Quote from: Sigmund;418342Just want to point out that this is not necessarily true. You might be a moral realist, but not everyone (myself included) shares that belief.

Not necessarily true? Which part?

Is it the part where if you just vary a bit, you're only corrupted a little?

Is it the part where if you vary you're morals to a greater degree, you're more corrupted?

Or is it the part where you get to define your own morale standard and there is no right and wrong?

Which part of that belief don't you share, and why?

P.S. Is there an absolute right and wrong? Would you only know or acknowledge it if you had to experience it?

Quote from: GameDaddy;418350Not necessarily true? Which part?

Is it the part where if you just vary a bit, you're only corrupted a little?

Is it the part where if you vary you're morals to a greater degree, you're more corrupted?

Or is it the part where you get to define your own morale standard and there is no right and wrong?

Which part of that belief don't you share, and why?

P.S. Is there an absolute right and wrong? Would you only know it if you had to experience it?

The part where you said morality is only subjective if one does not understand it. I don't agree. I don't believe that moral judgements are objective, but that they are informed by culture. Another culture's moral standards might be uncomfortable for you, but that doesn't automatically make them objectively wrong. Hell, I might even agree with you about many things that you would value as "good" or "bad", but I won't go so far as to say they are objectively "good" or "bad". The values depend on one's point of view.

All that said, this perhaps isn't the best thread in which to dive head-first into a debate on the subjectivity/objectivity of morality.

Quote from: Sigmund;418351All that said, this perhaps isn't the best thread in which to dive head-first into a debate on the subjectivity/objectivity of morality.

It is, as it goes to the very core of game design.

If there is no absolute standard to measure whether a game is moral or not, whether it teaches that evil and evil deeds are ok or not, then it fails in its design as a game.

It doesn't fail because of it's entertainment value, it fails because it provides inaccurate play experiences that are open to misintrepretation.

For a game to reach art the mechanics must be revelatory of the human condition, and that condition is rooted in morality, the right and wrong choices we make every day that leads to success and failure, the choices that lead to honor or dishonor.

There will of course always be a group of players who prefer the comfort of only tackling problems they know how to solve.

When designing games you must be willing to choose the side of human nature you want to foster, otherwise someone else will choose for you.

Quote from: GameDaddy;418352It is, as it goes to the very core of game design.

If there is no absolute standard to measure whether a game is moral or not, whether it teaches that evil and evil deeds are ok or not, then it fails in its design as a game.

It doesn't fail because of it's entertainment value, it fails because it provides inaccurate play experiences that are open to misintrepretation.

For a game to reach art the mechanics must be revelatory of the human condition, and that condition is rooted in morality, the right and wrong choices we make every day that leads to success and failure, the choices that lead to honor or dishonor.

There will of course always be a group of players who prefer the comfort of only tackling problems they know how to solve.

When designing games you must be willing to choose the side of human nature you want to foster, otherwise someone else will choose for you.

I don't agree at all. I don't look to games of any kind, especially RPGs, to teach me any kind of morality, "good" or "bad". I'm not trying to reach "art" by gaming.

Define "evil deeds".

Define "inaccurate play experiences".

Who decides what the correct moral standard "must" be? What are the "sides" of human nature? If a person disagrees with you about a specific moral rule, but like you also believes that morality is objective, are they still wrong? If so, how do you know they are wrong and not you? Why do you believe that it's a game designer's job to decide what "correct" morality is, and not each individual? Is there anyone who's job isn't to determine what "correct" morality is and then enforce that morality in all their dealings with all other human beings in the universe?

Quote from: Sigmund;418355Is there anyone who's job isn't to determine what "correct" morality is and then enforce that morality in all their dealings with all other human beings in the universe?

Because it isn't defined as a specific job for game designers you are automatically absolved from pre-determining what the moral content of your games should be?

If so then part of your job as a game designer is in developing and promoting ethically questionable materials that may be released to the general public, and that public happens to include people who not only have not had any prior exposure to the values (good or bad)you present. Not only do they have no context or content in which to practice making good decisions with, some of the folks that are exposed to your game may not have physically developed to the point where they can properly apply or comprehend the rules and mechanics your game is using.

Notwithstanding your tiny and ever shrinking customer base that such a game would attract, the existence of such games is a detriment to the other game designers who are actually working at making good games.

