The GHZ Forum

Many games nowadays give you a series of 'good' and 'bad' choices to shape the game world and your character. Which way do you tend to play?

Usually, I stick to the good side of neutral. In a game like Fallout 3, I'll happily defend the innocent, and then happily steal all their worldly possessions when they're not looking. In games like Mass Effect, I'm nice to my crew and mean to everyone else. The Fable games lack any real depth, so I have no problem scaring the shit out of villagers and sacrificing them to get stuff. But in a game where the NPCs actually resemble people, I'll err on the side of not being a complete dick.

Hey, I kind of inspired this one, didn't I? Well, to expand on my post in the other thread, I'm always a total goody two-shoes. Even when talking to asshole NPCs I'll try to find a way to encourage them to become better people, right up 'til they get so annoyed with me that they pull out their weapons and I have to blow their heads off. So, I still get my kicks.

I can't stand being evil, though. There's the thing where I feel like a dick if the NPCs have any personality, but even in the bland world of Fable, when I tried wreaking havoc for the hell of it, it felt very unsatisfying and boring. What's the point of being Chaotic Evil once the initial excitement of setting innocents on fire wears off? It's for this same reason that I've never liked GTA, at least not the way most people like it.

One of the characters I played in a D&D game was this simple paladin who tried to negotiate and make friends with all the monsters we encountered. It usually ended with an arrow in his face, but it was really fun!

In solo RPGs I find it hard to get over the whole empathy thing, and so usually end up labled "good" although I think "human" would be more appropriate. In multiplayer RPGs and tabletop I quite enjoy being a baddie, and I can pull off the whole sinister vibe as well as cartoonish villainy, depending on the mood. I don't like how narrow the system is - is cowardice "evil", for example?

In my experience good/evil is based on intent, so I'd say cowardice is neutral. There is the whole "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" thing, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. Tabletop games give you a MUCH wider range than this poll.

Also, damn, we've got some moral people on this board. I guess you're all just cranky good guys.

I've somehow avoided most of the good/evil choice games. I feel bad when I take the evil side. Even in SA2 I felt bad playing through the Dark story. That said, I have enjoyed torturing innocents and doing things like sending disasters onto cities I've built in SimCity (way back when). I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle / what does it matter.

I tend to play through games on the "good" side for my serious playthrough, and then doing whatever the fuck I want for my fun/whatever playthrough. (Recent examples include inFamous and RDR.) Other times I just don't give a shit. See: Black & White, where I did nothing but torture my creature and the villagers before losing interest a few hours in and never playing it again.

The only game I have like this is InFamous (got it free). I tried being good, although the civilians still disliked me anyway and a mob of old women beat me to death. I got to the bridge level at the start then stopped playing it, so I cannot say too much about what I liked.

In general, I think 'be evil!!!' is retarded and only (man)children would want such a sharp contrast in actions. Picking options should have merits either way, even if one is the worse choice.

I guess I'm one of those manchildren then, because I have trouble being only slightly good or a wee bit malicious in the games that allow for such degrees of morality.

Like, I'll try to be good most of the time, but then I'll kill somebody who wasn't totally deserving of such (like the pick-pocket kids in Fallout 2). After that, I have to go whole hog and kill everybody in the village. That's probably the OCD talking more than morality, really.

Kogen wrote:In general, I think 'be evil!!!' is retarded and only (man)children would want such a sharp contrast in actions. Picking options should have merits either way, even if one is the worse choice.

Interestingly enough, the only person I know who's gone 100% evil in Fallout 3 (aside from folks on their second/third/etc. run-through doing it to see what it's like) is the biggest loser I've ever met. And I'm including people like Arcade.

Generally my playstyle is best described as "selfish", or possibly "bad-ass". I will do anything I can get away with if it fills my coin purse. Sure, I'll kill those goblins that are wrecking your shit. What, you only paid me fifty gold? BAM. Now you're dead, and it looks like you had another hundred in your house. Thanks, arsehole.

Most of the time in Oblivion I never killed anyone, mostly to avoid the fucking insane psychic guards, but even though I can pay it off with the Thieves Guild dude now I only kill people if it fits my ar-pee; Wabznasm, orc mace-for-hire, doesn't take any shit (wants all your gold). However, in Fable I soon learned that being an utter bastard made the game a whole lot easier, with no repercussions.

How I act in a game depends on the game - in its ability to immerse and/or in its realism or lack thereof - and doesn't have a lot to do with how I act in real life. Like all humans, I'm selfish, vain, cruel and greedy, but I hide all those aspects of my personality so that a) I'm not offending or hurting anyone, but more importantly b) so that nobody thinks I'm a prick. Morality prevents me from getting most of the things I want in life, but in a game I have no such boundary, or rather no genuine consequences for my actions. Usually all I want to do is stand on someone's table and kick their fruit, anyway, but you can't do that shit round your auntie's house.

Being evil is fun... why arent more games where you play the bad guy and build your own dungeon?

Arcade wrote:Being evil is fun... why arent more games where you play the bad guy and build your own dungeon?

http://hardcoregaming101.net/namaikida/namaikida.htm

Have at it.

FlashTHD wrote:

Arcade wrote:Being evil is fun... why arent more games where you play the bad guy and build your own dungeon?

http://hardcoregaming101.net/namaikida/namaikida.htm

Have at it.

That looks fun, but in not Dungeon Keeper, too bad they canceled the series... unless you speak Korean and want to try the soon to be released online version...