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Shadowleaf
2012-01-23, 02:07 AM
I've been wanting to implement quests with morally ambigious solutions into my gaming style for some time now. I've contemplated how to do it tastefully and I think a poor execution of it could ruin my players' fun.


When I say morally questionable encounters, I mean something like this:
A Necromancer has been killing local lowlives and criminals to fuel a necromantic spell, which is actually keeping the deathly ill child prodigy king alive.

I want my players to decide whether or not the Necromancer should live. I would allow them to circumvent the situation (by, say, finding the Legendary Artifact of Healing), but only after having considered the moral side of the situation.


Now, I know my players are mature enough to handle this, and I am sure they would enjoy these sorts of situations. What I am looking for is tips on how to execute it correctly and what pitfalls I should avoid (I could see my players projecting something from the game onto themselves if it's too close so something they have experienced), and I could also really use some inspiration through examples. Basicly situations where grey on grey morality can be applied.

Atcote
2012-01-23, 02:17 AM
Be careful with the third solution there; after a while they start to expect that something will come along to absolve them of an actual impacting decision.

These are ways that can dangerously conflict with both character's morals and player's morals. Whatever you do, don't create situations that feel like you're making them make a bad decision one way or the other - make a silver lining become apparent after either choice.

And, of course, don't use it as an excuse to say 'YOU'RE NOT MAKING A LAWFUL DECISION, AWAY WITH CLASS FEATURES!'. I imagine you wouldn't be anywhere near so cruel, but hey, I've had some horrible GMs in the past.

Shadowleaf
2012-01-23, 02:26 AM
Be careful with the third solution there; after a while they start to expect that something will come along to absolve them of an actual impacting decision.

These are ways that can dangerously conflict with both character's morals and player's morals. Whatever you do, don't create situations that feel like you're making them make a bad decision one way or the other - make a silver lining become apparent after either choice.

And, of course, don't use it as an excuse to say 'YOU'RE NOT MAKING A LAWFUL DECISION, AWAY WITH CLASS FEATURES!'. I imagine you wouldn't be anywhere near so cruel, but hey, I've had some horrible GMs in the past.I think I will try to encourage thinking outside the box for the third option and leave it mostly up the players. I might drop hints that the Legenday Artifact of Healing exists a good time before they're faced with the decision, and simply leave it to them to consider it as an option. I always try to promote player creativity and I certainly want them to be able to circumvent some of the situations, but I also really want them to have to consider the moral aspect of it (since I know they'd love it). I am not exactly sure how to balance them not expecting to be handed an easy solution on a silver platter, and all the situations have a happy ending.

It wouldn't have any effect on the mechanics of the game whatsoever unless they do something extremely unexpected (a Paladin choosing to execute the child king would probably fall, for instance).

Togath
2012-01-23, 02:42 AM
I've been wanting to implement quests with morally ambigious solutions into my gaming style for some time now. I've contemplated how to do it tastefully and I think a poor execution of it could ruin my players' fun.


When I say morally questionable encounters, I mean something like this:
A Necromancer has been killing local lowlives and criminals to fuel a necromantic spell, which is actually keeping the deathly ill child prodigy king alive.

I want my players to decide whether or not the Necromancer should live. I would allow them to circumvent the situation (by, say, finding the Legendary Artifact of Healing), but only after having considered the moral side of the situation.


Now, I know my players are mature enough to handle this, and I am sure they would enjoy these sorts of situations. What I am looking for is tips on how to execute it correctly and what pitfalls I should avoid (I could see my players projecting something from the game onto themselves if it's too close so something they have experienced), and I could also really use some inspiration through examples. Basicly situations where grey on grey morality can be applied.

ok, I give up; how is this a morally questionable quest?, the necromancer is killing criminals in order to save a chill king?, I cant see a way to veiw what the necromancer is doing as an evil act, unless I'm misunderstanding the plot of the quest.
edit; I'm not troling with this, I'm just having trouble understanding how the above situation is morally grey
edit 2; I think I see the part you tried to make morally grey now(him killing people to fuel a spell to keep the king alive), but due to them being criminals, it still seems like a good act

Shadowleaf
2012-01-23, 02:46 AM
ok, I give up; how is this a morally questionable quest?, the necromancer is killing criminals in order to save a chill king?, I cant see a way to veiw what the necromancer is doing as an evil act, unless I'm misunderstanding the plot of the quest.
edit; I'm not troling with this, I'm just having trouble understanding how the above situation is morally greyBecause killing criminals rather than bringing them to justice is bad and murder is evil. Replace criminals with babies and child king with prophecied king that is going to stop all wars if you want it to be more apparent.


Edit: Though this is kind of what I want my players to do. Discuss whether it is wrong or not. :smallwink:

Atcote
2012-01-23, 02:48 AM
I'm not troling with this, I'm just having trouble understanding how the above situation is morally grey

That's actually an alright point, and possibly a problem that players have too - some players may go 'Hey, he's alright', while others may have the mentality of 'He's a necromancer, right? That means he wears black? DEATH TAKES HIM!' Although you did assure us that your players were mature enough to handle the situation doesn't mean that essentially they're going to understand the situation from the onset.

Also, the third option may make players see the action as evil; after all, if you found a bloodless way to solve this, how was what he was doing justified? (The NPC's excuse is usually that they knew of no other way.)

It's a big situation filled with traps and misunderstandings.

However, this situation could still be seen as moral grey - not that the Necromancer is performing an out-and-out evil act, but he is none-the-less killing people to keep someone else alive, which may run into all sorts of moral quandaries (For example, does this make the king undead? Is his life really worth the sacrifice of dozens? And who's to say it will stop at criminals?)

Shadowleaf
2012-01-23, 02:55 AM
That's actually an alright point, and possibly a problem that players have too - some players may go 'Hey, he's alright', while others may have the mentality of 'He's a necromancer, right? That means he wears black? DEATH TAKES HIM!' Although you did assure us that your players were mature enough to handle the situation doesn't mean that essentially they're going to understand the situation from the onset.

Also, the third option may make players see the action as evil; after all, if you found a bloodless way to solve this, how was what he was doing justified? (The NPC's excuse is usually that they knew of no other way.)

It's a big situation filled with traps and misunderstandings.

However, this situation could still be seen as moral grey - not that the Necromancer is performing an out-and-out evil act, but he is none-the-less killing people to keep someone else alive, which may run into all sorts of moral quandaries (For example, does this make the king undead? Is his life really worth the sacrifice of dozens? And who's to say it will stop at criminals?)This is why I asked for help with specific situations.

I do know, however, that my players don't view morality (or D&D alignments) as black or white. They know NPCs have thoughts and feelings, and the would assume the necromancer wasn't simply doing it for the evulz. I keep thinking back on the new Batman movies: They'd expect him to be Ra's Al Ghul, not the Joker, i.e. they'd expect him to have "complicated" view on morality rather than simply wanting to watch the world burn.

What I really want them to do is to end up discussing the basic ethics questions such as killing a person to save a lot of people, the end justifies the means and that sort of things.

Togath
2012-01-23, 11:05 PM
Edit: Though this is kind of what I want my players to do. Discuss whether it is wrong or not. :smallwink:[/QUOTE]

using something more like the babies to save a prophecied king will probably work better, unless your running a modern era mostly non-combat game the killing of criminals rather than arresting them would still be a fairly non-evil act(frankly even in a modern setting it would be hard for you to get your characters to have the view of "killing a criminal is bad", as many people have the logical response of " at least injure" towards criminals), though I suppose it could work if you had the guy killing criminals be a police officer(or some sort of medieval equivalent such as someone who is a member of an order sworn not to kill), that would help make the situation morally grey(regardless of whether or not you use the exact situation mentioned above, some one who normally shouldn't kill x[x being babies, criminals, et cetera] being the source of the grey morality could help)
edit; perhaps some sort of murder with the victim being someone of a morally grey profession(prostitute, gambler et cetera) could make a good plot for this sort of campaign

EccentricOwl
2012-01-23, 11:36 PM
Have you read the GnomeStew book "Eureka?" It's filled with morally ambiguous plots and plot threads.

Nepenthe
2012-01-23, 11:40 PM
I can give you an example from a game I'm running (D&D 3.5, Eberron).

The party approached an hysterical woman near the city courthouse. She told them her 8 year-old son was to be hanged the following morning. Further investigation revealed that the child had plead guilty to charges of pickpocketing, but was tried as an adult halfling. A ruthless judge then handed down the death sentence to send a message to a certain criminal organization.

Eventually they convinced the judge to reduce the sentence if they could provide definitive, scientific proof of the convict's race (nothing magical was allowed in evidence in this court). Even further investigation revealed that a professor at Morgrave University had done quite a bit of research in this area and could prove a person's race by relative bone density. All he would need for the test was a six inch length of the boy's femur. :smalleek:

In the end they were able to have a record of the child's ancestry faxed over from the Library of Korranberg (gotta love Eberron) so as to avoid bloodshed. Still, the nervous looks the players were giving each other as this unfolded made my night as a DM.

