GM/Player Style: Grey Areas & Red Lines

[B.T.]

Some quotes, I can relate to:

Quote from Rainbow Six:
"When it comes to executing prisoners, for me, I think a lot depends on context. I’ve played in games where the PC’s have been operating well away from any friendly support against some pretty blood thirsty marauders who have done some pretty unpleasant things (the marauders, not the PC’s). The PC’s were only passing through the area and did not have the resources to take and hold prisoners (nowhere to put them, no manpower to guard them, and would have to feed them from their own limited rations)."

Quote from SSC:
"... yes, I like to include moral dilemmas and ethical quandaries for the PCs and I like to let the Players have the agency to make those decisions. However the full weight of consequence hangs over them if they deliberately choose to do a bad/malicious/evil thing. Sometimes circumstances force good people to do things they would rather not do, I don't want to punish Players for that because I as GM put their PCs into that situation in the first place, specifically to cause them that dilemma.
Do you let a traitor live because he was blackmailed into becoming a traitor? What if leaving him alive will cause the injury or death of innocent people?
Do the PCs ignore a job they don't particularly feel comfortable with or do they let some group of lowlifes take the job with the chance that the lowlifes will harm a lot of innocent people?
I tend to think these situations will never have a completely right or completely wrong answer and so they are good tools for the GM to make Players think about the actions of their PCs."

Quote(s) from Legbreaker:
"I'm 100% with SSC here. Consequences are the correct answer, not restrictions on possible actions.
On occasion I'll thrown in a morale dilemma, but only to make the point of consequences. If the players have been acting in such a way as to invite retribution or retaliation, then it WILL happen.
Rape, murder, child abuse, etc is all on the table, however the details will absolutely be glossed over where possible except where absolutely necessary to describe the "wrongness" of the situation and (hopefully) encourage the players to seek another path."

"Our next question is what do you do about "slavers" who turn out to be basically prison guards putting convicted murderers, rapists, etc to work alongside POWs?
Add to that the resource the "slaves" are producing helps upwards of 100,000 people survive....
Their encampment serves as a major trading hub with the much of the regions economy reliant on the main product of the slaves as well as the additional trade.

To me, T2k must have moral dilemmas. This one started as little more than a random encounter (several really) and is turning into a major regional issue."

Well done, everybody!
I think, T2k - or any other roleplaying game - should be an enjoyable social thing for GM and players. If a party likes it rough, that's their thing - it's not mine.
But the world in T2k is gritty. Slavers, rapists, former organized crime figures, warlords and so on live in that world. The moral dilemmas for my players are part of MY way to play that game. All of my players are grown-ups, the youngest being about 30 years of age. I would label all of them "experienced gamers". The games include Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun and a million-zillion fantasy games.
I can mention all kinds of evil things, but I don't have to go into too much detail.
When PCs act extremely violent, they will have to take the consequences, just as several of you have mentioned earlier.
And to emphazise this: Know your players!!!
I know all of my players for more than 10 years, with one exception. I know, how these guys are thinking.

And one thing, that was not mentioned above: As a GM, you allways have NPCs, you can use to balance the ideas of PCs.
In my group, no one (of the player, this is!) has military experiences. I am the only former soldier (and I was "just" a conscript). The group contains several NPCs, that are part of the group. And some of these had been in charge of a platoon or company in the earlier stages of WWIII. To make this clear: From time to time, a lot of NPCs accompany the player party, but these usually leave the party at a certain point (geographically or in time). The NPCs, that are a vital part of the party are five. One is a former platoon leader of the USMC, one is a combat medic, two are drivers.
These NPCs have a vote, if the group has to make decisions. And at least the former Marine has a lot of exerience.

If one of my players is about to do something really stupid, I have the NPCs to give additional info or to adress problems, the players did not think about.

T2kshould be gritty, but I have a vague idea about my red lines.

