Stupid in game morality.

[Cyketor]

Allowing for it's existence in general has the morality system of a game shocked you, offended your own views or otherwise made you go WTF? If so what do you do?
Fallout 3 letting you gain karma for helping a girl drug a priest (in training?) with ant pheromones so he'll leave the church and marry her (or lie to his boss.) If a boy wanted the drug this would border on date rape. I can't be alone in this.

Yeah, I've had my issues with Fallout 3's karma system and the situation you highlighted is an example of one such case.

In another part of the game, if you help the ghouls get into Tenpenny tower peacefully, their leader will STILL go back on his word and kill all the humans. In the face of such a crime, if you decide to bring down the hammer on Roy and his boys after the fact you still get nailed with bad karma!

Yes can some one please quote me on this and tell me with 10 penny tower which choice gets u karma? and how do I easily keep my karma at average? (not bad or good)

 

[TotallyFake]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

Yeah, that made me laugh. What's worse is when you:

Spoiler

have to choose whether or not to kill the Rachni queen. I mean, seriously, you get paragon points for letting the thing go, when you know it might still be dangerous and without even checking with your superiors! It's one of the most irresponsible things Sheperd does and you get rewarded for it!

See, this is precisely why morality bars don't work in games. The games view of good and evil will very likely be different from the players', and the only way they can counteract it is by going with choices like kill the baby or eat the box of kittens.

Firstly, I have to question your morality if you think it's okay to kill brainwashed people. They're still people, and there's such a thing as de-programing to cure them. And, if I recall, at the time you release them you aren't certain if they ARE indoctrinated.

And as for your talk of "rewarding" Shepherd, and "views of good and evil" you've spectacularly missed the point. The whole Good/Evil thing is entirely out of place in regards to discussing Mass Effect.

Shepherd is the good guy. Upholder of galactic peace, protector of damsels in distress, defender of humanity. Unquestionably, a Good Guy?. The whole point of the Paragon/Renegade bars is to determine what KIND of good guy. Is he a letter-of-the-law white knight who'll knock everyone out and take them to the cops (Paragon) or is he a bucking-authority see-the-big-picture kinda guy who'll happily shoot you down if it serves the greater good (Renegade)

The fact that it isn't black-and-white good-and-evil morality is the entire point of Mass Effect. BioWare are pre-emptively spinning in their collective graves at you both.

If i recall, you were entirely sure they were indoctrinated. And in my eyes, the sheer level of brainwashing made it a hard choice, but the right one. Maybe brainwashed was the wrong word, they couldn't even think for themselves at this point, they could barely think at all.

I'd say a lot of the morality is black and white. It usually came down to kill something or not. Perhaps good and evil was the wrong term, right and wrong would have been better i suppose. I belive killing those Salarians was the right thing to do, whereas the game gave me negative points for it.

Did you even read my post? It's not ABOUT right and wrong. It's about shades of grey. Paragon is not good, Renegade is not evil. And it's NOT negative points.

 

[Cyketor]

The decision near the middle of inFAMOUS, where

Spoiler

You have to either save a bunch of scientists(?) or Trish. Save Trish from falling to her death, and you're evil. Save the other people from... uh.. whatever it was, and you're a good guy. Both ways someone dies!

Yeah but its the concept of quantity over quality I thinks lawl!

 

[A Weary Exile]

This is what I'd think Jack the Ripper would say if he played Fallout.

That's what I am saying.
Just who do you think you're talking to, anyway?

Someone with an undeserved sense of superiority who can't take a joke.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

Yeah, that made me laugh. What's worse is when you:

Spoiler

have to choose whether or not to kill the Rachni queen. I mean, seriously, you get paragon points for letting the thing go, when you know it might still be dangerous and without even checking with your superiors! It's one of the most irresponsible things Sheperd does and you get rewarded for it!

See, this is precisely why morality bars don't work in games. The games view of good and evil will very likely be different from the players', and the only way they can counteract it is by going with choices like kill the baby or eat the box of kittens.

Firstly, I have to question your morality if you think it's okay to kill brainwashed people. They're still people, and there's such a thing as de-programing to cure them. And, if I recall, at the time you release them you aren't certain if they ARE indoctrinated.

