What do you think about "grey" morality in video games?
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well i just played through the game bastion, and towards the end there are two moral choices, one is a good/evil choice, the last one...not so much, neither option is good or bad in itself, it actually made me stop playing for a few minutes to decide what i should do, and i have never done that in a game before.
I thought several side quests in the first Mass Effect provided plenty of reason why you should hate Cerberus. =p Plus the vanity of giving your FemShep a boobjob when she never needed one to begin with.TheKruzdawg said:
And I always thought that KotOR, while overall having good writing has a pretty damn bad morality system, in that your choices boil down to being a saint or being baby eating, puppy kicking evil. I'd like to see more nuances in that system, where you can be subtly evil, or only good if it's worth your while, and other shades of grey rather than just either pure good or stereotypical evil.
As others have mentioned, consequences to your actions are in order as well, in KotOR one evil deed wouldn't tarnish your reputation if you had maxed out light side points prior to that (and regained them in the next quest). It would be more realistic if that one choice would come back to bite you in the ass, perhaps even repeatedly. Granted, The Old Republic is proudly claiming that all your actions will have consequences so hopefully they can make good on that one. In closing I'd also see more games take a New Vegas approach, where you'll often have situations where you can't make everyone happy no matter what solution to the situation you pick. Along with no get out of jail free cards a la Mass Effect where you could avoid potentially painful situations as long as you had enough Paragon or Renegade points.
I've just thought that it's not really worth it, being a nobody in video games.
In the real world, your just a 20 something desk jockey who has never done anything interesting in his life, so why would you be the same in the game?
Games like new Vegas and mass effect 2 give you the chance to be some Jesus like figure of wholesome goodness, or some satanic cross between Mugabe and Hitler. what's the point of occupying the sniveling middle ground AGAIN?
In the real world, your just a 20 something desk jockey who has never done anything interesting in his life, so why would you be the same in the game?
Games like new Vegas and mass effect 2 give you the chance to be some Jesus like figure of wholesome goodness, or some satanic cross between Mugabe and Hitler. what's the point of occupying the sniveling middle ground AGAIN?
I like the action and consequences system, but there is not development of character.Xaio30 said:
Examples:
Fallout 3 ... You are blank slate... and you do good and bad things to become a hero or a villian.
The Witcher... You are Geralt... Your job is to kill monsters and being awesome...
There is a problem that comes up as well.
Fallout 3 is a sandbox and The Witcher is liner game that has a definite story...
Because the player can't really change the character of Geralt. The only thing that changes is the actions that you take... and the consequences that come to follow.
The player doesn't have to think about morals, because Geralt is doing things that he would normally do.
In Fallout 3 you can beat it in 20 minutes to not at all.
There has to be some system to limit the player or reward them.
I like 'grey' morality choices in video games. They should be handled like in The Witcher games. You try to do the right thing, but you have no idea what the right thing is. Or you try to do the bad thing, and you don't know what the bad thing is. You shouldn't be able to see the consequences immediately. You shouldn't be able to tell if a choice is good or bad. The Witcher 2 did that perfectly.
Yes, this is the way I like my morality, The Witcher/Alpha Protocol system. You have decisions to make and your decisions have consequences. I must say that is what I like most about Alpha Protocol, no morality but your own but your choices (and there are some tough ones) will have repercussions. ME and in particular ME2 is poor in this because you cannot make decisions based on specific choices and expect to make charm/intimidate challenges. So you are funnelled into one of two ways of playing. Dragon Age was an interesting example with the companion influence system which was undermined by the "gifts".Filiecs said:
It depends on the game - Mass Effect's morality system suits Mass Effect's universe, as did KotOR's.
The Witcher 2 is the best example of grey morality - virtually every choice is simply you deciding the lesser of two evils, and even then you'll rarely have anything good actually come from your choice. You do things and then things happen; its not bound by the game's karmic forces.
