Good/Evil Choices in Games

[jpub]

So I'm replaying Bioshock. In said game, your only real choice is whether to kill or save members of a group. Clearly
saving them is the 'good' choice, and that's what I did when I played it the first time.

Now, normally, when replaying a game, people try for the endings they missed. However, I'm discovering something odd about
myself.

I can't choose the 'evil' side. Can't do it in any of the Bioware games (except Mass Effect, where the
there's no good and evil, only inclusive vs isolationist), can't do it in any of the RPGs I play. When I try, I feel anxious and vaguely ill, like
I'm about to so something very wrong.

I'm honestly curious about this - at first glance, I'd call that a positive thing, but as I think about it I'm
forced to wonder if it's a form of intellectual cowardice.

Hmm.

[Jinx999]

I find the same thing. It's particularly noticeable with Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire. I also never shoot at Police and Military when
playing Elite or Freelancer (especially not the Bretonians in Freelancer, I'm British, damnit).

In Jade Empire and KotOR, the dark path involves doing a lot of really shitty things. I don't like doing shitty things, even if nobody real is hurt. I
don't regard this as any form of cowardice. Why do you consider it to be so? I realise that you're not really hurting anybody, but if the game is to be
immersive, it really should engage your emotions.

[DHBirr]

It's called "being a moral person." It's also called "being true to yourself." When you try to choose an action that
isn't what you'd naturally do, a path you consciously feel is wrong, of course it feels uncomfortable. Hell, it even feels uncomfortable for
me, sometimes, and I'm the most callous, selfish S.O.B. I know personally.

I tried, once, to create a D&D character who'd be ruthless enough to fall into the one of the "evil" alignments. Someone who'd have no
qualms about murdering witnesses, or killing an underling whose genuine incompetence fouled up my plans (no shooting messengers; even before reading the Evil
Overlord List, I knew that was stupid). I'd couldn't pull it off, partly because I'm not clever enough to come up with
workable Machiavellian plots, but also I realized that I kept edging the character's behavior back toward the "good" side,
finding excuses not to murder the witnesses, etc.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[Black Aeronaut]

I think I'm a bit different. I can write a very vile, magnificent rat bastard of a character who does horrific and Machiavalian things like it's
nobody's business... However, when it comes to doing evil things to my good guys (not the angsty shit, mind you), I tend to falter.

[Morganite]

I think I once read in a magazine a game designer citing this sort of thing as why that sort of gameplay is hard to design/rarely done at all.

I've also observed that in games where you're playing the evil person, people sometimes reimagine things so that person is good instead. (I know one
game where doing it any other way would require more suspension of disbelief than I can handle...)

Not sure I've played any games where there's a major choice element like that though. (Ar tonelico's bad ending... might count, if I'd seen the
good ending first. But I hadn't.)

-Morgan.

[OpMegs]

I find that in such situations, I can do so just to see it....getting inside a villian's head is a fun thought excercise.

My problem, interestingly, is creating a character that's really downright loathsome(Black Mask in Batman, as an example).

All my villains end up being attempts at Magnificent Bastardy, because at least then you can cheer for them even as you wait for the heroes to kick their ass.
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Ayiekie]

I haven't had any problems in doing that, mostly because I do not play "me" in games like KOTOR, but rather characters whom have certain traits -
my Dark Side female character in Kotor was more of a sarcastic arrogant badass than flat-out evil until her inevitable fall to the Dark Side.

(Then again, I had no problems with Chris in Hybrid Theory, so it probably wouldn't bother me to do an "evil me" anyway.)

One thing that annoys me about those games is how often your choices are Evil Stupid rather than, say, taking advantage of a situation for your own gain. I
find that rather disappointing and tend to avoid those choices even when playing an evil character, since I rarely play an idiot.

[WengFook]

I think Ayiekie has the right of it. A lot of these 'evil' choices in games are really quite stupid like say, killing an infant, for no reason. Other
than... its an evil act. Is it really that hard to write a storyline where a player can play a calculating evil ruthless baddie? I don't really think so.

_________________________________
Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.