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So, now that I'm thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of Price of Freedom, I realize I'm having trouble coming up with original moral dilemmas that're genuinely difficult decisions to make.

Can anybody think of some examples of difficult moral choices to make that I could slip into the game? Things like:

Two of your friends are in trouble and you can only save one.

A person is dying a slow, painful death and you can either spare them or put them out of their misery.

A group of people are hiding from an enemy and there's a crying baby in thr group. You can either kill the baby or let it live and risk the whole group getting caught.

... Stuff like that.

Lol... xD that last one sounds awfully familiar.

1. There was already something like that.

2. The answer is obvious. If he can't possibly survive, kill him. If he can survive, spare him. 

3. Gag the baby; nobody will die. 

I have a moral dilemma in one of the games I am working on, where you have the option to spare all of the non-human life in an otherwise abandoned city at the cost of condemning a populated human city to death...or sparing the human city and condemning thousands of foxes, wolves, hawks, cervids, endangered species, etc. to death.

I think most people would condemn the animals. Loyalty to your own specie and all that. 

Well, that would be a complete dick move. Species loyalty is great and all, but, if you would sacrifice thousands upon thousands of life forms from various species, just to preserve a few thousand of one species, you obviously can't think logically. Still, I would treat both paths fairly equally, without painting either one as a good or bad ending.

Well, what if your family or friends were in th city? 99% of the time Sometimes selfishness defeats selflessness.

Actually saving the animals could possibly save human lives in the long run. 

You're decreasing the population and at the same time increasing your food supply.

Who in their right mind would want to eat an endangered species?

You'd be breeding them of course.

Also one can assume that their environment is fertile for growth so some of that could be used for farming and growing other food in addition to killing the foxes, birds and whatever else for their meat.

The city was actually inhabited by humans at one time. The humans did use some of the animals for food. The ones they didn't, they left alone. The city had a vast amount of fruit and nut trees as well as forage-able food. It was so chill that animals would just walk through the city, no problems. Animals would eat each other, even humans sometimes, but everyone was real cool about it, until, you know, the nature spirit who helped to make it possible noticed a bunch of humans down on the ground defiling his woods and flipped his shit.

Screw the human population in general. Your loyalty should lie with your ('family'), and ('friends'). 

Well obviously. I'm not going to nuke the city if someone I like is in it.

Or I'll at least get a stealth chopper to fly them out before doing so.

Aha, someone actually gets it, well kind of. I guess you don't actually have to value the animals to understand the practicality of sparing them.

Lol. I love how angry this discussion is getting. I'm guessing that if killing thousands of animals is considered a "dick move" that means killing a few thousand people is A-Ok. 

I'm not sure I could fit any animals rights dilemmas into POF though. The characters have to kill people for a living, so killing animals would be like a picnic for them.

Andreas is such a dick.

How?

Hey, I was advocating killing a city full of people so that the rest of the surviving population could kill the animals for food later.

Someone around here has to make the hard decisions!

Umm...I was saying that they both kinda suck equally and I really can't understand why people would automatically pick one over the other. I didn't say either was okay. I also wanted to include a secret everybody wins ending that you have to go out of your way to get.

Plus, I've already told you my opinion on animal rights groups *cough cough* puppy ex-death *cough cough*. Plus, I believe that pet ownership and zoos are really more beneficial (to certain species more than others, of course) than they are detrimental to the animal's welfare, in most cases.

@Briar_Rose

Honestly, I'd automatically pick the save the humans option. That's not so much an animal rights thing though as a loyalty to species thing. Say for instance, if I was playing the game as a penguin and I had the choice between saving a whole bunch of people and a handful of penguins, I'd save the penguins... Penguins are awesome ^_^

And I wouldn't see it as a bad thing that people automatically pick one over the other. A lot of people do that with some of the choices in my game. For instance the choice where you can either leave the boy that's dying or put him out of his misery is intended to be a really difficult decision to make, but a lot of people automatically say "Kill him. That's the right choice." Without even thinking about it. That's kind of why I'm looking for more scenarios. People might find one choice really easy to make and another really difficult.

