Monday, October 08, 2012

Games and morality

Waaiit - I promise not to get too philosophical ... That's for things like politicians who say the wrong things about their game playing habits.

But first - a piccy :

 (Yep - it's a Facebook yoink, it made me grin)

I'm in the early stages of a Mass Effect play through. It's a role playing game that behaves much like a first person shooter. I like it, it's a very easy game to play with lots of action and an engaging storyline. The first one is very free in what it lets you do too. That goes away somewhat in the second and third games which are more on rails.

And before I get sidetracked, the main role play aspects deal with Paragon and Renegade points. You earn these with the gameplay and dialogue choices you make. Save the Feros colonists ? Earn lots of good guy Paragon points. Choose the easy but bloody option ? Lots of Renegade points. In the second game, this manifests in scarring and glowy red eyes.

Point is - the game starts you off on a clean slate with no points and you earn them as you go. Having more points opens up new dialogue options. In ME2, you can only choose one particular character by having sufficient Paragon/Renegade points.

I like the theory, it shows a character growing over time as they get more experienced. But ... what I'd to see is a third option. The choice to go through the game as a wide eyed innocent. Baby faced innocence and genuine naive idealism can be charming characteristics. You could say that it might give hope to see someone go through hell but still come out unscarred.

That option isn't present in the Mass Effect games and I don't think it has since the early days of the 3x3 Alignment system. That's a drawback to the whole computer game system though, they're dependent on programmed responses to limited scenarios. There's no room or ability for the computer to interpret as it sees fit. That's where pen & paper tabletop games come in, you can take the 3x3 grid of D&D and play it.

What's the 3x3 grid ? Most pen & paper role play games are built around Chaotic, Neutral or Lawful combined with Good, Neutral or Evil. A paladin would be Lawful Good, a wizard could be Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Good depending on how you want to play it. Evil Clerics would be good at harming spells, Good clerics would heal people.

So - pen & paper - you pick your alignment on the character sheet and play something different anyway. Lol. Ah well. I tended to go Chaotic Good cos that's probably what I'd like to be. I'm actually Lawful Good :

Good - hopefully people agree ? Even in games, I find it tough to go the Evil path.
Lawful - I have lots of little rules about how I do things. I'm a very chaotic thinker but the way I live and morality is lawful.

To finish up - I wonder if any game designers are thinking of a system where you could go a third path of Wide Eyed Innocent, with the Innocence points diminishing as you gained those Paragon or Renegade points ? The original Keela Danne was a lawful good cleric who I played as an up & at 'em but innocent. It was fun because of the way we could get the party characters interacting. Innocent 18 year old girlie cleric + cheeky gnome ? Potential comedy gold, especially when the third character was a hulking 7 foot orc warrior who would die before anyone hurt his Keela.

One more pic to close on :
Yep. Still thinking of iPhones, although post release Shinies hysteria has calmed down.

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