The Oracle Paradox

Spoiler alert

So there is recursion in your concept, which makes it very eloquent, and infinite.

We however still have a big AI puzzle to solve, and I also hope for personalized input with elaborate ramifications and not merely overlapping affinities.

 

I think I'm at once both more pessimistic in outlook and more optimistic here.

On the one hand--the Oracle is just one yardstick of virtue. We've seen others in Ardoris' factions, and in the contrast between the Knights of Norgard and the Kobolds of Skrekk. Even if Truth, Love, and Courage remain the only three Virtues measured by the game, further developments may give us other ways to distinguish ourselves. Steal the food, take the Oracle's truthiness hit; donate that food to someone, and even if the Oracle doesn't recognize it as Love, that person or her community might think you're the bee's knees. Instead of kids asking "Why does the Oracle hate you?" ("I steal candles," I reply. "Plus vials both filled and empty.") they might ask "Why does the Oracle hate you when you're the hero of Canton?"

On the other hand: it seems that the Oracle may be the fulcrum on which the core story rests. If so, then I'd wonder if our standing in her eyes would determine our roles in the story, to the exclusion of anything else that we've done in the world. Aside from some feeling of disappointment, for me it'd be like requiring a certain suspension of disbelief beyond that needed to engage the game world. I might be able to overlook the disconnect--or maybe even revel in it, the same way I might throw peanuts at LARPers having a Very Serious Conversation In-Character--but I wouldn't expect everyone to do the same.

And on the gripping hand: I think @Time Lord is on to something with those thoughts about Arabella. She clearly knows more than she lets on. Will she be a major player, or just a catalyst? Does she see Virtue as the Oracle does? Does she lead us to the Oracle that she might change us, or that we might change her?

Heck, where in the Abyss is Lord British in all this? Will he be bringing a more Ultima-inflected system of Virtue back with him? Would he offer a more human assessment of Virtue that might recognize things the Oracle doesn't or won't? Will he be less an occasionally-interactive NPC and more another outlander caught up in all of this?

In any case, if the very definition of Virtue is a major thread of the core story, I'd think that'd suggest systems that avoid the mechanical inevitability of the Oracle's judgment.

 

I'm familiar with the story 'Charlotte's Web', but illustrating that with a picture of a black widow?? Seems a bit of a contradiction

 

I genuinely believe that there is much that isn't being revealed yet in this game.

 

Exactly. And if that helps you get deeper in touch with your own ethical framework... then mission accomplished!

 

Right on Time Lazlo Good to see you over here to provide a perfect example A perfect example of what you may ask... "the anti-hero" or "The Byronic Hero";
Byronic hero definition. A kind of hero found in several of the works of Lord Byron. Like Byron himself, a Byronic hero is a melancholy and rebellious young man, distressed by a terrible wrong he committed in the past, or is acting out in the now.

Wearing a black leather jacket with some gang symbols on your back, yet being taken as a nice guy, "but tough" is something that many rich lawyers do on the week ends to hangout with their other nature, which is the truly rat bastards that they are by expressing it through fashion instead of their actual physical toughness to win any battles, because in reality, they have none or is in a bygone era of what they once wished to be, or could have been.

There is no Mr. Hyde... the villain of confusion within the anti-hero of himself, "for himself" which makes him a villain, but still can fit the anti hero of some cultural desires who may see something of themselves inside the villainous character.

Edward Hyde is not a separate personality living in the same body as Henry Jekyll. "Hyde" is just Jekyll, having transformed his body into something unrecognizable, acting on unspecified urges that would be unseemly for someone of his age and social standing in Victorian London like some combination of violence and sex. Torture is specifically mentioned. Jekyll did not create a potion to remove the evil parts of his nature. He made a potion that allowed him express his urges without feeling guilty and without any consequences besmirching his good name. That’s also why he names his alter ego "Hyde," because Hyde is a disguise, to be worn and discarded like a thick cloak. He might as well have called Edward "Mr. Second Skin," or "Mr. Mask."

