New Vegas has a quite peculiar attitude to morality imo. The phenomenon of losing karma for "stealing" a dead raider's possessions has already been highlighted/ridiculed by many, so I shan't dwell on that, but one thing that bothers me is the way I gain karma for killing people (Fiends and Powder Gangers mainly). Now, usually I'm popping these heads in self-defense, so I'm not saying I should lose karma for doing so, but to actually gain karma for comitting acts of violence? That doesn't quite sit right with me. That raider whose head I just turned into a shower of crimson was still somebody's child, somebody's sibling, etc. and so on. Killing raiders should be karma-neutral, I think.

Thoughts?

Yes.

There's been quite a few threads about this already but for a quick answer I'll quote the book of Fallout 2:

"If you kill a good person, points are subtracted from your karma total; if you kill a bad person, you will gain some karma (they were bad, but you still killed them)."

Right, but it's that morality that disturbs me. I shouldn't gain any karma for killing someone. I shouldn't lose any if acting in self defense, but I shouldn't gain any either. And in fact, often it's not even self-defense, when I sneak-attack some Fiend vacantly staring into space minding his own business I still gain karma for what is, essentially, a pre-emptive murder. Sure, he probably would've attacked me if he turned around and saw me, but I never even gave him the chance. For all I know he could've been forced into the life against his will, or having regrets and about to pack the raider lifestyle in. Then I wander along and blow his head off -- quite probably just because I want to strip his corpse for valuables -- and this is deemed a benevolent act? It seems bizarre to me.

(Apologies if this is well-trodden ground, I must've missed the previous discussions on the subject.)

I understand being disturbed by the reaction to murder, just trying to tell it from the dev point of view (book I quoted from was written by the same developers). I believe from their perspective its a kill or be killed world and if you hadn't happened along then grandma may not have made it home that night.

It's relative to the game's perspective...and considerably more clearer than real life.

All governments in the world take life, or at least factor in the capacity to do so. That doesn't make them moral, amoral, or immoral...it's simply a fact of life. Law enforcement is armed, militaries are armed, it's just part and parcel of the human condition.

And just so that people don't jump all over me, I'm not referring to capital punishment, simply that law enforcement and militaries are armed for one purpose, and it isn't handing out bouquets.

As an aside, it's professionally and academically accepted that only around 2% of people (based on a western background) have the capacity to come out of combat experience and mentally coping with it - meaning they won't undergo long term harmful psych effects, not that they are socio or psycopathic. But everyone has a burn out point, and long term warriors learn to take a break from the trade to avoid it.

if u think about it that guy would just kill others if u kill a cireal killer is that not a good act if i kill some one that will kill lets say 15 other peopel and i kill him befor he killed them i just saved ther lives thats a act of good

I agree 100%. Shouldnt bring good karma. Should be karma-neutral. Might bring goodwill, respect and fame from people if you waste monsters but not actually good karma. If you look at definition of karma strictly (esp. Ahimsa principle) it would actually always bring negative karma, no matter what you kill. In a game like this however it should be karma-neutral deed.

The issue occurs, in my opinion, because karma loss is triggered by EVERY player-alliable faction, evil good or otherwise!

This means taking dynamite from an escaped criminal loses you karma, even when shooting another gang's members in the head gains you karma.

Come on gamesas, if you want to establish morality, do one of two things: Either establish a faction as evil and make us gain karma for shooting them or establish them as evil and make us lose karma for ganking their stuff. I LOST karma "stealing" the legion plans to slaughter innocent NCR then gained back the points shooting fiends in the head even though I was working for another gang that came from the same vault as the feinds (the Khans), even while I worked to assassinate their leader (for no karma loss) but lost karma for stealing from the legion vexellares that was working to sell said gang into slavery.


Morality in a game is cool BUT it only works if you can realiably predict which factions are good and which are evil. Killing a gang leader for no karma loss only to be saddled with karma loss for helping ANOTHER gang from the VERY SAME vault just makes the morals system to confusing to take seriously.

But I can't know that. Sure, if I happen across a raider menacing grandma I should gain karma for rescuing her (though for the rescue, not the kill), but killing people on the off-chance they would've murdered someone else eventually? That's no basis for a system of morality or justice.



Maybe so, but I'm not a government, I'm just a person. And I accept that I'm going to have to kill some people whilst in the wasteland, it's a harsh world post-apocalypse; but that doesn't mean I should be rewarded with karma for doing so. I know I'm repeating myself, but I just don't understand why killing raiders etc. shouldn't have been a neutral-karma act.

the Khans and fiends are not from the same vault the fiends didnt even come from a vault the back story of the Khans is that they came from the same vault as the ncr if u play fallout 1 and 2 u will see whery they came from

@dikeybird:

I accept, and applaud, your position.

Too be totally frank, in rl the hardest thing in the world is not pulling the trigger on a legal shoot, the hardest thing is not to do it.

