Good ways to present a character building moral choice to players?

[madd0ct0r]

This is in a game without D&D type alignment or star wars type binary good and evil.

Example situation: You track a thief, but find he is stealing to sell for money because he is starving.
If I give them a moral choice like: You can report the thief to the police and they will reward you with +1 Armour, or you can watch for a while then cover up his tracks so other's can't track him like you did (+1 stealth). I think for most 'gamer' type players that dilemma quite quickly changes to armour vs stealth.

I was considering the choice to have negative effects. If you are good, it will cost. If you are bad, it dosen't. But again, that sets up a conflict for gamer type players who will feel frustrated and disenchanted with the game at being punished for being nice.

I was considering having the choice have no mechanical effect at all, but again, for gamer type players, that's a nice clear signal that the choice does not matter and can be ignored or skipped.

About the only option I'm part happy with is having competing ideologies in the game (Hippy Taosim vs Rigid Confuscisim for example) and your choices affect your relationship with different major powers that exemplify those ideologies

Thoughts?

[RogueIce]

About the only option I'm part happy with is having competing ideologies in the game (Hippy Taosim vs Rigid Confuscisim for example) and your choices affect your relationship with different major powers that exemplify those ideologies

Thoughts?

Doesn't that just go back to the +1 armor/+1 stealth thing, as people decide which faction provides the best benefits? Unless those major powers are equal in every way but then you're back to the "gamer type players will just skip/ignore it" problem.

Realistically, for the "gamer type players" there won't be a 'good' (hah hah) decision to make here, as they'll go for the mechanically/gameplay best option every time. It only really matters to those who care to RP their character and/or if it has a meaningful story impact - and your story is good enough people will want to replay it to see the differences. Preferably with more than a binary Good/Bad Ending kind of thing (so people don't just default to one or the other on a play through) but obviously doing this makes the complexity of your game design and writing skyrocket.

[madd0ct0r]

About the only option I'm part happy with is having competing ideologies in the game (Hippy Taosim vs Rigid Confuscisim for example) and your choices affect your relationship with different major powers that exemplify those ideologies

Thoughts?

Doesn't that just go back to the +1 armor/+1 stealth thing, as people decide which faction provides the best benefits? Unless those major powers are equal in every way but then you're back to the "gamer type players will just skip/ignore it" problem.

Realistically, for the "gamer type players" there won't be a 'good' (hah hah) decision to make here, as they'll go for the mechanically/gameplay best option every time. It only really matters to those who care to RP their character and/or if it has a meaningful story impact - and your story is good enough people will want to replay it to see the differences. Preferably with more than a binary Good/Bad Ending kind of thing (so people don't just default to one or the other on a play through) but obviously doing this makes the complexity of your game design and writing skyrocket.

well, the idelogy one is delayed and has a lot more unknown information attached to it - you know wether you are going to try and play in a way that requires a certain stat, but you don't know what influence of which empire might be important in three missions time...
I am tempted just to make them knotty questions with no mechanical effect. No point trying to drag a gamer into it when all they want is to get the next +1 sword of swording.

[bilateralrope]

Think about this from an in-character perspective: Why would the PCs care about the thief ?

A mechanical effect just encourages players to choose based on the stats they get instead on choosing based on how their characters think. For example, you're talking about giving a reward to helping the thief or a reward for helping the police. But there are other options that you are discouraging by not giving a reward to them:
- PCs kill the thief themselves.
- PCs argue about what to do so loudly that the thief leaves and/or someone else notices.
- PCs recruit the thief to serve them.
- PCs ignore the thief because they don't care about it.
Those options would be far more likely for the groups I've played in than the PCs helping the thief cover his tracks.

If you want consequences then think about how the NPCs of the world will react to what they know about the PCs actions.

[Simon_Jester]

well, the idelogy one is delayed and has a lot more unknown information attached to it - you know wether you are going to try and play in a way that requires a certain stat, but you don't know what influence of which empire might be important in three missions time...

That works well in a freeform RPG, but poorly in a computer game where the 'gamer types' will just look up walkthroughs. Unless you somehow make the plot variable enough that it isn't predictable which faction is on top at which points in time.

