Developing an RPG Morality System

[steelyglint]

I think the Dungeons & Dragons morality system makes absolute sense, but many people see it too one-dimensional. The good-evil axis isn't the only one there is, there is also the lawful-chaotic axis. Especially when it comes to the BBEG (big bad evil guy) most DMs opt for them to be evil as a reason for the players to go after him. However the lawful-chaotic axis can make for really interesting motives.

Think for instance about a band of lawful good elves teaming up with a lawful evil Pit Fiend and his kobold minions against a band of chaotic good mercenaries (the players). This is certainly a valid position since the elves might value their ethical alignment (lawful) more than their moral alignment (good). But most people think of the good-evil axis as the more dominant one, and having your players think of the ethical axis might make for some great role-playing moments.

So don't make things too complicated with skills and traits when it can be as simple as this.

Okay, one more and then I sleep.

The D&D morality system is good because it's very abstract; good for a system that has to be run on the fly by a human but not good (IMHO) when used on a computer that is capable of doing so much more (and yet, so much less when it comes to smoothly interpreting moral issues). For a computer to be able to handle morality in an interesting way it has to have a more detailed record of morality.

I find the Law/Chaos axis to be somewhat incoherent, and the Good/Evil axis to not be finely granulated enough to describe the subtleties of a truly interesting character. I've run D&D characters (both PCs and NPCs) with ambiguous morals, but there's no way for a computer to do it without a more detailed picture of what's going on inside the character's head.

 

[Ari Ace]

Basing the morality system on the modern model of society will leave you with a one way boring ass game! It's all about perspectives. Who says the masses off humans are the good ones in the game? What, just because they are humans? So that justifies mass murder on the population of "monsters" in the game? The best kind of character is a chaotic one imo, one that disregards rewards and penalties for the things he/she does. That way you are not pulled by the ears in any direction but your own. The character should not be dependent on the world. The world should be an audience, either they cheer for you or they run in fear from you! But not based on race/gender/species/color, those kind off things just remove the surprise element in any game. Those who oppose you and come after you should also be very varied. Keeps the game fresh and exciting!

 

[Brainstrain]

Trait based is actually an interesting system, but it gives you a whole lot more dialogue to write. It's not that people CHOOSE a simplistic, binary morality; it's just much, much easier.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

Welcome to the escapist.


Quite the first - 12th post.

 

[Gxas]

I'm not interested in contrived moral dilemmas, which will certainly not be implemented in any game I write. Morality can be objectively defined within the context of a game because I, as a game developer, have the power to define any aspect of my game world. I'd like people to help to decide on how I should define these things, not discuss whether they can be defined when they clearly can.

You've just backed up my point. You define the aspect of your game world. When I play it, however, your means of doing something kind may not coincide with what I feel is moral, therefore, despite your best efforts to perfect a flawed system, you have only reached further into what it means to be good and evil.

I am not saying that your idea is bad, quite the contrary. I am just stating the fact that not everyone sees eye to eye on what is good/bad/neutral/etc.

 

[steelyglint]

I'm hoping for more discussion about polishing my current system, and less about whether this kind of system is necessary, desired, or even possible.

Basing the morality system on the modern model of society will leave you with a one way boring ass game! It's all about perspectives. Who says the masses off humans are the good ones in the game? What, just because they are humans? So that justifies mass murder on the population of "monsters" in the game? The best kind of character is a chaotic one imo, one that disregards rewards and penalties for the things he/she does. That way you are not pulled by the ears in any direction but your own. The character should not be dependent on the world. The world should be an audience, either they cheer for you or they run in fear from you! But not based on race/gender/species/color, those kind off things just remove the surprise element in any game. Those who oppose you and come after you should also be very varied. Keeps the game fresh and exciting!

The average citizen of the civilized lands (modeled on the heyday of the Holy Roman Empire, but that's another topic for another thread) is likely to be fairly "neutral," with a lean towards good depending on how modern their society is. Note that I don't mean the absolutely ridiculous concept, often used in various D&D games/settings, of maintaining "balance" between good and evil. I just mean they haven't committed many acts good enough or evil enough for them to have more than a handful of significant traits.

I'm hoping to be able to create the kind of personal characterization you're talking about. Whether I succeed in this admittedly ambitious goal is a separate matter entirely.

Trait based is actually an interesting system, but it gives you a whole lot more dialogue to write. It's not that people CHOOSE a simplistic, binary morality; it's just much, much easier.

