Typically in WRPGs like Knights of the Old Republic and Fallout 3, where you're given moral choices throughout the game that affect how your character is treated and often the quests you do. I'm just curious about what most people go with. (If you often play through multiple times, pick the option that you find yourself the most satisfied with in general.)

Me, I'm always the most altruistic guy I can possibly be. I feel bad when I commit evils against fictional characters, strangely.

Edit: To clarify what each position means:

1. Heroic and saintly - you always take the path that's the most just, even at your character's expense. Ex.: When offered a reward for rescuing a child, he says, "no reward is necessary, m'am."
2. Mostly good - almost always pick the good option, but you also try to benefit yourself if it's possible under the circumstances.
3. Intentionally neutral - you go out of your way to not take a side. Possibly to avoid making enemies, and possibly simply because the character's just as dull as a brick.
4. Pragmatic - you take the option that's most beneficial to your character, whether it's good or evil.
5. Mostly evil - your character is generally taking the "evil" options, but not to the extent that he becomes a comic book villain.
6. Evilest bastard that ever lived - when your character is asked by a beggar to spare some food, he promptly eats her children.

I generaly end up being mostly-good but depends on how I feel about the characters (if they are annoying I tend to dislike them) and/or my personal benefit.

I pretty much always end up doing good. I would like a game where it's not automatically obvious which choice is good and which is bad though.

The Witcher is interesting as none of the chocies are good. Everyone is either evil, a douchebag, jerk, . .. .. .. ., twit, prick, arrogant, butthole, butthead, etc or some combination there of.

Both. I play the game as a good person first, and then as a bad person.

Depends on what I feel like doing at the time.

Most times I'll be good during my first playthrough, sometimes leaning neutral when I commit acts that are not too evil but very profitable. My second character than becomes a babyeating monster.
In my last Mass Effect playthrought I decided to be racist, nice towards humans and a huge jerkass towards aliens, especially Turians.

If the moral alignment is determined by actions, then generally I play good (stealing makes you evil, helping others makes you good, etc.). Otherwise, I'll play something randomly determined.

Heroic and Saintly. Given the option where my choices affect the game (Fallout 3) I tend to do it "nicely" but I always tend to get guilty (yeah, I know) when I'm bad so don't tend to do so well with it.

Yeah I was having a tough time about being a murderous "witch" in Fallout 3. It took me TWO HOURS to get out of Vault 101 in the beginning as I couldn't make up my mind about what to do.

Mostly good, although if the game gives me the option of having my own agenda I can be pretty evil. Not many games let you have your own agenda however.

I usually ignore the good/evil option and go for the most cash/bonus items/whatever other perks.

And usually that's the evil side.

I do whatever benefits me, so long as it isn't needlessly evil. So I guess I'm neutral.

Do to my opportunistic nature I would go with pragmatic. The dark side seen to reward me better.

Well I can only really recall two such games... KOTOR where I was, I guess goodish for most of it....until the ending there where I killed my friends and made a death fleet. ^_^U

And Fable where I played pretty much as the most evil "hero" ever, until I decided to try being good and donated vast amounts of money to bring me up to neutral. Then my disc became unreadable due to a 6 year old's boot. =P

I go with the best benefit, easiest to function way. Which usually ends up being good for me somehow. At least the last few games I played of such things(FO3, B&W2, KotOR and Fable) I ended up good. Yeah you get better rewards being evil usually, it causes conflict, I rather like being a snarky dick who appears good but rips people off and says nasty things behind their backs. You know, like real life.

Whatever leads to victory easiest.

Neutral good is my most common course of action.

I generally play through games making decisions that I would make if I were in that situation. So, mostly good, but I would have picked heroic and saintly if it wasn't for the fact that I loved stealing things in Oblivion. In Fallout 3 for instance I played it through with a character that was a fictional pseudo-me, even in appearance (almost... it was exaggerated and extrapolated quite a bit), which was fun. It's not quite the same in Oblivion, say, where even though I might do things as I would myself, I'm not actually a lizard.

After my first chap in Fallout 3 I tried to follow a more evil path with subsequent characters but quickly got bored with them, as the evil options were either unsatisfying or needlessly destructive (also, the game really has almost no replay value for me). For instance, blowing up Megaton: why?? You can sleep there, and there are traders and quests. Blowing the place up made no sense to me, regardless of whether my avatar enjoyed breaking peoples' legs with a baseball bat and following them as they hobbled in vain to escape.

Mostly evil. Too bad there are just a handful of games where being evil actually pays off. Planescape: Torment is the probably the best one of them

For instance, blowing up Megaton: why?? You can sleep there, and there are traders and quests. Blowing the place up made no sense to me, regardless of whether my avatar enjoyed breaking peoples' legs with a baseball bat and following them as they hobbled in vain to escape.
Why not? You can sleep in Tenpenny Tower, Moira survives the explosion and you can still complete The Wasteland Survival Guide and Blood Ties quests after blowing up Megaton. The only things you'll miss are Jericho and the STR bobblehead

It's still a horrible quest. Save Megaton -> Get a house. Destroy Megaton -> Get a house. Yup those are some deep choices & consequences you've got there Bethesda. And it feels like it's the only moral choice in the game, everything else after Megaton feels like an afterthought

Megaton is a lot more convienient and doesn't have a pack of murderous ghouls waiting to take over.

