Into my first 10 hours of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, I’m already flush with gold. My gnomish gunsmith, despite his commitment to doing only good deeds in the world, has a silver tongue and he’s already bedded one of the girls at Madam Lil’s (a bawdy house) in Tarant for free. He struts around Tarant with not a party of likeminded adventurers, but groupies attracted by his charismatic charm.
I’m nearing the end of Fallout 3, and my wasteland ranger who has spent most of his adult life trying to free the wastes from oppression and slavery, is loaded with every kind of ammunition and ranged weaponry imaginable. Despite his meek and non-aggressive social demeanour, there is nothing humble about someone who’s packin’ a Fat Boy – a shoulder-launched nuke weapon – around all day.
While both of these games always offer a “high road” approach to moral choices in conversation as we would expect in a contemporary RPG, the games still rely upon a highly individualistic and egocentric play structure. In this article I try to understand how games supposedly devoted to allowing moral choices, in fact offer highly hypocritical experiences for the do-gooder player. (Spoiler-alert for Planescape: Torment and Ultima IV near the bottom of the article.)
The Hero Archetype and the Spiritual Quest
Within many cultural and religious traditions, acts of poverty and self-defacement are seen among the highest forms of piety possible. Vows of poverty, for instance, were a requirement in order to join the righteous Knights Templar (aka. “The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon”). Around the same time, it was not uncommon for Anorexia mirabilis (“miraculous lack of appetite”) among pious women, who later experienced spiritual enlightenment… a famous case being Catherine of Siena, “who purportedly ate nothing but a spoonful of herbs a day, aside from the Eucharist” . Among the Crow aboriginal people of Montana, cutting off a piece of one’s finger and severe fasting were ways of inducing sacred visions. Even for us living in modernity, the whole idea of a spiritual and moral quest somehow involves “giving up oneself” or one’s treasured things in favour of some kind of insight into oneself. In each of these examples there is the sense that one makes self-sacrifice in order to fulfill something greater than oneself – it is an act of good, pure and simple.
Similarly, role-playing games are often premised on a hero whose quest is ordained in relation to some greater good. Mass Effect’s Commander Shepherd is a potential galactic saviour, Jack of BioShock wishes to escape his imprisonment and save the little sisters, the Avatar of Ultima VIII: Pagan wishes to return to his own world, Cloud of Final Fantasy VII is on the trail of his nemesis Sepiroth, the Fallout 3 protagonist begins with a search for her/his father, and Crono and the gang are on a quest to prevent the destruction of the world in Chrono Trigger. (In most of these games it is equally possible to refuse the higher calling, but I will confront this later.)
All of these games are premised in some kind of moral choice that the player must make.
In most of these games, I attempt to play a character that is capable of saving his (sometimes her) own butt in a pinch, but ultimately tries to live quietly and benevolently. In most cases, PC-NPC dialogues support a Ned Flanders type character through the traditional Good/Neutral/Evil response options, although sometimes requires a bit of tactfulness on my part to make things work out morally for the character. Threat of violence is a last resort.
Yet, despite my social niceties, in almost every one of these games, I can expect to be dozing on a bed of filthy lucre, armoured like a steel triceratops, and carrying an arsenal of weapons capable of total world annihilation a few times over, by the end of the game. It usually ends up in some final boss fight where I have to put all of my destructive
powers to the test in order to vanquish the Enemy (whether it is a character or a problem of some kind). Inevitably, my decked-out party overcomes the Enemy and happiness is granted to the universe once more. My character (and her/his party) is exalted into glory, and occasionally the hero(ine) wins over the love interest. I watch the ending cinematic, give a few Oscar nods to the friends and family who made it all possible, and call it a game.
Yet, days later, I feel like Conan the Barbarian, sitting on his throne at the end of the first film like a king who has done it all yet feels ultimately unfulfilled. This is when the spiritual hollowness of traditional RPGs grates at me.
