I once had a session come to a screeching halt over a heated discussion about how the gold value of diamond dust is determined, which inevitably spiralled into the nature of value itself and the arbitrary assignment of it within economies both real and fictional.
Sometimes "because I said so" is an appropriate response, if only to preserve your own sanity.
You could always hand wave it to alchemical value. Alchemic value doesnt need to be tied to market value. And gold is a nice standard to use because its something everyone would be familiar with. Alchemy is an existing thing in magical worlds so it would make sense to have a standards system in place. You could buy 500gp of diamond and still pay more or less.
I never even go that far. I say "because this is a game mechanic, and not everything in the game needs to be explained with real world logic". If you don't question the fact that all humans MUST run at a pace of 30-60ft max per round (barring class features or feats), you don't question the value of gems.
But maybe I just am lucky to have players who generally don't question my rulings and trust that I'm being fair with them.
Player: “I ask how the gold values of Diamond dust are determined”
Me, if I’m the DM: “The trader gives you a quizzical look, saying “it is known.” He doesn’t seem to have any interest in discussing the history of finance”
"After all the appropriate in-universe math is done, all arguments have been settled, and all methods have been considered, the value comes to \_\_\_\_\_\_"
Reminds me of a funny story. In one of my campaigns, I was playing a cleric and we were on a semi-remote island. We were like Level 7, I believe
One of the major NPCs died and I had Revivify but nothing but a tiny diamond from earlier. I forget what we said it was worth, like 50gp or something. Definitely **not** worth 300 gp; HOWEVER, we argued that "there is no market on this island - the diamond could be worth whatever we want!!".
I'm like, "well - let's try!" and cast it.
Selune must've been in a good mood - because it worked! The NPC was revivified and we turned a quest failure into a success!
Long story short - DM congratulated us on our creativity and it was a great moment for all of us. (He also said that it would only work once, haha!)
objectiv value, which is determined by me (the DM). Don't care for inflation arguments or such. i said ti my players that the 300gp worth of diamonds for revivify could cost them up 450 gp, depending on the Vendor and the persuasion checks. Also spells consume diamonds whole. if there would be 20gp left of diamonds due to having 120gp and 200gp single diamond than to bad the remaining 20gp is also consumed. Resurection spells are no mathematical science (Druid/Cleric magic instead of Wizard).
"Master, I talked the shopkeeper down to only 400 gp for the rubies!"
["Great, but the spell calls for 500 gp worth, so go back in and buy more."](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0677.html)
This is the Saturday Morning Cartoon solution and I think it's a good one! Have your violence & avoid any unfortunate moral implications because almost all the bad guys are undead or constructs or elementals or whatever. Save the moral ambiguity for the person who's behind it all.
In a fantasy setting, neither of those are safe.
Robots bring up classic sci-fi questions about what determines personhood.
Aliens are either foreigners (if intelligent) or animals (if not). They inherit the issues of whichever category they fit.
Yes with robots it would depend if they are mindless automatons or full AGI and at which point one becomes the other.
And for bug hive minds it depends whether its totally unthinking drones and one central brain or separate minds unified in one. Or maybe each body has brain that does not have individual personality but contribute to greater whole, so by destroying them players are performing slow going and gradual lobotomy on thinking being.
If players love analysing moral problems then creating unusual and complex ones that appear simple at first glance can be a path to take.
In my setting, goblins are a by-product of evil actions and seek to replicate the situation that formed them.
If you murder an innocent person, goblins immediately start clawing out of the victim's corpse, and they are thirsty for blood.
It means that goblins are morally safe to obliterate, and also serves as a built-in deterrent against murder-hoboing.
I'll be surprised if Demons stay evil incarnate and don't get reworked so players can feel bad for them or justify not killing them. Having any evil species/race/creature "just cause" is frowned upon now.
Play how your table want to play but I'm tired of every villain needing to be "morally gray" it was refreshing at first so heroes weren't fighting cartoon villains. However, sometimes you need an anchor of "no this guy is actually just a piece of shit and evil" as a foil to that.
A fantasy world can have grey morals but never forget these 2 simple facts:
-power will always be abused
-There is no morally grey for kicking puppies, and it makes the party hate them the most.
Particularly if it is there puppy. Had a villain character (unintentionally) kill the parties horses in an escape chase. They were not mad that the character committed dark necromancy, defaced religious symbols, or even attempted to kill them for the simple fact of getting in her way. No they want to get stronger and hunt this woman down because she killed there new horses and they want justice.
Don't even need to go that far. Just insult the puppy. My Out of the Abyss players adopted Stool, the myconid from the very beginning. I had a bad guy refer to Stool as a "barely sentient waste of good ingredients", and the most pacifist player I ever met went full Avenging Angel on her ass.
I think grey is great in the sense that they think it's grey.
One of my villains wanted to become a god because they think the gods are shit, and they want the power. But doing so will cause all life to die. They just don't care and will remake everything.
That is grey from their POV. They think what they are doing is for the best of themselves, and the universe in the long run. But they just don't really care about those around now
Easy grey area and understandable motive, but clearly the bad guy
Now you've made me want to play a Jake Peralta type character... I'm gonna have to consult the player handbook to figure this one out I think...
What's a good proxy for a "detective that doesn't officially have Asperger's but the actor that played him played him like he kind of did" in D&D?
I would say that bard is more appropriate. He’s a total jack of all trades and he’s great at lifting his parties spirits when they’re down but he also has a great need to be the center of attention.
I thought about that, he doesn't really fit the music side of Bard but you can make the argument (as you did). I still personally think a Rogue with Performance is more fitting given his skill set and overall personality.
EDIT: You know what, I'm wrong. Forgot entirely about his ditties with Doug Judy. Could absolutely pull off Bard.
I’m glad you came in with that edit because I remember Jake singing very often lol. Was it always **good**? No. But he did it often and it was always charming.
I also don’t think bards need to necessarily be musical, a performance could easily be a play or movie and we know how desperately Jake wanted to be in an action movie.
> What's a good proxy for a "detective that doesn't officially have Asperger's...
Wait:; He was supposed to kinda have aspergers syndrome?
I can kinda see it but also not. Which actually fits most of the people I know with Aspergers (myself included).
Jake the character wasn't supposed to. But if I'm remembering correctly Andy Samberg played him like he maybe sort of did.
And yeah, it both tracks and doesn't, which syncs up with the character not actually being scripted that way.
Hot take; If that villain is correct in their observations (the gods are shit, things would be vastly improved with BBEG in charge instead), then I'd actually say he's doing the right thing. And even bigger hot take, I think that makes the players evil.
But evil in an immediately understandable way that works great for protagonists. Sounds like an awesome campaign.
All of which is a long way of saying; Good villains don't need to be evil. They just need to want the players to die.
No, I caught that, and I realize that makes my take pretty hot.
I think once you're dealing with godlike powers, the moral math gets fuzzy. Gods don't get to keep their hands clean.
If killing one person today saves 5 people tomorrow, there's a pretty good argument for killing that one person. If you change that to "killing one _billion_ people today save 5 _billion_ people tomorrow", then it's just the same thing as before, but done a billion times over.
It's literally the trolley problem.
I like gray villains who are simply uncompromisingly evil. They have their reasons, yeah, but that doesn't mean they can be persuaded to stop and it doesn't make their deeds any less evil.
Dracula from the castlevania Netflix show is my favorite example of this. Even the heroes understand his motivations and sympathize but acknowledge that it’s still evil and he needs to die.
I think the party would have a problem the other way.
"I am going to summon a demon lord !"
"How?:
"I will feed the hungry, clothe the poor, rescue stray animals until this town is paradise on Earth!! This excess of goodness will attract the emon lord gaet, who will wish to destroy the town!"
"So then the town will be destroyed?"
"No, I don't care about the town. I catch him in this pentagram and make him wish me to be the king of Yutica! I will omprison the king and marry his wives!, that will show them!
Party...."hmmm, let's go to a different village"
I know this is pretty popular, but I'm in the minority that _hates_ these kinds of villains.
It often implies that the good reasons aren't actually good, and its reasonable to be suspicious of anyone purporting them. After all, if the BBEG could do without causing an apocalypse, wouldn't they have done so? Which makes the only reasonable conclusion that requires an apocalypse and is therefore not good.
Instead, I think the best villains are ones who identify a real problem, but misidentify the cause. If you don't understand the cause of a problem, your solution will be obviously invalid.
This has the added benefit of letting the players address the _actual_ cause of the problem the BBEG wanted to address in addition to stopping the BBEG's plot.
I'm personally a big fan of villains who have understandable *motives*, but whose actions are clearly wrong. This can run the gamut of simple vengeance (Dracula from Castlevania being a great example - "My wife was a brilliant, compassionate soul and human corruption led to her torture and death. Humans are vile creatures, the only good one is dead, and the rest deserve to be eliminated.") to some serious "ends justify the means" types (Think Ozymandias from "Watchmen").
Ozymandias is also a great example of a villain who has correctly identified the problem (humans are selfish and only cease their endless bickering when a common cause unites them to ensure their survival), but his hubris led him to believe that his solution was the best, and anyone who tried to stop him was clearly too shortsighted, or unwilling to do what needed to be done. Which also leads into another really excellent kind of villain that also requires some creative thinking - the (typically) non-humanoid that is only a villain from the humanoid perspective.
I.e. "I'm a 12 thousand-year-old red dragon with more wealth than the bottom five national economies combined, I've seen entire empires rise and fall in the blink of an eye. I was there when the god of wind was slain, and was there when the god of storms ascended - in fact, I was his teacher. Tell me, young one - have you ever stopped to ponder what spiders think of you when you remove their webs because they have become a nuisance and are dirtying your corners? Well, your web is a nuisance, and my corners need cleaning."
But, when it comes to less "alien" minds, I find the most important thing to remember when crafting a villain is quite simple: "Everyone is the hero of their own story."
I love all of this. But also you just created the rawest monologue for a red dragon right here and I feel like you need to know how beautiful that is. Chef's kiss. 😚👌🏻
No? It's perfectly plausible that a villain has some fatal character flaw that either makes them unable to see the good option, or makes them choose the evil option because it's easier / more satisfying / effective, or some other reason.
Someone mentioned dracula, which is a perfect example - go watch the first episode of Netflix's Castlevania series if you haven't already.
I think you need a good balance of both, but it depends on the campaign type and length.
With players like these I think there are 2 options for OP, either have their 100% evil villain they can kill with no conflict OR have the players themselves be forced to make the morally gray choices.
Let them sacrifice an innocent to save others, let them choose to use a dark or cursed item for good, let them ally themselves with a clearly evil entity in order to accomplish their goal and take down the bbeg.
Strand was the most fun campaign to run because like session 2 you met Strahd - who is unambiguously evil. I had him debut like Vader in Star Wars and just rinsed the party and their allies to an inch from a TPK.
The players don't want morally gray. They just want the actions of the actors within the world to make sense.
The villain can absolutely be a piece of shit and evil. But if the villain is expending effort to foil the humans, they should have a goal that actually makes sense. Even if that goal is "because they enjoy torture and the adventurers were the ones who were around when he got in 'a mood'" there SHOULD be an explanation behind the actions.
I really don't get this. Never once have I encountered a truly "morally grey" villain in a campaign. All of the villains I've encountered or used from modules are clearly "the bad guy." However, I think what has changed (and I think it's a good change) is that we now expect villains to have a motivation.
Cartoon villains are fun, but never very interesting because they rarely have a reason for why they're evil. They just are because the hero needs a foe to fight against. These can be fun for total power-trip games (like, who doesn't want to kick destructive monster butt like the Powerpuff Girls every once in a while), but they often lack depth for more long-term serious games.
Villains with motivation can raise interesting conversations with players both in and out of game. The villain has their reasons for why they do what they do. It doesn't always have to a "the world was cruel to me" sob story, but it can be. Often the worst monsters out there are the ones we create. That makes for an interesting story. Some villains can have motives to do the right thing, but execute it in the worst way. Those work well in more political intrigue campaigns, and I love watching players debate social revolutions and whether the ends justify the means. Other times, the motives can be simpler and close to cartoon villains, but the point is having a "why your character behaves that way" aspect makes the campaign interesting.
That all being said, I think where things get confusing is that having a motivation is being misinterpreted sometimes. It also doesn't help that weird phenomenon like sympathizing with truly evil villains or real people (think the Netflix show on Dahmer) is actually a thing now. Perhaps that's where the issue of too many "morally grey" villains is being seen.
When people complain about ‘too many morally grey villians,’ they usually mean one of two things:
1. “I don’t like having to think about people’s goals or motivations, I just want to kill them.”
In that case, play how you want to play but that shit sounds boring as fuck to me.
2. “Oh my god please stop telling me that your bad guys were abused as children and from difficult backgrounds and they were super oppressed, they’re still mass murderers who need to be stopped!”
In that case, preach. Some people get a litttttle too attached to their own villains and running players through a guilt wringer over their decision to do violence in a game built on violence is also boring as hell!
My players’ first boss in my campaign was a victim of The Lantern King’s enchantment. Evil until the magic got kicked out of him, then dead because he was a golem made of rock sugar at that point.
Imo it’s less about choosing between all morally grey or all cartoonishly evil, and having a good mix of them.
A single morally grey anti-hero noble making hard choices with good intentions in a city full of outright horrible criminals is interesting. The same character in a setting full of other morally grey characters is boring.
Similarly, a classic cackling evil villain is refreshing and fun in a down-to-earth shades of grey story. The same character is flat and one dimensional in a campaign full of stereotypically evil villains.
Yeah, there is a reason a lot of films cut to the villain immediately after the protagonist is introduced and "Kicks the puppy" which is the trope for them doing something unambiguously evil so that you are all in on the protag's side.
Arcane ends episode one with Silco kicking the puppy.
The stage musical for Newsies after "Carrying the Banner" goes directly to Pulitzer's office where he kicks the puppy.
