Do moral choice systems work?

A majority of moral choice systems have three fundamental choices;  the good option, the bad option and the “I don’t give a fuck” option. This usually ends up giving you either of two endings; the holy saint or the Satan worshipper. Moral choice systems are pretty useless if that’s the only purpose they serve, it doesn’t really add any depth to the game, and doesn’t provide a viable role playing experience.

When I first played Fallout 3 and arrived in Megaton, I accidentally got the sheriff of the town killed – in front of his own child. I have never felt like a more terrible person in my life, and that’s how a moral choice system should make you feel. Fallout New Vegas was a step up for the series in terms of moral choices; both good and bad actions were accounted for.

However, this system was entirely broken if you suddenly decide to change factions. If you decide you’ve had enough of Cesar’s bullshit and decapitate him, the whole story-line you have been working for is failed. Bioshock is another game which doesn’t handle moral choices well; either kill little girls, or don’t. This again, leads to either a good or bad ending.

So what games have implemented moral choice systems well? Bioware seems to be the first developer that comes to mind when you think about moral choices. In Dragon Age, you are often put in a situation where you have the choice between helping a friend do something wrong, or betraying and them and getting a reward from someone else.

Helping the friend can  lead to more problems for you, or cause someone to suddenly despise you. But betraying your friend will affect your relationship with them. Overall, I liked how moral choices were handled in Dragon Age, this is probably because the characters were likable and I actually cared if something bad were to happen to them.

In Mass Effect 2 we all know the major choice you have to make at the end of the game, but this has very little impact on Mass Effect 3 at all. Overall, I found the choices in Mass Effect were pretty black and white.

Throughout the game you can decide to be good “Paragon” or bad “Renegade”, and in some conversations an icon will pop up indicating that you can do a sudden good or bad action. For example, I was having a chat with a journalist, pressed R2 for the Renegade option, and punched her in the face. This didn’t affect the storyline, but was overall a lot of fun.

The moral choice system in Dishonored is rather different, in the sense that you don’t choose an option in a conversation. If you decide to reap chaos throughout the city, you will see the effects of it. Your actions directly impact your environment and force you to see the consequences of your killing spree.

However, there are still a choice of endings, which are impacted by how many people you kill. This directly affects your style of play, and isn’t an effective moral choice system – but rather a cheap way of making you complete the game twice.

So what can be done to improve moral choice systems? Well firstly, developers need to stop the good, bad, or neutral conversation options - they simply don’t add enough depth. Choices should be more unclear if they are good or bad, not just “hello” and “fuck off”. Secondly, your choices should have consequences which you actually experience.

I’m not saying that you should have to go to the funerals of every poor soul you have killed, but if a game forces you to make a moral choice they should be more committed to it. For it to work the game needs to have unique choices, with unique consequences. There should also be no “karma points” or saint meter constantly tracking your actions. And no visual effects on your character either (yes Fable I’m looking at you).

Finally, the most important aspect of it all is the script. No game can have a successful moral choice system without decent writing. However this is where most games are lacking, as they are just not broad enough to comprehend that not everyone is either good or evil.

Overall, I have enjoyed playing games where I have to make moral choices, even if they haven’t had a great impact on the story. But in future I hope that they can be improved and provide us with a more realistic role playing experience.