@Chwoka
Actually, that kind of reminds me of my impressions of how “Growth” works in Versus.
Easily three-quarters of Versus’s choices are “What do you think about that?” choices, and seemingly have no impact at all but upon growth. What choices impact growth most? Largely, it revolves around showing you are understanding of other people’s points of view. So, you can look upon the Binarian/Rutonian conflict however you want, but picking the right answer, which the game’s dialogue makes pretty abundantly clear if you gave OtherBoard half a chance, gives you much more growth.
This is made even more narratively-jarring in the Breeze romance scene, where, suddenly, Breeze says that ze is suddenly uncomfortable about revealing that the character who is always referred to using the pronouns developed specifically to refer to intersex or gender-fluid people, even by other characters in speech Breeze can hear, is actually (gasp) intersex, exactly as had been identified to you from the start. “On my planet, people are only supposed to be one gender or the other.” You then get maximum growth for disgorging a line that goes something like, “On my planet, we respect any form of gender or sexual orientation equally, because we are a noble people that value respect. Let us strive to dialogue until we reach a mutually-respectful consensus position on how our relationship should proceed from here.” This is a scene that takes place, I’ll point out, in what is supposed to be a steamy scene after fellatio/cunnilingus on the PC, while the PC is in the process of trying to go down on Breeze, but it’s a line that seems written specifically to demand it be followed up with “Thanks, [PC Name], Now I know!” “And Knowing Is Half The Battle – G. I. JOE!”
Throwing a PSA into a sex scene ruins the tone of a supposedly romantic scene, and seemingly exists solely to self-congratulate the author and any player who goes down that route on how tolerant they are. Certainly, the only surprise in that scene was that anyone thought Breeze’s intersex nature was supposed to be hidden, being as “androgynous” was literally one of the first (and only) words used to describe Breeze’s looks, and it’s doubtful anyone opposed to intersex characters would have flirted with Breeze that much, anyway.
But anyway, this is getting a little too particular. The point is, people generally only recognize when emotionally or morally-charged words are being used when they are at odds with their own beliefs. Unless you go with that iceberg writing style mentioned earlier, which would probably be an unpopular writing style for its lack of colorful description, it is an inevitability that the moral biases of the author will color the nature of the work. In this game, there is little hope for government, no way for government to fully represent the people but to have benevolent robot gods do it for them, but pacifism is a fully legitimate playstyle that not only has no negative consequence, but can be demonstrably, objectively better in every way than patriotic acceptance of the necessity of war. The result being, you see people overwhelmingly try to play pacifist games in this game when they likely wouldn’t think twice about blood and guts in most other games. Rather than having some sort of 100% morality being impossible, I actually find that most authors subconsciously not only make 100% morality possible, but overtly reward it in every way they can as a way of “training” players in how to play their game. This is, after all, a major function of gaming; Just as Mario teaches its players how to measure their jumps, control momentum, and trains their reflexes for obstacle avoidance, most games largely amount to a set of skills or thought patterns that lead to in-game rewards if used properly, or in-game punishments if used poorly or not at all.
Compare this to, say, Choice of Dragons, where you’re explicitly not allowed to actually take “moral” choices. You treat “lesser beings” largely one of two ways: Murder and consumption for food and profit, or letting them live expressly because you are too contemptuous of their existence to bother even eating them for a snack. The “honor” axis is the only thing that even remotely looks like morality, but even that requires you make a commitment or form a relationship whereby your character feels something is owed before it comes into play. (I.E. whether you release the prince(ss) or eat them, anyway after getting the ransom.) Most of the time, it’s overtly reveling in how amoral it is as a game, although even there, you get a chance to talk about sexism in strictly moral terms.
It’s for that reason, I’m not entirely sure utter moral neutrality is either possible nor necessarily even desirable. After all, it’s a moral judgement that murder for pleasure is wrong, but it’s one that few would argue against holding. As such, I won’t fault the presence of some sort of moralistic statistic so much as the lack of awareness that it’s being used in such a way. Again, I’d personally rather see a game where the player is asked to state their own moral priorities, and face judgement from characters who represent different moral philosophies without necessarily giving some absolute declaration that one is right or wrong, but simply encourages the consideration of what those moral viewpoints actually imply. Like the “Keep your politics out of my videogames” video I linked earlier, having an earnest discussion about what WILL be in your game, regardless, is more interesting than trying to pretend you were just spawned ex nihilo five minutes ago, and have no opinions over anything. If, for example, you have an American political argument, have both a Democrat and Republican argue about what they value and why, and in what order their priorities are stacked without presenting it in a way that judges them negatively as people. Or, at the very least, just recognize that you’re giving off a radical soapbox speech whenever nobody even recognizes you have a gender. (Or at least notices when you don’t…)