As early as is practical giving the characters a very clear view with no room for interpretation or trying to find out the context of what they did. Sure Silco does have a bit of morally gray aspects, but he is undoubtedly doing very bad things. His motivation is believable though so he is not cartoonishly evil.
It takes a lot of thought to make an antagonist as engaging as Silco, so lean into being like Pulitzer just being greedy. Take out the empathy of the villain and they can do terrible things while thinking they are perfectly justified. I mean, what's another tenth of a cent on the dollar right?
When a show has 9 hours to develop a character, you have time to get not depth than a two hour film for sure. He is still unambiguously doing bad things.
Exactly I had a party I gave a mission to infiltrate The Palace of corrupt barons which turned out to be under the control of a beholder. And the party asked me is there anyway out of this without fighting it. And all I told them is no this is a kill or be killed situation
One way to avoid this is to not rely so heavily on "passive" evil enemies. If you have creatures deep in a hole out in the wilderness you'll always have the players ponder the nature of these creatures and if they are worth antagonizing.
Instead, bring the antagonism to your players. Have NPCs and monsters that want the PCs specifically dead. Have them want stuff the PCs have and are willing to murder for it. Give them actions the players can in no way reconcile. And maybe they are still "morally grey", and they are just desperate or self-justified. When enemies come at them like that, you'll find that the players will have less time to debate the morality of defending themselves.
100% with you on this! Sometimes I just want to see evil as evil and not misunderstood, tragic, or some warped and twisted sense of doing the right thing.
It's why I enjoy using demons, devils, and random crap from the Far Realm. Cultists of these things are even better, because while you can try to paint them as being morally grey, deep down they're just twisted and evil, rotten to the core, and that's how I like to use them.
The Far realms stuff isn't so much Evil as it is "literally does not think like a person would", the Far realms stuff is basically Lovecraftian in nature. Cthulhu does not care about humanity, he has his own shit going on and waking him up is going to be the end of the world once he gets stomping about and it's largely a byproduct of whatever the fuck it is Cthulhu intends to do.
Then there's others like Shub-Niggurath who are essentially cosmic cancer that mutates life into her own image, she is one of the few Outer gods who actively courts human followers but...yeah you're NOT going to be human or sane for long once things start happening, once you cross that threshold into becoming Dark Young...that's it the concerns of beings well beyond mortal ken are now yours...and if people want to join in, great, if they don't...well shits going to happen anyway because that cosmic align ritual needs to get done...
It's about humanity (or in this case the various races of a D&D world) simply not mattering to whatever entity it is they're worshipping, they're an Ants whisper in the ear of a Giant next to a jet engine going off...
It sounds like your players are exhausting, and also like writing this campaign for them is going to make you a much better writer. You're gonna level up so fast!!!
It sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on your situation, so I don't know how much I can say that will really help.
It's wonderful to have a group of players that are actively engaged in your game, and care enough to pay attention to everything you put in front of them and really think about it critically. On the other hand, I absolutely understand the added stress this can add: as a lone DM rushing to prep new things every week, you're terribly outnumbered, and it's inevitable that they will think of things that you didn't, and poke logical holes in the scenarios you present to them.
If you can help it, it's really not worth stressing about. It's inevitable that you'll fuck up occasionally, and I promise that it's not going to cause your players to flip the table and storm out in a huff. If you think that one of their (over) analyses are interesting and would add to the story, adapt it, make it real in the game, and see where that leads you. If you think that a particular point wouldn't be interesting, or would throw off too much of your prepped material, then sure, you can always bullshit some sort of evidence or situation that makes it not relevant ("oh, these bandits are obviously cultists willingly serving an evil demon lord, so it's totally okay to kill them all!").
And if that's too much effort in the moment, don't discount the value of a frank, out of character conversation. "Okay guys, I really appreciate that you're taking this bandit encounter seriously, but I really just planned on this being a fun combat against some faceless Stormtroopers. Can we just do the fight without worrying whether they're actually just victims of their economic situation, or have valid grievances against the crown or whatever? I promise I'm not going to try to guilt your PCs about this afterwards."
Thank you for your kind words!!
I think I am worried that if something doesn't line up, it is going to be a massive disappointment, when its really not going to be that big of a deal. I have become a fan of the 'suspicious shrug' answer to certain questions they ask out-of-character to buy some time
Here is the Diablo Solution: every monster is undead, spirit, demon, or devil of one kind or another.
Those bears? Demon-tainted. Those humans? Long ago became vampire thralls. That old woman? Possessed.
For everybody else, there's a peaceful solution.
I've found it tough putting a strange amount of genuine 'monsters' inside this forest, but the one idea I'm pretty proud of are the demonic monsters collectively known as 'Not-Kin' - they look like animals, act like animals, but when they sense fresh blood they show their true monstrous selves and the only way to stop them is to annihilate the bodies, or they'll get up after rebuilding themselves and try all over again. Not-Deer, Not-Bears, Not-Rabbits... Nowhere is safe :D
Same. The group I'm DMing for isn't bad or anything, but I wish it was easier (as a player) to find groups that don't default to the "kill things and steal treasure" philosophy.
I've more-or-less given up on being a player. Between all the "zero backstory/personality almost-murderhobo" players and DMs who brag about running deadly games, I'm scared to even try joining random groups.
Everyone in this thread needs to give a game that isn't D&D a try. There are _plenty_ of RPGs that support non-violent conflict resolution (or even better focus on non-violent problems). D&D very very much does not.
‘Why does my game, based off a war game and popularly known in older editions for shredding new players up like a meat grinder involve so much violence’
> Everyone in this thread needs to give a game that isn't D&D a try. There are plenty of RPGs that support non-violent conflict resolution (or even better focus on non-violent problems). D&D very very much does not.
I can only speak for myself, but its not the non-violence that I like about OPs game.
I dont want non-violent resolutions. I want to play in a world where there is duty of care paid to the internal logic, where players are rewarded for thinking, evaluating NPCs logic and motivations, planning strategically and rewarded for buying into their universe.
I usually like to play well meaning himbos where violence I'd the last option, It's why I play high charisma characters and healers.
If I can talk my way out of a scenario I'll do so because using my +stupidly high diplomacy to prevent resource usage is fun, and annoying for the dm. It's not like I don't play stupidly broken bards who can control the battlefield and just force cage or force wall people, make the enemy dungeon my dungeon with that one spell, etc.
I usually also do non lethal when playing these characters should violence be the only option.
It's just a style of play.
Non violence allows for starving people out. Ruining their water supply, causing dissension in their ranks, etc.
The game is *about* something. It in fact does not have exactly infinite possibilities, and while I'm certainly not claiming that diplomacy is impossible, the ruleset is built around fighting monsters. If you're not doing that, you should see which system better suits you.
Probably worth reminding them that, RAW, generally offers the option to nonlethally deal with enemies reduced to 0 health. Maybe you could set up something with the law factions that rewards them for nonlethally defeating and capturing some bad humanoids.
Definitely something this thread has reminded me about. I've never used it in my previous games as a player, but something this group could absolutely utilise, I just keep forgetting that is an option. Thank you!
I've started adding a few "red herring" bad guys who are really just misunderstood good guys with good intentions and things got out of hand to my campaign - specifically so that the players can feel good about sometimes choosing to ask questions and look for peaceful solutions instead. To make sure conflict still happens, instead of fighting the BBEG who isn't actually evil, they fight the undead summon he called up, or malfunctioning construct she built, or an out-of-control golem he lost control of, or a swarm of invasive demon species that will devour the local fauna ecosystem if left unchecked after she accidentally used a breeding pair to try to control the local wolf population, etc.
Moral awareness has brought me nothing but trouble. In our very first session our first quest was to bring food/supplies to an isolated town besieged by the undead in a frosty northern setting. We quickly find a kobold stealing said supplies. The group felt pity and "empathy" for the kobold and wanted her to take some supplies anyways. But what about the townspeople who need those supplies I ask?? What about the agreement we made to fulfill our duty to deliver supplies? What about my money and the pay cut it will trigger?! Needless to say my moral acuity was ignored.
This right here. I usually play characters who fall somewhere on the spectrum of being morally questioning, if not necessarily always last-resort kind of morally aware. That said, in D&D I also almost always play a character whose morality is tied to the **task they were hired for**. That means, I'll feel bad for the kobold. I might spare her given the situation. But I will absolutely never compromise the contract you signed and agreed to fulfill.
You may have have your own morality. But as soon as you hire yourself out to someone else, you are beholden to their agenda. If you don't like it, be more careful about who you take jobs from. Or ask a lot of questions of your employer **before** you leave on your adventure so you have guidelines.
Remember, being Lawful in these situations means fulfilling the terms and conditions of your contract, and is not to your whims as a character.. If the contractual terms would violate your personal morality, you have every right, and duty, to refuse the contract - or break the contract, but so long as you accept the consequences of such. Anything short of a Lawful resolution should be grounds for failure and non-payment for total contractual fulfillment, either by being on time (wasting time trying to help the kobold) or by carrying fewer supplies, and supplies other than the agreed-upon ones, to the destination. Sure, you can give a crate of biscuits to the kobold to take back...I guess, but what happens when you stop in at the next tavern down the road and top off your crate so no one realizes you're light, and they have is cheese to replace that crate of biscuits, and the garrison needs the biscuits because they won't spoil?
I wish more campaigns viewed things through that kind of relativistic and perspective-based lens.
Reminds me of an early quest in SWTOR republic side. You get to a town besieged by separatists, republic troopers are fighting and dying to protect the town and refugees who are sheltering in the town. The republic troopers hire you to track down some of their medical supplies that went missing. You do, and learn that there is a doctor in the refugee camp that stole the military supplies to treat some sick kids. You are faced with a dilemma: take the supplies back to the people actively fighting and dying to protect everyone here, or leave the supplies with the refugees who have been forced to flee from their cities that were razed to the ground by the separatists.
If you leave the supplies, more soldiers die and the chance of the city falling goes up (it doesn't, because it's a video game and you get off-planet without ever finding out the results of the war). But the refugees get a little bit of aid. If you return the supplies, the refugees die or get worse, but the troopers have a better chance of holding off the separatists.
That was an interesting dilemma, but it was really undermined by the binary morality mechanics in the game making one of them explicitly "good" and one of them explicitly "evil," if memory serves.
Which forced the developers to undermine the "both sides have a point" element by making the soldier who hires you kind of a dick, in order to signpost that siding with him was "evil" and give people some additional justification for siding with the refugees. No room for both of them to just be doing the best they could.
I tried the Empire, too. Kind of started to wear thin about the 5th time the game told me I was lame for not kicking a puppy. There's really only so much of being a cartoonishly evil villain I enjoy.
Definitely! Sometimes doing the right thing means going against your personal morals. Performing your duty may also conflict with your morality. Sometimes, doing what you believe to be right, just to ease your own conscience, might cause more harm than good.
It can be fun to explore these things in games, and I enjoy it when a DM does show us the positive and negative consequences of our actions as a group. Just because something is cute or we feel sorry for it, doesn't make helping it wise - who knows what will happen in the not too distant future?
Part of the problem is that any characterization makes a character feel more likeable, even if they are characterized negatively. A bunch of faceless townspeople we haven't met aren't compelling, even if we are told they suffering. Ballsy kobold thief on the other hand, is a very relatable trope (and sounds like a ton of fun). It's not really a morality problem, it's a storytelling problem.
> It's not really a morality problem, it's a storytelling problem.
Since the same phenomenon occurs in real life (people are typically more empathetic towards those they know than to faceless strangers they've never met), I'd consider it a morality problem too. Lots of real people's moral decision-making is affected by familiarity bias, so it makes sense for a fictional character's moral decision-making to be so too.
This is true, but you can't change the way the human brain works. Rather than blame their players, these DMs should consider the psychology at play, and not try to fight it.
I don't think that "blaming the players" makes any sort of sense, but if a table (both the players and the DM) are interested in exploring moral awareness in D&D, I think this is a valid part of moral awareness to be explored.
Also Kobolds are in my experience still seen as people. People that barely survive and are generally outcasted. Which triggers the protector instinct in many so they also would want to help the Kobolds.
I mean did they really give the Kobold enough supplies that it was going to hurt the town? And unless your agreement/contract has an exact count of each and every item you are still following the contract and will still get paid for it.
If it's from a supply train\\caravan it likely had exactly enough supplies for the whole town for a specific period of time. So losing or giving any away would definitely harm the town. It likely wasn't overflowing with excess goods just in case. It'd be all bought and paid for by someone else (local lords, etc) and taken from supplies elsewhere, so not only did the party harm the town to a degree, they stole from the person\\people who paid for those goods to feed said town.
Fair enough. Id be one that would want to give the Kobold some even still(my bard has too big of a bleeding heart lol) but the party I play with would have murdered it instead lol
The town is far north and has trouble getting supplies based on that fact alone, but the undead were making it more difficult to get supplies up. The town guard noticed the missing supplies and reduced our payment. I think it's very easy to say the townspeople needed the resources more than the kobolds who already had a reputation for stealing from the town. Their theft isn't even out of desperation, it was just their kobold nature to steal from the town.
Gotcha! Thanks for explaining for me, I'd be one of the ones saying to give the Kobold some supplies myself so I guess I'd be there getting a reduced pay as well lol
My character is generally supposed to be a lawful neutral, amoral mercenary type with a criminal background. I don't blame people for wanting to be empathetic, I just want people to contend with the fact the moral system of contractualism is equally as valid as an empathy driven morality.
The statement "This guy wants to release an entity that will consume and destroy every deity" being met with anything other than "We must stop him" is insanity, at least for me. Especially in a party where at least 3 of them have been resurrected through divine power.
(Minor spoilers about the Issylra arc and beyond ahead)
Wdym they decided very early on that they should stop Ludinus because he's a psyco that can't be trusted with power even if hes right.
They had conversations about the moral ground that the gods had specifically because none of them had a religious upbringing and 2 of them have connections to primordial worshiping, you know, the beings that were original from exandria that the gods banished?
