Are Morality Systems Making Us Less Moral?

Morality systems are a huge trend in videogames, and with good reason- games are maybe the best medium for analysing and exploring ethics. So why are most games with morality systems rubbish at exactly that?
The Architect is going to have to journey to the middle of the ocean, the arctic circle and to the darkest of dungeons to work out what the problem with morality systems is.
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You saw:
Quarantine Circular- 2018
Mass Effect 3- 2012
Undertale- 2015
Saints row 4- 2013
Darkest Dungeon- 2016
Half Life 2- 2004
KOTOR 2- 2004
Dishonored- 2012
Frostpunk- 2018
Papers Please- 2013
Fallout New Vegas- 2010
Subsurface Circular- 2017
Dauntless- 2018
Interesting links:
Buy Dan Le Sac's music for the circular games, it's great- danlesac.bandcamp.com/
Designing moral systems- www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...
How the book of laws came to be- www.pcgamer.com/frostpunk-dev...

[@jag3596]

If I got the video correctly, you can sum it up as: "Morality systems shouldn't make explicit judgments on the player's choices. Instead, they should show the consequences of their actions to let the player's judge for themselves whether what they did was right or wrong."

[@JKenny44]

Jag Delfin Yeah but then the game designers would just make the bad choices reflect the bad morality meter and it would be effectively same thing. Or if they didnt do that then they would be sending the message that your morality simply does not matter in the game. Either way, it's just the game designers deciding what is moral and wheter it matters. Same thing Edit. Why am I arguing, you are just the summariser. Thanks for the good summary.

[@furairesu2380]

This. Sadly, consequences in games are almost exclusively shown through the ending at most. Or they are resolved immediately and don't affect anything before the end credits.

[@GewalfofWivia]

That's why the Witcher 3 was so awesome: consequences appear organically as you progress and the weight of such consequences makes each choice that much more meaningful.

[@AaronSoul725]

John Lu new vegas

[@harrenysk]

The game doesn't need to bash you over the head saying that killing a kid is wrong. The player should innately know that killing the kid was wrong through self reflection.

[@GenericProtagonist7]

"Man, you killed one kid to save LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE HUMAN, you monster."

[@poppers7317]

If I need to kill a child to save humanity then humanity can fuck off.

[@olivinator]

@@poppers7317 so you'd allow all children to die before allowing a single one to do so? seems kind of ass backwards.

[@Olisenpai__]

@@olivinator but if u kill the child, YOU killed him, if you decide not to, u are not the one to blame

[@olivinator]

@@Olisenpai__ so you'd allow dozens of children to die for your own moral self-indulgence?

[@EXTREMEKIWI115]

@@Olisenpai__ But then you have to face the reality that you were an 'innocent bystander' who let humanity perish. You had the ability to save everyone else, but you did nothing.

[@frontierdustice]

Glares at Telltale Games, “Yeah, those ‘important decisions’ eh?”

[@futurestoryteller]

Let's say you're given 3 meaningful decisions, that set you on 3 _completely separate non-interconnected_ paths. On those 3 paths you can make 3 decisions at the episode's midway point. That's *each.* Then at the end of each of _those_ you get to make a final choice of 3 different endings for that episode. That would only be... idk... 27 different endings, which are 27 different starting points for the second episode of the "Season" to start with.... Now say Episode 2 starts with 3 choices....

[@BR0984]

futurestoryteller then they should not advertise or label their game as such

[@claiminglight]

Telltale Games will remember that.

[@187Suryoyo]

I loved the walking dead until i reload a scene, changed a decission and noticed, its nothing diffrent. After that everything feels meaningless. I never finished it.

[@sdrawkcab_emanresu]

It is not important how meaningful the decisions are, it is just important how meaningful they feel for the player, because this is what defines the experience. Because after all, a game takes place in the players head. It just sucks, if you know that there are no consequences

[@Okada_Caelun]

I remember coming to a similar epiphany while playing "Shadowrun: Dragonfall." Without giving too much spoiler, at one point you track down a dangerous killer who was responsible for murdering a friend of yours among countless others. Once you corner them though they begin to plead for their life, claiming they were forced to do so and had no say in the matter. They then ask you to set them free, with a promise they won't harm another soul ever again. I spent exhausted every dialogue option the game provided me and then spent the next 5 minutes mulling over whether the killer could legitimately be trusted or if they were lying out of their ass. It was at that point I realized if the game had a binary moral system I wouldn't have wasted a second thought on it, done the thing for my alignment and rolled with the consequences.

[@ddsjgvk]

Did you kill them?

[@skylex157]

not as extreme, but something similar happened to me with dishonored, when you find the murderer that made you dishonored, he acts tough, but in the end i let him go, even though i may or may not have killed him twice and restarted the battle

[@V2ULTRAKill]

I had a choice like this in,Pillars of Eternity 2, theres a small sidequest in the village of Tikawara, there's an innocent man being tried for a crime he didn't commit, when you investigate you learn the innocent is an all around horrible person and leech on the tribe, AND that the actual culprit did what they did to specifically avoid the permanent starvation of the tribe. So i condemn an "innocent" and thus sentence the tribe as a whole to death, or let him die in hopes the tribe itself prospers, and thats only one of dozens of choices

[@nicholasmaniccia1005]

@@skylex157 that's literally the opposite point buddy

[@tatzooism]

I know what you're talking about, having it thrown at you like that especially how it follows up is very nice. I let them live and didn't follow up with what they wanted to do, which I found very fitting for a decker that would try to fight and survive the situation or just retire after it.

[@jamestang1227]

As an avid EU4 player, I have probably murdered millions of rebels who either wanted their own nation, more autonomy, more freedom, etc. but I crushed them all nonetheless. Why? Because they were fighting against MY authoritarian regime and I couldn't let my nation slip couldn't I? I get the feeling grand strategy games really put you in the minds of dictator.

[@AlmostUselessPenguin]

I feel the same about Stellaris. I grew as a robot empire who enslaves all organic liveforms however it's in a form of pampering and I get benefits from keeping them happy. At the start I invaded hostile neighbours to take over their empire and use their planets to produce unity to unlock traditions but now I'm the dominant power and, while I still go to war against people who hate me for stupid reasons (e.g. I'm a robot or I'm enslaving people in eternal paradise), I mostly try to keep the peace even as people grow hostile towards me as my territories reach theirs and they feel threatened by me. I've resorted to vassalising people mostly now however I usually integrate unruly subjects. At one point I decided that after forcefully vassalising an enemy to pick on their tiny rebels (5/6 of them, it wasn't going well for them). I convinced the ones that liked me to join me and I invaded the rest. The thing is that AI rebels only spawn an empire with one planet in one system and they often don't build space ports so they have no defence except planetary armies (which I can produce faster) so they are oblitarated. Sometimes I will invade an empire and some of the population with be pleased to be freed from slavery but some feel differently about having their freedom removed. I allow refuges and I had one group turn up and I freed the humans after them being enslaved but despite my efforts to be a benevolent ruler the other empires around me start to mistrust me and I've become a millitary force that invades people that don't like me (other empires rarely declare war because I have low AI agressiveness settings). There was one choice I had recently. My engineers had started construction on a Dyson Sphere: a giant ball around a star to harness energy but once I had started my vassals contacted me. The star I was started to block off was a culturally significant star for them I had to either apologise, gift them energy to represent me giving them some of the earning of it (even though it was a tiny amount, 1000 energy when the sphere produces 100 energy a month) or just ignore it. I chose to formally apologise and I got an event afterwards that my ruler flew across the galaxy to talk to them and I got a short message about how the apology meant that our relation may return to normal. It's a really organic short story for a scripted event.

[@a-drewg1716]

CKII is the best though because fuck morals XD if my 6 year old brother took half of my fathers country when he died well then it looks like some one is getting sacrificed to Satan tonight, or oh my wife is pretty sucky and I have the option of marrying a strong genius instead ok I am just gonna send her off of a cliff in a chariot. Or hey this guy really doesn't like me because I just conquered his kingdom, ok I am just gonna kill off him and his entire dynasty because fuck that dude. Or hey this guy just knocked on my door wanted to talk to be about Jesus ok through him in the deepest darkest pit of my dungeon, i'll just sacrifice him later. Or murdering a guy simply because he was married to a attractive and quick women and I wanted to marry her instead so I can breed good heirs.

[@trollbreeder2534]

what is eu4?

[@jamestang1227]

Europa Universalis IV, a grand strategy game made by Paradox Interactive.

[@EloquentTroll]

I am playing EU3 and I am playing a more active than historic pope and murdering hordes of protestants. I unified Italy before the reformation and now I am hell bent on stamping out heretics. The Ottomans have conquered much of the orthodox church, and I have let them, but when they touch Catholic lands I am quick to attack them.

[@RoverStorm]

As much as I adore Frostpunk, that ending is a cop-out. I finished my run with zero deaths and saving everyone I could, avoided any of those "send a kid into the furnace" decisions, fed and healed everyone, maintained unity and hope, et. I was told I abused faith, and that I crossed the line. F***ing what?!? I've seen other playthroughs, and YOU didn't?!? It turns out that ending is just the number of laws you pass, not WHICH laws or decisions you made. Fantastic game otherwise.

[@ArchitectofGames]

Wait really? so you can rush the become dictator laws and still not get the bad ending? That's nuts!

[@RoverStorm]

I've never used the "totalitarian mode" law (I think that's obviously the worst ending), but yeah the reddit was complaining how if you don't pick some of the nicer laws like soup kitchens and faith hospitals, you can apparently take some of the extreme laws like inquisitorial torture and the game doesn't consider it crossing the line. The "adaptation" laws at least are based on which laws you passed (don't force sex slavery).

[@RoverStorm]

I can say this: when I went Order I did the following and STILL got a "we didn't cross the line": -Prisons arrest 30 random citizens and lower londoners (and they eat less). So I threw 300 out of 400 of ALL my people in them. -Steam spider crushed a kid's leg. I didn't slow them down because that'd lower efficiency. -Some 50 people died from sicknesses caused by sawdust meals. -Overworking killed another 40 or so. -20 of those may have been kids. -Sent 10 people to their death in the coal mine because the cold literally was breaking the steel supports, but I desperately needed the coal. -Repeatedly forced people to work during the mega-storm instead of stay home with their families. -Turned away refugees because sawdust had already flooded my hospitals and I didn't pick radical treatment. You get the picture. On the bright side: Order lets you scream at robots to make them work faster.

[@RoverStorm]

Frostpunks second scenario I think actually handles morality much better. Your starting crew of only engineers is given one task: Make sure the world's seeds do not perish forever in the blizzard. But then you find a refugee city on the brink of destruction near the end. You can divert resources to help them, but you risk the eternal existence of life on Earth to do so. And there's not really an answer.

[@a-drewg1716]

really the ending for Frostpunk should have just been a timeline of when you enacted things (or when people died and it would be best to give their names too and the reason why they died) as-well as states like over all health, population, food upkeep and food production, # of sick, etc

[@TheCanterlonian]

>you're never gonna be able to follow all the rules and pay your bills liar, there is a 'glory to arstotzka' ending just for that

[@cutealiens]

"If the game had implemented a morality system, these ethical dilemmas would have all had de-facto answers." This right here is the takeaway insight.

[@RacingSnails64]

As Ben Croshaw says, "It's either Mother Teresa or baby-eater. All I'm saying is I'd like some middle ground. There's so many different ways to be an asshole."

[@Cudgeon]

Yeah, because it has to be obvious to work with all the pointy meters. Tough what is good and what is bad is highly subjective. If it wasn't, everyone who isn't a communist would simply be a bad person.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

So Fallout 3: The Pitt? I was really impressed by that DLC until it told me to kidnap a baby. I was disgusted and left, thus the game decided that I have sided with the tyrannical warlord and his slave driven industry. What? Where is the third option?

[@derrinerrow4369]

Yeah I had an idea for a morality system that modifies the good vs evil slider system where your choices can determine what kind of good or evil you are. Such things as either being the paragon of virtue because you have certain values you uphold or the good guy who is willing to do questionable acts in order to save everyone as long as the ends justify the means.Or either being the corrupt authoritarian who controls everything with an iron fist vs being the crazy, power obsessed maniac who just wants to watch the world burn.

[@Tethloach1]

a person is a moral agent if they have a great deal of self restraint in regards to negatively effecting the physical well being of other sentient beings. you are who you are and that's okay, but others are who they are and that's also okay. be grateful for what you have, things could always be worse.

