Interesting observation about morality in games

[alexxkay]

Was helping interview a candidate for a game design position today, and in the course of the conversation, he made a really interesting observation:

Videogames that have a morality system typically reward the player for picking one morality and sticking with it through the whole game. If you're always good, you get access to the best "good powers"; if you're always evil, you get access to the best "evil powers". This means that the player is (from a game-mechanics sense) discouraged from having any sort of character arc. If the player acts in a way that implies a character arc, current games can't even recognize that behavior, much less reward it.

Questions for future pondering:
Can videogame main characters have an arc?
If they could, would it be a Good Thing?

Comments

Re: Dynamic cost model

[metageek.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't read/seen those; but that wasn't really the point. The point was just that, by adopting a slightly more complex cost model, you can get much more complex behavior.

Ideally, a cost model would provide for more than one arc, by being state-dependent. If you took too long to save your wife, she gets badly hurt by zombies, and develops an irrational hatred for them. She doesn't start feeling for them, and discovers that, if she cuts out their hearts, she finds something to let you control zombies. If you encourage her, you gain power, but eventually, when she meets your daughter, she realizes what she's been doing, and kills herself. If you don't encourage her, she gets over it herself; you don't get enough power to make a big difference in combat, but it is enough to keep your daughter safe, and maybe to cure her.