Discussion in other threads brought up the question of temptation and corruption in horror games, and I thought like it was worth it's own topic.

QuoteOne version of a horror game is very black and white. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. If the good guys try anything morally corrupt, then it obviously will go badly for them. In these cases, the players know to stay on the straight and narrow - and they might die, but the lines stay clear.

The Call of Cthulhu campaign I just wrapped up was like this, which we played for over a year. The GM was using Masks of Nyarlathotep. We encountered a bunch of eldritch tomes and strange items, but we quickly found that they were horrible and using them was a loser's bet. Thus, the campaign as a whole was about us as PCs just killing cultists with shotguns and dynamite. We collected and used resources like money, mercenaries, and weapons - but our growing pile of eldritch material was largely untouched. We had a bunch of tactical challenges, and had four PCs die over the course of the campaign. It wasn't a cakewalk. However, the death didn't have much shock value. The player would just roll up a new character.

---

By contrast, I've played in a number of horror campaigns where there were a lot more shades of grey -- where the players weren't sure which side they were on, and some PCs descended into various sorts of dark corruption. In my friend Jan's campaigns set in the 1930s, most of the PCs joined in a worldwide conspiracy that some others described as a cult, and used various ancient secrets to try to fight off the impending apocalypse. Most PCs had some sort of strange powers that they were influenced by in order to fight the other side - but we had severe arguments about whether the power we were accepting was good or evil. In my 1890s Golden Dawn campaign, the PCs all went through arcs of corruption based on what they put their faith in, leading to their self-destruction in the end as they took down the other side with them. In my gothic horror games, I also had a bunch of PC who had varying degrees of darkness, and they accepted deals from dark forces because they considered them the lesser evil. For example, a shadar-kai character took a deal from the Raven Queen as he was on the brink of death to return so he could return and fight Strahd.

From my view, the deals have to look enticing at the start - or the players simply won't want to accept them. There's no temptation. In the Masks campaign, we just abandoned a PC if they went mad, and burned or destroyed books if they seemed corrupting. Now, the GM can simply impose horrible curses on the PCs without them willingly taking it, but that rapidly turns into just another way to die. This happens in CoC as characters go insane. In the recent Masks campaign, we also had two characters go insane - but we just put them in a sanitarium and abandoned them. I think when a character gets too cursed, they just quit or get themselves killed, and the player rolls up a new PC.

I enjoyed our Masks game as a great war/crime campaign of cult-killing. But I feel like including plausible temptations makes for more classical horror aspects. Having characters like Rappaccini's Daughter or Dr. Jekyll make for players who are more invested in the horror aspect.

The point is, a temptation to darkness has to seem plausibly like it might be worthwhile, or it simply doesn't work as a temptation. In order to explore having dark temptation as a theme, there needs to be ambiguity or shades of grey. There can and should be consequences, but I think emphasizing too much that darkness is wrong and that there are dire consequences means that it isn't taken. Like drugs or gambling, I think it works well if the first round is free, and for consequences to be gradual.

To add another example:  In my Golden Dawn Call of Cthulhu campaign, one of the adventures featured that some of the "Little People" traditions in Wales were rooted in pre-human snake-men. Over the course of the adventure, one of the PCs realized that he had snake-person ancestry. I gave him the ability to use their mesmerism - where if he looked into someone's eyes, he could make them see him as whatever he wanted (an illusion over himself). There were no mechanical strings attached - it was a straight superpower in that sense.

However, I felt that it enhanced the Lovecraftian horror rather than reducing it. Whenever he used his snake-mesmerism, it was a reminder that he wasn't human. And I felt that was effective in playing up the themes of the steady corruption of each of the PCs.

I'd be interested in how others have used temptation and corruption in horror games.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:03:00 PM
Discussion in other threads brought up the question of temptation and corruption in horror games, and I thought like it was worth it's own topic.

QuoteOne version of a horror game is very black and white. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. If the good guys try anything morally corrupt, then it obviously will go badly for them. In these cases, the players know to stay on the straight and narrow - and they might die, but the lines stay clear.

The Call of Cthulhu campaign I just wrapped up was like this, which we played for over a year. The GM was using Masks of Nyarlathotep. We encountered a bunch of eldritch tomes and strange items, but we quickly found that they were horrible and using them was a loser's bet. Thus, the campaign as a whole was about us as PCs just killing cultists with shotguns and dynamite. We collected and used resources like money, mercenaries, and weapons - but our growing pile of eldritch material was largely untouched. We had a bunch of tactical challenges, and had four PCs die over the course of the campaign. It wasn't a cakewalk. However, the death didn't have much shock value. The player would just roll up a new character.

