The Ultima Series Dissected

Tales of the Rampant Coyote is pointing to a rant about the eleven primary Ultima games over on DGM’s dungeon-games blog. Essentially, the guy isn’t too fond of the “don’t bother trying, because you’ll only make things worse” theme that plagues the whole series.

The moral code in question – the (code of the avatar) – is, admittedly, easy to find flaws in. Not everything it purports to be a virtue really turns out to be under rational scrutiny, and there’s no proper integration of said virtues (such as, what do you do when two or more virtues appear to be in conflict). But still, it was the first game to really try and incorporate a sophisticated moral system and have it actually matter. And arguably, not only was it the first but it is still the best even nearly two-and-a-half decades later; the single-axis good/evil systems (or two-axis good/evil-plus-law/chaos systems) we see everywhere today are primitive by comparison. For this alone, Ultima 4 deserves a lot of respect; taken by itself, its message seemed to be (character matters, and trying to become a better person is worth it.)

Sadly, when you look at the Ultima series as a whole, the message seems to change to )don’t bother trying, you’ll only make things worse.) After Ultima 1, pretty much every game – with the arguable exception of the sixth – involves you either cleaning up some mess left over from your previous adventures or creating a future mess. With Ultima 4 arguably being the worst screw-up of all.

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The impression I’m left with is that you scramble to deal with one disaster after another – many of which arise partially from your own previous actions – while the rest of the universe burns at the hands of the monster you created along the way. As I said, the message I get is (don’t bother trying, you’ll only make things worse.)

Here are a couple of paragraphs from Jay’s comments about the article:

The sad thing is that the second “trilogy” went so well, in spite of the counter-themes that undermined your previous successes. The theme of Ultima IV was about how certain virtues were universal – greater than laws or religions – and that the attaining of these virtues and sharing that with others was the greatest of quests. Ultima V took things down from the ideal to the real a little bit, with the theme that governments and laws cannot enforce virtue – they can only pervert it. And Ultima VI took things in another direction entirely and had a message about how understanding and communication can end the most bitter of conflicts.

These were probably not the only themes that could be pulled from the games, but these are the ones that stick out in my mind. There are other RPGs (and non-RPGs) that have themes that stick out in my mind – though the true theme seems to be based upon which of the multiple endings you stumble across. My favorite ending of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines underscored the theme, “Pride goeth before the fall.” To me, the theme of Baldur’s Gate II seemed to be, “Will is greater than destiny.” The “good” ending of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption was surprisingly not about redemption at all (I felt), but rather that “love conquers all.” Final Fantasy 7 had a very obvious eco-friendly theme of, “If humanity doesn’t take care of the world, it will quit taking care of humanity.” Even the much-maligned original campaign of Neverwinter Nights had some kind of theme (“Sorrow and rage can consume and destroy even the most virtuous of people”), which I felt elevated the otherwise ho-hum storyline to at least above average.