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No Points for Neutrality
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In many games with a Karma Meter, you get extensive bonuses in terms of special moves, bonus interactions and influence with squadmates. But you tend not to get too much for not being an utter saint or total bastard. People who take the middle of the road miss out on all the nice event flags, combat bonuses and team relationships that moral or immoral characters gain. Rarely is it that a game plans a specific path for a neutral character. In many cases this is taken to the extreme with the game not even recognising the neutral path. Equally, if there's an axis for Order Versus Chaos, people who take the neutral path there are not going to be recognised for their behaviour. Game designers almost seem to assume that players will go to one extreme or the other. At the extreme end of this, players trying to maintain neutrality may be forced into doing one good thing and then immediately doing an evil thing to balance it up, for example, saving an orphanage and then killing the orphans inside immediately after they say thank you for saving them to maintain the balance after finding there is no "Ignore the orphans' plight altogether" option available. Many developers don't even make a neutral option, forcing you to go good or evil. Some may even actively torpedo considered ways to go neutral à la Railroading. The end result is a character who may have missed out on crucial special abilities, who will not have gained from any morality-related side quests and whose relations and issues with his team will be unresolved to a large extent, leaving a weaker team and an empty, unresolved feel to the game. In short, being neutral sucks. One of the principal reasons for this is that the number of ways to deal with a problem that aren't obviously "good" or obviously "evil" is enormous. Each player might have their own different ideas about how to go about it, and they wouldn't be happy if you offer 5 choices where none of them are theirs. Even harder is how to effectively communicate what these possibilities are to the player. Nuanced morality options don't work if the player doesn't understand all of the nuances involved. Even with diametrically opposed morality options, some players become confused about what an option really means until they actually press it, such as selecting the dialogue option that reads "Oh sure, I'll save the orphans" under the assumption that it's meant genuinely, only to see the "bad karma gained" notification pop up as the player character says "Oh sure, I'll save the orphans" sarcastically. Adding nuances to that makes it a lot more difficult to really know up front what you're getting. One way of balancing this up is to make a hero demand an exorbitant reward for his or her services in doing good things, or generally acting against evil but for money and rewards instead of for doing good. Well, unless you want to run a character who does good for the sake of good, but isn't going to turn down extra money while they're at it. It helps them do good works. Another way would be to make sure that in addition to any extraordinary bonuses, going to either extreme also results in restraints, as options open to the other side are now blocked. This puts neutrally-minded players in the realm of Boring, but Practical and/or Combat Pragmatist — perhaps (to some) less interesting, but certainly playable way of getting through the story. |
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Also played with in Shin Megami Tensei IV. As is the norm for the series, the neutral ending is the best possible ending, but the decision tree that immediately precedes the alignment lock has such a massive effect on the karma meter that a character with a perfectly balanced meter entering the choice is actually locked out of Neutrality and would wind up on whichever path corresponds to their last choice. Only by leaning slightly to one side and then picking the opposite side at the last moment can one reach the Neutral path.note This isn't as hard as it sounds, as between the last possible save point and the alignment lock question is a second, smaller choice. The points line up such that while you can be committed to Law or Chaos, you can't save in a position where you miss the Neutral route for being too neutral. Good luck figuring that out on your own. | |
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inFamous: Unlocking new powers requires you to have a certain amount of good or evil karma. This means that deviating from picking all good or bad choices will slow down unlocking new abilities. In story, Good Cole comes across as a bit of an Anti-Hero or The Everyman. In gameplay, you're locked into the one path except near the end of both games: a Powered by a Forsaken Child upgrade in 1, or the Sadistic Choice in 2. |
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Bioshock Infinite has an early scene where Booker is forced to enter a (free) raffle. He wins, and the prize is being the first to throw his baseball at a captive mixed-race couple. He has the decision to aim his throw at the couple as the crowd and announcer (Jeremiah Fink) instruct, or to aim the throw at the announcer himself. While Booker ends up being ousted by the police as the False Shephered due to a mark on his hand, his decision here affects where he gets a certain piece of gear later in the game. Going after the announcer has the mixed-race couple, having escaped the lottery, give Booker the gear inside an employee's restroom (at this point, Booker has escaped Monument Island with Elizabeth and is trying to get through incognito). If Booker attempted to throw at the couple, he'll get a piece of gear from Jeremiah Fink's assistant, Flambeau, just outside the employee's restroom (it's a few meters away from where the mixed-race couple would provide the gear in the other outcome). Booker also has the option to not throw the ball at all, but this will prevent either of these outcomes (and pieces of gear) from appearing entirely. | |
