101 moral dilemmas for good characters

[Elder-Basilisk]

There's a big difference between setting up fun and interesting dilemmas and intentionally screwing good players. Some of the suggestions so far, if not carefully done are simply intentionally screwing players of good (or lawful) characters.

Playing D&D isn't fun if the world suddenly turns arbitrary and capricious so that the DM can say "Hahaha, you're not good anymore or you're sentenced to death."

For instance

#5 The players slaughter an orc hunting party

Why? Are orcs generally or occasionally peaceful in this world? Does the hunting party attack the PCs? Are they armed for war and pursuing a young girl?

If the campaign has so far been set up in a B&W comic book style so that orcs are inherently chaotic and evil, it doesn't make sense for them to suddenly become law abiding citizens. It's also worth noting that the "innocent" orcs should react differently to the PCs than marauding bandits. To just assume that the last band of marauding villainous orcs the PCs killed are suddenly law abiding citizens of a little hamlet whose sheriff asks the PCs to track down their murderers seems rather arbitrary.

The local Good aligned natives just happen to worship a NE Fiendish giant eel and give it a yearly human(oid) sacrifice

This also has problems. Nobody just happens to worship anything. The character of a people is always affected by what they worship and how they worship it. There are also different ways and different reasons to worship. People may worship out of fear because if they don't the god will destroy the village or destroy their fishing boats as they gather food (the most likely reason in this case). They may also offer sacrifices as bribes to manipulate or appease a god. They may also offer sacrifices as an indication of gratitude or love. All of these will have different consequences for the people who do so and their character. Since you've already established that these people are "good" that will have a definite impact on how they view the eel.

This specific situation sounds like the classical Perseus and Andromeda or Theseus and the minotaur situation where the people don't want to make the sacrifice but do so because they fear total destruction if they don't. In that case, they would be grateful to the PCs for destroying their oppressor (although they might attempt to discourage the PCs from attempting to kill it or might feebly assist the eel against the PCs because they think the eel will prevail and fear that it will destroy them if they are seen to aid the PCs).

In any event, any account like this needs to take the nature of good and evil into account and not simply treat them as if they were the names of opposing teams.

Since my contribution should be at least partially positive here's one more:

#11 Is the enemy of my enemy my friend
The PCs have been fighting two allied evil forces for a while. Both forces are truly vile, inflicting suffering and torture upon their people and their enemies alike. However, recently Evil Force N betrayed Evil Force C and is attacking it mercilessly. Evil force N is winning at the moment but is stretched quite thin. Evil force C asks the PCs for help.

If the PCs help evil force C, they will enable it to survive and may make it much easier to defeat evil force N. If the PCs and Evil force C defeat evil force N together, will the PCs then turn on and attack their erstwhile ally?

If the PCs refuse to help evil foce C, it will be destroyed but evil force N will be more powerful and more difficult to destroy--if it is possible at all.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Thanks Elder-Basilisk, that was insightful.

To be honest, I was hoping for more doable ideas, or ideas that had been done in other people's campaigns and the reactions of the party to the situation.

Why am I looking for these things? People love to post stories, and I love hearing them. Also, this allows DMs (including me) to steal good plot ideas.

So post on, good folks!

BTW, we're actually on #17 now.

 

[der_kluge]

I just LOVE these kinds of things -

I think we're on #17

#17 A rogue (probably neutral) wants to join a thieves guild for protection/training/etc. He is asked to burgle a house to show that he is qualified to join. The house is owned by a well-known noble family. While the nobles are away, the rogue breaks in, and begins scrounging around looking for stuff. In his search, he finds a secret door leading to a basement where some slaves are currently fastened to torture devices. The slaves, once ungagged, tell the rogue that the owners are into the dark arts, and the slaves are forced to endure horrendous torture for their dark experiments.
Does the rogue free the slaves, and try to rat out the noble and risk being charged with burglary?

#18 The PCs are asked to kill a local necromancer who is raising a small army of undead in the swamp (or suitable location). The PCs travel there, find the tower, defeat hordes of undead, and finally encounter the vile necromancer - who is a woman that is about 9 months pregnant.
Do the PCs kill the necromancer and her unborn child - who could grow up to be a paladin under the right circumstances. Does she even have a normal baby? What to do, what to do?!

#19 In ENWorld's Encounter contest a while back, I submitted an NPC I called the "Goddess". She is an enchantress that, through bluff, and suggestion abilities, has convinced a small village of peasants that she is a miraculous healer. The entire village pays her tributes and offerings for her precious "healing" magic. The PC encounters her and recognizes her as a charlatan. Attempting to exile her, or kill her, causes the villagers to rise up with pitchforks and torches to protect their "Goddess"!

 

[0-hr]

Re: Re: Re: Re: 101 moral dilemmas for good characters

Yep common misconception and its a pity since the new spell makes things like the kobold slaying even more fun because the Kobolds don't detect as evil its just a cultural stereotype:

You're saying that a creatre with an evil alignment is not an evil creature? You'll need a pretty good rules quote to convince me of that one...

