Good vs. Evil *possible spoilers*

[Solusek]

Hey guys,

do you also feel that playing "evil" or "neutral" in Fallout 3 is much more rewarding and satisfactory in every way than being a "goody-two-shoes"?

Sure, there are quests only available to good players, but then again there are also quests which are exclusively for non-good aligned players. And even if there were more quests for good karma players than the other way around it'd still don't matter at all, since XP is not an issue in Fallout 3 and the quest rewards are mostly standard stuff. Furthermore if you really roleplay your character having good karma, not being the thief-type, etc. there are some very good items, skill books, etc. that will be unobtainable for you. Heck, even a bobblehead or two are unavailable if you're really consequent

So basically it's free killing and stealing, some otherwise unobtainable items, and some other slight advantages vs. well.... nothing? Maybe some gifts from happy citizens, but that's it. Yes, I know there's this satisfying feeling of doing good and getting positive reactions. And yes it is a role-playing game, so it shouldn't be all about advantages and disadvantages.

But when I see all the opportunities in front of my eyes, I just can't stand it. No stealing AT ALL without losing karma, which btw. is a bug in my opinion. The way it is supposed to be you should be able to steal from neutral/evil aligned players without losing karma, but you can't. What really drives me insane though is that you cannot obtain all the skills books and bobbleheads without losing karma or violating your characters moral code.

Sorry, if my post is a bit chaotic. Hope you get my point anyway Do you guys feel the same when playing Fallout 3? Besides, some of the funniest stuff unique to the fallout series cannot be done staying true to your good karma ideals. Putting mines in people's backpacks for example... :>



So long,
Sol

[Paranitis]

Personally I am just annoyed with the whole Karma system entirely. I think if you steal things, you should only get in trouble if you are caught. Say I go to someone's house, I am sneaking the whole time, and rob it blind. Then I go into a town and want to buy some things..how does that town automatically know I am evil? It just doesn't make any sense.

Also if you murder someone and there are witnesses, then sure you can have a wanted level or whatever, but if you kill the witnesses, then how do people know you went around murdering people?

I just started playing today and already I am a bit annoyed.

!) Stealthing seems almost useless from the start since everything can detect you.
2) You can't shoot out lights like in some other games, and the way the areas are set up, it's hard to sneak around without walking directly into a bright area.
3) Can't steal anything without starting to become evil, regardless of whether someone spots you or not.
4) Unarmed/Melee combat seems useless since stealthing is also useless.

I can't seem to have a good character for running around stealthed, picking locks, and taking people out with my fists. At least not from the start I can't.

[SupaCat]

Personally I am just annoyed with the whole Karma system entirely. I think if you steal things, you should only get in trouble if you are caught. Say I go to someone's house, I am sneaking the whole time, and rob it blind. Then I go into a town and want to buy some things..how does that town automatically know I am evil? It just doesn't make any sense.

Also if you murder someone and there are witnesses, then sure you can have a wanted level or whatever, but if you kill the witnesses, then how do people know you went around murdering people?

Karma isn't about other people knowing, it's about, said simplisticly as possible, 'everybody gets what he deserves'. If you do wrong, it's a universal force that will make sure you get what you deserve. But, I agree, other people don't know your evil nature of evil deeds. The name karma is also strange to be given to this aligment system, but I don't know if I should be making statements about that, since I'm not an expert on the Budhist theology.

On topic, I always went good, even if I missed on other quest and rewards. To be honest, it were the rewards that made me go good, since, really, the rewards aren't that special and I can live without them. (Your bound to find better stuf than the things they give you).

Being good in fallout isn't rewarding in gameplay, I'll say that. I never saw the atom explosion, I never put a mine in someone backpack,... A shame that they didn't make the good side more attractive.

[Paranitis]

I always liked playing kind of a good aligned kleptomaniac.

I'd go around helping everyone who needed help. I wouldn't go around just killing people. And I was generally a nice guy when it came to other people..but when nobody was looking, I would have the character steal everything that wasn't bolted down.

