Fable 2 - Solves the Han Solo Problem

[Dhruin]

You may recall a conversation MTV Multiplayer had some time back with Todd Howard about how the prevalent good/evil dichotomy (arguably championed by BioWare) design in RPGs tended to reward extreme behaviour - pure good or evil - leaving so-called Han Solos lost in the middle. Speaking with Peter Molyneux, they discuss Fable II's solution:

Molyneux explained one way he prevents players from so easily being swayed to being perfectly good when they play the game is through sacrifice.
“If you saw a family there and had to kill these bandits to save the family,” he hypothesized, “you’d kill the bandits to save the family. If I said to you, ‘okay, to save this family, you give up half your gold.’ Would you give up half your gold to save the family? Maybe you would, don’t know. The most interesting one is if I said ‘to save that family, you must be horribly, grotesquely scarred and there’s no way of ever removing the scar or the aging.’ What we found is that far, far fewer people were willing to sacrifice that.”

Does it solve the problem or encourage everyone to play some shade of neutral?
More information.

 

[coyote]

Leave it to Molyneux to find a patently wrong answer to a problem.

I guess less people will play the good path under these conditions, but it also sounds like Peter Molyneux is stuck in the old fashioned scheme of leaving choices only for path A (evil) and path B (good) while better games include a path C (neutral) or even a path D (good but not obvious).

The solution for Fable 2 I hear about now for the second time is really "bleh" and will probably even put off players. I mean, realism aside, is it FUN to continue playing a "horribly, grotesquely scarred" old cheeser just because you can not help yourself but save some family's lives? Even James Bond survived North Korean prison without being aged and scarred permanently

But in a milder form, I guess it's still better than having only good and evil choices without any consequences.

 

[Prime Junta]

Actually, I think this sounds kinda promising. One of my main beefs with good/evil in cRPG's is that being good always gets you the best rewards. That sort of takes away the whole point of the exercise, since being good is in your own best interest; i.e., your motivations are actually entirely selfish, no matter how they may be presented.

If doing good carries some kind of cost, it makes the whole thing meaningful again, rather than the default feelgood option.

Naturally, being evil should have its costs too, and being neutral. That's one thing I loved about The Witcher -- choices you made tended to have unintended and undesired consequences, no matter what you did.

I have to say, thought that "being scarred for life" sounds like a bit of a blunt instrument. In a game, you're mostly working towards some goal or another; I would prefer to have the consequences tied to that.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Well, don't worry if you are not good at clicking one mouse button in harmony your character will be permanently scarred for life anyway, so if you should make the choice that makes you scarred for life, you never have to worry about losing a combat anymore, since you are already terribly scarred for life and the punishment for losing is more scars.

 

[Guest]

Actually, I think this sounds kinda promising. One of my main beefs with good/evil in cRPG's is that being good always gets you the best rewards. That sort of takes away the whole point of the exercise, since being good is in your own best interest; i.e., your motivations are actually entirely selfish, no matter how they may be presented.

I agree. Regardless of what I think of Fable 1/2, this is one thing that this guy has understood better than many other developers.

Being the do-gooder is far too easy when it's only rewards you get from it.
Make it so that being the mr.niceguy means giving all the fun things away, like money, nice gear etc etc to help those less fortunate.

Like in real-life.

Then being selfish and cruel would actually - in many cases- make sense.

Like in real-life.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Hmm... I remember Han Solo getting shot once, but nothing about horrible scars.

 

[JemyM]

The good/evil perspective should be chopped entirely.

 

[Prime Junta]

The good/evil perspective should be chopped entirely.

I agree. By your definitions of good and evil, that is.

 

[zakhal]

Good and evil based on groups of npcs? Som groups hate and think you as evil while others think you as good. You save village A at the cost of village B (village A doesnt know this). Village A will praise you (atleast if they never find out abt village B) but the survivors of village B will think you as evil.

When groups "meet" they somhow melt their information abt you and create new ideas whether you are good/evil based on their interests and feelings about you. Village A might start to avoid you if they hear about the real story or keep praising you if they are desparete for help.

 

[Maylander]

During the trials at the end of BG2: SoA, you get the option between good or evil, but the evil choice always grants a great reward, while the good choice makes it all harder. It certainly isn't easy to give up permanent stats just to save someone, but I usually end up doing it anyway.