Personally, I'm more or less happy with the morality of the game.

I'm yet to hear of anyone not stealing from the dead in this game or F3, although I must admit that digging out a grave to see what I could scarf from the buried was a low act even by my fairly amoral standards (and I invariably play a saintlike character by the games standards).

You're right, I meant Vipers.

All of the people you gain karama for killing are indiscriminate murderers. Fiends, Ferals, and even powder gangers pretty much kill anyone. As dikeish as Ceasar's Legion is, they at least stand for some BS ideal. It's fairly apparent that all powder gangers are basically murderers.

I have the most trouble buying into it with powder gangers, but I have absolutely NO trouble buying into it when killing fiends. They're hopped on drugs, insane, they butcher and murder pretty much anyone who isn't drugging them up. It's a harsh way of looking at it but killing them is a community service, and it saves lives of people who matter, no different than wiping out a nest of deathclaws that are about to eat a whole freakin town.

The stealing is another goofy matter entirely.

Well, let's do some math.


Let's say 200 fiends kills approximately 2000 people, more or less, in their lifetime.

That means that each fiend kills about 10 people throughout his or hers lifetime, more or less.

That means that every time you kill a fiend, you take one life, but save ten more.

And thus, idling would actually make you a greater Satan than actively going around and killing fiends.

xD


(Statistics are pure fiction, and merely used an example)

Karma is about whether or not the general populace of the wasteland see your actions as good. If you're killing fiends, they see what you're doing as protecting them.

See there I can kind of agree, my issue isn't with karma-for-killing or the lack thereof with major factions.

It's that killing a faction's members can get you good karma at the same time that taking their weapons off a shelf gets you bad karma, and you can lose karma while completing missions that give you karma because you have to steal the objective.

ah but you see, all raiders are automatically with a history of violence/murder/[censored]/pillage. So it's okay to kill all of them.
And of course ncr are saints from heaven.
:shakehead:

Karma is just not worth putting in the game.

are the fiends them self evil? they are mentally unstable by use of intoxicants therefor what they really need is medical and psychiatric help not a bullet in the head I don't see the point of good karma for fiends and feral ghouls i mean the ghouls its def not their fault they are not wandering hungry and mad.

I dont have a problem with the game's Karma system at all. I mean you can complain that you draw your personal line somewhere else and that the whole thing is junk, and that's fine. But at some point they have to pick something and go with it.

The developers have decided to give positive karma for killing an evil person (Legion, slavers) or a hostile violent person (Powder Gangers) or a person suffering in agony (feral ghouls). Lots of people argue that it should be karma neutral to do so or to act in self defense. And yet there are people in the world whose opinion it is that any killing, even in self defense, is wrong (if necessary), and I'm not even talking about pacifists. You might have to kill someone to protect yourself or someone else, but to some people even though that act is necessary, it is still a stain and a moral burden that can never be lost or forgiven.

So there are lot of places you could draw the line on karma and killing. Getting frustrated at the developers for drawing a line of their own choosing in their own video game? Don't bother. There is some justification for it, but it wont work for everyone, so why sweat it?

Even the stealing thing makes sense, especially in a game with factions (societies, cultures). The simple morality of FNV is that stealing is wrong PERIOD ... except for whatever you pry off the body of someone that you were locked into moral combat with. Try to kill me? Your stuff is mine. Otherwise, even though I'm at war with your whole faction, the stuff not on your body belongs to a group, or a person, or a society, or your surviving allies and kin. So taking it is wrong.

You can disagree or agree, but its a good a place as any in a video game to draw a line.

The only place I found, that wasn't really internally consistent with their own philosophy, is Doc Mitchell's house. He apparently doesn't own any of it. I guess that is a nod to video game necessity. They are giving you a place to loot with no consequences, right up front. I usually don't loot his house, but there you have it.

But I don't get karma for killing deathclaws, which are a menace and a danger to the general population and in wiping them out I'm helping keep the community safe.



Yeah, this is pretty much my position, hence my discomfort. I'm the guy who ran around with gas grenades and a cattle prod in Deus Ex.



Yup. Faction fame/infamy is a better system anyway imo.

I think part of my problem is because of the use of the word "karma" itself, which has a specific religious context and meaning that bears no resemblance to the frontier justice of the Fallout world.

I no longer look at Karma in Fallout as any sort of human morality. I look at it as how I measure up in the eyes of some grand mystical force in the universe that will toss me into any one of three simple categories - sort of like "The Force" from Star Wars but this mystical Fallout Karma force has Good, Neutral, or Evil instead of the Dark and Light side. Sometimes this alien force has me adhere to a strange code of honor, such as penalizing me for stealing stuff from a dead raider who tried to kill me or not giving me karma for bringing a man who creates snuff porm to justice (via the barrel of a gun). But I'm okay with that, because again: It's an alien force I can't comprehend. Or, at least, this is how I cope with that kind of weirdness in the game. :tops: