The concept of morality in video games is something that interests me, and something that interests many other game designers such as Jonathan S. Fox. But one thing stuck out at me when I read
his blog post on the matter, critiquing KOTOR for its simplistic moral system.
It’s not just that the writing isn’t built to support real moral choices, but that the game mechanics penalize any sort of roleplaying beyond the simplest good or evil choice.
He went on to praise Mass Effect's moral system as a counterpart to KOTOR's system, but the criticsm hits it on the hit. What are these "
real moral choices"?
Morality is "concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong; right or good conduct". By this very definition, morality is binary. There is only good, and there is only evil. There is no "middle ground". In this case, KOTOR really did offer you a
real moral choice. For example, Jonathan S. Fox critiqued a mission where you could kill a prisoner or not. But...killing the prisoner is evil, not killing the prisoner is good. It's a stark and clear choice.
Jonathan S. Fox may instead be concerned with Ethics ("the philosophical study of moral values and rules"). Morality can be black and white, but Ethics exist as a way to study morality, to determine what is black and what is white. This can be backed up by Fox's praise of Mass Effect's moral system. Its system had a Paragon ('good') and a Renegade ('evil') scale, and that you can end up being both. You get Paragon points for doing Paragon actions and Renegade points for doing Renegade actions.
Yet, in the end, you are still offered two choices, you could either be a Paragon or a Renegade. The only difference is that the game does not say which one is 'good' or 'bad', so instead of having one morality system you have to follow, you can choose from two: Paragon or Renegade. It is up to you to decide when it is approriate to consult one morality system over that of another.
At the same time...you are not offered other choices, like, I don't know, working with the Big Bad because you honestly think he might be right. I am okay with having a limited amount of choices in video games (after all, it would be impossible for one to program in lots of choices...except via resort to randomization), but you still have in the end two choices. I prefer having a variety of choices, not being told to choose from A or B.
Since I support having a variety of choices, I support the concept of "Factions", having lots of factions for one player to choose from, and each faction remaining just a tad different for the player to really prefer one faction over another. I'm not sure if Jonathan S. Fox would prefer that though, because having lots of factions only simulate politics, not ethics. Jonathan S. Fox would likely prefer a system where ethical delimmas exist, not a system where one has to read annoying Faction tracts and decide which tract sounds better than the others.
So, allow me to present a ethical game that would hopefully sastify both my view and Jonathan S. Fox's view. One where factions represent ethical systems.
It's the far off future, and you are a new student over at Elite Liberal Univeristy. The bad news is that Elite Liberal University is in the middle of a cold war. Due to the protection of "intellectual freedom", professors are able to promote a variety of ethical theories, each one claiming to be the only superior ethical theory out there. Each Professor view himself/herself/itself as the only true promoter of morality, and view everyone else as either misguided or evil themselves. You, as a student desiring good grades, has been pulled into the relam of univeristy politics, and sent on missions involving interrogation and murder in order to help one ethical system destroy all the others.
There are a variety of ethical systems, and each Professor will give you a low-down on how to follow this system. If you follow this system, you make the Professor happy, and they'll be more willing to work with you. If you don't follow this system, the Professor may get angry at you, and may decide to put you on his hit list.
An example of an moral delimma would be this: You are following the Kantian Faction, which believes in the ideas of Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that people should not lie. You are protecting an important Kantian VIP at your house. The doorbell rings. It's a member from the Nietzsche Ubermensch. They're looking for the VIP. To kill. What do you do?
If you say "You got the wrong house, The VIP is not here", you'll save the VIP, but both the VIP and the Kantian Faction would be upset. You lied. Lying is morally wrong. If you say, "The VIP is right here," the Kantian VIP will die, but both the Kantian Faction and the VIP would be happy that you told the truth and thus continue to follow the ideas of Immanuel Kant. What is more important, protecting the VIP or upholding the aims and ideals of the Kantian Faction?
Well, what if you set up an alarm system, like a bell? When the Nietzsche Ubermensch rings the doorbell, you ring the bell, letting the VIP know that the Nietzsche Ubermensch have arrived. The VIP will flee out of the window, and thus will be out of the house. When you answer the door, you can safely say to the Ubermensch that the VIP is not in the house, because he isn't in the house. The VIP survive, and you did not tell a lie. Clearly, a moral desicion that is the best of both worlds.
The gimmick of having various ethical systems duke it out allows for contrived moral delimmas to occur, and forces people to decide what moral system they themselves prefer, or even if they actually prefer any of the moral systems (or instead become an "ethical relativist"). You have to seriously think of the consquences of your action, lest they violate the moral and ethical code of your faction.
But there must be a problem with this game. What is it?
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Topic: An Ethical Game (Read 4110 times)