Good vs. Evil

[insanelich]

I don't think your approach is functional.

You detailed a problem - proposed styles - and fell right back into the old Mother Teresa Eats Babies problem.

I find myself often annoyed I can't lie for a good cause in RPG games. And those scales are just silly.

How about scales that balance each other out and don't have an ethical judgment attached?

Vicious versus Duplicitous.
Manipulative versus Cruel.
Selfish versus Judgmental.

Essentially, bad things balanced out by bad things.

 

[John Scott Tynes]

Jumplion wrote:

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If we want to give players a moral delima, and not have to reuse the whole Karma system where you're "Goody-two-shoes" or "Bastardly-Dastardly Evil dude" then we have to have choices where there is no good or bad choice.

Heavy Rain demonstrates this perfectly. When you enter the house, do you go in the front door, the back, do you break in a window, ring the doorbell? What about checking the fridge first, or hurry up and look at the cabinet, or take your time to observe everything? There are a bunch of choices in Heavy Rain, but none of them are "good" to do or "bad" to do. They're all choices and each have their own impact on the game.
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I'm confused by this because the Heavy Rain example isn't at all to do with moral dilemmas. Those choices are procedural decisions in investigating a situation but they don't play into a moral dilemma. I do definitely agree with the desire for more than a simple good/bad choice, and I think the example I cited from Grand Theft Auto IV is a great example of that. Both of the drug dealers are murderous scum, so it's not really a good vs. evil decision. You are, by conventional morality, already an evil person. The question is whether you are an evil person who can be relied on by his friends or whether you are an evil person who has no friends because he'll betray anyone. That's a lot more interesting than what we've seen in KOTOR.

 

[John Scott Tynes]

Smokescreen wrote:

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To truly have a game where one can make choices that have an impact on the result, you need to have a game that has more than two results. This might mean working with the Devil in certain cases, and it might mean standing up him in others, with that kind of uneasy tension in between, but there has to be benefits and costs to EACH path that are unique to them and worth having.
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To some degree, I agree. But I would also argue that my goal is not to provide a blank canvas upon which you work your will. My goal is to provide a specific narrative within which your character can act in ways that feel credible and suspend disbelief in terms of emotions and morality. In most good narratives a strong character should make a strong choice and reach a strong conclusion. Given the premise I set forth, I don't think ending the story with a "lingering tension" conclusion (for example) would be a satisfying ending. I agree more ending options are attractive in theory, but in practice the genre you're working in also has certain expectations and in a western, as in most action/adventure genres, the main character should end up in a pretty definitive circumstance with the major conflict resolved.

The more endings you create, the more likely you are to have weaker endings in which the main character makes less definitive choices.

 

[John Scott Tynes]

insanelich wrote:

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How about scales that balance each other out and don't have an ethical judgment attached?

Vicious versus Duplicitous.
Manipulative versus Cruel.
Selfish versus Judgmental.
---

Those don't feel like scales to me. There's no way in which being vicious is opposed to being duplicitous, for example. One person could easily be all of the above: vicious, duplicitous, manipulative, cruel, selfish, and judgmental.

I definitely agree with wanting to include examples like lying for a good cause. That's much more of a moral dilemma than most of what we see in these games.

 

[John Scott Tynes]

(Hmm, maybe I should start using the quote function!)

But while in Bioshock, it's a very clear choice; kill the Little Sisters and extract Adam, or let them live, and the two endings reflect this extreme dichtomy, in Geneforge the effect is much more subtle. The Canisters are invaluable in granting you abilities, your spells and creations (mutant monster party characters) almost all derive from them. But slowly, over the course of the game, you'll notice a change in your interactions with NPCs. Where before you were totally free to be either cruel or kind in your interactions, slowly your characters patience begins to erode with those he perceives as "lesser beings". You are quicker to anger, which gets you into fights you might otherwise avoid. other people who see you can tell that you've used the canisters, and it turns them against you, making them less likely to ally with you. And so it becomes a balancing act; how much power is worth it, and how much are you willing to trade for these wonderful abilities?

That sounds fascinating. Can you undo some of what you've done? If it's irrevocable that would be a bummer, since I could get myself to a point where I'm a jerk before I really understand what's going on.

 

[Simriel]

I would play said game. I want a Cowboy game like that.

 

[insanelich]

*sigh*

Hard questions you both fail to comprehend and fail to answer, falling right back onto the same old behavior you criticize but for worse reasons.

Complex morality is interesting because it's complex, and a devilish evil side, a saintly good side and a Mother Teresa eats babies neutral side with a completely predictable "twist" for a 180 degree turn does not complex make.

 

[Volodanti]

Just want to say, i really would prefer that system, i'm sick of RPGs and similar that only let you choose between giving all your money to someone who's dropped their ice cream, or to club baby seals.... And with this system we could, perhaps, finally work out some way to come up with a neutral ending, rather than more of the above

 

[SilentScope001]

You know the main problem? At the end of the day, you still want to simplify the game down to two endings: Work with the Baron or work against the Baron. And you make the Baron the "evil" side apparently.

I know you want a complex morality system, but I argue for a complex FACTION system instead. Instead of having 4 different traits, have your relationships with certain Factions go up and down. So:

---Baron Villian
---Thomas Bartender
---Priest Buffalo
---Joe Trader
---Jim Banker

Etc. And each of these people hand you missions. Completing these missions will increase your relationship with one of the guys, having you unlock more missions from that guy. But it will likely also offend another Faction. Angry factions will respond to you rather negatively. In the end, if you make that faction too angry, they'll refuse to talk to you and will instead send their goons to attack you.

For example, say Joe Trader gives you a mission to shut down some of Baron Villian's henchmen. Pulling that off makes Baron Villian upset and cut off all contact with you and send off his goons to hamper you. You can then petition for Baron Villian to stop attacking you and give you more missions, and Baron Villian will want you to "prove" your new-founded loyalty by having you attack Joe Trader, offending Joe Trader. But, of course, to prevent people from switching sides on a whim, it should be hard to get in the good graces of a person who hates your guts.

At the end of the game, the tensions between the various factions explode, with at least some factions wanting to remove the sheriff in question, and a civil war is going to occur with the "Pro-Sheriff" factions fighting against the Anti-Sheriff factions. So, if Baron Villian loves you, you'll end up working on the same side as him. If Baron Villian hates you, you have to fight him. Same with all the other factions. If, at the end of the civil war, you still survive, you...um...er...win! Good luck cleaning up the bloodstains.

If you somehow make all the factions like you, you get a "YOU WIN!" screen and prevent said civil war (this may very well be the conventional "good" ending, where bloodshed is avoided). Alternatively, if ALL the factions hate you, get ready to inflict bloody massacre onto the entire Town that will make Baron Villian look...well...like a Hero (hence, the conventional "bad" ending).

 

[Xorghul]

Make this game. Now.

 

[Jyggalag]

That was an enjoyable read. I hope one day someone makes this game. Seriously, your formula is advanced and radical. It just might work. No, it's by far better than anything we have already.