I don't want to be the odd-man-out, but haven't we saved enough people.  I can't even go outside and not be reminded how overcrowded this planet has become, and I live in the country.  I believe that if you're not willing to kill your own food, you shouldn't eat meat.  If you're not willing crawl around on your knees in the 100+ deg weather weeding your own vegetables you should starve.  And you should get the death penalty for killing anything your not going to eat.  I know this isn't the cooking thread, but I felt like I had to rave just a bit.  If I offended anyone then...GOOD!  XD

Wow, I think I just discovered a new friend. :)

@ItAintPretty

XD 

You are insane. XD

Haha, why thank you. XD

1. Save whoever. I don't know, flip a coin.

2. Cut his arm(s) off.

3.Kill the damn baby.

As for your dilemma... YOU DAMN DIRTY APE!

Yeah, tbh the first one aint even a moral dilemma. It just going to come down to which you like more haha. 

But that's why it's a moral dilemma, because there's no right or wrong answer. 

Well, i mean, a moral dilemma is a dilemma because it makes you choose between something you want and something that is morally right. It's a test to see how strong your morals are. 

Oh, really? I thought a moral dilemma was a dilemma where there was no clear right or wrong answer... But then I'm pretty ditzy, so you're probably right. 

Really? Theres so many options with your setting and characters. The sadistic brother alone is a treasure cove of them. 

Oh yeah, Septimus is going to be loads of fun. The trouble I'm having is that a lot of the choices I think up are very similar. The choice where two people need help and you can only help one pops up several times in different forms. I just don't want to end up doing the same thing over and over again with no variation.

How about the whole your wife/girlfriend is having complications with her pregnancy and you have to either save her or the child because ancient medical technology sucks?

See! There's a good one! Thanks Endmaster ^_^

1. You have a sparring match with one of the other gladiators. The gladiator that you are sparring against has disappointed Titus greatly, and if this gladiator loses the sparring match, he will be heavily beaten. Will you defeat this gladiator, or will you throw the match?
2. Another gladiator has failed. In this situation, Rhodes would be the one to beat them, but this time, the whip is in your hands. It's clear what you have to do, but the consequences will be dire if you refuse. Will you do it?
3. You're about to go into a tough match against two other gladiators. You have a partner yourself, but he/she is clearly not in the condition to fight. If he/she does, they will most certainly die, but you will have a higher chance of surviving. You could just let your partner sit this one out, but then it will be two vs one. What will you do?

Does this work for you? I could think of some more.

1. Awhh, that's a good one! Throwing a match so the opponent doesn't get punished is definitely one I could use. ^_^

2. I was thinking of having a situation like that, where you're forced to punish somebody. It could be a case of Rhode saying "You beat them or I'll beat them harder." And then you beating them would be the merciful decision. I'll have to think some more about how I'll fit it in and which student it'd be.

3. Hmm, that's an interesting one. I don't think I'd have it exactly like that, but I might try and implement something similar where you have the option of taking somebody else's work load.

I've been thinking a lot about different kinds of moral dilemmas and have decided that most if not all of them fit into a few major categories:

1. Two people need help and you can only help one.

2. Sacrifice an individual to protect a group, or defend the individual.

3. Lie, cheat, steal or commit some other crime to help people that you care about or stay honest.

4. Choosing between one person you really care about and a group of people you don't really know.

5. Letting somebody suffer or putting them out of their misery.

6. Punishing somebody that hurt/betrayed you or let them get away with it.

7. Eliminating a potential threat or giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I can't think of any other categories off the top of my head, but if anybody can think of any, please let me know. ^_^

Several of those could be lumped together, but that's pretty much the gist.

Allowing someone to take the blame and prevent your own death. Or stepping up and taking the consequences alone. (Good for possible death choice)

Choosing between a good and popular but incompetent person or a cruel and generally disliked but efficient person. (Orzammar much?)

Stealing something that could help you in the future or leaving it incase the person will need it more than you will. (Possible ally death?)

 Don't know if any of these were already said somehow but here you go anyway. :)

Yeah that's actually nice for a death choice.  If you want to proceed with the game, you have to let someone else die in your place.  The obviously "right" answer ends the game.

It really wouldn't be that bad, as long as the death ending isn't treated as a loss.

I know exactly what you're saying, and yet, it sounds so depressing not to consider one's own death a loss. xD

If it's your own death, it's only as bad as you make it.

Engarde!

Ah? I've heard "life's what you make it" but death...? Seems a tad more concrete.

I'm not talking about an afterlife or anything. I'm just saying that everything is a matter of perception. Really, your death isn't good or bad. But, if you know you are sacrificing yourself for (what you feel is) a noble cause, you are less likely to regret your decision.

Oh, agreed. That's why I said "I know what you're saying" before.

