What do you think about "grey" morality in video games?

[srawcripts]

[HEADING=2]Actions and Consequences[/HEADING] is how "morality" should be handled.
There's no universal moral law, only what we humans have come up with.

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Ugh. What he meant was that games shouldn't just have a bar showing how good or bad you are. It should focus on the consequences of your actions, and how you deal with them is more important than some bar that most people don't really care about.

EDIT: It shouldn't be about how you fall towards the evil side of the morality bar if you kick a kitten, it should be about how doing something terrible to somebody will cause a backlash at you, as well as how blindly doing the "nice" thing will often cause unintented side effects, which is often why the "nice" option wasn't being done before.

Ugh. If you remove the morals of it then you are a robot just doing an actions to get a result.
I like the Witcher because there was just action and reaction that repeated over and over again.
But what did that mean about Geralt as a character. He was a machine was awesome that being a Witcher.

I like action and reaction system. I think is clever, but I think there should be a little bit more.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

I'm tired of games integrating morality systems in the first place. Regardless of how nuanced they may be, I don't want to have to account for someone else's idea of what's a "good" or a "bad" decision in a game. I just want to do what i'm going to do without worrying about how I'm going to get my morality bar to look the way I need it to look to accomplish my goals.

I understand the feeling...

But games need the numbers to figure out what you can or can not do in a game based of the history of the actions that you have chosen.

If you don't have this limit. The player would much freedom and the game would lose its flow and get boring fast.

Think of Infamous if you got all the good powers and bad powers... It would break the game. Making it too easy.

I'm thinking more of Oblivion/Fallout. See, Oblivion didn't have a morality system. It had a system whereby I could gain fame for things I was seen doing, or a bounty for getting caught doing certain things, but there wasn't some ever present eye watching me, and delivering information about every action I take to some computer database that, apparently, all of the NPCs can read and judge me based upon. Unlike in Fallout. And that's the thing that annoyed me. In the Fallout games the way that I acted could prevent me from doing things I wanted to do (although it was pretty easy to manipulate). If I wanted to loot everything of even moderate value (and I did) from pretty much every house I visited, then that eye in the sky would tell everyone for miles away, and when I showed up they'd already know what a dick I was because they read the database. Of course, I could find a homeless guy to give water to, an act which seemed to appease the all seeing eye. In fact, the eye loves it so much that you can even make up for killing an entire town by giving a homeless guy water.

I think the point that I'm getting to though, is that in games like Fallout morality systems are pretty stupid. They're just a nuisance that keep me from doing things that are actually fun and that I want to do.

See that's the thing. I don't want a game to have numbers that it can use to decide what I can or can not do. If a game is going to open or close paths for me, I don't want it to be doing so on the basis of how many people did I save or murder, how much shit did I steal, how many bottles of water did I give to the homeless guy, etc...

 

[Xaio30]

-snip-

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Allow me to explain:
1. Morality
You kill a baby, and feel bad about it because the game says you're bad through the game's morality system.(Fallout 3 style)

2. Actions and Consequences
You kill a baby, and the NPCs will remember you as a man who kills babies and will respond to you with unconcealed hate about what you have done. Feeling bad is up to you.

As for your second question:
A great deal of our morals comes from what we have learnt from people around us while growing up. We did not know them from the start. A person, raised to believe that killing is right, will believe that everyone thinks like him until he learns otherwise.

And since all our childhoods are different, we will each grow up with a slightly different set of morals.

This is why actions and consequences would provide a more logical and persistent experience for every player.

 

[johnstamos]

mass effects morality system wasn't nearly as bad bioshocks "golden savior" vs baby eating hitler" choice system, at least the renegade options just kinda made shepard seem like a bit of a smug dick instead of just evil guy. I think as far as moral choice in games as of now it can fuck itself. Fallout 3 hit the nail a little more on center by having a much larger scale, but it still usually boiled down a few key decisions.

 

[Shadowhawk77]

There need to be a base line of interaction were all result are the same...
From there you can change the result based on action.

The simplest is nothing... where nothing changes...
The more complex would be

SK Friend: oh uh its john umm he stole from the neighbors but he isnt all bad he did save the child from raiders last week...
SK: ill let him in but keep an eye on him

But that example is not neutral, but a history of has actions of good and bad to make neutral response of NPCs...
This level of interaction make more sense than some of the moral system out there...
But this is theoretical and maybe hard to apply to a game...

how about instead of a reaction to everything then just a reaction to certain things like they can only hear about certain quests.
along the lines of if you have jail time but you served across the world you wont be prosecuted here
but you saved a little girls cat a block away and he saw it in the local news.

 

[ramboondiea]

well i just played through the game bastion, and towards the end there are two moral choices, one is a good/evil choice, the last one...not so much, neither option is good or bad in itself, it actually made me stop playing for a few minutes to decide what i should do, and i have never done that in a game before.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

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.

I thought several side quests in the first Mass Effect provided plenty of reason why you should hate Cerberus. =p Plus the vanity of giving your FemShep a boobjob when she never needed one to begin with.