Not my job. Good answer.

Quote from: GameDaddy;418357Because it isn't defined as a specific job for game designers you are automatically absolved from pre-determining what the moral content of your games should be?

If so then part of your job as a game designer is in developing and promoting ethically questionable materials that may be released to the general public, and that public happens to include people who not only have not had any prior exposure to the values (good or bad)you present. Not only do they have no context or content in which to practice making good decisions with, some of the folks that are exposed to your game may not have physically developed to the point where they can properly apply or comprehend the rules and mechanics your game is using.

Notwithstanding your tiny and ever shrinking customer base that such a game would attract, the existence of such games is a detriment to the other game designers who are actually working at making good games.

Not my job. Good answer.

So you're saying the answer is "yes", it is the job of every human being to determine what this objective moral standard is and then enforce it at all times?

Quote from: Sigmund;418358So you're saying the answer is "yes", it is the job of every human being to determine what this objective moral standard is and then enforce it at all times?

I thought we were talking game design here....

You can't enforce anything when you are making and releasing a game, but you can include options for players to choose good or bad, and outline the full consequences of such choices both in game, and out.


When designing games you must be willing to choose the side of human nature you want to foster, otherwise someone else will choose for you.

Quote from: GameDaddy;418360I thought we were talking game design here....

You can't enforce anything when you are making and releasing a game, but you can include options for players to choose good or bad, and outline the full consequences of such choices both in game, and out.

Actually we're talking about moral realism vs moral nihilism, game design is only one minuscule aspect of existence. You are contending that what is "good" and what is "bad" is absolute. I disagree. I have asked questions designed to give me an idea of where you stand in relation to this issue that you have brought up, but you have yet to even answer one clearly. However, using game design as an example, what would you consider "good" based on absolute morality and what would you consider "bad" based on absolute morality? Do you consider killing to be morally "wrong", and if so do you only play games that do not contain the possibility of killing? Why do you believe it is the game designer's job to decide what absolute "good" and "bad" are rather than each individual exposed to the moral standard espoused by the game designer? What if the game designer is one of the people who you apparently believe is incapable of determining what is objectively "right" and "wrong"? Does this imperative to determine the "correct" moral standard extend to all people who produce or distribute things? Is McDonalds morally wrong for selling food that is high in fat and cholesterol knowing full well that those substances can and often do lead to suffering and death? Are car manufacturers and dealers wrong for making and distributing machines that spew toxic chemicals into the atmosphere knowing that those chemicals could be causing our planetary climate to change? Are each of us who purchase gasoline wrong for spending money that ultimately ends up in the hands of people who do not share our moral standard and who also believe that their ideas of what is "good" and "bad" are objective and that we are evil and should die because of that? How do you know that what you consider "good" and "bad" are objectively correct and what any particular game designer considers "good" and "bad" might be wrong? Are you willing to consider that perhaps you are wrong, both in what you consider to be "good" and "bad", and also in whether morality is objective or subjective?

Quote from: CRKrueger;418290John Morrow nailed it when he said Simulation didn't have a creative agenda, it has an experiential one.  When you are there to experience the world through the eyes of your character, then the more you know that your character doesn't, the less you are experiencing as your character.

Simulationism is an awful, dry, negatively loaded word. We are not running a flight simulator here, all numbers and game-world physics. Games of the non-gamist, non-so-called-GNS-"narrativist" sort are often highly dynamic games. The word "Simulationism" IMHO YMMV tends to imply the contrary. That's one of the reasons why it's such a bullshit and unacceptable word. It's a piece of propaganda which even the proponents of immersive games often swallow. I know I did at first before I thought it through.

Immersionists want believable worlds and I think there may be something in saying that immersion is an experiential rather than creative agenda. But gamers who want immersion also generally (IME) if not quite always want something to drive the game forward dynamically, whether it's poignant personal themes for their characters (in essence, this is the overlap with that godawful theory GNS' so-called narrativism - poignant personal themes are all to the good if they don't detract from believability), the excitement of combat and puzzles (in essence, this is the overlap with GNS' gamism) or something else entirely, such as the sense of sheer horror among the players in the real world that a Cthulhu game can evoke or the sense of mystery and suspense that an intricate plot peppered if desired with a certain amount of slightly-PvP plotting and conniving can evoke, again, critically, not necessarily for the characters, but more importantly for the players in the real world. Another example, if not so high-falluting, is the sense of comedy that can be evoked among the players by general silliness.