But not seeing it as a loss sounds a bit unrealistic, unless the character wants to die / doesn't value their life enough to care about losing it, in which case, it's not heroic (because you yourself don't value what you're giving up), but it is a bit depressing.

Well, if they REALLY believe in what they are doing it for, chances are they won't really regret it that much.

Still, at the least, it could be portrayed in an ambiguous manner so that the player can interpret it as they wish.

Ambiguity sounds like a good plan in that case. :)
 

Hmm... I'd say that third one fits pretty snugly in the "Lie, cheat, steal or commit some other crime to help people that you care about or stay honest" category, but the first two are really helpful. ^_^

The first one I think I'll fit into the game quite a few times but I didn't think to include it since sacrificing yourself to save somebody else seems like the clear moral choice. I'm just finding it really difficult to come up with choices that have no clear right or wrong answer.

The second one's really good though, especially if you need to choose somebody to fight at your side. Do you pick somebody you really trust who's kind of a wimp, or do you pick somebody who'd be really helpful but might just stab you in the back? That'd be an interesting choice to play around with ^_^

The first one is to force the player to remember that not every action you take is going to be the 'moral' one. I think it would be great for character development at least.

The DA:O Orzammar situation is what made me thing about it. lol (Spoilers below)

You have to choose between one honest and kind person or a cruel manipulative person. The former leads to the death of Orzammar and the 2nd leads to prosperity and a semi-happy ending for Orzammar.

Lol. I loved that choice in DA, choosing between a good man that'd make a bad king and a bad man that'd make a good king. I thought that with the main quests, it was the only decision you got to make that wasn't really black and white. I always chose Behlen. 

Don't know if these were already suggested, but:

1. Getting hurt yourself to prevent someone else getting hurt.

2. Lie to protect someone or tell the truth with all possible consequences.

3. Kill one innocent to save a group of innocents, or let him/her live and suffer the consequences.

4. Escape from captivity, though others will get punished, or stay in prison.

There's also escaping captivity in spite of letting other, evil people free.

Hmm, that's kind of interesting. "Save yourself at the risk of endangering other people" seems like a more difficult choice than "sacrifice yourself to save others." That's definitely one I've never considered before. It wouldn't have to be you either, it could be somebody else you're saving...

Like, for example, you and your family are being chased through a forest by people that want to hurt you and the only way you can think to get away is by starting a forest fire. If you don't start the fire your whole family will be killed, but if you do start the fire, it could spread to nearby towns and villages and you'd have no idea how many people it could kill.

I guess if that was a category it'd be something like... "Choose whether or not to perform an action that solves an immediate problem but may cause more severe issues in the future."

Agreed, because you can't really be clear on the consequences of your actions until it's too late. xD I'd offer you more, but inspiration's kinda just playing tag with me these days, can't get it to stick around very long. At any rate, I'd love to see you take that idea and run with it...

Don't worry, I'm having trouble coming up with ideas too, hence why I'm asking other people to do it for me. 

Lol, point taken.

Thanks Rom. I think the second one fits into the "lie, cheat, steal or commit some other crime to help the people you care about or stay honest" category and the third one fits in with "sacrifice an individual to protect a group, or defend the individual."

Numbers 1 and 4 could be put into a new category of "sacrifice yourself to protect somebody else, or let the other person suffer to save yourself."

What I'm really having trouble thinking of though is different scenarios where there's not really any right or wrong option. I think in that situation, sacrificing yourself would always be the right thing to do.

Not always. You could have a downer ending where it turns out sacrificing yourself didn't help anything or anyone after all even though you mistakenly thought it would.

Lol. That'd really suck! ^_^

You're in a zombie apocalypse and you sacrifice yourself to protect a little girl... You then come back as a zombie and eat the whiny little bitch. Om nom nom 

Exactly, the "correct" choice would've been to LIVE and fight harder to save the little girl and yourself! 

Yeah, but that option would've been way too easy. I meant if there was a choice to leave the girl and save yourself or to sacrifice yourself to protect the girl. Protecting the girl would seem like the right thing to do, but ultimately, with you gone, she's not going to last long anyway.

Ah, but you could leave the girl... stumble upon a badass weapon, say, a flamethrower to help you handle the horde... then you can choose to race back and save her. :3

Or you could make the smart choice and leave her to die.

Or, you have the virus and you try to prevent its spread by jumping off the roof off a building, but you land on a puppy.

