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The idea of using morality as an integral gameplay mechanic has become increasingly common in recent years. Recent games such as Fallout 3, Fable 2, BioShock and Mass Effect have all attempted to find different ways to provide players with gameplay that focussed to varying degrees on morality.
And yet, the ways in which they present morality to players are often clumsy and narrow-minded. What are some of the problems, and what could be done to rectify them? Just a word of advice - this entry will contain spoilers so if you're concerned about that and haven't played these games yet, you might want to skip this entry.
There are a couple of main problems that crop up. The one which is most important to me is the fact that players very rarely actually have much agency. Bioshock, an otherwise top-notch game, essentially falls apart in its story-telling during the back half of the game because the narrative and the gameplay are at odds.
It is explained to you that you are just a pawn, and that a code word allows others to manipulate you. Much has been made of the fact that this confronts the player with the way in which they mindlessly follow instructions in games, but the point is completely lost because for the rest of the game you have no choice but to continue doing things exactly as before.
The game tries to say something, but fails pretty much entirely. The player of course does have one option if they wish to avoid this, which is to turn the game off, but surely any game which presents that as a viable option to the player has failed in its design.
A related and more important issue is the reliance in video games on violence. If you tell me that your game is about choice, agency, and morality, then you absolutely must provide me with a way to play through the entire game without me ever having to commit a violent act. Part of the issue is that video games, including ones about player agency, are essentially still games about violence.
Mass Effect is a game about a military commander, and while there are a number of side-quests that can be resolved non-violently (and, to the game's credit, a number that are non-violent no matter how you resolve them), it is still impossible to play through the game in its entirety without engaging in large amounts of violence.
Fallout 3 is situated in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and while it is likely true that such a setting would in fact be quite dangerous, certainly some people in that world would be able to get by non-violently. Yet playing Fallout 3 without killing any of the various mutants, soldiers, etc., while perhaps technically possible, would be so difficult as to render it not an option.
Fable 2 is another game where you play as a violent hero, and have absolutely no way to get through many of the situations that the game offers you without killing large numbers of enemies.
All of these games, however, fail to offer you meaningful choices for the most part. Fable 2 promises, "for every action, a consequence", and yet the game does not at any point provide you the option to play through the story without performing violence. Apparently I can run around smashing "bandits" with a gigantic hammer all day and my purity and goodness will still be flawless. How does killing my fellow slaves in the Spire make me a good person?
In fairness to Mass Effect, the game does not have a good/bad measurement as most games do, instead offerring paragon/renegade measurements. These correspond more to two personality types than to "good" and "bad", and they exist simultaneously, not on a single scale as the morality does in Fable 2. But again, there is absolutely no non-violent option available to the player to complete the main story.
Another important reason that systems of morality in games tends to be somewhat ham-fisted is the desire for "game balance". I'll state my view on this topic quite succinctly - if you are trying to provide the illusion of morality, or of player agency in any meaningful regard, if your goal is "balance" then your system is broken. In Bioshock there is the now well-known fact that choosing to kill or save the Little Sisters makes very little difference in terms of the power of your character, despite the fact that the decision is in theory one of the most important aspects of the game.
It completely kills any sense of meaning in the player's actions, since they know that no matter what the do, the result will be the same. If you want the player to actually feel as though they have agency, you need to provide them with more than just aesthetic differences between their options. Maybe the "good" choices could make the game more difficult, because the player has to sacrifice some potential rewards or avenues of progression, or the "bad" choices could make the game more difficult because law enforcement is constantly on the lookout for your player.
The latter option, though, would require that the game actually has meaningful punishments for being caught; taking the player's equipment away but then leaving it in a box where they can steal it back (as in Oblivion) or simply allowing the player to pay a fine (as in Fable 2) are not strong enough disincentives.
But what if the player had a rare weapon that could not be easily replaced, and getting caught for committing a crime meant you would permanently lose that weapon? Players would think twice about comitting crimes, and they would be far more careful about getting caught if that was the path they decided to go down.
One example I'll give of a game that generally got this right, which is not really known as a game that deals with player morality, was Metal Gear Solid 2 (and 3 and 4, for that matter). The option to tranquilise or otherwise avoid every single human enemy in the game meant that the player was genuinely able to go about the game in a generally non-violent way.
But just as importantly, playing the game without using overt force requires you to play in a very different manner. Enemies and environments react quite differently, and the strategies that you will have to employ are noticeably different as well (and, in my opinion, hiding in lockers, orange crates, etc. is far more fun than throwing a grenade anyway).
