him, fine, if not, even better.

Ever play The Suffering? The evil path was pretty easy to take, but the one guy smoking pot or something (it's been a while) who's jumps between really friendly and bawling his eyes out usually lived. I killed him once and actually regretted it. Suspension of disbelief FTW!

Oh, and little sisters. Never harvested one, not even to see what happened.

I will always say that I don't trust anyone who harvested the little sisters.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Am I the only one who had the exact OPPOSITE reaction to that stupid MW2 level? I'd been shooting and being shot at for a while and it was nice to just watch some freaking corpses hit the ground for a while.

nope. i didnt feel a thing. i admit it might be because i had recently done that extra mission in the snow (whatever they're called, i dont really like mw2), where the guy screams at you about that F***ING missle every 3 SECONDS. I DONT WANT TO USE IT SHUT UP!!!! ahem... that level reminded me about the nuke in fallout 3, and how they removed the option to blow it up from japanese versions. first of any monkey with the internet could go online and find out you can detonate it in other versions, so its sort of pointless. and secondly its a little insulting avoiding the issue and assuming a group is too sensitive to handle something fictional.

 

[PixieFace]

Yeah, I get really into the characters. I know it's "just a game", I can tell the difference between fantasy and reality very well thanks, but I just can't be evil. Never.

I can't play the God of War series. Kratos is such a dick. I have a hard time with the unnecessary slaughter of gods I feel didn't really deserve it.

Dragon Age: Origins gave me some trouble, too. Buncha spoilers!:

Spoiler

Especially with the Desire Demon in Redcliffe choice because Alistair, who my elf was romancing, got super pissed at me any way I rolled it. I was stuck for a good while, but I ended up killing Isolde because... Well, you know.

TEEEE-GANNN? TEEE-GAN, WHO EEZ DEES WOOMAN TEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAN?

My eye is twitching at the memory.

Also with Morrigan's dark ritual. Oh my god. Like I said, I had gotten attached to Alistair and didn't want him banging this super hot witch chick to make some kind of demonic abomination of a baby that could destroy the world. But it was either that or him - one of the two only Grey Wardens in Ferelden - dying... Well. It sucked hardcore. Male characters got off easy with that end game.

Call me out of the news loop, but I wasn't aware of what "No Russians" really about until I jumped into it myself. I heard a lot of politicians shat themselves over it but I figured they do that every chance they get, so it couldn't have been that big of a deal. But man, did that level ever make me feel physically sick. I had to give the controller to someone else. I just couldn't do it.

Bioshock's Little Sisters, Knights of Old Republic (or any Bioware game, really, but especially that one), Fallout... Yeah, I know I'm just playing a game, but I'm also emotionally incapable of being a meany pants.