What do you think about "grey" morality in video games?

[The Pinray]

I'm going to talk about one of my favorite games: Dragon Age II. I think they've done the whole grey stance perfectly. Instead of some arbitrary meter that judges how good or evil you are and bases the world's view on you through it, it instead focuses solely on the individual and how everyone responds to you. That way some people may view you as a jerk, while others view you as good, though reputation may sometimes precede you. And (Spoiler Alert?) the final decision between Templars and Mages is extremely grey, as both sides are justified in ways.

Templars are power-hungry bullies, sure, but they do have good intentions by wanting to limit magic's spread and not end up like the Tevinter Empire. Their first priority is the safety of all the people of Thedas.

Mages are oppressed, yes. But there are many examples of Mages taking advantage of their power in order to dominate and even enslave non-mages. To free all of them would be unleashing untold power into the world.

It's not so black and white, and I love the game for it. When I played I chose the options that I wanted. I thought "What should my Hawke do? Should I threaten or try to be diplomatic?" It changed from situation to situation, as opposed to "Pick the blue one so I can max out my Paragon points." Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Mass Effect games. You find a character cooler than Garrus and I'll jam toothpicks up my nose. But I feel as though BioWare's Dragon Age series has the better idea when it comes to morality and choices.

 

[Arjen Ab]

On the one hand we play games to get our mind of the real world so in games as black and white or fable I don't think it would really work.
In games like mass effect neither side is really good so it is already gray upon grey and works nice.
One where it works best I think (if I remember it correctly) was daggerfall. You had 10 questions and you got knight-mage-thief points for it. For example your friend stole from a lord do you turn him in (knight),
tell him to return it so he won't get caught(mage) or
say our lord is a bastard for letting people starve so here is some money I stole from him to support yourself(thief)

So in real RPG's it would be a great.

 

[silverdragon9]

i think prototype is an excellent example of. moral gray. you try to do the right thing but you kill a lot of people that aren't really bad

 

[Xaio30]

[HEADING=2]Actions and Consequences[/HEADING] is how "morality" should be handled.
There's no universal moral law, only what we humans have come up with.

 

[srawcripts]

[HEADING=2]Actions and Consequences[/HEADING] is how "morality" should be handled.
There's no universal moral law, only what we humans have come up with.

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Human decision-making is driven by two things: rules we follow as part of the identities that we build, and risk-and-reward psychology. Trying to boil it down to good-versus-evil is sheer idiocy, because that's just not how people think about the choices they make in real life.

 

[srawcripts]

I'm tired of games integrating morality systems in the first place. Regardless of how nuanced they may be, I don't want to have to account for someone else's idea of what's a "good" or a "bad" decision in a game. I just want to do what i'm going to do without worrying about how I'm going to get my morality bar to look the way I need it to look to accomplish my goals.

I understand the feeling...

But games need the numbers to figure out what you can or can not do in a game based of the history of the actions that you have chosen.

If you don't have this limit. The player would much freedom and the game would lose its flow and get boring fast.

Think of Infamous if you got all the good powers and bad powers... It would break the game. Making it too easy.

 

[LordRoyal]

Templars are power-hungry bullies, sure, but they do have good intentions by wanting to limit magic's spread and not end up like the Tevinter Empire. Their first priority is the safety of all the people of Thedas.

Mages are oppressed, yes. But there are many examples of Mages taking advantage of their power in order to dominate and even enslave non-mages. To free all of them would be unleashing untold power into the world.

It should be mentioned that Origins already put this idea forth. When it came up constantly in Dragon Age 2 I kept wondering why there was so much rehash from that game.

 

[The Pinray]

Templars are power-hungry bullies, sure, but they do have good intentions by wanting to limit magic's spread and not end up like the Tevinter Empire. Their first priority is the safety of all the people of Thedas.

Mages are oppressed, yes. But there are many examples of Mages taking advantage of their power in order to dominate and even enslave non-mages. To free all of them would be unleashing untold power into the world.

It should be mentioned that Origins already put this idea forth. When it came up constantly in Dragon Age 2 I kept wondering why there was so much rehash from that game.

Agreed. I use Dragon Age II as my reference simply because that struggle was the focal point of the story. It felt a lot more organic (to me, at least) in the second. Especially if you yourself are a Mage. Still, great games. Both of them.

 

[DirgeNovak]

It's the future! Good and evil are meaningless words. Your choices in games shouldn't have repercussions on your karma meter, but on the storyline only. If I'm given a choice in, say, Infamous or Mass Effect, I have to follow the path I chose in the beginning or I'll lose some abilities by the endgame. In a game with grayer choices, like Fallout or Dragon Age, I can actually roleplay and make important decisions. I'm not working towards paragon points or an infamous power, I can actually ask myself "What would I do in this situation?".

And that, Charlie Brown, is what roleplaying is all about.

