Bethesda`s odd moral - karma (some spoilers)

Erny

Erny

It Wandered In From the Wastes
The very karma system in fo3 is silly and simplified to the point of irrelevant. And then there are many cases where the negative/positive karma makes no sense at all

Stealing is always bad ok. Steal from a bad char - negative karma, but if you murder a supposedly bad char you get a positive?

Some characters responsible for the death of other people are still considered to be 'good' and killing them gives negative karma, while helping - positive. Like the obnoxious stupid scientist whos experiments with ants killed the whole settlement. Or the cannibal guy who killed his parents...

On the other hand, the Tenpenny lord is considered to be bad by default, regardless of the bomb situation, and killing him for no reason (just to take his suit ok) - positive karma?

You don't get positive karma for killing evil mobs (riders or mutants)
But get negative for friendly/neutral mobs (BoS, scavengers)

But don't worry, if you need an endless good karma just make a bunch of donations to a ridiculous cult... WTF Bethesda?
Can I go exterminate a town and then just buy good karma from a bunch of idiot cultists? This simply makes the moral side of your actions irrelevant.
 
Actually, the notion of stealing being uniformly bad in a PA wasteland is kind of ridiculous. I mean, if everyone felt that, humanity would not survive after the war. Pfft.
 
The ten penny karma is a big issue. I finished the Tenpenny tower quest on Good Karma. Then about an hour later. I heard three dog saying that the Ghouls who moved in killed everyone there. I was like WTF? I went back and checked. Yep, everyone was dead, so I went back to see the Ghoul leader. he admits he kills them all and I decided to take revenge and kill him and I get BAD karma.

The ghoul is evil. I should have gotten good karma out of it.
 
B5C: What? Did you tell the ghouls to storm the tower and you opened the door for them? Or did you convince the residents to live together with the ghouls?

I convinced the ghouls and they moved in together with the humans. Lived peacefully. Only dead guy was Alistair Tenpenny.
 
Check back after a few days. [spoiler:7d974ca464]Every non-ghoul will be dead, their bodies tossed into the basement with some feral ghouls. You can bring this up with the residents, but everyone except for Roy will say that they don't know anything about it. Roy will basically tell you, "So what? Fuck off."[/spoiler:7d974ca464]That's the end of the dialog in that outcome, too. You can kill him, but it counts as an unjustified murder and you get bad karma for it, even though he so obviously deserves a bullet to the brain.
 
Plissken said:
I convinced the ghouls and they moved in together with the humans. Lived peacefully. Only dead guy was Alistair Tenpenny.
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That's what happened to me also.
 
To prevent this from happening you can shoot roy right after you finished the good quest. You will still get negative karma but only Roy dies and nobody will attack you for this.

Anyways, the only time I noticed about karma when I tried to recruit a merc, besides that nobody seems to give a damn
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Actually, the notion of stealing being uniformly bad in a PA wasteland is kind of ridiculous. I mean, if everyone felt that, humanity would not survive after the war. Pfft.
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I have to disagree. Stealing in a PA setting would be the worst time to steal. In an age when you and your families' lives may very well hinge on the number of .32 caliber shells you own, taking them could be just as bad as killing them yourself.

While I do think they could have adjusted stealing from dead people who were bad, the whole system is really no worse than the originals in either composition.

And no, one imperfect system does not excuse another.. but I can't think of any game that actually had a freeform karma system that made sense. In some way there has to be a line. Where it is drawn is up to the developers, and I've yet to see any developer 'get it right'. Expecting this from Bethesda out of nowhere is a little farfetched, especially given the rather low opinion most people here have of them. But hey, more ammo for the attack I guess.
 
B5C said:
The ten penny karma is a big issue. I finished the Tenpenny tower quest on Good Karma. Then about an hour later. I heard three dog saying that the Ghouls who moved in killed everyone there. I was like WTF? I went back and checked. Yep, everyone was dead, so I went back to see the Ghoul leader. he admits he kills them all and I decided to take revenge and kill him and I get BAD karma.

The ghoul is evil. I should have gotten good karma out of it.
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I guess you could justify the Tenpenny ordeal as your good intentions having ill effects, in the same sense of "the road the hell is paved with good intentions". You don't get negative karma for the event itself because you had good intentions to begin with, but realizing your mistake and then attempting to make a right out of two wrongs doesn't always work.

The Fallout 3 Karma system I figure takes a more strict biblical interpretation of right and wrong. For example, stealing is uniformly considered bad karma throughout the game, and that's backed by the "Thou shalt not steal" commandment. Taking property in any form ( the Bible doesn't specifically state humans cannot be property, but narrative-wise there's a theme against it, ie the liberation of the Jews from Egypt ) is simply unvirtuous and gets you smacked with the "Sin!" stick.

