UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN
UJMM2113 GAME AND SOCIETY
RESEARCH TOPIC: STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAYER’S PERSONALITY
AND MORAL CHOICES IN GAME.
Name
Student ID
Part
Course
Ng Cheng Bin
1503285
A
1503285
Ng Kai Chen
1506598
B
Game Design
Table of Content
No
Title
Part A (Ng Cheng Bin 1503285)
1
Abstract
2
Introduction
3
Problem Statement
4
Research Objectives
5
Scope of Study
6
Significance of Study
7
Literature Review
8
Revelant Topic
Page
Study of Relationship between Player’s Personality and Moral Choices in Game.
Ng Cheng Bin and Ng Kai Chen
Departmen of Game Studies, University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia
SilverSoul320@1utar.com.my, kaichentom@gmail.com
1.0 Abstract
Most game nowadays especially triple-A titles and the role-playing game had implemented
the morality system to enhance the gameplay experience. We would like to undergo a study
to see if does the personality of the player able to impacted their moral choices made
throughout a game. Furthermore, we would like to see if there’s a potential in designing a
game that implemented a morality system that’s able to benefit from the understanding of
the player’s personality in the future. In this study, we had selected few games that features
moral choices and decision making to be tested by 100 university student from University
Tunku Abdul Rahman that was interviewed and had their personality identified using the Big
Five personality traits moral outcome determined using the Nine alignment model.
Keywords: Personality traits, 9 alignment, moral choice, video games, entertainment,
qualitaive research.
2.0 Introduction
Many games had implemented the morality system to deliver impactful gameplay experience
to the player. We wish to approach the designing of moral system in order to further
understanding on designing a better morality system that can be applied in future game
design and also wishes to seek breakthrough of understanding of morality system that not
from the aspect of game mechanic, but from the individual's virtue and perspective.
We selected 20 university students from University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Sungai Long
and use the Big Five Personality Traits model to identify and define their personality traits. In
order to determine the outcome for this study, we choose games like Undertale and
Paper,Please as our experiment medium for this study because these game features indepth moral system such as ambiguous moral choices and moral dilemma to be tested by
the candidates to see that relationship between personality traits and the moral choice could
be established through this study.
3.0 Problem Statement
The current issue facing by most game that features morality system is that the moral
choices provided in these games are shallow and leans too much toward mechanistic.
Popular game titles such as Mass Effect and Infamous only features morality system about
letting the player choose to either becoming a good guy or a bad guy, making the player’s
gaming experience less impactful and limits their insight toward the externalization of
morality. These game tied choice to the progress bar, karma meter or righteous meter, kills
any possibility for a moral choice to be ambiguous. It forces every moral choice and all of
their answers to share a single plane and then quantizes them (Daniel Floyd, 2010). It’s
unfortunate that most of the game uses this type of mechanic and didn’t dive deeply into
exploring the externalization of morality in the game media.
One of the reasons that the game developers didn’t strive to expand their range of the
questioning of the morality in their game title is how much budget that it could cost to deliver
in-game scenarios that comes with a broad set of options. A broad set of option for a
storyline decision usually means a very divergent story, and a divergent story means more
content and more content is going to cost more development dollars (Daniel Floyd, 2010).
Thus, such decision to creating branching, a divergent story comes with option and choices
were not considered to be implemented into games that feature linearistic playthrough.
However, such a problem could be solved by limiting the game into asking a single question
of morality. A game that centered around the question with moral dilemma could contain
much more depth in the decision-making and lend to lot more consequence and weight to
the player’s actions (Daniel Floyd, 2010).
Besides designing an in-depth moral system, we believe that games nowadays didn’t
tackle much on the aspect of how player’s personality traits would influence their moral
choices in the game. For example, what moral outcome will we receive if a different moral
schema with different consequences is presented to a player and does that affects his moral
decision. This is because that through the observation, we realized that players with different
personality traits has the tendencies of approach towards different type of moral choices
given by the game. What We have to do is to stop thinking of moral choices as a game
system and start considering individual moral choices on their own terms (Daniel Floyd,
2010). So, we would like take this opportunity to study and clarify that a player’s personality
traits play an important role in defining their moral choices made in the game.
We believed that throughout the study of the understanding of the relationship between
personality traits and moral choices. The game designer will have better insight towards
creating a game that features in-depth moral system and externalization of moral question
that the society will be facing in the upcoming future.
4.0 Research Objectives
We believed that by understanding the importance of player’s personality trait in deciding the
moral choices in game. We could carve out a wider path in designing a game consist of indepth moral choices and decision making.
