Heroica RPG General Discussion

[Zepher]

I believe in gray morality, but not everyone does, and not all characters need to. Different people feel different ways. Some religions, for example, have (and particularly had) strict moral codes. Some societies do. Some philosophies do. Some governments do. Gray morality can't be pushed, because not everyone believes in it. More importantly, the gray morality you believe in may not be the gray morality other people believe in. It's a good idea, but even so, everyone will play their own way.

[Flipz]

I believe in gray morality, but not everyone does, and not all characters need to. Different people feel different ways. Some religions, for example, have (and particularly had) strict moral codes. Some societies do. Some philosophies do. Some governments do. Gray morality can't be pushed, because not everyone believes in it. More importantly, the gray morality you believe in may not be the gray morality other people believe in. It's a good idea, but even so, everyone will play their own way.

My problem is, most characters in Heroica don't 'play their own way', they seem to follow what's basically the exact same moral code. Yes, everyone is SUPPOSED to have their own set of beliefs, but in practice we tend to see only the same two or three "set" moral codes--and two of them are "lawful good generic hero morality" and "only out for me". "Moral gray" isn't JUST a way of seeing the world; it's also created when different characters with different priorities and principles come into conflict over the "right" way to do things.

But that's the personal desire side of it. More of my actual problem is how, mechanically, unified morality is rewarded while diverging or alternate moralities from the majority are punished. As it stands, the majority of the party defines the standard of "good", and those who disagree with it end up seeming like the "bad guy" or the "misguided fool." I want to see more Quests where the QM makes an effort to point out that the majority's morality is not always right, and neither is the minority's. Instead of the odd Hero out always "losing", their actions and opinions should still have some kind of non-negative effect on the Quest and the game world. Or, to put it more succinctly, as it stands, players are rewarded for the "right" answer when they should be rewarded for "interesting" answers.

Or, to put it OVERLY and humorously succinctly, Heroica needs to be more like QI.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Flipz

[Zepher]

When you host quests, you can implement it. But what you're saying now is that if a soldier in the army doesn't believe in killing, he shouldn't have to. Heroica is a group of warriors who are hired to do jobs. So, yes, next to always completing the job is the morally right thing to do. You are fulfilling the commitment you made when you signed on to complete the job. If two soldiers walk through the woods, and one is held at gun point, and the other can save him by killing the person holding his fellow soldier at gun point, but has a moral obligation not to... then, yeah, the soldier who stuck to his morals is unlikely to be rewarded.

[PsyKater]

What a nice QM we have.

[Flipz]

When you host quests, you can implement it. But what you're saying now is that if a soldier in the army doesn't believe in killing, he shouldn't have to. Heroica is a group of warriors who are hired to do jobs. So, yes, next to always completing the job is the morally right thing to do. You are fulfilling the commitment you made when you signed on to complete the job. If two soldiers walk through the woods, and one is held at gun point, and the other can save him by killing the person holding his fellow soldier at gun point, but has a moral obligation not to... then, yeah, the soldier who stuck to his morals is unlikely to be rewarded.

And I'm saying the jobs shouldn't have to be so cut-and-dried. Look at Quest 2. Were the Heroes right to be breaking and entering and spying on the Shadeaux? Would it have been wrong of them to come clean to the Shadeaux? Heck, the jobs don't even have to be a matter of "good and evil." Look at Quest 1. No real morals there whatsoever. Let's look at an example with even larger consequences: The Shadeaux weren't really villainous at all until Brickdoctor made them (or at least, the popular perception of them) so in Quest 4. The point is, we as storytellers have fallen into a rut of defining good and evil for our players, and rewarding them when they follow our definition of that. Instead, we should be creating more situations without slapping morality onto them, let the Heroes decide what to do and where the morality lies, and reward them for making interesting choices. I'm not saying that ALL Quests should be this way, but I am saying that MORE of them should be.

And yes, my Quest is very much "open" morally; while there are options for specific actions that I personally believe to be "good" and "evil", the Quest as a whole is completely open to interpretation. The Heroes take actions, there are consequences, the morality in either case is undefined--at least by me.

EDIT: And to make the example you gave more morally interesting with just one tiny tweak: Two soldiers walk through the woods, and one is held at gunpoint...by their commander. That's a moral obligation to not shoot the guy if I ever saw one. One little change, and it's the difference between a basic scenario and a really interesting one.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Flipz

[Zepher]

Right, and I disagree with you. Isn't your whole point that we should accept different perceptions?

