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

I said 'trustworthiness' not 'honesty'. A spy, for example, would be considered trustworthy by his employers if he always comes through for them, but his job requires a massive amount of lying so obviously he cannot be described as honest.



The dilemma is there for the player, not the character. If you consider most RPGs, the 'hero'is usually a mass-murderer who goes around massacring entire tribes of people based almost entirely on racial prejudice (Orc = evil) with no attempt made to sort things out peacefully or even to determine if there is a right or wrong to the situation beyond 'my species is always right'.

In the real world, I doubt many of us would consider this 'good' behaviour <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

But we judge our character's actions partly by the standards of his/her world (Orc = evil) and partly by the standards of our own (Just about everything more complex than Orc = evil). So even in a game world where 'good' and 'evil' are not considered to exist as such and everything is about survival, we will still apply our own values to each situation regardless.

Even when we play an evil character, we play him/her to our own idea of what constitutes 'evil' <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

i wonder how moral quandary works in a moronic situation? just like in Monty Python's Search For The Holy Grail film where there's this scene has a village wanting to burn a woman, thinking she's a witch. the reasoning they have is just plain silly yet they truly believe it. not taking them seriously means letting them burn an innocent woman. taking them seriously means u're indulging stupidity when u could have more important quest to attend to.

In most RPGs, it doesn't matter what's more important - you can take all the time you want to care about minor quests and errands, as the main story only continues when you actively trigger certain key events.

While I value the freedom connected to this design, I think it could be an interesting dilemma to let the player choose between quests, only some of which can be completed before something else happens. Imagine there are five quests in a village, but you can only complete three before the entire village is flooded or raided or evacuated or whatever. You'd really have to decide what you consider most important, possibly touching moral issues when you choose who can be saved or helped. Of course, the game should let the player know that it's not possible to solve/complete everything because of the circumstances.

This would add a lot of replay value, however, some players will probably hate the concept because it would practically force them to play the game more than once in order to see everything there is to see.

I can't say I like that idea, Lurker, sorry.

If the player knows something bad will happen to the town, number one quest usually becomes to STOP it. If that's not possible, I for one would get very frustrated.

If the player doesn't know and starts working through quests in random order then finds he's suddenly out of time with no warning... That's frustrating, too.

I don't mind time limit quests, though, like in the original DD where you have X days to deliver a message or something like that. That way it's up to the player if they succeed or fail.

[color:"orange"]let the player choose between quests, only some of which can be completed before something else happens.[/color]

If there are going to be limits on which quests can be done (which seems likely), it should be setup in-game that they conflict, rather than some arbitrary or artificial limit.

The easiest way to do this would be to have conflicting goals (steal or guard someone's treasure), but that is so simplistic too much of it would detract from the plot. I liked in DD for the two guys in Verdistis that wanted you to take out the other, that you could tell them they deserved each other and refuse both quests. Only slightly more subtle, there could be opposing factions; helping one faction would drop your reputation enough with the other that they would refuse to deal with you (unless they really needed you, as in Yojimbo / A Fistful of Dollars <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> ).

The choices you make could also change situations so some quests are no longer available. Say there is a town where the only known feasible trade route is cut off by a group of monsters too large for the local military to deal with directly. Only one merchant has a consistent supply of goods, which consequently are very over-priced. The military wants the trade route cleared and the merchant wants a body guard, as some take exception to his pricing practices. If you help the merchant, a military mage could track you to the hidden teleporter pad he uses. Rather than accept your help, the military could then just use the teleporter pad to get behind the enemy lines and make a surprise attack. If you help the military and clear the trade route, the merchant looses his monopoly and his source of power, and could be arrested or lynched; either way he would no longer need a body guard.

You could also have a Sophie's Choice style dilemma (minus the personal attachment), with a town being evacuated before an invasion. The military is better able to defend themselves, but without your help they don't expect to be able to hold out for long. The civilians are being evacuated through relatively safe territory; a few wounded soldiers and farmers with pitchforks can deal with the odd monster, but any concerted attack would do a lot of damage. You can either stay and help a small strong group that will definitely be attacked, but who might be able to defend themselves if they are lucky, or help a large weak group that probably will not be attacked, but if they were the results could be devastating.

This brings me to one point that I sort of hate. If you get a quest telling you that it is very important to do something very quickly... every second person telling you that it is very urgent... that you mus hurry... that the world will end if you don't manage to do it in time.... and then you can wander around, solve ten other quests and after that still continue with the 'very urgent' quest.

