The Morality System in Games Has Outlived Its Usefulness

[Chris Rio]

Hey there!

So I'm dumb and didn't notice that this got posted until now, but I wanted to say thanks for reading my words, and I'm glad it started a lively discussion. It looks like there's some for and against, and some grey matter in the middle, so...cool! I'm kinda late but if I'm gonna read through the comments and see if there is anything else I wanna add that hasn't been said before.

Thanks!
Chris R.

 

[gridsleep]

Kill the puppy/don't kill the puppy is different from save the puppy/let the puppy die. Willfully killing an innocent animal is shades darker than merely leaving it be. But risking one's life to save a puppy from drowning is more on a level of watching it drown as you stand by in front of witnesses who may or may not agree with your choice. I am reminded of the puppy arc from Apocalypse Now! In the worst of situations that can only get worse as time goes by, the tiny shred of humanity that is left in you will scream for some kind of expression just to let the world know that it is still there. Murdering a family of people in terrified panic and then rescuing a puppy shows just how insane humans can be, and how only we can fully understand and appreciate the meaning behind our own insanity.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I say this mostly because of how many different choices you have on how to interact with your objectives. A lot of them are not "good" or "bad" choices. Like when you have to kill the High Overseer, you can change the poisoned glass and watch him die from afar (Or not watch at all, just leave and get the blackbook later), or use it to kill both him and the witness, or spill the glasses and kill him in other way. And even then, just to make the choice of killing him with your own hands for revenge's sake (my thoughs when I killed him"), or doing it in a safe way, from afar or any other choice.

What I liked most about the morality system in Dishonored is that the options are all satisfying no matter what you choose to do. My favorite options for the choices presented in Dishonored tend to be the "good" or rather nonchaotic options. For the above situation the option of branding the High Overseer with the Heretic's Brand and thus completely destroying his life is brilliant because the guy is such a massively evil and hypocritical dick that he probably deserves it, and it's also morally ambiguous (sure you've spared his life but it's also been ruined) so it's much more satisfying than simply offing the guy.

Something that I think is lacking in morality systems is a sense of satisfaction and relevance of the choices, which is something Dishonored excels at. Most of the time one tends not to really care about the morality of the choices made because you don't know enough about the people involved to care, and there's no real reaction from the world around you to your choices including often the main ones besides the direct rewards and consequences after the choice his made, so you quickly forget about them before long even if for some reason you do care. Morality systems don't have to be filled with grey areas to be effective, but it does require context as to who it is you're helping or screwing over, as well as consequences and benefits after the fact, otherwise the choices lack any actual impact.