And as for your talk of "rewarding" Shepherd, and "views of good and evil" you've spectacularly missed the point. The whole Good/Evil thing is entirely out of place in regards to discussing Mass Effect.

Shepherd is the good guy. Upholder of galactic peace, protector of damsels in distress, defender of humanity. Unquestionably, a Good Guy?. The whole point of the Paragon/Renegade bars is to determine what KIND of good guy. Is he a letter-of-the-law white knight who'll knock everyone out and take them to the cops (Paragon) or is he a bucking-authority see-the-big-picture kinda guy who'll happily shoot you down if it serves the greater good (Renegade)

The fact that it isn't black-and-white good-and-evil morality is the entire point of Mass Effect. BioWare are pre-emptively spinning in their collective graves at you both.

If i recall, you were entirely sure they were indoctrinated. And in my eyes, the sheer level of brainwashing made it a hard choice, but the right one. Maybe brainwashed was the wrong word, they couldn't even think for themselves at this point, they could barely think at all.

I'd say a lot of the morality is black and white. It usually came down to kill something or not. Perhaps good and evil was the wrong term, right and wrong would have been better i suppose. I belive killing those Salarians was the right thing to do, whereas the game gave me negative points for it.

Did you even read my post? It's not ABOUT right and wrong. It's about shades of grey. Paragon is not good, Renegade is not evil. And it's NOT negative points.

If it's about different shades of grey, then giving you points to make two little meters go up seems entirely counter productive. And it may not technically be negative points, but the game puts a negative spin on all the renegade choices, and they all seem fairly negative to me, except for the ones i disagree with.

Regardless of this, my original point still stands. Morality bars/points/whatever force the player to adhere a set of morals put forth by the game, rather than their own, and there is inevitably going to be some contradiction at some point, which will result in a break in immersion.

 

[A Weary Exile]

Someone with an undeserved sense of superiority who can't take a joke.

Ooookay...I got the joke.
In return, I made one.
I'll just go ahead and add 10+ asshole points to your account, though.

Yay I'm only five away from acheiving the rank of Dickhead!

 

[Mcface]

It upsets me when I commit mass genocide, its always ME that's the bad guys.

villagers had it coming man. their cows pollute the earth!

 

[hailmagus]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

Yeah, that made me laugh. What's worse is when you:

Spoiler

have to choose whether or not to kill the Rachni queen. I mean, seriously, you get paragon points for letting the thing go, when you know it might still be dangerous and without even checking with your superiors! It's one of the most irresponsible things Sheperd does and you get rewarded for it!

Killing is wrong... The games know that, and they try to imprint it in your mind. Unless something's hostile towards you... don't kill it/him/her/them.

 

[TotallyFake]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

Yeah, that made me laugh. What's worse is when you:

Spoiler

have to choose whether or not to kill the Rachni queen. I mean, seriously, you get paragon points for letting the thing go, when you know it might still be dangerous and without even checking with your superiors! It's one of the most irresponsible things Sheperd does and you get rewarded for it!

See, this is precisely why morality bars don't work in games. The games view of good and evil will very likely be different from the players', and the only way they can counteract it is by going with choices like kill the baby or eat the box of kittens.

Firstly, I have to question your morality if you think it's okay to kill brainwashed people. They're still people, and there's such a thing as de-programing to cure them. And, if I recall, at the time you release them you aren't certain if they ARE indoctrinated.

And as for your talk of "rewarding" Shepherd, and "views of good and evil" you've spectacularly missed the point. The whole Good/Evil thing is entirely out of place in regards to discussing Mass Effect.

Shepherd is the good guy. Upholder of galactic peace, protector of damsels in distress, defender of humanity. Unquestionably, a Good Guy?. The whole point of the Paragon/Renegade bars is to determine what KIND of good guy. Is he a letter-of-the-law white knight who'll knock everyone out and take them to the cops (Paragon) or is he a bucking-authority see-the-big-picture kinda guy who'll happily shoot you down if it serves the greater good (Renegade)

The fact that it isn't black-and-white good-and-evil morality is the entire point of Mass Effect. BioWare are pre-emptively spinning in their collective graves at you both.

If i recall, you were entirely sure they were indoctrinated. And in my eyes, the sheer level of brainwashing made it a hard choice, but the right one. Maybe brainwashed was the wrong word, they couldn't even think for themselves at this point, they could barely think at all.