That is not simply drily simulating anything. It is evoking an experience in the real world for the players - an experience which has immersion and believability at its foundations, but not as its entire being. The building is built on foundations of immersion, but with a superstructure framed around dynamic elements such as poignant themes, strenuous challenges and the developing evocation among the players of real-world emotions such as a sense of horror or mystery. Perfect immersion in a perfectly believable world is not necessarily enough in and of itself for a fun game - for instance, you might immerse yourself in the world of a tax inspector inspecting straightforward taxes in a regular humdrum case. Total immersion, zero fun.

So immersion is a brilliant part of the game, but we do generally need some dynamic beyond immersion as well. Immersion is a good part of the path, but not the entire destination.

I do not agree with Pundit's view that player narrative power necessarily breaks immersion simply because realistically your character could not do what you the player can do to the game-world. However, we are not very far apart in the result, because I believe that the process of using player narrative power weakens immersion because it requires you to stand apart from your character's POV, however briefly, to consider the world globally, and not just from the standpoint of your character, because your narrative decisions affect the entire game and it would not be conducive to a good game if you made those decisions purely from the blinkered perspective of one character. In the end we get to the same result but I think there's a big logical flaw in how Pundit gets there which is dangerous because it can be leapt on as a weakness in our whole argument by elements wilfully ignorant of the phenomenon or attraction of immersion.

Knowing out of character information does not necessarily (IMHO) prevent you from attaining immersion. What it prevents you from experiencing are the sensations of mystery, horror etc. which depend on immersion but also depend on the sense of the unknown, the sense of a pre-existing game-world which you do not fully know. Critically comprehensive player narrative power also means (as I've said before) that you know there's no real pre-existing game world to be the unknown, so that's a double attack on your sense of the unknown.

Quote from: GameDaddy;418352It is, as it goes to the very core of game design.

If there is no absolute standard to measure whether a game is moral or not, whether it teaches that evil and evil deeds are ok or not, then it fails in its design as a game.

It doesn't fail because of it's entertainment value, it fails because it provides inaccurate play experiences that are open to misintrepretation.

For a game to reach art the mechanics must be revelatory of the human condition, and that condition is rooted in morality, the right and wrong choices we make every day that leads to success and failure, the choices that lead to honor or dishonor.

There will of course always be a group of players who prefer the comfort of only tackling problems they know how to solve.

When designing games you must be willing to choose the side of human nature you want to foster, otherwise someone else will choose for you.

WTF...:huhsign:
This has got to be one of the strangest positions on game design I have ever heard.
erm...the daddy of them all had multiple alignments GD, that a player could pick from, so ?!

Lets not confuse "game design" (resolution mechanics ie.required),the interface between the game world and the players, with "setting" (fluff ie. optional).
How can a resolution system be either ethically "good" or "bad" asides from it's implementation by the char./group that's setting specific?
Remember rule 0?

If someone is learning their morality from a game then that is a major fail by their parents/community and bodes ill for society....

This ties into the whole "brain damaged" crap. If there is any brain damaged players it is because they brought it to the game not because of the game. (they have a predisposition that comes to the fore via the RPG experience as it does in other situations/behaviors as well) They may be overly influenced by games but most are not.

Shall we as designers cater to the "damaged" sub-group?
Sounds like therapy man...

Remember all the devil worship crap and the few cases where some player went off the deep end and acted like the game was "real"? Those people had issues WAY before playing the game!
I design games and never once have I taken the view that I am teaching anything like you suggest. I would not be interested in a game that overtly does, asides from looking at the mechanics.

Quote from: Sigmund;418355I don't agree at all. I don't look to games of any kind, especially RPGs, to teach me any kind of morality, "good" or "bad". I'm not trying to reach "art" by gaming.

Define "evil deeds".

Define "inaccurate play experiences".

Who decides what the correct moral standard "must" be? What are the "sides" of human nature? If a person disagrees with you about a specific moral rule, but like you also believes that morality is objective, are they still wrong? If so, how do you know they are wrong and not you? Why do you believe that it's a game designer's job to decide what "correct" morality is, and not each individual? Is there anyone who's job isn't to determine what "correct" morality is and then enforce that morality in all their dealings with all other human beings in the universe?

nicely put...:hatsoff:

Quote from: GameDaddy;418357Because it isn't defined as a specific job for game designers you are automatically absolved from pre-determining what the moral content of your games should be?

