A recent post from Newbiedm talks about building moral conundrums for your game. I’ve been working on this on my own for many reasons. In my design work and in my personal games, I like to create opportunities for characters and players to make choices with narrative weight. The best dramatic choices are those made in ambiguous space and whose consequences are equally unclear.
I’ve done this many times, but it has always taken a lot of effort to design for it: First identifying what the character can respond to, then finding the situation that will force the choice, and plotting for possible consequences afterward…it can be a bit much, and while we’d all like to build room for these tough choices, sometimes it is just easier to build a simpler and more standard adventure.
In my current game, I don’t want to let anyone off so easy. So I’ve got to bring these tough choices as a major element of the campaign. After mulling around with tools and frameworks for building tough choices, I’ve found something that I want to share with you.
Let’s go with some imagery. The involved players are sitting at a table. You, the GM, walk up to a table and slam a huge knife on the table. You scream at one of the players that you’re going to do something awful with that knife. And then you wait.
That would be pretty intense, wouldn’t it? Is the player going to wait for you to grab the knife? Is the player going to run? Is the player going to grab the knife and attack you first?
(Bringing a literal knife to the table is not part of this method! )
We can twist it even more: What if you tell the player that you’ll stab another player if he/she runs; You’ll shoot another player if there is resistance; you’ll hurt a different player if your target lets himself get cut with the knife. Now it’s even worse. Before it was basically you or the player; now everyone at the table is at risk.
OK, let’s get away from this fictional and bloody table and right to the method. When designing a tough choice, you’ve got three elements to build up: The flesh, the knife and the cut.
The Flesh is the surface area that the knife attacks. Dramatically, it is the character’s ties into the world. The flesh for a typical conundrum could be a relationship, a belief or a value.
The Knife is the element that will be making the “attack”. This could be a person, a place or event that is going to leverage its abilities to jeopardize the flesh. Whenever possible, your knife should always be something that was already introduced into the story previously. You do this first because you don’t want to build your moral dilemmas on a a bed of contrivances. Secondly, what better than something familiar to bring this into play? Bringing pre-established elements into play for the tough choice keeps your world interconnected and real-seeming.
The Cut is the damage. How will the knife be used? What does it threaten to do? It is important that the threat is made out loud. People often try to be subtle with these things. Don’t be. When you have your knife, don’t just put it on the table. Put it on the table and tell your target what you intend to do. That’s how you motivate your player to act. If you just brandish the knife, the player looks to defend himself reflexively. If you put it between you and stay silent, there is an awkwardness as the player tries to figure out what the knife means. In either case, there is no action so the most crucial thing is to announce the potential consequence. You can do this through narrative, or you can clearly explain it in table talk, but the players have to know.
The other requisite your “cut” needs to satisfy: The player needs to bleed no matter who is cut or how the cut is made.
Let’s take a peek at how we could use this framework to quickly sort out a nice juicy dilemma for one of our players.
We’ve got Jobe, a paladin of Pelor. He is a dashing and charming man who worships devoutly and does his best to genuinely help others.
The Flesh: Jobe’s Faith. What we are going to attack here is the paladin’s unwavering trust in his god.
The Knife: There are a lot of options here. If we want to go for an option with some surprise value, we could go with a trusted priest in his order. If we are going for sheer human misery, we make “the knife” a group of refugees he had been protecting.
The Cut: If we’ve chosen the priest, then it is this: Will Jobe help the priest out of a jam by doing something shady or immoral? Say the priest has a secret gambling problem and now he owes money to a local crime boss. The only way for the priest to not be excommunicated from the church is for his debtor to “disappear” — lucky for Jobe that he is the only person the priest trusts. Will the paladin compromise his own principles to help a true friend?
The Cut, Part Deux: If we go for the refugees, we can be simple and threaten their lives in a classic “greater good” scenario. The paladin can protect his people, but not without leaving some people behind or leaving them in danger. There is a cave-in, and a few people are stuck under rocks. He can rescue those few stuck, but there is another collapse ready to happen. The group needs to move now! Can the paladin sacrifice a few for the sake of the many?
I’ve found that framing the choices as “the flesh, the knife, and the cut” is a great way to clear extraneous thoughts and move right to what you need to embed these story-driving choices into your game. Once you’ve designed them, though, you need to run them. I have one piece of advice:
Step back. Remember in the example where I said you waited after announcing the knife? You’ve got to get ready for characters to respond in any way, and you have to accept it, or you will destroy the integrity of your game. Get ready to be surprised! Sometimes players decide that they don’t really care about their beliefs and will just take the most prudent option; other times they care so much that they’ll sacrifice a character to act on that principle. You have to honor whichever choices the player makes, no matter how crazy or off-base they might seem. But accepting is not equivalent to assigning no consequences to actions.
