Balancing Player Agency and Social Responsibility

[Myrtle]

Some of these threads are old, but the topic has been previously discussed in the forums:

How bad would you allow the player to be in your game?

In some games, Hosted Games and Choice of Games alike, the player character can take actions that are morally wrong (not necessarily unlawful in the game world) by our values (and sometimes morally wrong by the in-game world’s values), and get off without any punishment from the narrative. They may also choose to support value and government systems in the game world that are outdated at best in our world, and actively oppressive at worst. However, the option to do so is what I am wondering abou…

Where are the moral/ethical lines in interactive fiction?

Caveats: Yes, I know (for us) the short answer is “wherever CoG and/or HG (and Apple!) decide they are.” I used “interactive fiction” to include all stories where the reader makes choices that can impact story. I think most people take the position that simply reading about characters performing evil acts is one thing, while in interactive stories, we can allow readers to directly engage in the evil actions, which might be another thing entirely. So do people have their own personal “li…

Inappropriate Choices

I have started probably thirty different games so far and I’ve recently obtained time to focus on and finish them. I had my wife preview some of the story I’ve been working on and she had a concern that it might be a bit too morally unsound to be published. In the story, you play a sorcerer with the bloodline of a dragon who struggles to learn how to control his power while allowing it to properly manifest, all without a proper teacher. Early on in the first book a street urchin steals money f…

Are there choices that a game shouldn't give a player? (Was: Are games inherently trivializing?)

Some of the points raised on the Andrew Jackson thread about the limits of Interactive Fiction (IF) are I think worth discussing without reference to the specifics of that project, because they touch on what a lot of us are trying to do to one degree or another. I’ve got to disagree with this, as the pretentious git who’s chosen IF as the medium for my epic novel on politics, religion, and social order (plus, you know, evil blood magic fantasy empires). I don’t think games, video or otherwise…