The game is a series of interesting options.
Sid · Mel
Although it is impossible to verify why the first designer to set up a moral dilemma in a video game was the intention, after designing the 10,086th task of "helping the village head grandmother catch 6 chickens and get 3 silver coins", it is estimated that even the purest designer will have a black belly - why can players easily "I want it all"? The designers who came up with this idea turned to testing the player's game technology and gamepad/keyboard and mouse resistance, such as Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy and Jump King, and the other part learned to grasp the spirit of "attacking the heart", turning around and writing:
In a village plagued by monsters and withered by people, there is a child who is not around, and the bedridden grandmother asks the brave (player) to go to the grass outside the village to catch a few pheasants for much-needed food. But when I got there, I found that the grass was not ownerless pheasants, they belonged to the landlord Grande. Grantaire rejected your offer to buy it, calling grain storage valuable during the turbulent years and warning you not to act rashly. At this point, the brave are faced with two options, either turn around and return to tell the grandmother truthfully that she cannot complete the task, or wait for the late night to infiltrate the theft. What should the brave do? - This scene will be mentioned several times below, and later referred to as "Grandmother's Request"
Of course, a designer full of "malice" will not be satisfied with a limited supply, he will look for a way to mass production.
The most convenient way to set up moral dilemmas is to integrate them into the task, and since the task is generally reflected by events, we can completely turn out the english composition notes for the third grade of primary school to see how the teacher teaches. Take a linear task, for example, which typically contains:
- who: Who posted the task? (Granny)
- where: Where is the task executed? Is it fixed point or range? (Meadows outside the village)
- When: There is an infinite time limit for performing a task? (Generally not)
- what: What to do? (Catching Chickens)
- Why: What is the motivation for completing the task? (3 Silver Coin Rewards)
- How: What is the means to accomplish the task? (Non-combat collection)
These elements are essential at the skeleton level, but in order to create ethical dilemmas, we need to think about a few additional aspects.
choose
Designs that allow players to achieve their only goals through the only means are in most cases conducive to controlling player behavior and the direction of the game, but in the context of moral dilemmas, it will appear unsatisfactory. "Giving the choice to the player" is not only about setting up multiple options that have practical meaning and conflict, but also requires designers to maintain a God perspective, that is, to provide only options and consequences, without judging the merits or demerits. Otherwise, the moral dilemma becomes a moral propaganda, an export of the designer's personal values (not impossible, but obviously cross-flavored). The different reviews of the two popular games of 11-bit studios show us the dangers of "crossing the line": in the studio's previous critically acclaimed work, Theis War of Mine, the player plays a civilian, constantly in the conflict between "ensuring that he survives the extreme conditions of war" and "whether and to what extent he can hurt others for this". You can either be self-reliant (obviously relatively difficult) and take up arms to rob others of more supplies. Robbery or even murder can put our character under additional psychological stress and affect their health, but to a lesser extent than the more immediate hunger value. In any case, the game doesn't judge your actions themselves, but only gives the player hints through excellent scenes and character buildings. However, in the follow-up work Frostpunk, which is also the studio's specialty of the "struggle to choose in extreme environments", the production team made a comment on the player's way of playing in the ending (including the controversial "Is it worth it?"). ”）。 It can be said that 11 bit studios, which have been committed to showing the complexity of decision-making behavior, have deviated from the original intention here and actively simplified the understanding of player decisions. Given that the player has actually achieved the goal of the game (level), some of the comments are particularly weak and even comical. Frostpunk, a game that is actually remarkable in its intentions, can no longer be compared with its predecessor This War of Mine.
By positioning yourself as a designer and offering good choices, you complete the first piece of the puzzle to set the moral dilemma.
feedback
The player makes a choice and gets the corresponding consequence, which is feedback. Feedback for linear tasks is usually explicit, single, and material. These feedback includes in-game currency, item equipment, experience points, skills and skill points, various attribute improvements, etc., which can directly make the player feel the stimulation of "I have become stronger".