What do you do if Jobe is so upset at his friend’s betrayal of the order’s principles that he murders the priest right there? That’s fine, but now he has to deal with his actions. Coincidentally, he might just decline to act. Fine as well. His friend dies. There are a lot of ways that the paladin can react, and you have to allow the player with that character to move within the space of that choice if you want your game to really sing.
What are you waiting for?
Make some incisions already.
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A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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A very interesting article, Quinn. I like the terms (flesh, knife, cut); it gives a nice space in my mind for this to stick in my memory. I find that sometimes this dynamic comes from the collision of the players, too. It’s a good DM that encourages this in addition to ones of his own devising.
You didn’t mention this in your article, but depending on the group, this technique can also cause some player burn-out. The other campaign I’m playing in has an element of this in it. The DM is a great storyteller, but sometimes the tough choices seem to come too quickly.
As an aside, should I take this as foreshadowing for our campaign? Joran is up to your challenge, sir! Or if you prefer today’s vernacular, “Bring it!”
The issue of frequency is a good question. There are two components to it, I think. One is the matter of, who gets the tough questions? I think the party getting those tough questions collectively shouldn’t happen too frequently. It makes party cohesion tough because sometimes the cut is the party dynamic. The only time that this can work is a Mass Effect 2 style ensemble cast. If character churn is acceptable, go for it. Otherwise I say tough choices should always be on the individual level. The other party members should be able to support the person making the choice. Characters may agree/disagree with the decision, but it’s less likely to cause a rift.
Even at the personal, you need to feel somewhat safe. I feel these tough questions are good for once an adventure/quest, not every other session. You need to flow towards tough choices. The best choices seem like they were inevitable when they arrive, like you were going to *have to* answer it someday. This is also why I suggest make knives the characters have already seen/interacted with. Building up these relationships makes the choice have more weight when it comes.
And yes, I intend to bring it! I expect you guys to bring it right on back, too
This is a great way to frame moral choices, and I’m going to try to put it into play immediately!
Something I’m finding necessary to do with the parties in my game is expand moral choices beyond dichotomies. One group, escaped prisoners held by the force ruling the city, just came upon a group of their former jailers embroiled in conflict with some Primordial-tainted beastmen. I’d hoped they’d view the choice as one of “aid the more recognizable, albeit cruel, individuals or let them get cut down softening the monsters for an alpha strike.”
Instead, the party immediately jumped to “We’ll help the jailers, then stab them in the back as soon as the other monsters are dispatched.” I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more discussion…but had already decided that their conduct throughout the whole scene was actually being observed by a third faction in the city, opposed to the jailer faction. The reaction of this other faction will hopefully impress upon the players that their position in the city can be that of mavericks with allegiance to no one, but doing so will have consequences all its own.
So to bring that back to Jobe and his faith, would you include the actual reaction of Pelor himself as a factor in the choice? A third consequence whose reactions are set, providing consequences or rewards depending how Jobe chooses to act?
I don’t think you want that third option there. I view that as the “nuclear option” a way of the GM stating what his preferred choice was. You’ve got to step back and accept the choices, knowing sometimes it’s not going to be what you want. This is also part of the fun of GMing.
In the case of Jobe, I don’t want to bring Pelor in on the discussed choices because that god is a knife and a cut all his own (on the flesh of faith). If Pelor was the one telling him what do, and that if what to do contradicted what Jobe felt was correct and right, then we’ve got a nice choice. Turn your back on your god and do the right thing, or follow your god and turn your back on the right thing?
If I brought Pelor into this set of choices, it would been me giving a commentary afterwards. Let’s face it, as GM you and Pelor are pretty darn similar in your role to the player/character (within the confines of the game, not real life!). Even if you don’t mean it that way it will be taken that way, and you don’t want to take power away from a player like that. I’d let Jobe make his choice, and then derive consequences that extend from that.
So in the cave-in scenario, maybe Jobe leaves the small group behind. Later in the campaign he and the party are hounded down by relatives of the people he left behind. it is an additional consequence but one created by his choice, not a commentary on a choice he could have made.
Here’s the thing I have learned: When players blow by choices, it’s because we as DMs didn’t put choices in front of them that they care about, or where it’s a choice between “cake” or “death”. Players always take the cake. A good cut should always offer “compromise” or “compromise”. To get there though, it helps to know what characters and their players think of certain situations. It’ interesting to do quick “reaction” mini-scenes to gauge what characters care about. Pausing the action to ask, “what do your characters think about their time in jail? Are they bitter about it? What would they do to a jailer if they saw one?” That “reaction” scene can then flow right into the scene where they see the jailers being ambushed. Hey, the players and therefore their characters were just thinking about these guys!
