Real world good Vs Story good???

[Starfox]

Indeed, this is about training your players.

I once tried to "train" and even "educate" and "mature" my players. No longer - except very coincidentally in the manner that all good stories makes us more mature. It is very dangerous to try an impose your values on your players like this.

Moral lessons are best discussed OCC after the session.

(This is not really a rebuke against Glyfair, it is more of a musing brought about by the quoted sentence.)

 

[Hussar]

Trying to run a moral scenario is extremely difficult, but, I think, very rewarding too. But, first, you have to identify a few things. Why are you (the DM) running this scenario? What is it you are trying to accomplish? To me, a moral scenario is all about pushing the player's buttons. You want to push them out of their comfort zone and generate an interesting scene/session by driving home a situation where the players really don't have a "right" answer.

If you start a moral scenario with a "right" and a "wrong" answer, there's no ambiguity to play out. To me, the end result of the scenario is not the important party. It's the process the players go through to get there that will be memorable. And, since the result is not as important, the consequences cannot be one sided - if doing X gets rewarded and doing Y gets punished, that's not ambiguity, that's preaching. At worst it's an Aha Gotcha moment when the paladin gets put in an impossible situation and loses his status through no real fault of his own.

All that does is annoy the heck out of players.

Moral situations have to be crafted with a great deal of care. Trying to wing it, IME, generally won't work, because the situation has to be very strongly framed. The players have to know A) this is a moral choice situation, and B) all choices are equally valid.

Take the tried and true cliche of the D&D party has just slaughtered their way through the goblins and is now saddled with 2d6 goblin babies. What do they do? Ok, it's trite and whatnot, but, it is a morally gray issue. Either way, kill the goblin babies or bring them home, is a valid option. If they kill the goblin babies, probably the more merciful churches might give them the hairy eyeball and not be as nice to them, but they won't outright refuse service or publicly denounce them. OTOH, the more martial social groups will probably fully support them and give them a pat on the back. If they show mercy, then the opposite is likely true. The merciful social groups will be happy, but the more martial groups might see them as weak. Again, they don't denounce the PC's and they don't go out of their way to make their life difficult, but, relations are definitely strained.

Granted, not all situations will be binary, and there may be multiple possibilities. But, as a DM, you have to let the PC's make that decision. They have to decide what is morally right. It is not the DM's position to take his DM hat and beat them about the head and shoulders for not following what the DM thinks is right. If you find yourself doing that, take a couple of steps back. You can disagree with their reasoning without punishing them for it. Their decision is every bit as valid as your own.

To give an example from my own campaign, a recent SF scenario had a highly biotech modified individual insert himself into a low tech society. The low tech society intentially chose to be low tech - think the SF equivalent of the Amish. The biomodified individual began wooing women to spread his biotech modifications through his children. The PC's are called in to catch the guy and find out what he was doing. They did so and now have to decide what to do with the pregnant mothers.

It was a great session.

Moral situations make for fantastic roleplay but have to be handled with a great deal of care. This is potentially explosive and potentially very divisive in a group. Much more than many other situations, you have to know your group and what they will respond to. Tread very, very lightly.

 

[coyote6]

FWIW, Knights of the Cross don't work for the White Council in the Dresden setting; the Knights of the Cross work for God, as far as has been shown. The White Council is the ruling body of the primary wizard faction, and (as far as I can tell & remember from the books) essentially have no formal ties or relations to the Knights of the Cross.

Indeed, the Knights aren't really part of any formal order, as such. The Knights each wield one of three holy swords, so there are never more than three knights. They don't seem to have apprentices or anything, either.

So, no, Knights of the Cross wouldn't be acting on orders of the White Council; the White Council isn't even necessarily the "proper authorities" to a Knight.

