Morality in Eternity

[MReed]

In my opinion, closing off content as a consequence of your actions is, by far, the worst penality that can be levied in a game and should only be used as an absolutely last resort. Much better is to offer alternative content that is equivilent (at least in terms of play time & word count) for all options. Of course, that's more expensive, but frankly very few game players are going to be hardcode enough roleplayers to not want to see as much content as they can on each playthrough -- and, as a consequence, they will complain that their character type (whatever it may be) is getting screwed over. This is less of an issue with evil characters, as it is commonplace for evil characters to be treated like this, but good characters are never obligied to sacrifice to follow their moral path, and I'm quite certain that they would complain lots and lots and lots if this situation arose.

 

See the discussion on this thread for examples.

[Thraxen]

So they shouldn't do it because their life is worth more than those useless peasants - A single person for twenty isn't worth it? How about fifty, or a hundred? What number does it need to be to make it a worthwhile death? Even if it was their decision to sacrifice themselves to save these people, would you attempt to stop them? By force if necessary?

 

I would. Worthwhile people should only sacrifice themselves, if the net gain is greater than zero, i.e. sacrificing themselves to save a library holding the collected, priceless knowledge of many generations or a town whose inhabitants and infrastructure is vital to the region or significantly improves people's lives by providing workplaces. Sacrificing important people for a village of replaceable peasants is foolish. I can understand delaying the enemy long enough to allow the people to escape, but paying with life for that? Too steep a price I say.

 

 

Choices have to be made, together with calculations. We cannot assume that every life has the exact same value in these kinds of situations. A general is not worth the same as a private - why should that be false for civilians?

 

Also, Luckmann, I sincerely hope you're not the same guy I ran into earlier, who claimed that Alfred Rosenberg was a rational theoretician of a rational doctrine called national socialism. That'd make everything you post pretty skewed.

 

There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil.

[Tagaziel]

There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil.

 

You can put value on life. Everybody does that, all the time, but denies it. A researcher working in CERN is far more valuable, than a wife beater pissing himself in front of a TV in a drunken stupor. Angela Merkel is worth more than a random warlord in Somalia.

 

There are also historical examples, such as the "Women and children first" policy that contributed to the atrociously high male fatality rate during the Titanic disaster.

 

There are many, many more examples. We speak of equality, but we do not practice it. It's impossible.

[Gurkog]

In my opinion, closing off content as a consequence of your actions is, by far, the worst penality that can be levied in a game and should only be used as an absolutely last resort. Much better is to offer alternative content that is equivilent (at least in terms of play time & word count) for all options. Of course, that's more expensive, but frankly very few game players are going to be hardcode enough roleplayers to not want to see as much content as they can on each playthrough -- and, as a consequence, they will complain that their character type (whatever it may be) is getting screwed over. This is less of an issue with evil characters, as it is commonplace for evil characters to be treated like this, but good characters are never obligied to sacrifice to follow their moral path, and I'm quite certain that they would complain lots and lots and lots if this situation arose.

 

See the discussion on this thread for examples.

 

Choices and consequences - There should be an effect for everything the player does. The degree of magnitude of the effect is determined by what they determine should happen for the stories. People should stop trying to 'win' a decision and just roll with the punches. I used to be a perfectionist like that, but after a decade it is just too much work for an artificial reward. The world isn't as compelling if you know everything that is going to happen with subsequent characters. If no decisions make any significant and lasting impact on what the character experiences the worth of choices diminishes. If all choices have drastic changes in content as a consequence players will be probably spend too much time analyzing options and that should be avoided as well. Variety is the spice of virtual life.

[Gurkog]

There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil.

 

You can put value on life. Everybody does that, all the time, but denies it. A researcher working in CERN is far more valuable, than a wife beater pissing himself in front of a TV in a drunken stupor. Angela Merkel is worth more than a random warlord in Somalia.

 

There are also historical examples, such as the "Women and children first" policy that contributed to the atrociously high male fatality rate during the Titanic disaster.

 

There are many, many more examples. We speak of equality, but we do not practice it. It's impossible.

 

The government puts a monetary value on all citizens lives. It is the basis for determining safety regulations in vehicles. If the cost of life is less than the cost of implementing safety features/measures then they let people die.

[Odarbi]

Moral choices in are wonderful in a game, but I hope it:

 

a) doesn't give perks and is there purely for a measure of how good or evil your character is

b) does give perks, but there's no "morality meter" with which to measure your progress towards good or evil.

c) just isn't measured and is there solely for RP decisions.

 

I don't want to see this become KOTOR, where you're either all good, all evil, or lacking because there's no inbetween perks. I want to see serious moral conundrums, and would even like to see the in game racial or societal norms play in to what is ultimately right in a given situation, and not necessarially have it be based on any form of real world value system.

 

KoA: Reckoning kind of had a good idea goind with their "morality" system, in that it wasn't really measured and it just gave you different "twist of fate" cards that would change you in a certain way depending on your choice in a major plot arc. If the morality system is to grant character perks, a solution like that might be a better way of handling it rather than just handing out rewards for being "Lawful Good" or "Chaotic Evil".

[nikolokolus]

Interesting conversation ... I'm also fairly certain that some of you are sociopaths and Flying Spaghetti Monster save us should you ever attain any sort of political power ...

Edited September 19, 2012 by nikolokolus

[Thraxen]

There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil.

