quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
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Under my understanding, the best possible system would be to base the moral rules on a certain class system or deity.
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But thats probably mentioned by somebody else.

From the AP who originally suggested multiple karma''s, I have different ideas.

I believe there should be factions, traitors, secret agendas, spys, etc in a game, and I don''t believe this should be scripted. The role of the karmas within the game are to establish multiple goals on a meta-play level. Grouping together would be encouraged, but betrayal in different lifetimes could also benefit you. You can be loyal or a mercenary. The main point about the type of idea I''m suggesting here (and I''m not bashing other ideas, just illustrating this one), is that the karmas aren''t really the goals--they''re just means to exploit the gods/game forces, means to cause conflict, and possibly means to add balances (such as general fighting balance, gameplay balance in the sense that new players aren''t immediately doomed--or at least have some relative safehavens, etc). The rest should in theory be emergent.

The best thing about this system, to me, is that I don''t tell a player, "congratulations! You''ve entered adulthood. Choose your profession:", nor do I tell the player, "Welcome to the game, you have been assigned the role of a theif." Instead, the player picks his own immediate goals, leaves them as he sees fit, and can dynamically establish meta-goals unlike anything I''ve specifically designed.

Balance in this environment is the only challenge, but I think it can be accomplished.

quote: Original post by RPGeezus
Thats why we said MORALITY and EHTICS. Please read the posts before spewing

that's the whole point of the post, people are mistaking legality with morality - people think that morality is the same as legality. and it shows that you think them the same in the rest of your post. using different words does not necessary mean you are refering to two different things when the nature of both is the same to you.

the other thing is why do people get so personally attached to this issue? none of you who were replying were actually in the process of implementing anything like that anyway i'd presume. i am not trying to negate you personally, so there is really no point of dragging my moral intentions and all that into the debate. you know, if there is no interest in addressing this issue, we can simply drop it. i don't debate here to negate anyone but to test my own theory against opinions that i don't hold - it is my benifit i am after here, not your detriment. if you want to drop the issue but still have one more reply, you can just reply and say you want to drop it in the very end. i won't reply to you after that.

quote: Lets address your problem: Two laws, arbitrarily made, are STILL LAWS. What may seem arbitrary to you may be dead serious to someone else. Why is sex such a taboo in N. American society? It really doesn't matter, because it still affects peoples ethics. It may be a retarted 'value', but it still exists.

they are arbitrary to me but they are also dead serious to me. to give you another example, a thief can arbitrary select you to rob, its arbitrariness does not make it not serious, but it being serious does not then make it not arbitrary. how did you find that arbitariness negate seriousness? i already said laws _do_ control peoples' behaviours. you don't seem to get my arguement when you are reiterating my point without knowing that it is already my point.

quote: This is not a philisophical debate on the virtues of morality and ethics. It is a discussion on how to get a brownie points system in to a game. Having 'morals' and 'ethics' is one way of doing that.

precisely, i cannot agree more, "morals" and "ethics" are no more than "morals" and "ethics." that's simply borrowing the names/terms while only using them in terms of legality and not morality. i'm only saying we should be clear on what we are implementing to avoid false expectations which is most often, if not always, associated with those terms. my point is: let's face it, for whatever brownie points system that is implemented, it would be of legality in nature rather than, ever be by any chance at all, of morality in nature no matter how many terms/names it borrowed. players would still hold morality apart from what the system decrees, and only turning it into a game of chasing one's shawdow for the designer. this is especially important because, as some suggested, the success of pvp implementation is related to this issue. if it is simply a legal system and that is all we are looking for, then we are done. i wasn't disagreeing with that and i'm not going to debate on something that everyone, including me, agrees. and just to make sure you (and those whom i replied) don't feel it is a personal refutation of your (and those whom i replied) suggested system, my arguement was much of a reflection on the system in uo, which is a complete disaster, and the contemplation of the possibility, or the impossibility, of its actual implementation.

