I recently bought Fallout 3, and the first thing I noticed was the horrible morality system the game has. It is to black and white and has no depth. Stealing and hacking terminals punishes you with bad karma even if you're using what you steal or what you find for good. Another example of why the system is bad is in the quest "The Replicated Man". During this quest, Dr. Zimmer asks you to find his android. Once you do you have two decisions. You can let it go or you can return it. But the problem is that it's considered evil to return the android, even though the android belongs to Dr. Zimmer and is worth a lot of caps. It would also take a long time to rebuild an android that sophisticated. There are plenty of other quests similar to this... but I'm not going to list them all.

Discuss. :laugh:

EDIT: Check out this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KU3lUx3u0
Skip to around 3:05.

Well you are in luck new Vegas is bringing back the Reputation System which will balance out the Karma System.

Karma should be in every fallout game and so should reputation system.

:rolleyes: karma should stay, no reason to remove it, its what makes Fallout Fallout.

Uhhm,
The Karma system is really based on "YOU" :bonk:
Meaning that what you would do in those given circumstances. So Karma measures YOU and your actions.

Kind of like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic where you get light side points for doing nice things or dark side points for doing evil.

And what the other person said, the karma is what makes Fallout Fallout.

Yes, because I should be allowed to be a complete bastard to everyone, and still expect them to treat me like the 2nd coming [/sarcasum]

Returning the Android IS evil. One sentient being owning another IS slavery - whether that sentient being is a man or machine - forcing him to return against his will clearly is "wrong".

Yes, it would cost a lot to rebuild one, but what is the cost of "life"?

I think karma is an important part of Fallout but it can certainly be implemented better than it was in Fallout 3, or the original Fallouts for that matter. It's a great idea and no doubt can be expanded on significantly.

Well, it depends on how you role play your character, doesn't it? And another example within that same quest; Why do you gain good karma for killing Zimmer?
Like someone said above, the karma system could be implemented better, though I would prefer for it to be replaced entirely with a different system, maybe one where your actual decisions make an impact on how people view you instead of having a meter determine that. Karma as it is now doesn't allow for you to play a "chaotic good" character or to a lesser extent a "lawful evil" character. Breaking laws and stealing is still "evil" no matter what you do; even if you're stealing stimpacks for a wounded wastelander.

Oh, and the sarcasm isn't necessary, thank you. <_<

If you steal stimpacks ~you are stealing; as far as the owner is concerned, that's bad.

Ideally, Karma should be the game's oversight of your actions, (representing the "what goes around , comes around" aspect); while reputation should represent society's perception of your actions ~unbeknowst to the truth (karma).

Consider the desperate family in the waste that needs a water pump, and the benevolent PC tells them he will help; then steals a waterpump from another family a few days away. Reputation should go up with the first family, and not be affected with the second family (unless he was seen stealing it); and karma... in this case should drop for the theft ~and possibly* rise slightly for the (free!) gift ~but not enough to recover.

In general karma should [over time] lean towards the common actions (good or evil) of the PC. No one or two hits in the negative should bother a good guy (and vice versa with the bad guys).

*It takes a cold individual to steal a families waterpump. Not only do I think Karma should drop, but in a case like this, I think Luck and Karma should play a part in the chance of the theft being discovered later (and a serious reputation hit should follow).

Okay, now let's change the situation. Instead of stealing a family's waterpump, you're stealing a water pump from a murderous old man who lives alone and instead of giving it to a desperate family, the PC is giving it to a family of theives. Would it be considered good to steal it from this man? Perhaps, if you're intention is to harm an evil murderer. But maybe not, because in the end it will kill this old man. Then again, you would be helping thieves by giving them this water pump which would reward you with bad karma; or would reward you with good karma for helping a family?

In this kind of situation, it's hard to give either bad or good karma, because it depends on what you intended to do. That's why I propose getting rid of the karma meter and adding back the reputation meter. Things in this world are not just black and white, and moral ambiguity is a welcomed addition to the Fallout series in my opinion. Getting rid of karma doesn't get rid of choice, it allows you to role play your character and give them more depth.

Sten from Dragon Age: Origins is a good example of someone that can't be categorized as "good", "evil", or "neutral". It all depends on how you view him.

Because he is in effect, a slaver. Considering that things have gone as far as to have an underground railroad against this guy's organisation is clear that single android isnt the only one.

Which isn't what your title says - it says to eliminate, not to change/improve. Can it be improved, sure, and thats what NV promises us.