You're right, writing engaging dialogue is a hugely time consuming task. The procedural nature of a lot of the content means that few in-game characters will be assigned a lot of dialogue. I'm just one man, so I'll probably skip writing a lot of dialogue in favor of a broad description of how a conversation went.

You've just backed up my point. You define the aspect of your game world. When I play it, however, your means of doing something kind may not coincide with what I feel is moral, therefore, despite your best efforts to perfect a flawed system, you have only reached further into what it means to be good and evil.

I am not saying that your idea is bad, quite the contrary. I am just stating the fact that not everyone sees eye to eye on what is good/bad/neutral/etc.

You're right in the sense that my subjective views are reinterpreted into the objective morality within the game world. The fact that I'm not an expert on morality and could have missed something is the reason I created this thread; so that people like you can add their voices to help me create a morality system which a wide majority of people will find reasonable.

 

[Nutcase]

IMO, this stat system is a waste if used on the player character instead of as the various NPCs' models of the player character.

What I want is to be able to play an evil character who pretends to be good, or vice versa. If you take the trouble to kill all witnesses and make sure none of them escape, for instance, it hardly seems fair that people over at the next town still "know" you are evil.

 

[steelyglint]

IMO, this stat system is a waste if used on the player character instead of as the various NPCs' models of the player character.

What I want is to be able to play an evil character who pretends to be good, or vice versa. If you take the trouble to kill all witnesses and make sure none of them escape, for instance, it hardly seems fair that people over at the next town still "know" you are evil.

Actually, I'm working on ways to solve that problem. Essentially, the PC has a fame rating in each local area, such as a city and its surrounding farms and villages. Perhaps this would be divided into fame and infamy, I haven't decided yet. The PC's fame determines whether the NPCs he interacts with are familiar with his moral outlook.

A clandestine evil action (secretly murdering someone with no one finding out, for example) would make the character more evil (Psychotic, Ruthless, and/or Violent depending on the circumstances) but would not increase his fame/infamy in that city. If his crime is later uncovered and connected to him, his fame/infamy in that city will rise, probably to the level that he becomes a wanted man.

Among the subtle, roguish skills of the spymaster lies the ability to whitewash your reputation in an area to better keep your indiscretions under wraps. Hiring spies and assassins to locate and eliminate people who know your secrets could help too.

This is just a sketch of an idea, so I'm amenable to change it if you have a better idea.

 

[steelyglint]

Is anyone interested in discussing neutral traits? Many of them probably aren't related to a character's morality in a strict sense, but they are aspects of a characters personality or personal outlook. I'm sure I missed some important character traits when I was selecting them for my current outline.

 

[DrDeath3191]

In addition to actions, maybe you could be asked to explain yourself. For example, stopping a magical talisman from polluting a town's water supply might be a good deed in theory. But why did you do it? Is it really for the good of the people, or do you have ulterior motives? This should be explored, I think.

 

[Greyfall]

Honestly, a morality system at all doesnt make much sense to me. It seems better to construct individual responses to individual actions which, when looked at as a whole, the player views the character in their own opinion.

 

[TPiddy]

This is way too complicated to be summed up in a few modest sentences, but I can certainly explain why some things work this way in games.

You ever 'accidentally' kill someone in a morality game? You know, someone stood in your line of fire or was too close to your magic effect? Since we are not dealing with the real-world we cannot apply real world consequences to said situations.

A game would really irritate me if I accidentally killed someone and had to start over, even from my last save point. The idea behind it is to explore both sides of the coin... this is why I liked the system in Mass Effect. You couldn't be a reprehensible bastard because you were saving the planet. You could be a bit of a hard-ass, unnecessarily kill people and creatures, but in the end you were still the hero.

Being a true villain in a video game would make everyone come after you, rise up against you, refuse to sell you stuff, let you stay in their hotel, heal you.... it wouldn't be any fun. This is why doing some good will return the balance to any bad you did. In a game, it makes sense.

 

[steelyglint]

In addition to actions, maybe you could be asked to explain yourself. For example, stopping a magical talisman from polluting a town's water supply might be a good deed in theory. But why did you do it? Is it really for the good of the people, or do you have ulterior motives? This should be explored, I think.

This kind of thing might happen in rare cases. Like in Planescape: Torment it's possible there will be times when you have a choice of two identical actions with different intents behind them, which will result in different changes to your moral outlook. I just don't think it would come up enough to matter much, and even when it did this kind of system could handle it... and it certainly would handle it better than a single linear goodness value.

