^This. When a dilemma is presented such as either "Kill a cow to feed hungry villagers" or "Save the cow as the species is under threat of extinction" I would save the cow :) I did a good thing but it resulted in villagers having to eat mud and I therefore gain some evil points.

inFamous has got it right for me. It's obvious what you need to do in order to gain evil karma and vice versa. The consequences of each action align with the good/evil choice perfectly. The ensuing gameplay is what you were aiming to achieve and it's therefore fun to play out.

The "ensuing gameplay" is one without any decisions at all, they could have just as well made a character selection screen with the only available choices being "Jesus" and "Hitler... with super powers!". It rewards a polarized character even more than the BioWare games and there's no actual strategic value to the decisions. It's a fantastic game, IMO, but it's absurd to even pretend that there are any decisions to make. It's just another game you need to beat twice in perfectly pre-defined manners to get the full experience.

I still love Infamous, though, and there's one thing they did pretty well with the Karma system: you have to fight very differently depending on your alignment, not only due to the different powers. It's the civilians everywhere that did the trick and that harming/saving them has an effect on your karma. I can't think of a single other game (not even tactical games like SWAT 3) where I felt so much responsibility while fighting in an urban environment.

In which games does this even apply? Like 99% of all games I can think of do the exact opposite, give you seemingly fundamentally different options, hint at incredibly meaningful consequences but ultimately, no matter what your choice is, you get the exact same effect.

Generally the choices will affect at least a short part of the game, if nothing else. In a few games I've played, the results were identical, even down to the dialog responses. That's what I mean.no new mission, no karma change, no reaction at all.

Is there such a game? If not, there definitely should be :)

I think I'd prefer the option of Gandhi for the hero. I'd like Gandhi to be represented as he was during his later years and then be able to play him sliding on a train track while pin-pointing a bolt at a conduit!

Developers take note and F4ALLOUT and I was 40% of profits....each

I hate ones where it forces moral ambiguity by having both sides have sympathetic goals but horrible methods, and then not giving you the "Point out that if they just tried talking to each other without being dicks instead of terrorism/armed rebellion/slavery they might be able to work this whole thing out to everyone's satisfaction" option.

If there's no right answer because both options are equally grey, that's fine (still annoys me, but that's because I like playing a hero and don't like being forced to compromise my character's ideals). If there is a right answer and the game just won't let you pick it, that's bad design.

Fallout 3: The Pitt DLC, I'm looking at you.

I kind of hated, i don't like being judge for what the "game" feels like it's wrong or right, let's say that i'm playing a game where a character betrayed me and i ended up being tortured and 2 of my friends died. Later, i find that character and he says that the reason that he has done that was because he was promised medicine for his mother. I DON'T CARE! BANG!

*You have lost 1 goody point and therefore you're closer to having the bad ending"

WHAT? FUCK YOU GAME!

Overral, i hate when the game tells you how to play, not only with the morality system but with everything, like "Have a S score and you will get an unlock" or "You weren't stealthy enough, -1000$ for you to spend". But i divert...

I don't know, nowadays it's hard to say how to do it, you can have those situations where you can just google the decision and have the good decision/ending or you can have something really random that will make you hate the game (I think this is the problem with Gods will be watching). I think Alpha Protocol has done that right, it gives you a time limit to answer (they could have give more time to read though) but i don't know if there is real consequences because i didn't play much (technical issues with my computer).

Well, nowadays I'm aware that most Bioware games only offer you the illusion of choice, but I still enjoy the games. Can only hope that at point there are real choices impacting the game in a really different way.

Don't have that much experience with other games doing this kind of thing.

And pretty mean, too. Starkiller is an early game character with good stats. Defeating him in the arena may or may not be immoral, but it sure is goddamn tough to do.

Don't get me started on what people think is right or wrong to do in a video game. There's games out there based around the idea of you spreading viruses and attempting to eradicate the entire human race on planet Earth. That's niche. That's fun. That's no big deal. But then someone turns around and makes a stereotypical gay character with a lisp in their video game and suddenly the streets are thronged with protestors demanding sensitivity training for game programmers. Sometimes I despair the species.

I have never seen a moral dilemma in a game. After all if it's a RPG I RP my character, and my character decides in character. I have no moral dilemmas over pixels nor virtual kittens nor silly scripted events in games.

However, when it's an RPG then choices need to exist, I don't want INFINITE choices (because it devalues the single choice I make in a single instance) but I want the possibility to RP my character. A choice is however not a moral dilemma, a moral dilemma is what insecure people make out of choices they should calculate logically or RP in the situation according to the story of their virtual character.

I will draw out an exception though. Back during Mass Effect (can't remember which, all 3 are a blur ,p), that game had one choice that for the first time (in a game) made me stop and think, because when given the choice between Legion and Tali (and the resolution of that particular "mission" and the homeworld issue, after all a gigantic story arc with not a lot gameplay, but a lot of "story" baggage attached) the game proposed a set of interesting choices of equal severity and consequence none of which were "wrong" but all of which had absolutely gigantic (implied) consequences. This is however not a moral dilemma, because my MORAL has absolutely nothing to do with my conscious decision making. Anyway, that was the only time in a game where I stopped for 30 minutes to think about the situation before deciding because the concepts and ideas laid bare in that choice were far-reaching, and I never really contemplated them before.

