@ Matt`: LOL!

Luke Maciak wrote:

Travis McCrea wrote:

and robing someone is ALWAYS bad.

How about Robin Hood who was robbing the corrupt rich elites to feed the poor starving peasants?

If you look closely, Travis was actually talking about robing people, and I agree entirely that putting a robe onto another person without their consent is a villainous act of the highest order

I am currently testing Gothic II (I know it is an old game) and I like the morality system. It is fairly simple: you never know if you are doing something good or bad, but the consequences are going to hit you behind the head quite soon. I mean for instance: a NPC offers to help you sneak in the city in exchange for a “small service in the future”; of course, the service is not small at all and involves sending someone in jail under false accusations; the threat if you don’t comply is to rat you to the police as an intruder. What will you do? By the way, as far as I have seen until now, none of the factions is particularly good. The Paladins are a bunch of arrogant people who boss everyone around and starve the peasants. The peasants have organized a militia to defend against them, but this militia terrorize the people to chose their side. There seem to be a thief faction and a priest/mage faction too, but I doubt they are any better.

Travis McCrea wrote:

Now you could say that this reduces morality to black and white, but maybe our culture has added too many shades of gray to our style of life? I come from the mindset of something is either “right” or its “wrong” 1+1 ALWAYS = 2 and robing someone is ALWAYS bad.

How about Robin Hood who was robbing the corrupt rich elites to feed the poor starving peasants? While the act of robbery itself is considered disreputable and evil, Robin Hood tends to fall in the gray area. Most people tend to view him as a positive hero type.

Re: Fable – I haven’t played Fable 2 but in the first game the wives were sort of interchangeable. They had no personalities, and they all used the same 3-4 models so you could easily find replacements. So I didn’t really care for them that much.

Hello, I am Travis ;)

I believe that Fable 2 really does a great job with the Karma system, and it really changes the game dramatically with each choice you make. Now of course there are still clear cut decisions you must make but you never have to be hardline good or hardline evil. Actually to successfully conquer the entire world (to buy every piece of property, etc), you must be both.

I was evil because I enjoyed slaughtering towns of people… Who doesn’t?

Now you could say that this reduces morality to black and white, but maybe our culture has added too many shades of gray to our style of life? I come from the mindset of something is either “right” or its “wrong” 1+1 ALWAYS = 2 and robing someone is ALWAYS bad.

Though there was one spot in the game where these ninja type guys tried to attack me in front of my house and me being the brute man that I am… was protecting my family and while I was attacking these guys I accedently killed my wife. I was intending on protecting her… but I killed her on accedent so they took away my child (which is okay I didn’t love him much anyway). But then again, I shouldn’t have had the attack everyone option turned on… I don’t know where I was going with that… other then I killed my wife protecting my family.

I mean I guess they could add more rounded ways of doing things in fable meaning that you could still complete a mission being both evil or good… you just have a different way of doing it (and there are some missions like that, but there COULD be more)…

I find that the simple Good/Evil counter is perfect in the game because its what it is all about… though there are really 4 paths in Fable 2 there is Pureity and Corruption, Good and Evil and it is possible to be pure and evil, or Good and Corrupt.

I somehow managed to be corrupt even when I was trying to be good :( Maybe thats just a part of me ;) ;)

I am kinda rambling, look at the timestamp for reasons why.

I like how one of the morrowwind games did it, where you could either go up to the guy, and he would send you on a mission accross the desert that you had to walk forever accross, OOOOOOOOOOR you could just kill him and have all the town guards after you… but both yeild the same result. This does not influence any type of “counter” its just simply your actions have a result.

Well, Fallout 2 implements a reputation system on a per town basis, and there are towns at war with each other so helping one stop the leaking power plant might anger the other, depending on how you do it.

I don’t mind karma meters as I simply ignore them. Fallout3 is annoying as it popups each time you do something, but usually in games it’s just a stat somewhere you can afford to forget. What I enjoy are the saint/psychopath choices that are often so over the top that I couldn’t have thought of it myself. One particular example I’ll always remember is in KOTOR: when you kill one the planet’s species god, they want to ban you but you can blackmail them into revealing their weakened state to the sith, so they have to let you visit the city as you see fit.

@Matt: the “leave it alone” option is usually present, but you miss out on XP, experience, possible loot, possible follow-up…

I generally agree about the faction based “karma” system. The more factions the better. But in the end, Good and Evil are just two factions amongst others, and Neutral could also be one (like in Mart’s example). One could see Good, Evil and Neutral factions as “religions” (not per se socially organized). These factions would give you bonus, extra quests, objects and so on, based on your advancement on them. And, just like other factions, they don’t need to be mutually exclusive, just opposed. One could be a member of the Good, Neutral, Merchants and Spy Guild factions, for instance. This would not prevent him from being also Evil and a Thief Guild member, but make the situation a lot more difficult for him (with conflicting quests and situations). I agree that everything is in the motivation. Each Evil quest should present clear rewards, easy gain, selfish power and so on. And each one should be subtle enough to push the player to fulfil them by doing something evil.

@Chris, I like those scenarios. I wish more games would use stuff like that. :)

@Square – Well, Fable 1 was sort of the poster child for a bad karma based system. I haven’t played the sequel but maybe they polished that formula to something better.

@Mart – Oooh, that game looks old school. :) Nice! I also see they are using a reputation system rather than flat karma thing which bodes well for moral ambiguity. :)

I am of the opinion that “good” and “evil” can never be represented properly in games. My idea of what’s good may be different than the one interpreted by the game.

Plus, in most games, the motivation of choosing all good or evil options is usually because the best stuff (items, powers, etc) are for the end of the spectrum, which seems to satisfy the “look-at-me-I’m-uber!” crowd. Plus, there is usually no reward for a neutral character, and this bugs me more. Why can’t there be a third option: feed the starving puppy, kill the starving puppy or leave it as it is (you got more important things to do).

I like to see a game that provides me with choice and motivations for each choice I make. It need not define if those motivations are for good or evil; it can let the player decide. Probably the reason why I’m waiting for Age Of Decadence. It’s supposed to be a game about choices and how those will impact the world around you. Sounds better than “make the good choice and get The Great Bow Of Justice” or “make the evil choice and get The Great Gun Of Malice” kind of choices.

The only game that has ever given me a difficult choice is Fable 2; not throughout the whole game, but one portion. I’ll try to spoil it as little as possible.

There is a point in the game in which you become essentially enslaved, and you must choose between resistance or compliance. Compliance saves you, while resistance drains you of your skills and experience. It’s not all thrown into one choice either – It’s presented in blocks of time in which you must sit and experience your choice taking place. Even better, you can comply in any given scenario at the last minute only to save what little of yourself you have left.

The outcome of the game’s world heavily depends on your character’s morality as well, so it indeed does matter. It worked great, and I actually felt as if I had been broken down to the point there was no other option but to comply.