Another point to consider that I was just discussing in the previous reply is that it is often easier to sell the choices to an individual character. If there is one character who thinks of himself as a moral/ethical person, but the dilemma on his/her shoulders. “These jailers are getting slaughtered. How much do you hate them? Enough to let them die in cold blood or betray them?” You get a lot more mileage from selling a hard choice to 1 character.
But again, you have to step back from the decision. Even if it seems to contradict what the character has been established. Remember that in real life. people are full of contradictions. We often hold two conflicting beliefs in our head at the same time. If the character makes an exception to her moral code for these jailers, that just makes the story richer and her character more complex.
I think I may have written another blog post in the comments, but I hope that helps!
There’s probably another blog post just in what I’m about to say, but your not wanting to have Pelor directly involved reveals a slight bias in your thoughts on belief and worship of a deity, if you don’t mind my saying so.
heh, there probably is, but I swear it’s all dramatic bias! In my mind, when you oppose the gods , it is for you to come in direct conflict with their wishes. If we look at our actual mythos, it is rare that the gods are acting punitively in matters of interpretation of beliefs. In the cave-in issue (possibly the priest issue, but that’s another bridge to cross) the matter is Jobe’s beliefs on what is right based on his faith. He is not in conflict with Pelor directly. I would hesitate to have gods punish mortals for not doing the right thing because it becomes a way of stamping out independent choice. It’s ok to defy the gods, but I don’t ever want that to be a by-product of some other action. When a player defies (or assents) to a god’s will, he/she needs to know it pretty up front I feel.
I could restructure the FKC to include Pelor, but I wouldn’t bring him in here for these.
Ah, fair enough. That clarifies it quite a bit, actually. Well said, sir.
I get what you’re saying here, but from a player’s perspective, if I were to encounter the situations you laid out, I’d almost feel like the DM was picking on me. “Oh, you think you’re so wise, Mr. Paladin: well here’s a no-win situation for you.” The no-win scenario can be a useful dramatic tool, but to my mind it needs to arise from the story, not simply be tossed in to make a player feel bad about the choice he made.
Maybe with more context, the effect would be more natural.
Fair enough, but my perspective is that good storytelling often hinges on these tough choices. I try to stress characters, but I always talk to the players and let them know what we’re in for. If people agree to a game like this (One where characters can face these dilemmas) I think that these choices are fair game. That said, the unwritten but assumed bit here is that you do things that your players will like. If I were running a game for you and I knew you didn’t like that, I wouldn’t do that to you. But, I’ve run a lot of games with just these sort of “no-win” situations for players that really enjoy it.
Also unwritten but assumed is that these tough choices come in between times where your character gets to be awesome at things, and be the hero.
Again, this is not about forcing tough choices on a group that doesn’t want to make them, but rather developing tough choices when appropriate. You’d use FKC whenever you want to spotlight a character making decisions under pressure and how that can change/affect him.
Great article; a well-articulated take on a subject that’s a favorite of mine in gaming.
Depending on the group, I think there’s one more thing a GM needs to be prepared for: a little extra game time. I’ve been in games were dilemnas like this came up, and the players spent an entire session debating the choice. (That sounds bad, but those were among some of the most memorable game sessions I’ve ever been involved in.)
If nothing else, the players may well spend enough time on it that your session will lose an encounter or two. It can help to time the dilemna toward the end of the game session, so that players can spend the between-game time debating among themselves . . . .
@Powers, yes, it does feel like the GM is picking on you. My players even refer to it as being “My turn in the barrel this week”. But that’s okay, because yes they’re getting picked on, but the game session is all about them. I tend to run very serialized games, and this week’s episode is all about the conflict for one character. So its a good and bad, because while you have some tough calls to make, you get to resolve things about your character.
Take the example of the paladin. Why would the player say his character is a devout servant of Pelor unless he wanted that to come up in game? Here is a chance for him to prove it, or when push comes to shove find out that maybe he things things other than his faith are more important. Either way he gets to develop his character, and he will love you for it.
@Charles, yes absolutely. I run improvisational a lot. My goal is to have an awesome game. If the players are all having a debate about what to do and everyone is engaged and enthralled, I don’t think its ever a good move to try and cut that short in order for you to get your pre-planned encounters off. Let them explore the issues all they want. So long as everyone is having fun, who cares what you planned. I don’t GM to see my plans happen, I GM so I can see what the PCs plan, throw monkey wrenches at it, and enjoy the show.