Ben Franklin keeps up appearances.

Paragons of Virtue

Stealing is OK as long as it's done well.
– Richard Garriott, Ultima VIII: Pagan

In Britannia, the Avatar is both the chief prophet and living example of virtue, constantly returning to dethrone evil and valiantly correct heretical moralities, all while modeling honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality and humility.

We all want to be that good guy, the hero. It's not enough to be the main character in our stories; we also have to be right. It's incredibly difficult to see ourselves as the bad guy. Even stories we tell about villains end up making us feel like maybe he wasn't so bad. So why is the Avatar such a rampant opportunist and thief? Why are we all?

The Avatar isn't alone. What character paused to consider the owner before opening a chest or smashing open a semi-hidden pot or out-of-the-way crate? Who among us has struggled with the ramifications of unearthing a rural family's life savings from behind their house? What virtual leader has considered the treatment and daily lives of their subjects before choosing a government type or moving a slider?

There are, of course, justifications. We need that potion, cash, weapon, or largely worthless keepsake to help save the world, after all. I'm sorry for ruining your garden, but there may have been something hiding under those vegetables you had planned on living off of this winter. Hey, at least this way winter will turn to spring instead of a wretched hellscape. You obviously don't appreciate all I'm doing for you.

Ezio runs through cities on a quest to avenge his family and rid Renaissance Italy of corrupt Templar officials, but is constantly dropping onto private balconies to rob unsuspecting citizens. Sure, guards are sometimes henchmen for the bad guys, but even when the town’s been cleared up, you’ll still end up cutting them for presuming to object to your rampant trespassing.

Democracy is simply inconvenient for my goal of attacking the Aztecs. When I sack their city and that small amount of money enters my treasury, I can’t be bothered to consider how we took that money from the inhabitants of the city, much less spare the existence of the buildings and hundreds of thousands of conquered citizens.

But really, how often do we finish ridding the world of evil without also being radiantly equipped and fabulously wealthy? Who then goes back over their accounting to reimburse all those NPCs? Who returns that crappy weapon to the private's footlocker? When we rescue slaves, do we think to let them loot the captors and reclaim their property? Who among us refuses to loot for reasons beyond utility or inconvenience?

So yes, there may be something in many of us that drives us to choose paragon paths, but we still dabble in black magic when it suits our purposes. So where does that leave us, only acting good when we know our actions are being observed and judged? Only doing the right thing when the consequences are clearly presented?

But there is a limit to how far we'll go. Many of us get uncomfortable playing torture games. We twinge at the thought of playing Super Columbine Massacre RPG! Cheating and "dishonorable" play are still discouraged.

Even Ben Franklin is criticized for sometimes settling for the mere appearance of virtue, and it’s hard for me to take sides against the man who said, “Games lubricate the body and the mind.” After all, whether we're talking about Ben's 13 virtues, the Avatar's 8 or Moses's 10, perfection is an awfully high target. But I'm not sure how often our characters really even try.

So what do we do with this cognitive dissonance? Do we limit morality to what’s been codified in the game’s design? How do we write off our virtual transgressions, and why is it different to ignore your child in Rohrer’s Gravitation than it is in Fable 3?

Do we dismiss these questions because fun is more important—and if so, why don’t we prefer games where we don’t have to worry so much about these questions? Why does BioWare bother? Why don’t we play games where enemies are abstracted beyond humanity, or where we shoot love pellets to subdue blue meanies? Why isn’t Care Bears the hottest IP in FPS games? Why do we instead buy and play games that stretch, warp and challenge our moral senses? Heck, why don’t we just stick to Madden or Go?

Ultima 7 charity
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Ultima 6 cover

Comments

I guess I've just trained myself a certain way with games.

An interesting question to ask would be whether any given player their attitude to the character they control, is it an projection of themselves in the game world, whether it lets them do something opposite to them in real life, whether they have to do what they interpret the character would do, are they just seeing it as an artificial game entity and playing the numbers, and so on.

Scratched wrote:

I guess I've just trained myself a certain way with games.

An interesting question to ask would be whether any given player their attitude to the character they control, is it an projection of themselves in the game world, whether it lets them do something opposite to them in real life, whether they have to do what they interpret the character would do, are they just seeing it as an artificial game entity and playing the numbers, and so on.

I've had a very hard time playing the "evil" option in games with a binary choice between good and evil. Generally I'll play the good guy my first playthrough, and then half-ass an evil playthrough and never finish it. The rare exception so far is Mass Effect. I'm having a blast, since the dichotomy isn't so much between good and evil, as it is between being compassionate and utterly ruthless. Shepard's goal remains the same, only her methodology (and freaky facial scars/red eyes) changes.

I think Bioware 'polluted' the alignment system in Mass Effect for themselves by tying it to repercussions in game based on the various (visible to the player) measures and proportions of paragon and renegade. I've done playthroughs going for maximum of each, which is playing the numbers. I'd love to see what would happen if they kept the options for what your character could do, but scrapped the system behind it, to play with the 'what do you end up doing when you think no one is looking'.

wordsmythe wrote:

I may just not have the mindset shift into a more pure I/O model that many gamers have when entering a virtual space. Then again, I also don't treat people much differently online than in real life, so I know I'm odd already.

