Give Me Moral Dilemmas for my PCs!

[ptolemy18]

Hello everybody,

I'm running a no-alignments game, so I'm used to player-characters behaving in some fairly "evil" ways (in the sense of self-centeredness). However, I'd like to get them involved in some real moral dilemmas which will force them to basically either choose between good & evil.

(I'm not running a no-alignments game *so* the PCs can be evil and self-centered... I just like the moral ambiguity... but for instance, look at the average Call of Cthulhu game; there's no alignments in Call of Cthulhu either but the adventures generally all work around the concept that the PCs are willing to act 'good.' I guess D&D just brings out people's evil side.)

For an example of the PCs' shameless behavior....

* The PCs get in a fight with three NPCs who they know are semi-bad guys (they're working with a bandit lord).
* After a brief fight in which none of the PCs are injured, one of the NPCs is killed, one is knocked unconscious, and the other one surrenders. The PCs accept the surrender of the still-conscious NPC.
* The still-conscious NPC says "I say, would you mind healing my unconscious companion before he dies of blood loss?"
* One of the PCs goes over and breaks the unconscious PC's neck.

Here's where it gets really weird... after talking to the surviving NPC (who has a high Bluff skill and is being very, very accomodating to his captors), they actually seem to be inclined to WORK WITH HIM and TRY TO MAKE HIM AN ALLY. But of course, for his own part, he will be waiting for any opportunity to brutally kill the PCs in return for their callous killing of his companion. If they're dumb enough IC and OOC to forget that they killed one of this guy's friends in cold blood, then maybe they'll get the point when he coup-de-graces one of them while they're sleeping and runs off.

Personally, I think this kind of setup is pretty frickin' perfect, since it seems to follow realistic human behavior & motivations, and I don't have to have anything blatantly supernatural & unfair happen, yet it punishes the PCs for being evil. (Of course, I'm not saying this is definitely gonna happen... the guy might not get the drop on the PCs after all... etc.) I guess the lesson is "NPCs have feelings too." If they were mean enough to kill somebody just because he's an NPC, then they will SUFFER! THE FOOLS! MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!... cough... *ahem*

(Rest assured that I don't spend *all* my sessions trying to punish the PCs for immoral behavior...)

But anyway... I want to see how far the PCs will go down the path of evil. I'm trying to come up with a situation where they have to make a choice between "Do we do the easy/convenient route and commit a horribly evil deed, or do we actually make a sacrifice to do a good deed for some NPC?"

Basically, it's entrapment. Heh. I guess I could just have them hired to kill somebody who's obviously innocent. Any other ideas?

Jason

 

[Eternalknight]

One that I like trotting out with new groups is to have a them invade the homes of a group of evil humanoids (usually orcs or kobolds). As the adults of the clan fight back, their young children and babies weep and cry in the corner...

Do the PCs kill them or not?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

My standard screw-with-the PC's heads encounter:

The party meets a messenger on the road. Messenger begs for help, he is being persued by bad guys. Bad guys show up. They demand messenger hands over message. Messenger says he works for the Queen. PCs have to make a decision.

What's going on. The Queen is having an affair with Baron X. The messenger's message is a letter of love from the queen to the baron. The king suspects. The "bad guys" work for the king. The bad guys may or may not reveal this, depending on if you want to mess with the PCs minds during the showdown or after they loot the bodies.

And yes, I ripped the plot from The Three Musketeers.

 

[Crothian]

What I like is to have a nuetral cleric that is doing the bidding of his god, but the laws of land actually declare what the cleric is doing as illegal.

 

[kanithardm]

(Rest assured that I don't spend *all* my sessions trying to punish the PCs for immoral behavior...)

Nerd...........



















I do...

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I really like challenging my players with morally ambiguous or difficult situations. Some that I've used in the past:

1. Saddle them with an innocent NPC who inadvertently causes them a lot of trouble, repeatedly. Every time he is in danger, and the PCs have to rescue him at risk to themselves, they will think more and more about passive aggressive behavior (not helping him, letting an innocent person die, so they can be free of his meddling)

2. A vigilante is on the loose. He/she is killing only the most evil and vile people. The PCs investigate the murders. They find dozens of suspects for each murder, but eventually find the common thread-- the vigilante. By the time they catch up to him/her, they have realized that he/she is Chaotic Good and is killing evil people. But since these evil people are sheriffs, barons, princes and guild masters, and other important people, and the PCs are employed to find the killer, they will need to make a decision. Let the vigilante go or bring them to "justice."

