evil

[welsh]

This came up before but I think maybe it deserves its own thread.

I think that Fallout needs to play with the nature of evil more. In some ways this was more interesting in FO1 than FO2 where good guys and bad guys were often well defined. But even in FO1 it should have been more murky, disturbing and difficult to identify.

Don't get me wrong, there should be some basis of good and evil, but what exactly is good or evil might be difficult to understand and may require the player to get involved in some deeper plot development.

Arguably the 1950s pulp would argue towards clearer definitions of good guys and bad guys. But take a look at a film like The Thing (the original) where the good guys are the military who want to destroy the monster. But then the Manchurian Candidate makes it all a bit more disturbing what or who is good and evil. Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Forbidden Planet, also bring up this theme about the nature of evil. Even On the Waterfront has this.

Think about 1950s issues- the Red Scare, the H-Bomb, the Cold War and espionage, the rise of the security state, and small wars popping up all over the place. Even in the US you start to see the rise of counter culture in the early beats and films like The Wild Ones.

The virtues of this are two fold-

(1) the game is more mature and complex, which makes for a better story and a better RPG.

(2) It could, as the original FOs did, make some criticism of life in the 1950s (the opening credits in both FO1 and Fo2 are great this way) But I also think that it would also reflect a problem of our times, when shades of evil are more complex and difficult to figure out.

 

[Brother None]

I think the problem with this time just as much as it was with the '50s is not as much that evil and good are not clearly defined, because the idea of a clear definition of good and evil is stupid, but that everyone likes to believe there is a clear definition of good and evil. He's evil, he's good, that nation is wrong, that nation is right.

Both Fallouts played around with that a bit, but indeed more in the prologue than in the game itself. The relative evil of the Master and his crazy plots (who's to say he was wrong anyway, seeing as mutants aren't sterile after all) was great. The Enclave missed this.

As for Fallout 3; well, you could prevent clear definitions of evil completely, just making a massive battle in the Wastelands where nobody is good or evil and everyone is just trying to survive.

But the thing is, people don't really like that, there's a reason every news station is just purely numbering the good things of one side and the bad things of the other. It's the reason the clearly defined evil-vs-good world of LotR was a hit on the cinema, while blurry everyone-just-wants-to-live Gangs of New York failed.

The basic idea is good, but it just doesn't work; people don't like it.

 

[Reaper]

I don't mind people just trying to survive as long as they have some sympathetic characteristics.

I liked Gangs of New York but you are right, I could see Americans not liking it because it was almost a twisted vision of the American dream - every man for himself, screw anyone who tries to get in your way.

I judge evil on how you treat others but also why someone is doing what they do. I think that torture and killing is bad for the most part, however, I am pretty sure I would kill someone and maybe torture them to add to their punishment if they killed one of my cats. If they killed one of my parents I would torture the mfor certain. This does not, in my opinion, make me evil.

Evil is, I believe, doing unpleasant, nasty things for no reason. A greater good, say torturing a Nazi prisoner to get Hitler's whereabouts so the Allies could assassinate the evil Fuhrer is okay in my book but only because the end will justify the means (this can generally be defined as whether your action, in harming a few, will help many - Gabriel Shear in Swordfish (John Travolta's character had it right. If evil is tolerated anywhere it sends a message that they can get away with it. Do some unpleasant things to some very nasty people and other nasty people will think twice.

I think so anyway.

This is a complicated and slightly off topic post. In Fallout 3 I think this grey area should be explored and examined. Though, like Kharn said, it would be difficult to present it well to an audience used to good vs evil.

 

[APTYP]

I liked it how in first "Fallout" there is an 'official' Big Evil in form of the Master and his army, and it's bad and violent enough to be considered evil. During the game you hear opinions of people who work for the Unity, and they are selfish and corrupt. Only in the end, when you face the Master himself, he reveals to you the plan behind madness, and his cause doesn't seem so bad after all. It was really a great story, despite its deceptive simplicity.

 

[slicer]

To many CRPGs is based on an epic strugel betwine god and evil.
Fallout is diferent, In the waste there is greed, selfishness,
hate and fear but not evil.
I think it should stay this way.

 

[maf]

Dark and Light, Good and Evil, is all pretty much a matter of perspective. I can relate to the viewpoint of the scientist at the Enclave who had never considered the fact that what the Enclave planned to do to the rest of the world was evil.
But, if you grey the area too much, then the player loses touch with the role he wants to play and the interest is gone.
Subtlety in the storyline is a fine thing, just don't get too carried away with it or you lose sight of the forest for the trees.
The universe is a vast place, suns explode and entire worlds vaporize. We on the other hand, are very tiny by comparison, the only thing we can really control is whether we decide to do good or evil in our own lives.

 

[welsh]

good and evil

But that's the thing isn't it. What is good and evil in our life times.

I agree with Kharn that we simply good and evil to fit into discrete boxes. It's easy to label one thing good and the other evil and then leave the matter otherwise unexplored. But our world is more complex than that. But I also agree that if we grey over everything than things become even more blurred.

And perhaps we miss something by dismissing the notions merely because others over simplify.

Who is more evil, Killian or Gizmo. Is Set more evil because he has more power than the ghouls in the sewar? Or is Set more evil than the Brotherhood, that has the power to do something but rather stays isolated. Which faction was more evil in the Boneyard?

We do value things based on their relationship to us. Somethings are deemed good as beneficial or evil because they are harmful. That fits into the survival ethic of Fallout. But then so is Karma.

But one of the things I like about Fallout are that the shades are unclear between either end of the spectrum. But even if we use those measure in how they relate to our needs or our values, they still matter in how we decide what we do.

 

[SkynetV4]

Bah

The only valid argument on the whole "good vs evil" argument is the timeless proverb that exists in every culture in this planet: "Truth is in the eye of the beholder". Nazis evil? Ha! Japs did things that would turn your soul black and kill your compassion, to Korean and Chinese prisoners. Vivisection (a dissection in which there is no corpse but a breathing human, without anesthetics of course), bacteriological and chemical experiments as if the people they annihilated were insects, and the list goes on. I don't blame Hirohito ,though, in the same way I don't blame Hitler. They may have been leaders but the ones who carried out those orders were their acolytes. I think the Fallout universe should expand on the "evil" side a bit more. Letting the player complete the game as an "evil" person would be very appealing. Finding a GECK for these losers? Bleh lets just sell their location to Metzger and use the skin of the dead to make wallets.