"That action did not warrant those evil points!"

[Saargston]

I don't think it was a good idea to give positive karma for...

Spoiler

blowing up the Enclave's base at the end of Broken Steel.

Actually, it was an absolutely evil idea, especially when your choices were A: Do what you were supposed to do, and B:Fuck your allies over. The worst part, though was that it gave me a big enough boost to go from Very Evil to Neutral. I ended up doing the latter not because I wanted to, but for the negative karma.

I personally hate morality systems. They totally detract from the role playing aspect of whatever games they're in.

 

[Shockolate]

One of the biggest offenders in my mind would be from Bioshock 2. Spoilers ahead.

There is both the little sister morality and the three people who can choose to kill or not. Seems pretty straight forward. Until you get to Gil Alexander. He has become a self described monster, and his former self wants to be killed so he wouldn't have to suffer. Sure, the asshole that he is now is begging for his life, but you were specifically asked by the same person before he went insane to kill him. And it's considered bad to do what the sane version of him wanted.

What the eff mate.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

I remember that in Fable it is considered good to brutally murder bandits, even if they're not attacking you. Okay, they're bandits, but that doesn't make stabbing them in the back a heroic action.

 

[atomictoast]

Using that draining power in Infamous on bad guys.

They're gang members who moments earlier were just shooting innocent people. If I murder them using any other power I gain positive karma, but if I kill them in a way that heals me, clearly I'm a terrible person.

 

[Kellerb]

Killing Moriarty in Fallout 3. That guy is a bastard, pure and simple. Karma loss for killing him is ridiculous.

he was a tool, sure, but did he deserve being impaled with railway spikes?

 

[CRAVE CASE 55]

Killing Tenpenny in his tower in Fallout 3.
He might have been evil, but I killed him before I knew that, thus gauss rifle blasting him of the top of a tower to a long and stressful fall, that eventually leads to a quick plop on the concrete below was considered to be a good act, and a example to children everywhere.

Which I wasn't to shy to show off again, might I say.

 

[Calum_M]

I quite liked the system in Oblivion where rather than getting Karma or anything like that, it's Fame and Infamy. This means anything you do behind closed doors is your own business.

Unfortunately, that only works in theory, as some quests add points to your Fame/Infamy, even if no-one saw you carry them out. Which can be annoying from a role-playing perspective.

 

[slipknot4]

Killing Moriarty in Fallout 3. That guy is a bastard, pure and simple. Karma loss for killing him is ridiculous.

How could you possibly kill Moriarty, he's awesome in every single way!

I've got a problem with mobster types.

Well, i guess that differs from person to person. I could not hate someone with a accent [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-p-IbhOWnQ] like that no matter what he does.
But again, it's all about personal opinion.

 

[Tycho Anomaly]

Mass Effect Two seems to be a repeat offender! I was striving for Paragon, but during the Assassin's loyalty mission, you have to interrogate a criminal; the only surefire way to get him to talk is to rough him up! You could limit the amount of Renegade points you'd get for it, but still...

I suppose games represent an even trickier debate on morality than regular Ethics - how can we gauge and apply a moral code to what essentially is an exciting tour of doing unethical things?!

Until it's worked out conclusively, developers shouldn't waste their time with it.

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

I killed Moriarty because he was a scumbag and since I'm doing a character that does her own thing and doesn't mind getting her hands with blood or being good from time toil time.

When I saw the whole loss of Karma I decided to kill everyone in town except for Unkillables and Billy Creel

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

Oblivion really pissed me off when I couldn't eat food in a fucking pub. I couldn't even pick it up and pay for it, like some backwards pub, the Landlord just kept crying guard. Then bad karma, and a grumpy face.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Also in Fallout with Charon, my current save I'm thinking of Killing him because he keeps saying "I don't like the look of this place" while we are in my Megaton House.

What he fuck is wrong with it Charon?, I keep it tidy and got a Nuka Cola machine, got an infirmary so we can patch ourselves up after a firefight.

Fucker, he just doesn't appreciate anything I do for him.

and he leaves the toilet seat up!

Yeah, let's be honest here... Fawkes is a much better roomate, even though he is a little too transfixed on American history, he at least remembers to put the toilet seat up.

Fawkes gets killed to easily though, and you can't make him wear silly hats and clothe combinations like you can with the others, I don't play roleplaying games but when I do I go all out with the roleplaying.

Like I'll pretend I'm Gok Wan and tell Jericho to wear a suit "because its slimming", and the pink party hat, "it really brings out your eyes darling".

then I mince around the wasteland saying everythings "Fabulous".

My next door neighbour shouted out "Sush? who the hell are you talking too" once.

 

[Slaanax]

Mass effect gaining Renegade Points Does not alter your Paragon points so it doesn't matter.

