Is it even possible to put a moral dilemma in your game without it being cheesy and/or autistic?

I'll put this one within the context of 40k.

You're tasked with the option of controlling the refugee flow into your world, but you know that that the ships carry Chaos believers who will spread their beliefs among your world and potentially cause problems down the line, as well as the refugees carrying with them their problems of their old world that caused this situation in the first place.

Do you let the ships in or do you send them back? How about only some? Which ones? These Chaos worshipers have no obvious signs of being in favor of Chaos and scanning each one individually would be too much for such a large refugee influx.

You choose.

It's 40k man, just blow them all up.

They have to go back. People can't just pour in through our borders. We have to be vigilant, we have to be smart.

Now are all of them bad? We're not talking 40k morality here, we're talking about yours. There's plenty of innocent men, women, and children who came from an Imperial world that has a lot of conflict. You surely wouldn't let them die, right?

>NOT ALL CHAOS

Fine, make them into a guard legion if you're gonna be a big baby about it.

?

Look, we need to put our planet first. Either we have our borders, or we don't. We have to take care of our Guard veterans - don't we love our vets?

B-but think of the children.

>We're not talking 40k morality here, we're talking about yours.
But the world where you live shape your morals. Chaos being a real force would make everyone in this thread much more paranoid about their fellow human beings.

.

What are you on about? We're not talking about my morality, we're talking about my character's.

>At then end of the tomb you find it's architect, a withered old elf bound to his seat by the same overgrowth he has infested this place with. He is old, far older than anyone should ever be. His body is broken, like a water skin dried over a fire, the very sinew of his being stretched to its furthest possible limits. He does not seem afraid when you stumble into his chamber, nor does he seem angry. Instead he seems relieved. In the ancient tongue he calls to you, becons you, begs you to come closer. "That dagger" he tells you "The one on your belt, the one you found in the ruins of [city], that dagger can set me free, please...".

>The old elf tells you that, in his youth, he had been the head of his druidic order, right hand of his goddess. His love for her was second only to the love of his betrothed soul mate. Being a loyal and devout servant, she offered to grant him any wish. Greedy for more time with his beloved, he asked her to grant him unending life, and to his doom she had. He outlived his wife, his children, his dynasty, by tens of thousands of years. He stirs here, in this tomb he cannot find rest in; regretting his wish, cursing himself, in the dark, alone. In the afterlife, lovers often find an immeasurable peace in eternal embrace of one another, but he can never know such sweetness as he is bound here to this earth. His wife is cursed to the same fate as long as he lives.

>He tells you, furthermore, that in his many years he has learned a great deal, and he knows that dagger you found in the ruins is a particularly special sort. It has the power to break a soul, but only once, destroying it forever. Removing it completely from creation. A truly dark and terrifying artifact. "But" he says, "oblivion would be sweet release from this pain I live, this mistake I cannot escape. End me. Remove me. Do this one favor and my treasure will be yours."

Do you kill this elf's immortal soul to stop mortal pain?

Can't you just kill him normally instead of the soul killing sword?

Also that druidic god is a dick

No, I pledge myself to the quest of freeing him from the mortal coil with his soul intact so he can be reunited with his long dead lover, with the stipulation that should I find this absolutely impossible I will end his suffering as he first requested.

I set about to finding his goddess and get her to undo his curse somehow. His mistake, his greed for more life, is long since atoned for, and if a boon could be granted, surely it could be returned gracefully.

He will suffer only a short while more, but my hope is his reward will be eternal.

He's invulnerable as well as immortal, he survives any wounds that would normally end his life.

heroic
my party chose to kill him in my game :/

I like you user.

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This is probably the most retarded "moral dilemma" ever. As the most left wing guy you will meet in your life I can tell you - it's goddamn 40k, blow them all up, turn into serfs or send them all to die as conscripts on some dewthworld, including women and children.

This is a moot dilemma, because there are only two options a true servant of the emperor would consider
1-blow them all up, let the Emperor find his own
2-the inquisition will make time and scan them all, even if it means most of the refugees will starve to death in the meantime

Its is better for one million innocents to die than for a single guilty soul to survive

Just put them in a condition to understand that they must follow their own train of thoughts and either options are both good and bad at the same time, without penalising the players for their choice
For example, during a Dark heresy campaign i put my players in the condition to choose the fate of a planet.
The planet was an Agri-world whose bountiful harvests were actually the result of a pact the ancient inhabitants made with Nurgle.
Basically the planet was once a dead desert world and the first settlers were literally starving to death because it seemed nothing was able to grow on the dead soil. So a demon of Nurgle made a pact with them, Nurgle would make the planet luch and fertile, without any hidden dickery, and in exchange he would claim the souls of all who died on the planet surface, regardless if they knew about the pact or not.

So my players had a pretty clear choice to make: either leave the planet as it was and keep feeding Nurgle it's souls in exchange of food for a whole solar system, or break the pact and free the unwitting inhabitants from Nurgle's servitude, but making the planet a dead world again and starving all nearby planets.