Does it? I would say that it does not. Stealing from the bad old man is still stealing :shrug:
(just because hes evil, does not exempt the PC from the bad karma of theft)

Wait... Bethesda actually used the name Zimmer for a Fallout 3 NPC!? (I mistook that comment for killing Zimmerman ~Uggh, even more copying than I had thought)

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Zimmer

Zimmer is the Quest giver for "The Replicated Man" - find the Android.

Then the same thing goes for Zimmer. Killing him should give the PC bad karma because it's still murder, even though he's pretty much a slaver. It shouldn't matter if you had "permission" too.

And while you might say it does not, others might think differently. Stealing one thing from a murderer and giving it to a different family in desperate need of this one thing could be considered good. Or maybe not. :goodjob:
In the end, whether a desicion is good or evil should not be decided by the world, but rather the people in the world and the PC. There's no need for a karma meter with the addition of a reputation meter. Getting caught up in nostalgia doesn't do the franchise any justice. Karma is [in my opinion] a flawed system.

By eliminating karma and replacing it with reputation, it is improving it. You can take away karma and still keep the choice. In my eyes, killing Zimmer is still morally wrong even though he's a slaver. And because of that, rewarding me with good karma for doing that is wrong. There's no good or evil, in the world, but rather what we perceive to be good or evil.

Its not nostalgia when you are still playing it
Karma and rep are different things with different reasons.

Consider the classic example of a local hero, a town champion and defender; one whose reputation is beyond refute... Yet this fellow is a cowardly cheat, who has stolen from townspeople, lied for his own benefit (at their expense), and murdered to keep his secrets. This is a character with high Rep and low Karma; The reverse might be a wealthy widow that arranges good turns to those in need, but never takes fame for it. She would have high karma and average rep. You could even have the swashbuckling pirate rogue with a rep for ill deeds, but who has a soft heart and has actually done charity (like the widow), or gave mercy to foes (that he claimed to have throttled); Such is a man who has high karma, but keeps a bad rep to maintain respect among his peers (or underlings).

Karma has got nothing to do with Nostalgia - Unless of course advocating Reputation is Nostalgia also, as it was present in Fallout 2, side by side with Karma.

Haha, sure it isn't. :wink_smile:

The thing is, what's things that are good/evil in one person's opinion could be the opposite in another person's opinion. Therefore, a system that judges your actions will be flawed. It might work for black and white situations, like whether or not to kill a person, but in other cases, it doesn't. That's why whether or not you are good/evil should be based on what YOUR PC thinks, and for that, there can't be any kind of meter. The way Fallout 3 works now is that there are 3 options at the end of a quest.

Top Option - Good
Middle Option - Neutral/Good
Bottom Option - Evil (but in most cases, you just end up being an [censored]).

Depending on what character you want to play, you mindlessly choose the same top, middle, or bottom option. There's no room for manipulative masterminds, or brute fighters with a heart. I think a system where you are given 4 different responses, each of them having a different "flavor" would be a great improvement; No morality system, but the options still stay.

Karma does not involve human opinion, only reputation does. :shrug:

I think I'm a little late in jumping into this discussion to go through and respond to individual quotes, so I'll my own two cents in here about what I'd feel would be the ideal karma/reputation system. Though I will start off by responding to this:

Agreed. And that's what I originally liked about the old-style Fallout system. Meeting with NPCs and the like, they were really only concerned with what reputations were applicable to them. With that sort of system, I could sneak into town A, steal everything of value, and then "donate" it all to town B. Town A would think I was a horrible person (and rightly so - I'd just nicked all their stuff,) while Town B would regale me as a hero. Reputation is the mechanism by which individual people judge your actions - Karma is the game itself (effectively, the universe) judging you.

Ideally, intent should never play a role in, well, any of this. It's not about what I, or even my character, think is the right action - Karma is judging you by your actions and their consequences. It doesn't matter if "I'm only stealing from the rich to give to the poor," it's still applying negative karma for stealing (because stealing is wrong) and rewarding you good karma for giving to the poor (because that's a generally nice thing to do.) It's tricky not to spiral this into a real-world discussion of morality, but there are philosophies wherein the same morality applies.