The hero’s quest, which was originally a spiritual quest of the ilk I described earlier, has become literalized into a gradual accrual of power; in doing so the chances for spiritual development and transformation are almost completely squashed. Rather than going through a process of “giving up” oneself for a greater good, and later realizing that evil is always carried within oneself and not ‘out there in the world’ – as we see in traditional piety, the modern RPG hero/heroine does the opposite – s/he overcomes evil by destroying it. I still go through the rituals of self-sacrifice and a whole lot of blood’n'sweat’n'tears, but they are all motivated toward making myself a demi-god.
The Hypocritical/Moralistic Hero
In that light, traditional RPGs – not all of them mind you! – produce what I’d like to call the “hypocritical hero” or the “moralistic hero”. This is the hero that always gives out 10 gp to beggars on the street, knowing that s/he has 4500 gp resting comfortably in the larders. There is no real self-abasement this hero’s acts; it is temporary inconveniencing under a mask of generosity. Sort of like the guy who lambasts anyone who doesn’t drink Eco-Friendly coffee, and proceeds to drive his Hummer to work.
I should note: I have purposely neglected the “evil” hero in the prior thoughts because many RPGs already lend themselves to this kind of role-playing. I can simply choose the “bad guy” conversation options and live out my days as a greedy gunslinger with an attitude. The point is that the evil hero is fully supported by the game, because s/he is guaranteed to be rich and powerful by the end of the game. There is no hypocrisy possible for the evil hero; most RPGs already celebrate this kind of behaviour in the gameplay itself.
Notable Exceptions
Here be spoilers: At the same time, there are some major exceptions to my characterization of RPGs. The Nameless One of Planescape: Torment begins on an identity quest that is ultimately resolvable in a very different manner than the kind I noted earlier. While the evil and greedy incarnations of The Nameless One can be role-played throughout the game effectively, the “good” character can resolve his identity by embracing his symbolic shadow. He learns his true name in an act of humility and self-acceptance. The Nameless One can fulfill his spiritual quest without destroying or battling anyone as he realizes that he has always faced an inner (moral) battle. He makes no use of his accrued power, swords or sorcery, and instead relies upon the insight that he is the source of his own evils. In other words, the “good” ending is truly possible in Torment. Equally possible are the evil or instrumental endings, but those are premised against the possibility of being truly regretful of his past sins.
In another example, the protagonist (yourself) of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar is sent on a spiritual quest, although this one is not particularly about you. It is about the meaning of things and the discovery of a moral reality that underlies all acts of good and evil in the world of Britannia. It is about saving a world gone to petty thievery and selfishness. Acknowledging the virtues (Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Honor, Sacrifice, Spirituality, Humility) involves the player discovering ways of practicing each of these virtues in the game itself. Like the Knights Templar, acts of sacrifice and compassion are a requirement for membership in this game. And like Planescape, the game is not resolved in an epic battle made possible by insane physical strength or mental powers, but by answering 8 questions that test your knowledge of the virtues themselves. One of the final phrases asks, “What, in knowing the true self, knows all?” To the modern gamer, ending an RPG with philosophical questions would be unimaginable. At the same time, an “evil” or selfish ending is not possible in this game – the game is only resolvable if you accept and fulfill the quest of being the Avatar (the embodiment) of the virtues.
/end spoilers.
Concluding Thoughts
What I’ve been trying to get at in this article is that despite our appreciation that games are meaningful, they often celebrate the worst aspects of our humanity (selfishness, the desire to dominate others) with the guise of moral righteousness. Worse, games like Arcanum, the Final Fantasy series, and Fallout 3 make it completely impossible to complete a game without needing to max out the protagonist’s attributes and inventory and in doing so celebrate adolescent power fantasies. The original spiritual quest, despite it being the entire point of the game as acknowledged by the story, is totally maligned by the underlying gameplay. If developers want to genuinely acknowledge our desire for meaning and self-transformation, they will have to develop a better sense for what is involved in a “moral choice”… it is certainly not a case of hoarding guns’n'ammo and picking the ethical alternative in a conversation.
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Excellent post. I realized this problem (though not to such insightful detail as your post) while playing Fable 2, where accumulation of wealth was as easy as literally not playing the game. In fact, in spite of my good actions, my wealth was so grotesque that I didn’t feel heroic.
