Poll: Morality Systems Break Games

[silasbufu]

I have no idea what you're on about, I hardly even notice morality systems. You know why? Because I play RPG's as they're supposed to be played. You have some choices, you choose what you would do if you were in the character's shoes. So you don't have to be good or bad, sometimes I save some puppies from zombies, but sometimes I bash someones head for talking shit too much. So I never got an achievement for finishing a game being almost entirely good or bad, that's just bullcrap.

Except for inFamous, I really don't think there are many games where you are FORCED to be good or evil from beggining to end (also, I find this to be pretty well implemented in inFamous and it adds more replayability).

 

[putowtin]

Here is my opinion of why:

- It limits the decisions that the developer can ask you of as there must always be one good and one bad decision.

- You only ever make the choice once, especially where achievements are involved, you only decide once at the start to be good, bad or neutral.

I disagree, and in pretty words will explain why...
I think one of the best examples of a morality systems has to be Mass Effect, you give someone 10 credits, you get paragon points, then you kick someone in the nuts, you get renegade points
you don't lose good points for doing evil or vis versa.

It's a system that accepts that yes I'm generally a good person that helps little old ladies get their cats out of trees, but will on occasion set fire to the tree!

 

[Xanrae]

I played with this a bit while developing an RPG mod/map for Starcraft 2 beta. It never got off the ground because the release version irrepairably broke it, but there are some things I wish other games would implement.

Firstly, it has more than two alignments. Aside from the two main alignments (Khalai and Nerazim, the two Protoss factions) there is a Prophet alignment for people who do their own thing with conviction, a Free Spirit alignment for people who just choose whatever, and a Pirate alignment for people who simply pick the easiest options and/or the ones that would yield the most phat loot (eg. searching the cargo deck of the battlecruiser you're on for artifacts while said battlecruiser is bombarding your home planet).

Secondly, the factional alignments reward roleplay much more than words. Claiming to be a Khalai is worth almost nothing. But at one point you acquire a scripture that amounts to the Khalai holy bible. It says every Khalai should strive to read from it at least once a day. There is an ingame calendar. A little roleplay earns you a lot of points. Another one: being a spirit summoner you have a large list of Protoss heroes to summon and incarnate, but if you're a Khalai or Nerazim there are some heroes you hate and would never willingly bond with, not even for pragmatic reasons because your dogma considers them weaklings.

Most people would not roleplay and end up being a Prophet or Free Spirit (or Pirate), which is fine, but if you do choose to act like a Khalai or Nerazim the game would treat you as such.

......

Good old times. I wish I continued with this project.