 

You can put value on life. Everybody does that, all the time, but denies it. A researcher working in CERN is far more valuable, than a wife beater pissing himself in front of a TV in a drunken stupor. Angela Merkel is worth more than a random warlord in Somalia.

 

There are also historical examples, such as the "Women and children first" policy that contributed to the atrociously high male fatality rate during the Titanic disaster.

 

There are many, many more examples. We speak of equality, but we do not practice it. It's impossible.

 

Sure, you CAN put a value on life. Makes it easier to make big decisions that shouldn't be easy. We're not military commanders, we're not in a war, it's not vital to think like that.

[Luckmann]

So they shouldn't do it because their life is worth more than those useless peasants - A single person for twenty isn't worth it? How about fifty, or a hundred? What number does it need to be to make it a worthwhile death? Even if it was their decision to sacrifice themselves to save these people, would you attempt to stop them? By force if necessary?

 

I would. Worthwhile people should only sacrifice themselves, if the net gain is greater than zero, i.e. sacrificing themselves to save a library holding the collected, priceless knowledge of many generations or a town whose inhabitants and infrastructure is vital to the region or significantly improves people's lives by providing workplaces. Sacrificing important people for a village of replaceable peasants is foolish. I can understand delaying the enemy long enough to allow the people to escape, but paying with life for that? Too steep a price I say.

 

 

Choices have to be made, together with calculations. We cannot assume that every life has the exact same value in these kinds of situations. A general is not worth the same as a private - why should that be false for civilians?

 

Also, Luckmann, I sincerely hope you're not the same guy I ran into earlier, who claimed that Alfred Rosenberg was a rational theoretician of a rational doctrine called national socialism. That'd make everything you post pretty skewed.

 

There, now we see the point of this thread. You see, I'm pretty much the opposite of that - you can't put a value on a life so you can't compare two lives and just say one is objectively more valuable. I want to see how Obsidian will include things like this, differeing viewpoints but you can't really outright state that either of them are a "Good" option, or that either are exactly Evil.

 

Objectively? Of course not.

Intrinsic value is inherently subjective.

[Tagaziel]

Sure, you CAN put a value on life. Makes it easier to make big decisions that shouldn't be easy. We're not military commanders, we're not in a war, it's not vital to think like that.

 

We are assuming that we are in the context of the thread, don't we?

[Thraxen]

Sure, you CAN put a value on life. Makes it easier to make big decisions that shouldn't be easy. We're not military commanders, we're not in a war, it's not vital to think like that.

 

We are assuming that we are in the context of the thread, don't we?

No, just that you're on the run from whoever is chasing your companion. Maybe you aren't even aware of the main threat at this point.

[Luckmann]

Sure, you CAN put a value on life. Makes it easier to make big decisions that shouldn't be easy. We're not military commanders, we're not in a war, it's not vital to think like that.

 

We are assuming that we are in the context of the thread, don't we?

No, just that you're on the run from whoever is chasing your companion. Maybe you aren't even aware of the main threat at this point.

To be fair though, it is entirely possible that we are military commanders, and that we have sworn soldiers under our command. The fact that someone is my companion or friend doesn't mean that they can't also be my subordinate.

[Giantevilhead]

But we put values on human life even when we're not in dire situations. When someone has a child, they don't spend their entire life saving to ensure that nothing bad will ever happen to the child. They don't put armor plating on their car to make sure that their child can't get hurt in an accident. They don't hire an army of mercenaries to guard to house to ensure that no robber can get into the house. They don't build a laboratory to analyze their food to make sure that it's 100% safe. It's not something that we do consciously but it's something that we do.

[DarthAdamRG]

To many games do this with some stupid alignment metre along side your character screen, I know wether my character is good or evil without that, the morality and the choices should be there but no light/dark side please.

[SanguineAngel]

My main concern with this focus on "good" and "evil" is that this is a flawed and tiredly standard model for RPGs. The standard fable/mass effect good/bad bar is just... far too narrow minded. Most decisions aren't good or evil they are just decisions. The motivation and the outcome may vary wildly, and that applies to role playing.

 

So I would like to see decisions aplenty! But I'd like it to be a different take on the whole deal. Maybe tracking not just player morality but also reputation separately. Limiting available actions based on your previous actions maybe - allowing to modify your character's personality tangibly through your actions. I don't know, there are so many ways of handling decision making and morality in games and I am bored of the same old good choice evil choice neutral choice - it's gamey, predictable, meaningless and boring. I would be disappointed if they went that route

Edited September 20, 2012 by SanguineAngel

[Stevenaap]

My main concern with this focus on "good" and "evil" is that this is a flawed and tiredly standard model for RPGs. The standard fable/mass effect good/bad bar is just... far too narrow minded. Most decisions aren't good or evil they are just decisions. The motivation and the outcome may vary wildly, and that applies to role playing.

 

So I would like to see decisions aplenty! But I'd like it to be a different take on the whole deal. Maybe tracking not just player morality but also reputation separately. Limiting available actions based on your previous actions maybe - allowing to modify your character's personality tangibly through your actions. I don't know, there are so many ways of handling decision making and morality in games and I am bored of the same old good choice evil choice neutral choice - it's gamey, predictable, meaningless and boring. I would be disappointed if they went that route

 

You're not wrong there, the classic 3x3 alignment grid is pretty restrictive. I would think evil characters see themselves as looking out for no. 1..more likely than not they are self-serving and egocentric, not being evil for the sake of being evil.

 

There's actually a nice article about alignment sytems here you guys might find interesting:

http://easydamus.com/alignmentreal.html