Something that Yahtzee has pointed out frequently here (and a number of people have agreed with) is that moral choice systems in games are never a good idea as they're currently implemented. That's because the damn things always seem to follow the same formula; you've got a good option and an evil option for things like dialogue or quests/missions and usually in the end, they just result in one of two different endings for the game, either painting you as a saint or the anti-christ. So how can we fix this?
Well the first thing would be to have a few more possible endings besides the saint/demon ones. Now you obviously can't create an ending for ever single possible iteration of the human moral compass, but you can probably come up with a few more than just two. Personally, I think the ideal number would be four. This would widen the range of morality based on the ratio of kind actions to cruel ones while still not being difficult to balance. The four different endings would have one of four general messages about the player character: A) "He/She was a generous, selfless person who helped everyone in need." B) "He/She was a much-liked person who helped a lot of people, but was still human and made some mistakes." C) "He/She was a very flawed person, causing a lot of damage but still showed some compassion at times." D) "He/She was a malicious sadist who did nothing but destroy everyone and everything that crossed their path."
The second thing I'd change about moral choice systems is the addition of options to apologize and make amends. Say, for example, your character was told a certain person was committing crimes because he'd been lied to and tricked...but when you finally cornered them, they were holding a child hostage at gunpoint. The virtuous option would naturally be to drop your weapon and try to talk him down, while a less noble one would be to just say "who cares he's been lied to" and just shoot him in the head.
Odds are if you did this, an NPC somewhere immediately afterward would be appalled that you blew the head off a guy who you knew had been duped into breaking the law. But with current moral choice systems, most player characters aren't given any dialogue options that show any form of regret or emotional burden. Instead, most often the dialogue option given would be something along the lines of "He was asking for it." You might get something like "He took a child hostage, I wasn't going to take any chances," which is a legitimate argument, but put in those exact words, it sounds less like the PC is pricked by conscience about he/she had to do, and more like he/she is coldly justifying it and to hell with any collateral damage they caused.
The addition of an apology option would change a lot and make your character come across as much less two-dimensional. The asshole and indifferent responses could be left in there, but for those who actually DO want to respond with some chagrin and regret could have additional dialogue options. For the above example, something like "I wish I could have found another way, but I couldn't risk the kid's life if I blew it" would work.
Other times there could be moments when you really are just fed up and want to do something that's considered an "evil" act. Another example: you want to pass through the territory of an NPC group, you're in a hurry, but these people are behaving like pricks towards you because they don't trust outsiders. They're telling you that you can't pass through their land until you prove you can be trusted by going and bringing them...and that's when you tell them to stick it up their ass sideways, kick the patrol guards in the balls, and run through their territory, *****-slapping the guards when you have to until you get to the other side, pausing to give them the finger on your way out.
Sometime later you find out that while the guards were busy with your impatience, bandits snuck in and caused a fair amount of damage; maybe injured some people, stole some valuables, etc. Now your normal moral choice system would just say "too bad, you fucked up, it's on your permanent record." That's why I think they should give you a chance to make amends. If a faction in a game isn't defined as an evil one, their NPCs could be made to only attack the PC if they have a weapon in their hand or if they have a sufficiently evil reputation. Of course they'd sooner spit on the PC as look at him and dialogue options would be cut off so long as they don't feel at least neutral towards him.
This can lead to the options to let players make amends by completing small side quests geared to bury the hatchet for him with a given NPC or NPC faction. In the above example, the PC could do things like repair buildings the bandit's wrecked, donate medicine or other things to help the wounded, or go searching for the bandit camp to retrieve the stolen belongings. As far as the PC's good/evil ratio, this wouldn't completely undo the bad points received (because making amends doesn't mean you completely erase your mistake). However, it would remove a noticeable chunk of them.
So those are a couple of my thoughts on how to make a moral choice system work. Has anyone else thought about what might be done differently in a game to make them seem less black and white?
Well the first thing would be to have a few more possible endings besides the saint/demon ones. Now you obviously can't create an ending for ever single possible iteration of the human moral compass, but you can probably come up with a few more than just two. Personally, I think the ideal number would be four. This would widen the range of morality based on the ratio of kind actions to cruel ones while still not being difficult to balance. The four different endings would have one of four general messages about the player character: A) "He/She was a generous, selfless person who helped everyone in need." B) "He/She was a much-liked person who helped a lot of people, but was still human and made some mistakes." C) "He/She was a very flawed person, causing a lot of damage but still showed some compassion at times." D) "He/She was a malicious sadist who did nothing but destroy everyone and everything that crossed their path."
The second thing I'd change about moral choice systems is the addition of options to apologize and make amends. Say, for example, your character was told a certain person was committing crimes because he'd been lied to and tricked...but when you finally cornered them, they were holding a child hostage at gunpoint. The virtuous option would naturally be to drop your weapon and try to talk him down, while a less noble one would be to just say "who cares he's been lied to" and just shoot him in the head.
Odds are if you did this, an NPC somewhere immediately afterward would be appalled that you blew the head off a guy who you knew had been duped into breaking the law. But with current moral choice systems, most player characters aren't given any dialogue options that show any form of regret or emotional burden. Instead, most often the dialogue option given would be something along the lines of "He was asking for it." You might get something like "He took a child hostage, I wasn't going to take any chances," which is a legitimate argument, but put in those exact words, it sounds less like the PC is pricked by conscience about he/she had to do, and more like he/she is coldly justifying it and to hell with any collateral damage they caused.
The addition of an apology option would change a lot and make your character come across as much less two-dimensional. The asshole and indifferent responses could be left in there, but for those who actually DO want to respond with some chagrin and regret could have additional dialogue options. For the above example, something like "I wish I could have found another way, but I couldn't risk the kid's life if I blew it" would work.
Other times there could be moments when you really are just fed up and want to do something that's considered an "evil" act. Another example: you want to pass through the territory of an NPC group, you're in a hurry, but these people are behaving like pricks towards you because they don't trust outsiders. They're telling you that you can't pass through their land until you prove you can be trusted by going and bringing them...and that's when you tell them to stick it up their ass sideways, kick the patrol guards in the balls, and run through their territory, *****-slapping the guards when you have to until you get to the other side, pausing to give them the finger on your way out.
Sometime later you find out that while the guards were busy with your impatience, bandits snuck in and caused a fair amount of damage; maybe injured some people, stole some valuables, etc. Now your normal moral choice system would just say "too bad, you fucked up, it's on your permanent record." That's why I think they should give you a chance to make amends. If a faction in a game isn't defined as an evil one, their NPCs could be made to only attack the PC if they have a weapon in their hand or if they have a sufficiently evil reputation. Of course they'd sooner spit on the PC as look at him and dialogue options would be cut off so long as they don't feel at least neutral towards him.
This can lead to the options to let players make amends by completing small side quests geared to bury the hatchet for him with a given NPC or NPC faction. In the above example, the PC could do things like repair buildings the bandit's wrecked, donate medicine or other things to help the wounded, or go searching for the bandit camp to retrieve the stolen belongings. As far as the PC's good/evil ratio, this wouldn't completely undo the bad points received (because making amends doesn't mean you completely erase your mistake). However, it would remove a noticeable chunk of them.
So those are a couple of my thoughts on how to make a moral choice system work. Has anyone else thought about what might be done differently in a game to make them seem less black and white?