Iron Chef Carnage:
just as i won't resolve meno's paradox with his recollection theory, i won't just apply his solution, or dissolution, to his problem. i gave reference to credit, but not so that we can ignore the merit of it.

i'll agree that consolidation of power is done though much the same way as the ancient (what machiavelli said was true then and still true now, after all). for example, the americans took the america from british, whom took the land from the first nations people, whom took the land from who knows yet some other more ancient people. that's victor's laws, theft made legitimate. all treaties work like that, it depends on the powers of the indiviual parties involved and the inequality of terms are applied accordingly. to consolidate power, the powerful must control the liberty of its subject but the powerful cannot be subject to its own limitation on liberty. in regards to killing, many european countries stopped capital punishment, but the united states didn't follow. simply, killing as an issue is not universal at all even among the western nations. it'd be more fruitful to observe the reason why a law is enacted rather than merely to observe that some laws are enacted.

quote: Players would adhere to the laws for two reasons. First, they're afraid of getting their guy thrown in jail or being stoned by an angry mob. Second, they don't want to bugger up their cosmic status ("karma"?) and ruin their chances to get power, opportunity, and insurance against lightning strikes.

isn't that just classic case of "avoiding punishment and ensuring reward?" an insurance against lighting strikes is no more different from insurance against being killed by any npcs, or simply random deaths, the whole point is still to prevent the premature end of the game. for me, morality is different from legality, it is not about seeking reward or avoiding punishment but a sense of moral obligation that devoids the consideration of reward/punishment, ie. if you pay a paladin in terms of god favour, which in turns have market value, for not robbing you, then aren't you just paying the paladin not to rob you? i think it's a total waste of effort if people would hold morality apart from the decreed moral codes. so if you don't feel the same, then it won't be productive for us to continue this for we'd be arguing over different things that's merely using the same name. again, this is not a personal refutation of your suggested system, but a reflection on uo's system.

[edited by - tanikaze on December 20, 2002 9:45:46 PM]

I have no idea where this post is going, so bear with me if it seems a little disjointed in places... basically, I''m thinking aloud:

Part of the problem here seems to be that, as Tanikaze mentioned, people are using the word "morality" to refer to different things. As is my wont when faced with a question of definitions: dictionary.com produces for morality:

quote:
1)The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct.
2)A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
3)Virtuous conduct.
4)A rule or lesson in moral conduct.

(this is just the first of several dictionaries - feel free to check the others using the link above)

For a computer game, this suggests morality could mean one of the following: the extent to which the game encourages players to behave morally within itself; the actions which the game rewards or punishes; a player behaving virtuously within the game; the game rewarding/punishing according to an external sat of morals.

Tanikaze appears to be primarily concerned with the impossibility for the game designer of causing players to act virtuously (if they act because they are coerced, then it''s not so virtuous after all). I am more interested in the other three, believing that a game that truly achieves the first (encouraging externally moral behaviour) must do so by performing the fourth (rewarding externally moral/punishing externally immoral behaviour) and in order to perform the fourth, careful consideration of the second (the set of rewarded/punished actions) is required along with consideration of the mechanisms used to do so.

As to the specific points addressed to me in Tanikaze''s post:

quote:
your example with alan the npc is an example of the lack of objective morality. your system of reward and punishment is completely dependent on the approbation and disapprobation of others. nothing is emerging other than a lot of opinions and that seems to only ensure lynch rather than justice. this reliance on opinion is either arbitrary, or if you may, random, and thus does not constitute morality.