---

By contrast, I've played in a number of horror campaigns where there were a lot more shades of grey -- where the players weren't sure which side they were on, and some PCs descended into various sorts of dark corruption. In my friend Jan's campaigns set in the 1930s, most of the PCs joined in a worldwide conspiracy that some others described as a cult, and used various ancient secrets to try to fight off the impending apocalypse. Most PCs had some sort of strange powers that they were influenced by in order to fight the other side - but we had severe arguments about whether the power we were accepting was good or evil. In my 1890s Golden Dawn campaign, the PCs all went through arcs of corruption based on what they put their faith in, leading to their self-destruction in the end as they took down the other side with them. In my gothic horror games, I also had a bunch of PC who had varying degrees of darkness, and they accepted deals from dark forces because they considered them the lesser evil. For example, a shadar-kai character took a deal from the Raven Queen as he was on the brink of death to return so he could return and fight Strahd.

From my view, the deals have to look enticing at the start - or the players simply won't want to accept them. There's no temptation. In the Masks campaign, we just abandoned a PC if they went mad, and burned or destroyed books if they seemed corrupting. Now, the GM can simply impose horrible curses on the PCs without them willingly taking it, but that rapidly turns into just another way to die. This happens in CoC as characters go insane. In the recent Masks campaign, we also had two characters go insane - but we just put them in a sanitarium and abandoned them. I think when a character gets too cursed, they just quit or get themselves killed, and the player rolls up a new PC.

I enjoyed our Masks game as a great war/crime campaign of cult-killing. But I feel like including plausible temptations makes for more classical horror aspects. Having characters like Rappaccini's Daughter or Dr. Jekyll make for players who are more invested in the horror aspect.

The point is, a temptation to darkness has to seem plausibly like it might be worthwhile, or it simply doesn't work as a temptation. In order to explore having dark temptation as a theme, there needs to be ambiguity or shades of grey. There can and should be consequences, but I think emphasizing too much that darkness is wrong and that there are dire consequences means that it isn't taken. Like drugs or gambling, I think it works well if the first round is free, and for consequences to be gradual.

To add another example:  In my Golden Dawn Call of Cthulhu campaign, one of the adventures featured that some of the "Little People" traditions in Wales were rooted in pre-human snake-men. Over the course of the adventure, one of the PCs realized that he had snake-person ancestry. I gave him the ability to use their mesmerism - where if he looked into someone's eyes, he could make them see him as whatever he wanted (an illusion over himself). There were no mechanical strings attached - it was a straight superpower in that sense.

However, I felt that it enhanced the Lovecraftian horror rather than reducing it. Whenever he used his snake-mesmerism, it was a reminder that he wasn't human. And I felt that was effective in playing up the themes of the steady corruption of each of the PCs.

I'd be interested in how others have used temptation and corruption in horror games.

I think I disagree with your definition of black and white morality. I don't think it needs to be clear to the players or the characters what good and evil is. There just needs to be clear cosmic forces of good and evil. As an example the exorcist might work. Where you have a priest living in a world with very clear good and very clear evil, yet he doubts, and he isn't even convinced that evil is behind the girl's possession initially. I just watched the Exorcist III again recently and it is much the same. Doubt plagues the protagonist even though he is staring evil in the face the entire time (and it is actually the existence of evil that initially causes him to doubt the existence of God and good). I think you can still have a lot of nuance and complexity in a morally black and white gaming universe, provided the players don't have perfect knowledge of the good and the evil. And even then, they could question the validity of the good in the right circumstances.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:03:00 PMsnip

I agree with everything you've written. I think that one of the best ways to tempt characters in an RPG is to tempt the player. If becoming evil is obviously self destructive, people are unlikely to do it, especially RPG PCs who don't have the same sort of physical and emotional drives that actual humans have. In real life, people commit evil actions in the hopes of benefiting themselves - and unfortunately it sometimes works. Sometimes in real life, evil pays off. Should evil pay off in RPGs? I don't know, maybe, it depends on the sort of story you want to tell, but in a horror game where PCs might potentially become corrupted, I don't see why not.

I once had a thought about changing V:tM Humanity where there aren't rolls to lose Humanity, but players choose to give in to the Beast for mechanical benefits. In a combat where they are loosing, they choose to unleash their Beast to gain greater physical prowess but are forever a little less human. Then as Humanity declines, they gain greater supernatural abilities but also suffer from stronger vampiric weaknesses and feel greater compulsions to commit terrible acts, or specially as those acts can make them stronger.

Something similar could be applied to using dark magic as in Cthulhu or some kind of Faustian pact.

It depends on the played though, this kind of thing could potentially descend into a power gaming slaughter fest of evil characters doing terrible things to gain power. If players find this horrifying then that could achieve the horror goal, if they just enjoy being the evil, then it might become bad wrong fun.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:03:00 PM
Discussion in other threads brought up the question of temptation and corruption in horror games, and I thought like it was worth it's own topic.

