Where is the "Evil"?

[Q]

Hey, with all the 1000's of mods out there for NWN1, NWN2, Infinity Engine, and the rest, there HAS to be a mod or two which is suited for evil RP and/or Witcher style moral greyness/complexity.

I believe, there are many NWN modules, which allows you to play evil alignment. But I didn’t see the good ones in which you can CHOOSE to be manipulative evil with logical inner motives. As in not just being or wanting to be evil necromancer, but choosing to advance the plot with harsh and manipulative means. Maybe it’s because there is alignment system in the NWNs, which somewhat restrains creativity.
But if someone played that – please let me know.

And NWN modules are very repetitive by graphical design so I can’t stand many of them in the same month.

 

[Chefe]

You've got some good stuff here, Q. Since no one else is replying, I'll try.

Well, if someone study psychology, feel free to add and correct. I just make some trivial assumptions… Let's assume the egoism as an inner driving force for a character. There are no evil, only different opinions for problem solutions. Then let’s portray the ways of the egoism. Like when one put his desires higher then human's live... Of course it's not clearly that evil - the character just using all the possibilities for his own purpose. Then maybe for other character - egoism is when he suffers the pain for innocent people... It's just feeding his ego, granting him a feel of being a hero and a martyr.

But there is no place for tracing character “alignment” in such system, because the designers can't be sure of the motives for his choices. As in real life - donating to the poor is perceived as good, no matter what the motives were - altruism, ego feeding or just a desire to be perceived as good man. So the game world must judge actions first. Of course some game factions may see it in different sides, so that is why overall good/evil meter is useless. If my character see Gizmo as more powerful force of survival for a Junktown, and he perceives survival of mankind as the greatest goal - his intentions just cause approval from some people and disapproval from others. There is no greater evil in that.

I think player motives may be taken into consideration by outer driving forces – like philosophies, or religions. Like Sigil factions maybe. The Paladin of Righteous feeds his ego by acting goody and knightly, when the Free Ranger sees freedom from tyrannical knights as a main goal. It creates some nice connection of the character and the game world. And then some time the character may understand that, omg, his faction being wrong and take another philosophy. Maybe it’s his own philosophy.

Moral alignment is one of the dumbest decisions to ever enter RPGs. I agree completely that good/evil should be faction based, which I think is one of the points you're getting at. Not just organized factions either; factions might be anything from bandits to poor children. The Paladin of Righteous would view the high counsel and the church as being "good", while the Free Ranger would see protecting nature and helping the poor as "good". Their attitude in the game would have to reflect that, and the main problem here is ommiting personal biases to make the player think there's a solid reason for his decisions.

Since KOTOR gets thrown around alot, I'll use that. I hated the Jedi faction. To me, they were more evil than the Sith. However, if I went against the Jedi, my face got all white, my morality meter dropped into the red, and my dialog choices turned into pure evil. I automatically became one of the Sith. This was the designer's huge bias. I understand it's their game, but they are making it for other people to buy and play. In the end, I had to choose between the two sides. I would have liked to choose neither and destroy both factions, eliminate the force, and give everyone a blaster gun. The aftermath of this could be shown, and the player could determine whether they thought things ended well or not while the credits rolled. If they liked either the Jedi or Sith factions, obviously this would have been a mistake, and the player would think his actions ended up being evil. He would want to replay the game to correct those mistakes and find the alternative storyline he really wanted.

 

[Kaiserin]

Mass Effect actually did this pretty well. There are a lot of circumstances in the game where it's very tempting to fuck over others(even your other party members) for the sake of convenience or to assure the completion of a mission objective.

For instance, in one mission you can opt to set off alarms on the other side of the complex where another part of your team is. This will make things easier for you, but it influences the mission later and makes it more difficult to prevent that team member from dying.(if you even chose to do so to begin with)

 

[Ausir]

i think witcher path of the Order is just one of those extremist intolerance of non-humans. It turns into a xenocide finale where the Grandmaster decided to fuck all the Dwarves and Elves for the greater good of Mankind.

I think the part where Geralt broke into the Grandmaster's chamber expecting a mastermind planning the next move was a nice touch. Instead of that, we were treated to him carrying a child laughing in his arms with cheering common-folks (all humans) eating and drinking, safe from the violence outside.

And when you first encounter the Order (i.e. Siegfried), they seem like good guys, fighting monsters and whatnot.

Of course, the elven terrorists are really no better.

 

[Q]

Since KOTOR gets thrown around alot, I'll use that.
...

Yep, Star Wars Light/Dark Sides are no better (maybe even worse) then D&D alignments. KOTOR2 did a better job in moral choices, imo, but still there is so much obvious advancement to make...

After all - philosophy and psychology are most interesting things in books, films and games (at least for me). So watching all this fairy-tale philosophy and emo-kids psychology (if any) in modern games is kinda depressing.

 

[Mareus]

How come no one mentioned Fallout? I have yet to play the game that offered so many evil options, and in Fallout it really had sense to be evil. Even when I play a good guy, sometimes I have to do few not so noble things to survive. Besides Arcanum and Motb I would also mention Bloodlines, but none come even close to Fallout. Actually I am talking about Fallout 2 because I played Fallout 1 only as a good guy, so I can't talk about it. But I remember in Fallout 2 I played a really evil sadistic bitch that became a slaver and sold her friends to slaves just to earn a quick buck. She also destroyed the ghoul city, and she took crap from no one. She also used her sex appeal to seduce and get what she wants. She even said the F... word to the elder near the end of the game. You could really be a demon spawn and it would all make sense. I was even a child killer hehe. What ever you did, had effect on the world. KOTOR evil character doesn't make sense because all those goodie goodie guys around you would probably leave the party if you acted like a moron all the time or they would just kill you. They wait and decide to act only at the end of the game. Also the evil options were pretty simple and dumb when compared with Fallout. KOTOR 2 has done that part better.

 

[sah]

Mass Effect actually did this pretty well. There are a lot of circumstances in the game where it's very tempting to fuck over others(even your other party members) for the sake of convenience or to assure the completion of a mission objective.

I like the sound of that, since evil should be more convenient than good. Is it really altruism when you're expecting a reward in XP?