The Ethics in Gaming

[Forsaken Lover]

I sided with the Legion in Fallout: New Vegas. Kinda says everything if you don't want to read the rest of my post.

I am big into roleplaying. The thing is, if you are nice to me, I'll be nice to you. That's really the long and short of it. First impressions are very important with me. Caesar was not a particularly nice person to put it mildly but my interactions with the Legion were fairly amicable. As I told Vulpes after he kindly explained why he destroyed Nipton, "I admire the purity of the Legion's justice."

In Mass Effect, I did similar. The Illusive Man treated me very well so why wouldn't I do my all for Cerberus? I left David in Project Overlord for the greater good because TIM literally saved my life and was the only reason I could continue my mission to help ethe galaxy.


Here is a post I made on Reddit about a quote that could sum up my DA heroes:

Anders: I almost killed a girl.

Varric: You've killed two-hundred and fifty-four by my last count. Plus about five hundred men, a few dozen giant spiders, and at least two demons.

Anders: It's not the same.

Varric: Why? Because this one you feel bad about? Maybe that's the problem.


Bolded last line because it's the one I was thinking of. The thing is, my PC's often start pretty "normal." Killing people is morally troubling, they see others as having inherent value simply by being living sapient creatures, etc.. But my thinking has always been that you can't be the same person after all the trout these heroes go through. They will inevitably be warped or desensitized by all the killing. You kill, conservatively, hundreds of people in an RPG. Yet a cutscene pops up and I'm supposed to suddenly feel conflicted? Life comes and goes, it's as simple as that. No need to be hung up over it.

This especially happened to my first Hawke who eventually became "hardened" to life in Kirkwall. He cared only for his own personal principles and those closest to him. I had that guy who was screwing over the Bone Pit money killed and dropped in a gutter, I had my dog maul that burglar, and so-on. By the end, Hawke just didn't care about anybody or anything except what he chose to care about, if that makes sense.

[Jessweeee♪]

I used to do a "bad choices" playthrough after I did my "for real" run but I don't have the heart for it anymore. Now I just read up on the other possible paths or watch videos on youtube. Dragon Age: Inquisition has been pretty fun because it never really feels good cop/bad cop. And there are lots of different personality branches to determine other minor things. For example, giving responses that indicates your character is religious early in the game can open up some options when sitting in judgement of an NPC and deciding a sentence.