In order to define the tester’s personality traits for this experiment, we would like to
use the Big Five personality traits model to determine the tester’s personality traits. Then
we’ll using multiple game titles that features in-game moral schemas that provide ambiguous
moral choices and determine player’s moral outcome based on the D&D’s (Dungeon &
Dragons) Nine Alignment. D&D’s Nine Alignment will be used to determine and define the
type of moral choices made by the tester in order to observe possible relevance between the
player’s personality traits and the moral choices made in the game.
Tester’s personality traits will act as the independent variable for this experiment as
the moral choices as the personality traits cannot be influences and will determine the
outcome for this study.
Tester’s affiliation in the D&D’s Nine Alignment model will be served as the
dependent variable and outcome for this experiment as it depends on tester’s personality
traits to receive the moral outcome.
4.1 Hypothesis
We speculate that:
In the relevancy between B5 personality traits and Law versus Chaos axis in D&D’s Nine
alignment:
1. People that are high in openness in the B5 personality traits tends to leans toward
Chaotic affiliation while people that are low in openness in the B5 personality traits
tends to leans toward Lawful affiliation.
2. People that are high in conscientiousness in the B5 personality traits tends to leans
toward Lawful affiliation while people that are low in conscientiousness in the B5
personality traits tends to leans toward Chaotic affiliation.
3. People that are either high or low in extraversion in the B5 personality traits has the
tendencies to leans toward either Lawful affiliation or Chaotic affiliation.
4. People that are either high or low in agreeableness in the B5 personality traits has
the tendencies to leans toward either Lawful affiliation or Chaotic affiliation.
5. People that are high or low in neuroticism in the B5 personality traits tends has the
tendencies to leans toward either Lawful affiliation or Chaotic affiliation.
In the relevancy between B5 personality traits and Good versus Evil axis in D&D’s Nine
alignment:
6. People that are high or low in openness in the B5 personality traits tends has the
tendencies to leans toward either Good affiliation or Evil affiliation.
7. People that are high or low in conscientiousness in the B5 personality traits tends
has the tendencies to leans toward either Good affiliation or Evil affiliation.
8. People that are high or low in extraversion in the B5 personality traits tends has the
tendencies to leans toward either Good affiliation or Evil affiliation.
9. People that are high in agreeableness in the B5 personality traits tends to leans
toward Good affiliation while people that are low in agreeableness in the B5
personality traits tends to leans toward Evil affiliation.
10. People that are high in neuroticism in the B5 personality traits tends to leans toward
Good affiliation while people that are low in neuroticism in the B5 personality traits
tends to leans toward Evil affiliation.
According to the hypothesis, we can stated that personality traits can’t be applied in both the
two axis represented in the D&D’s Nine Alignment:
1. Openness and Conscientiousness in the B5 personality trait has the tendencies to
influences the moral outcome that related about the Law versus Chaotic affiliation in
the D&D’s Nine Alignment.
2. Agreeableness and Neuroticism in the B5 personality trait has the tendencies to
influences the moral outcome that related about the Good versus Evil affiliation in the
D&D’s Nine Alignment.
3. It is impossible to categorize Extraversion trait in the B5 personality trait into both
axis presented in the D&D’s Nine Alignments. Any attempt made to categorize
Extraversion had been found to becoming stereotyping for all people having either
high or low in this trait.
4. Moral schema might influence Neutral
This is why we pick Undertale and Paper, Please
In this study, we speculate that the player’s personality traits will be playing a major
role in deciding the moral outcome in a moral schema that provided vast moral choices and
decision making designed in the game.
5.0 Scope of Study
In this study, we need to clarify that the labeling a player as a good or a bad person base on
their personality traits and moral choices is not the purpose of this study and are not
encouraged as a research because that would be considered as an act of stereotyping
towards certain cohort of people with similar personality traits and characteristics. And this is
why we use the Nine Alignment as it leans toward approach the personality traits of the
player.
So that moral game that features simple morality meter such as Bioshock, Infamous
and Fallout New Vegas will not be included in our field of study. These type of moral system
flatten out the complex maze of human morality into a single good and evil bar (Mark Brown,
2016). Instead, we would be using existing game title such as Undertale, Paper Please This
War of Mine as the medium to study, test, observe, and determine our player’s moral
choices and decision making because these game features ambiguous moral choices and
limit into a single question of morality throughout the moral scheme in the game, which able
to externalizes the morality of the game.
