Has your character ever been confronted by a difficult morale choice?
How did he handle it?
>>47227244
I once had to leave my character's cousin behind. She had been crit and turned undead. She was my squire, a promising swordswoman.
We had two choices. Leave her body intact and risk letting her rise to kill again. Or decapitating her to end the undead curse.
Every member of my party said "You're a Paladin, you can fix her, right?" But no one knew. They pleaded and begged. "We can save her, there has to be a way."
Her body wouldn't have lasted long enough for any accessible revival magicks, and my Paladin knew that. Questing for powerful enough magic would have endangered my party. Even if I could have saved her, I couldn't save her from what she'd have done to us and others along the way.
I dragged her out into the fields where the party couldn't see me, and I struck her neck twice. With her gone, her branch of the family lined ended. I would be held responsible for her death by my father and uncle and I would be stripped of my name, and I was.
I dug a grave and I said a prayer, marked the grave with her sword. The party hasn't spoken of her since, but each morning, I take another hour of prayer for her.
>>47227244
>not posting the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCMNWAJiz5Y
>>47227348
Holy shit what the fuck.
If that actually happened, then kudos to you for top tier roleplay.
>>47227348
This sinful world isn't good enough for one such as you.
>>47227502
>top tier roleplay
Riiight.
>my paladin knew
>pretending to know what the GM had planned
>implying pallies are healbots
>not imprisoning cousin pending cure
>thinks females extend a family line
>Murdered senpai but its okay
>cos i prayed
>top tier
Yeah, nah.
>>47227842
Found That Guy.
>>47227842
You must be one of those people who compulsively screams "FAAAAAKE!" at any half-decent roleplaying story.
>>47227244
>difficult morale choice
>>47227842
Has anyone told you that you're kind of an ass? Because I think you should know that you're kind of an ass.
>>47227244
>>47227933
ITT: OP's attempt at serious discussion starter ruined by OP's inability to distinguish between homonyms.
>>47227244
>Be the equivalent of a special ops team in a fantasy medievalish game (more thematically drawn from classical Greece, but I digress)
>Our city-state had been at war with these giantish people for a long, long time.
>Were getting our asses kicked pretty badly until we allied with some lizardmen, between the two of us, we turned the tide
>However, the lizards demanded regular sacrifices to their dragon god.
>Giants try to kidnap the next sacrifice in an attempt to drive a wedge between us.
>We go to 'rescue' her.
>Along the way, we kind of smash the protective crystal that nullified a lot of ritual magic around their biggest fort, which gets hammered pretty good.
>Suddenly, their threat profile is massively decreased.
>Perhaps stupidly, decide not to turn over the girl to be eaten by a dragon.
>Lizardmen are understandably pissed.
>Declare war.
>Yay, we have another horrible conflict right on top of the last one.
>Fight them a bit, gradually get the upper hand.
>Dragon takes the field, incinerates a big chunk of our army and half of the main city.
>After some sidequesting, especially to pick up a particular magic sword, we manage to defeat the dragon.
>Come back, fend off one last ditch assault by the lizards
>War #2 is effectively over
>Half the population think we're heroes who have saved everyone
>Other half of the population think we're dangerous traitors who started the damn war and should be hanged immediately.
>Factions developing
>And it's not like conditions are too great either, what with lots of people dead and half the city gone.
>Civil war seems imminent, and everything we try to do to calm it down only makes shit worse
>Wind up leaving our home in a self-imposed exile.
So that's really 2 nasty choices in the same campaign.
>>47227348
>Leave her body intact and risk letting her rise to kill again.
M A N A C L E S
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My players decided to initiate a socio-poltical revolution as a greater part of stopping a rebellion, killing a rebel duke and using his mercenaries to storm his castle.
Upon reaching the highest floor, they encountered high ranking guards calling to "Protect the lady!" and they thought it was probably the duke's wife. This was a difficult choice, but they decided they would have to accept the moral provision and kill the lady.
But then, after removing the guards (one of our players never "killed" anyone), they entered the chamber, revealing the Lady as a 6 year old girl--the duke's daughter. There was some further discussion, but, despite their murderhobo'ing, they decided not to kill her, but, instead, befriend her.
Our halfling rogue, who has made a life out of pretending to be other people, then decided he would try his best to disguise himself as the Duke's daughter. As we only had 1-2 sessions left for the year, they then infiltrated the rebelling king's castle under the guise of merchants, reporting their own rebellion, the Duke's death & that the Duke's daughter survived. The "daughter" met the Mother, while the king's evil advisor (not Grima wormtongue) tried to console the grieving widow.
