You are not still playing with le good and evil sides are you anon?
Since making my settings shades of gray only both the quality of players and the quality of experience has improved *drastically*
I no longer have to deal with some maladapted NEET LARPing as a crusader or moronic "You must le save le princess from le dragon" plotlines.
Instead my players are forced to grapple with REAL morally challenging questions.
sounds gay
pic unrelated, i presume?
Shades of gray are irrelevant if all you're doing is placing artificially constructed "moral quandaries" in front of your players and forcing them to pick the slightly less shitty of two shitty options to drive home how gray your unoriginal crapsack world is. That's not a real challenge of any sort, it's just a shallow and meaningless aesthetic.
>my players are forced to grapple with REAL morally challenging questions
Such as? Surely you can give some examples from your game?
Well bots dont play /tg/ so...
Janny wont do this, xe's paid to do a very specific job - defend xer sisters from mean normal people!
There's a kingdom that's prosecutes all elves because in my settings drows are simply a mutants like in warhammer, and mother elf never knows if her child will not be born a drow. Powerful but easily corruptible by their innate powers. Prosecutions started like 20 years ago so all the elvish societies are now simply thr most stubborn who refuse to leave and live within heavily defend medagical fortresses or lead a nomadic life far away from the dwarfs and humans. They became savage and often ally with gobkinoids and raid human villages.
I often put my players in the middle of a fight/conflict between these two forces
This is the geopolitical equivalent of the GM making the paladin rape the maiden or else the BBEG will destroy a village. It's not morally ambiguous, you've just contrived a silly situation to justify genocide as excusable.
>There's a kingdom that's prosecutes all people because in my settings psychopaths are simply a mutants like in warhammer, and mother person never knows if her child will not be born a psychopath. Powerful but easily corruptible by their innate powers
Sometimes I run trench games wherein the enemy and players side both consist of frightened conscripts forced into a horrifically violent conflict whose goals they don't understand and wouldn't agree with if they did.
And sometimes I run trench games in which THE DASTARDLY BOCHE and his the NEFARIOUS TURKS are planning to destroy OUR VALIENT BOYS once and for all and the players have to blow up a secret lab full of Hounds of Mons and lightning guns.
And both are good. One goes well with pretzels and the other goes well with violin music.
>Sometimes I like to drink fine wine, sometimes I like to drink piss
More like non-alcoholic apple cider vs apple juice.
Both do coincidentally look kind of like piss though, apples are weird.
>It is far more original than your rehashing of Tolkienslop where le hecking good POC races save le world from le evil White men.
>Stop believing in fairytales, kid.
Airball.
I run a humanocentric factional sandbox, with Team Law and Team Chaos meeting on different game nights. STRICT TIME RECORDS ensure that the activities of one party have the appropriate downstream effects on the world as it's encountered by future parties. The whole campaign is a Grand Game of territory control, with Law and Chaos competing to delve the dungeons, seize key locations (which Neutrals can also liberate from either side), and generally vie for dominance of the milieu. THAT'S a real challenge for the players, because they're dealing with both the world I've built and, more importantly, other players. As an impartial Referee, I have no vested interest in either Law or Chaos "winning," so I can merely arbitrate and enjoy whatever happens -- but the point is, it's a real game and not just some bullshit slight-of-hand that I'm forcing to happen by fudging under the table or dropping quantum ogres in the PCs' paths. The stakes are real, the competition is real, the outcomes are real.
>two player groups for the same campaign
>Literal DM science experiment/turn based PVP.
I'm kind of interested in how this works anon. Unironically tell me more. What are these law and chaos teams?
Simply put, they're two separate player groups operating within the same campaign simultaneously.
The game takes place on a large island that sits halfway between two great powers, a confederation of Lawful kingdoms to the west and a Chaotic empire to the east. Each power has a colony planted on the island: a village on the northwest shore aligned with the kingdoms, and a castrum in the southeast aligned with the empire.
The Sunday gaming group is based out of that northwestern village. Players in that group can make Lawful or Neutral PCs. The Wednesday group is based out of that southeastern fortress-town; those players can make Chaotic or Neutral PCs.
As the game has only been carrying on for a matter of months, it's so far just been adventuring parties forming out of either base to explore the island, crawl the hexes, delve the smaller nearby dungeons, and suchlike. At this early stage, there isn't yet much indirect contact or conflict. There's a big megadungeon complex in the center of the island, but so far, only the Lawfuls have poked around its upper levels a bit. I expect fun times whenever the Chaotics find the place and start exploring the complex from a different direction.
