The problem with being "evil" in games

[Craig234]

I've never liked an 'evil' char or side in game.

One issue they need to address is what it means for their game.

Is it the psychotic type kill everythig, or the selfish backstabber, or simply the head of a large organization that dominates everyone to make them serve it?

A lot of times evil is mixed - you find a drug lord who builds schools and hospitals.

The Koch brothers are evil - but they donate to science and PBS while running the second largest private company in the US.

People can't easily agree what evil means a lot, so we get a lot more of stereotypes.

'Evil' isn't that common as a stereotype in the real world.

Jeffrey Dahmer felt great guilt over what he did; he could only kill while drunk, and he tried to save a body for a long time to avoid killing again. Disgusting, but happened.

On the other hand, isn't something like voter suppression - going on now - 'evil'? But not exactly great videogame stuff.

A lot of evil is done in the name of fighting other 'evil'. That's why enemies feed off each other a lot, each justifying their actions by things the other side does wrong.

I think evil in videogames is probably best as parody, not taking itself too seriously, over the top such as Dungeon Keeper.

But it could be done where you have to do bad things to gain - lying, stealing, etc.

A historical note - early in WWII the allied generals were pretty determined to fight a 'clean war', in avoiding things like atrocities killing civilians. Years into the war, the people who were in favor of those things started to get more power; people seemed to just get tired of trying to avoid them, to get numb about war, and killing masses of civilians became pretty routine and excuses were easily accepted.

 

[Jadow]

what i don't like in games is that you get rewarded for being one of the extremes, really good or really evil.

I evaluate each situation differently and sometimes do good things, sometimes bad, sometimes down the middle. i end up in the middle of the alignment spectrum, there should be a reward for that.

 

[Jadow]

The Koch brothers are evil

says you

 

[power_hour]

*removed*

 

[Zenoth]

There's so many different definitions of what "evil" is to start with, it varies from individuals to cultures. It's difficult to say if a game's "evil" side did it "well", or not, since of course we have our own views as to how it "should have been instead". Also the developers are themselves individuals whom have their own definitions of it and had their own visions of how it would be portrayed in their game. You just can't satisfy everyone that's for sure.

I never liked the "Dark Side"'s portrayal of "evil" in KOTOR (not that the Dark Side is "supposed to be evil" to start with but that's another subject and is arguably very subjective anyway). And I despise Renegade's "anti-social" actions in Mass Effect (especially ME2, which makes Shepard more of a "retard" or a "troll" than actually being a social renegade or an undesired person to be around with, and I'm not even talking about any "evilness" here). But I absolutely adore the "evil" and complete raw madness of DC Universe's Joker (seriously, that man has mental issues and the superb voice acting only contributes to make it sound more plausible to the character's actual nature), and I always liked the "Lawful Evil" views of Legion in Shadow Man (he's too self-disciplined to be the "Chaotic" evil type).

Additionally, I have yet to play a game in which both sides consider themselves mutually evil (or maybe I did but I just can't recall right now). In the end when you have two "sides" in a game, for one character to chose from (between both "sides") or for different species/nations/organizations almost all games I can recall under such conditions fail to put you the player in a position of confusion regarding your "choice" of either side(s), and intentionally so by the developers. Usually, both sides are portrayed as "this one is really this shade", and "this other side is really black", and if there's a third or more sides then it's "really, this one is red", "this one is blue". In the end the player just picks the "favorite" for whatever reason(s), but you don't get to "regret" it necessarily, or end up telling yourself "wait a second... so maybe I'm a bit more evil than I thought". That is I.E. in-character, when comes the time to role-play I mean, not like you're realizing that you're actually really more evil in real life because a character said something in a game that you agree with... but you get the point.

I'll take one example here from Mass Effect 2 (that's completely regardless of being Paragon or Renegade, that choice needs to be made). During Zaeed's loyalty mission, you have the choice between changing your priority task of killing Vido (the "main goal", until the situation forces a potential "change of mind") and letting innocent workers in the burning facility die (even though you see them in immediate danger) if you do so. That, or to forget about Vido, despite Zaeed's obvious indifference to the fate of the innocent workers whom are about to die (if you do nothing about it), and instead go for saving the lives of the workers at the obvious "risk" of letting go Vido and his henchmen whom aren't exactly the "good" type of folks and themselves won't hesitate to assassinate, torture and so on, when and if needs to do so occurs.

