hey i love the idea of moral dilemmas in the game & as what was done in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> it was good as it forces a player to choose & somehow choice doesn't become as easy as black & white, good & bad, as things suddenly become relative & one has to re-evaluate their values & principles.

well except for those who would simplify things & just bash the problems away. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

some ideas for moral quandaries;

1. monster versus village (thanks to Shyon's idea in earlier post in this thread). the head of the village may hire the player on behalf of the village to kill this particular monster who lives not far from the village, in a spot where the villagers need to access for their daily living & such.

if let's say in the new game we have skills to communicate with monsters or something like that, or even sneaking skills where we use to sneak to the monster's den, & inadvertently find out that the monster isn't a bad one after all. so what to do next?

a. reject the village head's offer to kill the monster (lawfully wrong, ethically right)
b. go ahead & kill the monster to collect reward & whatever loot the monster may have (lawfully right, morally wrong)

for option a, the village head's reaction is obvious - mad that u won't take action, therefore rallies the villagers to do something about it. of course after seeing how harmless the monster is (it can either be powerful but benign, or pregnant, or with very young offspring that cannot be moved yet), what can do u?

c. re-consider the village head's offer, which is now higher (lawfully right, ethically wrong)
d. try to stop the villagers somehow (this i'm not sure how yet, talk to them? find an alternative to their current daily living?)
e. go & attempt communication with the monster, persuade it to either leave (no right or wrong), or kill the village mob (lawfully & ethically wrong), or frighten the villagers to not disturb it anymore which maybe later on hire another 'hero' more powerful than your character (neutral), or try to have dialogue with the villagers to show how benign it is (all right, but this may have unexpected result, such as villagers refuse to listen, dice roll?)

for option b, it's obvious that the quest is over & done. .... except that u find the offspring of the monster too young therefore defenseless, so what do u do with it?

x. what the heck? kill it! (lawfully right, ethically wrong)
y. take it with u & raise it (neutral, can be evil depending on how it is raised)
z. leave it alone & let fate deal with it (neutral, will have repercussion such as monster later on takes revenge)

2. order versus people power. this one is very political so it will twist the moral ambiguity even further. the concerned mayor of a city or major town will ask u to help him or her in quelling the population unrest. however u also find out that the population also do have a point in their unrest. so which will it be?

a. order for the city so it can grow economically
b. people's revolution so they can freely choose

this feels a bit like Deus Ex but it can also be fun without being too deep. whatever it is, i feel that there should be a branched consequences so the actions of the players reverberate in the game world even more, whether their player affects the world directly or indirectly.

3. this one is a rip-off from the movie 16 Blocks. imagine after doing a number of quests for a town that has been very friendly to the player & the player's character has made friends with the local militia (police), then after that, one more quest to be done before moving on to the new town. it is to accompany a convict to another town for judgement. the order comes from an authority that is higher than the militia in both towns.

during the transport of the convict, the player may meet some of the NPCs of the old town he/she worked in earlier, all of them he or she is familiar & friends with. these friendly NPCs will offer to take over the duty to send the convict to the next town so the player can go on ahead to another quest ASAP. however the duty explicitly said that the player be the one to accompany the convict to the next town & nobody else.

conflict of interest between friends & compatriots of the law?

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