0 - Title slide

1 – I'm really excited to be here at GLS 5.0. My name is Manveer Heir and I'm a game designer at Raven Software, located here in Madison. For the past four years I've been working on the upcoming first-person shooter Wolfenstein. However, I've also been spending some of my free time thinking about the future of design and what interests me.

2 – So, today I want to talk to you about Designing Ethical Dilemmas and how we can improve. If the world were as simple as what Calvin here says, with the ends justifying the means, I think the world would be rather dull. It's those difficult decisions that permeate our world that make it interesting, and as a designer I think they can also make our game worlds interesting.

3 – So why ethical dilemmas? Well, there is this this push to make decisions more meaningful and impactful in games. Ethics is one avenue. I feel that down the line, it's possible for video games to make someone consider a decision in the exact same way they would consider an ethical dilemma in real-life.

4 - To me that's the holy grail of what we can achieve. You may wonder why on Earth someone would want to feel like that playing a game, but by doing this we can break through and have players feel any emotion we want playing a game. Right now video games are usually relegated to two core emotions: fear and aggression.

5 – There are two primary ethical models. First, there is the black and white model of ethics with a clear right and wrong. Star Wars is a classic example of a universe that supports this model. When you make a evil decision in a Star Wars game, it's because you want to play an evil character, not because the decision was hard. You never feel like Luke, torn between your father and what is right.

6 – However, this model is simplistic and not how our world works. Instead, I'm interested in this world of gray ethical dilemmas. Decisions that must be made that don't have a clear right or wrong. Is it ok to steal from the rich to feed the poor? Is enslaving sentient AI for our own gain morally wrong? Is farting in the elevator really mean or really funny?

7 – The problem is unrealized potential. In BioShock, you have to make a decision to kill or save Little Sisters. You're also told that killing them gives you more rewards now, and that saving them will give you a reward later. Instead of being an ethical dilemma, this becomes a decision based on play mechanics.

8 – In Mass Effect, you're given the opportunity to make an entire violent species go extinct. Killing them off may make the universe a better place. However, who the hell are you to decide the fate of an entire species on your own? The issue with this decision was that it ultimately didn't matter – no matter what you chose, the game didn't change in the end.

9 – Games, as a whole, are filled with unfulfilled promises such as these when posing ethical dilemmas. There are a handful of games that do it well, such as Fallout 3, but for every game that gets it right it seems like there are a dozen that miss. The sad thing is, often they just barely miss and I think we can do much better as an industry.

10 – So the question is how can we do better? Well there are a number of different elements I feel that are necessary to make a meaningful, impactful ethical dilemma in a game. If we start to really hone in on these four key elements, we will have the ability to design better ethical dilemmas in our games and start drawing out new emotions in our players.

11 – The first element is narrative. The player must care about the world he inhabits. He must be emotionally invested in it. Without emotional investment the player won't care about the outcome of the dilemma, therefore the decision will never truly matter to the player. However, caring isn't enough. The narrative has to be in line with the mechanics of the game as well.

12 – This is the critical problem that BioShock had. The mechanics of play made saving Little Sisters benefit you, which didn't match the narrative of the game that gave you the option to act altruistically – this was dubbed 'ludonarrative dissonance' by Clint Hocking a couple years ago. Having harmonious narrative and mechanics lead to better ethical dilemmas.

13 – The second element is consequences. Each choice and action you make needs to have a serious and significant consequence. Mass Effect had the narrative portion down, but no consequences from the actions. This resulted in a false dilemma – one with no meaningful outcome. It may as well have not existed.

14 – Consequences do not necessarily have to be telegraphed to the player beforehand. However, the consequences should be appropriate in scope and significantly affect the game in some way. The player should be able to understand that it was a result of the choices he made, and the impact of the consequences should not be able to be minimized by later actions.

15 – The third element is obstacles. Running a race is hard enough, but having to deal with hurdles can lead to disaster like this. You can use obstacles to make a decision tougher than it may be on it's own. Imagine a Star Wars game where you want the player to feel the internal struggle of Light vs. Dark side.

16 – What if it was just harder to play and beat the game as a Jedi instead of a Sith, due to your available powers or strength? The mechanics of the game could act as an obstacle to push the player towards the Dark, but only the truly persistent and virtuous would make it as Jedi. Obstacles can make a seemingly simple decision much more difficult, thus creating a potential dilemma.

17 – The final element is permanence. All of the other elements don't matter if there is no permanence to the game. How often have you gotten to the end of a game and been given two options which clearly map to two different endings. I bet you all did the same thing I did: save your game, try the first option, reload, try the second option.

18 – What if that weren't available. A dilemma ceases to be a dilemma if you get a do-over. Save games, unfortunately ruin this. So, instead, you could potentially make a handful of moments in you game that you could never re-choose. Even if you loaded an earlier save, the game would know you made a certain decision at a critical point.

19 – This would not allow you to “fix a mistake” you felt you made. As I said, it's important to not allow the impact of a decision to be minimized by later actions. If we make certain decisions during play final, we heighten the impact of those decisions as well as make the player consider them more.

20 – These four elements spell out NCOP. But I like to remember it with the easier to remember mnemonic – Never Choke Old People! We can use these elements to create better ethical dilemmas in games and start to bring out a new gamut of emotions from players. We can make players think and consider during play. Doing this will help propel our medium to new heights.

21 - Thank you.