Because I don't tend to make that shift, it's fairly natural for me to act in suboptimal ways in games, just as I often do things in real life without any direct reason or reward for doing it.

I know I'm sounding sanctimonious here. I don't want to tell other people how to play games. I just wonder to what extent I'm alone in this.

For me it depends on the game. And when I played it. For instance, I said I killed everyone in Ultima 3. I did. However, every time I've played Fallout & Fallout 2 (at least 3 times each), I'm a good guy. In GTA4, I was a mass murderer because the missions required it and the population was so cookie-cutter sheep-like. In ME1 & ME2 I was a mostly Renegade, but one that tried to save innocents and did what was possible to take care of the crew.

Tanglebones wrote:

I've had a very hard time playing the "evil" option in games with a binary choice between good and evil.

That's the subject of Elysium's earlier post that got me writing this post.

wordsmythe wrote:
Pawz wrote:

I think it all comes down to consequences. In real life, there are serious consequences to any of this sort of behaviour (Oops just blew up some innocent bystanders - drat... Carry on!).

I tend to think that living an ethical life due to fear of repercussion is missing something. Something big.

There's two factors to consider: One is straight up behavioural response to negative stimuli.

I'll give you an example I ran into the other day:

In real life, fire burns you. Ouch! Consequences. Therefore I don't touch fire.

Normally, fire in games burns you. Health will drop, you may burst into flames, and you just might have to cast water on your head to douse those flames. Ouch! Consequences. Therefore I tend to avoid fire in games. Last night in Dead Space 2 I avoided some flaming piles without checking if they might hurt or not - the chance of the negative consequence wasn't one I wanted to play around with when I have no spare health!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 does NOT penalise the player for standing in fire. I avoided standing in a flaming hut in Laguna Presa *until I realised this*. Now I consider it to be a nifty hiding spot.

Negative consequences govern action, both in game and out. They are not the *sole* driver for an action, but they certainly can and do have an effect.

Second, there's the ethical or moral standard issue. Games, media, entertainment; anywhere we go where the world we enter says "This is different from reality", the author of that world is responsible for building the moral standard of that place. Sometimes it's wildly different from our own (GTA4). Sometimes it tries to be very similar to ours(Sims). Sometimes the authors haven't even really thought about it, and the only standard are the rules of the game. In fact, most games are so shallow that to call moral shenanigans on a player is the same as punching a paper cutout and calling it assault. Which I guess comes down to the old equation.. game != life.

Perhaps in opposition to that, I freely admit that always thinking in such morally charged terms can be exhausting, and sometimes you "just want to shoot some dudes." As a pastor friend of mine once noted, "Sometimes the most holy thing I can do is to take a nap."

I don't believe I said that the intention of the author had any relevance; rather, the world the author creates (the internal evidence) is what governs the moral standard of the fictional world.

Why we enjoy exploring those worlds? I believe it's a matter of relevance to our own - when we see a portrayal of life 'as it could be' if certain things were different, well, it just highlights how those things are *not* different in the real world and explores some of the reasoning behind the moral standards we have.

And yes, sometimes we quite simply dump all moral thoughts entirely just to play the game

Second, there's the ethical or moral standard issue. Games, media, entertainment; anywhere we go where the world we enter says "This is different from reality", the author of that world is responsible for building the moral standard of that place.

I disagree. A creator can shape (intentionally or accidentally) how and whether morality functions and presents itself within the Magic Circle of a creative work, but the existence or absence of intent on the part of an author doesn't apply to how I engage a work.

Pawz wrote:

Which I guess comes down to the old equation.. game != life.

How about "Games ∈ Life," with the important note that aspects of life don't always apply within the Magic Circle. Especially within games, causes and consequences can vary from their usual functioning in reality. But rule systems lose their ability to model morality as our understanding of morality progresses up Kohlberg's stages—eventually our moralities begin to escape a stationary orbit around considerations of cause and consequence (from considerations of reward and punishment, to considerations of less concrete consequences such as effect on others individually or as a society, and eventually toward service of intangible values). At some point, we must choose whether or not to act morally, even if we can get away with it. That's the point where Elysium struggles to play renegade Shepherd in Mass Effect. That's the point where other goodjers find themselves choosing to obey traffic signals in GTA. That's the point where I considered letting myself die of malaria in Far Cry 2.

Pawz wrote:

Why we enjoy exploring those worlds? I believe it's a matter of relevance to our own - when we see a portrayal of life 'as it could be' if certain things were different, well, it just highlights how those things are *not* different in the real world and explores some of the reasoning behind the moral standards we have.

If you're not familiar with the concept of the Magic Circle, I encourage you to read up on it. I think it's a really important part of the state of play, though imagination and fantasy without play is certainly also worthwhile.