I’ve been reading Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series, which I was thinking of as a game. Your character starts with wealth and power but sees something missing. As we see in the story of Buddha and others, including our own lives, the path of good is hard and not without sacrifice. Yet, in what RPGs do heroes make a willful sacrifice? Not many these days. As Tezuka shows, Buddha had difficulties after sacrificing his wealth and power, struggling through trials and temptations.
I have long wanted an RPG that did not involve “shopping” and leveling, at least of the common attributes. I’ve wanted to play a static, even a somewhat weak character. Just the other day, I heard Michael Irvin on the radio say, “Every player is afraid. Having courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid.” Likewise, a hero isn’t the most powerful, but it’s someone with flaws and weaknesses who overcomes them.
We have a basic metaphor that up is good: We transcend, we overcome, we overpower. Hence, in RPGs, we level up our characters as a symbol of becoming better. That is “common sense.” Yet, that seemingly obvious metaphor has such a visceral pull on us that doing otherwise is difficult. (I had a joke with friends that when I reached level 55 in Everquest that I would begin de-leveling–that I would focus on dying over and over so that I lost levels and gave away my possessions until I was back where I started. No one was interested in joining me on that adventure.)
I think that working against those very set expectations would make for a very different, challenging game because we would have to act counter-intuitively. For example, let’s say that you play indeed a static character, performing heroic acts in a setting of poverty. Yet, every time that you do some feat, people try to foist you gold and possessions. Again and again. How hard is it even in a game to resist that temptation repeatedly, especially when the benefit of accepting is obvious but the gain of declining is not so immediate?
Or, like my Everquest idea, what if you spent building up some aspect of your character, making you attached to it, but then having to sacrifice it as some point in the game?
Games follow Nietzsche’s will to power, conflating it with or dominating the will to live. But they are not the same. So, what if we have to sacrifice that power to survive? Or what if we are faced with the idea that power over the world might not be as important or even as difficult as power over ourselves? Saving ourselves from our impulses is sometimes as heroic as saving the world. Sometimes, it might even be the same.
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The Conan analogy is both hilarious and tragically fitting! This is one of the reasons I almost stopped playing RPGs some years ago because they are missing out on evolving on a lot of the genre’s very own “virtues”. Building a _character_ is mostly reduced to becoming more powerful physically and societally. There is of course the traditional D&D notion that role playing is mostly about fighting and while that can be good fun there is a lot more to playing a role than that. I have always liked to use my character in pen&paper RPGs to be a “vehicle” in order to look at myself from a third person point of view and in that way to learn more about myself. I have never felt more immersed in a computer game than in Ultima IV because the world extended well beyond when I was playing it. It’s been a long time since and I still try to live the codex of the avatar. No religion or religious root ingrained into Ultima itself has done that for me, ever. Not very many games have had a more profound sense of maturity than the journey of The Nameless One. I am just trying to paraphrase to show that I concur – spot on Chris, keep on hacking this matter which has been forked for too long already. The therapeutic/self development/educational qualities of gaming!
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Adolescent power fantasies are a big part of gaming experiences. While not able to speak for everyone, I don’t think the average gamer sits down with a game to play as an level 3 crazy nun who sits in the equivelent of a prison cell and starves themselves for enlightenment.
The appeal is in being a crusading/swashbuckling/epic/insert description protaganist (if not necessarily ‘hero’.) is what drives a lot of gaming sessions, and as high concept as it would be to play something that doesn’t encourage the player to build power/character levels/what have you; I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to entertain anyone.
That said, I would criticize that the moral choices in a lot of games (say KOTOR, which i still love) basically boil down to “donate kidney” or “Punt Jawa out airlock”. And the rewards are ridiculous; there is often no sacrifice at all at doing the right thing. Rescuing the little sisters in Bioshock will eventually pay off far better than just sacrificing them.
And of course, this is where the seperation of gameplay and game world comes in. Game developers will always shy away from doing things that reduce the overall appeal and game balance of a game: which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
BioWare’s Dragon Age (although not without it’s own flaws) has some very interesting dialog options where doing the right thing is not only not obvious or clear (do you kill the demon possessed kid or let the demon run the kid like a puppet rampaging across the world?) and where trying to be the ‘good guy’ isn’t always an easy thing to do.
