Moral Dilemma/Decay in Ravenloft
Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 3:34 pm
I'm taking a break from writing RL riff-raff for a bit (though my notebook remains ever-handy) but an idea popped into my head just the once and I'd like to put it to you all as a community sound-off sort of thread. The title says it all: do you highlight moral dilemmas in your RL? If so, what sorts of dilemmas do you focus on? Is moral decay a thing that you as a DM track, maybe as a precursor of sorts to Powers Checks? Or maybe its for spits and giggles, just to see which way the DPs blow your PCs...
Either way, this thread is not meant to grind down as a "Powers Check or not?" kind of debate thread; it's meant to be a community tool to probe, plunder, and provide ideas for the topics at hand. My examples will be more rhetorical in nature, but as always feel free to buzz in and drop your coin on the counter, if you feel the need. It's all good.
I'll start things off with a simple example, and I'll probably pop in now and again and hopefully provide more complex ones in the future.
Example 1.
You and your mates, all guests at a relatively secluded country estate, are just about convinced that your eccentric (at best) benefactor and Lord of the Manor is something other than normal. One of you has taken it upon yourselves to look into his comings and goings and it appears that A) he frequents the lower level of the estate, B) it is during all hours of the night, and that C) its entrance is exhaustively singular. Yet that is the sum of the equation before you as any attempt to investigate further is blocked by the lord's mentally-retarded servant, who seems to a guardian of sorts in regards to this particular area of the estate. By day there is too much pedestrian traffic in the form of the other servants' hubbubbery to garner enough time to get in undetected.
Mindful of your employers, and more importantly of the grief-stricken families of the missing children, this could be the break you need to blow this case wide-open.
Do you attempt to force your way past the simpleton, subduing him as is necessary? Do you pollute him with alcohol from his master's stock in the hopes that he'll pass out for the duration of your proposed investigation? He does seem to enjoy the drink, given his ever-present pungent odor...
Or, is it better to just demand an explanation of Lord Jeandisse himself during daylight hours? The element of surprise may be lost, but what if you're wrong? It's unseemly for guests to skulk around their host's home, and a Lord's of all places!, yet to make such demands requires a social acumen that may be beyond your group's current skillset...
Risks: breaking various laws, jail/dungeon (and premature end to critical case/investigation), becoming social outcasts (beating up/"poisoning"/taking advantage of a mentally-challenged man), becoming marked persons (wealthy antagonist), blowing cover on a critical case/investigation, ...
Rewards: possible suspect or clue in critical case/investigation
Either way, this thread is not meant to grind down as a "Powers Check or not?" kind of debate thread; it's meant to be a community tool to probe, plunder, and provide ideas for the topics at hand. My examples will be more rhetorical in nature, but as always feel free to buzz in and drop your coin on the counter, if you feel the need. It's all good.
I'll start things off with a simple example, and I'll probably pop in now and again and hopefully provide more complex ones in the future.
Example 1.
You and your mates, all guests at a relatively secluded country estate, are just about convinced that your eccentric (at best) benefactor and Lord of the Manor is something other than normal. One of you has taken it upon yourselves to look into his comings and goings and it appears that A) he frequents the lower level of the estate, B) it is during all hours of the night, and that C) its entrance is exhaustively singular. Yet that is the sum of the equation before you as any attempt to investigate further is blocked by the lord's mentally-retarded servant, who seems to a guardian of sorts in regards to this particular area of the estate. By day there is too much pedestrian traffic in the form of the other servants' hubbubbery to garner enough time to get in undetected.
Mindful of your employers, and more importantly of the grief-stricken families of the missing children, this could be the break you need to blow this case wide-open.
Do you attempt to force your way past the simpleton, subduing him as is necessary? Do you pollute him with alcohol from his master's stock in the hopes that he'll pass out for the duration of your proposed investigation? He does seem to enjoy the drink, given his ever-present pungent odor...
Or, is it better to just demand an explanation of Lord Jeandisse himself during daylight hours? The element of surprise may be lost, but what if you're wrong? It's unseemly for guests to skulk around their host's home, and a Lord's of all places!, yet to make such demands requires a social acumen that may be beyond your group's current skillset...
Risks: breaking various laws, jail/dungeon (and premature end to critical case/investigation), becoming social outcasts (beating up/"poisoning"/taking advantage of a mentally-challenged man), becoming marked persons (wealthy antagonist), blowing cover on a critical case/investigation, ...
Rewards: possible suspect or clue in critical case/investigation