@Endmaster

@Briar_Rose

The puppy is likely already infected. So not a problem with killing it.

Watch the Walking Dead game.

Briar's played it. She's even said that she's drawn inspiration for P.O.F. from it.

... I think you mean "Play the Walking Dead game." 

Then how about something like:

A man appears on your doorstep begging you to let him in and hide him. In the distance you can see a group of angry man, clearly chasing the fugitive, though you cannot see who they are. Do you let the man in, even though he could be a danger to you and your family, or do you shut the door in his face?

What would be great is if the man was really a murderer, and, by hiding him, you are allowing him to continue his killings, which all get blamed on you.

Oh wait, that's already happened in Monster.

It sounds more like the Purge to me.

Purge < Monster

Hmm... I think that'd probably fit into the "Sacrifice an individual to protect a group" category. The idea that the man might turn out to be dangerous is clever, but that'd still fit into "eliminate a potential threat or give them the benefit of the doubt."

Ah, ah... if you do it right, it can be "trust the majority" or "respect the individual." You can make it ambiguous. The group wants to kill the stranger, you as the reader do not know any of them, or their motives. The group says he's evil, he pleads with you to believe that he's innocent and that it's a misunderstanding...

The only real difference between them, as they're all strangers to you, is that it's 5 against 1.

@3rd one. Is morality an illusion?

You stand upon a fort wall overlooking the surrounding area. An alarm sounds and a guard points out the problem; five men are running from a werewolf while a single man runs into the forest nearby.

You can save the men but then the werewolf will chase the lone man and kill him.

So, likely you choose to save the five men over the one. But let us change the situation.

You stand upon your fort wall again with a man beside you, the same alarm sounds off and you see the five men running from the werewolf again. But this time there is no lone man. The men will not reach the fort in time to be saved unless you push the man next to you off, which will cause the werewolf to kill the fallen man and the five men will be saved.

What do you do then?

[Based off a FFH2 Worldspell]

Hmm...one guy you can trust...or five strangers?

I think it's assumed you can trust the five people running from the werewolf.

 http://fallfromheaven.wikia.com/wiki/Hyborem's_Whisper     

^Here's the actual thing if you want to read it instead of mine. lol Personally, I would just tell my archers to shoot the werewolf.

For a moment I thought you got that from Skyrim when you're doing the Daedric Lord Hircine's quest of either killing the werewolf or killing the hunters.

Na, I figured the werewolf could go finish his quest and be cured from his curse. I despise every Daedric Prince except Meridia and Sheogorath. lol

Meridia is a bitch.  Molag Bal is just sad.  Most of the princes are weak and ineffective. 

Sheogorath's cool.  I actually don't mind Hircine. 

I took an online Morality Course from Harvard a year or so ago (I never finished the course though, got bored with it)-- and it brought up a very similar situation.

You're standing on a bridge with an extremely obese man eating a cheeseburger. Below you is a train track, heading towards a tunnel, where 5 mine workers are working, not paying attention to the incoming train. You cannot do anything, buuuuut the fat man is very close to the ledge, if you just... push this diabetic bastard to stop the train, you'll save 5 lives.

On an alternative scenario, you are near the tracks, and the train is headed toward the 5 mine workers again, but you can push a lever, switching the tracks to hitting one different Mine worker.

Most of the live audience seemed to think that pushing that fatso off is worse, because you are directly, with your hand, pushing the man, while in the other scenario you are only assisting by pulling a lever. Others said you should kill the fat man, since he'll die anyway.

I say kill the fat man. I hate to be that way, and I wouldn't want anyone to do it if it was me or someone I knew, but I think it would be better for him to die than the mine workers.

I do nothing.

Five people get killed and their families will grieve for sometime. Their tears will be delicious. If they had no friends or loved ones, then really what importance were they in the first place? Just one more slab of meat taking up space in this world and doing a job that will easily be done by the next drone.

The fat dude is probably going to die soon anyway so no need to hasten his demise, and in the meantime he has to live out his pathetic gluttonous existence being hampered by his rolls and being mocked by passers by. He probably will never know true love save in the comfort of food which will never truly ever satisfy his crippling loneliness.

Am I doing it right?

You're a saint, man. Preach it.

Or you could just push the fat guy and make him miss, for shits and giggles.

At least that way you could say you tried as long as you don't miss to badly. ^.^

OMG EndMaster you are so fucking WRONG!

