What do you think about "grey" morality in video games?
- Thread starter axeman157
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It has to be done well
Don't do something like "The Pit" where I couldn't care LESS about who I put in power as the end result
And don't do something where doing the evil choice leads to some good things, or doing the good choice leads to some evil things. Because, the end result is more good was done one way as was less evil
And some games do well with B&W morality.
Don't do something like "The Pit" where I couldn't care LESS about who I put in power as the end result
And don't do something where doing the evil choice leads to some good things, or doing the good choice leads to some evil things. Because, the end result is more good was done one way as was less evil
And some games do well with B&W morality.
I think fallout NV was an interesting look at morality
because generally when it comes to morality your eather the hero or a villan, and the choice really depends on "do I feel like doing a good/evil playthrough?" alot of my favorite games suffer from this
Mass effect 2 for example
how ever in fallout NV even though there are good and evil options...aside from those doing what ever you felt was right (few games where you had to CHOOSE what was "right") was going to screw somone over..you couldnt be EVERYONES hero
because generally when it comes to morality your eather the hero or a villan, and the choice really depends on "do I feel like doing a good/evil playthrough?" alot of my favorite games suffer from this
Mass effect 2 for example
how ever in fallout NV even though there are good and evil options...aside from those doing what ever you felt was right (few games where you had to CHOOSE what was "right") was going to screw somone over..you couldnt be EVERYONES hero
I really don't think the Mass Effect games suffer from the morality system that they have. Sure it seems like they lean towards being good or evil playthroughs, but I've come pretty close once to being completely even split between Paragon and Renegade. And I don't really see them as good/evil. Someone else put it in a way that I really liked. They defined it as Paragon being more selfless and Renegade being self-centered.
Although ME2 does seem to take the more "Shepard is the good guy and Cerberus has to be the bad guy and no one should like them for any reason" stance. They don't seem to leave a whole lot of room for considering their motives for any reason.
I've always thought the Star Wars games worked really well with a black and white morality system.
Although ME2 does seem to take the more "Shepard is the good guy and Cerberus has to be the bad guy and no one should like them for any reason" stance. They don't seem to leave a whole lot of room for considering their motives for any reason.
I've always thought the Star Wars games worked really well with a black and white morality system.
In a certain sense, I do really like it, because if you focus on a binary morality system, or on a traditional "good guys" vs "bad guys" narrative, then you're automatically assuming that your audience agrees with you on what's right and what's wrong, and that your "good guys" are actually doing the right thing.
If you make it more ambiguous, it's a lot less alienating to the audience, because they're free to disagree with the protagonists while still potentially sympathising with them.
Also, from a different perspective, I do think there needs to be more consideration of "neutrality" in video games. In games with karma systems, you always get points for being "good" or being "evil", but you never get any "neutral points" even though that should be an entirely legitimate way to play. Instead, if you want to play a neutral character, you just end up murdering people one second and virtuously donating food to orphans the next in order to balance out your good and evil points. That's not playing a "neutral" character - that's playing someone with multiple personality disorder.
If you make it more ambiguous, it's a lot less alienating to the audience, because they're free to disagree with the protagonists while still potentially sympathising with them.
Also, from a different perspective, I do think there needs to be more consideration of "neutrality" in video games. In games with karma systems, you always get points for being "good" or being "evil", but you never get any "neutral points" even though that should be an entirely legitimate way to play. Instead, if you want to play a neutral character, you just end up murdering people one second and virtuously donating food to orphans the next in order to balance out your good and evil points. That's not playing a "neutral" character - that's playing someone with multiple personality disorder.
I've always preferred grey over black/white.
In Fallout 3 deciding Megaton's fate was clearly black/white and almost every faction was clearly stated to be either good or bad, along with characters and quest decisions. This hurts the game because it means you aren't thinking, you just have to decide whether you want to go good or bad and the developers have decided what is good and bad for you.
In Fallout: New Vegas, however, the decisions are much more grey, which means you have to think about your decisions more and their consequences have a more larger impact. The way people look at things will all be different which makes discussing about the subject much wider, people can give arguements as to why they think a certain faction is good or bad and others may have different views.
In Fallout 3 deciding Megaton's fate was clearly black/white and almost every faction was clearly stated to be either good or bad, along with characters and quest decisions. This hurts the game because it means you aren't thinking, you just have to decide whether you want to go good or bad and the developers have decided what is good and bad for you.
In Fallout: New Vegas, however, the decisions are much more grey, which means you have to think about your decisions more and their consequences have a more larger impact. The way people look at things will all be different which makes discussing about the subject much wider, people can give arguements as to why they think a certain faction is good or bad and others may have different views.