And as Reever says, the illusion of choice is what games offer nowadays. Bioware (And there is no way to speak about choices and not mention Bioware) has the "bioware" method of choices, which means they sound epic, but they impact little. And Witcher on the other front, has the "grey and grey" style of choices which do not give you the option to choose the third option (kill them all) or the 4th option (problem? not my problem!)

anyway, I have never seen a moral dilemma in a game. Kittens always win, that's no moral dilemma.

Ps.: I just want to say.. I like when I get given choices, but I don't like when games don't show me what my character says when I click them :)

PPs.: And what I *ABSOLUTELY* hate are games like that "Long Live the Queen" which are basically just multiple-choice excel tables with graphics, and absolutely ZERO hints what to choose in order to progress. I hate that, to me that isn't even classified as a game.

Sorry for the lengthy reply just to say I don't see moral dilemmas in games ;)

I'd like to point out that when you're roleplaying a character with a certain set of morals, important choices for that character are moral dilemmas for the character you're roleplaying. They're still moral dilemmas, they just ask you to get into the role of someone else and try to act upon them as opposed to acting upon your own morals ;-)

That's a very good point, but to me they are choices where I am choosing based on a set of rules and constraints I established ahead of time, only to my virtual character are they moral dilemmas and he/she/it is only pixels ;) This is why I said that I don't see moral dilemmas when I RP. In the end proper RP'ing means not applying your own morals.

I would even go so far as to say that if you see a moral dilemma while RP'ing in a RPG then you are not RPING that character at all, then you are playing your own avatar representing YOU in an adhoc improvisation. (Which I guess is a thing for some, but I never did that) maybe with VR that will become more relevant.

I guess I am just weird, or I played too many RPG's ;)

Ps.: I just want to note, I totally get your point. I realize that is a weird way to see virtual characters in RPG's but maybe because of the MANY books I read and RPG's I played I can suspend my disbelief easily and RP a character properly. And choices offered are then no longer moral dilemmas, because to a character you RP there is only 1 choice that is the "right" one, and that is the one that character would choose ;) The consequences are thus not the fault of the player, but of the virtual RP'd character. ^^

That's balderdash. Even if you've got a fully pre-defined character (whether he's pre-defined by a game or based on a choice you had to make the moment you started playing) there can be choices which are hard to make, even to the character you RP. There are tough choices in reality, there are tough choices to make by fictional characters and ergo there can also be tough choices for characters RP'd by human players. That that's rarely true (but hardly always) only means that the usual RPG writing and game masters are really dull... or that they are intentionally avoiding genuinely tough decisions.

Again, The Witcher. Especially if you're trying to go the neutral path it's a constant matter of choosing the lesser evil and the lesser evil is not only hard to recognize, even in retrospect it's debatable at best. Geralt's struggle with remaining neutral (which is often in conflict with his duty to protect humans from monsters) from the books was perfectly mirrored by many decisions the player has to make in the game and even if you tell yourself "okay, I'm going to be the Geralt I know and love from the books" - the question "what would Geralt do?" is one complicated mess. So I wholeheartedly disagree with what you said.

That's fine ;) Everyone sees things differently, though I have to explain something. If I am given only 2 choices and both are bad/evil (And are of the kind "Choose a side here that locks you into that for the rest of the game", then I simply don't care about the choice, that becomes a situation where I stop roleplaying and start just playing a video-game and thus "choosing 1 path to later choose the other" it actually breaks immersion for me because often those choices are so clichéd constructed.... especially in Witcher 2 they never felt organic either. Rather it felt like set-pieces waiting for your choice to trigger the next set-pieces, just 2 different paths.

It takes some really good writing to make me actually *think* about a choice in a video game. For that I have to like the character I am playing (based on the choices I am given within the game, I like all characters I RP, but I have to feel like I *know* them based on RP possibility within the game), like the companions traveling with me (so that choices have impact), and have something resonate with me inside the story (so that even the irrelevant choices end up being interesting to me). But Witcher games never did that for me. Namely because I actually really dislike Triss and "not really like" Geralt (as imaginary people) :)

I feel like you are correct though, assuming I would ever find myself playing a game that really brings up tough questions that I personally find tough I would probably face a true moral dilemma there. But I honestly never faced that in a game yet. Which is why I am confused what OP was talking about. There is certainly no over-abundance of moral dilemmas in video games. And for my RP'd characters I honestly do not see choices as dilemmas, rather they are opportunities ;P

I wish I could find such dilemmas in games.. but I find game writing became more and more political correct and doesn't explore boundaries of human nature, society or even their own settings properly. And without that, I also don't find these stories very immersing.

Anyway, sorry for derailing so much..

TLDR, choice is opportunity, not dilemma. Give me choices that define characters, not characters that are already defined before I am giving a choice (or at least give me SOME choice to define my character and add some mystery, without restricting my RP possibility later on).

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was really annoyed by how contrived Fallout 3's Pitt DLC scenario was. When the obvious solutions are unavailable to the player, it just kills the immersion. Not a good thing in a game that's sold on its immersion.

