Fire Arrow on 16/1/2024 at 21:59
Quote Posted by demagogue
I wouldn't say Ultima was any contribution to philosophical discussion of virtue ethics, but I think it's fair to say it was the forefather of games using ethics as a mechanic or that ties them up with objectives, which we've seen in Fallout, Dishonored, Prey, etc.
To me, there always seems to be something slightly lacking in the treatment of ethics in the Fallout series. Maybe it's because games have to revolve around actions, where as in real life intentions have more significance. I can't recall the number of times I reloaded a save because the available actions in a game didn't reflect my intentions.
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I have an opinion about the value of immersive sims, though, which runs against, if not is entirely antithetical, to this part of the imm-sim tradition from Origin to Arkane & their offshoots. I think some part of that tradition could still be consistent, but let me explain.
In my understanding of an imm-sim, the whole idea is you don't want there to be a "God" behind the game wanting you to read their mind to solve whatever puzzle will unlock salvation in the game's soteriology, where the game world itself responds to the virtue of the player. The idea is the game world just has systems that just do their thing objectively, there is no inherit right or wrong in the game world itself, but players chooses themselves what kind of person they'll be in that world, and the game lets them do it. Gameplay is about playing systems to solve environmental problems (granted that may include playing human psychology, like overtaking guards), not guessing verbs or riddles or puzzles.
That said, I think in that kind of world, you can and it's even a benefit to the game to have characters in the world that care about ethics and respond appropriately. In that case, being fraudulent (making people believe you're honest when you aren't in hidden places) is still a viable strategy. But that's how I think virtue ethics can still get in the back door. But I think that about the real world too. Virtue ethics has to come from within when it's in a world that's empty of ethics outside.
In this respect immersive simulators capture something about ethical experience that is missing in role-playing games.
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So I'll tell you what I really don't like. I hate the movie Pleasantville, where the movie world itself turned to color when a character did a virtuous thing to the world. For one thing, I thought their version of virtue was really superficial, and I was upset with the God of that world that They'd pander to that level of superficiality, when, you know, growing up studying virtue ethics as a lot of us philosophy types do, it's supposed to aspire to a higher level, nothing impossible or superhuman, but it doesn't reward lazy thinking.
This is much the same reason I refuse to watch "The Good Place". I don't think you can really treat ethics abstractly.
Pyrian on 16/1/2024 at 22:01
I thought the world changes in Dishonored were supposed to be a relatively direct result of your actions (e.g. fewer guards to fight back the vermin), and not an extraneous affect a la changing to color film.
demagogue on 16/1/2024 at 22:32
Your ethics pretty dramatically changed the game world.
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https://i.ibb.co/DbtrHwk/Image5.jpgvs.
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https://i.ibb.co/hRh0pWX/Image4.jpgThis is exactly what I'm talking about. It's about as close as any game has ever gotten to what I'm talking about. The Pleasantville example was an extreme example where it wasn't just the world's meteorology and guard work shifts that changed, but the color scheme of world objects physically changed.
I guess I can elaborate. Of course the game is often going to wedge some "natural" explanation into their fiction or mythology, but there's a point where the provided "natural" explanation really doesn't stand up to scrutiny about how natural it is or should be. It should be a natural naturalness and not a forced one. There might be borderline cases where there's an open question whether the proposed "natural" explanation is really natural or very forced, but I don't think this example in Dishonored is on the border, but very much on the side of by-the-will-of-the-game's-God.
It is in my memory anyway, and I remember being annoyed by it even as I played it, so I don't think it's a post hoc revision of my thinking, but I can see how others took the narrative's natural explanation for granted as such.
Edit: I understand that in a world that has magic and supernatural causes and beings, you'd have to account for that, but I think an account of natural magic and free deities can do that. E.g., there's a difference between deities in the world pulling strings and the One (the dev) behind the world pulling strings.
Anarchic Fox on 16/1/2024 at 23:14
Quote Posted by Thirith
From
Ultima IV onwards, the
Ultima series of RPGs had multiple systems of virtues and ethics that were expressed in their worlds, especially the game world Britannia's list of eight virtues: Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility. In
Ultima IV, the player character aspired to become the Avatar, the living embodiment of these virtues; in
Ultima V the Avatar returns to Britannia to find that the virtues have been corrupted into twisted versions of themselves.