So, in the end, human lives (innocent or not) are at sake and you have to compromise (which is one of the main themes of the Mass Effect trilogy). What is "better" or "less evil" between the choices? When you "role-play" Shepard you either role-play from a "Shepard is like me" point of view (I.E. what would I myself do in this same situation), or as "Shepard is like that and I am imposing this personality and behavior, and am not actually like that in real life" type of role. But ultimately you still can end up questioning your choices. The point is also not to see what was the developers' own intention (to force the player to question him or herself) but to "accept this questioning" itself and imagine that the situation for the character really occurred rather than saying "oh but the devs could have done something else for this scene anyway" (yeah sure they could have, but they didn't, and the scene is what it is). Another example (out of so many others) would be the conclusion of Bring Down the Sky in ME1, another obvious compromise which can arguably be perceived as being "relatively evil either way" (or if you prefer "relatively selfish of Shepard either way and not quite good no matter how you look at it").

If I'm not mistaken the only game I can think of right now that portrays this whole "good Vs evil" stuff in a different way than usual is RIFT. I haven't played RIFT much but I read some of its lore and in the end both sides can easily see themselves as being good, while the other "side" is evil (I.E. they mutually think that the other side is evil for not being the way that they themselves are). It's a question of "preferences" of shades of gray rather than literally going "oh so this side is evil" and "that side is all angels and halos" on the character selection screen. It's a question (in the game) of belief systems very comparable to religion in real life ("oh but my religion is the one, real and only religion that should exist for everyone!", or "my God is better than yours, you don't even HAVE one nor do you believe in one at all!"). In RIFT one side is very religious, the other believe in "themselves" and technology, but in the end they both "believe" in different things, does that make either of them "evil"? That's up to the player to define on their own, which is also the point I'm trying to express here (I.E. not many games allow the players to themselves define their own "evilness" or "intentions of only doing good deeds and defend those whom they might consider being innocent").

This subject is rather simple ultimately (matter of preferences and depending on one's own definitions of "evil", and what was the actual goal from the developers, whom themselves have different views on the subject), but is also complex to actually implement "well" in games. They happen to be well implemented only when the player also happens to agree with said implementations, which ultimately comes down to coincidentally agreeing with the game's (developers') own portrayal of those "shades of gray" or that clear-as-day "evil side".

 

[Kalmah]

snip

Nicely said. Also, I've never played Rift but I like the way that you described it. Having to choose what you believe is evil before having to choose if you want to be 'good' or 'evil' is a nice take on the subject. It sounds like it would leave you questioning your own morals in the end.

On a side note, I do understand that good and evil are a bit more complicated than I may have made it sound. I mean, there are social sciences that devote their entirety to this subject. If a game is going to try to pretend that it allows you to be 'evil' of some kind, I just wish that they would actually flesh it out instead of leaving it as dead-end streets.

I'm aware that there are games that are evil focused from the get-go. (dungeon keeper, evil genius, overlord etc...) Those tend to be good regardless because they don't lack focus. It's when a game tries to do both or more than one perspective that they tend to fall short.

 

[Borealis7]

i've played BG2 with all Evil choices and the game was actually EASIER and i had more money and better stuff

other than "good or evil" there's Chaotic. damsel in distress -> rescue her -> gives reward -> you demand more reward! -> she obliges -> you kill her and loot more reward from her body and have sex with the remains

 

[frozentundra123456]

KOTOR _2_ did a great job on the dark side, but Obsidian made it much deeper than the mustache-twirling and puppy-kicking that Bioware used in 1.

In 2 there was some of that, but also discussions about power with Kreia, influence on your companions to shift them to dark side, and quests where being evil did get you increased power.

One of my favorite sidequests on Dantooine gives you the chance to earn an extra lightsaber, that you badly need for yourself or a companion at that point in the game. You can't buy sabers at any price, so I've given in to the dark side even when playing a light side character. The quest made me fight against my own nature in real life and in the game.

