The Pitt... I like where this is heading.

I'll admit it, I'm a fan of Bethesda's RPGs. Although they have their disproportionate share of glitches, bugs, design problems, and random strolls through the uncanny valley. Oblivion and (to a lesser extent) Fallout 3 represent hallmarks for Western RPGs. That said, I think that the DLC for Fallout 3 has been altogether brief, and in general, good ideas in need of better execution. Operation Anchorage was basically an FPS mission that did little in the way of encouraging open worl exploration or any true role-playing elements, and the Pitt created a world that just came and went way too quickly for me to care...almost.

There is one thing that The Pitt did better than most things that have come before it, and that is to introduce the weight of moral choice and ambiguity. In other words, for the first time in a long time, I was faced with a moral decision in a game that was more than "will you be good, or will you be bad?" Not that those choices are improper in games, but too often there is such a striking dichotomy between the ultimate good and the spawn of satan that you will never have to wrestle with an appropriate choice. Let's face it, the moral imperatives of whether or not to nuke Megaton are hardly the stuff that Kant wrote about.

However, in The Pitt, the player character is thrust into an immeasureably bleak atmosphere. While at first we seem to have the dichotomy: good (the poor slaves and resistance) versus evil (Asher and the pitt raiders), over time this separation seems to erode. The raiders did not seem to be quite as bad, and the slaves seemed to have some serious problems. On the last mission of the DLC, the player has to choose between doing something bad to help out the "good people" or refrain from doing the bad thing and piss off the "good" people. This is where we move closer to a Kantian vs. Utilitarian dilemma, and therefore actually run into a true moral/ethical quandary. Either way, something negative will happen, someone is going to get wronged, and someone is going to be pissed. Without giving anything away, I took the latter approach, thinking that in this case, doing the bad thing outweighed whatever perceived choice existed. In doing so, I made the entire slave population mad at me. The game took it as my siding with the raiders, and well, this would run counter to the way I tend to play these games. I'm always keeping down the straight and narrow heroic path in these titles, but here was a change. After all scenes played out, I could not help but feel that I did the right thing.

I'm not saying the Pitt is perfect (far from it) but the fact is that the player (for once) is confronted with two sets of flawed individuals, conflicting interests, and no clear "good" path to take. More developers should take note of this, because I think gamers should have to think about what they're doing, it makes everything mean a little bit more. At least that's my take.

I'll admit it, I'm a fan of Bethesda's RPGs. Although they have their disproportionate share of glitches, bugs, design problems, and random strolls through the uncanny valley. Oblivion and (to a lesser extent) Fallout 3 represent hallmarks for Western RPGs. That said, I think that the DLC for Fallout 3 has been altogether brief, and in general, good ideas in need of better execution. Operation Anchorage was basically an FPS mission that did little in the way of encouraging open worl exploration or any true role-playing elements, and the Pitt created a world that just came and went way too quickly for me to care...almost.

There is one thing that The Pitt did better than most things that have come before it, and that is to introduce the weight of moral choice and ambiguity. In other words, for the first time in a long time, I was faced with a moral decision in a game that was more than "will you be good, or will you be bad?" Not that those choices are improper in games, but too often there is such a striking dichotomy between the ultimate good and the spawn of satan that you will never have to wrestle with an appropriate choice. Let's face it, the moral imperatives of whether or not to nuke Megaton are hardly the stuff that Kant wrote about.

However, in The Pitt, the player character is thrust into an immeasureably bleak atmosphere. While at first we seem to have the dichotomy: good (the poor slaves and resistance) versus evil (Asher and the pitt raiders), over time this separation seems to erode. The raiders did not seem to be quite as bad, and the slaves seemed to have some serious problems. On the last mission of the DLC, the player has to choose between doing something bad to help out the "good people" or refrain from doing the bad thing and piss off the "good" people. This is where we move closer to a Kantian vs. Utilitarian dilemma, and therefore actually run into a true moral/ethical quandary. Either way, something negative will happen, someone is going to get wronged, and someone is going to be pissed. Without giving anything away, I took the latter approach, thinking that in this case, doing the bad thing outweighed whatever perceived choice existed. In doing so, I made the entire slave population mad at me. The game took it as my siding with the raiders, and well, this would run counter to the way I tend to play these games. I'm always keeping down the straight and narrow heroic path in these titles, but here was a change. After all scenes played out, I could not help but feel that I did the right thing.

I'm not saying the Pitt is perfect (far from it) but the fact is that the player (for once) is confronted with two sets of flawed individuals, conflicting interests, and no clear "good" path to take. More developers should take note of this, because I think gamers should have to think about what they're doing, it makes everything mean a little bit more. At least that's my take.

This was a pretty common theme in the Ultima Series. 

That's what I like so damn much about Fallout 3 is the moral choices you have to make.Sometimes you just want to kill humans in order to help gouhls.Sometimes its the other way around depending on what the current objective is,which I must say.Playing a neutral character is the best way to go IMO.

I'm waiting for the third DLC, so I can get experience in The Pitt and work my way to lvl 30.

Ok, so I don't go back to the old-school PC RPGs, but what I saw here has me encouraged

CRPGs had moral ambiguity way before The Pitt. It regressed with games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. The Witcher did a much better job. So did Mask of the Betrayer. Those two games only came out a couple years ago.

I'm moving this to General Discussion.

I think the lvl 30 grind might be interesting, if they do it correctly. Bethesda has been releasing some glitchy add-ons, so let's hope that they have been saving the best for last.