Mike Montgomery

I finished GF1 with all 3 types on torment. A Melee Guardian on torment is doable, especially since you can find some help for magic skills really early on. I recall playing my Guardian with the Agent cloak. Getting that 100 energy for haste is a real turning point, because what a Melee Guardian needs most of all is action points. In some cases with tough melee enemies, the best melee strategy is strike, then back up 7 AP. The enemies run to melee range, but don't have enough AP left to strike. I think agent was the easiest character at the end, because greater daze was just broken. It never failed, even on the strongest of enemies. So as long as your energy/essence held out, you could attack, daze, attack, daze, etc., and the enemy never gets a chance to hit at all.

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: ...Alwan can eventually get a lot of hit points, but he never gets parry or raises his resistance with items. My game with him was as a melee Guardian without creations. I figured we'd be a good team, two of a kind; but he was constantly getting blown away by attacks that just singed me... I kept Alwan alive most of the time as an Agent. Essence Armor and/or Steelskin do wonders for his survivability. Also, after he takes 80% damage or so, I just pull him back if I don't feel like healing him right then, because I can usually spend the time doing far more damage than he does. Sometimes the enemies will chase the injured Alwan, running right past me, using all their action points and not getting off a shot, and I can finish them off. In late game, I felt he was often worth the essence needed to protect him and keep him alive. With some magic resistant enemies, sometimes my best recourse was to spend my energies healing Alwan, so that he could do melee damage that was often double what I could do with magic. Greta is always useful. There is no need to justify a decision to keep Greta. Alwan is more borderline as to whether he is useful, which is why I was detailing how I make Alwan useful. Unfortunately, you don't get to keep Greta as a loyalist, so you have to figure out how to best use Alwan.

Quote: Originally written by Retlaw May: Right now I'm on the second island with my no canister loyalist and he has some trouble with the vlish because they act before him and the one hit and then poison kill him. A question I have for you is how did you get your action points so high? For the action points, make the Crystal Shroud or Emerald Chestguard as early as you can for +2AP. The Crystal Shroud can be made pretty early. Later, make the Lightning Girdle for +1 AP. As for the vlish acting first, the trick is to stay in combat mode for tough areas. I don't know exactly where you are in the game, but if you have used speed, you will have 12 action points. Otherwise, you have to make do with 8. Always stay unencumbered; come back and pick up things after you have cleared the area. Staying in battle mode also makes your protection and war blessing spells last longer, which you should always have on all your characters. If you spot an enemy, back up until the enemy is just out of sight range, then end your movement. Make sure that your other characters are also just out of range. The when a new turn starts, you will get the first action before the enemy can do anything. Also, make sure you don't move your last movement point or two. If you exhaust your movement, your last point or two might put you in range of an enemy, with no action points left to back off. I like using acid attacks with Vlish, since they tend to run when injured, and if you pursue them, you often run into other Vlish who have been summoned by the injured creature. If the Vlish was hit hard with acid, you don't need to pursue. A turn or two later, you will usually be notified of the experience gain from the dead Vlish. I invested nothing in quick action, and had no problem use the combat mode tactic. I do not recommend spending a single point in QA unless you are using melee combat, where QA can sometimes give you a free second melee attack.

I did some experiments, and Greta's damage seems to be improved by strength. This is counterintuitive for this kind of attack, but I guess it makes it consistant. I liked having both from a combat viewpoint. Even when Alwan is just sucking up some damage and running away, at least that damage was not done to my character, and I can heal him easily later. Late game, he gets over 500 hit points, which can be boosted by magic. So he can really take a lot of damage that might otherwise get to your agent. As a shaper, where you can make your own cannon fodder, perhaps Alwan is not so useful. Still, he does not take up any of your essence, and is a minimal experience drain. As for dialog, both are annoying at times. I can't believe Greta is so facinated with a generator that produces very powerful out-of-control rogues. Given all that we have seen, I can't believe Alwan does not see that a little bit of kindness and gentleness can go a long way toward defusing tensions, thinks that a stricter policy is needed, and rebukes me for stating otherwise. They are both nutcases in their own ways.

Quote: Originally written by Nick Ringer: Did you ever consider charging up armor that you intend to sell? It's a total loss of coinage, but hey. A few less times getting acid lanced to death is worth using some common powerup. I charged up several things I ended up selling, just not usually with golden crystals. With several pieces I used orbs of mist, which supposedly made you harder to hit. Hard to know if that helped or not.

