237 réponses à ce sujet

[Gwydden]

Made a long response about Keepers magic, dalish bond with nature and so on, but deleted it. It's not important. Same with the Hawke - if PC, our hero, said something - NPCs are supposed to believe. In a well designed games you have some kind of influence check, in not-so-good games it goes without saying. It's a player-centric world after all. Everyone believes us unless script requires otherwise, in which case nobody believes his own eyes. So if you honestly said Zathrian killed himself - so it was and clan respect his choice.

Maybe so, but what I was trying to explain is why that seemed like the logical consequence of curing the curse for me, and why it would have made sense had they chosen to implement it.

[Gwydden]

Xilizhra wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Right. I might play a PC who struggles with this problem, but that's because I've defined them as someone who hasn't decided what she really values yet. The majority of my PCs don't fall into this position. 

As a player, it's not much of a moral quandary.

If you don't mind me asking... what would the choice be? Friends? Or slaves?

Because either way, I can raise the ante.

And there's the problem: the constant desire to raise the ante. You don't have to have every major decision be partially horrible, nor should you. Fewer people will find that fun.

But what about not havin a decission have an obvius optimal outcome? It seems weird to me that they give you three choices and one of them makes the others rather ineffective.

[Maria Caliban]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Right. I might play a PC who struggles with this problem, but that's because I've defined them as someone who hasn't decided what she really values yet. The majority of my PCs don't fall into this position. 

As a player, it's not much of a moral quandary.

If you don't mind me asking... what would the choice be? Friends? Or slaves?

Because either way, I can raise the ante.

For me? I'd leave the area and call the cops. If my friends are in mortal danger from people with weapons, I can't save them, and any attempt to would lead to my death, lowing the chances of the killers ever being caught.

Of course, it's also possible I panic go THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA! and die horribly. As I've never been in a lethal situation, I might lose the ability to action rationally.


If you mean the PC-as-Maria, where I'm a hardened fighter who's been in many battles, I'd go help my friends. If they die, I can't bring them back. I can free the slaves some other time.

[Fast Jimmy]

Xilizhra wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Right. I might play a PC who struggles with this problem, but that's because I've defined them as someone who hasn't decided what she really values yet. The majority of my PCs don't fall into this position. 

As a player, it's not much of a moral quandary.

If you don't mind me asking... what would the choice be? Friends? Or slaves?

Because either way, I can raise the ante.

And there's the problem: the constant desire to raise the ante. You don't have to have every major decision be partially horrible, nor should you. Fewer people will find that fun.

What you call partially horrible I call great story-telling.

Giving the player everything on a plate and you are providing all of the mental and emotional stimulation of an episode of Dora the Explorer. 

[Xilizhra]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Right. I might play a PC who struggles with this problem, but that's because I've defined them as someone who hasn't decided what she really values yet. The majority of my PCs don't fall into this position. 

As a player, it's not much of a moral quandary.

If you don't mind me asking... what would the choice be? Friends? Or slaves?

Because either way, I can raise the ante.

And there's the problem: the constant desire to raise the ante. You don't have to have every major decision be partially horrible, nor should you. Fewer people will find that fun.

What you call partially horrible I call great story-telling.

Giving the player everything on a plate and you are providing all of the mental and emotional stimulation of an episode of Dora the Explorer. 

Keep in mind that if Dora didn't give sufficient stimulation to her target audience, she wouldn't sell as well. No need to say that something is worth inherently less because the audience is different.

In any case, no one could reasonably say that having to fight through the Brecilian Forest a couple of times, then monster-infested ruins, then going up against a powerful blood mage, is handing anyone anything on a plate.

[Wulfram]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

What you call partially horrible I call great story-telling.

Giving the player everything on a plate and you are providing all of the mental and emotional stimulation of an episode of Dora the Explorer. 

There's a pretty big excluded middle there.

Giving players a moral choice is good .  Loading up the choices to make people pick stuff they find repugnant isn't.

[Fast Jimmy]

If you mean the PC-as-Maria, where I'm a hardened fighter who's been in many battles, I'd go help my friends. If they die, I can't bring them back. I can free the slaves some other time.

As I said, I can up the ante.

Say you are, instead, in an exploding volcano, with most of the same parameters. The slaves will die of you don't save them. Your friends just "might" die after being attacked. What do you do then?


We could play this until the end of time, likely. The point being is that your answers might change depending on the situation, the people involved and the principles. Let's just say, in my above volcano example, you, being an anti-slavery person, left the slaves behind. That says a lot. You can be viewed as someone who values the people you are connected with over your ideals. Conversely, the other way around, you could be seen as someone who makes the hard sacrifices for what you believe and for doing what you think is right.

The longer you have to think, either as you, Maria, the Player, or Maria, the game character, the better the question, in my opinion. A hard choice is one that becomes something you and/or your character wrestles with, not breezes through.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 19 septembre 2013 - 09:33 .