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Dragon Age: Thankfully averted in Dragon Age: Origins. The karma meter has been removed completely, replaced with personal approval meters for your companions. But you don't have to pander to them. You can also bribe them with gifts and act however you want to otherwise. Dragon Age II: The Dialogue Tree averts it — the top option is generally nice, the bottom option is usually the nasty one, and the central, "neutral" option is snarky, charming, and gets all the best lines. Played straight with the Friendship/Rivalry meters and the Mage-Templar conflict. Choosing not to go for full friendship or rivalry with companions deprives them of special abilities, removes romance options and certain story options — in Isabela's case she ditches you in Act II — and ensures that they will side against you in the endgame if you pick a side they don't like. Being wishy-washy with the Mage-Templar conflict throughout the game will deny you access to sidequests in Act III. And in the end, you have no choice but to pick a side anyhow. |
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And Inverted in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: refusing to pick a side between Galeem and Dharkon results in the Golden Ending, since it means you can take both out at once. | |
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Justified in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: factions are struggling to survive in a hostile alien environment, and they are all extreme on their ideologies, pulling a With Us or Against Us. If for example you have a pact of brotherhood with the Believers and the University of Planet at the same time, which are programmed to quickly enter in conflict due to ideological differences and wage war on each other, it is likely that one of them will first or later break the pact because "I cannot tolerate anymore your cooperation with my mortal enemy" (unless you are so strong that you can keep in check both). Even if you just have a simple treaty of friendship with someone, this can easily hurt your diplomatic relations with his/her enemies, and if they are already tense, lead to a war. And if you keep everybody away, hoping to do an isolationist playthrough minding your own business, whenever you make social engineering choices that are disliked by someone, another faction will knock at your door with the excuse of you being an existential threat. | |
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Averted in NetHack, where neutral characters are expected to follow their own set of behaviours that are more distinct than those of chaotic and lawful characters, as well as possessing their own set of gods and Infinity +1 Sword. | |
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In Baldur's Gate, you can play a neutral alignment, but most quest rewards are based on a good/evil option, and rewards are biased towards good, subverting the normal temptation for players. Neutral-aligned party members will stay with a group with saintly reputation despite occasionally complaining, and even evil companions will only leave at the highest (19-20) reputation levels. Furthermore, the end of the second games have the 'Hell Tests'. These have only two outcomes: Good and evil. If you pick the evil choice a single time, your characters' alignment becomes Neutral Evil (in the first versions of the game, it even did this if you were Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil). Thus, being neutral boils down to being good. |
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Averted in the Shin Megami Tensei series, where the Neutral path is usually the hardest to obtain but the only way to avoid humanity's annihilation or enslavement. Of course, depending on your viewpoint, this may not qualify as the best ending... Also, more Experience points for you. Of course, the neutral path is usually the hardest in SMT games. For most obvious choices in each game, a lawful character in a scenario might have to beat a chaos boss, while a chaos character has to beat a lawful boss. In neutral playthroughs, you typically have to beat BOTH bosses to continue. Played with in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. It eschews the tradition of basic "Law, Neutral, Chaos" alignments, and instead asks you to sponsor one of the three opposing "Reasons" that will serve as the basis for the new world God will createnote and you fight his avatar to prove your worth, plus a True Demon ending where you blow everyone off and side with Lucifer insteadnote where you don't fight God's avatar as a test, but to destroy it. But its equivalent "Neutral" paths are also divided: if you devote yourself to your neutrality and fight to restore the world to what it was, you earn the "Freedom" ending where the world is saved despite earning God's enmitynote you fight him to force him to undo the end of the world... but if your choices are noncommittal and dubious, and you lack the conviction to stand up for yourself, then God becomes disgusted with you and ignores you outrightnote you're not even worthy of a final boss battle, earning you the "Demon" ending where the remaking of the world stalls out and leaves it stuck as the demon-filled Vortex World. Also played with in Shin Megami Tensei IV. As is the norm for the series, the neutral ending is the best possible ending, but the decision tree that immediately precedes the alignment lock has such a massive effect on the karma meter that a character with a perfectly balanced meter entering the choice is actually locked out of Neutrality and would wind up on whichever path corresponds to their last choice. Only by leaning slightly to one side and then picking the opposite side at the last moment can one reach the Neutral path.note This isn't as hard as it sounds, as between the last possible save point and the alignment lock question is a second, smaller choice. The points line up such that while you can be committed to Law or Chaos, you can't save in a position where you miss the Neutral route for being too neutral. Good luck figuring that out on your own. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse inverts the trope by making either the Law or Chaos endings bad endings, and its major endings being different flavors of Neutral. |
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Averted in Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City. You don't get to commit to the neutral path until after you're made to pick a side, so you get all the associated rewards plus the fuzzy feelings of not having to kill the leaders of the 'other' side. You have to perform certain actions beforehand, but you're neither rewarded or punished for doing so. | |
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Aversion: The Suffering has a Good, a Bad and a Neutral ending. The sequel has a straight example — it gives you upgrades to your Super Mode that vary depending on whether you're good or evil. There's only one neutral upgrade, and it's not all that impressive. | |
