To be or not to be (evil, that is)

[Sonata]

Shadow the hedgehog had a pretty simple morality system, but I usually don't follow either path. If I come across someone or something that might have something I need or want, it's going to die, I don't care if I get 1000 gold bounty added onto my head, I will take on all of the town because that guy had an orcish dagger and I'm only level 2.

 

[Legobricks]

I tend to fall in the middle of the spectrum if the game is keeping score, which at best gives me no paricular advantages, and at worst all the disadvantages of being 'indecisive' when really I'm just practically-minded, picking whatever good/evil choices make sense from that standpoint. The abstraction of morality as a numerical statistic is strange when it rewards extremist good/evil but not neutrality. Well, neutrality has rarely been rewarded in the real world, so there is that, but it doesn't feel right in a role-playing game.

 

[Luck]

Always play the moral guy with an occasional "immoral" choice like punching a reporter or whatnot. It doesn't hurt that many games are designed around moral characters in many aspects.

I thought Catherine did a binary morality system pretty damn good. It still has the same flawed trappings of said system, like the representations of morality(blue and red with angelic/demon imagery), and some ambiguous questions that don't really make sense, but it actually rewards a balanced playstyle and it has a much deeper involvement with the story than many games.

Spoiler:

For example, Catherine "rapes" Vincent if he's playing a lawful character, but he's consensual on a chaotic playthrough.

I tend to fall in the middle of the spectrum if the game is keeping score, which at best gives me no paricular advantages, and at worst all the disadvantages of being 'indecisive' when really I'm just practically-minded, picking whatever good/evil choices make sense from that standpoint. The abstraction of morality as a numerical statistic is strange when it rewards extremist good/evil but not neutrality. Well, neutrality has rarely been rewarded in the real world, so there is that, but it doesn't feel right in a role-playing game.

May I ask what games you're playing? From my experience, many modern games pretty blatantly push the "good" morality choice, to the point where the "bad" choice is unnecessarily evil. I'd love to play a game where I actually have to think about my choices instead of clicking the blue highlighted text.

 

[Neo Emolga]

I almost ALWAYS play good. Playing the hero isn't easy, but I welcome and enjoy the challenge. I also try to get immersed into the game where I make decisions based on what I would actually do if I was in that situation.

The Walking Dead is definitely one of those games I would love to watch Jesus play to see what kinds of decisions he would make, because man, that game really grinds down hard on your morality and ability to make tough decisions under pressure and limited time.

 

[Legobricks]

May I ask what games you're playing? From my experience, many modern games pretty blatantly push the "good" morality choice, to the point where the "bad" choice is unnecessarily evil. I'd love to play a game where I actually have to think about my choices instead of clicking the blue highlighted text.

Well, to be honest, only Fallout 3/NV and the Mass Effect series. A very narrow scope of experience from which to write like I did, I understand. Still, for what it's worth, I don't think a lot of renegade choices in ME are outright evil, the morality system there is more lawful/chaotic than good/evil.

 

[Sir Codin]

I tend to play good, usually because it's the best course of option for getting the most rewards in many games.

Take Baldur's Gate for example. Yeah, you can be a psychotic chaotic evil douchebag and murder people for giggles and whatnot, but the best rewards and experience in the game come from making morally good decisions.

I also don't play evil because sometimes a game can be so well written at being evil that I will feel like a horrible human being for acting that way, even though it's just a video game.


Anybody here ever play Planescape: Torment? Being evil in that game is no laughing matter. It's akin to facing down an Olympic boxer with both hands tied behind your back. It's often been said by fans that in order to even beat the game as an evil character you must either a) skip through most of the dialogue and avoid reading about all the horrible things you are doing or b) genuinely be a real-life psychopath/sociopath. Being evil in Planescape: Torment isn't like murdering people willy-nilly like in GTA or whatnot. It's an endless march of soul-crushing cruelty and depressingly realistic mental/psychological abuse. You'll be convinced that Chris Avellone (the writer) had Satan himself help him write evil dialogue for this game.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I tend to play good, usually because it's the best course of option for getting the most rewards in many games.

Take Baldur's Gate for example. Yeah, you can be a psychotic chaotic evil douchebag and murder people for giggles and whatnot, but the best rewards and experience in the game come from making morally good decisions.

I also don't play evil because sometimes a game can be so well written at being evil that I will feel like a horrible human being for acting that way, even though it's just a video game.


Anybody here ever play Planescape: Torment? Being evil in that game is no laughing matter. It's akin to facing down an Olympic boxer with both hands tied behind your back. It's often been said by fans that in order to even beat the game as an evil character you must either a) skip through most of the dialogue and avoid reading about all the horrible things you are doing or b) genuinely be a real-life psychopath/sociopath. Being evil in Planescape: Torment isn't like murdering people willy-nilly like in GTA or whatnot. It's an endless march of soul-crushing cruelty and depressingly realistic mental/psychological abuse. You'll be convinced that Chris Avellone (the writer) had Satan himself help him write evil dialogue for this game.

Jesus. What is actually going on in the game that makes you give such a dark characterization of it?

 

[Sir Codin]

Jesus. What is actually going on in the game that makes you give such a dark characterization of it?

A spirit of a woman who loved you is getting antsy with you. Threaten to leave her and tell her she will be alone for eternity if you leave so she stops angsting at you.

One of your party member's swore a life debt to you in the past, not realizing you were immortal and it is literally tearing his life apart? Remind him of the life debt at every opportunity. Oh, and a sick person of his kind asks her life to end? Tell him to kill her slowly and painfully.

You can sell your companions to slavery. You can shove a companion into a Pillar of Skulls that'll threaten to eat him alive.

I don't have the full details because I've yet to play the game as an evil character, though. But literally every fan of the game I've talked to has described playing evil as such.