Gaming Moral Choices

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Brainwash because I wanted to save Legion. It was selfish, but it was selfishness from a positive place. It's not my position to choose what lives and what dies. But facing the choice of kill or brainwash, brainwash seems the most humane. Maybe that's the justification for Mages being made Tranquil in Dragon age (one must argue why one has to make mages tranquil)

I think one example of a positive binary Good VS Bad choice in Mass Effect 3 was: where Shepard is about to be stabbed by Kai in a cut-scene. You get the Renegade prompt which you feel so strong to obey. You may have tried to be Paragon, but at that moment, you're like "NOOOOOOO" *CLICK*. If you actually watch the Youtube video of the alternative, it turns out Shepard didn't need the prompt to stay alive. What changes is that Shepard lets Kai attack and deflects the swing. Therefore it's a choice of Strike first or Last. On paper that sounds like a shitty choice, but when you're playing it, it feels like a very human reaction.
That was the only time I chose a Renegade option because how could I not?

[Conoros]

The framing for moral choice is really what makes or breaks it imo. The straight Paragon/Renedage bar from Mass Effect is really jarring I think, your actions should be reflected through the world and how it reacts to you, rather than a UI widget.

[Geoff_B]

IMHO there's a better example in Mass Effect - do you punch out the reporter? Sure it's satisfying to do the first few times but if you restrain yourself you get quite a touching scene in the third game.

And with the Geth I don't see it so much as "brainwashing" as "removing a corrupting influence". The Tranquil in DA are horrifying to me because you may not be physically killing them but you are essentially causing the death of the person

As for paragon/renegade choices in Mass Effect - no matter how you play you HAVE to make the paragon interrupt to hug Tali in 2 and you HAVE to make the renegade interrupt to kill Kai in 3. It's in the license agreement (or it should be at least!)

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

Good binary moral choices are choices where you have to fight your human instincts to stay "on course" of your chosen allegience. Great ones are where you do because you can't bear it.

Although, games with satanic evil choices, and you choose evil choices makes me uncomfortable. It's reassuring that I am human and my moral compass is earthed, but I am not sure if it makes for a fun game experience

[Duckay]

I don't know if this is a spoiler, but err on the side of caution.

The tranquil are one of the reasons I can't bear to side with the Templars. I tried to list off all the reasons why, but I just can't even do it. Even leaving aside everything else to do with the structure of the mage towers, even taking into account the possibilities for abuse of power like the magisters, the concept / implications of the tranquil are just so repulsive to me.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

My stance on the Mages Vs Templars is that I loveish Anders even though DA2 was damaging to the character and aspects of him were dead (I say poor writing and not Justice), so I ally along side him.
I also enjoy playing a Mage so I have biases. It's a war of extremes, it's just also imo the Templar side is more damaging (essentially Genocide vs Tyranny). You can dispose of corruption

[Lysander]

Is it really Brainwashing? Could it be you're just sending them a really convincing argument? I would consider it on par with psychiatric therapy for the sociopathic or giving the chemically imbalanced the right type of anti-psychotic or anti-anxiety medication.

[Geoff_B]

In terms of the Geth I see it more of correcting errors that have been introduced into their programming, in terms of DA:O I see it as magical (or indeed physical) lobotimising.

[Lysander]

Jade Empire annoyed me with the bait-and-switch of the morality system. At the beginning of the game I was gleeful when the tutorial guy said neither was specifically good or evil. But then I played the actual game, and it's back to Jedi vs. Sith, Greed vs. Charity, Protecting vs Corrupting. I gave a woman a knife so she can free herself from slavery (closed fist), and she turns into a serial killer. ಠ_ಠ

And due to narrative reasons the Bad Guy is full Open Palm. Talk about gameplay and story segregation and dissonance.

[Duckay]

My stance on the Mages Vs Templars is that I loveish Anders even though DA2 was damaging to the character and aspects of him were dead (I say poor writing and not Justice), so I ally along side him.

To be fair, Anders had a lot more going on than just the Justice thing. Personally, I found his character in DAII more compelling than in Awakening. Obviously that's personal preference, though.

[Merrymaker_Mortalis]

I felt like Anders' character was too different between the games.
I "fell in love" with Awakening Anders, and it was quite sad seeing how he turned out. I sympathised. I just felt like they were two separate characters.
You had sarcastic Anders in Awakening.
Then you had Pessimistic Anders in II.
You could blame Justice/Vengeance corrupting him.
I don't know. I just missed him being witty.

I'm dreading him being a compulsory killing target in III if you let him live.
III is going to be interesting from a political POV.

What bothers me outside of the game is the writing for him romantically. He is sort of a Bisexual character.
In Awakening he makes it clear he is attracted to women.

In II things get weird.

If Hawke is born female (you choose a female Hawke), Anders as far as you know is heterosexual.
If Hawke is born male(you choose a make Hawke), Anders is revealed to have been in a same sex relationship. He is Bisexual.

I think it's good that Bioware has allowed you to romance any romanceable companions if you wish as any gendered Hawke. But they did sort of murder the fictional credibility of Ander's sexuality. In real life, if a certain sperm fertilizes a certain ovum to cause an embryo of a certain sex to come into existence, it doesn't affect the sexuality of the embryo's future potential sexual partner. It's silly.

It would be funny if someone made a Roleplaying game which misleads you into thinking there's romance options. But turns out the majority of the "romanceable" characters don't find you attractive at all. LIKE REAL LIFE. Sort of like Aveline in Dragon Age 2, but with more characters.

I'm starting to go off topic now.

I think some choices in Dragon Age 2 were unfair, because you may have had a Mage Sister, or you yourself were a Mage. So any political choices would have had some bias.
You would have been a hypocrite to support the suppression of the Mages as a Mage.
And you'd have to be an arse to support the suppression of your sister.
They were meant to be free choices, but they weren't.

[Jack Folley]

I really enjoyed ME1. As the developers promised, all important decisions from the previous parts of the game would be taken into account and influence the plot of ME2 and ME3. For example, important decisions from ME1 include: the issue of the genophage, the fate of Queen Rahni, the Council on the Citadel, Kaidan, Ashley, Rex, and Kirrah.