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In Twilight Heroes, there are bonuses for having a certain Reputation, but only if that reputation is at one end or the other of one of the two Karma scales (Honor and Selflessness). | |
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In Anarchy Online, players join the Mega-Corp Omni-Tek, the Clans fighting them, or the neutrals, who are just trying to stay out of the mess. Neutrals can go anywhere without being attacked by either faction, but miss out on a lot of good Omni and Clan-specific equipment. | |
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Knights of the Old Republic: Maxing out the karma meter in either direction yields a substantial class dependent bonus to one of your stats. Neutral characters miss out on these buffs. Whereas Good characters get a substantial mana cost decrease to Light-sided powers (like Heal) and a substantial mana cost increase to Dark-sided powers (like Force Lightning), and vice-versa for Evil characters, Neutral characters see no mana cost change to any force powers. While a literal case of this trope, Neutrality is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage for force powers. |
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In Monster Rancher 2, having an especially Good or Bad nature can allow monsters to learn new techniques or access special battle power-up states. Bad monsters also have a passive critical hit increase, while Good monsters are more well-behaved around the farm. Neutral monsters get nothing, and are always strictly worse than a monster with an extreme nature. | |
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In the Civilization games, if two AI civs are at war, you can expect both of them to ask you to join in against the other. Attempting to stay neutral will simply piss them both off and make it much more likely for either (or worse, both) of them to declare war on you in the future, particularly on harder difficulties and AI who are designed to love war like Montezuma. Justified in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: factions are struggling to survive in a hostile alien environment, and they are all extreme on their ideologies, pulling a With Us or Against Us. If for example you have a pact of brotherhood with the Believers and the University of Planet at the same time, which are programmed to quickly enter in conflict due to ideological differences and wage war on each other, it is likely that one of them will first or later break the pact because "I cannot tolerate anymore your cooperation with my mortal enemy" (unless you are so strong that you can keep in check both). Even if you just have a simple treaty of friendship with someone, this can easily hurt your diplomatic relations with his/her enemies, and if they are already tense, lead to a war. And if you keep everybody away, hoping to do an isolationist playthrough minding your own business, whenever you make social engineering choices that are disliked by someone, another faction will knock at your door with the excuse of you being an existential threat. |
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In Fallout: New Vegas, the karma meter has virtually no effect on any part of the game until the ending, as your reputation with various factions is far more important. Morality is essentially replaced by ideology, and the way that the whole system is set up makes it impossible to take a neutral stance. The Courier's good and bad deeds towards each faction are tracked separately, so doing equal parts good and ill to a faction won't balance out to neutral, but to "unpredictable loon", and the Courer will be treated as such. By the end of the game, whatever you have done up to that point has been done for the sake of a cause. | |
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In Undertale, the only "points" for neutrality are changing the text epilogues explaining the fate of the Underground. Story and gameplay only have major changes if you dedicate yourself to a Pacifist Run or to being an Omnicidal Maniac. | |
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Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse inverts the trope by making either the Law or Chaos endings bad endings, and its major endings being different flavors of Neutral. | |
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Halfway through Dark Souls II, you can encounter two characters you've had friendly interactions with before, fighting each other to the death. If you choose to help one of them kill the other, the survivor will reward you with a key to their secret treasure stash. Picking Creighton also nets you his armor set. If you don't do anything, one of them will kill the other (chosen randomly), and refuse to give you the key at all. | |
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Warframe features the Invasion mechanic, where mission nodes will periodically get invaded by an enemy faction different from the norm; whenever this happens, the Grineer and Corpus will offer the Tenno rewards for their assistance. As you might have guessed, there's no Playing Both Sides allowed to get both rewards from a given Invasion; each run for the Grineer negates a run for the Corpus, and vice versa, and you need to complete multiple runs for your chosen side to qualify for the reward. The Invasion mechanic has been utilized in two different events so far, each centered around a larger conflict: the Gradivus Dilemma, a dispute between the Grineer and Corpus over the eponymous territory which introduced Invasions to the game in the first place, and Tubemen of Regor, in which Alad V and Nef Anyo both sought the research of Grineer geneticist Tyl Regor for opposing ends. In both events, not only did the individual missions function as Invasions, but so did each player's progress towards the event as a whole; earning battle pay for a mission would also give the player a point for the relevant side towards the event's rewards, with points for opposing sides cancelling out. | |
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In both Overlord games, you must have 100% of either alignment to get the alternative endings. Otherwise, you just get the vanilla ones. | |
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Way of the Samurai 4 has three different factions that you can help out and potentially join through your actions. Across the first three days, your actions and the missions you complete are used to help determine which faction you are most loyal to, and as such, which endgame you will play after a Tournament Arc on the fourth day. It is possible to skip missions and move time forward without doing them, but if you don’t show enough loyalty to any side through doing this, you will get a neutral “story” which consists of you winning the battle tournament, followed by a very simple and inconclusive ending narration, with no endgame at all. | |