Thanks for your feedback, Delicious Vlish. I'm still not sure if I should have put less in leadership (how much leadership is needed for various favorable options), endurance, parry, or luck. I feel like I had enough intelligence. For tough areas, I could spend 140 essence buffing with Essence Armor, Steel Skin, and Augmentation, giving my agent exactly 500 hit points, and a lot of resistance to damage, and still have 450 essense left for mass energize, protection, and lots of damage and healing. So if I had backed off on one of those areas, I would have put the points either in spellcraft or one of the specific Magic Skills area. My agent had 11 AP not hasted, and 16 Hasted. That one extra action point was useful to either step around a corner to attack, or to back off one space from attackers so that I did not default to a melee attack. With the 15 spellcraft, all of my magic skills were effectively at level 23-24. I could have raised this maybe 3 more levels across the board, or raise one particular skill 6-7 levels. With GF1 and GF2, Greater Daze made almost any situation trivial, with enough energy and essence. At a much lower mental magic level than 24, Greater Daze would affect everything around with 100% effectiveness. With GF3, Greater Daze was much less effective. It was still a useful tool, but not reliable enough for cheap tactics like attack, attack, daze; attack, attack, daze; repeat until dead, where the enemy never even got a chance to hit back. Removing the over-powerful nature of the Greater Daze in GF3 made it much more tacticly challenge, and more interesting. I wonder if another 6 points in mental magic (30 total) would have restored Greater Daze to the 100% effectiveness of GF1/GF2? If so, it would be undoubtably a great investment of skill points. But even so, I liked the greater tactical challege of not having an overly powerful greater daze. I would still like to hear from Retlaw May as to what the specific difficulty was with the no canister agent. I am wondering if it is near the beginning of the game, at the Lair of the Creator? This area was the toughest for me to complete with my added contraint not to use pods/spores/crytals. I found that with speed spores and 6 icy crystals, I could win. I could not win with less. But you can bypass the whole battle with 10 leadership. So that is what I did. Which is why I might have ended up with more leadership than I really needed.

I played a no-canister loyalist Agent on Torment on G3, and it was not so bad. I did allow the two people to alter me, but I don't perceive this as having the same dehumanizing effect as canisters. To increase the challenge, I played this without using any pods, spores, crystals, gems, etc. I was tempted a few times to use essence pods just to avoid taking the time to go back to a safe area when low on essence, but I wanted to stick to the challege. Using some pods and gems could make some of the toughest areas much easier. As an agent, the only spell you don't get is Battle Roar. Not such a great loss. You lose a few extra points on some abilities as well, but again, not a major loss, as long as you careful hoard and allocate your skill point. For example, I delayed increasing spellcraft until I could train two points first. This made the first part of the game a bit harder, but saved a lot of skill points. Also, you don't need any skill points in Healing Craft if you are just a bit patient. And you can still finish the game with 8 healing craft, more than enough for all abilities. I put no skill points in Strength, Dexterity, Melee, Missile, QA, or any kind of Shaping. My most questionable choices were a few points in Parry (after training two points of course) and Luck. I might have put too many points in Leadership and Endurance as well, I'm not sure. Fully equiped, my ending agent stats were: Level: 40 Experience: 39266 Health: 301 Essence: 590 Energy: 1369 Coins: 19994 (I had tons of stuff left over that I had not bothered selling, because there was nothing I needed to spend money on.) Armor: 121 Fire: 106 Cold: 109 Energy: 106 Stun: 158 Mental: 157 Poison: 109 Acid: 106 Strength: 9 Dexterity: 12 Intelligence: 19 Endurance: 11 Melee: 2 Missile: 4 Quick Action: 3 Parry: 8 Battle Magic: 9 Mental Magic: 9 Blessing Magic: 8 Spellcraft: 16 Fire Shaping: 0 Battle Shaping: 0 Magic Shaping: 1 Healing Craft: 8 Leadership: 14 Mechanics: 16 Luck: 8 When necessary, I could get 20 mechanics swapping out my gloves, necklace, and robe. (I could get to 21 by swapping my shield also, but an extra shield was too heavy to carry around, so practically speaking my max mechanics was 20.) What in particular did you consider the main loss of cability of going without canisters for an Agent? Perhaps I can help with some strategy ideas?

Quote: Originally written by The1Kobra: You can make a golden crystal ... though you get enough of them anyway, so it probably isn't worth it to make any. I had used golden crystals on every piece of equipment that could accept enhancements that I was wearing at the end of the game, and two items that I ended up selling, and still ended up with 2 extra golden crystals. As for the other enhancements, there were loads of extras of each of these. The ingredients are far more valuable that the resulting crystal. So I would not bother to make any golden crystals if I were you.

Quote: Originally written by MagmaDrakoon: [QB]Something like a logic-game: put all genes in correct order to obtain normal creation, or try to change genes positions for amazing effects! Maybe, you can still shape normally during travelling, but if you go in a shaper lab, with adeguate skills (here another function for shaping skills!)/equipment (resarch notes, shaping equipment or other) you can try to create something new! And if you make something good you can choice to "record" ... QB] I like this original suggestion. Like most mutations, a random mutation would with very high probability result in disability or death. But perhaps certain research notes could contain clues based on countless hours of research by others. And by obtaining sufficient clues and solving (like a logic puzzle) one could come up with a gene pattern with an enhanced ability of some kind. There could be several different advanced abilities to find. It could be like having clues from 6 different logic puzzles intermixed. First one would have to make sure of what puzzle each clue went with, and then when sufficient clues were obtained, solve the puzzle. The puzzles would have to be randomized at the beginning of any new game in some way, so that a spoiler would not be useful. For example, a gene pattern in one game might be: DDAABCD, for a different game CCBBDAC. (Each letter gets substititued for another in the pattern AND relevant clues.) Sounds like a lot of work for the designer, but sounds like a lot of fun, too!