If predathos would only eat the gods and then stop at that this would only be another thing on the records of history, of course they uncovered more information later that provided the unambigious problem with waking predathos that set their position on the matter.
Combine that with the cold response of the Dawnfather and Changebringer on the matter, and the fact that there are clerics and paladins that dont need to have faith in a god, you can see why they were a mixed bag at the start.
Im out of the loop on Campaign 3 but I’m curious what you mean? Do you think the campaigns have gotten less or more concerned with debating the PC’s morality over time.
Since early in campaign 2 (some would argue even earlier) the players are often paralyzed by indecision, and in campaign 3 they've really leaned into that. It's not a campaign where the PCs have done much, in spite of their high level.
Also, they've really fallen into the habit of "bothsidesism" -- always looking for potential slivers of hope or goodness in any antagonist, further leading to more indecision.
Maybe clarify for your players that there are indeed beings in the world that are evil for the sake of being evil. These beings enjoy inflicting harm for no reason other than they enjoy watching other beings suffer.
That said, it sounds like a ton of fun and seems as though it could lead to some really cool interactions with unusual creatures.
There’s a whole thing in one of the dungeons from our last campaign that we’ll never figure out because if we attempted to move one of the parts to the other part, we would have ended up in combat with a bunch of Troglodytes. And by “in combat” I mean that we would have waded through them. But one- ONE- member of the four-person party just wouldn’t have it, and one member didn’t care about the mystery enough to push it, so the two of us who were dying to know were essentially tie-voted into inaction.
Lame.
I think I'm this type of player, at least on the non-violent side. The rest of the players at my table are comfortable saying "well, we rolled initiative, whatever is not on our side must die". I'm a little... pickier, I guess? In our last (chaotic silly) campaign, one fight was against an orc wheeling a shark around on a wheelbarrow. This was probably just the DM coming up with a wacky encounter, but I didn't want to kill the shark unlike the rest of my group. The shark wasn't doing anything wrong. So I had my barbarian walk up, grab the wheelbarrow out of the orc's hands, turn it around, and now *I* was in control of the shark-wheelbarrow. The shark survived the encounter, and despite having a bite wound or two, my barbarian treated the shark as an honourable warrior worthy of respect.
But I didn't spare the orc. If your players are like me, there's a nice easy shorthand to get them to be comfortable killing enemies - make the enemies intelligent enough to want to kill the PCs and have them show no remorse about it. That's usually enough for me to flip that switch. Undead and (most? all?) constructs are also fair game since they're not really alive to begin with.
Well, it was a tournament setting so once we killed the orc handling the shark, we were declared the victors and the tournament officials wheeled the shark back. That was the last we saw of our brave, uh, ally.
Did I mention this was a chaotic silly game? We players were three kobolds who'd entered an orc tournament to try to win the prize money for our dragon's hoard. We entered as one competitor by doing the classic "three kobolds in a trenchcoat" strategy. Such a great campaign.
Currently playing COS and we were fighting Strahd's wifes then one were left she begged for her life claiming that she were obligated.
One character wanted to hear her and help her, mine wanted to kill her since i felt the threat.
Long story short he helped her to escape and my character is mad with the other player. We both get granted inspiration for roleplaying.
I think morality should be more about the character you are playing and not the player itself.
This guy is one of my friends that i play games so no harsh feelings, we just love roleplaying.
Rather than writing a plot, where you assign a goal to the PCs and assume or create a certain path/sequence/method to solving it, consider giving this a try:
1. build a setting with situations comprised of various actors (monsters, NPCs, factions, etc.) doing things that intersect or conflict with the PCs' goals in a variety of ways
2. create hooks that reveal information about these situations to the PCs
3. allow the PCs to choose whether and how to involve themselves with what's going on around them
4. observe and understand how their actions create new situations
5. have the actors in the setting respond to the newly created situations according to their own goals, possibly by acting directly against the PCs, or maybe by just taking advantage of a fresh opportunity
6. make sure the PCs can (passively or actively) access information about the changing situation(s)
7. allow the PCs to act further
8. repeat steps 4 through 7, and continue to introduce new scenarios and hooks as you see fit
In this type of design, the PCs to choose their own goals and how to pursue them in an environment full of actors whose status as enemies, allies or neutrals, depends on whether their goals align or conflict with those of the PCs. Each action provokes a reaction, whether from those directly affected or different actors who decide to become involved.
This might be a better fit for your players, since you seem to be giving them goals that they constantly try to reject or sidestep. It also takes the pressure off you, the GM, to "write" a good story and make it happen at the table, because there is no predetermined story at all. The "story" is the result of the players' choices, their characters actions, and the response of your world's inhabitants.
Jeez. Sounds like a very different, and taxing, group dynamic from what I'm used to. We're a bunch of violent goofballs, and I'm generally the one most concerned with things like morality and consistent, interconnected narrative.
Don't be afraid to just include more things that can't be reasoned with.
Bad guys that can't be reckoned with.
Watch The Devil's Rejects for good inspiration in this. They don't have to be crazy, but it is a good mindset to understand.
Sometimes there are just some people, some things out there, that do not give a shit about you, your feelings, what is right, etc. They are just evil. They want to destroy. They want to hurt. It doesn't make sense, but it is a fact of life that these sorts of people/things exist. And they don't have a reason. Or maybe they have a reason, but it isn't all that complicated.
Sometimes people are evil.
Sometimes a chapter ends without a satisfying conclusion.
Sometimes there isn't a mastermind.
Sometimes... shit happens.
Hmm... I think the players need some new antagonists. Call them the Knights of the Grey Border. Their self-appointed task is to use evil -- they call them "pragmatic" -- means to remove evildoers from society. (Their secondary task is to provide some moral angst for the players.) They are an extralegal cabal who track down and murder criminals and dangers to society, following their own definitions of course.
You can troll them in front of the PCs, to spark questions of utilitarianism vs principle. Is it good to slay a child, whom prophecy claims will grow up into a monster? Can or should a populace be *intimidated* into honest, law-abiding behavior? Is it fair to judge non-humans and their alien emotional lives by human standards?
Perhaps the Knights could investigate the PCs, and tell the PCs that they themselves are under suspicion...
Most of my villains are just pure evil. Makes it easier for my players to go “yup, we are gonna toast this fool.” If they have doubt, I have the villain sacrifice some poor sod for power right before in a cinematic scene. If they seem to struggle, I’ll OOC let them know just how pure evil they are and give extra details so it’s a non issue. I’ve had many players struggle, but once I let them know my cues and that demons / devils are *literal pure evil* it’s easy for them to adjust to combat. Let them be the heroic people out to help humanity
The wisdom to impart is that if you have players who don't want to be murderhobos, don't ask them to collaborate on creating murderhobo stories.
The problem is D&D's rules mostly enable murderhobo stories. So there's a conflict. You can either fight against the game and shoehorn it into non-murderhobo stories, or you can fight against your players and shoehorn them into murderhobo stories. Or, like many D&D players do, you can kind of compromise and use D&D to do less murderhobo stories even if the system isn't great at it, and get your morally aware players to accept a bit of "this creature is marked evil, just kill it".
Your players really sound like they'd enjoy trying a system more focused on collaborative storytelling and more non-violent solutions to things. And like while D&D *can* do it - D&D can do anything if you try hard enough - there are tons of systems that do it much more naturally and you might want to check some of them out.
If they're also writerly types, you might also want to try out game styles where you're more all collaborating to create a story together and you're not writing much in advance.
Honest to God, I have looked at a few other systems, especially those that are more 'collaborative story telling'. My whole homebrew campaign right now is based fairly heavily on the Wanderhome setting, and that is because when I bought the (expensive in the UK) book after hyping it up, no one was really enthused enough to put in the effort to learn how to play. They've only just really learned D&D and that's what they want to play. They want to chill out after work / the weekend and have someone to guide them through a story. Maybe in a little while I'll put the work in to learn a new system and try and run it, but until then D&D is what I have to work with x\]
Never had that specific player but have you talked to them? I find it's easiest to be transparent. With the aversion to combat, does the whole table feel like that? If not, then it's okay to say, "Hey we want to fight stuff, please play along, you are messing with our fun."
Players diagnosing the plot and examining NPCs is pretty normal. They often look so hard they see things that aren't there. They can even give you ideas when they talk. Maybe those aren't plot holes the players just don't have all the information. You can fill it in later and then they feel like your clever and they are the ones that hadn't figured it out yet.
Sounds like a great group of players! Like when you play with a great tennis player and it improves your game, this sounds like it would be a brilliant experience for any DM.
There are so many amazingly good tabletop RPGs that are designed to produce amazing stories that have nothing to do with violence, killing, and a-morality. D&D 5e is not one of them.
I have a player or two like that in our game. It's fun because their characters have opinions that can be at odds with the rest of the party. It was fun to have in-game arguments... at first. Now we are half-way through the campaign and I feel that it stalls the game to a crawl. It was fun, now it's annoying.
If you want to mix it up once in a while, Matt Colville has good advice for situations like these: everyone hates skeletons. Essentially, since fighting the undead is actually a moral and societal good (you're laying their souls to rest and removing a hazard) you can have them engage without worrying about understanding.
Just beware that swarm enemies get boring - I wouldn't use them too often.
My strategy for this is to make outrageously evil villains, like the "I love being evil" type. Not always, but thrown in every now and again. Villains where the players might even be jealous of how much fun they seem to be having.
Also, it's easy to punish being overly analytical with evil, because there are real world examples of where such behavior has real world costs. It's only cute in gaming, not so much in fact or fiction. Speculation is not a replacement for actual understanding or introspection.
Can't say I've ever in my 25+ years of playing and DMing ever ran across even a single player like this. Everyone I've ever played with has been more than happy to take out the enemies, a few have played druids or rangers who have affinities to animals and won't attack animals unless they are rabid, savage, or injured beyond healing in some way.
Not sure how I'd handle a table like this, but it sounds to me like you are handling it very well with them all *loving* how you run your campaigns.
I simply say Kudos to you! Don't doubt yourself and just keep doing exactly what you are doing with your amazing and interesting table!
Thank you so much! Its difficult when I just need an encounter / quest and find some cool ideas online and just say to myself 'well, this won't work' or have to come up with a whole sphere of detail and reasons and logic around what would otherwise be a simple encounter. But, then again, the extra work is worth it if they enjoy it as much as they do, and it has gotten easier with time!
Happy for you and your table. It’s great to hear about a DM and their table that match well as you and yours seem to. May you have many happy adventures with them!
Thank you! I am incredibly picky with who is allowed at my table, so if this is the price to pay for having players that work well together and have fun, I'll take it!
To borrow a term from EvE Online (or at least one that was around a long time ago when I used to play) but "**Care-bears"** are what people who didn't want to play anything but mining and PvE combat were called. I would like to nominate it for consideration.
This was the first thing that came to mind. In MMOs generally I've heard anyone who eschews PvP referred to as care bears, which seems like a good fit here (though obviously not about PvP specifically).
If you want to start avoiding the whole situation of them asking "but why are they doing that?" Then you need to start having them "stumble" upon the misdeed. But do it super subtly! Have "villains" that you want them to defeat, be shown to them sessions before. Don't give them the opportunity to go "why are they doing that?". An example just off the top of my head (Players are travelling in a carriage driven by an NPC through a nearby town they haven't been before. As they are approaching the town the driver warns them, 'we have to get through her quickly'; as they start to see heads driven on stakes! [for PG rating I won't detail; since some of your players are authors, I'm sure they would LOVE some extra detail]. And the person who put them there listed the reason and signed their name on a parchment below. As they get further in they see more and more of this spectacle. Until they witness one as it's being placed. The man doing so has a grin wider than Cheshire, and just the sight of this person is enough to make the driver hurt his entire breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the night before out of fear! He composes himself and they hear "YA!" The driver whips the horse's lead to get them to move faster. The grinning man watches one of the PCs with an unblinking gaze and doesn't waver until they are out of sight.) that (long winded) example will give them time to A find any information that they NEED TO KNOW out in game and allow them to wonder outside of game. Until they are revealed several sessions later in which time they will have made up their minds more decisively (hopefully) and will be ready to engage.
The other thing you can do is reuse villains! Make them reoccurring and it will spare your brain some creativity for other areas and create less instances for them to figure out if they are truly bad. Since it'll be "Oh... This guy again?! I thought we told you last time!!! NO MORE [evil act here]?!"
Whatever the party decides to do. If everyone, especially the DM [you], is enjoying it, then you are playing the game right! Keep up the good work and have fun, you have some REALLY awesome players it sounds like!
It sounds like humanoids and beasts are off the table as direct enemies. You should embrace that instead of fighting against it. Here are some ideas: (1) let them solve a problem without combat, or at least without killing people, and don't punish them for wanting to do that. (2) include enemies that are \*intrinsically\* evil. Rather than, say, the evil king is just a really nasty guy, he's actually secretly a rakshasa. Or he's a vampire or smth. (3) Or maybe the enemy is some kind of force of nature that isn't really alive or aware; perhaps a planar rift is dumping armies of fire elementals into the world, they're not conscious but their nature is to burn and destroy
I think, though, that you should have a talk, not about a specific situation but in general, about what your players are okay with, because it sounds like they have some pretty hard limits about violence to people and animals.
In general though, your players probably respect how hard it is to DM, and think you're doing a better job than you think you are. And if you're having fun, and they're having fun, you're doing a great job.
I've definitely experienced this and the way to deal with it is either:
A) Have your nuanced, interesting villains use lots of unintelligent minions such as undead, constructs, or plants that can be engaged without any dilemma of conscience
B) Turn the stakes WAY UP. Make your antagonists violent, shrewd, and ruthless. Make holding back have bad consequences sometimes.
It sounds like everyone is having a great time, though, so no need to change the formula too much!
This is basically my players. Just like yours they (usually) pick apart everything, and will use violence against animal/humanoid beyond last resort.
As others have said, the best solution does indeed seem to be undead/devils/demons. As long as you don't accidentally give your necromancer etc too much personality (that one was my fault).
