Karma Meter: Difference between revisions

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Some games employ a type of morality in their gameplay. Actions taken within the game affect the player, and sometimes how the player is treated by the plot and [[NPC]]. This happens even if there were no witnesses to the action and no circumstances that point to you. Some games will make it impossible for one to continue if their Karma Meter is too low, or give a [[Multiple Endings|bad ending]]. Others will simply result in the character having an "[[Character Alignment|evil alignment]]" and playing this way.

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.

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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.

Occasionally the Karma Meter isn't visible in the stats screen, making it difficult to assess grayer actions. May be paired with [[~~Videogame~~ Caring Potential]] and/or [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]], making players more inclined to select one side.

Occasionally the Karma Meter isn't visible in the stats screen, making it difficult to assess grayer actions. May be paired with [[Video Game Caring Potential]] and/or [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]], making players more inclined to select one side.

Compare [[Relationship Values]] and [[Alliance Meter]]. See also [[Character Alignment]], [[Sanity Meter]], [[Last Second Karma Choice]] and [[Hundred Percent Heroism Rating]].

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

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* The ancient (CGA-graphics ancient) [[Interactive Fiction]] game ''I, Damiano'' has a meter always present at the top of the text field labeled "good" and "evil" at opposite ends. This also functions as your [[Hit Points]] bar and is affected by things that would reduce that; taking too long or being injured by wild dogs pushes you towards evil, and if you become too evil, Satan claims your soul. [[The Many Deaths of You|This is probably the least common way to die,]] and it's definitely better to ding your [[Karma Meter]] if the alternative is death.

== [[Beat Em Up]] ==

== [[Beat'Em Up]] ==

* ''[[Kenka Bancho]]'' has an alignment meter in the form of Shibui vs Shabai. It is really easy to enter Shabai status as you beat up other folks with weapons, destroy property, and cause terror to the average joes, and just attacking without warning will make you hated quickly. It also determines which peons you can use in the 3rd series. The 4th game allows you to call any peon regardless of alignment. Also, of the two Sukebans you can hire, the cute one is the Shabazo while the more traditional female Bancho is more honorable.

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* ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur 4]]'' has a small take on this. During Character Creation, you can choose your character's alignment as "Good", "Evil", or "None", which not only affects which ending your character will receive, but also gives him/her advantageous bonuses over enemies of the opposing alignment.

== [[First Person Shooter]] ==

== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==

* In ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight]]'', your Karma Meter results in an either-or ending. You either resist the urge to kill {{spoiler|Jan, your best friend, with no goddamned prompting whatsoever}}, or you ''do'' kill {{spoiler|Jan, your best friend, with no goddamned prompting whatsoever}}. After that point, the path is fixed no matter what you do. You either preserve the Valley of the Jedi or take over the galaxy, becoming a new Emperor. One of those endings, by the way, ''isn't canon''. There aren't many ways to affect your Karma Meter negatively; you're relegated to either selecting Dark Side powers (which unless you do so exclusively generally won't turn you dark), or killing every civilian and noncombat droid you come across, or some combination of both.

** Believe us when we say that not killing every civilian in the game is [[Dronejam|harder than it sounds]].

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** In the sequel, ''Bioshock 2'', your Karma Meter gets a bit of an upgrade. Your ending/alignment is determined by your decisions with the Little Sisters (whether you saved them all, killed them all, or mixed) and with several key [[NPC|NPCs]]. Rescued Little Sisters will provide gifts similar to the first game, while only one of the other [[NPC|NPCs]] will give you a (comparatively minor) reward for sparing her. {{spoiler|Your karma ends up affecting not only the player character, but Eleanor as well.}}

*** {{spoiler|This also affects Sophia Lamb's fate, as it will determine if Eleanor will rescue her mother or drown her.}}

* ''[[Red Faction]] 2'' has a morality system of sorts. The only impact it really has is allowing you to get 4 slight dialog changes during the [[Where Are They Now Epilogue]]. Completing hidden bonus objectives helps boost the meter up, but accidentally [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|(or not)]] killing civilians spikes it down a bit.

