Most of the LARPs I play have a distinctly "heroic" morality-- characters are expected to a) do good things, b) support good things, and/or c) at the very least, do bad things quietly. However, as many of us know, even within a "heroic" setting, there is plenty of room for moral shades of gray.
With that being said, as an NPC, PC, or staff person, what have some of your most interesting "moral moments" been? What difficult decisions have you forced on players? What dilemmas, as a player, have you had to reconcile? How does morality, and the ramifications of moral decisions, add to the bigger narrative of your game?
(Also, thanks to everyone for the fantastic comments on recent posts. It's exciting to have such a thoughtful readership on this blog-- it really helps to keep the conversation going, and to widen perspectives on LARP.)
Playing with morality is sometimes a less fun for me then it is for many others I think because for the most part I get basically no enjoyment from playing characters who don't hold to the principles that I value IRL. There are some exceptions to this, but by in-large most of my PC characters represent reflections of my own ideals. Frequently even in supposedly heroic games (Endgame, The Calling, Mirror Mirror) many people other then myself seem to relish the chance to play dishonest sketchy types, which often leaves me at odds with them.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to say I don't sometimes enjoy a moral quandary, but for me that is often an opportunity to play up my altruistic leanings. Often that doesn't gel with what other folks are about, and this can lead to tension. I've been trending more and more over the past several years towards more laid back characters as a result, because I've felt I end up spending too much time and energy on arguments that don't accomplish anything other then raising my frustration. I'm even doing some rather significant alterations to my Mirror Mirror character for this reason.
More and more I've found myself compromising my character vision to try and avoid inter-PC conflict, as I just don't enjoy it. Again to use Mirror Mirror as an example, there have been a number of IG events that I've found extremely repulsive (both IG and OOG), which I've chosen to basically willfully ignore because I just don't want burn myself out squabbling with people.
It has actually created some trouble interacting with a few other goodly characters in the game. I've been asked more then once "why do you tolerate that guy, he's evil." Honestly, there is no in character justification for it at all. The only answer is an OOG answer, namely that I just don't have the energy or desire to fight those battles anymore, it's too exhausting, and always futile.
Personally, I love playing with morality because it helps to provide a springboard for my thinking about the topic in real life, and to have empathy for how people can come to a totally different conclusion with the same stimulus but different morality.
ReplyDeleteBut there are some downsides to this: first, I think people are quick to assume that character morality does equate to player morality - and even if this equation is blatantly untrue, it is sometimes made anyway.
Secondly, I think that people will often overlook aspects of the genre as morally acceptable when really, they're not. (Such as the fact that most games leave PCs drowning in the blood of others.) How do you roleplay with a character who is a certifiable psychopathic killer, but whose player chooses not to engage the 'questioning morality' part of the game?
In the original Aralis, there was a player who actually did the opposite; he highlighted the fact he was a brutal and unsympathetic killer. He carried around a sash marking everyone he'd killed, and it changed colours when he hit one thousand. It led to some really fantastic interactions and some of the most intense LARP sessions I've been to as the other players had to ask whether they needed to kill him before he turned on them, or if it was better to try and mollify him. That sort of narrative tension is hard to achieve, and is satisfying in a way that straight-up heroic games cannot be: if your every action is blessed as by-default correct, it is harder (though not impossible) to feel you're making meaningful choices.
"Secondly, I think that people will often overlook aspects of the genre as morally acceptable when really, they're not. (Such as the fact that most games leave PCs drowning in the blood of others.)"
DeleteThat's a really good point. I've had that conversation with people in LARP-- something along the lines of how "cleansing" a population of sentient creatures is not particularly goodly.
Aralis does a really good job with morality-- and the game isn't "obvious" in terms of good v. bad. I've been continually impressed with both staff and player ability to craft complex interactions based on ethics. Endgame, I feel, is similarly interesting. Ultimately, I think you really hit the nail on the head, though, in that it all comes down to players truly questioning and doubting moral decisions in a game.
That's fine in moderation, but it can get overdone. I've definitely had moments (moreso in tabletop games then in LARPs) where after the umpteenth instance of "the good guys and bad guys aren't who you think they are" where I've said to the GM "look, I want to play a hero...give me a chance to be heroic once in a while." Also, for those of us who are primarily heroic stick-jocks, we like to fight, and we like to be thrown bad guys who we can feel good about fighting. If every bad guy ends up being a sympathetic victim, then it's not fun to fight them, which means the fighters don't get to fight, which leads to sad.
DeleteSo, everything in moderation I suppose.
In terms of inter-player dynamics on moral quandaries, that can go way overboard too sometimes. We were getting to the point I'd say in year three where it didn't matter who Vile and Evil the enemy of that event was who wanted to DESTROY EXISTENCE or ENSLAVE EVERYONE, somebody inevitably was starting a spat over whether or not people in Temple were being overly oppressive in beating down said entity's minions.