Reluctance
2012-01-23, 11:51 PM
I had a DM who loved doing this. Be very careful, since you're sending this directly at actor-type players. Action-lovers will get bored (potentially solving your gordian knots the old fashioned way), while puzzlers will happily make numbers-based greater good decisions (E.G: how often does the king need a life-infusion vs. how often would capital crimes normally happen) or spend the whole time looking for their own third options (E.G: killing animals, the suicidal, or having those already close to death be the ones to sacrifice for their liege). Be prepared for a lot of extra work if you have those sorts of players.

If you want moral questionability ideas, read the news. The republican debates are an especially handy place to see contentious issues mentioned. (Not taking any political sides. Just noting that debates focusing on a major political party will raise contentious points to see which side people come down on.) If you're looking for more generic plots, place one finite resource with two sides that each have a valid reason to claim it. Enter PCs.

erikun
2012-01-24, 12:11 AM
ok, I give up; how is this a morally questionable quest?, the necromancer is killing criminals in order to save a chill king?, I cant see a way to veiw what the necromancer is doing as an evil act, unless I'm misunderstanding the plot of the quest.
The necromancer isn't killing murders and druglords that have somehow escaped justice until now; he is killing "lowlives" and "criminals". This can easily include children, orphans, the guy who got his hand chopped off for stealing bread for his family once, or even just the homeless that have never committed a crime.

I'm not sure the Legendary Artifact of Healing is such a great idea, though. If there is some magical item lying around the game world that would solve the king's problem, I think it would be more satisfying for the players to realize this and set it up with the king. Creating a specific "save the king and perfect solution MacGuffin" lying around somewhere, especially after the fact, really kills the whole point.

illyrus
2012-01-24, 01:10 AM
A ghost is haunting a village and killing off villagers. In actuality the villagers burned the woman for being a witch (she wasn't). Bonus points if the ghost has a living daughter that the villagers are considering doing the same to as her mother. Extra bonus points if the daughter is in fact a witch and is the one who brought back her mother's ghost to take vengeance.

Working with less savory individuals/organizations to accomplish a common goal can work as well for a gray area. Maybe a local crime boss offers his aid to take out the abominations in the sewer under the agreement that the PCs don't mess with his business anymore.

A mage is mind controlling people to commit crimes using a variety of methods from dominate to suggestion to charm person. Some people even seem to enjoy it after a bit and no longer need mental control.

Sith_Happens
2012-01-24, 01:42 AM
I want my players to decide whether or not the Necromancer should live. I would allow them to circumvent the situation (by, say, finding the Legendary Artifact of Healing), but only after having considered the moral side of the situation.

As others have discussed, having a definitive Best OptionTM is a quick way to completely deflate the gravity/complexity of the entire situation and make any other choice look evil by comparison. (I'm looking at you, "Arl of Redcliffe" quest in DA:O...)

If you do want to include an otherwise "guilt-free option," make sure that it has some kind of serious practical drawback. In your example, maybe the Legendary Artifact of Healing is in the territory of a hostile nation, and therefore retrieving it without provoking war would be a delicate and risky operation.

Extra_Crispy
2012-01-24, 02:38 AM
This is going to be a long post so please bear with me.

In a Pathfinder game I play we ran into a kinda moral issue that with some tweeking you could probably make it even more of a moral controversy. First some background. All the players feel alignments are more of a guideline and less of a strict rule. Act like a normal person but use your alignment to help decide somethings. A home brewed world. With an orc tribe being friendly to our people. We have 5 players including me. A CG human fighter, Talon, being played by a roll player who only really wakes for fights and does not role play much. A CN Human Barbarian adopted by the orc tribe Kairen, a very good role player and our resident rules master. Davor an Orc Fighter, fairly new to role playing and seems to like interparty conflict. Evan a halfling thief (being run like a Kender), also a good role player. Me a LN dwarven inquisiter and my cohort a LN dwarven Cleric.

So we are moving the whole city to a different area because we were cought between a very powerful Lich that was awaking and starting a HUGE undead army and a powerful dragon who ruled a country already and was looking at expanding his territory. As we are moving to a new area to claim as home, we come across two cities on either side of a large lake at war with each other. To shorten the story: They kings both agree to let our people across their lands on the condition that we will arbitrate. We find out the king #1 claims his son was kidnapped by the other and thus declaired war. King #2 says no and that he only cut off all trade routes to king 1 because he declaired war. He also says that King #1's 2nd child is not his, his wife had a child by this wondering merchant. Everyone I talk to is telling the truth to the best of my knowledge and magical abilities can see. Question 1? Who do you believe and side with?

Both kings have hired merc's from "a city in the south" that we find out is the same city but different companies. They do not know they hired from the same city. Long story short we find out that the armies' mercs are actually being payed by "Talon" and their whole plan is to destabalize the cities and weaken them so that they can conquer them and take over. I find out that the "talon" they are talking about is our Talon by description he looks exactly like the PC. Turns out the PC has a half brother that looks exactly like him but a 1-2 inches shorter and that hates him for "abonding him" when PC Talon and father moved on. His whole agenda is to ruin Talon's name and destroy his life. He has captured Talon's sister and is "enjoying her company" and even has one of Talon's 2 wives (who are the Orc chief's human adopted daughters), and is "really enjoying her". He procedes to beat Talon in a fight and instead of killing PC Talon lets him go so that he can "destroy his life more". So we have an obsessed powerful bad guy with an army larger then our whole city out to cause the most pain and humiliation to one of the cities leading citizens. Add to this that the 2nd in command of NPC Talon's army is the father of King #1's child.

Moral question 2: Do you help PC Talon to stop his brother knowing that you dont have the resources to oppose the NPC's army and that he could just come in and wipe everyone out, and would do that just to get hurt PC Talon more. Or do you abandon PC Talon to figure it out himself (or as was suggested by Davor, kill Talon) and probably make your city safe eventhough he had no knowledge of any of this and has been a companion and friend to all.

Mind you this was setup by the GM to try to get Talon to role play more. The GM gave him such a huge story to try to get Talon to do more then just pay attention to combat and only roll play.

ClothedInVelvet
2012-01-24, 06:03 AM
Morally Questionable Quest Idea:

A portal has opened in a desert on the continent, and a demonic legion is massing from inside of it. If left unchecked, it will lash out at the countries surrounding the desert and cause death and destruction. Your party is the only ones who realize the immensity of the situation. They have to work to save the entire continent.

Solutions: They could try uniting the countries of the continent. This will be difficult because some are enemies, some won't believe, etc. Interspersed, they have to fight off demon attacks. Even if they unite them, the war will be the death of millions of soldiers, conscripts, and civilians.

However, there is a powerful lich living inside an icy mountain on the northern edge of the continent. He is trapped inside the mountain by an order of templars (we'll call them the Knights of the Silver Circlet, or KSC for short). The PCs learn of this lich and realize he has the power to raise an army of undead to fight the demons. Unfortunately, the price for his help is the extermination of the KSC.

If they decide to get the lich's help, they'll first have to kill a bunch of holy warriors (certainly not an exalted act), then keep a lich in line until he's killed all of the demons (might be easy if he's lawful), then find a way to defeat him to keep him from remaking the continent to his liking. Otherwise, they have to lead armies to their deaths at the hands of the demon hordes.

Enjoy.

NikitaDarkstar
2012-01-24, 09:57 AM
Personally I prefer morally grey situations on a smaller scale. I mean if I don't know the necromancer, the king or any of the people the necromancer has killed very well it'll come down to one life vs many lives. Heck if I'm someone from the lower end of society I might know someone the necromancer had killed, or at least be able to relate to his victims, but in short, they don't really have an emotional connection with me. (Player wise and depending on character, might not mean anything to my character either.)

Smaller scale things like those raiding gnolls you've been sent to deal with? Turns out they were just trying to feed their pups. Or the guy who sold you watered down healing potions? He's just trying to make enough money to pay for his kids tuition fee in magic school. Yhea he just willingly risked your lives by selling you stuff he knew wouldn't work, but you looked tough enough to handle it!

And make it personal (for the characters, not the players.). If your PC's have written back stories see if there's anything in them you can use, such as an old rival/whatever that wronged the character and the character has every right to want revenge. But the rival has mended his ways now, sure he still has a personality that's not easy to deal with but he really is doing good stuff now and killing him would make life much worse for a lot of other people, but he's still walking around unpunished for whatever crime he committed to make your PC character not like him in the first place, so what to do?


But all in all I agree with the others, offering a "perfect solution" is NOT something you should be doing here, it'll ruin the mood. But I'd also suggest treading carefully so you don't make anyone uncomfortable with something like this. Remember, even if you know them very well they might have things going on that you don't know about that they don't want to deal with in-game. Also make it clear that if you by accident touch on anything someone isn't comfortable with they can call you on it right then and there and you'll stop, no questions asked.

STsinderman
2012-01-24, 11:40 AM
Indeed , rock and a hard place type game scenarios are the most difficult and fun to work through. Plus dealing with the aftermath of the choices taken are fun when it come to the overall campaign as it can wind up very different then you first envisioned when you designed it.

Offering a perfect way out, might perhaps just mean that your players will know that you put one in each time and start looking past the issue and always looking for that perfect way which heavily detracts from the point of having moral questions in the first place.

