Something I want to do for my players, (2 in particular) is put them in a situation that is a moral, good or evil dilemma. To set the reason for this, a good being is watching them and wants to know if the players are fit and honorable enough to aid them. So I want to put the players in a scenario where they have to make a choice, and this choice determines whether the being watching them decides if they're good or not. Any suggestions? I can work with pieces of an idea, but for some reason I haven't been able to come up with any ideas myself that satisfy this purpose.

A criminal tied to the player's backround. Pressure the player into killing them, and if they don't, now you now. Separate the party when it comes time for murder, though, or the results will be tainted by a friend encouraging them not to do it. That's what I'd do.

You could create a number of random moral dilemmas.

Man collapsed on the road requires a potion of healing (assuming players aren't rich).

Poor villager needs something from next village over with no promised reward.

Players approach a camp or village is being raided,  and run into escaping raiders. Do they keep the loot or return it?

Why not use a classic psychology test: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_dilemma

This one covers different stages of why the "healing potion" isn't stolen. The higher being could only contact them if they have acted in stage 5 or 6. An "envoy of law and order" might reward them for a stage 4 decision.

A town is being raided by goblins so hire the PCs to stop them. When the "goblins" are caught or killed, it is discovered that they are kids in disguise, they are only raiding for food. The town recently diverted the river so their village farms are failing.

Miners discover a new mineral in the form of crystal spindles. When they begin to harvest these crystals, the miners get attacked by a beast. The players are hired to help. It is discovered that the crystals are the eggs of the beast, a good creature, the last one of her kind. If they close the mine, the town will fail. (sound familiar?)

My DM and long time friend did this to one of our other players and equally long time friend:

We are experiencing a war if you will between new gods and old gods.  He was asked by his deity to kill a young child (that happened to be the mortal reincarnation of an evil god or its avatar).

The best moral dilemmas I've seen have a very similar structure and, if used properly, can be redesigned in a myriad of ways:

Problem > Solution > Interference with the solution > Resolution is ambiguous and can result in something as bad as the problem, better, or worse.

Idea 1: A woman is accused of traitorous actions. She has given food to her son, and was caught in doing so. In this situation the son has joined a rebellious group who is against the current powers that be. It is your job to pass final judgment on whether she is guilty of treason, and punished with death, or innocent but will result in being exiled for acts that are unacceptable.

Idea 2: A bag of coins is found on the ground, the bag bears a mark of the local business, and the richest most influential person in the area. The locals in the area point you in the direction of that person's home. On the way a local accidentally bumps into the group, they are visibly distressed. They own/are building an orphanage and are short on cash to finish the job. They happen to need a large sum of money. The orphanage is paying the business man for the work, the bag of coins will cover the cost, and still have money left in the bag. The business man would know if money is missing, and the business man is going to take the orphanage as his own building if they cannot pay it off.

These are two of the dilemmas that I've used in the past. The biggest thing that I would offer is to allow wiggle room so that if the players choose to go a completely different route than you expect, you simply take into account where that would be on the "watcher's" moral compass.

Something interesting that you can do is the classic rail car scenario. Have an evil person give the group a choice of killing one person (like a child) or killing 6 people (old people or some adults). Then the being will watch and listen to how the group determines who will live and will judge whether their reasoning is for the good of the survivors or not. This can be slightly complicated due to ethical arguments but can create some interesting role playing opportunities. I hope this helps and i wish you luck.

Personal philosophy here - but I often see evil in someone valuing expediency or convenience or personal luxury over the well being or survival of others.

Give the players a very hard problem. Give them a hard solution which costs them a personally and significantly, juxtaposed with a solution which costs them nothing, but has a negative impact on someone else. See how they react.

E.g. - the party is faced with a just/reasonable demand on them; they can avoid it by forcing a different unjust cost on someone else. 

How hard you want to make the test will determine who it costs, and how much. The difficulty of the test is proportional to how much it costs the party, and is inversely proportional to how much the party values the target, and is inversely proportional to the cost to the other party.

An easy morality choice is "pay this 1 g.p. fine, or this wagon of orphans and puppies are incinerated" - only the most psychotic person/player would allow the orphans and puppies to burn. A much harder line is "give up your magic weapon, or we'll imprison this innocent stranger for life". A small unjust cost, to someone they hate, to avoid a large but just personal penalty - it's hard to do the right thing here.

Quote from DMThac0 >>

The best moral dilemmas I've seen have a very similar structure and, if used properly, can be redesigned in a myriad of ways:

Problem > Solution > Interference with the solution > Resolution is ambiguous and can result in something as bad as the problem, better, or worse.

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Idea 1: A woman is accused of traitorous actions. She has given food to her son, and was caught in doing so. In this situation the son has joined a rebellious group who is against the current powers that be. It is your job to pass final judgment on whether she is guilty of treason, and punished with death, or innocent but will result in being exiled for acts that are unacceptable.

---

 

Idea 2: A bag of coins is found on the ground, the bag bears a mark of the local business, and the richest most influential person in the area. The locals in the area point you in the direction of that person's home. On the way a local accidentally bumps into the group, they are visibly distressed. They own/are building an orphanage and are short on cash to finish the job. They happen to need a large sum of money. The orphanage is paying the business man for the work, the bag of coins will cover the cost, and still have money left in the bag. The business man would know if money is missing, and the business man is going to take the orphanage as his own building if they cannot pay it off.

