The Good Shepard

nybody who claims that video games distract youth from a moral education is innocent of BioWare roleplaying games, or else content with traditional, vicarious ethics by way of shouting advice to characters on television. For the better part of a decade — since the first Knights of the Old Republic release — the Edmonton developers have granted players control over the outcome of conflicts with ambiguous imperatives, duties or obligations but plain and weighty consequences.

A good-bad dichotomy has accompanied every title. In Knights and its sequel, it was the light and dark sides of the Force; and in each Mass Effect, the immaculate Paragon and the unscrupulous Renegade. Players earn points, karmic or reputational, for Commander Shepard's respective actions or sentiments. These are in turn rewarded by exclusive opportunities to outmaneuver enemies or skirt perils.

Prior to Mass Effect 2, accrual was zero-sum. To achieve useful depth in either ethos, you misbehaved or played the angel — assiduously, because points for one kind of behavior would subtract from points for the other. And while independent scoring between Paragon and Renegade make nuance possible in the last Mass Effect — greatly widening the availability of special dialog or action options in a playthrough — inherited weaknesses of BioWare's otherwise visionary gameplay remain. With Mass Effect 3's projected holiday launch, there can't be much time left to address and refine the rudiment of simulated morality — but perhaps just enough.

Even at its most unctuous, a Paragon inevitably builds alliances by ingratiating everyone. But playing as a Renegade can be destructive to gameplay.Were it not for all things boyish — imaginative mythology, meticulous sci-fi canon, and pervasive third-person shooter sequences — the Mass Effect series may well be classified as a soap opera. A player's success depends on befriending NPC allies through persistent conversation, typically uncovering secrets and building intimacy; be it the eros, agape or philos varieties. Much, if not the majority, of the game is spent navigating dialog trees and responding to characters' requests or confessions.

Paragon and Renegade's unequal effectiveness toward this goal, however sensibly diametric the codes, is problematic. Charity characterizes Paragon behavior; statements are sympathetic or conciliatory, all-smiles or guns drawn. Renegade actions sit in a narrow band spanning ruthlessness and capricious brutality; dialog is boorish or outright dismissive. At its worst, a Paragon is indiscriminate and unctuous, yet inevitably builds alliances by ingratiating everyone. But playing as a Renegade can be destructive to gameplay. The potential to repel and alienate essential NPCs is, apparently, an escapist appeal to embracing one's inner sociopath.

Speaking as a goody two-shoes, I'm reluctant to believe that many players aspire to evil — but then, there is the original Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare's classic, whose dark side ending rivals Titus Andronicus in treachery and body counts. Still, should "renegade" actually connote "repellent and diabolical"?

Enter the antihero. Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan may not have misled a cornered bank robber into relinquishing his weapon — or goaded Dirty Harry's madman antagonist into a climactic pistol-draw — without his vivid warning against betting on a .44 Magnum's empty chamber, right before he pulled the trigger anyway, bluff or not. Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, championing historic preservation, commandeered or else demolished whatever stood between him and his prize. And Nathan Fillion's Mal Reynolds took on fugitives because their pursuer was the same lordly government he despised; possibly too that one of them introduced herself au naturel.

On demeanor alone, following the lessons of these characters might give players a reason to go Renegade beyond leaving a wake of maimed interlocutors and insulted crewmembers. But more importantly, there is the value of posture. Axiomatically, at least, bullies don't respond well to kindly expostulation; megalomaniacs are lulled by flattery; and the virtuous have something of an animadversion to bluster. Would browbeating a gaggle of heavies to save lives necessarily turn Shepard into a fiend? Contrariwise, wasn't Hannibal Lecter a pretty suave conversationalist?

What if, in Mass Effect 3, players retained similar moral options but the objective was to display behavior appropriate to the situation?The point may be best made by examining gameplay from a PC title dating back to 1985, Starflight — and its own sequel. A player's ship routinely met and communicated with aliens, selecting a comportment: friendly, hostile, or obsequious. In the first game, only two of the seven spacefaring races actually preferred nice-and-earnest: the rest were vile or pompous enough to demand servility, and one was best treated with a lot of stick and a little carrot. Starflight 2 introduced a confederacy of species — you had to love the names, the G'Nunk — that was so idiosyncratically bloodthirsty that nothing less than broadcasted threats would motivate conversation.

Now consider that in Mass Effect, most exchanges run parallel if players choose Paragon or Renegade paths, the only difference being that with one people end up mollified and with the other they end up knocked around. Exclusive choices short-circuit a scene even more, so the purpose of moral contemplation boils down to scoring precept points and entertaining oneself with the results.

What if players retained the typical three options — something like Paragon, Renegade and noncommittal — but the objective was to display behavior appropriate to the situation, and, like precious few missions in Mass Effect 2, success in defusing a standoff, clinching a negotiation, or throwing enemies off the scent wasn't guaranteed? Maybe suggesting that surly mercenaries "talk this thing over" wouldn't really work, forcing a player to think quick and best use those last seconds before gunfire. Instead of ridiculing or simply abusing crewmembers, Shepard might offer some tough love, since coddling would leave them ill-served. Bad calls could remove all but the "safe" options, depriving players of a skillfully contrived outcome and points denoting character richer than yin and yang. Neutral Good, anyone?

Headlines say BioWare is hard at work building a Mass Effect finale that will splay narratives in umpteen directions, transposing a thousand variables for a few thousand more. Would that the developers take care of those variables for the most important factor of all — Commander Shepard.

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