Another reason for the success that MGS2 has in dealing with morality is the fact that the game never tells the player they are making a moral decision through some overbearing method such as a good/bad meter. It is inherent in both the gameplay and our understanding of the world that tranquilizing a person and shooting them in the face with an assault rifle are two very different things.
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Let the player feel the thrill of stealing or murdering, taking advantage of a unfair situation, or helping someone. Let him be who he really wants to be in the game. And after he has clearly defined his character, despite warnings, show him the consequences. They don't need to be about losing a piece of equipment: if the weapon or armour is really unique and he loses it after choosing a determined option, the players will likely reset the game and omit that option, missing your point entirely. However, if you keep the game running, maybe showing hints (like towns rising costs of hotels and goods, or offering more or less items for sale, people not wanting to talk to the character, etc), they may realize by themselves that every action has a reaction.
That is the point of morality, to learn that every action brings a consequence, whether good or bad.
http://www.fadupinator.com/newfadupinator/thesis/story.html
I think one of the main issues is Moral PERCEPTION : you notice that in most games, everything is presented to you "objectively," as in, pre-labeled. Simply knowing which choice the designer thinks is "good" robs the player of much of a chance to form his own opinions.
Secondly, most of the time, in real life we don't even notice choices we are making, as we are mostly creatures of habit. (There is no text box that leaps up and says, "Irrationally snap at your wife? Y/N") I think it would be FASCINATING to make a game where the player's choices not only have in-game consequences a la Chrono Trigger or Deus Ex, but also change the way the moral landscape is presented.
Imagine if you are a thief and you always steal things when you have the chance. What if this eventually turns your character into a kleptomaniac? Now, objects, even objects of no practical value, literally become shinier, where before they were rendered as sort of dull and blending in with the background. Now they practically leap out at you and beg you to take them.
Or if you're violent, perhaps the violent choice always rises to the top of the list when you're given an explicit choice, and is re-worded to something like, "Give that punk what he deserves" instead of "Punch him", like it would have if you weren't pre-disposed towards violence?
These are some thoughts I'm thinking about. Do you mind if I contact either of you later for an interview for my thesis?
http://www.fadupinator.com/newfadupinator/thesis/
Love the comments, I completely agree with Roberto and Lars (by the way, very interesting thesis, i'll have to check that out) this is more of a question of perception and consequence. Fable kind of started down that road, in that people regard you differently depending on your choices, but the consequences need to have more of an impact. The player needs to see that their choices truly have an effect on the world, and I think there are a lot of interesting questions developers can pose to the player that allow them to truly explore their own morality. When you pose these questions, your really asking the player, how do you want to be percieved, what are your moral standards, and are you willing to accept the consequences of your actions.
To answer your question about Fallout 3, I don't think it's even theoretically possible to complete the game without violence. As I recall, you can escape from Tranquility Lane (part of the main quest) only by slaughtering all of the inhabitants of Vault 112. If you do it using the failsafe mechanism, you actually get positive karma for killing an entire vault full of people(!).
Deus Ex did a very good job of presenting moral choices in a realistic way. Almost all of the game can be completed non-lethally, and various characters will comment on the way that you handle missions. The confrontation with Lebedev in particular gives the player a decision without clear black and white answers.
Another game that handles moral choices well is the (admittedly obscure) interactive fiction work Vespers. It feels like a traditional puzzle-based adventure game, but the puzzles involve subtle moral decisions. Only at the end of the game do you realize the implications of the choices you've made. It's worth a look if you don't mind old-school text adventures.
In addition to the mentioned games, I have often tried to play through cIV without going to war, but the AI will always attack if you dont appease them sufficiently which normally comes at the expense of a relationship with another of the civs.
I had totally forgotten the deus ex and mgs tranq's which were the option i would (usually) take. Hitman Blood money (ironically) addressed the idea of unecesary violence, every person killed in addition to your target affected your rating.
I am pleased to see this subject being discussed as I believe games dont need violence to be good games and would actually benefit from alternative solutions.
I have spent some time considering an online game where the goal is to actually create a moral and just society out of the gaming community (players). This I would consider a great challenge as in effect the players would police and pass judgement themselves, keeping the incentives to be immoral in place (with their associated rewards) but making these actions contrary to the welfare of the whole community.
Anyways, great discussion, I look forward to reading what others have to say on the subject.
I would be more interested in seeing a game that reacts to moral or immoral choices, rather than "punishing" or "rewarding" them, especially if the game is meant to afford players some flexibility in play style. The Nous shall not be something reinforced in game; that's inherent in the player, and will manifest itself in her decisions. Based on those decisions, certain choices become available or scarce. For example, a street rat may end up on the path to becoming a crime overlord, or he may become a social revolutionary with the ear of significant political figures. Sure, it's more effort on the part of the design team, but at least it puts more writers to work.
