Morality, How is it handled in your games? Options

[FanGirl]

There’s a matter that’s been gnawing at me for a little while now, and I’d like some input from you, the people of DumpShock. I’ve been thinking of it because the morality Emo presents in his gaming sessions have been a bone of contention between me and him. If you haven’t had the chance to read our posts when we’ve been at loggerheads, I’ll save you the trouble of looking them up and tell you what the main problem appears to be. Essentially, Emo’s conviction is that “You/he/she/it/they started it” is a morally exemplary reason for doing bodily (or even fatal) harm to others, while my conviction is that violence is only the answer when one’s life or the lives of others are being immediately threatened.

Emo and I first started actively debating these issues during one of his SR sessions: the team was asked to perform wetwork in exchange for an exorbitant amount of cred, and my character (who happens to share my opinions, just as Emo’s characters seem to share his own) was vehemently against the idea of committing murder. I’ll admit that a lot of time was wasted by her schemes to save the mark’s life, time that the rest of the team might have liked to spend indulging their bloodlust. I realize this now, and when we all meet again next fall (Summer break! Woo!) I plan to have my character realize that trying to force others to follow her moral dictates would most likely do more harm than good.

Therefore, she’ll decide to walk away from the assassination plot and leave everyone else to their own devices: the other team members will get to have fun watching their mark get splattered on the plascrete, and while she’ll miss out on the cred and the karma, she’ll have the infinitely more important asset of a clean(er) conscience. Further, I plan to have my character handle future requests to violate her personal moral code by walking away from them whenever possible.

That’s as far as I’m willing to go to accommodate Emo’s views with my current character. If he truly wants me to play someone who better approximates his moral views, then he should kill off this character ASAP and have me write up a more bloodthirsty young lady to add to our merry little crew. Perhaps a sociopathic hacker/face who enjoys torturing hostages and stuff? You know, emotional abuse, unnecessary otoectomies,* things of that nature. It would be fun. :D

Anyway, give me some feedback on these issues:

GMs: How do you tend to paint the moral universe in your games? How do your players tend to react to the morality you present, and how do you respond to that reaction?
Players: How does your GM tend to handle the moral universe in his/her games? How do you and your fellow players tend to react to the morality presented, and how does the GM respond to that?

Thank you in advance for your comments, and please stay tuned for a re-rebuttal I’ve been meaning to give to Emo but can’t write just yet (I’ve got to go to work).

*Need a hint? Break it down: oto- is the prefix, -ectomy is the suffix.
Need another hint? Well, I’m stuck in the middle with you, and I’m wondering what it is I should do.

[James McMurray]

I personally would have loved to play/run a campaign where the players are at odds with one another over morality. Some of the best games I've ran involved some characters wanting t do some things while others want to take the moral high road (or even just a different immoral low road).

In one campaign a large portion of the group elected to torture a captive to prevent him from leaving (it was a dragon so they ripped out teeth, flayed wings, etc.). When those actions came back to haunt them later the dragon remembered that she didn't help and was kinder to her. She didn't get off unaccosted because she was there and didn't help, but didn't fare as badly as everyone else.

Generally the setting tends to dictate morality. In D&D and other fantasy games the party tends to be close to heroes or close to villains, with middle ground characters few and far between. In Shadowrun the atmosphere is more of a "get it while the getting's good" setup, so we tend to have more amoral characters out to get what they want at almost any cost. In far future space games such as Spacemaster or Star Wars we tend to have more realistic characters (except for the occassional Jedi). In Legend of the Five Rings it's all about the Honor.

[Witness]

I'm sure there's already been a thread on this recently but nevermind.

IMO shadowrunners should expect to have to do bad things now and then. They don't have to like it though. They may look for ways around it, ways to justify it, ways to live with it, but it won't be long before they have to do it.

[Backgammon]

It's a roleplaying game. All moral codes can be played, no? The idea is not for the GM to force his/her personnal views on the players. What the hell would that be about? I'd walk from a game like that.

But it's more than appropriate for a Johnson to totally expect you to brutally torture someone. Or for another to be shocked when the runners he hired to quietly steal something kill and maim 7 people doing it.

As a GM, you should be aware of (or at least suspect) what the characters will and will not do. So when you plan a run that involves brutal torture, you make it part of your scenario that the characters will probably NOT obey the Johnson, and make it all part of the storyline.