NichG
2012-01-24, 03:41 PM
Moral question 2: Do you help PC Talon to stop his brother knowing that you dont have the resources to oppose the NPC's army and that he could just come in and wipe everyone out, and would do that just to get hurt PC Talon more. Or do you abandon PC Talon to figure it out himself (or as was suggested by Davor, kill Talon) and probably make your city safe eventhough he had no knowledge of any of this and has been a companion and friend to all.


The NPCs in this scenario are the problem. First off, the Kings are throwing many lives at basically resolving an issue of a few lives (the son in question).
Personally I'd look at ends here - what will happen if you side with King 1 vs King 2? If you side with King 2, does the war continue? If you side with King 1, does it end? Or does it end in both cases? Given the hissy-fit nature, I'd doubt your arbitration is going to be listened to. The obvious solution is to find the missing kid, which cuts the quandry. The whole 'your second son is illegitimate' thing seems random.

Now, this NPC Talon is a psychopath if he's willing to kill a city just to get revenge on one random guy. The NPC army might not even be hostile without this crazy leader. I'd try to get NPC Talon removed from that post, or absent that assassinated. Better yet, you could first use PC Talon to get NPC Talon seen doing things that get the mercs fired by both kings. Have PC Talon go attempt to seduce the kings daughters, dressed as NPC Talon, etc. Body double works both ways, after all. Or even more subtly, have PC Talon start 'receiving orders' from the kings in place of the NPC.

Maybe you could arrange it such that if NPC Talon tries to move on the city, the mercs don't get paid. Mercs don't like that. NPC Talon won't stay in power long if that happens, especially if other mercs than the NPC Talon know it.

zorba1994
2012-01-24, 10:28 PM
I try to do this in my games on both large and small scales. Both are examples from my current campaign.


In this campaign world, one human nation pushed the elves out of their territory several dozen years ago. While the party is sitting in a human city, an elven strike force attacks and begins subjugating humans as second-class citizens (as well as killing off half-elves). However, this was much what the humans did to the elves in the first place...

In an individual adventure, after the party decided to join the human defense force, they are sent on a mission to infiltrate an elven compound and kill a very powerful cleric that is providing critical healing assistance to the elves; if she dies, likely the whole elven army will have to retreat. But, when the PCs get there, they will find that she is defenseless and will not fight back, having taken the cleric's equivalent of a Hippocratic oath...

In both cases, either choice is equally viable--but the player's connections with other NPCs will likely be strained either way.

Atcote
2012-01-24, 11:07 PM
In this campaign world, one human nation pushed the elves out of their territory several dozen years ago. While the party is sitting in a human city, an elven strike force attacks and begins subjugating humans as second-class citizens (as well as killing off half-elves). However, this was much what the humans did to the elves in the first place...


Was there a reason humans didn't kill off half-elves? Or a reason elves are specifically killing half-elves?

Did your party ever feel that this was more a matter of survival for them rather than something they'd have to solve (after it, it evidently started far before they arrived)? And did player races come into the equation?

Extra_Crispy
2012-01-25, 02:56 AM
To try to shorten the story I probably left a few things out. First off the 2 kingdoms were great friends and both really wanted the war to end. The leader of one of the Merc armies (second in command under NPC Talon) was the father of the son for King 1 (thought I mentioned that) and with the older son now gone, he has a ligitmate claim to the thrown. Finally as most of both of the kings armies became Merc's they outnumbered he fighting men on both sides. They conquered the kingdoms. So truethfully the first question became a mute point. But before all this happened we were going to try to get to the bottom of the Merc issue, we had a feeling something was up and maybe they were trying to do what they did but had no proof. But which king do you side with as both were telling the truth as far as they knew it.

NPC Talon was behind all of this but was not seen untill the end. As I found out that "Talon" was their leader, I talked to PC Talon and we decided to try to get the general to turn over the armies to PC Talon. I thought someone was impersonating Talon and if the real one showed up they would follow his commands and the impersonator could be flushed out or have to bide his time untill PC Talon was away. Talon is mixed up with a green dragon, very long story, and I was thinking that it was the polymorphed dragon. But then NPC Talon told his story and then when PC Talon attacked him in anger over the situation, NPC Talon kicked his butt. NPC Talon was the leader the whole time and the general of the Merc army knew that NPC and PC Talon were 2 different people and knew the whole history. He was a kid bullied by PC Talon when they were in the town and PC Talon's father got the woman pregnant with NPC Talon. So our next question becomes like I said do we support a friend against a psycho with an army that can crush us and kill all our civilians or do we hang a friend out to dry to save the citizens of the city. One friends life for the possibility of saving 13k of your people.

As PC Talon has started classes on the night we play I have had to play his character some. So I set up a way to get resources and info so that we can do close to what you suggest NichG and either take NPC Talons army away from him or destry it or him etc. But as I am a much better role player then Talon the GM, and I agree, I will not play his character anymore. GM wants HIM to role play and that is why he set this whole situation up.

I used the story to try to show a moral quandry that can be setup. Basically is was first who do you trust when all parties are telling the truth as far as even magic can be determined, and second do you betray a friend for the greater good of many?

Blacky the Blackball
2012-01-25, 06:05 AM
Here's one I did for my "Kids' Campaign" (the players are mostly aged 8-14)...

The party are hired by Lord A to investigate disappearing villagers from his lands.

Investigation turns up an undead who is turning them into zombie minions. The party slay the undead, and its dying words are "Tell Lord A he hasn't seen the last of me!" in a female voice.

When the party inform Lord A of this and inquire about who might be trying to get vengeance on him, he breaks down and confides in them that he has recently acquired new lands through conquest, but broke the rules of chivalry by having Lady B - the previous ruler of those new lands - assassinated rather than simply captured and ransomed as would be normal.

The party are shocked at this, but figure that they need to sort it out, so they go to Lady B's former lands to investigate if she has become some kind of revenant spirit or something.

It turns out that Lady B wasn't assassinated. She had already secretly turned into a lich, and the person who was assassinated was simply her "double" (a minion, polymorphed to look like her for public appearances). She was enjoying getting her revenge on Lord A.

The party were, of course, nowhere near powerful enough to kill a lich - and they knew it.

The moral dilemma was what to do about the situation where neither side in the feud is good and innocents are getting hurt.


How my players dealt with it?

Firstly, they cleverly pointed out to the lich that even though she could kill them; if they disappeared while investigating her then other - harder - adventurers would be sent until eventually she was taken out. So she was better off not killing them and starting that slippery slope.

In response, the lich said that she'd give them a big bag of money to simply walk away and let her continue the feud. Alternately, she'd give them two big bags of money to return to Lord A and assassinate him for her.

The party made a counter offer - they'd forgo the big bag of money and leave her in peace (not revealing that she was a lich) if she promised to harm no more innocents in her feud and restrict herself to just killing Lord A.

She accepted that, and the party left satisfied that in the short term they'd saved many innocent lives and in the long term they'd come back and deal with her once they were powerful enough.

zorba1994
2012-01-25, 06:02 PM
Was there a reason humans didn't kill off half-elves? Or a reason elves are specifically killing half-elves?

Did your party ever feel that this was more a matter of survival for them rather than something they'd have to solve (after it, it evidently started far before they arrived)? And did player races come into the equation?

The specific radical elven sect that invaded the city perceived half-elves as abominations. Player races DID come into the equation, as one of the players was a half-elf-- it's worth mentioning that hiding your identity wasn't particularly difficult. The situation as a whole didn't turn out to be much of a conundrum, admittedly (I had created the scenario before all the characters were done being rolled up).

Gnoman
2012-01-25, 07:52 PM
In my current campaign, the players were attempting to seek out and destroy a extremely powerful (a cleric of Pelor was nearly killed by the residual effect of a fragment of one, and there was a prophecy referencing the unfurling of the last such banner to the End of Days) necromantic artifact, and somehow or other the plotline wound up being fairly dragon-centric. As it happened, one of the local nobles had a large dragon Air Force, so they began negotiating with him for the services of his dragons. (I should mention here that the party was nearly certain that the dragons in question held the solution to the quest.)

During the negotiations, the noble repeatedly asked why he shouldn't simply swear fealty to the bearer of the artifact if it should show up, and it soon became apparent that he and his family had an unpleasant habit of eating the household staff (which were slaves as well). He eventually offered the party assistance in their quest if they in turn assassinated his rival in the current succession war.


Thus, the party had to choose between aiding this clearly Evil person in gaining control of an entire empire, or risking their best chance yet in preventing an apocalyptic war.

Grelna the Blue
2012-01-31, 08:15 PM
The party is offered money by a seemingly respectable source to deal with a local city thieves guild. If they take the task, they eventually discover after making some progress that they are actually in the pay of a rival guild from out of town that just wanted to clear the way while keeping its own hands clean. Worse, the local guild were just thieves, but the new one is into all sorts of crime, including blackmail, extortion, and the sale of mind-destroying addictive drugs (alchemically derived from abyssal vegetation, perhaps). The party doesn't know who in authority can truly be trusted and if they turn against their employer they find that no place in the city is truly safe and their location has been given away to the local guild, which is understandably unhappy with them.


