Morality

Yukari

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    What do you think of morality and moral choices in video games? And, do you prefer to play as a good or bad character in games? Or do you prefer to be neutral when given the chance?
     
    Like in real life, generally speaking I am a goody two-shoes most of the time in games. Sometimes I make more neutral or harsher decisions if the situation calls for it, however. I might choose to be a jerk through dialogue options occasionally, too. ^_^
     
    I think morality can add a lot to a game. In certain games, like Undertale, it's a huge device that changes sooo much of the gameplay. I really enjoyed morality in that game. I played it twice through, once a neutral run and once a pacifist run. It gives the game a lot of depth. I very much enjoyed the experience.
     
    When it comes to certain games, I find myself enjoying playing a certain way. For example, in the Mass Effect series, I like playing the Paragon (a.k.a. good) side since I know I can get more War Assets in Mass Effect 3 that way, instead of Renegade. As for KotoR, I enjoy going Dark Side since I enjoy more of the powers of that side (e.g. Force Storm, Force Choke). As for neutral, I don't think I have played that way.
     
    I generally like morality in games (and choices that actually matter). But I don't like morality systems that are forced into the game. A previously mentioned game that does morality well is Undertale. It's basically the main focus of the game, and works very well because of that.

    Some other games don't do this anywhere as well, with your morality and choices having little to no effect on anything else in the game.

    When playing a game with a morality system, I generally always be good or neutral. For some reason I care too much about virtual people to be responsible for killing them. I'll steal everything from them, but if I accidentally kill someone, I feel bad.
     
    People in games are nothing but data (this attitude reminds me of Digimon anime), but I still prefer playing as good guy. And I think that games shouldn't punish players for being evil, games are made for fun.
     
    I love it when games incorporate any kind of choice system that impacts the story/character development, so when morality is done right it can be really interesting.

    Like most people here, I still tend to be good to NPCs even if it's just a game - especially if I have no reason to be dicks to them. :P If the morality system is done really well and really makes me wonder "what if I had played this differently?", I will go back and make alternate choices to see how they play out.
     
    I love it, to the death. I simply love being able to shape the player character's story as the game goes on while affecting everything and everyone in the said lore and environment.

    As far as alignment goes, I usually go with what I know from the get go, I'm usually the "Chaotic good" kind of person so i go with that. I simply love being the "anti-hero", the "renegade", the "outlaw", or the "badass guy killing evil guys" kind of character.

    No noes for the "Overly good Hero" for me. I never liked being the "overly good".

    Alignments I've made so far:
    - Chaos path in the SMT games
    - Renegade in Mass Effect
    - "Bad Karma" in inFamous

    among other things.
     
    I always have to be the lawful good hero. In the entirety of the Mass Effect series, I only took one Renegade option towards the very end. I just like being nice, and I love having the various characters open up to you. If you're doing a renegade run, most video games will cut the dialogue options off with a rude statement, and you never learn anything about anyone. If you're doing a good run, then the characters tend to open up to you more, and those moments are often my favorites.
     
    I'm only the hero if it is beneficial to me - Tenenbaum made it worth my while to save the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them, Eleanor made it... less worthwhile, but I needed the achievement. I am generally going to be the good girl until I have gotten the achievement. Once that is out of the way, I will generally fall into Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil and proceed to cause calculated misery throughout the land. It was not explicitly beneficial to my character in Fallout 3 to be moral, so despite the pleadings of Liam Neeson, I became the scourge of the wastes. New Vegas didn't hold much reward for being evil because of the heavy imbalance present in the game, so despite doing what I thought were some pretty reprehensible acts, I apparently became a messiah.

    When I played through Mass Effect, Adriana Shepard saved all her teammates and generally did the right thing. Seemed like the best thing to do in an unfamiliar series - play good so you have a better idea of how to play evil the next time round. That's exactly what Adriana Shephard is going to do next time; do the worst playthrough possible. Kill everyone, lose all your friends, become the most reviled and lonely figure in the entire universe. You will know pain, Shepard.
     
    I personally really love moral choices in games. I always tend to go for the good route first at least, and I will only choose to go on the bad route after I beat the game only, unless there is a lot more benefits to playing evil or if evil route has more fun missions then I'll play evil first.
     
    I still haven't really played a game like that, but I've watch my brother playing the Fable serie and I want to try it one day when I have time. I know I'll be good :3 But if I can be neutral, that's probably what I'm gonna be.
    I am too sensitive to be bad XD I mean, I feel bad if i upset a villager in Animal Crossing...
     
    I tend to be a good guy at first. Then once I've seen everything the good guy has to offer, I go ahead and have even more fun being a complete prick and fucking everything up.

    Exhibit A: The Tale of Thrognarr Elf-Slayer, the Nord with a genocidal hatred of elves.
     
    When executed correctly, morality can certainly add a lot to a game, or even be the entire basis of the game. See Undertale or Knights Of The Old Republic. However a lot of games put a pseudo morality in their games that doesn't have any real impact on the games in question and that can be a serious problem.

