Spiral Knights - Spiral Knights Morality

Spiral Knights Morality

5 replies [Last post]

Fri, 08/02/2019 - 11:13

Osmosi

Let me clarify what I intend to discuss with this post. Please do not take this too seriously, as Spiral Knights was never meant to be a serious game.

Throughout the game, Knights are put in a lot of combat encounters that they're supposed to get through by eliminating all their enemies which in almost every instance are already hostile to knights. But there are some cases where knights do not face entities that are outright hostile to them, and whether or not knights eliminate them is entirely optional. However, in terms of game mechanics, not elimaniting them is discouraged because killing enemies almost always drops loot while sparing them doesn't reward knights in any way.
For the sake of the argument, I'm not going to consider all those situations where knights are forced to eliminate enemies in order to progress with their adventures such as when a door requires all enemies to be defeated. Here I want to tackle situations where knights can make meanigful choices, not scenarios where the only way out to a more "peaceful" approach is to "leave the party" (or "not play the game") or to just "let the enemies kill you instead".

Let's start with the matter about killing Gremlin Knockers (link: https://wiki.spiralknights.com/Knocker ). In this case the action of knights are pretty much justified, because they are hostile enemies and they do not change behaviour when low on health. However, one of the issues I've thought is what if they were actual Gremlin children sent to fight knights; see, the game never confirms or disproves how old these enemies are, which can change your perception when they are elimated. If they are actually gremlin soldiers that just happen to have that kind of body, then this issue does not hold; however in the worst case scenario they might be young Gremlins sent to the battlefield without knowledge about what they're actually doing, indoctrinated by some Gremlin propaganda or even forcefully against their will.

Next is the issue about killing healers, which are Gremlin Menders and Silkwings. To make things a little bit more intersting and a little bit more fair, let's say that healers are the only enemies present in a given situation, and there are no Gremlins that can be revived by a mender. In this case these creatures cannot damage knights in any way, and thus can be left alone without worry. The main counter-argument against the fact that killing them is a somewhat immoral choice is that previously they were supporting hostile enemies, so they are indirectly hostile to knights and thus taking them out is acceptable. And to that, I'd like to add that the game almost never puts knights against a group made only of healers.
The main issue here is whether or not killing creatures that cannot directly harm knights is immoral, when they also do not have hostile enemies to support.

Following up is the debate upon the elimination of Yesmen and Pit Bosses while there are no overtimers or other devilites around. In this case, these creatures cannot harm knights (just like healers) but do not support other hostile enemies as well. Is the act of killing these sort of enemies (when no other devilite or enemy is around, mind you) immoral ?

Last but not least (even though it is not very instersting), is killing Mewkats (https://wiki.spiralknights.com/Kat) and Love Puppies immoral (when you can make an actual choice of course)?
For this one I'm going to take a side and say that yes it is. I dare say that most Mewkats deaths are actually accidents or were dictated by some stupid door that wants all enemies dead.

I'm curious to hear about what other fellow knights have to say on these matters.

Sat, 08/03/2019 - 06:18

Bopp

incentives

I'm surprised that people haven't engaged with this thread. In the past, we have had popular threads discussing our "invasion" of Cradle, whether we are actually the good guys, etc.

Many video games, including this one, are based on the idea that violence solves problems. I would love to hear more discussion of how knights can be incentivized to use only as much violence as necessary.

To some extent, these incentives changed for me when elevators became free (2013-07-30). Before that update, I wanted to extract every crown from each level, so I killed every last monster. After the update, I cared more about crowns per time. I speed-ran more. I skipped unforced fights. In this way, I was incentivized to kill only when I had to.

But when you skip unforced fights, new tactical problems arise. I found myself thinking, "How do I avoid getting trapped by this huge crowd of monsters that is following me?" And "How do I get out of the AI radius for those scuttlebots as quickly as possible?" So the game changed in interesting ways that have nothing to do with morality.

Sat, 08/03/2019 - 23:41

Bomber-Max

There's the game and there's the story

Morality is attached to goodness. A morality is not a simple "Yes" or "No". It is tied to reality and, in a certain way, to outcomes.

