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[Faces of Mu]

These thoughts were generated from the Necromancer thread.
WARNING: There MAY be some spoilers below! (particularly Final Fantasy 7, Erfworld and Morrowind)

What would be your goals as an evil adventurer/fortress? Other games and fantasy stories tend to view things from the do-gooder's perspective: someone is going to get hurt so we watch as someone struggles to stop it. This tends to be the impetus behind many games where the PCs have to learn, grow and overcome the great evil. We as players can empathise because being good means NPCs cooperate, you get good rewards and generally better reputation means prices are lower. Laws create predictability and help you, as a player, feel in control of the events in the game.

Of course, this all happens on the assumption that the player, too, wants to overcome the great evil. I'm sure many of us have played games where we didn't care about the story, it was just a challengingly fun game and there were few negative consequences or even options for alternative behaviours
(I blame the creators for not making the story engaging!).

So if you decide to play a character or fort that's evil, and you kill things randomly and blow things up and torture the living and make people do things against their will yadda yadda yadda, what exactly would be your reason to do this OTHER THAN curiosity? What sort of goals could Toady implement in DF that would reasonably fit with an evil adventurer/overlord and would also engage the player and result in an outcome that we feel we wanted, created and earned?

When I found DF I went through a manic period of non-stop DF. I didn't know why I was building a fortress, I just could. It was fun and I was learning lots of new things I had to do to make sure that I could keep building a fortress. I wasn't intending to be "good" or "lawful" or such, it just worked (and I suppose that I really my reason for being good: it helps!   ) But once I learned what to do and how to do it and that you reach a point where you can't go on, I lost interest. Adventure mode was exciting, and I trained my thrower/wrestlers up to legendary and crept through numerous abandonned forts and solved quests -
- and then I stopped because I often felt helpless to giant bats and deadly archers and ultimately it resembled fetch questing.

I've asked these questions since I first started playing Final Fantasy 7. I asked then "What made Shinra and Sephiroth choose the path that made them villains?" or more simply "What makes someone choose to be evil?".

I also remember in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, how regardless of which path you chose, you were being told what to do by the respective top-knob and you went about playing the scenario and then there'd be another cut scene where you got told what to do and so on. I really only cared about what choices changed the difficulty and what choices yielded the best rewards. I frankly didn't feel any "gooder" or "eviler" in either campaign, I did the same in both for the same (player-personal) reasons. HOMM3 was better in that it told the story and the different events on both sides, but I didn't have choices while playing either good or evil that represented being good or evil. It was just two sides of the same coin.

I also think of the Hamster in Erfworld. He hasn't been given the reasons for the fight, he is just playing the game. And he would probably be playing the game the exact same way if he were on the other side. He isn't evil or good, just talented, which is all that a lot of games ask you to be.
This is like the Illusion of Control , when you think by initially choosing to be evil that you will get to continually behave evilly (but you don't, you just need to know how to play). Otherwise, you can actually behave evilly and items in stores cost more and some NPCs won't talk to you, but little you do makes a damn difference to the story until the very end when you've built up enough 'evil' points, or you have enough faction with the underworld in the score of millions of hours of gameplay to get some super title or ending.

I also think of Morrowind and the wonderfully divergent path that slowly evolved: as you learned about the prophecy and the Nerravar(?), it slowly dawned on you that you would eventually be picking sides at some point (I never got to the end because the damn game kept crashing, so I've made some assumptions about it! I'm glad you are so forgiving  :roll: ). Up until then you behaved how you wanted and were rewarded and punished accordingly. And still, I don't really remember any reasons for me to pick either path other than curiosity. In the end one path meant killing evil and one path meant killing good, and for what? Just to see what would happen. Good was easy and evil was harder, but the story wasn't different either way. Good people were given rewards, evil people picked pockets for them. It still comes down to simply how well you played, not what you do. It was a good try, but not completely engaging (think also Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights - Good and Evil characters got to the same place by means that diverged little).

So what reasons could Toady program into the game that would make you want to be evil AND would be important to the plot AND be engaging for you? Why do evil characters do the evil things they do and, the big question is,
how can Toady want you to do them, too, so that an actual, new story is told?

/philosophical rant

[Alfador]

Traditionally, the way it goes is this:

Good: You behave nicely, which makes your route to success more difficult, but others will be your friends and succeed with you, helping you along the way.

