Chaos and The Nature of Morality in Games

[Kay]

So I just now started playing this for the first time and I've noticed there doesn't seem to be a chaos rating.

Is that the case?
If so I'm rather happy about that.
I cannot stand games that limit what you can do by how nice you have to be.

Sure being nice in some cases helps but Dishonored has always had the issue of giving you lots of tools for killing in all kinds of ways but punishes you for using them but having a moral choice system.

I have always felt that a morality system should come down to the morality of the player.
If you want to go killing everyone you see then the only thing that should happen is NPCs give you criticism for killing so many.

I'll cite my favorite game ever, Deus Ex (The original one, the first one) JC Denton's mission has no morality system to it. The only thing that happens if you go killing people is your brother gets upset with you for being a killer and General Carter will chastise you for taking the lethal option and won't issue you as much ammo.

But over the period of the game these are the only things that happen and to some they might not even really matter. You can rob every ATM and gun down every man, woman and child (yes even the children) in your path without a single punishment from the game.

But it's the morality of the player that is really the issue. Who are you, the person playing JC? Are you someone who kills anything that moves, even children, just because you can and you might get some money? Or are you someone who only kills armed guards and people who shoot at you? Or are you the kind of person who thinks it's wrong to kill anyone even if they're trying to kill you?

That is the kind of morality I like to see in a game. One that asks you to not look at the game as just a game and this is just a distraction to see how many bigger numbers you can get; Look at this as a world with people living in it. What kind of tomorrow are you making for people of this world?

[Zekiran]

There is no chaos system in this one, no. That's because the first two, you're playing essentially the leader of the World, and as such you're in a position to *directly* change the way people in general on the Isles think of you and each other. Since that's kind of "over" by the time you're playing as Billie she's in a unique, powerful, but not *directly responsible* sort of position.

I disagree that it's not appropriate for Dishonored's game though - as witnessed by some of the rather psychotic commentary on some threads in D2's area, the player should actually be shown the direct results of their awful behavior. Not just one guy saying "huh, that was nasty" or something, but the world responding to the overall harshness that you're enacting while in that kind of position of power. I think they did a superb job of it, honestly, so much better than that in, say, Bioshock, which had all the subtlty of a brick to the face.

[Coops]

Sure being nice in some cases helps but Dishonored has always had the issue of giving you lots of tools for killing in all kinds of ways but punishes you for using them but having a moral choice system.

The game also gives you tools to not kill (three nonlethal darts, stun mines, choking, etc) and "rewards" you for using them. I think you may be confusing "reward/punish" with outcome 1 and outcome 2.
If you are a killer why should you not expect a darker outcome?

[Zekiran]

I have a car and knives, in real life, yet somehow I manage to not kill people with either of them.

That's part of the temptation to just go all kill spree happy - you ARE given those opportunities. It's on you the player, to decide whether your Corvo or Emily is a brutal killer, or whether Billie is repentant as her mentor was.

(canonically Daud DOES go low-chaos and allows things to happen... lol honestly if he had outright killed Delilah this might not have happened at all...)

[Ashiyan]

I do as i will ,simple as that , so if i want too wipe out everything i see as a threat its taken care of, how i do this is up too me.

[Kay]

Originally posted by Ashiyan:

I do as i will ,simple as that , so if i want too wipe out everything i see as a threat its taken care of, how i do this is up too me.

Part of what I'm talking about.
A game shouldn't punish you for taking the lethal approach no matter important the P.C. might be. The game should work to make you empathize with its world and its people so that you don't feel like killing them.
It should work to try and make you forget that you're in a game and that you're actually here in the world of the game.

[Angrypillow]

It's funny you should bring this up because the effect of chaos on the game was my favorite thing about dishonored 1, and greatly increased the replay value for me because aside from the mechanical differences high/low chaos provided a drastically different experience. In the latter installments it just felt like nothing you did had any effect on the game whatsoever.

[Zekiran]

Originally posted by Kay:

Originally posted by Ashiyan:

I do as i will ,simple as that , so if i want too wipe out everything i see as a threat its taken care of, how i do this is up too me.

Part of what I'm talking about.
A game shouldn't punish you for taking the lethal approach no matter important the P.C. might be. The game should work to make you empathize with its world and its people so that you don't feel like killing them.
It should work to try and make you forget that you're in a game and that you're actually here in the world of the game.

I've been re-watching Westworld season 1

I'm wondering now, what you think of that, because there's a very strong component similar here. For my part, "doing it the way I want" is usually 'gamer' for "I get to never ever think that there are consequences!! blood! gore! yay!". And that's a very sad reflection on us as people.

