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

[Evil Moo]

The problem with moral choice systems is that morals are inherently subjective. Yes, there are actions that are generally accepted to be 'good' or 'bad' morally, but not everyone's intersection of the two is going to meet in the same place and some may even disagree entirely with the developer's judgement of morals.

I do like the idea of choices in video games as long as they are done organically. Choices should be there only to yield the consequences of those choices, not to add to what the developer perceives as morally good or bad points/stats for your character. A truly reactive world, where every player action has some effect on the game, would be brilliant, leaving the player to judge whether their actions were good or bad in the end. In contrast, just labelling the player as one thing or another and maybe having different missions/endings is not particularly effective game design in my opinion.

 

[bificommander]

Eh, they can have their place. The part that I strongly dislike is when the game only assumes "All good" or "All evil" (or All order/chaos if that's the flavor du jour) as valid choices. I do NOT like it when my Shepard can't afford shoot the monologuing bad guy just because I let Shepard usually act nicely to NPCs who aren't plotting to commit genocide. Because that means I got Paragon points early in the game, which means I must collect only Paragon points from then on out, because I know there's going to be a karma-meter check where I can only prevent one of my teammate's deaths if I have a near-perfect Paragon or Renegade Score. And the same goes for every game where I only get the best upgrades if I make the same moral choice every time.

Frankly, a moral choice system can work. A 'choice' system where every individual choice is recorded can also work, but it limits the amount of choices you can make. When the game developers need to seperately implement the consequence of every choice, complete with unique dialogue for every situation resulting from every combination of choices, there's just not enough budget to put in too many of those choices or too many different consequences. An abstraction that keeps track of how many choices you made in a certain way and gives you an average of how nice a guy you are is much simpler and means there can be more such choices. But get rid of the 'all good' or 'all evil' mechanics. Just let us choose an evil or good campaign at the start of the game if that's how you want us to play.

Why not copy the D&D 3 allignment system, with two axis (can be good/evil and order/chaos or anything else you prefer) so that not every choice needs to be framed as either 'good' or 'evil'. Allow neutral positions, giving you 9 possible allignments to get. And for an encore, let your game have situations where one moral choice is plainly better, easier or more logical than the other, so it doesn't feel so unnatural when an evil bastard can calm the scared civilians as easily as the kindly saint. And vice versa, when dealing with some Hitler-style bad guy, just shooting him in the head is probably easier than trying to reason with him.

 

[GLo Jones]

By all means give us choice, but don't necessarily connect a set morality to it. Let any moral issues be drawn from the player themselves.

 

[Saladfork]

There was actually one game, Fable 2, that did a good/evil thingie, but in my opinion, actually had a pretty good idea behind it.

See, most games will say, here, be a good guy or be Satan, but then not really give any incentive to be Satan.

What Fable 2 did was actually punish you for being heroic. All of a sudden you're doing things like sacrificing your Experience Points or your youth or things like that. You're actually losing things, and it actually feels more heroic because you are actually giving of yourself. This isn't just for show, either; it's costing you something you as the player actually do care about. The 'evil' options, conversely, will allow you to keep your stuff or get even more stuff.

It's just unfortunate that the implementation was rather poor. I'd like to see that sort of thing more often, if they absolutely must put binary moral choices in games.

 

[Naeras]

Binary moral system(Mass Effect, Infamous, etc) choices are dumb because then choices become a stat-grind, not moral choices.

Moral dilemmas that aren't related to stats(Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Walking Dead, etc), however, are one of the greatest tools games have for storytelling, because it involves the player in the moral dilemma rather than just presenting it for them.

Pretty much this.
I've yet to see a game do moral choices right, however. Then again, in real life, moral choices aren't just a straight divide between good and evil. Fiction will do as fiction does, I guess.

Try the games I mentioned as examples of good moral systems. They do it pretty darn well.

 

[Myndnix]

Binary moral system(Mass Effect, Infamous, etc) choices are dumb because then choices become a stat-grind, not moral choices.

