I'm going to have a session where the characters are forced to make some tough moral decisions! (It is a part of a divine test to obtain a nice item, to show that their souls are worthy!! (they will be in 6 different situations so i need 6 nice choices, the setting will shift after each choice have been made) But i'm having a hard time comming up with tough choices to throw at them!!.. (The Party is Good aligned) I'm currently thinking of the following:
1) Save your loved one or save your town and everyone in it! 2) Optain power from a lost artifact by consuming the souls within, thereby dooming them to eternal torment, or set them free and not obtain the power! 3) Sacrifice yourself or your best friends to complete an important objective
And then i fall a bit short... I hope you guys can provide som nice feedback :)
Test their Courage: Have them make a choice between helping a person who is being hassled by a town guard (and then face imprisonment) or leave the person be
Honesty: A poor merchant returns to them too many coins during a sale, they are low on coins, what do they do?
Kindness and Compassion: An angered and mournful queen berates the characters for having "let" her son fall in battle beside them. The characters can choose to be defensive (it wasn't their fault after all) or to feel empathy and respond with tact.
Those seem to be a little obvious. Saving a loved one, saving yourself, or gaining power at great cost are all obviously selfish.
How about something that does not benefit the player in any of the circumstances? "Good" alignment becomes muddied.
Choose to kill 3 of 6 people guilty of different crimes for different reasons or an entire population dies. Every option isn't simple, such as: One person caused widespread strife but didn't know that their simple crime was going to result in such and they did it because their family was in need. Another seems like a straightforward eye-for-an-eye situation, but in the end, was it justice, revenge, some mix of the two?
3 live and 3 die by the characters' hands or everyone in the area dies, but none of the six are innocent, and yet, their guilt is conditional.
Alternatively, what about a magical, 1-use artifact that will kill a random person and save a diseased nation that will die without the miracle? — any random person without the artifact wielder knowing who it would be: king, mother, thief, beggar, beloved lord, hated wizard, the only person preventing a catastrophic war, the person who is about to find the means to save people whose brains were removed for more than 1 round, etc.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I see your point, its just hard to come up with stuff like that, so its nice that this community is so great at helping others :)
I kindda want to blur the lines about what is right and wrong.. But in the end no choice is the right one.. If they can argue well enough that their choice was the right one, they win.. If they succumb and say that was wrong, they loose .. Something like that. I'm trying to draw out the "heroic / leader / paragon of righteousness" traits in the PCS
Example: A City is under siege, and a PC is the generel, the alchemist have come up with a concoction that will kill everybody in the area of effect quickly, he claims that a few barrels of this will be enough to break the morale.. A NPC commander strongly advises against this, because they dont know the effect of this.. If they choose to use the DeathConcoctions, they will find out that it spreads through the city and kills everybody slowly and painfully..
If they can argue that they saved the lived of their soldiers and stuff like that they win ...., if they say "my god what have i done" they loose :P
Group of bad guys coming to destroy the town. They must cross a bridge to do so. Some innocent farmers and their families are still on the wrong side. It is obvious that the bad guys will overtake the farmers some time during the crossing. Do you blow the bridge now or when the bad guys and farmers are on the bridge? Risk the invaders capturing the bridge and destroying the town?
The PCs must cross the Lake of the Dark Moon in order to deny the BBEG from getting the whatsit. If the BBEG gets the whatsit, bad bad things will happen. The only way across the lake is to use the boat of souls - a boat that is powered by souls (duh).
A neighboring town is under attack, does the party leave now to aid them or wait to see if the threat also comes to the town they live in?
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
A good moral choice is one where there's no openly 'good' or 'evil' choices.
The players come across a pair of Goblins. One has a loaf of bread in its hands, the other has a dagger. Both claim they're trying to feed their children, but the shop-keeper who hired the players says that somebody is stealing their goods and they'll go bankrupt if this keeps happening. If the plays confront the Goblins, they'll fight to the death to feed their children and then the players have to deal with now parentless Goblin children who are also starving, but if they do nothing, the shop-keeper will go bankrupt and the Goblins will just move on to the next target to feed their growing brood. Trying to negotiate with the Goblins to take up employment or leave the area and find a new home might work, but then the players have to handle keeping the Goblins in-hand and fed, and people around them might see the players as foolish or worse for just shifting the problem along onto somebody else's doorstep.
A player comes across a Pixie in a magical Lantern. While the Pixie is foul-mouthed and blatantly abusive, and the lantern's inscriptions read that the Pixie was trapped in the lantern as punishment for getting several people killed with careless, spiteful pranks and a flagrant disregard for the necessities of mortal life, as well as a hateful refusal to recant for its crimes. The player can use the lantern not only as a light-source, but can draw upon the magic of the Pixie to cast Faerie Fire once per day. The process of doing so, however, causes the Pixie immense pain. The Pixie is completely unrepentant of it's crimes and the Pixie's jailor, a much older and more powerful Fey, tell the player that the Pixie must remain trapped in the lantern or it will continue to lure children into danger to satisfy it's twisted sense of humor, and using the Faerie Fire ability drains the Pixie of its magic so that it can't find ways to escape the lantern. Yet doing so effectively tortures the Pixie, and the only way to stop the Pixie once it breaks free of the lantern is to kill it. What is the 'right' option to do here?
The players come across a Chain Devil that is defending a Paladin of Tyr from a group of angry Aasimar. The Paladin managed to convince the Chain Devil to abandon the Hells and try to enforce Law and Order with the backings of the heavens instead. The Aasimar are the children of a Deva who was slain by the Chain Devil in a cruel and vile fashion, and demand justice for their slain progenitor. Is helping the Chain Devil continue to atone and become a being of the heavens worth-while and proving that the Nine Hells denizens can change and escape from under Asmodeus's thumb for a better life, when it could all be a ploy to corrupt the paladin instead, or is helping the Aasimar mob destroy a Devil more worthy since they are (nominally) good entities who can offer actual aid to the Paladin who is spending all his time trying to help the Chain Devil convert?