I thought about this a little and then some more. It is difficult to do grey or neutral choice.
Examples:
Good Choice... You pet a puppy... The puppy waggles its tail.
Bad Choice... You kick a puppy... The puppy runs away.
Neutral Choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
A game need to have a player to make a choice so a player can get a result back.
A problem is that here are so many ways to perceive the choice.
Examples:
The character has a fear of dogs.
Good choice... You kick the puppy... The puppy runs away.
Bad choice... You pet the puppy... The puppy waggled its tail.
Neutral choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
Good and bad are just words that people use to encourage and discourage certain behaviors or actions.
Mass Effect moved from this by changing the words to "Paragon" and "Renegade."
Examples:
Paragon Choice.... You take the puppy to friend that wants a puppy... The puppy is adopted by the friend.
Renegade Choice... You take the puppy to a friend that doesn't want puppy... The puppy goes a shelter...
Neutral choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
Morality gets more harder as it gets more complex
Examples:
You take something that you know belongs to someone... That makes you bad, right?
You take something that you don't know who it belongs to ... That makes you bad or good?
You take something that was found in the street... That makes you good?
I think the question of Morality system in games... is that it has to be broken down to all action are neutral actions. The only change is that NPC and environment will behave accordingly.
Examples:
You pet a puppy... The puppy waggles its tail... NPCs think you are a good person.
You kick a puppy... The puppy runs away... NPCs think you are a bad person.
You do nothing... The puppy does nothing... NPCs stay the same...
I think this can be applied to a narrative as well... As longing as the NPCs keep track of all the choice that you make with them. The narrative path will be determined by history with all NPCs.
Examples:
You are nice to NPC... You get invited to the NPC's party.
You are mean to a NPC... You don't invited to the NPC's party.
You do nothing with NPC... NPC does nothing...
Morality System use "good points" and "bad points" The problem with point is that it can be manipulated.
A better system is to awarded things for actions.
Examples:
Helping an orphan... You get some only help a orphan would give...Orphans like you...
You steal a house key...You get things from the house... The owns and neighborhood hates you...
Have the reactions of the NPCs and Environment on the character determine morality rather than have the characters actions on the NPCs and Environment determine morality...
Time for tea.
Have a nice day.
Examples:
Good Choice... You pet a puppy... The puppy waggles its tail.
Bad Choice... You kick a puppy... The puppy runs away.
Neutral Choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
A game need to have a player to make a choice so a player can get a result back.
A problem is that here are so many ways to perceive the choice.
Examples:
The character has a fear of dogs.
Good choice... You kick the puppy... The puppy runs away.
Bad choice... You pet the puppy... The puppy waggled its tail.
Neutral choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
Good and bad are just words that people use to encourage and discourage certain behaviors or actions.
Mass Effect moved from this by changing the words to "Paragon" and "Renegade."
Examples:
Paragon Choice.... You take the puppy to friend that wants a puppy... The puppy is adopted by the friend.
Renegade Choice... You take the puppy to a friend that doesn't want puppy... The puppy goes a shelter...
Neutral choice... You do nothing... The puppy does nothing.
Morality gets more harder as it gets more complex
Examples:
You take something that you know belongs to someone... That makes you bad, right?
You take something that you don't know who it belongs to ... That makes you bad or good?
You take something that was found in the street... That makes you good?
I think the question of Morality system in games... is that it has to be broken down to all action are neutral actions. The only change is that NPC and environment will behave accordingly.
Examples:
You pet a puppy... The puppy waggles its tail... NPCs think you are a good person.
You kick a puppy... The puppy runs away... NPCs think you are a bad person.
You do nothing... The puppy does nothing... NPCs stay the same...
I think this can be applied to a narrative as well... As longing as the NPCs keep track of all the choice that you make with them. The narrative path will be determined by history with all NPCs.
Examples:
You are nice to NPC... You get invited to the NPC's party.
You are mean to a NPC... You don't invited to the NPC's party.
You do nothing with NPC... NPC does nothing...
Morality System use "good points" and "bad points" The problem with point is that it can be manipulated.
A better system is to awarded things for actions.
Examples:
Helping an orphan... You get some only help a orphan would give...Orphans like you...
You steal a house key...You get things from the house... The owns and neighborhood hates you...
Have the reactions of the NPCs and Environment on the character determine morality rather than have the characters actions on the NPCs and Environment determine morality...
Time for tea.
Have a nice day.