I left them alone because I was playing a sympathetic loyalist.

Quote: Originally written by Dmknoiygba: ... Besides, if the rebels did go out of their way to prevent needless deaths and just killed the loyal Shapers, then the rebel path would be the justified and moral path to take, and there wouldn't be a good enough reason to side with the Loyalists. G3 would loose some of its replayability. Some people would be happier with a decent choice to take, but G3 really isn't that sort of game. It's a "Choose the lesser of two evils" game. I resumed G3 and finished a game as a Loyalist. Even if the rebel path had prevented needless deaths of innocents, there would definitely be moral conflict. I get the impression as a rebel there is no option to destroy the Geneforge, and the Geneforge we saw from the previous two installments is an utterly dehumanizing device. The rebels also manufacture and use canisters, which have a more gradual dehumanizing effect. So there would still be plenty of moral conflict, if this is what is desired. Does anyone know for sure as a rebel if one gets the option to destroy the Geneforge?

Quote: Originally written by Axem Ranger Six: I really don't remember dialogs talking about lots of servile deaths. ... Were there any dialogs that stuck in your mind, maybe, that you can point me to? I remember when I talked to some gatherers on the first island, in the area where the gatherer is that complains about how Lankin stole her notes on the best gathering points. This has been awhile back, but I recall them talking about how many of them were killed by rogues. And even now, they had to risk their lives to continue gathering or starve, and gatherers were being killed in the attempt. There are other dialogs where you find groups of serviles cut off and starving, and they talk about how they were all that were left of their group, that the rest were killed by the rogues. Even those serviles and gathers the rogues don't kill directly, if you were not there to intervene, you get the impression that they would gradually starve to death. Sorry I don't recall the dialogs exactly. Maybe sometime I will start a new game and journal these dialogs.

Quote: Originally written by Come On Pilgrim: Track 4: The spawners, I'd like to point out, don't just kill serviles, or even many of them. The spawners on Dhonal's Isle, which are the ones that particularly annoyed Mike I think, those are malfunctioning and yet they seem to mostly take out loyalists. Various members of Greiner's army die, including at least one Shaper, whereas we only see a few servile corpses. The spawners kill anything, serviles or otherwise. The dialogs indicate a lot more servile deaths than the servile corpses you see. The reason for army casualties is that the army is trying to make the area safe again and protect the serviles. The army confronts the rogues, while the serviles run and hide. Look at what a rebel victory means using these tactics: the shaper army is defeated by the rogues, and the rogues rampage everywhere. I get the impression on the mainland that the rogues are too plentiful, the army is too few, the rogues are destroying everything, and there is no place safe to hide. I am much happier with the rebel tactics used on Gull Island. Unhappy serviles are coordinated to take action together for their freedom. No rogue generators. Very quick victory, with minimal need to rebuild, since rogues were not destroying everything.

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: Hmm, I could certainly buy that Lankan found that he actually had a lot more to rebel over than just the latest batch of rogues. He could well argue that a jumped-up apprentice clearing out the spawners was a fluke, and that the unworthiness of the Shapers to rule remained proven. I don't remember the dialog exactly now, and the files are on another machine, but I think they must not have made these kinds of points explicitly, or even hinted at them, or I wouldn't have felt disappointed. Regardless of what Lankan thought of shaper rule in general, he owed it to his people to guide them home. They were starving out there, and for no real reason, since their original problem had been solved. Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: As to spawners being terrorist: how much do we actually see of their rogues killing serviles? I don't remember finding any big heaps of servile corpses around. Some servile casualties would of course be inevitable, since the Shapers surround themselves with serviles. And serviles are frightened of rogues, so the rogue incursions do traumatize them. But it never occurred to me that the Rebels' spawners were targeting serviles. I assumed that the serviles fled when rogues took over a zone. There were maybe a dozen dialogs talking about serviles being killed while trying to do their jobs, and the remaining serviles fleeing and hiding out, and starving to death. Several times you see groups of serviles hiding out on the brink of starvation that don't know how to get to safety. You see plenty of bodies laying around. Most zones have 4-6 bodies or skeletons. But I think these were mostly human fighters. As for serviles bodies, for the most part they are not shown I believe. Otherwise, most zones would be littered with bodies. The rogues kill indiscriminately. They do not spare serviles. Even those serviles who are not killed are often deprived of any means of getting food or making a living. Some of them risk death to try to gather anyway, and many get killed in the attempt. This is what the dialogs say, anyway. If some people set up hidden generators that spawn monstors of this sort near your town, would you consider it anything short of terrorism? Even if the police and army tried to protect, there would still be a lot of civilian casualties. And if the problem were widespread as it indicated on G3, armed civilians (militia) would need to help, since the police and army would be spread too thin.

Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: ...On the other hand, what is so wrong with the Rebel means? They make spawners to attack Shaper settlements, but Shaper settlements do seem to support the Shaper regime fairly directly. What should they be doing instead? The problem with the spawners is that the rogues spawned are mindless engines of destruction that attack indiscriminately. Supposedly the rebels are trying to liberate the serviles. Guess who bears the majority of the damage from the spawners? Serviles. A random group of rogues is no threat to a shaper, but can kill serviles and humans. This is why I said the spawners were a form of terrorism. Instead of directly attacking enemy forces or leaders, both methods focus on killing innocent non-combatants. As for what to do instead. Diplomacy is a useful tool, as well as propoganda. Publish about the gross mistreatment of serviles. This is how many countries got animal rights laws in place, to deal with abuse. Appeal to the better nature of the shapers, like India did with Great Britian. Then assess. Are many shapers sympathetic with the servile plight? Are there some hard liners in power that are keeping down the more moderate voice? Use agents or small tactical teams to eliminate the hard-liners. If you are finding the shapers as a whole are not sympathetic, then war may be the only means of change, but focus the war on the leaders and combat forces of the shapers, and don't let the helpless serviles take the brunt of it.

There are some plot and dialog options that do not make any sense to me in G3. I think Lankan is the worst case, though there are several others. 1. Why is Lankan unaffected by the knowledge that Litalia was the actual source of the problems he was so angry that Diwaniya could not fix. Why did this not make him angry with Litalia? I can see that her charisma might have won him over while she was there. But afterwards, I would think him furious to be her dupe after he finds out that she was the source of all his problems. Instead, he is still enamored with her. This makes no sense. 2. After you have killed the generators and cleared the island of all rogues, why is Lankan still so insistant on getting the canaster? All of his original grievances have been answered. The island is now safe. There is no reason for his people not to go back to their homes. He has already been told he will only receive a light punishment from Diwaniya, maybe one month imprisonment. There should be an option, at least with high leadership, to persuade him to think of his people, and do the right thing by them and send them home. I realize that he might be power hungry and that is why he did not turn on Litalia. You should also have the option to tell him that you have examined the canaster, and that something did not seem right about it. It looked dangerous to you. Can he really trust a "gift" from the person who caused all of these problems to begin with? As for other plot and dialog options: Why don't you ever get a chance to tell rebels that you admire their cause, but you hate their methods? You get plenty of options to denounce shaper actions, but you do not once get a chance to denounce rebel actions. I can't believe for one second that Jeff did not realize the moral conflict he set up with the outrageous rebel tactics, but he never gives any dialog options to express your outrage. You only get to be outraged that they dared rebel against the shapers, not that they use such attrocities as rogue generators. I especially wanted to discuss this with Learned Darian. She seemed like a reasonable person. Was she not outraged with the rogue generators that were killing fellow serviles indiscriminately? And what's with Greta? I can see her facination with the power of the Creator, but doesn't she have any disgust with something designed to intentionally create powerful out-of-control rogues??? And her reason for leaving, that we are helping the shaper cause too much? I have personally expressed pro-servile viewpoints at every opportunity. (But I also agree with disposing of rogues.) We have not done anything explictly to help the shapers at this point. All we have done is protect innocents, mostly serviles, from the ravages of rogues. Does she have a problem with that???

To me, the key moral conflict in G3 is: 1. Is the cause just? I believe the rebel cause is just, based on the harst and uncaring treatment of serviles and other creatures by some shapers. The shapers need to adopt a code of ethics for how they treat their creations, and not just a code to protect their knowledge. 2. Are the means to push forward your cause moral? The rebel cause fails here. If the means being used to promote your cause is mass destruction and terrorism, uncaring of how many innocents are killed in your scheme, it is immoral. The ends do not justify the means. Your cause might be just, but it is undermined by these immoral means. Certainly, individuals may have problems, but the issue is what is being promoted. In some cases, the leaders encourage their soldiers to kill, rape, and pillage innocents, or are indifferent. In other cases, the leaders order their soldiers to avoid non-combatant casualties, and have laws so that soldiers who hurt or kill non-combatants can be prosecuted.