The party faces fearless cultists driven mad by/in thrall to a monster such as an illithid or vampire or an idol with weird powers. These people are not evil themselves, just controlled by evil magic. Most parties are optimized for killing. Does the party use lethal force against these people? As an example, attacking a party with feral children (probably with some sort of template applied) will unnerve some players and leave them unsure of their options.


What if the party comes to a city or a nation where temporary debt slavery is legal, where bonded servitude is a normal and accepted way of escaping poverty, but in which the only obligation a master has is to sustain life? Does the party ignore the plight of the unfortunates around them? Do they expend their own money to buy and free as many as they can? Do they try to reform the system? Caution: Think hard about this scenario before using it. It can break parties.

chadmeister
2012-02-01, 10:15 AM
I want my players to decide whether or not the Necromancer should live. I would allow them to circumvent the situation (by, say, finding the Legendary Artifact of Healing), but only after having considered the moral side of the situation.

The existence or not of the Artifact of Healing is really irrelevant. Whether you kill the Necromancer is the same question as whether you kill any other evil prisoners you capture.

The new question here is, do you allow the Necromancer to continue his work in order to save the child king?

valadil
2012-02-01, 10:54 AM
My players in my last game got a lot of mileage out of doing small evils for the greater good. There's plenty of material there.

To keep your players from projecting their own worldview, you need them to define their characters better. In particular I've found it really helpful to ask them for something their character believes in that they disagree with. Once you get away from setting specifics (ie existences of gods and magic) this really helps build character.

One danger of this type of scenario is that the players may only consider the options they are presented. A classic example is what to do with the man who steals bread to feed his family. If your players are used to this type of question they'll see the man's options are let his family starve or steal the bread. They won't consider why the man doesn't offer to work for the baker in exchange for some legitimately earned loaves.

IMO, RPGs are all about inventing your own third option. If the players want to do this to evade the question, you should absolutely let them. If they're creative enough to find something morally acceptable when given two morally questionable options, reward them for their creativity.

My group failed at this. They conditioned themselves to accept the necessity of lesser evils and stopped looking for third options.

Civil War Man
2012-02-01, 11:10 AM
It's hard to pull off due to the whole Chekhov's Gun effect, but were I in your shoes, if I presented something like the Legendary Healing Artifact as a third option, I'd try to make the question of its actual existence ambiguous (actually ambiguous, unlike DA:O's "the artifact is a legend but it is obvious that it really exists").

That can be risky, though. If done right, it makes the party think and consider all their options so they don't rashly kill the only person keeping the king alive and go off chasing what may be a red herring. If done poorly, players could resent what they might see as arbitrarily punishing them.

Grelna the Blue
2012-02-01, 01:04 PM
Obviously, the boy king in the scenario you posited is not suffering from a normal affliction. If he were, then normal healing would work to fix it. Kings can generally get the very best normal healing a campaign setting has to offer. The party is likely to pick up on this and wonder if they can deal with whoever is responsible for this curse or magical disease or whatever it is and whether that would solve the problem (I like the idea of a powerful but subtle demon of possession who has possessed the castle or some article of royal regalia). Of course, whether or not there actually is a villain responsible is completely irrelevant to the morality of the necromancer's actions unless he is himself responsible, which I gather is not the case.

So if you wanted to make the situation even murkier, what if the necromancer originally started with volunteers, people willing to share their life force with their beloved king (losing temporary levels each time with the possibility of permanent loss just as by removal from undead). However, at this point, the court is haggard and gaunt, the courtiers having lost most of their levels and the treasury has been likewise drained of the money needed to buy the components for restoration. The necromancer says he felt forced, for the good of the king and the kingdom, to start looking elsewhere...

GenericGuy
2012-02-01, 02:31 PM
I had a very similar morally gray quest for my PCs a year or so ago, but it was also nearly the exact opposite.

A kingdom had been going through a civil war for a century, as two noble families fought for the throne. Eventually the male and female scion of each family fell in love and married, binding the two families and ensuring that both will have a descendent on the throne. Soon a young prince is born from the union and there is much rejoicing as it looks like peace will finally come to this war torn nation. However, five years later a plague sweeps through the kingdom and the king dies from it; this almost restarts the civil war if not for the existence of the prince to quell the ambitions of the king’s family. Unfortunately the young prince died as well, but the queen had the court mage perform a necromantic spell to keep the prince’s corpse functioning as if it were alive. The mage also kept the illusion that the child was “growing,” spoke through it during special events, and even controlled it when it went on adventures to gain fame. Twenty years later and no one has caught on, and for those twenty years a little boy’s spirit and mind has been used to fuel to power this Zombie screaming in agony, pain, and psychological trauma that his own mother allows this knowing what is being down to him. Do the PCs save this poor soul and risk reigniting a civil war that could claim hundreds of thousands, or allow this one innocent to go through horrors and unrest like no hell they could imagine?

My Orcs are also a source of moral quandary.

The origin of my Orcs are that they are a slave races engineered from humans, they aren’t the aggressive feral beastmen like in a lot of settings, in fact they are very dispassionate and hold duty, obedience and the good of the group as the highest ideal. Some do decide to escape the Elven Empire that engineered them to human lands, but they still strongly hold on to those ideals. The problems are Orcs breed far too quickly (to make up for their shorter life spans) and require human mates. The genetic engineering that went into Orcs causes “pure” breed Orcs of subsequent generations to become larger savage unthinking beasts, and the only way to prevent this is to “thin out the blood” with a human parent every two or three generations. Since not a lot of humans are volunteering to be brood mares or studs for an Orc collective a lot of these “feral Orcs” are being born, and without some force “culling the herd” Orcs will eventually outnumber humans in any kingdom that accepts them. So, do the PCs work for the kindoms by committing ethnic cleansing of a downtrodden race, whose major crime is trying to escape an Empire that holds them as slaves, or leave them alone and wait for the rampaging horde to inevitable be born?

Oracle_Hunter
2012-02-01, 02:42 PM
What I am looking for is tips on how to execute it correctly and what pitfalls I should avoid (I could see my players projecting something from the game onto themselves if it's too close so something they have experienced), and I could also really use some inspiration through examples. Basicly situations where grey on grey morality can be applied.
First off, if you want Players to experience moral quandary never permit them to Take A Third Option (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption).

RANT SIDEBAR
The greatest problem in most fiction is that the heroes never actually need to pay attention to morality; any ambiguous decision invariably has a Third Way which avoids meaningful sacrifice on their part -- either at the time, or in the end. Of course, heroes in stories don't always know that the Third Way is there, but Genre Savvy Players will, if you let them.

So, instead of worrying about the Necromancer or the King they will immediately start looking for a way to heal the King and kill the Necromancer -- why worry? If they don't this time, then the next time you present them with an apparent moral quandary they will and they'll be ticked off if you don't give it to them.
No, if you actually want them to make a moral decision, give them one.

Secondly, make sure your Players are on-board with a morally ambiguous campaign. People deal with lose-lose situations all the time IRL and some folks like playing RPGs because it lets them be Big Damn Heroes instead. A Player forced to play through a lose-lose against his will will become a Problem Player quickly to the detriment of all involved. You don't need to give them the mission beforehand, just tell them they'll be playing in that kind of campaign.

Finally, work within the system. If you're playing D&D magic can be a potential Third Way in most situations. Players will be unhappy to hear that their "clever plan" to magically solve a situation won't work because the DM wants them to make a moral choice. As general advice, I'd suggest making these decisions time-sensitive and outside the abilities of the PCs to work around. Note, of course, that this can be difficult if Resurrection magic is available :smallsigh:

* * * *

Mostly, I stay away from these sorts of plots in D&D because (A) my Players don't like them and (B) they're so easy to screw up. Now, I'd use them all the time in a more noir-ish game like Shadowrun because the system and setting are better equipped for them but not in a Heroic Fantasy system like D&D.

EDIT: If you want a story about one time I did run this in D&D (4e)...
The Set-up

A mining city had been besieged by orcs. It was run by a wealthy noble whose family had gotten the original charter to set it up and imported most of the labor. The laborers had hard lives -- poor with short lives, but that was due to mining, not mistreatment -- and over time a small middle class of brokers and the like had developed. The town itself was cut off from the king's army and the noble's personal forces had largely been killed off during the initial orc attack.

Answering the call of distress was a party of adventurers who turned out to be Heroes of a People's Revolution against a neighboring state's cruel and venal rulers. They were able to "liberate" the town's major mine from the orcs but promptly claimed it for the People's Revolution and staffed it with fresh revolutionaries drawn from the town's populace. The charismatic leader of the Revolutionaries was willing to organize the town's defenses and break the siege if the nobility and other "monied elites" surrendered their wealth to The People and permitted the laborers to own and operate the means of production for their own benefit. In the meantime, the Revolutionaries set up a recruitment camp in the poor part of town and worked on starting a bloodless coup.

The PCs were a second group of adventurers who answered the town's call of distress about the orcs but they arrived after the Revolutionaries set up shop. The noble was willing to pay the PCs handsomely to defeat the orcs provided they also drove the Revolutionaries out of town. The Revolutionaries, on the other hand, were eager to recruit the PCs to their side. The question was "who do the PCs support in the war?" with the time limit of the siege meaning that, if they didn't choose, the divided town was going to be slaughtered by orcs.