And I always thought that KotOR, while overall having good writing has a pretty damn bad morality system, in that your choices boil down to being a saint or being baby eating, puppy kicking evil. I'd like to see more nuances in that system, where you can be subtly evil, or only good if it's worth your while, and other shades of grey rather than just either pure good or stereotypical evil.

As others have mentioned, consequences to your actions are in order as well, in KotOR one evil deed wouldn't tarnish your reputation if you had maxed out light side points prior to that (and regained them in the next quest). It would be more realistic if that one choice would come back to bite you in the ass, perhaps even repeatedly. Granted, The Old Republic is proudly claiming that all your actions will have consequences so hopefully they can make good on that one. In closing I'd also see more games take a New Vegas approach, where you'll often have situations where you can't make everyone happy no matter what solution to the situation you pick. Along with no get out of jail free cards a la Mass Effect where you could avoid potentially painful situations as long as you had enough Paragon or Renegade points.

 

[lysiaboy]

I've just thought that it's not really worth it, being a nobody in video games.

In the real world, your just a 20 something desk jockey who has never done anything interesting in his life, so why would you be the same in the game?

Games like new Vegas and mass effect 2 give you the chance to be some Jesus like figure of wholesome goodness, or some satanic cross between Mugabe and Hitler. what's the point of occupying the sniveling middle ground AGAIN?

 

[srawcripts]

-snip-

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Allow me to explain:
1. Morality
You kill a baby, and feel bad about it because the game says you're bad through the game's morality system.(Fallout 3 style)

2. Actions and Consequences
You kill a baby, and the NPCs will remember you as a man who kills babies and will respond to you with unconcealed hate about what you have done. Feeling bad is up to you.

As for your second question:
A great deal of our morals comes from what we have learnt from people around us while growing up. We did not know them from the start. A person, raised to believe that killing is right, will believe that everyone thinks like him until he learns otherwise.

And since all our childhoods are different, we will each grow up with a slightly different set of morals.

This is why actions and consequences would provide a more logical and persistent experience for every player.

I like the action and consequences system, but there is not development of character.
Examples:

Fallout 3 ... You are blank slate... and you do good and bad things to become a hero or a villian.
The Witcher... You are Geralt... Your job is to kill monsters and being awesome...

There is a problem that comes up as well.
Fallout 3 is a sandbox and The Witcher is liner game that has a definite story...
Because the player can't really change the character of Geralt. The only thing that changes is the actions that you take... and the consequences that come to follow.
The player doesn't have to think about morals, because Geralt is doing things that he would normally do.
In Fallout 3 you can beat it in 20 minutes to not at all.
There has to be some system to limit the player or reward them.

 

[ImprovizoR]

I like 'grey' morality choices in video games. They should be handled like in The Witcher games. You try to do the right thing, but you have no idea what the right thing is. Or you try to do the bad thing, and you don't know what the bad thing is. You shouldn't be able to see the consequences immediately. You shouldn't be able to tell if a choice is good or bad. The Witcher 2 did that perfectly.

 

[octafish]

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.

Yes, this is the way I like my morality, The Witcher/Alpha Protocol system. You have decisions to make and your decisions have consequences. I must say that is what I like most about Alpha Protocol, no morality but your own but your choices (and there are some tough ones) will have repercussions. ME and in particular ME2 is poor in this because you cannot make decisions based on specific choices and expect to make charm/intimidate challenges. So you are funnelled into one of two ways of playing. Dragon Age was an interesting example with the companion influence system which was undermined by the "gifts".

 

[Woodsey]

It depends on the game - Mass Effect's morality system suits Mass Effect's universe, as did KotOR's.

The Witcher 2 is the best example of grey morality - virtually every choice is simply you deciding the lesser of two evils, and even then you'll rarely have anything good actually come from your choice. You do things and then things happen; its not bound by the game's karmic forces.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Fallout 3 ... You are blank slate... and you do good and bad things to become a hero or a villian.

No you're not, you're th lone wanderer who was born at the Jefferson Memorial to Catherine and James, you grew up at Vault 101, you became childhood friends with Amata, Butch eventually became your bully, your father loved you greatly...errr, yeah you get the picture, you are not a blank slate in F3.

Fallout 3 is a sandbox and The Witcher is liner game that has a definite story...
Because the player can't really change the character of Geralt. The only thing that changes is the actions that you take... and the consequences that come to follow.
The player doesn't have to think about morals, because Geralt is doing things that he would normally do.

Fallout 3 has a linear and definite story too, you are forced to find and love your dad and help him with Project Purity, you're also forced to join the BoS. The only choice with consequence is injecting the FEV into the purifier which barely does anything and choosing to blow up the Citadel, which actually kinda gives you heaps of rewards for doing so.

 

[Wapox]

I tend to like it.

In the KotOR "series" they had the grey system, and I think it worked pretty well.
If you were light/good, you had all the regular jedi powers, push, pull, heal, shield, yadda yadda yadda, and the more light points you had the more effective and less they cost in force, as with the dark/evil side, you had the damage powers, the lightning, choke, and so on. And the more evil/dark u were the less they cost, and the more usefull they where..

And the powers from the opposite end of the scale would be lessened and cost a lot more.