 

[Ghostwind]

Here's a moral dilemma that came up in my group once time. While in a dungeon where drow controlled most of it and has set up a community, the party encounters, or rather surprises, two 0-level drow children. Do you let the children live or kill them because they are drow and inherently evil?

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

1 - (the classic) Does the party kill the crying kobold young and the females cowering over them? They all detect as evil.

What my party did: Yes. They decided kobolds were inherently evil and that letting them live is like failing to wipe out as much of a disease as you can when you have the chance.

Mine rounded the kobolds up and took them back to a mine they owned. With the help of a few good natured dwarven mothers, they're raising the kobolds to be neutral good. They escaped with about a dozen babies and more than fifty eggs. This brings me to a question...how long does it take kobolds to mature?

The kobold mothers all died in combat. They were religious zealots worshipping a black dragon and fought the PCs on sight.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

Here's one.

#19

After a battle with drow warriors, only one drow is left alive. He looks at this fallen brethren and then surrenders to the party. The elven ranger in the party refuses to accept this (drow is one of his favored enemies and he believes the only good drow is a dead drow), stating the drow should simply be killed. The drow is obviously evil but like anyone else, he doesn't want to die. He has already casted away his weapons and is now passive. There are other drow in the area. If the drow is allowed to live free, he'll simply go to that group and continue his evil acts. If they capture him, they can bring him to justice...but what if he escapes? Also, there isn't any real reason to punish the drow. The PCs are tresspassing in his domain and his party merely attempted to stop this. The drow is evil, but there's no real proof that he's committed an evil act. The PC have a dilemnia. Do we murder him while he's unarmed and peacefully surrendering? Do we allow him to go and risk him alerting more drow to our presence or stab us when we turn our back? Do we tie him up and drag him along with us? What if he gets free? What if he gets free while we're in a dire situation? Is this all a ruse?

 

[Infinite Monkey@Work]

A comment on the situations where you encounter normally evil races and then have to decide whether to kill them or not. IMC, I wrote a creation story detailing how certain evil races, mostly the common ones like Orcs and Goblins, are actually warped versions of the good races, and can be 'unwarped' by convincing them to become good. As such, killing them is inherently evil unless it is a serious us or them situation.

 

[Kyramus]

TKiryn, the hardest part with this question is that evil creatures, according to the spell will be detected.

in second edition, evil intentions is what makes a creature evil.

also most of the entries on monsters state alignment as something.
Kobolds show as usually lawful evil.
so the question should be, are newly born babies automatically get the designation of LE? if not, how old do they have to be to become designated LE?

It's a pain to arbitrarily judge. I find the spell to be tantamount to a super radar.
Evil NPC eating lunch. "He's evil, smite him!!!"
then what? the government will bring up that the pc's disobeyed the law. The PC's returns a "ask a priest to detect evil on him". Makes for a most annoying circumstance.

I have yet to find a ruling or house rule that will cover this issue.

 

[Nail]

Re: Detect Evil
The spell detects evil creatures. Creatures are designated evil by their alignment. Therefore the spell detects creatures who have an evil alignment descriptor. What's the problem? <shrug>

Re:Moral dilemmas

#20) PCs save a human child from bandits, and return her home. Through hints and circumstance, they find out the child ran away because she was about to be sacrificed by the townsfolk. The PCs stop the townsfolk....only to find that the townsfolk need to sacrifice one of their own every so often, or else they turn into ravening CE were-beasts...... (Swiped and modified from Stephen King story). What to do?

What my PCs did: The story took quite awhile to develop.....when the finale came, they were shocked...the look on their collective faces as they put the final piece in place was priceless. After ferocious intra-party debate, they ended up taking the girl away and leaving the townsfolk to their fate. We still talk about that one.....

#21) PCs were attacked (and eventually captured) by NG bounty hunters, who take particular pains to avoid seriously injuring th' PCs. The Bounty hunters explain to the PCs what they had done wrong, and why they were being taken back for trial. The PCs know they are being framed, and they know the trial is rigged by an arch-nemesis. Do they try to escape, even if that means killing one or more of the bounty-hunters? Do they instead go and try to clear their name?

What my PCs did: They concidered it a no-brainer. Of course they try to escape! ...And what's a dead bounty hunter or two amongst friends? There's always resurrection, right?

#22) PCs hired to clear out a small community of rock trolls that have been raiding nearby farms. The DM is stupified when th' PCs take th' trouble to talk to the rock trolls first, before slaughtering them. Although trust is scarce, the trolls try to convince th' PCs of their lack of food and the defensive and non-lethal nature of the raids. Detect Evil does not show the trolls to be evil.......

What my PCs did: They had the trolls at their mercy...could've mopped th' floor wit' 'em, mostly due to superior preparation and strategy. Instead, against the strenuous objection of the fighter and the druid of the group, they decided to believe the trolls story and do some further investigations back at town. Of course, this means they let the trolls go......