Why No CRPG I've Encountered Has Quite Done Evil "Right

[Sustenus Paul]

One thing I find rather amusing about the vast majority of CRPGs is that it's easier to be a hero than a villian. Saving villagers gets you experience and nifty loot, while gleefully revelling in their their pain only gets you a shorter playtime, maybe some funny dialogue, and more expensive prices in the next store to boot. Even when evil quests (or evil ways to complete normal quests) exist, they have no real "allure". The only reason to take the evil path is because the player really really wants to be evil, they are not in terms of of ease or reward any more attractive.

This means that a character either actively tries to be evil just because he finds it fun or likes the challenge and racks up the negative reputation/karma/whatever, or else he takes the path of least resistance/most kickass rewards and winds up with buttloads of positive reputation/karma/whatever. Only shining beacons of virtue or violent sadists are viable PCs.

To me, this is precisely backwards. While some villains might just enjoy villainy, most would come about because it's simply more material rewardig to be a bandit than a priest. Being a hero should be difficult, should involve doing without some non-trivial material possessions, should result in more difficult (but not vastly more rewarding in terms of experience) quests, should basically be something the players do because they care about being a true hero, not because the Holy Avenger is the best sword in the game.


Also the karma/alignment system of the game shouldn't be a matter of standard accounting, where you can slaughter the orphanage and still have a "good" alignment if you'd wracked up enough points prior. If you decide to play good, it should mean good, not "good except for this one dastardly deed I do becuase it delivers a really nice magical item".

In this setting, the desire for "Neutral" PCs might be filled, as a character does the "good quests" when doing so isn't so difficult or when the rewards are more or less comperable and might avoid the absolute vilest of the "evil quests", resulting in a character who is "Good, but not very". And saving the world would become more satisfying than "beating the game".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Re: Why No CRPG I've Encountered Has Quite Done Evil "R

One thing I find rather amusing about the vast majority of CRPGs is that it's easier to be a hero than a villian. Saving villagers gets you experience and nifty loot, while gleefully revelling in their their pain only gets you a shorter playtime, maybe some funny dialogue, and more expensive prices in the next store to boot. Even when evil quests (or evil ways to complete normal quests) exist, they have no real "allure". The only reason to take the evil path is because the player really really wants to be evil, they are not in terms of of ease or reward any more attractive.

Well, there often is an allure in that evil typically gets more powerful than good by not doing the right thing. For example, someone asks you to retrieve a special item for him, and offers to pay you to do it. You take the money, go fetch the item. You go back to the guy and tell him thanks for the money, and you're keeping the item too. Most CRPGs have evil quests similar to this.

Arcanum's quest to retrieve the machined plate from the inventor's house, for example, is a typical quest like this.

Then there's the "Please don't kill me" things, where an NPC is willing to cough up something to save their lives because someone sent you looking for them. You extort the item from them, and then you may or may not kill them afterwards.

To me, this is precisely backwards. While some villains might just enjoy villainy, most would come about because it's simply more material rewardig to be a bandit than a priest. Being a hero should be difficult, should involve doing without some non-trivial material possessions, should result in more difficult (but not vastly more rewarding in terms of experience) quests, should basically be something the players do because they care about being a true hero, not because the Holy Avenger is the best sword in the game.

Often times it is more difficult though. Take the Hightower quest in Fallout. It's a hell of a lot easier to just kill everyone on the map except Hightower and his wife, take the necklace, and leave, than it is to do it the non-lethal way.

It's typically easier to kill everyone than to work it out with them. It's a lot easier to get the people of Modoc to kill the Slags than it is to work out a deal with the Slags and go find Karl in Fallout 2, for example. It gets even easier when you let the battle go on for a bit, pick up a weapon, and massacre the remaining few on both sides. You can make a lot of money doing that, but the karma penalty is fairly severe.

Also the karma/alignment system of the game shouldn't be a matter of standard accounting, where you can slaughter the orphanage and still have a "good" alignment if you'd wracked up enough points prior. If you decide to play good, it should mean good, not "good except for this one dastardly deed I do becuase it delivers a really nice magical item".

I tend to agree with this. The weight on evil should be fairly higher than it is for good. However, if you've racked up a lot of good points, and you wipe out an orphanage, there's going to be a lot of the people you helped that aren't going to believe you did it.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I find most games tend to reward the kleptomaniac who likes to make grand public gestures and bask in everyone's adulation myself. Not exactly a shining knight but not a psychopath, either. It's funny, it's just become a habit to me to pick up everything in sight, I often find myself rationalizing it by saying I'm the savior of the gameworld, everything in my domain technically belongs to me. Kind of like a feudal lord. There's nothing saying evil characters can never have social skills and must always be rude to everyone or can't simply weigh all sides and work out what works for them the best, even if it means making a few paltry concessions to gain more public adulation and larger rewards (while robbing everyone blind while they're not looking, of course).

 

[Jed]

Perhaps there could be more creative ways to address alignment, at least in a fantasy setting:

Picture, if you will, that at character creation one chooses a diety to follow rather than simply an alignment. Being that dieties are generally omniscient and powerful, the chosen diety (or its servants), whether good or evil, would enforce the characters choices. Rewarding the PC when choices are made that are in line with the chosen alignment (pleases the diety), attacking or hindering or somesuch when the PC strays from a path (whether good or evil) in line with their patron diety. Maybe having the diety personally intervene might be a little much (a little too "chosen one"), but at least servants of some sort might bring the consequences. Of course the character would be free to change their mind and stray, perhaps even choose a new diety, but again, the consequences would be there. Maybe also the choice of diety would also play into to reputation/reaction as many NPCs would recognize the characteristics of a follower of a certain diety or church or whatever.

I realize this has a lot of holes, and probably a lot of weaknesses (especially being limited to fantasy settings), but I would love to see some more creative ways of bringing consequence into the picture as those seem to be the prime forces that direct roleplaying in a CRPG.

2 cents,
Jed

 

[Sustenus Paul]

I find most games tend to reward the kleptomaniac who likes to make grand public gestures and bask in everyone's adulation myself. Not exactly a shining knight but not a psychopath, either. It's funny, it's just become a habit to me to pick up everything in sight, I often find myself rationalizing it by saying I'm the savior of the gameworld, everything in my domain technically belongs to me. Kind of like a feudal lord. There's nothing saying evil characters can never have social skills and must always be rude to everyone or can't simply weigh all sides and work out what works for them the best, even if it means making a few paltry concessions to gain more public adulation and larger rewards (while robbing everyone blind while they're not looking, of course).

Well, yes, there's always petty thievery, but that's hardly what I'm talking about. In fact, I'd simply say the ease with with you can rifle through other people's possessions is another flaw (though one that seems to slowly be in the process of being corrected with each new game that comes out). Nor am I talking about the right to simply be an antisocial dickcheese. I'd happily play a smarmy backstabber, if the backstabbing bit was profitable enough.

To me the classic example is the bit in Arcanum where you have to choose who to give the mine deed to. Giving it to the dastardly son who sold it in the first place (and who has promised to pay you) results in some experience and a petty amount of coin. Giving it to the poor but virtuous daughter who claims to have no means of paying you results in a pretty good magic sword and (I believe) a larger xp reward. Despite giving you two whole alternate paths through the game for being good or evil, Arcanum still throws stuff like this around geefully. Take the bit with the priest right at the beginning. "I have nothing to reward you with if you choose to do this for me..." except for a charisma score bonus. And, of course, xp, the great leveler for the forces of virtue. If you jump through hoops to get the Macguffin rather than simply stealing or slaughtering for it, you get more xp (and an expanded playing time). In roleplaying terms, this shouldn't be a consideration. "Hm... I could simply kill him and take what I want, but I bet I'll learn some valuable lessons that will help me improve my skills if I venture through the Deadly Mines of Varinthop to recover his daughter's teddy bear instead."

***

As to Saint_Proverbius's points, I will say the following:

1. You really misuse the word "typically" here. There are times when the evil path is more profitable, yes, but they are far more the exception than the rule. The two "types" of situations you mention are viable ways of making evil profitable, and they have been implemented, but so rarely they don't tip the scales in the least. More often than not, the items you are asked to retrieve are either trivial, unusable by your character and non-salable, or both. And the people you are asked to hunt down generally deserve killing, and if you trick them into telling you something useful first, you're being far more pragmatic than dastardly. If you get something like one of these once per game, it hardly helps the situation much.

2. Again, you misuse the word "typically". More often than not, assaulting the local populace unprovoked results in fights that either are or should by all standards of realism be unwinnable. Granted, there are areas of Fallout II where things are so lawless you can get away with murder in the streets without having well-armed guardsman start returning fire, but this is again much much more the exception than the rule. And as far as your Modoc example is concerned, I find the fact that one dufus with a hunting rifle can take out two entire towns full of people too ludicrous to be the result of a viable roleplaying choice, but that's just me.

3. That having been said, Fallout II does come about as close to what I'm talking about as possible, especially in the early game. If you don't cap the shopkeeper who runs the ring of child thieves and/or sell Sulik into slavery, you're going to have a hella difficult time getting enough coin together to free Vic and properly outfit yourself for the trip to Vault City. But this mentality doesn't really continue as the game progresses. Become a slaver and miss out on the entire Sierra Base. Low karma and/or "evil" karmic traits (like slaver again) prevent you from getting any of the worthwhile NPCs, while committing yourself to good simply means not getting the slave runs and having your choices of patron in New Reno limited to one. Not to mention that in order to beat the game you have to decide to risk facing the entire enclave for the sake of a handful of villagers who you probably mocked, derided, and stole from in the prologue. And then you find out that the dastardly git who just spent the last three months doing contract killings for Bishop while banging his entire family behind his back has now gone on to be a "wise and virtuous leader who guides his tribe to prosperity" or whatever the epilogue says. So there's not as much follow through as there could be. Here Geneforge is a bit better, since you can get cool "conquer the world" style endings for playing as a big meanie. Plus joining the Takers apparantly cuts out some difficult portions of the game. But, then again, I wouldn't know since actually answering the questions like an evil character results in you being unable to join the Takers, so oops.