You can essentially break morality down into those actions which are negative to the affected party, and those which are positive (actions thus being either immoral or moral - respectively.) The same rule of removing intention from the action still applies, as we can see. The flawed logic of "I only did this bad thing so that I could do this good thing," is that what you're really doing is accomplishing two separate actions. If you steal from the rich, you're committing an immoral act (because it's negatively affecting the relevant parties.) When you then give those ill-gotten goods to the poor, that's a moral act (because you're positively affecting the relevant parties.) But it's still a separate act. As well, by relativistic standards, the "morality" of the people you're doing these actions to are still separate from the act itself. Stealing items from a "bad person" is still stealing (even if you're then going to give it someone more "deserving.") Also, murdering someone in cold blood (even a "bad person") is still an immoral act. Because you're still negatively affecting that person (obviously.)

A karmic system could very well work in fundamentally the same rules, by that standard. Of course, we'd have to modify things to some degree or another. Obviously, there's going to be lots of killing involved in a game like this. If we made killing anything a "bad karma" action, then everyone would end up skewed towards evil and we'd have an unworkable system. But what I think would be a decent compromise would be to break NPCs down into those who intend to kill you, and those who don't. By that measure, acting in self-defense, while maybe not giving you "good" karma, at least wouldn't give you the karmic penalties of a murderer. And then, pro-actively acting in self-defense would keep you "safe" from karmic repercussions, as well. (So that you could sneak into a Raider-inhabited cave and stealth-kill enemies without worrying about being labelled by the game as "evil.")

There is, of course, the paradox of killing, for example, the evil leader of a very evil faction, even if he's not intending to likewise kill you. Again, I think that can be solved by remembering that the consequences of an action can also be deemed "moral" or "immoral." Let's say we're going to decide to kill the leader of some slavers, even if you have (somehow) a good reputation with them and they have nothing against you, personally. Sneaking into his base and killing him in his sleep might be a "bad karma" action. But you're going to likely regain that lost karma, and then some, by freeing all of those slaves; and likely get a bit of a boost by simply making the world a better and safer place to live in.

Personally, I don't think Karma is the sort of thing where every single thing you do needs to specifically gain or lower each time, either. Killing a supermutant probably shouldn't affect you either way.

And I think the "real" question about Karma is just what role it should play in the game, other than being some sort of metric by which you can judge your roleplaying decisions. (But this post has already gone on long enough, so I'll just let that thought stew for a bit before going down that road all at once.)

And of course, Reputation is, I think, a pretty easy thing to figure out without a whole lot of controversy going into it.

Then you disagree that every person has different morals? That every religion has different rules for what's right and wrong?

I'd agree that its an irrelevant point in the context of a game, and on a forum that prohibits discussion of politics and religion. :goodjob:

**Nu_clear_day put it best with Karma is the Universe itself being the judge.

Personally I would have it that the Karma system not be rigidly contextual in its positive and negative bonuses. One should not be able to "game" the system; just that the system be generally indicative of the personality over time. (meaning the good guys get good karma, and the bad get bad :shrug: ~Karma being irrespective of their personal beliefs).

(Okay, I thought I was done, but I thought of another illustrative scenario to discuss...:shrug:)

Let's take a scenario I had fun with in Fallout 1. You're staying overnight at an inn when the owner wakes you up because one of her patrons has taken a girl hostage and is threatening to kill her. Now, obviously, even shooting this guy in the face isn't the most evil of acts - because you're trying to stop a murder, after all. But, there are degrees of "good" and "bad," after all. I would propose that in this scenario, shooting the man nets you negative Karma (because you're still killing somebody.) However, saving the girl - an act and consequence separate from the actual shooting, nets you positive Karma. Ideally, the Karma you gain from rescuing the hostage would be more than you lost from shooting the man - giving you a net karmic gain, even though you did just kill someone (who doesn't necessarily intend on killing you.)

That might, at first, sound a bit flawed. But let's also keep in mind that we're talking about an RPG wherein one of it's founding principles has been to provide as wide an array of options as possible. There is more than one outcome, then, to this situation. We can:

• Do nothing - the girl dies, the man lives
  
• Shoot the man and kill him instantly - the girl lives, the man dies
  
• Wound the man (by not doing enough damage) - the girl dies, the man (might) live
  
• Talk the man down - both live
  
• Incapacitate the man in some way - both live
  
• And even (potentially) find some way to reach a mutually beneficial conclusion wherein not only does everyone live, but you've also managed to help the man out in the some way.

All of these have different cumulative karmic repercussions, then. One sort of character might be totally disinterested in the scenario. If you just let the guy kill his hostage, it has no karmic affect. (Sure, the girl dies, but it wasn't through your own actions - and we're only responsible for our own actions.) Shooting him dead to save the girl, as I've explained, rewards you with a net gain (even though you "technically" lost some karma for killing.) Wounding him, however, would likely still get you a minor karmic reduction (shooting people is still bad, even if for good intentions.) Plus, the girl dies, so you gain no karmic reward, there. Better luck next time.