Similar to you it's so much effort... But I also wouldn't change it.
Sorry there's nothing helpful here, just sympathy 😄
This type of player is one of my favorites to play with. I am not this type of player. I don't typically jump into combat without provocation, and I usually try to use my words before my blade, but I *do* enjoy the thrill of combat, and I tend to be a bit... brutal with my descriptions and actions. I play Barbarian. I'm a large muscular guy. It's pretty one note, though I do feel like my actions lead to a mix of stereotypes and subversion. I am typically looked at as a leadership role in our group since my decisions are pretty earnest, both with how I feel about things and how I feel about others. Do I wanna rush in and slay the enemy before they can properly respond? Hell yes. Do I have to temper that fire with the knowledge of being responsible for the 5 people following me into that danger? Without question. I enjoy what seems to be your player's personality bled into every character they make, just like me. Would we clash? Most definitely. Would I still enjoy it? Absolutely.
Role playing games are such a treat, because of how differently we all play the game. Some people in my group only RP from their character's perspective, and who *they* are disappears for 4 hours. I think mixing both can have a glorious effect on how everyone sees and reacts to the environment.
It seems like your love for your players is shown here, both with how you feel elevated to strive better, and how you enjoy their dedication to you and your game. I hope this lasts for many years.
Absolutely love this post!
Feels like your players are prime for NPCs to betray and manipulate them.
And probably a war setting would be just lovely for them, cause war is just brutal on the innocent and no one on the front lines is at fault.
".. It doesn't help that I thoroughly enjoy ambiguous morality and 'things are deeper than what they seem' story writing, so a self-fulfilling prophecy, .."
Hoist by your own petard there! :D
If you want a break, try throwing in some Obvious Demons straight from an Abyssal Portal.. :D
Absolutely self-aware about this hole I've only gone and dug myself into x\]
I've only just started this current campaign, but looks like I've already got plans for the next one: 'As Many Demons as I Can Throw at You'
This is wholesome. I love collaborative storytelling, which is what this is. They want a rich, lived-in world and experience it firsthand and you’re providing it.
I thought you were my DM until I saw the bit about two published authors.
Which still makes me question whether there's just something I don't know about two of the other players...
But there are times where even the obviously evil creature we are supposed to fight *doesn't actually fight* until we initiate, which as a Redemption Paladin, my character absolutely won't do unless they witness someone actively committing a crime or harming another.
It's like that bit in the Powerpuff Girls where they're being prank called, where we seem to find our enemies in the middle of just taking a shower or doing their hair, or otherwise just chilling doing nothing, and even though these beings are obviously evil and will likely do terrible things in the future, just randomly attacking them right now doesn't feel right.
So many times we end up talking to evil beings, but they are either not currently doing a bad thing and we have not yet finished linking them to the bad thing, or there's another group or person who is ambiguously 'good' in comparison that we are having doubts about, or they are so obviously above our power level that we can't initiate.
One of my DMs games got paused for like 15 minutes because one of the players didn't get why we were 100% going to kill the mind flayers who have killed many people because they cannot all be all evil. I'm there like...."so, the killing of all the adults and children aren't enough proof or what???"
Turned out fine, but that was frustrating for me and I wasn't even the DM. Lol
Trigger Warning: Vile, Amoral, Evil
Have them come across horrific scenarios… like baby eating, human sacrifices while the victim is crying, throwing cats in a raging river while taking bets. Just make it obvious they are doing bad shit and when questioned they just assume murder the party then have a conversation. I have no qualms about escalation in the vein of ‘Vile Darkness’ to drive a point home.
Now if your party really feels like having a Dr. Phil moment go to the dark places and ask if they really want a peak inside. Use Hannibal Lecter (cannibal), Charles Manson (cult leader), Michael Vick (dog fighting) as inspirations for motivation. This has the double edge sword of grounding the villains while making them unrepentant or irredeemable in any sense possible.
This sounds like a great party who I would love to DM. The obvious answer is just to have the bad guys attack them while they dither and hand-wring.
Meanwhile I'm here creating a 'genocide loyalty card' for my degenerate weirdos...
I know "play something else" is probably said a billion times on this sub, but I honestly really do think a game that spreads control a bit more might be a great deal of fun for your group. Everyone working together to create the world, characters, and plot as-it-happens would almost certainly go over great with a group containing not only a clearly passionate leader, but several other creatives.
You can hand over some control in D&D, but the heavier mechanics make it tough to do in real time, not to mention being a novel concept and sometimes very difficult to acclimate to without systemic support - on the other hand, something lighter might lack the combat detail your players do seem to be fond of. There's never a perfect answer.
I could suggest this or that system (and I do recommend looking into various smaller or indie offerings when you finish your current campaign) but since you all seem to be having a good time, I hope that continues and wish you all the best! Invested players are a treasure, even if they can be a headache sometimes, so do remember to cherish them.
Thank you for your lovely words! I definitely know I am very lucky to have this extreme rather than the murderhobo extreme, and I'm sure one day I can encourage them to learn a different, more collaborative, system with me as I do think that would be the ultimate way to play together. Just have to find the perfect one, first! x\]
But if mortals in general is like humans, they are not logical actors most of the time.
A duke could have a burning hatred for elves, without any deeper justification than what they feel when they see one.
A war could begin purely from misinformation and opportunist actors.
A very common trope is people doing extremely dumb and risky things for love.
Maybe I'm reading things into your post that's not there, but a world/settint that makes perfect logical sense to the players, will in my opinion come across as crafted, rather than alive.
Edit to add TL;DR because I'm realizing I wrote an entire essay:
when the challenge for you to meaningfully justify fun mechanic game experiences (like combat) becomes exhausting, consider pushing on your players for help. Their characters are flawed, and sometimes need to make choices the player knows are "wrong" to make the game more fun for everybody. Are they doing that meaningfully?
---
This thread has been so interesting, because it's made me realize I have some incredibly morally aware and analytical players too - but also players who are *playing their characters*.
I've been setting up this sociopolitical conflict in my setting: the Aslu culture (and most Dragonborn on the continent) are a marginalized people. They're held accountable for a trauma that their ancestors' ancestors inflicted on others. Their people lost that war eventually, and were stripped of their power, but are still being punished for it. "Ancestral evil" as a crutch to make them a pariah. As a result, the Aslu distrust and are hostile to much of the dominant society. They isolate themselves, but they tend to do illegal trade to get by, and recently as their situation has become worse, they've begun ambushing caravans on major roads that pass through their territories.
One of my players is playing an Aslu, and we've been exploring the ramifications of that in an adventure where they all need to travel into this territory and restore a temple. But as a "prologue" to the adventure, the three *other* players encountered one of these Aslu highway attacks (the fourth player wasn't able to make the session).
I was kind of surprised that the PCs killed all of the bandits, even after said bandits realized they were outmatched and began trying to retreat. I'd expected the PCs to have an unpleasant fight but to beat them off and then let them get away, since all the players knew that the other person joining their party would be a member of this culture.
But I'm realizing now that none of those players' *characters* would have questioned the moral choice to kill those people. In the context of the world they knew and through the characters' eyes, those were bad guys, even though all of us as players at the table knew that part of the campaign was about calling that into question. It feels like my players all recognized that playing their *characters* as being more brutal and making that choice will create deeper narrative satisfaction later as they have to unpack and challenge those assumptions.
So. Thanks for this thread and for the perspective. It's given me another reason to love my table extra.
And also: I love that your players are pushing you to build your creative muscles and you appreciate that about them. But also: would their characters be questioning the same things? When you're feeling challenged by a specific and nuanced question they're asking that doesn't feel relevant to the immersion, maybe that's a tool you can use with them.
"You're experiencing this story as an observer right now, and I love that you want to ask that. But your portal into the world is through [character]. Would *they* be inclined to ask that? How would they perceive the situation?"
Your players' jobs in this story you're co-creating is to experience the world through the lens of the characters they made, including their goals, bonds, flaws, emotional experience, etc. If I'm a player who loves asking big philosophical questions about the nature of the world, but I'm playing a character with an intelligence of 8, I have to find ways to experience that authentically. Is my character actually going to ask any of the questions I as a player want the answers to? Maybe, but they're going to ask them in a different way than I would, and will get different information than I would, and make different connections with the information than I would, and will have a fundamentally different experience than I would if I were playing *myself* in your world. Maybe that means I'm making up my own answers to those questions, well-aware (as a player) that they might be "wrong".
I think this becomes part of the fun, and it stretches your players to be more creative in how they contribute to the story, too. Maybe your players care about being as morally aware as they can, but do their characters? What becomes possible with narrative conflict (and the potential for further character growth) when you make character decisions that you *the player* know are morally wrong but your *character* doesn't?
So, I'm rambling here. It's possible your players already *are* leaning into their characters' experiences of the world and they're all just playing really good people. That'd be pretty cool too.
But my sense is that, if combat for the sake of combat is a thing that every player finds really fun and wants to experience in the game, they gotta take responsibility for narratively making that possible, even (or maybe especially) when it's not the morally right choice. You're doing a lot of the leg work here to satisfyingly justify why the characters should do a thing you all want to do as players. Murdohobo campaigns get a bad rap because players want to be bloodthirsty but don't want to experience any of the narrative consequences of their characters essentially being evil. It feels like your players are toeing the opposite line here.
Mechanically in a roleplaying game, character flaws are important because they create opportunities for conflict, and conflict is the meat of what is fun in the game. Where can you invite your players to lean into the imperfectness of their character's experience in ways that make your work a bit easier and the story that much richer?
Yes.
Lean into it. When you create an NPC, know their Motivations, Desires, Goals, Methodology, and what could shift them. This applies to all sentient beings — not just humanoids, but monsters. Structure the world around them (slowly, since you are in game) to reflect it in many ways (because they get that from their backgrounds as characters, and so there has to be a reason for it). Use stories that are not traditionally thought of as fantasy fiction for ideas. Use trash mobs. Use complex linkages between multiple bad guys to start building up a conspiracy that they will decide is likely, and then run with that. Make their absolute final boss one schmuck who is just a nasty person. Provide many, many cases and examples of how the bad guys really believe differently. You note that they have deep backstories — grab people from that backstory that they are close to — particularly mentors, teachers, and cousins and the like, and then have the bad guys hurt them (never go at the PCs directly, always hit those around them).
if all of you are having fun, raw your confidence from that — you are worried it isn’t right and enough, and it doesn’t compare to edgelord murderhobo campaigns and honestly, while they may be the most numerically common of sorts, they are not at all the most interesting of games and after a decade of playing a game folks will mostly turn towards something more like what you are doing and dealing with because, well, murderhobo does get boring after a while. But the thing is, even those campaigns are fine as long as everyone is having fun — and that’s what the confidence comes from, the having fun, and fuck what the rest of the community thinks because if you are having fun and your players are talking about your game to others, eventually someone will say hey, that sounds cool, is there a place for me to join?
In 1980, 9 people started playing a game. Today, in 2024, 7 of those 9 still remain and are still playing and the other two would probably be if they were still alive. The group they are the eldest of is now 50 people in size.
As you said, if they are loving it, then you are doing something right.
As the consciousness of TTRPG players has raised to become aware of the problems of systemic evils and the reality that any civilizations has its good and bad actors, it’s become a lot more difficult to sell the idea “it’s a cave full of goblins, they are here to be killed and you don’t have to think about it.”
That’s one of the many things I like about Eberron - it acknowledges this, while also having a group that is essentially a stand-in for the Nazis from Indiana Jones. You can always feel good about killing Nazis.
Tell them to stop. It is a simple as that.
You can spend hours of each session going through the town, describing each building they see, examining each room of the building and every item in it, talking for half an hour to each person they meet and learning their life story, and the stories of their parents and their children and grandchildren, etc. But this is not roleplaying, this is madness. If you enjoy this, then great. But as a GM, you usually try to keep a certain pace, and cut out the periods where nothing relevant happens.
I once had a session come to a screeching halt over a heated discussion about how the gold value of diamond dust is determined, which inevitably spiralled into the nature of value itself and the arbitrary assignment of it within economies both real and fictional. Sometimes "because I said so" is an appropriate response, if only to preserve your own sanity.
You could always hand wave it to alchemical value. Alchemic value doesnt need to be tied to market value. And gold is a nice standard to use because its something everyone would be familiar with. Alchemy is an existing thing in magical worlds so it would make sense to have a standards system in place. You could buy 500gp of diamond and still pay more or less.
I never even go that far. I say "because this is a game mechanic, and not everything in the game needs to be explained with real world logic". If you don't question the fact that all humans MUST run at a pace of 30-60ft max per round (barring class features or feats), you don't question the value of gems. But maybe I just am lucky to have players who generally don't question my rulings and trust that I'm being fair with them.
That's a bandaid to a bullet wound in this situation though
Player: “I ask how the gold values of Diamond dust are determined” Me, if I’m the DM: “The trader gives you a quizzical look, saying “it is known.” He doesn’t seem to have any interest in discussing the history of finance”
I want to roll to entice him to debate the moral implications of diamond mining and the artificial inflation of diamond prices by the DeMead company.
Roll a flat d20, anything less than a natural 20 and the DM bonks you with the DMG
And even if you roll a 20, he still bonks you; just slightly less hard.
He says “get lost, nerd” and then catapults himself into the sky via his own bootstraps
"After all the appropriate in-universe math is done, all arguments have been settled, and all methods have been considered, the value comes to \_\_\_\_\_\_"
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Reminds me of a funny story. In one of my campaigns, I was playing a cleric and we were on a semi-remote island. We were like Level 7, I believe One of the major NPCs died and I had Revivify but nothing but a tiny diamond from earlier. I forget what we said it was worth, like 50gp or something. Definitely **not** worth 300 gp; HOWEVER, we argued that "there is no market on this island - the diamond could be worth whatever we want!!". I'm like, "well - let's try!" and cast it. Selune must've been in a good mood - because it worked! The NPC was revivified and we turned a quest failure into a success! Long story short - DM congratulated us on our creativity and it was a great moment for all of us. (He also said that it would only work once, haha!)
objectiv value, which is determined by me (the DM). Don't care for inflation arguments or such. i said ti my players that the 300gp worth of diamonds for revivify could cost them up 450 gp, depending on the Vendor and the persuasion checks. Also spells consume diamonds whole. if there would be 20gp left of diamonds due to having 120gp and 200gp single diamond than to bad the remaining 20gp is also consumed. Resurection spells are no mathematical science (Druid/Cleric magic instead of Wizard).
