More moral ambiguity in Chapter 3

[JohnnyB]

I would like to put forth the suggestion of adding more moral ambiguity in the outcoming Chapter 3 of the quest mod. I believe most of the Fallout 4 fanbase collectively believe this is an area that was found to be lacking in the base game and it only makes sense for the best mod in Fallout 4 to at least make an attempt to rectify the situation.

There are many ways adding more moral ambiguity could be accomplished by allowing the player to influence for good or ill the direction the future fledgling civilization starts to take but to start I would like to focus on the character of Jake Evans. When I first met Jake, it struck me that his character seemed a little "too nice". I thought perhaps at any moment he was going to show his bad side and while I haven't yet completely finished chapter 2 it seems his only moral grey area is that he started building with ASAMs more to find his daughter than to help people out complete selflessness... which is less of a grey area and more of a super-dad.

What if Jake's wife really left because Jake struck her or even because he got angry and slapped his daughter when he got drunk and felt despondent over the turn his old settlement took for the worse. This is part of what make "The Bloody Baron" quest in Witcher 3 a fan favorite, you have a charismatic and likeable character, who loves his family but is also a wife beater.

Or we could go a different direction... Perhaps in Chapter 3 the Commonwealth is finally preparing for open public elections but Jake responds to the player with "No Slick, I couldn't allow that to happen. Not when you are doing such a good job". Or even turn up the evil a notch... "No Slick, I couldn't allow that happen. Not when you are doing such a good job of preparing for my plans".

Or what if the person elected isn't human and Jake refuses to accept a non-human as leader of the commonwealth due to a tragedy in his childhood revolving around non-humans. Racism and relations with non-humans are a reoccurring theme in Fallout.

What if you and Jake are forced to remove a peaceful independent settlement for the good of a united Commonweath. What if no matter what the player decides, Jake destroys the settlement.

What if Jake executes dangerous but unarmed prisoners instead of building a jail and being forced to spend the resources to hold them for the rest of their lives.

Anyway, these are just some of the ideas that ran through my head that I thought I would share. The point is to foster moral ambiguity into the settlement building system. Because at its core building a civilization out of the post-apocalyptic chaos is classically seen as a clear unambiguously virtuous act. However, civilization building should be messy and the best Fallout quests are usually morally questionable.

 

[Sirick]

Chapter 3 is mostly written at this point, so won't be late editions to plot. However, I think you'll be happy with what's in store and what we may have planned for the future...

 

[JohnnyB]

Chapter 3 is mostly written at this point, so won't be late editions to plot. However, I think you'll be happy with what's in store and what we may have planned for the future...

Ah I figured the larger plot points had already been settled on. I do look forward to playing it. The dialog in Sim Settlments 2 comes across as being much more seamless and polished than when compared to the average Fallout 4 mod. I just always wanted to see Jakes darker side. All humans have a darker side, to varying degrees. A character's moral dark side doesn't have to be cartoonishly evil or dramatic to be realistic.

 

[SarahAda]

According to Kinggath on his recent live stream, most of the implementation is done, and the pending release of the Fallout 4 next gen update has permitted the team to take some well deserved time to enjoy the holidays and permit additional testing.

but Sirick would know for sure, as the head writer, so pretty much the only person who can definitionally say if something is in or out of the script.

 

[Vylmort]

This sounds more like a game on its own and I wonder if the engine can even handle it , if you have to program all possible outcomes :D . Let see what Chapter 3 brings us. And yeah.. not sure if Jake is to be trusted... hidden agenda's are from all times.

 

[Antoine Soverie]

I'm hoping there's at least some tension and tough choices. And if Jake isn't the one to hold executions, then it's either Aiden or me. Ahem, the player character. Then if it comes to building a new government, maybe we could insist on making exclusive decisions, or be mostly a figurehead, or leave it to someone else entirely. One person who we consider a good leader, a future dictator, a parliament or a directorate of sorts. Any of that would hopefully make someone happy and someone not.
I wouldnt hold my breath cause I imagine that stuff takes forever to make and even more forever to think of more variables and have them impact... something you see. Like for example start a project to make Commonwealth green, that would require grass and trees showing up everywhere at this exact point, and games (and mods) rarely ever do that. Or even start a new major faction, people would know about it and talk about it, right? That would need a ton of random dialogue everywhere.
We do get a lot of choice already, some of it with moral ambiguity, some with consequences - you can kill or spare the gunners in Concord, the gunners invading vault 81, some in GNN, I think you can kill Wise (though who would do that), you can let Berman live, you can turn HQ work into slavery unpaid internship with overwork. You can reject some of the unique settlers. We can more or less make faction settlements with mayors affecting the kind of security they'll get (CoA, BoS, Railroad, Institute..)