Goodness me, it has been a long time since I’ve posted here.   Not only has real life got in the way, but I’ve spent my gaming time gaming instead of blogging.

As both of my readers might remember, I was very taken with Dragon Age and its opportunities to develop relationships with NPCs and make choices which affected the outcomes of the game.   Since then, I’ve played through more Bioware games with similar aspects: Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Jade Empire and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  I also replayed Planescape: Torment, one of my favourite games, and one which has some of those aspects I liked about Dragon Age.   These playthroughs have confirmed for me that I really, really do like those aspects of the games.    At the moment, I’m playing Lost Odyssey, and after the above run, I am continually frustrated by the lack of dialogue choices.   Actually, no dialogue choices.  The dialogue consists of clicking through to the next part.  It all feels so wrong.

Jade Empire was a very pleasant experience, partly because I didn’t expect so much out of it as the others.  And there was a great twist!  As in most of the above games, my characters actions defined whether they were a “good” or “bad” character.  I know good/bad is too blunt a description, but you know what I mean: paragon/renegade, light side/dark side, or in this case open palm/closed fist options.  And yet again, I found myself leaning towards the “good” side.

Why is this? In real life, of course, I like to think I’m a reasonably decent person.  I don’t use violence to achieve my ends.   In fact, I sometimes even balk at the “good” actions in games.  I don’t support capital punishment, and why would I want to kill anyone without a trial, even if they are an evil slaver? I mention slavers in particular, because in these games, killing slavers always seems to be justified as a good action, and supporting them in any way always seems to be bad.   Because I’m contrary, that just makes me want to find a way to justify slavery.   After all, if execution without trial is justified in terms of the setting being a different time and place, different politically, economically, traditionally and so on, then why can’t slavery be justified by the same means?   And where’s the line between outright slavery and “employing” people who have no other option?  You get the picture.  Anyway, I think that the games partially deflect some of the moral questions by having slavery as the exception rather than the rule and generally frowned upon.   It would be interesting to have your character have to deal with slavers in a setting where slavery was completely accepted, integrated and universal.  Not that the games completely avoid ambiguity.  I do remember the slave I rescued and employed in Dragon Age 2, who seemed confused, and possibly felt unprotected, by her new status as “servant”.

But I digress.   I wouldn’t kill slavers, or anybody (except in self defence, etc) in real life, so never have to make that sort of moral decision.   On the other hand, although I do give to charity, and like helping people out now and then, I wouldn’t, for instance, give a large amount of money to a stranger in need who asked, or put myself in danger for them in the way that I might do in a game.  So why do I find it so difficult to play closed fist/renegade/dark side?

I think that one reason is that there is a satisfaction in doing good deeds in a game, that you don’t get from doing evil deeds.  I love the feeling I get when I make the “right” choice to help a child or a grateful peasant.  I’m just wondering whether that feeling is the warm glow of charity being its own reward, or whether there’s a bit of smugness and self-righteousness.  After all, I don’t actually have to sacrifice anything tangible to be nice.   It’s a game.

I also feel that there’s a tradition of rewarding “good” actions.  Sometimes, if you say that you don’t need a reward, you get one anyway.  Or you help somebody and they fight at your side later.  Or you get xp.  Or you get a better ending.  So although people will tell you that video games like these are violent, in reality, they are rewarding good behaviour.  (And maybe encouraging killing slavers).

What about racism?  It takes a peculiar slant in these games.  I think most of us agree that racism is bad.  It seems to be shown as such in these games, but instead is presented as, I suppose,”speciesism”.    Rather being directed at other humans, bigotry is shown towards other species, turians, quarians, elves, dwarves, geth, etc.  Generally, we don’t normally have a problem with speciesism.  It’s just taken for granted.  It’s hard to imagine how our society would function if non-humans had the same rights as humans on this planet alone, never mind on other planets.

But essentially, the non-humans we’re talking about in these games are human in all but name.  Even visually, most of them look pretty human, in terms of size, number of limbs, etc.   To listen to, well, they are human, with human voice actors.   What is supposedly alien and non-human, is really more cultural.   The members of a species have particular characteristics in common, such as, say, a love of fighting, strong sense of duty or a Scottish accent, but some of these are things you might see in humans too.   Others, such as an exceptionally long life span, telepathy or an exoskeleton are clearly non-human, but not in a way that affects the essence of the person.  And they all speak English.   Honestly, if you listen to your non-human companions talking about their human emotions in their human voices, it’s clear that they are essentially human.

So you are not really making decision about speciesism, but maybe about racism-lite.   Which actually makes the decision easy, because we already know racism is wrong.