Evil: You gain power the "easy way" by tricking, hurting, or stealing from others, which makes your life easier in the short run but ultimately others will want to take you down for all the pain you've caused.

In this manner, the "evil sieges" you get in DF are simply the evil civs trying to get power easily by attacking what they perceive to be a weak opponent full of treasure of monetary or military worth. The elven sieges happen because they perceive you as an evil civ that must be taken down before you harm more beautiful intelligent trees.

Until there's option to send out armies, there isn't much option in Fortress Mode for ACTIVE good or evil in this manner--you can just be passively good by defending against goblin sieges and demons and making beautiful artistic engravings, or... well I suppose drowning nobles in magma COULD be considered evil... but I'd say it's more passively evil to let the little #$%&s sentence a miner to a hundred hammerings for failing to produce enough adamantine.

[Locus]

"What makes someone choose to be evil?"

Well, in reality, people don't choose to be evil. They just don't follow what we would consider to be good morals.

For example, take a very extreme sociopath. There's something wrong with the fear aspect of their brain (no fear, no guilt, etc), they're incapable of loving someone else, and don't generally feel empathy, or much of anything else really. They wouldn't choose to torture an animal or ruin someone's life because it's "evil", they do it because it's interesting or stimulating to them.

Someone who enjoys killing and eating strangers is just VERY uninhibited. That's all.

The reason animals and people have the impulse to do good in the first place, is because it lets us function as a species and society, and be more successful.

[Idles]

I think, ultimately, it comes down to a question of gameplay.

In many games, the implementation of "good" and "evil" serves only to increase the replayability of the game.  For example, Fable, Black and White and a number of other games created a lot of hype before release because they allowed the player to choose between "good" and "evil".  What the terms "good" and "evil" mean, in the context of the games, is debatable, but it is pretty straight-forward to understand that despite choosing to be good or evil, the game will lead you in the same direction, plot-wise.  The only real difference between being good and evil are subtle changes in the way the game looks and plays--the way you kill things, or your own appearance.

Unfortunately, the above implementation of the dichotomy between "good" and "evil" doesn't feel very convincing.  It doesn't make large changes to the way the game plays overall, and functions primarily as a way to get paying customers to play through the same game twice, and yet feel that it was different each time.

I think that we can all agree that the choice between "good" and "evil" should do a lot more to the game than change its difficulty, change your appearance, and change the way you kill things.

I think a big plus would be a complete change in the story and atmosphere of the game. If Toady were to add that capability into the game, I personally would feel that the choice between "good" and "evil" really meant something. And I think that if the choice carries some importance and weight with the player, then that alone is reason enough to make the player want to be either "good" or "evil", rather than being rather apathetic toward the choice.

[ October 14, 2007: Message edited by: Idles ]

[Freddybear]

The most clear-cut implementation of "good" vs "evil" in a game that I have played is in Galactic Civilizations. There, you're faced with occasional "moral choices" as you discover and develop planets. For instance, you might choose to enslave the populace for a boost in capabilities or to leave them in peace but forgo some resources on the planet.

Being good yourself makes good NPC races ally with you against the other evil races. Being evil gets you a lot of power boosts but all the good NPC races will gang up on you, and the evil races won't help you out either.

[Armok]

Right now, I can think of 4 different reasons for being evil:

Firs you can be evil for FUN! This is the reason I am evil (YES I AM!!) and probably why players want to be evil. Richard is a very good, or rater, evil, example of this.

Second, you can be evil unknowingly and in the name of good, this is probably the most common evil amongst humans. Hitler is a great example of this, thinking he cleansed from tis world a race of something he presived in the lines of goblins he slaughtered millions of innocents, but he thought he did good. The worst evils is done with the best intentions, truly.

Thirdly, you can be evil out of fear, a soldier must do as told or get hanged even if he think of it as evil.

The fort reason is simple egoism, bringing profit to yourself whioute caring if by evil mens or not most offenly ends upp being the evil meens, this is the evil taht cyts down the rainforest and makes peple put flour in their heir wen peaple are stawing

... sory my spelllin are failing so i will stop ranting now.

[Spelguru]

What about all the other fun causes of evil? Jealousy? Anger? Revenge? Love (creeeeepy stalker love)? Etc?