It’s important that it’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Jekyll is a respected professor. Hyde is lower class. Hyde is also much younger than Jekyll. Both of these facts allow Jekyll as Hyde to get away with a lot worse behavior.

Crucially, we never get Hyde’s point of view. Because it does not exist. Even when he looks like Hyde, Jekyll always thinks of himself as Jekyll. In his testament that ends The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll always talks about his time in Hyde’s body using "I" statements: I looked in the mirror and saw Hyde, the pleasures I sought in my disguise, I awoke to see I had the hand of Hyde. Even when describing the murder of Sir Danvers, the worst thing he ever does as Hyde, Jekyll says "I mauled the unresisting body" and then, "I saw my life to be forfeit". That is, he both takes responsibility for the murder and the pleasure it brought him and has a very Jekyll-like fear of losing the good life he has. He is always Jekyll, no matter what he looks like, or how he’s behaving.

So, as we can see, there's so many ways an anti-hero can be miss assumed to be an actual hero, or for the hero to be an anti-hero, or a confused mix between them both because their sick or wishing to break out of their sterio type cast which all their feelings or desires may not fit into, or just plain outright mentally disturbed ... because sometimes the anti-hero is only being a hero for themselves or visa-versa... You just never reveal it's depth or shallowness until it's end or time of reckoning has come, or, you can outwardly express it in it's arbitrary nature and then in the end reveal that awakening.... there's just many ways to play such characters into a mystery.... yet once it's solved or solvable, it's entertainment value as a mystery vanishes.

Mystery must be maintained or it's a static world storyline...

"If the Oracle is a computer" and not some walkie-talkie communication device being spoken through by an entity who may not wish to reveal themselves.
"Hello there! My name is Lum!"~

~Time Lord~

 

I don't think you would be any less qualified. But if you DID set out to create a game meant to stimulate thinking about ethical decision-making... how would YOU do it?

IF it's all about following one's conscience and making the "person in the mirror happy" then... how would you create a game mechanic around that? I don't see a way to do it other than to create a character that represents the shadow side of the concept... Unless you have another idea..?

What I mean to say is... put yourself in RG's shoes... he wants to make a game about ethics... on the one hand, computers make that all possible. On the other hand, computers are horribly unsuited to partake in ethical discussions. Now go make a game...

Some people are not troubled by the idea of an all-powerful long-bearded white man living somewhere up in the clouds playing "who's naughty and who's nice" around an arbitrary set of rules and commands that are intrinsically in conflict with one another. But such is life.

If the Oracle is troubling to you... I say good. She's meant to be troubling, at least that's my sense of the whole thing.

I see the hurdle here as getting past the notion that the Oracle (and the mentality she represents) is being portrayed as something we should accept as "good."

 

That's already gone. And some people were already whining because now they had no way of maintaining their "perfect" virtue scores by being able to test every little action in the game to see how it impacted said scores.

On a somewhat related note, I think we're out of punch...

 

I'm willing to be a carrot thief-for-hire. PM me for details.

 

I agree with you far too often ...
Which is why you're one of my true competitive SOTA heroes

It's sometimes like talking to a mind that has a steel trap inside it !'
~Time Lord~

 

Salient points worth pondering!

 

YES! Being given only two choices... binary thinking... is the first clue that the Oracle cannot be a sentient being. Or if she is sentient, she is being deliberately manipulative and disingenuous.

 

The fact that we are all contemplating these ideas... taking them out of the game into our real lives... I think that's the point.

 

If he's watching... I'd think he'd be very pleased with the amount of pondering and inner struggle around ethical decision-making this game has already inspired...

 

Those two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

 

Thanks! *invitation to spar*

 

If I asked you to steal a carrot for me I'd expect to get a double dip in my Virtue scores.

 

Right, I totally agree. It's a tough ask of anyone.

I certainly wasn't trying to say that Richard was wrong for trying to do this, or that he was doing a bad job on the path he has chosen. I was saying that he (and Lum) were not translating it well to me personally. Which is an even bigger challenge than just trying to reach the majority of people.