As far as killin fer karma, remember that the split in interpretation of the "Thou shalt not not kersplode thy neighbor's face" commandment is "kill" or "murder", "murder" being the more accepted translation amongst religions. Comparatively, it's okay to "kill" raiders/mutants/feral ghouls because self defense is inherent devine right (so long as you either kill the attacker outright with little pause for moral deliberation, and/or do your pennance soon after the act), and get close enough and they'll attack you first. The end result is you've done no evil, but life is sacred no matter the incarnation of it (hence why dangerous game hunters don't get a free ride), thus it balances out.

Alternatively, in the case of the ghoul leader, you are the provoker with motive when you gib him into ghoul chunks. Premeditated "murder," conciously or unconciously, the deciding factor being whether or not you justified it before pulling the trigger. This might need confirming in the case of Tenpenny himself, if you can just open the door and pop him for good karma points with no prompt or situational awareness at all

As for kaps for karma, it's not a biblical reference but a widely held religious belief that donating worldly goods to a church of God is considered a virtuous act.

Not saying this explination system is entirely correct, nor am I saying the beliefs themselves are correct, but it's an easily refferable way to explain why it is.
 
The karma is definitely... odd.

I'm playing a 'good' character. After meeting the family, what I wanted to do was:

1. Send the boy to his sister, since he said his sister suppresses his 'hunger'

2. Kill The Family, since they are.... well, cannibalistic, murdering, idiot cultists.

But if I killed one of The Family, not only did I get a karma hit, but it would make me an enemy of Arefu at the same time! What?!?! Arefu sent me to destroy them!

In my view, The Family is as bad as, if not worse than, Raiders -- Raiders are at least honest about their murdering ways, they want your stuff. But The Family is obviously well stocked and just wants your blood because they can't be bothered to eat anything else.

Sure, I can convince them to guard Arefu for 'blood packs', which is ridiculous and moronic.

This very well may be the stupidest quest I've ever been part of in a RPG, taking setting into consideration.
 
the ghouls vs tenpenny is ridiculous. those ghouls are like terrorists - planning to exterminate all the tower inhabitants from the start, yet they are considered good even when they have done it? killing those ghouls is the act of justice no less and cant be considered bad by any means

Improving karma by donating worldly goods to a church of bloody idiots who worship an atom bomb? - its just a lame mechanics that lets you restore your karma w/o any problems - that designer Emil Pagliarulo was talking about: "go pop some heads ... then bring your karma back to neutral"

there is something clearly messed up with Beth understanding of whats good and again a game without consequences
 
This is actually one of those unclear 'moral choices'.

The Family ISN'T evil, and if you dive into the story a little bit you can see that.

They have uncontrollable hunger for human flesh and Vance is trying to help them without getting them all killed. They have stopped eating flesh and only drink blood now as a step towards curbing the hunger.

The Family did not kill the kids parents, the kid did and the Family covered for him to take the heat off him, plus it gave the family a chance to feed and slake the thirst for a time.

Offering blood packs in exchange for protection solves two problems at once. It stops the feeding on live prey and it gives Arefu a little safety.

So no, the quest isn't really the problem at all. Going in guns blazing, assuming it's the right choice.. that's the problem.
 
ferrety said:
But if I killed one of The Family, not only did I get a karma hit, but it would make me an enemy of Arefu at the same time! What?!?! Arefu sent me to destroy them!
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lol what? thats just moronic!

and I wouldnt change karma for killing the Family - cause its worse than talking them into leaving the Arefu alone, but still better than letting them feed on poor people. kinda grey area... but the kid who murdered his own parents? the motherfu...killer deserves a bullet!
 
betamonkey said:
This is actually one of those unclear 'moral choices'.
......
So no, the quest isn't really the problem at all. Going in guns blazing, assuming it's the right choice.. that's the problem.
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There is no "limitation period" for murder. So basically it doesn´t matter that now they don´t kill people, when they did in the past. Giving shelter to a murderer isn´t good either. In a world where survival is the ultima ratio, these are enough reasons to justify killing them.

Gooscar said:
...Taking property in any form ( the Bible doesn't specifically state humans cannot be property, but narrative-wise there's a theme against it, ie the liberation of the Jews from Egypt ) is simply unvirtuous and gets you smacked with the "Sin!" stick....
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They are the "Chosen People" that is why they are freed, it has nothing to do with slavery. Quite the opposite Abraham sells two of his daughters into slavery to save his own arse. And in Leviticus, I think, it clearly states that selling your daugthers into slavery is all fine and dandy.
 
Gooscar said:
[....]
Not saying this explination system is entirely correct, nor am I saying the beliefs themselves are correct, but it's an easily refferable way to explain why it is.
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Yeah, but there's surely too much religious background to the game imo. I mean, it's PA wasteland, how many people should really care???
 