Moral dilemmas that aren't related to stats(Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Walking Dead, etc), however, are one of the greatest tools games have for storytelling, because it involves the player in the moral dilemma rather than just presenting it for them.

Pretty much this.
I've yet to see a game do moral choices right, however. Then again, in real life, moral choices aren't just a straight divide between good and evil. Fiction will do as fiction does, I guess.

Try the games I mentioned as examples of good moral systems. They do it pretty darn well.

I've played Human Revolution twice, and while I agree that the moral system was well implemented, it changed absolutely bugger all at the end of the game. That isn't a moral choice system done right, to me, at least.
Sadly however, as an adventure game type thing, the Walking Dead doesn't interest me.

 

[Naeras]

I've played Human Revolution twice, and while I agree that the moral system was well implemented, it changed absolutely bugger all at the end of the game. That isn't a moral choice system done right, to me, at least.
Sadly however, as an adventure game type thing, the Walking Dead doesn't interest me.

Endings were dumb. The... well, "modern Robin Hood"-sidequest was bloody brilliant though, as well as a couple of others.

I don't like adventure games either.
At all.
I still think Walking Dead was good.

 

[kickassfrog]

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

Yeah! Moral choices in the real world don't affect your abilities, they come back to bite you later on if you go for the easier, but more evil option.
But screw the whole thing, I'm playing the game to murder people, why would you give me a knife, a gun, grenades, a crossbow, incendiary arrows, the ability to blast people into walls with wind, the ability to summon a swarm of rats to kill them and the ability to hack their devices to kill them, and then expect me to play nice with the people who do me no such favours?

 

[gravian]

I think a lot of people don't like moral choice systems in games because in most cases its set up as a binary choice in interactions and only rewards the player if they play as totally good or evil, like in the Fable games or Mass Effect. Sometimes even then there's no major differences in how the game turns out or no point other than changing AI reactions when you walk into town (I think Yahtzee pointed this out in his Fable 3 review, where playing good or evil didn't really matter in the end because there was little real change).

To make moral choice more relevant I think systems should use deliberately more ambiguous options and not highlight them as clearly good or evil; it would make the player think more about their choice and repercussions. And if the game could track your choices so if you were playing as a good character, picking a relatively evil choice would be picked up on and companions or AI characters later on would remark about this or use it to show up the player's moral standing. Removing powerful bonuses for becoming full good or evil to get a character an edge would also encourage players to experiment more and pick what they feel is right.

It would make moral choices much more rewarding and develop the experience instead of simply acting nice/like a dick to everyone just for the hell of it or to get a plus stat in something.

 

[Darknacht]

If moral choice is implemented well it can add a lot to a game but if its just tacked on because its the cool thing to do or if the devs did not put much thought and effort into it then it typically makes the game worse.

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.

Yeah , but you miss the reward for consuming ( or whatever ) those little girls . I think that's why they actually made them little girls , because you know most people frown on hurting children ( for some reason ) . So it was a choice between , consume little girl and get points for you upgrades , or don't and be a good guy but get nothing . I personally took all their souls because i hate children .

OT: i like it as long as there is consequence or reward . Even without it it's still a good system to have . The harder the choice the better . Especially if you don't see the consequence( good or bad ) from a mile away, or as long as the rewards have equal value .

In Bioshock you do get rewards for not killing the Little Sisters you just have to wait a little bit and they start giving you bonus packages, so there is very little difference in power between 'good' and 'evil' characters in the end. It would have been a much more interesting choice if it was a choice between being 'evil' but powerful or 'good' but weak.

 

[G-Force]

The best moral decisions are the ones the players don't realize that they're making. One of the best features of Walking Dead was the removal of any feedback of the decisions you made so you didn't know if you were on someone's good side or not.

Aside from that removing any sort of reward from either choice makes it a lot easier as no longer are players concerned with what they will get (good/evil points, special gear) and instead focus on the consequences of their actions. I knew Walking Dead was pulling the right strings as before each choice I took in a sharp breath and struggled with what to pick. These choices were not simple calculations but instead were either/or choices that had both upsides and downsides to them