#like it's a gameplay difference but im also shaking my fist

[tacogoats]

I keep thinking about this.

so I need to test this on another char to see what happens too as I am in the middle of doing another redeemed Durge run, but I find it super fun (but wait there's more) how my pro-bhaal durge got a different narrator bit in the Orin confrontation, But my redeemed/rejecting bhaal one got a much longer one. the video looks like it was cut fast because I noticed it was different IMMEDIATELY. more under cut. rambling.

This is where I start ranting despite being happy it was different.

Like, having done my redeemed durge run first it's kind of insane doing the evil-er route and seeing just how much the game lacks in content for an evil run. I've seen ye olde 'but Larian said evil players would get rewarded materially!' and oh my god that is a fuckin' lie. You get way more goodies for doing quests with surviving NPCs most of the time lmao. I apparently will not get an epilogue with this dark urge in the above video because I plan to do the evil ending as well. I get why, but it still sucks the evil runs are basically given nothing.

Coming from SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) it kinda drives me nuts with how some games tackle morality systems - SWTOR also fell victim to the same thing sometimes, but overall I liked seeing what the writing team noted as 'evil' and 'good'. Even when it was just plain weird and frustrating it was fun to pick at.

My most favourite examples are the Black Talon flashpoint.(flashpoints are basically dungeons - so instanced areas that you play with others. Black Talon is also the first flashpoint for Imperial players.)

The jist of Black Talon is that you are on a ship (named the Black Talon lol) that is a transport ship, but you are called upon by the Grand Moff (basically big naval military leader) to board a Republic ship and capture a defector who is going to spill lots of beans. The Moff basically doesn't leave you the option to refuse, and the crew doesn't like this at all. You fight your way to the bridge and can commandeer the ship by a) killing the captain who disobeyed the Moff's order or b) basically telling the crew and captain to listen Or Else

This is obviously a dark/light option but it's not the one I'm about to pick at. The one I want to pick at is after you've basically ripped your way through soldiers boarding the Black Talon, AND boarding the enemy ship yourself, you find the defector.

He is a high-level military leader (simply named 'The General' by the Moff. The name is apt as he tells you he was a general once) who defected because he's 'seen too much' and realized both sides in this war were going to destroy each other. He gives you a lot of cryptic words about and even adds if you'd seen what he's seen you'd understand. He thought that he would perhaps be able to cause a stalemate, but it's too late, actually. He is also actively dying.

He tells you he won't get to an escape pod in time with his stomach bleeding out, so what will you do with him and his cybernetic implant full of secrets? (This is important for later!)

You have two choices.

a) Take him into custody. Where, he remarks, 'I'll be tortured and executed" and if he's lucky, he may instead live the rest of his life in a cell.

b) you can kill him.

Guess which side is the Dark, and which is the Light?

There are options that happen sometimes where you are performing a mercy-kill, they're rare, but they happen. This is not one of them lol.

I would really argue that taking him prisoner is the much worse option here. The more you play of the game, the more you learn that handing him off to Imperial Intelligence (which is basically secret service of the Empire) is the worst possible thing you can do to someone. You learn this especially quickly if you play as an Imperial Agent, one of the four starter classes SWTOR's Imperial faction offers.

If you know anything about Star Wars - even if you just know the movies - you know the Empire is pretty brutal, but honestly it's a whole different degree of insane when you go to Old Republic era because you get all that additional context *playing* as someone part of it. You see what your own Dark vs Light decisions are and what tools are available to Imperial Intelligence.

Remember I said the cybernetics was important for later? In the Agent storyline you come across a young man who has cybernetics, and you have the option to basically crack them open and grab what you need directly from his brain. This is after you bring him near to death and he very briefly begs you not to; but... someone else who just wants the job done - a man who used to work with Intelligence and was subsequently discarded by them - just wants you to do it because it's quicker and he can do the hard work, anyway. He will actually say that it's lucky they found a cyborg.

Dark options are often 'do bad thing, get reward faster' in SWTOR. Sometimes they'll make your job harder because you did a stupid thing, but usually it's the former.

Anyway, it's absolutely horrifying how you can literally just jam a USB into this guy's *brain* and basically grab what you need - all the while the victim is in excruciating pain - and it does so much damage you basically turn his brain into mush. Again, you can leave him like this or mercy kill him. I have to go back and look because I don't remember what was Light or Dark in this. IIRC, your companion is very unsettled by it. (Kaliyo, the companion, is a violent anarchist and is very 'Dark' leaning but IIRC this upsets her.)

So knowing this; and knowing the General has cybernetics... The Light option being to spare him sounds bizarre, doesn't it? The Moff actually gets very annoyed at you when you simply kill him, but overlooks it because at least the military secrets aren't in enemy hands, and he's in a good mood so why not.

SWTOR often has the ye olde "Save someone's life so it's the good option" but rarely takes into account the morality issue of prolonging their death - which is interesting, because obviously there's the whole question of someone *asking* to die or not, which is probably part of it honestly.

Situation two also has to do with cybernetics and is a bit juicier.

Once again in the Imperial side of things: you are tasked with storming a rogue Sith's compound to find a missing unit of soldiers on the capital world of Dromund Kaas. The sergeant pleads with you to find them, and she adds she's quite close to 'her boys'. She wants them home safe.

You do not find them in any thing resembling being able to come home 'safe'.

Grathan, the rogue Sith, was conducting experiments on them. Specifically, stuffing their brains into cyborgs - and he had succeeded. I have a video of this I myself recorded (11 years ago, wow):

You find the last of the unit, somewhat alive. He has also been shoved inside a machine and remarks he can see his corpse across the table. He explains to you that despite having no will of their own anymore (which he stammers out between fighting the programming trying to squash whatever is left of his free will), they are all very much *awake* and aware; so you are given two options as always. Light: Kill them. Dark: Have them be taken by the Empire and used as soldiers anyway.

So this is a mercy kill for obvious reasons - and the remaining soldier *asked* you to put an end to them. The sergeant later will be upset but thanks you for not letting them suffer if you do this. If you do the dark option, she is also upset but for different reasons and remarks she will have to contact the families.

So these are just two options in a massive, MASSIVE game but I find it interesting that BG3 kinda follows the same idea of 'do bad, get quicker reward' but the reward is. just. moving to the end of the game faster. I really can't think of many instances where the 'Bad' option nets you a better reward than the good option either, except like... Getting the +2 STR potion for making Astarion bite Araj, or letting Ethel live if you choose to confront her. Or the Slayer form, I guess. Which isn't that great depending what class you are anyway...? (I definitely don't need it on a cleric lol)

Also let's look at Minthara for a second. You are trading Halsin for her, and if you continue doing Evil route options - you also lose Jaheira and Minsc. It's weird. BG3 makes me feel like I'm having a shorter, less content filled run by playing evil - and while SWTOR's morality is mostly on par, it never made me feel like I was missing out on content by doing the evil run stuff.

Part of that is probably due to it being a MMO but man.

I've been hammering this out at work so I may add more to it later but I am really itching for games to tackle morality systems with more branching options than this. KOTOR 2 did some fun things with turning your allies to the Dark side but it was still very 'I kick puppies' levels of evil choices.

If you have suggestions please leave any :)