QuoteOne version of a horror game is very black and white. There are good guys, and there are bad guys. If the good guys try anything morally corrupt, then it obviously will go badly for them. In these cases, the players know to stay on the straight and narrow - and they might die, but the lines stay clear.

The Call of Cthulhu campaign I just wrapped up was like this, which we played for over a year. The GM was using Masks of Nyarlathotep. We encountered a bunch of eldritch tomes and strange items, but we quickly found that they were horrible and using them was a loser's bet. Thus, the campaign as a whole was about us as PCs just killing cultists with shotguns and dynamite. We collected and used resources like money, mercenaries, and weapons - but our growing pile of eldritch material was largely untouched. We had a bunch of tactical challenges, and had four PCs die over the course of the campaign. It wasn't a cakewalk. However, the death didn't have much shock value. The player would just roll up a new character.

---

By contrast, I've played in a number of horror campaigns where there were a lot more shades of grey -- where the players weren't sure which side they were on, and some PCs descended into various sorts of dark corruption. In my friend Jan's campaigns set in the 1930s, most of the PCs joined in a worldwide conspiracy that some others described as a cult, and used various ancient secrets to try to fight off the impending apocalypse. Most PCs had some sort of strange powers that they were influenced by in order to fight the other side - but we had severe arguments about whether the power we were accepting was good or evil. In my 1890s Golden Dawn campaign, the PCs all went through arcs of corruption based on what they put their faith in, leading to their self-destruction in the end as they took down the other side with them. In my gothic horror games, I also had a bunch of PC who had varying degrees of darkness, and they accepted deals from dark forces because they considered them the lesser evil. For example, a shadar-kai character took a deal from the Raven Queen as he was on the brink of death to return so he could return and fight Strahd.

From my view, the deals have to look enticing at the start - or the players simply won't want to accept them. There's no temptation. In the Masks campaign, we just abandoned a PC if they went mad, and burned or destroyed books if they seemed corrupting. Now, the GM can simply impose horrible curses on the PCs without them willingly taking it, but that rapidly turns into just another way to die. This happens in CoC as characters go insane. In the recent Masks campaign, we also had two characters go insane - but we just put them in a sanitarium and abandoned them. I think when a character gets too cursed, they just quit or get themselves killed, and the player rolls up a new PC.

I enjoyed our Masks game as a great war/crime campaign of cult-killing. But I feel like including plausible temptations makes for more classical horror aspects. Having characters like Rappaccini's Daughter or Dr. Jekyll make for players who are more invested in the horror aspect.

The point is, a temptation to darkness has to seem plausibly like it might be worthwhile, or it simply doesn't work as a temptation. In order to explore having dark temptation as a theme, there needs to be ambiguity or shades of grey. There can and should be consequences, but I think emphasizing too much that darkness is wrong and that there are dire consequences means that it isn't taken. Like drugs or gambling, I think it works well if the first round is free, and for consequences to be gradual.

To add another example:  In my Golden Dawn Call of Cthulhu campaign, one of the adventures featured that some of the "Little People" traditions in Wales were rooted in pre-human snake-men. Over the course of the adventure, one of the PCs realized that he had snake-person ancestry. I gave him the ability to use their mesmerism - where if he looked into someone's eyes, he could make them see him as whatever he wanted (an illusion over himself). There were no mechanical strings attached - it was a straight superpower in that sense.

However, I felt that it enhanced the Lovecraftian horror rather than reducing it. Whenever he used his snake-mesmerism, it was a reminder that he wasn't human. And I felt that was effective in playing up the themes of the steady corruption of each of the PCs.

I'd be interested in how others have used temptation and corruption in horror games.

But to answer the OP: I don't think this is an either/or. My point in the prior thread wasn't to say gray settings are bad, just that I don't think gray works well for Ravenloft specifically.

Like I said in the other thread, I like gray morality and I like black and white morality and in terms of game setting, it really depends on what is being aimed for (in that case I just prefer Ravenloft in its more black and white presentation, but I've enjoyed plenty of horror games that are not about that). Really I think what you are dealing with is how corruption arises; and there is an art to that whether the world is gray or black and white. I think this can often really just come down to how subtle the corruption itself is. So to use Ravenloft as an example, in their originally presentation powers checks had six stages, and the first stage was a minor bonus and minor physical change. So you might gain the ability to jump very easily, but maybe he laughs uneasily like a hyena when nervous. The mechanics of this would be jump x 2 and a small penalty to CHR whenever anyone notices the laugh. This is a world where there is objective good and evil: the character would have to have done something evil or tapped into evil power to attract the attention of the dark powers (so it could be anything from murder to casting a necromantic spell). Ultimately though it is up to the player to interpret the meaning of this transformation. The GM wouldn't say "You are changed because you are evil now". I mean, it is a little obvious what is going on, but you can also see a player thinking "perhaps being able to jump isn't such a bad thing, and the laughter is a small price to pay for it". Also extremely negative emotions can work well for corruption here. Strahd is clearly evil. But a man filled with resentment towards the world because of some perceived wrong, may be willing to work with such a person to obtain revenge. Think of a character like Phantom of the Opera whose been rejected by the world and is sympathetic for that reason, but still very clearly evil (perhaps knowingly committing evil and not caring because he is burning with resentment and it has corrupted him).

