quote: Original post by rmsgrey
After all, in the real world, there are fundamental mechanisms that reward behaving nicely until given reason otherwise. Experimentally, tit-for-tat wins prisoner''s dilemma tournaments even when the environment includes theoretically superior variants. Of course, these mechanisms usually operate on reputation and individual memory, two things not often implemented in computer games...

i''d say all multiplayer games that involves cooperation always involve something similiar to the prisoner''s dilemma. eg. when you''re fighting in a team, you can run and leave your team to die. you might stay while your team mate runs and cause you to die. tit for tat strategy involves trust or the lack thereof of the other party prior to the choice, and i''d say it''s always played out in multiplayer games as well.

karma system imo simply will never work. what''s good karma? i can''t think of an example of an action that is "good" in all possible worlds without it being trivial. may be you can give me an example to prove the otherwise?

may i suggest though, that the "moral vaccuums" issue is very closely related to, if not a direct mirror of, a question people like to ask about life: is there a purpose to life? and a rhetorical one that asks: why live when there''s not a purpose? can you see the parallel? i wonder how much of this personal belief would direct ones opinion on this issue.

quote:
Hm, do I like my parents to tell me how to live my life, or do I like to make my life my own? Do I do what I''m being told, or do I do what I want to do?

Actually this brings up a interesting side topic to the thread at hand...

None of us have control over how we were born...what our gender is...what we look like...how tall/short we are...we had no choice in the matter of whom are parents are...what there social, economic, and educational background is...there was no "create RPG character screen" where we were allowed a choice in the matter.

but we do have a choice in how we move forward...a choice in what intrests we will pursue...a choice in if we listen to our parents or not...

So how about a real RPG that allows us to make moral choices for someone else...real role playing...not that same D&D style crap everyone thinks of...but a RPG in which the game presents a real modern world situation and puts us "in the shoes" of another person who faces some difficult moral choices.

The example game:

Players take on the role of a poor teenage girl, who recently discovered that she is pregnant...There are tons of choices that could partain to this...drop out of school? Try to get the father to help out? put the child up for adoption? abortion? How would you raise the child? How could the girl still keep her dreams of going to collage (for example)?

Obviously such a game would be controversial...And certainly not everyones "cup of tea"...the intent would be to help us understand each other better (there could be a whole series of games like this)...there is no right way to play, other then pursueing your own morals...and such a game if playied at different points in your own life...you may find that you make different choices at 24 years old, then you do later at 34...a game that not only allows you to exercise your moral judgement in a situation you may never find yourself in, but a game that encourages you to be introspective of how well you are solveing your own personnel moral dilemas.

quote: Original post by tanikaze
karma system imo simply will never work. what''s good karma? i can''t think of an example of an action that is "good" in all possible worlds without it being trivial. may be you can give me an example to prove the otherwise?

If you have scripted scenarios/encounters, then you can pre-assign karmic value to various outcomes

Similarly, if your game world has a known moral code, then tying karma to that should be straightforward.

In any case, I believe that in real life, karma is an emergent phenomenon... if you program reputation and track individual NPC attitudes towards the player, then something like karma will (hopefully) happen "naturally". Of course, non-sentient portions of the game wouldn''t necessarily change to reflect the character automatically, but equally, they probably don''t have to - if the evil player is having to pay twice as much for the same goods and services as the good player, then the whole world will be much harder to cope with...

quote: Original post by rmsgrey
If you have scripted scenarios/encounters, then you can pre-assign karmic value to various outcomes

Similarly, if your game world has a known moral code, then tying karma to that should be straightforward.

is the action "good" because the script dictates it? or is the action scripted "good" because it is deemed good?

if moral code is dictated by the script, then systems such as karma is totally redundent as the assignment of "good" or "bad" is totally arbitrary. on the other hand, if the action is considered "good" because is actually good, then i need you to give me an example of an action that is necessarily good in all possible worlds as i can''t think of any on my own.

quote: In any case, I believe that in real life, karma is an emergent phenomenon... if you program reputation and track individual NPC attitudes towards the player, then something like karma will (hopefully) happen "naturally". Of course, non-sentient portions of the game wouldn''t necessarily change to reflect the character automatically, but equally, they probably don''t have to - if the evil player is having to pay twice as much for the same goods and services as the good player, then the whole world will be much harder to cope with...

a guild of pk is a guild of people that victimizes other people, but in order for them to be successful, they have to be virtuous also. in order to be able to who to take advantage of, they have to be knowledgable. in order to be able to take advantage of the situation, they have to be skillful. in order to stay as a team, they have to be loyal. in order to be efficient as a team, they have to be helpful. and in the end, in order to maintain order, they have to be fair and just to each other. if all people who are knowledgable, skillful, loyal, helpful, fair and just are all virtuous, then even the pks would be virtuous. on the other hand, if killing people is unvirtuous, then killing the pks would make anyone unvirtuous. however, if you make killing the pks virtuous, then you''ll make pks who betrays their loyalty as virtuous - ie. making virtue out of the most vicious. i guess i just don''t believe in karma, that''s why i will not think to implement anything of such.

quote: is the action "good" because the script dictates it? or is the action scripted "good" because it is deemed good?

Should any action be defined ''good'' by anyone other than the playerbase itself?