It's fine as long as long as "grey" doesn't equal "bland". If it's interesting choices based on the player's history it's OK. Most games really don't do that very well and end up in the "bland" area. Even ME which I'm a huge fan of has a lot of rather boring choices when it comes to being "grey"
In role playing games there has to be some kind of incentive to be good, evil, or neutral such as access to super-powerful weapons, major stat modifications, etc... Just being acknowledged as a good, evil, or a morally ambiguous person by NPC's is nowhere near enough incentive for a morality system. I usually make good choices in games with a morality system though I will admit that there are some evil choices in Fable and some renegade choices in Mass effect 2 I make just because the outcome is either hilarious or makes the ensuing battle much easier.
I liked the morality system in the Witcher 2, it never told you what was good or bad it just let you chose your own decision and face the consequences/get rewarded over time. I hate the karma system and dislike paragon and renegade. They make me feel bad for wanting to be an assassin. Stealing stuff, sniping people, and picking locks.
Also, if you don't make the choices separated by good or bad you don't need to go through the trouble of explaining why they were good or bad. So I think all choices should be grey colored.
Also, if you don't make the choices separated by good or bad you don't need to go through the trouble of explaining why they were good or bad. So I think all choices should be grey colored.
I'd like to see a system where taking the good option can have some negative effects for once. Give me a reason to choose the evil option other than to giggle at the little people dying. Many vs Few type stuff a million is a statistic type stuff. To force the decision to matter, add gameplay consequences.
Example: (KOTOR spoilers ahead)
Perhaps you could do a mission to save it, but must sacrifice a member of your party (Mission) for a successful mission. Morally, you have to chose one of your friends (Mission) or millions of (far less annoying) people you don't know. Gameplaywise, you have to chose between losing one of your party members, and losing a potential source of supplies and future missions. Perhaps put something extremely valuable that you can only acquire after completing the teammate dooming mission to balance out any particularly useful skills they had.
Example: (KOTOR spoilers ahead)
In KOTOR, the starting planet, and many useful items, quests, and people there, are destroyed once you leave.
The best system in my opinion needs to be a combination of a back and forth karmic slider, a slider attached to following the rules and finally a faction opinion system. The karmic slider should be fairly standard but with some limits on how much things like theft can bring it down and how much donations can raise it. Additionally have consequences at all karmic levels, such as access to certain companions and quests. Secondly I don't feel that I should ever have to be a dick to someone because I'm trying to score good karma and they broke a rule, or actually had to make a tough choice. I felt that a lot of ME2 in both my evil and good runs required me to follow specific rules to an absolute "T", such as good Shep having to ***** at Mordin because of his research or as evil Shep having to take either a rude or knee-jerk, contrary position to most topics. Finally no matter what your Karma is, your interactions with a faction member should be determined by what you've done with that person and their faction more than what you've done that doesn't concern them.
The words don't really matter... It is still a morality system...Wabblefish said:
Does Shepard have the morals of a Saint? Example: releasing the enemy that tried to kill Shepard.
Does Shepard Have the morals of a Devil? Example: Shepard shooting the surrendered enemy in the face.
I know that the words 'Renegade doesn't equal evil and paragon doesn't equal good'.
That is why the examples were different.
It is still can be viewed as good vs bad... The good boy "Paragon" vs. the bad boy "Renegade"...
Okay...Executor78 said:
In role playing games there are reward for being good or bad or neutral to keep the player from action random. This make player choice one ending over the other or one item over the other.
This force the player to fit the narrative or plots so that it all makes sense...
Example: Infamous...
If you want death lightening, then you have to be bad. The NPC hate you and environment is darker and get the evil ending in the end.
IF you want shocking objects, then you have to be good. The NPC love you and environment is brighter and get the good ending in the end.
I disagree...Executor78 said:
Example...
Why should a store keeper sell you stuff, if you come in and steal things?
Why should a store keeper give you a discount, if they hate you?
Why should a bouncer let you in a club, if you enter and beat- up random NPCs?
Why should you go to the police, if you killed an NPCs
I would think that would be enough incentive for a player to choice one action over another.
I agree...
If the NPC don't do anything like Fable... Where they just clap or things like that do not change the game play at all.
The point was that NPCs need to be able recognize the players behavior and act accordingly to make a player choice one action or another one.
I think designing a true GRAY character would take just as much programming as Black and white combined. I think it would be really hard to do so the game and its effect on the world would be accurate and almost human. The only game that comes to mind that does this well would be the witcher. But for the most part its "Oh my hero" or just Flee in terror.