[@tzimiscelord8483]

@@derrinerrow4369 Fable 2. Good and Evil and pure and corrupt, it has two different sliders and they mean two different things

[@souldude151]

The main issue I have with morality systems is that you are always at a disadvantage if you choose to be neutral. You are rewarded for being good or evil and because of that people just stick to one or the other to reap the rewards which is fine. But I feel this takes away from the player actually making a moral decision as opposed to "I am good, I take the good option."

[@Morty90152]

You may be right, but it is realistic this way. If you don't choose a side then why should you get rewarded?

[@MyrMerek]

The thing is its not in all games. In some games you always get a pat in the back for choosing a better outcome.

[@souldude151]

Obviously a neutral player still does good and bad deeds. But they would be done not for the 'greater good' or because the character loves violence, a neutral character bases decisions off of how they can benefit. Maybe they will kill the bandits so the town can be usable again but at the same time they may still rob the wealthy. You still get rewarded this way through your actions but there are no perks, traits or unique dialogue options specific to neutral and as a result it's generally just more involving, rewarding and thematic to be strictly good or evil. Which is bad. Morality isn't as black and white as games portray and the only thing these types of morality systems achieve is the removal of free choice from the player. Example: I don't want to kill all these villagers because then I can't use their town to buy and sell goods. But if I don't kill them all then I lose my evil perks, my evil companion, my notoriety in evil gang and access to other evil events. This isn't to say good and bad characters shouldn't exist, just that players making actual moral decisions doesn't exist in games that reward players for picking and sticking to an alignment.

[@WhyYouMadBoi]

Well because being nuetral doesn't do anything. It's like "save the girl or let her die" if you say "Well I'm not going to go into it. You're basically in the bad if she was innocent. Also would like to state that the saving the town only to rob it is still again the bad decision. If you wanna go the mass effect 2 route where basically you find two people fighting and instead just wall out the room you basically lose both character's loyalty instead if you did a full paragon or renegade route you could click one of the shiny buttons and got them both in line. But then again the paragon and renegade isn't morality systems. But morality is black and white in games cause generally you're doing something and there are two sides. Look at KOTAR and KOTAR 2 staying strictly nuetral is dumb as shit cause basically you're just someone with the force just doing basic force shit not jedi mind tricking or force lightning people cause you need a certain force percentage just like the series. But about the evil companion and evil gang they have their own shop, own towns and what not you can shop from. It's really that east than being a pussy and going in with them cause you wanna shop there instead of the one back at base which most likely would have the items in the store sooner or later.

[@blob22201]

souldude151 Actually in fallout 3 or new vegas (can't remember which) there is a perk which boosts all your skills so long as you remain neutral

[@jackskellingtonsora]

I like the way the Dragon Age series handles the choices. The choices in and of themselves aren't judged by the game. There is simply the consequences of the decisions. But the people around you, your party members, definitely judge you. Which seems much more realistic. Your friends judge you for your actions based on their own beliefs and agendas. Inquisition is particularly good on this because the party companion characters all have extremely different ideas and morality systems that conflict. So it's not a matter of "chose the thing that makes the most people happy."

[@cookietheory]

Adam Millard: Am I immoral? No it's the morality system thats wrong.

[@Sonjayu]

This could be an anime quote

[@reddytoplay9188]

Yes and no

[@ajuc005]

Witcher series got it right. No morality system, just choices and consequences (delayed by hours, so you won't reload a save). No Word of God on which choice is "right". No stupid choices that don't fit the character (save the puppy or torture and murder it for no reason), instead - reasonable choices that fit the character (save the puppy but lose time pursuing a bandit, or ignore the puppy because you are pursuing a bandit). And the main thing is - no points counting how good you are.

[@yandrak4621]

Except in the third game where you don't know what the fuck you are choosing. Especially in Ciri's dialogues with choices like "I know what can help you" versus "Do you know what i do when I feel like that?" like what fking choice is that.

[@csabas.6342]

The morality in Witcher is not a bad one, but I always felt, that this game tries to push it so hard that "HEY WE ARE EXPLORING GRAY AREAS OF MORALITY". At some point it just felt pretentious.

[@FelipeKana1]

@@yandrak4621 you got a point there. The decisions around ciri were too much veiled and to much important. I got the bad ending, even tough I felt I was caring for Ciri in all dialogue decisions

[@zakkarywhiting8304]

Felipe Carvalho you had to choose the option that let her vent and let her be free instead of constricting her

[@FelipeKana1]

@Zakkary Whiting yeah the n internet told me afterwards, but, on the spot, thats not clearly "the perfect option". I mean we did not had that much time with Ciri (those that had not played the previous games or read the books) to know what was the deal. No idea she was going through these teenage self esteem issues. The other options were, in my eyes, Geralt protecting her and even offering to sacrifice himself, or going him to the battle instead of her since he is a seasoned veteran ready to kick boots and she was much younger and just rescued. Nothing obviously wrong about that. Right? In my playthrough I got the impression, by the end, that Ciri might were a bit of a spoiled brat, judging hugely harshly any of Geralt steps or words, talking them by the worst possible meanings... during the dialogues she seemed more mature than that, but in reality was clinging to stuff said eons ago. Only point I knew it would maybe offend her was taking the money for completing the mission of saving her, but only if she were to take that to mean as if Geralt wouldn't save her without the money, which she didn't need to do.

[@courierofyesterday]

Sometimes being evil is so cartoony in games that i just do it to see wtf my character is going to do next, and then giggle like a schoolgirl when he punches the reporter on the face. Also I hate when games dont reward me for being neutral though, sometimes i do bad things and sometimes i do good, it annoys me when i am forced to hard lock blue or red, cause i want to play my character like a real human

[@JaneXemylixa]

It's funny, but in Spore (whose "moral" choices aren't really about morality, but whatever), if you straddled the line between nice and mean as a tribe, you start as a peaceful and prosperous economic city in civilization stage, and everyone likes you! After that things are too much of a breeze though: they didn't balance the social mechanics as well as combat ones.

[@a-drewg1716]

too be fair it is way easier to go kill every thing early on and quicker too, it is really just until the modern age when being hostile makes things harder

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

@@a-drewg1716 the problem in early game being nice with spore is the issue you have of self defense. There's still things that attack you and hurt you. When I "go peaceful" in the tribe stage I've lost people to violence due to not arming them for defense. In that survival tribal stage there's just the inherent requirement to have some fangs to get through easier, but it is a little gray what happens in the tribal stage when you "befriend" all the villages and move on to be a city based culture... I mean when I did it first I was hoping my planet would have multiple races be a part of the citizenship. A spacecraft crew made of all the difference races I befriended.

[@Przemko27Z]

@@SherrifOfNottingham Well, if you had the right species history, you get abilities in the creature and tribe stage that let you cease hostilities, even if for a moment.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

@@Przemko27Z I more meant how the tribe stage moves into a civilization stage where all the creature tribes seem to disappear instead of having a multi...racial? society.

[@spartanwar1185]

2:26 *_HOLD UP_* *_HOW IS IT ETHICAL TO BURN A HALF LIFE 2 ZOMBIE!?_* You _do_ realize the victim can still feel the pain, right? They would _feel_ their skin burning A bullet to the head...crab... is probably the best way out for them, those poor souls

[@jimijenkins2548]

It's the catharsis.

[@georgsgrants9925]

I hate that. I modded my hl2 to have black mesa zombie sounds

[@the_furf_of_july4652]

The thing I think makes Undertale’s morality so good, is the fact that the evil route doesn’t just call you a bad person... it questions your reasoning for deciding to do that route in the first place. It questions the feeling of “I have to do this to get the ending, it’s not my decision”. It takes advantage of the linear, binary system and the separate endings in its criticism. It doesn’t just tear into the former protagonist (turned antagonist), it tears into you, the person going along with all of this. Before undertale I had never seen a game that makes you feel like you’re a genuinely horrible person, and feel reluctant but morbidly curious to continue.

[@Hehe-nt4oe]

The_furf_of_July you just wrote my exact thoughts

[@RoseDragoness]

Undertale evil route at first makes me feel like the game judging me, but in the end of it, it is an amazing experience. A little wicked and wtf, but still enjoyable.

[@fattytan1377]

To be honest it felt more like the game just slaps people for even touching a single monster tho

[@KillerBot5100]

[GD] ToadKAPOWer to fight sans, that’s why.

[@freezatheemperorofmischief8231]

@@fattytan1377 You can actually beat up any monster without killing them and still get the best ending. And if you do kill a few, the game doesn´t fault you for being a killer with the exception of Undyne (who is the protector of the whole Underground) and Sans if you kill his freaking brother. Sans in general is a special case as his dialogue in the judgement hall does become more judgemental the more you kill but he (alongside Flowey) is the only person to be aware of the fact that you can reset everything with your determination. Undertale does not slap the player because they used violence to survive in an environment in which everyone is trying to kill them. It rather judges you because you have the power both in- and outside the game to let these characters live or die and explicitly choosing to murder everyone on the Genocide route.

[@lvl3-wizard81]

My favorite example of this is infamous 2. As much as i love the infamous series, all of the choices are clearly painted as "good" or "bad" throughout the game. This includes the ending of infamous 2. Basically the all of the world is slowly dying to a plague, but certain super humans called "conduits" are immune to this plague, but to make a conduit uses a process that kills hundreds and only some people have the gene that allows that process to even be carried out. At the end of the game you are asked to make the choice to either sacrifice the many to guarantee the lives of the few by awakening as many conduits as you can so that humanity in some form can survive the plague. Or you can unleash a special device that will probably, but not with certainty, eliminate the radiation that's killing humanity, but will kill every conduit in the process. People with unactivated conduit genes will still die to the plague. I feel that this is a genuinely difficult moral question. The choice that would potentially save more people has a chance of failure, but the one that saves much fewer people is guaranteed to work. But these choices were still presented in the standard "good" and "bad" options that the rest of the game had been. personally I think that this took away from what was actually a powerful question. I think both the "good" and "Bad" versions of cole could have seen merit to both of these choices, but the game pigeon holes this choice. I think that it would have been better for the game to have 4 endings instead of two for this reason, because I think the game would have benefited greatly from having people genuinely think about this choice regardless of route they chose beforehand.

[@Onihikage]

The first game made the same mistake, which is why I never bothered with the sequel. At a time when you had become aware of how powerful Kessler was, and he'd killed your love interest (which I'll get to) you had a choice of either using the ray sphere to power up, or destroying it. Using it will turn you permanently and irreversibly evil, even though the player may have used it with the intent of stacking their chances of defeating Kessler who was a threat to far more people. The "moral choice" of whether to save Trish or the doctors is also rendered utterly pointless as soon as the player decides to reload their save and try the other option, only to realize Trish's location is a quantum probability cloud that always resolves to her being where you aren't, so she will always die. It turns what could have been an interesting moral choice or even a trick question into a boring "choose the option that will boost your morality meter in the direction you want it, because you can't actually change the outcome." What if the entire game leading up to the end was one big moral test by Kessler to see if his presence had changed his past self into a person suitable for saving the world? Where none of the abilities rely on a moral meter, and none of the moral choices have an obvious correct answer... but getting to the end, Kessler judges your actions according to his own standards of what it takes to save humanity. That would have kept the morality ambiguous, leaving the player free to agree or disagree with Kessler's logic and debate it with other players. It almost seems like the developers originally wanted to go this route, since Kessler praises some of your "good" choices and some of your "bad" choices, but following everything he wanted you to do doesn't lead anywhere different.

[@ollie2111]

I was thinking about this game while watching the video. All I remember is the bright blue and red binary options, I barely even remember the story because the of the way they guide you to pick the same options rather than make it something to think carefully about. Running around with the powers is fun tho.

[@bilbeman4125]

This is a bit of an aside, but I had the thought that it might be interesting to see a game subvert the classic karma meter. Suppose that, throughout the game, you were given positive or negative points for various actions. Pretty bog-standard morality stuff, be a nice person to get a gold star. Except partway through the game, the kinds of actions the system rewards gradually shift, skewing your actions by inappropriately rewarding some kinds of immoral behavior. Then it's revealed that your karma meter, which was presented as an out-of-world game mechanic, is actually a thing in setting (say, you're an android or something, and have a morality meter built in to allow some outside group to control your priorities). Suddenly, every *strategic* choice you made for karma becomes an unwitting *moral* choice, and you have to live with the consequences of having acted as a catspaw for a controller who may not be moral at all.