I’d like to see more games where the moral choices aren’t black and white and where doing the right thing doesn’t pay off with greater rewards. Part of the satisifaction of doing morally ‘right’ things is knowing that you made a difficult choice and gave something up to retain your ethics. But if doing the ‘right’ thing in game means that you’ll get the same reward (if not more) than the ‘evil’ choice, where’s the sense of struggle or accomplishment?
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Sorry for the late replies – was in meetings all day yesterday.
@guttertalk – I’ve been curious about Fable 2 for those same reasons – I’m sorry to hear that it suffers from the same kind of irony. I definitely had buddhist stories in mind when I wrote the post, as a spiritual enlightenment quest is common to that tradition too. I completely agree that we’re starting with the right metaphor! That is exactly what I wanted to communicate in the article but failed to. The problem with the metaphor is that we literalize it instead of exploring its deeper meaning – most games turn getting into higher levels of understanding/consciousness into getting into higher numeric levels. I love the idea of playing a character who tries to resist temptation – and is presented with nothing but chances for breaking his moral commitments. The interesting thing is that in a pencil’n'paper role-playing game where the DM and other players cooperate to make difficult situations even worse, this would totally work. But in a game like EQ or WoW, it comes off like total insanity. I wanted to avoid the whole “will to power” argument, as it comes with a lot of negative connotation, but it’s hard to avoid when players grind themselves until level 99. :\
@musha68k – I too have the feeling that the world of Ultima IV extends beyond my playing of it! I was reading “The History of Britannia by Kyle the Younger” last night, looking at the art work, and realized that the entire game is built around this book. The virtues are never directly mentioned, but I noticed that for instance there are 8 classes in U4, as opposed to the usual 3 or 4 classes we get out of the standard D&D-based rpg game. The identity between each class and its virtue is a wonderful way of tying together a living world, and it gets rid of the idea that a character class is just a way of maxing out stats in one particular domain. Notice though that even in the Ultima games, wealthy is still a problem. “Poverty” is not on the list of virtues in the Ultima series… and I think that’s a problem.
@Andrew – Absolutely agree – the power fantasy aspect is a major part of the experience. I don’t think I ever played a game with the intent of plowing my character into the ground just to satisfy some moral need as a teenager. But the problem is that I’m not a teenager anymore, and the games being developed retain that old model. I don’t want to take the route of ‘maybe I shouldn’t be playing games anymore’, so this is more of a way of recognizing a dissatisfaction. I doubt I’m the only person who felt unsatisfied at the end of Mass Effect, after playing a Paragon hero for 25+ hours, making no difference to the character whatsoever. The trick would be in making a game that both carries moral weight and true chances for self-sacrifice, as well as being entertaining. I sure as hell don’t want a mother theresa simulator; but I’m willing to settle for something a midge more meaningful.
I totally get you on the moral choices thing – it’s always a dichotomized option as if the rules of life were really that clear. I’d like to see a game where it encouraged the *player* to *think* about the choices being presented, and instead of weighing out the numeric consequences like an accountant (those are the worst kinds of players to play pencil’n'paper RPGs with), they would take those choices as constitutive of their character’s personality. It is totally bizarre yet completely possible in a cRPG to save a drowning man because it will +4 karma, and 3 minutes later murder him because it will -4 Karma and +400 gp. In a pencil’n'paper game that would be treated as total psychopathy by the other players. In a computer game, that’s a celebrated form of play! Wow. -
@Andrew – btw, that comic is hilarious.
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Re: Power fantasies & “nun simulators”
I enjoy the hero aspect like everyone else. But the stats have gotten in the way of the character IMO, which is why I’d like to try playing with a more static character. I’d love to play a game in which I have choices that aren’t clear cut or even when they are, the ramifications are unpredictable.
For example, let’s return to a chestnut hypothetical: You have a chance to save a pregnant woman, which is an obvious good deed on the face of it. Yet, the unborn child turns out to be an evil character. Was your saving the mother a good deed or not? There’s no statistical outcome of the act . . . just a behavioral one. If you faced such a decision and outcome early in a game, how could that not overshadow every “obvious” good deed you face from there on?