So far, the territory control game is in its early stages. Hexes on the map marked with "⊕" are shrines devoted to the island's pagan spirits, sometimes abandoned, sometimes tented by a druid. Either team can seize a shrine, remove the druid if there is one, and have kingdom clerics bless the place in the name of the gods of Law, or have imperial shamans profane it and dedicate it to Chaos. Both sides discovered early on that there are divine boons and bonus XP in it for taking control of a shrine, but they don't yet know that controlling the shrines opens up new pathways for your alignment in the megadungeon. So, again, when they discover that, that'll be fun.
It'll be more fun once both sides have 9th+ level PCs with strongholds and armies, but that's a long way off.
>tented
*tended. There's always one goddamn typo, isn't there?
I admire the fact that you have the free time and friend circle to keep not just one group going, but two. The last three groups that I've joined have fizzled within less than four sessions each.
You should make a thread and dump the happenings thus far
I promise to do that if we ever see a name-level PC.
So far, the highest level character is a Hero (a Lawful 4th level fighting man) run by a player who has addended with superb regularity and made sure to stick that one character every session that his fighter wasn't sidelined by training between experience levels.
Nta Why are you bringing gay shit into this? Also
>stop believing in fairytales kid
>sheathes katana as he slips away under the cover of darkness
Seriously though, are you criticizing his game of dice wizards for not being "mature"?
>Homosexual janny deleting half the posts in the thread
Even if they're shitposts, trying to play moral police on Ganker of all places is fricking pathetic. Delete some generals and furry posts for once
There is nothing complex, compelling, or mature about shades of gray writing. 99% of the time it just comes across as if you are intentionally undermining what would be narratively satisfying, not trying to be realistic. Most settings built around this stuff just don't seem like they could actually have functioning societies with what scumbags everyone seems to be.
>Most settings built around this stuff just don't seem like they could actually have functioning societies with what scumbags everyone seems to be.
I don't even know which fictional societies you are talking about but I can tell that you are a giga-tool. You don't know anything about real life people and you probably never will.
Yes, it depends on the game. The good may not be perfectly good, but the evil is certainly fricking evil and it illustrates the intrinsic failings of society where a people rule because they’re the most fit to rule (eg. technocracy, Plato’s philosopher kings, theocracy, and enlightened despotism). It illustrates that even if the villains had a reason to seize power and could certainly justify it that the system was untenable as even good and noble people are still flawed and the good king may get sick of rebellion and decide to just massacre an entire city as an example or the technocratic ruler gifting humanity with great AI might decide that if people refuse to think right he should use technology to help enlighten them until he’s nerve stapling the proles so they stop murdering and raping.
While there’s nothing wrong with moral ambiguity if you need moral ambiguity you’re a simpleton, and interesting ideas can still be explored even in settings where you think “nah frick that guy in particular.”
>"You must le save le princess from le dragon"
Literally nothing wrong with this. Your opinions are shit.
So you prefer Neutral games.anon. Good for you. Pefer settings in which THERE ARE Good vs Evil, Law vs Chaos. Different taste, I suppose. Did you have to create an entire thread just to say it? What's next, a thread about what flavour Icecream you prefer? Do you ever get the feeling you are wasting your life?
>DM says campaign will be morally gray
>ask DM if it's a setting with a less-than-ideal-good or grimdark politik
>he laughs and says "its a good setting anon"
>join campaign
>it's an infighting less-than-ideal-good opposed by forces of true evil
"Moral Greyness" is a concept devised by homosexual Communists which stems from the logical fallacy that is moral relativism. If you believed in such concepts, you should take them to their only sensible conclusion and have a nice day.
Based, frick relativists. They're just a cope for being evil.
You must be 18 to post here
>le good and evil
You mean Royalists and Parliament, yes
I think you mean Lancastrians and Yorkists
I think you mean Saxons and Normans
I only play as the good guys
Yes, I am the good and everyone I kill is evil
>I no longer have to deal with some maladapted NEET LARPing as a crusader or moronic "You must le save le princess from le dragon" plotlines.
This is where you're wrong, you know. I find settings without good and evil to be very freeing, because they're ideal for a crusader.
In a lot of settings, there's stuff that Good is technically not supposed to do, like ethnic cleansing or torture. But in a setting where there's no edict from on high going "No, you cannot do this", I can totally do it and not break kayfabe.
I am, because it saves me from having to play with redditoids who use the phrase 'le' ironically.
