• Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    I think this makes sense.

    Motivations make you evil, not actions. Actions can make you evil if the motivation is there, or if you lack any motivation other than self-service, but if you are just a fuckup, are you actually bad? Sure if enough of your actions are bad even if the goal is good, it makes you a bad person, but does it make you evil? (I’ve played enough morally ambiguous virtue games to know the answer is no; they always forgive the antagonist if he repents and tries to do better)

    Killing people is often, in games, portrayed as a good thing… but not helping people doesn’t make you a morally reprehensible person… helping them the wrong way does. And that’s hard to encode.

    “My husband had to go to xyz to deal with the kobold problem, but he hasn’t come back yet”. Your options are help or ignore, and ignoring it isn’t inherently evil, it’s just not compassionate or caring. Helping the kobolds would be the evil act in this scenario and it’s never an actual option in most games.