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About Morally Correct Outcomes in D&D Adventures [+]
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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8936659" data-attributes="member: 2629"><p>This is a slippery challenge to master because morality is inherently subjective, and the 'mass market morality' changes - and sometimes quickly.</p><p></p><p>Some of us gamers are old enough to remember when it would have been immoral to allow a woman to be put in jeopardy. A few of us remember there being large majorities telling you not to mix races because it was inherently wrong. Most of us have heard large crowds screaming that LGBTQ people are sick and immoral and need our help to change in our lifetimes. The people expousing those beliefs thought they were being morally right and protecting people. Now? Those ideas would never be put on a page and sold. Then? Heck yes - we saw lots of things selling those beliefs.</p><p></p><p>And let's consider what would happen if we traveled a bit in the modern day and applied the different moral codes you might find across the globe. If publishers were required to put a 'moral option' into the game, who judges whether they met that standard? Using what rules? </p><p></p><p>I think it is an impossible task to require a moral option ... but beyond that, it is an idea that betrays many of the reasons one might propose it.</p><p></p><p>Why ask the Trolley Problem question? Is it to determine the correct answer, or to explore the potential answers? Morality isn't often about what is moral, it is about asking what is moral - and that requires people to face decisions.</p><p></p><p>In my game this last week, the PCs returned to town after 32 days and discovered that things had changed in their absence. The last member of the royal family had previously fled, and her loyal followers had been driven out of power by the Merchant's Guild. One of the first acts the guild did was to rescind the grant from the royals that gave the PCs land. When they returned home, they found it had been granted to someone else - someone on the Merchant's Guild. They scoffed and started to tear the new signs off the property to restore theirs, but the local constable and the member of the Merchant's Guild showed up and spoke to them. They explained that everything that had taken place was legal, that the PCs had been properly served notice and given a chance to respond (which they did not because they were not present or aware), and that the property was being put to more productive use in a time when people needed every property to be more productive in order to survive. They fully admitted that this was going to profit the Merchant's Guild, but that was only going to be in the long run ... and that if the property was going to continue to be used as the PCs were using it (which was basically neglected), the entire area might not survive the upcoming winter. </p><p></p><p>The players sat there, looked at each other, and didn't know what to do. They had to make decisions. The petulant child PC stormed off. The greedy PC asked for compensation. The wise PC acknowledged the logic and said they could not disagree with it, but that they should be made whole in the long run. The bard found the whole discussion fascinating. </p><p></p><p>If I were to mde the Merchant's Guild melodramatic villians that twirled their moustache, there would be a clear morale path to me. hate the bad guys and force them to give the land back. However, by giving this shades of grey and no clearly righteous path, it gives them something with which to wrestle that isn't just a monster. It gives them story that is not just hack and slash. It gives them depth.</p><p></p><p>Being able to find a clearly moral answer to every major problem is problematic, and to me - it doesn't serve morality at all as it attempts to reduce the most important part of morality - the pondering of it - to a forgone conclusion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8936659, member: 2629"] This is a slippery challenge to master because morality is inherently subjective, and the 'mass market morality' changes - and sometimes quickly. Some of us gamers are old enough to remember when it would have been immoral to allow a woman to be put in jeopardy. A few of us remember there being large majorities telling you not to mix races because it was inherently wrong. Most of us have heard large crowds screaming that LGBTQ people are sick and immoral and need our help to change in our lifetimes. The people expousing those beliefs thought they were being morally right and protecting people. Now? Those ideas would never be put on a page and sold. Then? Heck yes - we saw lots of things selling those beliefs. And let's consider what would happen if we traveled a bit in the modern day and applied the different moral codes you might find across the globe. If publishers were required to put a 'moral option' into the game, who judges whether they met that standard? Using what rules? I think it is an impossible task to require a moral option ... but beyond that, it is an idea that betrays many of the reasons one might propose it. Why ask the Trolley Problem question? Is it to determine the correct answer, or to explore the potential answers? Morality isn't often about what is moral, it is about asking what is moral - and that requires people to face decisions. In my game this last week, the PCs returned to town after 32 days and discovered that things had changed in their absence. The last member of the royal family had previously fled, and her loyal followers had been driven out of power by the Merchant's Guild. One of the first acts the guild did was to rescind the grant from the royals that gave the PCs land. When they returned home, they found it had been granted to someone else - someone on the Merchant's Guild. They scoffed and started to tear the new signs off the property to restore theirs, but the local constable and the member of the Merchant's Guild showed up and spoke to them. They explained that everything that had taken place was legal, that the PCs had been properly served notice and given a chance to respond (which they did not because they were not present or aware), and that the property was being put to more productive use in a time when people needed every property to be more productive in order to survive. They fully admitted that this was going to profit the Merchant's Guild, but that was only going to be in the long run ... and that if the property was going to continue to be used as the PCs were using it (which was basically neglected), the entire area might not survive the upcoming winter. The players sat there, looked at each other, and didn't know what to do. They had to make decisions. The petulant child PC stormed off. The greedy PC asked for compensation. The wise PC acknowledged the logic and said they could not disagree with it, but that they should be made whole in the long run. The bard found the whole discussion fascinating. If I were to mde the Merchant's Guild melodramatic villians that twirled their moustache, there would be a clear morale path to me. hate the bad guys and force them to give the land back. However, by giving this shades of grey and no clearly righteous path, it gives them something with which to wrestle that isn't just a monster. It gives them story that is not just hack and slash. It gives them depth. Being able to find a clearly moral answer to every major problem is problematic, and to me - it doesn't serve morality at all as it attempts to reduce the most important part of morality - the pondering of it - to a forgone conclusion. [/QUOTE]
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