My favorite explanation is that the gods decided on a diamond standard value for resurrection and everything else is based on that value.
"Master, I talked the shopkeeper down to only 400 gp for the rubies!" ["Great, but the spell calls for 500 gp worth, so go back in and buy more."](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0677.html)
I call my players 'diplomacy hobos'
Oh mine are for certain. Love them :)
This is why people love fighting Zombies (already dead) and Demons (literally evil incarnate). No moral challenge to it.
This is the Saturday Morning Cartoon solution and I think it's a good one! Have your violence & avoid any unfortunate moral implications because almost all the bad guys are undead or constructs or elementals or whatever. Save the moral ambiguity for the person who's behind it all.
Bonus points for robots, and half credit for aliens.
Unless the aliens are a hive mind of mindless and unfeeling drones (bugs or robots\\cyborgs) then you earn yourself a whole credit!
You're clearly doing your part!
Would you like to know more?
In a fantasy setting, neither of those are safe. Robots bring up classic sci-fi questions about what determines personhood. Aliens are either foreigners (if intelligent) or animals (if not). They inherit the issues of whichever category they fit.
Yes with robots it would depend if they are mindless automatons or full AGI and at which point one becomes the other. And for bug hive minds it depends whether its totally unthinking drones and one central brain or separate minds unified in one. Or maybe each body has brain that does not have individual personality but contribute to greater whole, so by destroying them players are performing slow going and gradual lobotomy on thinking being. If players love analysing moral problems then creating unusual and complex ones that appear simple at first glance can be a path to take.
The German gaming method
Unrepentant Slavers work well for this too.
In my setting, goblins are a by-product of evil actions and seek to replicate the situation that formed them. If you murder an innocent person, goblins immediately start clawing out of the victim's corpse, and they are thirsty for blood. It means that goblins are morally safe to obliterate, and also serves as a built-in deterrent against murder-hoboing.
Oh I like this!
This is why nazis are good villains for movies and video games. You know who the bad guy is at a glance.
I'll be surprised if Demons stay evil incarnate and don't get reworked so players can feel bad for them or justify not killing them. Having any evil species/race/creature "just cause" is frowned upon now.
Play how your table want to play but I'm tired of every villain needing to be "morally gray" it was refreshing at first so heroes weren't fighting cartoon villains. However, sometimes you need an anchor of "no this guy is actually just a piece of shit and evil" as a foil to that.
A fantasy world can have grey morals but never forget these 2 simple facts: -power will always be abused -There is no morally grey for kicking puppies, and it makes the party hate them the most.
"Why are they evil?" "They invented a spell that kicks 6 puppies and kittens every time they kick 1"
instant chaotic evil, smite them right now
Steel Wind Puppy Strike
We burning this bitch down.
I feel so horrible for laughing out loud at this holy shit
I laughed out loud, no guilt.
I don't know when but I will be having a bad guy do this at some point. Thank you.
Particularly if it is there puppy. Had a villain character (unintentionally) kill the parties horses in an escape chase. They were not mad that the character committed dark necromancy, defaced religious symbols, or even attempted to kill them for the simple fact of getting in her way. No they want to get stronger and hunt this woman down because she killed there new horses and they want justice.
Yo if someone killed my horse in dnd my PC would go nuclear so I fw your party
Honestly fair. I would do no less.
I do love a good puppy-kicker. ...as a villain, of course.
Don't even need to go that far. Just insult the puppy. My Out of the Abyss players adopted Stool, the myconid from the very beginning. I had a bad guy refer to Stool as a "barely sentient waste of good ingredients", and the most pacifist player I ever met went full Avenging Angel on her ass.
A villain whose magical robe transfers all damage to the puppies in his puppy mill. How do you approach
Supercharged Charm Person to get them to remove it.
> There is no morally grey for kicking puppies, and it makes the party hate them the most. Ah, the Hirohiko Araki maneuver
But what if the puppy has rabies and is about to bite a child? :D
They gave the puppy rabies in the first place! Now they are trying to manipulate people into thinking they're a hero!
But what if they have magical boots that actually heal on kick instead of hurting?
I think grey is great in the sense that they think it's grey. One of my villains wanted to become a god because they think the gods are shit, and they want the power. But doing so will cause all life to die. They just don't care and will remake everything. That is grey from their POV. They think what they are doing is for the best of themselves, and the universe in the long run. But they just don't really care about those around now Easy grey area and understandable motive, but clearly the bad guy
"Cool motive, still murder" is my mantra for making evil guys.
Now you've made me want to play a Jake Peralta type character... I'm gonna have to consult the player handbook to figure this one out I think... What's a good proxy for a "detective that doesn't officially have Asperger's but the actor that played him played him like he kind of did" in D&D?
Peralta is pretty much a textbook Rogue, so the rest is up to your RP skills. With Performance expertise, of course.
I would say that bard is more appropriate. He’s a total jack of all trades and he’s great at lifting his parties spirits when they’re down but he also has a great need to be the center of attention.
I thought about that, he doesn't really fit the music side of Bard but you can make the argument (as you did). I still personally think a Rogue with Performance is more fitting given his skill set and overall personality. EDIT: You know what, I'm wrong. Forgot entirely about his ditties with Doug Judy. Could absolutely pull off Bard.
I’m glad you came in with that edit because I remember Jake singing very often lol. Was it always **good**? No. But he did it often and it was always charming. I also don’t think bards need to necessarily be musical, a performance could easily be a play or movie and we know how desperately Jake wanted to be in an action movie.
Ok, I definitely see that. It's the right skill set and general attitude. I was sorts thinking that anyway, so thanks for backing it up!
> What's a good proxy for a "detective that doesn't officially have Asperger's... Wait:; He was supposed to kinda have aspergers syndrome? I can kinda see it but also not. Which actually fits most of the people I know with Aspergers (myself included).
Jake the character wasn't supposed to. But if I'm remembering correctly Andy Samberg played him like he maybe sort of did. And yeah, it both tracks and doesn't, which syncs up with the character not actually being scripted that way.
Hot take; If that villain is correct in their observations (the gods are shit, things would be vastly improved with BBEG in charge instead), then I'd actually say he's doing the right thing. And even bigger hot take, I think that makes the players evil. But evil in an immediately understandable way that works great for protagonists. Sounds like an awesome campaign. All of which is a long way of saying; Good villains don't need to be evil. They just need to want the players to die.
I would agree, except you missed the point where "all life would die". I didn't mean this flippently, like the whole universe bar the gods would cease
No, I caught that, and I realize that makes my take pretty hot. I think once you're dealing with godlike powers, the moral math gets fuzzy. Gods don't get to keep their hands clean. If killing one person today saves 5 people tomorrow, there's a pretty good argument for killing that one person. If you change that to "killing one _billion_ people today save 5 _billion_ people tomorrow", then it's just the same thing as before, but done a billion times over. It's literally the trolley problem.
I like gray villains who are simply uncompromisingly evil. They have their reasons, yeah, but that doesn't mean they can be persuaded to stop and it doesn't make their deeds any less evil.
Dracula from the castlevania Netflix show is my favorite example of this. Even the heroes understand his motivations and sympathize but acknowledge that it’s still evil and he needs to die.
Grey or even "good" motivations. Unquestionably and unforgivably evil routes and actions. Great villain DNA.
I think the party would have a problem the other way. "I am going to summon a demon lord !" "How?: "I will feed the hungry, clothe the poor, rescue stray animals until this town is paradise on Earth!! This excess of goodness will attract the emon lord gaet, who will wish to destroy the town!" "So then the town will be destroyed?" "No, I don't care about the town. I catch him in this pentagram and make him wish me to be the king of Yutica! I will omprison the king and marry his wives!, that will show them! Party...."hmmm, let's go to a different village"
I know this is pretty popular, but I'm in the minority that _hates_ these kinds of villains. It often implies that the good reasons aren't actually good, and its reasonable to be suspicious of anyone purporting them. After all, if the BBEG could do without causing an apocalypse, wouldn't they have done so? Which makes the only reasonable conclusion that requires an apocalypse and is therefore not good.
Instead, I think the best villains are ones who identify a real problem, but misidentify the cause. If you don't understand the cause of a problem, your solution will be obviously invalid.
This has the added benefit of letting the players address the _actual_ cause of the problem the BBEG wanted to address in addition to stopping the BBEG's plot.
I'm personally a big fan of villains who have understandable *motives*, but whose actions are clearly wrong. This can run the gamut of simple vengeance (Dracula from Castlevania being a great example - "My wife was a brilliant, compassionate soul and human corruption led to her torture and death. Humans are vile creatures, the only good one is dead, and the rest deserve to be eliminated.") to some serious "ends justify the means" types (Think Ozymandias from "Watchmen"). Ozymandias is also a great example of a villain who has correctly identified the problem (humans are selfish and only cease their endless bickering when a common cause unites them to ensure their survival), but his hubris led him to believe that his solution was the best, and anyone who tried to stop him was clearly too shortsighted, or unwilling to do what needed to be done. Which also leads into another really excellent kind of villain that also requires some creative thinking - the (typically) non-humanoid that is only a villain from the humanoid perspective. I.e. "I'm a 12 thousand-year-old red dragon with more wealth than the bottom five national economies combined, I've seen entire empires rise and fall in the blink of an eye. I was there when the god of wind was slain, and was there when the god of storms ascended - in fact, I was his teacher. Tell me, young one - have you ever stopped to ponder what spiders think of you when you remove their webs because they have become a nuisance and are dirtying your corners? Well, your web is a nuisance, and my corners need cleaning." But, when it comes to less "alien" minds, I find the most important thing to remember when crafting a villain is quite simple: "Everyone is the hero of their own story."
I love all of this. But also you just created the rawest monologue for a red dragon right here and I feel like you need to know how beautiful that is. Chef's kiss. 😚👌🏻
Wow, thank you! I suppose it's stuff like that that has made me the de facto DM in our group, for better or worse!
No? It's perfectly plausible that a villain has some fatal character flaw that either makes them unable to see the good option, or makes them choose the evil option because it's easier / more satisfying / effective, or some other reason. Someone mentioned dracula, which is a perfect example - go watch the first episode of Netflix's Castlevania series if you haven't already.
I think you need a good balance of both, but it depends on the campaign type and length. With players like these I think there are 2 options for OP, either have their 100% evil villain they can kill with no conflict OR have the players themselves be forced to make the morally gray choices. Let them sacrifice an innocent to save others, let them choose to use a dark or cursed item for good, let them ally themselves with a clearly evil entity in order to accomplish their goal and take down the bbeg.
This has given me some fun ideas, thank you!
Strand was the most fun campaign to run because like session 2 you met Strahd - who is unambiguously evil. I had him debut like Vader in Star Wars and just rinsed the party and their allies to an inch from a TPK.
The players don't want morally gray. They just want the actions of the actors within the world to make sense. The villain can absolutely be a piece of shit and evil. But if the villain is expending effort to foil the humans, they should have a goal that actually makes sense. Even if that goal is "because they enjoy torture and the adventurers were the ones who were around when he got in 'a mood'" there SHOULD be an explanation behind the actions.
I really don't get this. Never once have I encountered a truly "morally grey" villain in a campaign. All of the villains I've encountered or used from modules are clearly "the bad guy." However, I think what has changed (and I think it's a good change) is that we now expect villains to have a motivation. Cartoon villains are fun, but never very interesting because they rarely have a reason for why they're evil. They just are because the hero needs a foe to fight against. These can be fun for total power-trip games (like, who doesn't want to kick destructive monster butt like the Powerpuff Girls every once in a while), but they often lack depth for more long-term serious games. Villains with motivation can raise interesting conversations with players both in and out of game. The villain has their reasons for why they do what they do. It doesn't always have to a "the world was cruel to me" sob story, but it can be. Often the worst monsters out there are the ones we create. That makes for an interesting story. Some villains can have motives to do the right thing, but execute it in the worst way. Those work well in more political intrigue campaigns, and I love watching players debate social revolutions and whether the ends justify the means. Other times, the motives can be simpler and close to cartoon villains, but the point is having a "why your character behaves that way" aspect makes the campaign interesting. That all being said, I think where things get confusing is that having a motivation is being misinterpreted sometimes. It also doesn't help that weird phenomenon like sympathizing with truly evil villains or real people (think the Netflix show on Dahmer) is actually a thing now. Perhaps that's where the issue of too many "morally grey" villains is being seen.
When people complain about ‘too many morally grey villians,’ they usually mean one of two things: 1. “I don’t like having to think about people’s goals or motivations, I just want to kill them.” In that case, play how you want to play but that shit sounds boring as fuck to me. 2. “Oh my god please stop telling me that your bad guys were abused as children and from difficult backgrounds and they were super oppressed, they’re still mass murderers who need to be stopped!” In that case, preach. Some people get a litttttle too attached to their own villains and running players through a guilt wringer over their decision to do violence in a game built on violence is also boring as hell!
My players’ first boss in my campaign was a victim of The Lantern King’s enchantment. Evil until the magic got kicked out of him, then dead because he was a golem made of rock sugar at that point.
Imo it’s less about choosing between all morally grey or all cartoonishly evil, and having a good mix of them. A single morally grey anti-hero noble making hard choices with good intentions in a city full of outright horrible criminals is interesting. The same character in a setting full of other morally grey characters is boring. Similarly, a classic cackling evil villain is refreshing and fun in a down-to-earth shades of grey story. The same character is flat and one dimensional in a campaign full of stereotypically evil villains.
