Moral Choice Systems: Could they work?

[IBlackKiteI]

Ditch the system part entirely, and rather than just giving us flat-out good and bad options give us more really grey-ish scenarios where the 'right' outcome is potentially whatever the player thinks it is. Mass Effect 2 had a few moments like this (Collector Base, Geth Heretics in particular), unfortunately thanks to the whole moral choice system (ie: make the same choices over and over again or you get a shitty ending) bit, and the fact that all your squadmates rather uncharacteristically pretty much berate you for making the 'wrong' choice afterwards (especially true for the first example), it kind of shoots itself in the foot.

If there is some sort of system tied to it, as in you accumulate points towards a different thing depending on your actions, they should be more tied to how certain groups or individuals perceive those actions.

 

[Auron]

Hm... Most of the time alignment stuff you earn isn't really relevant to the game so it's fine with me.

I didn't like dishonored especially, because the actions didn't matter, you can kill every single target in cold blood and keep chaos low or find low violence resolutions for all of them and get a high chaos rating due to a fight or two.

When I played TOR I hid the alingment options and just played how my character would, it was fun and pretty Star Warsy, no alignment item mattered to the game so it was fine.

Mass Effect I have a mix of Paragon and Renegade, missing out on some perks but at least I have a more fulfilling experience overall.

Fallout's Karma was always fun and affected your reputation more than real game outcomes, which were left to your actions. I can't really remember that many games with morality in them now that I think about it.

 

[Dexter Kane]

I thought Human Revolution did morality quite well. Instead of making you choose this for more good points or that for more bad points it throws you in to the world as a cyborg death machine, lets you play the game (more or less) however you like and then at the end gets you to reflect on what you did with the power you were given. Your choices throughout the game don't affect the ending but they tie in with the issues the game was exploring and help the player develop a better understanding.

I think the best moral systems in games are ones that affect the player more than they do the game.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The fundamental problem with choice is that as soon as you present an apple and an orange, someone is going to want a pear. The correct number of choices is always n+1. Giving the choice a moral angle rarely helps because this arbitrarily reduces a problem to a simple case of good and evil, something that rarely helps. But beyond the obvious stuff going through the story, the problem is that it rapidly becomes difficult to create multiple endings that take into account all the decisions the game asked you to make along the way.

In a sandbox game for example using a standard moral choice system of good and evil would require 3^n endings where n is the number of choices the player was asked to make. Games have tackled problems like this, but people often look at fallout and say that the endings don't "differ enough".

There is one other problem with the choice system as displayed currently. Most of the time, there isn't a "choice" being made. You are given an evil option and a good option and unless you have some reason to take the evil route the good one is the rational choice. Choices are only important when there isn't an answer that is obviously rationally correct. For its failings, Mass Effect 3 at least offers a few of these. When asked to choose between the Geth and the Quarians the player is asked to choose knowing little about what aid either could offer their cause and that no matter what he chooses, he's a bastard.

If you want a choice to have weight, it needs to be the sort of choice that simply doesn't have a right answer.