Good vs. Evil

[John Scott Tynes]

Good vs. Evil

Games tend to fail when it comes to giving the player real moral dilemmas - here are a few ways to fix that.

Read Full Article

 

[Anachronism]

I would be very interested to play a game like that, but, unfortunately, I don't think it's likely to be made any time soon. If prior games are any indication, developers prefer a simpler good/evil balance; the most complicated it's been is in the old D&D games where you had Good/Evil and Law/Chaos as your alignment.

Although, the kind of game I really want to play is one where it's unclear whether you're good or evil. I find moral ambiguity in films and novels very interesting, mainly because it's a much better reflection of what real life is like, and as such I'd love to play a game like that.

Like it was mentioned in the closing comment of this article, a Star Wars game where you get to play a Grey Jedi would be brilliant, in my opinion: using whatever Force powers you like, and not having the game tell you you've fallen to the Dark Side because you like to use Lightning. What if you used it to fry a Sith Lord? Surely that would make you good, even though you used an "evil" power? Whether you're good or evil doesn't depend on what you do, but on why you do it.

That's kind of my dream game. I doubt it'll be made any time soon, though.

 

[Cousin_IT]

Id like a game with a genuine sense of moral dilemma in it. But in all the games ive yet played where they try to implement on, the moral choices are presented in the context of only 1 storyline. Good or bad, in Bioshock, Fable & Fallout III your alignment doest really change much beyond some dialog & cutscenes. To do it properly would, as you suggest, require the mechanic to be figured out first & a story built around that; rather than the way it seems to be now where someone writes their magnum opus storyline & then the devs say "hey, lets mix in some arbitrary good/evil choices to make the player think they're not just playing the writers animated novel."

 

[Andy_Panthro]

You've made a great game idea, full of possibilites, with the the sort of open-ended gameplay that I can only dream of.

Unfortunately, I doubt anyone would pick it up, but if by some chance it was made, I'd certainly put my money down.

You mentioned something which I had considered while playing a couple of RPGs, Fallout in particular. The idea that if you go down the negative path, it should offer you more negative choices to make, drawing you away from the centre, and making it hard to return to a positive state.

This is missing in many RPGs to date, they tend to allow you to do everything, which makes things very disjointed and immersion-breaking. This is especially a problem with a linear main quest, as in Oblivion for example. You can be a theif, and assassin and generally scum, and yet you are also the noble hero saving the world.

Of all the games I've played, the D&D ones (Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights) have been the best for these choices. Things have got a bit more binary (good/evil) in recent times, and Bioshock is a perfect example. There was no incentive to perform either save or kill, it was just a case of whatever you felt like at the time.

My favourite example is that of Jhareg's Castle in Neverwinter Nights, which involves two undead brothers, trapped in time because of an unspeakable act. You end up having to judge them, and the choice is truly a difficult one to make (or at least as difficult as any game decision can be).

 

[samsonguy920]

That's a good plotline for a western game, as well as similar themes. I almost felt like I was skimming through the cheatbook at a bookstore, and wishing I had the game to play.
As for your ideas in incorporating morality and the choices between bad and good, I feel they are strongly spot on. Once you're on a certain path, it can be very difficult to give in to that smaller voice and change. There are many factors that would add to the difficulty. Say you were deep in Jake's gang, but for a while were naive to what Jake was really after. Eventually the time would come that Jake would spell it out for you out of a sense of trust that he has in you, and then you realize what you have gotten yourself into. Just taking that into account, one would think it easy to just pull out your six-shooter and put one in Jake's head. But, there are going to be other factors. There will be the friends you made in the gang, the leaders you have grown to respect, the people not in the gang but who you probably alienated and will most likely not lift a finger to help you, as well as the enemies you made who would be after you in no time at all for taking down Jake. It's those times when you truly feel the consequences which nagged at you before but were able to ignore. There are many good stories that encompass the factors that can bind you to a choice you thought trivial so long before.
Take Darth Vader; during Return of the Jedi Luke would plead with Vader to give up serving the Emperor, to embrace the light side that still glimmered in his spirit. Vader felt it, more for the desire to feel that his life had more accomplishment than helping to destroy the Republic, and slaughtering so many Jedi. But he also felt trapped by the consequences of his actions, that it might not make a difference to just change. He had seen the Emperor and his plans, and even with the power over the Force that he had, he felt so much weaker next to his Lord Sidious. He also felt obligated to serve the Emperor, since the Emperor had saved his life after his battle with Kenobi. It wasn't until Luke was about to be destroyed by the Emperor that he felt the true opportunity come, the final chance to make the choice. Many might say he had no choice except to stop and destroy the Emperor himself, but also sacrificing his own life as well. I agree with that myself, though not everyone will, nor do they have to.
It is one of the more difficult factors of our life, but it is always important to keep in mind the consequences of your actions, and your choices. They are not always immediately apparent, but can return to bite you in the butt when it is most inconvenient.

