Moral Choices in RPGs

[MarkB]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense.

I would boot a player for that stunt (trying to wreck the football). The time to make a moral choice is when the job is offered, not after the PCs have invested time and risk. At that point,. the football was the property of the group, and the PC had no right to deprive the others of their share.

Of course, I have a permanent and unbreakable rule banning PvP, to include theft from the party.

And that's kind-of the issue with the style of moral quandary the OP is trying to go for here. A true moral choice is something you make on your own, not beholden to anyone else, and then you live with the consequences. That simply doesn't work in a collaborative storytelling system, where your choices in-character can screw up the enjoyment of other players.

 

[S'mon]

And that's kind-of the issue with the style of moral quandary the OP is trying to go for here. A true moral choice is something you make on your own, not beholden to anyone else, and then you live with the consequences. That simply doesn't work in a collaborative storytelling system, where your choices in-character can screw up the enjoyment of other players.

You think a group of people cannot make a moral choice jointly? Why not? This seems like a radical individualist take on morality, which I agree is not well fitted to a party-based RPG like D&D. Though it should work fine in many storygames.

Edit: A lot of the fun of the Blake's 7 TV series was the different characters forced to work together to make moral decisions. This is arguably a better model for an RPG than the Star Trek 'captain decides' model.

 

[MarkB]

You think a group of people cannot make a moral choice jointly? Why not? This seems like a radical individualist take on morality, which I agree is not well fitted to a party-based RPG like D&D. Though it should work fine in many storygames.

Edit: A lot of the fun of the Blake's 7 TV series was the different characters forced to work together to make moral decisions. This is arguably a better model for an RPG than the Star Trek 'captain decides' model.

Except that, in Blake's Seven, characters frequently would go ahead and go behind the rest of the party's back, because they were convinced that they were right. That gets awkward, at best, in a game.

 

[S'mon]

Except that, in Blake's Seven, characters frequently would go ahead and go behind the rest of the party's back, because they were convinced that they were right. That gets awkward, at best, in a game.

I tend to agree that intra party conflict works best in storygames, but I've seen it work in old school games too. It doesn't work well in 'trad' games where the party is expected to always act as a unified entity. In that case the moral choice needs to be by consensus. AFAICS that is still a moral choice, though. A committee or panel making a moral choice, is still making a moral choice.

 

[MarkB]

I tend to agree that intra party conflict works best in storygames, but I've seen it work in old school games too. It doesn't work well in 'trad' games where the party is expected to always act as a unified entity. In that case the moral choice needs to be by consensus. AFAICS that is still a moral choice, though. A committee or panel making a moral choice, is still making a moral choice.

There's a difference between a choice and a decision. A committee can make a decision, but if your sense of morality leads you to believe that it's the wrong decision, are you still exercising your moral choice when you go along with it?

 

[S'mon]

There's a difference between a choice and a decision. A committee can make a decision, but if your sense of morality leads you to believe that it's the wrong decision, are you still exercising your moral choice when you go along with it?

I guess if you have no choice but to go along with it, then no.
But IME committee decision making by consensus very rarely has the kind of clear dissent you are thinking of. Usually by the end everyone pretty much agrees. Think of jury trials - the jury very often can reach a unanimous decision.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I guess if you have no choice but to go along with it, then no.
But IME committee decision making by consensus very rarely has the kind of clear dissent you are thinking of. Usually by the end everyone pretty much agrees. Think of jury trials - the jury very often can reach a unanimous decision.

There's serious question how often that happens where some of the jury simply isn't confrontational enough to push back the way they should if they were actually going with their ethical feelings. Its a bad mistake to underestimate the force of social pressure.

 

[Ixal]

For me it's the age old problem of treating your character as a game piece versus trying to play him as if he were a real person. The sabotaging PC never formed any strong connections to anyone in the city and rebuffed my efforts to help him form those bonds.

From the same campaign, another player was an assassin for the mob before the bombs fell. I had him meet up with a former associate who offers him a lot of wealth to assassinate one of the leaders of the city. This was one of the wealthiest members of the community, had generally paid the PCs for several missions, lobbied to have the city give them a home and citizenship, and I honestly expected the character to play along in an effort to find out who wanted this guy whacked. Nope. He took the money and assassinated the guy. It ended with him being hunted by a lot of people and a confrontation where he was nearly killed by the PCs and was later executed by city officials. The assassination was bankrolled by the slaver cyborgs to the east. So that's another reason the city was overrun at the end of the campaign. Morale was low and one of their wealthiest supporters was no longer paying people.

I take responsibility for that one. If I dangle an option in front of a player I can't get upset if they take it. But it's a prime example of me expecting the PC to do the right thing and having it bite me in the butt.

Why are you actually surprised by that?
The character in question was an assassin who murdered people for his organisation and got contacted by said organisation to murder someone. Why would you expect this character to not do it?
It seems to be that is more of an issue of you expecting the player to follow his own morality instead the morality of his character.

And imo that is a big problem in todays environment. Some people bring their personal morality into the game and assume that everything a character does in the game is also what the player of said character believes in, while other players completely divorce their morality from the one of their character.
And when you bring both people into the same group and player 2 lets his character do something evil then player 1 is shocked which can lead to problems between the players.
See the recent decision from Paizo to curtail slavery and especially the ability to buy slaves because some players freaked out when other players had their characters be slave owners.

 

[Teo Twawki]

And imo that is a big problem in todays environment. Some people bring their personal morality into the game and assume that everything a character does in the game is also what the player of said character believes in, while other players completely divorce their morality from the one of their character.

Excellently said.

Taking on character roles to examine questions of choice, decision, and morality is, to me and my small group, core reasons to engage with role-playing games. I approach such role-playing in a similar manner to travelling various parts of the world: I leave my personal ideology in a private locker to come back and pick up later--sometimes very glad to see it again and other times ready to resize it based on recent experiences. I almost always try to play a character very much not me. And I rather enjoy sometimes playing a character who, as a real person, I would find abhorrent. I see it as a chance to gain a wider range of understanding and empathy about others. Much the same, perhaps, as the enjoyment actors have in playing a well-written antagonist.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that's defensible, but I also think people need to realize that even if people recognize the difference between in-character behavior and out-of-character behavior, that doesn't mean they want to engage with some things in the first case either at all, or at least on a regular basis.

Or, this is another case where "some people just shouldn't be playing in the same games".