Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32
In which MetalJim tests your morals…
The following situation is more or less taken straight from my latest D&D session. Otherwise, I doubt I could have made this up. This was a result of improvisation and roleplaying and the interaction between GM and party.
So, here’s the deal…
The city of Kardina is facing a serious threat from an evil temple of the devil-god Bane. This evil cult has taken over the Red Company mercenaries, and controls one third of the city. The leaders of the other neighborhoods seem weak, and the young prince who rules the city in name is nowhere to be seen.
The party has, in recent weeks, made contact with a rather shady drow. This drow calls himself “Mr. S.” and claims to represent a criminal group called “The Syndicate”. The party have reason to believe that Mr. S. is a pretty important player in the town’s underworld. Although he seems to be quite shady and reasonably evil, he’s dealt with the party in fairly honest terms up until now.
Just to be clear, the party does not have a proper rogue, or anyone with a good “streetwise” skill. In other words, their ability to “check up” on Mr. S. and his story is a little limited.
Anyway, the party has just finished a round of negotiations with Mr. S. about the future of the city. The party wants an alliance with and the assistance of Mr. S. in defeating the Red Company and the Temple of Bane. At the very least, they know they don’t want Mr. S. to join in with the bad guys.
After a lengthy interview, the party now has a better idea of what Mr. S. wants. It seems that Mr. S. is in the business of securing “personal services contracts”. Or, to put it bluntly, Mr. S. is currently in the business of buying slaves from the evil guys. He doesn’t feel any sort of attachment to this evil temple – he just needs to keep up a steady stream of slaves going to some sort of mine in the Underdark.
Mr. S., realizing that the party is already at war against the evil mercenaries and the evil temple, has proposed a new business arrangement going forward. He wants a contract with the city’s leaders that will guarantee him a minimum of 15 “criminals” to be turned over to his care every month. The way he sees it, he is doing the city a service by taking the criminals out of the city’s legal system and freeing up space in the jails.
In return, Mr. S. is quite happy to deliver some “bad intelligence” to the enemy, and can pretty much set things up so that the party has access to a “back door” that will lead the heroes right into the evil temple, where presumably they can destroy the altar and defeat the High Priest of Bane. In addition, they can close the portal that has been allowing various minor devils and hell hounds into the city.
Keep in mind the following. Slavery is not “illegal” in my world, but is frowned upon by freedom loving peoples. The party member doing a good chunk of the negotiation here is a good-aligned cleric of Pelor. The rest of the party members are neutral enough not to care too much about the scruples of all of this.
That’s the scenario. Again, the party knows that the drow is evil, but thinks that he is “professional” enough and concerned enough about his long term business that he might actually be telling them the truth. It certainly seems plausible that he would be willing to screw over the Red Company mercenaries if he ends up with a steady stream of slaves at a reduced cost to himself.
So, putting yourself into the shoes of “generic adventuring party”, how would you want to proceed?
One – Assume that the drow is too evil to be trusted. There’s no point in trying to finalize the deal because he is obviously going to betray the party, probably sooner than later.
Two – Let the drow have what he wants, for now. It will be easy enough to turn the tables on him after the party has gained a couple more levels.
Three – A deal is a deal. If the drow can carry out his end of the deal, then he deserves to have his slaves.
Four – Insist on renegotiation. Clearly, the drow is a clever businessman who is taking advantage of the heroes. Demand a higher share of the profits, or some other piece of the slavetrading action.
Believe it or not, my party is leaning towards option number two at the moment.
Could you see yourself making a deal with a slave trader in order to gain the upper hand against a greater evil? Or is that inherently enough of an evil act to invalidate the deal for most “good” heroes?
Posted on April 21st, 2009 at 12:39 pm. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
As an outsider, I have to like variants of 2 or 4 for the priest of Pelor. Of course what makes this a delemma is the ‘lesser evil’ of two evil choices.
If the PC’s were powerful enough to have a chance to succeed when they bust in on the evil temple front door and all, well then no deal. Easy decision.
That’s not the case.
You say slavery is legal in that world. And for the criminals, underdark slavery may be palatable compared to life in a medieval dungeon. And at the moment, the greater evil is the hordes of demons loose on the streets, killing, raping, looting, etc. , not a mere mortal slave trader of questionable parentage moving a few criminals.
May I suggest to your player that his priest could agree to the terms, state his distaste, and suggest to Mr S. that at some time in the future, (after Mr. S has made some profits), after the city has been returned to former glory, the two of them may meet again to see is it’s time to retire from past behaviors and explore new opportunities in the boomtown. (Great campaign hook).
