We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Morality systems in games?

There's the obvious points that most morality systems are 'hug the puppies or burn down the orphanage' (i.e. one extreme versus the other and with the evil option existing simply because you are evil which is not a realistic thing that anybody really behaves like), but those are fairly self-explanatory you don't need someone to argue why they don't work. I'm going to take an example of what I perceive as a better morality system, though still not perfect, and point out what I think is wrong with it.

There are some games where morality choices are at least somewhat realistic. The 'evil' option does not exist solely to be a bastard, but is somewhat grounded in reality. In theory this should work; two valid options and the only difference is your personal morality. Except no. Because of karma meters or Paragon/Renegade whatever. These ways of measuring your choices mean that the creators of the game impose their morality onto you.

There is, for example, one mission in Mass Effect 2 where

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Spoiler you have to make a choice between killing a bunch of enemies or brainwashing them, forcing them to become friendly to you.

Regardless of which of these is the good choice, this kind of morality cannot be easily categorised into 'evil' or 'good' and getting renegade points for something that seems a lot less awful then the paragon option is sort of annoying/insulting. This mission, which I did like by the way, would be far better served without a karma meter. With the choice just being a choice you have to make without the helpful labels of good or bad to guide you to making a decision.

Karma meters also have the side effect of reducing any choice, no matter how well thought through to a binary 'am i playing a good guy or a bad guy this playthrough' check. It ensures no thought goes into the decision and completely invalidates the point of the choice in the first place. Most egregiously when the karma meter is tied to upgrades or abilities that you can get, it tends to mean that even if you disagree with the morality of the choice as presented, you will likely go through with whichever you have the most points on, simply because you don't want to miss out on these karmabound abilities.

I'm not saying that everyone plays like that, but hell I have done in the past and the way games are made does little to discourage it.