 

[Ganthrinor]

I shot a guy when it looked like he was going to rape some chick in RDR, and got -50 honor, explain that one.

You get no honor penalty for letting the drunk fucks stab the women in the streets.

Also, Lassoing these same guys seems to kill them instatly, no honor reward or penalty.

 

[imaloony]

I never played it, but I heard at the end of Army of Two: The 40th Day...

Spoiler: Army of Two: The 40th Day spoiler!

You have to choose to kill your partner to save a lot of people, or call the bad guy's bluff and kill him anyways. Apparently, betraying you partner and kill them is the GOOD action here. I know you would risk all those lives, but if you're calling his bluff, it really isn't that "bad", now is it?

 

[WelshDanny]

Also in Fallout with Charon, my current save I'm thinking of Killing him because he keeps saying "I don't like the look of this place" while we are in my Megaton House.

What he fuck is wrong with it Charon?, I keep it tidy and got a Nuka Cola machine, got an infirmary so we can patch ourselves up after a firefight.

Fucker, he just doesn't appreciate anything I do for him.

and he leaves the toilet seat up!

Yeah, let's be honest here... Fawkes is a much better roomate, even though he is a little too transfixed on American history, he at least remembers to put the toilet seat up.

Fawkes gets killed to easily though, and you can't make him wear silly hats and clothe combinations like you can with the others, I don't play roleplaying games but when I do I go all out with the roleplaying.

Like I'll pretend I'm Gok Wan and tell Jericho to wear a suit "because its slimming", and the pink party hat, "it really brings out your eyes darling".

then I mince around the wasteland saying everythings "Fabulous".

My next door neighbour shouted out "Sush? who the hell are you talking too" once.

I found Fawkes to be indestructable! Recruiting him took some of the challenge away from Fallout 3...

 

[Ganthrinor]

I shot a guy when it looked like he was going to rape some chick in RDR, and got -50 honor, explain that one.

Maybe it was intense role-play?

I heard that you get negative honor for shooting bounties in RDR,

I don't have the game, but that seems dumb, the poster says dead or alive!

You just get twice as much reward money for bringing them back alive. IMO, not worth the hassle, because not only to you have to kill all his buddies without dying while lasso-ing/hogtying the bastard up, you then have to keep the "chasers" from capping his silly ass as you ride back to town. Much easier just to ride through with a revolver and canoe heads, loot bodies and have a nice easy ride back to town.

 

[Thoric485]

I see my target entering the market, he stops at the art shop and engages in conversation with the seller. His guards have set up a perimeter around him, thinning the crowd. The main guard is right behind him and i can't reach the art shop without being detected. I need chaos, just enough to be seen and then vanish. This kill must be a warning to all who side with the Templar.
I swiftly approach the guard's flank amidst the crowd, trying not to make an impression. A pouch of coins rings as it hits the ground. People around me turn into rabid zombies ravishing over the grand sum of 10 florins. The guard is startled for a second and starts frantically checking the position of the others, which are assimilated by the sudden stream of people.
I have little time, the main guard will notice me any second, the target turns around to give a look at the strangely clothed person invading his space, my blade is ready...

"Somewhere on a rooftop, there's a hero in a..." the rest is smothered from the gurgling of blood, about to pour from the unfortunate minstrel's mouth. As i push him aside and see my target running through the evaporating crowd i hit the ground, tripped by a halberd. The following blow shatters my spine. The templar recover the apple of Eden. We're all slaves.

Goddamn minstrels.

 

[Silva]

It's rare for this to happen to me, but I know that when it does happen, it's because of a difference of philosophy between myself and the games' developer. Profiteering might be seen as selfish if it disadvantages others in an economics game, while for objectivists, it would be seen as a fundamentally virtuous action, since they view selfishness as a virtue. (I definitely fall into the former category, which is sort of ethical vanilla by game designer's standards, unlike the objectivists in the example.)

The other way this can happen is when there is a complicated set of circumstances in the context of the action that the developer couldn't program into their game's morality system. Say, if character X is running, with the full intent to kill, into a room full of ten character Ys, and you want to save the most lives, so you kill character X. Character X might just be a good guy in the on/off morality toggle of the game, or in the story, but in the context of the gameplay, he needs to be stopped. Developers miss this sort of stuff all the time, especially if they don't test a game extensively enough before release, and allow team killing.

Killing Moriarty in Fallout 3. That guy is a bastard, pure and simple. Karma loss for killing him is ridiculous.

Hmm, I wouldn't quite call that unambiguously good as actions go. While he's certainly slimy, and holds a lot of people in a cycle of debt, he doesn't really go around killing people. Only murderer characters like Raiders really get you good karma in that game, suggesting that the only good action is one that ultimately saves more lives than it takes.