For me, I typically allow the players to act in whatever way they want, but there are ramifications to their actions. Since the majority of my gaming takes place on Tekumel there are certain societal norms that have to adhered to, if they want to be active members of society. For example, I once had a situation where a player sacrificed some prisoners to his god. As a follower of a war god this was a " normal " and proper thing to do. It raised no eyebrows amongst the rest of the party. However, the locals, who worshipped different gods and were culturally different from the players, didn't look too kindly on having their buddies burnt alive by some foreigners. They became insensed and started to move against the players. Ramifications.
I have always tried to keep internal game-world consistency and not play using modern morality in medieval or alien milieus where a different societal ethos may be the norm. If the "normal" reaction would be to slaughter the goblin children, well then what's the issue with doing so? You don't have to role-play every gorey detail after all.


Shemek.

I've been chewing on this one while everyone posts. Here's my thoughts so far.

It really depends on mileu. Playing beer and pretzles style, don't put monster kids in the game. The group is there to kill shit and take their stuff. Morality stuff just bogs that down. Note that except for rare situations, I really don't like beer and pretzles rpging. For something like that,I prefer a more board game kind of experience. Like Talisman or Descent.
Playing something like Dragonlance, monster kids should be rare, (probably never come up) and if it does, be a hairy dealio about alignment and morality when it comes up. Flat out slaughtering the monster brats is bad form for that kind of game.
Playing something gritty, killing the monster kids is more acceptable in that kind of campaign.

Puting monster kids in a scenario is like putting any other thing in a scenario. The players need things to interact with, and monster kids is another type of thing to interact with. I don't have a problem with it in general, but a GM should keep in mind why they're dropping anything into a scenario. If you don't want to deal with morality stuff, then don't put monster kids in the scenario.

But I do like putting that kind of stuff in a game. Because I'm not the boss of the characters. I'm the boss of how the concequences play out. A Paladin who only kills worthy foes, but only encounters worthy foes, is never going to be able to say "And soeth, I thusly spared the goblin children, in the hopes that they may be-eth redeemeth!"

Or maybe the paladin does kill them.

[video=youtube_share;pfevBIsVG1o]https://youtu.be/pfevBIsVG1o[/youtube]

And look what happened to Anakin...

Often I have seen players who mostly seem like they're good folks at first, start to get more and more amoral, often out of some sort of perverse humor.

E.g.
* "If the guide and mercenaries we hired don't survive, we don't have to pay them, and they might have good loot..."
* "Hey there's another adventuring party camping over there who haven't noticed us. Let's raid them at night and loot them."
* "Hmm my magic lets me get away with all sorts of robbery."
* "It's annoying to take prisoners, let's kill them."
* "If we let anyone live, they might do something against us."
* "If we let them live, we have to leave them something to survive with instead of keeping every scrap of loot."
* "I bet we're strong enough to loot that orc village."
* "Do I use the flat of my blade? No, that drunk attacked me with a beer mug!"
* "Look how funny it is to interrogate this peasant who survived the arrow wound by twisting the arrow! Haha! I think he knows something he's not telling us!"

Morality can be an interesting and/or disturbing issue in many ways. I think it's usually (in even a semi-serious game) worthwhile to at least consider the perspectives of all the characters in all violent situations. Otherwise it can be a bit of a slippery slope where you only notice too late that your heroes are essentially a bunch of egotistical greedy murdering backstabbing torturing two-faced merciless scumbags, about as bad as many of the villains they've killed, or even worse, if they were ever spared themselves.

I have indulged all of the scenarios above, and more, and don't really regret it, but I think it's more interesting when you actually include the natural reactions and effects, and don't get too deluded about how you can do all that stuff and still consider yourself a good guy, and have other people agree. The reactions of NPCs can go a long way to help keep things from becoming too depraved.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;914251If the DM is offering moral quandries in Dungeons and Dragons, the DM has already set themselves up as the players' adversary.

Why does presenting moral quandries make the GM an adversary? As a Player I find such situations much more interesting than straight hack 'n slash. It's also one of those places where TTRPGs can shine vs. video game RPGs, which are still mostly just about fighting.

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Which child is it?

Quote from: Skarg;914287One thing that gets left out of many dungeon settings is the survival drive and plan of the monsters. Ok so the goblins have their kids there... do they maybe have some escape routes and plans? At what point do even the male goblins realize they are likely going to lose, and therefore do something to escape rather than be all killed? Maybe they even thought of that possibility in advance, and so have some plans for that, chose where to be that made escape possible, and/or embellished the place they live with traps, door, rockfalls, escape paths, decoys, etc to facilitate escape? Maybe some of them have some ideas of things to say to buy time or negotiate something other than a total extermination?

Planning and preparation, not fighting to the death, escape routes. What kind of NPC crazy talk is that?