When I think of a morally gray world though, I think of one where you don't have clear cosmic forces of good and evil. Or I think of a setting or story where there are sides in a fight but it is incredibly difficult to know who the good and bad guys are. I think with the former the challenge is how you justify corruption in the first place. The latter is more of a fog of war I think (there is presumably objective morality, it just isn't easily discerned and it doesn't tend to fall cleanly into groups like 'monsters', 'hunters', etc. That is plenty interesting. You can even have evil monsters but a 'lest we become the monsters ourselves' kind of morality operating (where the corruption can actually come from confronting the evil that exists).

Can you explain a little more what you mean by morally gray worlds and what they look like to you?

Chris24601 had a great reply in the other thread. I'd like to include it here as part of discussing temptation in horror games independent of a particular setting or system.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 31, 2021, 04:52:46 PM
The gist of temptation in general though is it has to appear as some type of "good" or it's not a temptation. Generally sin/evil is the result of someone prioritizing a lesser good at the expense of a greater one.

ex. the desire to live comfortably in this life (a good) justifies stealing what you want at the expense of the goods of other people being able to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, their incentive to continue producing if its all going to be wasted anyway (harming society and not just the person robbed) and, if you're Christian, also robbing yourself of an eternity in paradise (a greater long term personal good).

No one decides to do something obviously harmful to themselves unless they perceive some good. No one touches shit unless they have to. The suicidal harm themselves to attain the good of ending whatever distress they feel makes life not worth living.

So the same thing goes for the temptations of dark powers. They have to offer some perceived good or there's no point. In SWTOR there's an arc where several times throughout it the spirit of the Sith Emperor in your head stops time just as something awful seems about to occur (in one case a loyal companion is about to be cut down) and offers to step in and save you if you'll just hand over control for "a moment."

Each time he does help; though in a rather blunt and destructive manner. But later on in the arc there comes a point where, if you gave in on the previous occasions you don't get a choice on the third... the Emperor takes over whether you want him too or not and not only attacks your enemy, but kills a bunch of innocents with collateral damage (by contrast if you refused the past offers of power to help you can also refuse this one... or give in because it does make the fight easier, but it remains your choice).

That I think is an excellent use of dark power and temptation. The first use is "free" and offers a good (saving an ally), but the second use (this time to end a fight that isn't difficult but is time consuming) cements that the Emperor gets to take over because he wants to the third time it comes up (where the temptation is an extra dose revenge on a villain who stole five years of your life).

Every dark power/gift needs an obvious good associated with it or its just not going to be anything but cartoon evil.

Frankly, if it were me as GM, I'd NOT drop dark powers on PCs AFTER they've performed evil acts... those guys don't need any incentives to damn themselves. I'd drop them onto good PCs in dire straits for no cost... the first time. The real price is that the dark powers will engineer conflicts that easily be solved if you use the power, but each time you use it, there's now a price and each time the price is higher, but the situations engineered require it be used more and more.

The idea is that each price is the commission of some evil. Trivial at first, eventually absolute horrors done in the name of whatever good they're trying to use the power for.

At what point NPC status sets in is up to the GM, but one of my Mage games had a PC end up falling entirely to the Nephandi bit by bit until, in order to keep the power they had they were going to murder an innocent man (they were literally told so), and they did so while still fully under player control (they failed because of the other PCs but at that point I put the PC out the group's misery by having the Nephandi smother him in his hospital bed with the final words being "I promised my Lord a soul out of this... one soul or another.") and player only then realizing they'd been playing the villain of the story all this time.

That's what the right sort of temptation can do, convince a player they're the hero of the story even as they commit atrocities because they're convinced the benefit... the power... will lead to a greater good. THAT is genuine horror right there.

(emphasis mine)

Exactly! I quite agree - particularly about the bolded part. In terms of gothic horror, I think of Matthew Lewis' 1796 salacious novel "The Monk" about a virtuous monk being drawn to evil. As for how to do this in a published setting, it seems difficult. If the player sees a written-up power that clearly explains how additional use draws them to doom, they're not going to go for it. Ideally the technique would be in a GM-only book with different GM suggestions for how to improvise the cost.