I'll add: Ultima VI showed other ways of deriving virtues in the series' combinatoric manner. The gargoyle Principles (Control, Diligence and Passion) combine into Direction (C), Persistence (D), Feeling (P), Precision (CD), Balance (CP), Achievement (DP), Singularity (CDP), and Order (none). Meanwhile Mandrake's Principles of Wine, Women and Song combine into Drunkenness (Wi), Sensuality (Wo), Harmony (So), Lust (WiWo), Dance (WoSo), Laziness (WiSo), Indulgence (WiWoSo), and Happiness (none).
Ultima VII replaces the Principles with three maxims, each easily exploited. A jab at deontology, perhaps? And Ultima VIII had three Principles long ago defiled and replaced with the four classical Elements. Finally Ultima IX was... um, it was Ultima IX.
Quote Posted by Fire Arrow
Sounds Aristotelian. Like the classic example of courage being between cowardice and recklessness.
No, it's a much more Christian than Aristotelian view of virtues. These virtues aren't balanced between vices, but rather opposed to individual sins, which each appear as dungeons in the games: Destard, Despise, Deceit, Wrong, Shame, Covetous, Hythloth and the Abyss.
Quote Posted by Fire Arrow
I'm sorry, I used 'their' because I wasn't sure what pronoun to use for Anarchic Fox. He/she/they said their own ethical system was a kind of virtue ethics, influenced by Ultima. That seems like it would be opposed to virtue ethics. I wonder what Anarchic Fox meant?
She/her. My own virtue ethics is also a combinatorial one, though I start with 3^3 instead of 2^3, discard three, and divide the remainder into six Goods for consequentialism, six Powers for deontology, and twelve Virtues.
Quote Posted by Pyrian
I did try being a Shepherd once, but not only do you start as the weakest character, you
also start on a desolate island with nothing but a literal ghost town. IIRC, you have to wait for a pirate ship to spawn, somehow kill the crew, and take their ship, just to
start the game. (Maybe there was a moongate? I don't think so, but I could be wrong, it's been a long time.)
As a Shepherd, you swiftly die and are resurrected on the mainland. The argument in favor of being a Shepherd is that then you have the most powerful
companions. The game requires you to enter the Abyss with one of each class, the omitted companion being the one you start one. Being a Shepherd is thus the only way to spare poor Katrina a trip through hell.
Quote Posted by Fire Arrow
To me, there always seems to be something slightly lacking in the treatment of ethics in the Fallout series. Maybe it's because games have to revolve around actions, where as in real life intentions have more significance. I can't recall the number of times I reloaded a save because the available actions in a game didn't reflect my intentions.
(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152478) Roadwarden is superb in this regard.
Quote Posted by Fire Arrow
In my understanding virtue ethics is something quite distinct from consequentialism. But to be fair I'm not a fan of consequentialism.
It's a mistake to view them as competing systems. Rather, they are different aspects of ethics. Consequentialism is the part that's situational, deontology is the part that's universal, and virtue is the part that's personal.
Fire Arrow on 16/1/2024 at 23:32
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
No, it's a much more Christian than Aristotelian view of virtues. These virtues aren't balanced between vices, but rather opposed to individual sins, which each appear as dungeons in the games: Destard, Despise, Deceit, Wrong, Shame, Covetous, Hythloth and the Abyss.
Fair enough.
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My own virtue ethics is also a combinatorial one, though I start with 3^3 instead of 2^3, discard three, and divide the remainder into six Goods for consequentialism, six Powers for deontology, and twelve Virtues.
Is it anything like WD Ross? I came across him when I was looking for ethicists that combined Kant with Aristotle.
Sounds interesting. Not to go too off topic, but I did like Disco Elysium. Great to see walking disasters that I can relate to. Even if I felt some of it was a bit silly.
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It's a mistake to view them as competing systems. Rather, they are different aspects of ethics. Consequentialism is the part that's situational, deontology is the part that's universal, and virtue is the part that's personal.
Maybe it's because I have a hard time separating virtue ethics from Aristotle, but my mindset is that virtue ethics is teleological whereas consequentialism is quantitative. I expect there are other interpretations. The key difference in my mind is whether there is a goal or not. Virtue (or excellence) is binary in my mind. Either something is excellent or it isn't; where as consequentialism is less black and white, there's more room for in between states.