Frankly, they did it quite alright, they broke the pact with Nurgle and freed the inhabitants soul, and since the world would be gradually starting to die again, one of the players propted some members of the Mechanicus to consider the idea of turning such planet in a forge world, since the Mechanicus already expressed interest in it but couldn't touch it because of the agri-world status

I've always taken decisions like that on a basis of responsibility and practicality

Does the wrongdoer wish to make amends? Are they able to be forced to? And would their capability of bettering life for others overweigh the feeling and most importantly, belief of retribution felt by their victims and their families by their death. In other words, are they able to do more good with their life than they would with their death?

It's a numbers game, I just make the paladin responsible for being able to do the math. So whenever I make a villain, big or small, even if there's no paladin around, I write up what the results of sparing or putting them to death would be, and how the paladin's god reacts to that new chosen future. Given that a god would logically be able to see this future once chosen.

Once a decision has been made, I have the god speak to the paladin at the next available interval, to summarise the future as well as summarise what future has been avoided, showing the notes if necessary. Then the paladin either earns the favour of his god or the ire

If you're going to make a moral dilemma, I expect you to have the results in writing, with at least one route leading to success based on the paladin's chosen god

You can also make things more nuanced based on the different possible outcomes. Obviously you can't account for all decisions but if you cover as many bases as possible then you can default to those bases in a pinch. And if it's pre-written with success having been possible, the player has no right to complain

I find that Curse of Strahd offers some such moments. We're not through it yet, but very early on for example you find a bereaved local priest praying in a dilapidated church over his son that was turned into a Vampire spawn. There are three "negative" moral aspects to this scene.

>The Priest is clearly losing his mind over this
>The Priest has captured his former son in the basement and has refused to feed him for a year
>The son is a creature of evil

Now instead of having the player options be purely negative, the two main options are both positive and negative at the same time instead.

>Slay the son, freeing his soul but taking away a fathers hope in the process
>Keep the son alive, leaving the priest in his hope for divine intervention but letting a creature of darkness live

I found that to be a good dilemma, since you can make good arguments for both but the bitter taste will stay.

Player in my party raised a good point: If the divine in question was going to interventate, he'd have done it before the party caught wind of an unfed vampire in easy reach

My party actually went to the church pretty late, at which stage they had already figured out that the gods are barred from Barovia. This actually put them in even more of a tight spot, since the Priests whole reason for keeping the weakened hallowed grounds alive was his faith and telling a half-mad priest that his son and only remaining family member cannot be saved by his lifes calling was deemed to be too much of a risk.

In the end, they
Staged a breakout of the spawn, tied him up and carried him with them to the hags which the party turned into allies (enemy of my enemy situation) where he is under a permanent sleep spell until the group can figure out some help if tehy managed to slay Strahd.

My paladin with oath against undead would probably spend a lenght of time discussing with the priest, trying to make him understand that the son he knew died a long time ago and the best way to put him to rest is to purify his mortal vessel and give his soul the rest it clearly desires by killing him again

And that's a completely valid approach. I liked that scene because of it - depending on the group composition and individual class/culture choices, the "solution" may be obvious or not, but in any case it communicates a lot of information about the world and it's inhabitants in just a small room while also preparing the players for more tough choices down the line.

>Strahd is a cruel dictator over this land, he is the law and above it at the same time
>Faith still remains, despite the gods not answering for a long time
>Hallowed grounds however remain, offering a safe haven for the characters if need arises
>Madness and despair are rampant in the populace, but hope remains in some

If that's what he wants then why not? The destruction of the dagger is a bonus since it poses a threat to anyone else. I kinda see the dilemma since killing a soul is usually a bad thing but this just seems like the best of a bad situation. I could try find another solution but if I die mid-quest then he gets fucked over for eternity.

It's impossible because any true moral dilemma will make your players uncomfortable, and they won't want to play along with the scenario. If the quandary employed is something they approve of, then by definition it's not really an effective moral question.

Clever answers will always be technical work-around "Gotcha!"s that miss the point and unsatisfy everyone. The closest you can get to anything workable is when one player is pressed by the question, and all the others plus the DM put pressure on them. Can you think of a better way to lose a friend and make an enemy?

of course. Just be a half decent DM.

We play guards and marines in 40K setting, last session a lord of change offered to make a deal with us, to kill one of the guardians of the place we're trying to get to. The LOC killed our NPC space marine captain (while we were all firing at it to very little effect) and then asked if we would accept the deal - this was a moral dilemma as we're imperial guard, and the very thought of not annihilating a demon on sight is heresy. And yet, here we are, in the middle of a warp bubble where everything is fucked up, we're alone, far from any imperial guard commanders or other units, all our accompanying space marines are dead, and so our commander shook hands with the LOC - hopefully we can still try to kill it later though, after it has helped us destroy whatever lies ahead.

Our party has seen a lot of warp shit so demons aren't even that surprising any more, we like to kill them, but if one is friendly enough, isn't straight out trying to kill us and is offering to help us accomplish our mission, its the kind of moral dilemma that we need to use to our advantage...

