"Moral" Choice systems and Choice systems impacting gameplay and story. How to do them right?

[FavouriteDream]

I think the golden rule is make all of the options realistic choices and something that you could conceive of doing. Some games I've played have made the "bad" choices completely ridiculous and downright illogical and insane. I want to play a logical bad guy, not a total nutter. Especially in games where having a batshit psychopathic protagonist doesn't make sense.

I also want to see more punishment for being good. Mass Effect should have had more than this - if you want to be a hero in shining armour and take the high ground, you should be punished because perhaps your choice wasn't the most practical.

 

[MagunBFP]

Most moral choice systems I have are extreanly bianary and lack subtlty. Either you are a saint or the devil which is unrealistic. Also they cannot take into account WHY you make a choice. In Bioshock 2 there is a character who in taped messages wanted to die because he was turning into a monster and going insane. But you find him he wants to live. There are many different reasons to kill or spare this character. For example you can kill him for revenge, mercy kill him, just follow his wishes from when he was sane or kill him to keep him from killing other people. Moral choice systems can't take this kind of thing into account.

I have to agree there are hundreds of reason behind why a character might make a decision and there's no way include all of them. Most of them can be simplfied down to "cruel to be kind" badness, "I'm an evil bastard" badness, "indifferent" neutrality, "indecisive" neutrality, "I'm a nice guy" goodness and "I'm keeping you alive so you owe me" goodness. So perhaps if the moral choices were split into what action do you want to take, ie kill/don't kill, save/don't save, and then gave you several dialog choices it would allow you to effectivly make your characters actions reflect their motivations, while the benefits/problems caused by the actions were driven solely by the action you chose. Making it a two step process also allows for changes to the story or at least the dialog... someone you helped might help you now because you made a point of how they owe you... or else, or the might want to help you because you helped them, or won't help you because you weren't scary or won't because they resent you.

To stop actions/dialog from having no actual consequences you could limit what actions can follow certain dialog options, or after a certain number of dialog options building good or bad points you could start restricting/unlocking certain dialog or actions.

At the end of the day alot more work would have to go into implementing more choices and variations on each choice, but it'd definitely make "moral" choices more relevant

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I really liked what they did in World at War in the Russian campaign and Chernov's diary. If you do certain things during the campaign, his entry about you will change.

 

[putowtin]

I'm a fan of reaction systems, like in Dragon Age or Fallout: New Vegas, where the actions very clearly have effects, but those effects are left up to the player when determining good/evil. Like the Great Khans in FONV are a bunch of drug runners, but they are good to their own people, and only hurt people who attack them, so the player has to decide if they're good, bad, or just whatever.

Also similar things for big choices. Have multiple choices, and make them have their big changes, but don't have anyone run up after saying, "Oh hero! You saved me!" or the like. Or if you do, have both sides. "Oh hero! You saved me!" "Yeah, by smashing up my house!"

Nicely put, you know one of the things that bugged me with the Fable series, you could be good or bad, your college (in the first game) didn't care, the only time your other hero's said anything in Fable 2 was right at the end, however every other NPC in the game ran screaming if you walked toward them, not one person in Albion found evil sexy?!

 

[Detroit]

"I'm keeping you alive so you owe me" goodness.

Someone you helped might help you now because you made a point of how they owe you... or else, or the might want to help you because you helped them, or won't help you because you weren't scary or won't because they resent you.

Personally I'd say that keeping someone alive for that reason isn't particularly nice. But I guess that's where the dialogue comes in huh? You kept me alive for that reason? Yeah but you're a good person versus Yeah, you got a problem with that?

It might also depend on the NPC you're "sparing". What if the guy/gall you spare (say you had to choose between two) is extremely proud/vain and because of this reason he/she will react differently (deciding to hold a grudge against you or something).

The Walking Dead had this where you could explain your actions but the overall events were still set in stone (someone has to die at this point for example).

