作者：Jeff Vogel

GameBanshee撰稿人Eric Schwarz为我们最近的一款游戏写了一份态度强硬但不失公允的评论。在文中，他对《Avernum: Escape From the Pit》这款游戏的情节作出的评论让我觉得相当有意思：

“这个游戏世界的整体基调和道德观也有点儿奇怪——只是因为国王看了不舒服就屠杀Slith（蜥蜴）农民，但这个游戏世界对此漠不关心。”

Avernum Escape from the Pit(from itunes.apple.com)

我其实很欣赏这个评论，但评论者只是点到为止，未能深入。在《Avernum》中，还有在道德上更令人觉得奇怪的地方呢。

例如，游戏中的主要敌人之一就是由野蛮的蜥蜴人组成的军队（游戏邦注：关非所有蜥蜴人都怀有敌意。他们当中也有良民，参军只是后来的游戏系列中的一个选择。）

在其中一个地下城中，玩家可以选择粉碎蜥蜴蛋，这样就能吸引守卫来进攻玩家。但对于大多数人都认可的邪恶行径中，被守卫攻击只是唯一的恶果。我曾经在论坛上被人指责在游戏中鼓励玩家杀害幼儿。是的，我确实允许玩家不受惩罚地干些相当可怕的事。我还曾写过一些允许玩家去做更恶劣的事的游戏。

我为什么这么做？

因为电子游戏是艺术。

当然，我知道关于电子游戏是不是艺术的讨论很无聊。

《Avernum: Escape From the Pit》是《Exile: Escape From the Pit》（初版游戏）重写之作。这是我尝试写的第一款真正的游戏。那是一个相当疯狂的过程。因为我以前从来没做过，所以我把遭遇战、剧情和道德困境什么的搞得乱七八糟。我没有三思而后行。我只是着眼于自己的所思所想，把自己对世界上的看法写进电脑中。

写故事就是这样的。

我曾经看新闻上瘾。我现在仍然对世界上发生的事保持着密切关注，因为我觉得很有意思（这是获取新材料的无尽源泉）。然而，这么做让我产生了非常愤世嫉俗的世界观。我们的世界上存在许多讲原则的人，为促进这个星球的正义和友善而不懈斗争。

然而，这些通常情况下被埋没的英雄们，却要与另一帮压倒性多数的邪恶势力作斗争。在我们这个世界，可怕的事情随时会落到无辜的人头上，而与之无关的人从来就不知晓也不关注。

这就是我眼中的世界。不是对与错的问题，我只是这么看待罢了。我写的故事，无论是什么类型的故事，总是显著地或隐晦地流露出我的观点。

这就是为什么在《Avernum》中（以及我的所有游戏中）的道德观看似有些“奇怪”。因为这反映了我的世界观，揭露了另一类人的世界观会如何扭曲和令人不安。艺术之所以酷，原因在此——让你看到其他人的所思所想。

我的游戏反映了我对世界的看法是什么，但并不是说我就认为世界应该是什么。我个人并不喜欢残害弱者、把猎杀小妖怪当作运动，或者摔碎蜥蜴蛋。从艺术作品推测艺术家的个人经历和观点，得不到什么准确的结果，纯粹是浪费时间。

那么为什么我在游戏中保留那些可怕的行径？

因为我写的是RPG。

“角色扮演”这个词自诞生起就已被贬低。大多数RPG并不为玩家提供决定成为哪一类人的机会，而即使是以最简单的方式。这就是为什么时候我总是试图把道德选择放到游戏中:让玩家有更多机会决定要做什么，感到更贴近他们所操控的游戏角色。玩家能做的选择越多越好，这样游戏的效果也越好。

因此，我始终给予玩家机会选择从善或从恶。如果他们选择了当良民，那就表明他们的人格是有道德感的；如果他们选择了当暴徒，大约是因为这么做他们才能获得从中获得在现实生活中不可能体验到的疯狂感。无论如何，给予玩家从恶从善的选择都是有意义的。

但我得确保游戏公正。如果有人作恶，除非有理有据，否则我无法惩罚他们。有时候，邪恶是不受惩罚的。因此，我并不总是惩罚邪恶。但这只是有时候，不是任何时候。

总结

我提出并讨论那篇评论是因为，归根到底，那是个相当主观的艺术判断。这其中当然不存在对错。评论只是主观的判断罢了。所以评论才有意思。我的游戏让Eric Schwarz觉得有点不安。不能说他的反应是对或错，毕竟只是他自己诚实的反应，我很高兴看到任何反应。

随着电子游戏发展为艺术形式，我期望看到更多关于游戏对我们的意义和影响的讨论。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

More Boring Stuff On Why Video Games Are Art. Also, Ponies!

