Choices, evil and consequences - are true evil choices a waste of time?

[CrazyCrab]

Hi everyone,

playing through Neverwinter Nights 1 and one thing struck me... your character doesn't say anything, you get to pick all the options. Okay, not so weird so far, western RPG, kinda to be expected. Buuut.... some of the choices you can make are just so, so evil. Not evil as in ''hahah, I ate ALL the cake so now you dirty peasants have none'' but evil as in ''Oh, well hello there enslaved people! You're happy a man is here, huh? Better then all the monsters that captured you? You want me to open the cage... Hmm, i have a better idea. I've needed some shooting practice for a very long time.''

Yeah, you can do some nasty, nasty stuff. I'm talking robbing a woman after her child was kidnapped and her husband was murdered. Threatening to kill the mayor unless a dark slaver mage doesn't get to move in. That said, you can also do some good stuff, like rejecting rewards and instead giving money to the people who need it - in that slaves scenario, you can free them and then give them money so that they make safely their way home, not getting anything in return.

When including choices, how do you feel about ones like that? Do you find them immersion breaking when the character is supposed to be the ''hero'' of your story? I like the idea, but for me it also feels like a lot of work, while so few people will end up picking them (with me never picking any... yeah, I like being the ''good guy'' ^^')... or am I wrong and people do enjoy a little bit of evil roleplaying? 

Thanks!

 

[Warpmind]

Personally, I find that if you have outright malicious options (with consequences for *someone*), it can improve the experience; the feel of a "real world" in which the game is set. However, those malicious options need to be, at least to an extent, rational and proportionate options.
Being approached by a woman asking for help to save her child, and swatting her aside can very well be a rational response for an uncaring character. Being approached by a woman asking for help to save her child, and then go out of your way to kick her puppy instead... is not exactly rational, nor even remotely proportionate.
Basically, anyone can have days when they'd rather be a self-serving jerk in-game, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd be interested in playing a malicious, moronic character who makes an effort to screw everyone over at any cost to themselves...

 

[juggernaut]

I tend to agree with Warpmind on this subject. Evil is hard to write from the perspective of its true definition. Too often a person will sit down to write 'evil' and come up with overly dramatic, make-believe-at-school-over-the-top-anime-emotiveness to convey evil. Morality is, of course, much more than that.

In my background as a roleplayer I was taught a valuable lesson about 'Alignments' that has led to me shedding the baked in explanations in systems such as D&D. 

What's good for one is bad for another. Especially in Fantasy, where these sort of 'True Evil' and 'True Good' tropes live, morality should be viewed from either side. In the land of MORDRAKOR (So Evil),they enslave the weak, celebrate strength and value self sufficiency above all things. Their leader is a tyrant and the people live under the yolk. Would it surprise most players to find out that this is actually the game world's version of the -Good- side? Sure, life is hard for some but you later find out that anyone can gain citizenship, slaves are often treated better than you'd expect and that there are a lot of civil rights. Rome, anyone? 

To me, the pitfall is in painting evil as sadism or sociopathy a degree of randomness. Evil is not the boy burning ants with a magnifying glass. It's not even Norman Bates.

Deep.

 

[Warpmind]

I tend to agree with Warpmind on this subject. Evil is hard to write from the perspective of its true definition. Too often a person will sit down to write 'evil' and come up with overly dramatic, make-believe-at-school-over-the-top-anime-emotiveness to convey evil. Morality is, of course, much more than that.

In my background as a roleplayer I was taught a valuable lesson about 'Alignments' that has led to me shedding the baked in explanations in systems such as D&D. 

What's good for one is bad for another. Especially in Fantasy, where these sort of 'True Evil' and 'True Good' tropes live, morality should be viewed from either side. In the land of MORDRAKOR (So Evil),they enslave the weak, celebrate strength and value self sufficiency above all things. Their leader is a tyrant and the people live under the yolk. Would it surprise most players to find out that this is actually the game world's version of the -Good- side? Sure, life is hard for some but you later find out that anyone can gain citizenship, slaves are often treated better than you'd expect and that there are a lot of civil rights. Rome, anyone? 