God I love avoiding you 'people'
Shades of gray more like shades of GAY
I love playing unambiguously evil villains who are evil for the sake of being evil and do things like bully the weak and hunt the poor for sport. It's fricking fun as frick.
I don't know, playing comically evil party in TTRPG gets stale very quickly. It devolves into "how many atrocities can I pull over today!" It's good for one-shots tho, I must admit
Sounds like you've never been the comically evil bastard tagging along with a "morally gray tragic antivillain" type. He'll yap on about his tragic baclstory and why it has to be this way and he must stay true to his ideals and then you get to completely undercut him by tossing a baby into a meatgrinder to make it into a chili that you'll give to its parents.
I wouldn't call Palpatine unambiguously evil. I mean- he's super evil don't get me wrong. I'm just saying he's a great villain because he's GREAT at making his evil ambiguous in-universe. Most people in the Empire don't understand how truly evil it actually is because Palpatine is a master politician. I'd argue he was responsible for his own downfall because he decided he could take the mask off once he'd built the Death Star, which in turn actually turbocharged the Rebellion (combined with disbanding the Senate). Had he kept up appearances and not blown up Alderaan I think he could have kept the Rebellion from posing a real threat.
Worth recalling, Tarkin was the one who blew up Alderaan, Palpatine could've just post humously thrown him under the bus for everything, includinf the creation of the Death Star itself. He wouldn't be the first or last tyrant to do that.
Good point- one had to wonder had Palpatine gotten to show up on the Death Star 1 how he would have reacted to it.
I mean- sure Alderaan was super funding the Rebels. But the rest of the Galaxy didn't know that. Tarkin hadn't even properly confirmed it either. He blew up a planet that was mostly known for giving humanitarian aid without even informing the Emperor on the suspicion that they were helping Rebels.
Palpatine I figure is still evil enough to blow up Alderaan, but it'd be a lot more efficient to prove how deep the Rebel conspiracy went first. Punish disobedience, reward loyalty. The way Tarkin handled things, it makes it seem like the Empire can decide to just randomly blow up your planet with zero reasoning.
Honestly the idea of Palpatine not knowing about the Death Star, especially after dissolving the senate, would be an indictment of him either way; and I think it would have been hard to stop the momentum of the rebel alliance post-Alderaan by just throwing someone under the bus.
The construction of the Death Star was a gargantuan undertaking, involving people throughout the imperial hierarchy and resources from across the entire Empire. The idea of "It was just Tarkin" would be considered absurd, especially when seething senators would've been busy drumming up dissent.
The real mistake was dissolving the senate and blowing up Alderaan in what must've been pretty much the same week. The problem of course is that there was no great choices here: Had he unveiled the Death Star and blown up Alderaan but kept the senate, the senate would've been going bananas over it. Had he dissolved the senate but not blown up Alderaan, the senators would've likely gone rebellious. He needed to dissolve the senate to ultimately cement his power base, but he also needed to keep the senators afraid of him.
I think the best solution would've been to unveil the Death Star and blow up Alderaan, and then try to appease the senators, blame it on the Rebellion, crush the rebellion as best he could, and then dissolved the senate later and use the death star to keep them in fear of being next.
He wouldn't have to say he didn't know about it's construction- he could just (accurately) say that Tarkin unilaterally decided to blow up Alderaan without even checking with the Emperor. And the Emperor is good at using the truth to his advantage (like to justify the Jedi Purge he said that they tried to assassinate him, except that ACTUALLY happened).
Anyway the Death Star works best as deterrence- after capturing Leia he could have easily justified occupying Alderaan (where he WOULD have found evidence of Rebel collusion) and given the Alderaanians are pacifists it's unlikely it would have been very costly militarily. And even if it did, just let the conflict go for a few weeks and THEN blow it up saying 'man shame they had to rebel like that, or they could have kept their planet' which sends the right message.
Warcraft has never been morally gray, even if Blizzard tries to.
There is always one comically evil side(Horde and/or their puppeteers) and one side that's unquestionably good(Alliance)
>fatso playing human paladin detected
Have you played any of the past few expansions?
prove me wrong homie
you can't
Dude those guys are good guys lol
As long as they don't rote impose their personal faith on the table or totally Chud out ya gotta have some goodies and baddies on the extreme cheese spectrum. For the simple reason that meaning gives us a contoured reality. I suppose George RR gets away with it because normbos find his characters charismatic
My setting has evil, but no good. What else are the PCs for?
I liked the moral greyness in The Last Duel
Like Jean de Carrouges is an honorable man, but at the same time a massive dickhead.