I can imagine a reputation system where players are free to decide what criteria they want to use for their own personal reputation system. I may care about how many friends of mine someone is known to have murdered, but I couldn''t care less about how much money someone has stolen from the king''s treasures. As an assassin, I may want to know who has killed many, so that I may praise him. As a merchant, I want to know if your good for your word. Whatever criteria are important to me I will ask NPCs about. Good and evil are not universal.

quote: a guild of pk

PKs really are just members of PETA (Players for the Ethical Treatment of AI).

As far as karma goes...

I''d say that morality is bloody near impossible to define. I''ve studied philosophy for some time, and without the assumption of a supreme, intelligent, moral being, nothing can be "good" or "right". At the end of the day, without a teleologically defined role in the universe, nothing has any intrinsic moral value.

Thus, the need for supreme beings in the game. Whether they are seen by the player or not, they are major factors in morality. There must be a distinction made between virtue and vice, right and wrong. However, it needn''t be in the Christian context of pure good vs. pure evil. You can set up a whole pantheon of deities, and imbue them with certain realms of authority and powers, as well as the petty bickerings and excesses that such gods are characteristically guilty of.

It''s a neat dimension, and it doesn''t have to go anywhere near that far. I think that the Ogre Battle system might be the best model. Set up four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, and then drop in the two moral extremes: Holy and Bane. The two dieties of Holy and Bane will always be at total odds, and issues between them will be supreme. The other four will be neutral on that higher plane, but will have a more direct effect on your character. So, you can be a Fire kind of guy, and not really get along very well with the Water types, but if you''re both sort of Holy-based then you''ll team up to take on the Bane boys.

It''s tough to explain, but the idea is fairly clear in my mind. Maybe somebody can interpret what I''m saying and put it in better words.

For purely scripted morality, Iron Chef Carnage''s second post offers three situations where, to my mind at least, the virtuous choice is obvious.

I believe that, in general, judging good and evil is what I think of as a "Solomon" problem - something that requires insight and wisdom on the level of Solomon to solve. On the other hand, for the purposes of a computer game, you can say that killing anyone is always wrong, or that PKing is always wrong, or that PKing members of your own guild is always wrong, or that violating the rules of your guild is always wrong (requiring either some form of guild level adjudication or some programmming skill associated with setting up a guild)

If you attempt to make Karma emergent rather than explicit, then the PKing guild members will have good Karma within their own society, but bad Karma in society at large. Meanwhile a PKKing guild (bounty hunters rather than assassins) will have equally good internal Karma, but better external Karma. And woe betide the PK guild member who transgresses against his own guild''s code...

Oh, and on the subject of defining "good" solely by the playerbase''s judgements: for MMOGs, that''s perfectly feasible, but for single player, and small multiplayer, the moral feedback on the characters'' actions has to come from the NPCs and the general game world simply because there aren''t any other candidates...

Can you program a conscience (conscience means "with knowledge")?


don''t think about it, it''s an oxymoron

quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
I''ve studied philosophy for some time, and without the assumption of a supreme, intelligent, moral being, nothing can be "good" or "right".

This isn''t true, although it''s one of the ways you can define morality. Although morality is dependent on some power greater than you, it doesn''t have to be a supreme being. It could be your family, your culture, your government, etc. You could argue that these things aren''t as important as a supreme being, but morality only really matters if there are consequences (either personal or external) and it doesn''t matter if these consequences are enforced by a supreme being.

quote:
Thus, the need for supreme beings in the game. Whether they are seen by the player or not, they are major factors in morality.

This also isn''t necessary. Because we''re talking about a game (not reality), the players only interest is to win. In all games the penalties of doing immoral things (killing an "innocent", stealing, etc.) aren''t nearly a big as they are in real life, so players are more prone to do immoral things. If you want to force the player to be moral, you''d have to have a system like Ultima''s, the only way you can beat the game is through moral actions (defined by the game.)

Impossible, you''re right. My assessment was hasty. However, in order for something to be judged on a scale for positive or negative karma, there has to be an objective standard of positive and negative acts. Not only that, but this system must be successfully encoded into the program, so that a computer can make evaluations.

As to the player''s only interest being to "win", haven''t you been paying attention? We''re trying to define what it takes to "win" a game that has no clear beginning or end. That''s what got us on the topic of morality in the first place.

Your observations about morality being dependent upon consequences is spot-on. This can already be seen in reputation systems and in the actual social interactions of an MMORPG. However, in order for it to impact a character''s development and attributes, there must be some universal code of conduct, set forth and enforced by the game universe itself. There must be a system in place that adjusts your character based on what he does, even if there''s nobody around.

Most games already include an abstract religious influence, in the form of magic, or "priests" or "demons". If your Lvl. 53 Paladin kills a hundred NPC settlers in the middle of the desert, and nobody ever finds out about it, should that event not have an impact on the progress of your game? How can that character still be a Paladin? Surely whatever divine force ordains him and imbues him with his holy strength would take issue with this ethical lapse. Same deal with a priest. Or what if you, as an advanced Necromancer, nurture an injured animal back to health? The dark entities that fuel your mastery over death would no doubt resent your obvious defiance. You can''t go commanding armies of the undead while you grow a lousy vegetable garden, can you?

I propose that classes also be reworked, so that rather than choosing a class at the beginning of the game, you develop one through your playing style. This can also lead to a more interesting system of naming classes. The difference between a "pirate" and a "sailor" who knows a good opportunity when he sees one is primarily in the eye of the beholder. Maybe the class system should be abolished altogether, replaced by biographical information pertaining to alignment, skills and the karma system mentioned above.