Moral dilemmas that aren't traps?

[Super Evil User]

So my player accidentally shifted alignment from LN to LG. Considering that most of his characters have ranged from CN to every variety of E, this is a bit weird.

I wanted to give him some serious food for thought, though, so I'm thinking of springing some moral dilemmas on the guy. However, I'm told by reliable sources that lose-lose situations ("guaranteed-fall" chances for paladins) are not good moral dilemmas and are in fact for horrible DMs. Since I am stupid, I cannot think of any moral dilemma situations other than those, so I need your help once again.

What are your favorite moral dilemmas?

ADDENDUM: He's not alignment-dependent or anything, so he won't lose anything if he "falls".

[OldTrees1]

All moral dilemmas are not traps unless the DM railroads them as traps. This is an inherent function of the natural of morality: Since what is moral is defined by "what one ought to do", for every choice of moral significance there is at least 1 option that is morally permissible to take. All attempts to remove morally permissible options from a choice end up creating additional options or rendering other options morally permissible by removing the morally impermissible part from the actual choice.

The important thing is to accept the player's solution(especially if it is one you did not think of OR if it demonstrates a difference in how you and the player OOC view morality).

[Sliver]

The definition of a dilemma is that you are presented with difficult choice. So it has to be either a lose-lose situation or a win-win situation. A question of 'is justice or freedom' more important to you implies that by choosing one, you sacrifice the other. You have to choose which matters more and which matters less.

Why do you want to do that, anyway? Why is your reaction to him turning LG is to test that alignment?

Also, if a DM actually uses lose-lose situations to induce falling for paladins, they are a-holes. The point of a dilemma is that there really isn't a right answer, and punishing the paladin for choosing between two ****ty options is major douchebaggery.

[Duke of Urrel]

So my player accidentally shifted alignment from LN to LG. Considering that most of his characters have ranged from CN to every variety of E, this is a bit weird.

Accidentally? How did this happen? I don't believe turning Good is likely to happen by accident. My understanding is that being Good is harder than being morally Neutral, so that it takes some serious commitment on the part of the character who chooses to become Good.


I wanted to give him some serious food for thought, though, so I'm thinking of springing some moral dilemmas on the guy. However, I'm told by reliable sources that lose-lose situations ("guaranteed-fall" chances for paladins) are not good moral dilemmas and are in fact for horrible DMs. Since I am stupid, I cannot think of any moral dilemma situations other than those, so I need your help once again.

What are your favorite moral dilemmas?

ADDENDUM: He's not alignment-dependent or anything, so he won't lose anything if he "falls".

Think of what is most likely to create fun for your players. I think conflicts between Law and Chaos, especially when they divide PCs, are mostly for color and are seldom lethal. Nonetheless, a serious alignment conflict may even split the party, at least temporarily, for example when one PC says "You can go ahead and do that, but not with me. I don't want to know about it." A split party may get into interesting kinds of trouble that a unified party would never get the chance to enjoy.

[Draco_Lord]

Well, personally I kind disagree with your friend to a degree. A lose-lose situation can be interesting, and personally kind of fun. It is just a question of how much they lose, why they lose it, and if there is only losing. It really comes down to how much are you going to punish them for making a choice, and in a case where they cannot win, I'd go easy on them.

But since you want to avoid those, how about you go for something else. In this case, I'd go with a situation where if they are selfish, greedy, or only in it for themselves, they will hurt others, but can do the right thing at their own expense.

Or, since they are lawful, they can do something where doing the right thing goes against the law. Helping a poor child steal a loaf of bread is a simple one.

As to some examples, I made these as part of a whole "Test Their Character" kind of thing, and just had the players answer questions on a piece of paper. It was fun, and they got items depending on their choices (And my views on if what they did was right or wrong.) But in the end they all got stuff that was useful.

They are tailored a bit to my group, so not sure how helpful they are. Or how usable they would be outside of a magically induced scenario.

Situation 1
One day you notice a man carrying a particularly fat sack of goin coins, the man himself seems rather well off, and is rather plump. You end up stealing the coins, an amount that turns out to be very substantial, enough that you wouldn’t need to work for a year. Later you see the same man outside an orphanage, talking to the owner, apologizing that he would be unable to give the orphans money for the month. Some of the orphans will most likely starve without that money. What do you do?