I am looking forward to more articles, on 'The Hard Problem.'

 

[level250geek]

This game could work, and done right it would be mind-blowing. Introducing multiple traits (not just good/evil) is the most obvious step. Unfortunately the next most obvious step is to remove a main narrative, which does indeed have you cast as the "hero" even if you do not act heroic. So my thoughts? Make it an MMORPG, with your actions towards other players thrown into the equation; or at least make it a single-player game with multiple endings (say, one for each combination of traits).

 

[Fists]

I would love to play that game, preffereably with a rich open world setting (like Oblivion if it was done right) and lots of quirky backstory sidequests if you walk up to the townsfolk and perhaps ask "anything to report citisen?" or some other generic quest obtaining function.
If anyone does make this game they have to not make the same mistake as mass effect and not just rely on the story, i.e. actually put in decent gameplay to get you through the story, FPS please.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Brilliant. Seriously, contact Bioware with this, I would so play a game like that.

 

[Doug]

Love the concept - a 4-dimensional character would certainly be very interesting to develop with the game responding to those changes.

That said, I don't think we'll see it any time soon, sadly It'd be unfriendly to 'casuals' so the development houses wouldn't want to spend cash on efficiently pandering to the 'hardcores'. Also, it'd be alot of work to produce all the various forms of mission, especially if you want to make things interesting and combine several factors in determining when a mission can be used.

 

[nerdsamwich]

It'd be great to see something out there like that, but few, if any, game companies have that kind of esteem for their customers. That said, it might work more easily in an MMO, where your morality attribute scores would influence which quests you qualified for. Changing alignment as a high-level character would require going all the way back to the beginning and doing some of the differently-aligned noob quests that you skipped the first time around. Could be interesting. There would have to be other alignment-dependent effects, though, like maybe a high Viciousness score giving you a better crit chance, while peacefulness increases your defense?

 

[Avatar Roku]

It'd be great to see something out there like that, but few, if any, game companies have that kind of esteem for their customers. That said, it might work more easily in an MMO, where your morality attribute scores would influence which quests you qualified for. Changing alignment as a high-level character would require going all the way back to the beginning and doing some of the differently-aligned noob quests that you skipped the first time around. Could be interesting. There would have to be other alignment-dependent effects, though, like maybe a high Viciousness score giving you a better crit chance, while peacefulness increases your defense?

With that last part, no, because then it becomes about the gameplay benefits, not the morality.

 

[TaborMallory]

There is not, and never will be, good or evil.

The concept itself is ridiculous; countless implications have done nothing but help my argument.

 

[9of9]

This is a great concept, very well thought-out. Bioware's affinity for stereotypical Good/Evil choices, while mildly entertaining, is largely what has kept me disappointed with their output lately (that and the increasingly formulaic storylines).

However, I'm surprised at some of the responses here, namely that a game that follows similar tenets is a long shot away.

I urge you to take a close look at the Witcher. If you examine the structure of the game, it is actually rather similar to what has been outlined in this article. Almost all points are used - the character is not a blank slate as in most RPGs, the choices are never obvious or black-and-white, and the way the game's structure of three acts develops your own choices (in our case, siding with the Non-Humans or with the Knights) isn't too far off what has been suggested so far, albeit perhaps less intricate in the underlying mechanics - the game only follows your overall important choices, rather than creating 'personality stats'.

There is not, and never will be, good or evil.

The concept itself is ridiculous; countless implications have done nothing but help my argument.

I really, really wish RPG game designers would realise this.

 

[zoozilla]

Really nice concept for a new feature, and I'm looking forward to future articles.

I'd definitely like to see moral dilemmas that are more involved and less clear cut than those found in a lot of modern RPGs.

It sounds like Alpha Protocol is trying to be a little closer to the concept you've outlined, though its too early to be sure.

I want decisions that are actually involving, dilemmas that take time to process and need some thinking before coming to a conclusion. Do you trust this person or not? Are you willing to sacrifice the lives of your closest friends to potentially save more? If you had information that would ruin the lives of thousands of people, would you reveal it anyway?

 

[Sanaj]

I do feel in most games that offer moral choice, they lack any real complexity or don't
invoke much feeling of my personal involvement in the game.

John Scott Tynes, your concept is an interesting, plausible and well thought-out solution to this problem.

I like the idea of multiple facets of your character for morality, not just good or evil.
As well as a slower more gradual progression towards the intended moral path of the character.