[Face of Evil]

I don't mind difficult decisions, but I don't need an endless stream of Sophie's Choices every time I turn a corner.

"You have chosen apples over oranges, and NOW YOUR FRIENDS MUST DIE!"

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sys you are, instead, in an exploding volcano, with most of the same parameters. The slaves will die of you don't save them. Your friends just "might" die after being attacked. What do you do then?

It seems like "your friends might die" pops up a lot in this theoretical game of yours. Maybe I'd eventually decide the universe was trying to tell me something.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 19 septembre 2013 - 09:35 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

I'd disagree. People have very formulated, well thought out concepts of what they believe. However, they are based on underlying assumptions and understandings.

Underlying assumptions they need to understand if they're going to be described as having a firm grasp of their own position.

Otherwise, moral beliefs become nothing more than a series of empty platitudes.

For instance, playing a character that values human life is easy.

It depends entirely what that character means by that.  What counts as human life?  How does he weight different instances of life when conflicts arise?  Will he always seek to maximise the preservation of life, even if that means risking a lesser outcome, or will he be risk-averse and not risk any life he doesn't have to?

Playing a character that is anti-slavery is also easy.

That's far too vague a principle to be useful.  Is he trying to free slaves, or eliminate slavery as an institution?  Can he tolerate short-term slave ownership if it serves a longer-term goal of eliminating slavery, or does he insist on freeing every slave he finds, even if that makes the general eliminating of slavery harder?

These are questions that need to be answered by the character before the character can be said to have a firm understanding of his own positions.

Isolated options in a vacuum is nothing more than a personal preference survey.

I completely agree.  The whole set of moral positions needs to be assembled into a coherent whole in order to be useful.  But this shouldn't be done under duress.

[Maria Caliban]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

As I said, I can up the ante.

Sys you are, instead, in an exploding volcano, with most of the same parameters. The slaves will die of you don't save them. Your friends just "might" die after being attacked. What do you do then?

I save the slaves.

Again, I don't find this a difficult or morally complex decision.

Yes, we could go back and forth like this until you find just the right question that makes me hesitate, but when In Exile plays through it, it might mean nothing to him as it's been tailor made for Maria.

The best you can aim for is a moral dilemma that many people have problems with, but then you're still going to have lots of people telling you that it was cliche or uninteresting or, alternatively, that it sucked the fun out of the game because it was too extreme.

Modifié par Maria Caliban, 19 septembre 2013 - 09:35 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Face of Evil wrote...

I don't mind difficult decisions, but I don't need an endless stream of Sophie's Choices every time I turn a corner.

"You have chosen apples over oranges, and NOW YOUR FRIENDS MUST DIE!"

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Sys you are, instead, in an exploding volcano, with most of the same parameters. The slaves will die of you don't save them. Your friends just "might" die after being attacked. What do you do then?

It seems like "your friends might die" pops up a lot in this theoretical game of yours. Maybe I'd eventually decide the universe was trying to tell me something.

You and your friends are, on a regular basis, engaging in martial combat some of the moat deadly enemies known in Thedas, including demons, dragons and Darkspawn. Is it any stretch that this group might be in constant moral peril?

[Fast Jimmy]

I completely agree. The whole set of moral positions needs to be assembled into a coherent whole in order to be useful. But this shouldn't be done under duress.

I'm really pressed for time here, so I only could comment on this one item, because I think it is imortant.

Forging a character identity under duress is, oftentimes, the ONLY TIME many people ask these questions. I realize that, to you, it is a matter you partake in before you even start the game up (if possible, given the data you have before starting the game), but many people do not do this, ever.

Better to put them in a position where they need to ask themselves such a question under duress rather than simp encourage them to not ask it at all.

[Face of Evil]

Too true! Though I'd start to wonder if I kept running into situations where I was forced to make a decision between saving my friends or saving innocent lives.

At some point, I'd call foul on the Gamemasters trying to rig the competition and threaten to eat the poisoned berries.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 19 septembre 2013 - 09:44 .

[Wulfram]

I don't think the objective should be to find a choice that is difficult for any one person, but to find one that a decent number of characters would choose differently on. And I don't think Bioware is especially bad at that, going by the argument we get on the forums.

I also don't think every choice should be about what's more moral. There's nothing wrong with a choice where one choice is obviously the good one, and one choice is obviously the selfish one. You just need to make sure the selfish one has a half-decent reward - which usually means a story one in my experience, though I'd like to get back to the situation where a good magic item was worthwhile, rather than being vendor trash after a few levels.

[Gwydden]

I save the slaves.

Again, I don't find this a difficult or morally complex decision. 

I would deeply distrust someone who would so easily and without hesitation let friends die. What you think you'll do in an extreme moral conflict quite often has nothing to do with what you would actually do. People's true nature comes up in times of crisis, haven't you heard?