The Geneforge series has 3 classes available, but the logic of the system makes 6 possible class combinations possible, as follows: Class: Strong/Normal/Weak Current Guardian: Combat/Shaping/Magic Agent: Magic/Combat/Shaping Shaper: Shaping/Magic/Combat Proposed Champion: Combat/Magic/Shaping Infiltrator: Magic/Shaping/Combat Constructor: Shaping/Combat/Magic In this scheme, the Champion could have the same health/energy/essence as the Guardian, or it could be rebalanced to trade off slightly reduced health for additional energy. Similarly, the Inflitrator could match the Agent, or it could have slightly reduced health for slightly increased essence. Finally, the Construtor could match the Shaper, or it could have slight reduced energy for slightly increased health. I don't pretend to be good at naming, and I hope that someone else can suggest better names for the three proposed classes. But I needed some names for the purpose of discussion. The Champion would be a good fit for strategies where combat is relied upon, and shaping is rarely if ever used. The Infiltrator would be a good fit for stratagies where the Infiltrator accompanies and supports her creations. The Constructor would be a good fit for missile shapers, or other combat oriented shapers. Other new strategies would certainly be developed by creative players for these new character types. I have not seen the code for Geneforge, but it seems likely that these 3 new classes could be added by mostly reusing code from the 3 original classes, so it would not double the class coding effort. (I am not trying to minimize the effort here, I am just pointing out that these 3 new classes are completely within the spirt of the 3 current classes, so I don't think totally new code is needed, compared to classes of a completely different nature than the current classes.) This would be a great addition for G4, but would also be a very welcome retrofit for G1-G3. It would greatly enhance the replay value of these games. I would be willing to pay a few dollars per game for patchs to the Geneforge series that added these new classes to try out. Jeff has to feed his family, and depending upon the effort, he may not be able to do this kind of improvement for free. Would anyone else find these new classes of sufficient interest to pay a few dollars for G1-G3 patches that make these classes available?

This is a direct paste from the published article. The author gives explicit permission to repost, but I am not sure if this board allows such posting. If not, please delete this thread with my apologies. As I read this article today, I thought it echoed so much the discussion of morality in G3, that I thought others would enjoy it, whether they agree with the perspective or not. Remaking Man in Our Own Image: C.S. Lewis' Conditioners and the World of X-Men 3: The Last Stand By Dr. Marc T. Newman C. S. Lewis argued in The Abolition of Man that humans, unmoored from the restraint occasioned by fidelity to a transcendent moral order, would create a world of their own choosing. Humans think that by doing so they will be free to make of themselves what they will, but Lewis disagreed, noting "For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please." The men in charge of such a program Lewis called "the Conditioners" – and they are making a spectacular appearance this weekend at your local theater in X-Men 3: The Last Stand (rated PG-13). Memorial Day weekend has become the kickoff point for summer popcorn flicks, and in that area X-Men 3 does not disappoint. Summer films are dominated by action, and X-Men 3 has enough spandex-garbed mutant superheroes, battles to the death, explosions, gunfire, and other visual eye-candy to satisfy the adolescent male in many of us. And while X-Men 3 is the weakest in the series (blame the exit of director Bryan Singer, who left the franchise he built to direct Superman Returns), amidst the mayhem it still raises significant questions about the making of moral decisions in a culture that has abandoned God, the threat of Conditioners to remake humans in their own image, and the need to reassert a transcendent vision of humanity if we are ever to survive the technologizing of the West. No Superhuman Authority X-Men 3 frames the dilemma that pervades the film in an early scene. Professor Xavier, who runs the School for Gifted Children – a kind of Mutant U – is conducting a discussion about ethics in which he challenges his charges to try to determine where is the line between a responsible use of their power and tyranny over those who are weaker than they. In response, one of the students paraphrases this quotation from Albert Einstein: "I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it." Cloudy ethics pervade X-Men 3. The line between what constitutes help and what constitutes unethical control is blurry – at times even causing the audience to question the motives of Professor Xavier regarding his intrusion into the mind of Jean Grey – the world's most powerful mutant. Can good intentions override lack of consent if the goal is to help someone gain self-control? Is Magneto, portrayed in the earlier two films as the head villain, wrong to want to protect himself, and the other rebel mutants, from being medically altered to suit the needs of the government? The ambivalence felt by the audience during the film stems from this major premise: in a world that rejects any kind of transcendent morality as binding on its decision making, how do we determine right from wrong? Twist the circumstances enough and even appalling behavior can be made to look, if not right, at least understandable. But it was Nietzsche, not Einstein, who best understood how determinations of right and wrong are to be made in a culture that has killed God: through the will to power. Can Do versus Should Do The problems faced in the fantasy world of X-Men 3 are merely our own problems writ large. While Professor Xavier is wrestling with the philosophical and theological question of whether the mutants should do certain things, over at Worthington Laboratories scientists are simply determining whether or not they can do what they want – which is to genetically modify mutants to neutralize their special abilities. What begins as a voluntary offer to "cure" the mutants so that they will "fit in" with the rest of the culture, quickly escalates to a forceful, mandatory kind of ethnic cleansing. Thomas De Zengotita, in his book, Mediated, argues that through genetic engineering we are in the process of "literal self-making." He sees this as the ultimate rejection of God as we make of ourselves what we want to be, rather than what Nature (or God) intended us to be. But remember Lewis – this power actually amounts to the power of the Conditioners to mold others into the kinds of humans desired by the Conditioners. So what De Zengotita enthusiastically praises as self-liberation is instead the worst type of tyranny. Recognizing this drift, Peter Lawler, in Aliens in America, explains that we are already well on the way to this world that X-Men 3 describes as located "not too far in the future." By welcoming a pragmatic view of philosophy – one that views "the good" as "what works" – we are moving toward a culture in which the highest goal is comfort. Since the most uncomfortable ideas are that we will all someday die, and that we will be accountable to God for our actions, these ideas need to be eliminated from the human psyche. Lawler explains "The pragmatist hopes, for love or charity, to free human beings from any residual longings they may have for the truth about God and nature. The pragmatist will help them forget about eternity – and so any form of immortality – for their own good." Lawler notes that while philosophers may fail to produce the desired results, pharmacology may not. It won't be that medical technology will exterminate death; it will simply be used to render people incapable of caring about it. Once we no longer care about death or judgment, what will stop the Conditioners among us from finishing the job and altering or eliminating those "undesirables" who make these elites uncomfortable by their very existence? Reasserting the Transcendent Vision of Humanity While X-Men 3 struggles with these ideas, it is so committed to its evolutionary sense of destiny that it is unable to see that any happy ending it hopes to move toward is more of a happy accident than a result of a reinvigorated commitment to transcendent truth. In actuality, the apparent morality of the X-Men is nothing more than the result of winning a contested power struggle. It is the case of the winner writing history. After cheering at the successes of the "good mutants" over the "bad mutants" – these lines are tough to draw when the good mutants are fighting to save the technological source of their own impending destruction – we need to pause. As they walk from the theater, filmgoers should hearken back to Professor Xavier's initial ethics discussion and the student's response. What kind of ethical world can we live in if we are unwilling or unable to recognize any superhuman authority? Christians should know the answer to that question. The human story is one of constant struggle against the rule of God – it is the story of sin. Christians can also explain the way out. No amount of technology or wishful thinking will eliminate the facts of death and judgment. The only true comfort humans can ever find is through acknowledging their status as creatures, accepting the redemption provided by their Creator, and renewing their proper relationship with Him so that they might be completely fulfilled as He intended.

