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Karmic Imbalance : The Morality Problem in
Video Games
By Cody McElhinny
When I first played Fallout 3 in 2010 , I was struck by the degree of agency I was granted as a player . Upon leaving the starting area of Vault 101 , the post-apocalyptic Washington D . C . felt entirely at my disposal . In some aspects , it really was . I could venture to every visible corner of the game world , all the while ignoring my quests and exploring a world of my own accord . Despite this freedom , which was admittedly enjoyable , I had one overarching qualm with the game . Nothing within its fictional world truly felt at stake . Regardless of my actions , I was approaching a predetermined end . Fallout 3 lacks what many games do : a “ moral texture ”, a sense that all actions and choices have meaningful consequences .
In Fallout 3 , your choices as the player are morally simplified : either act the role of an upstanding hero or a heartless villain . Given these starkly defined parameters , I found it nearly impossible to commit bad deeds because , more often than not , those deeds were so unequivocally horrible . Take , for example , a Fallout 3 quest titled “ The Power of Atom ”, which presents you with the choice of either disarming a nuclear bomb or detonating it , wiping out an entire city and all its inhabitants . In a moment such as this , moral ambiguity is thrown out the window and morality is represented as black and white ; either you commit mass murder or you don ’ t . Saving the city will award you good karma points whereas destroying it will award you with bad karma points . Throughout Fallout 3 the game tracks your overall karma and , upon reaching certain thresholds , grants the player access to rewards , bonuses , and new interactions .
From a narrative standpoint , morality mechanics such as Fallout 3 ’ s karma system are failures in game design for several reasons . First and foremost , they imply that the morality within the game ’ s universe is a binary concept ; there is only good and evil and nothing exists in-between . Secondly , rewarding players for - consistent good or bad behavior may discourage that player making a choice they morally align with . A player might adopt an “ evil ” playstyle simply because it reaps the most in-game benefits . When the player makes a choice based on factors that are external to that choice , consequences become secondary . And finally , this lack of a moral texture detracts from characterization . On one hand , the player character might end up devolving into a bland , archetypical role ( i . e . a hero or a villain ). On the other , the nature of the player ’ s choices might vary so much that any semblance of a coherent character is lost . In Fallout 3 , perhaps the player might choose to detonate the nuke and then , immediately after , lead an effort to free enslaved wastelanders from a group of raiders .
Karma in Fallout 3 gives a false sense of consequence , but in reality it is boiled down to a simple statistic . When the player makes a choice , the game determines for them the moral integrity of that choice by indicating a rise or fall in karma . There is no room
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