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Parable - 07 - HD
🕑 Added 2019-09-13 19:57:32 +0000 UTC"What about trying to talk to the bandits?"
"OH-HOHOHO! Don't make me LAUGH like that!"
Commentary
"Don't worry. The moral choice will be a reasonably good option, and a cartoonishly evil option that doesn't really make sense to do. Because that's how morality works."
I'm parodying the Fable games, here, but the game that really opened up my eyes to moral choice possibility in games was Fallout 3. Prior to that, I thought the ability to be good or evil was ground breaking, when what was more accurate was that I simply hadn't played many RPGs before that weren't Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.
Here's one early example of something that happens in Fallout 3: You live in an underground vault, protected from the wasteland above that exists after an apocalypse nearly two centuries ago. Something happens when you're 19, however, and now you have to escape from the vault because the people in charge are out to get you.
On your way out, your childhood bully runs up to, asking for help. There are giant bugs on the loose, and they're attacking his mother. He could take out the bugs himself (they're not so big they can't be stomped), but he's terrified of them, and is desperately asking you to save his mom.
As mentioned, this guy bullied you as a child. He potentially stole a sweet roll from you on your tenth birthday, bullied you and your best friend, and it's implied he's beaten you up in the past.
Your options are to save his mother yourself, refuse to help and ignore him, refuse to help and attack him, attack him before he even initiates dialogue with you, run and try to avoid talking to him at all, go and attack his mom instead of saving her, try and convince him to go back and save his mother himself, offer up your baseball bat or BB gun so he'll find his courage and go save his mom, and for any of the options in which you convince him to go back and save his own mother, you don't have to go with him. You can help or observe if you want, but you can just send him back and just be on your way.
Granted, you could argue that boils down to "help", "don't help", or "actively make worse", but that's still one more option than games that boil things down to "good or bad" will usually give.
Comments
Chordat
on the contrary, in Fable 2, you could do exactly that! See, there's four types of EXP in Fable 2: Strength (gained from melee combat), Skill (gained from ranged combat) and Will (gained from using magic) and General (which can be used for all three). You could pour points into one discipline then de-level and you'd get refunded in general XP. It was a good way to keep your stats balanced if you favored a certain combat style. So yes, 5/1/1 Susan, of any kind, is indeed possible. I really want to see what she looks like at each stage. Not just 3/3/3, but all possible combinations! Though that may be asking a bit much of Dan...
Copper Hamster
I really like the 80s muscle shirt look, btw.
coredumperror
DQ11 is the only one in the series that I've played. And lets just say that Steam tells me my playtime in that game is 326 hours.
ZekeStaright
Man, Fallout 4 took a HUGE step backward in that department...
Alien Valkyrie
It's Arthur. Says so in the previous commentary.
Caedda
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Fenrir
That is absolutely an Arthur mouth, as well as word choice. If it's Raven he's pulling out all the stops. Given his day-to-day "old teacher" disguise...I just don't see it.
Fenrir
I don't see the trio of 5/1/1 etc builds showing up in a story like this (because de-leveling isn't much of a thing in the Fable universe as I recall...), but if that were an option for a Sketchbook poll I'd absolutely vote for it.
Fenrir
Seconding Ardent Slacker...and then in Second Son most of the "good" choices were things that even the game pointed out were actually probably not good choices "do we turn in this extremely dangerous and openly unstable person who spent the last week going full Punisher on some drug dealers? Or do we just ask them not to do bad things to bad people anymore? Except when *we* do the same thing to the local law enforcement, of course: blowing up local law enforcement checkpoints is a 'good' thing!"
Fenrir
Meanwhile, Fable 3 teaches you that only the fabulously wealthy can afford to be good...which, to be fair, might have been intentional commentary on modern society, but it didn't come across that way.
Viktor
The real question is if we’re going to see a lvl 5 across the board Susan, or a trio of 5/1/1 min-maxed builds.
Daryl Sawyer
My money's on Raven.
Daryl Sawyer
Yeah, she's quite attractive like this. I'm a fan of Susan in her base form, but this is not a bad variant at all. That said, I'm *kind of* looking forward to what she ends up looking like at the highest levels, because I'm a fan of absurdist parody.
Daryl Sawyer
Dragon Questers represent! Still haven't played 11. I actually bought it once, but the machine I had at the time couldn't handle it. Returned it, have since acquired a better one (old one finally became inoperable), and it hasn't gone on sale since (and I'm not in a financial position to pay full price).
Daryl Sawyer
Yeah, he's practically guaranteed to grow up to be a hero, and woe to the bully who doesn't get his butt handed to him right then and there. The revenge of a thief or a wizard can be so much more *creative*.
McZed
Level 5 in all areas might border on some Jolly Jack level shenanigans.
Lucas
Deionarra sensory stone, the Unbroken Circle, Mebeth's lessons, Vhailor's judgement, just any damn thing with Ravel... P:ST managed to take mortality in a world where absolute Good and Evil are material THINGS that are as elemental as Carbon, and make it nuenced
coredumperror
Mass Effect was often "selfless" vs "ruthless", which was nice. Unlike Knights of the Old Republic, which was always "selfless" vs "cartoonish villainy".
PSadlon
Disguised Raven or Arthur under the hood?
Orcus
Please tell me we'll get level 5 susan in this
Ardent Slacker
I think my favorite for moral choices was Planescape: Torment. The bit that sticks out the most is that, for some points, you had 8+ choices and 2 of them were the same, except that one had "(lie)" at the end. You'd say the same thing with either of them, but you were deciding if you meant what you were saying.
Ardent Slacker
sort of. I mean, they start you off with "do you hoard a supply drop in the middle of a city in crisis?" Which... not great. And the one time your choice has a major effect, eating the macguffin of power is "evil" but it is just... free power for the fight with the end boss with no actual consequences. Sequel was weirder. And I found the final choice there... the good ending was not smart. It was certain suicide with a chance of curing the plague... OR the EVIL path of definitely save a percentage of the population by giving them superpowers. I know there were some sensible choices that weren't cartoonish evil or good... but I don't remember those.
Chordat
Is it okay for me to say that I'm super digging lv2 Susan? Because I'm super digging lv2 Susan. I even like that her hair got wavier when her magic levelled up. Please say that we can ask for this version of Susan in future non-canon art? :3
davidraziel
I always liked the Infamous choices. Instead of good and evil it usually boiled down to altruism and selfishness.
Matt R
Dragon Quest 8 is a pretty good game I would recommend
coredumperror
I'm really liking "buffty" Susan. I look forward to seeing more of her. :)
Andrew Pam
Never steal a sweet role from a budding actor. When they grow up to become a Hollywood producer, you'll never work in this town again. It's probably not a good idea to steal a sweet roll either.
McZed
Yeah, Fable was kind of... Spectacularly bad about that.