Ideally it is a subtle slide where they buy into it each time.

Another technique is to pull them into the wrong crowd. i.e. Because of their power, they are befriended by a set of NPCs with a different point of view. Thinking of my snake-person-blooded PC in Call of Cthulhu... His character didn't go completely over to the other side before the end of the campaign, but there was some question. As he used his power, I would hint how all these humans were starting to seem like prey to him. I think I had that a powerful NPC was very impressed by his power and offered him a position of privilege based on it -- and of course it turned out later that the NPC respected and idolized the snake people.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 06:08:20 PM
Chris24601 had a great reply in the other thread. I'd like to include it here as part of discussing temptation in horror games independent of a particular setting or system.

Quote from: Chris24601 on May 31, 2021, 04:52:46 PM
The gist of temptation in general though is it has to appear as some type of "good" or it's not a temptation. Generally sin/evil is the result of someone prioritizing a lesser good at the expense of a greater one.

ex. the desire to live comfortably in this life (a good) justifies stealing what you want at the expense of the goods of other people being able to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, their incentive to continue producing if its all going to be wasted anyway (harming society and not just the person robbed) and, if you're Christian, also robbing yourself of an eternity in paradise (a greater long term personal good).

No one decides to do something obviously harmful to themselves unless they perceive some good. No one touches shit unless they have to. The suicidal harm themselves to attain the good of ending whatever distress they feel makes life not worth living.

So the same thing goes for the temptations of dark powers. They have to offer some perceived good or there's no point. In SWTOR there's an arc where several times throughout it the spirit of the Sith Emperor in your head stops time just as something awful seems about to occur (in one case a loyal companion is about to be cut down) and offers to step in and save you if you'll just hand over control for "a moment."

Each time he does help; though in a rather blunt and destructive manner. But later on in the arc there comes a point where, if you gave in on the previous occasions you don't get a choice on the third... the Emperor takes over whether you want him too or not and not only attacks your enemy, but kills a bunch of innocents with collateral damage (by contrast if you refused the past offers of power to help you can also refuse this one... or give in because it does make the fight easier, but it remains your choice).

That I think is an excellent use of dark power and temptation. The first use is "free" and offers a good (saving an ally), but the second use (this time to end a fight that isn't difficult but is time consuming) cements that the Emperor gets to take over because he wants to the third time it comes up (where the temptation is an extra dose revenge on a villain who stole five years of your life).

Every dark power/gift needs an obvious good associated with it or its just not going to be anything but cartoon evil.

Frankly, if it were me as GM, I'd NOT drop dark powers on PCs AFTER they've performed evil acts... those guys don't need any incentives to damn themselves. I'd drop them onto good PCs in dire straits for no cost... the first time. The real price is that the dark powers will engineer conflicts that easily be solved if you use the power, but each time you use it, there's now a price and each time the price is higher, but the situations engineered require it be used more and more.

The idea is that each price is the commission of some evil. Trivial at first, eventually absolute horrors done in the name of whatever good they're trying to use the power for.

At what point NPC status sets in is up to the GM, but one of my Mage games had a PC end up falling entirely to the Nephandi bit by bit until, in order to keep the power they had they were going to murder an innocent man (they were literally told so), and they did so while still fully under player control (they failed because of the other PCs but at that point I put the PC out the group's misery by having the Nephandi smother him in his hospital bed with the final words being "I promised my Lord a soul out of this... one soul or another.") and player only then realizing they'd been playing the villain of the story all this time.

That's what the right sort of temptation can do, convince a player they're the hero of the story even as they commit atrocities because they're convinced the benefit... the power... will lead to a greater good. THAT is genuine horror right there.

(emphasis mine)

Exactly! I quite agree - particularly about the bolded part. In terms of gothic horror, I think of Matthew Lewis' 1796 salacious novel "The Monk" about a virtuous monk being drawn to evil. As for how to do this in a published setting, it seems difficult. If the player sees a written-up power that clearly explains how additional use draws them to doom, they're not going to go for it. Ideally the technique would be in a GM-only book with different GM suggestions for how to improvise the cost.

Ideally it is a subtle slide where they buy into it each time.

Another technique is to pull them into the wrong crowd. i.e. Because of their power, they are befriended by a set of NPCs with a different point of view. Thinking of my snake-person-blooded PC in Call of Cthulhu... His character didn't go completely over to the other side before the end of the campaign, but there was some question. As he used his power, I would hint how all these humans were starting to seem like prey to him. I think I had that a powerful NPC was very impressed by his power and offered him a position of privilege based on it -- and of course it turned out later that the NPC respected and idolized the snake people.