 

[rob_simple]

The best choice system I've seen recently in games was in Human Revolution because, provided you weren't using the augments to cheat, the conversation came down to reasoning with people and trying to figure them out, as opposed to one choice highlighted in red and the other in blue.

Because I was choosing the dialogue choices that I personally thought made the best argument, (unlike in other games where the correct response is always obvious,) I felt genuinely satisfied when I talked someone around to my way of thinking in the game, and there was only one instance where I had to reload a save to get the outcome I wanted.

 

[Saregon]

The Witcher 2, for me, came close to this. Their choices were still too limited, mind you. It was usually either one or the other. Just two options for a situation. But in the first area I already encountered quite a few choices where it wasn't clear what the good or bad choice would be. I instead had to rely on my own morality, figuring out what I would personally think was good or bad when picking between the choices.

I also like the fact that The Witcher 2 had an established character (Geralt) with an established personality, and all the choices you can make makes sense for him to make. By narrowing down the amount of possible choices this way, I feel like they made the remaining possibilities much better. And of course props for not having the Angel/Devil meter. And now I want to start a new playthrough and make some other choices I wanted to make.

Also, obligatory shout-out to The Walking Dead, for actually letting you explain the reason for your choices, most of the time.

It seems to me that a lot of, if not most, games stay too close to the "chaotic evil -> lawful good" scale, which is definitely better than simply good/bad, but still a very binary system. However, it does at least factor in motivation to a degree.

 

[josemlopes]

I would be curious to see a Mass Effect type of game where the other characters would also make choices between themselfs, like one of your teammates falling in love with a different teammate. It shouldnt be completely random, for example for them to consider each other friends one of them would have to revive the other in combat or back up their opinion in a dialog (basicly adding points to friendship), it could go the other way around with them not being friends and having them not giving a shit about eachother in combat and the player would almost have to babysit them since they wouldnt revive or cover eachother that oftenly (in here it would be better to bring different teammates).

If your teammates didnt like you they would also have some issues following all your orders since they would think you are a shitty leader.

I find it hard to believe that this sort of thing will ever happen since we are still strugling with player choices let alone NPC's choices

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Dont have "Points" or "Good and bad" options - Walking dead does it VERY VERY well.

Like heres a good example. Heres a moral choice.

You are alone with 2 adults and 2 children in a barn. You are hiding from a threat outside. You have no water or food but know here some is nearby. Do you:

Go out alone.

Go with another adult.

Go with ALL the adults.

Send the children as they are less likely to be detected.

See. No good or bad options. Just options. It allows for a lot MORE choices in games because the choices dont need to be polarised, just different. Is taking a red milkshake the "Good" option over taking the blue milkshake? It doesnt matter because a game that throws out the two poles concepts doesnt need to assign them any arbitrary points or labels. Its a choice. The results of your choice will decide if what you did was good or bad in your own head. And since sometimes good choices go wrong its totally possible to be sure in a choice that lead to loss with hindsight. You might not consider sacrificing one of the children to save you all, it might be the ONLY one that results in only a single death and not more. But youre never going to look back and say "I wish i did that". THAT feeling is something polar moral choice systems fail at.

The best choices are choices youre not even sure you made at all. For example in spec ops the line. You might have gunned down some civilians but not realised you had another option like in real life. The best systems are ones where youre not even sure if this is a moment where you need to make a choice, you just act without putting thought into it like you would with a "Choice" you just do what you would do.

 

[ItsNotRudy]

Personally I really liked the system in Fallout: New Vegas. Specifically the 'fame' and 'infamy' system.

You do a certain act and some people will think what you have done is really good and will praise you for it, another group might hate you for it.
I also really liked how you could have both, it wasn't one meter, it was two. Did you save a village from destruction only to rob the bank after? well then +80 fame, +40 infamy. The game then considers you a dark hero or something similar.

