作者：Josh Bycer

在过去几年里我们发现游戏一直在尝试着将玩家带到游戏世界和故事中。大多数情况下它们都因为某种情况遭遇了失败。我们曾在播客上谈论了人们是如何被带到游戏故事中，这也将推动我们去谈论编写电子游戏故事的另一种方法。

thewitcher(from gamasutra)

道德：

尝试着将玩家带进游戏空间的最基本方式便是利用道德。即不管是光明面还是黑暗面，正面还是邪恶，英雄还是恶棍，许多游戏都使用了这一方法。我们在之前有关道德问题的讨论中便多次提及这点，不过我们还是会在此进行简单说明。

道德是一种固定元素：我们都知道什么是好什么是坏。正因为如此电子游戏中围绕着道德的选择都将是单面的。就像好的那面将让人获得经验教训并不断获胜，或者坏的那面往往是作为一种诱惑。

当你将游戏机制与道德捆绑在一起时事情总是会变得更糟糕。当你创造最小/最大的场景时，游戏中的任何道德感将分崩离析。我们知道自己正在玩一款电子游戏，而捆绑游戏机制和游戏选择则会让其变成一种错误的选择。

震惊：

想想《Undertale》以及其中的种族灭绝选择，这对于道德来说真的是一种错误的选择。这里的问题便在于你必须为此投入更多努力，而这便意味着在这里故事是次于游戏玩法。

除非你能够经历完整的种族灭绝，否则游戏结构和节奏是不会发生改变的。我们并不打算去计量结果，因为它们并不会改变游戏机制或玩家体验。

如果游戏叫停那些想要去探索游戏的玩家，这便会让人觉得它很笨拙。游戏和现实生活中不同，我们总是可以在游戏中考虑各种情况。

而“现实生活”则是有关道德的另一个问题。我们都知道在现实世界中该如何做，如果出现悖于常规的选择便会让我们感到震惊。而如果你的角色只是一个精神病患者，那么你所做的一切便是在创造出一款将备受争议的游戏。

这其实是一个很常被应用的问题，例如娱乐媒体扔出一个强奸场景让用户感到震惊。如果不能改变角色，那么你用于让恶角变得更邪恶的暴力行为可能将会遭遇忽视。

之前我曾谈论过故事是如何完全包容富有争议的主题。而包容这些主题的唯一方式便是撇开关于道德的使用。

人性化：

往往能够让我们有所感触的故事都是那些能让我们心系角色的故事。我们必须基于某种方式与之联系起来，否则他们将只会让我们失去兴趣。在之前的文章中我便谈论过创造像Dexter或Walter White等角色的挑战性。

他们都是一些恶角，但你需要基于某种方式去赋予其人性，这也将重新将我们带回播客中。我们谈论过为什么最困难的选择便是那些没有正确答案的选择。而不管你选择了什么总是会发生某些事。

比起创造一款要么让玩家杀某人要么让他们就某人的游戏，让我们创造出一些更有个性的选择。想想如果你拥有一个杀某人或者砍断手的选择会是什么样的情况。现在的我们将不再讨论道德，而是讨论结果。

可能会发生一些糟糕的事，但你却需要去决定自己能够忍受怎样的情况。这种“你将做什么”的选择能够帮助你去人性化你的角色。这便是设计师一开始创造Walter White的方法，然后看看他的选择是如何反过来咬自己一口的。

最艰难的选择便是我们要在一个糟糕的情况下做出最好的选择，这不只是关于在好与坏的选择中做出决定。

不存在正确的答案：

我们已经看过一些游戏在自己的故事叙述中采取了这样的方法。最初的《巫师》便是故事叙述结果的典型例子。玩家将不断在该支持谁的论点间做出选择。不管玩家决定如何游戏，他们的手中是会染上鲜血。

