Is it possible to explore complex themes in 5e?

[Cybren]

I mean, D&D is definitely biased towards murderhoboing, but I'd argue that murder hobos are by their nature morally gray, even if they aren't complex

[pwykersotz]

It's definitely possible to run a dark world in 5e and to explore complex themes. The game I've run for the last year has been incredibly dark. Basically, there's a single "utopia" city left that's protected by the mysterious Iron Gods and the rest of the world is dark wastelands filled with aberrant horrors and terrible evil.

The first quest my party went on was to root out some cultists in the city. They were warned not to kill them, they were to be captured and held for trial. The party encountered them in some caves in the middle of a bizarre summoning ritual. One character threw his trident straight at one of them. It killed the cultist (12hp) instantly. You should have seen the player's reaction. He was completely caught off guard. "I thought he would have more HP..." He had been expecting a murderhobo sort of game, even with that warning, and he had been completely wrong.

The party restrained the others and took them back, and the council of the city held a trial. The character was found guilty of murder and sentenced to his choice of a year of hard labor or banishment from paradise. He chose the hard labor. It turns out the cultists were all being mislead and were actually pretty stand-up people, but had been deceived. The survivors hated the character for killing their friend, and the character had to deal with the judgement that had been passed down upon him. His parents, his friends, his neighbors all saw publicly that he had been entrusted with a task and fulfilled it through killing. It was an incredibly complex situation (I'm skimming over a lot of the detail) that has sent ripples through the rest of the campaign.

All those things that happened had a profound effect on the theme of the campaign. One of the players grew dark and resentful of the city and their ways (it wasn't the one who killed the cultist). The others doubled down in their efforts to do right by these people who they felt had fair laws and worthy goals. And going forward there were a lot more difficult questions to which the party has given wonderfully interesting answers.


Complex themes are very possible, it just sounds like you want the system to do the heavy lifting instead of coming up with the bulk of the logical fallout of the character's choices yourself. Which is fair, but I find it far less meaningful as others have said. No kind of "morality point" system or somesuch would have been nearly as interesting as that opening adventure alone.

[Laserlight]

It's possible OP has taught the player to that "Being a murderhobo is what works". I had a DM who wanted us to poke things, take the jeweled eye from the statue, read the runes written on the wall, and so forth...but the things we interacted with turned out to be Save or Die, so we very quickly stopped trying things. She was disappointed that we were missing all the cool lore and such, but it was entirely the DM's fault.

tl;dr People respond to incentives

[Hrugner]

It's possible OP has taught the player to that "Being a murderhobo is what works". I had a DM who wanted us to poke things, take the jeweled eye from the statue, read the runes written on the wall, and so forth...but the things we interacted with turned out to be Save or Die, so we very quickly stopped trying things. She was disappointed that we were missing all the cool lore and such, but it was entirely the DM's fault.

tl;dr People respond to incentives

I've had something similar. A DM that loves politics, social encounters, and intrigue but all of the political stuff is set in stone, the intrigue happens regardless of our actions, and the social encounters have mysteriously high DCs leaving us all dupes. He seems surprised that we try to skip all that stuff and get straight to the murder.

[Knaight]

That's....the most wrong thing I've read in a long time. Just because it doesn't do what you want it to do doesn't mean that it's optimized for a very specific style. It really does boil down to the players. I've been playing almost 35 years and not once have I had a 'murderhobo' game. I would say you need to find players more willing to play your style of game and it won't be such a problem.

Of course not. The selection of classes being a list of different flavors of mages and combatants, dedicating literally a third of the core rules to monsters to fight, an experience system designed for overcoming challenges where the only specified rules are for dealing with monsters and other potentially violent opposition where the reward is based on their capacity to do violence, two thirds of the equipment list being dedicated to the implements of fighting, and various other things like that indicate that it's optimized for a very specific style - and that's only looking at one of the ways in which it is highly specific.

[solidork]

I hate to be "that guy" but could you give examples. Not an example for each one, but some of these seem like they deserve a story.

Spoiler: Is it ever justifiable to kill or imprison someone/thing based on what they have the capacity to do, but have not done yet?

Show

Most recently this came up when we encountered two hill giants deep within the base of the cult were were attacking. Our sorcerer approached in a friendly manner and managed to prevent them from immediately attacking with charisma checks and gold. They were being payed by the cult, but not true believers. Once we were done exploring the current floor, we got into an argument about what to do about the giants. A few sessions previously, an NPC Paladin that was journeying with us had told us the story about how the leader of his order became famous by slaying a hill giant that had ravaged the surrounding area, characterizing both the amount of threat that a hill giant posed as well as their character: they had no real motives besides taking what they wanted by force. Half the party felt that we couldn't risk the giants escaping out into the wider world, and the other half thought that since we didn't have to fight them that we shouldn't.

Spoiler: When different cultural norms clash, how do you determine what is right?

Show

So, my character is a war cleric of Tempus and is from the thunderbeast Uthgardt tribe. They participate in ancestor worship, and regularly undertake pilgrimages to specific sites where notable tribesmen were interred. My character's hook into the campaign was that he was tracking down a cousin of his who had desecrated the family tomb and stolen relics from it. The point is, as far as the uthgardt are concerned, if you mess with their tombs then your life is forfeit.

We emerged from an underground complex in the middle of a farm owned by a couple of halfling families. Our sorcerer had managed to find some exceptionally well hidden treasure in the complex, but had triggered a trap and been poisoned. My magic was able to stave off but not entirely cure the effects. While interacting with the halflings, it came to light that the treasure belonged to them and that they had a cure for the poison. We exchanged the treasure for the antidote (with some reluctance on the part of the sorcerer) and received a tip that there was a tomb on a nearby hill, and that all of the plant life around the tomb had been burnt to ash mysteriously. We arrived at the tomb, discovered it was of uthgardt origin (a different tribe than mine) and upon entering encountered the spirit of the interred warrior who explained that two halflings had broken in and taken relics from there. Once the spirit regained full strength, he was going to go on a killing spree, starting with the halflings... unless we go and kill the ones responsible and return with the stolen items. I was taking point, since it was related to my culture, and immediately agreed and exited the tomb. We got into a debate on if the grave robbers truly deserved to die, but were interrupted when a whole troop of barbarians showed up on horses and their leader entered the tomb. The barbarians would almost certainly kill every halfling at the farm and not just the thieves. One of our players is playing a home brew dragon class, so he and I flew back to the farm ahead of the barbarians, using Sending to let the halflings know to hide, but that there would be dire consequences if the thieves were not there when we arrived. I convinced the thieves that their deaths were the only way to save their family and their home, and executed them cleanly when the barbarian war party arrived. The barbarians set fire to the houses before leaving, but we were able to douse them before there was any serious damage.

After returning the items and placating the spirit, we got into another argument about killing the living for the sake of the dead and if it was ethical to not destroy the spirit to prevent this from happening in the future. We compromised by using Stoneshape to fuse the door with the rest of the tomb and leave an extremely dire warning to any future grave robbers.

[Kane0]

Spoiler: Is it ever justifiable to kill or imprison someone/thing based on what they have the capacity to do, but have not done yet?

Show

Most recently this came up when we encountered two hill giants deep within the base of the cult were were attacking. Our sorcerer approached in a friendly manner and managed to prevent them from immediately attacking with charisma checks and gold. They were being payed by the cult, but not true believers. Once we were done exploring the current floor, we got into an argument about what to do about the giants. A few sessions previously, an NPC Paladin that was journeying with us had told us the story about how the leader of his order became famous by slaying a hill giant that had ravaged the surrounding area, characterizing both the amount of threat that a hill giant posed as well as their character: they had no real motives besides taking what they wanted by force. Half the party felt that we couldn't risk the giants escaping out into the wider world, and the other half thought that since we didn't have to fight them that we shouldn't.

Spoiler: When different cultural norms clash, how do you determine what is right?

Show

So, my character is a war cleric of Tempus and is from the thunderbeast Uthgardt tribe. They participate in ancestor worship, and regularly undertake pilgrimages to specific sites where notable tribesmen were interred. My character's hook into the campaign was that he was tracking down a cousin of his who had desecrated the family tomb and stolen relics from it. The point is, as far as the uthgardt are concerned, if you mess with their tombs then your life is forfeit.

We emerged from an underground complex in the middle of a farm owned by a couple of halfling families. Our sorcerer had managed to find some exceptionally well hidden treasure in the complex, but had triggered a trap and been poisoned. My magic was able to stave off but not entirely cure the effects. While interacting with the halflings, it came to light that the treasure belonged to them and that they had a cure for the poison. We exchanged the treasure for the antidote (with some reluctance on the part of the sorcerer) and received a tip that there was a tomb on a nearby hill, and that all of the plant life around the tomb had been burnt to ash mysteriously. We arrived at the tomb, discovered it was of uthgardt origin (a different tribe than mine) and upon entering encountered the spirit of the interred warrior who explained that two halflings had broken in and taken relics from there. Once the spirit regained full strength, he was going to go on a killing spree, starting with the halflings... unless we go and kill the ones responsible and return with the stolen items. I was taking point, since it was related to my culture, and immediately agreed and exited the tomb. We got into a debate on if the grave robbers truly deserved to die, but were interrupted when a whole troop of barbarians showed up on horses and their leader entered the tomb. The barbarians would almost certainly kill every halfling at the farm and not just the thieves. One of our players is playing a home brew dragon class, so he and I flew back to the farm ahead of the barbarians, using Sending to let the halflings know to hide, but that there would be dire consequences if the thieves were not there when we arrived. I convinced the thieves that their deaths were the only way to save their family and their home, and executed them cleanly when the barbarian war party arrived. The barbarians set fire to the houses before leaving, but we were able to douse them before there was any serious damage.