[@yitz7805]

may I steal this idea, please?

[@bilbeman4125]

No. It's copyrighted registered trademark. (Yes. Feel free.)

[@aldergodric4324]

Isaac Blouin interesting, I'll add it to my pile of ideas for when I finally am done with studies and can start working on proper games.

[@apatheticlungs1577]

Catherine almost gets there with its system. The Good/Bad meter is eventually revealed near the end to be order/freedom with different endings based on how much your actions reflect your in game opinions

[@user-zc4br7yt4i]

I mean, it's an interesting idea, but...it'd only affect the people that "game" the morality system anyway, wouldn't it? Because they're usually the only people picking *based* off the morality system. Normal people would pick whatever they *personally* wanted and the morality system would reflect their choices.

[@3zzzTyle]

Dishonored "moral" "system" was utterly dismaying. I loved everything else about both games, but something so primitive and on-the-rails has no business calling itself by either word.

[@KO-tq3ns]

Yeah, honestly I never once in my first playthrough thought about the morality system during some of the big decisions. I though: "I want revenge." or "I think this person really has changed" and the second one stuck with me because it felt like I had made that decision, one I wasn't sure was right. I think that was one reason I don't like dishonored as much as a lit of other people, it didn't really make me care about the world or characters besides daud and slackjaw, and only them because I had genuine interactions with them..

[@yeahbuthow2005]

Maybe, you just can't understand it

[@herp_derpingson]

Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation made this same argument on multiple occasions. When you attach rewards on either ends of the karma meter, there might as well be only one option in the start of the game of whether you want to go renegade or paragon.

[@nuclearhardt]

Tyranny, much like Fallout New Vegas, had a reputation system that reacted to your actions on a case by case basis. However, the interesting thing about it was that the "Good" value and the "Bad" value (Favour/Wrath for Factions, Favour/Fear for companions) were not mutually exclusive, and in the end the game judged you according to your actions, not attitudes.

[@Jonathantheweirdo]

Not only that, but also that genius game makes you the participant of a 40 hour long Milgram experiment.

[@wisdommanari6701]

I love tyranny

[@pride2184]

"40 hour" lmao what? New Vegas takes like 6 hours to finish the story line if you don't explore or do anything not outside the main quest line.

[@olivinator]

@@pride2184 I believe they were talking about Tyranny, not New Vegas.

[@RoseDragoness]

tyranny is amazing and in the end, even the morally good choice doesn't mean the right choice. Breaking free from the tyranny of Kyros just mean your character continue the war.

[@MatthewCampbell765]

I'd argue that analysis of morality systems generally has to keep in mind that there's two types of moral choices: #1: The Philosophy Test: This is one wherein you have to choose what /is/ right or wrong between ambiguous choices. These do not have an objectively correct answer. #2: Morality-Based Difficulty: The moral choice wherein the morality of what the player does is meant to be obvious, balanced against pragmatic concerns. This is actually where Karma meters make sense, because morality actually /is/ meant to be a difficulty setting. A good example of this would be Bioshock's little sisters.

[@ovencake523]

so 1. is what is the right thing to do? 2. is should I do what is right or what is useful?

[@jacks1368]

Ultima 4 (the first game to really do morality) had an example of #1 in the opening sequence, where you explored a set of scenarios weighing the game's 8 virtues against one another, with the virtue you end up resonating with the most determining your class. This only affected the start of the game though, since you had to max out your scores in all eight virtues to win the game.

[@JayMaverick]

Morality systems in games fail when they start judging the player. That makes perfect sense. Great video!

[@dwight3555]

@person person That's exactly what Frostpunk does, and it makes pretty much every player go "What the hell are you going on about?". How can a game truly judge you? Binary mechanics that say "You're an asshole/not an asshole" are flawed and very often seem wrong in the eyes of the vast majority of people. To make you actually think back and be satisfied with your experience, a game with choices needs to show you the logical consequences of your actions and decisions, without telling you you did good or not. An example that I find really disappointing for example is in Dishonored, that killing guards somehow raises the number of rats in the next levels... How can this happen if I burn/vaporize every guard I killed? They are not food for the rats that way, but they magically still count towards more rats in the future. And as stated in the video, the binary "kill/not kill" choice in Dishonored is extremely flawed. Killing: bad. Slavery, sex slavery, torture, prison for life in a dark cell, iron branding and leaving to die of a plague: good.

[@randomguy6679]

@@dwight3555 I dont think the game said any of those things is good.......

[@dwight3555]

@@randomguy6679 Those are the "non-lethal" options that "good guy no killing corvo" has to take. If your corvo tends to kills, you'll get a bad ending, meanwhile if you don't you'll get the good ending.

[@yeahbuthow2005]

​@@dwight3555 You really don't understand...

[@BaeBunni]

I like dragon age origins morality system for the most part. Especially since your perspective can change depending on who you pick. Like the dwarves. If you play anyone but a dwarf noble, then your perception is based purely on what you see. While they offer some more obviously "this is bad" and "this is good" they don't really give you many things. Being a good warden doesn't make the battle end game easier or harder. How you treat your party can, but slaughter a group of innocent people has an effect after the the game but not in the moment to change how you would play.

[@12pluz]

Also, slaughtering innocent people will give you the sweet, sweet approval of Morrigan.

[@ajanthony1356]

interesting about the noble dwarves plotline is while there's clearly a good or bad option morality wise, the "evil" option ends up being the stronger choice on the long run while the "good" one just dies in the epilogue which leaves their kingdom without a ruler once more. there is no right or wrong option, it's all about the player

[@chaoaretasty]

From the title I thought it would be about morality choices in games being a problem, instead I think you managed to nail my issue with morality systems in general (that example from Frostpunk you showed gave me the same reaction it gave you and that was just from me watching it). PS thanks for getting the name right, was half worried you'd make the mistake of "kay-oh"

[@ilo3456]

Honestly when I played Frostpunk I was so enthralled in survival, that I did some horrible things, like beating people, actually executing dissidents on a regular basis, specially during the last part of the storm, and to me survival did in fact come at a high cost, I managed to do enough bad things that the game gave me the we crossed the line, was it worth it? And I genuinely felt shocked and surprised to how much I did and how I did in fact go crazy for the sake of survival, it was an actual moment of reflection on myself as an individual, and I liked it at the end, but if I had his experience I probably would have been just as baffled.

[@user-zc4br7yt4i]

Personally, I don't get why it's being assumed that sacrificing a child is "crossing the line". Yeah, it's a shitty scenario, but what's the alternative? Let him die later in the storm along with everyone else?

[@chaoaretasty]

I find the idea morally reprehensible. But part of a game like this is making hard choices which shifts the line of where morality is, such as considering ideas of "he'll die in the freezing cold later if we don't". And makes the point even further of attaching good/bad numbers to these decisions.

[@ilo3456]

cahoretasty Well I think is just that the fact the game didn't acknowledge the fact he sacrificed a child, which made him feel horrible and wrong is really the main problem there was no acknowledgement of the evil deeds, and it rather felt like the game said it is ok be an evil despot as long as you don't cross a certain line, which I believe is doing a public execution.

[@user-zc4br7yt4i]

It's not "evil" to sacrifice 1 for many though. You may not agree with it, but that's just because your morals don't align. Many people could say it's "evil" *not* to sacrifice the 1 for the many though. You're not a necromancer sacrificing people for more power, you're someone in charge of making the best out of a bad situation, and keeping as many people alive as possible.

[@maxvarjagen9810]

I think you're right about dishonored overall, but you're wrong about the moral choices in the mission endings. Part of what makes that game satisfying is that the "good" mission endings are so much more evil than just killing the people. If they had played that up, and hadn't factored in guard deaths, it could have been a really interesting subversion where in order to get the good ending you have to be a complete monster

[@ArchitectofGames]

You're right, there's so much they could've done about actions for the greater good and maybe things not being clear cut, but the problem is that because of how the morality system works, the game makes a very clear statement on good vs bad and that's killing people > pretty much anything else. It'd be awesome if some of the violent solutions were actually the low chaos ones, that'd be a really interesting area to explore.

[@Simon-fc9hg]

You're also able to kill every target in the game and still get the low chaos ending. As long as you do not kill too many guards and don't raise too many alarms, your chaos level will remain low despite still killing the targets.

[@kates9231]

Yeah, it's a little bit counter-intuitive when you don't know exactly how the game calculates chaos, but it doesn't have anything to do with how you deal with the targets specifically. When you know this, you can make the decisions about whether the nonlethal solutions to some targets are /really/ better than just killing them without worrying about missing out on the "good" ending, as long as you're not also carving a bloody path through the rest of the level to get to them.

[@Robert399]

Sure but they kicked that in the head by tying it to good and bad endings (I don't care what they're called; they're clearly good and bad endings). It's fun to think about how media we like could be massively improved by minor changes but we can't factor that in when evaluating them. The game we got still says "If you kill less than 25% of the people you meet, you're a good person."

[@danilooliveira6580]

I think the worst part here is how polar the choices are. games hardly give you a third or forth way to solve the problem. like in Witcher 1 where even though the game pushed you every fucking time to side with one of the factions, you could simply avoid the issue, even when you get a ultimatum, you can still avoid to make a choise and end up with a neutral consequence... the neutral consequence is actually worse, but at least your hands are clean. its a great moral choice.

[@tyrantofcans465]

Reminds me that I never say my characters are evil or good, whether in games or writing. It's just a case of what they are willing to do, especially when push comes to shove.

[@Mangaka718]

I aspire to this level of character design and development. And to your Temmie avatar. Bravo.

[@fireflocs]

I've always felt that a good morality system would be one where the player's _motivation_ is what's being evaluated, rather than their actions. To put it another way: there are perfectly selfish and even evil reasons to save someone from a burning building. Maybe you intend to exploit their gratitude, or that of their friends/family. Maybe they're a dangerous serial killer, and you're so twisted that you save their life so they can keep killing innocents. Maybe the building in question is a bank or jewelry shop, this is your only chance to loot the place and, "I was saving Mr Jones" is a good cover. But in all these cases, you're still saving a human life. I'm sure I don't have to explain why a _good_ character might choose to do so, so I won't. But there's even neutral reasons to do so, like maybe this person is important for the ongoing war against the nazis, and if they weren't, you wouldn't really care if they died or not. Or maybe it's just your job, and you're not emotionally invested one way or the other. Point is, while we think of 'saving someone from a burning building' as being one of _the_ most heroic actions possible, there are reasons for doing it that go all over the moral spectrum, and I think an approach like that would work wonders in a game.

[@NatureChannelEnclave]

I remember people were disappointed with Fallout's 4 lack of karma system, but I honestly think that that would kind declared what's good and what's bad in pretty moral neutral conflict. I mean, plot is still weak, but dictating who is the good guys by karma would make everything much more stale.

[@Sku11King77]

I agree. Though it's story isn't the strongest, the fact that whether I side with the Railroad, Institute or Brotherhood I'm constantly questioning if they are the real bad guys, what effect they'll have, and if I agree with their beliefs, without it being locked to a Karma system dictating these things really makes a lot of the choices in the game deeper & more morally grey, hence more meaningful. Especially in the far harbour dlc when you realise you have no idea which characters, including yourself potentially, could actually be synths. Granted this isn't true for all of them, would be hard pressed to try and argue the ambiguity of the Nuka raiders, Minute men & Children of Atom's intentions, but then I think these factions also allow you to roll play someone with a more extreme moral code one way or the other which is important to have in an rpg.

[@a-drewg1716]

while Fallout 4s story sucked ass I do have to say its factions were way better then in Fallout 3 which really only had the good Brotherhood or the evil Enclave. I mean it looks like Bethesda definitely learned from Fallout NV (well specifically from Obsidian Entertainment) in how to properly make joinable factions because even in TES V Skyrim the factions were bad (the only time you had to chose to joined a faction was the civil war quest lines where there was no moral issue between the Empire or the Stormcloaks it was more just chose what ever it doesn't matter there was really no good or evil from both sides and choosing one had no moral consequences and really had no consequences at all)

[@dmas7749]

wai-wai-wai-wai-wait...people MISSED the karma system how

[@demondeity9816]

I'm not sure if everyone was exactly missing the karma system but rather any imput on your choices at all. For me it seemed like any long term consequences were mostly missing from the game, having at least an ending that shows you the result of your actions like the older games and new Vegas have would have mostly solved the problem.