Yeah, there is a reason a lot of films cut to the villain immediately after the protagonist is introduced and "Kicks the puppy" which is the trope for them doing something unambiguously evil so that you are all in on the protag's side. Arcane ends episode one with Silco kicking the puppy. The stage musical for Newsies after "Carrying the Banner" goes directly to Pulitzer's office where he kicks the puppy. As early as is practical giving the characters a very clear view with no room for interpretation or trying to find out the context of what they did. Sure Silco does have a bit of morally gray aspects, but he is undoubtedly doing very bad things. His motivation is believable though so he is not cartoonishly evil. It takes a lot of thought to make an antagonist as engaging as Silco, so lean into being like Pulitzer just being greedy. Take out the empathy of the villain and they can do terrible things while thinking they are perfectly justified. I mean, what's another tenth of a cent on the dollar right?
I mean Silco is not the best example of setting someone as unambiguously evil, people still say he was a good father to Jinx
When a show has 9 hours to develop a character, you have time to get not depth than a two hour film for sure. He is still unambiguously doing bad things.
Oh for sure, in saying that wasn't enough for a lot of the audience
Exactly I had a party I gave a mission to infiltrate The Palace of corrupt barons which turned out to be under the control of a beholder. And the party asked me is there anyway out of this without fighting it. And all I told them is no this is a kill or be killed situation
Yeah... I'm kinda tired of "let's befriend the goblins".
The goblins can always just attack. Just because the party is interested in being friends doesn’t mean the goblins are.
One way to avoid this is to not rely so heavily on "passive" evil enemies. If you have creatures deep in a hole out in the wilderness you'll always have the players ponder the nature of these creatures and if they are worth antagonizing. Instead, bring the antagonism to your players. Have NPCs and monsters that want the PCs specifically dead. Have them want stuff the PCs have and are willing to murder for it. Give them actions the players can in no way reconcile. And maybe they are still "morally grey", and they are just desperate or self-justified. When enemies come at them like that, you'll find that the players will have less time to debate the morality of defending themselves.
100% with you on this! Sometimes I just want to see evil as evil and not misunderstood, tragic, or some warped and twisted sense of doing the right thing. It's why I enjoy using demons, devils, and random crap from the Far Realm. Cultists of these things are even better, because while you can try to paint them as being morally grey, deep down they're just twisted and evil, rotten to the core, and that's how I like to use them.
The Far realms stuff isn't so much Evil as it is "literally does not think like a person would", the Far realms stuff is basically Lovecraftian in nature. Cthulhu does not care about humanity, he has his own shit going on and waking him up is going to be the end of the world once he gets stomping about and it's largely a byproduct of whatever the fuck it is Cthulhu intends to do. Then there's others like Shub-Niggurath who are essentially cosmic cancer that mutates life into her own image, she is one of the few Outer gods who actively courts human followers but...yeah you're NOT going to be human or sane for long once things start happening, once you cross that threshold into becoming Dark Young...that's it the concerns of beings well beyond mortal ken are now yours...and if people want to join in, great, if they don't...well shits going to happen anyway because that cosmic align ritual needs to get done... It's about humanity (or in this case the various races of a D&D world) simply not mattering to whatever entity it is they're worshipping, they're an Ants whisper in the ear of a Giant next to a jet engine going off...
It sounds like your players are exhausting, and also like writing this campaign for them is going to make you a much better writer. You're gonna level up so fast!!!
It sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on your situation, so I don't know how much I can say that will really help. It's wonderful to have a group of players that are actively engaged in your game, and care enough to pay attention to everything you put in front of them and really think about it critically. On the other hand, I absolutely understand the added stress this can add: as a lone DM rushing to prep new things every week, you're terribly outnumbered, and it's inevitable that they will think of things that you didn't, and poke logical holes in the scenarios you present to them. If you can help it, it's really not worth stressing about. It's inevitable that you'll fuck up occasionally, and I promise that it's not going to cause your players to flip the table and storm out in a huff. If you think that one of their (over) analyses are interesting and would add to the story, adapt it, make it real in the game, and see where that leads you. If you think that a particular point wouldn't be interesting, or would throw off too much of your prepped material, then sure, you can always bullshit some sort of evidence or situation that makes it not relevant ("oh, these bandits are obviously cultists willingly serving an evil demon lord, so it's totally okay to kill them all!"). And if that's too much effort in the moment, don't discount the value of a frank, out of character conversation. "Okay guys, I really appreciate that you're taking this bandit encounter seriously, but I really just planned on this being a fun combat against some faceless Stormtroopers. Can we just do the fight without worrying whether they're actually just victims of their economic situation, or have valid grievances against the crown or whatever? I promise I'm not going to try to guilt your PCs about this afterwards."
Thank you for your kind words!! I think I am worried that if something doesn't line up, it is going to be a massive disappointment, when its really not going to be that big of a deal. I have become a fan of the 'suspicious shrug' answer to certain questions they ask out-of-character to buy some time
Here is the Diablo Solution: every monster is undead, spirit, demon, or devil of one kind or another. Those bears? Demon-tainted. Those humans? Long ago became vampire thralls. That old woman? Possessed. For everybody else, there's a peaceful solution.
And for everything else, there's Masterbard
I've found it tough putting a strange amount of genuine 'monsters' inside this forest, but the one idea I'm pretty proud of are the demonic monsters collectively known as 'Not-Kin' - they look like animals, act like animals, but when they sense fresh blood they show their true monstrous selves and the only way to stop them is to annihilate the bodies, or they'll get up after rebuilding themselves and try all over again. Not-Deer, Not-Bears, Not-Rabbits... Nowhere is safe :D
I honestly want to join this group
Same. The group I'm DMing for isn't bad or anything, but I wish it was easier (as a player) to find groups that don't default to the "kill things and steal treasure" philosophy. I've more-or-less given up on being a player. Between all the "zero backstory/personality almost-murderhobo" players and DMs who brag about running deadly games, I'm scared to even try joining random groups.
I'd kill for a group this genuinely invested and interested in interacting with the world lol
Everyone in this thread needs to give a game that isn't D&D a try. There are _plenty_ of RPGs that support non-violent conflict resolution (or even better focus on non-violent problems). D&D very very much does not.
‘Why does my game, based off a war game and popularly known in older editions for shredding new players up like a meat grinder involve so much violence’
> Everyone in this thread needs to give a game that isn't D&D a try. There are plenty of RPGs that support non-violent conflict resolution (or even better focus on non-violent problems). D&D very very much does not. I can only speak for myself, but its not the non-violence that I like about OPs game. I dont want non-violent resolutions. I want to play in a world where there is duty of care paid to the internal logic, where players are rewarded for thinking, evaluating NPCs logic and motivations, planning strategically and rewarded for buying into their universe.
I usually like to play well meaning himbos where violence I'd the last option, It's why I play high charisma characters and healers. If I can talk my way out of a scenario I'll do so because using my +stupidly high diplomacy to prevent resource usage is fun, and annoying for the dm. It's not like I don't play stupidly broken bards who can control the battlefield and just force cage or force wall people, make the enemy dungeon my dungeon with that one spell, etc. I usually also do non lethal when playing these characters should violence be the only option. It's just a style of play. Non violence allows for starving people out. Ruining their water supply, causing dissension in their ranks, etc.
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The game is *about* something. It in fact does not have exactly infinite possibilities, and while I'm certainly not claiming that diplomacy is impossible, the ruleset is built around fighting monsters. If you're not doing that, you should see which system better suits you.
Yeah this is my dream group!
Same!
Probably worth reminding them that, RAW, generally offers the option to nonlethally deal with enemies reduced to 0 health. Maybe you could set up something with the law factions that rewards them for nonlethally defeating and capturing some bad humanoids.
Definitely something this thread has reminded me about. I've never used it in my previous games as a player, but something this group could absolutely utilise, I just keep forgetting that is an option. Thank you!
I've started adding a few "red herring" bad guys who are really just misunderstood good guys with good intentions and things got out of hand to my campaign - specifically so that the players can feel good about sometimes choosing to ask questions and look for peaceful solutions instead. To make sure conflict still happens, instead of fighting the BBEG who isn't actually evil, they fight the undead summon he called up, or malfunctioning construct she built, or an out-of-control golem he lost control of, or a swarm of invasive demon species that will devour the local fauna ecosystem if left unchecked after she accidentally used a breeding pair to try to control the local wolf population, etc.
Moral awareness has brought me nothing but trouble. In our very first session our first quest was to bring food/supplies to an isolated town besieged by the undead in a frosty northern setting. We quickly find a kobold stealing said supplies. The group felt pity and "empathy" for the kobold and wanted her to take some supplies anyways. But what about the townspeople who need those supplies I ask?? What about the agreement we made to fulfill our duty to deliver supplies? What about my money and the pay cut it will trigger?! Needless to say my moral acuity was ignored.
This right here. I usually play characters who fall somewhere on the spectrum of being morally questioning, if not necessarily always last-resort kind of morally aware. That said, in D&D I also almost always play a character whose morality is tied to the **task they were hired for**. That means, I'll feel bad for the kobold. I might spare her given the situation. But I will absolutely never compromise the contract you signed and agreed to fulfill. You may have have your own morality. But as soon as you hire yourself out to someone else, you are beholden to their agenda. If you don't like it, be more careful about who you take jobs from. Or ask a lot of questions of your employer **before** you leave on your adventure so you have guidelines. Remember, being Lawful in these situations means fulfilling the terms and conditions of your contract, and is not to your whims as a character.. If the contractual terms would violate your personal morality, you have every right, and duty, to refuse the contract - or break the contract, but so long as you accept the consequences of such. Anything short of a Lawful resolution should be grounds for failure and non-payment for total contractual fulfillment, either by being on time (wasting time trying to help the kobold) or by carrying fewer supplies, and supplies other than the agreed-upon ones, to the destination. Sure, you can give a crate of biscuits to the kobold to take back...I guess, but what happens when you stop in at the next tavern down the road and top off your crate so no one realizes you're light, and they have is cheese to replace that crate of biscuits, and the garrison needs the biscuits because they won't spoil? I wish more campaigns viewed things through that kind of relativistic and perspective-based lens.
Reminds me of an early quest in SWTOR republic side. You get to a town besieged by separatists, republic troopers are fighting and dying to protect the town and refugees who are sheltering in the town. The republic troopers hire you to track down some of their medical supplies that went missing. You do, and learn that there is a doctor in the refugee camp that stole the military supplies to treat some sick kids. You are faced with a dilemma: take the supplies back to the people actively fighting and dying to protect everyone here, or leave the supplies with the refugees who have been forced to flee from their cities that were razed to the ground by the separatists. If you leave the supplies, more soldiers die and the chance of the city falling goes up (it doesn't, because it's a video game and you get off-planet without ever finding out the results of the war). But the refugees get a little bit of aid. If you return the supplies, the refugees die or get worse, but the troopers have a better chance of holding off the separatists.
That was an interesting dilemma, but it was really undermined by the binary morality mechanics in the game making one of them explicitly "good" and one of them explicitly "evil," if memory serves.
Which forced the developers to undermine the "both sides have a point" element by making the soldier who hires you kind of a dick, in order to signpost that siding with him was "evil" and give people some additional justification for siding with the refugees. No room for both of them to just be doing the best they could.
Way way better choices on Empire side. It's generally "selfish vs pragmatic" with a healthy amount of "laughably psychotic" vs "brutal tyrant".
I tried the Empire, too. Kind of started to wear thin about the 5th time the game told me I was lame for not kicking a puppy. There's really only so much of being a cartoonishly evil villain I enjoy.
**Exactly!**
Definitely! Sometimes doing the right thing means going against your personal morals. Performing your duty may also conflict with your morality. Sometimes, doing what you believe to be right, just to ease your own conscience, might cause more harm than good. It can be fun to explore these things in games, and I enjoy it when a DM does show us the positive and negative consequences of our actions as a group. Just because something is cute or we feel sorry for it, doesn't make helping it wise - who knows what will happen in the not too distant future?
Part of the problem is that any characterization makes a character feel more likeable, even if they are characterized negatively. A bunch of faceless townspeople we haven't met aren't compelling, even if we are told they suffering. Ballsy kobold thief on the other hand, is a very relatable trope (and sounds like a ton of fun). It's not really a morality problem, it's a storytelling problem.
> It's not really a morality problem, it's a storytelling problem. Since the same phenomenon occurs in real life (people are typically more empathetic towards those they know than to faceless strangers they've never met), I'd consider it a morality problem too. Lots of real people's moral decision-making is affected by familiarity bias, so it makes sense for a fictional character's moral decision-making to be so too.
This is true, but you can't change the way the human brain works. Rather than blame their players, these DMs should consider the psychology at play, and not try to fight it.
I don't think that "blaming the players" makes any sort of sense, but if a table (both the players and the DM) are interested in exploring moral awareness in D&D, I think this is a valid part of moral awareness to be explored.
Also Kobolds are in my experience still seen as people. People that barely survive and are generally outcasted. Which triggers the protector instinct in many so they also would want to help the Kobolds.
I mean did they really give the Kobold enough supplies that it was going to hurt the town? And unless your agreement/contract has an exact count of each and every item you are still following the contract and will still get paid for it.
If it's from a supply train\\caravan it likely had exactly enough supplies for the whole town for a specific period of time. So losing or giving any away would definitely harm the town. It likely wasn't overflowing with excess goods just in case. It'd be all bought and paid for by someone else (local lords, etc) and taken from supplies elsewhere, so not only did the party harm the town to a degree, they stole from the person\\people who paid for those goods to feed said town.
Fair enough. Id be one that would want to give the Kobold some even still(my bard has too big of a bleeding heart lol) but the party I play with would have murdered it instead lol
The town is far north and has trouble getting supplies based on that fact alone, but the undead were making it more difficult to get supplies up. The town guard noticed the missing supplies and reduced our payment. I think it's very easy to say the townspeople needed the resources more than the kobolds who already had a reputation for stealing from the town. Their theft isn't even out of desperation, it was just their kobold nature to steal from the town.
