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Game News Brian Fargo on moral dilemmas in Wasteland 2

Zed

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Tags: Brian Fargo; Wasteland 2

Brian Fargo gives us another (perhaps better) example of choices and consequences in Wasteland 2 in a short but sweet blog update on moral dilemmas in the wasteland:

I recently gave an example of a very small cause and effect scenario involving a drowning boy and it created some confusion on whether that was an example of a moral dilemma. The tough morality decisions are ones in which the outcome is not a black and white scenario. So in our drowning boy example, unless you are playing like a sociopath (which we’re ok with) a person is likely to save the boy unless there was personal risk involved. This is more about the ripples of cause and effect the events in the game can cause then a real example of a true moral dilemma. To that end, I thought it appropriate to share one of the many scenarios which does comprise of a set of choices that are not black and white and also highlights the multiple choices the players will have:

The Kidnapped Wife:

The rangers come across a man whose wife has been kidnapped by raiders. He asks them to help him get her back, but these raiders bear the Mark of Titan, marking them protected by the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud. If the rangers attack the raiders, they will anger the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and possibly jeopardize their main mission on the map, but if they don’t rescue the woman, she will be enslaved and endure a fate worse than death. Adding to the dilemma is that without the rangers’ help; her husband is going to get himself killed trying to save her on his own.

The easiest and most loathsome way to deal with the dilemma is to ignore the man and leave the woman to her fate. It’s also easy to go in guns blasting, but that will piss off the Servants and turn the map hostile, putting the Rangers overall mission in jeopardy. It is much more difficult and time consuming to find a middle path, trying to steal her away without the raiders knowing, trying to buy her from them, or stealth killing them all without the servants catching on.


This example illustrates two things that are of major importance to us in the development of Wasteland 2. First, having moral dilemmas that are more than just good versus evil, and second, having multiple solution options to any scenario. Setting up scenarios that tug on your emotions of right and wrong is what makes for the experience we are trying to deliver. We also want to allow people to play the game the way they want. If they choose the evil path, then we need to let that happen. You might feel a little guilty when you hear about the havoc you are causing to innocent people but we don’t make the game impossible due to your play style. It is all about the player having a choice of and having multiple ways to solve any problem.​

Click here to read the update on the Wasteland 2 blog.
 

Roguey

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Rescue Tandi from the Raiders: Enhanced Edition. That's all right I guess. What else ya got?
 

Carrion

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That sounds pretty cool and all as far as C&C goes, but has there ever been an RPG without a quest about some guy's wife being kidnapped by raiders?
 

metzger

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So there is a good way to complete the quest, a bad way, and also you can ignore the quest! What a dilemma. Fucking shit. I'm dissapointed.
 

Outlander

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Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You can exterminate all the raider scum. What other option do you need?

I think people are butthurt about lack of sex options. Let's see:

You could command one of your party members (by drugging him/her for example) to distract the raiders by being gang-raped. Then you can stealth your way into the camp with the rest of your party and gang-rape save the woman.
 

Kos_Koa

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Brian Fargo said:
If the rangers attack the raiders, they will anger the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and possibly jeopardize their main mission on the map
"Anger the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud" = Extra fight before leaving the map.

Brian Fargo said:
but if they don’t rescue the woman, she will be enslaved and endure a fate worse than death.
That might have bothered me when I was nine, but as a "big boy" I think I can get over the death of a make believe character.

Adding to the dilemma is that without the rangers’ help; her husband is going to get himself killed trying to save her on his own.
:hmmm:
 

Tigranes

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ITT: Codex tries to see how many moral dilemmas they can rationalise as not moral dilemmarish enough.
 
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Fargo sounds like such a great guy and so cool and collected that not only small insights into his creative thinking give me great hope for Wasteland 2....but make me wonder why thehell it took him almost 10 years to get innvolved with good proyects again
Kickstarter frenzy happened
 
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Brayko

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I, and I'm sure others, have posted some Codex links on his Twitter that criticize his choice of examples for moral dilemmas and I'm glad to see it's paying off.

This is example is a bit better but it still feels like I'm going back in time to Fallout 1 and they're just copy pasting the Tandi quest. It could definitely be worse though so I'll leave it at that. While I don't want the game spoiled, I just ask that they focus real hard on intelligent quest design and dialogue and have it all tie in "smartly".
 

Jaesun

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As long as their is FAR reaching complications with Servants of the Mushroom Cloud, by attacking the raiders then this could be ok. Or if possibly jeopardize their main mission on the map is done well.
 
