No Good or Evil? Two "Grey" Choices

[choasrepeated]

Choas verus Order is a better measure(Ye olde warhammer 40k where everyone is evil, its just a question if they have ocd or adhd) good verus evil is just to plain subjective.

The reputation system they are looking at makes more sense to me...

[Fooine]

I think it's fascinating that some people viewed Caesar's Legion as morally gray in FNV. The only reason it kinda looks like that is that their leader is charismatic and completely, utterly convinced of being in the right when explaining his point of view. At the end of the day, the Legion is still a tribe of misogynistic rapist slavers. Forgive me for going Godwin here, but calling them gray because of some positive aspects of their society (crimelessness, etc) is akin to saying that hey, like 'em or not, Mussolini did have the trains run on time and Hitler loved dogs.

 

(Incidentally, it does speak of the quality of FNV's writing when people get fooled into sympathizing with a complete monster. I started a new game the other day and had the conversation with Caesar just earlier today. It is magnificent.)

[Jaesun]

ALL of the factions of F:NV were Grey. THAT was actually a good thing. It was the particulars of each that would appeal to each individual person in his/her play-though. And what they wished to accomplish (even with disastrous results). THAT was Obsidian doing what it does best. <3

[flarglebargle]

“

Breeding issues are pretty huge in cultures that took a big step back from infant mortality progress made in the last 100-200 years. Prior to the last few centuries, infant mortality was often around 50%-ish. Child mortality (prior to age 12) was about 60%. Those are pretty awful odds of reaching adulthood.

Remember that Caesar's Legion is basically a roving army that continually breaks down and absorbs tribes that it conquers. That can only go on for so long, and Legionaries who are indoctrinated from birth are even more loyal than adolescents who are integrated. Breeding new generations of Legionaries is vital for the Legion's continued existence.

Even though breeding is incredibly important in the Legion, there isn't any concept of family outside of the Legion's structure. All of the places where the player encounters the Legion are forward camps where direct military service is given the most weight and is of the most immediate importance. Because only males are involved in that service, they look down upon females even though it's incredibly short-sighted. -J.E.SAWYER

 

Whether you think it's a "legit" reason or not, it's actually to ensure that the Legion breeds as many new legionaries as it can at the fastest possible rate. The way it is communicated in game often comes across as "traditionally" sexist instead of "follow these gender roles for army min-maxing-J.E.SAWYER

 

everytime someone bitches about the legion being sexist it makes me want to staple my hands to my face, an army of murderous slavers that crucify people for the slightest infraction doesn't respect womens rights? SAY IT ISNT SO! HERES AN IDEA maybe you should check your facts or try to question your own arguments before randomly posting the first thing that pops into your head

[Darth Trethon]

I think he's confused . . . gray, foggy choices that challenge morality are not the same thing as meaningless/fake choices that have no effect, or whose effect is just the same as another choice.

 

I think you're the one that has it backwards....the more they shy from extremes the less of a difference will be between the player's options and the less of an impact they will have. This never fails.....whenever developers start talking of gray choices the game is done for.

[flarglebargle]

when we talk about grey choices we are talking about there being no clear good guy and no clear bad guy, not boring your choices don't matter and when you talk about "extremes" are you talking about like the megaton quest where you either pick good option: defuse bomb or bad option: nuke town and theres no middle ground or are you talking about the ending conflict in witcher 1 where you either side with facist racist secret police or side with brutal ends justify the means terrorist group ?

[Umberlin]

I think you're the one that has it backwards....the more they shy from extremes the less of a difference will be between the player's options and the less of an impact they will have. This never fails.....whenever developers start talking of gray choices the game is done for.

 

Let me not rephrase: ". . . gray, foggy choices that challenge morality are not the same thing as meaningless/fake choices that have no effect, or whose effect is just the same as another choice."

 

We're talking Obsidian. People from Black Isle. People from Troika. And beyond. Obsidian alone have created some of the most compelling gray area in games out there.

 

Still, if this is what you believe:

 

..the more they shy from extremes the less of a difference will be between the player's options and the less of an impact they will have.

 

Then there are a grand portion of very shallow games out there with the typical, eyerolling, "Pet the puppy" or "Murder the puppy's entire family" style choices out there for you.

[GhostofAnakin]

I think you're the one that has it backwards....the more they shy from extremes the less of a difference will be between the player's options and the less of an impact they will have. This never fails.....whenever developers start talking of gray choices the game is done for.