Morality is determined by society. We have created a Heroica morality. Most quests conform to that because those are the morals of the society. If you go against the grain in normal society, that is also often viewed by most people are morally wrong, because society has already agreed on its set of morals. I'd say the QMs don't cram morals down the players throats, but rather that the players are consistent in their moral decisions as a whole, because that's how their society has them behave- QMs are only conforming to what the players are going to do. Watch and see what happens with your morally open quest, bet you anything you'll get nearly exactly the actions you're expecting.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Zepher

[Chromeknight]

OH! Now I remember what I wanted to say about the end of 58, and Scuba's discussion on consequences.

I think Quest 58 handled it better than most Quests; the Heroes were given a choice (and there WAS both advantage and disadvantage to both sides of the choice), and Eric had the chance to try to convince his Questmates to support Reno. The problem is, he still got shafted when it came to advancing his cause--and unlike Arthur with Wren, Eric's cause is still (potentially) very much alive even without Reno.

Another issue tied to this is timezones and player commitments.

In #58 I (Chromeknight) waited for Khorne to post which way he wanted to go and why. Unfortunately, it was one of those periods where he wasn't online for more than a whole day. I could have waited longer perhaps.

For me, this was the second time Nerwen was presented with a fight/not fight choice and the fourth battle where one of her party members chose not to fight. Eric was stiffed on loot distribution only after I'd consulted with Khorne and we agreed it was the right thing characterisation wise. If anything he was gipped at the start where the quest he signed on for (rescue Reno) and the actual quest, (rescue Nemo, defeat one of Reno/Nemo) were different. Not that I'm saying the twist should have been publicised, but that it left Eric in a situation he might not have chosen to place himself in if he'd known.

Ultimately, this is still a scripted game. The QM knows before hand who is going to be fought, and indeed, must know, in order to take photos and write enemy profiles. As such, the players (usually) have little choice about who they fight.

[Flipz]

Right, and I disagree with you. Isn't your whole point that we should accept different perceptions?

Morality is determined by society. We have created a Heroica morality. Most quests conform to that because those are the morals of the society. If you go against the grain in normal society, that is also often viewed by most people are morally wrong, because society has already agreed on its set of morals. I'd say the QMs don't cram morals down the players throats, but rather that the players are consistent in their moral decisions as a whole, because that's how their society has them behave- QMs are only conforming to what the players are going to do. Watch and see what happens with your morally open quest, bet you anything you'll get nearly exactly the actions you're expecting.

Fair enough.

All I'm going to say to that is, how something DOES work and how it SHOULD work can be two VERY different things. That applies doubly to morality and perceptions thereof. And I'm going to stop talking about it at this point because a.) we're slowly but surely drifting further and further away from the realm of the game and game design, and b.) if we keep debating on morality, sooner or later one of us is going to step on someone's toes and make a real awkward mess, and there's no real need.

I DO believe, however, that the QMs are a greater influence on the "Heroica Morality" because they control a MUCH bigger chunk of the Heroica society than any single player could.

Another issue tied to this is timezones and player commitments.

In #58 I (Chromeknight) waited for Khorne to post which way he wanted to go and why. Unfortunately, it was one of those periods where he wasn't online for more than a whole day. I could have waited longer perhaps.

For me, this was the second time Nerwen was presented with a fight/not fight choice and the fourth battle where one of her party members chose not to fight. Eric was stiffed on loot distribution only after I'd consulted with Khorne and we agreed it was the right thing characterisation wise. If anything he was gipped at the start where the quest he signed on for (rescue Reno) and the actual quest, (rescue Nemo, defeat one of Reno/Nemo) were different. Not that I'm saying the twist should have been publicised, but that it left Eric in a situation he might not have chosen to place himself in if he'd known.

Ultimately, this is still a scripted game. The QM knows before hand who is going to be fought, and indeed, must know, in order to take photos and write enemy profiles. As such, the players (usually) have little choice about who they fight.

Exactly. For me, a Quest that offers a choice is stronger than a similar Quest that does not.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Flipz

[Zepher]

Exactly. For me, a Quest that offers a choice is stronger than a similar Quest that does not.

Every quest offers a choice. You're just asking to be rewarded for picking the one you pick .

[Flare]

Sandy, can you clarify the special "Constrict" in the unlimited quest? You can see the issue in the thread.

[Flipz]

Every quest offers a choice. You're just asking to be rewarded for picking the one you pick .

That's a Hobson's choice, though, and its unnecessarily inflexible. And actually, that is just a calculation, not a choice.

Short Article on Hobson's Choice

Edited April 8, 2013 by Flipz

[Palathadric]

I wanted to pick up some ether cores.

And now I really see the need to get my hands on one of those healing staffs.

It's a bit odd how a skeleton decoy costs 20 gold and 4 bones, when bones are probably more valuable in the average battle than the skeleton decoy is.

[Pyrovisionary]

#Snip#

Well then I'd love to see someone straying from that general thing. Maybe you should do it in your quest?