... Food totally satisfies the crippling loneliness! Especially cake... Mmm... Cake ^_^

How would a fat guy stop a train?

Obviously he's a grossly FAT bastard who has so much mass that it can stop a train.

Of course this brings up the interesting question of if you even have the strength to push him off a ledge in the first place.

Maybe he was leaning really far over the ledge and the ledge was cracking from his overweight body. So when you pushed him it shatters completely so he can fall.

You could roll him over the edge ^_^

That's quite an interesting one. Ultimately it's the same decision of choosing between saving an individual or a group, the difference being that you have to be the one responsible for the man's death.

It really makes the decision completely different. Like... If some crazy, evil villain type guy says, "I'm either going to blow up an entire school full of children, or I'll kill one random guy that you don't know. You have to choose." Most people would probably choose for him to kill the one guy, but if the villain said "I'm going to blow up a school full of children, unless you hunt down this guy for me and kill him." That'd make the choice a lot harder.

I suppose if it was a category, it'd be "Choose whether or not to sacrifice your own morals for the greater good." ... Which I suppose could fit into the "Do something dishonest to help a group" category, but I was thinking more along the lines of lying or stealing rather than killing somebody... So definitely helpful ^_^

You are standing in front of a person. Said person is sitting on a chair, with his/her hands bound at their back and a sack covering their face. You cannot say for sure who this person is, but you are told by someone who you do not know that, in the near future, this person will kill you. However, you are hereby given the choice to kill this person right here, right now. Will you do it?

Ah, but what if your attempt to kill them fails and pisses them off, leading to them killing you later on in retribution? What if that is the only reason that they would have killed you?

...is this a trick question? Because there's really no reason to think some stranger has the ability to predict the future, vs. they want someone dead and they think I look gullible. ;P

Not to get off topic, but I like your new profile pic.

Thanks! ^_^

You're welcome. I'm not a big owl person, but, occasionally they will manage to catch my interest.

Like I said, what if he isn't going to kill you, should you let him live, but the cosmic gambit is that you will try to kill him, causing him to seek and kill you in retribution.

It says he's tied up with a bag on his head. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to screw up killing him and it's pretty hard for him to gain retribution if he's dead.

Unless this is some sort of fantasy world and someone is raising the dead or something.

There's another thing -- why is the guy who engineered this scenario concealing the supposed future killer's identity from you? 

To dehumanize them, making the kill easier for you? To keep the would be killer-constantly on edge? Because the script says so?

...to conceal the fact that it's actually you, sent back in time to die at your past self's hands? XD

Oh ho ho, Morgan. Then technically, you are killing yourself either way.

The mysterious game player has made the vital mistake of leaving my own hands free, so it's just a simple matter of me uncovering the possible killer's face before making my final decision.

If it's someone I know that's close to me (which really wouldn't be that many), then that would give me cause to pause and I wouldn't do it and I'd just take the risk of being horribly betrayed in the future.

If it's nobody close to me, well it's better to be safe than sorry.

Or you could leave the other man alive and kill yourself, creating a paradox and horribly fucking over the universe.

Unless that's how the other person unintentionally kills you by being in that situation with you and forces you to kill yourself to save him. So he assisted you with your own death.

Rom did said 'near future'. :D

Or you miss the brain stem completely, but knock him out in a way that makes it look like he's dead. Then, he wakes up later with no memory of what happened and spends a good amount of time hunting you down, New Vegas style.

I'm not going to miss anything, I'll just smash his head into mush until I'm certain he's not coming back even as a zombie by that point.

"You are standing in front of a person. Said person is sitting on a chair, with his/her hands bound at their back and a sack covering their face. You cannot say for sure who this person is, but you are told by someone who you do not know that, in the near future, this person will kill you. However, you are hereby given the choice to kill this person right here, right now. Will you do it?"

This person? What if he's talking about himself in the third person and not the person in the chair? Okay, I'm sure that sounds pretty stupid.

Wait, what? Now I'm killing Romulus? I mean he's technically the one that set this up.

Not that I have anything against Rom, but obviously if he's kidnapping people and tying them to chairs and playing games like a Jigsaw wannabe, then I probably should kill him for the greater good. Lol.

Actually, I was referring to the other man in the scenario (besides the main character and the chair guy). Still, Romulus' sick mind should be punished (while you all conveniently ignore the twisted stuff I've said.)

Kill the person who told me and free the person sitting in the chair. 