To me, the pitfall is in painting evil as sadism or sociopathy a degree of randomness. Evil is not the boy burning ants with a magnifying glass. It's not even Norman Bates.

Deep.

Unless it's an eggalitarian tyrant there, I think you meant "yoke".

A good, *functional* definition of evil would be "that which intentionally causes greater harm to others than benefits to one self."

 

[juggernaut]

Yeah I did. I know better but maybe I was just eating breakfast or something... :/

 

[Oddball]

To me, the pitfall is in painting evil as sadism or sociopathy a degree of randomness. Evil is not the boy burning ants with a magnifying glass. It's not even Norman Bates.

What if the main villain of a story isn't a sociopath or sadist, but one of the lesser villians are? What if in some instances a sadistic sociopath is needed? I understand that painting the character you play as that way isn't the right thing to do in this instance, but  who else would have destroy an entire town, yet not have the cliche of bandits/plunderers? A sadistic sociopath right? that can work in stories, you just need to use it in the right context. Or maybe I'm just bonkers

 

[Makio-Kuta]

I quite often pick those over the top "evil" options in games just to see if they'll actually let me do it. So often there's a downright nasty response and when you pick it the game doesn't actually let you go through with it

I mean - YEAH! Who would pick those options unless there was a strong benefit to the player to pick those options! aha...haha...ha... Seriously though, I do agree. It should be weighted as Selfish VS Selfless rather than cartoon-level "Good" VS "Evil"  It would make weighing your options and their consequences have more impact on you as a player. (and perhaps on the game world)

Like if you had the choice between killing someone for a bounty or letting them go free. The bounty money is absurd - it's enough to buy the medicine you need to IDK save your dying spouse - but you know the person you are being asked to target has a major positive impact on the political climate of a nearby town, and offing them will allow someone corrupt to take over. Meaty decisions like that are better (and more interesting) than "kick-the-dog" style options.

 

[Oddball]

So, I suppose the evil alignments should be something like...

selfish to power hungry

power hungry to villain

That way, the choices are logical and understandable

Not sure how to do chaotic evil without going through sociopath though

 

[Warpmind]

What if the main villain of a story isn't a sociopath or sadist, but one of the lesser villians are? What if in some instances a sadistic sociopath is needed? I understand that painting the character you play as that way isn't the right thing to do in this instance, but  who else would have destroy an entire town, yet not have the cliche of bandits/plunderers? A sadistic sociopath right? that can work in stories, you just need to use it in the right context. Or maybe I'm just bonkers

The problem, as outlined in the initial post, isn't the game's villain. The villain can perfectly well be completely bonkers, to the point of The Joker on hallucinogens.

The problem is if the *player character* is completely unhinged and unrestrained by such things as "rational thought" and "consequences".

If you can write a game where the player character can work his way up as either the Great Hero who Defeats the Tyrant *or* The Even Harsher Tyrant, or anything in-between, more power to you, but if the player character can follow a moral/ethical path with the focus and dedication of a squirrel with ADD without any consequence to the plot or character, You Done F***ed Up.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

But what if the game's choices ultimately decide whether you are the Hero or the Villain? Do you really HAVE to be the Great Hero.

What if picking "kick the dog" style choices actually makes you the big bad? Maybe you still kick the big bad's butt, but you do it to take their position, rather than save the world.

I'm not saying that lacks focus or dedication - but it might be a way to handle having Chaotic Evil choices that borderline sociopath. hmmmmm I would totally play a game like this...

 

[Oddball]

But what if the game's choices ultimately decide whether you are the Hero or the Villain? Do you really HAVE to be the Great Hero.

What if picking "kick the dog" style choices actually makes you the big bad? Maybe you still kick the big bad's butt, but you do it to take their position, rather than save the world.