They then organized a plot, using a number of other disguises, and created a scene where "Grima" (a disguised player) kidnapped the "Daughter," in front of the Mother. The other players went and knocked out Grima, then interrogated him, finding out he was an evil mage of the BBEG, corrupting the King to rebellion. Bringing back Grima's head, the players revealed the plot and everything was made right, but they still had the BBEG to face in the west.
I was a cleric, who made some questionable deals with an archfey. As a result, my wife (an other PC) got trapped just behind the gates that lead to Tartarus. The party was faced with a choice - either we open the gates and risk apocalypse, or we leave her inside. With heavy heart my character decided that he can't doom the world to save one woman.
...except as we found out a couple minutes later, opening the gates actually doesn't do shit. Well, yes, it speeds up the Ragnarok, making it happen in a few years as opposed to the few centuries, but nothing immediately catastrophic. So we've opened the gates, saved my wife and averted the end of the world when it actually happened.
In fact, it was a running theme with the deals with that archfey. Each of them were supposed to have disasterous, horrible consequences, but each time we've paid the price for them it either ended up not mattering at all, or we would have done what the archfey wants anyway. For example, it turned out that the price for our sorcerer's deal was the life of his son. His reaction was "Wait, my character has a son? And I find this out now?"
Never been explicitly faced with such a choice, but I did pose one to my players in one campaign.
>Civil war between rightful king and rebel princess
>Rightful king is a ruthless dictator who rules with an iron fist, openly killing political dissidents, imposing harsh penalties for comparitively minor crimes, and oppressing those he deems 'lesser' than human (primarily half-orcs, gnomes, Halflings, and the like). But at the same time he's also a highly efficient bureaucrat that is completely reorganizing the tax system, initiating widespread public works to bring sanitation to the cities, and making peace with centuries-old enemy nations to foster a climate of trade and cooperation.
>Rebel Princess (King's bastard half-sister) is a popular leader that has much public support, as well as supporting the rights of non-humans and other minorities, but she is also a vainglorious warlord intent on building for herself a legacy of conquest and victory in battle, regardless of how many people get hurt, and she has neither the patience nor the skill for bureaucracy. She also employs a company of vampire knights to serve as her personal enforcers against her political opponents, and is in league with a powerful necromancer to raise the army of the undead she needs to fight the civil war.
>PC's legitimately have difficulty deciding between the two.
>Initially they support the king, but later switch to support the rebel princess because they think the king is too stubborn.
>More than a year later, players still tell me they're not sure they picked the right side.
>morale choice
When throwing a victory party, we could have gone with either a circus troupe or a hostel of prostitutes.
We chose the prostitutes.
It was the right call.
>>47230362
The kingdom ended up going to shit under the princess's rule, right?
>>47230421
They expanded pretty quickly, conquering territory that allowed them to exploit natural resources, but the near-constant war meant heavy taxation to fund the military, and people were none too happy about the vampire knights that would roam the streets and occasionally spirit people away to be their own personal blood banks.
In addition, the clergy had to be purged and replaced with pro-queen clergy, because the originals were all complaining about the zombie legions the new queen was using. Finally, she withdrew her support for quite a few of the minorities she originally championed because she simply wanted to use them for extra military power during the civil war. Like the Orc tribes who thought they were getting the chance to prove their honour ended up as slaves working the mines, and
>>47230362
Holy shit, why does every DM try to force RL politics into games, so fucking retarded.
>>47227990
I remember that storytime. It's bretty gud.
>>47227244
The choice was between letting a terrorist walk without punishment, and saving the life of a man who called himself "The Shep" in public (who happened to be the only one with concrete proof of terrorist activities, though he himself didn't know it).
We compromised, tricking The Shep into revealing his actionable intelligence to a reputable agency, and then killing him ourselves once it didn't matter anymore.
>>47230492
Sounds like they should've killed both the King and the daughter and everyone else and taken the throne by force then.
>>47230560
RL politics? What? These were some characters I made up. I didn't base them on anyone.
>>47230682
It was discussed, but four people and their NPC tag-along does not constitute a successful coup. Thankfully, the players were smart enough to realise that.
>>47230720
That's why they need a good face to talk with all the people who are backing the King/Queen and get on their good side, making friends in high places through well-placed feasts, favors and expensive gifts.
You help the nobs, they will help you back is how it works usually.
Otherwise, they could start doing good for the poor people and make friends outside of the empire: not all people are off so deep as that king and princess were, after all. And if you are playing in a grimderp game like that, I feel sorry for you: you deserve every bit of misery that you get.
Doesn't "difficult moral(e) choice" kind of imply there are correct choices/answers? You're not retarded, are you?
inb4
>blew up a schoolbus full of children
>>47230788
With every choice you can make, there are a thousand right ways and a thousand wrong ways to go. Unless you're a nihilist and stuck on the level of a twelve year old in terms of your moral development.