Also, Buffy, giving someone up to the Council Of Stuffy Old Fuddis? The White Council are pretty good analogies for the Watchers Council, and Buffy does not historically get on well with the latter, so I see no reason why she'd cooperate with the former. Angel is also not so big on the doing as told. Both have, on the contrary, been known to take in all sorts of disreputable types (werewolves, vampires with souls, vampires with chips in place of souls, witches, witches gone bad and hopefully gone good again, Slayers gone bad, demons, ex-demons, etc.).

Finally, Dirty Harry might arrest the villain, or shoot him (not sure Dirty Harry ever faced a female malefactor) in the process of arresting, but I don't think one of the original "loose cannon" cops would blithely follow the orders of authority, either.

As for the situation -- I can't tell what the players were thinking, or not thinking. Maybe they weren't terribly familiar with the setting.

 

[Hussar]

Coyote6- while it's true that Buffy might not give up people to the council, that does not mean that the players all have to follow Buffy. Giles, for example, murders an innocent to prevent Glory from returning. That's a better example of a morally grey issue. Buffy decides to let him go, but, Giles doesn't.

Who's right? Who should be punished for their decision by the GM? IMO, neither should. They're both right, from their own perspectives. The biggest problem comes when the GM decides that there is one right answer and all other answers are wrong.

 

[SteveC]

I think this situation is a fantastic opportunity for role playing and shaping the campaign, in fact it might be a pivotal moment for the group.

When I come to a time like this as a GM I like to tell the group "hey everyone, this is a big decision, and it's something that will have major repercussions on the game," and then I let them decide what they want to do with that in mind. The story can then flow from that.

Some of the big themes in Dresden are second chances, loss and eventual redemption or damnation. Heck, Harry works to personally redeem a fallen angel, so strong are his opinions on the matter. Your group chose the other path, which has just as much potential for trouble and interesting conflict!

In effect what this group has done is to say "when you make a choice, you must live (or die) with the consequences." That's a perfectly acceptable answer, but it's also one that when taken to it's logical conclusions in story terms leaves no room for error.

Characters in the Dresdenverse (and in every RPG I've ever played for that manner) make tons of bad calls and poor decisions, and spend a lot of their time trying to escape from or make good out of those decisions. Each time the group does this, everyone who's involved with the current situation can bring that to bear. A Warden facing the group down on charges of breaking a law of magic might say "why should I let this slip? You had no compassion when it was in your power to do so..."

Beyond that, a Knight of the Cross has a powerful personal story of where Peter denied Jesus _three times_ to save his own skin, and was forgiven. What does it say about their own ability to give someone a second chance?

I'm kind of drifting here, but my point is that your group made a choice, and that choice can lead you to a lot of fantastic stories, all without having to bring the heavy hand of the GM down on them. Perhaps when the game is over they'll still think they did the right thing, perhaps not, but you'll have something to talk about.

And for the record, I think all of the characters they're talking about would have done something to make sure the girl didn't die, but that's just my take on it.

--Steve

 

[pemerton]

there's far too many stories out there that when you try to "redeem Lareth the Beautiful" it works for about three sessions, then, AHA GOTCHA, Lareth buggers off with half your stuff.

When you try to do anything other than the most simple, straightforward thing, it comes around on you. That tends to make players paranoid enough that they won't try anything. Even if you, as the DM, are certainly NOT going to bite them on the butt for it. There's enough antagonistic DM's out there that players are too paranoid to trust you.

So, it comes down to guessing which action the DM wants me to do, and doing that.

Choo Choo! All aboard.

The mechanical solution to this is to allow character building/advancement currency to be spent cementing a relationship or an item. Then the players get to determine (at least to an extent) how the world reacts to their choices.

Anyway, this seems as good an occasion as any to quote some stuff I once wrote on the issue of choice:

<snip>

The consequences of certain choices (in particular, those made in combat or during the straight application of mechanical sub-systems) are enforced by the game rules. As for the rest, it is essentially up to the DM to ensure that the players' choices matter.

<snip>

the DM is in charge of the information flow in the game. The players might feel aggrieved if information which should have been obvious to the characters (but not the players) was withheld from them.

