Philosophical gaming

[MrMorley]

Games which, like novels, have a primary purpose of simply making you think. Take for example, Planescape: Torment. A cult classic, with very little emphasis on combat and much ultimately on a simple question:

"What can change the nature of a man?"

A question with so many answers that reveal so much about the person creating the answer. Take me for example, ask me this question and my answer would be profit. What can change the nature of a man? What he stands to gain from making that change. Others would come up which so many different answers, age, time, death, belief, hope, fear, regret, so many possibilities. These kinds of games are, ultimately fascinating. They offer insights into the human condition, and our own depravities.

Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, all of these were story based in my opinion. It was the story that interested me, the story that kept me playing, and the choices that story provided that made me play again.

These are the games that we replay because we want to see real differences in our choices, they are highly character based, highly plot heavy, and I think we need more of them. I am interested in what you all think of almost entirely story-driven games, to the point of being almost if not entirely interactive fiction. From a game development point of view, the pros and cons of such games would be a fascinating discussion.

So, what is your opinion on low-action, high-narrative games? What do you think can change the nature of a man?

[MadPumpkin]

Uncharted 2 is extremely story heavy, BUT very linear. There isn't any real choices you can make but it's a great example of a book like game, a game that just has such awesome story that I would play again even though you can't make choices. However, on a more related note, Fable, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout are all great examples I like to use as well as Prototype and Infamous. I love the replayability of these games, for example I love how in Fallout 3 I can be a douche bag, and it will actually effect how people feel about me. In New Vegas there's a bigger difference.

I'm on your side with the whole, they should make more games like this. But in my opinion, more needs to be added to them. By that I mean, that they (NOT ALL, I don't mean to generalize) often have only comparable things, like "Oh this game is a lot like Fable because..." Or "Hey the combat system is just like Prototype because...". I feel like it's definitely getting better, and that given time it will become even more of a highly praised and great thing though.

Regards, Josh.

EDIT: Also I see you're new, (2 posts total). My name is Josh or just MP, Mad Pumpkin whatever.

[Falco Girgis]

What an interesting topic. Especially considering the fact that our own storyline in Elysian Shadows is highly influenced by philosophical ideologies once you look underneath the surface.

I'll have to check these games out.

As for what can change the nature of man? Fame, fortune, success, sex, women, and any other form of decadence, imo.

[qpHalcy0n]

Interesting indeed.

Would be a hard question to answer as I'm not even sure that I know the answer to "What *IS* the nature of man?" :]
Not sure what constitutes "man nature" :P

[eatcomics]

A better question, what can change the nature of a woman? Well pretty much anything, say a change in the wind, the atmospheric pressure, television, a new dress... Never mind I think we pretty much cracked this one

[Trimmy]

Morale systems and what not can make for some very interesting experiences when they're done well but sometimes they just become a mechanic that people can play to produce the results they want. I think a system where there's just choices and consequences and no "morale meter" telling you whether your good, neutral or evil would probably be the best.

[MrMorley]

I once wrote on morality systems in a blog post, if I can dig it up...here we go:

I'm not going to deny it, I find moral choices in video games fascinating. On the one hand, having options and therefore the illusion of control is very nice. On the other, for f*cks sake video games, why is the choice always to be either Jesus, Satan or apathetic?

At it's core, our sense of "Morality" is just avoidance of the negative consequences of actions that aren't worth the potential benefits of those actions. Conscience is the voice in our head that says "Well, if we get caught doing x sh*t will hit the fan and life will suck for awhile". Whether this is something inherently involved into people, or a conscious process, does not change that this is where morality stems and a moral system in games needs to be designed to reflect that. Games have no real consequences anyway, which is why games have to dangle some form of engineered carrot in front of players.

Star Wars: KoToR had simple carrots, dark side powers which hurt enemies and light side which healed and buffed allies. Being light side or dark side was basically a playing style choice. Dark side sometimes had an extra money carrot, but not always. Sometimes you got more from light side. Or you could take less light-side points by asking for a reward but get more money or...you get the idea.

Mass Effect has two carrots: Being a bastard gives you renegade and lets you do more intimidation, being a paragon let's you be more charismatic. But the carrots are the same both ways, being renegade is just funnier to watch most of the time. I can't be the only player he basically did all the big paragon choices but at every other step of the way was a complete bastard, just so he could laugh at the bastardry.

Both these carrots give players "the weaknesses of amorality", being a grey made you inherently weaker which sucked.

Personally I'd like to see a game implement a morality system akin to that of the World of Darkness: One-way. Being cruel cost you morality, but when only your current morality was above the level of cruelty of that action. A common thief would not lose any more morality from stealing, but if they ever kill someone they'd take a plunge. Also it means the game can easily keep track of how to treat the player, you can't "puppy-poke" your way to becoming the Lord of the Sith.