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Thankfully averted in Dragon Age: Origins. The karma meter has been removed completely, replaced with personal approval meters for your companions. But you don't have to pander to them. You can also bribe them with gifts and act however you want to otherwise. | |
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Although Dark Forces II, at least, is an aversion in multiplayer: only full Light- or Dark-siders can use the most powerful Force powers, but neutral characters can use a balance of both, making them more versatile. The single player mode doesn't have this option. In turn, Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy don't let you be neutral in multiplayer, not letting you take powers outside of your alignment. | |
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Averted in earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Many alignment-specific abilities (protection from good/evil, detect good/evil) were removed from the latest edition because many players chose neutral characters for the sole reason to be immune to these abilities. Additionally, 3rd Edition split the Detect Alignment spell into Detect Evil, Detect Good, Detect Law, and Detect Chaos. If someone registered false to all four, he was either True Neutral, or magically masking their alignment. The benefits of being a neutral character in D&D are ably summed up in this Full Frontal Nerdity strip. Played straight by a series of spells in D&D 3.5 (Holy Word, Blasphemy, Dictum and Word of Chaos) that inflict Status Effects up to and including instant death not on those with the opposite alignment, but on everyone in range who's not the spell's own alignment. Trying to blast away a bunch of demons slaughtering the city militia with a Holy Word? Better hope that the entire militia is staffed by self-sacrificing do-gooders, because every neutral one is going to bite the dust as well... |
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Fallout's one-dimensional meter (positive is good, negative is bad) means that if you're neutral, no matter how much you've done, people will act like they've never heard of you. | |
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Unintentionally averted in Fallout 3, where the karma meter has such a minuscule effect on game play that the player can pretty much do as he pleases with little penalty. There's one perk called "Impartial Mediator" which gives you a substantial Speech bonus as long as you retain neutral karma, presumably reflecting that most such players are fond of the "make everyone talk through their problems" solution, but it's not much compared to the bonuses of going to one extreme or the other. Two companions, Butch and RL-3, can only be recruited if you have neutral karma. Quest paths and rewards do often go by the good vs. evil choices, which is a shame, although there's often an option to take a slight reduction in good karma in return for taking a material reward. | |
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Mass Effect 2 makes this even worse by tying the unlocks of Persuasion options to your Paragon/Renegade points in an over-complicated and punishing manner.Explanation They check not how many Paragon/Renegade Points you have, but the ratio of how many you COULD have based on the Missions you've done versus the maximum amount of Paragon/Renegade points possible to earn in them. This punishes characters who avoid going Paragon or Renegade (or flip-flop between them), making it incredibly easy to get locked out of picking anything if you play the Missions in a certain order. While complicated and annoying, this actually makes a certain amount of sense. A person that flip flops between being compassionate or threatening would naturally have a harder time convincing someone they were being genuine. And when you can pick between a Paragon, Renegade or Neutral option, Neutral is still the least-interesting one. | |
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Even further averted in Mass Effect 3: Paragon and Renegade now both add to a singluar Reputation bar, which can also be increased by getting non-alignment Reputation Points (which scale up your Paragon/Renegade points while keeping the ratio the same). 3 also removed Neutral options entirely, since players so rarely picked them, meaning it's impossible to invoke this trope through the dialogue options. | |
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Beast: The Primordial: The Satiety stat (which represents how well-fed the character's Horror Hunger is, and can be spent for various effects) has an interesting relationship with this trope. Satiety ranges from 0 to 10, and is further subdivided into five tiers. At 0 Satiety, the Beast-Soul becomes ravenous and escapes the character's control to rampage through the dreamscape, inflicting nightmares on all and sundry in search of sustenance. At Low Satiety (1-3), the Beast is hungry. Atavisms become more effective in this state, as the Soul pushes closer to the surface to strengthen its human body for the hunt. In this state, the Soul won't be very picky about what it dines on, anything even close to its preferred Horror Hunger will be snatched up. At Medium Satiety (4-6), the Beast is neither satisfied nor hungry, and is out of sync with its human host. Beasts at this tier become vulnerable to having Anathemas placed upon them. Beasts at this tier are also more choosy about what they eat, requiring their preferred flavor of Horror Hunger. At High Satiety (7-9), the Beast is satisfied (at least for the moment). Nightmares become more effective in this state, as a contented Soul can focus its powers more effectively. At this tier, the Soul becomes exacting in its demands for sustenance, requiring precisely detailed traits in victim and horror. At Satiety 10, the Beast falls into a glutted sleep, and the character will be no more than a mortal until its Soul has digested some of its surfeit. |