Which actually makes no sense. These 'points' balance out if people will start hunting you down like a pig. So I save the town, then murder a bunch of it's inhabitants and I still come out Liked by it's residents. That's nonsense. Would you be grateful to someone if they saved your family from a car crash, but then proceeds to axe murder your mother and grandfather?

New Vegas didn't keep "two" meters, it kept a meter for every faction: NCR, Legion, Powder Gangers etc.

None of these meters had a lot of function other than deciding if faction X was going to hurl rocks, missiles and other explosive junk at you when they saw a pixel of you pop up on the horizon. Other than that, your loyalty will only cause incidental events to work differently (recruiting certain NCPs)

The final decision of you choosing between House/Legion/NCR is the only thing that will abruptly change the story, but since you are siding with 1 out of a total 4 parties, the other ones will need to be disposed of in the final quests either way. And the kicker is, at some point these parties will grant you 'forgiveness' for any and all crimes against them if you'll help them! How terrible is that? Everything you have done so far to them can be nulled in a single conversation.

You choose the majority of the storyline in the last 2 hours of playing and other than those final choices, very little you do before that has significant impact on the final battle or outcome.

It was a great game which I have replayed many times, but the Karma and choice system was pointless.

 

[WanderingFool]

Make Alpha Protocol, have enemies show up or allies show up or enemy composition change depending on player actions, but work on the basis that the changes should reflect the fact the player has chosen rather than reward or punish. So as consequence of playing nice a terrorist lives and will show up to be beaten again but also someone else will choose to ally with you. If you killed him he doesn't show up again but someone else has a grudge against you.

One of the things I loved about AP was that there was no real "morality system". You were typically given three choices in conversations (Aggressive, Suave, and Professional, with the occasional forth Misc. choice) that, depending on what choices you picked, would result in certain options and events happening, or in the least, the attitudes of certain people will shift to either a positive or negative light (which neither was actually god or bad).

Likewise, you can also makes choices that affect how the game proceeds. On such example is a arms dealer you could either capture, kill, or accept a bribe, which offered some short-term rewards with long-term consequences.

Anyways, what I would do if given the power to make a morality system: Grey choices. Basically copy AP to an extent. There may be some obvious good and obvious bad choices to make, but by in large, most of the choices didnt have a good or bad sense, but simply a question of which reward would better suit your need, and which risk is more/less worth it?

 

[BrotherRool]

Make Alpha Protocol, have enemies show up or allies show up or enemy composition change depending on player actions, but work on the basis that the changes should reflect the fact the player has chosen rather than reward or punish. So as consequence of playing nice a terrorist lives and will show up to be beaten again but also someone else will choose to ally with you. If you killed him he doesn't show up again but someone else has a grudge against you.

One of the things I loved about AP was that there was no real "morality system". You were typically given three choices in conversations (Aggressive, Suave, and Professional, with the occasional forth Misc. choice) that, depending on what choices you picked, would result in certain options and events happening, or in the least, the attitudes of certain people will shift to either a positive or negative light (which neither was actually god or bad).

The super smart thing about Alpha Protocol is they chose not to even interpret why you chose to change their reputation that way. You could be maxing out their reputation because you liked them and did things that coincided well with them, or you could be choosing to say things that they liked to here so that you could use them and betray them further down the road

 

[Shrack]

The Witcher ... gets to choose between being a dick, being a dick, and being a dick.

I think this is called a moraless system, rather than a morals system.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Make the ethics and morality ambiguous, avoid "faction-ism" (This side = GOOD, that side = EVIL), and most importantly: Provide distinct consequences for all choices.

 

[MagunBFP]

"I'm keeping you alive so you owe me" goodness.

Someone you helped might help you now because you made a point of how they owe you... or else, or the might want to help you because you helped them, or won't help you because you weren't scary or won't because they resent you.

Personally I'd say that keeping someone alive for that reason isn't particularly nice. But I guess that's where the dialogue comes in huh? You kept me alive for that reason? Yeah but you're a good person versus Yeah, you got a problem with that?

