Morality and Hypocrisy in modern RPGs

The concept of morality and hypocrisy in modern RPGs is pivital. Many RPGs challenge players with moral dilemmas that force them to think about their characters choices and their own values.

What are your thoughts on how modern RPGs handle morality?

How do you handle hypocrisy?

Do you have any favorite games that exemplify morality or hypocritical themes?

As a DM I often found that you think you're giving the players a moral conundrum, but they have definite ideas about what they should do and it falls flat. Other times, they'll manage to find moral dilemmas that I didn't even know existed, let alone created.

But I am a fan of things like disguised trolley problems in games.

I played in one game of Adamvernus that focused on the hypocrisy of our characters. We were all Hellriders who had to make choices that were all truly awful and against our paths and beliefs. The theme of the game was "Whatever the cost."

In that situation, it really tied the game together! It was a powerful experience where we had discussions in character about the morality of our actions, and what inaction would lead to.

But generally I like crawling into a hole and bonking Orcs on the head.

I'm running a live game of Vampire: The Masquerade (20th anniversary edition), and love setting up moral dilemnas for the players. It is, in fact, one of the key elements of storytelling games such as that. For example, we started the current chronicle in New York City, 1952, and the characters became involved in plot lines involving racial inequity, communist agitators, factional power dynamics, the worst forms of prostitution, the beginning of organized crime bringing hard drugs into the city, and so forth. All of this in the "World of Darkness" where the world is darker and less fair than even is historically true.

What's interesting is that the player characters are vampires, with obvious needs to predate upon people themselves. They steal, they take blood which weakens and sickens their victims, they kill for convenience and sometimes pleasure. What crimes would they commit, and to whom, and which crimes would they fight hard against? The hypocrisy of course comes in that PCs by their very nature like to ignore or handwave away the morality of crimes that benefit themselves, haha.

We need more WoD games.

I had the opposite experience, where a GM had (apparently) set up dilemmas, but we didn’t even realize we were making consequential decisions until an innocent NPC (or an entire family) was killed.

One was us mishandling a werewolf-cursed party member, thinking we had taken all of the proper precautions. The other, under the same GM, was us trying to protect an NPC teammate in the Shadowrun-equivalent of football when we should have told her to take the bench.

Without going into the sometimes-literally-gory details, the GM did a great job as a storyteller and at making us feel awful about the tragic outcome (which could have been effortlessly prevented had we known).

That said, I like dark settings best when the PC’s place in the story is to be the shining light. There’s a point where the consequence, even if the choice was made out of ignorance, makes it impossible to be that light. It stops making sense to play a heroic character who cares about innocent people if you get the feeling innocent people only die because you keep adventuring, and maybe if you just waited tables you’d earn a living wage without accidentally setting fire to an entire village’s worth of villagers.

I think my feeling on morality in games is: don’t put me in a position where I can’t forgive my character or I can’t honestly call her a hero.

I played in an unfortunately only shortlived game of Kingdom where our characters were the command crew of a generation ship, at that point in time currently dealing with a water shortage due do a recycling failure. One memorable moral conundrum was when the characters had to put a young single father on trial for stealing water beyond his allotment after his young daughter had fallen sick.
As for hypocrisy, one of my characters who was the head of hydroponics was also stealing water to keep as many plants alive as possible through this crisis.

Good and Evil must have an Aesthetic component. One is praised for smashing the cockroach but comdemned for smashing the butterfly. What is good? Is it the absence of evil? Is it evil for the right reasons?

"Right or wrong must depend on weak and strong, and how we would hang the last hangman." -Faroese proverb

If I kill a killer then the number of killers remains the same. But if I kill two killers? Ten? Two thousand? Is there a point where killing enough killers does a net positive?

What if we do nothing? And let them kill with abandon? When does that become more evil - considering you can stop them - and you do nothing?

You cannot afford to be neutral on a moving train.

My take, the best stories will always be a catch-22. The more bright you burn, the longer and darker the shadow. But nothing results in more evil than when a person refuses to make a choice.

Edit: And being evil is just deliciously good. A shining light doomed to flicker out? A comsummate professional who is at best a pawn to be used. Miss me with that. I want to get my piece. If that is evil, I am evil.

An example:

My first playthrough of most RPGs I play the uncorruptible paragon of virtue. It is generally rewarding in the feel good sense, and the relationships formed are a bit bland and "wholesome" cookie cutter nonsense.

The Outer Worlds however maxe it very clear to me from the getgo that killing everyone was a valid solution string. It said it as my first menu tooltip. It was repested by the insane doctor as he dropped me down to the first planet. Where I killed, completely accidentally the guy I was supposed to meet. Already off to a great start.