A demon has possessed a young child. The mother of the child summoned the demon, believing it was a benevolent spirit that could heal her child's terminal illness. The demon did in fact cure the illness but now wishes to kill the child because it only loves power and despises those weaker than it. The party members however are stronger than the demon and so it has given them a choice. It will either kill the child or the mother, instantly without any pain, and leave the soul alone as it passes on to the afterlife. After one of them is slain it will then banish itself until summoned again, which may be centuries from now. The party doesn't have to kill anyone themselves and they don't even have to instruct the demon on who to kill, they only have to give an honest answer to who is weaker the foolish mother or the sick child? Should any attempt be made to stop the demon it will instantly slay the child it is possessing, absorb their soul, and attempt to flee the scene to wreak further havoc on the world and it tells this to the party.

Most imperial citizens have no clue about chaos

Yes, but it requires you to know what your characters struggle with. That said, you should take pains not to do something hamfisted. Its funny you should mention autism, because basically all you need is to not be autistic.

How can one possibly put a moral dilemma AND be cheesy and/or autistic? I mean, putting a moral dilemma, not forcing a stale Veeky Forums meme about baby orcs.

Well it's a moral dilemma not too far from us.

>I'll put this one within the context of 40k.
Don't. the whole point of 40k is that it's an entire universe running on Hollywood action-film morality.

40K's morality is at least a little more diverse than that. It spans a number of sub-genres tied together with grimdark.

No, no it isn't. There are no literal demons in our world ready to rip the reality a new asshole.

How little you know.

t. Alex Jones

Yes, fairly easily, why?

It's difficult to not have moral dilemmas in games without being cheesy and/or autistic.

SMITE AND CLEAVE

I believe this is exactly the "autistic" shit OP was referring to.

>trusting a demon not to wreck havoc
Fortunately I'm not retarded. If we're stronger than it, we certainly are not going to negotiate with the terrorist.

>trusting a demon
>EVER
Yeah no.

>not talking about 40k morality
>For a 40k character

Blow them all up. If you want a more thought out answer choose a different setting.

My monk fed the priest to his son. He cannot ignore hunger and that moment of blind emotion outweighs all reason.
Also, fuck Barovia. It's perhaps the only module I've played that I intend to never see again

Push the fat robot? How is that even a question?

"Did it for revenge" is a very lazy excuse to not punish someone. If we didnt punish people who had any sort of justification the world would be terrible.
See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kragujevac_massacre

Don't do any thing but save the kid and stop the bomb seems to be the best option. I dont think I have the capacity to fight a demon so thats a lost cause.

>Dagger capable of killing anything in my path
>A literal ace-in-the-hole that could save my life and kill anything that seems unsurmountable in the future

I keep the dagger.
am I evil, Veeky Forums?
Also it would be great storytelling if the dagger somehow ends up fucking me over in the future.

This could also go nicely with this guy's heroism.

No. A "moral" dilemma causes metagaming, because my morals and my character's are being forced to intersect. It jars me out of the story, and no matter what choice I make, it's a bitter one because there's no good choice. I don't partake in role-playing games for bullshit like that, so if the DM tries dilemmas, I walk.

Depends on how underage and/or autistic your players are.

>Holding dagger
>Accidentally trip
>The planet is in your path
>The dagger kills it
Not evil, just unwise.

Morality in ttrpgs is kinda weird. Most of the time in real life the moral and immoral courses of action are pretty readily apparent, at least I can't think of a time when I didn't know what the right thing to do was. The problem comes in the actual doing. I often do bad things despite knowing they're bad because I'm lazy or selfish or easily angered or something like that. In table top there's a disconnect between me and my character, so I can have them always do the right thing no matter the circumstances because they're just so nice, despite that not really being how real people work.

The problem with moral choice is that very games actually give reasons to be bad. The fundamental choice between good is evil is the choice between what is right, and what is easy. It's easy to lie and cheat in the short term, but it should always catch up with the players either through their conscience (if they can RP), or through the plot of the game.

Being good should be harder and riskier for the players. They should have to sacrifice the larger numbers and better loot to be the good guys.

DERAIL THE TROLLEY AND TIME THE LIGHTING OF THE FUSE IN JUST SUCH A MANNER

SO THAT WHEN THE BOMB GOES OFF, THE TROLLEY HAS FLOWN INTO THE AIR AND HIT THE DEMON, THUS BLOWING THE DEMON BACK TO HELL

>I keep the dagger.
>am I evil, Veeky Forums?

yes

>Also it would be great storytelling if the dagger somehow ends up fucking me over in the future.

>This could also go nicely with this guy's heroism.

also yes

Define "right" I guess. The rest of your post indicates you understand this, but saying what's "right" is just restating the question.

It's ultimately a question of reciprocity, cooperation and empathy against selfishness, favouritism and exploit. The trick would be to make it so that, without a lot of hard work and preparation, choices are hard to tell which is the more fair to others. If a players to achieve the best of all worlds in game, they have to have battled for it.

Personally, I'm not in favour of punishing evil players for being evil. Rather it's the task of players choosing to play good to make sure evil players (and NPCs) get their comeuppance. No-one is going to strike down evil than them.

Make some NAP faggots run a little hamlet simulation scenario and watch how fast they shit on their cherished ideals.

>We're not talking 40k morality here, we're talking about yours
you know what RPG stands for, right?