Again, some moral debates can make for interesting RP, but it can start to really get exhausting. At one point Tim W. ended up commenting that Temple was the only place where you could end up fighting 'Evil Vampire Zombies from Mars', and still have people arguing over whether that was the right thing to do, or something vaguely to that effect.
I play a white knight at NERO, and I enjoy taking a hard-lined black-or-white stance about lots of things rational people consider gray areas. My character's best friends have always been chaotic black-knight types who challenge his lawfulness while still being "good guys".
ReplyDeleteBut ultimately, I'm enjoying that because being "awful good" is a minority position in NERO - most characters live in the gray area. I enjoy it because of the contrast. I liken it to being the "straight man" in a comedy bit.. if everybody is willing to make a deal with a lich in order to save their kingdom, then it's not a hard choice. If the paladin standing next to you is blazing the fires of inquisition and saying GOOD PEOPLE DO NOT MAKE DEALS WITH UNDEAD, it becomes a bit more interesting IMO.
That being said, I like that stuff because it emerges from character-to-character role play. As a player, I don't really like plotlines that are designed to test my OOG sense of morality. I generally turn off sitcoms when they get to the preachy "moral" at the end of the episode. Spare me the sermon, bring on the monsters and treasure chests!
Okay, one other anecdote about morality gone wrong at LARPS:
ReplyDeleteWhen I was running the NERO Avendale campaign, a large portion of the plot was about expanding the kingdom into the wild frontier. For years, the plot involved exploring wild lands and putting down the hostile monsters and barbarians that lived there.
For a while, the plot changed gears to a sort of "monsters are people too" cultural-relativism theme. Some of the honorable minotaurs and barbarians questioned the legitimacy of the Kingdom's manifest destiny motivation. It got a little Native American for a while.
And in hindsight, I consider that branch of the plotline a failure. Many of the players in leadership positions did not like this. They were coming to Avendale to play the heroes of a story, and a bunch of our NPCs were roleplaying victims of naive imperialist tyrants. We had basically set up an avenue for heroism and then punished them for walking down it. Maybe it was good literature, but it didn't make for a satisfying game experience.
The OOG motivation for that branch of the plot was that the overall campaign theme involved the struggle between civilization and the wild - again, in hindsight, I could have done a better job setting up that tension without taking a side and lecturing people for their choices.
In our form of theater, by Sunday, we want our players to feel like they accomplished something. Being too heavy handed about moral uncertainty can rob them of that satisfaction. Certainly, some players really dug it, but I don't know that it justified all the preachiness.
My first major LARP character was a Quentari Elf (NERO). Most people assumed she was on the goodly side because she abhorred Necromancy and generally tried to make the world a better place and protect the "little man".
ReplyDeleteIt was only until a major plotline came up with her home kingdom directly threatened did she show her flip-side. Naturally, she behaves "lawful good" when everything is for the best. But when the chips were down on the fate of her kingdom and of the world as a whole, she went into Operative-mode and basically did horrible things in order to save the world. It transformed her, and if I hadn't retired the character shortly after the events, she would have made new alliances and probably had a more "ends justify the means" existence with several other morally ambiguous characters.
Moral choices are often zero-sum. There usually isn't a third option or 'wriggle' room. The majority of choices are "do you do the correct/right thing or the obvious villainy". Those that are harder to parse are often between two "awesome choices" or two "both choices suck".
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are occasions when the choices have enough variables behind them that 'good/bad' doesn't apply. This sparks dynamic interaction.
One of my favorites are the sacrifices for the Endgame Mind Dives. There is enough variability about each choice that even the Staff didn't know which aspects would be chosen. Not to say that limiting choices to A/B can't do the same. It's just easier to have difficult decisions when there is more on the proverbial table.
I like when moral choices aren't obvious (part of why watching players reconcile the mind dives is fun). Having no clear outcome and many strands of variability is exciting for me-- as both a staff person and a player. When I'm a player, I like having uncertainty as a result of my/town wide actions-- it makes me RP the decisions more effectively.
DeleteUsually whatever someone tells me about PC "moral stances" turns out backwards. At that point, how do you play your character so that other PCs regard you the way you intend? I mean just for the sake of example:
ReplyDelete... there was a PC that other PCs constantly would tell me "watch out for so and so, never turn your back to them!" I ask "oh man what had the person done to earn such a reputation?" The answer: nadda. No one had any actual examples or evidence of why the character was bad news, but they had no qualms spouting off about it without evidence. How goodly of them.