If so then part of your job as a game designer is in developing and promoting ethically questionable materials that may be released to the general public, and that public happens to include people who not only have not had any prior exposure to the values (good or bad)you present. Not only do they have no context or content in which to practice making good decisions with, some of the folks that are exposed to your game may not have physically developed to the point where they can properly apply or comprehend the rules and mechanics your game is using.

Notwithstanding your tiny and ever shrinking customer base that such a game would attract, the existence of such games is a detriment to the other game designers who are actually working at making good games.

Not my job. Good answer.

again...WTF?!:idunno:
I only remember one game that tried to shove morality (christian) down the players throat by limiting their char. choices.
And I cant remember the name and have not seen it in..oh..25 years!
Still see D&D etc. on the shelves...but hey if you want to explore that sort of design (morals/ethics) awesome!(sounds kinda "Forgey" to me :rolleyes:)

Quote from: Omnifray;418364I do not agree with Pundit's view that player narrative power necessarily breaks immersion simply because realistically your character could not do what you the player can do to the game-world. However, we are not very far apart in the result, because I believe that the process of using player narrative power weakens immersion because it requires you to stand apart from your character's POV, however briefly, to consider the world globally, and not just from the standpoint of your character, because your narrative decisions affect the entire game and it would not be conducive to a good game if you made those decisions purely from the blinkered perspective of one character. In the end we get to the same result but I think there's a big logical flaw in how Pundit gets there which is dangerous because it can be leapt on as a weakness in our whole argument by elements wilfully ignorant of the phenomenon or attraction of immersion.

No, actually what you described as your position is PRECISELY what I was talking about. Anyone who's familiar with my anti-"realism" screeds know that my issue would not be about that. I thought I'd said pretty clearly that the issue is the "break" that it creates in the player's experience of immersion to suddenly be apart from the perspective of his character and in the role of "god". So yeah, your point is my point too.

Also, I agree wholeheartedly with your condemnation of the term "simulationism". There's no such thing. There's ROLE-PLAYING, within which EMULATION and IMMERSION are two crucial elements that cannot be removed from a game without removing it from the definition of an RPG.  The attempt on the other side is to get people using the "gns theory" terms in order to use semantics to dominate the conversation. We don't accept that here.

RPGPundit

GameDaddy usually says some very sensible stuff, but I just cannot fathom this position about game designers, and game design itself, having some kind of imperative (from whom or what does it issue?) to teach, impart, or adhere to a standard of morality (who's standard?  Who defines the standard of morality?) through their game design and game play to gamers.

Quote from: Drohem;418370GameDaddy usually says some very sensible stuff, but I just cannot fathom this position about game designers, and game design itself, having some kind of imperative (from whom or what does it issue?) to teach, impart, or adhere to a standard of morality (who's standard?  Who defines the standard of morality?) through their game design and game play to gamers.

Likewise. I respect ya GD, which is why I'm working to be civil and as polite as I can while still expressing my opinion. You have completely lost me on this issue, however. I can find absolutely nothing you've posted on this issue I can agree with so far.

Quote from: GameDaddy;418327Yes, I do, however, I'm not up for particularly sharing, if only to keep the other retards away from games that damage the hobby as a whole. If they don't know about it, they sure can't play it... can they?

I'm afraid your reasoning makes little sense to me , but it's your perrogative I suppose to not back up your assertions, and accept the loss of credibility inherrent.

QuoteMmm'kay... so you (and your peers) don't understand Morality. It's only subjective, if you don't understand it.For you (and your peers), it's like some sliding scale where people can only be damaged a little if you vary just a bit from a moral standard, and they can be damaged alot if you vary alot from a moral standard. However, each person gets to define his or her own morale standards, right? So some people just won't be morally corrupted, because they have simply adopted a different standard that is not used by everyone else.  

