Okay, maybe this is getting into the darker side of adventure gaming, but I'm curious... what's your favorite moment of deception in a game?

I don't mean by other characters, but where you had to fool another character to "borrow" an inventory item or solve a puzzle?

The hardest was in Gabriel Knight Three, when I had to steal, my friends passport. Really hard and really went against my personal grain.
Charllotte

I enjoyed Oliver Lavisheart's disguises in 80 Days.

I guess I'd say when I had to fool that scientist at the abandoned house by using blue ink from a fountain pen in a flask of water to make him think it was that oxidant, or whatever chemical compound that he needed in order to solve a puzzle or get some info. This was at the manor in the third chapter of The Black Mirror (first game in the series) that I was playing at a friend's house this past Tues evening.

To tell the truth, I didn't feel right about fooling this scientist, but, I guess the game world has bizarre rules about getting ahead, just as the real world has similar bizarre rules that people have to follow in order to get ahead.

Another such rule I recall recently was tricking the blind man in the Salted Cheek pub of Alter Ego, another game that I played recently.

Interesting responses. Maybe I worded it badly, but what I wasn't looking for moments which you disdained. If there was a moment where you must plot a clever trick, and it felt justified, that's fine.

I for one, like the freedom. I don't want to be judged by the main character for what I make him or her do. I was actually annoyed by one game in which the character felt so PC and ethical and had to justify borrowing every item.

One of the moments I liked because it was so outrageous and brilliant, was when in one game you had to move some traffic signs to cause a truck full of diapers to go off road. This of course was to soak up some water, so you could buy an island (on an ultra-tight budget), and evict the owner. It was so you end up saving the earth.

Lately, I've been playing casual games, but the ones I've played seem to be lacking in that sort of thing.

You may be coming up against a generation of very strict "manners" type of discipline here, Coreoverload. I found I almost couldn't make it through The Last Express just because it felt so rude to sneak into people's compartments in the train while they were at dinner! I had to keep telling myself: "It's only a game!"

Becky,
You're right, that we have to keep telling our selves it's a game. So is our generation showing, ie, age? If so, so be it. I still play and hope I've only done so in games.
Charllotte

Since I've played so many games that demanded it in order to get to the end of them, I have no feelings of guilt whatsoever in sneaking around, stealing and altogether misbehaving

Must confess I have no guilt.
Oh, aside from the little rat-strapped-to-dynamite ploy in Niberu. I didn't care for that much.

As for a favorite, I'd say in Egypt II, when you have to sneak past the pacing guard:)

Oh, that rat puzzle was terrible. I hated having to do that! I also didn't like making that poor guy think he'd won the lottery in Secret Files: Tunguska. And locking Stan in the coffin in Monkey Island 2 was quite disturbing, as well as sending Ben off to the bear in Runaway 2. (Interesting that in spite of these things, MI2 and Runaway 2 are both my favorites in their respective series.)

Now, I actually love sneaking around in games, which may say something about me, I don't know. Of course, I would never do anything like that in reality, because it is unethical not to mention I'd have no interest anyway, but for some reason, in games I find it so much fun to sneak around and discover other characters' secrets. I loved the sneaking section in GK3, going through each characters' room when they weren't around and discovering clues. And to go way back, in The Colonel's Bequest (Laura Bow 1) one of my favorite parts of that game was finding the secret passageways and listening in on the conversations. Maybe it's just the unraveling mysteries aspect that appeals to me.

"And locking Stan in the coffin in Monkey Island 2 was quite disturbing"
Oh, not for me !! I thought that was hilarious

[ I must be pretty evil, eh ?? ]

Actions taken in a cartoon-like comedy game feel different to me than actions taken in a realistic, serious game. I guess that means my moral system is too relativistic?

Now I'm not sure whether I AM evil or not ????

Think about Alter Ego, Mad. How did you feel about being a complete jerk in that?

Gil.

Yep, these days (now that I'm en route to becoming a computer tech w/ networking skills, mind you, my school goal is to get educated in this field so I can get a job) I no longer take my gameplay as seriously as I did before I signed up to go back to school this past April of 2011. In the past, back when I had to rely on others to come to the house and fix my computer I took my gameplaying so seriously that I wanted to actually live my game adventures, such as waking up in the morning, getting dressed, eat breakfast, and then leave the house and go out somewhere in real life to do what we do in adventure games for about a day, and then return home b/c in those days, I had no job, and the games were the only thing that I had (although I had my mom, my friends, family,) to fill the boring days siting at home and collecting monthly Social Security Disability checks.



Me, I didn't mind the rat puzzle in Tunguska - after all, a rat is only an animal, and an animal is not equal to a person, that is, people are a lot more valuable than animals are. But that guy and the lottery thing in Tunguska - I haven't played this game since way before this past April, but I'd imagine that, if you did this in real life that lottery guy would be upset, and/or very angry that he was fooled. However, the very first time I played Tunguska in 2008 tricking the lottery guy never bothered me, but today I believe it might give me a twinge of guilt. But this would never stop me from playing the game. After all, these games can always amount to fiction stories.



Speaking of being ethical, since one of the computer books I ordered a year ago at this time talks about being an ethical computer tech, I took this seriously, and this is likely why doing unethical stuff to people in games is starting to make me feel a bit guilty these days - but like I said above, before I got serious about becoming a tech, being unethical in games never bothered me one little teeny tiny bit.



Me, having recently played Alter Ego, I played the thief (Tim) and the righteous guy (the Detective), I felt sort of dirty playing Tim, but this never bothered me before starting school this past semester; and when I played the Detective I felt a lot cleaner.