Good vs Evil or shades of grey?

From the development talks I get a feeling the world will be very black and white, or is it just describing the karma system with lack of better words?

Virtues are a philosophy, but are you per say evil if you do not follow then? Of course followers might not approve people thinking differently, but I hope the lore and game mechanics will allow you to be a character with meaningful choices and not branding you good or evil.

If we are looking examples in fantasy, Game of Thrones is fairly good one where there is no good/evil aura, just people being people...mostly pretty rotten too

 

I agree completely. I always feel very constrained and artificial when a game tries to fit me and my decisions on some set of ethical dimensions I don't recognize. What if I don't feel like (examples from the Ultima virtue system) spirituality and honor are really virtues, or anything important at all? Actually, looking back at the Ultima virtues, most of them seem pretty meaningless to me, except compassion and maybe sacrifice. Unfortunately, from the way RG has been talking, it sounds like you're going to be punished in some ways if you don't follow the virtues of this world.

I can understand how you might want a game to have you make decisions for things like greed vs compassion, where being greedy might get you immediate material gains but hurt your reputation in some way, so there is a sort of karmic justice. But please, don't punish me because I think spirituality is bunk, or because honor doesn't weigh into my decisions.

There are a lot more values than can usually be accounted for along a small number of dimensions. 8 virtues? Do they include love of knowledge, beauty, creativity, freedom, culture? Leave these out and I am forced to artificially follow values I don't recognize or understand, and nothing for me is more immersion breaking than making my decisions based not on what I think I or my character would do, but based on which decision will get me the virtue points I want.

 

I think there's choices. This is what the gypsies of Ultima IV were about and what's Richard's Popeye story was about. Ranking the virtues in a different order produces dramatically different outcomes. "do you forgive the man who steals food for his starving family"

I very much see game of thrones style system where different interests are pulling players all over the map...but they're often confronted as moral dilemmas of virtue 1 vs virtue 2. At some point you realize that you've been stealing sheep to feed a starving family...of dragons...and have to decide your next step.

 

@PrimeRib

While I agree the virtue system is better than a straight good/evil divide, my personal worry is even with this, it imposes artificial choices. If a quest requires choosing between defending my honor and maintaining a spiritual calm (or some such thing), I'm going to pick based on other factors, because I don't give a damn about either of those things. The entire scenario seems artificial, because it would never occur to me to defend my honor or worry about my spiritual state. But maybe I'll decide to defend my honor, because I'm curious about what will happen when I do that. But the game will respond to me as if I actually care about my honor, when really a very different value (curiosity, or desire for knowledge) drove my choice. And now, perhaps only for the duration of the quest, perhaps for the rest of the game, assumptions are made about how much I value honor, and the worry is that this means the game will place me in other artificial feeling scenarios.

So there's my worry. If I can't identify with the majority of the virtues (I can't, with the old Ultima virtues), and the values I actually base my choices are aren't present in the game, the scenarios and questions I'm asked will seem artificial and weird, and my responses will reflect that. And then maybe the game will decide I'm a cowardly, hollow, yet compassionate person, when really, there are other value dimensions that much more aptly capture me.

 

So wait, you can't identify with honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality, or humility? That's challenging to credit if I'm honest. I had a situation recently where a friend who is also a grunt at my work, where I'm a manager, came under audit for possibly falsifying his timesheets (he bills through a temp agency). I felt like I should warn him about the audit, but on the other hand, if he was indeed falsifying his time, then he deserves what's coming to him professionally. Complete love/compassion vs justice sort of thing. It doesn't have to be artificial just because it asks a clear question. At least imo, I don't pretend to be the be-all of this stuff Since its a LB/RG game, I imagine it'll use his virtue system though

 

I am a fan of the good/evil system with shades of grey in between.

http://postimg.org/image/xf887tqhd/

Player starts neutral and depending on his actions pushes him morally and ethically in either direction.

I think it's a great mechanic.

 

@Red Sword

I said I can identify with compassion and sacrifice, but that spirituality and honor, in particular, are very bizarre and foreign concepts to me. As for the others, there are other much stronger values that are likely to be guiding my behaviour, so I am just hoping the game doesn't make assumptions about my motives, or tie any mechanics too closely to some virtues I don't care about, effectively forcing me to create a character I can't believe in.

 

@Alayth:

How can you not relate to honor and spirituality?

Aristotle discussed virtue at length, including ideas of what the greatest good may entail. I suggest you give this article a read. It may help you understand what virtue is a little better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_ethics

As Redsword said, this is an RG game and I expect virtue will be a large aspect of the game mechanics.

 

@Ultima

I'm well aware of Aristotelian ethics. I'm well aware of virtue ethics, and think quite highly of it. The issue at hand is what specific virtues will be in the game (an issue that often comes up in writings on virtue ethics, actually), and to what extent all of our actions will be related to specific virtues.

How could I relate to honour or spirituality? I don't believe in souls, and the "state of my inner being" is an odd, ambiguous idea that I can't really relate to. It's a language I can't really interpret.

As for honour, thinking of it in the terms most fantasy games do, it isn't hard to come up with believable characters that don't care about honour. The clever assassin, who only takes on missions that, she believes, make the kingdom a better place - but she has no problem killing in "dishonourable" ways, or people ridiculing her methods to her face. Why would these things matter to her? I find these sorts of honest characters, who do what needs to be done without caring about reputation, much more understandable than a paladin who stands up alone in front of a whole army, effectively committing suicide, for the "honour" of his clan.

