Poll: Am I the only Morally motivated gamer out there?

[Thorenus]

I nuked an entire city and sold small, cute children into slavery in Fallout 3. I sacrificed hundreds of thousands of common soldiers and exterminated entire provinces just for the sake of conquest and personal glory. I mowed down more conscripted suckers than I can imagine in FPS games. I crushed the revolutionary upstarts and upheld the absolute monarchy in Empire: Total War and destroyed the old republic in KOTOR. .

And I'd do it again anytime, because it is simply more fun (Cf. Fable, Overlord, KOTOR, ...). Most games are so transparent with regards to morality that I have no qualms about being a total dick to the twat asking me to pick 20 sunflowers for the sick children in the orphanage.

Only The Witcher 2 and the occasional sidequest in the Mass Effect series made me stop and think for a while, but these games are the exceptions.

 

[jhoroz]

Of course, I probably lost any right to lecture ANYBODY about morality when I trapped her soul and put it into a dagger, which I then left in a display case in one of my houses. In fact, quite a few people who have ticked me off are now in enchanted objects. Mercer Frey is in a pair of boots, Ancano is in an elven helmet, Jaree-Ra is in a set of Fine Clothes, Deeja's in a hat, Grelod the Kind is in a Ring, Sigar is in the dress of one of his victims. But I'm not REALLY evil, because they all deserved it. At least, that's what my character tells herself when trying to get to sleep at night...

Apparently trapping somebody's soul in a black soul gem is considered a fate worse than death and the victim's soul is in constant agonizing pain for the rest of eternity....so yeah.

As for the three people that Astrid made me choose from, I just killed all three of them just to be a 100% sure. Some may call that evil- I just call it being pragmatic.

 

[Angie7F]

I started being a prick from Zelda on my Super nintendo.
My mission was to break as many pots as possible. I still play my games that way. ...

 

[WindKnight]

I have three paragon runs through mass effect 1 and 2. I made myself take a renegade through both games...

lets say being a renegade made me very uncomfortable and sucked a lot of fun out of the game for me. Only the fact that being a vanguard was mechanically a lot of fun in 2 kept me going.

 

[SpaceBat]

I choose the option that benefits the people around me, rather than benefiting me, even if the evil choice would have been more beneficial. I do what I think is the right thing to do.
So yeah, I'm definitely a morally motivated gamer and loving it.

Basically I play my characters as an extension of myself, so you will never see me (for example) harvest little sisters, kill innocent civilians or even loot from said people. I've tried roleplaying another kind of character, but that felt really artificial and thus less fun. Acting the way I would makes the game feel a lot more alive and personal, whereas playing like an utter dick made me feel as if I'm just a bystander to the actions of a character completely unrelated to myself.

 

[antipirate]

I default to good but if I've decided I'm playing a character I'll play what the character would do, not being able to play an evil character ever would probably make me a bad DM when I play D&D.

For example my main character in skyrim was mostly a good guy but figured it would be for the best if most of the NPCs in the game supported his champaign to save the world by the involuntarily donation of their unattended valuables.

Regards,
Jordan

 

[Thespian]

I rarely select the option that would be my real life choice when playing a game. It's too hard to place myself in a world so far removed from my own while retaining my personality.

I basically "write" a character using the game and then stay true to what they do. Sometimes that character is a good Samaritan, sometimes it's a heartless gangster. Maybe they just look out for themselves.

That said, because I just dislike seeing brutal or cruel acts take place, I usually make a character who is predominantly kind.

 

[optimusjamie]

Frankly, it depends. I will generally play a game putting myself into the mindset of the character and act on their moral code- in Mass Effect, to give one example, I played Paragon in the first game and, after some thought, went Renegade in 2, seeing as it made the most sense from an in-character point of view, seeing as Shepard had died and likely just experienced a cessation of existence, combined with the seperation from Liara that drove her off the deep end. However, games that don't give much of a 'character' to play as, such as Doom, I will do what will give me an advantage/moment of hilarity in that situation.

 

[Blue Musician]

Depends. In BioShock I chose the straight evil option, as to be honest morality wasn't really done well.

In Fallout 3 I chose to be good, as there is practically no reward for you by being evil.

In Witcher 2 I tried to be good (hard, since the choices are gray).

 

[Spector29]

I have no idea what motivates me. In KOTOR, Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect, I would always pick the good options whenever I could.

And in Skyrim, TOR, and Atom Zombie Smasher I usually attempt to kill and maim as many people as possible.

And then there's Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magika Obsura and the Geneforge series, where my usual goal is to kill every single person in the entire game.

Which is really easy in Arcanum.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

I play good side in games to get the praise of the NPC's and feel like I added something beneficial to the world. I won't lie about that.

I very rarely play Dark-leaning characters in games that are evil just for the sake of it, like my Sith Sorcerer in TOR.

..I save being Evil for The Sims and other God-emulating simulators instead. >

 

[Emperor Nat]

Generally speaking I play the 'good guy', with a few exceptions (like in games such as Overlord where you're not given a choice between good/evil).

In the TES games and other RPGs, I tend to take the route of "I want to do everything, but not be horrible."

Therefore I do the thieves guild and dark brotherhood, but generally choose the dialogue options which make me seem the least horrible. Skyrim was easier for me than Oblivion in this regard, as the Oblivion DB are blatantly evil - whereas the Skyrim lot generally kill people who have done something legitimately wrong.