It might also depend on the NPC you're "sparing". What if the guy/gall you spare (say you had to choose between two) is extremely proud/vain and because of this reason he/she will react differently (deciding to hold a grudge against you or something).

The Walking Dead had this where you could explain your actions but the overall events were still set in stone (someone has to die at this point for example).

You're right it isn't very nice, which was the point I was making its the doing the right thing (not killing someone) for the wrong/bad reason. Most games give you "kill person = bad" or "don't kill = good" with the moral choice system by making the justification seperate to the action you can bring alot more variety into it, and depending on how fair the developer wants to go they could make different justifications have different repercussions later in the game.

 

[Raikas]

Remember the old (early 90s, I think) Sierra game "Conquests of the Longbow"? That was pretty interesting in the way there were moral choices that didn't change your in-game choices until the very end. Or at least that's how I remember it - it's been ages since I last played it.

I also like the fact that The Witcher 2 had an established character (Geralt) with an established personality, and all the choices you can make makes sense for him to make. By narrowing down the amount of possible choices this way, I feel like they made the remaining possibilities much better.

I like that for what it is, but it's also a tradeoff that's going to turn off the people for whom the two believable choices are ugly (or both dickish, as someone said upthread).

OT: Mass Effect was terrible for choice. All we got was 3 diffrent colours in identical endings.

Eh, it's not all about the ending - I thought the Tuchanka decision (especially in a game with Wreav) or the Rannoch decision (escpecially without Tali and/or Legion) were very interesting choices to have to make.

New Vegas didn't keep "two" meters, it kept a meter for every faction: NCR, Legion, Powder Gangers etc.

That's still a pretty decent step up from a general reputation system across an entire game though.

 

[G-Force]

How would you prevent players from basing their choices by what rewards they get. IE, I'll go good/evil depending on what type of reward I get, ending I see, NPC that trust me etc. People keep talking about choices from a narrative standpoint but we keep forgetting that simply improving on the writing would not eliminate the binary feel of a choice system.

 

[viking97]

I think my favorite moral choice system in any game has been FTL, precisely because it lacks the system, there is only the choice.

You can be a real dick in FTL. You can pick fights with peaceful people and blow them apart, take from the weak, betray people who trust you and generally act in a selfish and cruel way with almost no consequences.

Yet, when a space pirate requests surrender, I usually let him live, even though that nets me less currency. By not having the game arbitrarily pat me on the head or chastise me for my decisions, I feel like the morals have a lot more depth. I'm more inclined to empathize.

More games should do this.

 

[ItsNotRudy]

New Vegas didn't keep "two" meters, it kept a meter for every faction: NCR, Legion, Powder Gangers etc.

That's still a pretty decent step up from a general reputation system across an entire game though.

Empowering any faction to ridiculous levels did not change a single thing in the wasteland until the final battle though (even then making the Brotherhood a superpower was useless). The Brotherhood could have marched up and retaken the powerplant from the 6 NCR fuckers guarding it (which I had already smashed with my giant laser) and Legion stayed in it's camp regardless of my routing everyone in Forlorn Hope and McCarran. Well guys, our enemies are defeated, let's just sit and wait.

 

[Raikas]

That's still a pretty decent step up from a general reputation system across an entire game though.

Empowering any faction to ridiculous levels did not change a single thing in the wasteland until the final battle though (even then making the Brotherhood a superpower was useless). The Brotherhood could have marched up and retaken the powerplant from the 6 NCR fuckers guarding it (which I had already smashed with my giant laser) and Legion stayed in it's camp regardless of my routing everyone in Forlorn Hope and McCarran. Well guys, our enemies are defeated, let's just sit and wait.

True, but it's still better than having every group react to your character the same way just based on karma (which is the reputation part) but even in terms of empowering them, having it matter at the final battle is still more meaningful than having it just be an activity with no payoff at all. It's certainly not perfect, but it's still a step up over simpler systems (or systems with even less meaningful impact on the endgame).