4. There's a difference between alignment/karma and reputation. I really wished more games recognized that. So, while you might be able to hide the reputation tarnish for being an orphan slaughterer, the fact that you did it would indicate on a metaphysical that you are a depraved human being whose previous virtue was all for show. So alignment should plummet if it is, in fact alignment that is being kept track of. If reputation is being kept track of, it might not have to nosedive so hard, but then it shouldn't go down for all the times you did evil deeds no one would have any way of pinning on you (which it generall does). I hate that.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

As to Saint_Proverbius's points, I will say the following:

1. You really misuse the word "typically" here.

Not really. I just tend to ignore things like the Infinity Engine games and Neverwinter Night exist.

However, since we're talking about games that totally screw up evil, perhaps I shouldn't, since they screw up evil in a grand fashion.

There are times when the evil path is more profitable, yes, but they are far more the exception than the rule. The two "types" of situations you mention are viable ways of making evil profitable, and they have been implemented, but so rarely they don't tip the scales in the least. More often than not, the items you are asked to retrieve are either trivial, unusable by your character and non-salable, or both. And the people you are asked to hunt down generally deserve killing, and if you trick them into telling you something useful first, you're being far more pragmatic than dastardly. If you get something like one of these once per game, it hardly helps the situation much.

Well, there's the whole, "Kill entire towns" evil, which usually leaves you with a rather large amount of stuff to sell, thus making massive profit. There's the whole thief thing, pickpocketting for cash or lock picketing store chests/back rooms and plundering them.

There's quite a bit of ways to make money fast if you're willing to kill and rob people. That's why you have to balance evil with consequences, such as the inevitable bounty hunters.

2. Again, you misuse the word "typically". More often than not, assaulting the local populace unprovoked results in fights that either are or should by all standards of realism be unwinnable. Granted, there are areas of Fallout II where things are so lawless you can get away with murder in the streets without having well-armed guardsman start returning fire, but this is again much much more the exception than the rule. And as far as your Modoc example is concerned, I find the fact that one dufus with a hunting rifle can take out two entire towns full of people too ludicrous to be the result of a viable roleplaying choice, but that's just me.

Re-read what I said about Modoc. At early levels, you can't wipe out a town. That's why you convince them to attack the slags. Bide your time while they're killing one another. Then just pick up a good weapon a dead Modoc citizen or Slag has dropped, and clean up the severely wounded stragglers. You can't just walk in to Modoc with a level 3-4 character and expect to win. In fact, you pretty much have to draw them in to that fight, where they don't take their guards with them.

But this mentality doesn't really continue as the game progresses. Become a slaver and miss out on the entire Sierra Base. Low karma and/or "evil" karmic traits (like slaver again) prevent you from getting any of the worthwhile NPCs, while committing yourself to good simply means not getting the slave runs and having your choices of patron in New Reno limited to one.

This is why Fallout is definitely better than Fallout 2 in terms of evil. Fallout 2 will eventually screw you, big time, for being evil. If you join the Slavers, consider yourself in HEAP BIG TROUBLE through most of the game.

Not to mention that in order to beat the game you have to decide to risk facing the entire enclave for the sake of a handful of villagers who you probably mocked, derided, and stole from in the prologue.

Agreed that this should have been done better. The choice should have boiled down to just saving your own skin by defeating the enclave. Or, if Arroyo was to be saved, then there should be a reason the evil person has to save them. After all, genocide is a pretty good thing to stop, especially when you're on the list of things that has to "go".

And then you find out that the dastardly git who just spent the last three months doing contract killings for Bishop while banging his entire family behind his back has now gone on to be a "wise and virtuous leader who guides his tribe to prosperity" or whatever the epilogue says. So there's not as much follow through as there could be.

Agreed, which is why there should have been a "Screw Arroyo, I'm saving myself." thing.

Here Geneforge is a bit better, since you can get cool "conquer the world" style endings for playing as a big meanie. Plus joining the Takers apparantly cuts out some difficult portions of the game. But, then again, I wouldn't know since actually answering the questions like an evil character results in you being unable to join the Takers, so oops.

Geneforge also doesn't have a clear "evil", which is what's great about it. Are the Takers really evil? Or is it that they've just been shit on enough to want to fight back? They've been at war with the Obeyers forever, after all. The Obeyers wouldn't quietly submit to Taker's philosophy. The inevitable is that one side must lose to the other.

The Obeyers can't totally be considered good, either. After all they promote the subjugation of an entire intelligent species, just because they were created for subjugation. Just because they're willing to be slaves doesn't mean all serviles on Sucia are.

Basically, the choice is up to you as to which side is good or evil. I like that.

4. There's a difference between alignment/karma and reputation. I really wished more games recognized that. So, while you might be able to hide the reputation tarnish for being an orphan slaughterer, the fact that you did it would indicate on a metaphysical that you are a depraved human being whose previous virtue was all for show. So alignment should plummet if it is, in fact alignment that is being kept track of. If reputation is being kept track of, it might not have to nosedive so hard, but then it shouldn't go down for all the times you did evil deeds no one would have any way of pinning on you (which it generall does). I hate that.

Actually, in the case of Baldur's Gate, they do have reputation and alignment, and the system is just piss poor. Please tell me how a Lawful Good character can maintain a bad rep, for example.

 

[Rosh]

Actually, in the case of Baldur's Gate, they do have reputation and alignment, and the system is just piss poor. Please tell me how a Lawful Good character can maintain a bad rep, for example.

Even in BGII the reputation system is flawed in a clear way. I'm not going to install it and check for precise prices, but when your LG Paladin is getting obscene discounts from the Thieve's Den fence, there's an obvious problem that violates the setting.

A few things I learned from most of the Inbred Engine games:

Charisma only has place in the stores.
Thieves don't like each other. That is why Paladins and goody-two-shoes get discounts.
Stupid people and supremely intelligent people speak the same way, and are treated the same.

 

[Sustenus Paul]

As to Saint_Proverbius's points, I will say the following:

1. You really misuse the word "typically" here.

Not really. I just tend to ignore things like the Infinity Engine games and Neverwinter Night exist.

No. The Fallout and Arcanum series tend to do the same things, if not quite as horrendously, as I've attempted to point out elsewhere in my post.

Well, there's the whole, "Kill entire towns" evil, which usually leaves you with a rather large amount of stuff to sell, thus making massive profit. There's the whole thief thing, pickpocketting for cash or lock picketing store chests/back rooms and plundering them.

There's quite a bit of ways to make money fast if you're willing to kill and rob people. That's why you have to balance evil with consequences, such as the inevitable bounty hunters.

Engaging in petty theft is not my idea of good evil roleplaying. More like good petty thief roleplaying. Slaughtering entire towns is not my idea of good roleplaying in any event. It's stupid and pointless and boring. I want to kidnap, extort, blackmail, conquer, oppress, etc. When I am given the opportunity to do things like this in RPGs the rewards are almost never worth the risks.

Re-read what I said about Modoc. At early levels, you can't wipe out a town. That's why you convince them to attack the slags. Bide your time while they're killing one another. Then just pick up a good weapon a dead Modoc citizen or Slag has dropped, and clean up the severely wounded stragglers. You can't just walk in to Modoc with a level 3-4 character and expect to win. In fact, you pretty much have to draw them in to that fight, where they don't take their guards with them.

A battle between two villages full of people that ends up with one guy walking away from it still strikes me as rather ludicrous.

This is why Fallout is definitely better than Fallout 2 in terms of evil.

I disagree, I object, wrong, nope, not at all, and furthermore no. Fallout II (and maybe Arcanum if I could ever learn to deal with the rather awful combat, balance, and method of character advancement long enough to beat Arcanum, which is admittedly great as an RPG qua RPG), are the only games that even really attempt to do evil well. Fallout II is my favorite game for being evil, right up until the ending bit with the Enclave, because there's just so much to do. Slaving, whoring, assassination, mob wars, drug deals, etc. In Fallout, you have, what... getting shot at by every guard in Junktown before you're prepared to deal with them in exchange for an unimpressive sum from that fat guy, and then those handful (of admittedly well paying) quests for the guy who's voiced by Goliath. Oh, and blackmailing the Fried Gecko salesman for a whopping 5 caps a day. So you're back to petty thievery and pointless murder.

Agreed that this should have been done better. The choice should have boiled down to just saving your own skin by defeating the enclave. Or, if Arroyo was to be saved, then there should be a reason the evil person has to save them. After all, genocide is a pretty good thing to stop, especially when you're on the list of things that has to "go".

Agreed, which is why there should have been a "Screw Arroyo, I'm saving myself." thing.

Definitely. An opportunity to discover the Enclave's plan without first going to their base for altruistic reasons (so you can then go to the base for self-interested reasons), and an opportunity for a different epilogue (like if you didn't bring the GECK along) would have done wonders for the game.

Geneforge also doesn't have a clear "evil", which is what's great about it. Are the Takers really evil? Or is it that they've just been shit on enough to want to fight back? They've been at war with the Obeyers forever, after all. The Obeyers wouldn't quietly submit to Taker's philosophy. The inevitable is that one side must lose to the other.

The Obeyers can't totally be considered good, either. After all they promote the subjugation of an entire intelligent species, just because they were created for subjugation. Just because they're willing to be slaves doesn't mean all serviles on Sucia are.

