Moral Choices and Consequences

[yaminsoul]

So after debating a similar issues on another topic, I thought I would bring this here. I am curious what people think, even though I know we wont have "fixed morality" in this game like previous IE titles.

[Prometheus]

If you do many things the companion doesn't like, he/she should betray/leave your party. If your reputation is bad some quests should fail. for example the thieves guild should only aproach you if you did some actions, that were against the law. 

for the last choice: If its only your choice you should always be able to choose this action( if you have the stats etc.). for example you should always be able to kill the npc(if it's an option). But if you want to report something to the watch, maybe they won't believe you if you did sth. bad in the past.

[Karkarov]

This is kind of a non question.  Obviously if you behave in a highly greedy, violent, and self centered way it should effect who is your friends (assuming you have any), what factions you can ally with, how the story plays out, etc etc.  I don't think anyone will suggest anything else.  The game shouldn't be "totally different" but there should be obvious and clear differences between the game of a person playing the uber good guy honor nut and the mentally disturbed in it for the thrill and money chap.

[mcmanusaur]

I'd rather have the choices that the player is confronted with contrasted on non-moral (i.e. political, economic, philosophical, social) grounds than have everything be black and white. If the consequences of such choices must manifest along some sort of binary continuum, the closest thing to morality I could endure would be "altruism vs. selfishness", rather than "good vs. evil".

[Lephys]

I just want to note that there's a huge difference between representing NPCs views of a good-vs-evil morality scale in the game, and the game itself representing your morality on such a scale, globally.

 

I would definitely love to see more precise representations of your image, like McManusaur said, but I'm hardly against people in the game world expressing their views of characters or actions being "good" or "evil." The game doesn't need to override the nuance and variety of people's views/reactions to the things they encounter.

[Tsuga C]

I've separated myself from a number of people/cliques based upon ethics and morality, so I fully support the concept being applied to P:E in judicious doses. Absent some compelling external factor, there's no reason for any of the companions to stick around if we regularly ruffle their feathers.

 

The same goes for the various factions, providing that they have reason to be aware of our choices. What happens in a dank, ruined hill fort 5 days from town shouldn't automatically be known by the townies upon our return unless an invisible wizard or spiritshifted druid was following us and reporting back to their respective employer/faction. But, should our actions become known, consequences of all sorts should come into play, be they minor or major. Let P:E be a dynamic experience worth several re-plays, please, rather than one on rails with a minimum of reactivity viz a viz our choices.

[Barothmuk]

If the consequences of such choices must manifest along some sort of binary continuum, the closest thing to morality I could endure would be "altruism vs. selfishness", rather than "good vs. evil".

Even for a 'binary continuum' that's still too black and white. If they were to limit the morality to two simple options deontologism versus consequentialism would be preferable. Mass Effect sort of did this I a half-arsed heavily biased kind of way.

 

Ideally though there won't be this kind of moral simplicity.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

 If they were to limit the morality to two simple options deontologism versus consequentialism would be preferable. Mass Effect sort of did this I a half-arsed heavily biased kind of way.

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Ideally though there won't be this kind of moral simplicity.

 

 

 

 

 

Assuming that I understood you correctly and, to put it simply, you mean `following a code or set of rules` and `focusing purely on the results of a specific action`, the problem here would be that a deontological choice can mean a lot of different things. One could argue that both a Conservative and a Marxist would be deontological, as they both likely follow specific codified set of values, but that doesn't mean they are at all similar, or view the same things as good. Similarly, both an Anarchist and a Fascist could be considered consequential, as both anarchism and fascism reject dogma, theory and program - but they, too, would be at each others throats.

[Barothmuk]

Assuming that I understood you correctly and, to put it simply, you mean `following a code or set of rules` and `focusing purely on the results of a specific action'

Not quite.

 

I was contrasting consequentialism with the type of deontology that derives the rightness or wrongness of one's actions from the specific action itself rather than the outcomes of the action. Broadly speaking deontology does require a codified set of rules which naturally could vary depending on the person however in this scenario in which I was trying to create a binary morality meter I'd say it's safe to assume the deontological set of rules would be those that most could agree on. (e.g. killing is wrong, stealing is wrong and so on).

[Cultist]

This poll is like "To you like game to be better?"

1. Yes.

2. No

3. I would not mind if game will be better

4. I prefer game to be worse.

It's goddamn RPG. Choices and consequences can't be bad by default.

[Zdenio]

I'd like something similar to Witcher 2. So some main parts of the game can be really different, but most of differences are in various big and small sidequests. 

[Frenetic Pony]

How about none of this? No "morale" blah blah whatever.

 

The Witcher 2 is the best game I've ever played when it comes to "choice" and what they do, and they imply no morality one way or another. You make a choice, and the logical outcome just happens one way or another. You can get an entirely different mid section of the game depending on what you do, but there's no "good" or "evil" ever assigned to either choice. Which made it that much more interesting and nerve wracking to choose one way or another, because it was an actual difficult choice rather than a clear dichotomy between the "good" and "evil" choice.

[Eiphel]

How about none of this? No "morale" blah blah whatever.

 

The Witcher 2 is the best game I've ever played when it comes to "choice" and what they do, and they imply no morality one way or another. You make a choice, and the logical outcome just happens one way or another. You can get an entirely different mid section of the game depending on what you do, but there's no "good" or "evil" ever assigned to either choice. Which made it that much more interesting and nerve wracking to choose one way or another, because it was an actual difficult choice rather than a clear dichotomy between the "good" and "evil" choice.

The original question doesn't actually say anything about thew game imposing labels onto morality. There can be choices of morality in the game without the game having to label one as good and one as evil.

[Lephys]

Hear hear! There's a vast difference between a game saying "These people will consider you evil for making this choice" and a game saying "This choice is inherently and absolutely evil, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously, themselves, evil, or is just plain wrong."

Edited June 25, 2013 by Lephys

[Sheikh]

Voted minor effect, since I believe that is the most realistic choice.

 

While I would like if morality had major repercussions, I think it would be difficult to do really well.