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[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I usually play the most awkward alignments for others to deal with. Rigid, legalistic Lawful Good, uncaring True Neutral or murderous, lying, cheating, backstabbing Chaotic Evil. Sometimes I play a pompous and manipulative Lawful Evil. Very rarely I play a Chaotic Good lovable vagabond, just to lighten the mood.

I don't like the black-and-white, utterly western christian values in most games with "morality".

[smigenboger]

Ah yes, Fable 2. By playing the lute and eating pie, you could become the most corrupt, good person in the world. Simply by eating apple pie and playing music in town.

[TheDarkJay]

Personally I like to play as the manipulator, the person who says the right things at the right time to get others to do what he wants, and has ultimately only two agendas:
1) Survive.
2) Keep life interesting.

In fact, I don't think I have written or started a short story from the perspective of many characters who wouldn't at least largely match the "Hare Psychopathy Checklist"...

Most karma systems in games can't really compensate for these kinds of players. Games like Fallout 3 especially. Apparently lying to an android that you will keep his secret (+ good karma) only to reveal it to the person who then enslaves him (- bad karma) makes you neutral, when logically according to the moral system of the game it should make you even more of a "bastard"...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Apparently lying to an android that you will keep his secret (+ good karma) only to reveal it to the person who then enslaves him (- bad karma) makes you neutral, when logically according to the moral system of the game it should make you even more of a "bastard"...

Not if you do what I did, and only told the enslaver to get Wired Reflexes, after which I immediately turned around and shot him to death! Ah, that was a fun quest.

Now, Fallout 3 had an awesome twist with the ghouls/Tenpenny Tower quest.

[TheDarkJay]

Now, Fallout 3 had an awesome twist with the ghouls/Tenpenny Tower quest.

Your mileage may vary. Am I the only one who saw it coming? I mean, what was stopping the ghoul from killing all the humans the instance my power armoured back was turned? -.- Seriously, he had nothing to lose from it except neighbours who barely tolerated them, and gained the entire tower. Offing the Humans was, for the ghouls, the most sensible course of action. Not right according to the game's "moral logic", but still the most sensible. And if I punish him for breaking the "moral code", I lose karma. If you want to have a moral system in the game, at least make it consistent...

I mean, what is suddenly revenge wrong? But my running around killing those enclave troops, even the game says you swore a vendetta against them! Explain game, EXPLAIN!

I actually modded the WoD morality system into Oblivion at one point that operated by monitoring stats like "number of NPCs killed". It only turned itself on when the player became a vampire, and was basically going to be my starting point for a vampirism rewrite (low morality would effect your vampire powers. and the chance of frenzy). But modding Oblivion is boring compared to real programming =P Plus I couldn't compensate for things like using the frenzy spell to make people kill each other...

[Zangi]

*snip*

So being a good guy = Sane...

And being a bad guy = Crazy...


.... ?

[TheDarkJay]

So being a good guy = Sane
And being a bad guy = Crazy

I'll admit it is rather Macbeth...But I've never said good or bad. It's more like "These are the norms I was raised with, breaking them makes me feel guilty. The guilt drives me insane.", it doesn't matter if you broke them for good or bad, it's the act of breaking them. Right and wrong never really enter the picture. How many cops have shot/killed a criminal in self-defence, only to still destroy themselves through guilt?

Then again, given some of the G.O.A.T. questions in Fallout 3, maybe the norms in the vault *are* quite violent and "Can I have a minigun so I don't miss?" is a common and perfectly socially acceptable response to the everyday event of being asked to kill another vault resident by your grandmother?

[DJ]

No mention of The Witcher? The only morality system that didn't feel like pulled out of five year old's arse.(most of the time, at least)

Yeah, The Witcher probably had the best choices I've seen in an RPG. Lots of greyness all around.

[Zangi]

So being a good guy = Sane
And being a bad guy = Crazy

I'll admit it is rather Macbeth...But I've never said good or bad. It's more like "These are the norms I was raised with, breaking them makes me feel guilty. The guilt drives me insane.", it doesn't matter if you broke them for good or bad, it's the act of breaking them. Right and wrong never really enter the picture. How many cops have shot/killed a criminal in self-defence, only to still destroy themselves through guilt?

Then again, given some of the G.O.A.T. questions in Fallout 3, maybe the norms in the vault *are* quite violent and "Can I have a minigun so I don't miss?" is a common and perfectly socially acceptable response to the everyday event of being asked to kill another vault resident by your grandmother?