Again, I think this works well in a black and white moral setting (i.e. if Satan exists, he can certainly tempt good characters in dire straights). The Powers Checks in Ravenloft were designed more as a response mechanism (you commit evil act, there is a percentage chance player character is corrupted by the dark powers as a result). But the first character in the setting, Strahd, made a pact with Death (presumably the dark powers) for immortality. I think you can read that as precedent in Ravenloft for the dark powers appealing to characters who haven't yet committed evil but have some need that could lead them down that road like in Chris' example. I haven't done that, so I have no idea how it would turn out. I do think it would be really well suited to a setting where demons are important and the battle between good and evil is ongoing. Again, I would point to the Seven Deadly Sins as a good inroad to this with characters (similar to how the Devil appeals to Keanu Reeves sense of pride at the end of Devil's Advocate). I certainly could see this having legs. I also think this gets you more into the idea of pacts with the devil which I like. I have been long thinking of doing something kind of like Demons, Witches and Werewolves as a setting, where pacts with Satanic powers are a thing. They don't have to be all or nothing, they can be bit by bit too. And they can be in moments where players are trying to do something good (i.e. "I will help you to restore life to this dead child, taken before his time...would your god do that?"----more or less subtly of course depending on what you are going for)

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on May 31, 2021, 04:57:55 PM
When I think of a morally gray world though, I think of one where you don't have clear cosmic forces of good and evil. Or I think of a setting or story where there are sides in a fight but it is incredibly difficult to know who the good and bad guys are. I think with the former the challenge is how you justify corruption in the first place. The latter is more of a fog of war I think (there is presumably objective morality, it just isn't easily discerned and it doesn't tend to fall cleanly into groups like 'monsters', 'hunters', etc. That is plenty interesting. You can even have evil monsters but a 'lest we become the monsters ourselves' kind of morality operating (where the corruption can actually come from confronting the evil that exists).

Can you explain a little more what you mean by morally gray worlds and what they look like to you?

I think this might be a clash of terminology. I'm not thinking so much about the theology of the setting as a breakdown of the characters. I think in a morally black-and-white game setting, that means the characters can be easily categorized into "good" characters and "evil" characters. I think of Narnia and Middle Earth as standards for this. There are a handful of characters ostensibly on the edge, like Boromir, but it's pretty clear.

There are lots of stories set in a world with no defined cosmic forces, but there is still black-and-white morality. i.e. Dudley Do-right fighting Snidely Whiplash, old four-color comics or fifties sci-fi.

I used the example before of my experience of Masks of Nyarlathotep. In principle, it has a nihilist cosmology from Lovecraft. But in practice, the NPCs were divided into lots of blatantly evil cultists trying to destroy the world, and a few helpful others. Thus, we didn't worry much about moral issues about right and wrong. We worried about what was the most practical way to kill the cultists.

It depends. But I disagree that for a temptation to be real there has to be shades of grey. I do agree it works better if its erosive. Not just 'Ooga booga your instantly evil'.
The scariest evils are the ones where you look back at where you started, and it seemed so reasonable every step until you were in hell.

I mean 'Ooga booga your instantly evil' works more as a infectious type fear instead of a temptation.
One bit from the vampire and your friend isn't your friend anymore. Just a body puppet being worn by an evil spirit masquerading in their memories.

That can also be scary, I just don't think very tempting though.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on June 01, 2021, 02:18:16 AM
It depends. But I disagree that for a temptation to be real there has to be shades of grey. I do agree it works better if its erosive. Not just 'Ooga booga your instantly evil'.
The scariest evils are the ones where you look back at where you started, and it seemed so reasonable every step until you were in hell.

I mean 'Ooga booga your instantly evil' works more as a infectious type fear instead of a temptation.
One bit from the vampire and your friend isn't your friend anymore. Just a body puppet being worn by an evil spirit masquerading in their memories.

That can also be scary, I just don't think very tempting though.

I'm not sure where we're disagreeing here. If every step seems reasonable, then I would call each seemingly-reasonable step a shade of grey -- but I realize others may use the terminology differently.

Corruption is one of those things where it has to be drawn out, and reasonably subtle.

Warhammer 40,000 actually illustrates this well with the problems inquisitors face. How do they battle the Ruinous Powers? Do they take up the weapons of the xenos, such as the aeldari (eldar)? Do they plumb the forbidden lore of the warp to fight it with its own weapons? Every little step, a compromise, a shortcut taken in the name of the greater good (not related to the Tau greater good).

Ravenloft's Powers checks should be like that. Few PCs are going to commit some of the outright sins and crimes listed in the books. But the temptation should be there to use certain items and spells that are more effective against the monsters they fight. Luring them on, because after all, the Dark Powers can always use another servant.