However most of the time the choices will be clear-cut. Kill the minion who was skimming profits, and you become more Ruthless and Violent. Spare him and you become more Merciful, and you become more Just if you mete out an appropriate punishment. Torture him as a warning to others and you become more Cruel and Vengeful. Discover that he was stealing from you to buy medicine for his ailing daughter and choose to keep him on the job with extra money for the medicine, and you become more Generous.

Honestly, a morality system at all doesnt make much sense to me. It seems better to construct individual responses to individual actions which, when looked at as a whole, the player views the character in their own opinion.

Yes, it would be nice to thoroughly model the minds of millions of sentient creatures and the information that flows through them and between them, but computers have limited resources and I have a finite amount of time to spend coding. A layer of abstraction also leaves room for the player's imagination to fill in the details.

This is way too complicated to be summed up in a few modest sentences, but I can certainly explain why some things work this way in games.

You ever 'accidentally' kill someone in a morality game? You know, someone stood in your line of fire or was too close to your magic effect? Since we are not dealing with the real-world we cannot apply real world consequences to said situations.

A game would really irritate me if I accidentally killed someone and had to start over, even from my last save point. The idea behind it is to explore both sides of the coin... this is why I liked the system in Mass Effect. You couldn't be a reprehensible bastard because you were saving the planet. You could be a bit of a hard-ass, unnecessarily kill people and creatures, but in the end you were still the hero.

Being a true villain in a video game would make everyone come after you, rise up against you, refuse to sell you stuff, let you stay in their hotel, heal you.... it wouldn't be any fun. This is why doing some good will return the balance to any bad you did. In a game, it makes sense.

In a non-action game, it's usually fairly difficult to accidentally kill an innocent. If you're throwing fireballs around like it's going out of style and you catch a couple civilians in the blaze, it's collateral damage that will weigh heavily on the conscience of a good character. Your reckless disregard for sentient creatures cut short the life of an innocent, and while it's not morally the same magnitude as a cold-blooded murder a good character would still be likely to seek atonement of one kind or another.

Yes, being an evil bastard with no power would suck since you'd probably be hanged by the authorities once they inevitably caught you. Being an evil villain on the other hand means that you do have power: you own the hotel and the burghers who run it dare not cross you, your merchants run the black market allowing you to acquire any mundane items you desire, your thugs extract protection money from all the farms within 20 miles, your dark armies march under your banner to pillage at your command, and your maniacal laughter echoes through the halls of your secret lair as your diabolical plans come to fruition!

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Morality is too ambivilant and subjective to do justice in any game. Drop the concept of morality at all, and have realistic reactions and consequences to your actions. Like real life.

 

[SnowCold]

Rip off D&D and add chaos and order, would a good chaos charecter would take the good order option, or the evil chaos mission?

 

[steelyglint]

Morality is too ambivilant and subjective to do justice in any game. Drop the concept of morality at all, and have realistic reactions and consequences to your actions. Like real life.

I'd say a morality system like the one I'm describing is a solid cornerstone of a game world in which there are realistic reactions and consequences to your actions. Are you willing to help me refine it, or would you rather attack the basic premise of having a system of morality at all?

Rip off D&D and add chaos and order, would a good chaos charecter would take the good order option, or the evil chaos mission?

Of course I'm aware of the D&D morality system, being a D&D player since 3rd edition was released (and 2nd edition PC games before that). As I said in an earlier post, I think the D&D morality system is incoherent in some ways and insufficiently finely grained in other ways.

That said, I did draw some inspiration from it and reexamining the inspiration I drew from it while building this response has granted me some new insight. Some of the traits already cover areas that would be seen as law versus chaos. The neutral and opposed Disciplined and Mercurial traits describe whether a character has self control and whether he consistently follows his own rules. Psychotic describes the way many players would run a chaotic evil (or even chaotic neutral) character, while Ruthless describes the way a lawful evil character would be run. A lawful neutral or lawful good character would probably have a high Just trait, since it describes respect for legitimate laws.

I realized that I didn't have a good trait that describes a love of freedom, both for the self and others. This would be a trait possessed by any character who would undergo a quest in order to free a slave, or simply buy a slave and set him or her free. A character who believes that liberty is the most important thing in life. It's the trait of a hero who works to overthrow a powerful regime because their laws are punitive and restrictive towards the lower classes. This trait would be opposed by the Cruel trait, and possibly the Ruthless trait.