As far as reinforcing moral values within video games is concerned, I wish everyone the best of luck. The games that we're discussing, Deus Ex, MGS, Mass Effect, and so on are all about giving players the capacity to do things they would not do in life. And I certainly don't want them playing morally upstanding games for the same reason.
@ Roberto
Maybe taking the player's weapon away would not be the best way to go about things. I just think that in Oblivion, the consequence for getting caught committing a crime is basically non-existent, because you can immediately negate the punishment by committing a crime again. My point isn't necessarily that you need to physically "punish" the player, rather what I'm trying to get at is that the consequence can't be superfluous, or there is a jarring disconnect between narrative and gameplay.
@ Steve
I don't know which version of Civilization you play, but I've definitely managed to obtain cultural victories in Civ4 without ever engaging in warfare. I'm not really sure that game intends to be about good v.s. bad morality, though.
@ Michael
I wouldn't necessarily say that games need to "reinforce" moral values, I just don't want them to lie to me about what my choices are. That being said, one of my favourite authors is Dostoevski, whose works all have deeply moral messages, and I'd definitely love to see a game that's able to have the impact on me that his novels do.
First, I have to say that we need to consider games as a whole rather than only mass marketed, English market titles. It isn't true that all games are about violence or feature only zero-sum, "win-lose" resolution methods. Japanese adventures, simulations, and visual novels are particularly worth noting in this regard, but even a title like Tetris or Simon doesn't rely on violent methods. If we consider Japanese games such as Tokimeki Memorial, Angelique, Tanjou Debut!, Day of Love, Princess Debut, and many many others, this becomes even more obvious. We shouldn't forget titles like Cooking Mama or the many fitness and brain teasing games being offered, either, or the various sports titles, etc.
I'd like to say that I don't exactly agree with the observations about Bioshock, although I've heard such claims before. I've also heard the opposite, and I'm in that camp. There are immediate consequences on the choice of whether or not to harvest Little Sisters, and the choice also changes the ultimate ending you experience. Sure, I'd like to see this developed much more fully, but it isn't accurate to say that there's no difference and that the result of your action is merely a different cutscene being viewed. I did not have any problems with the story being presented in the way that it was, nor did I have any feeling of lack of agency aside from being within the confines of an underwater dystopia from which I was attempting to escape.
For Mass Effect, I have to say that I think it's the nature of the story rather than anything else. I can't imagine a method to stop Saren (or more accurately, Sovereign) that wouldn't involve some level of violence. However, this also goes back to the perception of what constitutes "violence" or what is acceptable to any specific individual. For example, if there was a way to deactivate or otherwise render inert Sovereign through indirect means, would people still consider that a violent act? It's still abusive and invasive even if it is indirect, so it's a matter of individual perception about what is acceptable or unacceptable.
In the end, I think it's all about methods of conflict resolution and what is perceived to be valid and acceptable outcomes, or even whether or not there is a need to include conflict within a game at all. The ancient Japanese strategy game Go is about amassing more territory than the other player. It doesn't have direct conflict compared to a game such as chess, but various people would still argue that squeezing out another player's units is an indirect form of oppression and violence. I can understand both viewpoints.
It probably isn't possible to make a single game that meets every individual's perceptions about any specific issue. I think it's probably better to simply offer a wide variety of products so users can choose the content that matches their perceptions. That being said, I certainly think that the English market is lacking in having a genuine diversity of content being offered. I think that a lot of the reasoning for that is due to certain vocal and/or influential elements of the population attempting (and so far, largely succeeding) in forcing their individual perceptions about various types of content onto everyone else.
This game was done using the Infinity engine so as far as the basic mechanics are concerned (walking, talking, inventory and whatnot) it´s just like Baldur´s Gate. But the way these mechanics are used to tell the game´s story makes it a much deeper experience.
SPOILER ALERT: I´m going to spoil A LOT of MAJOR and AWESOME plot twists so don´t go ahead unless you played the game already or don´t care about them.
At the very core of the game is the idea that actions have consequences. The main character is a man haunted by a truly evil past that is desperately trying to avoid the inevitable fate of ending up in Planescape´s sort of equivalent to hell (the lower planes of evil... basically just like hell) by extending his life and live long enough to rectify all his wrongs so that the balance will steer him clear of the fate he has earned. There is another important character for a good part of the game that tries to achieve the same goal in a different way.
