Expressing your principles through gaming - the importance of moral freedom in new games
BelgarathMTH
Member Posts: 5,653
Hi, I just had an awesome experience tonight in MMH6, in a campaign and map I had never played before, vis a vis my desire to express my moral principles in games vs. power gaming and foreknowledge of all consequences.
This is why new games that provide moral consequence to your decisions are important, and oh so fulfilling when they are made.
I was in the Sanctuary campaign, and my Irina got a quest to convert all the villages of her orc allies, who had helped her against the Necromancers, to Sanctuary towns, with a vague warning that "her orc allies wouldn't like it."
Like an idiot, conditioned by years of games where one was expected by the designers to "complete our checklist of quests, and that is the absolute right thing for you to do", I converted one of my orc towns to a naga town.
Immediately, a severe threat orc hero appeared, apparently with an entire area of town support on my unexplored northern map, to condemn me and change the entire focus of the scenario to killing my former allies, the orcs, from my previous goal of defeating the now one-town Necromancers.
I am SO impressed by this turn of events. I have reloaded to a previous save where I did not betray my values and my allies because of a prejudice about how "developers mean for you to play your game".
The experience of newness and unknown story development are critical for the gamer who cares about expressing his or her moral principles via roleplaying in games. When it is already known by such a player that any such choices are inconsequential, and only will make the game either harder at best, or unwinnable at worst, by making lawful good choices, the temptation to play "according the the devs' painfully obvious design" is overwhelming.
But, encountering this huge consequential moral choice in MMH6, disguised somewhat as yet another quest on the checklist, with only what should be a glaringly obvious hint for the morally roleplayingly minded, has restored my faith somewhat that I should "stick to my lawful good principles" in games.
If only more developers of new games would create such moral consequences to their games!
I wish for all roleplaying gamers like me that all new games would provide such different outcomes dependent on moral choices made. Old games just don't provide the realness needed, because you already know everything that might happen from anything you might do.
Foreknowledge drastically changes choices you make. If you care about how you express yourself in a game, it would be so much a better gaming world if more developers of new games would create and build more morally determined branches of possible outcomes to their games. We should be able to play an ever increasing library of new roleplaying games while trusting their devs that our choices will impact their programmed outcomes.
Sadly, this is highly unlikely to happen, since probably the majority of gamers do gaming for a power fantasy of destroying everything around them. They want to be supervillains. Very rich supervillains. So most game devs oblige the fantasy of the majority.
Sigh.
This is why new games that provide moral consequence to your decisions are important, and oh so fulfilling when they are made.
I was in the Sanctuary campaign, and my Irina got a quest to convert all the villages of her orc allies, who had helped her against the Necromancers, to Sanctuary towns, with a vague warning that "her orc allies wouldn't like it."
Like an idiot, conditioned by years of games where one was expected by the designers to "complete our checklist of quests, and that is the absolute right thing for you to do", I converted one of my orc towns to a naga town.
Immediately, a severe threat orc hero appeared, apparently with an entire area of town support on my unexplored northern map, to condemn me and change the entire focus of the scenario to killing my former allies, the orcs, from my previous goal of defeating the now one-town Necromancers.
I am SO impressed by this turn of events. I have reloaded to a previous save where I did not betray my values and my allies because of a prejudice about how "developers mean for you to play your game".
The experience of newness and unknown story development are critical for the gamer who cares about expressing his or her moral principles via roleplaying in games. When it is already known by such a player that any such choices are inconsequential, and only will make the game either harder at best, or unwinnable at worst, by making lawful good choices, the temptation to play "according the the devs' painfully obvious design" is overwhelming.
But, encountering this huge consequential moral choice in MMH6, disguised somewhat as yet another quest on the checklist, with only what should be a glaringly obvious hint for the morally roleplayingly minded, has restored my faith somewhat that I should "stick to my lawful good principles" in games.
If only more developers of new games would create such moral consequences to their games!
I wish for all roleplaying gamers like me that all new games would provide such different outcomes dependent on moral choices made. Old games just don't provide the realness needed, because you already know everything that might happen from anything you might do.
Foreknowledge drastically changes choices you make. If you care about how you express yourself in a game, it would be so much a better gaming world if more developers of new games would create and build more morally determined branches of possible outcomes to their games. We should be able to play an ever increasing library of new roleplaying games while trusting their devs that our choices will impact their programmed outcomes.
Sadly, this is highly unlikely to happen, since probably the majority of gamers do gaming for a power fantasy of destroying everything around them. They want to be supervillains. Very rich supervillains. So most game devs oblige the fantasy of the majority.
Sigh.
5
Comments
The Witcher 3 has this. Fallout: New Vegas absolutely has it. I'd argue the Dark Sous trilogy has it as well, but in a way in which you often don't even realize because it's so obtuse. I'd definitely say Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines has it as well. I think the Baldur's Gate series and Planescape: Torment have it. I'd say the later Might and Magic games at least have it in regards to how your party is going to go forward.
Just how successful they were is arguable. I think the majority of fans didn't like the game very much. I'm in the minority that does like it. I've been enjoying the playthrough, although the maps aren't terribly well-designed compared to previous installments in the series. The AI is also kind of bad. The computer doesn't play the game by collecting resources and building its armies the same way you do. Instead, armies and events are pre-programmed and scripted. You wind up getting railroaded into having to play the maps exactly as they were designed, or things can get kind of messed up in the scripting.
But still, I'm having some fun with it, and I haven't had any problems with the UPlay server like so many people did when MMH6 was first released.