I expect virtues to play a large aspect in the game as well. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing for me. I just hope it's implemented in a way that doesn't make you feel artificial if you don't care much about the virtues in the game - OR I hope they include enough virtues that I can honestly follow some of them. Look at the Aristotelian ethics page you linked to. Aristotle believed the thinker was the most virtuous sort of person, the intellectual virtues the most important virtues. This goes well beyond "Honesty", the virtue tied most closely to truth in the Ultima virtue system, and I would love to see these sorts of intellectual virtues implemented in the game.

 

I think not being able to relate well to certain virtues is the point. Everyone should rank them differently.

If you come across a town that's just been raided by "barbarians", someone will want to help every last person, some will want to bring them to justice, some will ignore the town and complete their mission, and some will finish the job the raiders started.

 

@Alayth It's impossible to make an arbitrary system of virtues that means all things to all people everywhere. It just isn't going to happen.

What you're referring to with the assassin and the paladin with varying definitions of the virtue of 'honor' is a wonderful chance at character building within the game. Every NPC isn't going to follow every virtue, nor are they going to have the same interpretation of each virtue as all other characters, and especially not as all players. They wouldn't be believable characters, otherwise. They'd be static morons. There's no law of the universe that says both characters are not honorable simply because they do not follow each others' definitions. (The exception is a game like Ultima 4 where, as I mention below, you can literally define in game mechanics terms what actions are what virtue.)

Also, just because you as an individual don't relate to one particular definition of a virtue that could be chosen for the game (a definition that will inevitably vary widely from one person to the next) doesn't mean that you can't, if necessary, appreciate the definition as given to you in game context and act accordingly (or non-accordingly) as the situation requires.

Additionally, Aristotelian ethics has little to nothing to do with Ultima. Courage, temperence, justice, etc. had their own relative definitions within the historical context of Aristotle's time and are far removed from the eight virtues of the Avatar. In Britannia, the virtues are not simply hypothetical ideals, but real, tangible levels of goodness an individual can achieve. Likewise, they have specific definitions that involve specific acts. A debate over what x and y historic philosopher thought of the exceedingly broad definition of 'virtue' has no consequence in relation to "giving a gold piece to a beggar gives you +1 Compassion".

 

@tekkamansoul

I totally agree with everything you've said, which makes me think I need to clarify

My worry is about there possibly being a fairly limited number of rigid virtues, and that many quests (and other game mechanics) will rely on these. I'm not saying this is how it will be implemented, but I think it's a legitimate concern. If at any point a quest dialogue comes to the point where I am choosing between "I will fight to defend my honour!" and "I will not fight, it would upset my inner balance", I would feel very, very alienated from my character. My character would never say either of those things. Too often in games, I am forced to make choices like that, and that's what I think needs to be avoided here.

Similarly, if in order to be a good mage, I need to cultivate my spiritual side, or to be decent as a warrior, I need to be valorous, these are issues. There's nothing wrong with a clever warrior who picks their battles, or a skeptical mage who doesn't think much of meditation.

 

@ Tekkamansoul-

Excellent examples: you offer several possibilities, and different people will end up having different ideas on what they think is best in that situation. Great job, sir.

@ Alayth -

You brought up the old Ultima series' 8 virtues. When you said [paraphrased] "Do they include love of knowledge, beauty, creativity, freedom?", I immediately thought of spirituality. This may not apply to you, but to me spirituality *is* the representation of those aspects (and more, such as openmindedness; I think of spirituality as a cultivation of one's inner self, which is shown via a love of knowledge and creativity) and not necessarily a reflection of some karmic belief system or contemplative inner state. For those religiously inclined, spirituality is clearly describable; but not everyone who is religious is spiritual, or vice-versa.

I do entirely agree with your concern that the game *could* degenerate into specific interpretations of morality. I would be pleased to see some functional flexibility with what constitutes a virtuous decision or not. You can and should play as a good mage or a clever warrior, without needing to adhere to anything specific. Unless, of course, you are trying to make that character reach the transcendence of Avatarhood; in which case, they probably should be/become people who would at least understand the value of honesty or honor or courage or what-have-you.

 

That is an excellent point, and I think I know exactly what games you're talking about
I have faith that Mr Garriott knows what the difference is between a "role-playing game" and an RPG with black and white (Good vs Evil) dialogue options. Nobody likes being funneled through a morality tube, if you will.

It *is* a problem when games tend to spoonfeed dialogue and morality choices into your character. You, as the player, should be able to roleplay how you wish through your own actions.

The virtue system is hopefully implemented in a way similar to how it works in games after U4. In those games, the virtues existed, but people didn't follow them blindly, especially in U7, and it was kind of assumed that they were more or less things to aspire to rather than an absolute, "do I follow this virtue or not?" and be judged accordingly.

I'm excited to see how things turn out, but I'm definitely not worried about Old Republic style, black and white, light vs dark style alignment.

 

@Becarem

Calling all those things spirituality seems odd - calling a cloistered academic whose main goal in life is the attainment of knowledge spiritual seems a pretty far stretch for me (and lumping all of those values I listed in together seems wrong to me as well). But maybe that's just me being pedantic - I have a special place in my heart for such an academic character (and will likely play one similar to that), and feel like it's different in important ways than rangers who are at peace with nature - the Skara Brae example of spirituality. But maybe that sort of coarse-grained virtue system's fine, assuming the game doesn't think that because my character reads books he also must feel oneness with the universe (or something weird like that).

I guess I'm just left with a lot of questions about what role the virtues will play, in the main story plot, in the world, and in the game mechanics. It's hard for me to visualize how you can have virtues play a big role in the story and game mechanics, but not basically impose them on players in one way or another. That's what raises my concern, but now I've raised it, and hopefully the team is well aware of the possible pitfalls and will proceed in a way to avoid them.