Any ideas for what I should name it?

 

[steelyglint]

I've settled on a set of 8 good and 8 evil traits for now, unless someone comes up with a good suggestion. The neutral traits will remain the same for now, pending reevaluation at a later time. Several of the traits have had their descriptions modified. Just and Merciful have been rolled together into a single trait. Friendly was changed to Kind, with a different area of coverage. Egalitarian (probably a rare trait in a medieval society), Tolerant, and Hateful have been added, with opposed traits changed to reflect their additions.

Good Traits (all opposed by Psychotic)
Egalitarian (Cruel, Hateful) [seeks freedom and dignity for all living things]
Generous (Greedy) [charitable to strangers, generous to friends]
Heroic (all evil traits) [altruistic to the point of self-sacrifice]
Honest (Deceitful) [loyal to allies, unwilling to lie]
Just (Cruel, Ruthless, Vengeful) [merciful, guided by law and a sense of proportional punishment]
Kind (Cruel, Hateful, Ruthless) [hospitable to strangers, helpful to allies, works to ease suffering]
Peaceful (Vengeful, Violent) [no taste for violence, avoids direct conflict]
Tolerant (Hateful) [accepts people and ideas that are different]

Evil Traits
Cruel (Egalitarian, Just, Kind) [sadistic, enjoys the suffering of others]
Deceitful (Honest) [willing to betray anyone for the right price, uses subterfuge malevolently]
Greedy (Austere, Generous) [miserly, excessively loves the accumulation of material goods]
Hateful (Egalitarian, Kind, Tolerant) [xenophobic or prejudiced]
Psychotic (all good traits) [utterly insane, wants to watch the world burn]
Ruthless (Just, Kind, Stylish) [cold, no nonsense, just business]
Vengeful (Just, Peaceful) [always needs to get revenge, revenge may be disproportionate]
Violent (Peaceful) [anger issues, or just a love of personally killing and conquering]

If you have a critique of this system, and don't simply disagree with the entire premise of a more complex morality system being a good idea, please post.

 

[Psyco Josho]

Your system is still one dimensional and too broad. I think that a good way to add dimensions and simplify things is to split up the traits into categories describing how one would react to different kinds situations. There could be responses for responsibility, (authority, taking care of others, how you use your resources and time, etc.) personal relationships, (close friends, spouse, etc.) impersonal relationships (people you just met, people you barely/somewhat know, etc.) and authority (how you react to commands from others).

Another thing to add would be motivation: WHY you decided to accept/decline your quest-giver's money. You would make a moral (or whatever) choice, and why you did it, when you decide to accept a quest (or whatever). When the time comes when one would normally make a moral choice, the choice you made would play out and the "why-reason" you selected would go with it (or later in some cases). For example: Accept his money, or decline it? Accept, because you're greedy, or because you're going to donate it? Decline, because you're a selfless hero, because you think that your quest giver is somehow bad enough to not accept it, or because you're going to cut his throat and take everything he used to own and sell it when he turns away?

The ideas I gave are just examples of what you can come up with.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I'm not interested in contrived moral dilemmas,

Then you're not dealing with morality. You're wasting your time as such fixed morality as you suggest is boring and off-putting.

 

[Psyco Josho]

Also, some traits I can come up with are:

Tyrannic(Egalitarian) [enjoys power and is stubborn about giving it up]
Impulsive(?) [makes the choice that seems to be the best, easiest or quickest at the time]

Another dimension to add would be traits describing the PC's method(s) problem solving: how they approach the obstacle in front of them. This is important, because a choice that gives points to the traits you want might not be immediately visible (the tactical choice would be to find out if there is another solution). For instance: A little girl is possessed by a demon (or something) and is wreaking havoc. The only immediate option is to kill her, but she's still aware of what she's doing and killing children is not one of your values. You could ask around and one guy would say that it's impossible for anyone alive today to do an exorcism. You could either go right back to killing her, or you could try asking about someone who used to be able to do exorcisms. You would eventually perform a ritual to raise up a long-dead priest to do the exorcism.

That was just the first thing that came up from the top of my head.

EDIT: It could also work in reverse: only the good option is presented and you have to scheme up a way to solve it in an evil way. Also another trait I coud come up with is environmentally friendly (or whatever).