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Promethean: The Created: A Promethean's milestones will often involve making a choice between two or more interpretations of its current Role (for example, a Leader deciding whether Leadership means beating up anyone who disobeys to make them fall into line, or whether it means striving to be an inspirational leader that people follow out of love). The book very clearly states that what matters in these cases is not what choice the Promethean makes, but that it makes a choice. If the Promethean decides that being a Leader means ruling by threats and fear, then it has still defined that part of what being human means to it, and that is what triggers the milestone. The only wrong choice is to refuse to choose. | |
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BioShock rewards you for saving the lives of little sisters instead of killing them for ADAM, but you only get the good ending for saving all of them; the 'neutral' finale is almost identical to the 'evil' one, and the difference in ADAM gained between the endings is also relatively negligible, given how you're given gifts of ADAM from saving groups of little sisters. BioShock 2 has more moral options and more variations depending on your choices through the game. It has two neutral endings, in fact (chosen by Press X to Not Die). Saving one half of the little sisters and harvesting the other half also yields the most ADAM, provided one gets the Proud Parent tonic, which boosts ADAM gained from gathering from corpses. | |
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Mass Effect: Averted in the first game. While there is a Karma Meter present, the Charm and Intimidate "persuasion" options are unlocked using Talent Points that you get by leveling Shepard up through combat (and you can max out these skills and then start a New Game Plus to truly play as you want while keeping the rewards from your last go-around). The only real penalty for neutrality is being locked out of two alignment-based side missions (one for Paragons, one for Renegades). That being said, when it comes to dialogue choices this trope is extremely literal: Neutral options never earn Morality Points, and they have a reputation for having the most uninteresting outcomes and responses compared to the heartwarming Paragon options and the hilariously evil Renegade ones. Mass Effect 2 makes this even worse by tying the unlocks of Persuasion options to your Paragon/Renegade points in an over-complicated and punishing manner.Explanation They check not how many Paragon/Renegade Points you have, but the ratio of how many you COULD have based on the Missions you've done versus the maximum amount of Paragon/Renegade points possible to earn in them. This punishes characters who avoid going Paragon or Renegade (or flip-flop between them), making it incredibly easy to get locked out of picking anything if you play the Missions in a certain order. While complicated and annoying, this actually makes a certain amount of sense. A person that flip flops between being compassionate or threatening would naturally have a harder time convincing someone they were being genuine. And when you can pick between a Paragon, Renegade or Neutral option, Neutral is still the least-interesting one. Even further averted in Mass Effect 3: Paragon and Renegade now both add to a singluar Reputation bar, which can also be increased by getting non-alignment Reputation Points (which scale up your Paragon/Renegade points while keeping the ratio the same). 3 also removed Neutral options entirely, since players so rarely picked them, meaning it's impossible to invoke this trope through the dialogue options. Played straight in the original trilogy when it comes to some of the bigger decisions, in that the third game for the most part rewards players who have played their characters consistently as a Paragon/Renegade. For example, curing the genophage will give good results if Paragon decisions were made and key characters are alive, while sabotaging the cure will only give profitable results if you made the right Renegade decisions in the past. Similarly, dealing with the Rachni Queen consistently is the only way to get a positive outcome; dealing with it inconsistently can result in less war assets or even negative results. And even more with Mass Effect: Andromeda, which does away with Karma and Reputation entirely. Instead it restructures dialogue options to be based on tone and personality rather than morality, allowing for greater roleplaying options, while still including plenty of important binary decisions to make (in these cases it's up to the player to judge what's good or bad). |
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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Certain relics and clothing can only be worn by people with the correct dark/light side rating; although the end-game relics are alignment neutral. In addition, all of your characters gain access to a light side (50% reduction of damage taken for you and your companion for 12 seconds) or dark side (feed on half of your companion's health instantaneously) ability at the respective maximum alignments. You only need to reach max alignment on two characters to unlock each of them for all your characters on the server, however; so a tier 5 dark sider can use the light side ability and vice versa. The two abilities share a cooldown. In Shadow of Revan, there are some uncommon-quality lightsabers that you can only equip if your alignment is neutral (by any version's level cap, this is by having 5000 points in light and 5000 points in dark), but these are usually completely useless to most players. Storywise, alignment doesn't come up in conversation much anyway. But particularly if you're a Force user, it will often make the observing NPC scratch their head in confusion. Jaesa doesn't know what to make of you, meaning you can choose if you want to corrupt her or not when you recruit her, Revan will approve, though, and praises you on your moral flexibility. It makes for interesting role playing opportunities too; a bounty hunter who's purely in it for the money, an Agent who'll Shoot the Dog if necessary but avoids senseless killing, etc. |
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Most sidequests in Wasteland 2 have "good" or "bad" consequences, with doing nothing resulting in, at best, an outcome little better than the "bad" outcome. One exception, however, is a conflict between the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and the Diamondback Militia in their struggle for control of the canyon. Arguably the best possible ending outcome is achieved by not intervening in their conflict at all. | |