* ''[[Red Faction]] 2'' has a morality system of sorts. The only impact it really has is allowing you to get 4 slight dialog changes during the [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]]. Completing hidden bonus objectives helps boost the meter up, but accidentally [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|(or not)]] killing civilians spikes it down a bit.

== [[Four X]] ==

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== [[Hack and Slash]] ==

* ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 5: Empires'' has the ability to use certain cards to do good or evil. Giving money to the people or at least going around listening to their concerns makes your character good, while taxing them excessively makes your character bad and unlocks further bad options like robbing graves. If you are attacked and sufficiently good or evil, peasants will rise up to protect you if you were good to them or help your attacker if you were bad to them. This doesn't affect gameplay much, since the peasants are weak and most of the player's battles will likely be on the offensive where it is the other side's good or evil that matters.

** This is also played on smaller scales at various points in the games, with generals betraying you if you perform specific, horrible actions during missions. This also comes into play during modes like DW4's Xtreme Mode. It does take a somewhat larger amount of bad acts, but constantly doing things like capturing girls hostage to be taken as sex slaves, or randomly killing your allies [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|(that usually don't do any fighting anyway)]] will cause your recruited party members to gradually lose respect for you, [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment|until they eventually get sick of you and turn.]] Of course, [[~~Videogame~~ Caring Potential|saving peasants from monsters and generals from bandit raids]] will make them love you, and it's generally it's these good deeds that nab you more party members and good items to begin with.

** This is also played on smaller scales at various points in the games, with generals betraying you if you perform specific, horrible actions during missions. This also comes into play during modes like DW4's Xtreme Mode. It does take a somewhat larger amount of bad acts, but constantly doing things like capturing girls hostage to be taken as sex slaves, or randomly killing your allies [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|(that usually don't do any fighting anyway)]] will cause your recruited party members to gradually lose respect for you, [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment|until they eventually get sick of you and turn.]] Of course, [[Video Game Caring Potential|saving peasants from monsters and generals from bandit raids]] will make them love you, and it's generally it's these good deeds that nab you more party members and good items to begin with.

== [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] ==

* ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]'' has Fame Points as part of it's ''Going Rogue'' system. Characters receive fame for completing tip missions, and each point of fame pushes them toward one of the four alignments ([[The Cape|Hero]], [[Anti Hero|Vigilante]], [[Complete Monster|Villain]], or [[Anti Villain|Rogue]]). Upon accumulating 10 points of fame toward an alignment, one can complete a morality mission to finalize the change. Interestingly enough, contacts have no effect on alignment. A Vigilante can team with a villain and run [[For the Evulz|Westin Phipps's]] story arc without a blip on his alignment meter, despite the fact that he's [[Moral Event Horizon|poisoning children]] and murdering school teachers.

* ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]'' has Fame Points as part of it's ''Going Rogue'' system. Characters receive fame for completing tip missions, and each point of fame pushes them toward one of the four alignments ([[The Cape|Hero]], [[Anti-Hero|Vigilante]], [[Complete Monster|Villain]], or [[Anti-Villain|Rogue]]). Upon accumulating 10 points of fame toward an alignment, one can complete a morality mission to finalize the change. Interestingly enough, contacts have no effect on alignment. A Vigilante can team with a villain and run [[For the Evulz|Westin Phipps's]] story arc without a blip on his alignment meter, despite the fact that he's [[Moral Event Horizon|poisoning children]] and murdering school teachers.

* The canceled ''[[Ultima]] X'' was planned to use an eightfold karma system similar to ''Ultima IV'' (see below in RPG) where the different morals would frequently conflict. An example the developers gave is a quest where you are tasked with hunting down a thief, and learn that he stole to buy food for his starving family. You could then follow Compassion or Justice by letting the thief go or have him face the punishment for his crime. To further muddle the issue, if you returned the stolen item you would learn that the quest-giver is not the legitimate owner, which in turn gives the choice between Honor in sticking to the original agreement or Honesty in delivering the item to its proper place.

