Certainly this is a step forward from the Bioware model of morality in character development.

is it? is going grey actually a viable choice with dialog and storyline support?

All the high-level powers require you to be utterly good XOR evil to work, so no, not so much.

le sigh.

what really irks me about Bioware, specifically, is that the dialog and storylines in their games (Jade Empire, KoTOR I and II) frequently talks about the golden mean--except when it comes to the player character's dialog and story choices, which are all either mindlessly selfless or soullessly evil.

that is sarcasm right?

When you say ubermensch do you mean superman or overman?

I'm sick of the cheap Black/White morality mechanics in games. It's been done to death and needs to be put to an end. If there's no true advantage to being one or the other (read: a true progressive change in the enviroment and story), then what's the point?

Bioware managed a little gray in their own IP. Mass Effect and Jade Empire both had a slightly more evolved morality than the usual "baby-eating mercenary thug vs Christ version 2.0" dichotomy.

But my favorite RPGs are the ones that let the evil characters lie properly. I think Planescape Torment had a bit of this, where you'd get dialogue options like:

1. Good option (you gain good morality points and the good NPCs like you)
2. Evil Option (you gain evil morality points and the good NPCs lthink you're a dick)
3. Good Option (lie) (You gain evil morality points, but the good NPCs still think you're a good guy)

That's how i like my villains, manipulative and conniving!

Unfortunately, most devs make evil type characters appear extremely cheesy.

Yes it was sarcasm...I mean, I love great gameplay, but games still pretty much ramrod you into making polar choices, if you have any options at all. This game may be a step forward, but still not a full stride.

Great discussion here, and I'll just pipe in that I think the game's one step forward and one step limping in a circle. The game's script hits you with ridiculous moral choices. And Twelve, you bring up a good point: like KOTOR and some other games, only the most evil or most good characters get the full range of characters. Which never made sense to me, and really restricts your role-playing.

So in the big picture, this is another one of those "do you let the bad man steal the kid's lollipop?" games. But in the day to day details, the little choices it gives you invite some really powerful role-playing. There's no good reason to keep stopping and saving pedestrians, and yet I kept doing it. And I found myself getting really frustrated when I did my best to stem the collateral damage in a full-blast street fight, and still got a rating of "evil" after a mission, because a few too many passers-by got offed.

Still, one great mechanic doesn't a great game make, and I agree with most of the discussion - judging people as good and evil is kinda done.

Motorfirebox - There's no real neutral path here. To stay neutral, you'd have to just be kind of erratic and sloppy.

Walstafa - Good point, and also, D & D has the lawful/chaotic thing to rest on.

Nicole - That quote is awesome.

Jace - Now that you've called out my broad use of the term, you have to spell out the difference! Do you think this character sounds more over- or super-? It's been a few years since I cracked Nietzsche - and now that I think about it, it's been too long since I read Watchmen, too!

Well, it's a difficult thing to do effectively. Every act has to have relatively little impact overall for it to be realistic and not immediately polarizing, but if that's the case, acts lack gravity. How do you balance those two?

The other problem with putting moral components into games is that most people probably lay somewhere in the gray area. They'll do some good things and some evil things, but not many people will push their character to either extreme. The people who do push their characters hard in one direction are probably the ones who have the least gripe with the system, because they really take advantage of it. But most people never go far enough in the direction of good or evil to really see the effects.

And if that's the case, the people in the gray area are put into a really weird position. They expected this awesome moral system, where they're supposed to feel the ramifications of their actions and the real pull between good and evil, but because they're in the middle, the impact of that system is negligible. It should be negligible, since these people are staying away from extremes. But negligible is no fun. Nobody wants to play an average Joe.

Have you tried playing Fallout 3 neutrally? I have (obsessive) friends who have finished it as good, evil, and neutral, and enjoyed all three tracks. When I played, I ended up saving the world, 'cause that's just what I do. But I also played a hypersmart, snitty and self-interested person for most of the game, who didn't go out of the way to hurt people, but didn't exactly set aside cash for charity, either. Maybe if heroes and villains get dull, crude self-interest would be the way to go.

i think it's pretty unlikely that i'll ever consider any universal moral system in a game to be awesome. what would be awesome is an actually complex moral system, where different factions have different opinions of you. one group might think you're the vilest villain, another group might think you're an angel sent by the jesus--and, properly done, they can both be right. for real fun, you can give different factions different priorities, so that even when considering the same set of your actions, they rate you differently. for instance, let's say the Mole Men attack and you fight them off, but in the process there are heavy civilian casualties. the City Government faction might rate you as good, because you saved the city from invasion; meanwhile, the Citizen Defense League rates you as evil, because of the collateral damage. and of course the Mole Men, if they have a faction, think you're pretty much the devil. and on top of all that, there's your intent: how much effort did you expend towards limiting civilian casualties? did you try your hardest, but simply fail? or did you just not care?

Fallout 3 sorta has this, in that there are different factions that can have different opinions of you, but the problem is that there's still the overarching karma component, which presents itself in the game in the form of mostly good-or-evil dialogue options. the conservative/selfish options are there... but they're mostly just extra steps on the path towards choosing either good or evil.