How Morality in Games Messes With My Karma

A new entry to Simon’s Blog of Hypothetical Wonderment attempts to explain why the author possesses an “irrational fear of moral decisions in video games.” Dragon Age: Origins, Fallout 3, and The Witcher are all referenced as examples:

Fallout 3, as I regrettably have not finished New Vegas yet, is a very interesting example of moral decision making within video games. It has, in fact, led me to believe that all morality is relative to the situation. Fallout is set in a post apocalyptic world where everyone is fighting and striving to survive, so naturally there is a strong “every man for himself” mentality present practically everywhere your wasteland wanderer visits. So while the karma system is very black and white (steal something and you lose karma, help someone you gain it), I don’t really agree with this. If you are barely surviving in post apocalyptica with not a cap to your name, then stealing a magazine of ammo to make it to your next destination is not always definitely “wrong” is it? This context interestingly allowed me to enjoy the morality within Fallout 3 a lot more than say Dragon Age, purely because I could justify to myself whether what I was doing was right or wrong, without having to worry about how this would damage or benefit my game.

An often overlooked game with very deep moral complexity is The Witcher. The Witcher, most unlike imFamous and Fallout, has a moral system where there is very little black and white, “right or wrong” reasoning. This is something seen so little in games, and with my unfortunate state of mind towards decision making, a very frightening prospect.

The only way I could understand a fear of tough moral decisions is if you know, from the start, that you’ll most likely never play through the game more than once. That very rarely applies to me, so I welcome them.