Darth Hater

I agree wholeheartedly with intentions being the measure of moral alignment under normal circumstances, but incorporating it into a video game complicates matters greatly.

Since a game is finite we have to narrow down what would normally be a near infinite number of approaches to any given situation to only a few. Within these limits it's our job to pick a range of options that gives the player enough diversity to role-play and we have to communicate as clearly as possible what those options are so the player isn't unpleasantly surprised because a choice isn't quite what they thought it would be. In that sense we have to assume that when the player selects an option they are doing so "in earnest," playing at face value, because it's impossible for a designer to know the player's intention for selecting any given option.

The tricky part is trying to then add additional layers of intent onto the same choice. For example, if I accost the player with a group of thugs working for a local crimeboss, and those thugs indicate that the player can avoid an unpleasant demise if the player agrees to poison a close associate. A player might agree to the task only as lip service to get out of a fight, without ever intending to follow through on it. It's up to me to either make it 100% clear that by choosing that option you fully intend to poison your friend, or I need to account for your deception and present other options later.

Because choices can be ambiguous it's best to try and assign points on the alignment scale based on action rather than intent. In the above example, the player shouldn't get darkside points until they reach the point of no return, in this case going through with the poisoning.

This obviously, doesn't address everyone's concerns, but I hope it'll reassure everyone that we're doing our best to avoid hanging you out to dry with a bad decision.