Fable
'Will you travel the road of the righteous or lead a life of evil?' This could be the tagline for either the book of Proverbs or a Quentin Tarantino film, but it refers, instead, to a revolutionary role-playing game for games consoles.
'Fable', just released with a fanfare in Europe, sold 600,000 copies in its first month in the US - breaking all previous sales records. It grants you, the central character, free will - more or less. Presented with different options, you can choose to nurture heroic values or embrace villainy.
Set in a medieval fantasy world, you start, as a child, with the task of scraping together enough cash to buy a sibling a birthday present. How you do this is up to you: for a few coins, you can tend a stall for a merchant while he's on an errand; or, you can steal from him while he's away.
Later in the day, a man will bribe you not to tell his wife you've seen him flirting with another woman. You can accept or decline the bribe, but when you see his wife around town, what you do is up to you...
The ingenuity of the game is not that it presents you with these moral dilemmas, but that you reap what you sow. As the posters for the game say, 'For every choice - a consequence.'
So, become a murderer and a thief who skulks in the shadows and your skin will become deathly pale and children will run from you. Become a hero who excels in the heat of battle and you'll achieve a battle-scarred, perma-tanned face, and villagers will sing your praise.
In fact, every choice you make will develop your character (whether it's crushing a flower or killing a chicken) and will, according to the makers, tip your 'moral scale' towards the good or the bad.
In a world where sin isn't what it used to be, Fable intriguingly reinforces some biblical principles. And it helps to remind us that we are part of each other's environment, woven into the tapestry of this world. Our everyday actions make it either a more beautiful or ugly place.
No wonder Jesus told his disciples that they must forgive each other over and over, if required, on a daily basis. How we approach each decision matters. Not least because, when it comes to the accumulative and eternal outcome of our actions, someone has already faced the consequences.
Jason Gardner
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