Quote from: CRKrueger;914109But take the case of Gronan coming over for a game of Tractics.  I propose we play a game using only 25% of the Tractics rules, so we get something like this...
Gronan: Why are you throwing out the rest of the rules?
Me: I don't want to bother with them.
Gronan: Why not play Game-X, then, it has hardly any rules.
Me: I know Tractics, I don't want to bother with learning another game.
Gronan: You're a lazy fuck, you know that?
Me: and your point is?  Beer's in the fridge.

Actually, I'd say "so what rules are you leaving out?"  We tried the "Vehicle Breakdown" rules exactly once, for instance.  I might kvetch if you messed with the weapon or armor stats or the vehicle speeds, but other than that, let's go.  We spent several years trying to streamline Tractics.

Quote from: nDervish;914248When I've put noncombatant orc women/children in my games, it was nothing of the sort, for I give no fucks for moral quandaries nor "story".  They were there because, in a naturalistic world, they clearly must exist.

Orcs are a semimagical life form that spring up out of the darkness, a result of the world's ambient magic interacting with humans' fear of the dark.  That's why there are no noncombatant Orcs.

Quote from: Skarg;914297Often I have seen players who mostly seem like they're good folks at first, start to get more and more amoral, often out of some sort of perverse humor.

E.g.
* "If the guide and mercenaries we hired don't survive, we don't have to pay them, and they might have good loot..."
* "Hey there's another adventuring party camping over there who haven't noticed us. Let's raid them at night and loot them."
* "Hmm my magic lets me get away with all sorts of robbery."
* "It's annoying to take prisoners, let's kill them."
* "If we let anyone live, they might do something against us."
* "If we let them live, we have to leave them something to survive with instead of keeping every scrap of loot."
* "I bet we're strong enough to loot that orc village."
* "Do I use the flat of my blade? No, that drunk attacked me with a beer mug!"
* "Look how funny it is to interrogate this peasant who survived the arrow wound by twisting the arrow! Haha! I think he knows something he's not telling us!"

I notice that often when players say this, they act like the conversation is occurring out of game rather than as PCs talking to each other in the same room. Treating those conversations as in game changes the dynamic in a couple of ways.

First, the PCs are going to be overheard either by the potential victims or by any NPCs in the area. And as you, yourself noted:
 

QuoteThe reactions of NPCs can go a long way to help keep things from becoming too depraved.

An actual conversation allows me to have any potential victims and any allied or neutral NPC react to the statements. Victims may take action to thwart the plan. NPC allies or neutrals may react or object to the actions. Both reactions often get the players to take their PC's actions a bit more seriously. Also: witnesses.

Second, by having it be an in character conversation I can draw out the silent players to get them to commit or comment. Often they will put the breaks on the action. And even if they don't, now that they have each committed to atrocity (or whatever) so they can't pretend ignorance or innocence or act.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;914251Yes, but those other people are wrong and stupid. This is gaming. It is not srs bznz.


If the DM is offering moral quandries in Dungeons and Dragons, the DM has already set themselves up as the players' adversary. The DM started it. Tit for tat.

Right now an old Bond film is playing. I take moral quandries in D&D about as seriously as I take Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist. Both fine and good things, but they don't fit together.

Also, if I really WANT to wrestle with moral quandries, I'm already playing this game full of them.  It's called 'real life.'

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but I remember in the old Hill Giant Steading module, there was a hill giant nursery room that treated the youthful hill giants as ogres stat-wise and it seemed expected that the PCs would kill them with-out moral quandary.

Personally I'd prefer to leave violence against children out of my escapist fantasy slugfests, but I can see it being a point in a game where moral issues were more fully considered.

In setting factions trying to enforce unfitting real world moralities on characters - this I would call heavy handed DM antagonism.
The settlers raided by the goblins will be the last to ask to many questions about what happened to those and even the church/god of plushy happiness will start to rethink some policies if their temples and worshippers in a region got anhilated AGAIN by the next generation of goblins - and probably there are no new worshippers to find beyond some pampered capital citizens.

Quote from: Maarzan;914319In setting factions trying to enforce unfitting real world moralities on characters

Therein lies my objection - these aren't moral quandaries, any more than "should I shoplift" is a moral quandary in the real world.  In the game setting, this has happened often enough that the society the characters come from will have evolved a moral stance on the matter, likely based on survival pragmatism.

Quote from: BrenUnless I know that the third one is, I don't think I can agree that it is actually obvious.

So "msn" means real man in Bulgarian?

The third one is talking to your players before the game, of course. That way everyone knows what is expected, and the moral dilemma is solved in advance. You can just decide whether to follow or take the social penalties.

And no, that's not Bulgarian, it's Autocorrectian!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;914235Yes. And the way to let the DM know that is to

kill them all

and the DM can adjust his adventure designs in future to avoid this commie thespy nonsense.

as sig says,

"the ultimate object of all this is for everyone to have fun, not to recreate some form of high dramatic art." - Dungeoneer

And as a Referee, I'd just conclude our styles are incompatible and stop running for you and your group.
If your roleplaying sucks so much you can't threat the NPCs as sapient beings, what'sthe point? We'd both only gain from this.