I think what FireLance says is probably true of D&D. But if a mechanical solution of the sort I described above is implemented, then (i) the game rules enforce consequences in a wider range of situations without depending on GM discretion, and (ii) the GM is no longer sole arbiter of information flow - by cementing a relationship or an itme, the players establish some of the facts that are true in the gameworld.

 

[pemerton]

Trying to run a moral scenario is extremely difficult, but, I think, very rewarding too. But, first, you have to identify a few things. Why are you (the DM) running this scenario? What is it you are trying to accomplish? To me, a moral scenario is all about pushing the player's buttons.

<snip>

Moral situations make for fantastic roleplay but have to be handled with a great deal of care. This is potentially explosive and potentially very divisive in a group. Much more than many other situations, you have to know your group and what they will respond to. Tread very, very lightly.

I just wanted to add that it need not be just about button-pushing in a narrow sense. It can simply be about generating a bit of roleplaying passion and interesting stories. I've GMed a lot of adventures where PCs have come into conflict with one another about issues of loyalty or proper conduct, even to the point of one PC sacrificing another on the altar of an "evil" god as a prelude to a fundamental change of political alignment within the campaign world. Another PC reluctantly went along because he was promised money, which he needed to redeem the mortgage on his house which was in turn a result of his addiction to magic-enhancing (and expensive) herbs.

You are right that these sorts of scenarios require that the players be willing to give and take a bit, and that some limits (such as sacrificing another PC) not be crossed without consent on everyone's part.

I also think that you are right that it's not the GM's job to decide how these things work out. That's up to the players.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

You know, you all keep trying to imagine what the PCs were thinking, and you're all going very in depth, but what I've found is, when things like this happen, the PCs line of thinking is far, far simpler.

"Ha ha, quest done!"

And that's about it.

The PCs, as far as they're concerned, didn't choose either side of a moral choice, because to them there wasn't one. They saw a bad guy. Bad guys are there to be defeated. Bad guy is defeated. Next!

The use of Buffy and Angel isn't one of appealing to their characters, it's "Oh hey, these two are characters in vaguely modern fantasy-esque settings. And they totally beat up bad guys too!" It's why they bring up good ol' Harry Callahan. What does he do? He takes down bad guys!

Oh, and for what it's worth, unless the girl in question was related or tied to the Knights of the Cross, they probably wouldn't get involved in the first place. As was stated, they aren't tied to the White Council.

In short, it's possible that they didn't consciously make either side of a moral decision; they didn't even think the game had one to begin with.

 

[Starfox]

When I come to a time like this as a GM I like to tell the group "hey everyone, this is a big decision, and it's something that will have major repercussions on the game," and then I let them decide what they want to do with that in mind. The story can then flow from that.

The danger here is that the players might not agree. It is good to ask, but if they say they're not interested, you have to respect that. They might want this part of the story done with and move on. RPGs are about entertainment in the end. To some people, facing the consequences of their action and other high drama is entertainment, to others it is a drag.

A Dm can be sneaky and squeeze in a little drama in his plot as hooks to see if the player's bite. If they do, by all means add more of it. If they don't these things are cute background elements only.

 

[roguerouge]

Spoilers for Whedon's first two series:

Angel and Buffy are very, very different series when it comes to human fatalities. Buffy never kills a human being and there are very bad consequences when Faith pulls a manslaughter (at which point she does start to murder), Giles (killing Ben precisely because Buffy could never do it), and Spike, Willow and Andrew both have to go through repentance paths of varying arduousness. Heck, ANDREW got an entire episode focusing on this and he was barely above a C story line at the time.

Angel? If the 18-year-old was blond, there would be absolutely no way he would let her die (c.f. Buffy, Darla). Also, he goes very far out of his way to protect Faith and give her her shot at redemption. Of course, Angel is a much darker series in general... so ask your players if they REALLY want to have their campaign end the way that Angel's does. If not, perhaps they should choose a new role model, m'kay?