Cannibalism / Morality issues and suggestions

First of all this is in the "General Discussions" section because I would have felt really weird putting this in the "Wish List" area. :?

I watched the Joystiq promo stream with Hinterland (

Raphael stated he was cautious about using some 'morality or karma system'. He also stated if it were implemented he would want there to be consequences. Which I totally get. Even though it is survival, karma and morality tend to go out the window in a scenario when life is hanging by a thread, still there is a big difference between a deer and a human carcass. I think his desire (if I understood him correctly) was to not have a directly stat based consequence, but something more organic, which would reveal itself seamlessly into the game experience.

1. My first thought was have something where there is a risk of throwing up. Losing precious calories and causing even more dehydration while harvesting the meat. I know if it were me IRL, I would be very concerned about throwing up and that is never a good thing when calories and hydration are essential. This risk, could put you behind the survival curve even more and just harvesting some human steaks could actually hasten your death.
   
2. Human flesh could be balanced to spoil faster, have less nutrition to further discourage cannibalism...and maybe the calories could be randomized.
   
3. Another thing that I thought of was the psychological effect of knowing what you just did. Combine that with the already intense mental stress the survivor is experiencing might be enough to cause some health related false-positives, also known as Hypocondria:
   
   • Maybe he thinks he's food poisoned, causing our survivor to use valuable resources/time needlessly.
     
   • Perhaps he thinks he's thirsty or hungry when he isn't, again wasting resources.
     
   • Or maybe he has the chance to lose his appetite (it is quite gross after all) and suddenly he gets blind sided by a huge increase in hunger.

Just some thoughts of how to organically implement possible risks / consequences of doing something that should be a last resort. So cannibalism would still be available, but it would be a hell of a risk.

Remember folks: "Cannibalism is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get."

I would be interested in this, as well. Less for the mystery meat and more for being able to get more from a frozen corpse, such as cloth from their clothing. Although, that might leave behind an embarrassing corpse with some well-placed snow to keep it from offending the censors.

Purely stat-wise, I think the meat harvested wouldn't be very nutritious (I wouldn't do a random calorie calculator for the meat since that will add WAY too much programming labor). It might have a higher chance of "food poisoning" as you think about what and who you are eating, but maybe you have a skill (Inhumanity?) that increases the more people you eat, reducing the chance of being "sickened".

I would just like to note, in popular culture there are many instances where books and movies portray people making the hard choice to eat a dead body to survive. In World War Z (book, not the movie...) many who fled to Canada during the zombie apocalypse found themselves at the mercy of the elements and on the verge of death from hunger. Some of the adults made the choice to cook those that had died to they and the children could survive. Maybe implementing a sort of cooking system with actual recipes that use various meats from deer to dear friends?

Once the willpower aspect is activated, I think this would be a cool thing.

You can eat a human, but your willpower will tank as you have lost a piece of your humanity.

Once the willpower aspect is activated, I think this would be a cool thing.

Willpower?

Willpower?

Yep.

Today I found myself in need of the ability to eat people. I was all turned around, food supplies low, and I found my way back to the unnamed pond. I needed to rest because dusk was upon me and I was exhausted. I set my bedroll up in the small post there, still exposed to the elements. When I woke up in the morning, I was starving and down to 7% condition.

I was rested, and it was snowing out. I ran in a direction I knew I could find shelter with a flare blazing for I had no time for wolves; I was headed towards a cabin I had been once before already. When I arrived safely inside, I was still starving to death. Greeting me was the frozen corpse of some hapless stranger. At 5% condition, I stared at the corpse, red light sizzling. I imagined the heat from the flare cooking the meat I longed for to save my life.

Alas, I watched as my body slowly consumed itself. Cannibalism could have saved my life... but at what cost?

I am not so hot on a Karma system. This would suggest that the player ought to be "punished" for surviving. Further, since the meat source is already dead, it's not like there is any icky moral issues around murder. I am also not so hot on making cannibalised meat somehow less nutirious, or more prone to decay or food poisoning. That just flies into fantasy land, which this game is sort of trying to avoid. If you want a game firmly rooted in reality, you need to deal with issues like this in a practical and realistic manner. Basically, the prohibition against human flesh is largely psychological. There can be issues with human pathogens and disease, so cannibalism is risky, but in a short-term survival situation, it's really what it does to the mind more than anything. Unless you can model madness, I would vote let meat be meat.