>>47230741
Grimderp?
>Implying no realistic monarch would ever killed political dissidents
>Implying that no realistic monarch would ever abandoned their responsibilities to go off and fight years and years of war
>Implying no realstic monarch would ever imposed harsh punishments for minor crimes
Nothing that either of these characters did qualified as Grimderp. Grimderp is "one guy on that Hive world showed signs of heresy... Exterminatus". Grimderp is not "those people oppose my reign, deal with them", it is not "we must keep the people in line, imposing extra floggings for thievery", nor is it "our coffers are running dry, raise taxes to fund the war".
Not having an objectively good option is not Grimderp. That's precisely why it was realistic. There was no 'right' choice, only the choice that made sense at the time, based on available information and the personal morality of the players.
>>47230840
>Otherwise, they could start doing good for the poor people and make friends outside of the empire: not all people are off so deep as that king and princess were, after all.
Do you have problems reading or something? This sentence implies that there should be people who are less evil than the rest, leading to the second sentence saying that if this is not the case it's a grimderp campaign.
Learn to read dude.
>>47230840
>also thinking that there is not a grimderp situation in the real world right now
Ridiculous.
>>47230945
>Implying that every single instance of an imperfect system must result in the entire campaign shifting focus to revolve around fixing it.
Obama's not a perfect leader, I don't see anyone running around rallying military support to remove him from power. Maybe it's because people have got better shit to do. Choosing between two imperfect options is a hell of a lot easier than spending months and months creating a third option which may or may not turn out better anyway.
When presented with the option of "Get on with the campaign" or "Abandon main plot and spend the rest of the campaign sorting out this problems of this one insignificant country" which one do you think players are going to pick?
>>47231029
>Obama's not a perfect leader, I don't see anyone running around rallying military support to remove him from power. Maybe it's because people have got better shit to do. Choosing between two imperfect options is a hell of a lot easier than spending months and months creating a third option which may or may not turn out better anyway.
You won't know unless you try: plus the PCs are the motherfucking PCs, that means that with enough time and dedication they should be able to succeed, if the GM wants them to succeed (which he should, if he's a good GM).
>When presented with the option of "Get on with the campaign" or "Abandon main plot and spend the rest of the campaign sorting out this problems of this one insignificant country" which one do you think players are going to pick?
How the fuck should I know? I don't even know there is a main plot outside of the tyrant king and his equally stupid half-sister.
I don't give a shit about that: my point is only "Where there is a will there's a way" and the characters playing that game don't give enough of a shit for that country so I won't give a shit either. If they wanted though, they could've definitely made it a better place.
>>47227348
Always the Paladin.
Well, I had the choice between fucking my NPC sister, and ending a hundred year curse that had been gathering enough bad mojo to quite literally set the Kingdom of Heaven on fire, or let her get married to the soon-to-be BBEG.
>>47227244
By letting somebody else deal with it.
>>47227244
Flipped a coin.
>>47227364
Marbo wouldn't jump out of the sky in plain sight like that. He'd slowly rise out of the mud behind their backs, cut the nearest guys without anyone else noticing and then blow up their ship, with no one really knowing what the fuck just happened. And it would have been funnier than constant screaming.
2/10 it's shit.
>>47232010
>>47230788
>Doesn't "difficult moral(e) choice" kind of imply there are correct choices/answers?
Nope. It often means it's emotionally difficult to make.
>>47230362
Yeah, she's in it for herself. She's getting support wherever she can, and once she's in power she'll turn her back on the people who legitimately put her trust in her.
>>47230492
>Finally, she withdrew her support for quite a few of the minorities she originally championed
Called it.
A vain queen is far, far, far worse than a brutal king.
>>47227348
Wait, why not just let her raise again, drag her to a revival, than kill her again, then revive her?
>>47232452
>>47227982
>morale
>moral
>homonyms
Morale choices are overrated.
>>47230402
you could have gotten jester prostitutes, you fucked up
>>47230708
They seem massively like Trump and Clinton
>Ironfisted fascist who wants to introduce reforms and also govern somewhat responsibly
>"liberal" princess who really is just as bad as the person she is trying to usurp while also making deals with the devil.
Seems like they match their RL counterparts somewhat.I'm probably just reading to far into it though.
>>47227364
0/10 trying wayyyy too hard.
>>47230362
Goddamn, the king feels so right I have no idea why anyone would choose the retarded warmongering nigger princess.
But that's just /pol/ speaking.
>>47227348
>Bringing girls along on dangerous combat adventures
deserved it desu fampai