Why would I trust somebody I don't know about who I should kill or not?

Well, you want to join the Dark Brotherhood don't you?

Not when it's fallen so far, I'd rather just rebuild with Cicero and myself. lol

The only two people I liked in the Skyrim brotherhood was the argonian(despite his loyalty to the crazy-lady) and the vampire kid.

I was so happy when I got to kill Astrid!  It was the greatest day of my assassinating storyline!  And I stole her soul, but I did that with all my contracts.

Awhh! I like that one! That one's really interesting! I guess it'd fit into a category of choosing between yourself and somebody else, but it's kind of completely different anyway. Usually those kind of choices involve sacrificing yourself to save an innocent person, but if you let the person live, you're not really doing anything heroic or noble that you'll be remembered for and you're not protecting an innocent person. (You know they're not innocent because they're gonna kill you.) It's more a case of, would you be able to live with yourself if you killed them?

Oh yeah, maybe you should do the popular 'Hitler Scenario'.

Let's say Andreas could secretly kill some Noble child, who will undoubtably become an evil tyrant in a decade or so. You could kill him now, so he won't have the chance. But, right now he's innocent, so should you do it? And either way, perhaps someone worse will replace him?

Yadayada.

I feel we covered this issue in Homo Perfectus 7.

I feel like this is a different setting than Homo Perfectus 7.

Different setting, same scenario, I feel.

Yes. There's bound to be scenarios situations when it comes to moral decisions haha.

All I'm saying is it's not original. In all fairness, though, none of these scenarios are really original.

I don't mean to seem like I'm dogging on you or anything. Sorry.

2nd sentence is my point.

Your last post was rather confusing to be honest. I get that now, but, initially, I had no clue what you were saying.

Looking back, yeah, mistyped some things.

But if he's innocent right now, how do you know he'd grow up to become an evil tyrant? 

Because he's the son of an evil tyrant guy, and is a spoiled brat? Seems solid to me.

Endmaster has a story about morals... its called A Very Special Choose Your Story... you could read it for ideas

@EndMaster

There's a plague in a city. If Andreas acts now and razes the city to the ground, it will be contained. Hundreds of lives are lost by your hand.

Or he could ride away to seek a skilled but drunk doctor who might be able to find a cure if he's slapped around and sobered up enough, but the plague will possibly spread to other cities and kill people in several places by the time that happens and thousands of lives could be lost.

Can't we just blockage the city or shoot anybody with symptoms near other cities? That way the city will still be there without all the people. A new life for it and all that jazz.

Sure, quarantines have limited success, but it's still not going to be enough to stop it from spreading. The guards overseeing the quarantine can get sick and take it home to their families, rats and pigeons can wander outside the city, etc.

The longer something isn't immediately done about it, the more likely it's going to spread.

Hmm... Fine, but wouldn't it be easier to just assign a huge amount of snipers and flamethrowers to deal with the infected instead of burning the city down?

I thought Briar's story was set during the Roman Empire, where the hell are they getting flamethrowers and sniper rifles? Lol.

Couldn't everyone just systemically knock down the outermost buildings and shut the aquaducts for containment?

@WWZ Movie: Jerusalem but with intelligent people.

Lol. I find it funny how, with all these moral scenarios, everybody wants to give a third option that contains the best of both decisions... The choices are supposed to be hard!

It's like if there were a game of Sophie's Choice where the options were:

1. Let the Nazi's take your son.

2. Let the Nazi's take your daughter.

3. Punch the Nazi in the face, steal his gun, shoot all the bad guys and run off happily with both your children.

... Kind of defeats the object. 

Oh, I dunno. I like third options...  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption

But I do insist on it being harder to achieve.

As you're walking on a lonely road through a dense forest, you see an unfamiliar man lying on the ground. He is cradling his leg in his arms and is clearly in pain. Though you are not sure what to do and are contemplating walking away, the man has already spotted you and is calling to you for help, as he has broken his leg and can't walk anymore. You are not that far away from the nearby city and you guess that, with a little effort, you could help the man get to a doctor. What do you do?

Uhh... I'm confused. Why wouldn't you save the guy? (Unless you're playing the game as a jerk.)

Sorry if I didn't explain it properly earlier, but the kind of dilemmas I'm looking for are ones that don't have a clear right or wrong answer, like choosing between rescuing your lover or your best friend.

As far as I can tell, the only reason somebody would leave the man behind is if they can't be bothered to help him.

