Key Principle
Players adopt a game's moral framework through moral disengagement (Bandura) — temporarily suspending real-world moral reasoning. The Three-Axes of Morality framework (Light/Darkness, Red/Green, Blueberries/Oranges) structures moral systems in games. Violence dominates games not because the medium demands it but because of two reinforcing designer habits: repetition and simplification. (Chapter 13)
Why This Matters
Without conscious moral design, games reproduce violence-as-default through a self-sustaining loop: repetition normalizes simplified templates, and simplification makes repetition easy. The moral axis chosen is not a flavor decision — it is a structural one that must match the game's purpose. A cooperation game sabotaged by Red/Green (rival factions) sends the wrong message. Designers who do not understand moral disengagement cannot control when immersion breaks or when reflection should be triggered.
Good Examples
- Light vs. Darkness for Family Tree: Cooperate against an external threat — aligns with the community message. Red/Green would frame players as rivals, contradicting purpose. (Chapter 13)
- Blueberries/Oranges axis: Moral code beyond human comprehension — used for alien gods, eldritch entities. Narrative power comes from comprehensible agents reinterpreting the incomprehensible through their own lens. (Chapter 13)
- Deliberate disbelief-breaking: Designers can intentionally break suspension of disbelief to force player reflection — weaponizing the mechanism they normally preserve. (Chapter 13)
Counterpoints
- Violence is not medium-inherent: "The simplification caused by reducing conflict resolution to the use of violence is a reflex of accepting violence as a proper and valid tool for solving conflicts, which is simply not the case." The author's concept games avoid direct violent mechanics as proof. (Chapter 13)
- Aggression vs. violence: A platformer stomp is aggression, not violence. Collapsing the distinction obscures design choices and prevents gauging the moral weight of mechanics. (Chapter 13)
- Trope-based "realism" encodes bias: Players may accept dragons but reject people of color in medieval settings — "their boundaries are large enough to accept magical creatures and dragons but not non-white characters." Prior media exposure, not history, shapes expectations. (Chapter 13)
Key Quotes
"Achieving the game's goal through killing is a message that enforces the understanding of violence as a conflict solution tool. Consider if that is the message you want to pass, especially to avoid doing so just for the sake of repetition or simplification." — Yvens R. Serpa, Chapter 13
"Part of working with the Narrative core is to consider breaking the suspension of disbelief to achieve some reflection on players." — Yvens R. Serpa, Chapter 13
"These actions are only performed because they do not happen in real life." — Yvens R. Serpa, Chapter 13
Rules of Thumb
- Choose the moral axis that matches the game's purpose — it is structural, not decorative
- Light/Darkness: best when a clear antagonist exists; supports cooperation
- Red/Green: two opposed factions, no middle ground; tends toward episodic play
- Blueberries/Oranges: rarely dominant; use for incomprehensible moral codes
- Suspension of disbelief has two boundaries: genre tropes and the game's own internal rules
- Violence audit: is killing the path to the goal? If so, that is a message endorsing violence as conflict resolution
- Designers must audit what they consume (which shapes defaults) and what they create (which shapes player understanding)
Related References
- Narrative Core — Theme, Message, and Story Structure - theme, message, and story structure
- MENA Framework — Four Cores of Game Design - Narrative core context
- Flow, Difficulty Diagnosis, and Tutorial Design - ethical considerations in GAR cycles