Pyrian on 17/1/2024 at 04:05
Quote Posted by demagogue
This is exactly what I'm talking about.
It's now nighttime and there's more guards and fortifications pulled out of the city to defend key targets. That is absolutely nothing like what you're talking about.
Quote Posted by demagogue
I guess I can elaborate. Of course the game is often going to wedge some "natural" explanation into their fiction or mythology, but there's a point where the provided "natural" explanation really doesn't stand up to scrutiny about how natural it is or should be. It should be a natural naturalness and not a forced one. There might be borderline cases where there's an open question whether the proposed "natural" explanation is really natural or very forced, but I don't think this example in Dishonored is on the border, but very much on the side of by-the-will-of-the-game's-God.
Well, I agree that it's not borderline, but I disagree on the direction. It's just what it describes - more guards and fortifications are deployed to the targets, and the city is more wild/degenerate as a direct result of that (and the fewer total guards). And it's
awful because this is
exactly what you were saying you wanted - a living world that reacts to your choices and shows the consequences thereof. But when they
do that? You don't buy in, and in all that can't even seem to say
why. You can't point to a single thing that isn't easily explicable in the fiction described. I wonder if you
ever would: you can't have nice things, because when given nice things, you reject them for reasons that don't withstand the slightest scrutiny.
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
As a Shepherd, you swiftly die and are resurrected on the mainland.
What is this, a Dark Souls-like? Lol.
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
The argument in favor of being a Shepherd is that then you have the most powerful
companions. The game requires you to enter the Abyss with one of each class, the omitted companion being the one you start one. Being a Shepherd is thus the only way to spare poor Katrina a trip through hell.
Problem is, because of the "enemies scale to party size but treasure does not", you need to spend a quite substantial portion of the game adventuring alone. Besides, sure Katrina's deadweight, but that's much better than having your
main character as deadweight.
Anarchic Fox on 17/1/2024 at 04:34
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Problem is, because of the "enemies scale to party size but treasure does not", you need to spend a quite substantial portion of the game adventuring alone. Besides, sure Katrina's deadweight, but that's much better than having your
main character as deadweight.
Yeah, that oversight governs too much of how you approach the game. On the plus side, I believe it only applies to overworld combats.
Fire Arrow, you should give the very start of Ultima IV a play, namely the Virtue Tarot reading that determines your class. It's an interesting setup, because you're provided with a series of ethical dilemmas without clear answers, and asked to interrogate your own values.
Quote Posted by Fire Arrow
Is it anything like WD Ross? I came across him when I was looking for ethicists that combined Kant with Aristotle.
I don't know them.
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Maybe it's because I have a hard time separating virtue ethics from Aristotle, but my mindset is that virtue ethics is teleological whereas consequentialism is quantitative. I expect there are other interpretations.
You should shed that association. Aristotle's theory of virtue is valuable, but there are virtue systems all over the place, none owing any debt to Aristotle. They occur particularly often within religion, such as the Christian set: faith, hope and charity, followed by prudence (cleverness), temperance, justice (fairness) and fortitude.
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The key difference in my mind is whether there is a goal or not. Virtue (or excellence) is binary in my mind. Either something is excellent or it isn't; where as consequentialism is less black and white, there's more room for in between states.
Well, the binary thing is easy to counter. Last year I told two lies. That made me very honest, but I could have been more honest.
Uniquely in ethics, virtue provides space for individuality: there are many virtues, and you choose which ones you value most. Virtue ethics is also particularly important for disempowered people, who are less likely to face the dilemmas that the other systems address.
Fire Arrow on 17/1/2024 at 07:32
Quote Posted by Anarchic Fox
Fire Arrow, you should give the very start of Ultima IV a play, namely the Virtue Tarot reading that determines your class. It's an interesting setup, because you're provided with a series of ethical dilemmas without clear answers, and asked to interrogate your own values.
I'll try.
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You should shed that association. Aristotle's theory of virtue is valuable, but there are virtue systems all over the place, none owing any debt to Aristotle. They occur particularly often within religion, such as the Christian set: faith, hope and charity, followed by prudence (cleverness), temperance, justice (fairness) and fortitude.