Most of the really significant action happens through the dialogs, wich often times don´t involve speaking but a description of what is happening and the presenting of the typical set of limited, numbered options to react. But the freedom you get from these options feels almost complete compared to what other games offer through whatever other mechanism they use.
As an example, if you have to answer a simple yes/no question, normally the options are like this:
1- Yes
2- Yes (lie)
3- No
4- No (lie)
Lying not only shifts your alignment towards Evil or Chaotic (this is D&D after all), but also may have a visible effect on later events. And alignment is itself so important in the narrative (not only on the mechanics that support AD&D´s rules) that it´s not a trivial choice. It´s not just another version of the "goodness" bar Fable has.
You can treat the characters you meet in any way you like: you can deceive them, you can lie to them, you can help them with their problems, you can just get what you want from them and otherwise ignore them. Moreover, you can often at the same time also choose to be brutish or well mannered. To have some of these options you must have stats above a certain threshold (D&D rules again), and so these choices are important. With only 2 or 3 points to spare, do you go for STR and CON to be a better warrior, or for INT and WIS for a more complex character? And it does open many cool options, so a "wise, intelligent fighter" is the character I always tend to play in this game. If you have low STR however, you may loose some intimidation power (wich is also another cool choice).
Being Good or Evil here is far from the usual dycotomy of "give the beggar all your gold / eat the beggar´s heart". It is more varied and subtle and your character, and the options he has available in the future, and the reaction of other characters ( especially the ones in the party ) changes so notably that the choice of good vs evil is not a trivial one.
There is also violence in the game, but this itself is not totally mandatory and it mixes well with the other moral choices. When walking through the slums, bandits will occasionally attack you and you´ll have to defend yourself. However, at some point (unless you kinda gibb'em), they´ll panick and run away if you´re winning. It´s YOUR choice to leave them be or pursue them and loot them.
Once or twice there will be a thief trying to steal from your pocket with some sort of trick. You will notice this if your stats are right, and you can choose to ignore it or confront the thief. Confronting the thief is killing him, threatening him so he returns the stuff and THEN kill him anyway, force him to return all the stuff and let him go, or (again, if your stats are right), GIVE HIM TIPS SO HE CAN STEAL BETTER AND NOT BE CAUGHT. So the choice of using violence is entirely yours again.
There is some violence that can´t be avoided, however. Some confrontations are mandatory but the absolutely mandatory combat is minimum and is well integrated into the story.
At the end of one of these confrontations you have to face a powerfull enemy that, for his own reasons, is in the way of your ultimate goal, so there is no other way. After you defeat him, you don´t have to kill him. The option is there to just strike him down and be done with it, but by making the right dialog choices you can actually set him in a path of redemption and let him go.
Still, and once again, it´s still AD&D and you have to level up... so it´s not perfect, but non violent solutions also yield some good experience (and the most important of them yield a lot of it).
The final confrontation (with a huge and really powerfull enemy) can be actually avoided with a wise and intelligent character by navigating a quite large and not obvious conversational tree in the right way. So, even the final boss doesn´t have to be killed. And in the end, when the character anyway goes to hell (yeah, spoiler), I always felt that even as I (in game) could not avoid to go down, I did chose *how* I went down, either in a noble, proud way or like a miserable desperate rat.
This means that the rewards or punishmets for moral choices in the game are, ultimately how sattisfied you feel in the end with the kind of choices you made, a feeling affected by the the many direct or subtle in-game consequences. Therefore, each and every choice feels *real*. And that is why I think this game is a worthy example of a game that tried to present morality in a mature and realistic way.
1) How can I avoid punishment? (Consequences)
2) What's in it for me? (Consequences)
3) Social Norms/Conformity (Social Consequences)
4) Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
5) Social Contract Orientation
6) Principled Conscience
Notice only the earliest, most basic forms of morality are concerned with consequences. Sometimes it is moral to, say protest for what you believe in, even if it ends up getting you thrown in jail. This is the idea of Deontological Morality, acting outing of duty or principle rather than consequence.
Strong morality is what we do in spite of consequences not because of them.
Directed at Beverly Spunkmeyer, when you spoke about the kleptomaniac option, I believe that Fallout 3 provided a similar option when you take those "adrenaline/drugs" and if you continue to take them you eventually become addicted and will lose health if you do not find them. So it looks like this might be appearning in other games.
Directed to Adam, I agree with what you said about taking away the special weapon...that would create a serious choice factor for the player. Or even, if you kill certain people, the police or others will constantly dog you throughout the game. - it will certainly make for more open ended choices.
In order to make a "perfect" moral choice game would certainly require time and money - and it depends if a developer is willing to put the time in and have a publisher that would afford them to.
