Karma Meter: Difference between revisions

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In some games, it doesn't matter whether you're good or bad but how far you lean to one side is rewarded -- [[No Points for Neutrality|there are bonuses for being very good or very evil but not moderate]]. This has the annoying side effect of rewarding [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|if not forcing]] the doing of [[Evil Is Petty|completely pointless acts of malice, killing beggars and robbing empty houses]] [[Card-Carrying Villain|just to be "more evil"]], and punishing an evil player for doing good quests or deeds (depending on how harsh the meter is) and vice versa, stifling real choices altogether.
In some games, it doesn't matter whether you're good or bad but how far you lean to one side is rewarded -- [[No Points for Neutrality|there are bonuses for being very good or very evil but not moderate]]. This has the annoying side effect of rewarding [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|if not forcing]] the doing of [[Evil Is Petty|completely pointless acts of malice, killing beggars and robbing empty houses]] [[Card-Carrying Villain|just to be "more evil"]], and punishing an evil player for doing good quests or deeds (depending on how harsh the meter is) and vice versa, stifling real choices altogether.


To undermine the concept even further, games with a Karma Meter often include a [[Golden Snitch]] decision that will heavily push you towards (or even lock you ''permanently'' in) one extreme of the morality gauge ''regardless'' of your actions up to that point. This means that in a game with [[Multiple Endings]], your ending is decided more by that one single choice rather than an accumulation of all of your deeds and misdeeds.
To undermine the concept even further, games with a Karma Meter often include a [[Last Second Karma Choice]], which will heavily push you towards (or even lock you ''permanently'' in) one extreme of the morality gauge ''regardless'' of your actions up to that point. This means that in a game with [[Multiple Endings]], your ending is decided more by that one single choice rather than an accumulation of all of your deeds and misdeeds.


Except for the [[Golden Snitch]] event, typically no act is more than three or five times more evil or good than any other. This leads to the odd situation where a character with a perfect record of finding lost pets and helping old ladies with their groceries can [[No Kill Like Overkill|bludgeon a school bus of Girl Scouts to death and pour napalm on their corpses while singing hymns to Satan and scarfing down a stack of Kitten Burgers]] and at worst go from "saintly" to "very good" on the Karma Meter. And unless the Karma changes are limited to plot events, go right back to "saintly" by killing some monsters or giving money to beggars.
Except for the [[Golden Snitch]] event, typically no act is more than three or five times more evil or good than any other. This leads to the odd situation where a character with a perfect record of finding lost pets and helping old ladies with their groceries can [[No Kill Like Overkill|bludgeon a school bus of Girl Scouts to death and pour napalm on their corpses while singing hymns to Satan and scarfing down a stack of Kitten Burgers]] and at worst go from "saintly" to "very good" on the Karma Meter. And unless the Karma changes are limited to plot events, go right back to "saintly" by killing some monsters or giving money to beggars.
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