3. Politics. The heroes are friends/agents of a politician in a Roman/American-style republic. Their patron is up for re-election. He is willing to do anything to win. His opponent is despicable and can NOT be allowed to win. The patron starts asking the heroes to do more and more illegal and evil things to help him win.

4. A mega-city on the verge of transition from Feudalism to mercantilism. The Guilds have private armies that rival the king's. The King has high tax rates and fears the guild masters. They squabble over control of trade and foreign relations. Organized crime is at the center of the plot (of course). Meanwhile, foreign forces work to destabilize the situation for their own gain. The PCs get separated and each get involved with the Current Events in their own way. The oppression from the king as he tries to control the guilds and the people gets overbearing, and a revolution breaks out in the bar while the characters are eating. Who do they side with? The king? The guilds? The crime lords? The foreigners? Someone else?

5. The characters find evidence that a loved one (father or mother) has a dark and evil past. Although the PCs have always known the parent to be benevolent and good, they have committed crimes in the past that they have not paid for. Perhaps they were evil and changed alignment, settled down, and raised a family. They should be brought to justice. But will the PCs do that to their parent?

6. The Body. This is one that another DM did to me. I was playing a 0th level teenager working for an old dwarf in a city, the boss flew into a rage and killed someone. "Hey boy," he said, "Get rid of this." Not only a bit of a moral dilemma, but also a bit of a problem to solve.

 

[LostSoul]

So what's the situation in the game now? Tell us about the PCs.

I think a good way to do this is to give them a choice that's not too loaded. Like your idea to have them assassinate an innocent person. Hmm... How about you give them a job to assassinate someone who was evil, did some wrong back in the day, but now he's settled down and has a family? If he dies, what happens to his family? He did do wrong, but now he's a decent guy, so does he still deserve to die?

After that, take note of their actions and up the stakes. To use my example: if they kill him, send them out to kill an innocent man. Maybe the guy they killed's old boss, who isn't responsible for what the other guy did, but still linked.

If they take the evil route, now they are killing for cash. What else will they do for cash? Have an evil guy hire them to kidnap people to be tortured in evil rituals. (Nothing bad will happen to the PCs because of this ritual.)

When the good guys come to put a stop to the evil rituals, have the evil guys hire them on as bodyguards. "Go kill those people for us."

Then have the evil guys start working on one of those really evil plans that the PCs are always trying to stop. Except now they are on the other side.


All that's just an example path, and I don't think you should plan anything out in the future like I did. Just have some choices ready for the next session and then see how they respond and work with it from there.

Let's say they decide that the guy in the first example should live. Okay, so offer them another evil job that pays more money (like the kidnapping one). Do they have a price?

Always make sure that you are enabling the players to make these choices. So no railroading - don't have a situation or a plot thought out, because if you do you'll try to push the players to make the choices that lead to your situations and plots. Just make up some NPCs with meaty issues and play them as hard as you can with the idea that you want to make the PCs make the choices.

Also, let the PCs fight each other and leave the party, and keep them around in the game. Otherwise you'll get a hivemind kind of thing.

 

[ptolemy18]

So what's the situation in the game now? Tell us about the PCs.

There's 6 player-characters... let me describe the players at the same time.... although remember there's no alignments.

* Orc barbarian, totally amoral/immoral, and the player knows it. He's just playing him as a combat monster and having a good time doing it.

* Egyptian monk, basically amoral -- he's the guy who killed the unconscious man. I'm not totally sure what his OOC motivations are, I think he's just enjoying playing a guy who's kind of a jerk, but he's not as "over the top silly" about it as the orc barbarian's player. I think he's also wary because of all the various treacherous & sneaky NPCs the party has encountered (of which there have been quite a couple, I admit... not *everybody*, but a few, y'know.)

