Grey Morality

The Gizmo vs. Killian Dilemma

In Fallout's Junktown, the player encounters a standoff between Sheriff Killian and Gizmo, the casino owner. The player must choose a side — or walk away entirely.

The original design intention was genuinely grey:

• Siding with Gizmo: Junktown thrives economically. His casino brings in caps and people. Yes, he's a crime lord who does questionable things, but most people are materially better off under him.
• Siding with Killian: He's fair and impartial, but follows the letter of the law rigidly. The most minor infraction gets punished harshly. Junktown suffers under his inflexible justice.

What Went Wrong in Development

The original end slides were harsh and reflected these grey consequences. But during playtesting, a problem emerged: the game steered players toward Killian with no clues that picking him would lead to negative outcomes. Playtesters felt punished for doing what the game seemed to want.

By that point, voice acting was recorded and edited, and the budget was spent. They couldn't add dialogue clues, so they softened the end slides instead — diluting the original grey morality vision.

The Third Option

Cain emphasizes a detail players often overlook: you don't have to pick a side. You can leave Junktown entirely. The conflict existed before you arrived and will continue after you leave. Sometimes intervention itself is the wrong action — as in the WarGames quote, "not playing is the correct move."

Grey Morality Beyond Games

Cain connects this design philosophy to real workplace dilemmas he's experienced:

• The boss's bug: Do you tell your boss whose bug made the game late and get that person in trouble? Or stay silent and take the consequences yourself?
• The unauthorized feature: A team member was told by a superior to add a feature without telling Cain. The team member faced an impossible choice — obey the superior and risk Cain finding out, or refuse and face consequences from above. The feature ended up causing a lockup bug, exposing everything within 24 hours.

What Cain finds fascinating is that when he tells these stories, audiences immediately take sides — exactly proving his point that people want clear moral answers where none exist.

The Ethics of Action and Responsibility

Cain's core argument about grey morality extends beyond game design into a personal philosophy:

• Once you act, you own it. You can explain why you did something — pressure from a superior, needing the job, supporting a family — but an explanation is not an excuse. You are now part of the problem.
• Doing nothing is also a choice. Even walking away carries consequences you must accept.
• Compliance escalates. Once you do something slightly unethical for a superior, they will ask for more. And your team will lose trust in you when they find out.

After the unauthorized feature incident, Cain began checking every code check-in from that team daily for the remaining months of development — not ideal, but a consequence he accepted responsibility for.

Advice for Game Designers

Cain's recommendation for implementing grey morality in games:

1. Telegraph consequences — the original Junktown quest failed because players had no way to anticipate the outcomes. Grey morality works when players can reason about trade-offs.
2. Make quests with no right answer — only several different wrong ones. This creates genuine engagement and discussion.
3. Allow opting out — not every quest needs the player to intervene. Sometimes the best choice is to walk away.

Cain loves grey morality in games because it mirrors life and generates real conversation. He doesn't love it in real life — but acknowledges it's unavoidable.