Neverwinter Nights 2 starts like that. I skipped a lot of quests to complete the urgent main quest. This was very exciting... until I found out that you have all the time of the world to solve every quest on your way. No matter how long it takes you. There should be some point where you fail... just to keep the tension up, to keep it exciting, meaningful if you do or skip the other quests (you can still do them later on).

I also hate time limits. Especially when you have to play the optimal path to be able to do it in time. It should not matter if you stand around for an hour (afk and forgot to pause the game) or if you walk the long way around the forest instead of the direct path (unless it is quest related). You should be able to stop for shopping for example without having to look at your watch.

Not exactly sure how to do it right...
But I think if you have these 'urgent' quests that there should be the possibility to fail them if you start and complete too many side quests on your way. Maybe fail if you travel to (very) far away places (not if it is only the next village in the opposite direction for example, that should be ok). But it should definitely not be a timer counting down in real time that decides if you fail (exception would be if the timer is very generous... like you have 10 days... and you can do it easily in a few hours).

In short : Leave the term "urgent" alone !

I agree, I don't like to rush things.
And the most silly thing about quests like "you only have a certain amount of time" is that when games have a calendar,
it isn't prewritten that a quest has to be done before a certain date. But when you activate it, then you have a certain amount of time.
I'm thinking like "the world will come to an end in 10 days", but when you ignore the npc for 10 days before talking to him, the world is still there.

Alrik - agreed.

Lepel - definitely. It can be easy to get sidetracked on side quests or random exploring, or to just plain overlook an NPC sometimes.

[color:"orange"]There should be some point where you fail... just to keep the tension up, to keep it exciting, meaningful if you do or skip the other quests (you can still do them later on).[/color]

Rather than fail, perhaps some quests could simply become tougher if you leave them too long. An enemy would have time to recruit more henchmen, build fortifications, etc. Instead of NPCs simply telling you some task is urgent, they could warn of the consequences of waiting too long (a monster wounded and driven away from a village would eventually heal, becoming tougher to kill, and might return to the village). Of course if a vampire abducts someone, you shouldn't really expect to rescue them a couple week later.


If some event is going to trigger a major change and break some open quests, then it should be obvious something will happen. I don't want to leave to do something that seems urgent, only to return and find half the villagers have left. In general you can just put off things that seem like main quests until you have completed side quests, but it is not always easy to tell the difference.


I don't really like timed quests in general, but it could make for some interesting dilemmas.
Let's say you are hired by a merchant to bring a wagon train of food through monster infested territory into the city, since it was no longer safe for the farmers to make the trip. On the way back you are approached by a wounded farmer, reporting that a group of farms is under attack. You can not get there soon enough unless you leave the wagons, but with no escort the food could easily be stolen or destroyed.

If you get the wagons to the city you will be richly rewarded and welcomed as a hero, but by the time you get back to the farms there would be nobody left there to save. Perhaps you could track the monsters and rescue a few people taken as slaves, but once they found out you chose not to help as soon as you could, they wouldn't necessarily hold you in the highest regard.

If you leave the wagons and head to the farms you can take out the monsters before the defenses fail, but the wagons are lost. Perhaps there was a healer at the farm doing research on a new spell (or an old mage no longer great with practical magic, but still fine with the theory), who could reward your actions appropriately. With the food lost, however, you would be scorned by the city people. The food shortage you could have helped would get worse, which means sickness would spread easier, the military may need to withdraw from the surrounding territory to keep riots from breaking out, which in turn would allow more monsters to start showing up, further isolating the city. You would have a lot of work to do to try to get back into the city folks' good graces, possibly doing quests for the merchant who originally hired you as well as the military to avoid being tossed in jail.

I like the way Raze thinks, there <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I like this idea a lot. I especially like the idea of choices having unintended results that aren't immediately apparent. They don't all have to be drastic "do you kill this person to save these 5 others". We, in our every day lives are confronted by choices that seem to lack an obvious answer all the time - our jobs, friends, love lives. The archaic choice between do you pick the right option or do you act like a sociopath should be replaced by here are some options...we have no idea which one is right, but you can choose one (or in some situations, not, and see what happens). I also think that karma points don't make sense. If I see a city is falling apart and I support a dictator to put it together, do I get positive or negative points? If I decide to fight against the dictator, and keep the city free from her, but leave it open to disorder and famine?

Didn't Wasteland have a part where a rabid dog was attacking you, but it was also some kid's pet?

Anyway, love the idea, can't wait to see how it's implemented.