After returning the items and placating the spirit, we got into another argument about killing the living for the sake of the dead and if it was ethical to not destroy the spirit to prevent this from happening in the future. We compromised by using Stoneshape to fuse the door with the rest of the tomb and leave an extremely dire warning to any future grave robbers.

I like your games/group. Got any other stories?

[Slipperychicken]

It's possible OP has taught the player to that "Being a murderhobo is what works". I had a DM who wanted us to poke things, take the jeweled eye from the statue, read the runes written on the wall, and so forth...but the things we interacted with turned out to be Save or Die, so we very quickly stopped trying things. She was disappointed that we were missing all the cool lore and such, but it was entirely the DM's fault.

tl;dr People respond to incentives

That in turn is influenced by a poisonous notion long perpetuated the roleplaying community: that being anything resembling a decent person must necessarily be far more difficult than the alternative, and requires frequent painful sacrifices and extreme danger just to avoid falling into moral depravity. Also that goodness must always be totally selfless, and finding any kind of benefit from compassion and mercy necessarily stops it from being "true" goodness. This extends to many GMs' tendency to shamelessly abuse any hint of PCs' social attachments or ethical boundaries as fuel for cheap drama at the player's expense.

I think that if people could just let go of those ideas and focus on some of the benefits of kindness, generosity, and mercy instead of punishing it, they might someday find their players a little more predisposed to roleplaying as decent people.


And then you have traditional RPG reward mechanics that strongly encourage behavior-patterns that are really quite horrifying. When the only way to see in-game benefits is to be an unattached murderous drifter who hurls himself into ever-increasing danger, never allows any opponent to survive, and steals from the dead for no purpose but to finance more extreme violence, then you should rethink the incentive structure you've set out.

And finally most RPGs often discourage certain behaviors by simple omission: When there's no clearly defined benefit to maintaining good relations with others, then it's hard to justify a player putting effort into it. For an example of an RPG that avoids this pitfall, I think shadowrun does a decent job at making relationships with NPCs crucial to player success.

[Zman]

In my campaign that just rapped yon Sunday, the part had lots of moral type questions and often debated their actions, after the fact.

At one point they found themselves on a mission to assassinate a lord, who was, well, a good guy. They chose loyalty to London at that point. Now, they got kngithted by the kingdom working as forced allies of the Zhentarim, but they were loyal to a fault. I declared they all lost their good alignment, and became neutral at that point.

What really forces their moral compass to spin was when they were tasked to stop the heroes assembling to kill the black dragon that was ravaging the neighbor kingsom's lands. Faced with the idea of having to battle a trio of powerful heroes with the likes of Telluy, The Fist of Torm, Defender of the Innocent, a good Paladin, they had a change of heart and started working against the Zhentarim from the inside. They allied with the heroes and defeated the black dragon together. Then convinced their lord to turn his back on the Zhentarim. Then marched at the head of their armies aiding neighboring cities against the oncoming Zhenatim army.




Given your scenario, I'd punish them with guilt. They get back to the town and a weeping woman pleads with them to rescue her poor innocent son who was brainwashed during hard times by the priest, etc. make them feel the moral weight of their actions. Alignment isn't black or white, but they can feel the weight of their actions.

[Sigreid]

That in turn is influenced by a poisonous notion long perpetuated the roleplaying community: that being anything resembling a decent person must necessarily be far more difficult than the alternative, and requires frequent painful sacrifices and extreme danger just to avoid falling into moral depravity. Also that goodness must always be totally selfless, and finding any kind of benefit from compassion and mercy necessarily stops it from being "true" goodness. This extends to many GMs' tendency to shamelessly abuse any hint of PCs' social attachments or ethical boundaries as fuel for cheap drama at the player's expense.

I think that if people could just let go of those ideas and focus on some of the benefits of kindness, generosity, and mercy instead of punishing it, they might someday find their players a little more predisposed to roleplaying as decent people.


And then you have traditional RPG reward mechanics that strongly encourage behavior-patterns that are really quite horrifying. When the only way to see in-game benefits is to be an unattached murderous drifter who hurls himself into ever-increasing danger, never allows any opponent to survive, and steals from the dead for no purpose but to finance more extreme violence, then you should rethink the incentive structure you've set out.