There would be, however, even more beneficial (to your Karma level) actions available. Talk the man down so that everyone lives, and you gain the full karmic bonus of saving the girl's life - without the "hit" from killing the man. Find a way to knock him out while saving the girl, and the same applies (this way, even if you lack the proper speech skills, you still have a chance of finding the "ideal" conclusion.) And even better (and this is the sort of thing a "True Paragon of all that's Right and Good in the World") would be to find some sort of mutually beneficial compromise so that everyone walks away the better for you having intervened. (ie, "You obviously need help, and I can get you that help. Come with me and we'll find a way for you to deal with your drinking problem/ drug addiction/ broken heart," etc.)

What I find elegant about this system as I envision it is that really, most of these consequences (as far as karma is concerned) is already "hard-wired" into the game itself. Normally, you'd have to program the "reward" for each separate conclusion. ("Okay, so the PC gets 100 Karma if he can find a peaceful solution where no-one dies, 75 if he kills the man, 125 for helping them both out, so much for this ending, so much that," etc, etc, etc.) If we instead have relative rewards and penalties for most actions already, then you only have to code the "reward" for

• Saving the girl, and
  
• a bonus for improving the man's life, as well.

Everything else would just kind of take care of itself. :grad:

Most of what you consider an "ideal karma/reputation" system corresponds with what I think. The problem is, what would the point of karma be? If the NPCs don't take in account of what your karma is, then it doesn't really matter, except for maybe for flavor. But let's say that a person playing Fallout 3 truly believes that cannibalism is okay during certain situations. So in the game when they only have 5% of their HP left, they send their character off to go eat a corpse. Suddenly the game gives them bad karma for something they believe is justified. In this situation, you're bad karma is due to, as you say, "your actions". You might not think there is anything wrong with what you did but apparently the game has a problem with it. The game can't possibly take in account what different people consider to be right and wrong.

The karma system will only be more bothersome without NPCs reacting to your karma score. As I said earlier, having a "good", "neutral", "evil" karma system really limits the way you can respond. Everything is made to fit into these 3 categories. And even if some things aren't made to fit into the categories, they are oddly misplaced in a category that doesn't do it justice. And without rewards or punishments for having a good, neutral, or evil, karma is even more pointless.

Oh sorry, I didn't know. :facepalm:
My point is, that everyone has different view of what they think is "right" and "wrong", and the game can't measure what's good or bad if it doesn't have a stable foundation to base itself on. And going with one idea/philosophy will just make other people upset.




So I suppose the Failsafe way of exiting "Tranquility Lane" should have rewarded you with bad karma? You're ultimately trapping Braum in there for the rest of his life. But anyway, I once again believe that what's right or wrong is based on opinion and what you believe is morally right/wrong. With your system, there's no character that can work for "the greater good" and remain a "good" character. It's all up to the world to judge your character's actions, and how it judges you might not correspond to what you believe is right or wrong.

[quote name='nu_clear_day' date='13 August 2010 - 09:38 PM' timestamp='1281753494' post='16274478']
I would propose that in this scenario, shooting the man nets you negative Karma (because you're still killing somebody.) However, saving the girl - an act and consequence separate from the actual shooting, nets you positive Karma. Ideally, the Karma you gain from rescuing the hostage would be more than you lost from shooting the man - giving you a net karmic gain, even though you did just kill someone (who doesn't necessarily intend on killing you.) [/quote]I'm with you in my thinking ~except that I would propose that the net [karmic] gain not be positive in the end... Meaning that freeing the girl not boost your karma above the hit from killing the man (it is killing right?).

In general, it is easier to be evil than good, making the karma system (in general) be easier to be evil than good, makes being good a conscious (or conscientious ) effort... that ideally should pay off differently than its opposite extreme.

[quote]
We can:

• Do nothing - the girl dies, the man lives
  
• Shoot the man and kill him instantly - the girl lives, the man dies
  
• Wound the man (by not doing enough damage) - the girl dies, the man (might) live
  
• Talk the man down - both live
  
• Incapacitate the man in some way - both live
  
• And even (potentially) find some way to reach a mutually beneficial conclusion wherein not only does everyone live, but you've also managed to help the man out in the some way.

[/quote](Also the sixth option is that the man kills the girl and then himself = both die; this could result from doing nothing, or any of several unwise dialogs with the confused fellow).