Hmmm... I recall someone mentioning about other heroes in the game. I think that this is a great idea. Doing this would put more competition in the game, and maybe it can solve the problem of limited time for quests. For example, instead of worrying about completing a quest on time, the player instead has to simply decide which ones to do and which ones he/she can afford to leave to the other heroes. So, other heroes can do quests and increase their reputation and such, be friendly with you, or upset and try to ruin you, which would partially be based on the dicisions the player makes. And maybe it would be more fun if they also can win the game. For example, you want to complete a quest before an enemy heroe does, but your friend is going off to save his wive and cant do it alone. So the player can either choose to go with his friend and then have a hard time countering the effect of the enemy's success, or choose to take care of this quest and ruin his relation with his friend who is another heroe of the game, consequently increasing his competition.

In TOEE and in Startrail you actually encounter other hero-groups.

From one of the older previews I saw of STALKER, other heros could actually finish the game before you as the quests are being handed out to any mercenary who will take them.

I dislike overall "Karma"-points (or whatever you call the unit of "Good" and "Evil") even more than reputation systems. The latter usually still lack an authentical and therefore believable as well as predictable system to reflect the influence of the players actions on the different reputations. Usually, relevant NSCs know of your doings as soon as they are done. Furthermore, that one reputation value usually tries to cover too many, usually less closely connected aspects - priece of goods, emotional relationship, reliability, whatever.

What many games are trying is to provide a world with own rules, in witch the player decides to follow these rules or his own. Some even try to provide different rules in the same world, that sometimes lead to moral dilemma. It is common here to have different parties reflecting different moral standards, giving the player a set of options to choose from. Supporting one or another party can be messured with the help of a reputation system or (much more work for bigger games) completly scripted individually for each quest.
You seem to try going even one step further by not giving any moral at all, leaving the player alone with himself. I don't regard this as gameplay.

The only way you could help the player to make his decision is indeed utilitarianistic - as this is the way life goes - or at least, as humans work.
We ourselves decide between what our will tells us (i want to be "evil" like a mafia-boss), what feelings we get, thinking of different consequences (raping feels so wrong, not even a mafia-boss should do that) and - last but not least - what we expect our environment to react like (a mafia-boss should be cruel to proof he is not weak/ you should not be a mafia-boss at all).

The only thing a game can decide is the moral standard of the environement. What can be influenced a bit is the will of the player, for example by giving a limited choice of character types, skills, possible actions.
Not leading a player, encouraging him to find his own "good" or "wrong" will result in him making the same theoretical process as in real life: Evaluating the consequences. There are several steps during maturing, each concentrating on different aspect of own action's consequences.
One starts thinking of "right" as what does yourself "good", only slowly accepting authority. First not seeing any bad in doing whatever authority does not forbid or at least not notice (egocentric), you start accepting limits and punishment (moral of absolute obedience).
The next 3 steps are the following guidelines:
- An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
- Do unto others as you would have others do unto you
- law-and-order/ what would happen, if anyone did this?

You can expect an adult to follow one of the latter 3 guidelines, as this is common progress, but not everyone reaches stages 4 and 5. In RPGs you might even have players choosing their options from an egocentric view (D&D alignments: _ evil) or following absolute obedience (D&D alignments: : lawful _), as RPGs are a perfect environment to test uncommon behaviour.
You, Lar_q, obviously reached stage 5:


Not even "overall utility" is impartial, for it depends on what you consider useful/more useful, which is given by a moral standard.

When creating a situation that provides a moral dilemma, there has to be a set of moral standards, all beeing equal but conflicting.
This is quite specific, so there is no room for moral-free spaces in which the player might form his own standards. Doing so (i wouldn't know how to make a game of it) would result in the player choosing (from real life) or inventing a moral standard for his behaviour, following it with his personal guideline any time - and therefore not resulting in any dilemma. Several problems would occur:
- Not giving a moral standard means not giving knowledge about people's reactions - for these reactions would be determined by moral standards which then become more or less obvious. Not having any clue what his options are, the player might guess from real-life-knowledge or quit. Thinking is not of much use here, because you just don't know what to do. In fact, it doesn't even matter, for it has random (=unknown) results. I don't regard Sophie's choice as interesting, she just thought too much (What will happen to her daughter when she lets her live? She does not know. How would her son take it? She does not know. Will the guard keep word, or kill both anyway or none of them, but tell them of her mother's choice? SHE DOES NOT... you get it. Maybe the senselessness and therefore unlimited space for speculation fascinated you? I just don't get what you thought to learn from it)
- If the player should nevertheless try to follow some self-made rules, he will never be in a dilemma, because no one tells him to do different. As much as any action could be considered as bad, it might as well be good. Or both. Or sometimes this, sometimes the other.
The dilemma starts, when the same guideline meets different morals, different evaluations of the same action. Therefore, you need to give at least one moral for the player's orientation. More common are several, usually not conflicting morals, that lead to dilemma in very special situations.
I would recommend you not to try the impossible, but to make the possible better than it has ever been done before <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

You can have variations of morals seeming to work well when followed strictly, but later reveiling as less positive or just not ready for practice. Or present a change in moral standards and let the player experience the consequences for peoples' lifes. Let him influence which of sereral conflicting morals gets greatest influence and how people refusing the moral standard of the ruling class are treated when presenting their alternative system. For the presentation of different morals, you can always take different religious backgrounds. They can be disguised as regional or racial morals, if one region or race is or was dominated by a certain religion and sticks to it's moral standards. Sometimes, the same moral can be used with differnt results, using different guidelines. E.g. Worshipping life can result in refusing death penalty when using "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you", while it makes you accepting it with "Eye for an eye,...". This conflict can also be shown by letting the player decide what is better in a certain situation. Might be a nice frustration to later see the same guideline used by a NPC on the same moral in a different context, where suddenly the opposite result is logical.
It is more difficult to decide for or against death penalty when using "law&order": on the one hand, you would kill several people for sure, on the other hand that might prevent others from doing a murder and therefore save lifes.
Just playing with differences and similarities between morals and guidelines of how to use them should already give enough plot for the whole game - at least, if you add some narrative passages and some less complex decisions. Else it could change from being a game to being work <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Moral dillemas are nice to have in a game and when it reflects an aspect of life, this can make things both personal and interesting to the player. The choices in a moral dillema are often unclear because there are both pluses and minuses whenever any choice within a given situation is made. Of interest though could be decisions regarding attributes. I'd like a situation where perhaps I'd have to decide between distribution of attributes....Let's just assume the game I'm playing has the attributes of Beyond Divinity....strength, intelligence, survival, agility, constitution, speed.....It could be interesting to have quests where I'll need to sacrifice points in constitution to gain more intelligence, strength for greater speed...I don't want to be in a situation where a choice is absolutely wrong....Even in life, when people make "bad" decisions there can be unforeseen positive consequences...The converse is true also, where "good" decisions can later have unforeseen negative consequences down the line....It's a choice and there's no decision sometimes that can be absolutely right or wrong...Yet, each decision could have its own faults and merits so that things get interesting as the game progresses....Decisions don't have to involve attributes but can also be based on popularity. Perhaps a choice will give me the favor of one person rather than another. Decisions don't have to lead to an absolute disaster but each choice again, should have its own pluses and minuses....

The ability to reverse decisions could also be an interesting point of focus....I know as a player that I can always load an earlier save but how about also having an option at certain points in the game to travel back in time? Time travel itself has its own complications of course and this is what makes things thought provoking on another level. Reversing time sets up other complications of course. Imagine preventing a character's parents from even meeting each other....or the phenomenon of time dilation where someone comes back younger.. knowing how to time travel can be a mark of intelligence...yet, intelligence can create corruption...it's that extra bit of wisdom that allows a person to use special abilities like time travel properly....other complications....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox

Having multiple outcomes to one particular quest sounds good to me.

It's always nice in an RPG for the player to be given many decisions in a game.

It's even better when some of my character's stats/skills have an impact on there being more options and decisions on finishing a quest a possibly different way. For example, talking your way out of a fight b/c you have a high say Persuasion skill is always welcome -- games like Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment have done such things.

Hello,

just wanted to point out to this weird thread. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

The only reason I'd like for not being able to do a quest is reputation or economy or in the sense that in real life, or.. lets say in that generation, and in that history and story line, you wouldn't able to solve the quest for the city watch after you were first, a wanted killer (or something evil) or if you were against the idea to begin with.

What I mean is that, the only reason you shouldn't be able to help the evil side would be if you were well know on the good side, representing your side.

But in the case were you only have 5/10 options to choose from and allowing the rest or the other 5, to not be in the characters game, would only be good to your character if in doing those several quests, they would have a certain chain of outcomes depending on what you picked.

So if you helped the poor, instead of those of which are rich, you would embark on a journey to the Beggars corners, in which people would thank you, and more quests would show up, but being on the Rich side would lead you to a big house etc. Therefore allowing your character to be placed in the world with limits.