Re: Amoral behvaiour in IF


15 Jun 1995 13:53:11 GMT

In article <badger.803074735@phylo>,
Jonathan Badger <badger@phylo.life.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Well, something that's true in most adventure and RPGs is murder. Assuming
>that orcs and trolls existed, you couldn't just randomly kill them to take
>their treasure without the authorities getting upset!

I don't think adventure games in general are very encouraging of _murder_.
Trolls and orcs normally attack you before you are supposed to kill them.
Besides, in many casese it's pretty clear from the background to the
story that in the fictional world, trolls and orcs are not considered
equal to human beings.

But while killing the troll in Zork doesn't strike me asmurder, but
more as self defence, the thief is more problematic. Sure, he will try
to kill you if you get into a fight, but you can easily avoid fighting
him. Having to kill him just to get your treasure back could be amoral
problem, I suppose. And what about the Wizard of Forbozz? Sure, he's
obnoxious and a general pain in the neck, but he doesn't actually try
to kill you. And yet, once you've solved the demon puzzle, you're
given the choice of killing him. You don't have to - it suffices to
get his wand - but you're not "Punished" in any way for killing him. I
always felt sorry for the guy... :-)

Hack'n'slash games like Moria are a bit more problematic; the entire
point of the game is to kill as many monsters as possible, but some of
these monsters are actually human (if you see a novice mage
approaching you in Moria, just waste him before he gets you). Most of
these "NPC's" are of course hostile and would gladly kill you unless
you kill them first, but what about the filthy street urchins and
singing, happy drunks that abound on the town level in Moria? You
don't get any points for killing htem, but you certainly don't get
punished for it, and you can collect any money they happen to be
carrying. That worries me a bit more...

Finally, just to address your remark abouit trolls and orcs: in the
RPG "Shadowrun", trolls and orcs are actually considered just as human
as ordinary humans (in fact, they're subspecies of Homo Sapiens) and
killing a troll in the Shadowrun world would be as much a crime as
killing a human. WHich, of course, doesn't stop Shadowrun campaigns to
become extremely violent affairs.

----
Magnus Olsson / mol@df.lth.se (play), magnus_olsson@ivab.se (work)
Unix hacker, Windows user
IF games in progress: Akorny, Bast, Deadlock, Recursive Descent