[@UnknownSquid]

@@dmas7749 The Karma system in the original 2 Fallout games was good and worked well. Bethesda's first fallout game, FO 3, completely misunderstood it and made a garbage non-functional version of it. FO: New Vegas made by Obsidian actually restored the original Karma system, but sadly Bethesda just decided to cut it entirely from 4. The main difference between the original system and Bethesda's confused version, is that in the original you had both a global Karma score and a regional Reputation score. The reputation score was based directly on how NPCs perceived your actions, and would only change when your actions could be witnessed or attributed to you. People would treat you very differently based on your reputation, but only in ways logical to their own interests and local awareness of you. It had direct and worldly consequences important to the story telling and gameplay. Eg, get caught stealing and your reputation in that particular town would drop. Steal without getting caught, and nothing would change. The Karma system conversely, was a loose and global evaluation of your morality, and only effected the game in incredibly subtle ways. Stealing would always lower your Karma whether witnessed or not, but no one would ever treat you differently due to your karma score. It wasn't something people just magically knew about you. In FO 3 however, Bethesda merged the two systems, which was a terrible move. What it meant in FO3 was that you could be a perfect petty thief, stealing everything without detection, yet also play the hero role making the moral choices in quests. Your karma score would end up in the negatives due to the multiple petty thefts outweighing the positive quest choices. The result was that NPCs that you've never met before would treat you like a villain for no apparent reason, even though the only actual reputation you should have would logically be positive. It was even worse with how much it confused 3Dog on the radio, since the way his lines were scripted would pick out a praise or insult line based on your karma, and then try to find examples of your recent deeds to justify it. It produced utterly nonsense radio dialogue along the lines of this... "That no good scum sucking 'vault dweller' we love to hate has been at it again folks, making the wasteland a little worse to live in day by day. They just fended off an army of giant fire ants saving the town! And they rescued little Timmy from the bottom of the well too. Be sure to spit on the cold hearted bastard if you see em, for me." They tied the Karma system itself directly to the gameplay in an illogical way it was never supposed to be. That was the reputation systems job, and it was an important job for the RPG elements of the game too. The Karma score itself was a curious little side score and never supposed to intervene in the ways Bethesda did it.

[@Xalimata]

You're right. It is NOT the USSR. It is East Germany.

[@pavelZhd]

Nemo Neverreal to be perfectly precise - "East Grtmany as imagined by West Germany"

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

Thats an interesting precision, what is Grtmany?

[@ahouyearno]

to be even more precise, East Germany as it was. East Germany was a terrible place, much worse than West Germans ever could imagine. Don't look at it through the ostalgia lens, it's despicable and insulting to everyone who died under that regime.

[@pavelZhd]

ahouyearno seriously? You lived there? Like first hand? Cause it honestly sounds like your "opinion" on the subject is a product of propaganda that was so intensive in brainwashing that people subjected to it still perpetuate it a quarter century after it is required. Seriously - you not only see an image you were fed as correct, but when you encounter people opinions contradicting your wievs - even ones based in first hand experiences - you not only reject them outright, but also feel the need to smear them as "oslagia".

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

I mean, apparently there are enough people who lived there and who agree that it was bad. So aren't you smearing their views by calling it "brainwashing"? Even if you find some person who lived there and encountered no issues and was happy, does that somehow invalidate the people who had issues?

[@valdonchev7296]

I agree that Frostpunk's ending fell a bit flat on my first playthrough, too. However, in a way, it made me think back on my choices to try and figure out why I had gotten the bad ending. The reason, btw, was the "Pledge of Loyalty", where citizens would turn into secret informers. During the game, some events occur that try to show the negative consequences of such a law. I had taken the less authoritarian choice in both, and thought that would fix the issue. However, I had not considered what would happen after the game is done. Who would the system in check, if anyone? How many such events occured behind my back? TL DR; Yes, Frostpunk's ending could have been better. However, it did it's job by making me consider my choices in the context of power, one I'm obviously not familiar with. More importantly, it shouldn't detract from the experience you had up until that point, which it sounds like you enjoyed.

[@sator_project]

I'd say the biggest pitfall in moral systems, is that once you tell the player what option is Good and what option is Bad, you rob them of the real moral deliberation, which is determining what Good and Bad really mean.

[@mergele1000]

In my mass effect playthrough I didn't give a crap about the paragon/renegade axis and it was a very impressive experience. I had a 10 minute debate with myself over wether or to let that insect queen go or not. It ment that I could never reap the benefits of some of those threshold locked dialoge choices, but the game was easy enought that that didn't matter and it enhanced the experience a lot. I did afterward try to do a themed run but abandoned that very soon because it was boring, I just couldn't feel the character anymore.

[@heroofcanton1318]

Thats why I don't follow a paragon or renegade storyline. What I did was make my Sheppard someone who will bend the law to her will if it means saving lives or finishing a mission. Because of this mindset and the choices I made throughout ME1, I ended up filling both my paragon and renegade meters.

[@RelativelyBest]

This is what roleplaying actually _is._ It's not making choices based on what rewards you earn or which ending you are after, it's making choices because that's who your character is. I tend to do this whenever possible, even (perhaps especially) when the game doesn't actually prompt it. An example: In Icewind Dale (spoilers for a rather old game) there is short quest where you are supposed to investigate an innkeeper who is suspected of having stolen the inn from the previous owner and possibly murdered him as well. The easiest way to clear the quest is to search the inn, break into a locked container and nab a ring that essentially functions as the will of the previous owner, proving the current one couldn't have inherited the place. The leader of my party was a paladin who was obviously against stealing on principle, being Lawful Good. But my _rogue_ was Chaotic Good and had no problem with it, so she just found the ring on her own initiative and handed it to the paladin. I imagine the paladin just sighed and gave the rogue a "we'll talk about this later" look, and then she immediately confronted the innkeeper. The innkeeper pointed out that a paladin should not be stealing stuff like that, to which my paladin retorted that she was just collecting evidence in what was increasingly looking like a murder investigation with him as prime suspect, so he was the last person she wanted to hear that from. When pressed the guy caves, explains what happened and agrees to surrender himself to the authorities. Directly after that, my paladin simply put the ring back in its original container and I left it there for the rest of the game. Thing is, you don't _need_ to do that. I think the game actually expects you to sell it or keep it as a trophy or something. I'm pretty sure there are no consequences whatsoever to keeping it nor is there any benefit to putting it back. But that's what my paladin would have done - she didn't need the ring anymore and it didn't belong to her. (In fact it technically belonged to the community along with the rest of the inn, in accordance to the will inscribed on it.) As far as my paladin was concerned, she had only borrowed it so she could right a wrong, thus she had no reason to feel guilty about it. I did some other similar things as well - my fighter spent a lot of the game using a sword and armor the party had looted from the tomb of an old warrior. Once I got better gear and didn't need them anymore, the party made a detour back to the tomb and put the sword and armor back, along with some other trinkets I didn't feel like keeping. Again, there's no benefit to this and just selling that gear would have been far more advantageous. But my fighter simply felt that the sword and armor should rest with their original owner, and hoped that they'd eventually be useful to some other adventurer. Selling them for some extra gold would have felt crass and disrespectful. This isn't something you can build into the game mechanics, or at least most games don't bother to. It's something that comes from _you,_ the player, because you've made the character into an actual person with values beyond those imposed by the game's system.

[@Chromodar]

Yes, this exactly. For years I've been saying, the perfect morality system is this: The consequences of your actions are the consequences of your actions.

[@adisappointedfbiagent449]

A morality system should track your progress secretly, without showing you how good or bad you are. Rather you find out yourself if what you did was good or bad by letting the player experience the pros and cons of each choice.

[@mr.pavone9719]

Go play Ultima IV

[@adisappointedfbiagent449]

@@mr.pavone9719 k

[@uristmcdorf55555]

Go play new vegas

[@adisappointedfbiagent449]

@@uristmcdorf55555 Already finished multiple times

[@robbietheweirdo]

i'd assume one consequence would be NPCs that'd otherwise be friendly to you being more cold

[@curious_one1156]

In real life too, moral choices have consequences. For a select few, choosing sides has its advantages.

[@curious_one1156]

@Ricardo Santos If a good man commits evil once, does he become evil ? If an evil man commits a virteous deed once, does he become a good man ? So you see, different behaviours at different times are incentivised.

[@marcar9marcar972]

Eeshan Khan yeah but sometimes games take this too far or make it stupid

[@muhamedmahmutovic6639]

@@curious_one1156 Depends how good that virtuous thing is and how bad the evil thing is so good person can become bad if thing that they do is so bad that erase everything good that they done and opposite if bad person do something that is so good that it erase bad things that he done then he can redeem himself.

[@Lumineszenz]

Most games that do have morality systems use them in an orbitrary/gameplay-bound way, because it is very time consuming and inefficient to give a lot of choices to the player. After all they will go with only one of those choices, so most of what you create will never be seen by a large portion of the players. A great example of this is Fallout New Vegas. The game has 4 main outcomes that you can follow: NCR, Legion, Mr. House or independant and the majority of players have only seen one or maybe two of those stories. It is incredibly inefficient to create 3, 4, 5 or more outcomes to a situation so exploring true moral problems is difficult to do. In the example that you gave about freeing this alien a simple yes-or-no option is insufficient in my opinion. You need to explore different options: Interrogate the alien and find out who it is, what it wants and so on all while considering that it might be lying to you. Talk to other people that might know more about the alien. Free it, find a compromise of giving it more freedom but with it still remaining under close observation, leave it or increase security measures so that no one could free it even if they tried. Yes or no just doesn't cut it. Nothing feels more annoying than being confronted with a moral problem and you can think of all those ways on how to gather and evaluate more information and you can imagine compromises and alternative solutions but the game forces you to commit to completly yes or completly no. Sometimes circumstances force you to make a call without offering the opportunity for investigation and nuance, but that should be used carefully and in appropriate situations. At least those are my two cents on why many game have shallow morality systems.

[@BLaRgXrvbX]

It honestly just looked like he was showing off what weird moral indie games he plays, like a hipster bragging that his shirt is cruelty-free. They didn't look like anything special

[@victorayorke7123]

People seem to have a negative reaction to Frostpunk for not recognising the moral compromises specific to their first playthrough, which strikes me as odd. (apologies for wall of text) Just as happened to the contributors on Three Moves Ahead when discussing thsi game, that final text that says whether or not you crossed the line is not exactly what is running through the player's head, and this causes a strong disconnect for people. The game is good at making you take lots of difficult decisions that add up and weigh on the player in the end, and its unparalleled in its ability to leave people unsettled by what they themselves did to force their city to survive. In the end, a game that gives us lots of things to feel conflicted about can't be expected to also read our mind to find what stuck. An alternative reading, though - Frostpunk's ending, aside from doing just about everything Darkest Dungeon does (up to and potentially including the bad end that decontextualises your gameplay decisions to reveal you as the villain), applies an interesting reading to the end result - it passes judgement on whether you irrevocably destroyed society to ensure survival, or whether there's an opportunity to walk back from the brink now that the (literal) storm has passed. Adam at about 6.00 says he tried to uphold strict moral values in his city. Despite the lapses and concessions he was forced to make, his outcome reflects this. The final sacrifice of that child to save the generator was a decision that a society still capable of justice could feel remorse for. A Captain who took an easier road would find it convenient to label the child a martyr or glorify the sacriice in propaganda - there power would have been abused, and the line crossed. (It also wasn't a scripted end-of-playthrough event, but a side effect of the generator being left on overload for too long, which helps explain why the game didn't take that much notice of it despite feeling so climactic)

[@optimusbauer3669]

The problem with Frostpunk was that it genuinely didn't matter what choices you made. The game only tracked the number of laws you pushed through, so if you didn't for example create soup kitchens you very well could start that inquisitorial police. So once you look behind the curtain the game ceases to pose a moral question at all and it starts to become a question of which laws are the most beneficial for you, the player, and not the city or the individual

[@bunnysmg3818]

What is a single sacrifice when it comes to humanity getting completely wiped from the face of planet earth.

