I'm not saying your choices shouldn't have consequences ie you kill someone (with witnesses)and their whole family/faction hates you and either shoots you on sight or refuses to deal with you. My example was extreme but you get the idea, if I steal some stimpacks (in Fallout) because I'm out and have no money and need healing, then instantly thats bad Karma, why not let me decide if thats morally right. But yeah if the guy I'm stealing off catches me he has the right to attack me, no need to tell me if I'm doing the right thing.ThePlasmatizer said:
Morality in games
- Thread starter philios82
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"Fuck the Pope"/Yahtzee referenceRichard Groovy Pants said:
I sometimes find it hard to be attached to NPC's in games, so I find most so called "moral Systems" to not affect my gameplay choices that much, in a game like Fable 2 where most NPCs don't have really unique personalities, it's hard to get attached, whereas in a game like Fallout 3 where there are some generic characters, but many have individual personalities blowing up Megaton or killing someone or refusing to give food to someone really feels like it carries weight.
Karma is one of the consequences, if you left it up to the player they would abuse the system: so I massacred a village I'll decide that was the good decision, +good karma for me yay!philios82 said:
It just doesn't work like that. In one game all stealing may be morally wrong in another stealing to survive maybe acceptable, but it's down to the game world you're in to decide the rules otherwise it's no longer about morality.
My dear boy, I can't believe you didn't get this.Amnestic said:
But I do agree with you. A much more complex morality system is called for. With ratings for how you view death, mercy, slavery, prostitution, vice, etc. Not just 'a huge jerk' and 'a really nice guy'. Fable II added the purity/corruption which was a good start, though I prefer Fallout 3's Karma system is nice, and it doesn't influence the storyline and how it ends, just how people view you and how many hit squads are coming after you.
And since the Pope clearly has a monopoly on morality we should all just shut up and listen to himRichard Groovy Pants said:The Pope politely disagrees with you too.ThePlasmatizer said:
...
And I think I'm interpreting this issue differently from other people. I think that making a simple choice to be good or to be evil is underdeveloped and outdated; I think that games should make us struggle to figure out which choice is the good choice, since good and evil are abstractions and these questions are not easily answered in real life.
First of all, have you ever turned on a TV/went on the internet/gone past a bus stop/gone into a games shop? Adverts for Fallout 3 everywhere and it's hotly tipped to be the game of the year by many factions. Hardly an unknown game.philios82 said:
Secondly, the system isn't revolutionary as it's the same system used in the other Fallout games. And System Shock for that matter.
I'm using alot of Fallout references I know, but I've been playing it all day so...ThePlasmatizer said:
In the game you can literally masacare(spelling?) a whole town and then donate money to the church to gain the Karma back, not only that but any members of the town you din't kill will act like nothings ever happened. Now thats exploiting the system. Its not an exploit thats exclusive to the game, I'm sure you can do similar things in others.
If a player wants to go around killing everyone in sight they should be able to, if they do that then they're either roleplaying an evil character or not worried about morality in the first place. Since I'm playing the game for my own amusement it doesn't matter if I choose to be good or evil, if the game punishes me for my actions ie losing the services of factions after I've killed their members (note I include families etc in factions) then thats a real consequence. Telling me that I'm 650 points evil and need to help some lepers to reach good again is just a gamey mechanic that breaks the immersion of the story.
Coming from a guy who has Emperor Palpatine as his avatar.hem dazon 90 said:
Thing is, in most of these games with a "be good or evil" mechanic in it, they're more of a sandbox gimmick than anything else. What I mean is they don't really affect anything outside of the story, except for maybe abilities. If you're going to make one, at least make it an integral part of the game, and not just something that makes for a good bullet point on the back of the box.
its very VERY simple. the good guy doesnt go around killing people, no, shut up, thats the villians job. or maybe the villians minions. so in most games your killing people JUST because they attack you, and sure, its self defence but... still not the super paragon of good. and seriously, stabbing people JUST to stab them, not even getting EXP out of it? thats not evil, thats just stupid. so its all kinda arbitrary.
