A thought on mission realism

[malthaussen]

The vision document states that the developers want to create missions in which moral ambiguity is inherent, and in which "hard choices" will have to be made that carry consequences down the road. Several board inmates have already submitted such proposals, but I think we might want to nail down the vision document somewhat. Because there can be a large crop of missions that meet the criteria of the design intent, but would not be much fun for some players, or might serve to bring back memories best left undisturbed.

In general, do we want to avoid missions in which the team is ordered by higher authority to carry out an action that is morally reprehensible, e.g., killing or torturing prisoners? Do we want, in fact, any missions where the Rangers in the field might find themselves in opposition to Ranger Central?

Supposing we decide that, no, there shall be no orders coming down from Ranger Central, all problems are strictly the player's responsibility, do we want dilemmas where there can be no "good" outcome, in which the only choices are between the lesser of two stomach-turning evils? Aye, real life is full of such problems, especially at the sharp end of combat, but we are, after all, creating a game here, and not trying to model real life in all its pain.

Show of hands: how many of us have played D&D related games in which the party has a paladin who must, in character, object to certain actions or lose his status, and how many of us have been in such parties where the solution is some form of the paladin "closing his eyes." Do we want to avoid such kinds of contrived, false choices in our Wasteland scenarios?

Lastly, there are those among us who are veterans of various real life wars. In the course of their service, they may have been forced to make exactly the kinds of choices the Vision Document calls for, and have consequently (because this was Real Life, after all, not Pixel People Land) suffered pain or trauma which they would prefer not be inflicted upon them again in something which they are doing for enjoyment. I single out veterans, because this is a combat game, but certainly there are other RL professions which might have involved some percentage of the target audience in similar gut-wrenching situations. It would be callous in the extreme to tell these gamers "Well, they'll just have to understand that this isn't Real Life, and Get Over It." So, do we want to avoid including these kinds of situations in the game environment?

The unexamined life is not worth living. The unexamined scenario is not worth playing.

-- Mal

[chaos49]

this is a game not a kindergraden were we have to nurse pepole

[Mandemon]

Allow me to get standard reaction out of the way:

This is niche game! So screw everyone (except me)!
That would be politically correct! We can't have it!
Controversy is good!
That wasn't in the original!
OP is a newbie trying to turn this into modern FPS!

Did I forget anything?

[TiLT]

What is it about games that makes them so different from movies, books and even theater (read some of Shakespeare's tragedies and tell me if they make you feel happy) in terms of what they can cover? Games are entertainment, sure, but so are all the other things I just mentioned. If a game wants to handle mature themes, that's an artistic statement that should be respected by the players. You are always free to disagree with such an artistic statement by making a statement of your own: Not buying the game. Wasteland 2 has always been touted as a mature game, so its' a little late to get cold feet now if you're a Kickstarter backer.

Most commercial games today don't dare cover morally ambiguous themes. Studios like Bioware like pretending that they do, but their stuff is more juvenile than mature. Yet even Hollywood is capable of touching these themes in their very commercial movies. Again, what is it about games that means they should be treated differently?

There is a very dangerous expectation of games behind this thread, and I would warn strongly against continuing in that line of thinking. If we ever want games to be treated like art, like most adult gamers seem to do, we'd better be ready to face the consequences of that and accept that sometimes these games may cover topics that touch us in ways that may not necessarily be "entertaining", but which can still be pretty damn important in other ways.

[Mandemon]

Most commercial games today don't dare cover morally ambiguous themes. Studios like Bioware like pretending that they do, but their stuff is more juvenile than mature. Yet even Hollywood is capable of touching these themes in their very commercial movies. Again, what is it about games that means they should be treated differently?

The fact that games are relatively new media and also interactive media.

This leads them to be easy target for... pretty much everything and everyone just accepts that it's games fault. Comics and books went trough this already and they had seriously crippling codes (Comics Code and Hayes Code) placed on them. Game Industry is avoiding that.

[TiLT]

Most commercial games today don't dare cover morally ambiguous themes. Studios like Bioware like pretending that they do, but their stuff is more juvenile than mature. Yet even Hollywood is capable of touching these themes in their very commercial movies. Again, what is it about games that means they should be treated differently?

The fact that games are relatively new media and also interactive media.

This leads them to be easy target for... pretty much everything and everyone just accepts that it's games fault. Comics and books went trough this already and they had seriously crippling codes (Comics Code and Hayes Code) placed on them. Game Industry is avoiding that.

I understand that, but it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, which is about what we players should be willing to accept. I don't think public censoring of this game is going to be much of a problem because of the way it's being funded, sold and distributed.