* [[Star Warsthe Old Republic]], much like [[Knights of the Old Republic|its predecessors]], will allow players to play light, dark, or grey, with each karmic allignment allowing the players to equip certain kinds of gear, as well as showing that the Republic and Sith in this world have [[Grey and Grey Morality]] at best.

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* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' included a clever [[Reconstructed Trope|reconstruction]] on the karma meter with the Paragon/Renegade system. Rather than [[Black and White Morality|good and evil]], the meter represents [[Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism|idealism and cynicism]]. As [[Zero Punctuation|Yahztee]] put it, Paragon represents [[Star Trek the Next Generation|Captain Picard]] and Renegade represents [[Dirty Harry (Film)|Dirty Harry]]. Certain actions and dialogue choices can gain you Paragon points or Renegade points. Depending on where you are, you're given points in either the Charm or Intimidate skills, and your choice towards the end of the game affects what ending you receive.

** Paragons tend be [[Ideal Hero|rather]] [[Neutral Good|nice]] [[Knight in Shining Armor|people]]. They seek [[Guile Hero|diplomatic and peaceful resolutions to situations]], [[Never Hurt an Innocent|save innocent people whenever and wherever possible, even if it means letting the bad guy get away]], and they believe in co-operation with [[The Federation|alien races and the Council]]. However, [[Beware the Nice Ones|Paragons show little mercy to]] [[Good Is Not Soft|corrupt or brutal individuals]].

** Renegades tend to be more [[Anti Hero|edgy]], [[Badass|tough]] and [[Chaotic Neutral|morally]] [[Neutral Evil|ambivalent]], preferring [[Might Makes Right|to go in all guns blazing]], [[Humanity Is Superior|and a "humans come first" view to galactic politics]], favouring [[The Empire|the Alliance]] and [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|Cerberus]]. Renegades are [[Determinator|ruthless]], [[Combat Pragmatist|pragmatic]] and they get the job done [[I Did What I Had to Do|no matter what]].

** Renegades tend to be more [[Anti-Hero|edgy]], [[Badass|tough]] and [[Chaotic Neutral|morally]] [[Neutral Evil|ambivalent]], preferring [[Might Makes Right|to go in all guns blazing]], [[Humanity Is Superior|and a "humans come first" view to galactic politics]], favouring [[The Empire|the Alliance]] and [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|Cerberus]]. Renegades are [[Determinator|ruthless]], [[Combat Pragmatist|pragmatic]] and they get the job done [[I Did What I Had to Do|no matter what]].

** ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is unique (so far) among the Bioware games for having a Karma Meter where the meter's opposites do not exclude each other: you can be ''both'' Paragon and Renegade to a separate extent. Individual choices will still either advance your Paragon or Renegade status alone, though<ref>Except for one of the last choices in the game, where the middle choice advances both. May have something to do with it being the exact same action as the Renegade option, but without the pro-human slant to the motivation.</ref>. Although "playing both sides" leaves your character weaker overall in the Charm and Intimidate departments than if you'd specialized, the choice is there, unlike the games which effectively penalize you for not picking one side all the way.

*** This means you can play your Shepard to all kinds of moral models. You can be [[Fantastic Racism|a moral xenophobe who is nice to humans but a complete dick to aliens]], a [[Byronic Hero|"Para]][[Good Is Not Nice|gade"]] who mostly picks Paragon options along with some lighter Renegade options when angered, and it's opposing sister [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold|"Ren]][[Noble Demon|egon"]], where you pick mostly Renegade options with some lighter [[Pet the Dog|Paragon options]] [[Even Evil Has Standards|when the situation calls for it]], or you could be [[Chaotic Stupid|entirely]] [[Blue and Orange Morality|random]] in your actions.

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** ''[[Silent Hill Homecoming|Silent Hill: Homecoming]]'' has three yes/no events that determine your ending.

