The campaign has a moral

I'd suggest that a "theme" or "central message" is strictly superior to a "moral". For two reasons.

1. Stories for people over 10 tend to have themes and central messages. Morals? Not so much. Like, ASOIAF has "War is both glorious and superficial tempting but exacts a horrific cost on the innocent, even if waged for the best of reason" as a theme. The Boy Who Cried Wolf has "Don't Tell Lies" as a moral.

2. If you are going to have an ethical statement running though your story, it's much better to put it in front of your players up front and let them work with you to build the theme, rather than to force the story to a particular ending and then turn around and go "I hope you've all learned an important lesson about..."

So, saying up-front "This campaign is going to have the futile and self-destructive nature of revenge as a theme, please make characters with a drive to get revenge and come to the table to see them get destroyed"? That's great! Your players work with you to tell a story about revenge and everyone is on the same page. And if they go "user, that sounds like it would suck balls, we'd rather play a heroic space opera", then you know that up front as well and it's much better mentioned before the game starts than after you've tried to force them into your morality tale about revenge and futility without them knowing.

A moral really is just a message though, isn't it? I'd say the message of Game of Thrones is "the world won't do you favours just because you're good, it's harsh and you have to survive, but that also means you have to play nice sometimes too." The moral of Game of Thrones is "helping yourself is just as important as helping others."

Really, the distinction between the two is pretty subjective.

Also, my cat is better than everyone else's.

If youre playing by those rules. I have players go first and then baddies, if everything is equal.

My cat died a week ago.

Good riddance.

>The moral is intentionally self-contradictory, senseless and loses itself in analogy.

Playing card games is just like making love. You usually do it on a table, and you always feel deep shame when it's finished. Also, the older you get, the less fun it is. So remember, always wear a condom when playing card games.

I am currently running a Rogue Trader game in which the themes are that "revenge is hollow" and "think carefully before you act", two themes that the players are spectacularly failing to get. I started off being subtle and then eventually had to move to bludgeoning them about the head with said themes, yet they still act without thinking and act bloody revenge for even minor slights.
For instance...
>pc's stalk and kill nobleman who insulted them (as they walked into a formal party wearing battle gear) and then bludgeon him to death in front of his family, and then mock his family as they grieve over the corpse.
>player challenges nobleman to duel for being a dick, refuses the man's offer of a superior firearm for the duel, and then is utterly shocked that his firearm only wounded the opponent while the nobleman obliterated him in a single shot.
>players are repeatedly warned by npc's that their plan is a bad one, listing the reasons why, they do it anyway, and then are totally shocked that it backfires horribly.

>it's a one line of greentext thread

When I said it was difficult to do well, part of that was the fact that it's a story of collaboration.
It's very hard to define the moral or message of a story if you don't know how the story's going to go.
Choosing the moral or message at the beginning of the story, when the players are writing half of it, is an exercise in futility.

I think the only way to really have solid, strong themes and messages, or a moral to the campaign, is if it develops naturally as you all play.

>the campaign has no cats

>the cats have no campaign

He told me you're next.