---

These are two of the dilemmas that I've used in the past. The biggest thing that I would offer is to allow wiggle room so that if the players choose to go a completely different route than you expect, you simply take into account where that would be on the "watcher's" moral compass.

This is an excellent category as well: situations where there are two ethics in play, both of which are generally deemed moral, and which are in contradiction: family loyalty v.s. national/societal loyalty; protection of the weak and oppressed vs. property rights.

The trick here, is trying to figure out if the party has passed or failed the test as there isn't any clear cut right choice; it's a judgement call.

However, if the being observing the party pressed to party to explain their moral reasoning ( even if they came to a conclusion other than that the being expected ) then they could still be judged as trying to do the moral action, and therefore being "good".

There is an otherworldly threat looming on the horizon, a horde of demons which will destroy the city before they can be contained. The only way to stop them is to sacrifice the life of the PCs love interest.

"All you have to do is make this child eat the blood of man. You can use any means necessary. If you do so, you will be fabulously rewarded. If you don't, the child will transform into a beast of unimaginable horror".

The child above was born and bred to be the innocent sacrifice to keep the Evil Emperor young.  

You have found an egg of a Gold Dragon. Somebody will pay a Huge sum of cash for it. Somebody else says they know where to take it to return it to the rightful mother but offers a smaller reward. Turns out the Huge sum of cash was from the mother dragon in disguise.

Thank you all for giving me ideas. I took bits from a few different things. I totally used the children disguised as Goblins idea. That's how we introduced a new player-bard to the party. Unfortunately the rogue(one of the people I was testing) shot the goblin disguised teen bard. Said rogue is now no longer a part of the party because as part of one of the moral decisions I put forth, they broke the law and picked the worst lookout in history. So success? And thank you

I read this post cuz I also need a moral dilemma for my game. My party is currently in the wilderness, though, and entering an enchanted region more-or-less restricted to good aligned individuals only. I gave it a lot of thought and decided to keep it MUCH simpler: the rogue sees a party member drop a valuable object and has the chance to pocket it or return it. Another member of the party sees one of their (newish) companions hiding something that doesn't belong to them. Lastly, a member of the party has an opportunity to take a hit for one of their companions. Very "knee jerk" reactions. Not terribly consequential but informative. Was thinking about some sort of wounded animal conundrum but choices around nature and personal survival aren't the most cut and dry for determining moral turpitude. 

I hated most philosophers, Heinz in particular (His drug dilemma is based on several faulty cultural assumptions - in particular a faulty understanding of capitalism and the 'fair price'.  In real capitalism, there can be no 'gun to the head.,  It's why we don't use it in the military, police or fire department.  It shouldn't be used for life saving medicine anymore than you charge a  victim's family to arrest his murderer.)

I have found that to get people to TRULY have a moral dilemma, they need to actually care about something, which is hard to do.   Best way to do it in the game is to make it about their character's life.

That is, give them a suicide sacrifice choice.  Kill yourself to accomplish the goal, or continue to live to try again.   Even this extreme is a bit soft in a world where you can be raised, or simply start a new character.

Moreover, there is another issue going on - role playing vs IRL morality.   Some people use their own morality instead of that of their character.  

I realize how old this thread is but I wanted to add one thing I enjoyed adding to my game of long time players:

They are setting up camp and during a watch, a player hears pained moaning on the breeze.  When it is checked out they see a camp of two ogres eating flesh being cooked on fire spit.   The moaning is coming from behind the camp and upon  checking it out they see a Troll pinned down by a massive boulder.  It appears as though the ogres have a replenishing source of food from a regenerating troll so they no longer bother travelers but they are torturing another evil aligned monster.  Do they intervene or let the acts of one evil group on another go on?

?? all great ideas.

Party on a quest in a Kingdom where the Law is unjust.  The Kingdom has a Human Society which holds non-human races in little regard like second class citizens. As they are on a Quest for a foreign King, they are grudgingly respected but have no authority.  However, they need to be able to operate in the Kingdom to complete the quest.

While traveling they encounter a prison caravan (no one else is around for miles). Most of the non-human prisoners are only guilty of petty crimes or false allegations but all prisoners have been sentenced to hard labor in the mines. The lawful guards are cruel to the prisoners and one of the prisoners cries out to the Party for Help.

Does the party attack the guards and try to free the prisoners breaking the Law of the land and jeopardizing their mission?

Do they fight the guards with Lethal force?

If the guards surrender does the party spare them?

What do they do with the guards if they surrender? If they let them go, they will report the incident.

Do they leave the prisoners to 'take care of the guards' even if it's obvious some of the prisoners will kill the guards?

What do they do with the prisoners? some of them are guilty of all sorts of crimes, how do they know who is guilty of what? Who are they to Judge?

Quote from Wysperra >>

There is an otherworldly threat looming on the horizon, a horde of demons which will destroy the city before they can be contained. The only way to stop them is to sacrifice the life of the PCs love interest.

"All you have to do is make this child eat the blood of man. You can use any means necessary. If you do so, you will be fabulously rewarded. If you don't, the child will transform into a beast of unimaginable horror".

The child above was born and bred to be the innocent sacrifice to keep the Evil Emperor young.  

 That is my kind evil....