Generally it'll be better fun if all the characters share the same moral code, because, like in your case, it might end up with one player having to sit the game out cause her character isn't going to take the run. That's still good roleplaying, but it's a bit less fun for the player not playing.

In any case, if the GM gets annoyed about the moral choices of his players/characters, then he is doing a VERY BAD JOB. That's all there is to it.

[Kagetenshi]

I always thought "morals" were those big flat grinding teeth…

~J

[Jrayjoker]

Perhaps this is not an issue of morality, but we have one player who is enamored of his rocket launcher, and does not fail to use it at least one time per session. Usually it is during the day and in public. So far no civilian casualties, but the other guys usually die.

We spend a lot of time trying to talk him out of using bombs, grenades, rocket launchers, etc. both IC and OOC so that the heat doesn't come down on us. It isn't necessarily a moral issue, just we don't want the attention it garners.`

[Eugene]

I think the GM does a lot to set the moral tone of a run. They don't HAVE to involve wetwork; there can be nuyen bonuses for NOT killing site guards, Johnsons can represent humanitarian causes (being hired by an eco-front to investigate a company's waste procedures or hacking a medical company to transfer shipments from AAA areas to that free clinic in the Barrens), etc.

If your GM is having missions filled with killing, he's making a statement about how he expects his runs to go. If you're unhappy with that, why not suggest to him that the team get jobs more like the ones above? That way, even if some missions fill your character with distaste, perhaps she can "make-up/redeem" by doing some of these kinds of things.

[Kagetenshi]

[Eugene]

[Kagetenshi]

I… well, I completely disagree. IMO it's just caveat magister for the GM. Always have a backup!

I do agree that the GM should get a feel for the kinds of runs the players want to play and the characters are willing to do, but IMO it should come from in-game experience—it's hard to get a clear fix on who your character is and what their moralities, if any, are at chargen.

~J

[mmu1]

[Kagetenshi]

That, absolutely. I could even see run conditions that fail if there's a kill. Giving a reward for not killing, though, seems absurd to me—either it's important enough to make a primary condition (or at least a penalizing condition) or it isn't important enough to spend money on.

~J

[nezumi]

As a GM, I set no "moral tone" for my games. Every character has his or her own ethics, and oftentimes the ethics of different characters conflict. Almost by definition, shadowrunners deal with people who have looser ethics, or at least are results oriented. So Johnsons tend to either not care about unnecessary death, or turn a blind eye to it (and really don't want to know). If someone is supposed to be dead, disappeared is just as good, as long as he doesn't turn up again.

Other NPCs have ethics when they can afford them (morality IS a luxury). Bums who don't believe in begging or stealing tend to be dead.

A PC is welcome to have his or her own moral code (and in fact, I encourage it, because it gives me a way to mess with him or her). However, don't expect me to give you any breaks because of it. Sticking to a moral code may win you karma, because it's a roleplaying challenge, but outside of that, expect it to limit your behavior, sometimes in dangerous ways.

[mfb]

it depends on the character i'm playing, though there are identifiable trends. very few of my characters have any compunction about killing for the job. some of my characters have no compunction about killing, period. a few of my characters are, basically, 'normal' people, so the idea of going out and murdering someone, even for money, doesn't occur to them very often; they might respond to violence with lethal or non-lethal force, but they're less likely to go out and perpetrate some of their own.

i tend to agree with McMurray, though. in-character moral loggerheads make for some really good rp. however, it sounds to me like you might be taking things a bit personally, what with the whole "walking away whenever possible" bit. i mean, if your character is walking away, leaving you with nothing to do at the gaming table, what's the point of showing up in the first place?

try stepping back from the character a bit. while it's true that the best rp comes from characters that have parts of you in them, overidentification with the characters makes for some pretty lousy gaming. at the same time, Emo needs to not hand the team many more assassination jobs. as the GM, it is his job to keep everyone at the table.

instead, he should be offering the characters jobs which maybe push a little at your character's morals, but don't quite cross the line. or maybe runs where something goes wrong, and you're left with the choice of breaking your moral code (in a minor or major way) or leaving your team to die (hint: it's more fun to rp a hurt conscience than it is to rp rolling up new characters).