In that same situation, let’s say that, for saving the woman, you get a stat benefit like a good reputation boost. But later, as the child commits evil acts, your reputation diminishes, as people blame you. (Who said people are consistent?)
I agree with you, Chris, about Mass Effect: I played a paragon, and I thought it made no meaningful difference. I’m rather indifferent to a Mass Effect 2 because it seems that all the dialogue options and alignment choices had no huge impact on the story. And I think that’s what we’re talking about–to see our avatar’s actions and decisions have significant effects on the world and on us as players.
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The morality system in Mass Effect is pretty much the standard stuff we see in BioWare games, so I’m guessing that ME2 will be more of the same.
I really would love to play a game that has *no* statistical outcomes for acts, just purely moral ones. But again, who would be entertained by it? It’s a tough sell for most gamers.
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Great article.
“Yet, days later, I feel like Conan the Barbarian, sitting on his throne at the end of the first film like a king who has done it all yet feels ultimately unfulfilled. This is when the spiritual hollowness of traditional RPGs grates at me.”
I’d always taken accruing enough gold in order to never worry about the cost of new items ever again to be a given when reaching the final part of a game, but never really thought of it in this light. I was focused on the righteousness of the “I’m saving the world!” story aspect while ignoring the implications of my gameplay choices. It feels good to fill your virtual coffers to the brim and be able to slay anything that moves, but it’s true that this sort of gameplay doesn’t leave you with any feeling of self-discovery or growth when you come away from the game. There is something missing from an experience, virtual or real, when you don’t come away from it with something.
Admittedly, I didn’t read the spoilers since I’m still bent on playing Planescape: Torent one day, but I would say that in games where the player can’t really accrue/obtain/upgrade/etc any aspect of their avatar or game world, such as Ico or Shadow of the Colossus (to name a typical few), you get a completely different feeling. These games don’t offer any moral choices to the gamer per se, but guess I’d say that they offer a kind of experience and feeling that is missing from “gotta catch/buy/kill ‘em all” quests or typical BioWare “be nice or naughty” RPGs, the kind that is closer to a “spiritual quest” than most games are today.
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Thanks for the response Mellytan. I can’t believe that I neglected SoTC/Ico (!!) – thanks for bringing them up! They’re both wonderful examples of games that pull off a spiritual quest without presenting obvious moral dilemmas to the player. Both games seem to be organized around morality/spirituality (resurrecting one’s beloved, and saving a total stranger at any cost to oneself or the world) yet don’t beat the player to death with the idea. I like the idea that they operate at a deeper, less conscious, level of morality than the typical BioWare offerings. They’re a different kind of game for sure, but the (heh) “be nice or naughty” options always come off a bit hackneyed to me. I was honestly moved at the end of Ico (which I recently finished), and felt like Ico had “grown”.. just a little.. compared to the boy he was at the beginning of the game. That’s not something I see in most games.
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Back @ Chris
99% of games aren’t built and marketed towards thirtysomething guys looking for a commentary on the human condition. The idea of ‘mature’ games is still a weak, fledgling thing, and given the costs of commerical game development, it’s likely that we’re not going to see another watershed moment like Planescape for some time. I think maybe the key is to adjust your expectations a bit
And to sound overly confrontational; I’d have to question pulling either ICO or Shadow into the discussion. Both are wonderful games, to be sure, but both are not in any sense RPG’s. They’re able to present a enagaing minimalist story because they have the freedom of excluding player choice from the narrative.
As morally questionable as it is to go around stabbing collossi in your vaguely defined quest, you don’t have a choice in the matter. You either pick up your sword and murder a seven story golem or you play Uncharted 2. Bioware’s naughty/nice options are pure cliche; that’s inarguable. But the attempt is made for the player to make the choice of which they’ll be, as caricatured as it is.
I think it was Warren Spector who made a comment in a interview some foggy time in the past that he was terrified of the growing expectation of gamers that they’d have unlimited choice within games because it made telling a story within the framework of a game nightmarish.