I'm not sure the strategy has to be as heavily number/point based,
but it's still a much better idea than what is being used in games now.

However, I doubt this idea will catch-on, based on a simple fact.
Most of the world's gaming base consists of idiots and includes many emotionally fragile individuals.
(That's not to say I'm not an idiot sometimes, anyone who claims that is a terrible liar.)

 

[meatloaf231]

You pretty much summarize exactly why I can't play the evil side in most games. It's not good vs. evil choices, it's good vs. stupid thug with a short temper and no thoughts for the future of anything.

The problem is, just like the guy who talked about Army of Two's "tone" not working said, most simple people don't want a compelling, relatable villain with real thought and reason put into his efforts. They just want some faceless evil.

Edit:

There is not, and never will be, good or evil.

The concept itself is ridiculous; countless implications have done nothing but help my argument.

Also this. The problem with games trying to let you choose between good and evil is that the choice is according to the developers' morals, not your own. You may do something that the developers saw as "evil," but you see as completely reasonable.

Example: There's a group of people infected with a fatal virus that could mutate and go airborne, but it's still contact-transferred at the moment. The virus has progressed to a point that it couldn't be cured even if a cure existed.

- You could spend a lot of time researching a cure, but you couldn't actually obtain any samples, as the virus is contact-spread and it's too risky to move it around. This would risk the virus going airborne before you can help the infected people, endangering thousands of others.

- You could kill the infected people on the spot, as they are already beyond curing and it would not risk further mutation of the virus.

- You could isolate the people and study them as they die, in order to gain information for a cure or a vaccine, while still maintaining complete sterility.

- The decision of whether to tell the general populace about the potential outbreak also factors in. Do you want to hide the situation, and risk the virus accidentally spreading, or do you tell the public and risk panic?

All of these solutions are plausible ways to fix the problem, and I know a few folks who would be insulted to find themselves told by the game that they had chosen the "evil" option.

 

[Playbahnosh]

Interesting stuff, but I don't agree with some of the things.

First of all, I don't believe in the stark difference between all this Good and Evil stuff, because these are very vague and arbitrary definitions of social behavior. Yahtzee said it best in Bioshock review, that the game leaves only two paths, one of which leads you to be a godsend flowerchild from eternal garden of Heaven, or a cross between Hitler and Skeletor who's mere piss is pure malevolence. There is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between the two, which is actually the entire social spectrum.

Good and Evil is two totally relative term, relative to the social setting. In most games, the Good choice is always being humble and selfless, giving money and help to the poor, fighting the "evil", refrain from killing as much as possible, and sacrificing oneself for the "greater good". Whereas the Evil path only leaves choices to be an anti-social, egocentric, murderous psychopath, who reject social rules, sees people as mere nuisance, doesn't care about the world one way or another and thinks it's only there for his own amusement. In these games, the two paths are clearly defined and you will inevitably go down one of them. But what about more complex situations, where the outcome is not black and white?

There is a highly quoted situation in KotOR 2, where you meet a beggar in a station, who asks for money. You can give the man some money or not. The clear answer would be, good: give money, evil: not give money. But after you leave, if you gave money to the beggar, some thugs come and beat the beggar to a pulp taking his money (you have him), killing him in the process. So, by choosing the "Good" path, you indirectly kill the poor guy.

I think we need more choices like this, where the outcome is not entirely obvious, and requires thinking. When being a nice guy only makes matters worse, and deciding not to interfere in a situation is not considered "evil", but simply smart. That Jack Bauer-esqe situation, where you must gruesomely torture and kill someone to save thousands from certain death, or you have to kill an entire village of small, crying children to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. The "hard choices" where the line between Good and Evil is blurred or non-existent, when morals would only make thinks worse, when the "right" choice is not always the "good" one, when you have to count the long term impact of your decisions. When, after doing the right thing, you feel like an asshole, that something broke inside of you, or if you did the "wrong thing" (that saved you mom and dad, but killed thousands on the other side), will later make you regret you've been born. Where no matter what you do, someone will hate you for it, where sacrificing yourself "for the cause" turns out to be totally meaningless, where the decisions you make will influence the game world in more than one way.

That's what I miss from RPGs the most.

 

[Aardvark]

I rather liked Mass Effect's method. The outcome is the same, but did you take the goodiegoodie approach or the bastard approach. The only problem is there's no real immediate repercussion, except for some nice/harsh words from another character. You have to wait for the next game to see the results of your choices.

 

[Spleenbag]

I think I'm going to enjoy reading this column. Very well-written, sir. Brought up several good points; in particular, I liked the four-point scale as opposed to good vs. evil.

 

[Grand_Poohbah]

Make some games man! I'm looking forward to more articles.