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Fable II likewise doesn't really penalise you for staying neutral, other than affecting prices, and even then you don't have to be a paragon of virtue or the scariest person alive to talk the townsfolk into giving you a better deal. There are also more neutral choices. At the start of the game, you have a chance to free some townsfolk or let them become slaves for a bribe. One of the options is to walk clean away from the situation altogether after the bandit attacks you anyway, leaving them in their cages for someone else to either let out or enslave. You've cleared the roadblock to Bowerstone; from your perspective, it's someone else's problem. And there is an explicitly neutral ending option. | |
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Fallout: Fallout's one-dimensional meter (positive is good, negative is bad) means that if you're neutral, no matter how much you've done, people will act like they've never heard of you. Unintentionally averted in Fallout 3, where the karma meter has such a minuscule effect on game play that the player can pretty much do as he pleases with little penalty. There's one perk called "Impartial Mediator" which gives you a substantial Speech bonus as long as you retain neutral karma, presumably reflecting that most such players are fond of the "make everyone talk through their problems" solution, but it's not much compared to the bonuses of going to one extreme or the other. Two companions, Butch and RL-3, can only be recruited if you have neutral karma. Quest paths and rewards do often go by the good vs. evil choices, which is a shame, although there's often an option to take a slight reduction in good karma in return for taking a material reward. In Fallout: New Vegas, the karma meter has virtually no effect on any part of the game until the ending, as your reputation with various factions is far more important. Morality is essentially replaced by ideology, and the way that the whole system is set up makes it impossible to take a neutral stance. The Courier's good and bad deeds towards each faction are tracked separately, so doing equal parts good and ill to a faction won't balance out to neutral, but to "unpredictable loon", and the Courer will be treated as such. By the end of the game, whatever you have done up to that point has been done for the sake of a cause. |
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In The Sims 2: Apartment Life neutral witches only get half the number of spells as their good and evil counterparts (due to neutral spell being able to be cast by any witch, while good and evil spells can only be cast by their respective alignments), and cannot craft any special witch furniture, such as the motive restoring thrones. | |
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Galactic Civilizations II: Averted when your civilization chooses an alignment, all three alignments (good, neutral and evil) have bonuses. Some players even argue that the Neutral choice gives the best bonuses. Keyword here is choose. The permanent alignment selection is a Screw the Rules, I Have Money! event that allows you to totally ignore your Karma Meter and set your alignment to whatever you want as long as you can pay for it. But up till then, the game plays this straight. The best bonuses from Karma Meter actions almost exclusively favor Evil choices while having Good alignment helps you diplomatically. Neutral ones tend to give you a small benefit for no downside. |
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Averted in Super Smash Bros. Melee: The Switzerland bonus is won by going through a match without ever being attacked or attacking anyone else. | |
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Inverted in Ogre Battle, where keeping your leader neutral allows the recruitment of more special characters. | |
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Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura: There is a gauge that measures whether you use technology or magic more. If you stray too far in either direction, things from the other side won't work with any reliability. If you remain neutral, you can use both magic and technology, but the spells will be notably weaker than when cast by a full mage and likewise inability to learn and use the best technology. The actual alignment gauge affects which companions you can have with you: good aligned companions will refuse to follow an evil protagonist and vice versa, while a neutral protagonist can have any companion follow them. However, unlike the magic/tech effects, this can be negated entirely by maxing out Charisma and the Persuasion skill and getting the Master training in the latter, making companions willing to ignore your alignment completely. |
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In The Walking Dead: Season One, Lee can try extremely hard to stay neutral between Kenny and Lilly's headbutting in the first two episodes, but Kenny will warn him that at some point, Lee won't be able to sit on the fence much longer. | |
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Mostly averted in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, where your Karma Meter shifts one way or the other depending on how many yellow targets (generally targets that aren't related to the mission or random enemies that try to retreat after surviving what should have been fatal damage) you destroy. Playing the 'Soldier' Ace Style is just as viable as the two others, but it's much harder to maintain, particularly if you're after the Supreme Soldier medal, which requires you to finish the game with the karma meter almost perfectly in the middle (in essence, you need to shoot down exactly half the yellow targets in every mission). The upshot is that you get more money than a Knight Ace (since you're still killing some yellow targets, thus more money) while not getting forced into fights that are quite as difficult as those a Mercenary Ace has to deal with (since you're not killing all the yellow targets, thus you're not a totally heartless bastard that the game needs to punish). | |
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Averted in The Witcher. The neutral path is actually the path closest to the source material. The neutral path also opens up several rewards and cutscenes that are not available to the other extremes. Besides, neither side is really good or evil, so in the end, it's a choice between three alternatives where the neutral choice is simply a choice not to choose (some quests have to be abandoned or avoided altogether to get the neutral path, thus avoiding the Stupid Neutral problem). | |