And finally most RPGs often discourage certain behaviors by simple omission: When there's no clearly defined benefit to maintaining good relations with others, then it's hard to justify a player putting effort into it. For an example of an RPG that avoids this pitfall, I think shadowrun does a decent job at making relationships with NPCs crucial to player success.

Starting the characters with a home town and people they have known for a long time has, for me at least, gone a long way towards players considering their actions. Object permanence, so to speak, changes the focus of the game quite a bit.

[TripleD]

...How did 3.5 did that? Hard RP decisions aren't rule-based.

I've got to second this: how did 3.5's skill system encourage role play? If anything mapping every social interaction to a CHA skill made "roll play" a far more likely option.

[Steampunkette]

I've got to second this: how did 3.5's skill system encourage role play? If anything mapping every social interaction to a CHA skill made "roll play" a far more likely option.

Eh... Depends on how you handled it.

I would roll my Deception Check -before- I started lying and start telling a lie based on how well, or how badly, I rolled. Rolled a 2? I was up there with Eddie Izzard "Did I see anything? Uhhh... no... no, I was dead at the time."

Rolled a nat 20? Well here comes a well researched lie that expresses a completely reasonable set of circumstances that may or may not have caused me to (verb the noun).

Sure, there's plenty of people who just roll the dice and say "That's how well I lied!" but the same can be said of any game which has a charisma-equivalent stat (Or stats).

[Beelzebubba]

It's possible, just not as probable, due to the focus of the rules.

IMO unless the rules have actual mechanics that give players feedback on the theme in some way, then you can pull that stuff off, but you're not supported or taught by the rules, so it's much more likely to fail or to feel really unsatisfying.

For example: Gumshoe.

Gumshoe is a system that makes the investigation part of a game much deeper and more mechanically complex, and an encounter structure that is completely different from D&D - it plays out like a Noir film. Combat is super duper simple, lethal, and has almost none of the modifiers, statuses, effects, or tactics you see in D&D.

So, investigation takes up 95% of the game, it feels really satisfying and fun, and the players do everything they can to avoid combat.

Could you make that game combat-focused? Sure, but it'd be tough. It just doesn't support it, and you'd be taking on much more of the burden without rules to support it.

[War_lord]

A bit of background. I started Gming with horror games. World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, Eclipse Phase. I really loved these games because the goal wasn't to beat the big boss, and survive. But to beat the big boss and survive with your humanity intact. To face unimaginable hardship, and somehow, come out of it undamaged.

Actually I'd argue that the goal of World of Darkness games is to maintain the thin shroud of humanity over your inherently inhuman nature. And that the goal of Call of Cthulhu is to discover the truth, a truth that, if one is being true to Lovecraft, will inevitably drive the play characters to madness and ruin. You don't beat the boss in CoC, you escape temporarily, ideally with enough of your wits intact that you don't end up being committed.

I'm not really trying to run a horror game in dnd, but I am running a grimdark setting, and I feel like the system of dnd is resisting any attempt on my end to create a world with complex themes and moral grey areas.

Grimdark doesn't have "complex themes and moral grey areas". The term Grimdark comes from the Warhammer 40k tagline "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.". Grimdark isn't morally complex, it's cartoonishly bleak misery that borders on self-parody.

First off, my party did not join the game expecting to play this type of game. But, as I force them to make harder choices, and suffer penalties for their actions, they have begun adjusting to the "path of least resistance".

If your campaign setting is totally and irredeemably pessimistic and bleak, why would they bother trying to act like Heroes in a setting that's tailor designed to force them into bad situations, and then penalize them for trying to do good?

Without a system to gauge morality, I feel like this has caused a disconnect, and made the world less immersive instead of more immersive.

If you want your campaign to be "shades of gray" and "immersive", why do you want a "morality" system? In the real world if I do something wrong, a God doesn't float down from the heavens, smack me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and subtract "morality points" from me. If I do something wrong, it has personal consequences, because I feel guilt for wronging others, and social consequences, because society will look down on my decisions. A world with an objective morality indisputably originating from a divine figure is not "shades of gray". Gray areas exist in real life because morality is not objective, good thing happen to bad people, and bad things to good people, all the time.

In my most recent session, the party ran into a priest who was leading a small flock of about 9 commoners. The priest was pretty obviously suspicious, dark robes, and thick hood covering his face except for a thick white beard. I let the party members with Darkvision know that his face (which is hidden under the hood) is actually a shriveled skull, and his beard are long thin worms (tapeworms kind of). It all seemed very suspicious, but when the party talked to the commoners, they seemed to be very desperate and willing to believe anything this man/undead said if it could make their lives better. The idea was to have a fight where the party is pitted against a bunch of peasants, and a priest, and they have to find a way to kill the priest and save the peasants. They cast shatter on the group, and instantly murdered all the peasants. Now, I'm generally fine with this. The party is allowed to play evil characters, and act as they see fit.