The Witcher 2 is the best example of grey morality - virtually every choice is simply you deciding the lesser of two evils, and even then you'll rarely have anything good actually come from your choice. You do things and then things happen; its not bound by the game's karmic forces.
No you're not, you're th lone wanderer who was born at the Jefferson Memorial to Catherine and James, you grew up at Vault 101, you became childhood friends with Amata, Butch eventually became your bully, your father loved you greatly...errr, yeah you get the picture, you are not a blank slate in F3.srawcripts said:
Fallout 3 has a linear and definite story too, you are forced to find and love your dad and help him with Project Purity, you're also forced to join the BoS. The only choice with consequence is injecting the FEV into the purifier which barely does anything and choosing to blow up the Citadel, which actually kinda gives you heaps of rewards for doing so.
I tend to like it.
In the KotOR "series" they had the grey system, and I think it worked pretty well.
If you were light/good, you had all the regular jedi powers, push, pull, heal, shield, yadda yadda yadda, and the more light points you had the more effective and less they cost in force, as with the dark/evil side, you had the damage powers, the lightning, choke, and so on. And the more evil/dark u were the less they cost, and the more usefull they where..
And the powers from the opposite end of the scale would be lessened and cost a lot more.
However. If you were grey, you had no particular benefits, and you powers weren't all that great. I may remember the efficiency incorrectly.. it has been a while..
TL
R don't know if this example has already been given
In the KotOR "series" they had the grey system, and I think it worked pretty well.
If you were light/good, you had all the regular jedi powers, push, pull, heal, shield, yadda yadda yadda, and the more light points you had the more effective and less they cost in force, as with the dark/evil side, you had the damage powers, the lightning, choke, and so on. And the more evil/dark u were the less they cost, and the more usefull they where..
And the powers from the opposite end of the scale would be lessened and cost a lot more.
However. If you were grey, you had no particular benefits, and you powers weren't all that great. I may remember the efficiency incorrectly.. it has been a while..
TL
R don't know if this example has already been givenI expected this...ChupathingyX said:
What is the character's name? Player's input
What is the character's sex? Player's input
What is the character's appearance? Player's input
There is a basic heroes journey plot in Fallout 3. But the character can be anything or any one. How blank is that? Even the G.O.A.T in the vault was designed to make the character how the player wanted it. There is a break in the game to make sure the players choice what they want.
Okay, Fallout 3 has a story, but it gets lost and pointless if you start doing side missions and wandering the wastes... I personally spent 200 hundred hours on everything but the main story. I can make a bet that others have as well...
Does the main story matter? Yes, because there needs to be a path to end the game.
But back to the morality of Fallout 3.
You are a blank slate... You can be good or bad or both or neither. I mean the character was not designed to have a set code of morals. This allows the player to make moral choice for the character and therefore making the character an extension of the player.
I thought the intro of Fallout 3 was really good. But it really simple the Father, the best friend, the rival or bully, The village chief, all this to make a starting plot. So that game have a beginning, But... there are mods to the game to change the starting story to just a wanderer, to a mutant, to a commander of an army.
Even if you change the starting story. The character is still a blank slate and so on and so forth.
Fallout: New Vegas is the same way, but even simpler. Your a character with amnesia out to get revenge on the guy who shot you... Amnesia is a good reason a character has no morals and even a better one for player to make it for them.
I think one of the best ways to implement "grey" morality is to give a player choice on how to handle two unavoidably bad decisions, or conversely, pick which good decision to make if they're forced to choose. They can still affect the game, but shouldn't be represented on a "good----bad" meter, but rather simply change the outcome of that change the story.
There's not a lot of games that I can think of that really play with this idea much, but I felt some of the best "grey" moral choices for an example were in GTA IV, of all games... When you had to choose loyalties between dwayne or playboy, or chose to let certain characters live, including the guy you were hunting down the whole game.
It just comes down to "kill or don't" or "kill A or B", instead of multiple unsatisfactory or incomplete solutions, but it's a start and an easy example.