[Ursus Maior]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Child abuse and child sexual abuse is a red line for me. Rape is another red line (in college I had a girlfriend who was raped and she was never the same,) Child abuse and rape may be something that happened in the past to a PC or NPC, but won't happen in a game.

A gray line is the injury or death of a pet or working animal. It may advance the plot, but Ii'd prefer it didn't happen. Another gray line is the torture of an animal.

I understand these lines and would say it's something I would handle similarly. Though I would exclude it from narration - i. e. not play it out - I would make it part of the telling, i. e. it could be reported to have happened in a handout or hearsay.

But actually describing details would still sicken me.

[Southernap]

Originally Posted by Ursus Maior

I understand these lines and would say it's something I would handle similarly. Though I would exclude it from narration - i. e. not play it out - I would make it part of the telling, i. e. it could be reported to have happened in a handout or hearsay.

But actually describing details would still sicken me.

I think in most of these situations we could do the Noodle Incident style of story telling. Where a good GM can lay out some things and let the PCs come up with their own version of the big bad scary incident. I am surprised that more folks don't know how to use the Noodle Incident type of story telling in either adventures or GMing.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Well, I don't bother using the Noodle Incident style of story telling because it wouldn't work for my Players. They want answers and would not be satisfied with the GM using that type of technique.
The other reason I don't use it is because I don't think it really translates that well to role-playing games. By that I mean that the impact is typically lost. Many Players won't remember all the details of some event that's narrated to them, they'll remember a few points that they feel are important to them and the rest is forgotten. So in that sense, it's not worth the effort to give them lots of detail but you can't afford to keep things hidden because they won't find the hook to get them interested in the event.

But I'll say it again - know your Players. This storytelling technique doesn't usually work for my game group but that doesn't mean that every Player will be that way.

[Lurken]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

In a current game Lurken is running and a few of us here are playing in, we've coined a term for what happens to wounded prisoners - "German first aid". Usually carried out with a bayonet or other melee weapon and occasionally occurring after interrogation of otherwise perfectly healthy prisoners.

Our first encounter with this was while on a foot recce with several members of a German Recon battalion. We found ourselves with a number of prisoners, several of which were too wounded to move under their own power, no way to move them without giving up our prize (1,000 litres of desperately needed methanol in a horse drawn tanker), and the threat of an AFV supported reaction force bearing down on us within the next 10-15 minutes.
Pistols were drawn and further bloodshed BARELY avoided before the necessity of the action was realised by those who were most upset by it.

Since then we as PCs have made a conscious effort to ensure at least one of us remains with any prisoners we capture to avoid any further applications of German First Aid after "escape attempts".

Yea, I included it after some thinking about what a Charismatic and Murderous leader of the Battalion could lead to. I included it because I wanted you all to be forced to consider the wrongness of the Germans in that Battalion, and that they are not the "best" allies.

Also, since you have been staying with them odds would increase that the Soviets will hunt actively after you. Luckily for the group so far, is that you managed to pass the Warta river and "hidden" near the mine. The same mine that has an understanding with the Soviets to not poke around each other too much.

[Legbreaker]

Yeah, we might want to screw with that relationship and set them at each others throats.

[Targan]

Everybody who knows anything about my last campaign knows that I don't set many limits. My own personal red line would be if it's too disturbing for me as a GM to continue, I'd just stop.

The player of Major Po is a Doctor of Clinical Psychology. I am only half-joking when I say that in hindsight it felt like he was running an experiment on the playing group.

[wolffhound79]

one of the player reminded me today of a Time they mutilated a body and put heads of pig poles to block a road. the goal was to try and convince anyone coming down the road that it was cannibal territory so people would stay away.

[wolffhound79]

how has anyone roleplayed slavers?

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by wolffhound79

how has anyone roleplayed slavers?

You mean, the PCs were slavers? No. I should hope no one else has either.

I've incorporated them into my campaigns, though. In fact, my players actually ended up helping a town run by slavers to defeat a hostile partisan force led by a Green Beret.