This would suggest that the player ought to be "punished" for surviving.

Sometimes, surviving is punishment enough...

I think the risk of throwing up and losing calories is very realistic, because the throwing up is caused by thinking what it is you are eating, not the meat being spoiled. Another thing could be that the portions could be smaller. You just couldn't make yourself eat as much of it as you would eat deer or wolf meat. It would stop you from starving to death, but you could never eat your fill this way. That would probably also be realistic. (I'm thinking about the story of the guys who crashlanded in the Andes in 1970s.)

Side Note: I would love it if in one of the story modes you come across a group of survivors who have turned full cannibal. Of course, that might be a little more "thematic" than some people would like. Mature content is all well and good if the player is okay exploring those topics, and having the OPTION of cannibalizing human remains is one thing but forcing a player to deal with cannibals is another.

I just thought of a possible way to combine the portion size and the risk of losing calories. You could eat one portion without much problems (low risk of throwing up), but if you eat more, the risk of throwing up increases dramatically with each portion. That would work and wouldn't be too complicated.

Side Note: I would love it if in one of the story modes you come across a group of survivors who have turned full cannibal. Of course, that might be a little more "thematic" than some people would like. Mature content is all well and good if the player is okay exploring those topics, and having the OPTION of cannibalizing human remains is one thing but forcing a player to deal with cannibals is another.

I think I remember one of the devs stating The Road was sort of the feeling of survival they were going for. Plenty of cannibal bandits roving about in that story. So maybe this is something on the horizon.

After watching "The Colony" and re-watching "The Grey" again (this time I found the stinger), and playing this game some, you have to wonder: what good are your intact morals, if you're dead? And is there a moral distinction between eating the flesh of a fellow human that's already fallen, vice actively hunting people then eating them? Surely subsisting off the flesh of the already fallen is less evil.

The backdrop of the game is you not being a survivalist right? You're a guy that's been dumped in a hardcore survival situation. Some sort of 'desensitisation or desperation' aspect/mechanic to the situation might be appropriate to allow your character to resort to cannibalism for the purpose of gameplay.

At the end of the day cannibalising a long dead corpse seems completely logical and the moral issues seem fairly small in that sort of situation. I can see most peoples issue is more the fact of your character, fully satiated and apathetically carrying kilos of human flesh in his bag - simply because it's available - as a bit wrong. And fair enough, it would change the games atmosphere to a much darker tone.

Basically I think it's going to be down to how the devs would like to deliver their experience. Cannibalism should definitely be implemented sometime before full release though.

Two people, same scenario. One eats human flesh, the other refuses to do so. One lives on, the other starves to death. From purely logical perspective, there isn't much room for speculation which choice was the right one.

If cannibalism is implemented and it has effect on the mental state of the character, the effects should be long-term, rather than immediate. Eating the flesh out of desperation is justified at that very moment and no matter how bad the means, the outcome is that you won't starve to death - the only other option is to keep starving.

The question here is how would the character rationalize with that reality. We're still talking just about eating a human corpse as a last resort - corpse of a person the character has never met - not killing and eating a human or eating someone he/she knew.

At the same time, I don't think the effect (if any) should be punishing. It says it right there: "How far will you go to survive?" It's the theme of the game. It should definitely be a defining act for your character, but not a crippling resolution.

Outside the gameplay, the moral implications of a game that allows for cannibalism as a means to success might be somewhat dodgey - we know how today's media are. They'll blow everything out of proportions just to get views.

The Spirit of the Wendigo has grown strong in this one

Are human guts useful like deer guts? If I can use a corpse to make snares or fishing lures I'm all for this cannibalism stuff.