Basically, the choice is up to you as to which side is good or evil. I like that.

Well, yes and no. The Awakened are obviously the "good guys", with the Takers and the Obeyers representing different degrees and types of evil/corruption/misguided wrongness. And there are blatantly right and wrong ways to deal with the Geneforge itself. But you're right in that it is less simplistic in those terms than any other CRPG out there. Plus, it actually provides an ending where you conquer the entire world with your army of creations, so cool and the gang.

What I thought was stupid though, is if you're roleplaying a good guy who thinks servants should be free, you're probably going to sympathize with the Awakened more than the Takers. If you're roleplaying someone who is only interested in the power the Geneforge offers him, you're probably going to give responses that please the Obeyers in the early game, since you don't yet know there's much benefit in sucking up to the servants' desire for independance. So when the Takers come to you and say "we want you to be a mercenary for us in exchange for power", you can't say yes because, even though the arrangement would be entirely pragmatic for both sides, they "don't believe you want servants to be free". That annoyed me to no end.

Actually, in the case of Baldur's Gate, they do have reputation and alignment, and the system is just piss poor. Please tell me how a Lawful Good character can maintain a bad rep, for example.

Well, the answer is that they generally don't, obviously. But a Lawful or Neutral Evil character might see the benefit in maintaining a good "face". And a Chaotic Good character might do good deeds in such a way that it earns him bad press. And there's always the idea of being framed for crimes you didn't commit, or things of that nature. Really the only thing "piss poor" about the BG system is that there's no way of altering your alignment during the game. If you had seperate, adjustable, alignment and reputation scales, that would be ideal. Or if you just eliminated the idea of "alignment" entirely (which is actually a good idea in non-fantasy games) and kept rep, but then made sure not to alter rep for deeds people would have no way of knowing about.

 

[Spazmo]

Well, the answer is that they generally don't, obviously. But a Lawful or Neutral Evil character might see the benefit in maintaining a good "face". And a Chaotic Good character might do good deeds in such a way that it earns him bad press. And there's always the idea of being framed for crimes you didn't commit, or things of that nature. Really the only thing "piss poor" about the BG system is that there's no way of altering your alignment during the game. If you had seperate, adjustable, alignment and reputation scales, that would be ideal. Or if you just eliminated the idea of "alignment" entirely (which is actually a good idea in non-fantasy games) and kept rep, but then made sure not to alter rep for deeds people would have no way of knowing about.

This would be good, except for the fact that Baldur's Gate doesn't do it that way. In BG, you save a nymph in some forest. She then thanks you and suddenly your reputation increases. What, does the nymph go around telling the entire Sword Coast what you did? Most people in the Realms wouldn't care what a nymph is, let alone who saved one. Also annoying is that since high rep = low prices and low rep = constant attacks by endless teleporting mercenaries, they're forcing you to be good all the time, which is very lame.

 

[Sustenus Paul]

This would be good, except for the fact that Baldur's Gate doesn't do it that way. In BG, you save a nymph in some forest. She then thanks you and suddenly your reputation increases. What, does the nymph go around telling the entire Sword Coast what you did? Most people in the Realms wouldn't care what a nymph is, let alone who saved one. Also annoying is that since high rep = low prices and low rep = constant attacks by endless teleporting mercenaries, they're forcing you to be good all the time, which is very lame.

The nymph is rather the sole exception, I think. Most of the time (in the original, I can't say for certain in the second because I've never gotten that far in it) you only get rep increases for major deeds the world would learn about, or when someone specifically tells you "I'm going to tell everyone I meet what great guys you are". I will agree with the latter bit, however. It's symptomatic of what I've been talking about this entire thread. If there had been more opportunity to commit "quiet evil" (aside from simply picking locks and pockets) or better rewards for doing dastardly deeds to balance off the fact that everyone wants to kill you, it would have been better.

But I thought the seperate rep/alignment thing was a step in the right direction that was done right at the start of the Bioware inspired RPG boom, then backed off on in every game that followed (either designed by Bioware or otherwise).

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

No. The Fallout and Arcanum series tend to do the same things, if not quite as horrendously, as I've attempted to point out elsewhere in my post.

No, you started with the statement that being good is easier. In fact, it's not, especially in Fallout and Arcanum. You might be able to redeem yourself for evil by doing good deeds in those games, but you certainly can't buy your way out of them like you could in Baldur's Gate or Morrowind. Although, Morrowind does this better in one regard, you're still evil. You just managed to bribe your way out of a consequence.

As I've pointed out, there are numerous ways of getting more money in most all CRPGs that allow stealing and plundering. If you can simply buy your way out of evil's grasp, it's not that evil, right?

Engaging in petty theft is not my idea of good evil roleplaying. More like good petty thief roleplaying. Slaughtering entire towns is not my idea of good roleplaying in any event. It's stupid and pointless and boring. I want to kidnap, extort, blackmail, conquer, oppress, etc. When I am given the opportunity to do things like this in RPGs the rewards are almost never worth the risks.

Regardless of your definition, burglary is still evil. It may not be the major, "I WILL END THE WORLD!" evil, but it still is evil when you're doing it for profit. Slaughtering a town, same deal. It may not mesh with your definition, but it's kind of hard to sit back and claim it's not an evil action.

A battle between two villages full of people that ends up with one guy walking away from it still strikes me as rather ludicrous.

How is it ludricrious? You have two evenly matched factions fighting for what they believe is their survival. In cases like that, there won't be that many survivors. Those that are will be very wounded, assuming they actually engaged in the fight. All you're doing, as the one guy, is killing off those wounded who managed to survive.

I disagree, I object, wrong, nope, not at all, and furthermore no. Fallout II (and maybe Arcanum if I could ever learn to deal with the rather awful combat, balance, and method of character advancement long enough to beat Arcanum, which is admittedly great as an RPG qua RPG), are the only games that even really attempt to do evil well. Fallout II is my favorite game for being evil, right up until the ending bit with the Enclave, because there's just so much to do. Slaving, whoring, assassination, mob wars, drug deals, etc.

With the exception of missing some big, important areas and getting totally screwed by that brand on your head in most every single area of the game. Hell, the whole idea of having that brand on your head is a stupid one. Why would slavers brand themselves so visibly, when it only serves to make people who see that brand not like you? It's kind of hard to lure natives away from their tribe once they learn what that brand means. But let's go down your list..

• Slaving: Done better in Fallout with the Regulators.
• Whoring: Not exactly with the 1950s sensibility that Fallout had, hookers weren't supposed to be common.
• Assassination: Fallout had this, like you mentioned with Gizmo. There were other, "kill this guy" quests in Fallout as well. I'm pretty sure Decker gave a few out.
• Mob Wars: Which basically resulted in a few quests followed by walking in a building and killing everyone? I thought you didn't like that.
• Drug deals: Uhhh.. If you mean selling drugs, that was done in Fallout as well.

If you want to talk about the quantity of the actions, it only stands to reason Fallout 2 would have more simply because it's a larger game. However, there were a number of outlets for evil in Fallout which came no where close to biting you on the ass like it did in Fallout 2.

Definitely. An opportunity to discover the Enclave's plan without first going to their base for altruistic reasons (so you can then go to the base for self-interested reasons), and an opportunity for a different epilogue (like if you didn't bring the GECK along) would have done wonders for the game.

The main problem with Fallout 2 is they didn't follow with Tim Cain's original idea of the Enclave. The vault experiments were originally designed for studying the effects of bad situations on long term space travel, which was the goal of the Enclave. Nuclear war, study the vault problems, then leave earth for a new home. Then there was that whole, "We need lots of stuff to do this, so let's deal in slaves, drugs, and so on, so we can leave faster." thing that was brought up in Fallout 2 but never fleshed out as to why they did those things.

Well, yes and no. The Awakened are obviously the "good guys", with the Takers and the Obeyers representing different degrees and types of evil/corruption/misguided wrongness. And there are blatantly right and wrong ways to deal with the Geneforge itself. But you're right in that it is less simplistic in those terms than any other CRPG out there. Plus, it actually provides an ending where you conquer the entire world with your army of creations, so cool and the gang.

So, the Takers are the good guys? You sure about that? They seem fairly hell bent on killing the servile minds, don't they? They even send you out to kill one just to prove you're worth of siding with them.

None of the factions in Geneforge have a moral high ground they can look to.

What I thought was stupid though, is if you're roleplaying a good guy who thinks servants should be free, you're probably going to sympathize with the Awakened more than the Takers.

About the only reason you'd sympathize with the Awakenned over the Takers is because the Takers openly hate what you are and allow factions even within them who are trying to kill all Shapers, regardless of who those Shapers are.

The killing of the Servile Mind in the Awakenned fortress there is to remind you that these guys aren't obvious good guys.

 

[Sustenus Paul]

No, you started with the statement that being good is easier. In fact, it's not, especially in Fallout and Arcanum. You might be able to redeem yourself for evil by doing good deeds in those games, but you certainly can't buy your way out of them like you could in Baldur's Gate or Morrowind. Although, Morrowind does this better in one regard, you're still evil. You just managed to bribe your way out of a consequence.

As I've pointed out, there are numerous ways of getting more money in most all CRPGs that allow stealing and plundering. If you can simply buy your way out of evil's grasp, it's not that evil, right?

So wouldn't that make being evil easier, then, if you can bribe your way out of the consequences? If I could kill an old man, steal his millions, and donate a small portion of it to the church to avoid looking bad/getting in trouble with the law, it's suddenly very easy to be evil. What is your point here, other than that you don't like Baldur's Gate?

Regardless of your definition, burglary is still evil. It may not be the major, "I WILL END THE WORLD!" evil, but it still is evil when you're doing it for profit. Slaughtering a town, same deal. It may not mesh with your definition, but it's kind of hard to sit back and claim it's not an evil action.