In the moral dilemma, in order to allow the player to focus on the entanglement of experience choices, materiality is first shaken. In a moral dilemma where there is no absolute right or wrong, too much prominence of materiality can upset the balance of choice, and the player's decision to maximize profits rather than inner moral judgment is clearly contrary to the designer's intentions. In the case of clear right and wrong, materiality itself becomes a weight on the balance, and it is bound to the wrong party, becoming a question of "what is your moral value". At this time, as a price of obedience to inner morality, the material reward of loss can neither be set as painless nor itchy, nor should it create a qualitative and irreversible obstacle to the player's game progress. If the player is tested of the same nature multiple times during the game, it is also necessary to consider whether the character strength will become unreasonably weak or unreasonably strong under the two extremes of "complete saint mode" and "complete villain mode". In order to enrich the content of moral dilemmas and draw players' attention to moral choices, it can be seen that most games eventually tend to weaken the materiality of feedback and focus on spiritual rewards and punishments. For example, in "Grandma's Request", although helping Grandma will not let you get the sword in the stone, you can get the old man's thanks; after a while, when you return to the village, you can see the old grandmother who was originally bedridden and sit outside the door, talk to her, she will thank you again for your help, and tell you that she has regained contact with her children who have lost contact in the turmoil, and her future life has a settlement... Of course, spiritual rewards and punishments have a heavier "one willing to fight the other" characteristics than materiality, how to convince the player, or immerse themselves in the designer's design of the scene, this is another problem, will be mentioned below.
The clarity of feedback consists of two parts, one is "whether the feedback can be perceived by the player" and the other is "whether the player is told (at least sufficiently implied) all feedback content". The first point is usually not controversial, if there is a feedback extreme that cannot be perceived by the player until the end of the game, then it itself loses the meaning of the feedback and becomes an invalid design. The difference is only that instead of jumping out of the prompt "xxx" as soon as the task is completed, some feedback can be done to delay the display design. For example, the chaos setting in the Dishonored series, in the game, the player kills enemies other than the culprit will accumulate chaos, the chaos will not be reflected immediately, but after the completion of the main line of the game, the game will affect the game ending according to the cumulative value, so as to encourage the player to take non-lethal means to subdue the enemy as much as possible. Even so, in order to prevent the player from looking confused until the end of the game and finding out that they have inadvertently gone to a non-happy ending, the game clearly points out the existence of chaos and the way to control it at the beginning. In other words, the content of the feedback can be kept secret, but the existence of the variable itself is not hidden. This is in line with the general understanding that gives the player enough control over the game that "behavior-feedback" is not disjointed. But what if the designer wants to tell the player about the inability of the individual and the uncertainty of the world? That brings us to the controversial second point:
On the way to find the missing adopted daughter Ciri, the protagonist meets the Bloody Baron, who has helped Cirie, who tells the protagonist that his wife and daughter are missing and asks the protagonist to find clues. After some twists and turns, the protagonist finds a witch in an orphanage who seems to know the truth, but the witch tells the protagonist that in order to obtain information, he must kill the deformed monster hidden in a cave not far away. However, when the protagonist comes to the monster, the monster says that he is persecuted by a witch and trapped here, and the witch is an evil creature who lives by sacrificing the orphans of the orphan village. If the protagonist can spare himself, he will help save the lives of the orphans. How should the protagonist be chosen?
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt "Lady in the Woods" mission
The Witcher 3, the pearl of the narrative to RPG, has made many bold attempts in this regard, and "Lady in the Woods" is one of the representatives. In this mission, the predictable consequences of the player based on known intelligence are probably: not killing the monster, not completing the witch's commission, not getting information about the baron's wife and daughter, but if the monster is true, he can save a village orphan; killing the monster, getting the baron's wife and daughter information can be sent, but the orphan may be sacrificed. At first glance, "Mrs. in the Woods" is heavier than the setting, and there is no essential difference between "Grandma's Request", but this is not the case, and the designer hides most of it here (!). Feedback content, which is difficult to predict based on existing intelligence. The full ending is:
- Do not kill the monster: The orphans of the orphan village are rescued, but the monster blood washes another nearby village that supports the support of the witch, and the Bloody Baron hangs himself in despair because he does not get the news of his wife and daughter;
- Killing monsters: Orphans in orphan villages are killed by witches as sacrifices, nearby villages that support the support of witches survive, the baron gets news of his wife and daughter and eventually takes his wife away to treat his illness, but the baron who stays behind quickly seizes power and does nothing evil in the base area, so that the base area loses its former tranquility.
