Secret to a Good Moral Choice System

[Vausch]

Many don't like the usual moral choice system given in games, the one where you only get a good or evil option that is difficult to agree with because you're not role-playing or actually making a decision you'd make, but just going for the good or evil run.

I think in order for a system like this to work, there needs to be no indication if the choice is good or evil and there needs to be less binary endings. Spec Ops: The Line had some interesting moments where you could defy the choices given and still win. Dishonoured almost got a good system, but the middle and bad endings were crap and kinda crap, respectively. It could have worked if we weren't told of the endings beforehand and had some more closure in the bad endings.

Also, more than 2 good endings. Multiple ending games can have issues in that aside from the best and worst morality, odds are the ending will just be crappy.

What do you think would make a better system?

 

[Zeriphor]

Moral choices should be about what's more important to you, not deciding which is the "good" and "evil" choices. Basically, weighing which principles you consider to be more important.

Mass Effect came up with a really good idea with its paragon/renegade system. Instead of the typical good/evil meter, you get 2 meters that are tracked separately. In theory, it was about idealism vs pragmatism, but that rarely ever happened... They really screwed up a great idea.

 

[Kopikatsu]

The best moral choice system is the one where it doesn't exist.

No meters or hidden numbers tracking what you do and only the one ending. So you can pick and do whatever you want without worry about whether or not you screwed up your chances of getting the pretty sunshine and rainbows ending, you pick choices based on whether you want to go with that choice or not.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

To me the two big rules are 1, never flat out label any decision as good or evil and 2, don't have some sort of meter that fills up and tells you what your moral or communal standing is. That's what game worlds are for.
In short, the best way to have a moral choice system is to remove the part about the system.

In addition, the majority, or at least most impactful of player actions should be, in a sense, 'physically' made by the player, as in you don't have the game paused for you and you don't get to pick some icon or dialogue box to make a decision. For instance, if you wanna execute a guy you're gonna have to waltz up and shoot him ingame, if you wanna blow up a town then you get to push the detonator and watch that shit go down in real time, not in a cutscene.
I could never really give a crap about what I was doing and what options I was choosing in games like The Witcher 2 or Mass Effect because it never really felt like I was ever actually choosing anything. Merely picking a dialogue option and having the protagonist essentially go 'well it looks like I'm doing this thing' and having a cutscene play took all the impact out of the choice, and removed all the action from something that you'd think should feature it. I put a lot of thought into the concepts and ethical implications on whether or not to frag or rewrite the Geth on that space station but when it came down to it, I didn't give a crap about what dialogue option I picked, and I ended up just choosing whichever option gave me more 'good dude' points and didn't look back. On the other hand, I found myself strangely caring a hell of a lot more for what I did in games like Deus Ex. Even if it was, compared to the supposed gravity of decisions in other games, fairly mundane stuff, like deciding whether to sneak around a bunch of guys or kick their asses, I cared a great deal more for stuff I normally wouldn't care about, because I felt like I was able to directly influence the game.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Easy. Don't have one. Simply put, they ruin the game.

Mass Effect has sucked at this since the beginning because it boiled down to you having to get enough blue points to unlock more blue dialog options and there's no point in picking which color you want to use based on the situation because it ends hurting you if you don't do a one sided morality run.

Dishonored did it just as wrong, because if getting a good ending means trying to kill the least number of people as possible you might as well say killing fills your evil meter. For a game about player choice, they're locking an ending behind a method of gameplay I might not even use.

They should just stop thinking about a morality system and just have decisions. Risks and rewards are tied to each, but the game doesn't tell you if you did the right thing.

 

[Pink Gregory]

If it's gon' be used, decisions have to have consequences that don't affect a stock good or stock bad ending.

Ultimately a videogame (so far) is limited to reacting so, to illustrate, a series of two-option switches; ie PC commits 'bad' action, NPC is now switched to 'react: bad'.

That being said, even that can work with enough thought put into it.

 

[BeerTent]

IMO: The best moral choice systems don't label themselves, but still bite you in the ass later.