Besides the player’s personality traits, we would like to see if does the player’s own
moral concept will differs its moral outcome in different moral schema throughout different
game. This is because Undertale features decision and choice making to players without
knowing about the consequences. While Paper, Please constantly reminds the players about
the consequences throughout their moral and decision making. If the hypothesis is true, then
the tester’s moral will be served as the unstable factor for this study.
limit
6.0 Significance of Study
Through the finding of this study, we would like to seek potential in designing a game that
implemented morality system what is able to benefits through the understanding of player’s
personality trait in the future. Furthermore, we hope that this study could served as a
stepping stone to those game designer who want to deliver a far more compelling game
experiences by designing a game that features in-depth moral system based on the
understanding the influence of player’s personality trait towards game design.
7.0 Literature Review
These research are based on few paper that discuss about the topic surrounding the aspect
of Big Five personality traits, Nine alignments and moral game design.
7.1 Sven J, Nicholas D. B & Leyla D. “Gut or Game? The Influence of MoralIntuitions on
Decisions in Video Games”
According to the research paper discuss about the influence of moral intuitions on decisions
in video games written by Sven Joeckel, Nicholas David Bowman and Leyla Dogruel, stated
that morality serves as a guiding force in audience reactions of content. Traditionally,
morality has been considered to be an internal set of rules used to govern one’s behaviour.
7.2 Stephanie d. S, Martijn J. L.K, & Alyea M.S. “The Case of This War of Mine : A
Production Studies Perspective on Moral Game Design”
Another paper that was written by Stephanie de Smale, Martijn J. L. Kors, and Alyea
M.Sandovar, discuss about the case of a production studies perspective on moral game
design which was use the case of the survival anti-war game - This War of Mine which was
developed by 11 bit studios and was released on year 2014. In order to achieve a realistic
moral experience of war, the designer incorporated certain game mechanics not often found
together in conventional military war games. First, the gameplay provides ambiguous moral
choices and does not have an onboarding process, which the player has to learn to survive
without instructions, no respawning and non-playable children and infants. These elements
were used by the studio to design a moral system that’s able to support a deeper exploration
of the moral gameplay.
7.3 Frederic S “The Rhetoric of Undertale－Ludonarrative Dissonance and Symbolism”
A paper based on studying the ludonarrative dissonance and symbolism of Undertale which
was written by Frederic Seraphine argues that Undertale, the role-playing indie game which
was developed by Toby Fox uses negative emotions like guilt or regret to create an uncanny
aesthetic that makes the players ripe for thinking critically about the game, its genre, society,
and more importantly themselves. He concludes that the game is about self-representation,
and the mechanics is touching to moral values that many of us use to define who we are,
empower the player to think of the moral implications of its genre.
8.0 Revelent Topic
In the previous study, we used Bartle’s Player Type as a taxonomy of MUD(Multi-User
Dungeon) to create a adaptive educational program for the student. We realize that the
model created by Richard Bartle tended to categorize players to a primary category, but
drifted between several others depending on their mood, situation and preferred goal in the
game (Kyatric, 2013). Besides that, the model doesn’t consider the relevance of the player’s
secondary styles, which may lead to imbalance and mismatch of the game (Renny S. N.
Lindberg, n.d). So, we use Big Five personality traits as the model to determine the player’s
personality in this study.
8.1 Big Five Personality Trait
The Big Five personality traits, also known as the five-factor model (FFM), and the OCEAN
model, is a taxonomy for personality traits and used for describe aspects of personality that
are often applied to the same person. The five factor of the Big Five personality had been
defined as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The
Big Five Traits found to be universal and believed to have biological origins (Kendra Cherry,
2018). The following information about the Big Five Personality are based on an article
written by Kendra Cherry on 2018.
Table 1: Big Five Personality Traits
Personality Traits
Description
Openess
Features characteristic such as imagination and insight. People
who are high in this trait tend to have a broad range of interest.
They are curious and eager to learn new thing and enjoy new
experience. People low on this traits are much more traditional and
may struggle with abstract thinking.
Conscientiousness
High levels of thoughtfulness, good impulse control and goaldirected behaviour. People that are highly conscientious tend to be
organized and mindful of details. While people that are lowly
conscientious dislikes structure and schedules, and could easily fail
at complete necessary or assigned task.
Extraversion
Excitability, sociability and emotional expressiveness. People who
are high in extraversion tends to be energized and excited when
outgoing with other people. While the opposite tends toward
introversion.
Agreebleness
Include attributes such as trust, kindness and affection. People that
feels
empathy
and
enjoys
helping
tends
to
have
high
agreeableness while people whom has little interest in others and
manipulative tends to have low agreeableness.
Neuroticism
Characterized by sadness, moodiness and emotional instability.
