spoiler Player Hardening/Softening

[manlyMAN0890]

And now I'm gonna take the time to explain my theory. [-_-]

 

Ever thought about what it would be like to have a good/evil points system for Dragon Age? Unfortunately, there is no good or evil in Dragon Age, and they do make a point. Different individuals have a different moral system. I started to wonder when I was typing a comment in response to the Slap Morrigan Mod, and decided to cut and paste my idea. What I really posted doesn't contain the following marked by underscores at the beginning, and the hyphens at the end.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Dialogue alone should be a points system that could sway her opinion of you. One should wonder, "is my character going t be hardened, or soft?" This could be determined through dialogue alone, up to the point where you complete the game. If the points system detemines you are "hardened," Morrigan WILL slap you if your approval with her is below "Adoring," or if you have a romance with her at "Adoring" or higher.

 

If you are determined to be "soft" by the points system, Morrigan will not slap you if your approval is below "Adoring," since it will catch her off guard to be striked at by someone she considered to be a softie. If you have a romance with her, she will slap you back in spite of her approval of her.

 

So I guess no matter what, she WILL slap you back if you are in a romance with her. There are two different ways of looking at it for her to retaliate: If you're hardened, she'll reason that you can take it. If soft, she'll reason that you're not in your place.

 

And other than the points system, there's the major choices to consider. These choices, once made become the ultimatum and override the points system. When you first make a choice, the way you handle it determines your hardness. Let's say you are about to make your first major decision, and you decide to poor dragon blood into the Urn of Sacred Ashes. This decision nets you one out of one(1/1) choices being made with a hardened conscience, and the game determines that you are of a hardened character. As the game progresses and you continue to make major decisions regarding moral consequences, these choices will be added and divided inside your pool of choices.

 

For example, you've made seven choices, and three(3/7) are of a hardened moral perspective. This leads the game to determine that you are a softie, a status which then plays a part in determining the reactions from your party members when you slap them, or someone else in the immediate party.

 

There would also be sub-major choices. Unlike major choices, these sub-major choices are not directly reflective of your moral perspective. The outcome of these choices determine hardness or softness by the decision you make when you determine the judgement of a man by what he has done. For example, how did you interact with the bandits at the Lothering highway? If you tricked them into thinking you would spare their lives in exchange for gold only to attack without mercy, you made a decision in a sub-choice that granted you a point for hardening. If, afterwards, you decided to spare the remaining bandit's life(and the others, if they did not die), you again earned a point, but for softness. These sub-major choices also override the dialogue points system, but the major points override the sub-major points.

 

What about a stalemate? Let's say you have made 10 major choices, and they are split between "hardened" and "soft" evenly. While sub-major points do not override major points, they do serve as a tiebreaker. If the sub-major points are split evenly as well, say 3 to 3, the dialogue points system will be the tiebreaker. If the dialogue points split evenly as well(which would rarely be the case), say 91 to 91, the character's party members will be indifferent to his moral perspective, and their approval rating alone will determine how they interact with you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I know what you're thinking. I know it would be much like the points system in games like Mass Effect, Fable and so on. I'm simply proposing the same feature in a way that promotes moral relativism. Because let's face it: Some people believe a true, moral deity(ies) exists and that others who don't are arbitrarly destined to suffer in Hell for all eternity and that they must personally see to it*, and others believe that moral deities are a lie and that all religion should be wiped from the face of the planet*. Day to day as individuals we are forced to interact with a multitude of people with different beliefs and/or perspectives, as well as people who have none. Applying the game feature in such a way that deals with the reality of relativism would make it more real than giving it a theme of Good and Evil, because in order for every person in the universe to believe that something is evil it has to be evident, it as to be factual. Factual proof of an evil thing, whatever that "thing"(action?) might be, would promote the existence of a higher, more refined(or raw) evil, which would then promote the existence of a higher, more refined good**.

 

So what do you guys think of that? Please share your thoughts.

 

* = I'm not trying to generalize or form stereotypes, it's merely an example of a religious/atheistic extreme.

** = This is my personal reasoning, and I thought it would be important to explain in relevance to why I think the theme for the feature I'm promoting is a good idea. I do not wish to start a debate, there are other threads for the exchange of ideas, or debating, or flaming(which, specifically, is against the rules), and fiercely express my opposition of any debate. We will stay on topic here.

 

EDIT: Woopsee, WAY too many hypens and underscores. Let's get rid of some of those.

[brokenergy]

I'm actually quite glad that we are moving away from "good and evil" and the mortality system in general as it shows maturity and shows the world more than in a black and white image. Having a system is really a waste of time as people focus more on that rather their own thoughts. I know because when I play ME, Kotor and any D&D game I focus more on scoring points rather than listening to my gut, even the approval system is useless and needs to be more refined. I see what you are saying and I'm sure that there are people there to agree with you but I think this is one of BioWare's better concepts and I'll like it if it stayed that way. Mortality systems just really chain you down and disadvantage you from making proper choices.

[Ysmene]

I'm quite pleased, actually, with the system of morality implemented in Dragon Age. I usually don't like karma meters that aren't intrinsic to the setting of the game (like the Humanity meter in the Vampire games), since they feel sometimes kind of arbitrary, and I usually end up disagreeing with some of their points. I prefer a much more nuanced and complex view of 'evil', especially the fact that evil can very often be subjective. What Dragon Age does, and what I hope more games adopt, is the system of consequences. Every action has consequences, depending a lot on who is watching, and there's no real 'right' path except to kill the archdemon. Whatever path you take to get there is the 'right' one, though each separate path will have its own individual consequences. The Darkspawn are quite obviously evil, but all the humans/dwarves/elves... most of them have very understandable motivations, even if their methods are quite bloody.

 

For instance, I love the decision between Harrowmont and Bhelen. My first time through, I thought Bhelen was obviously the "wrong" choice because of how he reacts immediately after he's coronated. But when you look at Orzammar in the long term, it's hard to argue that he was worse overall than Harrowmont. Not to mention the various choices you have to make in Redcliffe, especially if you sided with the Templars in the Broken Circle quest. It makes the game feel more 'real' to me, since none of us have karma meters following us around - all we have are the consequences of our choices, and the choices others make, and having to live with them.