I agree that KOTOR 2 played well as dark side. However, I feel they took the moral ambiguity so far that the plot was really muddled. Especially Kria. She hated the force, but she used it, and she trained you in it whether you were evil or good. Granted there were some early game bonuses and end game powers that you got as evil that you did not get as light side, but ultimately you were so overpowered by the end of the game that it made little difference. The end game was the same as well, whatever your alignment. What would have been cool IMO was if there was some way to ally with Kria and change the ending totally.

Probably the main problem is that you have to be able to "beat" a game with any alignment, and it just takes too many resources to design two totally separate plot lines.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I mostly experience the opposite of what the op is describing. For instance, in games like Dishonored playing evil is far easier. Killing every enemy you meet is faster than rendering them unconscious and you don't have to worry about them waking up later. In fallout 3, playing without regard to Karma allows you to steal whatever you want at any time and kill the people who attempt to stop you at will. This results in more money, better equipment, and less hassle acquiring stuff you need for missions. Many games feel like that to me.

I'm sure in some games it is the opposite, but the vast majority of my experience is that the "evil" path is easier in most games.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Personally, I find it hard to consider any of the heroes in these games 'good'. When you look at it nearly every one of these games has you rack up a body count in the thousands, and often the vast majority of those kills would be of people that are relatively innocent. By that I mean that most of them don't know you are a good guy trying to save the world and are just trying to guard the palace which you are attacking. Never do you give them the opportunity to surrender.

If you stop and think about it, you probably caused more harm then the bad guy would have if he completed his evil plot.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> If you stop and think about it, you probably caused more harm then the bad guy would have if he completed his evil plot.

No, Lord Foozle's Death Beam or Crack in Time or Clouds Raining Devil Mice will almost always . . . DESTROY THE WORLD! (dun dun DUN!)

 

[PrincessFrosty]

It's a hard thing to balance, ideally the difficulty of the game shouldn't depend on the type of character you want to play, so a good RPG will tend to balance the benefits of doing one thing with another.

This is why I like the fallout games, they do this very well, especially the original games. You could dig up graves for easy loot for example but then you'd get a "grave digger" perk applied to you and peoples disposition towards you became more negative.

Evil is often seen as the easy route, simply kill everyone and take everything, we need games to add balance so there are repercussions for our evil actions which punish players to balance out the lack of effort it takes to acquire wealth in that manner.

 

[Kalmah]

Personally, I find it hard to consider any of the heroes in these games 'good'. When you look at it nearly every one of these games has you rack up a body count in the thousands, and often the vast majority of those kills would be of people that are relatively innocent. By that I mean that most of them don't know you are a good guy trying to save the world and are just trying to guard the palace which you are attacking. Never do you give them the opportunity to surrender.

If you stop and think about it, you probably caused more harm then the bad guy would have if he completed his evil plot.

I've always looked at this as an out-of-character developer oversight/lazyness/out of character game mechanic. You also run around looting everything in site, barge into a house, empty the containers and move on while the inhabitants just stand there. I sigh in annoyance when I find a game expecting me to do such things.

There has been only one game that has dealt with this properly that I know of and in my opinion. That is Arcanum. If you even barge into a house the npc living in it is going to shoo you out unless you can enter undetected. If you open anything on the street, somebody is coming after you. Everything in that game is assigned to an owner. Being a thief really feels like being a thief. You can also kill any npc in the game, even main plot npcs. They did something with that game that nobody else has ever done and I wish other developers would follow.

 

[PingSpike]

A game that had a pretty craptastic good and evil system was Jedi Knight. I liked the game a lot, but the single player choice system was stupid. In single player the dark side only powers were of dubious usefulness versus the good ones to begin with. But the worst part was when I replayed the game as evil I had to basically murder every single civilian and innocent I came across to get enough "evil points" to get the evil ending. And then the ending is depressing as fuck.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic actually had some decent story elements in this regard. A demoness is bound to you by the evil power in the game IIRC. She basically lives inside your head with you. Towards the end of the game the damsel of the game forces you to choose and purge the demon from you. The thing is the demoness had been a steadfast companion and even uses her power to resurrect/heal you at one point. I played through all the endings IIRC but I didn't care for having to discard her.

 

[PingSpike]

It's a hard thing to balance, ideally the difficulty of the game shouldn't depend on the type of character you want to play, so a good RPG will tend to balance the benefits of doing one thing with another.