... Was told by other PCs to attack a group of NPCs, and being a newbie, was like "ok these guys have been here longer than me, they must know what they're talking about". Afterwards ask them the why the creatures are bad, and no one could come up with a reason that actually would inspire dislike from my character.
... and yet my friend is NPCing some evil jerk slaver person, comes out to talk to the PCs, is prepped by staff that "players are going to probably attack you on sight because they hate you since you're a slaver blah blah blah". What do the players do? They just welcome them in and even start negotiating slave trading with them. *baffle*
I love to play "chaotic neutral" characters most of all because I think it makes character choices more difficult. You don't have a "code" you're going by that guides you to the answer, you have to weigh things as you see them and then decide.
Unfortunately it seems to also be the most difficult role because no matter what side of an issue you take, people tend to flip out a tiny bit OOG, like you kicked their dog. It might be because your reaction is not predictable and it somehow wrecks a sense of "omg I thought I knew you!!11!". That would be ok if it was an in character reaction, but too often it's an out of character reaction - you can literally see a flash of livid betrayal in another player's eyes when you zig if they expected you to zag.
I think this discussion partly underlines the necessity of setting player expectations appropriately in a game. Is this a game where a School of Heroes saves the world (7V) or is this advertised as a morally grey world of conflict and very little that is subjectively Right (Aralis)? Being clear up front if the campaign is going to be fights/treasure vs. roleplay heavy vs. omg the angst is important. It would be interesting to define some of the main axes that games should make clear up front.
ReplyDeleteI really started larping with Aralis (though I did play some DLSR) and I appreciated a lot of the potential for interesting conversations, conflict, and turmoil. There was difficulty with the fact that my racial loyalties to my fellow elves sometimes crossed with my divine loyalties. Should the racist war-crazed PCs were to be provoked and gotten rid of or avoided and their sensibilities coddled for the sake of unity and survival in the a hostile environment? How do you deal with fellow PCs who unavoidably occasionally go crazy and try to kill everyone? (answer - hide in the woods!) Whose agendas do you believe and trust when there are so many powers that people may make deals with? There was also a lot of question of how to define an enemy. There were many cultural definitions as the result of religion and war, but also the immediate realities of survival and those often intersected in odd and difficult ways.
All that being said, I appreciated the lighter tone and capability for heroism 7V. There are certainly difficult situations, such as what to with the Touched, innocent people who have the capability of turning into killing machines at any time due to the enemy's influence, as well as what to do with a rival school of "the Ends Justify the Means" types. But it's a certainly a less gritty and more heroic game, just as advertised!
"I think this discussion partly underlines the necessity of setting player expectations appropriately in a game."
DeleteYES, THIS.
"It would be interesting to define some of the main axes that games should make clear up front."
Absolutely.
I think morality is one of the trickiest things to play with successfully at larps because almost anyone who's been gaming for a long amount of time has had Bad Experiences. And all of those Bad Experiences are legitimately frustrating in ways that are fairly unpredictable for people who haven't experienced them. Some examples:
ReplyDelete-Whatever choice you make, you can never be the good guy, and you're going to get condescended to, preached at, and guilt-tripped incessantly (Dan's Avendale example is textbook)
-Everyone is Pragmatic-Evil, so PCs never bother to engage with moral questions or challenge each other. The ends always justify the means (there are echoes of this in much of the Nero Dan and I have experiences, as in Istamira's experience of Madrigal).
-Everyone is Black and White Good Guy, and would rather completely turn down (and shut down) involvement in plotlines that involve less savory aspects, frustrating players who want to do those things.
-PCs who are Chaotic-Argumentative, and will randomly create meaningless moral quandaries out of nowhere just to stir the pot, much to the consternation and annoyance of other players/characters, who would like to get back to dealing with things they enjoy/care about.
I think that ultimately, the best ways to deal with this in generally-non-PVP games are to:
1) Play with morality in moderation. Look at what's been run recently, and make sure you're not poking at a sore spot. Newer players are often less jaded to it, which is awesome-- don't make them become so!
2)Personalize it, and try to know the players you're targeting. That way you're not hitting someone with the same guilt trip they've already gotten 10 times in their larping career. If you're throwing something out there generally, give PCs some leeway to engage with the moral quandry of it as much as they are comfortable with-- don't corner them.
3) If you give PCs a choice between two less-than-ideal things, don't focus solely on the negative consequences of their actions. Cheer them on for whatever good they accomplished, too. The thing about fuzzy moral choices is that there's always some carrot and some stick-- give them both.
4) Emphasize free will as an important aspect of your game. That doesn't mean that PCs have to actively allow stuff they find morally reprehensible, but putting the emphasis on personal choice means that PCs can do what is fun for them, without having to feel too responsible for the choices of other PCs.