I'm not saying that lacks focus or dedication - but it might be a way to handle having Chaotic Evil choices that borderline sociopath. hmmmmm I would totally play a game like this...

This is exactly what I was talking about. Also, I'm implementing this in my new project (I put the one i'm going commercial with on hold)

And personally, while I don't think this would work with all games. Playing a game as the gremlins might be fun

Also, you need to make the path to evil logical. Take a lesson from Star Wars episodes 1, 2, and 3 of what NOT to do when implementing a MC becomes evil storyline

 

[CzarSquid]

Good game choices are very rare for a game. I'm not talking about the ones where you can mug an old lady and the only thing you get is a slap on the wrist, lost of karma, and people wanting to attack you more. I'm talking about real choices, the ones that will impact the rest of your game. Why is it that games will let you choose to be good or evil when the outcome of the game will be roughly the same? You still save the world even if you are a complete jerk/saint. It's a let down in some games. I want games like the Stanley parable where the game changes completely based on the choices you make. It be incredible if AAA titles had did that kind of gameplay with the good/evil aspect.

The last game I can think of that had an interesting choice was Elder Scrolls Online. I won't go into details because it's been a year that I have played it. However, I was given an option to send troops to one of two cities. There was no clear good/evil but I knew very well that one city was going to fall. I stood there for minutes deciding which one I wanted. When I did, it was done. I couldn't take it back. I traveled to the destroyed city and just made me think that this was my fault. I made the choice to destroy this city to save the other. The world was different and I had to continue the game from that point.

I want to explore that concept in the game I'm making. You will be given all sorts of tasks to do but you will not be able to do them all. Some of the choices will conflict with other NPCs quest. You will have to make choices that will impact the rest of the story. People's lives will change based on your choices. Which I think is much better than being the "Ultimate Hero/Villain" with no impact from your choices.

 

[Dragnfly]

I think many people will kick the digital puppy if given the chance. As Makio-Kuta said, there's a lot of fun to be had in just seeing what the game's response is and how far it will go. I kept many saves in Ar Nosurge just so I could say some of Earthes' jaw-dropping comments. Sadly, it usually doesn't go very far.

I liked how in the Growlanser games, some dialogue choices would be greyed out based on things you said and did. Recent Persona games kind of did this too with "you don't have the courage to tell her she has fantastic cleavage" and whatnot, although neither were for "Evil" reasons. But it would eventually prevent you from kicking the puppy if you had consistently helped the puppies up until then.
 

That said, I'll only seriously play the dark side if the game gives a defined route for it which doesn't clash with everything I'd done up to that point... which I don't think I've ever seen a developer do properly.
 

But what if the game's choices ultimately decide whether you are the Hero or the Villain? Do you really HAVE to be the Great Hero.

What if picking "kick the dog" style choices actually makes you the big bad? Maybe you still kick the big bad's butt, but you do it to take their position, rather than save the world.

I'm not saying that lacks focus or dedication - but it might be a way to handle having Chaotic Evil choices that borderline sociopath. hmmmmm I would totally play a game like this...

Langrisser games generally had a route where you could side with the evil forces. It changed the story, party and future battles significantly. But they never made the hero seem evil. Just kind of confused and manipulated, and this generally followed a single choice. So I wouldn't really call it what you're looking for. They're still some of the best strategy RPGs I've ever played though.

When I play a game where that's actually done properly I'll be very happy. But the east doesn't seem to want to go that way at all and western developers keep screwing it up by doing things like your evilness not really mattering in the grand scheme of things, or the ending will be a lame summary of your choices rather than an actual conclusion. They also, of course, always seem to suffer from the "feed the orphans then turn around and kick the puppy" problem. Doing it right takes an absolutely insane amount of work. You'd basically need to have a short span which decides if your character is a certain alignment and then lock you into that alignment for the rest of the game.

Edit: CzarSquid, you might want to check out the more recent Lisa game (the one with a sidescrolling map where you play as a guy named Brad). The choices you make in that have very serious permanent effects ranging from story to party members to even what special moves you can do.