Burglarly is almost never evil in fiction. Every thief even in fantasy literature who is not also an assassin has a heart of gold deep down. And, in any event, if you rob a guy, then save his three children from the hordes of Mongor for bunches of experience and loot that was (for no good reason) unstealable, you're not being evil.

And, again, while slaughtering a town is evil, the fact that it's possible is to me a flaw in the mechanics of the game. If I walk into a populated area by my lonesome and leave the only person alive, I have just broken the game. I don't consider it valid evil roleplay, because it shouldn't be possible, unless you're so powerful that the profits from the activity wouldn't be worth the time.

How is it ludricrious? You have two evenly matched factions fighting for what they believe is their survival. In cases like that, there won't be that many survivors. Those that are will be very wounded, assuming they actually engaged in the fight. All you're doing, as the one guy, is killing off those wounded who managed to survive.

Because only people in video games fight to the last man without retreating (and making it all the way off the battlefield), or surrendering, or whatever. And only video game PCs could stand off to the side of a chaotic battlefield and hang out waiting for it to end so they can commence with the looting, and not get caught up in the firefight.

With the exception of missing some big, important areas and getting totally screwed by that brand on your head in most every single area of the game. Hell, the whole idea of having that brand on your head is a stupid one. Why would slavers brand themselves so visibly, when it only serves to make people who see that brand not like you? It's kind of hard to lure natives away from their tribe once they learn what that brand means. But let's go down your list..

You miss one big, important area. Playing through Fallout II as a slaver is more difficult than the alternative, but I have done it enough times to say getting the tatoo on your face doesn't completely screw you over. And you can still be a bad guy and refuse to join the slavers for the precise reason that the guy tells you up front "if you do this, expect for everyone to recognize the tat on sight and hate you". Granted the whole "making yourself easily identifiable" thing is a bit dumb and possibly unrealistic on the slavers' part, but that's tangental to the discussion at hand.

• Slaving: Done better in Fallout with the Regulators.

But the only thing you can do with the Regulators is ignore them or overthrow them. It's not like you can pick up a rifle and some metal armor, and get in on the happy oppression funtime.

• Whoring: Not exactly with the 1950s sensibility that Fallout had, hookers weren't supposed to be common.

I was speaking more of the possibility to profit off of hooking by renting your signifigant other out as a fluffer (for admittedly meagre profits, though you could do it over and over again for decent coin if you had no objections to tedium). Paying for/getting paid for sex is to my mind a morally neutral action.

• Assassination: Fallout had this, like you mentioned with Gizmo. There were other, "kill this guy" quests in Fallout as well. I'm pretty sure Decker gave a few out.

I already granted you Decker, but he's the sole exception and he only comes late in the game. I don't count Gizmo, because doing his quest is more trouble than it's worth (since it gets the entire town shooting at you and the pay isn't great), and therefore a self-interested character wouldn't do it.

• Mob Wars: Which basically resulted in a few quests followed by walking in a building and killing everyone? I thought you didn't like that.

Because for one there are "a few quests", and for two you don't "kill everyone". If you want, as an optional follow up to becoming a made man, you can off the enemy families, but you're not wiping out a population center, just a handful of thugs (who you are fighting a group at a time).

And for three, you can see the effect becoming a made man has. The other inhabitants of new Reno respond to it, you get a neat little title on your character sheet, etc. It feels like a valid aspect of the game world, not something you were able to do because the devs are stupid and didn't code people to respond to you rifling through their possessions or didn't make them powerful/numerous enough to halt your attempts at grand-scale homicide.

• Drug deals: Uhhh.. If you mean selling drugs, that was done in Fallout as well.

Well, yes, I'll give you this. I don't even consider drugs particularly evil. I'll confess at this point I had just wanted to throw one more out there to pad my list.

The main problem with Fallout 2 is they didn't follow with Tim Cain's original idea of the Enclave. The vault experiments were originally designed for studying the effects of bad situations on long term space travel, which was the goal of the Enclave. Nuclear war, study the vault problems, then leave earth for a new home. Then there was that whole, "We need lots of stuff to do this, so let's deal in slaves, drugs, and so on, so we can leave faster." thing that was brought up in Fallout 2 but never fleshed out as to why they did those things.

Nah, really, the main problem with the Enclave is that they were a non-sequiter in a way the mutants weren't. I mean, okay, there's the one bit where you can stumble across them slaughtering a couple guys in the desert, but for the main part it's just "here's a fun post-apocolyptic world to explore while searching for a Macguffin", and then out of nowhere "okay, time to give you an enemy to actually fight". In Fallout, you discover the mutant threat as a natural outgrowth of your search for the water chip. In II, they just kind of swoop in out of nowhere to provide a second act.

So, the Awakened (edited, since I think this is what you meant) are the good guys? You sure about that? They seem fairly hell bent on killing the servile minds, don't they? They even send you out to kill one just to prove you're worth of siding with them.

None of the factions in Geneforge have a moral high ground they can look to.

About the only reason you'd sympathize with the Awakened over the Takers is because the Takers openly hate what you are and allow factions even within them who are trying to kill all Shapers, regardless of who those Shapers are.

The killing of the Servile Mind in the Awakenned fortress there is to remind you that these guys aren't obvious good guys.

No, sorry. Killing servant minds who are continually trying to enslave them is hardly evil. Maybe it's not the most noble of actions, but it's obviously necessary under the circumstances. The Awakened's plan of "let's live our lives free on this island and deal peacefully with our former masters" is more compassionate, rational, and constructive (even if it meant offing a few obsolete and rather unstable creations) than the "we throw out rule of grammar, align with unstable godling and kill Shapers" plan the Takers were adhering too.

 

[huh]

interesting exchange.

see, that's the problem with the alignment systems, they cannot be described in precise enough terms that the majority can agree on. it depends on everyone's different sensiblities, and understanding of what is to be called good or evil.

if you called a slave owner of the deep south in 1800's 'an evil man', he'd just laugh and smack you upside the head. so, would everyone in the pub. owning people being evil certainly wasn't a common notion back then. nowdays, it's of course, a repulsive thing. although we still have the peace-time morality and the war-time morality confusion.

whoring is evil? it sustains a life. for that matter, the church is almost always presented as good in games. Huh?

whatever, parallels between real-world and game-world should be avoided since someone has to actually code the thing without having to plow through Kant, Neitzshe, and Bacon.

the important thing is that a game alignment system must be clearly defined (enough to be coded), and be self-consistent. for example, you could say that killing people adds to your bad, while rescuing people adds to your good. if you have to kill while rescuing, it cancels each other out. but, it always have to be that way. Otherwise the player will be confused.

normally looting is considered vile and evil. yet, you could design a self-consistent game-world where looing is indeed a neutral action (D&D).

another question, why exactly do RPGs have to have alignment systems at all? many games don't, and are still fun. SimCity, Quake, etc... is it because RPGs are rooted in some literary tradition? why not avoid the issue altogether? can't I role-play a high-way bandit (Wild West style) without having some sort of tag in my character sheet?

 

[Sustenus Paul]

interesting exchange.

see, that's the problem with the alignment systems, they cannot be described in precise enough terms that the majority can agree on. it depends on everyone's different sensiblities, and understanding of what is to be called good or evil.

if you called a slave owner of the deep south in 1800's 'an evil man', he'd just laugh and smack you upside the head. so, would everyone in the pub. owning people being evil certainly wasn't a common notion back then. nowdays, it's of course, a repulsive thing. although we still have the peace-time morality and the war-time morality confusion.

whoring is evil? it sustains a life. for that matter, the church is almost always presented as good in games. Huh?

whatever, parallels between real-world and game-world should be avoided since someone has to actually code the thing without having to plow through Kant, Neitzshe, and Bacon.

the important thing is that a game alignment system must be clearly defined (enough to be coded), and be self-consistent. for example, you could say that killing people adds to your bad, while rescuing people adds to your good. if you have to kill while rescuing, it cancels each other out. but, it always have to be that way. Otherwise the player will be confused.

normally looting is considered vile and evil. yet, you could design a self-consistent game-world where looing is indeed a neutral action (D&D).

another question, why exactly do RPGs have to have alignment systems at all? many games don't, and are still fun. SimCity, Quake, etc... is it because RPGs are rooted in some literary tradition? why not avoid the issue altogether? can't I role-play a high-way bandit (Wild West style) without having some sort of tag in my character sheet?

Well, what is and isn't evil is only a relevant sidetopic to what this thread should be about, but basically I agree with you for whatever it's worth.

And I have no problem eliminating alignment entirely (though I think reputation is important) in scifi or other "magicless" rpgs, but I still dig on the old D&D idea of enchanted items that only work for individuals of the right mindset for some reason. Again, this is a relevant sidetopic.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

So wouldn't that make being evil easier, then, if you can bribe your way out of the consequences? If I could kill an old man, steal his millions, and donate a small portion of it to the church to avoid looking bad/getting in trouble with the law, it's suddenly very easy to be evil. What is your point here, other than that you don't like Baldur's Gate?

My point was that you said evil was too hard in games. I pointed out that there's several CRPGs where evil really has no consequences, Baldur's Gate and Morrowind, since you can always buy your way out of those problems.

Please, do try to keep up.

Burglarly is almost never evil in fiction. Every thief even in fantasy literature who is not also an assassin has a heart of gold deep down. And, in any event, if you rob a guy, then save his three children from the hordes of Mongor for bunches of experience and loot that was (for no good reason) unstealable, you're not being evil.

That depends on the burglar's motives for stealing it, who they steal from, and so on. A thief who's sole purpose is making himself rich isn't going to give two flips about saving kids of people he robbed unless it furthers his purse.

