Generally good, especially because it seems the reward is often better. But in D&D games (e.g. Planescape: Torment) I cannot help playing chaotic good, as being kind of a friendly dick is much more enjoyable than goody two shoes. I am going to wave that little figurine in Morte’s face and mess with him.
This is my problem with these kinds of morality games, ME especially. I always have to do Jack’s recruitment mission last because she and Miranda get into a confrontation and you need to basically pick one or the other. The workaround is using the special dialogue options to keep both, the problem is you need SO MANY Paragon or Renegade points to do it that you basically have to play the whole game entirely one side or the other to win. Otherwise, you risk killing one of them.
Is there a game that lets you play both sides of the fence more realistically and not suffer consequences? I’ve heard Fable does…maybe the Witcher?
I accidentally did that in Might and Magic VI. I didn’t realize the Meteor Shower spell the first time I used it was map-wide. So I ran into a crap-ton of enemies in my area and meteor showered them.
Shame about the friendly little village on the other side of the map…
After clearing the map, I go back to the village to do a few things and am confused as to why the village is all dead. So I start looting them. At some point I notice my reputation is Notorious and am curious as to why.
I then think back to the Meteor Shower fight. I carefully read the spell description and I realize what happened.
But hey, lots of gold and I might as well go pick up Dark magic mastery now…
Witcher games (at least 2 & 3) are all about consequences. There are multiple times where no matter what you do someone who probably doesn’t deserve it is going to suffer.
That reminds me of the standout ‘WTF, Karma System?’ moment in Fallout 3…a couple of the teenaged characters in Rivet City are in love, but he’s in training to be a priest, so it can never be.
If you basically roofie him, so he and the girl hook up, you get Positive Karma. Because that makes sense.
Mass Effect kind of annoyed me. I would pick the most reasonable (to me) choice and end up getting renegade points.
I briefly watched an “evil” walkthrough of Neverwinter Nights. Honestly I don’t see the point other than being a troll.
The “bad guy” ending of Arcanum didn’t even make sense.
The dark side ending of Knights of the Old Republic was kind of neat, but depressing.
Hey no shit? I just played that for the first time in a couple decades, took like a month to finish it. Halfway through VII now. The GTA-crazy teenagers were all, “What ‘cha playin’ pops?” Yeah, they’re hooked now. Great set of games: VI, VII, VIII.
I usually do a good guy run first and then a bad guy run, although I often feel bad doing some of the bad guy stuff and I don’t bother with evil stuff that isn’t part of the plot (like killing or picking pockets of no-name NPCs).
Likewise I usually start off using the more sneaky/tactical/indirect approach first and then the guns blazing approach later.
I generally play as myself (basically good), but I have no problem killing “bad guys”. In games like Skyrim or Fallout I will avoid killing civilian and friendly NPCs but won’t go out of my way to avoid killing enemy NPCs. I tend not to go either full stealth or full rampage when those are options. I will use whatever method makes for the easiest resolution of the mission.
But of course, that tends to follow the depiction of the Force in the movies–light side is monkish ascetic, dark side is all about passion.
Which is the problem with the system in SWTOR, light and dark don’t necessarily match with good and evil, but it’s the system they have, so good vs evil choices end up shoved into the same system.
Fortunately, the only real consequence of getting light side/dark side “points” is which merchant you can purchase cosmetic gear from.
That just got funnier and funnier.
I also go full light side and then full dark side. I loved in SWTOR how the farther into dark side you went there were “evil” physical changes in the face.
In KOTOR there were even different endings to the game with Revan.
They’re even better with the femshep voice, like much of the game, but I couldn’t find a clip of just the hang up scenes with her. (The character is Commander Shepard, there’s a different voice actor for the male and female roles).
Very true…and, yet, SWTOR also allows Jedi characters to have romances with their companions (and even plan to marry them), but those romantic storylines don’t trigger Dark Side points – with the male Jedi Knight, if you pursue a romance with Kira, there’s a point at which she says that the Council has permitted such relationships on occasion.
The developers are just really inconsistent with it.
There’s a new game out called Vampyre that looks like it has a better idea than the standard three choice saint-mercenary-jerk dialogue tree. I haven’t played, but I’ve read a review and it seems interesting. It’s an open world game, and you play a vampire. You can feed on humans- named NPCs only, mooks and set dressing don’t count- to gain tons of experience, but it closes off their quests and will prevent you from entering certain areas, as well as increasing the number of enemies. It’s possible to play without killing, but experience gain is very slow and combat difficult. When the reviewer decided to kill a secretly evil priest, the brutal death of a beloved figure made the city a worse place. To make it worse, the closer to your character a npc becomes, the more experience points they are worth.
That sounds interesting.
Arcanum Spoilers ahead:
[spoiler]I was so frustrated with Arcanum when I finished it the first time that it put me off the game for a long time. I’ve since replayed it and had a great time and I think most of the story is amazing, but its biggest flaw is that there doesn’t seem to be an ending where you support the Dark Elven anti-technology stance. After siding with the Dark Elves and going to rescue Arronax (only to find that he’s mellowed out after a few millenia) there’s no way that I know of to stick to it and get an ending where they succeed despite Arronax’s mellowing.
That said, if you mean the bad guy ending where you side with Kerghan, it makes sense to me. Kerghan has a valid point. In that setting, he is not entirely wrong; he’s not unequivocally right, but he’s not wrong, and Virgil can even confirm that he’s right on the facts of the matter, which means you’re not working with faulty information. The extermination of all life, given the facts of the situation, is not irrational in that setting. It would, as Kerghan wants, enable all souls to rest in that endless sea of grey, mirrored glass, forever, without being disturbed again. It may not be desirable to everyone, but it’s not nonsensical to desire it, given the facts of the world.[/spoiler]
As far as table top games, I like that Pathfinder Society has a ‘you can’t be evil’ rule and if you persist in trying to be evil, the GM can mark and record your character as EVIL and you can never play it again.
We have a guy at our local game store who keeps insisting on doing evil things and then getting shouted down at the table. He’s been talked to and warned about it at least a half-dozen times. Last session he kept insisting that he was going to do something evil over everyone’s objections and the (very experienced) GM just grinned at him and started telling the player that he’d be happy if the guy did it, go right ahead! At that point the guy got the message that the GM was just waiting to ban him for it.
:rolleyes:
I’ll try to play through three times. Chaotic neutral, lawful good, and lawful evil. That’s worked out well with the games that change the play style and end games depending on your choices. Dishonoreds, Bioshocks, Fallouts, and Deus Ex come to mind.
If I remember right I sided with Kergan and got this ending, but there’s a point where you can kill Kergan (because you’re eeeviiil) and it doesn’t change the ending.