Morality in your D&D - b&w or gray?

[Mystery Man]

You can stand for something and still have grey - particularly if you stand for two things (maybe "truth" and "justice" to borrow the old "truth, justice, and the american way" bit by way of example) which 99% percent of the time complement each other perfectly... what is interesting though, is that 1% when they don't - you stand for both, but have to pick one or the other - which do you choose?

We're all walking contradictions yada yada...

I think what is really more important for me is the actual struggle to remove the shades of grey to where the choice is clear. The pursuit of unattainable absolutes. Heroic chances, selfless acts, that sort of thing. Make a choice, take a stand, stick by that decision.

 

[CrusaderX]

I prefer Black & White. The way Tolkien intended it to be.

 

[Liolel]

A mixture of both. There should certainly be dark wizards and evil warlords that are unquestionably evil. Yet at the same time I don't think the evil alingment should be a kill on sight tag for paladins. But I'm not trying to start an alingment debate so I'll focus on what I see things should be.

Put the neutral alingments in the middle of a section of gray. As you go off in both directions (good and evil) it becomes less and less gray and more and more black or white. This would be gradual at first, but the rate at which things shift from grey would be increasing so you have in the middle the morally ambigious, and at peaks at the far ends you have the demons and devils which are unquestionably evil and you have the angels and others that are unquestionably good.

 

[barsoomcore]

I think what is really more important for me is the actual struggle to remove the shades of grey to where the choice is clear. The pursuit of unattainable absolutes. Heroic chances, selfless acts, that sort of thing. Make a choice, take a stand, stick by that decision.

But are you saying it's the struggle to remove the shades of grey that's interesting, or the actions taken once the shades of grey ARE removed?

Cause for me it's that initial struggle. Once you've figured that out, all the interesting stuff is done. The rest is just puzzle-solving.

What's fun is agonizing over WHICH choice is the one to take a stand on. Which decision to stick by. Once you've decided it ceases to be interesting. To me, anyway.

This is primarily why black-and-white storytelling is not very interesting to me -- it glosses over all the fun stuff. Even in big stupid action movies, the best ones always have those moments where the hero is suddenly (and unexpectedly) presented with a difficult choice -- when Hudson has to decide if he's willing to risk himself for his fellow marines, when Bond has to decide if he's going to trust Tracy, when Indiana Jones has to decide whether or not blowing up the ark is really worth stopping the Nazis.

That's the kind of stuff I love.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm going to run Eberron, so I'm painting alignment as a secondary concern to personality...

 

[Mystery Man]

But are you saying it's the struggle to remove the shades of grey that's interesting, or the actions taken once the shades of grey ARE removed?

Cause for me it's that initial struggle. Once you've figured that out, all the interesting stuff is done. The rest is just puzzle-solving.

What's fun is agonizing over WHICH choice is the one to take a stand on. Which decision to stick by. Once you've decided it ceases to be interesting. To me, anyway.

Actually this is when thing start to actually get interesting. Next is keeping to your convictions in the face of opposition, or controversy. How many times have you made up your mind about something and moved on, never to worry about it again?

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Morality...

You know I get enough gray, unfixable probelms inn my real life. and not for nothing that's stressful enough I dont need to replicate that in a game that I play or run for enjoyment. Yes, nothing is TRULY black or white and yes it's fun to throw a curveball in order to develop character motivations and / or to complicate issues on occaison. But when I play I enjoy doing heroic things that CLEARLY benefit the common good and I like running campaigns with PC's who feel the same way.

Gray is realistic, but Realistic is not why I play D&D or Champions.

 

[JackGiantkiller]

Hey Jeff? If you would email me at dogedellaombros@yahoo.com, I have a question for ya.

 

[Wormwood]

Good is white as snow.

Evil is black as pitch.

 

[barsoomcore]

Actually this is when thing start to actually get interesting. Next is keeping to your convictions in the face of opposition, or controversy. How many times have you made up your mind about something and moved on, never to worry about it again?

I'm having trouble following your logic, here.

Are you saying you prefer stories about the sequence of actions a person takes once they have decided on a course of action, or the process by which the decision has been made. I don't understand your last sentence -- you're saying that in our real lives we usually have to reconsider our courses of action, right? But what I don't get is if you are saying that in order to SUPPORT the idea of stories that do the same (ie: good stories resemble real life) or CONTRAST with the idea of stories that do not (ie: good stories do NOT resemble real life).

Again, I say that once there are no more moral decisions to make, all the interesting stuff is done. Obviously, if you are continuing to experience controversy within yourself, if you're still worrying about a decision, then you haven't entirely made up your mind, and thus there are still moral decisions to make.

Once there are no more moral decisions to make, a story just becomes a sequence of events without consequence. The high point of Aliens is, of course, "Get away from her, you *****!" -- which is precisely the point at which Ripley's decision-making culminates. She decides to put herself at the ultimate risk -- against an opponent she has already fled from, without any traditional weapons, having already sacrificed nearly everything she had (including her faith in her fellow man). From that point on the story is just the working-out of coincidence to determine the outcome. Everything that matters about the story comes in that moment -- we love Ripley for her courage right then and there, and even if she had failed and died, we would still love her. We just wouldn't be so keen on the world-view represented by the story, most likely.

But the entire movie builds up to that moment, and I don't know about you, but when I saw it for the first time in a theatre, at that moment, I'm pretty sure the entire theatre screamed "YEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Because we watched somebody make a difficult moral decision.