Quote: Originally written by chibi kaie: ...So, at the very least, at the beginning of the game, he's never seen an example of an insubordinate servile, and sees plenty of serviles who act just as he's been taught they should--they're happy to serve, and distressed when without shaper control. He's been taught that they are not really people. He might later change his mind, but in all likelihood, he doesn't think like we do in our world. He thinks like shapers do in the shapers' world. Yes, I have been thinking along the same lines. The closest I can think of is robots, some of which exist today with limited conversational capability. If one of those told me that it wanted freedom, and there were lots more of its kind that wanted freedom, I don't know what I would do after changing my underwear . But I don't think that I would shoot first and not bother with questions, as the shapers tend to do. I would probably think at first it was a practical joke set up by a friend. Once I determined it was a real request, I think I would be equal parts fascinated and horrified, but in any case, I would want to talk to it and understand it. Not just command it to shut up and get back to work. And I think that this thinking would apply even stronger if it were an organic creation instead of mechanical. On another topic, is there a way to continue on the rebel path while skipping the task to repair the rogue generator? If not, I don't think there is an acceptable path on the rebel side of G3. Assisting with rogue generation is akin to terrorism, it is too much of an atrocity to even consider. Finally, thanks Jeff, for the reassurance that G4 will have one or more acceptable paths!

