Some thoughts on karma/morality systems in cRPGs

[ColonelTeacup]

I'd argue that raping a women is worse than just an extra 10 karmic loss of pickpocketing someones wallet, or journal.

What if she enjoyed it at the end?

I suppose since the intention from the rapist would be to get sex from her by overpowering her and violating her despite her position on the issue it's still a karmic loss. Although a far more interesting question is how it would affect the womans morality if she ended up enjoying it. How would that be shown in her alignment? a +10 to chaotic?

 

[Black]

+10 chaotic don't matter since wimin are chaotic evil all the time.

 

[harhar!]

A backpacker is traveling through Ireland when it starts to rain. He decides to wait out the storm in a nearby pub. The only other person at the bar is an older man staring at his drink. After a few moments of silence the man turns to the backpacker and says in a thick Irish accent:

"You see this bar? I built this bar with my own bare hands. I cut down every tree and made the lumber myself. I toiled away through the wind and cold, but do they call me McGreggor the bar builder? No."

He continued "Do you see that stone wall out there? I built that wall with my own bare hands. I found every stone and placed them just right through the rain and the mud, but do they call me McGreggor the wall builder? No."

"Do ya see that pier out there on the lake? I built that pier with my own bare hands, driving each piling deep into ground so that it would last a lifetime. Do they call me McGreggor the pier builder? No."

"But ya fuck one goat.."

 

[Elemental_wanamingo]

If you do a bad deeds you get bad stuff happening. Like you steal everything that isn't nailed down and you get bad events generated like someone would steal everything in your hose and kills your dog and house robot.
I particularly like the first Dishonered implementation. Do bad stuff and you fuck the world.

I kinda like this concept. I've never played dishonored though. One of the annoying things when making a good/bad choices in games is the way the game rewards you for it. Most of the time you are simply leaving equipment and credits behind if you don't do all missions no matter how well or poorly they fit to your character's role playing persona. So people simply do all the missions they can and in the end they all end up slightly positive in any karma system. Try to play good or bad person? You are just not getting the complete experience. I think lots of people are completionists so the game needs to somehow fill this need.

I think it would be a nice idea to to make being a bad person to be about short term gain. You steal stuff, you take it. You don't go out of your way to help someone. But when things go bad you find yourself with no support and people don't do any favors for you. Blacksmiths never fix weapons for free and you don't get people just helping you. But you have solid income and you can always just steal and kill to get what you want. But if you play a good person you are giving away the short term profits for long term profits. When you play a good person you may help some poor soul to kill some rats or whatever and you don't get any rewards for it, except some positive reactions. At first. But in the long run you get npcs that warn you of bandits when travelling so you can avoid them if want to, people put in good word for you which opens new missions or maybe the blacksmith knows a guy who knows a guy you have some interesting stuff for sale at times. And when you get in a fight random people are more likely to help you than to just run away or fight you.

I think it might be interesting system to look at. Because in the end it would make both good and evil lines of play more different, would allow people to roleplay but it would also guarantee that you are not leaving equipment and credits behind. Instead you get different equipment depending which route you take. I really like this. My only reservation is how this kind of system deals with neutral characters. But then again I think solid reputation system would solve that issue. Simply being neutral should give you some freedom to deal with all warring parties without getting instant aggro for example.

A sadistic serial killer who can find inner peace and being one with himself can be a terrifying menace to the surroundings.

In the real world some people are psychopaths. Incapable of feeling remorse or empathy. Also I would not underestimate the human ability to rationalize their own decisions. Even the person who breaks into a house in the darkness of the night and murders the family may honestly view his own actions as self defense. A person who kills and then dismembers the body and gets rid of it in small pieces may similarly just view that thing as something that had to be done. In prison everybody is innocent. They may admit they did the crime but it was justified or they had no way out.

I think it is just hopelessly romantic to expect everybody to feel bad about the bad things they have done. Some people are just nasty fucks and that's it. And some people grow up in shitty childhood. Shit in - shit out.

 

[adrix89]

My only reservation is how this kind of system deals with neutral characters.

You can make karma a pool. Events take from the pool one way or another. If you have accumulated more in one alignment there is a higher chance to select from that pool.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I don't really like Karma systems that are a single global meter. But if you forced me to come up with a system for it that would be different from typical implementations, you could potentially incorporate Karma into an active player system in the form of a strategic resource. Accumulating a sufficient amount of positive Karma allows you to "spend" it on unlikely positive outcomes to story events or give boons in combat. This depletes your Karma meter. If your Karma was in the negative, this could manifest in a variety of ways, including "random" bad events happening to you, bad outcomes to particular story events that would otherwise not have happened, and debuffs cast on your during boss fights. When negative events happen to you, you are pushed closer to 0 Karma - you "work off" bad Karma by having bad things to happen to you.

Since negative Karma would come in the form of theft, treachery and other things that will give you real benefits to your character in the form of extra money, extra items and so on, this would in a sense be the game reacting to your powergaming. And since positive Karma would be the result of charity and selfless actions (note: this doesn't really work if you're allowed to just do every quest to build up 10,000 karma points without actually getting weaker), this is the game rewarding you for your charity. A neutral and mixed path would not interact with the Karmic system much. A less interesting playthrough perhaps, but you can also in principle have story outcomes only available to those on the balanced path to throw them a bone.

This would only make sense if you were theming your story in such a way that Karma was literally a real thing in the universe. Otherwise it's just insanely gamey.

 

[Lahey]

This would only make sense if you were theming your story in such a way that Karma was literally a real thing in the universe. Otherwise it's just insanely gamey.

This is my main issue with most Karma systems. It made sense in a game like KOTOR because the light/dark concept is inherent to the universe, but since then (and before, of course) various studios have shoehorned it into many franchises without explanation merely because it was a feature in earlier games that were successful, leading to a circular feedback loop. This kind of framework provides a simple storyboard that is erosive to creative and original writing, and is a contributing factor to why characters who break the mold are often the most memorable and well-liked amongst fans. I agree with an Administrator's earlier statement; developer's shouldn't tell the player how to feel about a given action, at least not with some 0-100 scale.

Twitch3r did a good job at evoking emotion through decent writing and voice acting, while still having a barebones reputation system tied to major quests. this approach of showing instead of telling is something I hope we see from other devs. If it had the C&C and factional reputation of NV...well a man can dream.

 

[undecaf]

I think karma/morality system should affect the characters "selfview" rather than how others see him. That if you do and keep doing "bad deeds" of different magnitudes you are granted further options in that area (dialog and scenespecific) and denied the opposite, vice versa for "good deeds", and for opportunists a little bit of both but neither to its full heights. Think of a -100 to 100 scale between which the player through his deeds adjusts a 100 point segment (-36 to +74, -1 to +99, and such) that opens/closes options and rectivity for the PC at certain points.