People that are high in this trait tend to experience stress,
worriness, mood swing, anxiety and sadness. While people that
low in this trait usually emotionally stable and relaxed.
8.2 Nine Alignment (Advanced D&D 2nd Edition)
We decided to use the Nine Alignment created by the Dungeon & Dragon (D&D) co-creator
Gary Gygax to determine the moral outcome of the player’s personality for this experiment.
This is because the Nine Alignment has a complex and in-depth moral system, which is also
suitable to determine the player’s moral outcome in the study. This edition of Nine Alignment
is used for our study because it had gone from being the character's allegiance or team to
approach towards personality test.
The Nine Alignment is a categorization of the ethical and moral perspective of player
characters, non-player characters, and creatures in the D&D series. The nine alignment
consist of 2 axis: Good versus Evil and Law versus Chaos. In Good versus Evil, Good
implies altruism, respect for life, and even willing to sacrifice himself to protect innocent life,
while Evil implies hurting, oppressing and tends to destroy other, whether it's for fun or profit.
Neutral character have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to
make sacrifice to protect or help other. In Law versus Chaos, “Law” implies honor,
trustworthiness, obedience to authority and reliability. But in the downside, lawfulness could
also include close-mindedness, adherence to tradition and lack of adaptability.While on the
other hand, “Chaos” implies freedom, adaptability and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can
also include recklessness, irresponsibility, and resentment toward legitimate authority.
Someone who is neutral respect authority but feels neither compulsion to obey or rebel, he
could be honest but can be tempted to deceiving others.
Table 2: 9 Alignment Chart
Table 3: Nine Alignment Affiliation
Lawful Good
Neutral Good
Chaotic Good
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
- Honor and compassion
- Doing what is good without -Good heart with a free spirit
Negative outcome:
bias
Negative outcome:
- Restriction & criminalize
Negative outcome:
- Distrupt order, punishes
self- interest
- Limit actions of truly
those who do well for
capable
themselves.
Lawful Neutral
True Neutral
Chaotic Neutral
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
- Reliable and Honorable
-Act
Negative outcome:
prejudice or compulsion
Negative outcome:
- Eliminate freedom, choice,
Negative outcome:
- Eliminate all authority,
and diversity
- Apathy
harmony, and order in
naturally
without - True freedom
society.
Lawful Evil
Neutral Evil
Chaotic Evil
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
Positive outcome:
-Honor with a dedicated self- -Advance withoud regard for -Self
interest
and
pure
interest
others
freedom
Negative outcome:
Negative outcome:
Negative outcome:
- Methodical & intentional
- Pure evil without honor and - Destruction of beauty, life
without variation
& order which beauty and
life depend
Conceptual Framework
GuidoBenny
Framework
We refer to GuidoBenny and we apply it to our experiment.
We refer to GuidoBenny suggest theory, we will determine the player's personality first
There are five types of personality，which is openess，conscientiousness，extraversion，
agreebleness，and neuroticism. After that, we will observe the moral choice made by the
player in the game. We will let the player play two games which is undertale and paper
please separately in order to find out the outcome based on 9 alignments.In order to analyze
whether the player's 9 alignment theory will be affected by the player's personality. Guido
Benny suggest this theory to find out the outcome(professional approach) from competence
and general attitude, We apply this framework to find out the outcome (9 alignment) from Big
5 personality in our experiment.
Methodology
We prepare the questionnaire to the player and determine player personality using The big
five personalities. After the player fills up the questionnaire, we will know the personality of
the player, and there may be two or three personalities that stand out.
After that, we prepare two game which is undertale and paper please , we will let player test
out this two-game and get the outcome based on 9 alignments. These two games are meant
to determine the moral choices that the player will do. We choose multiple games is because
these two games have a different perspective on viewing the moral standard. The player will
be thrown into multiple moral scenarios to determine the moral outcome.
In the respective 9 alignment, in the nine group of players which differentiate by 9
alignment, each group has at least two player whose personalities are the same. it means
that our research is working，the player personalities has the relationship with the moral
choice.
Design of experiment
In this experiment, we use Big Five Personality Test to test out players’ personality based on
Big five Personality traits. This test created by IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers and this test
uses the Big-Five Factor Markers from the International Personality Item Pool, developed by
Goldberg (1992).
To test out the player’s moral choice, we use 9 alignment theory. First, we will use undertale
to test out player’s alignment is good, neutral or evil. We asking the player to play undertale
in chapter 1 to fight against first boss Toriel. When facing Toriel, what choice that player will
make.