However, we have to remember, as much as we are into sandbox and choice filled games, there will always be designers that want to show their "vision" and allow the player to participate in their vision.
@Alex: "Consequences" is a very general term which has to do with causal relationships. A bad or good feeling is also a consequence, as is something you don't experience directly, to my understanding.
A few points:
First:
Your post and subsequent comments make it seem like your real goal is to teach the player about what you think is morally right, not give them the choice. That is fine, but call it what it is, and don't demand it from every other game that attempts to provide the player with choices. I would predict that a game designed like this would drive more people away than it would appeal to.
This may also be the reason that your thoughts seem to appeal to the religiously minded among us, as teaching about morality is central to many religions.
Second:
Your examples of non-violence using tranq guns are basically just marginally different implementations that have zero effect on actual gameplay (which is violent regardless). In cases where people are killed for story reasons, a cut scene takes over and they die even if you tranq'd them during the boss fight. This doesn't really support your point.
Third:
I get that you want to be able to proceed non-violently, but a non-violent approach does not a moral game make. The interesting choices you make in games like Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic come from your impact on the world around you based on those choices. If you leave an enemy alive, (which, from your post seems to be your ultimate moral pinnacle) will they then go on to kill 15 innocent people? Was leaving that enemy alive really the moral choice to make? More choices are always good in games like this, but acting in a completely passive way does not fit for every situation, and even has the potential to be the "morally wrong" thing to do.
Fourth:
Making good vs. bad choices unbalanced is simply a bad idea. Alexander's point about this is dead on. Counter to your presentation, this doesn't enforce or encourage moral choices, it removes them. The player feels cheated when they are given the option to do something in game, then punished arbitrarily because they picked wrong. The reward for saving the little sisters in Bioshock is the good ending and the feeling of "doing what is right", not a harder gameplay experience and the feeling of being cheated out of something. This is a meta experience that has nothing to do with the actual game.
Your point on this, that "It completely kills any sense of meaning in the player's actions" contradicts the rest of your post. If the game is written and designed well enough, the choice should be hard because you genuinely want to act in accordance with your moral compass. If you feel something for the characters, your choices will matter to you by default, not because you get a bigger gun for helping grandmothers across the street or killing children. This is more in line with your point than taking the stance that sense of meaning is based on in game consequences.
Again, your post is interesting and I definitely don't mean to attack you, but it and most of the comments following it seem really short sighted and one sided to me.
I don't take your post as a personal attack at all, and I totally welcome any criticism as long as it's not rude or insulting. I'll respond to each of your points individually.
1. I don't want games to instill my particular brand of morality, and I thought I had been clear about that so far. As I've said, I think it's perfectly acceptable to make the "good" route more difficult. What I don't want is for games to lie to me. If a game tells me that I have the choice to play the kind of character that I want, *let me play the kind of character I want*. I'm not really sure why *expanding* the options available to the player would limit the audience. If Fable 2 was identical in every way to how it is now, but it also offerred non-violent solutions, who would refuse to play it?
2. I'm going to have to disagree with you on the issue of tranquilisers in MGS, which I think require a very different gameplay strategy. Also, I consider the tranq to essentially be a back-up plan - the thing that mostly interests me is that you can get past all non-boss enemies (to the best of my memory) without engaging them at all. My main point there, though, was that non-violent and violent approaches to the MGS games require very different gameplay approaches, which is something I'd like to see in more games.
3. I'm perfectly fine with a game that presents players with moral grey areas - in fact, I wish more games would do this. But if you're going to do that, then don't give me a simplistic "good/bad" rating for it. That's a huge disconnect between the narrative, which is telling me that I'm facing a difficult decision, and the game mechanics, which are telling me that the choices are clear-cut.
Also, I don't recall ever suggesting that games should require players to merely be "passive", and I think that's a very narrow definition of non-violence. To give one example: in Fable 2, towns are under constant threat from bandits. The game gives you the "good" option to kill the bandits or the "bad" option to join them. But why don't I have the option to, for example, help the residents of the town construct a wall or some other form of defences to keep the bandits out? What about helping to train a more robust police force so that the bandits decide the town isn't really really worth the risk? Being non-violent does not mean doing nothing, it means finding alternate methods of problem solving.
4. You're absolutely right that the player should not be punished arbitrarily. If the likely results of the players actions are not communicated to them, that's bad game design too. As for Bioshock, it's well known that the endings were thrown in at the end of development and were not part of the overall design, so in that case it's not really a valid criticism. At any rate, I don't play games to see brief FMVs at the end, I play them for the experience to be had during the game. And in what way is saving them "doing what is right"? They're just bits of data. Killing them or not killing them has no actual moral weight, it only has the moral weight which the game gives it, and to me the game does not give the decision any weight at all.