Yeah, I could probably have described that better. I was thinking more in the lines of: do you trust someone who is asking you for help if you find him lying in the middle of nowhere. For all you know this could be a trap. I was kinda thinking of a medieval highwayman kind of thing.

Ahh, I see. I guess it could work if you somehow had a reason not to trust the guy.

Or, if you know the guy is a bandit and the real question is whether his friends abandoned him or put him up to the task. Eh, if most people knew he was a bandit, though, they would probably just leave him.

Even better if you find out after helping him then killing him+the other bandits that he had actually damaged his leg and they decided to use that to get more travelers.

That's kinda what I meant, I guess.

You encounter a man with a sick family member. He begs you for an object you have in your possession, which he thinks will cure the sick family member. The object isn't expensive or rare. However, you do know that the object will not cure the person and that the sick family member is going to die no matter what. Do you:
A) hand over the item freely
B) tell the man that the item won't help and that their  family member is doomed
C) combo of A and B
D) go along with the man's idea of the item as a cure and hand over the item freely
E) go along with the man's idea of the item as a cure and hand over the item for a price
F) keep the item for yourself

You encounter a lone, crying child, but you are very busy and have to be somewhere important in a matter of minutes. You are already running late. One of your friend's lives is depending on the business you have have to attend. Do you:
A) ignore the child and continue on
B) try to quickly fix the issue with the child, leaving or giving an rushed judgment if it starts to take too long
C) stop and try to properly resolve the issue with the child, no matter how long it takes
D) take the child with you and deal with the child later on

You and a friend are arguing over someone that you both have feelings for. You know several things that would make the person you have feelings for find your friend repulsive. In fact, your friend has been lying to this person about some of these things. You are pretty sure that this person finds you more attractive than your friend. However, you do know that your friend and this person share several areas of interest that you do not. Do you:
A) act out of honesty and caring and tell the person about the lies
B) act out of self interest and desire and tell the person about the lies
C) act out of loyalty to your friend and do not tell the person about the lies
D) act on knowing that your friend probably knows a couple things that you might of not been so honest about and do not tell the person about the lies

 

Haven't had any suggestions like the first one before. I'll put it in a new category of "Lie to comfort somebody, or be honest no matter how painful it might be to hear."

The latter is the better option in my opinion. I would give the man the item, but tell him my opinion.

A - wont cost me much and it gives them hope

A - priorities

E - call out the friend on lying to her and use that as the basis to convince him it wont work out for them

1. E. He's probably going to scream at me for being a heartless bastard if I tell him the truth and not believe me that it won't work anyway, so I might as well profit from this scenario. Besides, he's going to have one less person at the dinner table soon, so he won't be needing the money surplus.

2. A. My friend's life is at risk, why am I going to waste time with some kid I don't know? Kids cry over the smallest things anyway, and I'm not its parent.

3. A & B are not mutually exclusive. Either way, I don't see why I wouldn't tell the truth about this "friend" telling lies since this "friend" is actively trying to sabotage me.

In fact I should just go ahead and kick his ass considering that I just ran around like a mad man, pushing crying brats out of the way just to help him in the last scenario.

(I guess that puts me more in the "B" camp)

You chop off the man's scrotum with a sword? What now?

A. Feed it to him.

B. Mercy killing.

C. Gloat

D. Just leave him

A and C would be the same. Why would you mercy kill him, if you went so far as to castrate him. Personally, I'd say D. Let him live with his ball-less-ness.

Yeah, I'd see A followed by C and D. ^_^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-atXCUEMj1w

This is exactly how something like that would play out. Except he does A B C and D in that order.

I know it's an old thread and it was derailed pretty much right off the tracks, but in regards to the original post, since this is a historical story you're writing, an idea to consider might be putting in dilemmas that seem to have an obvious answer to the person sitting behind the computer reading it, but the realistic result in the actual historical setting is completely different from what was intended and they can wind up screwing somebody over when they intended to only do the 'right thing'. 

I'll come back with some examples in a bit when I can type them from an actual computer...

Hmm... Not exactly sure what you mean but it sounds really interesting ^_^

Probably something like you saying "Save this person" but finding out it was socially suicide to do it back then.

Maybe. Not sure how well that sort of choice would work though, since obviously the characters live in that time. It'd work really well in a story about a man who's a time traveler or something, but since the characters have a vague idea of how society works, it wouldn't make much sense for them to make a "modern" decision.