 

[Shadowhawk77]

I think you all have it wrong it shouldnt be that gray means you do nothing. its that you do everything thus combining the black and white together.

Exactly you could almost imagine a shopkeeper(SK) and his freind standing there while 3 people come in one at a time, one "good", one "evil", and on "grey"

SK Friend: Oh look thats Jim he saved those orpans from that fire the other day
SK: oh cool, il give him a discount for his efforts.
OR
SK Friend: hey isnt that Bob, the douchebag who started the fire?
SK: ye your right...(at Bob) *get out of my shop you scumbag*
OR
SK Friend: oh its dave....
SK: Hi dave, thats $4,300 for a bronze sword and a pair of leather gloves (normal price, hence only 3 customers all day )

grey usually equalls doing nothing yes you didnt abuse people, but you didnt do anything to help them either, you cant really have a morality standing if you just do nothing...

this could be changed to
SK Friend: oh uh its john umm he stole from the neighbors but he isnt all bad he did save the child from raiders last week...
SK: ill let him in but keep an eye on him

 

[Kyoh]

I see Mass Effect being talked about a lot here, and one major problem it had was that it didn't reward neutral answers.

Reading any walkthrough, they'll tell you to stick to either Paragon or Renegade because going 100% in one direction gives you more options, while mixing both (the realistic thing) gets you very little.

People aren't knights in shining armor or callous scientists who view others as statistics; we're a mix, and tailoring game for only those two characters was Mass Effect's largest flaw concerning it's otherwise decent morality system.

EDIT: And neutral doesn't mean to be idle or do nothing; it's an equilibrium of right and wrong, and a lot of times it means doing a little wrong for a lot of good.

Don't forget that intent is a key factor in decisions. Two people can make the same choice but for opposite reasons; sometimes the choice itself isn't what determines good/bad, it's the intent.

 

[Filiecs]

[HEADING=2]Actions and Consequences[/HEADING] is how "morality" should be handled.
There's no universal moral law, only what we humans have come up with.

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Ugh. What he meant was that games shouldn't just have a bar showing how good or bad you are. It should focus on the consequences of your actions, and how you deal with them is more important than some bar that most people don't really care about.

EDIT: It shouldn't be about how you fall towards the evil side of the morality bar if you kick a kitten, it should be about how doing something terrible to somebody will cause a backlash at you, as well as how blindly doing the "nice" thing will often cause unintented side effects, which is often why the "nice" option wasn't being done before.

Exactly, I like this system of morality too. Like in the Witcher 2:
(Pretty big side quest spoiler below)

Spoiler

When you are trying to get rid of this ghost that is haunting a guy she tells you that the man she is haunting murdered him. If you trust her and ask the guy if he did murder her then he gets pissed off at you, fires you, and tries to kill the ghost himself. When you go back to where the ghost is you find him gutted on the ground and the ghost becomes uber powerful because she lied to you and the ghost was actually a demon feeding off innocents.

 

[TyrantGanado]

I reckon Assassin's Creed does this quite well when you read between the lines. We only see the Assassin's perspective so the filter's a bit obscured but think about it, the Templars are after lasting peace and unity, as long as they're the ones firmly in control of that peace and unity and how humanity advances, eliminating free will in the process. They also control most of the Pieces of Eden and manipulate them to their own ends. The Assassins are after free will and accept all the clusterfuckery that comes with it. They're also not above manipulating Pieces of Eden for their goals Both sides murder swathes of people to achieve their goals.

Spoiler

Those Who Came Before created the Pieces of Eden and humans - as a slave race. Humans rose up against them and emerged as the dominant species after Those Who Came Before were wiped out by solar flare-induced tragedy. TWCB set a massive millennia-spanning plan in motion involving Ezio and Desmond to try and save the world in the future. They plan to save the world by manipulating a bloodline into murdering collective thousands of people

So yeah.

 

[srawcripts]

I think you all have it wrong it shouldnt be that gray means you do nothing. its that you do everything thus combining the black and white together.

Exactly you could almost imagine a shopkeeper(SK) and his freind standing there while 3 people come in one at a time, one "good", one "evil", and on "grey"

SK Friend: Oh look thats Jim he saved those orpans from that fire the other day
SK: oh cool, il give him a discount for his efforts.
OR
SK Friend: hey isnt that Bob, the douchebag who started the fire?
SK: ye your right...(at Bob) *get out of my shop you scumbag*
OR
SK Friend: oh its dave....
SK: Hi dave, thats $4,300 for a bronze sword and a pair of leather gloves (normal price, hence only 3 customers all day )

grey usually equalls doing nothing yes you didnt abuse people, but you didnt do anything to help them either, you cant really have a morality standing if you just do nothing...

this could be changed to
SK Friend: oh uh its john umm he stole from the neighbors but he isnt all bad he did save the child from raiders last week...

SK: ill let him in but keep an eye on him

I disagree...

