Character motivations

[ChaunceyK]

Let me ask you all a question.  When you play rpgs, do you have a "go to" character in mind as far as their motivations?  Number crunching for a combat-effective build is one thing, but do you try to go through the whole game with a particular code of ethics for your character?

Sometimes I play through as the tried & true hero type, making all the "good" decisions I can.

Other times, I play....not evil, but a very personally motivated PC.  He kills the baddies, but also has no qualms about killing or stealing from innocents if he thinks they have something that can benefit him AND if he can keep it hidden (because having an entire town go agro on me is not fun).

Then there's the guy I'm playing right now in UR.  He's not so much about good vs evil as he is his own survival so he can lead as comfortable of a life as he can in an otherwise brutal world.

So yeah, those are my 3 usual character concepts.  How about you?

[mattu]

Usually I play RPGs as a generic nice guy boy scout type, with a possible exception for kleptomania. Usually RPGs are written encouraging this, and I'm going with the flow.

Occasionally I try playing an evil character but I have trouble sticking with this. I carve out exceptions for NPCs that I like and next thing you know I'm saving kittens or whatever again.

UR pushes you pretty strongly toward playing a self interested survivor. You can be an extra nice guy if you want, but it's extra work and you aren't getting any medals for it, as you're told in so many words. There are no good guys, everybody's in it for themselves, and you'd better be the same. By the time I get out of Junkyard I've murdered several people who never gave me any trouble, just cause I know there's something in it for me.

("Curse those Protectorate imperialists!", he muttered, dragging M'Lan's corpse out into the cave, away from the light of the outpost doorway.)

A lot of post apoc games promise grittiness, but if they deliver at all it feels forced: INSERT GRITTY SCENE/MORAL DILEMMA HERE. In UnderRail it's perfectly natural. I can't think of another game that pulls it off as well.

[Altos]

... By the time I get out of Junkyard I've murdered several people who never gave me any trouble, just cause I know there's something in it for me.

("Curse those Protectorate imperialists!", he muttered, dragging M'Lan's corpse out into the cave, away from the light of the outpost doorway.)

A lot of post apoc games promise grittiness, but if they deliver at all it feels forced: INSERT GRITTY SCENE/MORAL DILEMMA HERE. In UnderRail it's perfectly natural. I can't think of another game that pulls it off as well.

This. 100% this. I've always found it deeply unsettling how easily Underrail convinces me to just murder random dudes because they're standing in front of a shelf and their health bar is red. Just the presence of that red health bar alone is enough to switch my brain into "murdering them is justified because the game says they're hostile!" mode. And while Underrail definitely isn't the only game that does this (all of the Fallout games work the same way), in Underrail I find it particularly more disturbing because most of the hostile humans in the game don't seem like disreputable characters. Sure, you've got the Lurkers and the Tchortists and that one crazy guy in the Core City Sewers, but a lot of the human enemies in Underrail are just "Generic Gunman #135", "Generic Thug #1000", "Generic Stalker Lady with a Crossbow #21". Frankly, they're not too different from all of the non-hostile NPCs in the game.

Now, obviously I know this is just a video game, and I'm not in any way trying to pin some moral platitude on the game. This is just how action games are. FPS games are no better. But in Underrail I just find it deeply interesting. Like, M'Lan Ratula is literally just a guy who doesn't want to give up his home to SGS so they can... what? Guard an empty cave? And you just go in there and unless you have high int/pers for some reason at that point in the game, you pretty much just murder him because your boss told you to.

But, hey, at least they don't have wives and kids! (that we know of)

[Hazard]

But in Underrail I just find it deeply interesting. Like, M'Lan Ratula is literally just a guy who doesn't want to give up his home to SGS so they can... what? Guard an empty cave? And you just go in there and unless you have high int/pers for some reason at that point in the game, you pretty much just murder him because your boss told you to.[/size]

I honestly kinda dislike this part of the opening quest. Intimidation is the only way to get the guy leave "peacefully": you can't bribe him, can't make any sort of deal with him, or persuade him that it would be in his own interest to let SGS patrol the area and keep any creepy crawlies and other threats in check. And so he mostly ends up dead, because the player's options are very limited for no real reason.

[mattu]

> because the player's options are very limited for no real reason.

Every player has the option to leave M'Lan sitting in the dark and ratshit and complete the quest with only 3 or 4 outposts powered up.

Every player has the option to not kill Elwood, to not kill Vilmer, to not kill Grover. None of them are any threat to the PC. None of them needs to be killed to finish the drill parts quest. But they always end up dead in my games, and I suspect in most player's games. Like Altos said, it's a little unsettling if you are doing any roleplaying in your game playing.

[paulkirikawa]

I'd suggest a real badass to kill Cale after listening to his delusion mumbo-jumbo of "invisible". Point is, that he's totally not invisible so you are going to kill (nearly) all triggered entities in the yard to leave. Also you can't finish the main quest by doing this.
Well, who cares? If I'm going to play *roleplaying-way* I'd definitely going to kidnap Ezra, get the rank of technical director in Coretech, become the major supplier in bio stuffs of Foundry then help them recovering water/air quality... Screw Faceless! Screw Occulus! Screw both Cans & Drones! At the end, screw Tanner and his more and more dangerous missions! Just joking. You can't do any of this currently.