However, permanent effects (both good and bad) should be very rare, so too many such choices is never a good thing.

 

[elikal]

Leave it to Molyneux to find a patently wrong answer to a problem.

I guess less people will play the good path under these conditions, but it also sounds like Peter Molyneux is stuck in the old fashioned scheme of leaving choices only for path A (evil) and path B (good) while better games include a path C (neutral) or even a path D (good but not obvious).

The solution for Fable 2 I hear about now for the second time is really "bleh" and will probably even put off players. I mean, realism aside, is it FUN to continue playing a "horribly, grotesquely scarred" old cheeser just because you can not help yourself but save some family's lives? Even James Bond survived North Korean prison without being aged and scarred permanently

But in a milder form, I guess it's still better than having only good and evil choices without any consequences.

Fully agree. Its another example of this guy's totally borked thinking. One of the most overhyped persons ever. This man is a bafoon.

 

[Squeek]

IMO, Peter Molyneux has a firm grasp of how identity works in today's video games and how basic concepts like good and evil can affect the part it plays in an unfolding story. He's not thinking in terms of role-playing, though, and any role worth playing is much more than a mere identity.

Han Solo had two things that today's video games have trouble expressing, and those are personality and style. Han wasn't into the whole good/evil thing. So if that's all you've got to compare, good luck trying to describe or portray him.

It would be just too much work to create a video game where every facet of personality and style could be expressed visually. Even if you were to do that, then you would also need to visually express things like NPC reaction.

So the only answer is to draw a clear line in the sand and say "this is the point where it's up to the player's imagination, the point where we ask them to see and hear what can only be imagined."

Removing that limitation would enable designers to create cRPGs where a character's personality and style could be chosen in the beginning and then developed throughout the game. They could count for something too.

 

[Burress]

The thing is, the larger the sacrifice, the more noble doing good becomes. You see in many games a situation early on where a town is being invaded by orcs or something. Your character swings his sword a few times, easily dispatching his opponents with the total sacrifice amounting to a few keystrokes effort. You may have saved 30 people in the game, do you feel like you really did a good deed? Even if you hear ten people's voice saying you are a hero? Do you feel a sense of accomplishment? Probably not, because you didn't have to sacrifice anything.

If every time we looked at our charcter we had to see the effects of our sacrifice for another's welfare, suddenly the nobility of what we as the gamer have done increases enormously. Our choice had a very big consequence, and it seems Molyneux is heading the right direction looking in to what consequences actually have meaning for players. Now no one wants to be constantly faced with scenarios where they have to disfigure their character to do the right thing, but I can't think of a precedent for this type of sacrifice. It is a novel idea.

Of course, there are other kinds of significant sacrifices that have nothing to do with your character's appearance that can be offered to the player. I think the result is a more interesting game that challenges the player's morals in a way that is actually significant, unlike the scenario I mentioned in the beginning of this post.

 

[coyote]

I am looking forward to seeing a lot of Emperor Palpatine look-alikes with golden hearts and villainous scum with fair faces and golden locks in Fable 2!

The crux will certainly be in the actual implementation and whether they overdo personal sacrifice or not. Good is not stupid, and I hope with foresight and creativity there are alternate solutions with less sacrifice, but just as well there is no heroism without risk, and no risk without the possibility of loss.

If done right, this should make for a more memorable gaming experience. But I know I will hate it when I can think of ten alternate ways to let my character solve a problem without being mutilated but instead have to suffer through it just because the game designers thought it would be a good storytelling device.

 

[Squeek]

If done right, this should make for a more memorable gaming experience. But I know I will hate it when I can think of ten alternate ways to let my character solve a problem without being mutilated but instead have to suffer through it just because the game designers thought it would be a good storytelling device.

If he were basing those game reactions around more than just moral decisions, then I'd say Molyneux has the right idea . There's a lot more to the characters we play than their moral view, or there should be, and I think it would be cool to be able to indicate that in ways that would have an actual impact on a game.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I am looking forward to seeing a lot of Emperor Palpatine look-alikes with golden hearts and villainous scum with fair faces and golden locks in Fable 2!

Sounds interesting. Time to break clichés ?