I believe this system does reflect the underlying mechanism whereby concepts of morality arise in the real world. An interesting question is to what extent balancing modifications would affect the emergent morality - if real world morality is robust, then I would expect a wide range of similar systems to produce morality recognisably equivalent to real world morality. The system of reward and punishment - consisting fundamentally of approbation/disapprobation combined with an imitative tendency may tend to mob rule, but if my beliefs about the nature of morality are valid, then instead a coherent (possibly several coherent) morality system(s) will emerge. The whole concept of emergent phenomena is that large scale order can emerge from relatively simple, and seemingly irrelevant rules, often in unpredictable ways. One classic example is Langston''s Ant (Googling should produce more information) which, from an infinite 2-state grid, an "ant" with a location and direction and three rules (turn left on squares with state 0; turn right on squares with state 1; every time you move, flip the state of the square you leave) produces unpredictable large scale order. Another suspected emergent phenomenon is that of consciousness - nowhere in the physical rules supposedly governing the motion of every particle in my brain is there any hint of a concept of "morality", or "truth", or "concept"

quote: as for the problem with grief players, i mentioned it in my reply to iron chef carnage. however, i''m beginning to think you are just using morality differently from me. good is good and always is good, so there cannot be more than one set of morality. my understanding of morality would not allow something like "my morality conflicts with his" sort of conclusion. it''d simply be "there is no such thing as morality but a lot of arbitary opinions" since it is either truly moral, or it''s arbitrary. the way you suggest your implementation is, imo, a complete abandance of the concept of morality. for example, implementing a system like karma score in uo would be a morality system. it''s obviouly arbitrary and if you''ve played it before, you''d know how the best of intentions can turn into rewarding the most vicious as the most virtuous.

See above for some comments on interpretations. Also, I''m curious whether your understanding of morality allows for "my interpretation of morality conflicts with his"?
As I mentioned above, whether my suggested implementation supports the concept of morality or not depends on whether it produces the kind of emergent behaviour I expect, and if so, how robust the emergent "morality" turns out to be.

I think I''ve mentioned elsewhere that I''ve never actually played any MMORPGs so my position is purely theoretical, and based largely on anecdotes and extrapolation. But it''s fairly obvious that there are ways to break many of the obvious "fixes" for morality.

As for morality, different people will have different opinions. Many people (possibly peasants) will not care much for rules. Their idea for "good" might just be someone who gave them money, even if he killed people (not realistic, stupid, but just an example). In today''s society, cigarettes should never be in the hands of young children. Yet, how many children still have cigarettes? Like tanikaze, I think the beliefs of somebody differ completely from laws or rules.

rmsgrey:

for the question:

quote: Also, I'm curious whether your understanding of morality allows for "my interpretation of morality conflicts with his"?

i will have to answer no. the way i see it is this: the interpretation of morality is not morality itself, just like my interpretation of, let's say, alan, is not itself alan. my understanding of morality would allow conclusion like "my opinion of morality can conflict with his" but at the same time i'd be saying that neither is morality - morality might be viewed in different point of views but morality is not dependent on our interpretation or observation, and therefore "interpretation of it" cannot be equated to "it."

you system empowers the popular opinion, but is the popular opinion therefore moral? like for example, what'd be the consequence of the person, who's a member of a pk guild, to speak against pk'ing? is speaking against pk'ing moral in that situation or immoral? the problem with moral arbitarity, which this system would promote, is that if you decree pk as moral, then pk would be good. problem is, however, most, if not all, people deem pk as bad, but what about disloyality in relation to its original case? can you see there's two levels working here? the problem, as it seems to me, is that you can implement x layered systems controling players' behaviour but you'd always end up with x + 1 layers of systems with morality being the extra 1 added to it. and no matter what you do, it seems to always resists codification and creeps in to your scheme, as something foreign to your code, in the end, uninvited.

[edited by - tanikaze on December 22, 2002 7:05:24 AM]

quote: Original post by tanikaze
you system empowers the popular opinion, but is the popular opinion therefore moral? like for example, what''d be the consequence of the person, who''s a member of a pk guild, to speak against pk''ing? is speaking against pk''ing moral in that situation or immoral? the problem with moral arbitarity, which this system would promote, is that if you decree pk as moral, then pk would be good. problem is, however, most, if not all, people deem pk as bad, but what about disloyality in relation to its original case? can you see there''s two levels working here? the problem, as it seems to me, is that you can implement x layered systems controling players'' behaviour but you''d always end up with x + 1 layers of systems with morality being the extra 1 added to it. and no matter what you do, it seems to always resists codification and creeps in to your scheme, as something foreign to your code, in the end, uninvited.