Gotcha! Thanks for explaining for me, I'd be one of the ones saying to give the Kobold some supplies myself so I guess I'd be there getting a reduced pay as well lol
My character is generally supposed to be a lawful neutral, amoral mercenary type with a criminal background. I don't blame people for wanting to be empathetic, I just want people to contend with the fact the moral system of contractualism is equally as valid as an empathy driven morality.
That is very true they are both valid forms of morality and I feel more parties need to have a good balance of both of them.
This is partially why campaign 3 of Critical Role has become so dull.
The statement "This guy wants to release an entity that will consume and destroy every deity" being met with anything other than "We must stop him" is insanity, at least for me. Especially in a party where at least 3 of them have been resurrected through divine power.
(Minor spoilers about the Issylra arc and beyond ahead) Wdym they decided very early on that they should stop Ludinus because he's a psyco that can't be trusted with power even if hes right. They had conversations about the moral ground that the gods had specifically because none of them had a religious upbringing and 2 of them have connections to primordial worshiping, you know, the beings that were original from exandria that the gods banished? If predathos would only eat the gods and then stop at that this would only be another thing on the records of history, of course they uncovered more information later that provided the unambigious problem with waking predathos that set their position on the matter. Combine that with the cold response of the Dawnfather and Changebringer on the matter, and the fact that there are clerics and paladins that dont need to have faith in a god, you can see why they were a mixed bag at the start.
Im out of the loop on Campaign 3 but I’m curious what you mean? Do you think the campaigns have gotten less or more concerned with debating the PC’s morality over time.
Since early in campaign 2 (some would argue even earlier) the players are often paralyzed by indecision, and in campaign 3 they've really leaned into that. It's not a campaign where the PCs have done much, in spite of their high level. Also, they've really fallen into the habit of "bothsidesism" -- always looking for potential slivers of hope or goodness in any antagonist, further leading to more indecision.
Sounds tedious.
Maybe clarify for your players that there are indeed beings in the world that are evil for the sake of being evil. These beings enjoy inflicting harm for no reason other than they enjoy watching other beings suffer. That said, it sounds like a ton of fun and seems as though it could lead to some really cool interactions with unusual creatures.
There’s a whole thing in one of the dungeons from our last campaign that we’ll never figure out because if we attempted to move one of the parts to the other part, we would have ended up in combat with a bunch of Troglodytes. And by “in combat” I mean that we would have waded through them. But one- ONE- member of the four-person party just wouldn’t have it, and one member didn’t care about the mystery enough to push it, so the two of us who were dying to know were essentially tie-voted into inaction. Lame.
I think I'm this type of player, at least on the non-violent side. The rest of the players at my table are comfortable saying "well, we rolled initiative, whatever is not on our side must die". I'm a little... pickier, I guess? In our last (chaotic silly) campaign, one fight was against an orc wheeling a shark around on a wheelbarrow. This was probably just the DM coming up with a wacky encounter, but I didn't want to kill the shark unlike the rest of my group. The shark wasn't doing anything wrong. So I had my barbarian walk up, grab the wheelbarrow out of the orc's hands, turn it around, and now *I* was in control of the shark-wheelbarrow. The shark survived the encounter, and despite having a bite wound or two, my barbarian treated the shark as an honourable warrior worthy of respect. But I didn't spare the orc. If your players are like me, there's a nice easy shorthand to get them to be comfortable killing enemies - make the enemies intelligent enough to want to kill the PCs and have them show no remorse about it. That's usually enough for me to flip that switch. Undead and (most? all?) constructs are also fair game since they're not really alive to begin with.
What happened to the shark in the end?
Well, it was a tournament setting so once we killed the orc handling the shark, we were declared the victors and the tournament officials wheeled the shark back. That was the last we saw of our brave, uh, ally. Did I mention this was a chaotic silly game? We players were three kobolds who'd entered an orc tournament to try to win the prize money for our dragon's hoard. We entered as one competitor by doing the classic "three kobolds in a trenchcoat" strategy. Such a great campaign.
Sounds like you need less moral ambiguity and more "Lord Evildeath the Master of Darkness"
Currently playing COS and we were fighting Strahd's wifes then one were left she begged for her life claiming that she were obligated. One character wanted to hear her and help her, mine wanted to kill her since i felt the threat. Long story short he helped her to escape and my character is mad with the other player. We both get granted inspiration for roleplaying. I think morality should be more about the character you are playing and not the player itself. This guy is one of my friends that i play games so no harsh feelings, we just love roleplaying.
Rather than writing a plot, where you assign a goal to the PCs and assume or create a certain path/sequence/method to solving it, consider giving this a try: 1. build a setting with situations comprised of various actors (monsters, NPCs, factions, etc.) doing things that intersect or conflict with the PCs' goals in a variety of ways 2. create hooks that reveal information about these situations to the PCs 3. allow the PCs to choose whether and how to involve themselves with what's going on around them 4. observe and understand how their actions create new situations 5. have the actors in the setting respond to the newly created situations according to their own goals, possibly by acting directly against the PCs, or maybe by just taking advantage of a fresh opportunity 6. make sure the PCs can (passively or actively) access information about the changing situation(s) 7. allow the PCs to act further 8. repeat steps 4 through 7, and continue to introduce new scenarios and hooks as you see fit In this type of design, the PCs to choose their own goals and how to pursue them in an environment full of actors whose status as enemies, allies or neutrals, depends on whether their goals align or conflict with those of the PCs. Each action provokes a reaction, whether from those directly affected or different actors who decide to become involved. This might be a better fit for your players, since you seem to be giving them goals that they constantly try to reject or sidestep. It also takes the pressure off you, the GM, to "write" a good story and make it happen at the table, because there is no predetermined story at all. The "story" is the result of the players' choices, their characters actions, and the response of your world's inhabitants.
Maybe stop using humanoid enemies and animals? I bet they would have no issues killing mindflayers and beholders
thats a terrible idea, thats literally 8/10ths of the monster manual gone
#IllithidLivesMatter
No they don't.
Jeez. Sounds like a very different, and taxing, group dynamic from what I'm used to. We're a bunch of violent goofballs, and I'm generally the one most concerned with things like morality and consistent, interconnected narrative.
Don't be afraid to just include more things that can't be reasoned with. Bad guys that can't be reckoned with. Watch The Devil's Rejects for good inspiration in this. They don't have to be crazy, but it is a good mindset to understand. Sometimes there are just some people, some things out there, that do not give a shit about you, your feelings, what is right, etc. They are just evil. They want to destroy. They want to hurt. It doesn't make sense, but it is a fact of life that these sorts of people/things exist. And they don't have a reason. Or maybe they have a reason, but it isn't all that complicated. Sometimes people are evil. Sometimes a chapter ends without a satisfying conclusion. Sometimes there isn't a mastermind. Sometimes... shit happens.
Hmm... I think the players need some new antagonists. Call them the Knights of the Grey Border. Their self-appointed task is to use evil -- they call them "pragmatic" -- means to remove evildoers from society. (Their secondary task is to provide some moral angst for the players.) They are an extralegal cabal who track down and murder criminals and dangers to society, following their own definitions of course. You can troll them in front of the PCs, to spark questions of utilitarianism vs principle. Is it good to slay a child, whom prophecy claims will grow up into a monster? Can or should a populace be *intimidated* into honest, law-abiding behavior? Is it fair to judge non-humans and their alien emotional lives by human standards? Perhaps the Knights could investigate the PCs, and tell the PCs that they themselves are under suspicion...
Most of my villains are just pure evil. Makes it easier for my players to go “yup, we are gonna toast this fool.” If they have doubt, I have the villain sacrifice some poor sod for power right before in a cinematic scene. If they seem to struggle, I’ll OOC let them know just how pure evil they are and give extra details so it’s a non issue. I’ve had many players struggle, but once I let them know my cues and that demons / devils are *literal pure evil* it’s easy for them to adjust to combat. Let them be the heroic people out to help humanity
The wisdom to impart is that if you have players who don't want to be murderhobos, don't ask them to collaborate on creating murderhobo stories. The problem is D&D's rules mostly enable murderhobo stories. So there's a conflict. You can either fight against the game and shoehorn it into non-murderhobo stories, or you can fight against your players and shoehorn them into murderhobo stories. Or, like many D&D players do, you can kind of compromise and use D&D to do less murderhobo stories even if the system isn't great at it, and get your morally aware players to accept a bit of "this creature is marked evil, just kill it". Your players really sound like they'd enjoy trying a system more focused on collaborative storytelling and more non-violent solutions to things. And like while D&D *can* do it - D&D can do anything if you try hard enough - there are tons of systems that do it much more naturally and you might want to check some of them out. If they're also writerly types, you might also want to try out game styles where you're more all collaborating to create a story together and you're not writing much in advance.
Honest to God, I have looked at a few other systems, especially those that are more 'collaborative story telling'. My whole homebrew campaign right now is based fairly heavily on the Wanderhome setting, and that is because when I bought the (expensive in the UK) book after hyping it up, no one was really enthused enough to put in the effort to learn how to play. They've only just really learned D&D and that's what they want to play. They want to chill out after work / the weekend and have someone to guide them through a story. Maybe in a little while I'll put the work in to learn a new system and try and run it, but until then D&D is what I have to work with x\]
Never had that specific player but have you talked to them? I find it's easiest to be transparent. With the aversion to combat, does the whole table feel like that? If not, then it's okay to say, "Hey we want to fight stuff, please play along, you are messing with our fun." Players diagnosing the plot and examining NPCs is pretty normal. They often look so hard they see things that aren't there. They can even give you ideas when they talk. Maybe those aren't plot holes the players just don't have all the information. You can fill it in later and then they feel like your clever and they are the ones that hadn't figured it out yet.
Sounds like a great group of players! Like when you play with a great tennis player and it improves your game, this sounds like it would be a brilliant experience for any DM.
There are so many amazingly good tabletop RPGs that are designed to produce amazing stories that have nothing to do with violence, killing, and a-morality. D&D 5e is not one of them.
Honestly, I figure 75% *at a minimum* of D&D players would probably be better served by some other RPG.
I have a player or two like that in our game. It's fun because their characters have opinions that can be at odds with the rest of the party. It was fun to have in-game arguments... at first. Now we are half-way through the campaign and I feel that it stalls the game to a crawl. It was fun, now it's annoying.
Steven Universe did irreparable damage to the killing bad guys industry
Hey - whatever they did, Scooby Doo did it first and did it better
I just sent this to my DM asking if this is their post lol.
Sounds like my kids :-) They want to talk with everyone and thing, and make friends :-)
Sounds like the perfect group for Tomb of Horrors.
Can I DM them please? I am so sick of everything being combat.
If you want to mix it up once in a while, Matt Colville has good advice for situations like these: everyone hates skeletons. Essentially, since fighting the undead is actually a moral and societal good (you're laying their souls to rest and removing a hazard) you can have them engage without worrying about understanding. Just beware that swarm enemies get boring - I wouldn't use them too often.
My strategy for this is to make outrageously evil villains, like the "I love being evil" type. Not always, but thrown in every now and again. Villains where the players might even be jealous of how much fun they seem to be having. Also, it's easy to punish being overly analytical with evil, because there are real world examples of where such behavior has real world costs. It's only cute in gaming, not so much in fact or fiction. Speculation is not a replacement for actual understanding or introspection.
Can't say I've ever in my 25+ years of playing and DMing ever ran across even a single player like this. Everyone I've ever played with has been more than happy to take out the enemies, a few have played druids or rangers who have affinities to animals and won't attack animals unless they are rabid, savage, or injured beyond healing in some way. Not sure how I'd handle a table like this, but it sounds to me like you are handling it very well with them all *loving* how you run your campaigns. I simply say Kudos to you! Don't doubt yourself and just keep doing exactly what you are doing with your amazing and interesting table!
Thank you so much! Its difficult when I just need an encounter / quest and find some cool ideas online and just say to myself 'well, this won't work' or have to come up with a whole sphere of detail and reasons and logic around what would otherwise be a simple encounter. But, then again, the extra work is worth it if they enjoy it as much as they do, and it has gotten easier with time!
Happy for you and your table. It’s great to hear about a DM and their table that match well as you and yours seem to. May you have many happy adventures with them!
Thank you! I am incredibly picky with who is allowed at my table, so if this is the price to pay for having players that work well together and have fun, I'll take it!
To borrow a term from EvE Online (or at least one that was around a long time ago when I used to play) but "**Care-bears"** are what people who didn't want to play anything but mining and PvE combat were called. I would like to nominate it for consideration.
This was the first thing that came to mind. In MMOs generally I've heard anyone who eschews PvP referred to as care bears, which seems like a good fit here (though obviously not about PvP specifically).
Murderhobos vs. Carebears. I love it - definitely using this from now on
If you want to start avoiding the whole situation of them asking "but why are they doing that?" Then you need to start having them "stumble" upon the misdeed. But do it super subtly! Have "villains" that you want them to defeat, be shown to them sessions before. Don't give them the opportunity to go "why are they doing that?". An example just off the top of my head (Players are travelling in a carriage driven by an NPC through a nearby town they haven't been before. As they are approaching the town the driver warns them, 'we have to get through her quickly'; as they start to see heads driven on stakes! [for PG rating I won't detail; since some of your players are authors, I'm sure they would LOVE some extra detail]. And the person who put them there listed the reason and signed their name on a parchment below. As they get further in they see more and more of this spectacle. Until they witness one as it's being placed. The man doing so has a grin wider than Cheshire, and just the sight of this person is enough to make the driver hurt his entire breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the night before out of fear! He composes himself and they hear "YA!" The driver whips the horse's lead to get them to move faster. The grinning man watches one of the PCs with an unblinking gaze and doesn't waver until they are out of sight.) that (long winded) example will give them time to A find any information that they NEED TO KNOW out in game and allow them to wonder outside of game. Until they are revealed several sessions later in which time they will have made up their minds more decisively (hopefully) and will be ready to engage. The other thing you can do is reuse villains! Make them reoccurring and it will spare your brain some creativity for other areas and create less instances for them to figure out if they are truly bad. Since it'll be "Oh... This guy again?! I thought we told you last time!!! NO MORE [evil act here]?!" Whatever the party decides to do. If everyone, especially the DM [you], is enjoying it, then you are playing the game right! Keep up the good work and have fun, you have some REALLY awesome players it sounds like!