== [[Third Person Shooter]] ==

== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==

* The [[Third Person Shooter]] ''[[The Suffering]]'' has a Karma Meter which depends on whether the main character, Torque, helps the less hostile [[NPC|NPCs]] he encouters or guns them down in cold blood. This rating determines which of three endings (Good, Neutral, or Evil) you get. While the meter isn't shown explicitly, the player can to some extent gauge their karmic state by the reactions that the ghost of his wife and children have to his actions. Not only that, but the player can see what their karma is at any time in two ways: looking at Torque, and looking at a photo of his family. If the player is good, Torque is nice and clean (save for the blood he got on him from previous fights) and looks fine, while the photo is fine. If the player is neutral, they are a bit dirty and have a couple scratches on them, and the photo is somewhat damaged. If the player is evil, torque is covered in scars and sores, and the photo of his family is burned or something. Torque will also change appearance based on your actions. A third way to tell is to listen to the Infernas the several times you meet them before they start showing up as enemies. If you're on the good route, they'll be relatively friendly and compassionate. If you're on the evil route, they'll be insulting and mocking, pretending to be afraid of you. The sequel, ''The Suffering: Ties That Bind'' has a similar system, though this time actually visible in the pause menu and having concrete bonuses, and even includes an [[Old Save Bonus]] that changes the opening depending on which ending you got in the first game.

* The [[Third-Person Shooter]] ''[[The Suffering]]'' has a Karma Meter which depends on whether the main character, Torque, helps the less hostile [[NPC|NPCs]] he encouters or guns them down in cold blood. This rating determines which of three endings (Good, Neutral, or Evil) you get. While the meter isn't shown explicitly, the player can to some extent gauge their karmic state by the reactions that the ghost of his wife and children have to his actions. Not only that, but the player can see what their karma is at any time in two ways: looking at Torque, and looking at a photo of his family. If the player is good, Torque is nice and clean (save for the blood he got on him from previous fights) and looks fine, while the photo is fine. If the player is neutral, they are a bit dirty and have a couple scratches on them, and the photo is somewhat damaged. If the player is evil, torque is covered in scars and sores, and the photo of his family is burned or something. Torque will also change appearance based on your actions. A third way to tell is to listen to the Infernas the several times you meet them before they start showing up as enemies. If you're on the good route, they'll be relatively friendly and compassionate. If you're on the evil route, they'll be insulting and mocking, pretending to be afraid of you. The sequel, ''The Suffering: Ties That Bind'' has a similar system, though this time actually visible in the pause menu and having concrete bonuses, and even includes an [[Old Save Bonus]] that changes the opening depending on which ending you got in the first game.

** The original game also has a ghostly NPC symbolizing each of the possibilities on the Karma Meter: Horace, the electrified ghost of a minor convict that was driven insane by the mundane horrors of prison and supernatural horrors of Carnate and killed his wife in a psychotic episode, and wants to stop Torque from succumbing like he did for Good; [[Projected Man]] Dr. Killjoy, a deranged psychiatrist dedicated to "helping" his patients no matter the cost and who has adopted Torque as his latest project for Neutral; and Hermes, a sadistic executioner who eventually killed himself in the gas chamber so he could see death from the other side, and who sees a possible kindred spirit in Torque for Evil.

* In the ''[[Oddworld]]'' series (except for ''Stranger's Wrath''), "Qarma" has only one variable - whether or not you save the NPC Mudokons, Fuzzles, etcetera. Its only plot impact is on the ending, but in the later games, Abe would act and sound depressed if he'd failed to save enough of them.

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*** Sin-Eaters have it even worse than most. If they die, they come back to life, but lose one point of Synergy, and two points of ''maximum'' Synergy. If their maximum Synergy is reduced to 0 by this, they're either subject to [[Final Death]], or go through the above, but worse; a geist who chooses to linger in its host body after the Sin-Eater's soul has been shredded is sooner or later invariably driven homicidally insane by the tortured remnants of its former host's soul -- and given that they're already [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Anthropomorphic Personifications]] of Death fused with human ghosts, this is a very, ''very'' bad thing. For some reason, both these and the more moderate version above are referred to as "The Wretched."