I''m not sure I follow you on your point about layered systems.

As to empowering the popular opinion, if you''re referring to real-world opinions, then I''d hope that the consensus at least comes close to any true morality. If you''re talking about in game opinions, then I''m not sure quite what you mean. The idea of my system, on reflection, is to implement "do unto others..." which historically seems to be the basis for most moral codes - variations tend to come from different opinions on who counts as others to be done unto, and who counts as outside the rules... But, as in Kingsley''s "The Water Babies" the other side of Doasyouwouldbedoneby is Bedonebyasyoudid. From a purely game theoretic standpoint, looking at the prisoner''s dilemma: in the absence of consequences, selfish behaviour is stable while generosity is not. If you allow consequences, then tit-for-tat empirically seems to be optimal.

As to a PKer speaking against PKing, that assumes a multiplayer environment (PKing in single-player is a little tricky!) In that case, my NPC driven system may well get drowned out - swamped by the player reactions. That being so, a confirmed PKer will probably still face difficulties in convincing non-PKers he''s reformed. Other PKers may be easier to convince of his sincerity, but that''s not necessarily a good thing!

I suspect that, under my system, provided there''s a high enough density of NPCs to make my system dominant over player-player interactions, a PK guild could form a stable sub-society with an unusual code - essentially, from the guild stance, only guild members are worthy of moral consideration, while from the viewpoint of non-members, guild members are not worthy of moral consideration... Of course, in such a system, the distinction between PKing and NPC killing would hopefully be blurred.

I haven''t tried to work out all the details of an implementation, let alone actually implement one, so I have no actual data, just my expectations of what''s possible.

Surely any morality in games rests with the player''s intent. Is the player going on a killing spree because they''re angry at something the game did or because they''re bored? Is the player trying to complete a quest because they want to know what it''s like being rewarded for doing good or because they want to finish the game and get it over with?

But does the end justify the means? Good intentions are no guarantee of good outcomes...

I don''t really want to get into this old debate at the moment...

I''ll just say that I believe both motives and actions are morally significant.

whawt have actions got to do with it?

we are talking about games!

Okay, this thread has gone straight to Hell. Defining morality isn''t the objective. People have been trying to do that for thousands of years. Let''s focus on the general concept.

The original goal of this thread was to figure out what people think of games in which you aren''t bound in your actions by the "conscience" of your character. Games where your bullets don''t hurt shopkeepers, or you can''t draw your sword in the inn are limiting your options because the legendary hero would never slaughter innocent people. The fact that you can''t mug people you meet on the road, or loot villages, is based again on your character, rather than on you.

What are the merits and drawbacks of this system? Should we always be guided to do what''s "right", or should we have the opportunity, even the obligation, to decide what''s best for our character, our objectives, and our gameplay experience?

The offshoot of this is the issue of what should happen when you do things that other people don''t like. Maybe there should be places you can never go back to. Maybe there should be people who hound you, seeking revenge. You can wear medals proclaiming your valor over brands proclaiming your cowardice, and a devoted follower may step in front of the knife or gun that a bitter enemy sends to claim your life.

Of coure, there is the cosmic standard. Tanikaze asserts that there can be no firmly defined standard of right and wrong, and goes on to say that every model of the system is a modified system of self-preservation (correct me if I''m mistaken). However, if you build a world that transcends the physical realm of humanity, then you can introduce a divine being which can lay down a universal law. Or you can introduce several, and have multiple paradigms. You might violate the laws of a city or nation in order to obey the laws of your god, or perhaps you would forsake divine favor to avoid martyrdom. This can be made to work, I think. It''s just a matter of remembering that we aren''t trying to solve philosophical questions, we''re just setting up causal relationships between multiple reputation systems and some sort of conduct evaluation.