>My other point, however, deals with this sudden realization: what's to
>stop us from making a fun IF that requires moral behaviour?
It seems to me that several attempts have been made to do just this. Within the
"Zork" series, Zork III seemed to eschew the traditional "plunder" plot by
revamping the concept of how points are scored. Also, the device of the dungeon master that worked throughout the game (hope that's not too much of a spoiler) seemed to want to enforce a certain kind of "do unto others" morality as well. Moreover, though I'm aware it's near blasphemy to mention "Return to Zork" in this crowd, I thought that that game had an interesting
way of handling morality too -- you're free to commit immoral acts (such as random murder), but the "Guardian" comes and steals all your possessions as retribution, making the game unwinnable. Moreover, I believe you're caught pilfering some possesions in Rebecca's house at one point, and she finds you and knocks you out cold for it. Am I reading too much in to see these features as comments on the original "kill and steal" mentality of the earlier Zork games (not that there's much of any other relation between "Return" and the text games)?
I would also argue that some, if not most, other Infocom games implicity place the player on the side of "right" -- the detective attempting to bring a murderer to justice, the sci-fi hero trying to save a planet or all of humanity, the wanderer who learns the evils of nuclear war, etc. I guess the difference is that those games don't REQUIRE moral behavior on a turn-by-turn basis; it seems to me that this latitude is how much room the player has to fashion her in-game "persona" over against the implied wishes of the author. How much of this remaking the game allows seems to me to be an authorial choice. I can allow the player almost free rein over the morality of the character's actions or, at the other end of the spectrum, preclude all such actions with a "You decide it would be wrong to do such a thing." type of message.
Perhaps an interesting game would be one which deliberately called notions of conventional morality into question...?
-- Paul O'Brian obrian@ucsu.colorado.edu "No one knows how I feel or what I say unless you read between my lines" -Stevie Nicks