Also, to reply to Locus, it doesn't take an empathy-less sociopath to be evil, it all comes down to why the action is done, and what the actual action is. If example A. Retcel slices up and eats a person, but knows full well and feels that this is a *very* bad thing to do, but he does it anyways, just for giggles, that's evil. Very evil. Meanwhile Lecter (you know who) slices up this or that guy because A) He knows that while society thinks it's wrong, he doesn't really seem to think it's wrong himself. And B) That flute guy was totally faking it, the orchestra didn't need him. While still evil, I'd consider Lecter far less evil than Retcel (Lecters evil(er) twin).

And yes, Retcel is Lecter backwards, duh.

Doing evil deeds without being driven by fear or egoism, or do it because of ignorance or just to get a thrill is actually quite common. How often do people end up dead because love dramas (zomg! ur in bead with my wief! I shot u 2 nows!) or such.

I've yet to see a game actually manage to balance Good & Evil properly. Mostly because they are all relying on flat images of what is good and evil. GalCiv2: Good people use defenses and sing happy songs! Evil people use weapons and eat skin (why the Yor, a robot race, would eat skin of sentients is beyond me).

Good people get some penalties but friends! Evil people get tons of bonuses, and still friends.

Being good for goodness sake in games is flawed, because it doesn't matter in the way it should. In every game I've played that has good/evil, being evil wins. Black & White? Evil wins. GalCiv? Evil wins. DF? Sooner or later, evil wins. Atleast in the current version. Sooner or later your fortress dies.

Also, on the "evil out of fear, a soldier must do as he's told or get hanged". The webcomic Jack (warning, contains violence, gore, etc and furries) actually had a good situation like that. The soldiers are ordered to kill a large amount of children in a war, because their insane commander rationalizes this by that the children will grow up hating them and fight against them. The soldiers have the choice right then and there to either follow orders, or don't. They do (you don't actually get to see this part, just a bit of a backstory of that story-arch) and when one of the soldiers that did the deed later dies from an unrelated thing, he goes to hell, for several reasons. He thinks though that just because he was under orders or being forced too excuses the actions.

Anyways, I'll stop ranting now since I could rant on this subject for ever and ever.

[THLawrence]

You also have to look at how "evil" is perceived. Some people believe that eating meat is evil while others believe that we should have a right to it since we raised it and slaughtered it for the sole purpose of eating it.

This whole topic enters into a very grey area of ethics. What is the difference between good and evil? Is there a distinct line that says what is good? Where is that line? How wide is said line? Is it always there? Is it the same for everyone?

This then leads to moral questions:
Is doing something evil for good still evil?
Is doing something good for evil still good?

If we killed off all of the criminals right now the world would be more peaceful. But we just killed millions of people. Is this good or evil?

With the way the human population is growing we will soon be placing so much stress on the worlds resources that it will crumble. Well what happens if we kill off half the population. Fewer people, less stress, the world survives at the cost of billions. What if we don't? The resources are used up and the human race is wiped out. Now which choice is the "right" one.

What was that other example? Ah yes.

There is a run away train. There are five people on the track in front of the train. You cannot warn them in time. However you are beside a lever that will have the train switch tracks and miss the five people. But on this second track there is one person. What do you do?
Do nothing: 5 people die
Act: Save 5 people, kill 1

This is one of the major reasons I didn't take ethics. It is the grey areas that confuse people. I prefer to base my actions off of more solid figures. However for DF the best would be to have each race or even each person have thier own concept of what is right. Elves love life, dwarves love wealth, humans love... something. Anything that goes against their belief would be considered evil. Cutting down trees to make crafts to sell is viewed as evil by the elves and good by the dwarves. Who's right?

But I'm wandering of topic. What makes people follow the evil path? Because they believe that what they are doing is right and someone doesn't agree. Why are they branded as evil? History is written by the victors. Look through history and find something that the victors did that was evil and is publicly accepted as evil. I think that was everything.

[Armok]

Spelguru: all that is correct for COMMITTING AN ACT OF EVIL however I was talking about being CONSISTENTLY EVIL IN MANY WAYS DURING AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME, MOST OFFENLY YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, also I agree with my examples being quite bad, in the case of fear I thought of having Sauroman (LOTR Sauroman) as an example, but for some reason I forgot to, the reasons I think holds true independently of the moral system you use.
Also, as I said, *I* am evil, this should be taken into consideration.

quote:
This whole topic enters into a very grey area of ethics. What is the difference between good and evil? Is there a distinct line that says what is good? Where is that line? How wide is said line? Is it always there? Is it the same for everyone?