Situation 1
You are leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast, at one point you become stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless you are unstuck, they will all be drowned except for youself, whose head is out of the cave. Fortunately someone has with him an explosive. There seems no way to get yourself loose without using the explosive which will inevitably kill you; but if they do not use it everyone will drown.
What do you do?

Situation 1
A friend confides to you that they have committed a particular crime and you promise never to tell. Discovering that an innocent person has been accused of the crime, you plead with your friend to give themselves up. They refuse and reminds you of your promise
What do you do?

Situation 1
One day as you return home you find a carriage broken and toppled over, and two figures under it. As you rush closer you find your lover there, they whisper “I’m sorry” before passing out, a hunk of broken wood sticking into their gut. The person next to them turns out to be someone your lover has been having an affair with. They are also trapped under the rubble, but is much less hurt than your lover. Even with quick medical attention your lover is likely to die. The other person will be saved if you act now, but otherwise will die.
What do you do?

Situation 1
At your place of work there has been a thief, someone from inside the company has stolen a powerful magical item. The main suspect is a person in a position higher than you. If they were to be convicted you would most likely be given their position, and all the power that details. You know that he is innocent, as you saw him alone at a restaurant at the time the thief was committed.
What do you do?

Situation 2
One day you find out that there is a gateway to another plain in the center of the city, it is large and in only a day it will open and let out a horde of demons that will attack and destroy all around them. Even if you told someone there would be no way to evacuate the entire city fast enough, at most about 25% of the population would be saved for sure, the rest would need to fend off the demons. You do, however have a way to blow up the gateway, but it would cost the people around it their lives, about 10% of the population, and you will be branded a villain.
What would you do?

Situation 1
In your work as a healer you come across a man with a rare incurable disease. Even with the mightiest of magic his affliction will continue. After telling him this he says to you that he intents to infect as many people as he could once he leaves. An hour after he leaves you find him knocked out in an alley, a piece of brick had hit him on the head. If left alone he will most likely live, but you could use the brick to finish him off now, and no one would know.
What do you do?

Situation 3
Your son and daughter have both been kidnapped. You can only save one.
What do you do?

[Kesnit]

Why do you want to do this? From the context, it almost seems you are trying to punish him for becoming Good.

[Super Evil User]

Accidentally? How did this happen? I don't believe turning Good is likely to happen by accident.

OK, so there was this thief being possessed by an artifact of pure Evil. He actually stole the thing even after being warned not too (the consequences were understood) and consequently was forced to kill multiple people from the moment of its acquisition to the moment of its destruction. At the end, when the artifact was broken, I urged my player to kill the thief. It was his fault this all happened in the first place, after all.

And my player didn't kill him, for some weird reason. Which I ruled as a Good action.

^ Because I want to explore what it means to be Good and stuff?

[OldTrees1]

OK, so there was this thief being possessed by an artifact of pure Evil. He actually stole the thing even after being warned not too (the consequences were understood) and consequently was forced to kill multiple people from the moment of its acquisition to the moment of its destruction. At the end, when the artifact was broken, I urged my player to kill the thief. It was his fault this all happened in the first place, after all.

And my player didn't kill him, for some weird reason. Which I ruled as a Good action.

[Rhetorical Question]And then what? Alignments are usually determined by patterns of behavior, not lone events.[/Rhetorical Question]

As a means of exploring the alignment, dilemmas are useful but should not the be whole of the exploration. Instead focus on moral choices(aka choices of moral significance). They don't all have to be dilemmas although a few should be.

[Zombimode]

What are your favorite moral dilemmas?

I wouldn't go for dilemmas, personally. As you have realized, they are hard to do well. So hard in fact, that even in academic philosophy most dilemmas seem contrived. ("You can push this big man in the path between the playing children and the road roller, stoping it." "But how can I be certain that then man would stop the machine?" "Uhm... its a very big man." "But if he is so big, how I would be able to push him?" "... come on, it's a thought experiment, just go along with it!")

But to challange someones moral outlook, you don't have to pull out a dilemma. Simply a morally challanging but ultimately solveable situation will suffice. Fortunately those will present themselves at many opportunities during normal gameplay.