Quote from: daniel_ream;914275A tranny storygamer already made that game.  It sucks exactly as hard as you think it does.

Well, maybe not you. But everyone else.



As much as it shocks me to say this, I'm with Kyle Aaron (and danbuter) on this one.  They're not real; they're not even fictional humans.  Slaughter them all and make a palanquin out of their bones.  Whiz on the Grand Wizard's cloak and mouth off to the King in front of his court.  It's all made up.  It just doesn't matter. If this shit is "triggering" you, you've had an awfully sheltered life.

It's not triggering in the least. But let me quote myself.
"If your roleplaying sucks so much you can't threat the NPCs as sapient beings, what's the point (in me running the game)?"
Not gaming is better than bad gaming.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;914294I've been chewing on this one while everyone posts. Here's my thoughts so far.

It really depends on mileu. Playing beer and pretzles style, don't put monster kids in the game. The group is there to kill shit and take their stuff. Morality stuff just bogs that down. Note that except for rare situations, I really don't like beer and pretzles rpging. For something like that,I prefer a more board game kind of experience. Like Talisman or Descent.
Playing something like Dragonlance, monster kids should be rare, (probably never come up) and if it does, be a hairy dealio about alignment and morality when it comes up. Flat out slaughtering the monster brats is bad form for that kind of game.
Playing something gritty, killing the monster kids is more acceptable in that kind of campaign.

Puting monster kids in a scenario is like putting any other thing in a scenario. The players need things to interact with, and monster kids is another type of thing to interact with. I don't have a problem with it in general, but a GM should keep in mind why they're dropping anything into a scenario. If you don't want to deal with morality stuff, then don't put monster kids in the scenario.

But I do like putting that kind of stuff in a game. Because I'm not the boss of the characters. I'm the boss of how the concequences play out. A Paladin who only kills worthy foes, but only encounters worthy foes, is never going to be able to say "And soeth, I thusly spared the goblin children, in the hopes that they may be-eth redeemeth!"

Or maybe the paladin does kill them.

[video=youtube_share;pfevBIsVG1o]https://youtu.be/pfevBIsVG1o[/youtube]

Yeah, this. Except it's not any more acceptable in a gritty game. It's just more likely NPCs would resort to it if they were in your place.
Other than the minor nitpicking, this-up to and including the dislike for beer and pretzles style.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914312Orcs are a semimagical life form that spring up out of the darkness, a result of the world's ambient magic interacting with humans' fear of the dark.  That's why there are no noncombatant Orcs.

That's also an option.
But if you do this, do you really expect most players to negotiate with orcs?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;914312Orcs are a semimagical life form that spring up out of the darkness, a result of the world's ambient magic interacting with humans' fear of the dark.  That's why there are no noncombatant Orcs.

No no no!



Elves grow from pods on trees. Also no females or kids. The ones you think are female - are just weird.
Orcs and goblins are a fungus that grows on the tree into an adult orc or goblin instantly! There are no females or young even. The ones you think are female - are just weird.
Dwarves and gnomes grow from the roots of the tree. Also no females or young. Really. Have you ever seen one without a beard? The ones you think are female - are just weird.
And nobody talks about humans or halflings. But if they did! The ones you think are female - are just weird.

Quote from: Bren;914313I notice that often when players say this, they act like the conversation is occurring out of game rather than as PCs talking to each other in the same room. Treating those conversations as in game changes the dynamic in a couple of ways.

First, the PCs are going to be overheard either by the potential victims or by any NPCs in the area. And as you, yourself noted:
 
An actual conversation allows me to have any potential victims and any allied or neutral NPC react to the statements. Victims may take action to thwart the plan. NPC allies or neutrals may react or object to the actions. Both reactions often get the players to take their PC’s actions a bit more seriously. Also: witnesses.

Second, by having it be an in character conversation I can draw out the silent players to get them to commit or comment. Often they will put the breaks on the action. And even if they don’t, now that they have each committed to atrocity (or whatever) so they can’t pretend ignorance or innocence or act.

Yep! Yep! Yep! Yep! Yep!

Making things real and detailed and requiring them to consider and face every detail usually has a big impact. Though I remember the "twist the arrow" group was entertained by me roleplaying the peasant's cries of agony when they twisted the arrow in him, and that led to them laughing and doing it more. They eventually relented, but I think the first consideration they had was starting to worry one of the real-life neighbors might call the police...

The peasant had no information to extract, by the way, and the peasants had only raised arms against the party from a misunderstanding, IIRC stemming from one of the PC's having messed with one of their daughters. Oh yeah, that PC was a character converted from D&D who was very amoral (coming from chaotic neutral IIRC) and egotistical.