I think it makes for evocative stories, but you need to tailor it to the PCs involved.  If you have the setting of Ravenloft, for example, which has some every specific gothic-horror assumptions, and drop into it a character from another realm, then you could, for example, get a necromancer who focused on reanimating animal corpses only and specialized on using them to put down any who desecrated humanoid corpses or messed with their souls, and who could rack up corruption really quickly until they suddenly and for no visible reason at all abandoned the moral precepts that they had yesterday, because they made one too many trips to the knackery to recycle some cow skeletons into a town-defending force.

It's lame.  When corruption is a matter of moral compromises, until a last step is voluntarily taken across a line, then you have an evocative story.  When it's just a matter of morally-neutral acts hijacking your character, then corruption is no more an interesting story element then getting bit by a zombie in a zombie apocalypse story is.  There's no moral component to it; falling means that you miscalculated your risk profile just like an adventurer dashing across a possibly-trapped hallway or a survival-horror zombie protagonist trying and failing to fight off a mob of zombies to save their companions.  It makes what should be a dramatic and moral calculus a physical, tactical math problem. 

I don't have anything directly on topic to contribute atm, but I'm reminded of a quote from a prominent author of horror:  "The essence of horror is being changed against one's will."  I would certainly use that to inform the design of any RPG corruption mechanics I were tow write.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2021, 03:03:00 PM
Discussion in other threads brought up the question of temptation and corruption in horror games, and I thought like it was worth it's own topic.

I'd be interested in how others have used temptation and corruption in horror games.

Temptation is not a thing to be proscribed. It is a thing to be nuanced and seduced into and out of your players. There is *never* a campaign I run where I do not offer temptations of the easy-way out. Because it's pretty normal in life. One merely has to look at our reality and see how culturally many people are not capable of simply doing the principled thing in order to take a short-cut and will have their pre-planned rationalization to justify the means by then ends.

It's Human Nature 101.

For me I have a sit-down with my players during character generation to ascertain what their characters goals etc. are. My games generation have "things" going on at the start which my players will plug their characters into (though not always).

The temptation is always from the NPC's that have their agendas and discover the PC(s) would be useful to them. A lot of them are not even necessarily evil, but their methods might be aggressive and/or unprincipled. It's marvelous to watch PC's delight in doing transgressive actions believing "they're right" - and better be rewarded by the presumed Powers-That-Be not realizing those transgressions further justify the necessity to halt such progress by their enemies.

This is a terribly easy path to corruption, and I've seen it time and again where the PC's will justify their increasingly heinous actions for their newfound cause, simply because they can't square their original transgression (whatever it may be) and the consequences that spiral from those actions.

The trick of course is to raise the stakes to the point where the player will take the bait.

A Cleric seeking to "fix" the perceived evil situation, but their superiors may not want to invest their time/effort/whatever in dealing with it, so the Cleric starts their private crusade. Nothing is better than going down the path of darkness blindly than Good Intention(tm) - and if that Cleric can convince sympathetic players, perhaps even with the lure of loot, (you know whatever it takes, right?) And the next thing you know the PC's and the Cleric start their little crusade which of course escalates into the very reasons that their superiors said NO in the first place. Now the PC's and Cleric have to deal, possibly cover it up? which only makes things worse (possibly, unless they're successful). But no matter - once the deed is done it will be your job as the GM to haunt the PC(s) with it.

I *never* make a PC good or evil. I don't play with alignment anyhow. But I certainly tempt them to do expedient things (sometimes they're wildly successful) most times there are side-effects and unforseen circumstances that develop because they didn't do their due-diligence (they never do). The best thing is to wring their egos with the assumptions they believe about their characters which will often put them in a position of being at odds with their original goals. (which is fine too - this might mean the campaign shifts emphasis!)

I've had players loyal to the Queen of their Kingdom only to find out all the enforcing they did was to ensure her rule over the true-heir they discovered over the course of the game. Then suddenly they had to make the call. And I used every NPC evil/good it didn't matter, on both sides of the divide - all willing to sell their souls for their side to woo them over. Glorious chaos ensued! I got to watch PC's do unspeakable things for their side (all rewarded by the evil Queen of course) and they loved feeling so morally superior (until the Paladin lost his powers...)

I don't even have to delve into overt horror (but I do this in those games too) to nudge people the darkside. Most players will do whatever they feel it takes in the name of what they believe is personal security if the circumstances are right.

In the other thread, there was some interesting discussion of "temptations of the flesh" which I thought would be appropriate to discuss here.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 01, 2021, 01:17:23 PM
I disagree, temptation exists when it fills a "Need, Want or Desire" for something.

People are inherently their own worst enemies.

