this appeared as a moral dilemma

Right, so I know it's been a long while since my last post. I have no excuse for myself and I'm tired of talking about my ineptitude when it comes to updating regularly. Needless to say, I'm here now.

So the subject of this particular post is one that I know has been discussed before, but I feel needs a little fresh blood. Games in recent years have taken to giving players a "moral choice," but the problem is that there are really only ever two ways to go. Either you're the pinnacle of right and justice or you're the darkest being ever to draw breath in this world. Nice in theory, and works for Star Wars and it's ilk, but for games with any degree of character depth, this is just rather pathetic. How can all of our actions be boiled down into two extremes? I don't like the saint or Satan approach to morals in life, so why would I enjoy it in games. Now, I did just admit that I'm okay with the simplistic moral axis in games like Star Wars, most specifically the Knights of the Old Republic games. Still, I think that having a little gray area would benefit this game just as much as it would benefit any other.

Now, why would I bother bringing this up. It's a fact of gaming, just like random, pointless quick time events. I cannot change it any more than I could reach up and take my place among the Olympians. Well, that's just it, I think we need to figure out a few ways to make the morals of a game as gray as it's modern graphics; predictable joke. Let us say for the moment that we have a game which we'll call The Adventures of Timmy. Timmy, obviously our protagonist, will have a moral choice system in the game. The norm of the day is that Timmy will be given a series of dialogue interactions in which he will respond with obvious good or evil consequences. For example, Bertha: Oh, my Timmy, you have grown so quickly. Timmy: A) Oh, thank you. Yes, I certainly am getting tall now. B ) Fuck off, wide load, I need to get outta this place. This is an extreme example, but then, a lot of games are quite extreme in this regard. Now, let's play this same scene out again, this time with a legit dialogue. Bertha: Oh, hello Timmy. You're getting so big these days. Timmy: A) Yeah, I'm already 6'2". B ) I guess. What've you been up to? Now where in this was the moral line? Some might say, oh, it's obvious, in one he agreed in the other he didn't, but didn't he act relatively nicely in both. I don't think not having an opinion is an evil act. Perhaps not polite, but are all impolite people evil? I doubt it greatly.

There are some solutions to this sort of thing. We could try to pull a Fable 2 and have more than one moral axis. In Fable 2 there is a purity/corruption axis and a good/evil one. This works to a degree, but I think it's still a little too obvious and extreme. All of my roommates and friends played Fable 2 and they all decided on their alignment on both axises before they'd even begun playing, generally because of the physical manifestation of the alignments.

How do we get past this. Well, one thing that I've thought about is not letting players know their alignment. Certain actions will be obvious, of course, like killing innocents, but some could be much more subtle and still affect the alignment. What's more, players can't just pull up a menu and see how good or evil or whatever they are. I think if you combine multiple axises with the hidden alignment there could be a lot more variation. Still, I think there should be no more than three axises. I really just think any more than that will become both redundant and confusing for players and programmers alike. Will this be effective, I really don't know, but I'm hoping so. I'm still working on my portfolio game, but under Zac's suggestion I'm looking into a simpler game to start off our little partnership with.

So that's all I've got in me this day. Let me know what you think about my thoughts on this one.