Personally, I'm a fan of less fantastical scenarios where the stakes aren't as high. I know this is D&D, but I think that it can distract from the morality of the choices available to the players (which is of course the whole point of the challenges in the first place). I like the goblin idea, but maybe instead of a shopkeeper's livelihood being at stake it can be a simple matter of justice being served. Perhaps the party is passing through a small village and they come across a shouting crowd, arguing over what to do with an alleged thief. You listen to the accused and the accuser. Make both sides sound reasonable, but with each choice carrying definite consequences. They have to weigh the crime (and the motivations behind it) against the punishment (and any biases or ulterior motives that may be at work) along with right vs. wrong. The moral conundrums of Socrates in Assassin's Creed Odyssey come to mind (if you haven't played the game, youtube the cut scenes. They are a pretty good representation of what i'm talking about and might provide some inspiration). Hope this might have helped! I like your idea of moral challenges for your party, very cool.
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Hello there everyone!!
I'm going to have a session where the characters are forced to make some tough moral decisions! (It is a part of a divine test to obtain a nice item, to show that their souls are worthy!! (they will be in 6 different situations so i need 6 nice choices, the setting will shift after each choice have been made) But i'm having a hard time comming up with tough choices to throw at them!!..
(The Party is Good aligned)
I'm currently thinking of the following:
1) Save your loved one or save your town and everyone in it!
2) Optain power from a lost artifact by consuming the souls within, thereby dooming them to eternal torment, or set them free and not obtain the power!
3) Sacrifice yourself or your best friends to complete an important objective
And then i fall a bit short... I hope you guys can provide som nice feedback :)
Test their Courage: Have them make a choice between helping a person who is being hassled by a town guard (and then face imprisonment) or leave the person be
Honesty: A poor merchant returns to them too many coins during a sale, they are low on coins, what do they do?
Kindness and Compassion: An angered and mournful queen berates the characters for having "let" her son fall in battle beside them. The characters can choose to be defensive (it wasn't their fault after all) or to feel empathy and respond with tact.
Those seem to be a little obvious. Saving a loved one, saving yourself, or gaining power at great cost are all obviously selfish.
How about something that does not benefit the player in any of the circumstances? "Good" alignment becomes muddied.
Choose to kill 3 of 6 people guilty of different crimes for different reasons or an entire population dies. Every option isn't simple, such as: One person caused widespread strife but didn't know that their simple crime was going to result in such and they did it because their family was in need. Another seems like a straightforward eye-for-an-eye situation, but in the end, was it justice, revenge, some mix of the two?
3 live and 3 die by the characters' hands or everyone in the area dies, but none of the six are innocent, and yet, their guilt is conditional.
Alternatively, what about a magical, 1-use artifact that will kill a random person and save a diseased nation that will die without the miracle? — any random person without the artifact wielder knowing who it would be: king, mother, thief, beggar, beloved lord, hated wizard, the only person preventing a catastrophic war, the person who is about to find the means to save people whose brains were removed for more than 1 round, etc.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I see your point, its just hard to come up with stuff like that, so its nice that this community is so great at helping others :)
I kindda want to blur the lines about what is right and wrong..
But in the end no choice is the right one.. If they can argue well enough that their choice was the right one, they win.. If they succumb and say that was wrong, they loose .. Something like that.
I'm trying to draw out the "heroic / leader / paragon of righteousness" traits in the PCS
Example: A City is under siege, and a PC is the generel, the alchemist have come up with a concoction that will kill everybody in the area of effect quickly, he claims that a few barrels of this will be enough to break the morale.. A NPC commander strongly advises against this, because they dont know the effect of this..
If they choose to use the DeathConcoctions, they will find out that it spreads through the city and kills everybody slowly and painfully..
If they can argue that they saved the lived of their soldiers and stuff like that they win ...., if they say "my god what have i done" they loose :P
Group of bad guys coming to destroy the town. They must cross a bridge to do so. Some innocent farmers and their families are still on the wrong side. It is obvious that the bad guys will overtake the farmers some time during the crossing. Do you blow the bridge now or when the bad guys and farmers are on the bridge? Risk the invaders capturing the bridge and destroying the town?
The PCs must cross the Lake of the Dark Moon in order to deny the BBEG from getting the whatsit. If the BBEG gets the whatsit, bad bad things will happen. The only way across the lake is to use the boat of souls - a boat that is powered by souls (duh).
A neighboring town is under attack, does the party leave now to aid them or wait to see if the threat also comes to the town they live in?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
A good moral choice is one where there's no openly 'good' or 'evil' choices.
Personally, I'm a fan of less fantastical scenarios where the stakes aren't as high. I know this is D&D, but I think that it can distract from the morality of the choices available to the players (which is of course the whole point of the challenges in the first place). I like the goblin idea, but maybe instead of a shopkeeper's livelihood being at stake it can be a simple matter of justice being served. Perhaps the party is passing through a small village and they come across a shouting crowd, arguing over what to do with an alleged thief. You listen to the accused and the accuser. Make both sides sound reasonable, but with each choice carrying definite consequences. They have to weigh the crime (and the motivations behind it) against the punishment (and any biases or ulterior motives that may be at work) along with right vs. wrong. The moral conundrums of Socrates in Assassin's Creed Odyssey come to mind (if you haven't played the game, youtube the cut scenes. They are a pretty good representation of what i'm talking about and might provide some inspiration). Hope this might have helped! I like your idea of moral challenges for your party, very cool.