Wow. Your inability to answer a simple, fair, and direct question compounded by a host of plainly ignorant assumptions is starting to make me doubt the truthfulness of your posts. Are you Christian? Jewish? Islam? Buddhist? How you define morality will be different depending on your religious convictions, lack thereof, the social conditions and country you were born in, and your education level. Avoiding a question is one thing, but galloping around on a hobby-horse while making vague accusations is not going to fool anyone into believeing you even have a high horse to get down from.

QuoteYou'll be able to count on the fact I'm applying my gaming preferences to the gaming community at large.

Well, that's a rather amoral attitude.

QuoteAlso, until we address the question at hand, I'm not interested in exploring variations to the question I asked. I'm looking for your answer, as best you are able to articulate, so quit wiggling and answer already:

In designing or promoting morally ambiguous games, or games that promote heinous activity, how does this make the game better than the games that are already available?

Again, I can't answer that question without knowing what you're defining as "morally ambiguous" or "heinous". I can answer it of course based on my own definitions, but I have no faith, less the more I read your replies, that your moral standards are up to my personal standards.

"Morally ambiguous" to me is the default of almost any RPG I've read, starting with D&D and WHFRPG. It does not make a game better or worse.

"Heinous" is a word I personally would reserve for maybe three or so games I've ever came across, and it mostly has to do with a combination of extreme (shocking) subject matter with a very juvenile attitude or approach. FATAL would perhaps epitomize this for me, along with any of the racist-based games found online. Like most rap songs, I don't approve of such things, I don't have any interest in them, but I don't really consider them "harmful", anymore than I would a movie like Sin City. Simply silly and juvenile. I would guess the audience for such games are adolescents, in maturity level if not actual age.

That said, any subject matter theoretically can be presented and dealt with in a mature manner, as with any medium. There are heinous novels and great novels dealing with heinous subjects. Films can deal with horrors and attrocities in an exploitive manner, or they can be sombre, thoughtful and intelligent. There are limits to what I think can be appropriately dealt with, and there are subjects I would watch a documentary about but would never consider suitable for an RPG, just as there are some subjects I'm not even interested in seeing documentaries about.

But the games I describe as "heinous" are all 1) unpublished pervwank online, 2) well-known and almost universally derided, and 3) are irrelevant to the gaming market. I don't consider them to have anything to do with the hobby, really, anymore than I would consider any of those private-release "adult" videogames to have anything to do with the videogame industry overall.

QuoteAhhh... so there's no need to improve new games. We should just be content with regurgitated pulp and be willing to expend time on it, and pay additional monies for something we already have, just for a different variation. Yes?

There are no new ideas, simply good and bad reinterpretations of old ideas. Been that way since Gilgamesh I'm afraid.

QuoteGames are largely about getting people past the variations and instead focus on the underlying patterns. Running over pedestrians, killing people, fighting lawmen or corrupt lawmen, fighting evil government, and eating dots while running from ghosts are all just stage settings, simply convenient metaphors for what a game is actually teaching.

I cannot make out what you're saying here at all. You seem to be talking about videogames instead of RPGs, I have no idea what you were trying to say when you wrote "Games are largely about getting people past the variations and instead focus on the underlying patterns", and I honestly cannot identify with anyone who sees games as "teaching" anything. I play RPGs to have fun, they don't influence my real life in any way. If someone's self-awareness, maturity, and mental stability are so compromised that they can be morally influenced by a game, I suggest that person has issues that have nothing to do with the hobby. Watching a horror movie doesn't turn you into a killer, erase or even challenge your moral convictions, or teach any life lessons. Ditto playing Call of Cthulhu. It's entertainment.

Quote from: RPGPundit;418369No, actually what you described as your position is PRECISELY what I was talking about. Anyone who's familiar with my anti-"realism" screeds know that my issue would not be about that. I thought I'd said pretty clearly that the issue is the "break" that it creates in the player's experience of immersion to suddenly be apart from the perspective of his character and in the role of "god". So yeah, your point is my point too.

Also, I agree wholeheartedly with your condemnation of the term "simulationism". There's no such thing. There's ROLE-PLAYING, within which EMULATION and IMMERSION are two crucial elements that cannot be removed from a game without removing it from the definition of an RPG.  The attempt on the other side is to get people using the "gns theory" terms in order to use semantics to dominate the conversation. We don't accept that here.

RPGPundit

Well that'll teach me to go reading bits of your posts in isolation and quoting them out of context... but I could have sworn...