[Flare]

I wanted to pick up some ether cores.

And now I really see the need to get my hands on one of those healing staffs.

It's a bit odd how a skeleton decoy costs 20 gold and 4 bones, when bones are probably more valuable in the average battle than the skeleton decoy is.

Talk to Sorrow

[Scorpiox]

My problem is, most characters in Heroica don't 'play their own way', they seem to follow what's basically the exact same moral code. Yes, everyone is SUPPOSED to have their own set of beliefs, but in practice we tend to see only the same two or three "set" moral codes--and two of them are "lawful good generic hero morality" and "only out for me". "Moral gray" isn't JUST a way of seeing the world; it's also created when different characters with different priorities and principles come into conflict over the "right" way to do things.

But that's the personal desire side of it. More of my actual problem is how, mechanically, unified morality is rewarded while diverging or alternate moralities from the majority are punished. As it stands, the majority of the party defines the standard of "good", and those who disagree with it end up seeming like the "bad guy" or the "misguided fool." I want to see more Quests where the QM makes an effort to point out that the majority's morality is not always right, and neither is the minority's. Instead of the odd Hero out always "losing", their actions and opinions should still have some kind of non-negative effect on the Quest and the game world. Or, to put it more succinctly, as it stands, players are rewarded for the "right" answer when they should be rewarded for "interesting" answers.

I can sort of see what you mean, but I will have to respectfully disagree.

In Quest #28, Haldor didn't want to kill the vampires, and he ended up with three moral choices to. First, he could just step aside and let the vampires be killed, worse he could have joined in. This would be impossible to justify in-character, so I just couldn't take that option. Secondly, there was the choice of offering himself up instead of the Hinckwell bloke to be bitten. Mechanically, the party wouldn't have liked me slapping a load of status effects on Haldor, and also, it makes no sense for a nord to do this. No nord asks to be bled by a vampire, it is only something that happens if they are chosen. The third and final choice was to not do anything, which manifested itself in me requesting Zepher have Lawrence sock Haldor. I recognise this was essentially in-character dodging, as being forcefully removed so that I didn't have to make a decision. I tried to rectify this by posting Haldor's thoughts as the battle went on. For all that, all Skovgaard received was no level-up, but it was worth it for some interesting character moments. It wouldn't have been fair for WBD to reward Haldor for abstaining from the fight, or else everyone would be doing it left right and centre. The vampires were meant to be fought, and not doing so meant that Nordy chose to forsake the battle experiance because of his beliefs.

What I'm trying to say is this: a character is able to do nearly anything in a given situation, which makes the player completely free to do what they like. But it can't be expected of a QM to reward off-the-cuff decisions that a character takes, as this would unbalance the game; if players realise that they can be granted bonus experiance for punching the Emperor instead of hearing what he has to say, everyone will do it. Soon, the quest objective would become a loose guidline of what could transpire in a scrample for players to free-roam and mess about in quests. There is no point in even bothering with a storyline if a hero can gain the same bonuses from chickening out as diving head-first in, as one would simply go for the easy option to receive similar perks. This is the key point here; you as a player can do what you like, but to go against the grain will be breaking away from the path and forgoing the rewards lain upon it. This is something that one has to accept when making an unusual roleplaying choice: the other players may not like it, and you will have to sacrifice certain privelleges to stray from the route you are expected to take. It's like a fixed charge, really, one has to pay a fine before one can do something drastic. This is fair, as it encourages actually doing what you were hired to do, as is the fundimental ethos of Heroica. Bringing it back to the vampires; I acknowledge that I wouldn't be paid for doing nothing. Instead of going with the flow, I exchanged any possible rewards for some character building.

So there you go, I was not restricted to doing anything I didn't want to that quest, but I had to accept that my free will would come at a price. This is how it is, and how I believe it should remain.

EDIT: Crikey, that was a wall of text and a half!

Edited April 8, 2013 by Scorpiox

[Rumble Strike]

I agree with Scorpiox. I think there have been/are plenty of opportunities for morally grey choices within Quests, so much so that the opinion of Heroica in Olegaia seems to be divergent between "noble house of heroes" and "interfering, stuck-up group of busybodies".

Flipz, I know you seem to really care about all of this, and have had several impassioned pleas recently, but you really should wait until you've actually tried QMing. All the theory in the world doesn't make up for an actual experience.

[Pyrovisionary]

One thing... Tl;dr

[Masked Builder]

Will the party leader be chosen in-Quest, Masked, or did you just forget to set one?

Yes. To both.

Sorry for the delay, the quest topic will be up soon.

[Zepher]

Only thing, Scorpiox, is that I asked you if you were okay with me socking you. In thread. While I was doing it.