CDPR dared to do this design to reflect a high degree of confidence in its own narrative level. But even so, from the perspective of player reactions, while truly experiencing the feeling of powerlessness, it is still inevitable to feel that the point of "pit daddy" is that it is not only the protagonist of the game, but also the player - this is a complaint point that will only happen in the "game" occasion. It should be noted that the core of the game that distinguishes it from the traditional form of art creation lies in the high degree of interactivity. No matter how absurd the protagonist's experience may be, the reader is a complete bystander perspective to the novel, but the game is not. Especially for narrative rpg games, the different practices that players carry out based on their own judgment are themselves the value of such games. In terms of player status, the examination of the game is not only "how could it be", but also questions "What did my behavior cause this consequence?" "Is this the consequence I expected?" "Can I change direction?" And so on. Therefore, in the case of moral dilemmas, designers can "embarrass" players in advance, but personally believe that they should still maintain honesty at the feedback level. For moral dilemma tasks that rely more on mental feedback, the disconnect between behavior and feedback will make the player reasonably expect positive feedback to get nothing, and if the player further loses trust in the test set in the game and thinks that it is only a "random game", the player will no longer invest in moral considerations, and the design of the moral dilemma will actually fail.
As mentioned earlier, the setting of moral dilemmas requires more "one willing to fight one wish", leaving aside for the time being, such as the architecture of the worldview, the filling rendering of huge amounts of detail, and so on. The reason is that these factors are difficult to replicate to a certain extent, and most games are either limited to the development cost of not being able to make, or limited to the size of the game is difficult to swallow. Are there more detailed and general "formulaic factors"?
Enhances the sense of substitution
1. Contact
It can also be directly understood as "drama". The reason why "relationships" is not said is because relationships are more like descriptions of the current state, and connections can be seen as the sum of past experiences. Of course, directly pointing out that an npc is a group of relatives and friends for the player's role can indeed increase the player's attention, but if the game does not only revolve around the small circle of the protagonist, it is still necessary to use the connection to increase the player's awareness of the specific character. The most common way to create connections is to act together, and more extravagantly, there is also a dedicated plot, including temporarily changing the characters who manipulate them. If the size of the game is not enough to support it, it is also feasible to use the "evaluation" of other npCs, as well as the "description" of the game's Chinese word data.
2. Motivation
Different from the previously mentioned motivation of the player to complete the task, this refers to the reason why npc asks the player to do or not to do something. Like the protagonist's ordinary NPC, it will be involved in the moral dilemma scenario, at which time the "connection" may not work, depending on factors such as motivation. Motivations range from sustaining life to trying to change the world. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the more basic the demand tends to represent a higher urgency and is more likely to arouse the empathy of the player. High-level needs usually require more detailed preparation, which conflicts with the "passerby" attribute. There should be trade-offs in the actual design.
3. Cost
This refers to the consequences that an npc will suffer if the player rejects the npc request. In general, players can deduce costs from motivation. For example, in "Grandma's Request", the grandmother's motivation is to "obtain urgently needed food to solve hunger", and it is natural to know that if the request is rejected, the price is "the grandmother may starve to death". Logically, for the player, the core of the motivation is "identification", and the core of the cost is "avoidance". As a result, although the motivation of some NPCs is not recognized by the player, it is still possible for the player to tend to the side of the impure motive in the moral dilemma because the rejection of the NPC request will lead to huge adverse consequences that the player does not want to see. (The debate involving teleology and deontology is developed here, there is no absolute right or wrong, and it is used flexibly)