[Fast Jimmy]

Face of Evil wrote...

Too true! Though I'd start to wonder if I kept running into situations where I was forced to make a decision between saving my friends or saving innocent lives.

At some point, I'd call foul on the Gamemasters trying to rig the competition and threaten to eat the poisoned berries.

However, unlike The Capitol (or Bioware, for that matter), Fast Jimmy doesn't care if my entertainment is the opiate of the masses. Wide-based appeal and sales are not what drive this little game I'm playing. Prodding the player towards some self-introspection is. 

[Xilizhra]

Gwydden wrote...

I save the slaves.

Again, I don't find this a difficult or morally complex decision. 

I would deeply distrust someone who would so easily and without hesitation let friends die. What you think you'll do in an extreme moral conflict quite often has nothing to do with what you would actually do. People's true nature comes up in times of crisis, haven't you heard?

That's one of the things that makes the heroes in these situations; they make decisions quickly enough to save as many lives as possible.

[Face of Evil]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Prodding the player towards some self-introspection is. 

If you don't mind third-person shooters, you should try Spec Ops: The Line at some point. It asks some pretty interesting questions about player agency and hero fantasies.

Modifié par Face of Evil, 19 septembre 2013 - 09:57 .

[Gwydden]

Xilizhra wrote...

Gwydden wrote...

I save the slaves.

Again, I don't find this a difficult or morally complex decision. 

I would deeply distrust someone who would so easily and without hesitation let friends die. What you think you'll do in an extreme moral conflict quite often has nothing to do with what you would actually do. People's true nature comes up in times of crisis, haven't you heard?

That's one of the things that makes the heroes in these situations; they make decisions quickly enough to save as many lives as possible.

But how, in this scenario, is it better to save a few random slaves than people you actually care about and who will be a much greater asset to solving the story's conflict? Again, morals are quite a subjective concept.

[Dave of Canada]

Wulfram wrote...

I don't think the objective should be to find a choice that is difficult for any one person, but to find one that a decent number of characters would choose differently on.

But when the entire point of BioWare's decision-making comes up to doing something which is ideal and doing something to mitigate the damage should the ideal solution fail, it comes to the point that the ideal route is the only worthwhile one.

Personally, I absolutely loathed having all my decisions invalided and everyone calling me an idiot throughout the Mass Effect series because I decided that I didn't want to press the blue options. The fact that their writing is transparent in twisting the knife is just worse.

I also don't think every choice should be about what's more moral. There's nothing wrong with a choice where one choice is obviously the good one, and one choice is obviously the selfish one.

Which ultimately is the purpose of side-quests, I feel. Most of the characterization in the main quest should be about your methods and how you achieve your end goal, whatever that goal may be. Large decisions which have an actual impact in how your organization is viewed by the world, your subordinates, etc.

[Xilizhra]

But when the entire point of BioWare's decision-making comes up to doing something which is ideal and doing something to mitigate the damage should the ideal solution fail, it comes to the point that the ideal route is the only worthwhile one.

Personally, I absolutely loathed having all my decisions invalided and everyone calling me an idiot throughout the Mass Effect series because I decided that I didn't want to press the blue options. The fact that their writing is transparent in twisting the knife is just worse.

Why? I didn't think you cared about other peoples' opinions that much if you're going Renegade anyway.

[Dave of Canada]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

However, unlike The Capitol (or Bioware, for that matter), Fast Jimmy doesn't care if my entertainment is the opiate of the masses. Wide-based appeal and sales are not what drive this little game I'm playing. Prodding the player towards some self-introspection is. 

I love when games successfully achieve that. The fact that most players had shifting opinions on The Walking Dead and how they felt at the end was completely different than they did at the start was something which elevated the game for me and proved that you don't have to cater to your fan's sensibilities for financial gain.

Xilizhra wrote...

Why? I didn't think you cared about other peoples' opinions that much if you're going Renegade anyway.

Having characters outright say "If only we had spared X" or "God, you shouldn't have done Y" isn't good writing, don't try to defend it.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 19 septembre 2013 - 10:00 .

[Xilizhra]

Having characters outright say "If only we had spared X" or "God, you shouldn't have done Y" isn't good writing, don't try to defend it.

I got that for rewriting the geth, and that was fine. In any case, you have to expect that kind of thing coming from people who'd invested in the thing you threw away, and I'd expect you to go into the situation knowing that would happen.

[Dave of Canada]

Xilizhra wrote...

Having characters outright say "If only we had spared X" or "God, you shouldn't have done Y" isn't good writing, don't try to defend it.

I got that for rewriting the geth, and that was fine. In any case, you have to expect that kind of thing coming from people who'd invested in the thing you threw away, and I'd expect you to go into the situation knowing that would happen.

Rather one-sided, isn't it?

EDIT: Yes. Killing the Rachni Queen meant I should expect it to come back.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 19 septembre 2013 - 10:16 .