It's too bad that there's so many games that have binary good/evil/neutral paths. It's a lot of work, but even in Fallout 3, most of the decisions you make fall into "goodie two-shoes" and "scourge of the Wasteland". We need more stuff like The Witcher, where sometimes the people you join up with don't always have the best or nicest means to the ends that you agree with, and the game forces you to try to justify certain situations. For example, the first time I played through the game I decided to side with the elven freedom fighters; I couldn't help but feel a little guilty when
Fable, actually, is surprisingly good about morality, despite the whole binary good/evil thing; at least it makes you question your decisions in the course of the main story.
I started raiding people I had been in pleasant conversation with hours earlier, and found myself fighting former friends. A just cause had turned into random looting and pillaging.
Fable, actually, is surprisingly good about morality, despite the whole binary good/evil thing; at least it makes you question your decisions in the course of the main story.
As previously mentioned, I think there is too few moral choices in most games. And they're too obsessed with categorizing them into good/neutral/bad.
Take Fallout 3 for an example. You almost always have saint/neutral/evil choises. There is nothing of: "Slightly evil, if it wasn't for the fact that..." And they don't take your previous choices into account. That's what irks me the most. If I'm good, any murders should give more evil karma than, if I'm evil. Because if I'm evil is just one of many.
And then there's how you treat your enemies. That never counts. In Fallout 3, I'm "Very Good" according to my Karma. Then I accept a quest from some previous slaves to get some place for them. Problem is; there's already a bunch of slavers there. They're not hostile, but I go knocking on the door wearing a hockey mask and sadist armour, equipped with a ripper(small chainsawlike thing.) I talk to them, then I wait until their heads are turned and kill them. What do I get? Good Karma! I helped some poor slaves! Yay! It's seems the end justifies the means? That's silly.
Take Fallout 3 for an example. You almost always have saint/neutral/evil choises. There is nothing of: "Slightly evil, if it wasn't for the fact that..." And they don't take your previous choices into account. That's what irks me the most. If I'm good, any murders should give more evil karma than, if I'm evil. Because if I'm evil is just one of many.
And then there's how you treat your enemies. That never counts. In Fallout 3, I'm "Very Good" according to my Karma. Then I accept a quest from some previous slaves to get some place for them. Problem is; there's already a bunch of slavers there. They're not hostile, but I go knocking on the door wearing a hockey mask and sadist armour, equipped with a ripper(small chainsawlike thing.) I talk to them, then I wait until their heads are turned and kill them. What do I get? Good Karma! I helped some poor slaves! Yay! It's seems the end justifies the means? That's silly.
I agree with the OP. I read a bunch of the posts here, but not all. So if what I'm about to say has been said...whoops.
I like the idea of no morality bar, but people just reacting to you differently. For instance: If I walk into a town and shoot some dude in the head, The people in that town would distrust, or even hate me. No matter if I was super good somewhere else, they didn't see that. They saw me shoot some guy in the head for no reason, therefore I'm a bad man to them. Prices in shops would go up, I may not be able to eat at a certain place or sleep in a hotel or whatever. Police/guards would follow me around in case I did something bad, etc. People would just ACT different if they knew I was a terrible murderer.
That being said, I don't like the 'universal karma' thing either. IF I'm an ass in one town, and I go immediately to another town, how do they know I was an ass? If it's a slightly modern game, it's a communications thing, but most of these games (Not all, but most) are medieval settings (ish). So how does THAT work?
I do agree that games are getting more and more real in that the NPC reactions can really sway your outcome.
One in particular from Mass Effect has stuck with me for a while (Sort of spoiler, so keep that in mind as you read): When I was going through Saren's compound, I ran across his Asari secretary. She begged for her life, and even opened the way for me without a second thought. Now, at the time I was purposely playing as a straight renegade (2nd or 3rd time through the game), so I opted to kill her. But the dialogue I went through to get to that point...she was BEGGING for her life, PLEADING for me not to kill her. I did it, but watching my character shoot her made me actually not like my character. MY character did what I told him to, and I hated him for it. Needless to say, I found it hard to continue my 'renegade' style of play after that moment. I didn't like what he was becoming. Bad-ass quips and one liners and shooting a drug lord in the head is one thing...but this woman (Sort of) was innocent, really...it was cold.
