Are you feeling Moral?

[Jay Cee]

I've generally noticed that games with Morality systems are slowly becoming the new cliche, taking over from bullet time. It's seen as a unique selling point for any game you feel like spicing up.

Another surprising point was that games that aren't completely dependent and/or focused on the morality mechanic, but still have it, generally do it with respectable skill. Just look at Fallout 3, arguably your choice to be a Pirate of the wastes or the pretentiously named "Last good hope of humanity" where you save 12 legged cats from trees, are not essential to the gameplay. Obviously it effects the "shityourpantswithfrustration" ending but the inclusion of neutrality really made it much more original.

Whereas stealth 'em up "Splinter Cell Double Agent" relied on the mechanic far too much. Meaning that the dodgy narrative came across as convoluted and confusing.

It's nice to see a game like Prototype not relying on a cheap monotonous mechanic to...
OH WAIT. Don't get me wrong, deep within the dark confines of my ice covered, critical heart there is a place for Prototype but it really displays the very thinnest of morality systems. It's not even very evident since it's used to make you play the game twice.

Overall I think that we should try and preserve the idea, since it has the potential to truly MAKE a game great but it's just being overused.

Opinions?

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

Make your morality reflected only in the minds of the NPC's around you. As you help people or people hear of your deeds, good or bad, they react accordingly. You could have a reputation for each region or something, or even for each individual. Sweeping morality meters are kinda unrealistic, I'd rather have a game where your actions are reflected in the people around you and their views.

Ah, here we go. "If you murder someone in the forest, and no-one is around to see it, did you really commit mur... wait." YES OF COURSE! but no-one in the game world is any the wiser, right? So people would still treat your character like the second coming of Christ even though you've "committed a heinous act." I don't buy in to people in Bowerstone hating me for that one person I killed silently in Westcliff for following me around (In my imagination he was a spy for Lucien.) when no-one was looking. Its like when you kill someone a massive fireworks display comes overhead that can be seen by the whole kingdom, spelling out "PC is a murderer!" in the sky for all to see.

And yes, if you do something public, people in other towns are going to hear. Saving a town from a meteor or being the one who sent said meteor is going to get around, but there's an element of common sense here that seems to be so often missed.

 

[goatzilla8463]

In a moral choice, it all boils down to two choices.

Kill or be a pussy.

 

[cyber_andyy]

In most games, it dosnt really have an affect. FOr instance in The black and white games, it only really is for looks, and in the second one, it the negative sides dosnt even matter.

I susspect, that in games where you get different weapons depending om your choices, that the good and evil weapons, are simply different models.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

In most games, it dosnt really have an affect. FOr instance in The black and white games, it only really is for looks, and in the second one, it the negative sides dosnt even matter.

I susspect, that in games where you get different weapons depending om your choices, that the good and evil weapons, are simply different models.

On the different models point, this was certainly true for the lost chapters in Fable. Also, being good doesn't mean being a pussy! Who's more badass, people who fight through a horde with a stolen chaingun, or the same person doing the same thing, but with a wooden spoon (I'm displaying with massive hyperbole the difference in power levels between good and evil characters sometimes.)

 

[Jay Cee]

Haha I think criticizing Fable 2 for it's lack of continuity is like punching oxygen.

 

[Scarecrow38]

I think there needs to be consequences for just being neutral. And morality shouldn't be divided up so distinctly. Every morality game makes talking= good points and kill all people = evil points. It shouldn't be so obvious about where the game is using your responses to define your morality.

 

[FallenRainbows]

In a moral choice, it all boils down to two choices.

Kill or be a pussy.

Awwh Its so evil *hug*

But yeah... first time trough Kill it all. And I mean ALL.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

What about a reputation system? Instead of having arbitrary bars, you could gain traits that affect how certain people see you. Like for instance, having a history of saving traders of a particular guild, or of assassinating people of a certain social standing, would raise or lower peoples opinion of you, but also raise or lower how much they fear your actions. People with low reputation will have people trying to get in their way and obstruct them in any way possible unless counteracted by them being too afraid to do so. a PC that a group has a low fear stat with, on the other hand, may get exploited and generally taken advantage of because people think they can get away with it, though this may be countered by a high reputation as people think twice before double-crossing someone they actually like.

Here are a few possible traits

saving traders/people in trouble

"saviour" save one trader +5 reputation -5 fear with traders/merchants of that guild -5 rep +5 fear with bandit faction faced down.
"merchants hero" save ten traders +50 rep with trad/merch of that guild +10 rep -50 rep with bandits
"thoroughfare guardian" save a hundred traders on your travels, +250 rep... you get the idea.
murdering people

"Murderer" kill someone: -10 reputation from all who hear about it +10 fear
"mass murderer" kill ten innocent people: -100 reputation from everyone in the area if the massacre was reported. +100 fear. Reputation spreads out of local area (can reach towns within same country)
"deranged lunatic" kill 100 innocents: -500 reputation +500 fear; reputation spreads further (can reach anywhere in the world)
Further small reputation penalties for continuing to kill.

and so on. These traits could even include things like "city destroyer" for demolishing entire towns, or "Warmonger" for continuously sparking wars between different game factions.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

Fallout 2 attempted to have a slightly different take on the system (didn't work brilliantly, but they tried! Perhaps if they hadn't had to rush the game... but thats a discussion for another time).

You had a "karma" score, based on good/evil things you did. You also had a "reputation" in each town, based on how you interacted with them. In general, they would start of neutral despite your positive or negative karma (unless your karma score was waaay to one extreme or the other).

It didn't really affect as much as I'd have liked, but it was a good way forward.

Myself, I have a heart filled with neutrality.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Mad Maniac: You basically just described the reputation system of Arcanum. Arcanum had a sort of karma meter, as well as 'your system' in a journal, which would make certain people like you more or less depending on the location or maybe what race or who they were a member of.
(Example: Pervert of Tarant. Running naked through the streets of Tarant as a quest would give all people in Tarant a -5 Reaction to you. Which I always thought strange, since I was a hawt elf!
The karma, as far as I know, only influenced the reactions of your party members (which would logically get to know you better and see through the general opinion of the populace), so really I can only reccommend you play Arcanum. It really is your ideal in a nutshell.

 

[Dorian]

I always figured the morality system was bull crap. Just scrap the whole idea and wing it! In an RPG, instead of one quest with two outcomes, just make it two different quests PERIOD! Fable did this, and it worked nicely in my opinion. And don't make the cliche 'bad thing for good reward/good thing for a bad reward.' Turning in a murderer for the reward money is a good thing!

And a cap on evilness? Why? Why not just make it so you eventually turn into a walking cloud of black thunder? That would be tight!