I’d also say that a chunk of this problem is not purely laid at the foot of power fantasy game design. Game mechanics simply do not have a way to judge intent. You can save an NPC (+5 Karma!) only to immediately commit atrocities on that same NPC (-5 Karma!) to end up “neutral” because the game simply isn’t smart enough to figure out that you’re being a sadistic prick.
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Would a game with no statistical outcomes be interesting to play?
I’m curious how many people played ME or even KotOR to build the character. It was fun for a while, but I think most people played it for the story. It sure wasn’t for the combat.
Still, I think it’s possible to work within the traditional RPG framework and still move it to a richer, deeper experience. I think a full commercial game probably isn’t feasible, Andrew. But there are other means, maybe for an independent dev.
Heck, let’s dig out our Neverwinter Night editors and develop our ideas.
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I do not know if it fits 100%.
But here is a link to my experiences, after playing Fable 2.
I didn’t include any explanation, but if there is some interest, I am eager to explain, what I wanted to point out.But still, I want to try to summarize it:
It’s about, how we handle mistakes in games, especially for do-gooders.
And thus it is maybe an inspiration, how a programmer could evoke such fantasies or even expressions/actions in the game, which could follow out of the reaction of the gamer to mistakes, and could even have an impact on the game, rather than teaching consequences like “Choose that, and you will get that”, but rather “Lets look how you handle your choice”. Because life also doesn’t say, what is wrong and what is right.“A fables tale!”
http://nsae-shortstories.blogspot.com/2009/12/fables-tale.htmlPS: Right now I have spares time, to read all your great entries, the topic is very interesting, and I will probaly also give some inputs, and comments, and maybe also answer the open questions of my entry in that go.
Boldly go on with the inspiring inputs! Thanks.Yours
Nsae -
Thus provocating mistakes/errors in your style of playing, and forceing you to cope with them, is maybe more interesting, than teaching, or simply leting you play your way.
(But for this you need also strong emotions, to motivate the gamer to do about his/her mistakes, and not only play along, or give up the disappointing game) -
So, now the rest of my comment.
The Conan thought is EXACTLY why I stopped playing Fallout 3, this summer, too often I encounter this feel also in the last years.
And even though I never played through Ultima IV, the spirit of this game is always there in my mind, when playing RPGs or thinking about moral choices.And after playing Kotor, I realy was disappointed by Mass Effect, it was a medium fun game, with a good to great setting, but with poor battle, and espacially poor choices, even though it had its moments.
And after reading the spoilers of Planscape Torment, I finally know why it is that much praised, no one managed to explain it until now to me. BUT now, I definitely have to play it!!!! (Thanks, thus reading spoilers is not always a bad thing *g)
I wanted to add to this discussion also two games I think are really worth mentioning.
First Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, which is not a RPG, BUT I have never played a game, where choices where that free, but still with importance for the plot, and with deep consequences.
To explain that, two examples from the game:First: a policeman is knocking on your flats door, you have killed someone the previous night, everywhere blood, you just woke up. No menu where you can choose between good or bad. Only a lot of choices: do I answer the door? Do I cover the bed? Damn! Wait, my hand is full blood? Doesn’t matter I can talk me out of that, hopefully? Shit, where are the door keys? The policeman is hammering on the door louder and louder. etc…
>>Here you have an open set of choices, with no clear line what to do, and if you do not wash your hands, he really asks you why you have blood tainted hands, and you have to respond logically, or withstand an inspection of your flat, thus you should have used the time for cleaning your flat, rather than washing your hands…Second example:
The police are looking for you, and you cross the path of a policeman in the park.
At the same time a child is falling in the frozen pond. Quick reaction is needed; do you hide, or help the child? BUT the policeman sees you because you hasitated, and you begin to run, catch the boy, and the policeman lets you run, because you saved the child. etc.>>Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy relies much more on intuition, rather than clear decisions, and lets you play how you handle your reaction, thus you probably performe mistakes, and than have to cope with its consequences, rather than saying that it was good or bad. A completely different level of interaction, just genius stuff. Some genius of programmer once said, that you have to feel free, make your meaningful choices, but still be led by the plot the programmer provides. That is something Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy does. Thus expect impressive things from Heavy Rain!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ_A2Tpz2UMAnd the second game I want to introduce is a game called The Void/Tension. I haven’t played it yet, but I will for Christmas.
