Larian Studios Forums Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis (English) Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis Moral dilemma's in RPGs

Exactly. You shouldn't have to join everything, that also affects roleplaying. Some good characters might not want to be in the Thieves Guild for example...

Yes, but sometimes you are forced to do things you do not want ... That's sad, but sometimes inevitable.

Agreed.

One thing that annoyed me at the time was the impossibility of playing a truly 'good' character. You need lock picking - it's an essential skill - and if you don't join the Thieves Guild you are not going to be able to complete a fair number of the normal quests. I wouldn't mind that so much if there were equivalent guilds for 'good' characters but there are not.

Still love DD, don't get me wrong, but I would have liked a bit more freedom in terms of the actual role playing options.

I have found that the subject of choosing in RPG is kind of a false feeling of freedom.

Example:
You have to make your choice and a lot of RPG's have this system:

The good option
The filler neutral option
the bad option.

Now a player never takes the filler option. If you are like me you want to take the bad option but you know you will get punished so you take the good one.

That isn't free will. So I hope that the new game will have options that matter. Maybe the way you answer can help you develop your character. Like you become more diplomatic when avoiding answers that lead to fights -> character develops to the priest/wizard/paladin/... side or when you answer "bad" your evolve to the Warrior/ battle mage/ ...

So no false questions where you know you must answer that because you avoid a penalty since those aren't choices at all.

Heh. All true, Morbo! I agree <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Maybe kinda like the TES3: Morrowind system, but then spread over the entire game.
At the start of Morrowind, you are asked a series of questions, each with 3 possible answers, depending on your answers, the game suggests a class for you.
Well, maybe if you spread those questions(and no longer in the form of real questions, but maybe depending on the actual actions you take) you evolve your character into a specific role.

Love this idea. Will make the game a lot more interesting and varied.

Heh... you mean something like what some games do? Where your choice opens up various "sub-plots" or even "character actions" you can take or even various chapters?

Well, what I actually mean is that instead of choosing your class/role at the beginning of the game, you actually create your character by playing the gaming and taking specific actions and dialog options, so instead of actually choosing a class/role, the game defines by a series of actions and events you faced which role would suit you best and how longer you play the more defined the game will make your class.
Let's say you start the game in a cellar, you see a table in front of you. On it there's a hammer, a dagger and a staff(these are quite obviously symbols for the warrior, the thief/rogue/survivor and the mage), say you pick up the hammer. The game will define you prefer meleecombat. This doesn't disable your ability for using magic. Based on later actions this character could still evolve into a complete mage if he chooses non-combat solutions for problems, prefers reading books instead of training and that sort of stuff, or he could just as well evolve into a Battle-mage, Barbarian or a Paladin. It's all based upon the actions the player takes during the game.
So after about 3-4 choices, maybe they were even unnoticed by the player, the 'class-system' starts to take effect and certain dialogue options are added and/or removed for specific classes.
A Barbarian might miss out on some more intelligent/diplomatic solutions, while a mage might not be able to challenge someone altough this would be the easiest way to solve a quest, but because of the decisions he made during the game, it became clear that the player prefers that this character uses diplomatic tactics and thus the game disables this option for the mage so he wouldn't just choose that option because it's the easiest way to complete the quest. This would kinda be forced roleplaying, so I think I'm taking this system way to deep.

In short: the system would define a class for you by a series of actions you take during the start of the game. As the game progresses, so does the character develepmont, maybe certain classes would gain acces to specific skills, altough I, myself, prefer the open skillsystem of Divine Divinity. (altough a class-based skill system that's worked out well is just as appealing. I remember something about a game where you could choose a certain class at the start of the game. Each class had acces to a set of skills, this skills where divided into skilltrees. As an example both the Paladin and the Priest had acces too the 'Healing'-tree, the paladin had also acces to the 'Melee'-tree while the priest did not.
In short every class had preset skill-trees which he shared with other classes yet no class had the exact same skill-trees(IIRC every class had 3 trees, of which he could share up to two with another class))

wowtch, long post and I think I made it even more complex then it already was.

I was more thinking along:

(this for solving a quest but could be done for conversation options or moral dilemma's)

You need a scroll:do you

Challenge the holder to a fair fight (knight)
Kill him (Assasin)
Steal it (Thief)
Do a job for him (survivor)
Make him drink a potion that makes him more friendly (wizard)
Use your "merchant skills" on his wife (merchant)


Now the option you take also defines how your character evolves, so there are no "bad" options.

At the end you can come up with something like

Your hero is 15% light mage 30% warrior 15% handy man 20% elemental mage and 20 ranger this makes you a paladin or a warrior. And certain skills are gained if you evolve more to a certain path.

Now to make sure that you don't say "I want to be a wizard so I'll only chose options that evolves to a wizard". You can set certain penalties when one path becomes to dominant (you start losing warrior skills or something like that). At the end of the game you will have a well rounded hero that is specialized in wizardry and not a full blown "wizard" since one arrow would kill him (if his magic shield is not up).

I wouldn't like that at all. I like to replay RPGs using a totally different character as I did the first time. If they are all more or less the same, that would mean alot less fun for me. Especially since most games are designed for warriors, or are alot easier for warriors. I would like to be a wizard without a penalty for a change...