Sandomierz, Poland operates sulfur mines. In my T2Ku, the town was mining the sulfur using slave labor and manufacturing gunpowder, making it a regional power of sorts. The town ORMO was made up of Poles and Red Army deserters. The town's acting mayor was a Polish-speaking ex-Soviet officer. When my players arrived in the Vistula Queen, I gave them all sorts of hints that slavery was practiced in the town (e.g. civilians under armed guard forced to unload the tug, wagon cages full of "prisoners" rolling through town) thinking they would decide to do something about it. To my surprise, they didn't bite. Instead, they agreed to help Sandomierz take on the I.P.A.T. (a partisan force led by an enigmatic Green Beret, the self-styled Hetman of Tarnobrzeg, and the remnants of his A-Team.), based upriver in Tarnobrzeg (the party had already tangled with the I.P.A.T. and decided to finish the job).

EDIT: Looking through the old IC thread (from 2008), I found this- an old priest responding to a question from a PC.

Originally Posted by Twilight Cruise, Ch. 9: Sandomierz

"All men are tyrants in their hearts. The Russian, he is no different. The people of this town are safe and they are grateful. They live in peace and relative prosperity because of the labor of others who are not so fortunate. Human bondage is a sinful practice, to be sure. But the commandant has assured those of us who have raised objections that the laborers are simply serving out a kind of indenture. They are fed, clothed, given shelter; a year of labor in the mines or the fields and they will be given citizenship. We shall see. I visit their camps and they are, on the whole, cared for... adequately. From what I have heard, Tarnobrzeg certainly has no claim to moral high ground. Yet I fear a contest between the two strongmen. This area has been quiet for many months and more death benefits no one but Lucifer. Your group should leave here and be on their way before more blood is shed."

So yeah, much to my dismay, my knowingly players cooperated with slavers.

-

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It should be remembered though, that not everyone will have the same thoughts on for example, slavers. While we all generally agree that we want the good guys to be "good", some Players don't get overly invested in the situation because it is, after all, a game and not real life - thus they can safely ignore what they would usually object to.
I like it when my Players get invested in their characters, the game, the story and so on but not every Player wants to do that.

Some don't even realise that they are or are not getting invested and so I don't feel that any particular circumstance where the PCs do something "not so good" is any true indicator of how the Players will act in the future (in game or even in real life).
If a Player constantly takes the bad guy choices, then I'm going to be concerned. But because T2k has many moral grey areas, there are going to be times when the characters have to make a choice between the two evils and sometimes the lesser of the two evils isn't really any less evil. It doesn't make the PCs (or the Players for that matter) bad guys, it just means the choices they had were bad.

[Legbreaker]

Like it or not, slavery is a large part of T2k - the Robotniki of Krakow are the prime example.

There was a saying back when I was in the army - they were only allowed to work you or give orders for 23 hours and 50 minutes per day, anything more than that was slavery. Who's fault was it that the 10 minutes of freedom to do whatever the hell you wanted was inevitably while you were sleeping?

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Like it or not, slavery is a large part of T2k - the Robotniki of Krakow are the prime example.

Yes, but that doesn't make it acceptable- especially when the players are in a position to do something about it. I deliberately presented the scenario as a grey area (yes, there's slavery, but it's a one-year thing and they aren't badly mistreated...) hoping that they would make a particular choice (shut it down), but I decided to roll with it when they- much to my suprise- made a different one (not only leave the slaves to their fates, but cooperate with the local authorities in eliminating a neighboring rival). They chose to move on, and I obliged them, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

I guess the moral is, if you, as a ref, present a grey area scenario, you must be prepared for your players to make the less ethical choices or it's going to be a very short campaign.

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[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I like it when my Players get invested in their characters, the game, the story and so on but not every Player wants to do that.

This is so true.