Could just be about gladiator etiquette or politics. Doesn't have to be specific to the era, just something the player/character wouldn't really be aware of.

True, that could work. 

It was more of a 'screw with your players' kind of suggestion, think something like 'help the daughter of a powerful noble ditch her parents and husband and elope with the penniless man she loves' where obviously fighting for the cause of TWUE WUV is the right thing to do, but realistically would probably get you all horribly killed, and even if the couple succeeds they might regret it a few years down the line when they're selling one of their daughters into slavery so the rest of the family can put off starvation a little longer.

So even if the player does the morally right thing, and even if they pull it off against all odds, they still get to feel horrible and possibly enraged about it afterwards.

I was going to post more suggestions but then I had a bit of an epiphany and realized how futile this all is, I mean the very idea of someone creating 'interactive fiction' about 'history' on a 'computer' is such a twisted perversion of nature, such a typical human idea if you know what I'm saying. Have you ever heard of an animal reading or writing a story, or thinking about moral dilemmas? Of course not! Instead they eat, they poop, they breed...these animals, man, they know what's up!  And I know they completely lack the mental capacity to recognize or appreciate our sacrifice, and have no way of passing the memory of it down to their offspring, but we should probably all go out to the woods and kill ourselves anyway. Really, it's the only ethical thing to do...I mean, speaking from my obviously biased position as a member of the only species on the planet capable of fathoming the concept of ethics in the first place, of course. :)

So, because something doesn't understand ethics, it has no basic right to life...

That makes sense, come on, let's go round up all the sociopaths and mentally handicapped. Nothing wrong with killin' 'em all, if they can't understand the concepts of morality and ethics. :)

@Mizal

Eh, responding to an eight day old discussion...no one in particular, everyone in general because there was just no eyeroll big enough to contain my reaction after reading through the whole thing all in one go.

Oh, and Briar, I'm recommending the baby in the original scenario should be replaced with an adorable but noisy puppy or possibly an endangered fox of some kind, it's just not enough of a moral dilemma for your readers otherwise,

Or maybe a jackass. I know just the one. ^

Yep, the world would be a better place.

Hey, it's already been established in this thread that most humans need to die, if that includes all the people who do understand compassion and ethics than how can the ones who don't expect to fare any better?

Though I'm not going to get into the whole 'do animals have a right to live' discussion because where do you draw the line? Even taking humans out of the equation, how many rodents should be expected to give their lives so that one fox may live, and how is it fair to put one animal's life over another just based on their species? :P

But basically I've seen this exact discussion many, many times on the internet. And usually in more extreme terms, you guys at least kept your sense of humor...though to understand what I've suffered through I want you to picture some angry misanthropic nerd typing a post like ItAintPretty's, but in 100% seriousness, calling for anyone who's ever trapped a mouse and not immediately devoured it raw to be sent to the gas chamber, while sitting at a computer in an air-conditioned building and shoving Cheetos into their mouth in between swigs of Mountain Dew...These are also the kind of people who are always so infatuated with zombies or apocalypses of any sort like they don't realize they'd be the first to go. (This topic is triggering, is what I'm trying to say, you guys triggered me and James if you were a human capable of shame instead of a fox staring uncomprehendingly at a tablet or whatever while patting randomly at a keyboard with your adorable little paws you would feel so very, very bad right now.)

Anyway it's always seemed silly to me because everyone's always so busy hating on the entire human race while forgetting that it's only because we're human that we're able to think of things in those terms in the first place...a cat catching a bird doesn't give a shit about whether it's endangered or not, and there really is no such thing as a 'basic right to life' in the animal kingdom. That's just some weird unnatural concept that we, the fat stupid planet-destroying humans who all deserve to die came up with, and it'll be gone forever as soon as we are.

Tthough I guess if you really really wanted me to I could probably spend five minutes doing an image search for cartoon ponies and decide that you guys are all right and we as a species need to go away ASAP, I mean it won't be for the same reasons but hey, same results.

Wow, an entire five paragraphs devoted to calling me subhuman and making me feel bad for my beliefs. And here I was thinking you guys didn't care about me *sob sob*. I'm touched, really.

I figured she was also insulting Itaintpretty though since she specifically called him out.

I dunno, I'm not even sure why you guys are at odds with each in the first place, I guess I missed a step.

She wrote a huge paragraph calling me out for what I said 8 days ago. No biggie. In fact, I think it's kinda funny.

... That was random. ^_^