There need to be a base line of interaction were all result are the same...
From there you can change the result based on action.

The simplest is nothing... where nothing changes...
The more complex would be

SK Friend: oh uh its john umm he stole from the neighbors but he isnt all bad he did save the child from raiders last week...
SK: ill let him in but keep an eye on him

But that example is not neutral, but a history of has actions of good and bad to make neutral response of NPCs...
This level of interaction make more sense than some of the moral system out there...
But this is theoretical and maybe hard to apply to a game...

 

[Traskelion]

Call me odd, but I don't really care for it. Yes, real people aren't complete saints or devils, but real life would make a terrible game. I play for an idealized world with understandable rules and boundaries. Since I'm projecting some internal alter-ego into this world, what's wrong with me being 100% Goody-goody or a completely self-centered ass?

 

[srawcripts]

[HEADING=2]Actions and Consequences[/HEADING] is how "morality" should be handled.
There's no universal moral law, only what we humans have come up with.

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Ugh. What he meant was that games shouldn't just have a bar showing how good or bad you are. It should focus on the consequences of your actions, and how you deal with them is more important than some bar that most people don't really care about.

EDIT: It shouldn't be about how you fall towards the evil side of the morality bar if you kick a kitten, it should be about how doing something terrible to somebody will cause a backlash at you, as well as how blindly doing the "nice" thing will often cause unintented side effects, which is often why the "nice" option wasn't being done before.

Ugh. If you remove the morals of it then you are a robot just doing an actions to get a result.
I like the Witcher because there was just action and reaction that repeated over and over again.
But what did that mean about Geralt as a character. He was a machine was awesome that being a Witcher.

I like action and reaction system. I think is clever, but I think there should be a little bit more.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

I'm tired of games integrating morality systems in the first place. Regardless of how nuanced they may be, I don't want to have to account for someone else's idea of what's a "good" or a "bad" decision in a game. I just want to do what i'm going to do without worrying about how I'm going to get my morality bar to look the way I need it to look to accomplish my goals.

I understand the feeling...

But games need the numbers to figure out what you can or can not do in a game based of the history of the actions that you have chosen.

If you don't have this limit. The player would much freedom and the game would lose its flow and get boring fast.

Think of Infamous if you got all the good powers and bad powers... It would break the game. Making it too easy.

I'm thinking more of Oblivion/Fallout. See, Oblivion didn't have a morality system. It had a system whereby I could gain fame for things I was seen doing, or a bounty for getting caught doing certain things, but there wasn't some ever present eye watching me, and delivering information about every action I take to some computer database that, apparently, all of the NPCs can read and judge me based upon. Unlike in Fallout. And that's the thing that annoyed me. In the Fallout games the way that I acted could prevent me from doing things I wanted to do (although it was pretty easy to manipulate). If I wanted to loot everything of even moderate value (and I did) from pretty much every house I visited, then that eye in the sky would tell everyone for miles away, and when I showed up they'd already know what a dick I was because they read the database. Of course, I could find a homeless guy to give water to, an act which seemed to appease the all seeing eye. In fact, the eye loves it so much that you can even make up for killing an entire town by giving a homeless guy water.

I think the point that I'm getting to though, is that in games like Fallout morality systems are pretty stupid. They're just a nuisance that keep me from doing things that are actually fun and that I want to do.

See that's the thing. I don't want a game to have numbers that it can use to decide what I can or can not do. If a game is going to open or close paths for me, I don't want it to be doing so on the basis of how many people did I save or murder, how much shit did I steal, how many bottles of water did I give to the homeless guy, etc...

 

[Xaio30]

-snip-

I disagree

Morality makes stories interesting and gives a deeper meaning than just the action itself.

I am confused about the other statement.
I don't think that the universe itself can't do anything but be the universe.
There seems to be universal law of morals that human seem to follow so there can be some social order.

Allow me to explain:
1. Morality
You kill a baby, and feel bad about it because the game says you're bad through the game's morality system.(Fallout 3 style)

2. Actions and Consequences
You kill a baby, and the NPCs will remember you as a man who kills babies and will respond to you with unconcealed hate about what you have done. Feeling bad is up to you.

As for your second question:
A great deal of our morals comes from what we have learnt from people around us while growing up. We did not know them from the start. A person, raised to believe that killing is right, will believe that everyone thinks like him until he learns otherwise.

And since all our childhoods are different, we will each grow up with a slightly different set of morals.

This is why actions and consequences would provide a more logical and persistent experience for every player.

 

[johnstamos]

mass effects morality system wasn't nearly as bad bioshocks "golden savior" vs baby eating hitler" choice system, at least the renegade options just kinda made shepard seem like a bit of a smug dick instead of just evil guy. I think as far as moral choice in games as of now it can fuck itself. Fallout 3 hit the nail a little more on center by having a much larger scale, but it still usually boiled down a few key decisions.