By labeling the players as evil over that, you are not following the concept of your own campaign. They where attacked by an obviously dangerous form of Undead and 9 of his cultists. They did what they had to do to eliminate the clear threat to their group. That's not an evil act in a "shades of gray" setting.

But, when it becomes clear that making a good decision will be more work, the party immediately reverted to evil because there is no apparent consequence. Because of this, I feel like there is no way to explore complex themes because a party that is not designed to make good characters, or told in advance that the campaign will explore dark themes, etc. will take the path of least resistance, be that good o evil.

If the Good option is always punished, why would the characters constantly run into that brick wall? In the real world that's what most people do, they take the path of least resistance. The reason we hold people who stood up to injustice in high regard is because it takes a special kind of person to stand up for your beliefs when no cavalry is going to come riding over the hill to save them from the consequences.

[solidork]

I like your games/group. Got any other stories?

Sure. Minor spoilers for Princes of the Apocalypse.

Spoiler: In which getting fireballed has a silver lining.

Show

So, we are pushing deep into the fire cults base with the intent of finishing them off for good. We come across a circular room that has hundreds of small alcoves that are all filled with humanoid skulls that are enchanted to burn with non-damaging flames. In the back of the room is a vertical shaft that descends into darkness, with a rope ladder curled up near the top. When we investigate the shaft, we hear faint cries for help coming from below. Our highly paranoid and stubborn dwarven wizard suspects a trap and spends a long time deliberating. I am just about to offer to cast Augury when he gives in and decides we should investigate and help.

I go with him, for backup and because the (probably) prisoners might need healing. There are three prisoners down there; the one who had been calling for help and two others who are either unconscious or dead. The guy who can still talk is too weak to move, and immediately expresses fear for his friend who had stopped responding some time ago. I go over to check on him and discover that he has died, and communicate this silently to our wizard with a solemn head shake. Neither of us particularly want to be the one to break this news to the prisoner, and after a long awkward pause the wizard lies and says that his friend is still alive. I facepalm but don't contradict him. We get the story of how he came to be a prisoner of the fire cult and decide that we need to escort him to safety before going deeper into the dungeon. We rig up a rope to pull him out of the shaft, but decide to lift out the dead friend first. Once the body reaches the top, the three flameskulls who were hiding among the other skulls in the room (and instructed to attack anyone who tried to free the prisoners), animate and attack.

The silver lining is that the dead body got hit by a fireball, so we never actually had to explain to the prisoner that his friend had been dead all along and we had lied to him out of social awkwardness.

[LordCdrMilitant]

So, first off, something bright and happy can explore complex themes just as well. And, of course, just being all grim and dark where the totalitarian theocratic fascists are the good guys and everyone else manages to be worse doesn't automatically make it morally complex and emotionally meaningful. [For the Emperor!]

Second, D&D works just fine for exploring moral dilemma and the consequences of actions. It's not a moral dilemma if there's a "right answer".

Third, D&D is entirely adequate for a grimdark world.

[Coffee_Dragon]

I agree with the people saying "exploring complex issues" can be done in 5E in spite of or regardless of the system, but not thanks to it. It's very much geared towards player agency in the gamist sense - total control over your character's feelings, actions and formal abilities - as opposed to agency in the narrativist sense of having a say in where the story goes. The ways the system allows the DM to "get at" the players are reducing their HP and slapping them with conditions. At high enough levels even death ceases to be an existential threat as far as the mechanics are concerned. But yeah, you can ignore or rework that.

[furby076]

, and I feel like the system of dnd is resisting any attempt on my end to create a world with complex themes and moral grey areas. First off, my party did not join the game expecting to play this type of game. But, as I force them to make harder choices, and suffer penalties for their actions, they have begun adjusting to the "path of least resistance". Without a system to gauge morality, I feel like this has caused a disconnect, and made the world less immersive instead of more immersive.
. What are some ways you have tried to explore complex themes in 5e?

First, let your group know there are actions and reactions beyond whats at the tip of their sword. So they killed 9 peasants and the, potentially, evil undead priest. Maybe they did the right thing in the eyes of their gods (assuming divine characters are in the group), but does the law see this? With the exception of some places, your players are probably in an established country. Maybe the local tax collector stops by once a fortnight to get the kings taxes from these peasants...wait they are dead? The local lord may not be happy he lost some people who pay taxes, that goes to the king. He investigates. By itself he finds nothing (he may not have access to speak with dead), but as the players travels they can hear rumors of reports of those dead peasants....and the warrant for any details. Maybe the players ignore this and do more murderhoboing....oh look, a pattern emerges...then a trail...before your players know it they are being hunted by the law. Now they cant enter towns. If they want forgiveness ot may cost $$$$ or having to perform a quest....for free.