I'll typically take the most neutral side (or at least the strongest or best suited neutral) and empower myself however I can for my own benefit but while doing whatever I can to keep out of the overall conflict as much as possible. I suppose you could call that more pragmatic, but either way, I tend to enjoy taking relatively obscure sides that are neutral and making power houses out of them, and then once powerful enough, crushing all sides of the greater conflict.

When offered a reward for rescuing a child, he says, "no reward is necessary, m'am."
This, except I've already burglarized her house and stolen everything not nailed down.

If a game is good I will typically do at least 4 run throughs, not really in any order. A "neutral-evil" everything I do is to advance myself, accumulating wealth and power. A "lawful-good" do everything by the book, even if the book is a harsh mutha that means little timmy must starve because his dad associated with goblins. A "chaotic-good", book goes out the window everything is done to help innocents and whatnot. A lawful or chaotic evil, the former by systematically and thoroughly taking control of everything through devious plotting; the latter by burning the world and dancing on the ashes.

I'm always evil. Usually I"m chaotic evil unless there is some benefit to being lawful.

In Fallout 3, I always tend to gravitate to a high karma level. Which results in the Talon Company comming after me :run:. But the Talon Company are itty bitty men, who sends babies to fight me?

The first time, always pragmatic. I try to play like an unfettered version of myself.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfettered

A first run through I do what I would personally do if I was in that situation. A second run I'd be the most evil bastard I could be. :evil:

And if I still have enough interest, I'll be a good guy. :D

I'd put "saintly" except for the fact that if the circumstances are right, I won't hesitate to pull a Victor Cachat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Cachat) maneuver (i.e. back-stab my entire government if I feel it's becoming too evil or corrupt, wipe out my entire unit if they order me to kill civillians, etc) if I'm sure that it will be for the greater good... (I can be quite ruthless, if needed, but again, only if its for the greater good, not my own personal ambition or vengeance).

One example is in Arcanum, my half-elf technologist chick (yeah, she was REAL popular with her father's people, let me tell you. :lol: ) and I decided to join the Sherrif "Doc" in gunning down the Bandit gang (which had the nice side effect of boosting my good rating and reputation), then dynamiting the thugs blocking the way out of town when I finally decided to leave, because the parasites deserved it.

EDIT: That and the fact that I'm not bashful about taking reward money (but not if it's all that the people have) or goods/services in exchange for dispatching the villians... Yes, I'm a hero, but I have bills (ammunition, weapon and equipment upgrades and/or repair, etc) to take care of too, and if I neglect that little practicality, then I won't be able to smite the badguys for very long.

One of the best examples of how I play such games would be the Anime character Bolt Crank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eat-Man#About_Bolt_Crank)... I.e. a cynical SOB with a heart of Gold (probably explains why Cid Highwind of Final Fantasy VII is my favorite RPG character of all time).

Neat link there, I tried playing Arcanum but the game freezes during the combat in the bank in the first village EVERY TIME! (Yeah it is fully patched with all the community stuff in an ultimate edition).

I like your style, I do that too although more often than not it is forced by the game (I can't actually really think of a game in which that is possible to pull without being forced to do it anyways except some RPGs). Although I am also looking out for my personal collection and benefit as well.

I tend to play mostly good. In DnD terms, I'd say either chaotic good or neutral good.

I'm hoping that Dragon Age with its supposed moral ambiguity throws up situations where you really have to consider which path to take, rather than good/neutral/bad for every event where you simply go 'I'm a good guy so let's choose to be nice all the time'. For instance the review I read said that (beware possible spoilers):

At one point you're challenged over whether to help set up a Chantry in the city of Orzammar - among a race who believe in a completely different, completely incompatible religion. But what if the Chantry might offer help to the casteless? What then? At the same time you're drawn into the dirty politics of which of two deadlocked candidates should be the new king, alongside exploring the Darkspawn-infested abandoned mines and townships deeper into the mountain. And that's less than half of what happens here. The ending, which is different depending upon how you've played, manages to deliver on the anticipation built up, surprising you with new twists, and creating an appropriate sense of scale.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=226557

I havn't played The Pitt DLC for Fallout 3 yet, but my roommate did and quite enjoyed it as there was no decision that was truly good or bad, it was all morally grey and probably going to hurt someone.

Once my skin changes color and my eyes are red, I am happy.

Pragmatic; I use Fallout 2 as a good example of how I will help the people in need but also kill the bad guys (which in itself is still bad if they is no real reason to kill them other than for $$$) for the money usually, in New Reno I always massacre the crime families.

All of them. I like experiencing the game from different perspectives.

In first playthrough I am usually good with a few dick moves thrown in. after that I am usually evil.

I really have a LOT of a hard time not to be good in some way. The "worse" I can attempt is the "neutral but decent" guy.
Though I rarely play the saint.

Chaotic Neutral.

I'm usually good to the extent that I end up impoverishing myself, though I come out wealthy in the end because of it (usually)

After I beat the game like that, I play a second game being as maliciously, sadistically evil I possibly can. By that time I'm usually done with it.

I intentionally RP as what I think the character would do... so it varies from game to game. But I find myself playing Neutral characters more often than not. This doesn't seem to be intentional on my part, but it might be subconscious.