 

I really don't think we're talking about the same thing.

 

Your definition seems to be more "middle" choice that's somewhere between the good option and the bad option. Kind of like, if the "good" option is to turn down a reward in return for returning someone's family heirloom, and the "bad" option is opting to keep the heirloom for yourself unless they pay you twice the agreed upon amount, then the "grey" is simply somewhere in the middle of those two options; return the heirloom but accept the reward.

 

But that's not the "grey" I'm referring to. In mine, for example you are contacted by two different individuals, both asking for your help. Neither individual is "evil", but both have their own motives for increasing their power in a given region. The key selling point for the player is that both have consequences for you in the future. Maybe one guy can offer a lot of money, the other can offer you military support. So you have to decide which to side with based on what you believe you will need more: money or muscle.

 

This is an example of a "grey" choice, because there's not really a good or evil option. No matter which individual you side with, you're not picking a "good" or "evil" individual. The decision is more about simply choosing whichever one could benefit you the best, without the player tipping the balance of the region more toward good or evil.

Edited October 6, 2012 by GhostofAnakin

[flarglebargle]

i was trying to be more diplomatic about it but **** it lets run this topic into the ground !

[Darth Trethon]

when we talk about grey choices we are talking about there being no clear good guy and no clear bad guy, not boring your choices don't matter and when you talk about "extremes" are you talking about like the megaton quest where you either pick good option: defuse bomb or bad option: nuke town and theres no middle ground or are you talking about the ending conflict in witcher 1 where you either side with facist racist secret police or side with brutal ends justify the means terrorist group ?

 

I mean they should not shy from any sort of choices, especially not from the ones with the most drastic consequences.....whenever there is a conflict the player ought to be able to side with any of the participants or nobody or be able to forge an alliance or instigate a major conflict and have them take each other out....all these should be on the table. I hate gray areas where you just can't do a whole lot because oh the bad guys are so evil nobody would side with them so go help the good guys, but you get to choose your tone of voice!!

[flarglebargle]

what you just described is a "grey" choice, i don't know why you have your definitions mixed up but from what you just said you agree with us and want grey choices

[TrashMan]

I doubt that any of the Renegade choices were intended to be "more good" than paragon choices. I don't recall any paragon choices that were anything other than WWJD responses.

 

Giving the base to TIM?

That sure as hell isn't evil. It's also verly logical given the Reapers.

 

I prefer that writers simply write intelligent dilemmas and complicated choices, and leave it up to the player to pass moral judgment on their own actions. The world should react to you, praise and condemn you appropriately based on the cultural mores of the setting, but the task of determining the right thing to do should not be done for you as though the narrative is cutting the crust off your bread so that you don't have to.

 

On this I agree. However, what I don't want for the writers to try to force such choices. (alter/change siutations or add consequnces jsut to make a given situation more grey).

I don't want the game to feel like there was a grayness quota or a forumal behind choices.

 

 

There's been some points raised that the presence of moral extremes is necessary to validate the middle ground. I think there's some validity there but I'm not entirely in agreement. In my experience, as soon as the extremes are defined and catered to, the middle starts to erode.

 

The presence of clear "evil" choices does do well to contrast the other choices you get to make, sure. But the presence of the "irredeemable" option goes a long way to whitewash all the other choices by virtue of its inclusion. At the same time, the presence of the clear good choice steals the legitimacy of all the choices in the middle ground, such as DA:O's Redcliff cop out. If there's an obviously good option without real, unpleasant consequences, then every option that isn't obviously good and that does have consequences is therefore "the wrong choice". If there's an obviously evil option to contrast that, then you still have a polarized narrative, just with extra wishy-wash stuff in the middle to obfuscate the fact.

 

I disagree.

You can only say that in hindsight, which is a pointless analysis.

 

After all, you cannot tell beforehand what would happen if you left Redcliffe for 3 days to get to the tower. You can't even guarantee you will get help from the tower.

Is knowingly risking the lives of 100 people to save 1 "good"?

 

 

Of course, there's a way around this "in hindsight". Semi-randomized results. Roll a dice. You can never know if your gamble would pay off. You cna only roughly guess teh chances. And your chances might be very good...but no guarantee.

 

Let's say in the redcliffe scenario you decide to go to the Mages Tower.

If everyone survived the assault, the chance of everything being OK once you get back are 50%

If poeple died, chances are 30%

And so on.