If you have a random element in the plot so that the player can't actually be sure which faction it's most profitable to ally with for any given portion of the game, THEN you could very well make the moral choices nice and weighty. You might have to create a mechanic that penalizes people who try to shift their loyalties, though.

I am tempted just to make them knotty questions with no mechanical effect. No point trying to drag a gamer into it when all they want is to get the next +1 sword of swording.

Honestly, a modified version of the Bioware approach is probably good for that situation. Make all the options you seriously intend for characters to pursue rewarding in one way or another, so that the Paragon/Renegade or Light/Dark Side choices are more a matter of gameplay style than of collecting all the bonuses. Mass Effect did a decent job at this, by letting the player choose between being a 'nice/good' Paragon or being a 'nasty/bad' Renegade. Even if, based on the anecdotes I've heard, most people who play Renegade mainly do so to hear the hilarious things that come out of Shepard's mouth.

[madd0ct0r]

I should make it clear this is a table top rpg here.

Loosely based on Monkey: Journey to the West, if all the characters were km long decade old spaceships...

(which is to say, it's not a hyper freeform narrative game like Risus, there is a tabletop map, rules for movement and such, but the rules are intentionally much more streamlined than D&D and designed to allow innovative thinking ( I plant relay drones on these three asteroids and accelerate them out to act as decoys, that sort of thing)

The morality questions are to encourage people to flesh out their ship AI character a bit more at character creation. The fun in Monkey isn't the magic powers being used to beat up robbers, it's the comedy and interplay between characters.

[Simon_Jester]

Ahhh.

Well, now, that's different.

In a tabletop RPG, what you really need is to grant mechanically comparable benefits to characters for loyalty to or alignment with a faction. The benefits can be in terms of resources or abilities, it doesn't matter.

The key, in my opinion, is to make the benefits substantially reduced if you try to 'ride two horses' by adopting a stance that flip-flops between two factions, and decays away to nothing for someone who is not loyal to any faction. There may be a 'no-faction path' too, of course, and it might be mechanically distinct from all the others in a way that is desirable but requires considerable tradeoffs. The road of being loyal to none... it sometimes rewards the crafty, but tends to lead to a short life and a violent end, after all.
______________________

EDIT: Think of D&D clerics. All clerics derive mechanically comparable benefits from being loyal to their own deity, alignment, or other cause. Different clerics may have different spell lineups, but the differences are less important than the similarity. But as a rule, the cleric needs to remain loyal to some cause or deity in order to retain those benefits. And switching teams usually isn't a beneficial move for the ambitious priest.

If you have the ships tying their allegiance to 'paths' or 'strategies' or 'factions' whose fortunes can rise and fall during the game, both through character action and through random chance combined, then you create flexibility. Players will profit in terms of personal strength from sticking to their cause even when it looks like that cause is losing, or have to make the decision to sacrifice personal power in order to switch to a more successful allegiance.

[Zixinus]

Then make the moral choices play on the moral stances the player characters are supposed to roleplay. Don't make naked faction choices of favour points (ie, make choice A to gain X points with faction A-A), but acts that gain the trust or respect or something else of various members of that faction. If they are spaceships, then it will be a matter of track record and fears of the faction's policies. Consider that they are watching and talking to each other behind the characters' backs (rears?). Try to seek reasonableness and sensibility rather than simplicity.

[madd0ct0r]

At character creation, I've just dropped it in as these questions with no especial benefit or punishment attached to them. A player is not likely to get more then 1 or 2 during character creation.


At this time, who or what would your ship admit to being prejudiced about?
At this time what would your ship demand to betray a contact?
An ally asks for help, but it means entering a system where AI are property. Do you risk enslavement?
You find a dead ship in the asteroid belt. Do you take what you want? pay respects the to grave? or flag it and hand it over to the relevant authorities?

At this time, would your ship aid the rebel mining ships or their legal owner (a huge dockyard orbital)
At this time, would your ship disobey orders and endanger others to protect a friend?
A refugee ship insists on flying into a combat zone. At this time, would your ship protect it, sabotage it to stop it, or ignore it?
You have acquired a patch that removes the patriot programming of military AIs, increaseing their free will. At this time would your ship upload this to a friend without their consent?