Also, Fable 2 is specifically marketed as a game which is about choice and consequences. When you tell me your game is about consequences, but in the end my decisions work out to roughly the same thing, then you have lied to me. Imagine you buy an FPS because it's been marketed as having amazing explosions, but when you actually play the game it turns out that the only explosives in the entire game come from hand grenades - wouldn't you feel as though you'd been cheated? My point isn't that all games must offer serious consequences (Grand Theft Auto probably wouldn't work if it was based on that model). My point is that, if your marketing, your narrative, etc. tell me that there are consequences for my actions, then there should actually be consequences for my actions.
1. I may have read too much into your original posts and replies. Maybe it was just that your examples were of ways to add more non-violent choices, as opposed to adding more choice in general. More choice is good, as we have both said, and non-violent choices are usually absent!
2. I agree with you on the MGS thing, now that I better understand what you were referring to. The division of possible gameplay experiences is completely left up to the player, who can choose to play it like an action game, a stealth game, or some combination of the two. This is definitely the way to make a game like this.
3./4. I think the narrative and gameplay, when properly written/implemented is what creates the weight of choice, not in-game mechanics (regardless of their implementation) or a disparity in rewards. The creepy screaming of the little sisters is unforgettable and illustrated this choice well, as did the differences in rewards for saving or killing them all. If the developer is depending on their good/bad meter or a shiny gun to enforce the sense of choice, then something is definitely wrong with the design.
Rewards between different paths can be different but should be equivalent in power (dark force powers vs. light force powers in a star wars game are often implemented like this). Many games lack any sort of balancing for the "neutral" path, and you end up with sort of a less powerful mix of the good/bad sides, or no in game effect at all, which seems to be an example of what you are taking issue with, not letting you play as you would like to. I agree with you that this is not how it should be implemented.
A lot of these sorts of issues come down to implementation time and budget available to the development studio. There is not an easy fix for this, but articles like this definitely bring the problem to the forefront and more can definitely be done by most developers to expand gameplay opportunities.
Congratulations, it is definitely deserved.
In most games with a "morality" axis, what is actually happening is faction-standing adjustment and quest availability choices with a few lines of text added. In Fallout 3, for instance, if you slaughter ordinary (non-Raider) people, or make "bad" choices in dialogs, you take a karma adjustment. But what does this actually affect? If you're "good" the Slavers attack you and the Brotherhood defends you. If you're "bad" the Slavers will do business with you and the Brotherhood attacks you. If you're "good", Three-Dog praises you (but that doesn't benefit you) and if you're "bad" Three-Dog denounces you (but nothing bad comes of that). A few quests open while others go away.
What actually changes in gameplay, from a game mechanics/design point of view, is simply how factions react to you, toggling quest availability, and what non-gameplay content (text, cinematics) is presented. The "morality" question is therefore more oriented towards replay-value; play the game twice on opposite morality-stances to see what content you "missed". Players know this, and in that knowledge a lot of impact of choices is removed. You can, after all, always restore a saved game or do it again, and this makes the "moral" choices more of a "which content do I want to see first" choice.
If I had better ideas, though, I'd be selling 'em. As mentioned earlier, the consequences-driven morality mechanisms seem to be the best that we can do for right now. This is due not only to the fact that it is easiest to wrap up into codable game mechanics; it's also what players want and have come to expect. It's going to take something truly revolutionary to break the cycle of game expectationsgame sales, in which players and developers mutually reinforce the idea that "consequence" morality is the only acceptable path.
When I come up with that revolution, I'll let you know :) And if you come up with that revolution, I'll be at the front of the line to buy it.
"What actually changes in gameplay, from a game mechanics/design point of view, is simply how factions react to you, toggling quest availability, and what non-gameplay content (text, cinematics) is presented. The "morality" question is therefore more oriented towards replay-value; play the game twice on opposite morality-stances to see what content you "missed". Players know this, and in that knowledge a lot of impact of choices is removed. You can, after all, always restore a saved game or do it again, and this makes the "moral" choices more of a "which content do I want to see first" choice."
Imagine if moral choices lead to the difference of the world being saved, or the world being destroyed.
Imagine the ability to fight for the US Constitution.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3143589&userid=0&perpag
e=40&pagenumber=1
http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=exalte
d&as_psra=1&as_psra=1
System and method for creating exalted video games and virtual realities wherein ideas have consequences.