[@zandbergx9747]

I like Undertale's method of not *telling* you there's a morality system until it's too late(The Last Corridor) Edit: I know there are minor hints in the game's story but nothing says it outright

[@fattytan1377]

Wait, minor? It literally throws you in the bad bin for touching a single monster. It felt like "My store sells useful equipment for *murderers*" That's in neutral, from one ded, to not grind, but ded. Same answer. Genocide had a wee bit more, but it literally closes the other ending from happening, period. Morality system my as*

[@samuelbunkly2527]

Honestly that's one of the reasons I hate myself for watching it before playing it. No matter what I do I will know what happens, and be unable to do what *I* would do instead of what I want to do to show myself I'm a good or bad player

[@nonuvurbeeznus795]

@@fattytan1377 None of the shopkeepers sell you items with the intention of you using them for murder. They never actually sell you a real weapon or piece of armor, period. Only exception is the empty gun, which is well, empty, and Catty is kind of an airhead. Still, not even the best weapon. There really isn't a single justified kill of a monster in the entire game. It's clear you just didn't pay attention to the themes of the game.

[@fattytan1377]

@@nonuvurbeeznus795 it was never a literal statement.

[@exyzt9877]

@@fattytan1377 The game doesn't do that unless you choose genocide. For the other routes, it saves the judgement for the aptly named "Judgement Hall" at the end. I would know. I played the game once tried to do pacifist on my first route, was bad, had to switch to a neutral in order to get by until, and just decided I'd redo the whole thing once I got to the end and had the skill to get by. sans was judgemental about that choice, but only somewhat. The only other characters that ARE highly judgemental about your decision to kill even a single monster are Undyne, and... It's, fucking, undyne. You've seen her personality, you know what she's like. And Flowey, but he's judgemental no matter WHAT you do, so who the fuck even cares? Unless you're talking about them locking out the true pacifist if you kill even a single monster, which... It's literally called "True Pacifist", it's the reward for getting through the game without any blood on your hands, what were you expecting?

[@TheNomnomnom0815]

I believe people are confusing Dark and Light side of the Force with Good and Evil. It's not like that. They do have facets of either and on a surface level, Dark may seem more 'evil', but the Light side is far from 'Good' or morally right (even more so considering Good and Evil are highly subjective). One of the most memorable quotes from SWTOR on this was for instance: "The Jedi aren't about protecting people's freedom. They are about protecting the peace."

[@colonelchair2737]

That's the reason I actually like the storytelling in SWTOR. I always used to look at the light and dark side of the force as good and evil and always picked the light side because "they're the good guys, yaaay!" But playing through SWTOR made me realize it was more than that. Like for instance, just because you're a sith it doesn't mean you're an absolute asshole. Yes you can be an asshole and at times that's rather fun, but the light and dark side of the force is more a battle between philosophies than between good and evil. I've taken a huge liking to the dark side because of that because I strongly disagree with the light side's whole no emotion or passion dealio. I don't agree with the empire and their methods but I believe in emotion and passion so it makes it an easy choice for me. I think the lore also explains how neither side is truly good or bad anyway because the republic is shown to do some kinda terrible things too, so it's all in the perspective.

[@futurestoryteller]

Supposedly George Lucas felt this way, but this kind of stuff was only in spinoff materials, he's kind of at fault for not communicating that at all in his blockbusters. There's absolutely no nuance in the force. Even when he tried to show "the failure of the Jedi" in the prequel movies, that failure pretty much amounts to dereliction of duty, as far as any lay-viewer can tell.

[@5h0rgunn45]

@@colonelchair2737 I'd like to agree with you because there's a lot of things wrong with the Jedi: their rejection of emotion and relational ties, despite being inherently emotional and relational creatures, leads to a lot of resentment, leading to pent-up rage against the system. There's also their incredible arrogance about how right they are, Their refusal to act decisively in situations that require it and their hasty actions in situations where they should take more thought, their complete domination of the chain of command in every war they fight in despite being "keepers of the peace" and having no knowledge whatsoever of how to command armies. Yet, in all the movies, show, and video games I've seen and played, every sith ever *is* an a-hole. Not just that, but an unbelievably over-the-top a-hole. Except Kreia I suppose, she's just really hard to figure out. Of course, I've never played SWTOR. But as far I can tell, the dark side just automatically turns people into over-the-top psychotic madmen, and I really, really don't like it.

[@TheFinalKnight1]

Most people dont realize that the force has no good side or bad side and its neutral unless it is manipulated by an individual

[@joemama-qy4fb]

@@5h0rgunn45 Darth Marr seemed like a good sith.

[@arnust7113]

As many others have said, Dishnored's world is one where the nuances of acts of people shape the enviromnent in an entropic way. The shitholes spiral down, and the places who strive are often in golden ages. Of course, you're only told about the latter, but that's just why being called "chaos" isn't just a flavour choice. Of course, the execution is a bit weak and it something makes you wonder if pragmatism wouldn't help. In the other hand, you CAN kill for as long as you stay under 20% the level population, if you want to deliver your own taste of justice to guards and overseers, which in D2 was a bit expanded by the Heart allowing you to see if a person is good in heart or a rotten bastard (or has generally balanced entropy) to decide to spare them or not, if you want to bother. In other case, anyway, I do like the veiled morality in games like FTL or Into The Breach. You get to understand why the main enemy faction has risen up against the Federation by just looking at your act, blowing up surrendering ships, dealing with mercenaries and criminals, and doing other minor infractions. Or not. ITB is more of a stretch but having to balance structure and lives with the greater goal of saving humanity, even if more subtly than FTL's, does add up to making the setting a bit more dim than it's presented.

[@maverickdarkrath4780]

The heart is actually useless in this regard, it can give completely different statements about characters at random, if you follow the singing couple in every area you basically get multiple contradictory statements about them, its just flavor text not a hit list

[@neilclerk2579]

This is exactly what I needed. I just played through Dishonored for the first time, not exactly going about it stealthily or peacefully. Got to the mission with the masquerade party and wanted to try getting Lady Boyle out alive. I went through it, feeling weary since the wording "The woman I love" is too vague. When I found out it was sinister, I immediately reloaded a save and mercy killed her. Then I talk to my brother who was being stealthy and non lethal and he didn't even think twice about giving her up. I felt so uncomfortable from this entire situation because of what you said in this video. This was not the moral choice in the slightest, but since she wouldn't be dying by my hands I am in the clear.

[@connoroboyle7310]

4:18 My dad came into the room during that level in a Low Chaos run. It was rather difficult to explain.

[@natashajanesilvers3548]

I wonder if moving from a single axis to a multidimensional idea of morality would solver this or would it be patch on a missing limb. Ie instead of the system being: Angel on earth |--------------------------| Devil still hot from hellfire It was something like (I'm not sure this are the best axis for view mortal questions, just using them to explain what I mean) Absolute Individuality |--------------------------| The Group Before Me Equality Of Results |--------------------------| Equality Of Opertunity An Eye For An Eye |--------------------------| Turn The Other Cheek atc You could end up with some interesting way to play by splitting mortality into different axis like this, but you could still end up with the issue of choices becoming calculations if there are a set of rewards that work well together or a reward that is just overpowered.

[@subprogram32]

This might not be quite the same, but a game called Glitched in development right now is a game with no 'morality' system as they say, but rather one of six 'essences' - Harmony, Conquest, Bastion, Drift, Zeal and Insight - where every NPC is defined by one of those essences, but their individual nature creates quite different interpretations of how that essence is expressed. And of course, your main character is uniquely able to express all six depending on the choices you make. No idea how well it will be executed when the game is released ultimately but I have to give props for trying a new concept.

[@ethanbuchanan7368]

I think a multidimensional morality system would be interesting but I think it's not quite what he was getting at. The video is getting at the idea of making moral choices for the sake of making moral choices. If there is a reward for playing a certain way most players are going to play that way regardless of morality, but by disconnecting systemic rewards from moral choices and just letting consequences flow it creates interesting story moments. While I think your idea doesn't really solve the problem at hand since ultimately he is saying a bar in any form just doesn't cut it, the idea could be interesting in its own setting. Say for instance you put it in some heist game where you needed to assemble a crew, and you could choose from a group of people and they may or may not agree to work with you based on your bars. So like if person A is great at this skill you need but only likes people who are highly individualistic. I think there is potential in the idea even if it's not the solution for this problem.

[@natashajanesilvers3548]

I suppose you're correct the my post is a bit off the main point of the video. It was me thinking out loud about how you might go about implementing a system to have NPCs/factions react to your character's morality when meeting the player for the first time, ie your reputation preceding you. You could hardcode the reactions for small numbers of NPCs/factions but if you scale it up you need an underlying system.

[@jonathanbowen6774]

I think Extra Credit did a video on the issues with moral systems from a developer point of view and how a more nuanced system leads to mountains of extra work for them. I do feel Adam's point here is to at least stick to making those choices clear and mostly story driven. KOTOR fails because it has in game benefits for either side. Dishonored fails because it takes a Batman like view on death. Death = ultimate bad and anything less is good because well you are still alive... even if you are going to escape in 3 weeks and kill another few hundred people.

[@natashajanesilvers3548]

Do you have a link or the title of the Extra Credits video you are referring too? I remember them doing one of mortal systems turning choices into calculations but I don't remember to covering the developer's point of view. I'm don't understand what you mean be "at least stick to making those choices clear and mostly story driven", mostly I'm unsure what you mean by clear. Clear when you choice is being recorded/judged? Clear in it effects/consequences? Clear is what is being deemed the 'good; and 'evil' option? I've haven't played either KOTOR or Dishonored so I can't give you anything more that than my thoughts based on the information in the video and your comment. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of removing rewards for playing a certain alignment, I think it is more a question of degree than yes or no. As depending on how you define it, a reward could be something like meeting an NPC or NPCs having different reactions to you (more story/content based) or unlocking different skills (make mechanics based). I have my views on each other be done better but I will skip them to try and shorten this already too long comment. I view the issue you talk about with Dishonored as an issue because of compressing mortality into 'good' or 'evil', there is what my first comment was about, it was me thinking out loud about would expanding mortality systems reduce this issue. I've had some more time to think and have found a few issues with my suggestion; namely handling things like double standards/views that differentiate based on something about the character(s) involved. And finding a way to know why a player picked the choice they did. Example: did they free that slave because their against slavery? Or because they needed the guards away and knew they'd chase the escaped slave? if they only needed the guards away why not kill/knock them out? Does the player know.or even care what happen to the slave after? Was he caught? How was he punished for running away? I don't really have answers for those questions.

[@jacobussmit1453]

What's always been interesting to me about morality and ethics in games like these are, well, that ethics are subjective. That's the reason why when I am playing an authoritarian empire in Stellaris I always tease my buddies about how I am playing the good guy when I enslave half the galaxy. After all, my half of the galaxy is the only one that isn't wracked with constant warfare, right? Which means in the eyes of my like-minded citizens I am performing a moral right. Obviously most of us come from a culture where authoritarianism and slavery are bad things, but it serves, in my eyes, a valuable lesson about perspective and standpoint on such matters. Anyway, excellent video as always, Adam!

[@ajaco10]

We only see authoritarian governments as bad because Freedom based governments won the great wars. A more authoritarian government with strong moral values (of the greater good) could be more beneficial to society than the current libertarian regimes. The problem is the larger a government, the more corrupt they are likely to become but equally the less efficient they are.

[@MusketWalrus]

Ashley Jacoby No, we see authoritarian governments as bad because they *are* bad. Not only do they become corrupt and inefficient, but a government big enough to give you all you want is also big enough to take away everything you have and make your life a living hell. Authoritarianism is by definition oppressive and repressive to its own people, often killing those who dissent and coercing people to stay in line. How is that anything other than objectively morally wrong? When it comes to "the greater good", the question is always, for whom? In a libertarian society each person is allowed to pursue their own good, as long as they keep to certain universal rules. In many ways you cannot impose your good on others, because for many points of difference between people (conscience, religion, politics, etc) the best option is to live and let live (obviously there are limits to this however, like murder and slavery). In an authoritarian state those at the top believe that they can decide for everyone else what "the greater good" is, and anyone who resists "the greater good" becomes expendable, an obstacle to progress. It isn't just not wrong to eliminate them, it becomes positively commendable! After all, they were against "the greater good", and how can anyone be against that? This is exactly how places like Nazi Germany and the USSR are made. In fact, someone made a KZbin essay on "the greater good" through the lens of the fantastic movie Hot Fuzz. You should check it out, it's great.