There's not a lot of games that I can think of that really play with this idea much, but I felt some of the best "grey" moral choices for an example were in GTA IV, of all games... When you had to choose loyalties between dwayne or playboy, or chose to let certain characters live, including the guy you were hunting down the whole game.
It just comes down to "kill or don't" or "kill A or B", instead of multiple unsatisfactory or incomplete solutions, but it's a start and an easy example.
Games need to focus on consiquence of action, rather than 'good and evil', because if you get some special bonus for doing all the 'good' deeds or 'evil' actions then it becomes a choice between what bonus you want, not what decision you want to make.
It was like in Mass Effect 1 when I had to decide if i wanted to release that insect alien queen (forget the name) or kill it, that was a really well designed moral choice as there were a lot of things to take into account, but I didnt actually choose the option I wanted, I chose the option that went with the path I chose right at the begining of the game.
It was like in Mass Effect 1 when I had to decide if i wanted to release that insect alien queen (forget the name) or kill it, that was a really well designed moral choice as there were a lot of things to take into account, but I didnt actually choose the option I wanted, I chose the option that went with the path I chose right at the begining of the game.
I think grey morality is a bit... overused, or at very least a bad phrasing. I like morality systems to a point, but it all depends on what the scale is measuring and why. I don't like having to make only certain choices to be able to actually fully complete a game, like in Mass Effect two where you have to be totally topped out in either paragon or renegade to say the right things to keep your people alive. Though, at the same time I dislike games that ignore morality as well, or at least story driven games that put you in the role of a character with personality.
And now because I feel the need to kick the beehive, there is a universal morality, its a pretty small list of things (as they apply to humans and human cultures), but there are things that people instinctively react poorly or well to, that are entirely culturally unbiased. Which basically means every human who doesn't have something actually wrong with their brains will react in similar ways to these actions unless trained to respond differently. Things like murder, theft, and cannibalism, are all met with disapproval and usually a violent reaction, because as people, as a social, thinking, societially based creatures humans understand what is good and what is bad for the entire group and will try to get rid of destructive behaviors or elements to keep the collective group safe, happy, and healthy. And that's just people, not even going into animal habits that mirror our own, or anything more esoteric and spiritual, which I could go into, but it really isn't worth the arguments over pointless semantics and petty fears that would ensue.
So my point is that morality is important for believable characters, but shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not you can complete important parts of a game, and should really be based more on actions taken and less on dialogue spoken, because anyone can talk a good game, it takes someone with steel in their veins to make the hard decisions for the right (or wrong) reason.
And finally Selfless and helpful= morally good, selfish and grasping = morally evil, that's kinda the whole crux of morality.
And now because I feel the need to kick the beehive, there is a universal morality, its a pretty small list of things (as they apply to humans and human cultures), but there are things that people instinctively react poorly or well to, that are entirely culturally unbiased. Which basically means every human who doesn't have something actually wrong with their brains will react in similar ways to these actions unless trained to respond differently. Things like murder, theft, and cannibalism, are all met with disapproval and usually a violent reaction, because as people, as a social, thinking, societially based creatures humans understand what is good and what is bad for the entire group and will try to get rid of destructive behaviors or elements to keep the collective group safe, happy, and healthy. And that's just people, not even going into animal habits that mirror our own, or anything more esoteric and spiritual, which I could go into, but it really isn't worth the arguments over pointless semantics and petty fears that would ensue.
So my point is that morality is important for believable characters, but shouldn't be a determining factor in whether or not you can complete important parts of a game, and should really be based more on actions taken and less on dialogue spoken, because anyone can talk a good game, it takes someone with steel in their veins to make the hard decisions for the right (or wrong) reason.
And finally Selfless and helpful= morally good, selfish and grasping = morally evil, that's kinda the whole crux of morality.
*facepalm*srawcripts said:
I'm sorry but I've seen this so many times and it just annoys me. The Courier is not[/b[ an amnesiac!
