Morality Matters

[K_Dub]

The state of morality in games at the moment gives me a massive headache. It just seems like there's more wrong being done with it than right. Especially in WRPG's. I find one of the worst offenders of morality systems to be the Mass Effect series. ME2 in particular.

When I play a WRPG, I wanna play through the game as myself making my own choices, rather than playing as an avatar that can choose from a variey of "good and bad" dialogue options. Yet I find myself playing through Mass Effect 2 simply clicking all the good options, because I wanna be the "good" guy rather than the "bad" guy. But I don't want either. I wanna be myself.

ME2 is far to calculated, basically breaking all options down in to "good", "bad", and "neutral". I can give three steps right now that would immediately improve the morality system however.

1) Mix up the dialogue tree. Basically, don't place the "good" option in the top right and the "bad" option in the bottom right all the time. Mix it up. Force to player to listen to the conversation, absorb the situation, and read through their options so they can determine what action they would like to take. And while we're at it, don't highlight the dialogue options either. I don't wanna know if I'm picking the Renegade or Paragon option, I wanna know that I'm just picking an option.

2) Morality isn't a game where you can keep score. I can understand why it's necessary for developers to break down what morality choices numerically outweigh another, but that doesn't mean that you should show the player.

3) Stop making morality so superficial. If you go all Paragon options, your scars heal up quite nicely. Go all Renegade however, and your face looks like a glowing checkerboard. A superficial morality system like this works best in games like the Fable series, but not in ME.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Fallout style angel/devil "morality" meters suck.

But one of the few things ME3 did right was the two bar one-way morality meter. You could advance as BOTH "wuss nice guy" and "jerkface" depending on your actions but you couldn't "lose" reputation. Deciding to do one didn't hurt your rating in the other. And your rating didn't change anything except for the content of that particular dialog. So it really was for role-playing purposes as none of the choices affected any munchkin tracked game statistics.

Another morality system that worked was Planescape: Tormenet. You had the 2 axis dnd meter but that only mattered for a couple of pieces of equipment. You also had non-obvious game effects resulting from your actions. IMO that is closer to the Chrono Trigger example you cited and is a much more subtle and immersive.

The granddaddy of morality systems is still unequaled: Ultima 4. The game tracked 8! morality axes with many decisions raised one axis while lowering another.

 

[TheZooblord]

In response to James' mention of online/social games for moral choice: Is it the social aspect you were referring to? The way online games challenge us to interact with people and choose how we carry ourselves?

Also has anyone here on this week's Extra Consideration played Haven and Hearth? It's a free indie swedish game, very harsh death penalty (permanent character death with only your land claim and 25% of your xp salvaged to the new character) and I believe that REALLY illicits some moral choice in how people carry themselves. The gankers love to gank, but it is truly interesting how far people will go to protect and avenge each other in that game, perhaps beyond others I think.

 

[Santhenar]

I think the point that many game developers fail to consider is this:
If I were to go out today and steal a car, or kill someone- who would judge me to be evil? Not the physical world, but the people in it.
Morality in a game should be judged by the characters within the game rather than the game itself, because absolute morality doesn't exist in the real world so why put it in a virtual one?

All of the problems with morality systems could probably be solved with the addition of just five words. Instead of declaring a player Good or Evil, just say "The [NPC's] think that you are Good/Evil"
Problem solved, exactly the same system but now instead of being a ridiculous 1 dimensional system reflecting the morals of the game designer, it is an opinion of the characters of the world which the player is inhabiting. Doesn't that sound much better?


(Also, as K_Dub mentioned- Having you character change appearance purely as a result of their "Alignment" is utterly ridiculous. This idea in fact seems very religious to me. If the player gets notable bonuses or advantages for being more virtuous (Which seems to often be the case) then that totally removes the moral choice. The player will always go for the good choice no matter how they feel about the situation simply because it will make them more powerful. How many times have I heard someone say "No I won't do that because I'll lose my karma/honor/hero points" to which I reply- Is this an R[ole] P[laying] G[ame] or not?)

-Additional-
Have you noticed that you more often than not get a greater material reward for choosing the "good" path? I'm reminded of a mission in Red Dead Redemption (and every other game) where you must choose between paying some money or killing a man. I had spent a long time earning that money and thought it over for longer than most decisions. In the end I decided to sacrifice my money so that the man could live. A mans life is worth more than that I thought, but upon completing the mission I was completely reimbursed, thus rendering the entire decision pointless -I had never really sacrificed anything. Life doesn't work like that, what goes around doesn't always come around. I understand that games are reward based and players hate to lose their stuff, but if you offer the player a choice between two things, and then give them both, it nullifies the choice.

Sometimes being good should be it's own reward. If your game world is believable enough (Such as in RDR) and you can make the player empathize with your characters then they will be compelled towards the "good" choices simply by human compassion, and there's no need to bribe them.
-But ain't that just the hardest part of game design?

 

[Zetsubou^-^]

hmmm... morality huh? there are times i like it, but it really depends. what they really need to do with morality/affection/reputation is cut the automatic good/evil/right/wrong choice system and replace it with a "judge on intent" scale.

example. you do this action, and are confronted about it. you give your reasonings, and the person judges wether your deeds match their ideals or not.that seems like a better way, although there is probably a better way to implement it.

it would certainly help with the "it doesnt match my thoughts" problem, because even if the action could sway to black or white, being able to change intent may change how the npc judges the action.

also, a good system to have would be trusted-friendly-cautious-unfriendly-hostile, where the more your values line up, the more trust you have, but actions made with opposing intent would increasingly make them cautious around you, not an immediate up or down rep loss/gain

what was left...? meters, i'd put them in, but maybe have options to turn them off so people that don't like them can go without. meta gaming is a choice after all.
i saw one speak of morality functions being more important than genre... this probably would not work well. you could think of morality choices before genre, because its part of plot, but you need to have a firm grasp of what you want your game to do. a game that puts moral choice high above gameplay is a relationship sim. while ive occasionally enjoyed such games, not everyone does, and as stated, moral choice does fill a large portion of games that advertise morality.

 

[Plinglebob]

First of all, I would like to say that I agree completely with everything everyone has said that praises the Witcher and Deus Ex. This is how morality and choice should be handled.

Anyway, I think there are 2 reasons why we have morality systems and they are both the fanbases fault (or at least developers trying to pander to it).

The first is that nowadays people are demanding more and more choice from their games. Its now not good enough for a game to have a simple A to B story and instead we must be able to make our own choices in how the game proceeds, even if this choice is an illusion. Unfortunately, the easiest way to do this is through black and white morality systems with some sort of reward for doing either. Personally, I'd much rather have a game devoid of choice but with a good story (hence my enjoyment of JRPGS)

The second is the desire to "Win". For a lot of people (and developers) morality systems are used as a measure of how well they are doing in the game and the inclusion of rewards for going all out one way or the other (either in items, dialogue choices or achievements) encourages this.

 

[Shycte]

I thought DA: O was pretty cool on this front. There was no real, morality system, just your relationship to other characters. Of course, that only works is the characters are good and three dimensional so you care about them, which they were in DA:O. Damn you Morrigan, damn you.

Spoiler: Also, there is the part in Dragon Age 2 where

Aveline gets all angry on you for selling her husbands shield. I was like, wow, I never thought that she might care about that item. I just replaced it with a better you know. But it was her late husbands sheild and she wanted to keep it.

 

[MrGalactus]

Mikey looks like the lead singer from Madness.

 

[The Gnome King]

Extra Consideration: Morality Matters

Our panel welcomes a new member and turns its eye to the question of morality.

Read Full Article

Yahtzee nails it here with this quote:

Morality systems are something I've railed on a lot in the past. My problem is that their only purpose in a lot of games is to deny the player access to some of the game's content until they replay the entire thing from the start. And sometimes it doesn't even do that, and you have games where the good choice and the bad choice both have exactly the same effect, and then what's the point?

Yes. That. Exactly.

 

[traineesword]

I wonder if anyone knew that Metro 2033 had a morality system? There's not a single mention of it. Turns out, throughout the game there's things you can do - like helping a beggar out or a little street urchin - that will in fact cause you to get a different version of the ending. Pretty crazy. I didn't find out until after I beat the game and was looking at a guide, and I kind of went... huh?? What ending are they talking about?!

I did not know that...not like i'm exactly going to play through the game again though, it didn't quite impress me all that much. I got the ending where i sat down all relaxed as everything exploded (i hope this doesn't count as spoilers, because really, this could be the ending of so many games or the beginging of others).

anyway, I was playing Mass Effect 2 at a friends house, having never played one before. You know the first conversation reel thing? Where you can a troop is begging to come with you to save another member of the crew? I thought she seemed too emotionally attached and believed that she would slow me down, so i told her to stand down as I'd given her an order, believing that trying to keep everyone alive was a good thing to do. What happened was that my shepard, rather than soothingly explaining to her that she was a lower-ranked and less experienced officer, started barking out about how she'd given an order and it must be followed! My friend, whose game it was, immediately went "You dick! though i should have expected you'd always pick the bad options"...
I'm sure it probably got better as it went along, but this got "my knickers in a twist" about the whole mass effect morality system. It annoyed me how good and bad choices were always in the same places and at first glance didn't always seem particularly good or bad. I also came to not like the cutscenes trigger commands. left triggers a good option, right a bad one...always? So killing an enemy soldier in a cutscene is totally evil, but waiting about 5 seconds and then killing him outside of one is acceptable? Or maybe Garrus was just annoyed I used his gun (sorry, i'm pretty sure he was called Garrus, but I could be wrong...the archangel guy either way).