For every choice, there are POSSIBLE consequences, and you can affect the chances of those consequences happening.

 

 

 

The problem with using objective morality is that certain good and certain evil have to be defined, and they will end up being defined by the person who is writing the narrative. Which works for novels, films, media in which the consumer is a passive participant. But for my part, when I'm playing a game and being an active participant in the narrative, there are few things I find less appealing than championing someone else's moral values.

 

For more out-there scenarios and moral dillemas, I'd agree.

But there are things pretty much every sane person will agree are evil.

[Archy]

As long as there are no black and white, cliched good/evil options and there are many (manymanymany) options that are something you could call grey I'm satisfied. Wouldnt even use the terms good and evil since what I consider good many games consider evil and so forth just making them irrelevant terms that dont really mean anything. I also never play a character that is stereotypically good or a character that is stereotypically evil so whatever is implied of the choices doesnt matter. I rarely play as anything other than myself and do what I'd do in the situation.

[ddillon]

I'm not sure that "grey morality" or "moral ambiguity" should be a general goal. What I want is numerous well-written options that account for realistic or interesting motivations, especially evil options other than "Me want, me take!" and "Me evil, me destroy!"

 

A critical example from from DA:O, a game that I like but with which I have several gripes (spoilers ahead):

 

The choice to destroy Zathrian and the Dalish elves is presented as "I want an army of werewolves, so kill the elves!" (iirc the phrase "my own personal army of werewolves" is actually used in the dialogue). I wanted to choose that option but say "The Lady of the Forest has turned this curse into a gift! Master this power and become so much more than you were as mere humans! Follow me and kill the only one who can take this power from you, kill Zathrian!"

 

Furthering the problem, Bioware seems to have felt the need to punish the player for actions they couldn't conceive as anything but base evil by depriving the player of an important store: the infinite supply of deathroot, elfroot, and toxin extract from Varathorn. Why exactly can't the Lady of the *Forest* provide me with these things just as well as the elves? This isn't a consequence of an action but instead a nonsensical punishment for being "bad".

 

There are also numerous instances where I conceived a simple, intuitive response to a given situation only to be limited to choosing among a few contrived options.

 

Well-written dialogue and lots of options, plz!

Edited October 8, 2012 by ddillon

[Bos_hybrid]

I'm not sure that "grey morality" or "moral ambiguity" should be a general goal. What I want is numerous well-written options that account for realistic or interesting motivations, especially evil options other than "Me want, me take!" and "Me evil, me destroy!"

 

I very much agree with this.

 

However I would like to see "Me want, me take!" type dialogue for a low IT character.

[Bloodloss]

I'm pretty baffled that so many people disagree with the original poster and want an incredibly simplistic game filled with simplistic dichotomous choices. It's not about being 'edgy,' it's about having an interesting game with great choices and consequences where you don't merely make the choice 'okay so is my character a simplistic evil dude or a simplistic good dude' at the beginning and barely have to read the questions before answering - presumably you people would like them to colour-code the questions to make it even more simple.

 

I don't want the game to be nothing but 'save puppy from tree' (+100 GOOD POINTS) or 'save puppy from tree BEFORE MURDERING IT, AND MURDERING ITS FAMILY AND EVERYONE IT HAS EVER KNOWN FOR NO REASON' (+100 EVIL POINTS). Of course, some of these could be fun, I just want plenty of choices that aren't incredibly obvious and simplistic in regards to their morality. No sane person would disagree about the moral nature of the above questions (this is where someone INCREDIBLY SMART tries to argue on this point, I'm impressed, really), I want a bunch of choices that would spawn large debates on this forum as to which was the morally right decision.

[Bos_hybrid]

I'm pretty baffled that so many people disagree with the original poster and want an incredibly simplistic game filled with simplistic dichotomous choices. It's not about being 'edgy,' it's about having an interesting game with great choices and consequences where you don't merely make the choice 'okay so is my character a simplistic evil dude or a simplistic good dude' at the beginning and barely have to read the questions before answering - presumably you people would like them to colour-code the questions to make it even more simple.

 

Oh look another one that's imagination on what is evil is poor. Normally people that just want grey choice, are ones that just want to play heroes. Sorry but I find playing an hero boring, especially when that is all you can be.

 

Everything grey is worse than everything evil and everything good. Far better to have good, evil and everything in between.

 

In the end it comes down to this, I want to be the villain of the story.

