The Multifaceted Good: Morality in Ultima 4
TheFlamingo352's blog post last week about morality system in RPGs cited 2003's Knights of the Old Republic as his first example, joking it showed his age. That makes him rather young to me, as the first game that popped into my mind was 1985's Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. It's the granddaddy of every morality system in games today. It and Ultima Online are the reasons Richard Garriott could never produce another good game again and still be regarded as one of the most influential game designers ever.
Before we delve into the meat of Ultima 4's virtues, I'll start with a little history. Ultima 1-3 were your typical fantasy RPGs with space shuttles, time travel, and demonic supercomputers (no, really). However, after that trio of hugely-popular RPGs, Richard started getting letters complaining about there really wasn't any punishment for the players running around killing everyone in town and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. He decided they actually had a point and set out to make a game revolving entirely around being a good hero.
Ultima 4 has no great evil to vanquish. The people don't need a saviour, they need a role-model, and Lord British has asked you to become one for them. How? Master the 8 Virtues, claim the title of Avatar, and delve deep into the Great Stygian Abyss to read the sacred Codex of Wisdom. (Yes, you fight through the final dungeon to read a book.) 90% of the game revolved around mastering those 8 Virtues.
