thread: 2006-02-20 : Open House: Ask a Frequent Question, pt 2
On 2006-02-20, Charles S wrote:
One more.
I may be running Dogs shortly. One of the things that confuses me about Dogs is the question of congruity between player morality and character morality. Now, for example, the culture in the setting is fairly strongly patriarchal, so a Steward who decides that he should treat his wife as an equal in handling the Stewardship of the faithful is fairly obviously following false doctrine according to the description of the Faith, but the decision over whether it really is false doctrine falls entirely to the Dogs.
This is fine.
Now, should the players have their Dogs judge based on the morality one imagines such a character in such a setting, who has undergone extensive training in the particulars of the Faith, might have, or should the players use their Dogs to make their own moral judgments about the world of the game, in which case we probably end up with a pack of feminist Dogs supporting egalitarian doctrine as though it were the established doctrine of the Faith. Do they have that power, or do they have to act covertly? Do you assume that there are other Dogs out there who are not PCs who's morality is congruent with the faith, who might be the next ones through a town that the Dogs have allowed to drift into an egalitarian faith, who are going to drag that Demoniacally influenced Steward and his wife out into the street and gun them both down, or do you assume that the world stops at the edge of the game? Even for a one-shot, it seems to me that those questions would come up in epilogue, even if they have no way of coming up in game.
Any answer to those questions seems fine, so long as it is somewhat consistent within the party. So, who decides which version you are playing? It seems to me that a frequent way for Dogs games to run (from what I've read of Actual Play Reports) is for the Dogs themselves to fall out over the moral questions, and end up gunning each other down. Frequently, the questions they split over seem to be questions where one player has their character accept the Faith's morality, and another player has their character react with modern liberal morality. Now those games in which nearly everyone ends up dead seem to be fun enough, but they basically mean there is no build from one session to another.
So either one of each of those decisions seems viable to me, but an incoherent mix of them doesn't (particularly for play lasting longer than a single session, where it becomes a little more important that the Dogs not end up gunning each other down half way through the first session).
Is this an issue you recognize, or am I off in the weeds here? If it is one you recognize, how do you recommend resolving it? Pre-game discussions? Avoiding making the moral dilemmas ones where my friends morality conflicts with 19th Mormon morality?
This makes CB go "My 2 cents"
I find that the approach that works best is the following: Players take decisions on what they think makes up for an interesting story. Each player's values are still the drive of it all, but they aren't projected directly, which often would kill character integrity. It lets them explore aspects that are contrary to their beliefs, but they still have control over what happens to the character in the long run, giving them, as a player, the option to condemn the character's ways. And vice-versa and in between too. That's where, IMO, the player's morality kicks in. Does that make sense?
This makes CS go "Somewhat, but..."
I have a group of players (played 2 initiation conflicts tonight, more in the next few days, then on to a town) who are not going to agree which moral system their characters operate in, so the only option I have if I don't want to run Dog shoot Dog is to back off from the moral questions where 21st C lib and 19th C Mormon disagree.
Which, I guess, is the answer.
If one player doesn't want to play morality they find offensive, then, as GM, I need to keep the situations I create from pushing her into her red zone, or I need to accept that there will be Dog bodies on the ground at the end of the session.
My choice.
And no different from playing our long running AM derived fantasy world, really.
DitV just throws the question in your face, kinda.
This makes CS go "OMG, the linked thread"
That linked thread makes my eyes blead. I hope hope hope, that I don't come across like that! Gak!
Kim's character will be played loyal to her conception of her character, and will address the issues how she wants to. Barry's character will do the same, but their respective willingness to create characters who match the morality of the setting will put one or both of them on the floor, bleeding their life out into the dust.
Which may be cool, but not each session. :)
And the problem arises from playing morality that one player chokes on, and is a setting-player clash question, made more apparent by playing thematically rich games, but would be there no matter what the CA was. It's a setting question, and like I said, either answers valid, but mixed answers mean blood gets spilled, or we have to pull the punches (GM or players, GM pulling is better, but neither is best).
This makes CB go "Ok!"
I see, I had missed your point then, thinking that the player's morality might step over the characters integrity.
If what Vincent says doesn't suffice, the only thing that I see that can stop the Dogs gunning each other would be player agreement to keep the disputes non-violent. If they don't want to, let them at it :)
This makes CS go "Bascially the route I've gone"
I specifically raised the issue in the char gen session, and specified that Dog shoot Dog was something I was hoping to not have in the first session. I can still see the characters getting there eventually (they definitely split along heterodox/orthodox lines), but I think it will help somewhat that 3 of the 4 Dogs are women (the 4th is not yet generated), and the heterodox one has the trait "squeemish about the idea of shooting people."
The player who doesn't want to play orthodox 19th C morality constructed her character so she wouldn't have to go all the way on that, so it totally isn't a character integrity issue.
I can see the character integrity issue coming up sometimes in hard play, when you built your character to be something you aren't, and you find in the end it is going to take you places you don't want to go, but that is just something that happens, and isn't particular to any CA.
And, yeah, if they want to go there, they will, and I'll accept it. Given that they will be doing it against my request, I expect they'll do it well too.
I think the thing I most wanted to avoid was the "Oh, its a one-off, lets high-light the discordant moralities of our characters and do some Blood Opera," approach. Which, yes, can be cool too, but I kinda want to see what else it can do.