Well, not to be too argumentative, but I don't really think Christianity is distinct from Aristotle. The bible is full of references to Greek philosophy.
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Uniquely in ethics, virtue provides space for individuality: there are many virtues, and you choose which ones you value most. Virtue ethics is also particularly important for disempowered people, who are less likely to face the dilemmas that the other systems address.
Never thought of it like, but that's true. Part of the appeal Hegel has for me is the collective recognition of problems. (I think the whole modern idea of "recognition" owes its origins to the concept of "right" in German Idealism)
Edit: I know this isn't much of a response. I'll write more details later.
demagogue on 17/1/2024 at 08:56
Quote Posted by Pyrian
And it's
awful because this is
exactly what you were saying you wanted - a living world that reacts to your choices and shows the consequences thereof. But when they
do that? You don't buy in, and in all that can't even seem to say
why. You can't point to a single thing that isn't easily explicable in the fiction described.
First of all, I'm not making a point about Dishonored. The easiest thing to do is throw out the example as a bad data point if you don't see the point's application because I'm not talking about it.
I'm talking about a world where there's a God/dev lurking behind the scenes you can sense pulling the strings and inserting a moral stance into the world (i.e., putting it in by design, and winking at the player with it) versus a free world that does not have any moral perspective baked into it, only blind systems and what they do, where any moral stance is created inside the player/actor's commitment, certainly not popped up as a title card or required objective or the like that cares about the morality of whether I do x or y, as opposed to its systems creating consequences without any commentary and blind to the meaning, etc.
Pick an example where you understand that happening and make an argument about a moral stance being baked into a world vs. not if you want to talk about the point I want to talk about in the design of games and their worlds. I repeated the point about 15 times.
Sulphur on 17/1/2024 at 12:07
Quote Posted by demagogue
In that same vein, I didn't like that the game world itself in Dishonored changed based on the players' ethics throughout the game. Thief did it with the no kill objective, not the world itself, but you still failed the mission. (Again, if it'd been just a change in major characters that had access to the relevant info, that might have been okay.) I definitely wouldn't like the player's class, much less race!, being chosen by their ethical type, since again part of being in a totally free world is that anybody born into any situation can aspire to any ethics. It's about human choice, not Providence.
Well, that's pretty much what you have to do in U4 anyway. Your starting circumstances don't dictate your choices (well, the game's overarching framework does), so even if you're a tinker, you level yourself up in each of the virtues. I think it's interesting that expressing your virtue alignment literally changes your starting lifestyle, and that's not necessarily about a lack of choice; it is in fact about where your choices lead you to, whether you like the result or not.
As for Dishonored, I'm not seeing its system specifically being a problem here. I get that you're gesturing towards the Outsider being an explanatory force behind the changes and thus justifies the game changing with your actions, but he's a red herring. I don't think the problem you're outlining makes sense at least in the context of Dishonored. It's purely consequentialist - if you do a high chaos playthrough and kill willy-nilly, the things that change are usually reflections of your actions. The biggest changes are actually Emily's disposition, the loyalists' disposition towards you, as well as Samuel's. The increase in rats and weepers is a bit strained when it comes to logic, but you can see it as a reflection of massacring the forces that would have mitigated those things in the area.
What I think most people react to is Samuel's moralising over your actions when the game presents a binary dichotomy of merciful (but dark nonetheless)/non-merciful. He's a constant nag if you're doing high chaos, and his approval doesn't mean much either - in essence, he's the representation of the game's limited moral compass, and he can get stuffed. It's not particularly compelling or even representative of the greyness of Dishonored's world.
I think video games in general just won't be great at morality systems for [x] person because of the complexities of the variables involved - I agree that it is much better to instead let a player do what they want, and let the game react to it without colour-coded decision points that funnel you into various paths that lead to an over-arching value judgement via labels like Paragon or Renegade.
Even then, there's Broken Roads coming out, which is the antithesis of what I just said in that it gives you a limited and literal moral compass (Utilitarian/Humanist/Machiavellian/Nihilist), and weighs your actions accordingly, and even though I wasn't particularly won over by the demo, I'm still curious about how it's going to turn out in the end.