Sure, you can tell the thief she's ugly as a cow, it won't be an "evil choice" but you'll suffer the consequences when she makes your life a living hell later on.

You can make something like this very easily with RPGmaker

 

[Occams_Razor]

My biggest and most pressing concern is that if you want your players to make real moral choices, then you can't tie those choices to tangible gameplay results. Like Mass Effect, with its Paragon/Renegade meter. You needed a certain amount of Paragon OR Renegade points to get the most favorable results from cutscenes, so in the end you end up picking whether you are playing a Paragon or Renegade Shepard, and then all of your moral choices are made for you.

The same goes for games who tie items or special moves to a certain good/evil level. If you need to be all the way good or all the way evil to get the best content, its no longer a moral choice.

Easily the best implementation of the system I've seen is Spec Ops: The Line. It actually presents you with a dilemma and gives you your options, and the game will move forward with whatever choice you makes. The game never tells you which choice is right or wrong, which makes it even more engaging. Its just you and your choices. The best thing is, there are often options outside of the ones the game gives you, which shows how much thought the developers put into their moral choice situations.

 

[Smeatza]

You simply have choices and consequences. No meter you fill up to make yourself more powerful/open more options.
Just unique choices, with unique consequences. Like DA:O.

 

[Harker067]

Yeah my advice just have a bunch f different ways t slve a problem and let people find/pick one. no numbers bars etc.

 

[blazearmoru]

A good moral choice mechanic requires the understanding that all people believe that their beliefs are the moral ones. That mean no matter the choice, chances are if the person is choosing for real, they are willfully sacrificing something for what they believe to be the greater good. By this, the endings or results must not be biased from the creator's beliefs of whats moral or not. I think there needs to be many choices, all leading to different outcomes, all of which are equal in reward and punishment, as a way to make the player experience the Weight of the sacrifice as well as the importance of the chosen Greater good. That I think is necessary. :|

 

[Fidelias]

You simply have choices and consequences. No meter you fill up to make yourself more powerful/open more options.
Just unique choices, with unique consequences. Like DA:O.

This, so much this. Dragon Age Origins is Morality done right. Morality in games shouldn't become a question of whether you get an additional 5% attack power or 8% recharge rate. It should be about the actual choices you make and the consequences of those choices.

And have characters actually remind the player that they're on a time-critical mission to save hundreds of lives.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Games like Witcher 2, Planescape Torment, To the Moon, etc. manage to deal with complex issues of morality without ever directly shoving "moral conundrums" into your face and making you choose between red and blue options. Not to single out Bioware specifically, as ME was a better game for this than the inexplicably lauded KOTOR (where the evil choices were so mustache twirling and silly they made silent movie antagonists look nuanced), but they have a bad habit of creating ethically compelling worlds or scenarios and then ham-fisting through them with bland binary decisions.

This, so much this. Dragon Age Origins is Morality done right.

Ugh. Not really.

 

[In Search of Username]

Personally I quite enjoy the binary kind of morality system Bioware has in their games, mainly because it's kind of supposed to show you two vastly different approaches to each situation, not give you difficult, intricate choices. But then, I also like games like The Walking Dead and The Witcher 2, where the choices are somewhat more ambiguous - but in a different way. Whereas Mass Effect for example kind of gives you two options from the start and you're essentially likely to just choose to either be purely paragon or purely renegade, Witcher and Walking Dead are more likely to make you make quick decisions, and give you choices that aren't clear-cut good or evil so that they're very hard decisions to make. So that tends to be a better way to immerse the player in the decisions themselves, but both approaches work I think.

 

[Zeldias]

Dragon Age 2 was moving in a good direction (although it didn't get there): present sides, present arguments that have pros and cons, and let the players navigate that. No meters or any of that junk, just choices and arguments and options, and the player decides what s/he supports. Add the Rivalry system to that which makes it so players don't have to freaking kowtow and bow and scrape to NPC minions and it's pretty good at navigating all this stuff.

I think the Witcher games were pretty good for this, too.