On terms of the story and the imaginary world, we can imagine a lot. I imagine the knights are in need to go back home and they need to get the resources. Obviously, they can not pass over everything on the process. But the gremlins make themselves a obstacle and on the need of the resources and dealing with hostility, they don't have much option, but fight. Of course, they should ignore gremlins that are not a obstacle and ... We don't know if they not ignore. I know looks like we are the knights, but, in certain way, we are not. We are players controlling 3D animated characters that "hits" other 3D animated characters. We can ignore a gremlin that is not a problem, but we don't ignore because of the loot. Sure, you can ignore a Love Puppy, but you lose the opportunity for a item.

My point is: It is not possible to talk about lore or morality if you speak about things that are merely attached to what we do as players. We can talk about the relation between knights and gremlins using what players do if you see that is because of lore terms. For example, when someone is playing Roarmolous Twins for the first time, the reason is to continue the story, realize the lore act of beating the gremlins plans of attacking Haven. Heck, even if the reason is not on the player's conscience, the act has a consequence on lore terms and the consequence happens besides the conscience and what desire the player is satisfying, so we can talk about the lore and morality of the act of destroying the twins. But, when the player plays Roarmolous Twins again for grinding, we don't go on and start discussing about how the knights keep raiding the gremlins over and over to get more loot. Because, the grind happens just for the need of accomplishing something of the player advancement and not for the realization of the game lore. If the grind affected the game in some way that affected the lore, so we could touch on such topic. Otherwise, no.

EDIT: Sorry if it affected your mood on some way.

Sun, 08/04/2019 - 08:16

Bopp

role-playing

Maybe it was wrong, but I understood the original post to be based on role-playing. We're not supposed to regard ourselves as players on Earth altering bits in a computer with no effect outside the computer. We're supposed to regard ourselves as knights crash-landed on Cradle.

Sun, 08/04/2019 - 09:45

Osmosi

Yeah, Bopp's pretty much right

[...] I understood the original post to be based on role-playing. [...] We're supposed to regard ourselves as knights crash-landed on Cradle. -Bopp
Yes, that was pretty much the point. By the way I never intended to go really "philosofically deep" or anything that serious, but to just have a chat about what we, as players impersonating knights, often do without thinking.

I know looks like we are the knights, but, in certain way, we are not. We are players controlling 3D animated characters that "hits" other 3D animated characters.. -Bombe-Max

This is a very fair position, I've got nothing to say about that. In fact, most of the points I've touched upon can all be liquidated with "it's just a game bruh, chill out". It is reasonable to assume that "lore or morality cannot be associated to what we as players do, because it's the game mechanics that dictate what players do, thus they do not care whether their actions are morally right or not, whatever that means".
However, I also think the answer "it's just a game" is a pretty boring one, although it's perfectly legitimate.

My main goal with this post was to capture that feeling when somebody while playing a game stops for some amount of time and asks themselves "Wait a second, is what I am doing... actually wrong? What if the situation was actually like this or that..."; it's about the moment of self-reflection when the player tries to analyze their own actions and tries to fit them in the narrative context the game provides. I wanted to address thought such as "Man,if you think about it for a sec, what knights do is actually pretty bad" or "Well I guess if I were in their position I'd try to [insert option] rather than straight up killing them". Is all of this simple player's speculation? Yes. But that's what I want to hear. That's what we're here to discuss.

But you will say "There's no connection between player actions and what knights would actually do in their narrative context".
And you know what? You're right. In the end player beahaviour is just dictated largely by game mechanincs and their search for fun, which is not really what Knights are there for.
However, wouldn't it be interesting if, for just a little while, you pretended your actions were actually how the character you play as acted in the context of the game world? What conclusions would you reach then ?

Sun, 08/04/2019 - 12:55

Bomber-Max

Sorry about it. I didn't notice your intention was roleplaying. I thought you wanted to speak about the knights more on lore terms.

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Spiral Knights Morality