But yes, Scorpiox makes my point exactly. Each quest offers a choice each battle. Each quest offers a choice- signing up. If a QM made a quest that people found so morally abject that they couldn't justify signing up, that's a moral choice right there. But yes, you forgo your reward. Thats like.... morals in real life? Sometimes, yes.

Look at Dek'ra. Look how often he sits out due to morals. There you go.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Zepher

[JimBee]

Quests are meant for heroes to have a job to do. if you or your character don't agree with it, don't sign up. As for freedom of character desicions, there still is a script to follow, and I would hate to have my quest turned upside down because a character refuses to complete the tasks asked of them or for some other character reason. I don't see how the limited freedom is any different than a video game RPG. You're given a set of choices, but you must choose from them. You can't just choose an option that isnt there, or refuse to choose. Don't bother signing up if that is the case.

[CorneliusMurdock]

I think what it boils down to is that a quest isn't the story of an individual character. It's not up to a player to drive the quest plot but to the QM.

I think that's what a lot of us had a problem with in 53, Flipz. It seemed that you were trying to make the quest about Arthur's journey and not about a group of heroes trying to take down Wren. Zepher was exceptionally kind to you and let you get away with a lot. I know it was more than a little annoying for some of us playing.

While morality is an interesting discussion sometimes, this isn't a philosophy course. We're sellswords. We bash stuff for money.

[Zepher]

We're sellswords. We bash stuff for money.

That's exactly what I meant when I said that Heroica society already had an engrained philsophy and moral decisions. When it comes down to it, no matter how you handle it, people from Heroica get hired to complete a task for money, not make moral decisions. So the rewards are for doing the task. That's the structure of the game, and also a decision every character made before joining Heroica.

[Pandora]

I think that's what a lot of us had a problem with in 53, Flipz. It seemed that you were trying to make the quest about Arthur's journey and not about a group of heroes trying to take down Wren. Zepher was exceptionally kind to you and let you get away with a lot. I know it was more than a little annoying for some of us playing.

I agree with this. It was immensely frustrating to have all the heroes thrust into the background while Arthur made it about Arthur. There were opportunities for lots of people, but some events and opportunities got overshadowed in 'Arthur's Story'. The enthusiasm is great, but I'm sure you understand the concept of a 'generous actor'.

[Scorpiox]

That's exactly what I meant when I said that Heroica society already had an engrained philsophy and moral decisions. When it comes down to it, no matter how you handle it, people from Heroica get hired to complete a task for money, not make moral decisions. So the rewards are for doing the task. That's the structure of the game, and also a decision every character made before joining Heroica.

I couldn't agree with this statement more. It is the core ideal of Heroica to pick up jobs and carry them out for money, but what sets the organisation apart from simple mercenaries is that we come with the package of being self-righteous and strong-willed. It's this that fuels a desire to do what's right as much as what is ordered, but it shouldn't be forgotten through this course that heroes are actually on a mission to complete, regardless of the moral issues entailed. In character, this is what caused Haldor to become so outraged at Arthur, because he was not only switching sides in a battle but blatantly going against what it was the group was supposed to acomplish, which was the 'treachery' involved. It's because of this that making spontaneous decisions should NEVER become the norm. If a character desperately needs to break away, then this should be done with courtesy to the QM, considering just how much extra work this will entail for them. Additionally, it should only every forgo rewards, never earn them, unless it was planned beforehand by the QM that this particular decision, whoever took it, would lead to something different.

Haldor has done a fair few random things in his time, and I feel that expecting a sidequest or special treatment for this is unfair, unless it be at the QM's discretion.

Sorry about it folks... but I'd like to return to the vampires again. In this, I believe that Haldor's choice was morally justified; because there was no mention of vampire hunting or clues to such an event beforehand, in either the quest description or early premise. Although many may disagree, I don't think that it is wrong for a character to stand by their beliefs in a situation, so long as this has no relation to quest goals. Roleplay decisions are fair enough in random occurances like that one, as Haldor's choice was simply a moral thing and did not comprimise the quest or get in the way of an important events. It is times like this that I believe character choices are fair enough, but not ones that would deliberately change the course of the quest for one's own benefit.

Obviously, things such as Quest #6 are an exception, as we were clearly offered a choice by the QM of what we would like to do. If Donny hadn't have made the offer, yet we had still attempted to work with him... well that is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Scorpiox

[Sandy]

Great discussion, everyone! There really is a fine line between giving players options and keeping the storyline consistent. This game is not a "free roaming sandbox RPG", after all, although the real-time interaction allows us more options than a videogame would, for example.

I think you will realize what it is like from a QM's perspective if you ever host a quest of your own, Flipz.

Speaking of QM'ing, more quests are offered at the Hall! Yay!