[@jacobussmit1453]

Hi, MusketWalrus. I love your response! Just as we have examples from history to indicate why authoritarianism is evil, we have just as many examples of how it can work quite well. The thing to remember is any government type, no matter how egalitarian and benign, can become corrupt and bloated, seeking only to fill its own stomach. Western Democracy has also demonstrated great depths of depravity and greed, just as Eastern Communism and countless alternative government types have. The key takeaway is no government is perfectly suited to handle every situation, or cater to the needs of its people. In fact I've argued for a long time that the best government would be one that is ready, and willing, to change organizational style to meet the needs of the now, in order to provide the best method for handling a given issue. It's unreasonable, however, to expect that people in charge would be selfless enough to carry out morally correct choices which benefit the people, especially when morality can often be contentious in nature, i.e.: sacrifice one child to save a colony. Essentially, morality is dictated by people, there isn't an objective 'good' or 'bad', just different viewpoints. Sorry for the text wall :P

[@ajaco10]

Authoritarian government are not inherently bad just as freedom is not inherently good. I will give 2 examples where authoritarian could be seen as better over freedom. 1. People who lack education, are jobless (having no aspiration to get a job) and rely on social securities are given the ability to have numerous children which will be funded by the government. Thus perpetually increasing the number of people who will be in the same situation. By restricting the ability to get the social security for having children you are taking away freedom of choice. However looking at this objectively, something needs to be done. 2. There is a increasing number of people not immunising their children despite the huge individual and public health benefits. Again the greater good option would be to enforce immunising (if applicable) as although their personal beliefs may object, any person educated in basic biology would be able to explain it is an amazing medical advancement. We often attribute Authoritarian governments to that of Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany and also only are educated on the negative things that arose from their governments. Instead of completely eradicating the concept of ideas such as Authoritarian or Socialism, we should learn not only from the mistakes that were made but the success that were achieved and implement those where possible. TL;DR We like to imagine Freedom as a happy utopia but it comes at the price of funding idiocracy.

[@jacobussmit1453]

Ashley Jacoby, very well said! As Julius Caesar once said, "Experience is the teacher of all things." The best course of action is to study history and learn from past mistakes.

[@wlll1235]

His point about Frostpunk reminds of this mobile game where you are a Seed Ship (THAT'S the name! I forgot!), which carries humans on their way to a new planet. You have some tough choices to make, which can have good or bad consequences (killing the humans, losing all science or history, etc.). And at the end of a run, you get the story of the humans on that ship. I really enjoyed it and I think that I will return to it after this video.

[@KigreTheViking]

"When i do good, i feel good. When i do bad, i feel bad. That's my religion." -Abraham Lincoln-

[@spectralassassin6030]

But what if you have to do something bad to do something good?

[@williamthekiller7219]

@@spectralassassin6030 but not good in the long run.... Like say....you go to war to this country A so you can save country B(whether it's your ally or not).. You destroyed the army of country A, bombed their territories...even if you didn't commit any war crimes like killing their non-soldiers Your actions indirectly let them starve, homeless, and a lot of things But let's talk about country B you just saved You saved them... And they are grateful to you and your country And you formed relationships with them Then your countrymen starts to move in there... For reasons like helping them on their feet They are very poor country and their government is a mess because of the war or they are like that even before the war... Your countrymen saw opportunities and started to take advantage of them Like Taking their resources for free or for very low price for example...and because your countrymen can travel there... Drugs and illegal stuff started to come in and out They enslaved girls for sex trade and other stuff And all of these affected their future for a very long time I know you might say this is out your control And you did what you did to save them But let's think about it Let country A conquer them and hopefully their leader will good to them or country B will fight for their freedom in the future Or you save them and your country will fucked them up and used them forever after they have taken everything they have... 3rd world country at best and the chance of rising up is almost zero

[@spectralassassin6030]

William The Killer I don’t really remember what was going through my mind when I made my comment but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything along the lines of that. I understand what you’re saying but I think we’re on two different pages.

[@williamthekiller7219]

@@spectralassassin6030 no worries

[@notapplicable6985]

@Pingers Bingers I have seen alot of people think some bad shit they do is good. Like there are people who think the death penalty is fine for minor crimes, and people who think the death penalty is wrong no matter what the person did. And while it is not always the case, most people have a similar code to the people they grew up around. Like I am an athiest, but I still think that the ones who use creatard are jerks.

[@kotchi9197]

This channel is great. Reading through the comments section already has been very thought-provoking. You should try and encourage more and more active discussions like these. Lots of different perspectives regarding morality, and an intimate scale that a game can provide makes it even better.

[@Highnorthy]

So glad someone else sees this ♥️. Pyre was a really nice example of a game that did this well

[@ChasoGod]

I like the Reputation system in FO:NV where you don't have just Good or Evil choices but you develop reputation in certain factions depending on your actions towards them.

[@Nathan-gt3xi]

Mortality system: Your actions have consequences. Also me: making all the bad choices and laughing maniacally as I destroy everyone’s hopes and dreams.

[@futhington]

It's fun that you bring up Frostpunk, because their previous best-known game This War Of Mine shot itself in the foot re:emotional impact (not quite morality but in the same field) in exactly the same way. Spoilers follow I guess: So I send a character out to scavenge and find a house, but there's people living it in still. Father and son. I get caught and, being desperate and not knowing what else to do, shoot them both. While I got a huge amount of loot (I had to come back the next day for it all) I was, rightly, perturbed and felt like an absolute cocknozzle about it. Only for the moment to be really deflated when I see that the character who did it now has the "Sad" affliction. I cured the sad affliction by having another character have a chat with him and got on with the game. It sucked a lot of the impact of what I did out of it by reducing it to a small in-game consequence rather than leaving me to stew in my own terrible actions.

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

On the flip-side, I like such stuff. I dislike when a game does nothing to acknowledge an action :P It means the action may as well not have taken place. That said, it should probably be a bigger consequence than "you have to chat with someone later"

[@futhington]

Yeah it was more the gameifying of it than anything else, if it had been brought over more subtley or via non-obvious cues, maybe the character's dialogue gets more terse and fatalistic or his hands shake whenever he holds a gun afterward and he's worse at aiming, then it would have preserved that impact. As-is the game tore me back to the mechanics before I'd had time to mull over the impact of what I'd done.

[@gabrielgauchez9435]

i think it depends on the character and the situation in my playthrough i had a character really sick and my chars were sad killing those ppl made some depresed and then they just lie and do nothing+ you can talk with a sadder character and with the following death of the sick character they became broken and suicide, there are some characters that just dont give a shit and are dead inside some are more sensitive

[@arandombard1197]

It would have been okay if the character was shown to be sad. Maybe muttering "there was so much blood..." but with absolutely no gameplay effects would have been great. Everytime we look at them, we see how much psychological damage has been done and feel guilty, while simultaneously feeling relieved that we were able to get the neccessary medicine to save a seriously sick group member. Instead, telling us they are sad until we remove the condition with a series of actions/alcohol just makes a resource to be managed, like hunger or sleep. It seriously damages the experience.

[@trevordavis6830]

Did they change the way chatting works since I last played. Usually for me it takes multiple days before chatting actually does something.

[@zeromailss]

Great video as always, are you gonna make a video about Detroit? or will you make a video about a broad topic with a lot of game as an example next like this one? looking forward either way ;3

[@kaiju2920]

At first I thought the title said “are immortality systems making us less mortal?” Like tf

[@BulldozerTheDon]

This video was insightful, articulate, and down right amazing. You explain your case very well.

[@iamtwoawesomes]

the interesting situation where a game provides you with a labeled good or bad option and you disagree with their assessment i don’t have much to say about this but just the feeling of salt-ily picking the “evil” option when you want the good points cause you’re invested in role playing is... distinct

[@silvertheelf]

Issues I have in Darkest Dungeons: I don’t want to throw anyone out, even when I would benefit from getting someone new. My issue with loosing troops keeps leading me to failing quests and quitting out before any of them die at the cost of successful quests, this in turn I found out increases the difficulty of quests even faster because they don’t level up but the quest counts as done so it goes to the next quest, so it really is just a slow loosing cycle of failure because I can’t loose any character... it really ends up with me quitting because the game is indirectly demanding I loose troops if I want to win. Lastly... I don’t win enough to succeed. if anything, it’s good at making me angry.

[@skriddle8667]

late reply but , think of yourself as a ruthless CEO of a company. If they are too weak or have very bad negative quirks , toss em. The troops dont matter , the Hamlet does. Trust me , you can easily replace the bad troops with even better one's every week and only spend cash on the troops , that are worth keeping alive. btw if u didn't know yet , u can actually fire troops when you are in Hamlet , just click on the icon of the hero you want to get rid of , and on the top left , there's a small Button that let's u fire them.

[@silvertheelf]

@@skriddle8667 ... or I could just install and O.P. knight mod.

[@skriddle8667]

@@silvertheelf lol i guess? i never tried mods in darkest dungeon yet

[@TheCaliforniaHP]

Same. DD pisses me off

[@FatWalterWhite69]

You have terrible grammar.

[@DehOllie]

Loved the video! Just one thing, round about the start you were talking about the player choosing one side over the other not because of their moral point of view but for the benefits such as loot or better stats. In that portion you never mentioned a huge (could be wrong on that but anyways) part of the community like roleplayers and the people that not only go for a specific run for the best ending but those who try and live through their character as them self. Again, loved the video and just wanted to share my thoughts

[@ashleighlambert9822]

Great video! Im reminded of a choice in The Walking Dead Telltale DLC. You had to decide between freeing a captive or killing them. I honesty stared at the screen for so long - both would result in significant consequences for my group and I remember thinking, "oh man, I can just not decide?" One of my favorite gaming moments. Again, excellent video!

[@wanderingbufoon]

I disagree with your assessment of Frostpunk as it is the last bastion of humankind. At this point, survival at any cost is normally in mind. Therefore the ending morality system does fit with whether or not you've done these many questionable choices. In survival games, the whole morality system of being a good guy or bad solely depends on the level of desperation. Frostpunk is without a doubt a game in which forces you already to make those hard choices. The end will justify the means. Without having to worry about desperation for one's preservation, morality system in games such as Star Wars should be approached non-binarily. Dishonored games fall into Frostpunk's category as you are preserving your image. It is a "redeption" game in which you redeem your status as being a good guy and prove your innocence. Rather than the end justify the means, this is a route in which the morality system is based on consistency. Are you true to the character throughout the story or will you change on the basis of what has happened to Corvo? I think RPG games like Star Wars and Elder Scrolls, any character in which has no or little backstory (their personality is not established), have to have a morality system based on outcomes. "If I chose to release the Alien, what will happen to me?" Frostpunk or Dishonored cannot leave you to ask to questions and have an ambiguous outcome. It is "Can I risk being morally good? Will my city survive if I do this?" or "Will killing this person help me recover my image or the princess?" For the most part, these are the questions that will arise in a player's brain with these kinds of games. I really hate the whole strategic-based morality system. When it becomes like that, it really falls apart. It becomes easy to overcome instinctive decisions. "If I kill him, I'd get his cool armour" or "If I help her, I'd get this really good support aid" Decisions become no brainers. That is why morality systems do not really quite work well for Frostpunk or Dishonored. They really are just game mechanics on whether or not you wish your game to be difficult/easy.