And if I want to be a warrior, that doesn't mean I think challenging the holder of the scroll is the best option. So I wouldn't like those options since I'm forced to pick a specific one (in order to create the character that I want). That would be like an illusion of choices, since I already know what to pick without thinking about it.

I do agree that we should have different ways to solve quests and that some options would be better for certain classes. But that shouldn't mean that I can only become a powerfull mage by always choosing the mage sollution.

Maybe as a mage I would challenge him too and just fry him with a big fireball.

So imo choices should have consequences storywise, and in terms of good and evil (or the lesser of two evils). But please do not limit character development by solving quests the way we prefer.

I'm with Lepel on this one...

Yes as lepel said...warriors don't have to seek fights or train all the time. They might like taking the peaceful choice. I would prefer it if stats were applied to this system rather than class and skills. You could be a speedy swift warrior character focusing on movement rather than brute strength. I'm thinking of how stat requirements might be needed for some skills. This may be a sufficient penalty for those classes who aren't stereotypical.

Oh yes, something I would like to add...
If I choose to not kill someone, that doesn't mean that it should go like *poof* +15% on the goodness meter, and everyone starts treating me like the pope.

I'm just saying, not doing bad is not the same as doing good, please make sure you don't mix those up. I can't really think of an example right now, but I'm sure I saw it in a couple of games.

Part of realistic consequence in a fantasy setting, is to move away from tradition DnD good vs. evil when it comes to the central character. The twilight hero against the backdrop of light and dark gives an extra dimension to the story and lets the player identify with the protagonist.

In other words, moral dilemmas should be about the character of... the character. And not about the grand fight of light and dark. Choosing to kill someone, for example, should depend on more factors than whether of not you want to be a good guy. To achieve that, a decent motivation is needed. Are you killing him to save other, to get some hard needed coin, because he has done something wrong, because you don't like his face or because he reminds you of a demon you once saw while playing snooker?

I agree, it would be nice if there could be a game like that. In "Fable:the lost Chapters", the way it was when you would kill an innocent person or guard, etc. You would get more "evil alignment' points, and if you killed say, a bandit or assassin, etc. You would get "good alignment" points. The good thing was, it wouldn't affect your gameplay too badly (i.e traders would still give you the same price, you could still talk to people without being shunned), but when people would see you, their reactions would range from (if you have a good alignment) applause and cheering to (if you have a bad alignment) running away screaming in terror. But the best part was the change of appearance. If you got maxed on good alignment, you would get a halo with little white butterflies flying around you. If you got maxed on bad alignment, you would get these glowing red eyes, horns, a red aura around you, red footprints in the ground where you step, and little black flies flying around you. Naturally, in reality people would hail the presence of an Angel and run away from a Demon (that's the average person, I would banish the Demon in Jesus' name!). I too, hope that they put some effort into the way people react when they see you, what paths you can choose, etc.

Welcome to the Forum <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Welcome to the forum, Crawling Chaos <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I'm a little torn on this subject, I think I know more of what I don't want than what I do want. I don't like when a game gives you moral "choices" but then ends up getting all preachy. DD was ok because you could figure from the get-go that you were going to be the game's hero, not it's villan, and it made no bones about that. Also it had some moral choices, but none that were hugely game altering (you may have missed out on a few reputation points, etc.

I don't like convoluted and/or contrived moral dilemmas (for example being given the option to push a fat man in front of a runaway cart) and I especially don't like decietful moral choices, where you do what you think is "good" but that turns out to be bad, ie you get the option to save a kid from a fire or let him burn to death, so you save him, but as it turns out this kid is the antichrist.

And I don't like this idea that everyone in the world automatically knows what kind of person you are. Having fame (for whatever reasons) makes sense to me, because then people have heard of you, and have heard a lot about you, but there's still room for people/NPCs to form individual opinions about you, rather than all of them kind of uniformly knowing how "good" and how "evil" you are.

So I'd like to see a situation where fame was a seperate calculation from whether individual NPCs like or dislike you, thought you were friendly or unfriendly, or felt you were good/evil/neutral. I'd like it if there were several factors being checked on an individual basis, and the player wouldn't necessarily have a view to these factors, ie what levels they're currently at, what influences them, and to what degree, etc.

Also one NPCs opinion of you could be influenced by anothers, and especially by NPCs with a high fame themselves. Do wrong by the village cheif, and the villagers might tend to think less of you (except the chief's enemies of course). Do good by many of the villagers, and they just may sway the opinion of the chief!

But I'd like to see people (NPCs) who have made up their mind about you, and then some who know they've heard of you, but you have an opportunity to make a first impression. In fact I'd like to see more opportunities to make a first impression than I would like to see ones who made up their mind.

Heh there could be quests that simply involve changing an NPCs mind about you or about something. You don't complete the quest by completing a list of specific tasks, but by the accumulated effects of many different tasks and actions.

Hmmm... I like the way you think there, Smashy

Those are good ideas.

That would be nice, but I don't know if technology is advanced enough for that, or at the very best due to all the data needed for each NPC's personality, it would be in the tens of gigabytes. But still, that's an interesting idea...