Simple, EVRYTING is evil, except evil itself OR (||) computers!  

quote:
There is a run away train. There are five people on the track in front of the train. You cannot warn them in time. However you are beside a lever that will have the train switch tracks and miss the five people. But on this second track there is one person. What do you do?
Do nothing: 5 people die
Act: Save 5 people, kill 1

Don't act and get a lot of extra funny blood to look at!  

You see, if you are evil yourself, morals are very simple indeed.  

quote: Look through history and find something that the victors did that was evil and is publicly accepted as evil. I think that was everything.

The Spanish slaughtering the Aztecs? The other Indians (I mean native Americans) ?

[JT]

I figure good and evil are relatively easy to define:

GOOD: Anything which provides the largest tangible benefit for the largest number of sapient, sentient, or intelligent lifeforms at a cost of the least possible expense to any other sapient, sentient, or intelligent lifeforms.

EVIL: Anything which provides the largest tangible benefit to a single organism at the largest possible expense to any other sapient, sentient, or intelligent lifeforms.

Both definitions, however, require conscious awareness of the act and its consequences to be considered truly good or evil.  An ordinary felis catus is just a being which catches prey, plays with that prey to study it and practise its reflexes, then -- only after considerable pain and torment -- does the cat kill and consume the prey.  If there were such a thing as a felis sapiens, such a being behaving in the same way would be considered unequivocally evil.

[AlanL]

I'd have to agree, and as for the reasons for being evil, it depends on what kind of degree you're talking about. If its either good or evil, no matter the degree, then feeding the dog would be good, and cutting off an old lady on the road would be evil. Some people are just a*sholes, its how they were raised. Sometimes they do it because they're angry, sometimes they do it because they're greedy, sometimes they do it because they plain and simple don't give a crap about everyone else.

[Cyx]

I don't see the point debating about what really is good or evil if it finally doesn't matter ; You do something, that wasn't nice because of someting, but understandable because of someting else : making the game decide if the purity of your intentions does compensate for the sin you commited or not wouldn't change anything, cause nothing in your world, if we want to be realist, could possibly be aware of the precise and absolute limit between good and evil Toady would have implemented.

(A random idea, imagine : It would be cool if with each world some absolute (and probably messed up) moral "rules" were randomly generated, and the only way to know what's actually right or wrong would be a Law magic telling you how to be good and obtain advantages related to your truth-bearer status... *silence*... wouldn't it ?)

In conclusion, I think that good or evil doesn't have to exist: consequences of your acts nature must be only decided by the own point of view and moral of anything who believes you did them. (Did this guy see you kill these children ? Does he know that the children were actually undead ? Did this huge Hammerlord heard the rumor about you being a child murderer ? aso) Ideally, instead of some "Good: Marry me ! I offer you this +iron warhammer+ ! or Evil: It's Urist ! Bastard ! Let's send the whole town after him !" thing, the different beings would react differently to a same compatibility (or uncompatibility): A goblin fears someone who has the same way of acting, a dwarf sympathizes with him, a human considers him as a rival, etc.

(Some of my thoughts may have been said here already. Sorry for that.)

[ October 14, 2007: Message edited by: Cyx ]

[Tahin]

I don't think there should be any sense of "good" or "evil." Just who you have and haven't managed to piss off. If I want that sword, I might go the hard way and buy it, or the easy way and steal it. If I steal it, then I might get in trouble with the law and have to pay for it in the long run.
As soon as we have realistic responses to player actions, then all this will be settled out.

[Capntastic]

quote:Originally posted by Tahin:
<STRONG>I don't think there should be any sense of "good" or "evil." Just who you have and haven't managed to piss off. If I want that sword, I might go the hard way and buy it, or the easy way and steal it. If I steal it, then I might get in trouble with the law and have to pay for it in the long run.
As soon as we have realistic responses to player actions, then all this will be settled out.</STRONG>

This is pretty much it.  Aside from the 'magically' good and evil locations on the map, of course.

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>

This is pretty much it.  Aside from the 'magically' good and evil locations on the map, of course.</STRONG>

And even those aren't so cut and dried about morality as they seem. Unicorns will still attack your dwarves, and I'm still hopeful that one day we'll be able to train zombie animals. Imagine a dwarf, despondent about a beloved pet's death, experiencing the joy of said pet returning to him... albeit minus a little flesh here and there.