This post won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay. Not everyone wants a game where morality gets murky and complicated, where the least worst option is hard to figure out. But some of us really like that stuff. I’m one of them. I’ve been doing it for years. Here’s how I create situations where the players look at each other and throw up their hands, because good decisions simply aren’t possible.
First off, we have to establish a baseline of what’s necessary in your setting. There are basic needs that individuals have: meaning, relationships, food, a home. Those aren’t in a particular order because each person is different, and will prioritize their needs differently. But without meaning, relationships, food, and a home individuals suffer, and may even die.
Societies have different, but related, needs: mythology (a common story, includes culture), stability, resources, and leadership. Without societies possessing these four things individuals will suffer and die, even if their own needs are met. These are not “nice things to have”, but essentials. You can’t not have these. At least one of these societal needs are at the center of any conflict I make. In fact I usually like to threaten three of the four, but almost never with people. Droughts, plagues, post-war, natural disasters, big monsters like Godzilla, can put the setting off-balance in a way that removes an obvious bad guy. You can’t punch a plague. Nor can you find an obvious solution to the wreckage of a post-war economy.
At this point you don’t need obvious bad guys. You really don’t need bad guys! You just need sincere people who are trying to fix a problem in a way that your players find objectionable. You can’t play the guy as a bad guy. That might cheapen the conflict. Instead, make it something that the NPC himself may find reprehensible, but necessary. Most importantly? You may be able to change the NPC’s mind. In one of my playtest games of Crescendo one of the NPCs took over the hub town, killing anyone who stood in his way. The players wanted to stop him, but the town was already embroiled in a riot (which the players had a hand in starting, however accidentally) and the current leadership was incompetent to the point of criminality. This particular NPC, Keliva, had shown himself to be a somewhat noble and competent, if dangerous, individual. The players knew Keliva could calm down the riot they had started. They had watched Keliva lead people more than competently before, so they trusted that he could turn it around…if they helped him negotiate with their own friends, who were fighting Keliva tooth and nail. Doing so would reduce the casualties. And it had already been established that the players’ friends weren’t half as competent at ruling as Keliva. So they held their noses and betrayed their own friends and family for the sake of the city. The people regarded them as heroes. But the players had lost the respect of the people they cared for most. But at least their former friends were alive! That was something! Right?
That wince?
Where you can see why the players came to their decision but man it was ugly?
That’s the point.
There is no good answer to that situation, just the answer you hate the least. If that situation was handed to someone else they’d have come to a completely different solution. Maybe the way a group comes to power is so important to you you’d rather let the town burn, helping to sort out the wreckage later. Or maybe you would try to take over yourself. Or maybe you’d shake your head in disgust and walk away. None of those answers are good. Someone’s going to get hurt, and badly. You will be responsible. But you can’t not make a choice! You have to ask “What do I really value most? Really”
And then you make sure the consequences of the players’ hit home. How does the setting react? People are generally happy with any regime, so long as their individual and societal needs are met, or if there are enough bread and circuses to distract them. But there will always be some idealists out there, who demand these needs are met in a way they think legit. How do they counter and criticize the players’ decisions? I do not suggest you have the NPCs ignore individual and societal needs. Not only does that make them harder to deal with, but practically speaking they can’t get a mass movement out of their efforts if the mass’s basic needs aren’t met or “medicated” away.
If you’ve done your job right there’s one question your situations come down to: what do the players value the most? What’s the one thing they’re willing to sacrifice everything for?
And what if it changes? Y’know midway through?
Well, I mean, what more could a GM ask for?
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