 

[Treblaine]

I play a character good for variety of reasons, mainly because the game usually expects the protagonist to be good and I'm kind of stepping out of role if say James Bond starts kneecapping Natalya for the hell of it. ALthoug Red Dead Redemption does let you go all evil, it's kind of going totally against what the over-riding narrative is supposed to be.

Then there is how being nice is more challenging and part of the game. Games are all about "shoot/don't-shoot" reflexes, and I follow the spirit of that even if the points don't reward it. Like how you *can* play through the latter Hitman games just selecting an automatic rifle then running in shooting everyone who is in your path, but it's no as fun as not harming a single person, relying on perfect misdirection and trickery to kill someone and make it look like an accident. OK, still murdering a guy, but only The Target, who was probably the mastermind of something horrible, his minimum wage lackeys didn't have to die for his crimes.

In fact almost every game I've played and enjoyed, I can't think of one where the sole purpose is to hurt innocent people who never did anything wrong. Yeah, deathmatch shooters, you're just killing each other, but that's mutual contact sport. Being tackled on the rugby pitch according to the rules of the game is not criminal assault nor bad.

Captcha (not kidding): 1.21 gigawatts

 

[RubyT]

No matter how immersed I am in a game, I always remain aware that it is a game. And as long as we don't have sentient A.I., there is no morality involved at all (in single player).

There is no beggar I could deny some coin. He's just made up. Giving him money or not is not a decision of morality, since the action has no consequence.

I do sometimes follow the/my screenplay. I call it "active immersion". But when faced with a gameplay decision, i.e. if I want a special item that is expensive so I need money, I will always choose gameplay over immersion.

 

[Treblaine]

Amusing thread.

Most players like to 'think' they pick the good options in videogames and they likely see the alternatives as bad. However in reality all they're doing is picking the selfish, feel-good options that serve only to give them a dose of the warm-fuzzies.

Hey I refused to shoot the tigers and sharks in Tomb Raider 2 because they were endangered species.

Warm and fuzzy, yeah, for the Tigers as well as me. Crazy ass animals, I see why they are extinct charging at Lara Croft. Anyway, nothing personal but when it's down to the last few breeding species in the known universe you have to go to the extra effort not to kill them. Pipe wielding thugs are however in no short supply.

We make decisions all the time in video games, not just when a literal "decision tree" comes up. There are battles you can avoid and then you can chose to die and reload rather than fight back, like cornered by the police in a GTA game. That'd be interesting, a "no-cop-kill" play through of GTA.

I am very keen on a mute protagonist in an RPG game where ALL their decisions are by gameplay simply for how limiting any spoken dialogue interaction would be. Chalk it up to them losing their voice box so can't speak at all (I used to be a talking lead, till I took an arrow to the Larynx) and can just nod or shake their head, perhaps control directly by looking up and down rapidly or left to right rapidly. Everything is judged by deed.

Ultimately once you start labelling things "renegade" or "Paragon" I feel it's like explaining a good joke, it's like a narration explaining what is just happening, it's too limited. Let the character interactions grow and flow naturally. No labels, just have for example the protagonist captured by the rebel faction and confronted with why he/you killed 20 of their men. It would be mostly one sided script, you couldn't suddenly ask a question every paragraph to take along a whole new line of interaction that makes any dialogue load 20x times larger, complex and more prone to disruptive nonsensical responses.
And to that faction who interrogates you, you are an evil traitor, but to the faction you did it for you are a hero. Where is the objective label "paragon" or "renegade"? You only have your own perspective, doing what you do, and really it is entirely in your head not in the game. Did you do what you did for a good reason, or did you just want to see them die and didn't care that you'd deprived them of their (fictional) life? The game can't give this label, you can, through introspection. A game that can induce introspection of your actions, that is what makes be believe that games can not only be art but be a most profound, unique and significant form of art.

 

[GrimGrimoire]

While I sometimes go for the loot (something I rarely do these days, but it happens) I usually choose what my character in that specific game would choose.
In games like Skyrim and New Vegas, I roleplay as my character, and make the choices I believe is "truest" to their personality and situation.
This leads to morally dark or grey characters for me, as too few game manage to pull off appealing "good guy" choices.

Unless the game is Fable. Where the morality system is just baaaaaaaad. Even though the first game still is good.

If it's not a RPG or a game I can roleplay but must play as myself, I can often set aside morality to loot. Unless the immersion is really good.

 

[Therumancer]

I generally play as the good guy, and I think most people do. The exception to this being in MMOs, where I still play the good guy, but most players seem to gravitate towards the evil factions, probably because they feel it justifies them being jerks and trolls, and gives them a carte blanche to harass the other side.

When it comes to good and evil in games, I do tend to think that there needs to be more balance in terms of rewards. I think half the problem is that the developers put more effort into the evil path/low road than they do into the good guys, and thus make it a lot cooler and more rewarding. It's also easier to see how being a jerk has it's rewards (money, etc...) but more difficult to reward good aligned behavior, to the point where there seems to be very few game developers even interested in making an effort.

 

[triggrhappy94]

I usually go through with the "good" play through first, when it's possible, or at least a luke-warm good as I stumble through on my first go.