Kashrlyyk said:
Gooscar said:
...Taking property in any form ( the Bible doesn't specifically state humans cannot be property, but narrative-wise there's a theme against it, ie the liberation of the Jews from Egypt ) is simply unvirtuous and gets you smacked with the "Sin!" stick....
Click to expand...
They are the "Chosen People" that is why they are freed, it has nothing to do with slavery. Quite the opposite Abraham sells two of his daughters into slavery to save his own arse. And in Leviticus, I think, it clearly states that selling your daugthers into slavery is all fine and dandy.
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That is true. There are examples of both sides of the coin.

Ausdoerrt said:
Gooscar said:
[....]
Not saying this explination system is entirely correct, nor am I saying the beliefs themselves are correct, but it's an easily refferable way to explain why it is.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but there's surely too much religious background to the game imo. I mean, it's PA wasteland, how many people should really care???
Click to expand...

Not to turn this thread into a religious debate, though it is about karma, but survival/comfort/faith have been corner stones of human development over the past few milienia. It's also part of the Fallout universe, both in narrative, setting, and the flavor of humor.

In Fallout 1/2/Tactics, there were examples of tribalistic paganism, which is a religion, albeit a bit goofy in most cases to give us a laugh at the joke (Brahman God of Fertility anyone?). Even the Brotherhood of Steel has a religious spine, though their God is in the Machine as opposed to a traditional diety.

The basic premise is that while yes Godless heathens were no strangers to both biblical times and the Fallout universe, faith and religion are not absent and are infact support characters to the narrative and setting. Megaton and Rivet City have chruches/cults, and have enough following to influence the community (like the bomb worshippers being a major part of the construction of Megaton as opposed to weirdoes that just lurk around the hunk of metal). So within those two communities, donations are taken at face value, and no religious leader is going to question the motives of a philratropist.

I will agree however that due to the nature of the post-apocalyptic setting, the influence of those religious organizations is pretty much limited to those communities, as I haven't seen any Children of Atom or Saint Whatshername outside of Megaton or Rivet City. It's not like in the Renessaince era where the Catholic Church called the shots eight ways to sunday. In fact I'm rather surprised there isn't a crazy kook on the ham radio spewing out Children of Atom foolery, considering the feature (though I guess President Eden is as close to it as you can get). I could accept donations to the local cult/church would effect the community it was based in, but not the whole DC area at large.
 
betamonkey said:
This is actually one of those unclear 'moral choices'.

The Family ISN'T evil, and if you dive into the story a little bit you can see that.

They have uncontrollable hunger for human flesh and Vance is trying to help them without getting them all killed. They have stopped eating flesh and only drink blood now as a step towards curbing the hunger.

The Family did not kill the kids parents, the kid did and the Family covered for him to take the heat off him, plus it gave the family a chance to feed and slake the thirst for a time.

Offering blood packs in exchange for protection solves two problems at once. It stops the feeding on live prey and it gives Arefu a little safety.

So no, the quest isn't really the problem at all. Going in guns blazing, assuming it's the right choice.. that's the problem.
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No, I explored EVERY conversation choice. I researched their 'Laws'. Please don't assume I went in there with 'guns blazing'. I talked to them, and I don't think they are 'good'. At best, they are crazy. At worst, they are homicidal. Where do they get this blood? From other people, sometimes. That they didn't kill the boys family is inconsequential - the BOY himself did!

Would you leave them to protect your little sister? I wouldn't. So I certainly wouldn't leave them to protect the town I swore I'd help.

Nor would I build up a blood economy for their benefit, not so much on moral grounds but because it's moronic. This is a wasteland. People would be scrounging daily for food just to get buy. And these people insist they can only feast on blood? So they need others to die to feed them? I call bull. I'm expected to believe that some group of post-apocalyptic humans can, for some odd psychological reason, only consume blood? That's moronic. Absolutely moronic.

Not to mention you're basically encouraging and helping to foster a protection racket - mafia style. Blood for protection is no different than money for protection. This isn't a symbiotic relationship, it's one fostered by fear.

They are a bunch of idiotic LARPERs.
 
Heh, LARPers.

I will give you that there's a sudden omnisciant "ZOMG IAN DEAD KILL 101 GUY!" reaction at Arefu that doesn't make sense.

From what I understand, Ian and Arefu are the two things you can't kill, otherwise you fail the quest. It's simply railroaded and programmed that Ian has to live if you want to do good.
 
Can't you simply complete the quest then kill them after the fact? Unless they are essential, then you can't.

I should say more than likely console commands (aka cheat codes) should be in the game and if so what you do simply is:

Complete quest, open console, type in setkarmapos 10 (adding 10) thus granting yourself what you should have gotten.
 
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