In games with moral alignment, who do you play as?

How does your main character behave?

  • Heroic and saintly

    Votes: 10 13.7%
  • Mostly good

    Votes: 23 31.5%
  • Intentionally neutral/unaligned

    Votes: 4 5.5%
  • Pragmatic

    Votes: 21 28.8%
  • Mostly evil

    Votes: 5 6.8%
  • Evilest bastard that ever lived

    Votes: 10 13.7%

  • Total voters
    73
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.
 
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?
 
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 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... 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'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):

Spoiler :
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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