Then the Priest has a chance to right this evil, either by freeing slaves from the underdark, crafting/joining Mr. S’s new money-making scheme, and or deailing with the corruption resulting from town sherrifs who abuse the ‘criminal disappearance network’.
Posted on April 22nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
Given a realistic setting, IMO the party HAS to take option three… or decide to kill Mr. S immediately. Given the known connection to the Red Company, the PCs are at a huge disadvantage to win the services of Mr. S – they basically must offer Mr. S more than the Red Company. And since Mr. S has both stated his position and knows the PCs motives they must either work together (with Mr. S being in a position of power) or one must defeat the other. Why would Mr. S ever back down from his current position unless a better one came along?
Option one would mean Mr. S simply gives up his position of power and why would he do that? He just lets the party back away and ultimately ruin his slavery ring or let them wander off to the next town in search of easy XP?
Option two is theoretically possible only if Mr. S is too nearsighted to realize the PCs are gaining more power than he has. Once the Red Company is out, his natural response is to take control of the town over the PCs personal goals. He might not want absolute control, but enough that he doesn’t have to come into conflict with the PCs and can manipulate them as needed.
This leads me to comment on option four. This is the classic greedy, over-reaching PC mentality. You’ve committed to a storyline, then having seen the moral agenda or lack of ultimate rewards they want to re-write their history to make it benefit themselves more. It’s like playing along until you realize you want to reload the game with the new information and replay the perfect path. That always puts the DM in a tough spot because you could refuse and have a mutiny… or you have to convince the PCs that this will be a much better game if you live with your choices and role-play. OR, sigh, you have to sacrifice a little bit of realism as the DM for the enjoyment of the players – which isn’t always a bad idea. Mr. S could be stupid and not know how to keep manage his own deals.
PC guilt is an interesting game scenario that can make or break a game. Know your players well enough to design for them. If they want to just kick butt and take names they aren’t going to go with it, but if they want to explore characters and interaction with the world this can be a great way to do it. Good luck – tell us what happens!
PS – A real PC kicker would be that Mr. S is the real Bane cult leader and has duped the PCs to give him exactly what he wants without using the force and effort he’s using now – mwahahaha. They would be his “good” puppets keeping the peace in town but really doing more harm than his strong-arm goons ever did. How much would the PCs squirm then?
Posted on April 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 am. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
The question I have is: What is Pelor’s opinion of slavery? It may be culturally acceptable but if Pelor finds the practice repugnant than I see no way that the Cleric can take the deal without consequences. Of course those consequences can be part of the fun of the future of the game. Maybe the priest wouldn’t even see anything wrong with the deal because of their cultural bias. They’d be left wondering why their healing spells weren’t as effective as they used to be or why they were having such strange nightmares.
What I see it coming down to is Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong. Everything else is just excuses, euphemisms, and semantics. That being said, even good people sometimes make mistakes or bad choices.
Also, Luke, I love your last idea. That would be awesome. “Mwahahaha” indeed.
Posted on April 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
A return comment on the “total screwjob” approach. Yes, I can pull the “Mr. S. really is the major bad guy” gimmick. However, once you start doing that as a DM, then the players just assume that every little old man they meet is really some evil demon in disguise.
Making players paranoid is easy. Finding the right balance where players know it is okay to try a “crazy” plan once in a while and bash in some doors – that makes for a game that is actually fun.
In this case, I would rather run a scenario where the players kick in the back door to the Temple of Bane, not being 100% sure if Mr. S. has been honest with them or not. That’s more exciting.
Posted on April 24th, 2009 at 10:48 am. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
Paranoid = Easy; Agreed!
It is fun to come up with the ideas even if they aren’t used.
I don’t disagree with your approach, a DM always has to step back and ask what is going to be the most fun, otherwise what’s the point to playing a game. PC guilt and paranoia are only good game elements if the players WANT to play them. If players find themselves unable to make fun choices or constantly going over their options to the n-th degree to avoid being screwed, they might want to look for a new DM – they are no longer playing a game, they are competing against the DM (which is a stupid waste of time).
Posted on October 6th, 2009 at 1:08 pm. About 'Dungeon Scruples Test – Question #32'.
Well all I know about D&D is what I’ve read in the demo version of the Character Builder and the Quick Start Rules (will have to wait about 3 weeks before I have money to spend) but I would think the priest would lean towards option number two considering what I know about Pelor. For one there is what Emperor says, it would probably be better for the criminals and Pelor teaches to show mercy and compassion. Though there is Luke’s idea – Mr. S would probably see that he is on the losing end and send the PCs to their doom, in the process ingratiating himself with the Red Company.