[@futhington]

I think the point re: Frostpunk isn't so much that its use of morality via the decisions and laws is bad, more that it goes to great lengths to build up this fascinating and in-depth system of slowly making you slip into tyranny to survive and then completely lets itself down. Take Adam's case: he ended the game as a slowly-corrupting theocracy that had proven it was willing to sacrifice a child for the greater good, and the game gave him a pat on the back for it and said "Well done this was moral and good". The whipslash from that must be phenomenal; going from stunned and disturbed by what you've done to being given a gold star and sent on your way. It's the game shooting itself in the foot big-style. The best thing a game that *wants* to be about moral choices like that can do is hold up a mirror at the end and ask "Are you proud of yourself?", maybe with some key statistics like people dead from frostbite, overwork, children with black lung etc. That leaves it in your human brain, which is much better at dealing with these questions than a computer's binary assessment, to wrestle with what you did and decide if you really are happy with that or if you'd like to try again and see if you fall into the same old traps. A game like Dishonored is a little bit different I feel, there instead of holding up a mirror to the player the idea is to roleplay as Corvo. You're thrust into the world from day one as an established character with a backstory which is elucidated relatively quickly, then tasked with deciding if Corvo would do this that or the other in response to events around him. It really is a game about honour, and not yours as the player character but Corvo's as a person. Dishonoured distinguishes itself from games like KOTOR and TES in that regard for me, where the approach was I think summed up by one of Obsidian's writers that "Half the story occurs in the player's head". In those games you are given a blank slate, asked to imagine a character and engage with the world through them. In Dishonoured you are given a character and asked to decide what he might do in this scenario, in that regard it's much more centred on role-playing than on building a personal fantasy. TL;DR: I'd separate Frostpunk and Dishonoured and KOTOR into their own categories: Your assessment of KOTOR and the like is accurate, strategic morality where full good or full bad are the right choices and it kinda falls apart as a result. Dishonoured feels to me like a game asking you to roleplay, like a DM who's given you a prewritten character sheet or a writer who wants to discuss how his story will unfold, the morality system there is intended to show how different interpretations of Corvo lead to a different story. Frostpunk wants to be in a third category: games that challenge the player themselves to make decisions (as "The Captain" who hands down decisions from on high, a nice little bit of visual design) and confront the consequences, but ultimately lets itself down a little by giving you a binary message about an arbitrary moral score at the end.

[@Kanjejou]

the problem is that morality is a social construct if you oppose it to pure logic like strategic action then it fall appart because those concept don't even work on the same rules... on work with empathy feelings and personnal implication, logic don't work on those things, you can try to mix them but then moral die or logic die.

[@TheArklyte]

wanderingbufoon the ends never justify the means. If in the end, you're looking for a justification for your actions to help you sleep at night, then you've already failed and are just a hypocritic coward in denial. And Frostpunk demonstrates that well, as you've said. The game never forces you to go any further then you'd want to with those laws, your "need" to get them rests solely at your own incompetence to organize the survival of the cit... town without them. It also shows that the most valuable resource is people(and steam cores;)) Resource you're constantly wasting only to require justification for such actions later and some praise, "good boy award".

[@wanderingbufoon]

TheArklyte in games like frostpunk? Yeah, end justifies the means. I mean your mission is the survival of humanity. At this point, having be good is just a personal goal rather than a major goal. Say that you can only feed 50 people and you have 500 people. You either thin the population or you let your people starve to death. Which one will you choose? The morality system in games like frostpunk only go so far to make people struggle about choosing the right choice. In the end, you become tactical about it as its a game. I feel if frostpunk were to implement personality system like in state of decay, i believe that the morality system would be more effective as you get attached to the characters. If they die, you actually feel like you've lost a valuable asset (if you are nothing but a cold hearted tactician). For the most part, i think its the games fault for not making us feel sentimental about characters. Which is kind of hard to do in games like frostpunk. Unless your village consists of 10 people. I think its more manageable and each decision would really make you think. (If i were to implement this, so and so will dislike it and will leave or be so depressed that itll male others be depressed. If you kick him/her out, others will fear you and be depressed) without having include personalities, morality system falls apart in survival games as you are forced to be the who justifies the means.

[@JB940]

I had the exact opposite. Yes, I had child labour. Children only worked from 8 to 18. Yes. I used extended work shifts. I rescued everyone on the map, I only had a few deaths during the events. I never let events take the bad moral choice (IE: work people to death, let people die, always choose the quests to build stuff etc) And I feel like I got a terrible and negative ending. I feel like I've been a very good, and morally just leader. Heck child labour is fucking normal here, but somehow in an age of everything collapsing it's a bad thing? Idk, I've gotten so many "negative" notifications during the end-cinematic of frostpunk, which while looking back at my playthrough are still false, that it just hit me in the face and I got turned away from the game entirely. I was so happy to find this video randomly recommended online and touching on frostpunk - this game is the only game where a morality system directly made me stop playing.

[@anduro7448]

6:28 IMO that is an ethical choise. If the kid was not send into the generator everone (including the kid) died If the kid was sent just that kid died (one person) and everyone else surivived

[@Itsprincesweets]

1 kid vs LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYONE isn't a moral choice. It's a right wrong answer

[@Integer_Overload]

Ahh, back in the day when Knights of the Old Republic was canon....

[@thealientree3821]

How is the Disney bullcrap canon, but this isn’t?

[@billylion3073]

@@thealientree3821 because disney buys all the cannons then sues you if you dissagree

[@dtkedtyjrtyj]

Screw Disney, canon starts at Knights of the Old Republic II and flows from there.

[@michaelsurname8668]

This was a really interesting video, very clearly explained and well edited as well. One thing I would add to your point is that 'it's important to consider what choices the developers have decided to give you.' When a game grants you a choice over what happens in its world, that doesn't happen because the world naturally came to that point. It hsppens because the developers have designed it to, and so the situation and the different ways you can effect it are controlled for you. In Frostfight, for example, even a game with a wide variety of options does have a decision ethos behind it; one where the player has control over the entire town at all times, with no intervention from other forces. You mentioned having tough decisions to make during the fame, and that's a sign of a good morality system, but it ignores questions like 'why was it your decision to make?' Even a game about moral choices never challenges the morality of that kind of power structure itself. The fact that there's no option to abstain, or to place those executive powers the players have in democratic control, is obviously a result of development and programming limitations for a small studio, but it also has an effect on the morality system overall. "You're a good guy for making the tough decisions that allow society to survive" could be the excuse of any bloodthirsty dictator for their crimes, even when it's someone else's lives they are sacrificing, and they never wonder why its them making the decisions in behalf of everyone else. The choices the designers choose to allow you (or not allow you) is as important a design decision as how it frames those choices in the story

[@gracefool]

This has been so obvious to me ever since the first morality system I played. I don't get why anyone thinks they are a good idea.

[@Titanic_Tuna]

It's just the temptation to push ideology on to other people knowing that they will play your game. It's not really a decision if there are solid laws of the universe telling you what is and isn't objective fact, it's poorly done. Bioware are a huge offender for this and very few people ever call them out.

[@danilooliveira6580]

the first time I played a game with a morality meter I actually liked it, I was like "oh damn, my choices make a difference". but after the second or third game I was like "wait... I'll be punished by beating this huge asshole ?" or "I have nothing to do with what is going here, why I'm being punished for staying neutral ?"

[@ValThracian]

Because D&D had a morality system, and nearly all video games can trace their roots to D&D

[@danilooliveira6580]

D&D morality system was a bit different though, its intention was more toward creating some loose guidelines to a character actions and how he interacts with everything around him. you are not rewarded for being good or bad, but if your character is "good" you are expected to be more selfless and worry about people well being. you are not rewarded for being chaotic or lawful, but if your character is lawful you are expected to have a strong sense of morals and ideals.

[@ValThracian]

Well yes, but I think the intention of video game morality system is a lazy way to keep players going along their "alignment" in lieu of a GM/party. It doesn't make much sense for a complete pacifist to suddenly turn around and murder innocent citizens, so a system to measure the "good" and "bad" actions on a scale would keep players cognizant of their actions (at least on paper.) As was stated in the video, most people decide to do an "evil" run or a "good" run, so in a sense it works. However morality systems are really flawed: they are arbitrary and they can be gamed. Why does killing feral ghouls count as "good?" Why does Shepard, after spending an entire game resolving things diplomatically, suddenly decide to punch a reporter out on camera? Are players really "evil" for stealing paperweights?

[@shinygekkouga52]

I’ve always noticed that when playing games such as Infamous that have a morality system, there’s really no choice in morality. If you decide to become either a just or evil person, you have to stay on that path to reap the benefits of leveling up or remain scrawny and underpowered. Keeping that in mind, I agree with the idea that moral systems shouldn’t affect or be affected by other mechanics. Otherwise, they might as well not even be there.

[@Cudgeon]

Infamous works, with a super hero game I kinda expect a cartoonishly good / evil route.

[@CeloExsilium3]

Absolutely loved this video and in-depth critique, definitely subbing mate!

[@evil.13th]

Suprised The Witcher 3 choices weren't mentioned. There were some I spent quite some time thinking what should I do. Like the choice concerning the fate of The Ghost in the Tree. Also hearing you talking about morality system, I thought Fable series will make it here.

[@codyvandal2860]

Vitalii Runner Yeah I thought a lot about that. The Crones are obviously evil but the entity in the tree doesn’t seem great either. It makes you wonder.

[@cjwarrington177]

I feel like Dragon Age: Origins should get a mention as a mainstream game that at least attempted to address nuanced morality. Or Divinity: Original Sin (1 and 2).

[@mayeastrise]

Or the Witcher 3 sometimes

[@acdbrn2000]

Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Jade Empire all were somewhat covered in the KotOR. The morality breaks down into more of a strategic decision over a moral one. Origins added the aditional "strategic" decision of who to leave at base so they would not get all upset at me. So instead of one morality meter (like KotOR or Jade Empire) or 2 meters (like certain Mass Effect games) DA series just had 5 or more meters that only worked under the condition that the meter found out what you did (and you didn't buy the microtransaction gifts to fix their moods).

[@MrMedu7]

Well I think DA: Origins did it quite well. You can argue about the companions, but the story decisions were moral and not strategic ones. Whether you kill the Werewolfs, the Elves, the demon, the child, it was never only a strategic question and often you were confronted whether to pick the good option but not gain so much from it or to pick the bad option and gain cool things (like the golems), but feel bad for it because the moral decisions felt like those, because they were integrated into the story quite well

[@KossolaxtheForesworn]

select between two kings...who are both fucking horrible douche bags.

[@DarkDragon2344]

Of course that seems like a bad moral choice, until you look at the nuances of it. Harrowmont is the chosen to rule, and is a by the books traditionalist. Bhelen is not only not chosen to rule, but is clearly doing corrupt stuff and wants to overthrow dwarf society. Harrowmont seems like the clear choice there for "good" players, but as it turns out Dwarf tradition fucking sucks. It ultimately results in Dwarves locking theirselves away from the world, leaving theirselves to deal with an overwhelming threat that they certainly can't defeat alone. So knowing the ending it's clear that good players will chooses Bhelen, right? Well no, the dwarves being locked away also seals that threat away from the rest of the world. So what seems like a by the books corrupt vs lawful choice is actually a complex choice in whether or not to sacrifice the dwarves in hopes that the evil is kept underground.

[@FFgamesftw]

The thing I hate about most morality systems is that so many of them make the choice beyond obvious. It's "do you want to do the right thing or be a total monster for no good reason" Also making the bad choice is almost always a negative impact on the character. A better morality system I think is where choices are hard to decide and sometimes good or bad decisions will come back to bite you. Sparing your enemy may sometimes cause them to help you later while other times they want revenge.

[@vizthex]

I think Dishonored's morality system ties into the game's story & themes pretty well. It is quite basic and not exactly in-depth, but for a new IP at the time it wasn't bad. Dunwall is in complete disarray for the entire game - you can even make friends with a gang - and the non-lethal endings reflect that. As you said, the one to deliver the target to her stalker. And if it's your first time playing (provided you don't know about each route), you might go "oh shit, that's worse than death. Am I the bad guy?" (or at least, I did). Showing the player the chaos level after each level ruins it though. I think that should've been hidden, and the player wouldn't be able to find out until you find a thing that relies on chaos (such as Emily's drawings in the bar) or get to the end of the game.

[@oliviabigley3378]

I made a project somewhat with morals in mind, but I never made it like a point system. It was a Twine story called “The Guide”, and it was basically set up like a small test and you have multiple choices. The only thing is that there is an AI that’s recording your input and develops traits. Where morality somewhat comes into play is the restarting of the quiz, where you have the option to restart if you felt like you answered wrong. The only problem is that it also wipes the memory of the AI as well. If you keep on restarting the quiz, basically the AI will start to remember and you’ll see the consequences when that happens. Really simple design, but it was a lot of fun to work with.

5:06 Ok, you may have missed the point somewhat. Yes, you are trying to maintain your honor, but most importantly, you're trying to take back Jessamine's by taking down everyone who conspired in her fall. This is not for Corvo, it's for the Empire. The premise of Low vs High Chaos if that dead corpses are free food for rats, therefore, they help spread the plague, which, in turn, increases the amount of weepers and the general paranoia, or chaos, of you like. The people we are talking about here (For instance, Lady Boyle and the Pendleton twins) are not just a couple of noblemen to whom we give a fate worse than death. They're the people who financially aided your lover's killer and kidnapped your daughter (not taking Daud and his whalers into consideration here because they were hired to do it and gravely regretted it). They're the reason the Empire is as rotten as it is. Plus, non of those non-lethal eliminations is as bad as actually becoming a weeper, yet Campbell's not referenced in the video. That settles that.