What Happened
The PCs proceeded to play both sides off against each other -- for very little fiscal gain -- after it became clear that they couldn't one-man the entire orcish army (:smallsigh:). Eventually they became entrapped when the town's nobles required the obviously-charismatic PCs to publicly advocate for the nobility in exchange for carrying out the PCs' plan to distribute food to the Revolutionaries. As a response, the PCs went (literally) underground and discovered a secret thieves' society which had a one-way portal to an Epic Dungeon set up by an Epic Thief to guard his greatest treasure. As the PCs were low-Paragon at the time, I figured they would save that challenge for later. Instead, they all went headlong through the portal, abandoning the city to the orcs.

I ran a few more sessions after this before declaring the campaign at an end. When they demanded to have a crack at the dungeon I told them simply "it kills you all -- it is an Epic Dungeon and you are not even LV 15. What were you thinking?!" Of course I didn't really kill their characters -- I let them (narrative) find a way back to the town weeks after abandoning it. In the meantime the Shifty Revolutionary (naturally the right-hand man of the Charismatic Leader) had made a deal with the Evil Corporation for access into the home of the nobility in order for Shifty's cabal to murder the noble and his family leaving the peace-loving Charismatic Revolutionary to accept control of the town as fait accompli. This was a B-Plot that I had brewing in front of the PCs for the entire campaign (the PCs accidentally got their hands on a scroll of True Portal that the Evil Corporation had tried to smuggle into the city) but instead of acting on it, they sold the MacGuffin to the Corporation in return for an upgraded totem for their druid.
And I never ran a morally complicated campaign again :smallannoyed:

Sith_Happens
2012-02-02, 02:28 AM
My Orcs are also a source of moral quandary.

The origin of my Orcs are that they are a slave races engineered from humans, they aren’t the aggressive feral beastmen like in a lot of settings, in fact they are very dispassionate and hold duty, obedience and the good of the group as the highest ideal. Some do decide to escape the Elven Empire that engineered them to human lands, but they still strongly hold on to those ideals. The problems are Orcs breed far too quickly (to make up for their shorter life spans) and require human mates. The genetic engineering that went into Orcs causes “pure” breed Orcs of subsequent generations to become larger savage unthinking beasts, and the only way to prevent this is to “thin out the blood” with a human parent every two or three generations. Since not a lot of humans are volunteering to be brood mares or studs for an Orc collective a lot of these “feral Orcs” are being born, and without some force “culling the herd” Orcs will eventually outnumber humans in any kingdom that accepts them. So, do the PCs work for the kindoms by committing ethnic cleansing of a downtrodden race, whose major crime is trying to escape an Empire that holds them as slaves, or leave them alone and wait for the rampaging horde to inevitable be born?

This one's easy: Convince the kingdoms in question to throw money at the problem. Sure not a lot of men are willing to stud for a horde of orc women... for free.:smallwink::smalleek:

Zerter
2012-02-02, 05:13 AM
You want to have them to make an actual choice, other than that this is not something immature players can handle (which most d&d players are), but you say you're fine in that departement.

A recent example from a campaign I was playing in: my Paladin was on a quest that involved a family in which the man was abusive towards the woman. Local law did nothing to stop it (it was technically illegal but when pushed the gaurds only kept him in overnight) and I could not be around to protect her forever.

Trying to talk to the man was pointless, I tried to make implicit threats ("If your wife ever needs protection she knows how to contact me"), but I could hardly kill or even hurt the man which would be in defiance of local law and too strong a reaction.

What I did was talk to the woman in question and tell her that the best way to fix the situation is to leave her husband with her kid (she had family she could go to and I offered my protection), which she would not do. I talked her in filing a police report against her husband, but afterwards she regretted it and was sure it was only gonna make him madder.

Since it was in her power to change the situation I felt I had taken enough responsibility and left the situation as it was, telling the husband I would check in every now and again. A few days later their kid came to me crying and saying his mother was knocked out. The man had crossed a line, he ran when I met him again and I almost stabbed him to death. Eventually he was put in jail and one of my (chaotic) allies did some research of his own and stumbled upon prove of criminal activities by the husband ensuring he would stay in jail for a long time.

This way I both had to make a hard decision (follow the law or properly protect the woman), but also had a satisfying ending afterwards.

Togath
2012-02-02, 06:04 PM
Um...why not just attack the man/defend the wife from the start?, isn't the point of the paladin to be a hero, not a moron?(a hero understands that sometimes they need to take the law into their own hands, a moron follows laws blindly and enforces them without enforcing the intent)

I'm sorry for posting another post like this, but it's just starting to get frustrating to me to see so many ideas which rely on players following the word of the laws of the area they're in without thought for the intent, or doing the “lawful” thing instead of what would be a heroic/logical thing to do.

Fiery Diamond
2012-02-02, 08:49 PM
Um...why not just attack the man/defend the wife from the start?, isn't the point of the paladin to be a hero, not a moron?(a hero understands that sometimes they need to take the law into their own hands, a moron follows laws blindly and enforces them without enforcing the intent)

I'm sorry for posting another post like this, but it's just starting to get frustrating to me to see so many ideas which rely on players following the word of the laws of the area they're in without thought for the intent, or doing the “lawful” thing instead of what would be a heroic/logical thing to do.

This. Also, to respond to Oracle Hunter's post: the Third Option shouldn't be given to the players. The DM need not even come up with a possible Third Option. But if the players themselves can figure out a plausible Third Option, they should be allowed to take it. And it doesn't need to be 100% correct, either: Look at the videogame Tales of Symphonia - during the majority of the game, the characters are presented with a situation that looks as though all their choices are bad, but they attempt to forge a Third Option path for themselves anyway. Ultimately, this turns out to be the right decision, but in the process, they make a lot of mistakes because of the fact that they don't have omniscient understanding of the situation. This includes them doing something they have every reason to believe will result in saving the world but actually directly results in them destroying an entire city. Had they pressed their opponent in the matter for full details on why he was opposing them on that specific action (he had opposed them on other things for unjustifiable reasons and they knew this) they would have known that their action would cause destruction rather than salvation, so while it came out of nowhere for the characters, they did have the resources to make it not come out of nowhere - just no reason to use those resources.

Basically: The players should be allowed to invent their own Third Option, but the DM isn't obligated to make it work out exactly as the players had planned.

Oracle_Hunter
2012-02-02, 11:35 PM
Basically: The players should be allowed to invent their own Third Option, but the DM isn't obligated to make it work out exactly as the players had planned.
Eh, I'm not sure this is better.

At the heart of the issue is what the DM/Players want to get out of the "moral adventure." If it is a chance to agonize over unclear moral decisions, then permitting a Third Way that works is not going to satisfy that desire. If it is a chance to feel badass because you had your cake and ate it too, then a Third Way is essential. The DM needs to use his narrative fiat to make the scenario work to satisfy all parties -- if the Players don't want to rassle with moral decisions, they're not going to be happy when the DM queers the Third Way they discovered.

In short, the DM needs to work the scenario in the way that the Players will enjoy. If that means a treacherous Third Way that works out all right in the end then so be it -- but only if the Players want it that way.

Sith_Happens
2012-02-03, 03:41 AM
Um...why not just attack the man/defend the wife from the start?, isn't the point of the paladin to be a hero, not a moron?(a hero understands that sometimes they need to take the law into their own hands, a moron follows laws blindly and enforces them without enforcing the intent)

I'm sorry for posting another post like this, but it's just starting to get frustrating to me to see so many ideas which rely on players following the word of the laws of the area they're in without thought for the intent, or doing the “lawful” thing instead of what would be a heroic/logical thing to do.

In fact, choosing Lawful over Good in Zerter's scenario is the exact opposite of what's required by the Paladin's code of conduct:


A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Note that the code says nothing about actually following the law. The closest clause to that is "respect[ing] legitimate authority," which is not the same thing as passing up a good deed in deference to local laws. Not to mention the loophole inherent in the phrase "legitimate authority."

Apparently, enough players get their priorities wrong on this that the Book of Exalted Deeds (on page 10-11) had to explicitly state that a Paladin should choose Good over Lawful.:smallsigh:

valadil
2012-02-03, 02:33 PM
Eh, I'm not sure this is better.

At the heart of the issue is what the DM/Players want to get out of the "moral adventure." If it is a chance to agonize over unclear moral decisions, then permitting a Third Way that works is not going to satisfy that desire.

But it's not up to the GM to decide what the players should get out of the game. If the players come up with something that plausible, you shouldn't fiat that it doesn't work because they dodged the question you asked. That's like saying the players can't sneak around the guards because you really wanted a fight scene, dammit, even though the players thought it would be cool to use their stealth skills.

Now, if your players have a habit of coming up with third options you should probably write more difficult challenges. I'm not suggesting you run a game where the players dodge all the moral quandaries. Let them dodge it if they're creative enough. Then take their creativity into account the next time you design one. Maybe it'll be a more difficult question or maybe you'll put them in a closed system where they have 5 minutes to make a decision and no magic to work with.