Honestly, this argument you have is piss poor. Just because there's examples of thieves in D&D novels who are basically antiheroes, doesn't mean that stealing from people is a good action.

And, again, while slaughtering a town is evil, the fact that it's possible is to me a flaw in the mechanics of the game. If I walk into a populated area by my lonesome and leave the only person alive, I have just broken the game. I don't consider it valid evil roleplay, because it shouldn't be possible, unless you're so powerful that the profits from the activity wouldn't be worth the time.

Who cares what you think is valid role playing? It's still EVIL.

Because only people in video games fight to the last man without retreating (and making it all the way off the battlefield), or surrendering, or whatever. And only video game PCs could stand off to the side of a chaotic battlefield and hang out waiting for it to end so they can commence with the looting, and not get caught up in the firefight.

And yet there's been cases of people fighting to the last man because they're protecting their families and children from onslaught. Go figure.

But the only thing you can do with the Regulators is ignore them or overthrow them. It's not like you can pick up a rifle and some metal armor, and get in on the happy oppression funtime.

It's still much less silly than the idea of a bunch of tattooed people running around the wasteland kidnapping tribals to sell for cash. Ignoring them isn't exactly something a nice person would do either.

Then again, other than selling a couple of NPCs to the slavers, there's not much else involved with being a slaver in Fallout 2, is there? Hmmm?

I was speaking more of the possibility to profit off of hooking by renting your signifigant other out as a fluffer (for admittedly meagre profits, though you could do it over and over again for decent coin if you had no objections to tedium). Paying for/getting paid for sex is to my mind a morally neutral action.

There's only a few places where you can do that. You can sleep with Metzler for a discount on Vic or T-Ray for a cheaper price on the car. You can do the porno thing, too. It's not like you can be a whore for a trade.

I already granted you Decker, but he's the sole exception and he only comes late in the game. I don't count Gizmo, because doing his quest is more trouble than it's worth (since it gets the entire town shooting at you and the pay isn't great), and therefore a self-interested character wouldn't do it.

Late in the game? He's in The Hub.

It's also funny you don't count Gizmo, but you wave the near uselessness of becoming a Slaver like a banner.

Because for one there are "a few quests", and for two you don't "kill everyone". If you want, as an optional follow up to becoming a made man, you can off the enemy families, but you're not wiping out a population center, just a handful of thugs (who you are fighting a group at a time).

Nice attempt at a loophole. So, you're saying that wiping out near defenseless peasants is not valid role playing for an evil person, but wiping out a rival criminal gang that can fight back is just better because you don't kill the entire populous of the town? How very skewed of you.

If you can wipe out three out of four syndicates, then you can surely wipe out Modoc. Furthermore, I don't see any of those family men not fighting to the last one either, which is something you seem to take exception to with the modoc situation.

And for three, you can see the effect becoming a made man has. The other inhabitants of new Reno respond to it, you get a neat little title on your character sheet, etc. It feels like a valid aspect of the game world, not something you were able to do because the devs are stupid and didn't code people to respond to you rifling through their possessions or didn't make them powerful/numerous enough to halt your attempts at grand-scale homicide.

You get a karmatic trait. That makes it more valid?

No, sorry. Killing servant minds who are continually trying to enslave them is hardly evil. Maybe it's not the most noble of actions, but it's obviously necessary under the circumstances. The Awakened's plan of "let's live our lives free on this island and deal peacefully with our former masters" is more compassionate, rational, and constructive (even if it meant offing a few obsolete and rather unstable creations) than the "we throw out rule of grammar, align with unstable godling and kill Shapers" plan the Takers were adhering too.

Umm.. Obviously they resisted the will of the servant mind long enough to mutilate it, didn't they?

 

[Sustenus Paul]

My point was that you said evil was too hard in games. I pointed out that there's several CRPGs where evil really has no consequences, Baldur's Gate and Morrowind, since you can always buy your way out of those problems.

Please, do try to keep up.

Ahem...

No, you started with the statement that being good is easier. In fact, it's not, especially in Fallout and Arcanum. You might be able to redeem yourself for evil by doing good deeds in those games, but you certainly can't buy your way out of them like you could in Baldur's Gate or Morrowind. Although, Morrowind does this better in one regard, you're still evil. You just managed to bribe your way out of a consequence.

As I've pointed out, there are numerous ways of getting more money in most all CRPGs that allow stealing and plundering. If you can simply buy your way out of evil's grasp, it's not that evil, right?

So is being evil easier in Fallout/Arcanum, or is it easier in BG/Morrowind? I'd "keep up", if you weren't playing rhetorical sleight of hand in an obnoxious attempt to slam games you don't like instead of discussing the actual topic.

If you were to say, for instance, that being able to pay your way out of the consequences of being evil was horribly unrealistic and stupid, then I'd agree with you (of course, then a later point of yours would fall apart). But that wasn't your point. You didn't have a point, other than "Baldur's Gate is a crappy roleplaying game." This is a reasonable position, but it has exactly nothing to do with the subject at hand.

And, my ultimate point is not "durr, evil hard". Most CRPGs are easy enough that you don't have to minmax your way through them after the first playthrough. So, if I really want to be evil, I can do it. My point is that evil doesn't tempt you. My point is that good isn't hard enough. In fact, in pretty much every CRPG ever, good is materially rewarding (either through actual loot, or through experience), generally more so than evil. Good characters have more opportunity for experience and roleplay, and there's never a point in time where a character who isn't actively trying to be evil is likely to feel particularly compelled to take the evil solution to a given problem. More often than not, it's the opposite.

Honestly, this argument you have is piss poor. Just because there's examples of thieves in D&D novels who are basically antiheroes, doesn't mean that stealing from people is a good action.

No, but it does mean that it's not really an excitingly evil one either. The fact that thief hero/antiheroes are plentiful and largely accepted in fiction is pretty decent evidence that thievery isn't likely to feel like a particularly "evil" act in a fictitious setting.

Who cares what you think is valid role playing? It's still EVIL.

Jesus Christ on a Whole Wheat Cracker, I care. Anyone who agrees with me that it's ridiculous would care. The devs should care. The entire effing point of a roleplaying game is valid roleplaying. Not finding ways to exploit the mechanics to do ridiculously unrealistic things. I bet you're one of those morons who hangs out in Vivec slaughtering respawning Ordinators, and then whines that none of the merchants have enough gold to buy your 2000 suits of armor, aren't you?

And yet there's been cases of people fighting to the last man because they're protecting their families and children from onslaught. Go figure.

It's an extremely rare thing done only in circumstances people where are damn well sure they're dead either way (and are usually trained soldiers or at least disciplined folk used to combat). The collection of bumbling buttmonkeys you encounter in Modoc don't fit the bill in the least. The slags might. But I doubt it.

It's still much less silly than the idea of a bunch of tattooed people running around the wasteland kidnapping tribals to sell for cash. Ignoring them isn't exactly something a nice person would do either.

Well, gee! What deep and exciting roleplay! Doing nothing! Hooray! Next time I'm going to play a narcoleptic and sleep until the deadline to collect the waterchip has passed and I lose! It will be happy funtime for all!

Then again, other than selling a couple of NPCs to the slavers, there's not much else involved with being a slaver in Fallout 2, is there? Hmmm?

Well, there's becoming a slaver, going on slave runs, having people react to the fact that you're a slaver (both positively and negatively), and just generally becoming a part of the game world. Plus, there's a matter of placement. When you get to the Den, you've got crappy equipment, not much money, and Sulik. You then find out you've got to pay an entirely unreasonable sum to free Vic, you encounter the car guy and gawk at the amount you'd have to pay to get the vehicle (though you'll likely have more than enough by the time it comes up, you don't know this yet). Then you note how expensive the better weaponry and armor is. Then maybe you go out into the desert and realize "hey some of these fights out to the east are pretty tough". Then you're offered a handsome sum of money to sell Sulik into slavery, and you are tempted. See? Does your character have the moral fibre to gut it out the hard way or doesn't he? Roleplaying.

There's only a few places where you can do that. You can sleep with Metzler for a discount on Vic or T-Ray for a cheaper price on the car. You can do the porno thing, too. It's not like you can be a whore for a trade.

I did not say sleeping with T-Ray or Metzger was evil roleplay. I implied this at first, granted, but then I backed off and said I was talking about renting your spouse out as a "fluffer" when he/she obviously doesn't want to do it. It's a small thing, but really FOII is a pretty small game, so every little bit counts.

Late in the game? He's in The Hub.

If you can do the Decker quests right when you arrive in the Hub, you're a better combat monster than I. I tend not to touch him until after I've delivered the Waterchip.

It's also funny you don't count Gizmo, but you wave the near uselessness of becoming a Slaver like a banner.

Have you even tried to play the game as a slaver? It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be. It's certainly not nearly as blatantly difficult as "you can talk to Gizmo while wearing a wire for 500 Caps, or you can assassinate a heavily guarded man and then try to make your way across town back to Gizmo's place while a dozen armed men are out for your blood, then rush out of town for 700".

Nice attempt at a loophole. So, you're saying that wiping out near defenseless peasants is not valid role playing for an evil person, but wiping out a rival criminal gang that can fight back is just better because you don't kill the entire populous of the town? How very skewed of you.

Yes, because you haven't just leveled a population center. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? Even if you were physically capable of carrying enough effing bullets to do the job, people would start running after you executed the first family, and most of them would get away. And, anyone who had enough firepower to wipe out even a decent portion of the town would be much better served using threat of force rather than actual force (give me everything you have and I'll let you live so I can come back in a month and collect everything you've made between then and now).