Next, we use paper please to test out player is chaotic,neutral or lawful. We will be asking
the player to play paper please in 7 days to see what ending will player choose.You work
under a totalitarian government. you need to obey to the government or else your family will
suffer, but in this game, you were given the option to run away from the country, let terrorists
enter or search for freedom even though it takes the risk.
Introduction of two game
Undertale is a role-playing game and player can choose not to kill anyone until end game.
Killing is bad, not killing is good. Every action in the game is filtered through that prism, so
every conflict thus stems from a desire to kill and every resolution thus stems from a refusal
to kill.
Paper please is a puzzle video game. Player play as the immigrant officer, the player must
review each immigrant and rejecting those without all proper forms, and at times detaining
those with falsified information. For example, a couple who could only afford one proper visa
will beg you to let them both through. Drug traffickers will bribe you to let them across. There
is no morality meter, there is only a limited time to decide, and all of it happens right there in
your inspection booth.
Flow of the experiment
Week 1
First, we will let the player fill up the questionnaire to test their personality. Then we start to
let the player play undertale. We will inform the player that undertale is a game that can
choose not to kill anyone until end game. After they clear the stage 1, the observer will
record their choice.
Week 2
Next, we will let the player test the paper test. We ask the player to play until the 7th day in
the game. In 7th day, the observer will record their choice.
Sampling Method
The sampling method used for this research would be convenience sampling. We choose
the convenience sampling method because it is easier to find students at school. We target
100 individual from University Tunku Abdul Rahman and this survey is made so that it is
convenient for the players to answer.
Data Collection Method
The data collection method would consist of 4 data, which is questionnaire in player
personalities, 1 data for undertale, 1 data for a paper please and 1 data for the final result.
The questionnaire a form of qualitative method to collect the data of player’s personalities.
Undertale is a form of the quantitative method. We set the player to get the data from the
beginning to defeat the boss of the first level. The data collected by player kill a monster in
the undertale plus one evil point, or player choose to spare in undertale. If player evil point is
from 20, consider as evil, from 1 > 19, neutral and zero is good. For paper please, it is a
form of the quantitative method. We set the player to play paper please to get the data on
the seventh day. The player chooses to obey the government,is lawful, the player chooses to
let a couple who could only afford one proper visa will beg you to let them both through,
neutral. The player chooses to let the terrorists enter, this is chaotic. After getting all the data
of the player personality and 9 alignments for the outcome, differentiate the 100 players to 9
group which represent 9 alignment，collect the data of each group at least has ten player
whose personalities are the same，and this data is a quantitative method.
References
Research Paper
Renny S. N. Lindberg, Aziz Hasanov and Teemu H. Laine (n.d) Improving Play and Learning
Style Adaptation in a Programming Education Game. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/37612732/Improving_Play_and_Learning_Style_Adaptation_in_a
_Programming_Education_Game on November 2, 2018
Frederic S (2018) The Rhetoric of Undertale－Ludonarrative Dissonance and Symbolism.
Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/36072361/The_Rhetoric_of_Undertale_Ludonarrative_Dissonanc
e_and_Symbolism on November 30, 2018
Sven J, Nicholas D. B & Leyla D (2012) Gut or Game? The Influence of MoralIntuitions on
Decisions in Video Games. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/2306891/Gut_or_Game_The_Influence_of_Moral_Intuitions_on_
Decisions_in_Video_Games on November 30, 2018
Stephanie d. S, Martijn J. L.K, & Alyea M.S. (2017) The Case of This War of Mine : A
Production Studies Perspective on Moral Game Design. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/34348809/The_Case_of_This_War_of_Mine_A_Production_Stud
ies_Perspective_On_Moral_Game_Design on November 30, 2018
Website
Daniel Floyd (2010) Video Games and Moral Choices. Retreived from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KU3lUx3u0&index=154&list=WL on November 26,
2018
Mark Brown (2016) Morality in the Mechanics | Game Maker’s Toolkit. Retreived from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RHH7M4siPM&index=155&list=WL on November 26,
2018
Kendra C (2018) Big Five Personality Traits. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits on November 30, 2018
Kyatric (2013) Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types (And Why It Doesn't Apply to Everything).
Retrieved from
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/bartles-taxonomy-of-player-types-and-why-itdoesnt-apply-to-everything--gamedev-4173 on November 30,2018
Alignment (n.d) Retrieved from
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Alignment on November 30,2018
zybstrski@excite.com (n.d)The Alignment System Retrieved from
http://easydamus.com/alignment.html on November 30, 2018
Games
Undertale, Toby Fox (2015)
https://undertale.com/
Paper, Please, Lucas Pope (2013)
http://papersplea.se/