Civil War Man
2012-02-03, 03:16 PM
In fact, choosing Lawful over Good in Zerter's scenario is the exact opposite of what's required by the Paladin's code of conduct

To add more to this, calling that inaction Lawful is pretty tenuous. Zerter even said that the husband was breaking the law. The only reason he was not in prison for it was that the guards were failing to enforce it. So taking direct action would have been both Lawful and Good. As it stands, he stood by while someone else broke the law in order to avoid breaking a different law himself. And in the end, he ended up breaking the law he was trying to avoid breaking anyway, but only after an innocent was harmed by the person he could have stopped.

Were I the patron deity of a Paladin Order, I'd rate it "Not enough to fall on its own, but keep on file in case subject Paladin fails to learn from it."

NichG
2012-02-03, 05:17 PM
Eh, I'm not sure this is better.

At the heart of the issue is what the DM/Players want to get out of the "moral adventure." If it is a chance to agonize over unclear moral decisions, then permitting a Third Way that works is not going to satisfy that desire. If it is a chance to feel badass because you had your cake and ate it too, then a Third Way is essential. The DM needs to use his narrative fiat to make the scenario work to satisfy all parties -- if the Players don't want to rassle with moral decisions, they're not going to be happy when the DM queers the Third Way they discovered.

In short, the DM needs to work the scenario in the way that the Players will enjoy. If that means a treacherous Third Way that works out all right in the end then so be it -- but only if the Players want it that way.

I think this is kind of paradoxical advice. I mean, if the players are ignoring the moral choice and hunting for a third option, it probably means that they're not satisfied with agonizing over the moral choice. They're actively pushing against that interpretation even if they don't say so explicitly. On the other hand, I think that 'if the players want a third option, thou shalt not screw with what they come up with!' is a bad idea. Unintended consequences make the game - thats basically the source of challenge in a third option scenario, actually trailblazing a path. If it just works because they decided to try, thats unsatisfying.

As a player in a game, I'd be unsatisfied with a style of running where the DM says before each game 'Okay, there's going to be a tough moral choice in this game. Do you want to have to deal with that or not?' and the resultant states being either 'nothing else you try works' or 'everything else you try works'.

What I'd want is for the DM to provide a hard scenario, designed without a MacGuffin third choice in mind. Then, when I'm inevitably unsatisfied with either of the presented options, I'd want to attempt to find a third, and have success or failure both be possible outcomes of that attempt. The actual playing of the game then is not choosing which devil to side with, but attempting (and possibly failing or only partially succeeding) to find that third path. I'll be annoyed if there are suddenly impassable forests, or if the world and NPCs look stupid because they didn't try the first thing that I could come up with, which happens to work. Maybe that's just me though.

Also sometimes you find (like has happened in this thread several times) that the DM presents two options that have upsides and downsides, and the party morality just doesn't care about some of the downsides (e.g. the example of the abusive husband, most parties I've been in would just kill him, scare the heck out of him by temporarily planeshifting him to Baator, etc. without a second thought). In those cases, I think its best to just use it as a defining moment for the group and move on, without trying to backpedal and make the moral choices 'more equal' after the fact. Sometimes the gordian knot just gets cut. Other times you'll have something that should be simple that the party agonizes over and you just have to bite your tongue and let them figure it out.

Zerter
2012-02-03, 06:44 PM
I'm sorry for posting another post like this, but it's just starting to get frustrating to me to see so many ideas which rely on players following the word of the laws of the area they're in without thought for the intent, or doing the “lawful” thing instead of what would be a heroic/logical thing to do.

I have to respect the law to some degree being a Paladin. And I'd agree I'd chose good over law, but that was not the decision in this because because everyone seems to be missing a key factor which is that the woman refused to help herself while she had a chance to do that. If the man was keeping her prisoner for example it would have been a different situation (even if it was legal), but I can only help people that don't help themselves so much.

Changing the situation starts with the woman understanding she needs to do something, I can't solve her problems for her the rest of her life and if I had chosen to solve this one by force she would not have learned what she learned by deciding to leave him on her own. Like Spock says in Civilization, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Everyone seems to disagree with me, but I stand by my decision, it was the right one to make. Of course there was the risk of something worse happening. But the way it turned out will empower the wife for the rest of her life while the way most people seemed to have picked would probably end up with her having misguided feelings for protection from strong men for the rest of her life and probably have her end up in the hands of another abuser.

NichG
2012-02-03, 08:23 PM
Oh, another kind of interesting morally questionable scenario: very very open-ended things. For example, this came up in a game I'm in. We were essentially dealing with someone who had spontaneously gained one big use of insane amounts of power, essentially one true, god-mode wish. However, she was A. really mentally messed up, and B. unable to really control this power, though she knew it was there. In effect, whatever she next decided to seriously do would get all the power put behind it and be magnified a million fold.

So at some point we talked her down from suicide (result would be: everyone everywhere commits suicide). Then she wanted to kill the people who had done bad things to her, so we did that for her instead so she didn't 'kill all things'. After this, she basically started losing control and said 'Quick, I have to destroy something with this. You. Tell me what to destroy!', with the basic understanding among us that whatever it was would be interpreted broadly.

This is a tricky question, no time to do something clever or discuss, and anything, even really obvious things, could be genied by the cosmos. E.g. she wanted to destroy everyone who felt no guilt over murder, but we pointed out that would probably hit animals, and so on. The end result was that one character was put on the spot, blurted out 'Purple!' in panic, and we basically had to scramble to counter what she eventually did destroy and burned a lot of valuable party resources for a third option.

Togath
2012-02-04, 03:47 AM
Oh, another kind of interesting morally questionable scenario: very very open-ended things. For example, this came up in a game I'm in. We were essentially dealing with someone who had spontaneously gained one big use of insane amounts of power, essentially one true, god-mode wish. However, she was A. really mentally messed up, and B. unable to really control this power, though she knew it was there. In effect, whatever she next decided to seriously do would get all the power put behind it and be magnified a million fold.

So at some point we talked her down from suicide (result would be: everyone everywhere commits suicide). Then she wanted to kill the people who had done bad things to her, so we did that for her instead so she didn't 'kill all things'. After this, she basically started losing control and said 'Quick, I have to destroy something with this. You. Tell me what to destroy!', with the basic understanding among us that whatever it was would be interpreted broadly.

This is a tricky question, no time to do something clever or discuss, and anything, even really obvious things, could be genied by the cosmos. E.g. she wanted to destroy everyone who felt no guilt over murder, but we pointed out that would probably hit animals, and so on. The end result was that one character was put on the spot, blurted out 'Purple!' in panic, and we basically had to scramble to counter what she eventually did destroy and burned a lot of valuable party resources for a third option.

That's actually a pretty clever idea for a quest, and it also manages to take into account the fact that many campaigns have magic.

Also, in response to the comment above about the quest involving the abused wife, defending her from her husband would still have been a fairly lawful thing to do, or at least an honorable thing to do, as no matter how you look at it the government(or at least the guards) of the town were corrupt or lazy, as they failed to help her.

Oracle_Hunter
2012-02-04, 10:29 AM
I think this is kind of paradoxical advice. I mean, if the players are ignoring the moral choice and hunting for a third option, it probably means that they're not satisfied with agonizing over the moral choice. They're actively pushing against that interpretation even if they don't say so explicitly. On the other hand, I think that 'if the players want a third option, thou shalt not screw with what they come up with!' is a bad idea. Unintended consequences make the game - thats basically the source of challenge in a third option scenario, actually trailblazing a path. If it just works because they decided to try, thats unsatisfying.
If it sounds paradoxical, that's because it's hard to give advice for this situation.

What we know is that the DM wants to give the PCs a moral dilemma. We also know that he wants to have an explicit Third Way available (to be revealed at the time or later) which seems to be the cornerstone for the campaign. How do you give advice to that?

To that end, my advice is "find out what the Players want from the game, first" which is what I was trying to convey. Regarding the "screwing with the Third Way" that is rooted in how the Players would take DM interference in their plan: would they say "damnit, the DM is throwing stuff in our Third Way -- he must want us to make the Cake or Death decision. This is lame!" or would they say "ah ha, we have found our own route to adventure!" When you're dealing with a sensitive topic like the Moral Dilemma Adventure it is essential to figure this sort of thing out ASAP.

XionUnborn01
2012-02-04, 11:10 AM
In a campaign I'm currently in we had a situation that is fairly relevant to this.

We entered a city that was under constant attack by neanderthals, drow, and ogres. we defeated the first attack that happened and I was able to kill the orge running the raid with an amazing crit for something like 112 damage with my goliath greathammer. after that we had an audience with the governor and he told us that they were ambushing the supply lines and they were so thin on resources that they couldn't afford to send more people out to try and deal with it. we volunteered to be bait and eventually found a way to their home city which was on another plane. we entered the city and were contacted by the head of the slum district. she told us that if we helped her conquer the city that she would stop attacks on that kingdom if we promised to leave her new army alone if we encountered them. the dilemma became whether or not it was worth destroying a lot of innocent people in that drow city to save the kingdom and also be held by contract to not be able to attack her soldiers.