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Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords somewhat zig-zags this: both your Prestige Class and access to the tomb on Korriban require you to be at least 75% aligned one way or the other. On the other hand, your Pet Crystal will still be super-powerful if you are neutral, though this doesn't really make up for the loss of prestige classes. Apathy Killed the Cat is a major theme of the game, and as such you're expected to commit to one side or the other. | |
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Jade Empire has a choice of really powerful techniques you can only learn if you're strongly aligned with one end of the meter or another. Open Palm gets Stone Immortal and Paralyzing Palm while Closed Fist gets Tempest and Hidden Fist. | |
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Before being replaced with the Critical Choice system, Rakenzarn Tales averted this trope. Playing a Neutral Good route was not only just as viable as a Lawful or Chaotic route, it was also the only way to get all possible party members since none of them could be missed on that route compared to the other two. | |
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Averted in Sixth-Generation versions of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, where you want to be as neutral as possible since the game features a tug-of-war style Trust Meter between the NSA and the JBA. Go too far to one side and you risk being forced to prove you allegiance and risk a Game Over if you fail as the other side will no longer trust you. The meter also determines what gadgets you get, with NSA giving non-lethal high-tech stuff and the JBA giving lethal low-tech stuff. Being as neutral as possible gives you the most opportunities when forced to make a harsh decision and the best mix of gear, while leaning too far to one side will make parts of the game harder and may force you to make decisions you really don't want to make just to keep your trust level high enough. | |
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Disco Elysium: There are four political factions in the game: Communist, Fascist, Capitalist and Moralist International. The "MoralIntern" are not a neutral choice, but a specific philosophy about enforcing the status quo, and choosing them has its own costs and benefits compared to the other three. What gets no points is consistently refusing to make any sort of choice: you will be derided as a cowardly fence-sitter. | |
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Played with in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. It eschews the tradition of basic "Law, Neutral, Chaos" alignments, and instead asks you to sponsor one of the three opposing "Reasons" that will serve as the basis for the new world God will createnote and you fight his avatar to prove your worth, plus a True Demon ending where you blow everyone off and side with Lucifer insteadnote where you don't fight God's avatar as a test, but to destroy it. But its equivalent "Neutral" paths are also divided: if you devote yourself to your neutrality and fight to restore the world to what it was, you earn the "Freedom" ending where the world is saved despite earning God's enmitynote you fight him to force him to undo the end of the world... but if your choices are noncommittal and dubious, and you lack the conviction to stand up for yourself, then God becomes disgusted with you and ignores you outrightnote you're not even worthy of a final boss battle, earning you the "Demon" ending where the remaking of the world stalls out and leaves it stuck as the demon-filled Vortex World. | |
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Dune II: Battle for Arrakis features the noble Atreides, the dastardly Harkonnen...and the Clever Ordos. The Ordos, as it turns out, get new, heavier vehicles one or two turns after everyone else already does. Their unique units also tend to be inferior to those of the other factions. | |
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Fable is a notable aversion of this. While there are times where you have to make a flat Good or Evil decision, most of these are pretty clear-cut cases (will you spare the bandit or kill him?) and you don't receive any penalties for staying neutral. The townsfolk will even comment on this, discussing your character's unpredictability. The ending of the Lost Chapters is pretty neutral, coming down to a straight fight between you and the villain. | |
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Medieval II: Total War: has this. You'll get bonuses to your chivalry stats if you keep taxes low and do other "honourable" things while governing your lands and leading your men to battle, and dread points as your characters march merrily towards villainy burning, raping, pillaging and taxing all the way. But you get nowt for more moderate decisions (keeping the taxes at neutral, sacking towns rather than exterminating or peacefully occupying them in a manner unlikely in an undisciplined medieval army, or ransoming prisoners, the normal method of returning captured soldiers to their side.) Except for lots of money. Sacking and ransoming may not lead to you being feared or loved, but you'll be much wealthier from it. | |
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Fable series: Fable is a notable aversion of this. While there are times where you have to make a flat Good or Evil decision, most of these are pretty clear-cut cases (will you spare the bandit or kill him?) and you don't receive any penalties for staying neutral. The townsfolk will even comment on this, discussing your character's unpredictability. The ending of the Lost Chapters is pretty neutral, coming down to a straight fight between you and the villain. Fable II likewise doesn't really penalise you for staying neutral, other than affecting prices, and even then you don't have to be a paragon of virtue or the scariest person alive to talk the townsfolk into giving you a better deal. There are also more neutral choices. At the start of the game, you have a chance to free some townsfolk or let them become slaves for a bribe. One of the options is to walk clean away from the situation altogether after the bandit attacks you anyway, leaving them in their cages for someone else to either let out or enslave. You've cleared the roadblock to Bowerstone; from your perspective, it's someone else's problem. And there is an explicitly neutral ending option. |