 

[Scott_C]

I think a lot of games have exaggerated evil choices for the same reason that they make treasure sparkle: To make sure the player knows it's something they can interact with.

Make a player choose between helping someone and ignoring them and they might think it's just an invitation to a side quest instead of an important moral choice.

But make the player choose between helping someone and killing them and it's obvious that it's a moral decision point.

Exaggerated evil also reduces the risk of the player disagreeing with the game's judgment of his actions. Getting a villainous ending because you executed a captured bad guy in the name of justice can be frustrating. But getting a villainous ending because you went around shooting random civilians is hard to argue with.

So it's one of those situations where good game design almost requires bad writing. You want the player to know he's making decisions and give him a fair warning about the possible consequences of those decisions and making the differences between good and evil as extreme as possible is one of the easiest ways to pull that off.

 

[Dragnfly]

...Exaggerated evil also reduces the risk of the player disagreeing with the game's judgment of his actions. Getting a villainous ending because you executed a captured bad guy in the name of justice can be frustrating. But getting a villainous ending because you went around shooting random civilians is hard to argue with.

I agree with this. I frequently end up in a scenario where my personal beliefs are judged to be "evil" by a game but any other real person would only consider them "different". The common one is likely the "live hapily in a dream world or struggle through life for the little joys." or "save your girlfriend and damn the rest of the world, or let your girlfriend go and save everyone else.". But factoring all these types of people's moral opinions in is a recipe for an impossible-to-make game. We're better off just sticking with what can be done.

... which I guess in itself is a show of a moral choice based on my opinion

 

[Caustic]

There can be a lot of fun to be had in being the knee-jerk bastard. For example, in Jade Empire, I actually took the nasty path a few times, although overall the choices fell back on the "let's be a d!^%" rather than what they were more going for. In spoilers because it's worth keeping quiet for those that haven't played yet.

Spoiler

The mindset they tried to present for the "evil" path (Way of the Closed Fist - not a euphemism) in JE was that you were acting with your interests firstly in mind, and teaching others to do the same in your travels. It isn't "evil", persey; the philosophy behind it is the usual "might makes right", but more from a perspective of living with and teaching about reliance on the self, rather than helping the poor and less-fortunate.
Example: There's one part where you have to save a village from a drought by opening the damn dam, which of course is guarded by an angry spirit and a venerable legion of the dead (and possibly undead, I forget). Anyway, you get there, and suddenly there's a choice: "fix" the dam and be the big hero... or "break" it, return to the elder, spit on his shoes, and tell him that he should have had someone from the village do it themselves, rather than dragging an outsider into the mess.

Also, it predated Mass Effect in proactive alternative sexuality choices

...And then there's "evil" in the sense of Planescape: Torment, where your character becomes (or rather, returns to being) a downright manipulative jack@$#, twisting the views of others, assaulting them emotionally, and eventually turning on them if they don't do as you say. While more realistic and brutal than the over-the-top hamfest that most "good or evil" game choices lead to, this comes off more as sick and wrong than entertaining

Changing gears a bit... in relation to serious consequences in games (not much of a spoiler, because its literally like the first thing you do): in Wasteland 2, right from the beginning the game gives you a serious choice. There are two places giving off distress signals, for different reasons, but you can only visit (the entirety of) and save one of them. And only one. Trying to save both will only end in failure on both ends, I believe.

What makes that serious, you might ask? Oh, well, just that one is the main source for food in the region, while the other provides a good chunk of the water for the area. Y'know... essentials for the continuation of life in the area.

Or you can be a supreme jerk and blow both of them off, which the game actually allows, and the story still continues from there. The differences change things quite a bit -- besides different weapons and what recruit you can get from your chosen spot, I believe resources might change as well, and you'll also get different reactions depending upon which town you save. I really wish the game gave more difficult choices like that (sadly, it doesn't), but that's still a hell of a way to start the experience off.