Categorizing Morality Systems Through the Lens of Fallout
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Categorizing Morality Systems Through the Lens of Fallout Joan Casas-Roma The Metamakers Institute Falmouth University, Cornwall, UK [email protected] Joan Arnedo-Moreno Estudis d’Informàtica, Multimedia i Telecomunicació Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, SP [email protected] ABSTRACT Morality systems in computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a characteristic feature of the genre. Although there is plenty of literature studying how players relate to moral choices, only a few studies analyze or compare how specific games represent the player’s moral persona. This paper studies how morality systems have been modeled in the Fallout series to keep track of the player’s moral profile, categorizing the different techniques used in those systems. A special emphasis is put on how in-game actions affect the PC’s moral alignment, as well as how non-player characters (NPCs) react to that beyond the game’s scripted narrative. The goal is to provide guidelines that would lead to the development of more comprehensive and detailed morality systems, and where the player could immerse in a virtual world where the NPCs would act more as individual agents, with less reliance on explicitly scripted scenarios. Keywords videogames, morality systems, moral judgement, Fallout, NPCs, karma, agents, categoriza- tion INTRODUCTION Video games allow players to take active part in a story and, sometimes, to make all sort of choices on how to enact it. Some of those choices, specially in computer role-playing games (CRPG), have a clear moral dimension that, in turn, reflect on the way the player character (PC) is seen by the non-player characters (NPCs) inhabiting the game’s world. Even though there are studies on the relationship between video games and morality, most of these works focus on understanding how the human behind the player character engages in the moral dimension of such choices and how video games may become suitable platforms for genuine moral reflection. Works such as (Schulzke 2009), (Sicart 2013) or (Zagal 2009) argue that this is the case (the first two mentioning Fallout as the paradigmatic example), while other works, such as (Heron and Belford 2014) or (Švelch 2010), challenge that claim and argue that moral reflection requires an emotional connection in order to be genuine, regardless of how the video game accounts for a morality system. With respect to how games keep track of moral choices, (Hayse 2010) claims that explicit morality systems are not suitable for engaging in genuine moral reflection. Other works explore the social dimension that the virtual worlds from these video games depict, and focus on topics such as law and power through moral choices, as in (Barnett and Sharp 2015). Nevertheless, video games are seldom looked at as complex virtual worlds able to account and keep track of the moral persona that the player builds through in-game actions, and which affect the way the video game world and its inhabitants react to the player character. Regarding the notion of virtual worlds, (Champion 2009) explores their social dimension and argues how it could be improved using different techniques, and (Russell 2006) provides details on the creation of the player’s social person in a virtual world. Through an analysis of the morality systems implemented in the Fallout series of CRPGs, a highly lauded franchise often mentioned in the academic literature on this topic, this paper proposes a categorization of the different techniques that are used in order to account for the PC’s moral persona. Unlike other works in the academic literature, we move our focus from the players’ experience and the way players behave towards moral decisions, to the way the game actually accounts for the moral weight of those decisions; furthermore, we also focus on understanding how these moral weights affect the way NPCs behave towards the PC. Even though (Heron and Belford 2014) examines some of the techniques used in video games’ morality systems, it still focuses on the players’ experience behind them. Even though, and specially in the field of ethics and moral philosophy, the term “morality” can be defined in different ways (Gert and Gert 2017), such term will be used to refer to the sets of rules, actions and consequences that are taken into account by a game’s morality system. The rightness or wrongness that specific in-game actions would have with respect to what certain ethical theories define to be moral is not analyzed, but a descriptive account about what the analyzed games recognize as morally-relevant actions are provided, as well as how the moral weight of those affect the moral persona of the PC. On that regard, morality systems in CRPGs often overlap with the notions of reputation, or even loyalty. In that respect, we are interested in reputation as long as it is affected by actions that can be qualified as moral by the game itself or NPCs. Therefore, when some mechanics are aimed to affect reputation, but do not have a moral dimension, they may be acknowledged, but will not be taken into account in the analysis. This paper is structured as follows. In Section What is Fallout?, the Fallout series of com- puter role-playing games, its themes and defining features, are introduced. Its relevance as a subject of study in morality is also discussed by means of a literature review of academic papers that are based on Fallout games. Section Morality Systems in the Fallout Series consists of a thorough analysis of how morality systems are deployed, and how they have changed and evolved, through the main titles in the series of Fallout CRPG series. As a direct result of this analysis, and as the main contribution of this paper, a categorization –2– of the different techniques used in morality systems is presented in Section Categorization of Morality Mechanisms, together with a proposed new morality system that combines the most relevant features of each of the analyzed Fallout games. Finally, Section Conclusions concludes this paper and discusses further work. WHAT IS FALLOUT? Fallout is a long-standing video game franchise started in 1997 by Black Isle Studios, a division of Interplay Entertainment, and later continued by Bethesda Softworks, from 2004 to this date. The name is mostly used to refer to its main series of CRPGs, even though some spin-offs in other genres also exist: a tactical squad-based RPG (Fallout Tactics, 2001), a console-based action one (Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, 2005), a construction management and simulation game (Fallout Shelter, 2015), or even a pinball game (Fallout Pinball, 2016). Whenever the Fallout series is mentioned in this paper, it will be to refer only to the main canon CRPG line, composed of Fallout (1997), Fallout 2 (1998), Fallout 3 (2005), Fallout: New Vegas (2010) and Fallout 4 (2015). Another game, Fallout 76, was published in 2018, but, given its main multiplayer nature, with no NPCs at all, it will not be considered in this paper as part of the main line. The Fallout universe is set in an alternate post-apocalyptic future where a nuclear war (the Great War) between the United States and China has destroyed most of the world, leaving just a ruined landscape. However, even though the war erupts in 2077 and technology has greatly advanced (e.g. robotics, energy weapons), at that moment, the world was still locked in a retro/1950’s aesthetic. After the war, and reminiscent to the Mad Max movie series (Miller 1979), the planet has been turned into a barren wasteland where survivors have formed different communities that live in the remains of old buildings, fight for the scarce resources, and try to salvage some of the old technological wonders. Among them, the so- called ”vaults”, special self-sufficient shelters constructed across the US before the war, are a key theme in all games. The player often takes the role of one of the vault-dwellers (or, at least, somebody related to them), who has just emerged into the wasteland. Fallout's Main Features Fallout shares many common features with other CRPGs. The game starts with the player character (PC) creation, choosing name, gender and initial attributes and skills. Advance- ment is level-based, with a strong emphasis on combat and exploration. In the first games created by Interplay, the player uses a 2D overland map to move across key locations that must be discovered. Exploring key locations uses a much more detailed third-person isomet- ric view with turn-based combat. In later games, Bethesda updated the engine and moved to a first person view in a fully explorable 3D world, also using its own variation of real-time combat with pause. At any time, it is possible to initiate conversations with non-hostile NPCs, which are managed through a dialog tree system. Even though many of these features could be considered standard to the CRPG genre, there are some that define the Fallout series and are considered very important, one would even say expected in each installment. For instance, the series relies on its own SPECIAL rule set. The PC is defined by seven [1-10] rated stats (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck, which spell ”SPECIAL”), a set of [1-100] rated skills, and a –3– list of perks. Perks provide situational bonuses and can be acquired through normal character advancement and chosen by the player, or as a result of game choices. However, one of the signature features that sets it apart from other games would probably be its 1950’s/retrofuturistic vibe, instead of the more common medieval fantasy setting, or straightforward space SciFi. This is reflected not only in technology, but also in hairstyles, clothes, music, ideologies (e.g.