You dont need to use the sanity rules, but you dont have to give them a free ride. There are consequences for being evil or doing evil. Make it happen....and dont feel the need to let the characters know they have run afoul of the law until it makes sense.

Then, implement consequences of time. You can do X adventure, but you lose the chance to do Y adventure. Beyond the ramifications of losing that adventure, what happens? So you went after the raiding band of trolls and killed them. Great, you saved the town. But during this time, some vampires were harassing a local village. And now there is a large horde of undead causing other troubles....time is not your friend

[Saeviomage]

I agree with the people saying "exploring complex issues" can be done in 5E in spite of or regardless of the system, but not thanks to it. It's very much geared towards player agency in the gamist sense - total control over your character's feelings, actions and formal abilities - as opposed to agency in the narrativist sense of having a say in where the story goes.

How would 'roll the dice to see if you are upset' make a more narrativist game?

Agency over narrative is basically up to the DM in most RPGs. If the DM has bought a module, and it's got a fixed plot and he's sticking to it... you've got no agency. It doesn't matter how many times you spend your story points to change outcomes: if the DM wants to choo-choo you, you're chewed.

The ways the system allows the DM to "get at" the players are reducing their HP and slapping them with conditions. At high enough levels even death ceases to be an existential threat as far as the mechanics are concerned. But yeah, you can ignore or rework that.

Those aren't ways for the DM to 'get at' players. They are ways for the DM to get at characters.

Death and character destruction through other means have always been the weakest tools in a DM's toolbox for doing that. Killing or destroying characters just leads to characters feeling disposable.

If you want to get at your players, let them get attached to characters, give them ways to integrate their character into the world... and THEN take some of those things away from them.

To the OP:
You presented a group of 9 cultists and a disgusting undead cult leader, then had the cult leader engage in mind control against one of the PCs, after a prolonged campaign to wear down your PCs and make them see that life is cheap and their own survival is paramount.

Of course they killed them all.

The fact that they did that IS shades of grey. If you want them to feel bad about it, you need to actually do something to make them feel bad. Right now: they defended themselves against unknown hostiles. Case closed.


"I roll to contemplate the futility of existence. 20!"
"You succeed!"

[War_lord]

First, let your group know there are actions and reactions beyond whats at the tip of their sword. So they killed 9 peasants and the, potentially, evil undead priest. Maybe they did the right thing in the eyes of their gods (assuming divine characters are in the group), but does the law see this? With the exception of some places, your players are probably in an established country. Maybe the local tax collector stops by once a fortnight to get the kings taxes from these peasants...wait they are dead? The local lord may not be happy he lost some people who pay taxes, that goes to the king. He investigates. By itself he finds nothing (he may not have access to speak with dead), but as the players travels they can hear rumors of reports of those dead peasants....and the warrant for any details. Maybe the players ignore this and do more murderhoboing....oh look, a pattern emerges...then a trail...before your players know it they are being hunted by the law. Now they cant enter towns. If they want forgiveness ot may cost $$$$ or having to perform a quest....for free.

You dont need to use the sanity rules, but you dont have to give them a free ride. There are consequences for being evil or doing evil. Make it happen....and dont feel the need to let the characters know they have run afoul of the law until it makes sense.

In a world that's oh so grimdark, morally ambiguous, and various other things on the checklist of 90's edgyness, who is realistically going to care about the fate of 9 peasants?

Here's the problem with both you and the OP. You can't drop a group of players into a crapsack world where decay and evil are the norm and no good deed goes unpunished and then complain when they actually act to ensure their survival and that of their companions. A cult attacked them, the party was not under any obligation to protect the lives of their assailants. You can't set up the world to be all grim and ambiguous, and then smack them down when they refuse to act like a Paladin.

[Coffee_Dragon]

How would 'roll the dice to see if you are upset' make a more narrativist game?

Very good question?

Agency over narrative is basically up to the DM in most RPGs. If the DM has bought a module, and it's got a fixed plot and he's sticking to it... you've got no agency.

Agreed. But there are games that by virtue of the system do not work like this, or at the very least do not encourage it. We were talking system, right? If we're not talking system, there's no point in framing the question as "in 5e". As noted obviously every game has a base capability of "exploring" anything if you ignore what the rules are telling you the game is about.

Those aren't ways for the DM to 'get at' players. They are ways for the DM to get at characters.