Abstract:
A video game method and system for creating games where ideas have consequences, incorporating branching paths that correspond to a player's choices, wherein paths correspond to decisions founded upon ideals, resulting in exalted games with deeper soul and story, enhanced characters and meanings, and exalted gameplay. The classical hero's journey may be rendered, as the journey hinges on choices pivoting on classical ideals. Ideas that are rendered in word and deed will have consequences in the gameworld. Historical events such as The American Revolution may be brought to life, as players listen to famous speeches and choose sides. As great works of literature and dramatic art center around characters rendering ideals real, both internally and externally, in word and deed, in love and war, the present invention will afford video games that exalt the classical soul, as well as the great books, classics, and epic films--past, present, and future.
Claims:
1. A method for creating video games and virtual realities wherein ideas have consequences.
2. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are rooted in classical, epic precepts such as those found in the Great Books and Classics, and exalted at the pinnacles of Western culture and history.
3. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are manifested in the words the player or non-player characters, write, speak, read, disseminate, congregate about, fight for, and/or associate with.
4. The method in claim 1 where said ideas are manifested in the actions the player, non-player characters, and/or monsters act out.
5. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters.
6. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters, and where said vampires, zombies, and monsters may be saved or converted back to normal by coming in contact with ideas that oppose the ideas that made them vampires, zombies, and other forms of monsters.
7. The method in claim 1 where said ideas must be fought for via words and dialogue, before they have exalted consequences.
8. The method in claim 1 where said ideas must be fought for via deeds and actions, before they have exalted consequences.
9. The method in claim 1 where the player can fight for said ideas in word and deed, and witness the exalted consequences of those ideals, including liberty, freedom, and justice, when they succeed, and the dire consequences of tyranny, domination, and intimidation, when they fail to render exalted ideas, as ideas have consequences.
10. The method in claim 1 where the character can fight for said ideas such as marriage, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and right to life in word and deed, and witness the exalted consequences of those ideals, including a stable and enduring society should they succeed, and a declining, bankrupt civilization, should they fail.
11. The method in claim 1 where the character can battle for said ideas that are based upon classical moral and economic principles of famous philosophers, prophets, poets, statesmen, and economists including Plato, Moses, Jesus, Gandhi Sun Tzu, Buda, Jefferson, Aristotle, F. A. Hayek, Martin Luther King Jr., Homer, Ludwig Von Mises, Adam Smith, and others, and witness the consequences of both their success and failure of their battle, as the consequences are rendered in the game's physical world.
12. The method in claim 1 where the character can battle for said ideas via both word and deed, using a combination of words and action, witnessing the consequences of their balance between word and deed, between reasoning and partaking in violence, thusly bringing to life epic classical works of film and literature wherein the hero must balance word and deed.
13. The method in claim 1 where fighting for said ideas in word and/or deed will have consequences regarding the operation of a weapon, which will operate at its full potential for the players and characters who are the most successful in serving ideals and ideas, and rendering them in word and deed.
14. The method in claim 1 wherein said ideas may be based upon Constitutional ideals and ideas underlying the American Founding, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, sound currency, the right to bear arms, the freedom of speech, the right of the artist, author, and inventor to own their creations and inventions; and wherein the player could fight for sound money in word and deed and witness the consequences of their successes and failures, including liberty, wealth creation, capitalism, freedom, private property, peace, and prosperity or rapid inflation, deflation, theft via the inflation tax, massive debt, empire, long lines, wealth transfer to the rich, depressions, corruption, and war.
15. The method in claim 1 where the said ideas will be supported or opposed by in-game characters, and the player will have to choose how to interact with the said in-game characters, based on their ideas, including but not limited to whether or not to befriend them, agree with them, disagree with them, ignore them, recruit them, shoot them, save them, judge them, or forgive them.
16. The method in claim 1 where the said ideas are based upon the pivotal plot points of the great books and classics.
17. The method in claim 1 where said ideas spread like viruses, by being spoken, written, or disseminated in some other manner, transforming characters who come in contact with said ideas into vampires, zombies, or other forms of monsters; and when bad ideas have infected too many in-game characters, the consequences are dire, including the loss of life, liberty, happiness, freedom, and security.
18. The method in claim 1 wherein said ideas may be related to economics and monetary policy, and wherein the player could fight for sound money in words echoing the classical economists and deed and witness the consequences of their successes and failures, including liberty, freedom, peace and prosperity or rapid inflation, deflation, theft via the inflation tax, massive debt, empire, long lines, depressions, corruption, and war.