I get that it might be creepy or whatever to some people but honestly its less weird than zombies if you think about it. I mean at least its a live person eating a dead person (who can't feel it and doesn't' care) vs. the undead ripping a living person to shreds and eating them while their conscious and feeling it...seriously. Eating a dead person to survive is not worthy of any crazy media IMHO... just an "unusual" situation that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

On this train of thought, depending on how these corpses died (starvation, wolf attack, freezing to death etc. They might not have much meat or useful stuff left on them.

its less weird than zombies if you think about it. I mean at least its a live person eating a dead person (who can't feel it and doesn't' care) vs. the undead ripping a living person to shreds and eating them while their conscious and feeling it

It's less weird, but potentially more real. Zombies couldn't happen for real, cannibalism could (and has). I think that's the main reason why it's so uncomfortable idea. The more fictional a story is, the more outrageous scenarios it can have without people getting upset.

Are human guts useful like deer guts? If I can use a corpse to make snares or fishing lures I'm all for this cannibalism stuff.

As a matter of fact, they are...

Zombies couldn't happen for real

The only problem with zombie apocalypse is that it catches everyone by surprise. You have to be prepared.

Heh, you necro'd this topic out of oblivion. The problem is:

1. Cannibalism is an ethical quandary, no one likes to think about it, no one likes suggestions towards it, and society frowns harshly upon the act (and rightly so, within reason), therefore it will not be implemented to avoid lash back on the sales when people refuse to buy a game with such content.

2. Biologically speaking, unless the subject you intend to eat has died within the last day, you are highly likely to get infection and/or poisoning. After death, containment of toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, methanol and similar chemicals start to seep out into the flesh as they are produced by anaerobic bacteria. Bacterial colonies (a lot of pathogenic strains) will rapidly expand now that the host is dead, and toxicify (not a word, but I needed a functional verb of sorts) the flesh.

3. it adds nothing to the game. People already survive 100-200 days without additional food sources, the concept of cannibalism is moot.

if anything it makes me want to remove the bodies i find in house, you have to consider that houses are usually a degree above freezing would you want to sleep in a bed room with a rotting corpse on the floor?

I only read the first page of this thread but I have a good idea of how to balance out cannibalism. Eating human flesh, even if cooked, should have a high chance of giving you food poisoning. I know it's pretty dangerous IRL to eat human meat simply because pretty much any disease that is in the meat can be transferred to you, since you are eating a member of your own species and the diseases don't have to try and cross a species barrier. So yeah, making human meat give me food poisoning real easy would certainly give me pause and would make it a very last resort rather than "oh look, free food".

Agreed, Ora, but people don't seem to get that, no matter how many times I tell them the biological implications of cannibalism.

I do think it would make sense for cannibalism to be an option. When I first came across a frozen corpse I was a bit surprised I wasn't given the grim option of harvesting meat from it. It doesn't need to make a big deal out of it, but it does fit in well with the game's desperate survival theme.

I definitely am against any sort of morality or karma system, that's stupid, at least in sandbox. If you are the only person in the world as far as you are concerned, ethics don't really exist since they are a social concept.

If there needs to be some kind of deterrent to eating human flesh beside the fact that most players won't do it anyway (look at Day Z - most of the people who actually eat human meat are PvP bandits who do it for the roleplaying value not for any other reason), there could be a risk of getting sick. For example Kuru (which Day Z implements as a deterrent for cannibalism) is a historical disease some cannibal tribes suffered that is transmitted by eating human brain matter. You could shore up with antibiotics after eating human meat but if not you would be at risk of sickness.

Agreed, Ora, but people don't seem to get that, no matter how many times I tell them the biological implications of cannibalism.

They are a bit exaggerated. Diseases like kuru are fairly rare and localized, eating thoroughly cooked human flesh (as opposed to organs or brains) would be relatively safe in theory although you would be at risk of infection if the person had some kind of serious disease. The thing is though that most frozen corpses in The Long Dark likely died of exposure, not some awful disease.

It is true that the lack of species barrier would increase your risk of contracting a disease, but we can probably assume that most of the poor dead Canadians out there are not disease-ridden, and furthermore if they were completely frozen by the time you cut them up the cold would have killed off a lot of viruses and bacteria in addition to cooking them afterwards.