I love experiencing everything the game has to offer so I saved scummed a bit to save the first friendly I came across. Who again reinforces that death of the NPCs was utterly without consequence in her dialogue. So after expending her questline, I killed her.

And lo, when I arrived in town no one even notices shes missing. Skip forward about 9 hours. Every quest is finished, up to the point of no return, so I killed every single piece of fauna I could find. Eventually I decide to fix the reactor. This dooms the ecoterrorists and their murderous cult leader. Which was a win in my book, especially since I needed a place to start and so I collected my quest rewards launched from the planet to preserve the code. And immediately in orbit decide to enact my plan.

Operation Kill 'em All:

Then came the hardest. And probably most fun thing I ever did in an RPG. Through stealth, and subterfuge I killed off every human being on that planet. Stowed their loot in my ship. Picked every lock. Looted every single resource these people produced. I leave that planet so wealthy, and with so much equipment that I can do anything through power of grenades and pain killers.

Skip forward 80hrs of playing to aboit the midpoint of my playthrough. Commandant Akande orders me to eliminate everyone on the initial planet. I experience a moment of bliss. I did not see the game asking this as a valid solution string. Not only is it valid. There is a special dialogue choice. All my sins are forgiven, and I am reborn a demiurge.

I take the choice. Choice leads to about 60 more hours of content than a do gooder playthrough. Still spoilers, game ends with humanity thriving because I was willing to make a hard choice and not care one lick what people thought, sticking to the most logically consistent choice - kill all the invaders.

It was the most fun I have ever had playing a video game. And the game rewarded my being both Mr. Fixit and the Inexorable conqueror with a special ending that most people have not seen. Spoiler: it is the only way to save the human race in any of the endings.

So heroism? Who needs it. The inexorable conqueror bringing the chosen few into the promised land does more good than harm. Yes its a videogame. But much can be learned from this as a design philosophy. Violence, solves everything.

And morals? I did what was right for my people who were being held hostage. Yes it required a mountain of bodies, but when the gunfire ceased, and when the smoke cleared I was humanities only hope, and I did not let the species down.

Not sure i understand the link between the original topic, hypocrisy, and evil/good morality debate?

To begin with, hypocrisy is synonymous with insincerity and deceit. It's a form of lie probably.

I reckon this is a theory crafting/game design philosophy thread. Not to debate the nature of good or evil. Since that would be impossible.

In some ways most villains who pretend to be a decent member of society, but in secret is commiting crimes, is it not typically hypocritical?

One of my favorite situation is when the PCs think the NPC villain is a good guy and in some twisted way they helping him without knowing on his bad endeavours. :)

I think we can overdo the moral quandary card in D&D. Often we just want to roll dice and smite a fool.

"Look DM, I know the goblins are robbing the villagers to buy healing potions for their sick goblin children and the healers are price gouging the goblins out of prejudice. I get it. It's an allegory for the consequences of inequitable healthcare systems or something else clever, but it's my night off and I wanted to relax with some greenskin genocide. k'? Thx. I cast fireball."

+1

@Adam,
💯

I would say that the concept of morality and hypocrisy in modern RPGs is not pivotal at all. I see very few modern games tying their players in moral knots and then punishing or rewarding hypocritical decisions. This is more the domain of TSR-era games, where the Paladin would lose their powers for refusing to kill a goblin child.

Presenting players with choices that have consequences is what is pivotal. l love games that present players with tough choices, and bear out the consequences of their decisions.

Yeah, Len! A focus of mine, regardless of what I run, is to present difficult choices for the players. I’m not always good at it, but it’s something I try to keep in mind regardless of system or setting.

As for hypocrisy, it’s a great way to make NPCs unlikable…

As a player, i do have the angle of my characters having different moral values than me, that's what i find interesting.
So i think about what my character wants and values over my own morality, and how he'd respond to a choice that challenges his own values.

To appropriate Adam's example:
"Look DM,... ...or something else clever,

but my character is a mercenary, while he has little objection to raiding and might be doing it himself if he joined a group of bandits instead of adventurers, he is now being paid to fight the goblins.
Given he can convince his peers into this approach. He casts fireball."

a moment i did enjoy was with my character, a priest trying to spread worship to one of the evil gods who died long ago while believing in His virtues and values. He had to make a choice when preaching whether to lie and tell of some good afterlife the faithfull go to, or keep his valued honesty even if lying would help much with the faith he's trying to build.

Which is pretty cool since a person with my own values would not have that same moral conflict.

Ooooh, that's a good point xD

Boredflak approves