A handful of thugs is a handful of thugs. There aren't that many of them, and there aren't supposed to be that many of them. There are only a couple dozen (or however many) characters in Modoc because it's easy enough to represent fifty or a hundred as a dozen in the player's mind, provided they don't try to do ridiculous things like start a firefight with an entire town. There are only a couple dozen thugs in each Boss' layer because that's about how many there would be.

Furthermore, I don't see any of those family men not fighting to the last one either, which is something you seem to take exception to with the modoc situation.

Well, yes. And that's an imperfection of video games. But the difference here is that your goal (killing the boss and destroying the syndicate) doesn't require you to kill every last man. You may end up doing so, due to the limitations of the medium, but it doesn't create the same mental disconnect because your task would have been completed either way.

In order for your Modoc scheme to work, both sides would have to be evenly matched (with neither ever gaining a tactical or morale advantage) and indiscriminantly slaughter eachother until only a tiny number of one side was left. Realistically, however, one side or the other would have been routed, or surrendered, or become so outmaneuvered or demoralized as to lose without achieving maximum attrition against their opponents, leaving more than enough to deal with one more idiot with a hunting rifle.

Realistically, you would very likely have been clipped with a stray bullet and died for standing so close to such a large firefight without cover, but this is more forgivable given the limitations of the medium.

You get a karmatic trait. That makes it more valid?

Yes, to a certain extent. But that wasn't even nearly the entirety of what I was saying. The people in New Reno treat you differently (even if the difference is largely cosmetic) once you become a Made Man. Effort is made to show your actions fitting within the setting. You are playing the game, not breaking it.

Umm.. Obviously they resisted the will of the servant mind long enough to mutilate it, didn't they?

Take this to the other thread. Honestly, I've discussed the whole thing to death with Deathy (no pun intended) and am burnt out on it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

So is being evil easier in Fallout/Arcanum, or is it easier in BG/Morrowind? I'd "keep up", if you weren't playing rhetorical sleight of hand in an obnoxious attempt to slam games you don't like instead of discussing the actual topic.

Your point was that it was easier to be a hero. I said it's just as easy to be either in Fallout or Arcanum in my first post. Later on, I said that in Morrowind or Baldur's Gate, it's actually easier to be evil because they don't even provide the consequences that Fallout and Arcanum do.

Are you caught up now or must I draw a diagram?

If you were to say, for instance, that being able to pay your way out of the consequences of being evil was horribly unrealistic and stupid, then I'd agree with you (of course, then a later point of yours would fall apart). But that wasn't your point. You didn't have a point, other than "Baldur's Gate is a crappy roleplaying game." This is a reasonable position, but it has exactly nothing to do with the subject at hand.

I think I made it quite clear when I said you could buy your way out of the consequences, therefore there are no real consequences.

And, my ultimate point is not "durr, evil hard". Most CRPGs are easy enough that you don't have to minmax your way through them after the first playthrough. So, if I really want to be evil, I can do it. My point is that evil doesn't tempt you. My point is that good isn't hard enough.

Re-read your first sentence:

One thing I find rather amusing about the vast majority of CRPGs is that it's easier to be a hero than a villian.

It would be easier if there weren't consequences for evil actions, but because of games with decent consequences, it's possible to balance them. That's why I mentioned Fallout and Arcanum. Then there's games with no really good consequences because you can pay money to get out of them, i.e. Baldur's Gate and Morrowind.

What's not tempting about being evil? It's easier to do things and there's more money in it. I can either pay for the item you want to sell me, or I can kill you and take it. That's easier, and the end result is you have more money because you didn't pay for it.

In fact, in pretty much every CRPG ever, good is materially rewarding (either through actual loot, or through experience), generally more so than evil.

Funny, I've found it to be the exact opposite for the reason I mentioned above. Then again, you don't seem to think robbing people is good role playing for some reason, so obviously you're not going to make as much.

Good characters have more opportunity for experience and roleplay, and there's never a point in time where a character who isn't actively trying to be evil is likely to feel particularly compelled to take the evil solution to a given problem. More often than not, it's the opposite.

In a lot of games, you're absolutely right. In fact, most of the D&D CRPGs are like this simply because the main plot is often a typical "good guy" plot. However, in the opportunities there are to be evil, there are often cases where you can make more money or experience depending on how well the game was scripted.

No, but it does mean that it's not really an excitingly evil one either. The fact that thief hero/antiheroes are plentiful and largely accepted in fiction is pretty decent evidence that thievery isn't likely to feel like a particularly "evil" act in a fictitious setting.

That would typically be because the Evil Thief actually kills people. It's kind of hard to flesh out an evil thief that has scruples about murder.

Jesus Christ on a Whole Wheat Cracker, I care. Anyone who agrees with me that it's ridiculous would care. The devs should care. The entire effing point of a roleplaying game is valid roleplaying. Not finding ways to exploit the mechanics to do ridiculously unrealistic things. I bet you're one of those morons who hangs out in Vivec slaughtering respawning Ordinators, and then whines that none of the merchants have enough gold to buy your 2000 suits of armor, aren't you?

Anyone that agrees with you that mass murder isn't evil needs their priorities ajusted.

It's an extremely rare thing done only in circumstances people where are damn well sure they're dead either way (and are usually trained soldiers or at least disciplined folk used to combat). The collection of bumbling buttmonkeys you encounter in Modoc don't fit the bill in the least. The slags might. But I doubt it.

The people of Modoc are pretty sure the slags in the Ghost Farm are out to slaughter them, which is why they attack it in the first place. The Slags are fighting for their home turf, the Ghost Farm and what lies under it. It's kind of hard to say it's not about survival.

Well, gee! What deep and exciting roleplay! Doing nothing! Hooray! Next time I'm going to play a narcoleptic and sleep until the deadline to collect the waterchip has passed and I lose! It will be happy funtime for all!

Right, do nothing. Why would an evil character give a shit about the plight of Adytum? Care to explain that one?

I did not say sleeping with T-Ray or Metzger was evil roleplay. I implied this at first, granted, but then I backed off and said I was talking about renting your spouse out as a "fluffer" when he/she obviously doesn't want to do it. It's a small thing, but really FOII is a pretty small game, so every little bit counts.

Fallout 2 is roughly four times the size of Fallout, yet you're willing to bash Fallout and excuse Fallout 2 for only having a few instances of the "evil" stuff you bring up?

If you can do the Decker quests right when you arrive in the Hub, you're a better combat monster than I. I tend not to touch him until after I've delivered the Waterchip.

A gambler character can raise insane amounts of cash for armor, weapons, and stimpacks rather quickly.

Have you even tried to play the game as a slaver? It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be. It's certainly not nearly as blatantly difficult as "you can talk to Gizmo while wearing a wire for 500 Caps, or you can assassinate a heavily guarded man and then try to make your way across town back to Gizmo's place while a dozen armed men are out for your blood, then rush out of town for 700".

And it's no where near as useful as you make it out to be, either. Junktown's guards aren't exactly good shots or tough guys either.

Yes, because you haven't just leveled a population center. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? Even if you were physically capable of carrying enough effing bullets to do the job, people would start running after you executed the first family, and most of them would get away.

Do you know how small population centers are in Fallout and Fallout 2? The might NCR Capitol has a whopping 3,000 people in it.

Last I checked, with Power Armor or a decent strength, you actually could carry an insane amount of ammo as well. Given the power of some of those weapons and how poorly armed most town folk are in Fallout and Fallout 2, there's really not much of a complaint here.

It's fairly amazing you think wiping out pissant peasants is impossible, but one guy taking out three well armed syndicates is good roleplaying. How about taking out Navarro in Fallout 2? Think that's cheap too? We're talking about a military base, loaded with soldiers in power armor.

Just as long as they're not weak peasants, though, right?

And, anyone who had enough firepower to wipe out even a decent portion of the town would be much better served using threat of force rather than actual force (give me everything you have and I'll let you live so I can come back in a month and collect everything you've made between then and now).

This would be a good option.

A handful of thugs is a handful of thugs. There aren't that many of them, and there aren't supposed to be that many of them. There are only a couple dozen (or however many) characters in Modoc because it's easy enough to represent fifty or a hundred as a dozen in the player's mind, provided they don't try to do ridiculous things like start a firefight with an entire town. There are only a couple dozen thugs in each Boss' layer because that's about how many there would be.

Again, we're talking about crime syndicates that run a town here versus peasants who merely farm for a living.

Well, yes. And that's an imperfection of video games. But the difference here is that your goal (killing the boss and destroying the syndicate) doesn't require you to kill every last man. You may end up doing so, due to the limitations of the medium, but it doesn't create the same mental disconnect because your task would have been completed either way.

Again with the loop holes. When it's a town, it's bad. When it's a criminal organization, it's excusable? Why? Oh, yeah, because you happen to like it.

In order for your Modoc scheme to work, both sides would have to be evenly matched (with neither ever gaining a tactical or morale advantage)

Which they are.

and indiscriminantly slaughter eachother until only a tiny number of one side was left.

As pointed out before, they have good reason to fight to the death here.

Realistically, however, one side or the other would have been routed, or surrendered, or become so outmaneuvered or demoralized as to lose without achieving maximum attrition against their opponents, leaving more than enough to deal with one more idiot with a hunting rifle.

Again, so realism only suits you when you don't like the situation?

Yes, to a certain extent. But that wasn't even nearly the entirety of what I was saying. The people in New Reno treat you differently (even if the difference is largely cosmetic) once you become a Made Man. Effort is made to show your actions fitting within the setting. You are playing the game, not breaking it.

You're only breaking the game by your ridiculous standards by getting the Modoc town folk and the Slags to fight it out. The game actually does handle this event, so it's hard to say it "breaks" it.

 

[Sustenus Paul]

Your point was that it was easier to be a hero. I said it's just as easy to be either in Fallout or Arcanum in my first post.