And they're essentially the same in D&D as far as system is concerned.

If you want to get at your players, let them get attached to characters, give them ways to integrate their character into the world... and THEN take some of those things away from them.

To the extent that 5E has rules for any of that (faction points?), I would absolutely expect an outcry from a section of the Gitp crowd if you took away those things, framing it as a theft of player agency if you lose earned formalized mechanical advantages.

[blurneko]

The system is not at fault here. It is up to the DM to create a world with rules and consequences. If there no repercussions to killing, nobody would think twice about. It is then up to the players to RP their characters in the world. Mechanics have nothing to do with any of this.

[Beelzebubba]

How would 'roll the dice to see if you are upset' make a more narrativist game?

Interesting question, since explicitly narrativist games don't do that at all, and characterizing them like that is not helpful to learning what they do and how.

[GPS]

they have killed innocents, but they were gnolls, and the party didn't directly kill them.

Are you running gnolls differently from normal, as independent dudes or something? Gnolls are basically non-undead zombies. They're pretty much the only race that can't have exceptions to the evil alignment, as their minds and the minds of any gnolls they spawn are under the direct grasp of the demon dude, with pretty much no way to wrench this grasp. "Innocent gnolls" is an oxymoron, assuming you're running normal gnolls. Not saying you can't run gnolls different, just confused.

[Squiddish]

This is not to say that its impossible to have more complex themes in 5e. Alot of Curse of Strahd is seeming about how to kill the big bad but there's also other things that lurk in ravenloft. Hags take children and presumably make pastries with their bodies. Level 1 its easy to run in to these guys. As good characters we want to stop this, but its also something we know we wont win. We could try to gather a force to kill the hags but there are other things that could be done in the mean time. Most players tend to say 'we'll just come back to kill them off later', condemning children to die in the mean time. Its almost encouraged to make this decision too. However no consequences unless the players want to dwell on it more in character (i instantly forget).

We opted instead to go to their windmill, knock on their door, and lure one away with the old door-to door salesman trick. Unfortunately two came instead, but we managed to beat them all the same, all at level four. We lost our warlock, but he sold the souls the hags had on them in order to return to life.

Then we looted them for loads of money and leveled up, so it turns out that doing good does pay.

[Sir cryosin]

Ok first of all you should of had a session 0 and lay out the type of campaign you want to run. What's the tone of the campaign. Also How you Invision the PC'S, because is sounds like you complaining about your PC's not feeling bad about killing people. But you let them play more morally grey character's. And before you say I don't want to force them to play lawful good or any good. But that what systems with rules to corrupt do anyway.

What you can do is anytime your PC's do something morally wrong. Have them make a wisdom roll. If they fail the roll the gain a insane point. After they accumulate a set number of points they gain a insane flaw trait. 5e gives you the sand to build a sand castle. It up to you how to build it and with what tools to build it with.

[RipTide]

With D&D it is very important for the GM and Players to be on the same page. The Gm lays out the structure of the story but the players decide the tone, it doesn't matter if you you designed Dark Souls when your players are acting like its Saints row. So laying out the general idea you have and themes you want to cover before starting is usually a good idea.

Part of your problem seems to stem form the fact that D&D does not have set morality rules (save the alignment system but most people agree its not a very good system), but, at least in my opinion, that makes it perfect for actually exploring any theme you want. Where other systems have set this happened so you are affected in this way, with D&D you can decide what it means to each character when something happens, you can decide what the consequences of their actions are.

Take the given example of straight up murdering 9 innocent people. Did anyone object to the action? Note that down and bring it up at a later date to fuel some in party drama (to help RP between the PC's not an argument between players). Have them walk into town and run into a loved one of one of the people they killed searching for their missing wife or son. Maybe somebody stumbles onto the scene of the crime or even witnessed it happen and runs to warns all the nearby towns of the evil outsiders so they gut run out on site, forcing them to miss out on any Taverns to get a good nights rest, shops to restock supplies, or helpful information they may have gotten. These are just examples I came up with off the top of my head, but each one reinforces that they did a bad thing that had consequences without beating them over the head with it.

D&D, I will admit, is sold on high fantasy high adventure, but it is a pretty loose set of rules that can be applied to anything. Having strict rules can feel like, you did this bad thing which corresponds to this generic punishment, sure it is immediate reinforcement to not do bad things but it can feel like it lacks nuance and, in my opinion, can limit role play opportunities.

[Beastrolami]

Just wanted to address some of the common comments:

First Off: I am NOT saying the party was wrong for killing the peasants. As many people have pointed out, I threw them into a dark world, caused them to lose trust in everything but themselves, and then placed before them a suspicious group. It was supposed to be a moral dilemma of "do we let these peasants get killed by an obviously evil entity, or ignore them because it's not our problem." The players surprised me, and I talked to them after the game, and they told me they legitimately thought they were monsters disguised as peasants preparing to attack the party. They made a role-play decision in that moment, and that's ok.