[flarglebargle]

can we get a moderator to lock this thread? this thread pointless because we all want the same thing but a couple people have a completely different definition of what "grey" means, i hate to break it to you but the devs like grey choices and think simple good and evil is BOREING for the last ****ING TIME when we say "grey" what we are talking about is that its like real life no good guys no bad guys just different groups with different opinions and different solutions for the problems they face if you want simple good and evil go play fallout 3 with the rest of the children who can't form complex thoughts

[flarglebargle]

if you have ever played ANY of the games obsidian has ever made you would notice something......grey morality! how are you people able to use computers? iv had bowel movements that were that weren't this stupid

[Bill Gates' Son]

I'm pretty baffled that so many people disagree with the original poster and want an incredibly simplistic game filled with simplistic dichotomous choices. It's not about being 'edgy,' it's about having an interesting game with great choices and consequences where you don't merely make the choice 'okay so is my character a simplistic evil dude or a simplistic good dude' at the beginning and barely have to read the questions before answering - presumably you people would like them to colour-code the questions to make it even more simple.

 

Oh look another one that's imagination on what is evil is poor. Normally people that just want grey choice, are ones that just want to play heroes. Sorry but I find playing an hero boring, especially when that is all you can be.

 

Everything grey is worse than everything evil and everything good. Far better to have good, evil and everything in between.

 

In the end it comes down to this, I want to be the villain of the story.

 

Agree; gray morality choices caters to good characters most of the time (example: Geralt), because they're usually the only ones of cares about the consequences about their actions. As a person who usually plays evil characters....., I really don't care because I usually on care about my own selfish needs.

 

Gray choices should be in the game of course, but those choices shouldn't be the only choices.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Bill Gates' Son

[Bos_hybrid]

Gray choices should be in the game of course, but those choices shouldn't be the only choices.

 

Exactly, however people seem to struggle with this concept of choice.

[Elerond]

There should be any universal morale code.

 

One man's villian is another's hero should be main deisign practice in choices.

 

Choice design in Witchers had right direction, but there should be more than two factions.

Fallout New Vegas also had right idea which direction player's choice options should go.

[Bos_hybrid]

There should be any universal morale code.

 

Did you mean that there shouldn't be morals in the PE world?

 

Listen having everything justifiable gets old fast, and is a stupid as I'm going to destroy the world because daddy didn't love me. Somethings aren't justifiable and I want to see these choices implemented in PE.

 

Choice design in Witchers had right direction, but there should be more than two factions.

 

No. The witcher made you be the hero(which it had too, the character is a hero). This is something I really don't want to see PE.

[AGX-17]

If you want gray choices go play BioWare games....seriously they are filled with fake choices, identical choices that only appear to be different and the all time favorite choices that do not matter for anything.

 

No. The ONLY way to do a choice system properly is by including the extremes and middle choices.....Alpha Protocol and Fallout: New Vegas are perfect examples of choice systems executed perfectly. Now if you want gray there's plenty of options to choose from, none done by Obsidian because Obsidian only makes amazing games, not sub-par garbage.

 

I haven't seen a single person say that Bioware-style "illusion of choice" situations are the definition of "gray" or "morally ambiguous" choices. There is zero threat of the 21st century Bioware being the model for Obsidian's new original IP.

Edited October 9, 2012 by AGX-17

[GhostofAnakin]

Oh look another one that's imagination on what is evil is poor. Normally people that just want grey choice, are ones that just want to play heroes. Sorry but I find playing an hero boring, especially when that is all you can be.

 

Everything grey is worse than everything evil and everything good. Far better to have good, evil and everything in between.

 

In the end it comes down to this, I want to be the villain of the story.

 

I don't think you're understanding (or you're completely ignoring) the points I've made in this thread. It's not necessarily about *no* evil or *no* good choices, period. It's about choices that aren't clearly marked as being more evil or good than other choices. In my idea, you can still play the bad guy. But instead of it being easy for you to decide which option to take, you'd have to think harder about the choice because of the potential consequences down the road.

 

For example, most games have a "good" choice and a "bad" choice, so you'd just have to click on the bad one to make sure your evil character continues his reign of doom. Like in KOTOR, if you were trying for an uber-bad Dark Side character, the game made it easy for you to raise your DS points by virtue of the options available to you, both in quests and in dialogue.

 

There could still be good and evil, and you can still make a super good or a super bad character. But the options shouldn't be so blatantly obvious that it takes one second to click on your choice.

Edited October 9, 2012 by GhostofAnakin