I've found that Fallout: New Vegas integrate the player's actions quite nicely. The factional reputation system means that when you help one faction, they like you better, and other factions may like you less depending on the action. And sometimes your actions involve the death of important NPCs. Fallout 3 and Skyrim don't really have factional reputation systems, but retain the permanent repercussions of player actions. The effects in those games are more localised than in New Vegas, though, so you'll only really notice them when you visit the affected city.

I think the big reason real divergent decisions aren't often found in story-driven games is because the complexities just build up, and each variation needs to be created. While it would be nice for our player actions to cause the story to diverge, in practice that would mean the developers creating a second campaign story that diverges from that point. So instead of 1 story 20 missions long, we get 2 stories 10 missions long, for example. Or if the stories diverge at mission 10, we get 2 stories 15 missions long that share the same first 10 missions. It's a lot of work, and isn't that important to the player because we're giving something else up - many players don't want to have to reload to play the other 5 missions down the other path.

However, a lot of story-driven games still make the player's actions count in subtle ways that don't require scripting multiple stories. For example, in Deus Ex, the player's actions affect the quests and NPCs who show up later in the game., with various real consequences for the player. A few examples from the game:

1) A certain NPC asks the player if he should quit his job. The player's advice affects whether he receives an upgrade module later in the game, or a kill phrase that allows him to kill a boss NPC without fighting. Neither outcome is predictable without having played the game before.

2) A number of optional side quests (some unmarked) allows the player to help a certain family resolve their family issues. Depending on the outcomes, a multitude of unforeseeable things can happen later. If the daughter is still alive, a certain NPC will come to town to visit her, and if the player speaks with him, he can turn some hostile NPCs friendly in a subsequent mission. If a certain unmarked quest is resolved a certain way, the daughter may show up as an NPC in a later mission with no real effect on the game rather than just, "Oh, so that's what happened to her after that incident."

3) The player comes across a bum being mugged by two thugs. If the player helps the bum out, he gives the player a password that's not used until a few missions later.

4) The player can kill certain boss characters earlier, negating the fight later. Or they player can run away from some fights and face the characters again later in the game.

5) There's a comical sequence involving the women's bathroom that affects certain non-vital conversations later in the game.

There are many more, but those are off the top of my head.

What I've found, though, is that if I want my actions to have a real effect on the game, it's better to focus on gameplay effects rather than on story. There's a genre that does this really well, which is the turn-based tactics genre. Games like Jagged Alliance 2, Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre are great. Although the stories for most of these games are more or less linear, the player's actions affect how the game plays.

Jagged Alliance 2 doesn't have much of a plot, so the entire game plays out based on the character's decisions. There's a starting city and an endgame goal (kill the evil queen), and that's it: everything in between is up to the player. The game has set cities and set maps, the player decides where to move their squads and when, while the queen decides where to move her squads and when. This means the player has a lot of control over where to fight, which order to conquer cities, whether to conquer cities at all, etc. The player also decides who to hire and how to equip them (snipers, SMGs, etc.) which affects how they will play. It's like dynamically writing the script to your own war.

Final Fantasy Tactics is mostly linear, but you decide who to hire, how to equip them, and who fights in which battle. So, ultimately, it's not much different to Dragon Age: Origins in terms of decisions affecting the game.

Tactics Ogre is a bit different. I remember in Knight of Lodis, there are actually plot decision points. Those decision points not only affect which characters join you, but some key battles are different, and the endings are ultimately different. Mind you, most of the game is still the same, albeit with different key characters, and the endings are based on which characters are present in the final battle.

While speaking of gameplay effects, I believe that Deus Ex deserves another mention here. The skills and augmentations that the player chooses have a real effect on the way the game is played. There are numerous play styles to choose from. It's like beating b]Diablo 2 with a barbarian and then going back and playing with a sorceress.

Those are story-driven games. When we move away from story-driven games, pretty much everything the player does has meaningful effects. Rome: Total War is a good example. Simple mission: conquer the world. We're given static starting positions. We choose our faction and write history from there.

Ultimately, it's about expectations and compromise. The more choice a game offers us, the less it's able to provide a coherent story to coincide with our choices. So we have to compromise and balance between story and the impact of our actions on gameplay. Story-driven games can still give the player meaningful impact on the game, like how Deus Ex gives us many ways to solve quests and produces unforeseeable outcomes of actions, or how the tactics genre allows us to decide the characters who will join us and how the conflict plays out.

Yeah, I don't think the good/evil dichotomy is a good way to go. And it's all so subjective what counts as good or evil.

I think Fallout: New Vegas is on the right track with its factional reputation system. Your actions determine how different factions respond to you based on how they like or dislike your actions. It's no longer a moral judgment but a political one. Dragon Age: Origins implemented this system in terms of how the followers respond to the player's actions based on their own personalities. However, this system still has the problem of having to aim for a certain "score" to get bonuses. I think developers are just too obsessed with it, and it does the game a disservice, like in Dishonored. If they implemented it more lightly - by not allowing it to have substantial effects on character stats or story - it would be a nice feature.