No, you started with the statement that being good is easier. In fact, it's not, especially in Fallout and Arcanum.

The obvious implication here is that it's easier to be evil (or harder to be good) in Fallout/Arcanum than it is in other RPGs. Note the word especially. In other words, my complaint applies less to Fallout/Arcanum than to other games. This is untrue, because in the other games we have seen fit to talk about, you can buy your way out of the negative consequences of being evil. Therefore my complaint would apply less to those other games, and your sentence would be incorrect.

So you're either lying about what you said so as to avoid admitting your mistake, or you have a real problem with verbal precision. Maybe you would have more luck with a diagram.

I think I made it quite clear when I said you could buy your way out of the consequences, therefore there are no real consequences.

It would be easier if there weren't consequences for evil actions, but because of games with decent consequences, it's possible to balance them. That's why I mentioned Fallout and Arcanum. Then there's games with no really good consequences because you can pay money to get out of them, i.e. Baldur's Gate and Morrowind.

Why oh why are you talking about the consequences of being evil as an attempt to argue against my thesis "It is easier to be good than evil in CRPGs."? The existance of consequences for being evil would in fact be support for my point. What precisely do you mean when you say "It would be easier (to be a hero than a villain) if there weren't consequences for evil actions..." I hope this was simply sloppy paragraph construction on your part, because it makes absolutely no sense.

What's not tempting about being evil? It's easier to do things and there's more money in it. I can either pay for the item you want to sell me, or I can kill you and take it. That's easier, and the end result is you have more money because you didn't pay for it.

How often does it work like that, though? You kill a guy in the street (or in a shop), and (outside of a couple locations in FOII) the entire town is now hostile. So it's not particularly easy, and now you've just screwed the pooch for any activities you might want to perform in that town later. Not to mention the fact that even the most careful of RPGs tends not to make everything that's buyable lootable. Fallout/Fallout II/Arcanum all do sometimes, but not consistently.

So you're left with the petty theft of whatever items the devs saw fit to make "stealable".

Funny, I've found it to be the exact opposite for the reason I mentioned above. Then again, you don't seem to think robbing people is good role playing for some reason, so obviously you're not going to make as much.

Quite apart from what I've mentioned above, most RPGs reach a point a little after midgame where either the stuff that's available in most shops isn't particularly useful to you, or you have so much money stealing it would be redundant. So, for that extra power boost you're left with "special" items and that all important experience factor, both of which are acquired through "quests". Good quests are both more plentiful and more rewarding than evil quests, in pretty much every RPG ever. The "extra curricular" looting type stuff ends up being a pretty minor factor.

In a lot of games, you're absolutely right. In fact, most of the D&D CRPGs are like this simply because the main plot is often a typical "good guy" plot. However, in the opportunities there are to be evil, there are often cases where you can make more money or experience depending on how well the game was scripted.

You can often make a piddling amount more money by being dastardly, but you tend to lose out on an experience reward. The classic example is the acquisition of "key items". Often you can kill/rob for them, but you get tons more experience (both in character terms and in "experiencng the game" terms) by jumping through the hoops he requests in order to acquire the item legitimately. Mirth in Stillwater is a fairly classic example of this, even in a "well scripted" game.

That would typically be because the Evil Thief actually kills people. It's kind of hard to flesh out an evil thief that has scruples about murder.

Yes, but there I was talking about stealing, not killing. I said "petty thievery isn't good evil roleplay, more like good petty thief roleplay", and you saw fit to disagree. So can we now settle on the fact that playing a thief is not in and of itself part of evil roleplaying?

Anyone that agrees with you that mass murder isn't evil needs their priorities ajusted.

I didn't say it wasn't evil. I said that performing it in the ridiculously straightforward and large scale manner you're suggesting isn't realistic, and therefore I consider it an invalid aspect of the game. Just like you consider donating money to church to buy off your infamy invalid. Anyone who thought, as I do, that it was ridiculous that you could do this (and cared about actual roleplaying) would care that is was ridiculous, and therefore not do it. We can argue about whether it is or is not realistic to be able to wipe out population centers, but simply saying "it doesn't matter" won't make the issue go away.

The people of Modoc are pretty sure the slags in the Ghost Farm are out to slaughter them, which is why they attack it in the first place. The Slags are fighting for their home turf, the Ghost Farm and what lies under it. It's kind of hard to say it's not about survival.

Do you realize how much will and discipline it takes to continue fighting to the death when all hope for victory is lost? These are people who have brahmin testacle eating contests, shotgun lesbian weddings, and are in every possible way presented as a collection of bumbling subnormals. And, considering not a single one of them had ever witnessed a slag murdering someone firsthand, they'd have to believe there was a decent chance of survival through retreat or surrender.

Right, do nothing. Why would an evil character give a shit about the plight of Adytum? Care to explain that one?

Okay, now you're deliberitely misinterpreting me. I didn't say an evil character should be presented with a reason to fight the Regulators. But he should be given some way to involve himself in Adytum to the same extent a good character can. Maybe he could take part in the battle against the razors on the other side, or maybe he could run out and hunt down a pack of escaped slaves, or whatever. The specifics don't matter. But he should be given something to do other than partially complete the good-guy quest (and get a lesser reward for doing so).

Fallout 2 is roughly four times the size of Fallout, yet you're willing to bash Fallout and excuse Fallout 2 for only having a few instances of the "evil" stuff you bring up?

I'm not "bashing" Fallout by any degree. But, I will say that:

A) Fallout II, being a larger game, has more evil stuff to do by simple virtue of having more stuff to do period. I fail to see how this isn't a virtue.

B) Fallout II has a larger proportion of evil stuff to do in comparison to the game as a whole, and that evil stuff is both more "tempting" (read: useful) and more organically integrated into the gameworld than the evil stuff in the original Fallout.

This is really the only point of contention between us regarding the two Fallouts. I'm certainly not saying the original was a crappy game or anything.

A gambler character can raise insane amounts of cash for armor, weapons, and stimpacks rather quickly.

But, again, since most characters aren't gambler characters, most characters won't be able to deal with him until fairly late in the game.

And it's no where near as useful as you make it out to be, either.

When did I say being a slaver was terribly useful? Selling Sulik into slavery makes the early game loads easier, but that's not the same thing.

Still, I'll say it now, joining the slaver guild and doing all the runs will net you a pretty decent amount of cash and experience, especially given how early in the game you can do it. While you'd certainly gain more cash and experience for hitting the army base, by the time you even can do the army base, the stuff there isn't terribly likely to help you a heck of a lot. Both Fallouts are notorious for starting out difficult and getting easier as they progress.

Helping Gizmo is signifigantly harder than arresting him, nets you a piddlingly larger reward, and closes Junktown off to you for the rest of the game. The scales are much further off balance here.

Do you know how small population centers are in Fallout and Fallout 2? The might NCR Capitol has a whopping 3,000 people in it.

Fine, so how many people would you place in Modoc? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Even fifty is too many for one guy to keep tabs on long enough to execute.

Last I checked, with Power Armor or a decent strength, you actually could carry an insane amount of ammo as well. Given the power of some of those weapons and how poorly armed most town folk are in Fallout and Fallout 2, there's really not much of a complaint here.

Well, yes and no. I will agree that it becomes, if not realistic, "realistic enough" to start wiping out towns once you have power armor and the massive weaponry power armor lets you use. But, once you have that stuff, there's really nothing left to be gained in the indiscriminant slaughter of innocents, unless you want to roleplay a homicidal maniac. Which would be evil, yes, but pretty narrow.

Let's snip through all the point by point, since it's all related to the same argument. I'll answer it via the following:

Consider the following two movie scenes. Bruce Willis is talking with a mob bosses strong but feeble-minded enforcerer, and insults him one too many times. The enforcer draws his weapon, but Bruce is a tiny bit faster and plugs him between the eyes. The two other thugs in the room draw weapons and Bruce whirls, taking them out with a couple shots a piece. He strides purposefully through the door, and takes out the aging mob boss with a single shot between the eyes. He lets out some appropriately clever quip, then pauses to put on the enforcer's mirrored sunglasses before striding down the hall onto the ground floor, where he immediately encounters seven or eight more goons. A lengthy firefight ensues but, in the end, it a blood-soaked Willis strides victoriously through the front door of the casino.

Alternatively, Christopher Waulken convinces the good-hearted but feeble minded mayor of a smallish town to go to war with a mysterious race of underground creatures. The two sides clash and stand around shooting eachother, no one on either side ever surrendering, being decisively outmaneuvered, or being routed. Because they are so absolutely perfectly evenly matched, only three slags are left standing at the end, everyone else having fearlessly allowed themselves to be slaughtered. Chris (who has been standing behind a nearby tree or something this entire time) walks on camera, stoops down, picks up a fallen Modoc rifle, and plugs the last three slags in rapid succession. He then casually loots the corpses and moves on to the next town.

While perhaps neither are "perfectly realistic", which one do you find it easier to suspend disbelief for? Which one seems more well-motivated?

Criminy, I didn't even want to go this far into the bit with taking out the rival syndicates. Honestly, that part of it isn't even what I'm that enamoured with (since it's not like you get anything other than the loot off the corpses and combat experience for doing so). It's the joining part I like. The fact that you're given a few actual tasks to perform. The fact that the people on the street start addressing you with your mob name. The fact that you are actively becoming a part of the game world, rather than treating it as a huge overground dungeon hack.

