Non-moral gaming? (i.e., shades of grey, not black & white)

[RangerWickett]

I run two games, one at college, one back home during the summer and winter breaks.

At my home game, I run a very straight up, good guys vs. bad guys deal, mostly in reaction to the difficulties I've had with my college game. The PCs in my home game go traveling around, fighting evil wherever they fight it, and all of the dangers are very distant from any personal backstory they have.

In my college game, the campaign takes place during a war between a Roman-like human empire (called the Seren Empire) and a sort of Native American-reservation group of Elves (called the Shahalesti), that the humans had pushed into isolated forests. There's also a nearby primitive human country that is similar to north Africa (called Gresia), which is loosely allied with the Elves to try to stop the Roman-like empire from expanding its borders any further.

Thing is, the PCs are all from different backgrounds. A thief-shopkeeper from the Seren Empire, a half-Elf/half-human rogue whose parents were killed because they crossed races, an Elf ranger who hates the Serens, a Gresian traveling warrior, a primitive berserker from a tribe that was destroyed by the Serens, and a Seren soldier who has the favor of both the Elvish and human royalty. At the start of the campaign, they all came together to stop some bad guys, and they were harried by Orcs and such, and so eventually they came to trust each other, even though they weren't too fond of each other's countries.

Then I started working in people's backstories, giving them conflicts to weigh in on, and choices of who to side with. As the war brewed between the Serens and the Elves, I discovered that both the players and their PCs couldn't take sides. For several months, I foolishly tried to motivate them into working for one side or the other, with the end result that they became mercenaries. They felt no moral obligations to either side, so they turned from being a good party into a neutral one.

I'm trying to get them back to fighting some prominent bad guys, but I wonder if others have faced similar problems and might have suggestions for how to give PCs moral dilemmas, without encouraging them to give up their morality all together.

 

[Vhane]

College is about moral ambiguity... they're indivisable at that stage of life.

I have always ran in the shades of grey, its my prefered moral compass for running the game.

Any player confronted by a moral dilima will undoubtably choose the road you didn't want... the only solution is not to care which way they go. This usually gives you better results. If they came together thats probably good enough.

Why do you feel the need to have them go one way or another? Just run your game and let the ramifications for their ambiguity fall where it may.

Hope that helps, even if it aint what you wanted to hear.

 

[Rabbi Shlomo]

If at the present they are mercs. May perhaps you could test their morals and start shifting them over to the "good side" by tempting them to take more reward then they deserve for their line of work. An Example is, a Peasent selling his farm to pay the PCs their reward.

Also, you might want to try having one side commit war atrocities and see how the PCs react to them. Maybe they are even offered a job at helping with these War Crimes they know to be wrong?

 

[LostSoul]

What jumps out at me is to tempt them with Evil. Let them do the evil deeds with big ca$h rewards! and let them get away with it. For a while. Then they have to live with the consequences of their actions.

Then, maybe, they will take a stand - either with Good, with Evil, or with their friends and family (Neutral.)

 

[Crothian]

That's a tough one. Could it be that you were making them choose a country, thus one of the players would be going against his people? I'm just trying to think how it could have gone that way for you. Perhaps you showed all the countries as having good and evil tendincies and the players didn't want to align with any of them.

Maybe you need easier moral choices. One of my favorites I used was a I set up a bad guy. He first tried to sell them into slavery, framed them, got them kicked out of a prestigious organization, they were hunted and he was sitting pretty in a position of power. He was almost untouchible. Then, after about 6 months real time, they were mysteriously asked to meet him in a very out of the way area in the middle of the woods. They went, but assumed it was a trap and were prepared. It was a trap, but for him. It was set up by another NPC who hated this man as much if not more then the PCs (he had killed and betrayed her father, ruined the family name). So, she knew the PCS hated himm and asked them to jion her in killing him. Very, very slowly. The PCs wanted him dead, but not torture. They also wanted him to be brought to justice. So, they had to convince her not to torture him. This took about 6 hours of role playing as they also had to convince each other. Some players liked the idea, but in the end they just killed him. From my perspective it was one of our best sessions. We had great character interaction and growth. A line was drawn in the sand (the tortureing) that some players were willing to cross and other would not.

Well, sorry about the sidestory. I don't know if that is going to help or not. Good luck, though.

 

[Nightfall]

One of these days I'll get a Slitheren PC so I can get some moral quandries started in the Scarred Lands. That or some other "titanspawn" race so I can have them deal with racial intolerance from BOTH sides.

 

[SableWyvern]

Why didn't your players pick the moral right?

Based on the information you provided, I didn't see one.

Picking a side in a cultural idealogical war is completely different than choosing whether to support the minions of Hell or the Priests of Eternal Niceness.

It would seem to me that the PCs didn't see any overwhelming reason to support one side or the other - it looks to me as if both sides are morally grey. In trying to force them to make a moral decision, they made one that suited the circumstances. IE, both sides are really just following their own agenda, there's no good reason for us to choose one over the other, we'll follow our own agenda.

If you want Black & White PCs, you need to place them in a Black & White world.

That's my take, anyway.

 

[Celebrim]

I never set out to run a campaign grey/black/white or purple. I just assume that some things are evil, some things are white, and that greyness will naturally arise out of the complexities of human (or elf, or dwarf, or whatever) interaction and the limitations of mortal wisdom.

 

[Oni]

That is kind of a yucky position for a game to be in. A game I played in last year fell apart because of a situation similar to this (a shame because I had enjoyed it up until that point). In this case the DM had set up the opposing sides as the current pantheon, and an older pantheon that wished to return. The DM wanted the party to side with one side or the other, what he failed to account for was the party split straight down the middle. A party made up of characters of widely diverse backgrounds cannot be counted on to act as a cohesive whole, I would consider you lucky that they are all sticking together as mercenaries rather than having developed a campaign ending rend in the parties ideology.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Responsibility is Key! Giv'em a pet!

I had a bunch in a Shadowrun that went really... ...weird.

The PCs didn't so much go mercenary as terrorist/criminal. They were scrupulous but undoubtably extreme and a little out for greed and vengeance.

Worked great in the setting, but when I wanted to have them go to one side or another in an ideological I found the best way to control was to demonstrate how one sides moral agenda was in their best interest. So I started having them acquire permanent interests in the world that could be threatened by good or evil forces.

And not even love interests, either, just things like investments, allies, and apprentices.

Worked very well. In a situation like the one your describing I would get them a base and then force them to defend it. You might give them the option of siding with one force or the other in order to more effectively do so.