SlyJohnny
2012-02-06, 09:52 PM
I think you can have a moral quandary without presenting the issue as 'all the choices suck'. That normally feels contrived and leaves players feeling cheated. Also, a choice doesn't have to have HUGE REPERCUSSIONS to be memorable and emotionally moving.

One quest in Dragon Age really sticks out for me. A dwarf is looking for news of her missing son. When you find him, he's been afflicted by the Blight, which basically means he's suffering mental degeneration and will either turn into a menial servant of the Darkspawn or kill himself. Apart from the fact that there's no cure for this, it has some cultural baggage among the dwarves in the setting, and it means he wouldn't be allowed back into the city.

The quandary is that the guys mother wants to know what happened to him, while he doesn't want her to know what's happening to him. He asks you to go back and lie to her; better for her to be told he is dead and have that closure, as if she knows the truth, she will (a) Only suffer needless angst over his horrible fate, and (b) She'll want to go to him, which would be dangerous for her, and ultimately pointless as there's nothing she could do anyway. He also doesn't want her to 'see him like this', and have her final memories of him be of the nasty, warped creature that he is becoming.

The thing is, I empathized completely with both characters. In the sons position, I wouldn't want my mother to know, and would try to keep it from her as there would be no point upsetting her further. If I was in the mothers position, I would feel like I wanted the truth no matter how terrible it was, that it was mine to know, and that it would be patronizing to be told some comforting lie by some stranger who was worried I would react irrationally.

Slipperychicken
2012-02-07, 12:56 AM
[Never constructed a quest idea before. I imagine this being a low-mid-level quest. And you may recognize it from the Kite Runner]

Some reports suggest an orphanage in a very poor/war-torn area has been seeing mysterious disappearances for some time (these could come from a concerned adopter or human rights activist). After investigation, and denial by orphanage officials (to maintain their image), the PCs learn someone had been abducting them to a cave/facility in the countryside, guarded by whatever. They bust in, do a short crawl, and find the lost orphans (their status isn't really important, just that it's clear someone's been doing something terrible things to them). Turns out the philanthropist financing the orphanage had a deal with the owners: they hand over some orphans for his wicked purposes every so often, but the vast majority of them live comparatively safe and sound, fed and clothed. Without the financier, the orphanage would lose its funding and surely fail. Other financiers are either too greedy, corrupt, or overstretched to replace him.


Now the PCs face a choice: Defeat/expose the financier, and leave many of the remaining orphans to fend for themselves but not be abducted, or let the financier go, accepting the sacrifice of a few for the good of the rest as a necessary evil. Attempts to acquire his wealth (stored in secure bank accounts) legally will be subverted by his living relatives or corrupt officials.

NichG
2012-02-07, 01:33 PM
[Never constructed a quest idea before. I imagine this being a low-mid-level quest. And you may recognize it from the Kite Runner]



Now the PCs face a choice: Defeat/expose the financier, and leave many of the remaining orphans to fend for themselves but not be abducted, or let the financier go, accepting the sacrifice of a few for the good of the rest as a necessary evil. Attempts to acquire his wealth (stored in secure bank accounts) legally will be subverted by his living relatives or corrupt officials.

Unfortunately, if this D&D the party is probably richer than the financier could ever dream of being. If its low level, this would be a good excuse for a 'Lets go ito some dank pit and get some treasure. It's for orphans!' plotline of course.

Gnoman
2012-02-07, 07:41 PM
Unfortunately, if this D&D the party is probably richer than the financier could ever dream of being. If its low level, this would be a good excuse for a 'Lets go ito some dank pit and get some treasure. It's for orphans!' plotline of course.

That really depends on the campaign. It's entirely feasible, even if you enforse strict WBL, to have even level 20 PCs not that high on the wealth scale. When ou look at the resources that even a relatively minor lord would logically control, PCs become the equivalents of pro athletes, rather than the Bill Gates analogues that so many seem to expect them to be.

Fiery Diamond
2012-02-08, 02:41 PM
That really depends on the campaign. It's entirely feasible, even if you enforse strict WBL, to have even level 20 PCs not that high on the wealth scale. When ou look at the resources that even a relatively minor lord would logically control, PCs become the equivalents of pro athletes, rather than the Bill Gates analogues that so many seem to expect them to be.

This is true, but you have to keep in mind that it wouldn't cost all that much to maintain an orphanage in D&D. After all, if a small family can survive on a silver a day (which is what your manual laborer bread-winner brings home, according to the book), and you have a few thousand gold pieces to spare, I'm pretty sure you could finance an orphanage for a considerable length of time. And lets not forget the fact that you could ... eheh... appropriate the wealth of the evil financier as your "third option." Which should be the logical choice to make in a D&D setting. It might require tons of planning (especially at low levels) and plenty of difficulties could arise, but it's the "everybody wins" solution. Well, everybody except for the evil guy.

Mikeavelli
2012-02-08, 08:09 PM
I love morally questionable encounters!

The Deva Spark


Stolen from a 2nd edition Planescape module, A Deva went on an undercover mission to the hells, and was forced to "hide" its spark inside the soul of a mortal so it wouldn't broadcast its presence like a loudspeaker through the hells.

Unfortunately, it hid it made a mistake, and hid its spark inside the soul of an evil mortal, who managed to die before the Deva returned from its mission. The mortal went to Baator itself, and turned into a Baatezu.

The players end up tracking down both of these individuals, and find out the spark of goodness inside the Baatezu has remained strong, and prompted it to question its evil ways. It flees, intended to start a new life as a risen fiend. It is afraid of what might happen if it lost that spark.

Meanwhile, the Deva can't long survive without its spark, and is slowly fading away into nothingness. Circumstances allow the players to be the ones to make a choice, let the Baatezu keep its spark, and allow the birth of a new being of goodness?

Give the spark back to the Deva, and return to the natural order of things?

Split the spark between the two, taking the chance that both of them might die, but both of them might also live?


The players, rather predictably in my opinion, chose to split the Spark. Mechanically, I represented this as a coin toss for each of them, heads means that half of the spark is strong enough to grow into a full new one, tails means it dies inside the host.




The Halfling's Vengence:



The Players enter a small town, and are asked to investigate a series of murders. People stop breathing in their sleep, no physical marks, no sign of disease, and no-one else in the village is skilled enough at magic to investigate if that's the reason.

Victims so far include two farmers, and the town Magistrate.

Upon investigation, the players find out several things:

- People say it's a halfling curse. A caravan passed through the town a few months ago, and one of the dead farmers accidentally killed one of the halflings in a drunken brawl over whether the carnival games were rigged.

- Magistrate ruled the killing an accident, so the farmer wasn't executed. All his possessions were confiscated, sold, and the proceeds went to the caravan. Farmer was basically a slave tot he community at that point.

- Players eventually track down a Breathstealer (MM2) still in town, which was indeed summoned by a halfling to take revenge on the people that had wronged them.

- Players track down the caravan, and its master explains how the laws of his people are not the laws of humankind. The farmer was guilty of murder, and had to be executed. The magistrate was protecting a murderer. The other farmer who died was directly profiting from his fellows' misfortune, corrupt, they were doing the town a favor to kill him.

- But, the halflings will respect human justice too. They'll offer to compensate the town for the deaths they've caused. 100 gold apiece.

-------------

My players just accepted the halflings had a good point, and let them go.




Wild Beast?



the Players are after a wild beast that was terrorizing the countryside, after investigating some bodies, finding clues, and seeing things about trying to track the beast down, they find out that the Beast, whatever it is, hasn't been killing anyone. Enough skill points in heal allows them to determine that it wasn't a wild animal that killed the people that are ending up dead, and if they check the wounds of the hunter that led out search parties trying to capture the beast, he's also got sword and spear wounds, but no claw or bite marks...

This is explained by how the Goblins in the Valley, normally just pests that only survive because their home is a Tuckers Kobolds sorta've place that no-one has ever managed to fully clear out, are out in the open now. They've got some kind of crazy magic that allows them to stand toe-to-toe with the humans of the valley, and beat the snot out of them.

Eventually it comes down to the Beast, a Magical, evil thing that was brought to the valley in an attempt to destabilize it (Imperial troops were going to show up in another week, kill it, and replace the local noblemen for being incompetent) - but, it was smart enough to realize that it living through this was never part of the Bargain. It just wants to go home.

It changed the goblins of the Valley as part of a deal for them to Tunnel a way out (All the exits having been blocked off already) - and they used those gifts to go hunt humans instead. Not it's fault, or so it says.

It's also never killed a human. Ever. Various truth-confirming spells will verify this. In fact, it's never actually done anything to deserve being hunted down and killed! It just wants to leave, and if it does, it'll head home and not bother anyone that doesn't bother it first.

It is, however, still an evil beasty whose actions have caused, and will probably continue to cause, some amount of indirect nastiness in the future.

Do you let it go? Or kill it?

------

I actually ran this adventure with two different groups, and my players killed it, both times. One group was more hack & slash and didn't even really consider letting it go, the other wrestled with the idea for a while, but decided yet, it needed to die.




Murderer's Mercy:



The Players are on the hunt for a mass-murderer, a sick, depraved individual who, if the townsfolk caught him, would be torn limb from limb. And he would deserve it too.