Shades of gray are good, but it should be possible to play a morally good character, when evil actions should be very tempting to do. You shouldn't be full black and white, but full postmodern moral relativity only works in grimdark settings, where everything is already doomed
>You are not still playing with le good and evil sides are you anon?
Of course I am. It is the only quality way to present fantasy and science fiction.
>Since making my settings shades of gray
Gay baby bullshit that only unintelligent shitters enjoy. Have fun, but keep that shit to yourself.
>try shades of grey
>Players immediately start killing and demanding power for everything because only they can be trusted
>Do classic alignments
>Players at least try and negotiate and go for nonlethals
Frick your grey
I love good and evil. I love when my players are happy they managed to slaughter the fiery dragon and take his trove he stole centuries ago.
I also like when thry summon demons or suck the blood of sleeping paladins of the light.
Don't be edgy about your mediocrity, OP
>I no longer have to deal with certain plotlines
>my players
Are you the GM or not? If you're gonna do shit bait at least be consistent.
>Muh shades of gay
I prefer historicism, i'm going to start a game in banestorm with hospitalier knights disemboweling subhuman orcs for not believing in Christ.
You can do both. You can have a clearly good and bad side while having nuance and shades of grey.
Like I'm taking a class on modern Central Asian history, and it's interesting hearing about the Soviet Occupation in the area. Cause on the one hand you have the typical repression of freedom, famines, and colonialism continuing from the Imperial era. At the same time they made female liberation a big part of their governance leading to deveiling campaigns and increased literacy for the locals while local religious authorities were advocating (and committed) lynchings of deveiled women.
So like the Soviets are still evil, but even then there were actual attempts to try to improve the situation in the region, and there were a lot of things that the locals were flat out wrong about. Like without the Soviet Occupation most of Central Asia would probably look like Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Considering what independent, free thinking women are like in western culture. The soviets didn't do anyone any favours. Hell they probably did it on purpose, pretty much anyone with half a brain knows that the more freedom women have the less stable a nation is
How's that gay wiener you brush your teeth with taste like?
>women should be subservient to men
>tHaT makes U gAy
Everything I make nowadays is just a allegory for the historical Three Kingdoms period.
>best campaign I ever took part in
>homebrew space/cyberpunk/noir/political thriller
>group was entirely comprised of broken men at various lowest points forced into a grand conspiracy
>we were unequivocably in the wrong, working for the bad guys
>we knew this
>we had a choice and only my best friend made the right one
>he died for it
>we all had to live with the guilt of what we'd done to survive
>no one got a happy ending
>none of us made it out unscathed
God, it was so fricking kino
>implying crusading isn't more fun in grey settings anyway
Crusading is most fun in a setting that has good factions and evil factions, but it still inevitably contains significant elements of moral grey, because grey is an inevitable consequence of the intersection between black and white. Or, hell, the intersection between white and white.
>I want to kill frickers
>And I want to feel like I'm good
>And I don't want to think about it
Yea, nah, I never saw the appeal. If you don't want to think about the difference between good and evil then you want to be evil, that's how it works, pretending to be good means pretending to care about the difference.
"Bigger", "smaller", "faster", "slower", these are objective judgments.
"Better", "worse", "good", "evil", "selfish", "selfless", these are subjective judgments.
That's what these words mean. You don't have to like it.
The Horde is morally grey. That includes Big Daddy G Hellscream - I don't know what they've been doing since but I doubt it's edgy.
>The Horde is morally grey.
Never was.
>DM's campaign is morally gay.
>But the good way, like you are supposed to try your best at all times and suffer from it instead of embracing the clown and just not giving a frick about anything anymore.
Morally gray is shit because you are playing reality simulator and everyone just goes numb to ethics because why bother to be a happiness terrorist spaz in a shit world when all you do is badly playing pretend that it isnt.
Also that moment when le morally gray homosexual gets a stroke because morally gray characters in a fitting setting suddenly dont give a shit about pronouns, whose ass you frick or your skincolor anymore.
Still remember tard GM going full spaz attack because terrorists who bomb civilian homes and daycare centers to fund theit higher goal dont give a frick if a contractor is le heckin racisterino as long as he pays.
Kinda funny how ever since Oct 7th, posts about how everything being morally Grey are shit are popping up. Almost like a certain country is astroturfing and trying really hard to make people think in absolutes so they can continue a war or something
it's palenstine, Isreal has always benefited from making the war "complicated and gray" while palenstine benefits from an absolute good vs bad narraitive