So the player will be able to decide the "normal"?  Or is it some other person's take on "normal"?

[TheDarkJay]

Well the normal is societies normal, is it not? The young are socialised, and it's from this socialisation our sense of "right and wrong" stems. We're told by our parents "do not lie" and we repeat to ourselves "I must not lie, or mummy will yell at me" until it becomes internalised as a general "lying is morally wrong". Of course some of us never get passed the "I must not lie or..." stage, but from what I've learnt in sociology and psychology classes the former tends to be largely true for most people.

So the morality system of the game would depend on the morality system of the game's setting =P Logically one could provide alternative systems, heck I think the WoD provides possible alternatives but since it's set largely in America, it's standard moral system is the western one.

[smigenboger]

I'll throw a little wrench into that and say I've read a lot of fictional 'what if' books that experiment with morality, and although those aren't my societies' morals, they have given me more information to judge for myself what is morally correct. Since these morals conflict with my society, does it make me immoral to follow my societies' rules or what I believe to be correct?

[Zangi]

Intriguing.  Potentially decent or just fail.

Though, as smigenboger mentions, people can still have a different morality then the social norms...

Eh, I'd have to 'see' it to make better judgment of it then.

[Aqizzar]

In other games, I am rather disgusted by the moral choices usually railroaded on me. Deus Ex did a fantastic job of having no really good or evil faction but allowing you to choose simply which faction's viewpoint you wished to support.

This is the kind of "morality" in videogames I support, when it isn't "morality" at all; it just sidesteps the question of morality as a freestanding concept and lets you interpret the results of your shenanigans as you will.  I've gushed about the same effect in Stalker, and there's a small number of other games that give you the same opportunities.

At the other end of the spectrum, you've got Bioware.  KOTOR's idea of morality-
Random Passerby: "Oh God, you've got to help me!  I'm being mugged!"
A) Of course I shall assist you good citizen!  Zoinks, and away!
B) Can you make it worth my while?  Otherwise, I don't want to get involved.
C) Mugged?  Oh fuck no, you're not being mugged yet. Right after I kill these guys, I'll show you mugged.

[TheDarkJay]

I do prefer KoToR 2 in terms of moral choices. It's easier to play a well-intentioned monster, magnificent bastard or a flawed anti-hero in that game They actually made being cruel but light-side not only possible but fun ^^

I still fail to see what's so evil about using force suggest to make two muggers jump to their deaths? :S Seriously, that I got so many DS points for that confused the heck out of me when I was actually expecting LS points or at least neutrality I mean, I saved the victim and removed two violent thugs from the world, surely I am a hero unto men?

Though the hilarity of it did amuse me. "Yes, jump. Reach ground faster that way." 

Though there is that one scene, but at least they implied a certain woman was preventing you from making a sane choice but charity or villainy in that situation xD

[ChairmanPoo]

Black and White was okay as games go, but the amount of bad karma from just one fireball offset an entire half-hour's worth of free food miracles. Not to mention the system can't discern between rightous anger, retaliatory attacks, defending your own people from enemies, or accidentally dropping a boulder.

Actually, IMO, the original B&W had a brilliant moral concept system. Free food miracles made your people spoiled and lazy, they weren't always the "good" thing to do.

Oh yes they were.  It was as simple as it comes: aggro bad, food hippy good

In fact, the nicest thing to do would've just been to play the pacifist.. it was entirely possible to win the game by not using any attacks.

but not practical, particularily since there were only one or two peaceful uber-impressive spells, and weren't avaiable till the end of the game

If you were doing righteous anger or retaliatory attacks, chances are that you're not being 100% good and deserve the neutral god reputation. Accidentally dropping a boulder too.. well, like my ethics class explained, part of ethics is making sure people don't accidentally get hurt. If you were that good, you wouldn't "accidentally" be dropping boulders near villagers or buildings, you'd toss them a bit far.

Alas, Molyneus boasted that YOU set the concepts of good and evil. This was obviously not so, as you were bound by arbitrary gameplay concepts of good and evil

B&W2 and all of the Molyneux games after decided to use morality as a toy and just ruined it, IMO.

Didn't play any of the games after B&W, as I found B&W lame. I might have been more tolerant if there had been less hype. But as it was, I found it to be a flashy yet not-nearly-as-free-or-clever-as-it-claimed god game, bound with a tamagotchi.