[Oktobermensch]

I would look forward to seeing an example of or a mission with such dillema in the game.
We are all adults, and even though not everyone was ever or is ever going to be in a position to make such choice, its quite interesting to test oneself in such scenario.
We all seem to have quite an appetite for a game that treats us like thinking people, so I beleive we should be given a chance to see how we would find ourselves in a situation like that.

Some may find it repulsive, some unplayable and some might jump into the thick of it with glee, but you will never know your true reaction if ou don't experience it.

[Woolfe]

Are you asking a question?
Cause you lost me.
It looks like you are asking for shades of grey and consequences. Which have pretty much been agreed to by most of the forumgoers.

As to the people who have experienced issues in real life, and avoiding offending them(is this what you meant).
If you give in to one, then where do you stop. Do you not portray certain elements of violence just to appease a particular group affected by that violence? It becomes an impossible prospect, to even try this sort of thing, and honestly IMO it is a bad precedent to set anyway.

Show of hands: how many of us have played D&D related games in which the party has a paladin who must, in character, object to certain actions or lose his status, and how many of us have been in such parties where the solution is some form of the paladin "closing his eyes." Do we want to avoid such kinds of contrived, false choices in our Wasteland scenarios?

You need a better DM. A Paladin who purposely ignores something that is against their faith, should lose their Paladin powers and be forced to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them back.

[Drool]

You need a better DM.

DM nothing, need better players. Characters are allowed to lie to each other. Morally questionable characters should have no qualms about running a con on the paladin. In fact, they'd pretty much have to in order to get the paladin to adventure with them. To say nothing of the fact that the player playing the paladin should be better than that.

Like my cavalier who pointed out it only counted if his order found out what happened. Of course, you got more leeway with cavaliers.

Just close your eyes. Pfft.

[Woolfe]

You need a better DM.

DM nothing, need better players. Characters are allowed to lie to each other. Morally questionable characters should have no qualms about running a con on the paladin. In fact, they'd pretty much have to in order to get the paladin to adventure with them. To say nothing of the fact that the player playing the paladin should be better than that.

Like my cavalier who pointed out it only counted if his order found out what happened. Of course, you got more leeway with cavaliers.

Just close your eyes. Pfft.

Hah, the thing is its not the opinion of the Paladin that really counts, its the Gods... and in that case the God is the DM.
If a paladin doubts himself for a second, then boom. Paladins are meant to be hard to play

[Aarek]

Sorry to say something off topic, but reading you guys talking about D&D and the DM is making me feel as if I've missed so much by never having the opportunity to actually play D&D...

None of my friends were interested in trying it with me, so I never purchased it because you can't play it alone. This kind of depresses me a little.

[Gillsing]

In general, do we want to avoid missions in which the team is ordered by higher authority to carry out an action that is morally reprehensible, e.g., killing or torturing prisoners? Do we want, in fact, any missions where the Rangers in the field might find themselves in opposition to Ranger Central?

I want a largely silent Ranger Center. Beyond the broad main mission(s), there should be no missions or instructions from Ranger Center, reprehensible or otherwise. In case they find it irresistible to shut their trap, reprehensible missions are a big no-no, as it should be possible for the player to play the party as a bunch of saintly lawbringers. Anything that deviates from the overall benign reputation of the Desert Rangers should initiated by the player's choices.

Supposing we decide that, no, there shall be no orders coming down from Ranger Central, all problems are strictly the player's responsibility, do we want dilemmas where there can be no "good" outcome, in which the only choices are between the lesser of two stomach-turning evils? Aye, real life is full of such problems, especially at the sharp end of combat, but we are, after all, creating a game here, and not trying to model real life in all its pain.

While it takes a lot to turn my stomach, I don't see why the game should try to turn anyone's stomach. It should certainly not go out of its way to do so. By putting the player in charge, I would think that it should be extraordinarily difficult to create a situation where the only options are evil. In any such situation, couldn't the rangers just walk away? That might be cowardly, but would it be evil? Such a situation could certainly be one where the only options are bad options, but those could be common in the wasteland.

[Thrin]

I think that a game that is full of military operations and based upon a pseudo military organization set in a post-apocalyptic alternate reality of earth can give itself the leeway of ignoring potential memories with veterans. The gaming environment, by its nature, may be difficult for some to handle. If it is, I would suspect that the obvious choice would be to not play the game.

Given that, I find the term 'maturity' to be tossed around a lot and I am not sure I know, exactly, what it means in the context that is used here. Unfortunately, the connotation of that term appears to diverge significantly so it's a fuzzy descriptor at best.

Moral choices implies a moral code. If we have to make moral choices in a game environment then we need to know by what standard are we judging. Are we judging by Western standards? Are they in-game standards? Would a post-apocalyptic world have the same moral compass as we do?