This is why I like the fallout games, they do this very well, especially the original games. You could dig up graves for easy loot for example but then you'd get a "grave digger" perk applied to you and peoples disposition towards you became more negative.

Evil is often seen as the easy route, simply kill everyone and take everything, we need games to add balance so there are repercussions for our evil actions which punish players to balance out the lack of effort it takes to acquire wealth in that manner.

Its because most RPGs lack more than even a rudimentary reputation system. Realistically if you stole and murdered all the time people would offer you garbage deals, kick you out of stores, run you out of town and eventually all friendly towns and the like would simply become off limits to you. Even in say Oblivion you can just pay a fine and most people are then fine interacting with you again. If you were denied access to safe walled towns and had to contend with roaming bandit groups on your own there would be a better balanced incentive system.

 

[Midwayman]

Real life is shades of gray, which very few video games manage to capture well.

How many shades? 50?

 

[maevinj]

I always feel evil when I'm playing Bf3 and have to kill Americans by being on the opposing team. Or any game I have to play as a Nazi..

 

[Paul98]

I think the problem is that if you wanted good evil character development, you need to have a good endgame for the character. Something like destroying the world to grant you massive power. We need an evil path that is similar to what the best bad guys try to do.

 

[CountZero]

Personally, I find it hard to consider any of the heroes in these games 'good'. When you look at it nearly every one of these games has you rack up a body count in the thousands, and often the vast majority of those kills would be of people that are relatively innocent. By that I mean that most of them don't know you are a good guy trying to save the world and are just trying to guard the palace which you are attacking. Never do you give them the opportunity to surrender.

If you stop and think about it, you probably caused more harm then the bad guy would have if he completed his evil plot.

MMOs are the worst at this. In every MMO I have ever played you aren't really a hero you are a hired thug.

The other problem is frequently the evil choice is so over the top it doesn't match and if it is a game that rewards you with sticking with being evil or good throughout you have no choice but to participate in the idiocy. It feel like "you come upon a little girl, she asks you for help getting her cat out of the tree" do you A) rescue the cat or B) light the tree on fire and watch the cat burn and then kill the girl and dump her body on the steps of her house. Between the selfless rescue and total depravity there are lots of evil options. Rescue but demand payment, rescue but keep the cat, rescue but sell the cat to the local tavern for stew, etc.

 

[tdawg]

It was pretty cool in inFamous. Being a bad guy in that game was like being a true super villain.

Agreed. I thought the way the story worked, especially in the first one, was very well done.

The one I really hated in this aspect was Red Dead Redemption. You could free roam and do evil, but every cutscene mission made you the good guy. Didn't make any sense to me at all; lazy programming/scripting.

 

[acheron]

The Koch brothers are evil

aaaaaand I think we can stop reading there.

 

[acheron]

MMOs are the worst at this. In every MMO I have ever played you aren't really a hero you are a hired thug.

The other problem is frequently the evil choice is so over the top it doesn't match and if it is a game that rewards you with sticking with being evil or good throughout you have no choice but to participate in the idiocy. It feel like "you come upon a little girl, she asks you for help getting her cat out of the tree" do you A) rescue the cat or B) light the tree on fire and watch the cat burn and then kill the girl and dump her body on the steps of her house. Between the selfless rescue and total depravity there are lots of evil options. Rescue but demand payment, rescue but keep the cat, rescue but sell the cat to the local tavern for stew, etc.

Yeah, this is always my thing. "Help the tiny Jawa across the street... and into a furnace!"

 

[Craig234]

aaaaaand I think we can stop reading there.

Right, destroying the EPA for profitable pollution and gutting democracy, good minion.

 

[Craig234]

MMOs are the worst at this. In every MMO I have ever played you aren't really a hero you are a hired thug.

I've long agreed with that, where the story is slave to the gameplay mechanice, since thousands of hours of play are needed, that means the combat mechanic in heavy use.

 

[PingSpike]

aaaaaand I think we can stop reading there.

I stopped reading at Craig234. Every post in every forum just turns into a political tirade. I once posted in here in a thread about piracy, I think my post was a discussion about region blocking or cost benefit or piracy or something like that. I've since forgotten. I received an angry page reply berating me as if I'd suggested George W Bush be made emperor. Its like, give me a break buddy...I just wanted to talk about computer games.