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Dragon Age II: The Dialogue Tree averts it — the top option is generally nice, the bottom option is usually the nasty one, and the central, "neutral" option is snarky, charming, and gets all the best lines. Played straight with the Friendship/Rivalry meters and the Mage-Templar conflict. Choosing not to go for full friendship or rivalry with companions deprives them of special abilities, removes romance options and certain story options — in Isabela's case she ditches you in Act II — and ensures that they will side against you in the endgame if you pick a side they don't like. Being wishy-washy with the Mage-Templar conflict throughout the game will deny you access to sidequests in Act III. And in the end, you have no choice but to pick a side anyhow. |
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At the start of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory you rescue your starter Digimon and two others from a Black Market dealer mistreating them. Later on, he gives you access to the DigiMarket where you can buy Digimon off The Deep Web from him and his partners. In Chapter 8, you have to choose whether to liberate the Digimon or protect the market so you can keep using it. However you can Take a Third Option and be a fence-sitter, but this ends with you getting no reward and the black market being shut down, leaving you with nothing. | |
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And even more with Mass Effect: Andromeda, which does away with Karma and Reputation entirely. Instead it restructures dialogue options to be based on tone and personality rather than morality, allowing for greater roleplaying options, while still including plenty of important binary decisions to make (in these cases it's up to the player to judge what's good or bad). | |
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Yahtzee regularly discusses this in Zero Punctuation. His main gripes are that it feels like he's being forced to play the game twice, and that the two sides are often mutually exclusive (illustrated by the extremes of baby-eating and Mother Theresa, and the logical conclusion for neutrality: Mother Theresa eating a baby). Plus, the fact that instead of the player wondering about the moral implications of each choice given, there's only the choice between "Take the good/evil option since I took the good/evil option during the previous choice" or "Suck". In his opinion, such games might as well ask you once if you want to do a good or evil playthrough at the start of the game and be done with it. He even calls out games he otherwise likes on this, such as inFAMOUS and its sequel. | |
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Averted in Shadow the Hedgehog. Going down the "neutral" path means not helping either the heroes or Black Doom, but instead going after Dr. Eggman. The main conflict still goes on, but Shadow isn't much of a factor in it. Though, individual levels, especially those on the extreme ends of the map, can sometimes play this straight if there's no neutral option. And the game does take this trope's title literally — the good and evil goals add and subtract points based on your morality, while the neutral goals ignore morality and only judge your score by speed and rings collected. | |
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Initially played straight in Age of Wonders 3, where playing good or evil comes with a variety of benefits, and certain creatures will be "Dedicated to Good/Evil", affecting their morale based on whether you match their alignment. The Eternal Lords expansion, however, subverts the trope by adding a tech specialization called "Grey Guard", which gives your empire a number of useful spells and research options that only function properly if you maintain a strict True Neutral alignment, and allows units in your empire to become Dedicated to Neutral. | |
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In any given level of Majesty, you have to choose whether you build temples to the Order gods or the Chaos gods, and also choose between either one of the Sun or Moon gods separately. Or just eschew them all for the True Neutral barbarian god Krolm, which means you lose out on a lot of useful spells and some of the best heroes of the game. Then again, Krolm does offer up one really useful spell in particular, if you can afford to use it regularly... | |
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Destroy the Godmodder: there are three alignments a player can choose. Anti-godmodder, Pro-godmodder, and neutral (good, evil, neutral). Anti-godmodder has tons of players, so the AG players have friends to back them up. The PGs also get their days in the sunlight since they have the godmodder on their team. Neutral gets nothing. Even the PGs get more team mates since neutrals don't really get to team up. Supposedly there is an increase in power for the neutrals, but it only ever makes a significant difference if they're controlled by the GM. | |
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City of Heroes has a few examples of this. On one hand, you have the level 1-20 Praetorian content, which forces you to be either a Loyalist or Resistance fighter. However, each side has two different inner factions which are functionally either good-hearted (you're trying to subvert the other side without risking lives) or hard-line extremist (allowing citizens to die or even actively killing them in pursuit of your goals). Then you're forcefully booted into Primal Earth as either a hero or villain (no staying a Praetorian), at which point you can side-switch between Hero, Vigilante, Villain, and Rogue. Vigilantes and Rouges can go to the "other side's" areas and run missions, but only full heroes or villains have the benefit of being able to earn special currency to help get the rarest items in the game. All that aside, former Loyalist Praetorians are nonetheless forced to fight Emperor Cole in the end-game content. | |
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Averted in Catherine. Neutrality is a perfectly viable option for the player from beginning to end, and the neutral path offers some very satisfying endings. This isn't surprising, given how neutrality is usually handled in the game's parent series. | |
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Super Smash Bros.: Averted in Super Smash Bros. Melee: The Switzerland bonus is won by going through a match without ever being attacked or attacking anyone else. And Inverted in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: refusing to pick a side between Galeem and Dharkon results in the Golden Ending, since it means you can take both out at once. |
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