In the end, I think the mindset of the game denizens chooses what right or wrong is, and I think it would be even cooler if different towns had a different set of moral values. One town is all about eye for and eye, another is about forgiving, another settles EVERYTHING with fights to the death (Or something), another has a supreme judge that judges everything and chooses what is right, etc. THAT would be awesome. Then one town might love you for killing that jerk, but another town would like you less because you didn't follow what THEY view as good.
Anyone want to pay me for THAT idea? You saw it here first...I hope!
I like the idea of no morality bar, but people just reacting to you differently. For instance: If I walk into a town and shoot some dude in the head, The people in that town would distrust, or even hate me. No matter if I was super good somewhere else, they didn't see that. They saw me shoot some guy in the head for no reason, therefore I'm a bad man to them. Prices in shops would go up, I may not be able to eat at a certain place or sleep in a hotel or whatever. Police/guards would follow me around in case I did something bad, etc. People would just ACT different if they knew I was a terrible murderer.
That being said, I don't like the 'universal karma' thing either. IF I'm an ass in one town, and I go immediately to another town, how do they know I was an ass? If it's a slightly modern game, it's a communications thing, but most of these games (Not all, but most) are medieval settings (ish). So how does THAT work?
I do agree that games are getting more and more real in that the NPC reactions can really sway your outcome.
One in particular from Mass Effect has stuck with me for a while (Sort of spoiler, so keep that in mind as you read): When I was going through Saren's compound, I ran across his Asari secretary. She begged for her life, and even opened the way for me without a second thought. Now, at the time I was purposely playing as a straight renegade (2nd or 3rd time through the game), so I opted to kill her. But the dialogue I went through to get to that point...she was BEGGING for her life, PLEADING for me not to kill her. I did it, but watching my character shoot her made me actually not like my character. MY character did what I told him to, and I hated him for it. Needless to say, I found it hard to continue my 'renegade' style of play after that moment. I didn't like what he was becoming. Bad-ass quips and one liners and shooting a drug lord in the head is one thing...but this woman (Sort of) was innocent, really...it was cold.
In the end, I think the mindset of the game denizens chooses what right or wrong is, and I think it would be even cooler if different towns had a different set of moral values. One town is all about eye for and eye, another is about forgiving, another settles EVERYTHING with fights to the death (Or something), another has a supreme judge that judges everything and chooses what is right, etc. THAT would be awesome. Then one town might love you for killing that jerk, but another town would like you less because you didn't follow what THEY view as good.
Anyone want to pay me for THAT idea? You saw it here first...I hope!
You know you could crack open a Bible to figure out morals. Now before you rip me a new one let me explain that even with a Biblical morality you would not be limited much at all.
In fact in the Old Testiment whole groups of people got wasted (in creative and brutal ways to boot) with a thumbs up from the Almighty.
So instead of yaking about the Pope (I'm Protestant so screw him) look at the text!
In fact in the Old Testiment whole groups of people got wasted (in creative and brutal ways to boot) with a thumbs up from the Almighty.
So instead of yaking about the Pope (I'm Protestant so screw him) look at the text!
I don't want to offend you or any other Christians but the bible has no monopoly on morality, I'm an Athiest and so for me morality is nesecarily subjective. I like that you pointed out the inconsistancies in the bible but I don't want to get into a religious war. But I would say that any religion or religious person who claims that they have right on their side (morally speaking) is either ignoring the facts or pretty naive.Shadow88 said:
That said in a video game (or in real life) certain actions should obviously have consequences ie slaughtering innocent people.
That for me hits the nail on the head. Thats why if games reacted realisticly we wouldn't need a 'Karma bar' in the first place.Baby Tea said: