Poll: Moral Choice Systems-Their Place in Modern Day Gaming

[TheCynicalJew]

In a gaming society based mostly around shooting the thing with the gun, in a somewhat hilarious twist of fate, very often these games which revolve heavily around killing often pickup a moral choice system (See: Fallout, Infamous, Bioshock, Dishonored, etc.) And my question I propose to ye, Escapist Magazine, is do you think that moral choice systems are good, bad, or just plain not needed? The only somewhat decent moral choice I could find is Dishonored, because that's actually "It's more difficult not to kill and be the good guy, so that's your choice." That is what really makes a moral choice. Anyone here think people have been going about moral choice systems the wrong way (See Bioshock: Kill little girls or save little girls), or that they shouldn't exists at all? I would love to hear some thoughts (Also, feedback on this post would be much appreciated!). Thanks!

Stay Sexy
-TheCynicalJew

 

[Benpasko]

There should be some moral choice, but don't immediately give us good guy points or whatever. It eliminates all potential for grey area.

 

[hazabaza1]

Remove the "moral" part of moral choice. Just have choice.
See-
The Witcher series
The Walking Dead
Dragon Age (to an extent)

And if you must have a "two different points" system thing, go for chaos and order, not good or evil.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

It often doesn't work that well as a 'system' like in most mentioned examples. They tend to end up in a fairly binary fashion, lacking any sort of actual moral dilemma. In my opinion it works better when some good dilemma's are integrated into the story, without some prominent stat-system telling how 'good' you are.

 

[Full]

Bioshocks moral choice system was a hit and miss. I mean, it had a place, but the choices were between eviscerate a small childs heart or rescue them into a land of sunshine and flowers. Like, wat.

Unfortunately, that's what most developers think "free moral choice systems" are. Between devilish and angelic.

 

[Rack]

Ambivalent. Occasionally they are done well giving weight to what you are doing and drawing you further into the game. Frequently they are a pointless waste of time with choices so stark they don't even count as choices at all. I will say this much though, actual systems are always bad, there should never be a mechanical background to a moral choice. Individual actions should have individual consequences, but you shouldn't be pidgeonholed into chasing some meter.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

It's been said before, but I'm completely worn out on the "paragon of all that is good and holy" vs. "Resurrector of Hitler and killer of babies" approach. It almost seems like a "motivation" to play a second playthrough as opposed to an actual moral dilemma. Even when Mass Effect blurred the lines, paragon was often just being really naive and opening yourself to be taken advantage of to avoid being evil and ruthless.

The best way to do it is to not have points for it. Do not have a meter that moves between two binary options. Humanity and the moral dilemmas we face are generally dilemmas because it isn't as simple as selecting between A and B (unless you're involved in American politics, ouch!)

 

[Evil Smurf]

when it is done well it works, see Bastion, SR3 and......I don't know.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

It really depends on the game and how it's implemented. However, any game where all "choices" are either save the puppies from the fire or throw gasoline on them is poorly implemented. It's even worse in games like Mass Effect that reward you for going fully one way or the other, effectively making it one choice you make in the game.

Really, if there's a morality gameplay mechanic, it's probably poorly implemented. The only way moral choice can be done well is if you're only options are morally ambiguous, and the game doesn't punish you for doing it one way or another. Unfortunately, I can't think of a game that does this well at the moment.

 

[Arakasi]

If they are done well, then I fucking love them.
Ever play Geneforge? Play Geneforge.

 

[Zhukov]

They need to fuck right off.

By all means, give me choices, moral or otherwise.

But for the love of all that is holy, don't turn it into a system. Give me a choice and then at some later point, either immediately after or further down the line depending on the scenario, present me with the consequences. Don't give me "good guy points". It's stupid, inelegant and self-defeating.

 

[jamoecw]

so has anyone been forced to make a choice as to whether or not to genocide a few thousand civilians in order to keep your supply lines clear? or how about the choice to let your troops ravage a city full of helpless civilians in order to keep morale up? the good/evil dilemmas seem cut and dry, but in both cases doing evil things results in more lives saved overall.

in ww1 germany wiped out whole villages in order to keep their army marching swiftly, rather than deal with the logistics of occupation, had they kept the momentum france would have fallen and there might not have been a ww1. in pre-renascence europe it was common for armies to have their way with the cities they conquer, which meant that the thousands of troops would deal with the stresses of war away from home, allowing them to keep civil once they returned to their families, which meant that the damage was 1. not against your own country, and 2. overall less.

freedom of moral choice so that you can be evil? well when was the last time you created an eden full of naked children, women and animals to fulfill your every desire? how about have your way with someone that didn't want to give you the money for a quest because you were a little heavy handed? no? that is because those are off limits.

i am not saying that i would do these things, but if the game doesn't allow for such stuff, then they don't really allow evil, just good and not nice.

ultimately good/evil moral choices can't really be given consideration in games, but that does not mean that other moral choices can't be presented, law and freedom, order and chaos, dying nobly or living humbly. if done well a morality mechanic can allow for different gameplay balances and such (think paladin class restrictions, or mass effect style bonuses for going 'all in,' especially if the best solution is never of a single alignment).

 

[Il_Exile_lI]

Choice is the future of storytelling in gaming, and I mean true choice that actually shapes the narrative. Binary moral choice however, is simply a bump along the road in the grand scheme of video game storytelling. There will always be moral dilemmas in video game decision making, but the notion of straight up pure good and pure evil choices is on the way out. As has been said, when the game is keeping score of your moral choices and basically urging you to fully commit to one path or the other, it has failed as a choice driven game.

 

[nexus]

Two-dimensional technology for two-dimensional minds.

There is a gray area. Everything has it's proper consequence. Why does everything have to be two dimensional, it's like a universal conspiracy in media.

Is there a contingent of beings both afraid of and jealous of our progress into the third dimension, that they have to mediate our entertainment into "Good or Bad". I don't get it. It seems like a no brainer... Some games pull it off, others are just childish in their presentation. "Oh, they're into 3D worlds now, let's slow this down.. keep their minds in the 2nd dimension."

We are sllooowwllly progressing through this mindset. It's as if our visual acuity outpaced our minds into the third dimension.

>Binary moral choice however. . .

Yea, right.. that's the term I forgot about. It's a serious problem.. everything is being dragged back into a binary existence. You see it in politics, morals.. Everything. It's bad, bad, bad. People should not become binary. We are the programmers, not the programmed.

 

[TrevHead]

I like games to have moral choices and for them to have consequences, I just hate it when gameplay systems are built up around it like in Fable and Mass Effect. It cheapens the story and the impact of having moral choices in the first place.

Fable and Mass Effect are even worse because they force to player to pick the same good or bad for the whole game. Wheres the role play in that?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Well...shitty moral choice systems, that give you no reason to pick evil, give you arbitrary points, group actions into categories that aren't necessarily applicable and allow access to arbitrary things I hate. The ultimate moral choice system for me has multiple choices and localised, realistic consequences. Individual characters around you would have to have their own perception of you related to what they've seen you do and their own morals. In other words, fucking time consuming and complicated, but until then I haven't seen any good moral choice systems yet. Some of them pose interesting choices at the very least, but rarely if ever has one used those choices in a meaningful, logical way. There's Skyrim, where you can do whatever you want but no-one criticises you and your companion doesn't give a fuck, and what's more, there are a lot of times where only one action will lead to a reward that is useful to you. And the other kind as far as I know is Mass Effect, where your actions are either pragmatic/idealistic or at their worst naive child/needlessly callous dick. You can't be the no-nonsense leave-nothing-standing commander and still save someone on the sidewalk you have no reason to walk by. And you can't be opposed to the genophage and still be partial to throwing enemy soldiers off rooftops when they're pissing you off. And worse still, somehow how 'good' or 'bad' you are effects what you can say, as if your vocabulary or understanding is restricted by moral values. I want a game where I can do what I like and be rewarded appropriately for what ever I do. Where I can have a companion that resents me and regrets joining my group, and might even try to stab me in the back for being a dick. Where I can get a frosty reception by a character because I did something callous and they heard about it. Where an NPC returns from abroad and hunts me down for assassinating a family member of theirs, and spares me a fight depending on how I explain my actions.

tl;dr until a game can care about my choices and reflect my character I don't want any part of the token crap moral choice systems I've seen.

 

[vasiD]

My problem with moral choice systems are the rigidly written games like First Person Shooters or Action Sandboxes using them to let you either be Hitler or Gandhi under the false pretenses of giving you another play through. I wouldn't mind so much but the choices are always so absurd, it's either kick a puppy off a bridge or give it a steak dinner. But then again this might just be me crying out to make the writing in video games less shit.

That said it works great in RPGs, in most of which you are supposed to play a role... However even these should cater more to the grey and try and make their choices less obvious. Fallout New Vegas seemed a good example of this.

One final thing: I really wish companies would stop using the Mass Effect conversation engine, I know it's pretty much just Bioware but I recently replayed Alpha Protocol, and while that game is amazing how vague the dialogue choices were caused me to reload at times. Just spell out what my character is going to say damn it! I don't care if it means I hear it twice, I'd rather know. What I wouldn't give for that as a mod, or better yet an option.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

More games should have choices like Spec Ops. They were genuinely hard to make, and weren't just binary Hitler/Mother Teresa choices. I think if more games had choices like that, gaming would be a much better medium for it.

 

[DoPo]

Two-dimensional technology for two-dimensional minds

Correction: one dimensional - there is (usually) only one axis - good/evil. Influx of 2D morality would actually be an improvement.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Moral choice problems shouldn't be portrayed as such. There should just be a bunch of different choices or possibilities that affect how certain people act towards you. Leave it up tot he player to decide whether or not they've done the right thing.