Quote: Originally written by NotSoFriendlySpiderking: I REALLY hate to tell you this, but there can't be an unalligned. You're a warrior in a war, pick one side or the other. If not you get killed. Actually, in GF3, you are not a warrior in a war. You are a free agent. You SHOULD be able to tell the rebel leadership that you believe in their cause, and want to throw in with them, but there is no way that you are going to help them create rogues. Furthermore, these dishonorable tactics are keeping many on the sidelines that would otherwise join their cause, and are doing the rebels a lot more harm than good. Then if they don't buy it, you go your own way. If the rebels want to waste their resources trying to kill someone who is not fighting against them, then they are just hurting themselves. Quote: Originally written by NotSoFriendlySpiderking: What's more there is often a situation where you have to choose the lesser of two evils. A less common one could be let this maniac free, or kill him? I don't quite catch the lesser of evils here. Killing a maniac that would otherwise kill innocent people is a virtuous act. Quote: Originally written by NotSoFriendlySpiderking: Oh and your answer for the big city/family thing is moronic at best. Your choice: get killed and he'll blow both bombs. My choice: Save the family and friends. You should actually face life and think about consequences and what will happen. Idiot. (Don't take this the wrong way, it's just you seemed extremly foolish.) You should think things through as well. This is a mind game. The maniac could have already killed everyone, and still can, regardless of what do you do. Do you trust a maniac who has kidnapped you and set this up to tell you the truth? What if the switch settings are the reverse of what he said. What if either direction kills both groups? What if after you turn the switch, he raises the stakes to avoid setting off the other bomb? How far do you go? You have just as good a chance to save everyone by doing nothing as by turning the switch. Maybe better. Maybe for the maniac this is just a test, and if you refuse to turn the switch, he lets everyone go. You don't know. Maybe your action of turning the switch kills everyone, including your friends and family, and doing nothing saves everyone. A lot of evil in this world come from people intimidated or blackmailed into doing someone else's dirty work. Let's take the example down a notch. Someone kidnaps your child. To get her back, the kidnapper says you must assassinate someone. The kidnapper provides all of the logistics, and it looks like a clean setup with little chance of being caught. Do you let yourself be intimidated into performing the assassination? If you would turn the switch to kill thousands of innocents in a city, it sounds like you would. Then you find out that the kidnapper gathered evidence implicating you in the assassination. He then demands further services from you. Where does it stop? If you think it through, the only sane choice is to not play his game, and try to retrieve your daughter some other way. Perhaps now my reasoning does not quite seem so foolish?

Quote: Originally written by Spidweb: ... Clearly, you do not want to spend time in the world as I philosophically see it. I can understand that. And I don't think Geneforge 4 is going to be much to your liking either. But I am trying to do something different, something innovative with these games, and I know it isn't going to be to everyone's taste. The problem isn't you, it's me. :-) I don't want to be misunderstood here; I know that the real world is very complex, with many options. And for a game to more closely reflect the real world philosophically, it must include many options with varying morality. I respect this innovation of reflecting the subtle choices of a real life situation in an RPG. I don't mind how many immoral options are available as long as you create at least one path that does not require any morally dispicable choices. I found a morally acceptable path through G1 and G2, and with some help here, I think maybe there is a path through G3 as well. With G1, Awakened worked fine for me, except I had to destroy the Geneforge, and wished there was a way to avoid the negative consequences to the Awakened. With G2, Unaligned work fine for me, and I was fine with the ending. With G3, I think being a minimal Loyalist with strongly pro-servile leanings may work. I am going to try it and see. When I started this thread, I did not see any morally acceptable way to continue; now I see a possibility. With G4, I just want you to take care that the plot options include some moral path to follow, like you did with the unaligned option in G2. I don't mind if a moral path is far more difficult, or that it has consequences in terms of giving up power or training or equipment. Philosophically, I don't think the real world forces people to choose between immoral choices; they just may be unwilling to give up what it takes to make a moral choice. I also believe that there is a heirarchy of moral absolutes. For example, lying is immoral, but lying to save an innocent life is not. The higher value of saving the innocent prevails. Smuggling drugs is illegal. If an agent attempting to infiltrate a terrorist group intending to nuke a city has to smuggle drugs to establish contact, it is justifiable. But if I were put in a situation where a madman has set up two immoral choices and I were forced to choice, I would not. For example, suppose a madman had kidnapped 500 of my family and friends and put them in a room with a bomb. And he had planted another bomb in the center of a large city. Then he had wired a switch that would blow up one bomb or the other. Then he had kidnapped me and wanted me to turn the switch one direction or another to blow up one of the bombs, and told me that if I did not choose, he would blow up both bombs. I would not choose. I refuse to play his game. When it comes down to it, he controls both bombs. Who's to say what he will do. But if I throw the switch, I am taking an active role in murdering a group of people. Who's to say that if I hadn't chosen, he would have deactivated both bombs? If a RPG plot puts me in a similar situation, where I am forced to choose to take an active role performing one immoral activity or another immoral activity, I won't choose. I won't play this game. Nor do I think such a situation accurately reflects realistic choices, assuming this is the goal. I have lived 47 years, and I have never once been in a situation where all available options are immoral. Even in the highly contrived example above, you have the option to do nothing, to attempt to disarm the device, to try to kill the madman, etc. In real life, there are always options, even if the only honorable options results in personal negative consequences or even your death. Hopefully a realistic innovative RPG will respect this, and make sure that moral choices are always available, but perhaps some moral choices will carry a high cost.

Thanks for all of the good insights! When it comes down to it, I liked the rebel ideology, but hated their methods. I wanted to be a rebel, but I was barred from being one by the gross immorality of repairing the Creator. I destroyed the Creator, but this left me no way to progress as a rebel, and since I did not like the loyalist ideology, I stopped playing. It looks like I stopped too soon. The path MagmaDragoon and ThirdParty followed of being a minimal loyalist with pro-servile ideology could work for me. I think I will go back to my last G3 save and give it a go. Still, I hope Jeff picks up the main point of this thread: that there are some people who care about the morality of their RPG choices, and that he will take this into account in his future games, particularly Geneforge 4. For some people, the way they best enjoy an RPG game is to do whatever it takes to maximize the power of their characters. For me, I best enjoy an RPG game by making choices which maximize the heroism of my characters. If the RPG plotline choices restrict me into choosing between dispicable choices, I would rather not bother playing the game. Thanks again!