OK, I’m back, and I’m about to write about evil, art, and game design. To make it all go down easier, there will also be ponies. So read, on but remember …

GameBanshee writer Eric Schwarz wrote a tough but fair review of our recent game, Avernum: Escape From the Pit. In the review, he made a comment about the game’s story that I thought was really interesting:

“The game world’s overall tone and morality is also a bit strange – slaughtering Slith (lizardmen) farmers in the name of the king might be uncomfortable, but the game world certainly doesn’t care.”

I actually liked this comment a lot, but he didn’t go near as far as he could have. There are places in Avernum where the morality gets even stranger.For example, one of the main foes in the game is an army of savage lizard men, called slithzerikai, sliths for short. (The sliths are not all hostile. They have friendly settlements, and playing as a slith is an option in later games in the series.)In one of the dungeons, you have the option to smash a huge clutch of slith eggs. If you do so, several of their guards attack you, but that is the only negative consequence for what most would consider a pretty evil act. I have been accused in my forums of encouraging baby-killing in my games. And, yes, I did allow the player to do a pretty horrible thing with no punishment. And I have written games in which the player can choose to do things that are even worse.Why did I do this?Because computer games are art.Oh God, No, Shut Up!Yeah, I know. The debate about whether video games are art is probably the boringest thing in the history of boring things. To liven this blog post up, here are more ponies. Hey ponies, what do you think of tedious navel-gazing blog posts?

Products Of My Own Weird Brain

Avernum: Escape From the Pit is a rewrite of Exile: Escape From the Pit, the very first game I released as shareware. It was the first Real Game ™ I ever tried to write, and it was a pretty wild, uncontrolled process. Since I’d never done it before, I just went crazy, throwing encounters and plot bits and moral dilemmas in willy-nilly. It was a raw, unguarded process. I didn’t second-guess anything. I just took how I thought and how I saw the world and put it down in the computer.This is how storytelling works.I’ve always been a huge news junkie. I still keep a close eye on what is happening in the world, as it fascinates me. (And is an endless source of fresh material.) Doing so, however, has given me a very cynical worldview. Our world has many, many principled people, struggling against enormous odds to increase the reserve of justice and kindness available on the planet.However, these generally unsung heroes fight against an overwhelming amount of awfulness. Ours is a world where horrible things happen to undeserving people on a constant basis, and nobody who is not personally involved will ever know or care.

This is how I see the world. It’s not right or wrong. It’s just how I see things. When I write a story, any story, it will be colored, in ways obvious and subtle, by this perception.This is why the morality in Avernum (and in all of my games, really) seems a bit “strange.” Because it reflects my worldview, and being exposed to how another humans sees the world can be weird and unsettling. This is what makes art cool. It lets you see how other people think.Important Disclaimer:My games reflect how I feel the world IS, NOT how I feel the world SHOULD BE. I do not personally endorse crushing the weak, hunting goblins for sport, or smashing slithzerikai eggs.

Extrapolating an artist’s personal experience and views from his or her work is very rarely accurate and is generally a waste of time.Hmm. I’m getting Bored. So here is this.

So Why Leave Do I Leave the Horrible Bits In?Because I write role-playing games.The term “role-playing” has become hugely debased since it was created. Most RPGs don’t give you the opportunity to actually decide what sort of person you want to play, even in the simplistic way computer games allow. That is why I always try to put moral choices in my games: to give the player more agency in what is going on and to help him or her feel more attached to the little computer person they control. And the better and more dramatic the choices you allow, the greater the effect.Thus, I give the player a chance to be evil from time to time. If they choose to be good, it affirms their character as moral and admirable. If they choose to be evil, it’s probably so they can get a vicarious thrill from engaging in craziness they would never consider in real life.

Either way, the option to be evil gives the option to be good more meaning.But I have to play fair. If someone is evil, I can only punish them if it makes sense.

Sometimes, evil is not punished. Thus, I don’t always punish it. Sometimes, but not always.There’s No Right or Wrong Ways To Design These ThingsI wanted to pull out and discuss that review quote because it was, in the end, a perfectly subjective artistic judgment. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Reviews are nothing but subjective judgments. That is what makes reviews cool. My game made Eric Schwarz feel a little unsettled. That wasn’t a right or wrong reaction. It was just his honest reaction, and I’m happy to get any reaction at all. I’d rather make someone feel something, even if it’s not positive, than for my game to generate 30 hours of “Meh.”

As computer games develop as an art form, I look forward to more discussion about what they mean and how they affect us. (Though, of course, I may be the only one.)

People are more interesting than polygons.

In Conclusion

Thank you for your patience. I hope it went well. How did it go, Spike?（source:blogspot）