Moral Choices In Video Games, And Choice Systems In General

[Krylo]

That would have been ok, if it also gave you more Adam and made you more powerful. Also if you didn't get Little Sister help in the end if you had gone about slaughtering them all, but were strong enough to just not need their help. Have some other 'I have drank ALL the Adam!' super power that's used instead.

[Toast]

I agree that moral choices need to be both flexible and more in depth and varied. I think games should also deal more with the consequences of choices, both good and bad ones. For example, I think letting the batarian in me1 escape should come back to bite a paragon shep in the ass in me3. Probably won't happen, though.

I actually really didn't care for DA:O's companion opinion system. It was a little too easy to offend certain characters and even easier to buy them off with gifts. Especially as my rogue, in conversations I would often agree or go along with my opponents in order to distract and deceive them, but I still lost opinion points for doing things like that.

Also, the situation at Redcliffe was and was not a hard moral choice if you knew what you were doing, which kind of took away the impact for me.

I haven't played any of the other games you mentioned, and I can't really think of any games I have played that had involved or complex moral choices. Even kotor 2 was kind of stilted that way.

[MuMu]

I think my optimal moral choice RPG would be one where the plot isn't resolved in days or weeks, but in years and maybe decades, and your character grows and has experiences which people and influence them in one way or another, but not immediately. Phearps someone will grow to idolize or hate you, a village will expand or disappear, a race will turns it's back on yours or join hands, etc.

Unfortunately there aren't many games with passage of time, one of my favorite features(I remember that both DQV and Terraenigma had it on the SNES, but not with the depth one could achieve with current technology).

[Seil]

I think my optimal moral choice RPG would be one where the plot isn't resolved in days or weeks, but in years and maybe decades, and your character grows and has experiences which people and influence them in one way or another, but not immediately. Phearps someone will grow to idolize or hate you, a village will expand or disappear, a race will turns it's back on yours or join hands, etc.

Actually, in DA:O, years do go by as you play the game. Doing the Broken Circle quest was first on my list on my latest playthrough, and when I next talk to Wynne in camp she tells me "Yes, it's been almost a year since you left the Circle."

Also, you get to influence Sten, who grows to like you but knows the Qunari are gonna come to conquer Ferelden and he's like "I hope I don't meet you on the battleground."

But we could go to Silent Hill for the Bioshock thing - like this:

I'm sure there would have been more offense taken, or perhaps just creepiness factor, if you were ALLOWED to show the death of children in games head on.

You've got people the PC feels strongly for literally being tortured in game and you can choose to leave them like that or kill them out of mercy. Not a great game - the ending scene with the drill was a little too Hostel and less Silent Hill, but even then we can go to the finger scene in Heavy Rain.

[MuMu]

I have not gotten the chance to play DA:O yet, but as soon as my PC is in order I'll put it on my List.

[Toast]

Originally Posted by Seil

[color=pink]Actually, in DA:O, years do go by as you play the game. Doing the Broken Circle quest was first on my list on my latest playthrough, and when I next talk to Wynne in camp she tells me "Yes, it's been almost a year since you left the Circle."

I only recall getting that particular dialog as a mage and always thought she was referring to leaving the circle during my origin story, but it's been a long time since I played last so could be misremembering.

You've got people the PC feels strongly for literally being tortured in game and you can choose to leave them like that or kill them out of mercy. Not a great game - the ending scene with the drill was a little too Hostel and less Silent Hill, but even then we can go to the finger scene in Heavy Rain.

Like I said I've not played any silent hill games, but it's always seemed to me that the kind of choices you describe here are more for shock value rather than any kind of complex moral choice. Especially if there's no option to free or rescue the person in question and the kill or leave them to suffer is a forced choice. That's just personal opinion, though.

[mauve]

In regards to KOTOR, I found it funny how your party reacted to your level of...uh... goodness or evilness, for lack of a better term.

I played a super-humanly good Jedi my first playthrough, where the alignment meter in her character profile was pushed to the max for light side, wreathed in heavenly light, and meanwhile Carth is whining about not trusting me and the entire Sith Academy can't tell I'm not one of them despite the fact that I bleed sunshine and rainbows.

Then I replayed as an evil Jedi. The greatest part was during a cutscene where Bastila turns to me, in all my red-eyed, spider-veined, dark-cloaked glory, red lightsaber held high, black fog clouding my alignment meter, and mused that she occasionally sensed feint traces of the dark side in me. Her powers of perception are truly stunning.


But I'm kind of neutral on the moral choice systems in games, for the most part. They're okay if they're done well and actually serve a purpose, but I personally tend to obsess over them. Did I pick the right one?! Will I get extra cutscenes if I do this?! Does this have a point?!

[Magus]

A lot of it has thus far kind of been provided in my own head. One problem with Fable is if you play someone amoral but not particularly evil you usually end up being totally average and not having an amazing halo/devil horns and the items that go with that. Like I played a guy as a thief but didn't like, murder anybody who didn't have it coming to them, and there is simply no reward or interest in going middle of the road like that.

The same problem has occurred with other games like Fallout, Arcanum, etc., there's no real "Han Solo" option, it's either Luke or Vader.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Then I replayed as an evil Jedi. The greatest part was during a cutscene where Bastila turns to me, in all my red-eyed, spider-veined, dark-cloaked glory, red lightsaber held high, black fog clouding my alignment meter, and mused that she occasionally sensed feint traces of the dark side in me. Her powers of perception are truly stunning.

I liked playing light side when I wasn't really trying to be superhumanly good, just like, normal good. And then she's all "I don't know how you do it! Resisting the pull of the dark side all the time" and blah de blah.

And I'm like, man, it's not THAT HARD to not shoot babies with force lightning or whatever the evil choice is.

[Magus]

At least it is accurate to the films' morality span. Vader quite quickly succumbs to his deep desire to murder little kids, after all. Within like five minutes of becoming a Sith, in fact!