* Gnoll barbarian, but he's actually sort of moral -- his player is playing him as a "reformed" gnoll. And more importantly, the player is just sort of a nice guy who likes playing "good guy" type characters. Some players just seem to enjoy the sadistic meanness more than others, y'know, and this guy isn't one of them.

* Hobgoblin swashbuckler. He's playing a sort of amoral character but he's actually a good roleplayer and is aware (from my previous campaign) that I prefer running campaigns with "good-ish" PCs. So basically, although he likes to scare NPCs and act evil, he tends to be kind of merciful when the chips are down -- he leave unconscious NPCs alive instead of slitting their throats & stuff.

* African bard, he hasn't been playing long enough for me to get a grip on his behavior. He's just going with the flow for now.

* Persian priestess. This is the character who actually bugs me the most -- when the player came up with the concept I discussed it with him and said that his chosen religion was basically "lawful good", but so far, he has a totally sucky track record -- he's not out there slaughtering people himself, but he's *NEVER* stopped the other PCs from killing or abusing NPCs. Basically, although he is supposed to be playing a "good" character (inasmuch as possible in a no-alignment game), he hasn't offered any counteracting force to the other PCs' immoral behavior... when the other players are doing some evil deed, he's always looking the other way... basically he HAS NOT EVER STOOD UP TO THE OTHER CHARACTERS' BEHAVIOR OR DONE ANYTHING 'COUNTERPRODUCTIVE' IN THE NAME OF IN-CHARACTER MORALITY. And that, to me, is the key point at which you are doing actual ROLE-playing. The aggravating thing is that I think he isn't trying to play a "lapsed" priest or anything... I think either (1) he and I just have different moral standards or (2) he's just not a good role-player and comes up with justifications for his behavior so he doesn't have to role-play anything inconvenient. Also, like the Egyptian monk, there is the fact that he has encountered a couple of sneaky/treacherous NPCs in the past and I think as a result it's made him paranoid & untrusting. :/ (But where's the fun in heroic roleplaying if the PCs don't get in trouble as a result of their good, noble, trusting natures? Heh.)

See, *I* hoped that the priestess' player would try to act as a moderating force to the eviller guys in the party. But he isn't. Or maybe he's just not the kind of guy who likes to act all magnanimous and forgive bad guys -- he's more of a "that's what you get for screwing with us". (Which is an attitude I personally don't like in my truly *good* heroes, but different strokes for different folks, I guess.) So the person I'm really looking to test, morals-wise, is the priestess' player.

In any case, I *do* feel that the priestess' behavior has been "dishonorable" by the standards of her religion, so maybe I can have some NPC priestess tongue-lash her at some point, at least. But then I bet the player will just get slightly pissed off at me OOC and some up with some IC justification ("Well, I think my behavior has been perfectly justifiable...") Grrrrr!!!!

If I sound like I'm getting a little huffy and being a bad DM and trying to railroad the players, I apologize...it's true... I'm kind of in a bad mood today so it's coloring my e-mails. Hopefully I will work out all this tension before the next game session so I don't inflict it on my players.

Also, let the PCs fight each other and leave the party, and keep them around in the game. Otherwise you'll get a hivemind kind of thing.

Now, see, *I* have done that when I was a PC in another game... standing in the path of another party member's axe to keep him from killing people. But my players seem to be going the hivemind route, unfortunately.

Jason

 

[ptolemy18]

Just wanted to say... I realize I'm expending a lot of pointless frustration getting annoyed at my PCs' (well, specifically one or two of my PCs') behavior and out-of-character justifications. (It's MUCH easier for me to accept someone who's intentionally playing a "Mwa ha ha" villain than someone who feeds me a line of "Well, of *course* I couldn't stop the other party members from killing the prisoner! I was busy shoeing the horses! and besides they deserved it!" kind of excuses.)

I'm really griping here on enworld so that I *DON'T* feel the need to gripe to my PCs.

I would like to come up with some good moral problems to make them choose "Well, are you going to be a good guy or a bad guy?", though.

Jason

 

[barsoomcore]

Some classic D&D moral dilemmae:

Should I kill this thing OR take its stuff?

What flavour of pie do I prefer?