I'd just like to see the game designers give serious though to -how- the world would operate and what people would do to survive. The need to survive and a lack of a single governmental authority would probably lead to a series of fractured 'families' or 'tribes' or 'villages.' The wild west comes to mind where each town had its sheriff and attempted to build up a body of law for its people while fending off raiders and 'might is right' types.

If Wasteland 2 captures the essence of a culture struggling to find itself and reassert itself then everything else will fall into place. There should be settlements that have a semblance of democracy in them. There should be others that are dominated by a person with a very big gun. There should be others that are ruled by an oligarchy. Some should be allies with one another and others should be at war with them.

If we can walk through the game world and think to ourselves, 'hey, this makes sense' then I will be happy. That leads to a greater immersion and suspense of disbelief. That, in turn, allows for a greater emotional attachment with the game itself. That emotional attachment, in my view, is what determines our lasting impression of the game and what we think of it in ten or twenty year's time.

I still remember playing Ultima IV. I tried it again recently and, wow, I had created an emotional construct (delusion) around the gameplay that wasn't anything like the game was. And yet, I still think of Ultima IV as a classic and an amazing story.

All elements of game need to come together to support immersion and the suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, many modern games get lost in making the elements of the game design into 'cool' and 'exciting' things. Or they get lost in trying to outdo themselves (if it is a sequel) or making the gameplay more 'appealing' to a 'broader' audience. Thing is, gameplay is more artform than it is science. The science of game theory can only bring a game so far before it needs the artist's hand to touch the emotion.

Uhh.. I got lost in the writing. My apologies.

TD;DR: Focus on a believable world in an environment that 'makes sense' and the rest will work itself out.

[Zombra]

Fascinating thread.

Personally, I don't want to shut down anything the writers come up with. On top of that, the Wasteland is a harsh place and some situations will call for harsh solutions. I don't want all my options to be "1. Pet the kitten / 2. Pet the puppy".

And I definitely don't want the results of all my decisions telegraphed beforehand. There shouldn't be "1. Save the villagers / 2. Don't save the villagers" - there should be "1. Flood the area the bandits are attacking / 2. Advise the villagers to surrender / 3. Arm the villagers with spears / 4. Go attack the bandit stronghold / 5. Kidnap the bandits' girlfriends and force a parley / 6. Do nothing yet". None of these options have clear-cut morality; they're just different approaches to a situation. Any choice might lead to disaster or victory, and any might lead to innocents being harmed. You just try to influence things by taking actions and hope for the outcome you wanted.

[Gurkog]

I will be happy as long as my medic always the option to prescribe a liberal dose of hot, screaming lead to alleviate his patient's ills. Nothing cures a case of 'whining wasteland savage' like an injection of lead. He is proud that not one patient has ever complained about side effects or relapses of a condition after treatment.

[ralfy]

Bring in all of them, i.e., missions that involve morally reprehensible behavior and otherwise.

[Alaric]

Bring in all of them, i.e., missions that involve morally reprehensible behavior and otherwise.

Hear, hear. Why should this game be 100% this and not at all this?? We dont want a repetetive game that gets boring after an hour, do we?

[tuluse]

You need a better DM. A Paladin who purposely ignores something that is against their faith, should lose their Paladin powers and be forced to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them back.

Paladins can't fall as of 3rd edition. They can be forced to stop being paladin's but they don't lose their powers anymore.

[tuluse]

Getting back on topic now.

When I hear moral ambiguity and hard decisions, I assume that will not meant impossible decisions. I don't want to have to choose between murdering an orphanage and nuking a police station.

My understanding is that the decisions will be hard because there are both positives and negatives to each potential choice. If you want to be "good", you can be, you just have to find the faction most congruent to your ideals of good and assist them.

I would also assume there is always going to be weaker groups being subjugated and persecuted by stronger groups, and you will be free to help the weaker groups, but at the cost of not having the stronger groups as allies.

[Woolfe]

You need a better DM. A Paladin who purposely ignores something that is against their faith, should lose their Paladin powers and be forced to jump through all sorts of hoops to get them back.

Paladins can't fall as of 3rd edition. They can be forced to stop being paladin's but they don't lose their powers anymore.

Still need a better DM, and I must say that is a crap rule that they don't lose their powers.

Getting back on topic now.

When I hear moral ambiguity and hard decisions, I assume that will not meant impossible decisions. I don't want to have to choose between murdering an orphanage and nuking a police station.

My understanding is that the decisions will be hard because there are both positives and negatives to each potential choice. If you want to be "good", you can be, you just have to find the faction most congruent to your ideals of good and assist them.

I would also assume there is always going to be weaker groups being subjugated and persecuted by stronger groups, and you will be free to help the weaker groups, but at the cost of not having the stronger groups as allies.

Agreed