Basic Trope: A video game gives the player the option to show compassion to in-game characters.
- Straight:
- A homeless person is begging for change and the player gives them a few tokens of in-game currency.
- A character with a fear of the dark asks the player can switch on the light-switch.
- Exaggerated: The player has total control over the lives and deaths of everyone in the game and you get the best stuff (and a Golden Ending) if everyone is happy.
- Downplayed:
- If the player acts with mercy to enemy characters, the enemies will thank you for it, though it won't stop them from trying to kill you.
- The game gives the player the option to act heroically in the side missions, but the main quest keeps the player character morally ambiguous at it has no effect on the ending.
- Justified:
- The Player Character is a Small Steps Hero who's job is to feed the hungry and be a shoulder to cry on.
- The game has a Karma Meter that adds or detracts points due to character actions. For every good deed the player does, it gives them
Lawful Good powers that will help them blow stuff up later. - Enemies feed and grow stronger on negativity, so by being nice and friendly to them, you are literally killing them with kindness.
- Inverted: Video Game Cruelty Potential
- Subverted: The player is a Villain Protagonist who's acts of kindness are meant to deliberately make them worse-off later. He gives poor, homeless Alice spare-change because he knows she's just going to use it to buy drugs. He gives Bob directions to a safehouse, knowing that the insane doctor there is experimenting on the survivors.
- Double Subverted: Because the player's Pet the Dog moments have negative consequences, it all leads them to a Downer Ending where everyone is dead, the world ends and it shames the player for it.
- Parodied: "Gee golly gosh, I wish some strapping young man could help me, a little old lady, cross the street!"
- Zig-Zagged: The game lets players be nice, only it turns out just how positive of an effect it has on anyone depends on the moment, which can be lifted by in-game choices.
- Averted: The game is a Murder Simulator. People only buy it for the Video Game Cruelty Potential.
- Enforced:
- Game designers know Moral Guardians will overreact about the game's violence effecting their kids and they designed moments in the game to give their hyperbole less weight.
- The designers knew non-stop violence and dog-kicking would get gratuitous and they thought that a few Pet the Dog moments would give players a breather from it all.
- Lampshaded: "This city is full of people and you're the first person who offered to help! Almost as if you're the only actual person here."
- Invoked: There is an In-Universe industry of "professional victims" used to encourage virtuous behavior in the community. Beggars wanting charity, damsels who end up in distress every week, etc.
- Exploited: Ultra-violent games are a dime-a-dozen in the mainstream, so there are a lot of Ultra Super Happy Cute Baby Fest Farmer 3000 indie games to act as counter to them, usually as a palette-cleanser when the Gorn and cynicism gets old.
- Defied: "If I wanted to do chores and help the community, I wouldn't be playing video games, now wouldn't I?"
- Discussed: "I'm not your charity case, okay? Why is it that you're always there when I'm struggling and are so quick to help? This isn't healthy for either of us."
- Conversed: "Well, I'm off to stop terrorist bombings and bank robberies, but I guess I'll just stop doing all of that just to chase after this kid's damn red balloon! It's not like they couldn't just get another one!"
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstruction: The game has multiple endings. You get the Good Ending for picking all of the "Hero" options in the Main storyline quests, but the Golden Ending is reserved for players who have 100% positive karma, something you can only achieve by doing various good deeds on the side.