** "Minor" supernaturals, like Psychics, Thaumaturges, and Immortals also use Morality. This is not good for Blood Bathers, one of the forms of Immortal -- their method of immortality, at best, with a particularly forgiving and not especially vile [[Blood Bath|Blood Bathing]] ritual, involves being permanently camped at the low end of the Morality Meter, just waiting for a ''really'' atrocious act to send them into sociopathic depravity. More commonly, it sends them unavoidably screaming off the Evil end of the Karma Meter, sooner or later. Unsurprisingly, the game recommends that [[Player Character]] Blood Bathers be constructed so they're at the former end.

* The ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' campaign setting [[Ravenloft]] has a variation in the form of Dark Powers Checks: If you perform an evil deed that the [[Game Master]] feels deserving, he rolls a percentage die to judge if it attracts attention from the [[Cosmic Horror|Dark Powers]], and, should the [[Random Number God]] dislike you, they start turning you into a [[One Winged Angel|literal]] [[Complete Monster]]. Should you perform a deed of ''exceptional'' evil, you may eventually find yourself a [[Evil Overlord|darklord]] of your own domain-too bad in both cases it's a [[Blessed With Suck|true curse]]. Also noted for being rather unforgiving-although it has reservations for [[Pay Evil Unto Evil]], there are just some deeds the baddies don't deserve.

* The ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' campaign setting [[Ravenloft]] has a variation in the form of Dark Powers Checks: If you perform an evil deed that the [[Game Master]] feels deserving, he rolls a percentage die to judge if it attracts attention from the [[Cosmic Horror|Dark Powers]], and, should the [[Random Number God]] dislike you, they start turning you into a [[One-Winged Angel|literal]] [[Complete Monster]]. Should you perform a deed of ''exceptional'' evil, you may eventually find yourself a [[Evil Overlord|darklord]] of your own domain-too bad in both cases it's a [[Blessed With Suck|true curse]]. Also noted for being rather unforgiving-although it has reservations for [[Pay Evil Unto Evil]], there are just some deeds the baddies don't deserve.

* White Wolf's other main game line ''[[Exalted (Tabletop Game)|Exalted]]'' has a variant of this: acting against your Virtues costs willpower and gives you Limit which when full makes you go crazy for a little while. However as the virtues [[Blue and Orange Morality|don't really correspond to modern morality]], and resisting magical [[Mind Control]] also gives you limit, it almost doesn't count as this trope.

* The old ''Marvel Super Heroes'' RPG has Karma points. The main problem with this is that it rewards [[Honor Before Reason]] almost obsessively, and saving a life is worth only 20 Karma, while knocking down a given area of city is worth -5. So if you save a life by knocking down four squares of city, you come out even. It essentially made a Punisher character unplayable, because you lost ''all'' your Karma if you killed, ''even to save lives''. You also take a Karma ding for mind control, owning a gun, [[Arson Murder and Jaywalking|jaywalking]]...

* The old ''Marvel Super Heroes'' RPG has Karma points. The main problem with this is that it rewards [[Honor Before Reason]] almost obsessively, and saving a life is worth only 20 Karma, while knocking down a given area of city is worth -5. So if you save a life by knocking down four squares of city, you come out even. It essentially made a Punisher character unplayable, because you lost ''all'' your Karma if you killed, ''even to save lives''. You also take a Karma ding for mind control, owning a gun, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|jaywalking]]...

** It was worse. There were karma penalties for missing press conferences, and letting crime go unpunished. You were better off making that date at the Town Square. Oh, and villains naturally had their own Karma system.

* ''[[Shadowrun (Tabletop Game)|Shadowrun]]'' uses a Karma Meter as its [[Experience Points]] -- performing good acts of significance earns you (Good) Karma, which is used to advance your character. You explicitly ''can't'' get Karma for evil acts, no matter how grand or significant, and evil characters instead need to "buy" Karma with cash, representing philanthropy and good works to "buy off" their evil actions.