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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 8080796" data-attributes="member: 6779310">In (apparently tardy) response to the OP...<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">if all choices are bad, usually one is less bad</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">If they're both equally bad, they usually have different victims</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">if they don't have difference of victims and are equally bad, the choice is functionally meaningless.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">in my experience, nothing demoralizes players faster than meaningless choices</li> </ol>Now, I agree that hard choices are great drama...but the best form of moral choice issue is one where the party is split on which is the least bad.What I've noticed in almost 40 years of GMing...<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Players want their choices to matter in the fiction</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Players prefer to have meaningful choices; to be meaningful<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The choices have to have substance on the story</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">the choices have to have been made with reasonable levels of information</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">the choices have to make a difference in the game state, as well.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">the choice made has to affect the character in some way, as well.</li> </ol></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Players generally prefer to have a positive impact upon the groups their characters are part of (but this is weaker than 1 and 2)</li> </ol>An example of a meaningless choice:Player is facing an insubstantial critter with resistance to both slashing and piercing; the difference between that 1d6 shortsword and that 1d6 bec (1h pick) are of no significant effect on the game state if equally proficient in each; while they do affect the story state by virtue of one is short sharp jabs, the other overhand or fully-wound up sideswings... but either way, a hit is 1d6/2...Likewise, given the choice to poison the evil cultists who practice asceticism and their captives with a poison cloud, or splash them all with a rain of acid, both doing 10d6, the choice is meaningless in that it strongly affects the game state, bur only weakly affects the story state: All the victims are dead and so are most of the evil cultists. Being ascetics, they don't have anything of value, so even that is no past-the-scene story state nor game state changes.The more different the two choices, the more meaningful the choice can be.THe more impactful on the setting, generally, the more fun. (Which is part of the lure of the Monty Haul mode of play.)And, as noted by Umbran... a steady diet of grim in the current day and age is a turn-off for many.In re Evil Serial Killers:Good luck arresting Mother Nature and Father Time, the two most prolific killers in all of history.</blockquote>

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