But you apparently feel "lots of not particularly well motivated and questionably realistic killing" is happy fun exciting roleplay time for whole family. Are you sure you're not a Baldur's Gate fan?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The obvious implication here is that it's easier to be evil (or harder to be good) in Fallout/Arcanum than it is in other RPGs. Note the word especially. In other words, my complaint applies less to Fallout/Arcanum than to other games. This is untrue, because in the other games we have seen fit to talk about, you can buy your way out of the negative consequences of being evil. Therefore my complaint would apply less to those other games, and your sentence would be incorrect.

Somebody can't keep themselves away from boolean logic. When I said that good wasn't easier in Fallout and Arcanum, there's two statements you can derive from this:

• Evil is easier, which is what you assumed due to your boolean thinking.
• Good is equally as easy/hard as Evil, which is what I was saying.

Then I went on to point out there are games where evil actions are easier, which would be Baldur's Gate and Morrowind.

So you're either lying about what you said so as to avoid admitting your mistake, or you have a real problem with verbal precision. Maybe you would have more luck with a diagram.

Or you could stand to learn what fuzzy logic is. Not everything is black and white.

Why oh why are you talking about the consequences of being evil as an attempt to argue against my thesis "It is easier to be good than evil in CRPGs."? The existance of consequences for being evil would in fact be support for my point. What precisely do you mean when you say "It would be easier (to be a hero than a villain) if there weren't consequences for evil actions..." I hope this was simply sloppy paragraph construction on your part, because it makes absolutely no sense.

Why oh why can't Johnny read? I think it's fairly obvious that evil without consequences would be way too easy. That's why you need consequences for evil actions. You need something to balance out simply killing someone and taking a quest item versus having to do something else to get that quest item.

Besides, you like playing the reality trump card, there are consequences for extortion, thieving, killing, and so on in real life. Why shouldn't there be consequences for evil actions?

As long as those consequences aren't overly extreme, they allow for a balanced system. You can either steal a weapon or kill the shopkeep for it, which is easy if you have the skills for it, or you can work for it and buy it legally. Which is easier? Obviously the evil route is. It's quicker, cheaper, and so forth.

How often does it work like that, though? You kill a guy in the street (or in a shop), and (outside of a couple locations in FOII) the entire town is now hostile. So it's not particularly easy, and now you've just screwed the pooch for any activities you might want to perform in that town later. Not to mention the fact that even the most careful of RPGs tends not to make everything that's buyable lootable. Fallout/Fallout II/Arcanum all do sometimes, but not consistently.

So you're left with the petty theft of whatever items the devs saw fit to make "stealable".

Not always the case. You can kill many shopkeepers in Fallout and just walk away. I killed the money lender in the Hub and walked away without any of the guards saying anything. I killed Decker without anyone batting an eye. I killed the drug dealer in the Hub without incident as well.

Also, you can use the steal skill on their tables to shop lift items as well.

Quite apart from what I've mentioned above, most RPGs reach a point a little after midgame where either the stuff that's available in most shops isn't particularly useful to you, or you have so much money stealing it would be redundant. So, for that extra power boost you're left with "special" items and that all important experience factor, both of which are acquired through "quests". Good quests are both more plentiful and more rewarding than evil quests, in pretty much every RPG ever. The "extra curricular" looting type stuff ends up being a pretty minor factor.

The amount of money required to play a game versus thieving is always a problem. Gambling in Fallout is the same way, once you get a certain amount of money, it's questionable if you need more. However, it certainly lets you get those high valued items more quickly.

One thing that is nice about Morrowind is that it allows you to spend money to create items as long as you have the soulstones and other goods. You can buy those in certain areas as well. It does allow you to spend more money later in the game.

You can often make a piddling amount more money by being dastardly, but you tend to lose out on an experience reward. The classic example is the acquisition of "key items". Often you can kill/rob for them, but you get tons more experience (both in character terms and in "experiencng the game" terms) by jumping through the hoops he requests in order to acquire the item legitimately. Mirth in Stillwater is a fairly classic example of this, even in a "well scripted" game.

There were several parts of Arcanum which were flawed in this regard. The problem lies in some designers thinking that because a route is easier, there should be less reward for it. Maybe they have a point about that. However, I think the experience given should be given for getting the item itself rather than how you got it. That would balance it out a little better.

Yes, but there I was talking about stealing, not killing. I said "petty thievery isn't good evil roleplay, more like good petty thief roleplay", and you saw fit to disagree. So can we now settle on the fact that playing a thief is not in and of itself part of evil roleplaying?

You specifically mentioned a thief that refuses to kill in your original post about fantasy fiction. Sure, Robin Hood style thieves are common. However, that's not to say that you couldn't still play a thief that draws the line at murder, but still doesn't care about anything other than his own goals.

I didn't say it wasn't evil. I said that performing it in the ridiculously straightforward and large scale manner you're suggesting isn't realistic, and therefore I consider it an invalid aspect of the game. Just like you consider donating money to church to buy off your infamy invalid. Anyone who thought, as I do, that it was ridiculous that you could do this (and cared about actual roleplaying) would care that is was ridiculous, and therefore not do it. We can argue about whether it is or is not realistic to be able to wipe out population centers, but simply saying "it doesn't matter" won't make the issue go away.

If you have a small town that's filled with peons who earn a meager living off the land and aren't well armed, it wouldn't make sense in a role playing game that your powerful character would be stopped by them, would it? We're talking about a guy that can waltz in to a raider camp or mobster hang out and wipe them out of existance, here. Wiping out a small village of farmers would be nothing to that character, should he make the choice to do it.

It's hard to rationalize why a character should be able to wipe out well armed hordes of men, and not wipe out poor farmers too.

Do you realize how much will and discipline it takes to continue fighting to the death when all hope for victory is lost? These are people who have brahmin testacle eating contests, shotgun lesbian weddings, and are in every possible way presented as a collection of bumbling subnormals. And, considering not a single one of them had ever witnessed a slag murdering someone firsthand, they'd have to believe there was a decent chance of survival through retreat or surrender.

Hey, Native Americans used to rip off their nipples with bone shards to prove they were men. They still fought to the death to protect their villages. When given the choice of having you and your family killed, that's a pretty good motivator for fighting to the death, regardless of how backwards you seem.

Okay, now you're deliberitely misinterpreting me. I didn't say an evil character should be presented with a reason to fight the Regulators. But he should be given some way to involve himself in Adytum to the same extent a good character can. Maybe he could take part in the battle against the razors on the other side, or maybe he could run out and hunt down a pack of escaped slaves, or whatever. The specifics don't matter. But he should be given something to do other than partially complete the good-guy quest (and get a lesser reward for doing so).

I'm not misinterpretting you, and I agree that more options it generally a better idea than having less. However, you can take the quest to kill the razors and follow through with it. That's part of the game, after all.

The mayor gives you the quest. You can hear her out and you still have the option to kill her and complete that quest, which ends any opposition to the Regulators.

I'm not "bashing" Fallout by any degree. But, I will say that:

A) Fallout II, being a larger game, has more evil stuff to do by simple virtue of having more stuff to do period. I fail to see how this isn't a virtue.

It isn't a virtue when a lot of that stuff just doesn't mesh with the first one. New Reno, for example, not the best fitting location in the Fallout setting.

B) Fallout II has a larger proportion of evil stuff to do in comparison to the game as a whole, and that evil stuff is both more "tempting" (read: useful) and more organically integrated into the gameworld than the evil stuff in the original Fallout.

This is really the only point of contention between us regarding the two Fallouts. I'm certainly not saying the original was a crappy game or anything.

So, it's not tempting to waste the money lender in the Hub for the 3,000+ caps? It's not tempting to join the thieves guild for the electronic lockpicks? Decker's quests aren't interesting?

But, again, since most characters aren't gambler characters, most characters won't be able to deal with him until fairly late in the game.

They're not? Gamblers are one of my favorite characters to play.

When did I say being a slaver was terribly useful? Selling Sulik into slavery makes the early game loads easier, but that's not the same thing.

Does it, now. Selling Sulik, who is a damned good NPC, to buy Vic, who is useless until he levels up a few times, makes it easier? Especially when you factor in everything you miss out on later on? Sulik with a supersledge versus Vic, SAD, and all that other fun stuff. I'd hardly say you're making the game easier at any point going that route.

Helping Gizmo is signifigantly harder than arresting him, nets you a piddlingly larger reward, and closes Junktown off to you for the rest of the game. The scales are much further off balance here.

Junktown isn't closed off. Those guards are pathetically wimpy, and they're loaded with valuables. Just killing the Junktown guards alone will make it more than worth it just by selling their armor.

Fine, so how many people would you place in Modoc? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Even fifty is too many for one guy to keep tabs on long enough to execute.

Fifty farmers isn't that much of a deal. They're not combat experienced, they have lot hit points, they're not good shots, and so on.

Well, yes and no. I will agree that it becomes, if not realistic, "realistic enough" to start wiping out towns once you have power armor and the massive weaponry power armor lets you use. But, once you have that stuff, there's really nothing left to be gained in the indiscriminant slaughter of innocents, unless you want to roleplay a homicidal maniac. Which would be evil, yes, but pretty narrow.

Ever read Stephen King's The Gunslinger?

But you apparently feel "lots of not particularly well motivated and questionably realistic killing" is happy fun exciting roleplay time for whole family. Are you sure you're not a Baldur's Gate fan?

It's still funny that you have no problem with killing hordes of mobsters who are well armed, but killing pathetically armed farmers pisses you off.

 

[Sustenus Paul]

Great Caesar's Nipples, I spent an hour and a half doing a point by point, then IE crashed when I hit the preview button. I'll give you an appropriate response to your last post in the next day or so.

 

[Deathy]

Great Caesar's Nipples, I spent an hour and a half doing a point by point, then IE crashed when I hit the preview button. I'll give you an appropriate response to your last post in the next day or so.

That's happened to me quite a few times, which is why I usually use a text editor to write long replies.