Tyranny Score: Evil Path RPG Experiment

Introduction

Role-playing games (RPGs) have long been a medium for exploring moral choices, allowing players to shape their characters' destinies through decisions that reflect virtue, neutrality, or villainy. However, few games delve as deeply into the psychology of evil as Tyranny Score, an experimental RPG designed to measure a player's propensity for tyranny based on their in-game choices.

Unlike traditional RPGs that reward heroism, Tyranny Score challenges players to embrace cruelty, manipulation, and domination. The game tracks a "Tyranny Score," quantifying how far a player is willing to go in pursuit of absolute power. This experiment raises provocative questions: How do players justify evil actions in a fictional setting? What does their willingness to embrace tyranny reveal about human nature?

The Mechanics of Tyranny

Tyranny Score operates on a dynamic morality system, but instead of balancing good and evil, it pushes players toward increasingly oppressive decisions. The game presents scenarios where power is gained through deception, brutality, or systemic oppression. Key mechanics include:

The Tyranny Meter – A numerical score that increases with every morally reprehensible choice, from minor betrayals to outright genocide.
Faction Manipulation – Players can pit factions against each other, exploiting their conflicts to weaken resistance.
Fear vs. Loyalty – Followers can be controlled through fear (executions, threats) or loyalty (propaganda, rewards), each affecting stability differently.
The Point of No Return – At certain thresholds, the game locks players into irreversible tyrannical paths, eliminating redemption arcs.

These mechanics force players to confront the consequences of their actions, not just in terms of narrative outcomes but in how they perceive their own morality.

Psychological Implications

The Tyranny Score experiment is less about the game itself and more about player behavior. Research in moral psychology suggests that people are more likely to commit unethical acts when they feel detached from real-world consequences. Tyranny Score amplifies this effect by making evil choices rewarding—players gain power, resources, and narrative control by embracing tyranny.

Studies on similar games (e.g., Spec Ops: The Line, Undertale Genocide Route) show that players often rationalize evil actions as "just part of the game." However, Tyranny Score goes further by making cruelty systematic rather than situational. Players don’t just make one evil choice—they build an entire regime on oppression.

The Justification of Evil

When interviewed, players of Tyranny Score provided various justifications for their actions:

"It's just a game." – The most common response, reinforcing the idea that virtual actions have no real-world weight.
"I wanted to see what would happen." – Curiosity drives many to explore the darkest paths.
"The game rewards tyranny." – If the system incentivizes evil, players feel encouraged to engage in it.
"I didn’t feel bad because the characters aren’t real." – Dehumanization of NPCs makes cruelty easier.

These responses mirror real-world phenomena where individuals justify harmful behavior under the right conditions (e.g., obedience experiments like Milgram’s).

Ethical Dilemmas in Game Design

Tyranny Score intentionally blurs the line between player agency and designer manipulation. By structuring the game to reward tyranny, it raises ethical questions:

Should games encourage evil behavior, even in fiction?
Does playing a tyrant normalize oppressive thinking?
Can a game like this be used for psychological study, or is it merely exploitative?

Some argue that such experiments are valuable for understanding human nature, while others worry they could desensitize players to real-world atrocities.

Conclusion: The Allure of Absolute Power

Tyranny Score is more than a game—it’s a social experiment disguised as entertainment. By quantifying tyranny, it forces players to reflect on how easily power can corrupt, even in a fictional setting. The most unsettling revelation isn’t that players can choose evil, but how many do so without hesitation when given the opportunity.

Perhaps the true measure of a player’s morality isn’t whether they resist tyranny, but how they justify it when no one is watching.