T w e n t y S i d e d

Corvus is talking about morality, as judged by game engines.

If I could nitpick this a bit, I think the “tribe” idea is beginning to hit on what the real crux of good vs. evil is. If my buddy brings me $100 which he stole from someone who I dislike, I would still want no part of the $100. Stealing is wrong, even if the person I’m stealing from is from “another tribe” and is a jerk. Even if he’s a billionaire and will never miss a measly (to him) $100, I would still not want any part of it. Even if I knew I would never get caught and that the victim would never miss the cash, I wouldn’t want it. Most games would give me “light side” points for this, I suppose, although I hardly think this is a position of novel or heroic altruism.

You could turn around and argue that I’m simply expanding my personal perception of “tribe” to include people like this billionaire. But this hits on my main point, which is that good vs. evil could be defined by how big I think my tribe is. An evil man might have a tribe of one. (Himself.) A slightly more reasonable person might include their family. Most people would include their neighbors and people they know. So, the more “good” your are the more inclusive your tribe is. The good / evil slider in games is really a very crude tool for figuring out how big your personal tribe is.

Some people strive to extend their own “tribe” to include all humans. (While I agree with this notion, it turns out to be very hard to pull off in the real world, as you face many situations where your “fellow” tribe members hate and kill one another. It’s pretty hard not to take sides in this, which ends up kicking someone out of your mental tribe.) Some people (PETA) want to extend their tribe to include animals. Most of us balk at this idea in general, but our own pets get a pass for being members of our “family”, as it were. Marking tribal distinctions based in race is a taboo in our culture, although doing so based on political beliefs is not. Thus, saying “I think [pick a skin color] people are stupid and untrustworthy” can get you fired, but saying the same thing of Democrats or Republicans is hopelessly routine. In real life, I’m sure the system is more graduated than tribe / not tribe. Usually family ranks above friends, who rank above coworkers, who rank above employers, who rank above total strangers in your area, who rank above total strangers from someplace far away, who rank above conquering space aliens, Nazis, and telemarketers.

Having said this, I would not want to try to model all of this with a computer. Not on a bet. Sweet mercy. You’d need a quad-core machine with a couple of gigs of memory just to figure out if NPC A would be willing to lend a dollar to NPC B.

This reminds me a lot of my earlier discussion about Oblivion, and how introducing a system of fencing stolen property simply moved the AI stupidity from one point to another. In the end I concluded that you would need AI capable of investigating and solving crimes before you were free of nonsense behavior from NPCs.

I hasten to add that I don’t want to suggest that the plans for the Honeycomb engine are in any way stupid. Most of the writing he does about it has me nodding my head, “That’s a really great idea!” My nitpickery aside, I actually find his idea to be pretty compelling. It will be interesting to see it in action (uh, someday?) and to see what sort of reactions players have to it. The rules of a game world drive player behavior to a certain extent, and more interesting rules will lead to more interesting behavior, which – all other things being equal – will lead to a more interesting game.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I asked, Corvus responded. His answer as to why he plays through the “evil” storyline of a game is really interesting. His post also got me thinking:

I could get into a game where the story was – by design – the story arc of an evil character. Like Corvus, I think it could be really enjoyable if done with a wink.

Take the classic tale of The Hero Must Round Up Objects X to complete Artifact Y so he can kill Villain Z. Except, in this game you get to be Z.

The hero is good-looking, blond haired, square-jawed paragon of sanctimonious virtue. He’s mighty, but also brimming with false modesty and driven by a need to feed his bottomless ego with the thankful cheers of the oppressed. The ladies love him. Take the intelligence of The Tick, mixed with the emotional depth of Prince Charming from Shrek 2, mixed with the condescending attitude of D&D Paladins, and there you have the template for our heroic antagonist. His followers are a collection of sycophantic sidekicks who stand in his shadow and direct incoming praise to their leader. He’s Fabio. He’s shallow. He’s arrogant. He’s a moralizer. He’s the guy we love to hate, and he’s just convinced he’s destined to win in the end.

Your plan, of course, is to take over the world. Just as good-themed games suffer a little when trying to allow you to do evil, I think this game would suffer if it tried to let you play a little good here and there. Instead of good vs. evil choices, you would make Law vs. Chaos choices. Yes, you’re evil, but what kind of evil? Certainly peasants mean nothing to you, but will you sacrifice loyal followers to get ahead? Do you kill your own men on a whim? Will you keep your word with those who do your bidding without question. When you tell someone, “Tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you live”, do you actually let them live once they cough up the info? Would you rather rule through control borne of loyalty (theirs, to you) or fear?

As the evil guy, your quests would be stuff like:

1. Lure away one of the Hero’s cohorts and get them to betray him.
2. Commit a terrible crime and blame it on the Hero, thus forcing him to waste time clearing his name.
3. Follow in his wake as he goes questing about. Find the people he’s helped (who are gushing with praise for the guy) and make them reveal what they know about his plans to stop you.
4. Get the rest of X objects before he does.
5. Build up an army of unquestioning followers.
6. Throw said followers at him in waves. Use them to to annoy, harass, delay, and frustrate that smiling, infuriating pretty boy.
7. Once your men have softened him up, move in and defeat him yourself.
8. Once he’s out of the way, you get to rule these filthy peasants like the heartless despot you are. You (and only you) live happily ever after.

Just imagine the conversations. The game practically writes itself. Comedy is sometimes tricky, but this is one of those ideas (like DMotR) where you just can’t go wrong. (Assuming you’re going for funny.)

If done right, I’d play that game in a heartbeat.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.