[hyzmarca]

The great thing about morals is that they are realitive and undebatable for that very reason. The great thing about professional ethics is that they are debatable.

Most of my characters expect everyone they deal with to act in an ethical maner and do so themselves. This ethical manner differes greatly from any standard morality, of course. It involves completing jobs that may require killing and refunding payment if the job can't be completed. It involves the runners not beyraying the Johnson and the Johnson not betraying the runners. Basic professional ethics just make things run more smoothly.

Morality is quite different. Many of my characters try not to consider the morality of their actions at all. Others are stictly moral and find themselves forced to compromise or change their values due to circumstances. Others still are Epicurean Egoists, believing that their own pleasures are the highest and greatest good in the universe.

[mmu1]

In the games I play in, the world tends to be a harder place for those that can't handle violence than for those who don't mind it - but there's certainly a wide spectrum between those two extremes, and lots of gray areas.

My longest-running character, for example, prefers to kill as little as possible, and will probably, barring extraordinary circumstances, not kill someone he considers to be an innocent bystander.
However, most of the people he does kill (and there have been quite a few) fall into the "If you find me at your door, you've probably done something to bring me there." category - and those, who ought to have known what game they were getting into, he doesn't give much thought.

None of this ends up being a problem for him, really - his contacts simply offer him the sort of jobs where he's not going to be asked to kill a mother of four, or kick puppies, and his reputation for being professional, reliable and sane definitely counts for more with prospective employers than being an unfeeling killer ever would.

[knasser]

[stevebugge]

As a GM I try very hard to not put a overarching Moral System on the world at large. I try to create several that vary by location and culture or subculture, basically to give the world some depth, and to sometimes put characters in to weird situations when they end up somewhere where the moral code is very different (stricter, looser, different emphasis). When playing I find it is fun (as in challenging to try to play the what would this character do vs. what would I do game) to try to play characters with different moral codes or outlooks from my own. Interestingly as characters develop more history during game play I find they change frequently, sometimes they become better people, sometimes more despicable.

Now if a character has a certain moral code and is offered a job that contradicts it, that can reate for a good game especially if there is conflict within the team of characters. While it it's fine, even good, for a GM to set up the situation, there is the danger of the GM getting in to the position of "I spent x Hours writing up this scenario this way, your characters are going to do it whether they like it or not" mentality which is not usually much fun for the players when they really can't see their characters doing the job.

[Sahandrian]

I tend to maintain a sort of neutral morality in my games. I don't punish people for their actions, but there have been a few times where a player trying to do something will get an answer like "I know the other GM lets you play that out, but it's background noise in my game. Next."

But then there are things like the shadowy ex-mafia guy blowing off the fixer's head with a shotgun, just to get a data disk he had received from the runners.


On the other hand, there are the players. Last game, they elected to just kill everyone inside an old building in the barrens to find their target, rather than just looking for him and dragging him out. The people killed were all unarmed, and no threat to the runners in any way. They mostly just did it for fun.

[nezumi]

[Apathy]

As a GM I liked to create situations that challenged the players moral compass, but I never actually forced them to choose one way or another. I did give what I thought were realistic consequences for their actions, and that sometimes created tension in the group because their idea of realistic consequences didn't always agree with mine.

As an example, I GM'd a run where the PCs were hired by a cult leader who had lost one of his brain-washed cult members to an extraction team (second runner team who had been hired by the parents.) When they broke into hospital room where the girl was recovering, I played up the big dramatic scene: the girl was mostly incoherent, and unhappy to be taken away, her parents were sobbing hysterically, clutching at the runner's legs begging them not to take the girl, etc.

They got to choose whatever they wanted to do next: take the girl back against her will, get the payout and make the Johnson happy, or not take the girl which would piss Mr J. off but salve their concience (if they had chosen this, they would have been hired by the parents to help protect her from subsequent snatch attempts.)

Later, after they found out that the cult they gave the girl to was actually a insect spirit hive, they felt really bad about it, but they got another chance to redeem themselves. They eventually tracked down the hive and wiped it out, saving many of the captives in the process.

[Wolfshade]

As a GM morals and ethics are some of my favorite toys :D I agree with Apathy. I let the players handle the results of thier decisions and that varys from NPC to NPC.

[Kagetenshi]

[hyzmarca]

[stevebugge]