As human beings we are subject to the temptations of the flesh. And we too often allow short term thinking to hold sway over what would be best for us as individuals in the long run.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 01, 2021, 03:48:20 PM
Those needs, wants and desires though are precisely the lesser goods being chosen over the greater goods that I'm talking about though. The pleasures of the flesh are a good (if you're Catholic then you believe God made sex pleasurable for a reason, its the abuse of it for selfish gain outside of a loving and committed relationship/marriage instead of as an act of mutual self-giving that is sinful, not sex).

Basically, if the Devil pops up offering shit sandwiches labeled as shit sandwiches, no one is going to take them up on that offer. But if he offers up a yummy yummy cheeseburger that's loaded down with growth hormones and other subtle toxins that destroy your health over the course of years, a lot of people will prioritize the "yummy cheeseburger" part and say of the toxins "that's only a problem later on and only if I eat too much. Right now its perfectly fine to enjoy the cheeseburger."

You can't tempt someone with something they don't see as a good thing.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 01, 2021, 04:25:01 PM
Something being morally good, and something being good because it is desirable or pleasurable are different things though. A delicious sandwich tastes good, and thus you would desire it. It isn't morally good or bad.

In many if not most moral schemes, pleasure and joy are moral positives. In Utilitarianism, for example, if I make someone else happy, then all other things being equal, that is a moral positive. Likewise, if I make myself happy, that is also a moral positive. Some moral codes condition that happiness depending on the source. i.e. If I give a Jewish person a cheeseburger, that may be a moral negative because it is trafe. But most Judeochristian codes still hold that being happy is generally positive. God wants humans to be happy and to express their joy and love.

In any case, though, in an RPG, it is difficult to convey temptations of the flesh. A player isn't tempted by an imaginary sandwich the way a character is. The GM can have the player roll a Willpower test or similar, but that makes it more like a random attack rather than a temptation that they choose.

Quote from: jhkim on June 01, 2021, 07:38:03 PM
In the other thread, there was some interesting discussion of "temptations of the flesh" which I thought would be appropriate to discuss here.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 01, 2021, 01:17:23 PM
I disagree, temptation exists when it fills a "Need, Want or Desire" for something.

People are inherently their own worst enemies.

As human beings we are subject to the temptations of the flesh. And we too often allow short term thinking to hold sway over what would be best for us as individuals in the long run.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 01, 2021, 03:48:20 PM
Those needs, wants and desires though are precisely the lesser goods being chosen over the greater goods that I'm talking about though. The pleasures of the flesh are a good (if you're Catholic then you believe God made sex pleasurable for a reason, its the abuse of it for selfish gain outside of a loving and committed relationship/marriage instead of as an act of mutual self-giving that is sinful, not sex).

Basically, if the Devil pops up offering shit sandwiches labeled as shit sandwiches, no one is going to take them up on that offer. But if he offers up a yummy yummy cheeseburger that's loaded down with growth hormones and other subtle toxins that destroy your health over the course of years, a lot of people will prioritize the "yummy cheeseburger" part and say of the toxins "that's only a problem later on and only if I eat too much. Right now its perfectly fine to enjoy the cheeseburger."

You can't tempt someone with something they don't see as a good thing.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on June 01, 2021, 04:25:01 PM
Something being morally good, and something being good because it is desirable or pleasurable are different things though. A delicious sandwich tastes good, and thus you would desire it. It isn't morally good or bad.

In many if not most moral schemes, pleasure and joy are moral positives. In Utilitarianism, for example, if I make someone else happy, then all other things being equal, that is a moral positive. Likewise, if I make myself happy, that is also a moral positive. Some moral codes condition that happiness depending on the source. i.e. If I give a Jewish person a cheeseburger, that may be a moral negative because it is trafe. But most Judeochristian codes still hold that being happy is generally positive. God wants humans to be happy and to express their joy and love.

In any case, though, in an RPG, it is difficult to convey temptations of the flesh. A player isn't tempted by an imaginary sandwich the way a character is. The GM can have the player roll a Willpower test or similar, but that makes it more like a random attack rather than a temptation that they choose.

I think we are in danger of getting bogged down in an ethics discussion (which probably is more than what most RPGs are striving for). The point I was responding to was one where it was stated that people commit evil because they are priotizing one good over another. I think that is a very simple approach. People commit evil for all kinds of reasons (everything from that, to mistaking the bad for the good, to knowingly doing bad because they want something: and not because they simply think it is morally desirable). I had a whole other longer response to the point about cheeseburgers in particular, but I realized that is just going to derail things (suffice it say, I do not agree that cheeseburgers have a moral value on their own)

In terms of tempting Players. No you can't really give them the experience of being tempted by a cheeseburger, because the player will never feel their character's hunger and taste the burger. But I think there are going to be things the player desires in the game, and those definitely can be used as a source of temptation.