But I really can't do that with this game because there aren't enough Good things to do in the game to balance out the amount of things available to be stolen by me.

[Belthan]

I'm kind of amused by Bethesda's take on morality. I tend to play pragmatic characters with a code of ethics that would be neutral at best in most games:

Be nice to nice people and bad to bad people.
When in doubt, escalate.
Shooting people for amusement or out of malice is distasteful, but shooting people because it's expedient is tasty.
If you're going to shoot, shoot first and ask questions later.
Never shoot somebody in the face if you can shoot them in the back.
Avoid stealing from the less fortunate unless you really need that item more than they do.
Steal shamelessly from the rich unless you're likely to get caught.

Playing Fallout 3 by that fairly antisocial code has earned me "very good" karma. Go figure. I shudder to think what it would take to be "very evil".

[jklinders]

I've lost karma by "stealing" skill books from the stand of a scavenger killed by raiders. What gives? the poor guy was dead, I would have saved him if I could but who will use those books now? Heck I would have BOUGHT them given the oppurtunity. As for satisfaction from being good, After you have leveled a bit and have a good armament, go and clean house in Paradise Falls, I don't know about you folks, but found wiping the ground with those smug buggers VERY satisfying :laugh:

[file read error]

For me the decision whether a character will be "good" or "evil" is done right at the beginning when I'm prompted to select my gender: male characters will be "good" and female characters will be "evil". In this context, "good" also means no stealing (ever, even if it's a skill book or something like that), no shooting of "good" people and such, and "evil" means I steal whatever I can unless I personally like the owner of the object (for example I wouldn't steal things from Moira) and shoot everyone who got a problem with that.

But I agree, the rewards for being evil are too good. For example, you could

Spoiler

simply beat down Silver for 300 caps if you're evil, but if you're playing good you get naught but a few extra points of karma from talking to her. The same is true for the random merchants appearing in the wasteland: be evil and take all their stuff for free AND get their surplus caps, or be good and pay caps to only get a few of their items? What are those merchants doing there anyway, are they ****ing lunatics? The wasteland is a land with no sense of law and morality! Everyone could rob those poor saps of all their possessions!

[ahs]

Remember, Karma sees everything!

[Dizha]

I'm very good in the game, though I've been mostly neutral.

It's just, some of the side quests requires a good person to help them out with they're problems.. But the "I dont want your reward" option in the end, has never been used by me.. :laugh:

[whatsthatsmell]

I started out trying to be good but with all Bethesda games - they seem to make that difficult for you. At least its harder to accidentally steal items while trying to click on shopkeepers (Oblivion ftl). However, in the first hour of playing I talked to that barkeeper in Megaton and when he asked for 100 caps to give out info about your father I accidentally quit the dialogue and when I tried to go through it again he decided he wanted 300 caps. Thats pretty bull**** if you ask me. Why is the player constantly penalized on account of their crappy dialogue trees and interface? So I just got pissed off and beat the guy to death and then ended up killing 1/2 the town as they ran in and tried to stop me. It was so easy and I got so much loot I decided it was a lot more fun then just being good. Killing off townspeople is certainly more challenging and fun than battling mutant ants and wild dogs for the first 3 hours..

[feenicks007]

One of my biggest problems with the whole "good and bad" thing is that it doesn't reflect well enough with some encounters. (Spoiler) no matter what your karma is you can't make nice with the raiders of Evergreen Mills. You shoud be able to walk in there and buy a beer from them if your Karma is set to evil. The Slavers of Paradise falls didn't really care what my karma was, they dealt with me either way.

I didn't try to be "good" but through basic actions I ended up being the "last saviour of mankind". I didn't really do anything all that heroic, but the game is slanted towards good Karma. You have to do things you know are inherently evil to get bad Karma, while doing everything else gets you good karma.