    I feel this is somewhat the case with Mass Effect, though mostly by misunderstanding not so much the fault of the game. People see Paragon and Renegade and equate those options to good vs bad, which they are not. Ultimately, no matter how you play Mass Effect, the story is largely unchanged. In fact many of the replies given by NPCs are the same no matter what you say. Renegade and Paragon are personality choices for what movie you want to see in your sci fi adventure, not moral decisions. That isn't to say there are no moments of moral ambiguity you have to choose on, but for the most part there is little difference in the games based on your choices.

    However, the worst offender of pseudo choice in the gaming world is the Bioshock series. This is more apparent in the first two where you have to choose whether to harvest or save Little Sisters. But the choice is almost pointless. The "morally right" option can be deduced before even making a decision to be the more advantageous, even if you have to wait for your bonuses. Come on, who doesn't want Hypnotize Big Daddy? Aside from this, the only real change the choices have is what ending you get, and quite frankly, both endings are pretty lackluster. I won't even bother talking about Infinite, because literally every decision in that game is pointless. Bioshock 2 though, oh man do I have something to say about Bioshock 2. Spoiler warning, if you haven't played Bioshock 2, what is wrong with you go play it right now! Bioshock 2 has a better set of moral choices than the first, because you also decide what to do with the lives of those you are fighting, not just the ones you can save. When you face Gilbert Alexander, he is stark raving mad and deformed into a weird fish monster living in a tank because of his experiments with Adam. He leaves several audio tapes behind begging you to end his life with his last remnants of sanity. He wants to die! And yet, somehow, the way to get the savior achievement involves sparing even him. They had a chance to include a more ambiguous good option here, and they botched it in favor of the typical, the mundane, the literal sparing of lives despite the fact that THIS MAN WANTED TO DIE! Anyway I have ranted long enough. If a game wants to include morals, good on them. Just make sure they have a purpose instead of just being tacked on for another feature.
     
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    Karma Police said:
    I think you missed one of the biggest themes of the Bioshock series. Providing the illusion of choice was a deliberate move in the games, and stands as one of the best examples of what "choices" are from a game design point of view. This article goes more into depth about the morality and illusion of choice in the Bioshock series.
    Click to expand...
    Yes the illusion of choice is an extremely heavy handed theme in Bioshock, but the case of the Little Sisters really doesn't play into it. It's the one choice you are actually given in the game. And by the end of the first game, you are freed from your slave state, so it isn't something that holds through the whole journey. I am not denying that Bioshock is a great game, it's one of my absolute favorites. I just think the morality system is extremely flawed in a game that was more or less advertising the feature. There is no reason to harvest except to get the achievement and bad ending, because in the long run saving yields more and better prizes.

    Since I didn't talk about it before, I WANT to play bad characters, but my conscience tends to get the better of me. So most of the time I play good. I actually felt like shit once when I force convinced a poor beggar to give me all his money on Tattoine of KOTOR. Being on the Dark Side is rough.
     
    Dansparce said:
    When playing a game with a morality system, I generally always be good or neutral. For some reason I care too much about virtual people to be responsible for killing them. I'll steal everything from them, but if I accidentally kill someone, I feel bad.
    Click to expand...

    Yup, this. In Elder Scrolls games for example, I'll go around cleaning out everybody's life savings, but if I accidentally murder someone, I'll actually reload my save. I even felt awful after completing that quest in Oblivion with the paranoid elf, and he attacked me! (But then again, I missed all the warning signs and foreshadowing and completely believed him so I was feeling sorry for the poor persecuted man. :| ...But then again again, I still felt sorry for him afterward, just for a different reason.)

    Basically, in any game with a story--Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, even Mass Effect where it's not really "morality"--I'm generally as agreeable as possible. I may be a witty smartass (sarcastic Hawke is best Hawke), but I cringe when I even so much as upset somebody, unless they pissed me off first; I do generally choose a few Renegade/Aggressive options.

    I've never been a Sith in KOTOR. I've never been a Renegade in ME. I've never been evil in any story-based game I've played, unless that was the actual plot of the game. Even in The Bard's Tale, I was usually as polite as that game would allow me to be. {XD}

    But all bets are off in games like Zoo Tycoon. Why no, I've never fenced in the entrance so nobody could leave and then released all my animals to create an enormous free-for-all, why do you ask? >_> (Lions and tigers and T-Rexes, oh my!)
     
    In real life, it would be totally fair to punish people who are "evil" as opposed to "good", but in video games, I don't think you should get a disadvantage for choosing the dark side. It's part of the fun.

    My boyfriend and I have been playing through Neverwinter Nights recently, and I like the DnD morality system they use in that. Sure, you can't play certain classes/prestige classes depending on what morality you choose, but apart from that, morality doesn't limit you in any way whatsoever. At least not as far as I know.

    The way I see it, morality should be able to have a big impact on events in the game, and even future games if playing a series, but they shouldn't limit you in terms of resources, like with war assets in Mass Effect 3. But it makes sense to do it sometimes, so it's difficult to avoid, really.
     
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