[@Killicon93]

But also that even if you just kill all your targets and a few guards on the way you still get the good ending. You just won't get the special little achievement.

[@thaddeusmccaustland8023]

In general morality is a reflection of one's view of others. In an era of asocial tendencies or disconnected interaction via the internet, one's view of others becomes irredeemably skewed because one loses the most fundamental expressive part of human relationships: physical affection.

[@jessicalee333]

Having just finished Fallout NV, I found that there were at least a few instances where I felt what I was doing was "the right thing to do" (for the greater good) but not necessarily a good thing to do, or where doing what was right meant going against someone who wasn't REALLY "wrong" either. Some of the quests and storylines really hit me as challenging ethical or moral grey areas (or sometimes, the ethical thing was not the moral thing or vice versa, or where the appropriate thing in the circumstances was NEITHER ethical nor moral). I never felt like I was forced into choosing an arbitrary right or wrong, because the choices were rarely so clear cut. It was pretty well done.

[@JediMaestr0]

Your channel is the first to make me immediately go out, buy a game, and play it. I bought Subsurface Circular and enjoyed it, despite being unsatisfied with the ending. Will probably also get Quarantine Circular soon based on your recommendation.

[@jamcdonald120]

I like the watchdogs morality system, killing citizens increases your infamy making the npcs call the cops faster so the easy way to play makes the game harder and vice versa

[@RebekahAmberClark]

Ah, yes. The two famous routes of Undertale: the Genocide Route and the You Die Route. :,D Interesting video!

[@enderfire3379]

4:40 about dishonored: the targets actually dont count as kills and even if they did they would have so little impact that it didnt matter. so its your choice to neutralize them or kill them

[@EdmundAlynJones]

Smart. Well-written. Thought provoking. So glad I found this channel.

[@alexxans1154]

I feel like This war of mine is a good example of a decent mortality system. I doesn't really tell you that you did the wrong or right thing other than a small change in the characters mood and you are left there to judge your own actions and being forced to chose between survival or morality

[@feartheghus]

I have to disagree with you on knights of the old republic. KOTOR is set in the Star Wars universe in which the ideas of good and evil are pretty objective and set in stone. It is ok to have the light side and dark side and have decisions give points to either one in a Star Wars game. Furthermore, most people will mostly think of the light side options as more moral, and in the game they have odd consequences but usually cost you more than dark side options. Maybe it’s just me who plays this way but I choose the light side options when I agree with them regardless of the costs to myself whenever I can (if I have enough credits I will almost always give them to a person because it helps them and I don’t need the credits) I also don’t care about the light side and dark side effects on force powers, do maybe I’m just unique in my play style since I use almost entirely dark side and universal powers and play almost entirely light side heroes. I think the main problem with the objective morality system in games is that not everyone agrees on morality, even if it is objective, and players don’t like being told that what they think is right is evil because the devs disagree. KOTOR isn’t the same though, as you’re playing in the Star Wars universe, there is what is essentially a canon morality to it found in things like the Jedi code, I don’t entirely agree with that morality but the devs didn’t say I suck and am evil because I disagree they just implemented a requirement for a star wars story into the Star Wars story.

[@gnome6969]

This is by far my favorite game design video. Well done

[@resqcreeper2]

hey adam, i just found your channel last night and i really like it, keep up the good work i subscribed

[@tatters8236]

When I play Darkest Dungeon, I impose a policy of myself: No more than 1 hero of each class is allowed on my roster, every hero who survives a quest must be given a name and heroes can't be tossed aside, only killed off. I find it makes the game more interesting. and a lot harder. the mods I use probly don't help.

[@blakem8]

Dehl Fudge darkest dungeon nuzlocke

[@RaylaEclipse]

I think this explains an unpopular opinion of mine: Fallout 4 doing away with "Karma" was a good choice. In Fallout 3, Karma was explained as how the wasteland sees your choices, which is a good moral system. Then New Vegas introduces reputation, which is how each faction sees your choices. But it *kept* karma, which I thought was a bad idea.

[@selingermann5599]

This has been very eye opening. Thank you very much!

[@Arkylie]

Have you done a video on The Walking Dead (the Telltale one) yet? I found the choices there intriguing, especially as they were less right/wrong and more "we can't have it all" / "only so much resources/time/etc." kinda things. Do you save Bob or Jim? Can't save both. Which three people get the food? Do you mercy kill the guy? A lot of the choices don't have long-term impact, but they certainly stick with you. And having a well-written kid character around to observe your decisions makes them that much more poignant.

[@Salted_Fysh]

Mh interesting. I actually stumbled upon this problem rather early in my gaming life. The first two examples of a forced morality system I had experienced were KotoR and Mass Effect. Now, I must admit I am a power Gamer by force of habit. I *have* to play the mechanics even if I know that it will reduce my enjoyment of a game. (Though I've been trying to force through my morals more lately. And I have always agonized over every decision that I didn't want to make.) Now for KotoR you kinda left out that it's actually perfectly viable to go the middling road. What I really liked about those games was their exploration of the force in a way that neither previous games or the movies had ever done. In the first game you meet a former jedi who is an adherent to the 'grey' side of the force. He basically serves as a precursor to Kreia. Somebody who questions the morals of the supposedly good jedi order and teaches you that choices have consequences. So narratively I was actually quite satisfied in both games when it came to the way morality was handled. Mechanically however I always kind of had a problem. In the long run, the 'good' choices for some reason always confer more rewards than the 'bad' ones. I'll explain with Mass Effect. Now in Mass Effect you have the Paragon/Renegade system. The idea is rather simple, Paragon is anything 'good', Renegade is anything that gets the job done. Yet for some reason, I found that even though all Renegade decisions are kind of justified (Keep in mind, Shepard isn't on vacation. They are actively trying to fight a major threat to all existence as they know it.) they always ended up making the game 'harder' in the long run. You'd get less resources, less rewards, less characters and all of that stuff due to Renegade decision making throughout the series. Most exemplified by the last game (Andromeda doesn't exist) where a consistently Paragon playthrough rewarded you with massive army points as compared to Renegade. I always felt that this was messed up. If I make a morally 'right' decision, I don't want to make it because I aim to reap some increased benefit from it. I want to be able to make it because it's the right thing to do. In fact, given the nature of both of these systems, the 'bad' choices should confer greater rewards because those are the choices focused on increasing immediate gain or simple practicality. I don't want to be *rewarded* for being a good person. That in itself should be my own reward. So yeah, that kinda thing always felt kind of jarring to most RPG experiences I had. These are only examples but I've found the general trend to always be like this: 'Good' actions always lead to greater rewards. 'Bad' ones rarely/only occasionally do.

[@leongkinwai9709]

6:26 Well that went in a different direction than I thought it would EDIT: I typed this comment before seeing the rest of his segment, he covers much of what I rambled below, which was on how I thought about the game and what I thought was the issue with it. Spoilers below: The game has these laws at the end of the branch you've chosen, of either order or religion, that pushes you into the realm of dictatorship. As far as I can tell, this is what the game means when it tells you that they didn't cross a line. A lot of people were pissed off that the game condemned them for enacting those laws because they felt pressured into doing it given the circumstances at play. I thought it was going to go into that, which I personally think is not a great mindset to have, if only given that the game reads to me as a morality durability test; despite the circumstances, how much can you withstand making the immoral choice for the sake of survival, so that so many people felt that the ending was inappropriate struck me as odd. Regardless, I imagined Adam was going to maybe counter that mindset I had, but turns out his issue was that it wasn't harsh enough to certain decisions, given that he had to sacrifice a child to the generator. I'm of the mind now that maybe the ending scroll should have not been there altogether, or at least it would have revisited the choices themselves, specifically rather than broadly as the game does it, to allow the player to review them in retrospect rather than force some judgement down onto you, so at least the anger about it being too binary seems to be fair because it absolutely is.

[@ronnielenroberts6136]

So the best one would be to combine quarantine circular discussion, papers please analysis, and knights of the old republic critique.

[@feartheghus]

The shock collar question was easy, worst comes to worst if you chose not to take it off you can change your mind later, but if you do take it off and a problem arises I highly doubt you can put it back on.

[@ThePuzzleExpert]

this is an extremely hot take and i love it

[@subprogram32]

The vid is pretty great and I think I agree too. When the moral choices are interesting enough, and the consequences for making a choice well-detailed, resolving them is a reward in itself.

[@Rexxae]

I've seen this discussion before a year or two after New Vegas came out, but it's definitely nice to see it again.

[@helloofthebeach]

A classic "why would you say something so controversial and yet so brave"

[@stefancodrin]

You deserves more views. This is better than Extra Credits these days. I like how you you give plenty of examples, keep it up!

[@Eeponae]

Very interesting and thoughtful video, thanks!

[@dilophosaurusking7437]

Dang your videos are actually pretty good!

[@ArchitectofGames]

I'm as surprised as you are.

[@jono_owa]

I'm curious about if you've played Spec Ops The Line and if so what do you think of it.

[@ArchitectofGames]

I really liked Spec Ops back when I played it, but I think it's another example of it not really being an exploration of choice but instead just being a straight up message. The argument that says "oh you didn't have to do that thing you could have just not played" is pretty weak, the aim of a game is to play it, and spec ops wants you to make that call. Great game though.

[@jono_owa]

Adam Millard - The Architect of Games Ok, cool. I see where you're coming from. Thanks for responding :-)

[@futurestoryteller]

I was once trying to help write a game - a very low grade free project - RPG Maker. I pitched to the guy who oversaw it an idea for a subplot, relating to the "Assassin" class, an "evil" designation. In it there was a "good" class of female warrior/knights. So if you're playing "evil" and you have an Assassin in your group, you open up a quest to pursue a colleague of yours who went on a mission into these ladies' territory, and never returned. Inside his hideout you were supposed to find romantic correspondence between him and his target, dating back to before his mission was set. After that you were supposed to be able to find his body in an unmarked grave, with four other women, and a wedding ring. You could track his target/wife to a waterfall, with a little girl. You learn that her people found out her daughter was the child of an enemy combatant, so they killed her husband, and she fled because she killed four of her own trying to protect her husband. The woman asks you to leave her and her daughter alone, if you leave, the quest remains permanently unresolved; if you fight and kill her you are then given the option to spare or kill her daughter, but if you spare her she kills herself because you killed her only parent, and she has nowhere to go anyway. I don't know if that's the kind of thing you're talking about or not, but it did get me recruited onto the writing "team" (ended up just being me and him) but that kind of thought provoking morally introspective storytelling eventually frustrated him too, because: as you can guess from the world he created, pretty clear moral lines were drawn, and he wanted to do something very old fashioned. I bring this up, in part because I'd like to think it's an exploration of choice, but it's also pretty definitive in message. I don't know that they're mutually exclusive. But maybe it's not the kind of thing you're talking about in the first place. I wanted to give players who'd chosen to be evil the opportunity to cross "safe" moral lines, and sort of "punish" them for being overly selective about it, because doing that demonstrates a clear inability to reflect on the natural consequences of their actions.

[@Quintaner]

The problems I see with morality systems are their simplicity. I love when there’s not really any sliders or progress bars or obvious reputations, but everything you do impacts the opinions of you. Instead of a decision shifting a single slider, it shifts sliders for individual NPCs. Obviously there wouldn’t be any sliders ideally, but I’d imagine that would make it even harder to design. A game that does this moderately well is CK2, where every character in the game has an opinion of you, and there are various factors that will contribute to how they will view your actions. If you start trying to make tactical decisions, you’ll quickly find that it’s not always easy, because there’s almost never a clear “best option”

[@kiapet286]

I completely get what you're saying with the ending of Frostpunk. That being said, the meta-narrative of your subjects remembering you as a benevolent ruler while you are torn with guilt over the innocent you sacrificed to survive is... actually pretty neat.

[@mafiacat88]

An excellent one for this was "orwell". While there are only 3 actual endings to the game, there are quite a few directions each of the smaller, more personal paths go. The quick spoiler-free bit is you play as a kind of auditor in an Orwellian state-listening in on peoples phone calls and e-mails. You have to try to piece together what is happening and who the people you are spying on are, based on incomplete information. Good stuff.