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Summoning villain of the story

You have a new doom to preach, my boy.

Give me a break, man. Do you have any idea how much it takes to single handedly spread so much hate and misery for a month straight? How many boys I threw let drown in deep waters? How many wives I watched let get raped? And this isn't even over yet. We have a pitch to make to Obsidian for our donation. But I endure. Like I endure shallow choices with crap consequences.

That said, I'm willing to give WL2 far more leeway than PE because TB combat that takes JA2 v1.13 as a role model and modding tools. It will be a bitch to mod environments in PE due to 2D and the workload and pipeline involved. It will be immensely easier to mod and create environments in WL2 as well as possibly modifying some of the core rules of the system too, if necessary.
 

Gruia

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here's an easy one, gottit from mturk

theres a train commin right, so you have the switch between 2 lanes,

currently the train will kill 5 guys, if you switch, it kills 1. What do you do?
 

RK47

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do nothing. i'm waiting for the train and almost late for work. oh wait , snap pics with my phone cam so i can get easy $50 when i publish it on citizen journalism website.
:truesingaporean:
 

St. Toxic

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How about if one of your rangers gets taken hostage/gangraped? And your choices are to leave him or kill all the raiders, but if you do they'll certainly execute the ranger before you can get to him. And the middle path is that you dress in drag and pretend to be a prostitute to get him out stealthily, but once you do the whole wasteland will hear about it and you'll never get any respect again.
 

sea

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I think that "moral decisions" need to engage players on a few different levels to be effective.
  1. Narrative/emotional. The decision has to have some relevance to the plot, setting, characters, etc. and it needs to have some sort of emotional resonance that makes the player care. This doesn't have to be cheap melodrama or horrible violence, just a human element that we can relate to and struggle with a bit.
  2. Gameplay. Not all players are driven by story, and you need to have some sort of gameplay consequence to a decision to make it relevant directly to the player in practical terms. "What does it get me?" and "what do I lose out on?" should be things the player has to address. Sometimes the decision will be clear-cut based on character build, but in an ideal situation the gameplay impact should play into two or more equally compelling systems... whether that's reward A or B, or critical resources, or opening/closing tactical and strategic opportunities.
  3. Intellectual. Different from narrative appeal, a good moral decision needs to make us challenge or at the very least think about our own beliefs, standards, and so on. These are the "big" questions that come up, usually politically, socially or philosophically charged. This does not have to be explicit - players who are concerned about these sorts of things will usually infer plenty to have this discussion themselves, if the game gives an opening to do so.
Fargo's proposed scenario is actually pretty good, except for two things:
  • Discrepancy in rewards. Appeasing that powerful group, at least on paper, sounds way more important than the life of a single random NPC you will probably never see it again. Any player acting with gameplay at the forefront of his or her mind would always either ignore the request for help, or pick the middle path (since it implies the most XP, loot etc.). The other decision, in gameplay terms, is a "bad" one.
  • Petty sentimentality. The only thing stopping the player from ignoring the quest outright, aside from potential loot and XP to be earned, is that a poor woman is going to suffer horribly. The problem is that this feels like a cheap shot - basically telling the player "you are an asshole for picking the pragmatic solution." I don't think it's reasonable to effectively brand the player either a jerk or a hero in such an arbitrary fashion. It feels like the game designer can't figure out a good way to have a downside to the pragmatic choice, so he/she settles for a sucker punch to the gut, by implying the player is complicit with the actions of the raiders through inaction. That is not enough to make the decision interesting or difficult, and more than anything can be frustrating as players will start to ask obvious questions about the options available, cause and effect, and why the game designers couldn't come up with anything better.
But, uh, A for effort, I guess?
 
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TB combat that takes JA2 v1.13 as a role model
Has anyone (un)officially confirmed this? Link please? Because that would be awesome. The last time I was on the W2 forum there were some people saying that Fallout Tactics combat system was already too complicated and arguing for original Wasteland combat or Fallout combat system at most.
 

RK47

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HELP ME HELP ME PLS HELP

Tell me whats going on

They're AFTER ME THE RAIDERS

LET US KEEP THE GIRL AND WE'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING

Hang on, let me check gamefaqs...

ALT TAB

ALT TAB

Ok bitch. Back with them you go.
 

Zarniwoop

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What, no [RENEGADE] option to grab the wife's collar?

What kind of last-gen nonsense is this?
 
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Fargo really dug himself into a hole with this morality bullshit.

This is how morality should be handled in a PA setting:

 

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