I found it very funny though that my friend seemed to immediately think I already knew everything about Mass Effect though. He was really bitter and unhelpful about everything, screaming at me to pick up the first ammo clip before the game had even told me the red rectangle wasn't part of the scenary...maybe i need a better friend to play videogames with xD

 

[00slash00]

the witcher was the only time being a dick to an npc made me feel bad. the second time through, i made choices that were complete opposite of what i did the first time through and some of them *SPOILER* like siding with the humans or killing the captain of the guard *END SPOILER* really made me feel bad

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

I like the morality system attached to the Frenzy mechanics in Vampire:Bloodlines because it fits the blood-thirsty nature of these creatures. KoTOR was on to something with ther light/dark side mechanics. Again...it belongs to that universe where the dark side of the Force is mentioned multiple times and even the best decisions might lead to that path. Morality needs to be thought out and adapted to the genre, universe and nature of the characters.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Broken record, coming through!

I'll keep repeating myself when it comes to this topic, but Silent Hill 2 had the best "morality" system of any game I ever played. You were never aware of the choices you were making untill the game ended. If you were protective of Maria and spent a lot of time with her you'd get the Maria Ending, if you kept yourself in a bad health condition and highlighted that kitchinknife the girl gave you too many times you'd get the Suicide Ending.

A good morality system is one that is invisible to the player, but every game shoves it into your face like a moral coconut cream pie.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Dude, that's just a rip-off of D&D's system with one of the two axes removed.

And most the other morality systems are D&D's minus the other (Law/Chaos) bar.

Fallout's Karma bar, KotOR's Light Side/Dark Side Points, Fable's Good/Evil appearance, Jade Empire's Open Fist/Closed Fist and Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system are all just the Good/Evil Axis in various different forms.

 

[jetsterjinx]

Lesson learned: GO FUCKING PLAY CHRONO TRIGGER. that seems like such an awesome game.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Chrono Trigger did it so well. I actually felt guilty in my actions. And I felt tricked in the ways they turned the arguments against me when I didn't directly ask Marle how she was. It awoke real emotions of betrayal and guilt.

 

[Bostur]

I think morality gets too simple in a lot of games because being the angel is too easy.

In real life the reason we aren't all saints is because thats a very tough thing to be. We are being put under pressure by our own emotions, by society, by material needs etc. This means we sometimes do questionable acts. We don't do wrong things because we decide to be an ass, we do it because we feel forced to.

In games its all clear sailing most of the time. Why start stealing if we have more gold than the national treasury? Why would we want to kill innocent civilians if they seem like decent folks? If our friends seems trustworthy and helpful what would be the purpose of stabbing them in the back?
For moral choices to feel more real, I think games needs to put on the pressure a bit more. Being the good guy may have to be hardcore mode, the really tough game choice, not the default action that ends up being the easy way out.

So far games have done morality best when we are ignorant of the consequences of our actions. I think that can make a nice illusion of gray area stuff, but then our choices are really caused by our own ignorance not any real moral choices.

 

[blackdwarf]

what i hate arpund moral choice systems are two thing: the most systems work with a bad or good choice. that is ridiculious. the reason why i hated fable 3 so much was that you always had to choose between a evil or a good awnser, even when it didn't make sense. why is saving my girlfriend wherofore i kill a couple of people i dont know a bad thing? moral choice systems are only interresting when YOU use your MORAL to choose. mass effect did it right, with giving a couple of anwser, but nobody in the game knows what is good or bad.

the second thing i hate are the statictics. i dont have a bar what says what my moral is in real life. people that know me or how i look at myself tell me that. but in game whe always have a bar which says i'm evil, but the NPCs in the game don't act really different. if i'm evil i want to be feared or be attacked. this gives me the feeling that the world where the game takes place, is alive and is aware of the things i do and did.

 

[Griffolion]

I think a really good example of morality implemented without any form of mechanics is Eve Online.

There is no mechanic of morality implemented by the dev team at all, but there are moral choices to make every day in that game. Because screwing over another character you see in game is essentially screwing over another human being in the world and the persistent nature of the game means that they can come back at you for revenge, even when you're offline with your assets, territory etc.

So in EVE you are faced with moral choices, should I kill this lone miner in null sec space? Yes because he may have valuable loot and the lulz factor will be high. No because he could have been working there for ages and will be really frustrating for him, plus he could call his entire alliance and be on our asses quicker than a long sentence prison in-mate.

So i guess the main gripe with morality systems in games today is that it is morality regarding actions towards what are essentially pixels on a screen.