[shift244]

Karma is not exactly a "reaction to your immediate actions" system. Which is why you still gain and loose Karma in proportion when you perform deeds even without anyone noticing you. It's a sort of "reputation accumulation"... think of it as such that words tend to get around and that when you think no one's watching, people can still make rather accurate guesses at who did what. Three Dog has pretty accurate accounts of your actions despite never seeming to have left the building nor updated by you...

On that note, if you are caught stealing, that person would most certainly snatch the item away from you, so that's the immediate reaction you wanted. They're not known to go hostile though.

The "alignment titles" from what I read, are not really measured your Karma total it seems, but by your Karma tendency and level... it seems they are achievement titles that you gain for simply reaching a specified level leaning towards that Karma, not even sure if you must be leaning stronger than required in the previous levels. Now quite sure how that works against drastic Karma shifts either (will need to try and find out).

feenicks007, can't you just take it that some bad guys are bad towards everyone while others try and tempt the good guys to change sides?

file read error, the wasteland is what you make of it. There are people trying to keep to the morals of civilization despite it's collapse; and you can either join them or be a crazed Raider, your choice. Neither is the "reward" greater in any respect. Sure, it's easier to beat someone up and take their stuff, but the reward for goodness has never been earthly in the first place right? Just because it's a game you expect it to be that different from real life?

I think most of the quest and most players (on the first run through at least) would default to being mostly good, which is not really that difficult. So any additional "reward" or fun-ness factor from bad deeds are probably to tempt another play through. Off the hat, I can only think of one,

Spoiler

exploding pants,

stealing and murder are never to be considered good.

The placement of the special acquisition items (bobbleheads etc) are not really placed badly from my view. That some mandate Karma loss to obtain is as real as life itself: Are you willing to pay the cost to obtain it? Character's whose goal is to "Complete bobblehead collection", or "Min-max skill gain" have a different goal than "Be a saint and do nothing that nets negative Karma".


Spoilered:
The usual Karma loss is small enough really, and if you really want to meta-game

Spoiler

, you can donate all bottles of Purified Water you ever come across for much more Karma gains.

whatsthatsmell, the guy in Megaton

Spoiler

is a greedy bastard. He'll raise the price anyway so that is on purpose for that character

.

[CJ@]

I think that Evil Works Well.

Rob all the time. Shoot, stab hit. All work the same on the Citizens of D.C.

Evil is way more fun, you can do whatever you want to. Whenever you want to.

[jklinders]

Pretty sure there is no karma loss from taking bobbleheads. There is no steal tag on them. But the Karma system is a little...strange. Like I mentioned, steal from a dead mans' vendor stand, lose Karma, steal from that same man's corpse...nothing.

I agree it works better than Oblivion's model though, where you only show as immoral when you are caught. When there is a scarcity of possessions, people know when you are using someone else's swag.

[Realag]

bobbleheads

of course taking bobbleheads won't count as stealing, i got all 20 and not even the one from simms house or science lab counted as stolen

[GoldDragon]

You don't get Karma loss from taking the actual bobble-heads, but one of them is behind a locked door, and entering that door DOES cause a Karma loss.

[shift244]

Karma is where"you get what you give".

No, the bobbleheads themselves loose you no karma for taking them.
Gaining access to take some of them may cost you karma.

jklinders, you already gained -ve karma for killing the guy! But I do agree that taking stuff from his corpse is a missed -ve karma "bug", but a small one.

[jklinders]

No, the bobbleheads themselves loose you no karma for taking them.
Gaining access to take some of them may cost you karma.

jklinders, you already gained -ve karma for killing the guy! But I do agree that taking stuff from his corpse is a missed -ve karma "bug", but a small one.

Please read my origional post, raiders killed the guy not me, if butterflies had survived the holocaust they would be flitting around my characters head. If anything, I had killed the raiders who had killed him, I think I was only a few moments too late to help him.

[shift244]

Ah... I forgot about your post further back than that one... sry.

[jklinders]

No worries, just trying to emphasize just how bugged the karma system is. I've also noticed that stealing from the shop owners in Paradise Falls after cleaning house there does not give bad karma even though there is a steal tag on their goods. This may be deliberate though.