How would I do it? Well I think I'd make the assumption that some folks will just mindlessly follow the path of the game without really thinking about it, while others (like me) will perhaps over think about it. Neither group is "right" or "wrong" but ideally I'd want to reach as many from both groups as I can. And currently I think the people that are actually thinking about it are being under served. I hope people (Richard and Lum) can tell by my posts that I'm not just being critical here, I'm actually really thinking about their game and trying to figure out the logic of it. I'm doing this because I like their game, and I'm giving this feedback because I want the logic to be good enough to stand up against reasonable critical thinking. That should be considered a good thing! Because it means they have an active audience that WANTS to be engaged.

But back to how I would do that...

Using the existing Oracle model, I would look for ways to validate that the Oracle has POWER that Avatars have to care about. For example, the Oracle can give Avatar's gold. That's actually a very compelling reason to go and play the Oracle's games. However, I can get enough gold using other methods without ever going to the Oracle. So that reason doesn't impact me the way it probably does other people. So what else could the Oracle do? Well the Oracle could perhaps stop being so cryptic and start actually giving information of value that will help solve puzzles or quests. But Lum has already talked about the Oracle being cryptic for a reason so I suppose that's out.

The Oracle could also be a gatekeeper that you had to interact with in order to progress (I think that's probably happening now but I'm not sure) and because my character would like to learn as much as he can about the world of New Britannia he'll visit the Oracle and experiment with it as a form of research. But will he see the Oracle as an authority on virtue? Probably not, and I think that could also mean that the "point of the game" is lost to me the player but we'll see.

I think the best way to get players to think about their ethical choices is to reward or not reward them based on their actions. The saying "no good deed goes unpunished" is a good one. I have found that it is very often true in real life and so I would start by punishing the heck out of people that perform good acts. I would make it very difficult to be super good. I would make the path to being "virtuous" include things like giving away a large portion of your wealth (and maybe even your experience points!). I would make reward acts of evil with cool "stuff" and most of all I would make the choices of the players impact future episodes of the game. I would tally up all the people that complete the three quests and aggregate the numbers to decide what happens to the world of New Britannia. If the majority of players are bad evil creatures I would make Episode II a hellscape befitting the actions of the players. If the majority of players that completed the three quests were virtuous I would make the world a pleasant reminder of their good deeds.

I would also look for as many ways as possible to show individual players that what they are doing MATTERS. I would reward individual players with cool "stuff" if they have exceptional good or bad virtue scores. This will make those players stand out in the crowd and promote the idea to the rest of the community that what you do actually matters in the game.

 

I like that! And I'm hoping/expecting for it to be something like that. However, I think it might be fair enough to put in some kind of bias toward being Virtuous... as long as there is a counterbalance with the rewards as you are suggesting. It may in fact be easier to become "super good" however the personal rewards are not as great. Thus, a player who succeeds in becoming "super evil" is being recognized through the Virtue game mechanics to actually have put in more effort and thus is given an achievement that is, in some respects, "higher" than that "goody-two-shoes" Avatar-wanna-be playing according to the most superficial set of "rules."

There are a few ways that immediately come to mind about the rewards. For example, being "evil" could bring more material rewards, such as gold and gear, while being "good" brings more intangibles, such as experience and stat bonuses. Perhaps the evildoers are given special advantages in one-on-one situations, while Club Avatar can only access the most powerful benefits when in a group. (I'm just throwing stuff out there.)

There could also be a special set of rewards for players who remain neutral...

As for the ethical decisions of the players changing the course of the story as new episodes get released... umm YEEEEAHHHH! LB/Port would have to be pretty stupid not to do that. Right?

Totally. And I totally believe that is all in the works. BUT it might not necessarily be all decided yet... so point being the kinds of discussion and ideas you are expressing here in this forum may very well be having an effect on shaping how that all turns out.

I'm sure they are struggling just as much as we are with how they are going to pull everything off. I'm hoping for the best, expecting the worst, and will probably be satisfied with however it turns out!

Some folks expect the best, fear for the worst, and will probably never be satisfied with however it turns out. That's OK too... they're still playing the game whether or not they ever log in.