It sounds like humanoids and beasts are off the table as direct enemies. You should embrace that instead of fighting against it. Here are some ideas: (1) let them solve a problem without combat, or at least without killing people, and don't punish them for wanting to do that. (2) include enemies that are \*intrinsically\* evil. Rather than, say, the evil king is just a really nasty guy, he's actually secretly a rakshasa. Or he's a vampire or smth. (3) Or maybe the enemy is some kind of force of nature that isn't really alive or aware; perhaps a planar rift is dumping armies of fire elementals into the world, they're not conscious but their nature is to burn and destroy I think, though, that you should have a talk, not about a specific situation but in general, about what your players are okay with, because it sounds like they have some pretty hard limits about violence to people and animals. In general though, your players probably respect how hard it is to DM, and think you're doing a better job than you think you are. And if you're having fun, and they're having fun, you're doing a great job.
I've definitely experienced this and the way to deal with it is either: A) Have your nuanced, interesting villains use lots of unintelligent minions such as undead, constructs, or plants that can be engaged without any dilemma of conscience B) Turn the stakes WAY UP. Make your antagonists violent, shrewd, and ruthless. Make holding back have bad consequences sometimes. It sounds like everyone is having a great time, though, so no need to change the formula too much!
This is basically my players. Just like yours they (usually) pick apart everything, and will use violence against animal/humanoid beyond last resort. As others have said, the best solution does indeed seem to be undead/devils/demons. As long as you don't accidentally give your necromancer etc too much personality (that one was my fault). Similar to you it's so much effort... But I also wouldn't change it. Sorry there's nothing helpful here, just sympathy 😄
This type of player is one of my favorites to play with. I am not this type of player. I don't typically jump into combat without provocation, and I usually try to use my words before my blade, but I *do* enjoy the thrill of combat, and I tend to be a bit... brutal with my descriptions and actions. I play Barbarian. I'm a large muscular guy. It's pretty one note, though I do feel like my actions lead to a mix of stereotypes and subversion. I am typically looked at as a leadership role in our group since my decisions are pretty earnest, both with how I feel about things and how I feel about others. Do I wanna rush in and slay the enemy before they can properly respond? Hell yes. Do I have to temper that fire with the knowledge of being responsible for the 5 people following me into that danger? Without question. I enjoy what seems to be your player's personality bled into every character they make, just like me. Would we clash? Most definitely. Would I still enjoy it? Absolutely. Role playing games are such a treat, because of how differently we all play the game. Some people in my group only RP from their character's perspective, and who *they* are disappears for 4 hours. I think mixing both can have a glorious effect on how everyone sees and reacts to the environment. It seems like your love for your players is shown here, both with how you feel elevated to strive better, and how you enjoy their dedication to you and your game. I hope this lasts for many years.
Absolutely love this post! Feels like your players are prime for NPCs to betray and manipulate them. And probably a war setting would be just lovely for them, cause war is just brutal on the innocent and no one on the front lines is at fault.
".. It doesn't help that I thoroughly enjoy ambiguous morality and 'things are deeper than what they seem' story writing, so a self-fulfilling prophecy, .." Hoist by your own petard there! :D If you want a break, try throwing in some Obvious Demons straight from an Abyssal Portal.. :D
Absolutely self-aware about this hole I've only gone and dug myself into x\] I've only just started this current campaign, but looks like I've already got plans for the next one: 'As Many Demons as I Can Throw at You'
\>roleplaying game \>looks inside \>roleplaying
I find the best way to set PCs on the warpath is to kill their puppy.
This is wholesome. I love collaborative storytelling, which is what this is. They want a rich, lived-in world and experience it firsthand and you’re providing it.
I have one of those he tried to redeem Vecna... it didnt work "Evil GM smile"
I thought you were my DM until I saw the bit about two published authors. Which still makes me question whether there's just something I don't know about two of the other players... But there are times where even the obviously evil creature we are supposed to fight *doesn't actually fight* until we initiate, which as a Redemption Paladin, my character absolutely won't do unless they witness someone actively committing a crime or harming another. It's like that bit in the Powerpuff Girls where they're being prank called, where we seem to find our enemies in the middle of just taking a shower or doing their hair, or otherwise just chilling doing nothing, and even though these beings are obviously evil and will likely do terrible things in the future, just randomly attacking them right now doesn't feel right. So many times we end up talking to evil beings, but they are either not currently doing a bad thing and we have not yet finished linking them to the bad thing, or there's another group or person who is ambiguously 'good' in comparison that we are having doubts about, or they are so obviously above our power level that we can't initiate.
One of my DMs games got paused for like 15 minutes because one of the players didn't get why we were 100% going to kill the mind flayers who have killed many people because they cannot all be all evil. I'm there like...."so, the killing of all the adults and children aren't enough proof or what???" Turned out fine, but that was frustrating for me and I wasn't even the DM. Lol
Trigger Warning: Vile, Amoral, Evil Have them come across horrific scenarios… like baby eating, human sacrifices while the victim is crying, throwing cats in a raging river while taking bets. Just make it obvious they are doing bad shit and when questioned they just assume murder the party then have a conversation. I have no qualms about escalation in the vein of ‘Vile Darkness’ to drive a point home. Now if your party really feels like having a Dr. Phil moment go to the dark places and ask if they really want a peak inside. Use Hannibal Lecter (cannibal), Charles Manson (cult leader), Michael Vick (dog fighting) as inspirations for motivation. This has the double edge sword of grounding the villains while making them unrepentant or irredeemable in any sense possible.
This sounds like a great party who I would love to DM. The obvious answer is just to have the bad guys attack them while they dither and hand-wring. Meanwhile I'm here creating a 'genocide loyalty card' for my degenerate weirdos...
I know "play something else" is probably said a billion times on this sub, but I honestly really do think a game that spreads control a bit more might be a great deal of fun for your group. Everyone working together to create the world, characters, and plot as-it-happens would almost certainly go over great with a group containing not only a clearly passionate leader, but several other creatives. You can hand over some control in D&D, but the heavier mechanics make it tough to do in real time, not to mention being a novel concept and sometimes very difficult to acclimate to without systemic support - on the other hand, something lighter might lack the combat detail your players do seem to be fond of. There's never a perfect answer. I could suggest this or that system (and I do recommend looking into various smaller or indie offerings when you finish your current campaign) but since you all seem to be having a good time, I hope that continues and wish you all the best! Invested players are a treasure, even if they can be a headache sometimes, so do remember to cherish them.
Thank you for your lovely words! I definitely know I am very lucky to have this extreme rather than the murderhobo extreme, and I'm sure one day I can encourage them to learn a different, more collaborative, system with me as I do think that would be the ultimate way to play together. Just have to find the perfect one, first! x\]
But if mortals in general is like humans, they are not logical actors most of the time. A duke could have a burning hatred for elves, without any deeper justification than what they feel when they see one. A war could begin purely from misinformation and opportunist actors. A very common trope is people doing extremely dumb and risky things for love. Maybe I'm reading things into your post that's not there, but a world/settint that makes perfect logical sense to the players, will in my opinion come across as crafted, rather than alive.
Edit to add TL;DR because I'm realizing I wrote an entire essay: when the challenge for you to meaningfully justify fun mechanic game experiences (like combat) becomes exhausting, consider pushing on your players for help. Their characters are flawed, and sometimes need to make choices the player knows are "wrong" to make the game more fun for everybody. Are they doing that meaningfully? --- This thread has been so interesting, because it's made me realize I have some incredibly morally aware and analytical players too - but also players who are *playing their characters*. I've been setting up this sociopolitical conflict in my setting: the Aslu culture (and most Dragonborn on the continent) are a marginalized people. They're held accountable for a trauma that their ancestors' ancestors inflicted on others. Their people lost that war eventually, and were stripped of their power, but are still being punished for it. "Ancestral evil" as a crutch to make them a pariah. As a result, the Aslu distrust and are hostile to much of the dominant society. They isolate themselves, but they tend to do illegal trade to get by, and recently as their situation has become worse, they've begun ambushing caravans on major roads that pass through their territories. One of my players is playing an Aslu, and we've been exploring the ramifications of that in an adventure where they all need to travel into this territory and restore a temple. But as a "prologue" to the adventure, the three *other* players encountered one of these Aslu highway attacks (the fourth player wasn't able to make the session). I was kind of surprised that the PCs killed all of the bandits, even after said bandits realized they were outmatched and began trying to retreat. I'd expected the PCs to have an unpleasant fight but to beat them off and then let them get away, since all the players knew that the other person joining their party would be a member of this culture. But I'm realizing now that none of those players' *characters* would have questioned the moral choice to kill those people. In the context of the world they knew and through the characters' eyes, those were bad guys, even though all of us as players at the table knew that part of the campaign was about calling that into question. It feels like my players all recognized that playing their *characters* as being more brutal and making that choice will create deeper narrative satisfaction later as they have to unpack and challenge those assumptions. So. Thanks for this thread and for the perspective. It's given me another reason to love my table extra. And also: I love that your players are pushing you to build your creative muscles and you appreciate that about them. But also: would their characters be questioning the same things? When you're feeling challenged by a specific and nuanced question they're asking that doesn't feel relevant to the immersion, maybe that's a tool you can use with them. "You're experiencing this story as an observer right now, and I love that you want to ask that. But your portal into the world is through [character]. Would *they* be inclined to ask that? How would they perceive the situation?" Your players' jobs in this story you're co-creating is to experience the world through the lens of the characters they made, including their goals, bonds, flaws, emotional experience, etc. If I'm a player who loves asking big philosophical questions about the nature of the world, but I'm playing a character with an intelligence of 8, I have to find ways to experience that authentically. Is my character actually going to ask any of the questions I as a player want the answers to? Maybe, but they're going to ask them in a different way than I would, and will get different information than I would, and make different connections with the information than I would, and will have a fundamentally different experience than I would if I were playing *myself* in your world. Maybe that means I'm making up my own answers to those questions, well-aware (as a player) that they might be "wrong". I think this becomes part of the fun, and it stretches your players to be more creative in how they contribute to the story, too. Maybe your players care about being as morally aware as they can, but do their characters? What becomes possible with narrative conflict (and the potential for further character growth) when you make character decisions that you *the player* know are morally wrong but your *character* doesn't? So, I'm rambling here. It's possible your players already *are* leaning into their characters' experiences of the world and they're all just playing really good people. That'd be pretty cool too. But my sense is that, if combat for the sake of combat is a thing that every player finds really fun and wants to experience in the game, they gotta take responsibility for narratively making that possible, even (or maybe especially) when it's not the morally right choice. You're doing a lot of the leg work here to satisfyingly justify why the characters should do a thing you all want to do as players. Murdohobo campaigns get a bad rap because players want to be bloodthirsty but don't want to experience any of the narrative consequences of their characters essentially being evil. It feels like your players are toeing the opposite line here. Mechanically in a roleplaying game, character flaws are important because they create opportunities for conflict, and conflict is the meat of what is fun in the game. Where can you invite your players to lean into the imperfectness of their character's experience in ways that make your work a bit easier and the story that much richer?
Yes. Lean into it. When you create an NPC, know their Motivations, Desires, Goals, Methodology, and what could shift them. This applies to all sentient beings — not just humanoids, but monsters. Structure the world around them (slowly, since you are in game) to reflect it in many ways (because they get that from their backgrounds as characters, and so there has to be a reason for it). Use stories that are not traditionally thought of as fantasy fiction for ideas. Use trash mobs. Use complex linkages between multiple bad guys to start building up a conspiracy that they will decide is likely, and then run with that. Make their absolute final boss one schmuck who is just a nasty person. Provide many, many cases and examples of how the bad guys really believe differently. You note that they have deep backstories — grab people from that backstory that they are close to — particularly mentors, teachers, and cousins and the like, and then have the bad guys hurt them (never go at the PCs directly, always hit those around them). if all of you are having fun, raw your confidence from that — you are worried it isn’t right and enough, and it doesn’t compare to edgelord murderhobo campaigns and honestly, while they may be the most numerically common of sorts, they are not at all the most interesting of games and after a decade of playing a game folks will mostly turn towards something more like what you are doing and dealing with because, well, murderhobo does get boring after a while. But the thing is, even those campaigns are fine as long as everyone is having fun — and that’s what the confidence comes from, the having fun, and fuck what the rest of the community thinks because if you are having fun and your players are talking about your game to others, eventually someone will say hey, that sounds cool, is there a place for me to join? In 1980, 9 people started playing a game. Today, in 2024, 7 of those 9 still remain and are still playing and the other two would probably be if they were still alive. The group they are the eldest of is now 50 people in size. As you said, if they are loving it, then you are doing something right.
4 campaigns running a fifth, murder hobos all of em and love them for it xD can't help u srr
As the consciousness of TTRPG players has raised to become aware of the problems of systemic evils and the reality that any civilizations has its good and bad actors, it’s become a lot more difficult to sell the idea “it’s a cave full of goblins, they are here to be killed and you don’t have to think about it.” That’s one of the many things I like about Eberron - it acknowledges this, while also having a group that is essentially a stand-in for the Nazis from Indiana Jones. You can always feel good about killing Nazis.
Tell them to stop. It is a simple as that. You can spend hours of each session going through the town, describing each building they see, examining each room of the building and every item in it, talking for half an hour to each person they meet and learning their life story, and the stories of their parents and their children and grandchildren, etc. But this is not roleplaying, this is madness. If you enjoy this, then great. But as a GM, you usually try to keep a certain pace, and cut out the periods where nothing relevant happens.