My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.

My issue is that besides the player committing to rp, there is nothing to stop a Lawful Good character from going Chaotic Evil. Because of the gamist build of 5e, I feel like, with a group of random players who have no connection to the world or each other, 5e would seem to encourage a chaotic neutral alignment. "act because you can because this is a game, and it doesn't mater." Obviously there are ways I could have punished them as a DM, but in the grimdark world they are playing in, their actions didn't really matter to anyone, except the priest who's meal they stole, and they killed him.

Second: It's not that I want a morality system in 5e. And it is not just this one instance of weak roleplaying that has me disenchanted with the system. Everyone has their own likes and opinions, and I enjoy skill based games over level based games. I think games like WoD, where you can build a character for rp, who is almost useless in combat can still contribute to the party. I also like that they close the gap between max level and beginner so that if you are smart, and use all the resources available you can kill a god very early in the campaign. (Which my players did to my surprise). The morality isn't there to say "you did a no-no take a -1". It's there to remind the players that despite the fact that they are playing a game. They are supposed to be role-playing as people. And doing things like theft, murder and arson, even if they are for the greater good, take their toll on your morality. And eventually you see people as tools to be used, instead of people to be protected. That being said, I have run WoD games where the players disregarded these rules, and tried to be murder hobos. They didn't have happy endings, but they didn't really care, they got to murder people, and take their stuff, and that was fun for them.

minor comments:

I am using a home-brew setting, so although the gnolls were savage and attacked the party. They aren't irredeemably bound to an evil demon. I try to avoid any type of locked alignments in my game because I dislike forcing stereotypes on players/monsters.

If you claim you have been playing 5e for 35 years, you are wrong. I am not bashing DnD. I am merely making some personal observations about the most recent edition. I think that some of the changes they made reinforce the murdurhobo stereotype/mentality.

sorry for the rant and possible thread necro, just wanted to give y'all an update on how the party felt after I talked to them about it out of game.

[pwykersotz]

My problem is that the character who did that was chaotic good (i don't play with alignments, but based off previous actions, that is a pretty good approximation). After killing all those peasants, and the undead priest, the character immediately went to loot the corpses. There was no moment of what have I done, and I think only one other party member even cared, and he was too scared of the character to speak up. The character was also a bard, so immediately after killing the peasants and looting their corpses, they continued walking down the road humming a jolly tune.

My issue is that besides the player committing to rp, there is nothing to stop a Lawful Good character from going Chaotic Evil. Because of the gamist build of 5e, I feel like, with a group of random players who have no connection to the world or each other, 5e would seem to encourage a chaotic neutral alignment. "act because you can because this is a game, and it doesn't mater." Obviously there are ways I could have punished them as a DM, but in the grimdark world they are playing in, their actions didn't really matter to anyone, except the priest who's meal they stole, and they killed him.

Having not played WoD, I'm curious. How would these other systems you're referring to have handled this?

Because you're not entirely wrong about D&D, there is no enforcement mechanism on behavior. And that can be a problem when the DM doesn't frame the situation properly, or when the players are ignoring that framing. But having that enforcement mechanism means the players are now gaming that mechanism instead of making character decisions, at least as far as I can tell.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's definitely possible to do complex. I find having a specific mechanic in place for morality to actually be limiting. Instead, I enforce complexity through interactions, offering the possibility of doing things right or wrong and having consequences built-in for EITHER scenario, not just the one I might want them to take as DM.

I had a campaign almost self-destruct because it got too morally complex, with half the party resorting to a Machiavellian kill-em-all approach, and the other half adamantly refused to keep resorting to killing anything that even remotely resembles a threat. Both sides were trying to protect a caravan of people, which represented their entire world essentially (all shops, major NPC's, everything they needed). I made many of their foes fairly complicated to deal with- some could be reasoned with, some would lie about being reasonable, some would present themselves as allies at first and then prove to be more dangerous as friends than they ever could be as corpses.

It got so bad that I had to remove alignments from the game and start introducing fewer nuanced enemies, after the party got into a shouting match about killing the last in a family of cursed lycanthropes that had attacked them (a child, whom the patriarch offered his own life to save just moments before). A session later, a player character killed himself in game after being tricked into murdering a man who had been manipulated by a dark force, but who had, himself, never done anything wrong.

TL;DR It might sound fun, but in my experience morale complexity in a grimdark setting is extremely unpleasant. And it certainly doesn't need dedicated mechanics, just circumstances.