You could start by bringing a point to the players attention that I will call the "Schindler's conundrum". In the end of Schindlers List when everything comes down, Schindler is wondering how he could have done more, saved more lives. Considering some of his worldy possesions, like his precious wristwatch, he laments how he could have saved more by selling those possessions and using the money for bribes.
Back again at D&D, the players character is likely to carry arround quite expensive equipment worth tenths of thousends of gold pieces. One could aks why he does not sell all of his stuff and use the money to improve the situation of the poor and sick (or whatever). And that WOUDL be a valid question.

A question that can be answered, of course. It is probably not the hardest problem to solve, but it IS a question characters who care about moral need to adress.

[falloutimperial]

This RPG blog has an excellent article on ethical dilemmas. (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-5-types-of-ethical-dilemmas.html)

[Brookshw]

Moral dilemmas generally require a trade off for either option and presumably a significant one, otherwise its not really a dilemma. You can structure them in a positive manner if you want (feed the hungry vs. cure cancer) but the trade off is still there. The most interesting moral dilemmas generally should have multiple outcomes, for example the famous Prisoner's dilemma wouldn't be as interesting if the punishment elements weren't as complex AND depend on how a 3rd party responds to the dilemma.

One thing about dilemmas though is they generally have to restrict variables, for example the railroad dilemma restricts options to keeping the train in its current track and everyone dying, or diverting it to a side track and some innocent getting run over, who just happens to be on the side track for no goddamned reason.

You can't (or shouldn't) expect confined variable dilemmas to work in a game, that's kind of the point of rpgs is that you can step outside of the obvious options (lets solid fog the tracks to slow the train, teleport over and get the idiot off the track. A dilemma doesn't play out quite as easily.

So with that in mind, go ahead and throw lose-lose dilemmas out there but expect the party to find ways around those prescribed outcomes. Use uncontrolled variables (such as "what's the other guy going to do" in the prisoner's)

Hard choices really though are at the heart of the matter. Try taking a philosophical-ish question and building from there, for example "what would you sacrifice for love" and use that as a spring board, they can give some great rp opportunities.

And never screw the paladin on these, that's pointless. Give em a dilemma, sure, but don't make them fall. At worst give them a penance act to cleanse themselves of guilt or what have you. An attonement task or some such, but let them keep their class in the meantime. With a good rp group this can be a great way for a pc to evolve into "deeper" understandings of whatever they follow/believe.

Edit: and here are a few dilemmas, you put up with the wall o' text so I suppose I should offer you something like what you actually asked for :smallwink:

A) village recently put on brink of collapse due to weather, not enough food or fuel to see out the winter, hired an adventuring party to recover the gold statue that watches over the burial sight of a nearby non-hostile group of ogres. They're going to sell it to buy things so they survive winter. Without the statue dead ogres are coming back as ghosts messing with the living ogres who need it back. So does the group get the statue for the ogres, and leave the villagers to suffer for the winter, or leave it with the villagers and the ogres suffer?

This only works if you constrain the parameters, no other way to deal with ghosts, get food, and no one can leave their respective areas.

B) country about to collapse into bloody civil war if one of the two competing factions can't prove their claim to the thrown. Duke Mcnasty will turn the kingdom into a miserable hellhole if he is in power. Princess unicorn will be a generally good and fair ruler. PCs get info proving Duke Mcnasty is legitimate ruler. Do they keep it to themselves and let the civil war happen, publish it and put mcnasty in place (let's say in the long run more people die if mcnasty's in place than would in a war), falsify it so princess unicorn takes power.

Add a twist if you want, there's a curse on the kingdom and even worse evil will befall it if the legitimate ruler isn't on the throne, so putting mcnasty in power will prevent a greater evil.

Doesn't really work out so well as the players could decide to take the curse on, could change the government structures, divide the kingdom in half, carve out their own kingdom and so on.

[noob]

The player can give money to 100000000000000 poor person making everyone richer and happier and making them more rich at long term but they might guard all this money to buy one sword costing 1000 times more than making all those poor people rich and happy and then use the axe to kill everything in the multiverse.
It is a moral dilemma where players choose 1000 times more often the latter and where they do not even think to the existence of the first one.