The Local sheriff, whose own son was killed by this guy, has made it known that if he's brought in, he's got a long, painful death ahead of him. He might even spring to have a cleric of St. Cuthbert around to heal the guy up so he doesn't die too quickly.

When, inevitably, the players track down the murderer, and capture him, he pleads with them. "Kill me, kill me now, please. I know I don't deserve to live, but nobody deserves to die like that!"

----------

My players killed him quick. Told everyone he died instead of being captured, which was technically true.

JBento
2012-02-10, 06:42 AM
It might just be me, but none of those strike me as morally questionable... :smallconfused: And I play NEUTRAL characters....


I love morally questionable encounters!

The Deva Spark


Stolen from a 2nd edition Planescape module, A Deva went on an undercover mission to the hells, and was forced to "hide" its spark inside the soul of a mortal so it wouldn't broadcast its presence like a loudspeaker through the hells.

Unfortunately, it hid it made a mistake, and hid its spark inside the soul of an evil mortal, who managed to die before the Deva returned from its mission. The mortal went to Baator itself, and turned into a Baatezu.

The players end up tracking down both of these individuals, and find out the spark of goodness inside the Baatezu has remained strong, and prompted it to question its evil ways. It flees, intended to start a new life as a risen fiend. It is afraid of what might happen if it lost that spark.

Meanwhile, the Deva can't long survive without its spark, and is slowly fading away into nothingness. Circumstances allow the players to be the ones to make a choice, let the Baatezu keep its spark, and allow the birth of a new being of goodness?

Give the spark back to the Deva, and return to the natural order of things?

Split the spark between the two, taking the chance that both of them might die, but both of them might also live?


The players, rather predictably in my opinion, chose to split the Spark. Mechanically, I represented this as a coin toss for each of them, heads means that half of the spark is strong enough to grow into a full new one, tails means it dies inside the host.






Sucks to be the deva. Next time, do some research on where the hell you're putting your essence. Unless the fiend actually deserves to be killed (in which case getting the deva back its essence is a happy by-product) or it itself chooses to gamble its existence, that deva is going to die.



The Halfling's Vengence:



The Players enter a small town, and are asked to investigate a series of murders. People stop breathing in their sleep, no physical marks, no sign of disease, and no-one else in the village is skilled enough at magic to investigate if that's the reason.

Victims so far include two farmers, and the town Magistrate.

Upon investigation, the players find out several things:

- People say it's a halfling curse. A caravan passed through the town a few months ago, and one of the dead farmers accidentally killed one of the halflings in a drunken brawl over whether the carnival games were rigged.

- Magistrate ruled the killing an accident, so the farmer wasn't executed. All his possessions were confiscated, sold, and the proceeds went to the caravan. Farmer was basically a slave tot he community at that point.

- Players eventually track down a Breathstealer (MM2) still in town, which was indeed summoned by a halfling to take revenge on the people that had wronged them.

- Players track down the caravan, and its master explains how the laws of his people are not the laws of humankind. The farmer was guilty of murder, and had to be executed. The magistrate was protecting a murderer. The other farmer who died was directly profiting from his fellows' misfortune, corrupt, they were doing the town a favor to kill him.

- But, the halflings will respect human justice too. They'll offer to compensate the town for the deaths they've caused. 100 gold apiece.

-------------

My players just accepted the halflings had a good point, and let them go.





Wait, what? :smallconfused: Clearly the halflings don't respect human justice - if they did, this wouldn't come up in the first place. I would've taken the halflings in, to present the offer to the town... or for the town to execute them. This, mind you, would've been different if the halflings had just killed the first farmer.




Wild Beast?



the Players are after a wild beast that was terrorizing the countryside, after investigating some bodies, finding clues, and seeing things about trying to track the beast down, they find out that the Beast, whatever it is, hasn't been killing anyone. Enough skill points in heal allows them to determine that it wasn't a wild animal that killed the people that are ending up dead, and if they check the wounds of the hunter that led out search parties trying to capture the beast, he's also got sword and spear wounds, but no claw or bite marks...

This is explained by how the Goblins in the Valley, normally just pests that only survive because their home is a Tuckers Kobolds sorta've place that no-one has ever managed to fully clear out, are out in the open now. They've got some kind of crazy magic that allows them to stand toe-to-toe with the humans of the valley, and beat the snot out of them.

Eventually it comes down to the Beast, a Magical, evil thing that was brought to the valley in an attempt to destabilize it (Imperial troops were going to show up in another week, kill it, and replace the local noblemen for being incompetent) - but, it was smart enough to realize that it living through this was never part of the Bargain. It just wants to go home.

It changed the goblins of the Valley as part of a deal for them to Tunnel a way out (All the exits having been blocked off already) - and they used those gifts to go hunt humans instead. Not it's fault, or so it says.

It's also never killed a human. Ever. Various truth-confirming spells will verify this. In fact, it's never actually done anything to deserve being hunted down and killed! It just wants to leave, and if it does, it'll head home and not bother anyone that doesn't bother it first.

It is, however, still an evil beasty whose actions have caused, and will probably continue to cause, some amount of indirect nastiness in the future.

Do you let it go? Or kill it?

------

I actually ran this adventure with two different groups, and my players killed it, both times. One group was more hack & slash and didn't even really consider letting it go, the other wrestled with the idea for a while, but decided yet, it needed to die.




Why was the beast Evil. Was it pinging in the Evildar for the heck of it (like skeletons)? Because if it hadn't done anything wrong (and "now you can dig" is hardly justifiable) there's no justification for killing it.



Murderer's Mercy:



The Players are on the hunt for a mass-murderer, a sick, depraved individual who, if the townsfolk caught him, would be torn limb from limb. And he would deserve it too.

The Local sheriff, whose own son was killed by this guy, has made it known that if he's brought in, he's got a long, painful death ahead of him. He might even spring to have a cleric of St. Cuthbert around to heal the guy up so he doesn't die too quickly.

When, inevitably, the players track down the murderer, and capture him, he pleads with them. "Kill me, kill me now, please. I know I don't deserve to live, but nobody deserves to die like that!"

----------

My players killed him quick. Told everyone he died instead of being captured, which was technically true.



The odd one out, because I would have off'd him too. :smallsmile:

Vknight
2012-02-17, 01:22 AM
I have a few ideas some I've actually played out.

The Prison Break
The party has earned rightful and/or wrongful imprisonment and have been sent to the super prison were the prisoners fight amongst themselves

So a island or walled off city etc.

If the guards see the PC's they'll shot or do other things.
There are prisoner groups/factions trying to escape

So the PC's have to decide how to escape.
The obvious choices
-Make attempts at a peaceful approach.
-Help a group storm the walls
-Help a group make a break over the walls at several sections
-Zombies
-Other summoned abominations
-Free a chained and obvious boss/tpk encounter if they were to fight prisoner so he may break the walls
Each attempt involves cheating group of people. From wrongfully accused people, political prisoners, and true criminals that may have repented.
The guards are just doing there job and few have any actual ill will against the prisoners except for there crimes


The Eye
Simple setup. The party is given a task by a powerful Dragon. From what is normally the evil aligned dragons(He's neutral). There are several stories the party can ask locals and travelers involving said dragon. Who is thought to be dead.
Some are he rewards those who help him others are about who he shatters people for simply not accepting a task.

The dragon is missing a eye which again has several tales that go with it.
He lost it to a Paladin who spared the dragon and that's why he in neutral
He lost it to his brother for not following Tiamat which is why he killed other evil dragons.
He lost it to Vecna for knowledge and is evil and angry at the god for that

If the party actually spends enough time and looks around. Each story is false and true.

The dragon wants a magical artifact called 'insert name her' eye'(Never Vecna's eye)


The thing is the artifact and all the stories are to confuse and mislead.
The dragon wants the eye for a evil reason to use its power. But at the same time his evil will bring about good for those he protects under its power.

So does the party risk giving a artifact to a unknown foe or friend.
Can the handle the repercussions of what they cause etc.

Unseenmal
2012-02-17, 09:25 AM
This is one from a game I played a few years ago.

We had just finished raiding and destroying a Gnoll camp that had been plaguing a village we were staying in when one of the PC's found a tent full of little gnolls. Not babies but kids. At this point, the question was raised on what to do with them. 2 members of the party wanted to outright kill them because "hey, gnolls are evil". 2 members wanted to just leave them but that fit right into killing them also since they couldn't take care of themselves. I'm proud to say that my CG Rogue was the lone voice of opposition to killing the cute little guys. Now cue 45 minutes of in character arguments about who is right and what should be done with them. In the end, it took my character standing in front of the gnoll kids, weapons drawn and in a most heroic manner stating "First one to touch them will have to go through me".

No one killed Gnolls kids that day and I got 3 gnoll kids that during the course of the campaign became my personal retinue of destruction. I was given the leadership feat and trained them in the ways of character levels.

This all happened in a "Good" party. If I remember correctly, the closest to evil we had was a CN Bard. There was even a LG fighter and he was one of the kill them outright guys.

So your morally grey issues don't have to be these big situations. They can be small like this one and still have the same effect.