Of course some kinds of carrots would be required. WoD implements "derangements", as your character goes more (a/im)moral they go insane(r). This means players have to balance the rewards of their "evil" actions with the risked penalties of such actions. Also this situation can lead to interesting problems, like the "batman dilema". If Batman (the player) kills Joker (some bad guy), killing becomes easier for Batman (Morality score lowers) and he may therefore do it again (no longer risk of gaining a derangement from murder). You effectively put the player at the top of the slippery slope and watch them roll down.

“I account for morality as an accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a capability” - George C. Williams

[aamesxdavid]

I would definitely love to see more games like this. Rather, I would like to see a game actually do a good job of this.

There are a few road blocks we're going to have to overcome, a few issues with the conventional wisdom of game design today that need a kick in the ass. There's this "no child left behind" mentality of (most) games, where if the player isn't directly told the consequences of their actions, and/or if their action is "good" or "bad", then it's a failure of the game rather than the player. Moral choice requires subtlety, ambiguity. These are too often lacking in games, and this boils moral choice systems down to the Jesus/Satan/apathetic nonsense meters. (If you haven't seen it, watch the fear/love lifeline scene in Donnie Darko.)

Here's my bold claim for the argument: if your game has a morality meter (or any kind of value associated with "good" or "bad"), you're doing it wrong.

We often don't know the vast majority of the consequences of our actions before we choose to do them, and we arguably never consciously discover them later. This is what makes our choices meaningful: uncertainty. We may try to do good, and inadvertently end up doing bad. What would an action like this do to our moral meter? Is it based on intentions or actual consequences? Uncertainty is not something we're often willing to tolerate in games - depending on our motivation for playing, or course. If you're trying to play a "good" character in Fable, but your next quest options aren't explicitly defined as "good" or "bad", and you happen to choose the "bad" one, you will probably not be too happy with the game at that point, for ruining your "good" streak with its ambiguity.

But why? If you thought it was a moral thing to do, what does it matter that the game doesn't? This is a result of the biggest problem with moral choice in games: the carrot.

Reward is the worst way to deal with moral choices, because it makes the choice more about the reward than the moral imperative. If I want that XBOX achievement in Fable, I have to make a series of very specific choices - some I might not otherwise have made. I'm not doing it out of empathy for the characters, so it's not a moral choice. It's nothing more than a calculated plan to produce a particular result.

Imagine a game that had no noticeable reward or punishment for good or bad actions. Would this make you care less about the choices you make? Why should it? Does it bother you that no one hands you a dollar if you hold the door open for someone? You're supposed to do good or evil for their own sake, so any game that manipulates your motivation for choosing one or the other is failing to provide any moral choice system at all. Sure, you can have story-driven consequences for actions, that's only reasonable (and arguably necessary). But don't give me a halo or horns on my head, add or deduct points to my moral meter, or unlock a particular item just for being a kind lad or a mean spirited bastard. I don't need a cookie for being good, or buckets of money for being bad - I need to care about the effect my choices will have on the world and its inhabitants. Leaving the player to only care about the story consequences of their actions will allow for so much more nuance and intricacy.

We deal with subtlety and ambiguity in everyday life. We need to learn to deal with it in our games, or they will never grow beyond their current state.

[xiphirx]

TheDarkJay, you're over here too? heh had no idea :P

I love low action and highly narrative games, as I said over at ZFGC, the Penumbra Series and Amnesia the Dark Descent are two games you should definitely consider!

[davidthefat]

Just like how life is not black and white; games too have to be ambiguous. RTS games manage to have a very skewed interpretation of that due to the nature of the game play. Good things don't always happen to the good guys, why should that happen in games? Now games that are very entertaining are also very linear. I have been addicted to My Game Dev Story, an iPod Touch game. It is very very linear story line, you are a start up game company with a minimal budget aiming to be the biggest name in the industry. Now does having a linear storyline mean its a terrible game? No. The main difference in life is that in games, you either win or lose, but in life, you always lose. Now, no one would play a game that you always lose (4chan tells us otherwise...http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:7gkm ... hv.jpg&t=1) Dragonage: Origins has a very similar gameplay you described, but it still seems black and white compared to life. Video games will never emulate real life. (http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:9BNP ... 1e.jpg&t=1)

[MrMorley]

TheDarkJay, you're over here too? heh had no idea :P

Yeah, I joined after I saw (I think it was) you post a link as it looked interesting

As for playing games that you always lose: Dwarf Fortress. One of my favourite games, but if you find the fact that your steel-armoured dwarven champion axe-dwarfess went crazy because she couldn't find any glass for the ghost that possessed her to make an artefact with, and managed to butcher half your fortress by beating them to death with her own baby before your militia took her down, at which point everybody got so depressed from all the deaths they went insane and started killingeach other until all that is left is a lone boy, if you find that fact anything but hilarious you're playing the game wrong ^^ This is a game with the motto: Losing is Fun.

True, video games will never emulate real life and neither will novels or movies...well, they'd be very boring novels or movies if they did xD