PSP上的《皇家骑士团》便是另一个典型的例子。玩家将在战争中决定该站在哪一方；再一次的他们的选择也将导致一些无辜生命的逝去。

当我们看到玩家以及身边人关于我们的选择的反应时，我们的故事也就会变得更加个性化。

最终让我们回到真正的要点：道德本身并不能让游戏设计或故事叙述中的故事更具个性。世界并非黑白的，我们的选择也不是。

如果你希望让玩家对游戏更加着迷并让他们的行动变得更加重要，你应该更多地专注于结果，因为这才是真正有影响的内容。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Problem With Morality Choices in Storytelling

by Josh Bycer

A lengthy upcoming Perceptive Podcast got on the subject of storytelling in video games. Over the years, we’ve seen games try to pull the player into the world and the story. For the most part, they’ve all failed in one way or another. On our cast, we talked about how people get pulled into stories, and that led to talking about another way to write video game stories.

Set Morality:

The basic way of trying to pull players into the gamespace has been using morality. Whether it’s light side/dark side, good/evil, hero/jerk, so many games have used this. We’ve talked about this several times in the past about the problems with morality, but we’ll quickly recap.

Morality is a fixed element: We all know what’s good or bad. Because of that, choices in video games that are around morality tend to be one-sided. Either the good side will be made to be superior for the lesson that good always wins, or being bad is better as the temptation.

This becomes even worse when you tie game mechanics to morality. The second you create min/max scenarios, any sense of morality falls apart for video games. We know that we’re playing a video game, and tying mechanics and game options just makes it a false choice.

Shocking:

The choice to kill or talk was interesting, but didn’t have any consequence unless you went full genocide

Thinking about Undertale and the genocide option, it’s really a false choice when it comes to morality. The problem is that it’s something that you have to go out of your way to do; meaning that story is coming second to gameplay.

Unless you go full genocide or not, the game’s structure and pacing were not altered. We’re not going to count endings, as they’re not changing the mechanics or the player’s experience.

The game calling out people for wanting to explore it comes off as slightly ham-fisted; a game is not real life, we’re allowed to look at everything in a game.

And “real life” is the other problem with morality. We all know how to behave in the real world and having choices that go against that can come across as shock value. If your character is nothing more than a psychopath, then all you’re doing is making a controversial game for controversy’s sake.

It’s the common issue cited when an entertainment medium throws in a rape scene to get a shock out of the audience. You have a violent act that’s only there to make a bad character worse that could have been omitted without changing the character.

In an earlier Critical Thought, I talked about how the stories that work with controversial themes are the ones that fully embrace it. The only way to embrace these themes is to move past the use of morality and get to the shades of grey.

Humanizing:

The stories that touch us are the ones that make us care for the characters. We have to connect to them in some way, or they’re just going to turn us off. In an earlier post, I talked about the challenge of writing characters like Dexter or Walter White.

They’re bad people, but you need to humanize them in some way, and that takes us back to our podcast. We talked about how the hardest choices are the ones that have no right answer. No matter what you choose, something is going to happen.

Instead of having a game that asks you to either kill or save someone, let’s make that choice personal. Imagine if you have to decide between killing someone, or having your hand chopped off. We’re now no longer talking about morality, but consequence.

Something bad is going to happen, but you need to decide which one you can live with. These kinds of “what would you do?” choices help to humanize characters. It’s how people started to root for Walter White in the start, and then to see how his choices would come back to bite him.

The hardest choices are when we have to make the best out of a bad situation; not simply deciding between the good or bad option.

No Right Answer:

We have already seen some games that have gone this route in their storytelling. The first Witcher was a good example of consequence storytelling. The player had to frequently pick between who to side with in arguments that would lead to people dying. No matter how the player decided to play, there was always going to be blood on their hands.

Tactics Ogre on the PSP was another great example, and one I’ve talked about before. The player had to decide who to side with during a war; once again, their choice was going to lead to innocent life dying.

When we see the reaction of our choice on the player and the people around us, it makes the story more personal.

Ultimately we return to the main point: That morality by itself doesn’t lead to personal stories in game design or storytelling in general. The world is not black and white, and neither are our choices.

If you want to make the player feel engaged and have their actions matter, focus on consequences, as that’s where we really see the impact.(source:gamasutra)