 

[KiloFox]

good moral choice systems don't have a meter tracking them, or a necessarily different ending tacked on for each standing. a good moral choice system is one that realizes that good and evil isn't saving or eating the child, in some cases, the more evil option is to do the "good" thing fist, only so you can do something so much worse later. a good moral choice system realizes that the world isn't black and white, just good and evil. it realizes that there are other options. and you're rarely limited to just 2.

Fable 3 did this HORRENDOUSLY. your options were basically between saving the child now, only to have him and everyone he knows die horribly later, or killing the child now, so that his family and little brother survive.
remember that the first choice is the "good" path. WTF? mind that i HATE the fable series though. and i only played 3 because i was bored out of my skull. but it is a prime example of exactly how NOT to do it

Captcha: Skynet watches

 

[Zburator]

Yeah. Dragon Age had it right.

Have each person of importance have a modifiable opinion of you, that simply came down to approve/disapprove.

Basing a alignment system simply on good & evil, while also giving it a dramatic effect on the game, has never been done well in my opinion. It is simply impossible to account for the variety of character intentions in the actions they do.

That said however, the D&D games like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights 2 had a much more reliable way of doing it. Alignment only really mattered for what class your character picked, and the penalties that came with an alignment change were the result of a supernatural contract of some kind, which you could fix without loading. On top of this, your alignment did not affect the story progression of the game, AT ALL, but were simply driven by in-character actions taken throughout the game.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Not so much a moral system but a karma system. Flag actions one of 5 ways. Good, ok, neutral, bad, and evil.

Locations are flagged one of 7 ways. Very good, good, ok, neutral, bad, and evil, very evil. Very good/evil can be used for further customization.

Karma is gained on 2 values unseen= 0.1 point and seen= 1.0 point.

Karma works on a limited global scale which tells other areas what you are in minors ways, local regions know more about you while specific locations like cities know all about you.

Karma effects you in 2 ways tells law and criminals your inclinations and tells everyone else how good/bad you are and thus they fear or rave over you.

Now with that said I would like to see a few extra options involved in game design if using this system. 1 is you are going to have bad guy areas where a bad guy player can go shop,ect as in normal towns you are a target. Of course if in a bad guy area you would have random fights,ect to prove how bad you are.

Another is offering to buy all the crap that's in peoples possessions as an option for stealing or to make up for being seen stealing(or lock pick LOL). Either paying the authorities or bribing the person that saw you. Bribes and after the fact stuff is equal to 0.1 point on the karma system but you been flagged in the area as a thief.

I would not tie in kills to the karma system unless in a few areas like towns, other wise you kinda need a question for kills to count and even then they only count within the specific area of the quest. Or if you get a job where you collect parts.

And finally something that has not been done since morrowind everyone has a like gauge then add on to it with a respect gauge and fear gauge.

 

[Hagi]

I personally do think meters are the way to go. If you don't have any meters at all, not even in the background, then many of your choices will quickly end up feeling unrelated to each other. Your character won't have any reputation in the game world and choices not directly in the same quest chain won't have any bearing on each other.

If you keep track of a meter in the background then it can quickly end up being awkward. A player might be picking choices which he suspects have certain consequences, counting on them to carry over and add to his character's reputation. Only to end up frustrated as an hour later the player discovers what he thought were choices in a certain direction turns out to be something else entirely, with no feedback of that being given at the time of choosing. And whilst that may seem natural it bears keeping in mind that in real life you can frame your response precisely how you want it to convey exactly what you intend, you're not forced to choose between A, B or C which may or may not accurately represent what you have in mind.

Because of that meters are great. They give you a way of directly measuring the intent of your actions and whether or not that matches what you really had in mind, right at the time of choosing.

Where many developers go wrong however is in making these good/evil meters, that always ends up with ridiculous choices.

A system like Fallout: New Vegas is, in my opinion, the way to go. You're faced with several factions in the game world, each with their own philosophies and characteristics, and you have a meter for each faction on how much they like you. Your actions and choices in the game world directly influence these meters which make up your character's reputation. You can choose to remain on neutral terms with many factions or befriend one of them but likely make enemies with others in the process. No good/evil, merely different people making different hard choices and choosing to sacrifice different things for survival.