Playing the good guy

What do think about playing a good character in games (that give you a choice)?

In some games you are rewarded for being the good guy, are there any you are punished?

Mass effect 2 is interesting in that you seem to get the most rewards for being either a saintly hero or an anti hero asshole, striking a balance will have you losing out.

My latest Trope page: Shapeshifting Failure

I almost always go 100% good - I'm too soft for evil.

I always play the good guy, otherwise I end up feeling bad.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

It's fun whether I am being serious or not. As is being evil.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I always play the good guy. Playing the bad guys feels like I'm breaking character with my self.

Also, rewards. There are very few games where the reward for evil is the kind of reward you actually want. Sure, evil gets all the easy money*

. Good, on the other hand, gets all the one-of-a-kind magic items that you can actually use, or sell for easy money.

I always play evil. Multiple times in fact, with maybe one good playthrough as an afterthought.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

I usually play as good with some "evil" choices thrown in here and there.

How do you prove that you exist...? Maybe we don't exist...

I always play the good guy, otherwise I end up feeling bad. Except sometimes, I take the option that I think is most morally defensible, and it turns out to be evil and my character rapidly becomes a puppy-eater. Annoying.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I guess I play evil because it's good stress relief. Helps me vent and continue to maintain my normally polite demeanor.

edited 28th Mar '11 12:54:44 PM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

The first time I play a game, I'll usually play the good guy — being given the option not to save the world just makes me want to save it more ^^; — but in subsequent playthroughs, I'll pick a specific character to play (Bored, drunken monk, for example, or hyper-lawful commando). That usually leads to more morally ambiguous answers.

Y'know, I can think of a number of games where you lose items or things by playing one side of the street or the other (Shin Megami Tensei in particular loves doing that), but I can't think of a game that actively punishes you for being good. But now that I think of it, there aren't many games with an alignment system that actively punish you for being evil, either. Seems like the games that nutkick you for being evil are the games that don't really have an obvious alignment system.

But somehow,◊

Fallout 3 made the choice easy, play a god guy and (almost) everyone loves you and give you stuff, play a bad guy and three dog calls you can asshole over the radio, you can't get the best companions and slavers start to like you.

I do like the praise aspect of playing a hero, but the occasional lapse makes your character seem a bit more human.

edited 28th Mar '11 1:12:12 PM by MCE

My latest Trope page: Shapeshifting Failure

The only time I've ever done the evil thing was when I Role Play when playing World of Warcraft. Every other game, I feel that it's just making an evil choice out of other predetermined choices. When I RP, I can act evil, which I not only find much more challenging, but also much more hamtastic.

I try and be as good as I can possibly be.

Going evil always seemed too destructive for my tastes. I want to feel like I've built something that will last at the end of a gaming campaign, not destroyed something.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I'm another person who sticks with good. Sometimes I do a second evil run to see what happens, but often I don't bother. Being destructive just feels too much like losing to me. Like, you're failing all the sidequests and achieving nothing. Evil is fundamentally counterproductive.

And, most importantly, you're not sacrificing anything by being good in video games. In most cases you lose nothing at all, but even when you get more money or whatever by being evil, it's rare that you would actually care about money in a video game. And if the good path is harder? Isn't being challenged the point of games? Sign me up for the high road anytime. Being a bastard when the good path is just as rewarding and possibly funner just seems ridiculously petty.

edited 28th Mar '11 1:31:18 PM by Clarste

Playing as a Villain Protagonist is a fun change of pace with most games making you The Cape and not give any other choice.

Sonic hates SOPA

I wouldn't mind it if more games did have you crippled by being good, or at least have it so that you (the PC) are weaker but the party is stronger.

In professional wrestling games, I play the bad guy if given the choice just because of how often my created monster Rudos have been turned into "Doing it for the right reasons" types. I prefer to play the good guy in story mode most of the time, but I hate it when you're supposedly given choices and they all end up as the good guy no matter what.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Evil is great because of the destruction if you ask me. Sometimes taking something down can be just as satisfying as building something up, albeit in a different way.

That and it lets you be as hammy as you want and you get to wear all the nice threads.

edited 28th Mar '11 3:18:14 PM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

There's this one point in Dragon Age where you can fun these two orphans' trip to Denerim. As far as I remember you get no reward and there's no quest chain relating to them later on.

I don't remember too many things like that though.

Umbran Climax◊

I don't purposely go either way on first playthrough. I just do whatever I feel is best, or gets me the most loot. I end up neutral, slightly leaning towards good.

Sorry, I can't hear you from my FLYING METAL BOX!

I also usually play as good, at least the first time through.

I find it hard to play as anything worse than a Jerk with a Heart of Gold or Anti-Hero, though.

"The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go."

I play according to what I feel is good, which usually turns out to be what the developers decided was good.

Also when there is a choice to be evil just for kicks, I'll avoid it.

However my only aversion is Black & White, I was good to my villagers, but fireballs and poisoned food to those that weren't. Especially fireballs on the enemy crèche.

However I feel I'm not so much playing a character in that game so the good/evil doesn't affect me as much.

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

Always play good. I can't stand evil for it's own sake, so evil's hard for me to justify.