At what point is it said that he/she is an amnesiac? Seriously tell me because I do not know.
Also it isn't that the Courier has no morals, you're deciding what his morals are.
The problem with F3 is that even though you could pick certain things about your character, in the end you're still playing the same storyline with the same characters. I wouldn't call the Lone Wanderer a "blank slate", he/she has room for customisation, but there's just too much history given to consider the LW as a blank slate.
The Courier on the other hand....he/she works for the Mojave and they got shot in the head...then you fill in the many blanks, that is a much more blank slate.
ChupathingyX said:
First of all... I developed a feeling that you really like Fallout3 and New Vegas... to the point that you can't look at it objectively.
I played the beginning of New Vegas and you are right. There is not mention of amnesia or that the "Courier"(Input name here) is an amnesiac. I just played the selection screens again where I chose everything about him. Even the images he sees in images...
To break it down to the basics. I just made a character. If you look at it without the story all one is doing is making something that a player wants to play.
The moral choices after this point are just used to determine a path for the narrative to follow so there can be an appropriate ending or not if you chose the opposite side at the last minute...
After reading and responding to this forum for a few days now...
I came to the conclusion that grey morality can't not be used if the game is depending on a moral system to determine the outcome of the story.
Even thou grey morality mimic real life better than a good and bad moral system.
It can not be applied to the story of a game because there are to many variables that would not fit in the story presented.
Choosing to save the apple and not the orange would result in the apple ending.
Choosing to save the orange and not the apple would result in the orange ending.
Or Infamous did this one...
No matter where your moral bar was... For the sake of story...The end result is to make the story make sense.
The Witcher is a story that is set in stone so every moral choice doesn't really matter because it don't change the end result.
Mass Effect has a moral system so that only certain paths are open but the end result is the same. Just the journey is different.
Fallout 3 is an game with a lot to do. But one never opens all the game at the start. So the moral system is used to prevent the player from doing everything.
Grey morality in choosing both good and bad choices, or a neutral choice, or choosing the action that fits in the situation.
There needs to be a game that is built around this principle.
But no game developer would ever make something like that... It would take to much time and money...
So, grey morality is a pipe dream at this point in time.
I came to the conclusion that grey morality can't not be used if the game is depending on a moral system to determine the outcome of the story.
Even thou grey morality mimic real life better than a good and bad moral system.
It can not be applied to the story of a game because there are to many variables that would not fit in the story presented.
Choosing to save the apple and not the orange would result in the apple ending.
Choosing to save the orange and not the apple would result in the orange ending.
Or Infamous did this one...
No matter where your moral bar was... For the sake of story...The end result is to make the story make sense.
The Witcher is a story that is set in stone so every moral choice doesn't really matter because it don't change the end result.
Mass Effect has a moral system so that only certain paths are open but the end result is the same. Just the journey is different.
Fallout 3 is an game with a lot to do. But one never opens all the game at the start. So the moral system is used to prevent the player from doing everything.
Grey morality in choosing both good and bad choices, or a neutral choice, or choosing the action that fits in the situation.
There needs to be a game that is built around this principle.
But no game developer would ever make something like that... It would take to much time and money...
So, grey morality is a pipe dream at this point in time.
It's because of Extra Credits, they made an episode where they said that the Courier is an amnesiac and because almost everyone blindly follows them they all now think this is true...it isn't.srawcripts said:
The funny thing is that by saying this, almost everything they say afterwards becomes a moot point because their original thesis is not based on fact and is in fact false.
Not necessarily, read the conversation between me and Darth.Pixie in this thread and you'll find that there is quite a lot of grey morality in Fallout: New Vegas.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.304265-The-Moral-Values-of-Fallout
Also, I haven't played it yet but apparently The Witcher 2 does grey morality very well, and possibly some other gmes.
Grey morality is an "interesting" concept. In that the devs couldn't really decide what direction they wanted the game to go and said "Lets make it grey that way if we keep it ambiguous the players will fill it in for themselves."