However. If you were grey, you had no particular benefits, and you powers weren't all that great. I may remember the efficiency incorrectly.. it has been a while..

TLR don't know if this example has already been given

 

[srawcripts]

Fallout 3 ... You are blank slate... and you do good and bad things to become a hero or a villian.

No you're not, you're th lone wanderer who was born at the Jefferson Memorial to Catherine and James, you grew up at Vault 101, you became childhood friends with Amata, Butch eventually became your bully, your father loved you greatly...errr, yeah you get the picture, you are not a blank slate in F3.

Fallout 3 is a sandbox and The Witcher is liner game that has a definite story...
Because the player can't really change the character of Geralt. The only thing that changes is the actions that you take... and the consequences that come to follow.
The player doesn't have to think about morals, because Geralt is doing things that he would normally do.

Fallout 3 has a linear and definite story too, you are forced to find and love your dad and help him with Project Purity, you're also forced to join the BoS. The only choice with consequence is injecting the FEV into the purifier which barely does anything and choosing to blow up the Citadel, which actually kinda gives you heaps of rewards for doing so.

I expected this...

What is the character's name? Player's input
What is the character's sex? Player's input
What is the character's appearance? Player's input

There is a basic heroes journey plot in Fallout 3. But the character can be anything or any one. How blank is that? Even the G.O.A.T in the vault was designed to make the character how the player wanted it. There is a break in the game to make sure the players choice what they want.

Okay, Fallout 3 has a story, but it gets lost and pointless if you start doing side missions and wandering the wastes... I personally spent 200 hundred hours on everything but the main story. I can make a bet that others have as well...

Does the main story matter? Yes, because there needs to be a path to end the game.

But back to the morality of Fallout 3.
You are a blank slate... You can be good or bad or both or neither. I mean the character was not designed to have a set code of morals. This allows the player to make moral choice for the character and therefore making the character an extension of the player.

I thought the intro of Fallout 3 was really good. But it really simple the Father, the best friend, the rival or bully, The village chief, all this to make a starting plot. So that game have a beginning, But... there are mods to the game to change the starting story to just a wanderer, to a mutant, to a commander of an army.

Even if you change the starting story. The character is still a blank slate and so on and so forth.

Fallout: New Vegas is the same way, but even simpler. Your a character with amnesia out to get revenge on the guy who shot you... Amnesia is a good reason a character has no morals and even a better one for player to make it for them.

 

[II2]

I think one of the best ways to implement "grey" morality is to give a player choice on how to handle two unavoidably bad decisions, or conversely, pick which good decision to make if they're forced to choose. They can still affect the game, but shouldn't be represented on a "good----bad" meter, but rather simply change the outcome of that change the story.

There's not a lot of games that I can think of that really play with this idea much, but I felt some of the best "grey" moral choices for an example were in GTA IV, of all games... When you had to choose loyalties between dwayne or playboy, or chose to let certain characters live, including the guy you were hunting down the whole game.

It just comes down to "kill or don't" or "kill A or B", instead of multiple unsatisfactory or incomplete solutions, but it's a start and an easy example.

 

[Disgruntled_peasant]

Games need to focus on consiquence of action, rather than 'good and evil', because if you get some special bonus for doing all the 'good' deeds or 'evil' actions then it becomes a choice between what bonus you want, not what decision you want to make.

It was like in Mass Effect 1 when I had to decide if i wanted to release that insect alien queen (forget the name) or kill it, that was a really well designed moral choice as there were a lot of things to take into account, but I didnt actually choose the option I wanted, I chose the option that went with the path I chose right at the begining of the game.

 

[Dan Shook]

I think grey morality is a bit... overused, or at very least a bad phrasing. I like morality systems to a point, but it all depends on what the scale is measuring and why. I don't like having to make only certain choices to be able to actually fully complete a game, like in Mass Effect two where you have to be totally topped out in either paragon or renegade to say the right things to keep your people alive. Though, at the same time I dislike games that ignore morality as well, or at least story driven games that put you in the role of a character with personality.

And now because I feel the need to kick the beehive, there is a universal morality, its a pretty small list of things (as they apply to humans and human cultures), but there are things that people instinctively react poorly or well to, that are entirely culturally unbiased. Which basically means every human who doesn't have something actually wrong with their brains will react in similar ways to these actions unless trained to respond differently. Things like murder, theft, and cannibalism, are all met with disapproval and usually a violent reaction, because as people, as a social, thinking, societially based creatures humans understand what is good and what is bad for the entire group and will try to get rid of destructive behaviors or elements to keep the collective group safe, happy, and healthy. And that's just people, not even going into animal habits that mirror our own, or anything more esoteric and spiritual, which I could go into, but it really isn't worth the arguments over pointless semantics and petty fears that would ensue.

So my point is that morality is important for believable characters, but shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not you can complete important parts of a game, and should really be based more on actions taken and less on dialogue spoken, because anyone can talk a good game, it takes someone with steel in their veins to make the hard decisions for the right (or wrong) reason.

And finally Selfless and helpful= morally good, selfish and grasping = morally evil, that's kinda the whole crux of morality.