CRPG:s that don't force you to behave like one of the good guys... do they exist?

[edguy]

Hi. I think bgii is one of the greatest games ever except this one little thing: it's too goodness-oriented. So I was wondering if I could get suggestions of crpg:s that are more balanced when it comes to alignment, i.e. I want to have more choices than to play lawful-, neutral- or chaotic GOOD.

Are there any?

[fable]

Realistically, you can't play a game that let's you win as evil, because the whole idea of alignment is (when you think about it) kinda ridiculous. I mean, you can't start out life as a "chaotic evil" whatever. You're trained within a culture, and nobody would train a chaotic evil type--just as nobody in reallife would train a sociopath. A true chaotic evil or chaotic neutral person is the sort who ends up killing dogs for sport, running over children with a car without concern, and finally gets shoved into a cell for the rest of their lives.

I'd also suggest that no "lawful evil" culture regards itself as such, but considers it's enemies to be evil, and much the same can be said about most individuals. The guy who shoots up his office doesn't think, "Wow, I'm evil!" instead, he's caught in an emotional avalanche about the effects of losing his job. Even the fanatic who guns down a doctor that performs abortions thinks of himself as "good," and so do many other people that believe he's in the right. Black & white are colors that are hard to distinguish in the light of knowledge.

Okay, I'll get off the stump box and let someone else mount up.

The closest thing you'll find to playing "evil" are in the Fallout games, where you can develop a reputation that's positive either for good or evil, depending upon your actions. You can win by siding repeatedly with the opressors, or the opressed, and the further you go down one path or the other, the more of a bonus you receive in interactions and combat.

You might also check out Black & White, though it's not really an RPG, and I found it pretty tedious.

[edguy]

I agree that alignment is ridiculous most noticably because of it's obvious limits. After all, it was constructed for a RPG world where "good" and "evil" are supposed to be easily distinguished. If they weren't, paladins and the like would end up unemployed.

Let's say that a character is CE (Chaotic Evil). That doesn't mean he/she/it has be CE since birth - the culture, social upbringing, family conditions and so on are going to shape the alignment of that individual (unless you believe in some kind of inherited sin, that is ). The alignment of this person had not necessarily been apparent at the time he received "training" (if such training was available - the skills you obtain doesn't have to come from any kind of "formal" training, that is, with a teacher/master/elder).

And yes, a CE character COULD end up killing dogs in the street, beating up old people and such IF he found that kind of behaviour enjoyable. Had he also been of low INT he would most definately end up in a jail cell sooner or later. But in pretty much the same way, Minsc would have been brought out of bg by a group of serious looking men in white lab coats before he had had the chance to even end his very first sentence, no?

On the other hand, consider an organization such as the Mafia. Would you characterize its members as Good, Neutral or Evil? Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic? I believe they would lean towards the Neutral Evil side as their choice of career is breaking the laws at the same time as they are aware of the necessity of being organized in a strict hierachy with a code of conduct that you better not disobey.

Had an evil character been part of/hang-around to such an organization, there would have been quite a bit of (not so nice) "quests" that were needed to be taken care of. The Mafia could rather easily be transferred to a Fantasy world such as that of the BG-series (The Shadow Thieves? Still a bit too not-Evil quests you got from them in BgII, but Maevar was promising, as long as your service to him lasted). So therefore I do not really see why it would pose any real problems concerning the game contents, but on the other hand it could become a subject of controverse whether or not computer game producers should make it clear that other career paths beyond that of the Good Hero are available in a Fantasy world.


Fallout I&II were very enjoyable when it came to playing diffent kinds of "alignment" (though as I remember it you didn't pick one at the beginning of the game?). I would have wanted more of that in bgii, but it was rather a disappointment when it came to evil choices that one could make. The npc:s were also a bit on the lame side compared to bgi.

Well, the very title of B&W says it all, doesn't it?

[xFedaykin]

Good and evil can only be defined if one has a fixed moral reference point. For example, our current society uses religious values predominantly, Christian values to define what is right and what is wrong.
Such a standpoint was duplicated to some extent to RPGs. But you have to ask, do drow consider themselves evil? They don't. We, however consider them evil because their morals, culture and practices contradict our own.
So, how would you define "being evil?" If our society permitted random murder, and you committed such acts , would you be considered "evil"? No you wont.
An RPG like Baldur's Gate II has to make life difficult for an evil doer in order to be consistent with world they created. Sure, you can RP a chaotic evil character murdering children and rabbits one moment then saving the world the next. But it has to punish you for those "evil" acts just as a real society would.

[VoodooDali]

I was thinking about this the other day. I think that being neutral is really the way most of us are, and the most interesting. I've noticed that when people adhere to a rigid fixed point of view--for example, nuns or mafiosos--then their free will is extremely limited. I don't think that any mafia member or gang member has much choice in what they do--there are such strict guidelines of behavior. They barely have the freedom to leave, and the ones that do are often killed.