Originally Posted by Raellus

I guess the moral is, if you, as a ref, present a grey area scenario, you must be prepared for your players to make the less ethical choices or it's going to be a very short campaign.

Yes, I think the ref trying to force his / her ethical choices on the group is doomed to failure (not to mention charges of railroading).

You said that your players had already 'tangled with the IPAT'. Do you think that might have influenced their decision?

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

You said that your players had already 'tangled with the IPAT'. Do you think that might have influenced their decision?

Probably, but they'd already passed Tarnobrzeg (it's upriver of Sandomierz) so the decision was mostly elective. If it was downriver, and therefore an obstacle to the tug crew's ultimate goal of reaching Warsaw, then the arguments for assisting the slavers would be a lot stronger (IMHO). As it was, the PCs had to backtrack, and risk their lives a second time, to assist the slavers.

On the other hand, if they'd decided to overthrow the Sandomierz gov't, there would also have been a fight, one which they were not as prepared for as they would be for the second battle against the IPAT. The Sandomierz authorities gave the tug crew materials to help fortify the vessel and 82mm mortar ammo for its Vasilek. That made their decision to help the slavers seem even more mercenary (which, in fairness, they had, for all practical intents and purposes, become).

I reviewed the IC thread to see how it all went down; I did not scroll through the OOC (it may have been deleted, actually), so I don't know how much soul-searching and hand-wringing went on during the decision-making process but, IIRC, there was very little discussion or second-guessing regarding helping a slave state.

Anyway, the PCs made their decision and I did not interfere.

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[ChalkLine]

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation: Plato

I have some hard rules about player behaviour and they are simple:

- First off, I'm not interested in spending my spare time with people who fantasise about being war criminals. I studied war crimes in university and some of the ugly shit I read will stay with me forever.

- Second up, torture-porn is a strange behaviour people should keep to themselves.

My players are required to be soldiers first and foremost. It is a clear war crime to murder wounded, they simply have to be left to die. It's ugly and brutal but it's a hard rule for a simple reason as written above: once it starts the classification of "mortally wounded" starts to become much larger. In a campaign I ran those executed bodies would be found, the OTK units notified and the Grom Battalion come looking for the criminals and if they find them the survivors handed over to the GRU or the Wojskowa Służba Wewnętrzna (WSW) for trial. Civilians who found out about it on the grapevine would shun the PCs, stragglers would not join the group. Most people understand what a monster is.

People often say "war is brutal" but don't seem to understand what it means. It doesn't mean you will also become brutal, it means you try and maintain your humanity amongst brutality. The rules of warfare are there to stop the troops from becoming quasi-militia with better guns. I frequently shocked that some people intimately aware of those rules immediately discard them in-game, you'd think they'd be exemplars.

As a GM I will allude to atrocities, usually by a rough description and so far my players have not made the cardinal error of assuming that vengeance by atrocity makes them any better. In fact one of the players couldn't bring himself to kill a Vari (Russian mobster who had been slaughtering, raping and mutilating civilians in the Kraków area as the man was unarmed and had surrendered.

We don't actually depict any of the realities of war. We don't depict snipers blowing PC's lungs out or entire groups of players arbitrarily being killed by artillery strikes, neither of which the players can react to. Players don't simply step on mines covered by snow or mud. We give them a choice.

So it comes down to a choice.

[Raellus]

Very well said, Chalkline. I think we have very similar sensibilities re Ref'ing style.

IMHO, T2k must be gritty, but it doesn't need to be nihilistic.

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[pmulcahy11b]

First off, I'm not interested in spending my spare time with people who fantasise about being war criminals. I studied war crimes in university and some of the ugly shit I read will stay with me forever.

My degree in college was history with double concentrations in military and Latin American history, so we definitely have that in common

Second up, torture-porn is a strange behaviour people should keep to themselves.

Torture-Porn is just sick. People who do this in a game belong in therapy, and you wonder if they do it for real. Do it in a game and you will receive a head shot by that "unknown sniper" out there.