I cannot stand running through a game that DOES offer you a CHOICE, like a tangible "do this thing and people will respond nicely, do this other thing and they'll turn on you like normal sane people would" choice, and *I cannot be evil*. I just cannot do it. I stomached one run with each Corvo and Emily for D2 on high chaos, and it was MORE than enough for me. I finished DotO ONCE with the 'bad' ending and I had to replay that last mission the better way to get that foul taste out of my mouth from it.

[Kay]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Originally posted by Kay:

Part of what I'm talking about.
A game shouldn't punish you for taking the lethal approach no matter important the P.C. might be. The game should work to make you empathize with its world and its people so that you don't feel like killing them.
It should work to try and make you forget that you're in a game and that you're actually here in the world of the game.

I've been re-watching Westworld season 1

I'm wondering now, what you think of that, because there's a very strong component similar here. For my part, "doing it the way I want" is usually 'gamer' for "I get to never ever think that there are consequences!! blood! gore! yay!". And that's a very sad reflection on us as people.

I cannot stand running through a game that DOES offer you a CHOICE, like a tangible "do this thing and people will respond nicely, do this other thing and they'll turn on you like normal sane people would" choice, and *I cannot be evil*. I just cannot do it. I stomached one run with each Corvo and Emily for D2 on high chaos, and it was MORE than enough for me. I finished DotO ONCE with the 'bad' ending and I had to replay that last mission the better way to get that foul taste out of my mouth from it.

I have never even heard of Westworld, I haven't watched tv in almost a decade now but looking up its wiki I think I get what you're asking; How do I feel about worlds with no consequences?

I have been making my view on that clear since the first post in this thread, I prefer worlds with no consequences. Not because I wish to be evil without reprimand but because I prefer a game to not force my hand.

If I screw up my stealthing and am swarmed by guards I can either retreat and wait for them to drop out of alert phase (And i have my own nits to pick about that mechanic) or I can get into combat and fight them all. I liked that Dishonored 2 allowed me the option of still performing a non-lethal move on someone even should this be the case but I had an instance in that game where even though I tried non-lethal means I got high chaos.
I will explain.

I had arrived at Addermire and started my infiltration. I was still going for as few kills as possible but some things had happened that were unfortunate. Darting a guard to knock him out and then watching him collapse onto a ceiling window and fall to his death. Throwing a bottle of ether at a guard to knock her out and then being unable to stop her as she slid off the roof and hit the street below...

While I was in Addermire I got 2 kills added to me right away I found this out when I went to infiltrate through the kitchen and found the guards on full alert. Using dark vision and exploring into the cafeteria I discovered two guards had apparently died upon the level loading. I don't know why.
I got spotted while I was on the upper floor and in my haste to get away my far reach did not get me onto a chandelier like I wanted and I fell into the cafeteria. With the rest of the guards.

So I attempted the combat choke-out. But when I grabbed someone and began choking them another guard would not recognize I had hold of their friend, maybe they just didn't care, and would continue to slash or shoot at me. Result - dead guard. Blamed on me.

I tried to get away, take note i was out of sleep darts by this point, but ran into more guards. I again attempted choke-outs this time trying to turn in case they continued attacking but I wasn't fast enough. Dead guard. Blamed on me. In the end I believe I was maybe one dead body over the threshold for medium chaos. It was a fiasco.

Some might say "Well just reload your game, save more often so that don't happen", I don't like doing that.
If I ♥♥♥♥ up, even if it's an accident, I try to continue on with the consequences but I don't like the game just issuing a punishment to me as if I was the one killing people or making Emily go around talking a stone-hearded ♥♥♥♥♥. I will accept that the people who fell off roofs were my fault but the ones killed by their own people or the ones who died at spawn should not be on my head.

I don't want to kill people in these games. Sure some games I do kill a lot of folk I like assassin's creed for grace's sake, I can't be against killing. But some games it just doesn't feel right to me.

See in games like Dishonored or the old Deus Ex or the original Thief games, I don't like thinking of these guards and NPCs as just nameless, faceless obstacles. I make myself see them as people as best that I can to help immerse myself in the game and the story.
And I don't like games arbitrarily punishing me for killing when I already feel bad enough personally for those deaths.

But that's just my feeling on the subject.

[Zekiran]

I get that, that's an excellent interpretation and explanation thank you :)



I *hiiiighly* recommend watching westworld :D (not just because of the ethical dilemmas presented, but because it's probably the most amazingly beautiful and well written show i've ever seen.)

I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of "but it's already my guilt", but the game is still limited to what it can and cannot do - and if they removed this mechanic, it would be just yet another consequence free bloodbath, AND people who expected there to be some kind of "benefit" from doing things nonlethally would complain bitterly about there not being such in it, it is both sides after all.