19. The method in claim 1 wherein moral ideas have moral consequences in the evolution of the gameworld.
20. The method in claim 1 where said ideas in the video game world are founded upon the natural ideas and ideals occurring at the plot points in great works of literature and film where a character must choose whether to serve an ideal or not serve an ideal, thusly rendering or not rendering ideals real by their actions, and influencing the greater outcome and state of the game world, as ideas have consequences.
21. The method in claim 1 where said ideas in the video game world are used to exalt the classic hero's journey, and where a player's success and progress at every stage or step or plot point of said hero's journey is defined by said player's service or disservice to said ideas and ideals, and where by said player's serving said ideas and classical ideals, said hero's journey advances towards ultimate victory and triumph, while by said character's failing to serve said ideas and classical ideals, progress in said hero's journey is retarded or reversed.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ (Patent application)
http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA2&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1_1 (figures)
www.destructoid.com/the-top-ten-zombie-games-of-all-time-110512.phtml
The "Gold 45 Revolver" mod of Left for Dead would be described at Amazon.com with:
Set in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left 4 Dead (L4D) casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle against hordes of swarming zombies/communists and terrifying "Boss/Marx Infected" mutants. A new and highly virulent strain of the rabies/Marxist virus emerges and spreads through the human population with frightening speed via words, both spoken and written. The pandemic's victims become grotesquely disfigured widely violent psychopaths, attacking the uninfected on sight by handing them pamphlets and espousing Marxist philosophies. As one of the "lucky" few apparently immune to the sickness, as you have been reading F.A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, and Thomas Jefferson, you, unfortunately, are also trapped in a city crawling with thousands of the bloodthirsty Infected. Alone, you're dead. But together with a handful of fellow survivors, who you can identify and recruit via dialogue trees wherein you quote Hayek/Jefferson/the Constitution and assess the responses, you might just form a fellowship and fight your way to safety. Players can play as a Survivor or as one of four types of Boss/Marxist Infected, each of whom possess a unique mutant ability, such as a 50-foot tongue lasso or a giant belly full of explosive methane gas. The gameplay of L4D is set across four massive campaigns. The zombie population of each mission is choreographed by an AI Director that monitors the human players' actions and creates a unique and dramatic experience for them on the fly. Zombies may be transformed back into humans by quoting Hayek/Jefferson/et al. to them; but the further they have devolved, the harder it is to save them. Early on in the game, some Zombies may appear to be normal humans, and the only way to find out would be to speak Hayek to them and see if they respond with Lenin. Some of them can be reformed via dialogue, but for others, they can only be reformed by death. And in the end--only those players who have done their best to reform the zombies in word and deed--only those who have acted morally throughout the game, can truly wield the Gold 45 Revolver and realize its true power as it shoots Zeus's Lightning and levels the Zombie masters and their hordes.
--http://www.amazon.com/Left-4-Dead-Pc/dp/B000PS4X7S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogam
es&qid=1244931333&sr=8-1
Now wouldn't you want to play that? Just once?
Such simple methods/innovations could be applied to any Zombie/Vampire games, with far-ranging consequences both deepening and exalting gameplay.
http://www.cracked.com/forums/index.php?topic=48073.new#new
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3143589&pagenumber=6
would rock to get cited now and then!
If you google "moral premise video game" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=moral+premise+video+game&aq=f&oq=&aqi= , you will find my work!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=moral+premise+videogame&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g%3Ap1
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.f reepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.f reepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">h
ttp://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=ee-jAAAAEBAJ&dq=Morality+system+and+metho
d+for+video+game:+system+and+method
http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=exalte
d&as_psra=1&as_psra=1
In the ABSTRACT of the application "Morality system and method for video game: system and method for creating story, deeper meaning and emotions, enhanced characters and AI, and dramatic art" , http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0 087798.html">http://www.freepatentsonlin
e.com/y2007/0087798.html"> (filed 2005/2006) I cite the" moral premise."
"Abstract :A video game and game system incorporating a game character's morality level that is affected by game occurrences such as moral, amoral, or immoral choices in an epic story's deeper context. The character's morality level affects the game's environment. Such a feedback system based on MORAL PREMISES provides an efficient means to enhance and deepen game play, as a sensible, realistic, meaningful, profound, and epic story naturally emerges. The measurement of moral choices will allow a player's soul to be rendered upon the screen in cinematic action paralleling internal dramatic action, thus providing the dramatic elements of classic literature and film. The presentation of moral choices in the game, based upon moral premises, will allow plot points that result in character arcs, romantic relationships, exalted game play, and epic story. Moral choices will lead to overall success, while immoral or amoral choices will lead to overall failure."
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ReidKimball/20090706/2235/Infusing_Games_with_a_M
oral_Premise.php