Emil Pagliarulo answers some questions on BGSF

[Brother None]

I'd like to see it replaced by a pure reputation system. I like the Age of Decadence one, for example.

For sure. Intent is hard to measure in computer games, Torment only partially succeeded at it, and most significantly through "lie/truth" dialogue choices. Not ideal.

A very detailed and individually tailored (not necessarily faction-based, but faction-tied) reputation system is better.

 

[PaladinHeart]

The whole karma system is pretty silly, actually. The only thing that should matter is your reputation. Having your character set to do one thing or the other at the end of the game, based on your karma, is like letting the player have control up till a given point. What's the point? I say they should just let you decide what to do.

I always thought it was pretty silly in Fallout Tactics to get the bad ending, despite not doing anything evil. I would always choose the "goody goody" options, but get the ending where, if you donate your brain to the calculator, you kill off the council, etc..

The player should be given that choice when the time comes.

Now, I still say if you randomly kill people that you should be known as a berserker, etc.. See, you can't magically change how you're viewed by other people. It would be nice to have different Karma titles in different towns though. I really liked how they handled that aspect in Fallout 2. Universal karma has always been pretty silly though.

 

[TheGM]

I'd like to see it replaced by a pure reputation system. I like the Age of Decadence one, for example.

Religion is ok. Has a bad habit of morons fucking up good ideas though.

From my perspective, morons fucking up good ideas is more of a rule than an exception as far as religions go.

True. it just that fucking up religious ideas is used as justification for fucking up everything else.

 

[Ausir]

Actually, there is a good reputation ending for FOT:

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

You must have done something that lowered your karma (or had a bug).

 

[Texas Renegade]

What does it matter if you believe in a churches relegion or not, if you give them money to help other people it is a good act regardless of the relegion involved.

Wanna bet that this mechanic works only in Christian churches, and not, say, Children of the Atom?

Actually, I would be willing to bet that their isn't a recognized current relegion in the game at all.

I don't know what the relegion they use will be, but I doubt any of them are a recognized current relegion. Some of you try way too hard to hate this game.

 

[Ausir]

I don't know what the relegion they use will be, but I doubt any of them are a recognized current relegion. Some of you try way too hard to hate this game.

Your father is quoting the Bible at you as a toddler in one of the leaked screenshots, which already gives the game more Christian themes than FO1 and FO2 put together.

 

[PaladinHeart]

Actually, there is a good reputation ending for FOT:

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

You must have done something that lowered your karma (or had a bug).

Yeah. I know about the bad ending but for some unknown reason I'd always get some bad karma in the game (bug I think) and whenever you gain positive karma it's so little that it never outweighs the positive.

 

[Texas Renegade]

I don't know what the relegion they use will be, but I doubt any of them are a recognized current relegion. Some of you try way too hard to hate this game.

Your father is quoting the Bible at you as a toddler in one of the leaked screenshots, which already gives the game more Christian themes than FO1 and FO2 put together.

yeah, your father, the guy in the vault that is a continuation of 50s society. That is one thing.

I doubt very much their will be a Christian church in the wasteland area.

But again, it is a method of helping people--ie generating good karma.

Because yes, the idea of karma is bent on your acts, not your motivation.

Which is why Karma allows you to do good acts to make up for bad.

And to get back to your other question, the children of the atom, may operate as a cult, in which case it would make no sense for you to donate money to them as a good act, because cults don't help outsiders.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Since karma is basically how good or evil your character is, this is really subjective. If your character thinks they're doing something good, then shouldn't this increase their karma?

No because that's unregulatable. What if my character thinks that all that is left of humanity is evil thus the greatest act of good that he can do would be to wipe out human kind? He thinks it's good and thus, according to this line of thinking, it should raise his karma but that's not what karma is.

 

[Texas Renegade]

Karma doesn't work that way though.

I am hardly an expert on it, but as I understand it, motive doesn't effect karma,

Killing someone is negative karma wether it is Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler, its killing therefore its bad.

Again though, this is only my very tenous interpretation of it and therefore, I could be completely missing the boat on it.

 

[Ausir]

I'm pretty sure killing the entire Oil Rig in Fallout 2 (including Enclave's civilians and children, for sure, which were conveniently hidden in the levels not accessible to the player) increased your Karma, not decreased it.

 

[PaladinHeart]

... killing the entire Oil Rig ... including civilians and children ... increased your Karma, not decreased it.

Yeah. That's fairly messed up. I guess we can all agree that "reputation" would be a better term than "karma"?

Or should we just look at karma as being another word for reputation? Fallout 3 treats it as something more like "how you feel about yourself" though, considering you lose karma when you steal, regardless of whether anyone sees you stealing or not.

Strange system.

I mean by Fallout 3's method it's like saying stealing 1 million individual bottlecaps from 1 million different people (overreaching a bit, but oh well) is far worse than" killing the old lady and then talking to her severed head."

 

[ookami]

Yeah. That's fairly messed up. I guess we can all agree that "reputation" would be a better term than "karma"?

Well, there is already 'reputation' (what you get for each location), the problem is coming up with something that isn't an obvious alignment system, but isn't just reputation all over again. Something to represent what people can sense about you (bright/dead eyes, honest/suspicious mannerisms, etc) rather than what they solidly know about you (which is reputation). Intuition perhaps, that might even be a bit much for some people but it at least doesn't have the supernatural connotation that karma carries. But then you have to factor in the intuition of others and your own character's ability to deceive. It gets messy.

yeah, your father, the guy in the vault that is a continuation of 50s society.

Which always reminds me of what 'big fans' of Fallout the devs are. Way to understand the retro-future element there.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Karma doesn't work that way though.

I am hardly an expert on it, but as I understand it, motive doesn't effect karma,

Killing someone is negative karma wether it is Mother Theresa or Adolf Hitler, its killing therefore its bad.

Again though, this is only my very tenous interpretation of it and therefore, I could be completely missing the boat on it.

Indeed, that's what I meant by "...but that's not what karma is." I thought about explaining better what it is but I too only have a basic understanding of it.

Yeah. That's fairly messed up. I guess we can all agree that "reputation" would be a better term than "karma"?

Well, there is already 'reputation' (what you get for each location), the problem is coming up with something that isn't an obvious alignment system, but isn't just reputation all over again. Something to represent what people can sense about you (bright/dead eyes, honest/suspicious mannerisms, etc) rather than what they solidly know about you (which is reputation). Intuition perhaps, that might even be a bit much for some people but it at least doesn't have the supernatural connotation that karma carries. But then you have to factor in the intuition of others and your own character's ability to deceive. It gets messy.

Indeed. The thing is that it acted like something supernatural in past games that some people could detect with their Karma-dar and was always iffy. It never added anything and was always one of those few carryovers from classic PnP that was damaging.