I'd say a lot of the morality is black and white. It usually came down to kill something or not. Perhaps good and evil was the wrong term, right and wrong would have been better i suppose. I belive killing those Salarians was the right thing to do, whereas the game gave me negative points for it.

Did you even read my post? It's not ABOUT right and wrong. It's about shades of grey. Paragon is not good, Renegade is not evil. And it's NOT negative points.

If it's about different shades of grey, then giving you points to make two little meters go up seems entirely counter productive. And it may not technically be negative points, but the game puts a negative spin on all the renegade choices, and they all seem fairly negative to me, except for the ones i disagree with.

Regardless of this, my original point still stands. Morality bars/points/whatever force the player to adhere a set of morals put forth by the game, rather than their own, and there is inevitably going to be some contradiction at some point, which will result in a break in immersion.

How does it put a negative spin on it? Garrus/Wrex will agree with you, Liara I believe will scold you sometimes. In the reverse situation they reverse the roles. The bars are simply there to keep track of which way your character leans. The shades of grey I mentioned refers to the good/evil line, there's clearly a line between sticking closely to morality (Paragon) and be willing to allow wiggle room (Renegade)

They don't force you to adhere to any morals. YOU do that, by deciding to have a light-side run, or to side with the Enclave this time around, or to play a Nosferatu, or make Dakkon cry. Just play the game as it comes, make the decision afresh at each choice.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

 

[General Ken8]

in prototype, you can surf down sidewalks using the bodies of old women as surfboards, but when you bump into a tank strike teams attack you

 

[Ph33nix]

I had this in Mass Effect. You get renegade points for killing the indoctrinated Salarians on Virmire. I still can't work out why, they were brainwashed slaves, basically, how is killing them evil?

yeah and i saw it as a mercy kill.

Spoiler: end of mass effect

I also got renegade points for saving human lives but sacrificing the council who where dicks by holding my fleet back t oensure the death of the reaper.

 

[tsolless]

The problem with morality is that everyone has a different system and compass of morality.

I might think that it is fine to consume drugs if my doing so harms no one else, but others would disagree.
I might think that lying in order to not harm someones feelings is fin, others may not.
I might think that invading other countries where a dictator has killed people is wrong, others may think that it's the right thing to do.

It's because of this that a morality system really does not work.

What I would like to see is a game that gauges your view of morality on multiple different issues (pacifism, murder, lying, theft, drugs, etc.) and your actions regarding these issues can effect on where on the compass you fall on each individual values.
Then there are other characters and NPCs who also have gauges for each of these things and will treat and react to you differently depending on where you fall in those compasses.

Go out as a citizen and kill a murderer? If you run across a police they will each act differently depending on how they view the subject. If they a by the books kind of guy who doesn't approve of vigilantism they will likely arrest or even try to shoot you.
If they are a renegade themselves they might let you go or even help you.

Of course, this would be hard to code and develop scenarios based on how each person views the matter at hand but it would make it so that the game actually does change based on what you do and isn't in a eat puppies or give your life to save a kitten sort of a way.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

The fact that Killing everyone in the tranquilty lane yourself get's you negative Karma,While killing them with Chinese soliders get's you Postive Karma. And with the Soliders you kill them in the actual wastland.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

they attacked you, its self defence. slavery is bad because it will just lead to the slavery of a race again, killing one person doesn't put an entire race into servitude.

Enslaving psychotic killers will lead to us enslaving people based on race?

Sorry, I don't understand your logic.

 

[tsolless]

Fallout 3 has tons of messed up morality.

You lose morality for turning a raider into a slave. They're going to be doing a lot less damage as slave than running around shooting people yelling "kick ass!", yet I still get negative karma.

slavery is bad no matter who is being enslaved. period. it just one step away from enslaving the blacks again because they're black. its all about escalation.

That makes no sense. If enslaving them is bad then killing them should also be bad. Which is worse? Killing somebody or making them a slave?

they attacked you, its self defence. slavery is bad because it will just lead to the slavery of a race again, killing one person doesn't put an entire race into servitude.

You can't just claim that slavery will inevitably lead to slavery of an entire race. This is called the slippery slope fallacy and it is illogical.

The whole self defense and slavery of slavers is another example of how morality changes for each person.