The issue is not whether you pick sides or not, but what options the game makes available in each case. I don't really see that the Exile/Avernum series had you pick sides. The majority of the quests were heroic, and even the worst quests were not overly objectionable (like smuggling drugs). And many quests you could just choose not to do if you did not like them. You did not really pick in Nethergate. It was like two separate roleplaying games in one, and you decided at the beginning which of the two games you would play. But regardless of which side you started, the quests were largely heroic. In G1, the Awakened were very reasonable, except in wanting you to use the Geneforge. The quests for the Awakened seemed moral to me. I would have prefered a G1 ending where the Awaken come out OK if you were aligned with them when you destroy the Geneforge. Because the Geneforge must be destroyed, regardless of the consequences to the Awakened. In G2, the Awakened had been perverted by their leadership, in my opinion. I would have liked an option to kill Tuldaric and have someone reasonable take over leadership of the Awakened. I played G2 unaligned and unmodified, and was happy enough with the ending. In neither G1 nor G2 did I feel the plot forced me to take on quests that were unethical. There was a path to walk; a more difficult path in G2 being unaligned, but a satisfying one. In G3, this does not seem to be the case. I just have not found a morally acceptable path in G3. Zeviz seems to share my delimma. MagmaDragoon indicated that he had made his own path. I will not repair devices which spawn rogues; in fact, I feel compelled to destroy any such device I find. Which seems to block the rebel path. But I don't want to help the shapers enslave or kill intelligent serviles either. At the risk of spoilers, does someone have a path through G3 that they can suggest that does not require immoral action?

In GF1 and GF2, to me the overriding moral goal was not the alignment with any particular faction, but the destruction of the Geneforge and any tainted by it. Any technology that grants so much power and simultaneously removes any kind of moral inhibitions against harming your fellow man is inherently evil. The question of which faction comes out on top pales in comparison with the necessity of destroying the Geneforge. As pointed out by Denos, though Awakened had some very good points, they did not understand the danger of the Geneforge. Still, they looked like the most salvageable faction. Destroy the Geneforge, kill Tuldaric, amd support the Awakened, and then you could have a pretty good outcome. As it was with the options available, I felt that playing an unaligned untainted character that destroyed the Geneforge was morally satisfying, even if the choices and endings were was not all that I wished would be available. Quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: Is it that you feel there are morally superior choices available within the G3 circumstances, which the game arbitrarily denies to you as options? This is a GREAT question! That is precisely how I feel. I want to take up the rebel cause, but I want to destroy the abominations that the rebels have created that indiscriminantly kill those who cause they supposedly represent. But if I destroy the abominations, I have "picked" the shaper side, and can no longer get rebel quests that I could do in good conscience. I like the idea of MagmaDragoon of "If you don't want to choose a path, make it yourself.", ignoring both groups and just killing rogues. But I don't see how to advance between islands without helping one group or the other. Nor do I see how to get to a satisfying ending. I want some options to help me be a catalyst for change rebels or shapers. I don't want to help either side achieve their goals because their goals are misguided. I want to be able to influence their goals. This may require a rebellion within a rebellion, where you are given a chance to assassinate the rebel leaders who want to create unrest at any cost, and replace them with rebel leaders who had disagreed with their previous leaders "win at any cost mentality", but had been silenced. I'm sure I can't be the only one who recoils in horror at the thought of deliberately creating rogues who kill innocents just to cause unrest. A surgical removal of the cancerous head of the rebels might be just what is needed to let more reasonable leaders take power. Quote: Originally written by Zeviz: ...As for the possible morally superior choices besides Awakened, what about Shaper-like group without the whole "lick my boots, slave" thing (magic has to be controlled, but that doesn't give us the right to treat people like slaves). And/or a rebel group that is more careful in its methods and whose goal was removal of shaper tyranny with as few casualties as possible... My thinking exactly! We are really on the same wavelength! Regardless of which side we help, we should also have the option to help steer it to a more moderate course if we like, as Zeviz suggests. Or perhaps help act as peacemakers which help steer both shapers and rebels to more moderate positions and then broker peace between them. So when we talk to rebels, we might have conversation options which agree with some of their goals, but deplore their means of achieving them. When we talk to shapers, we might have conservation options like what you find in Bicentennial Man, like "don't you think depriving freedom from any creature of sufficient intelligence to ask for freedom is wrong?" And instead of the game engine being confused about what side you are really on, it catches on that you are taking a neutral position, and instead tracks your influence by keeping track of how much each side is shifting toward center, until you get to the point where brokering peace is possible. This would be a very satisfying ending!