Even though I haven’t played it, it builds a lot on philosophical questions, even though I do not know how much on decisions. The problem is, it seems, that the English (its Russian) version has no voice, thus there is no good video I could link here. But look out for it, because it is probably a very atmospheric philosophical game, in the school of ICO & co., even though the art style is completely different.
But still, maybe this gives you an impression:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m402AQQ8Dfw&feature=relatedEven though both games are (action) adventures, thay are very much connected to your (game) character.
I will finish, by saying, that Heavy Rain will show the future, of choices and their impacts on characters.
Yours
Nsae -
Thank you for the interesting article! Exploiting morality and conversation options in games have been happening for as long as stories have been told in games, but only recently have we been really aware of the hypocritical nature of it all.
As Nsae mentioned, Quantic Dream has always been very narrative-focused in their games and pays a lot more attention to minute details in the realistic presentation of a story. It wasn’t that apparent to me in Indigo Prophecy/Farenheit (besides the 3 alternate endings), but according to their press releases, Heavy Rain will definitely see player decisions make a difference in the narrative outcome. I quote David Cage, designer of Heavy Rain, “I developed this technique I call “banding stories”, that is about considering my story like a rubber band that the player can stretch and deform based on his actions. So the story’s always there, the rubber band is still the same, but you can change its shape and length based on what you do.” (Source: http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/heavy-rain-david-cage-interview-p1.asp)
Besides the morality decisions that truly influence the game, something that disturbs me more is the binary nature of it all. You can been good or evil, paragon or renegade, or everything in between on the continuum, but based on who’s judgment? I believe executing a murderer is the best way to protect future victims, but letting him go may be the one that bags me a higher morality score. Bioware attempted to address this problem in Dragon Age: Origins by removing the morality bar and having each of your actions judged by individual party members who may agree, disagree or remain neutral to different extents depending on their beliefs. David Gaider, writer of DA:O, mentioned that removing the bar “allowed us to have different options for the quests and the dialogue, but we don’t need to always have “evil” and “good.” We are allowed to put in options that are just logical. They can be very different. You can think there’s a good reason to do all of them. They can be a little in the gray area.” (Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4045/the_story_thing_biowares_david_.php?page=2)
Just some thoughts.
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I know I’m off topic, but just dropped in to wish you a happy 2010 my dear friend! Cheers!
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Sorry for the some kind of spam, but I think the theme, this poste touches, is a very important one, not only for games, but for fantasy as a whole, because in the end, fantasy is what matters, that is what a game is trying to inspire, fantasy which makes a gameplay intresting enough to learn and master it, even if it is just the simple fantasy “I want this, and want to hit this!”, but “I want” implies some limitations, e.g. the controles, or something else, and by this obstacle you ignite your fantasy, to get past this obstacle and master it, and thus reach the inspired fantasy… thus here is my spam and thoughts spelled out in other words (it is shorter as my first posted link):
http://nsae.blogspot.com/2010/02/quest.htmlAnd thank you again for this kind of thoughts of yours and as well as for the exchange of thoughts!
Yours Nsae-
Hi Nsae,
Thanks for the reply! I’ll reply myself on your site
Sorry for the late response.
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So you’re angry because a game’s hero collects tons of weapons and uses them to kill the Big Bad so that the world is once more safe. Because this somehow isn’t moral righteousness, it’s just an “adolescent power fantasy.”
Do you even live in the real world?
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Yep.
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Great observations. When I was playing KOTOR for the first time, it occurred to me that my character, who was about as Neutral Good as you can get and went around giving handouts to every beggar, paying off debts for every NPC, etc., was simultaneously out of character in spending 11,000 of the party’s credits for Cassus Fett’s armor, running around looting everything, etc. It’s sort of funny how the game acknowledges this by having a terrified family whose apartment you’re raiding on Taris in the first game and an indignant guy in the second game–but somehow the lack of dark side points for either made me rethink the whole thing. There’s even a part in the second game where the original owner of your ship comes along and asks for it back since it was originally stolen from him. Whatever your character decides, you don’t gain/lose morality, and you get to keep the ship in the end anyway.
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