RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Morally ambigous situations. How about this:
Black and White, or is it?
Your country is in a war that is slowly turning against it. It isn't well know yet, but (due to privileged positions, ...) you know that probably the reserves won't last the winter, and the enemy is not showing any signs of letting up.
There is a peace conference set up by a third power, and your side is due to be represented by the chancellor. Now you find out the chancellor is a cultist of some Norgorber. What's more, said chancellor is going to perform a ritual to that god to invoke the Reaper of Reputations favor.
Do you stop the ritual and slay the chancelor? He may kill now, yes - but if you let the ritual go through and deal with him later, it may save a lot more lives and spare you a gruelling winter war defeat.
Justice?
Your party has been chasing the villain for months. You've foiled his evil plans, slay his henchmen and dismantled his lair. He's given as good as he got, though. He's kicked your dog, burned your hometown to the ground, and generally done everything he could to make sure you want him dead.
But he doesn't show up in front of the idol in the final room of his fortress. He's instead put on his hairshirt, shaved his head and joined a penitent order. Now, given all you've seen him do, you're certain its just a ruse to get you off his trail. Yet he promises a lifetime of good works to make up for his misdeeds, and the law of the land is inclined to allow him that.
Other moral conundrums are both more mundane and appear regularly in real life (or on messageboards), like "You've been insulted. Do you hit back, or just take a deep breath and walk away?"
Probably the most memorable moral conundrum I've ever been faced with as a player was about 15 years ago during a GURPS X-Files/Cthulhu/World of Darkness game. My character was a former CIA field agent turned US Marshall. Our team had been tracking terrorists, who turned out to be vampires, who in turn were trying to stop cultists from performing a ritual to summon Hastur the Unspeakable. My character had a Dependent NPC (competent)-- his wife, who was a corporate attorney.
Anyway, we're playing the penultimate session of the campaign. My character's wife had been hired by the vampires' corporation, but has been kidnapped by the cultists. We've learned that the cultists need to first summon the spirit of a Byakhee into a human host to form a hybrid creature, and it will be from the body of this hybrid that Hastur will be called forth. However, when summoned in this manner, they can force Hastur to perform a specific terrible task, but then will return him whence he came, and also restore the human host. We fight our way into the cult's ritual chambers to find my character's wife restrained on an altar, just as the summoning is complete-- she's already become the hybrid being! The cultists just started the second part-- the actual summoning of Hastur.
Now, my character has a magic item that can briefly rip the consciousness of a Mythos creature into it, at great risk of being possessed by said creature. He's also got a submachine gun and a couple of hand grenades.
We know that summoning Mythos entities is easy, but controlling them is the hard part. If we interrupt the ritual in the wrong way, Hastur could come uncontrolled and would destroy the world with eldritch fire!
So, my choices appear to be:
1) Let the ritual complete: the cultists win and perform a great evil, but trust that they can return Hastur from whence he came without destroying the world (which is itself a gamble), and will restore his wife after it's over.
2) Shoot my wife/hybrid being. This has a good chance of stopping the ritual without summoning Hastur at all, but leaves my wife dead.
3) Use the Elder Stone to pull the byakhee's spirit out of his wife's mind, freeing her from its influence, but running the risk of himself becoming the hybrid being, and possibly allowing Hastur to run free to destroy the earth.
Those were the choices the GM gave me.
I chose a fourth option: First, I pulled the pin of a hand grenade, and dropped it at my own feet. Then, I used the Elder Sign to pull the spirit of the byakhee out of my wife into the sign, I dropped on top of the grenade, and then let the spirit of the byakhee possess me, becoming the hybrid being myself. Before it can act--BANG! The grenade exploded, killing me instantly (and the byahkee's spirit as well), but saving the world and my wife.
Not quite a no-win situation, but it was the best possible outcome.
The rest of the team shut down the cult and rescued my character's wife.
THAT'S the kind of moral conundrum I like-- the one where the PCs have the option of making a truly heroic choice.
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Other moral conundrums are both more mundane and appear regularly in real life (or on messageboards), like "You've been insulted. Do you hit back, or just take a deep breath and walk away?"
Or in the case of certain Monks or Barbarians in game, you should take a deep breath and hit back.
Moral Conundrums are nice, but if they pop up too many times it gets hard to be encouraged to play.
"Excuse me, good... um... monsters, would you KINDLY refrain from slaughtering those innocent villagers for a few days while I figure out how to return you to your rightful forms?"A simple but excellent one I once read on these very boards involved an evil wizard kidnapping a group of innocents (say, all the children from a town somewhere). After doing so, the wizard transforms them into horrible, but still living, monsters, and sends to terrorize or conquer their own (or some other) village. The quandary arises when the PCs, called in to help save the town, discover that the creatures they are fighting are actually transformed children. This may be suitably conveyed by, for example, having the monsters change back into child form after death.They just need to find a way to reverse the effect.
Also, a Paladin should not be forced to kill children. That's just wrong.
"My apologies for this, but if you are not stopped you will do harm to innocents." *non-lethal flail clubbing*
I guess were coming from two different angles here. What you describe as being heroic, I see as easily being set up in a way to cause a paladin to fall.
However, you do realize you just described a bevy of "no win" situations for the person being tortured, the civilians being sacrificed(or the first people the BBEG encounter when he's in a bad mood), and the lives lost of either party members or non-party members. I think it would be wiser to say you don't like the cliches you don't like and you do like the cliches you do like.I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risksWhat I dislike as a player and don't do as a GM is force parties into situations in which there is no morally right or even acceptable thing to do. Some GMs (and perhaps their players) seem to delight in that, and consider it a more "gritty" or "realistic" style of campaign.
More power to them if they are all happy doing it that way, although I suspect those GMs enjoy this style more than their players. Doesn't appeal to me in the least. I deal with gritty reality and choices between shades of gray in my life and work every day. When I'm gaming I want to escape from that and be able to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, and not be forced to make morally questionable choices to do so. Maybe that type of scenario has been done to death, and others are more jaded than I am, but after 30+ years of gaming it hasn't gotten old to me.
Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
Not really sure what you are getting at, here. Perhaps you could expand on it or clarify.
Obviously, when I was talking about...
