{"id":27743,"date":"2020-03-31T00:56:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=27743"},"modified":"2020-03-31T01:01:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:01:41","slug":"rainbows-of-neon-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/rainbows-of-neon-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainbows Of Neon Gray: Moral Topology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image by Yuri_B<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

\nPart 4 of the Sixes System is almost done – It only needs another day-and-a-half of work. Sadly, 1.5 doesn’t fit into 1, and I reached that point with only 1 more working day to get a post ready. So here’s one of the fill-in articles that I’ve been keeping in my back pocket for just such a contingency…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is said that everyone has their price, a button that – if pushed in just the right way – will get them to roll over and say “Uncle”. <\/p>\n

In theory, having a player specify what his character’s “squeal-point” is, would make them a more rounded character. It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately; Players inevitably sense an ulterior motive at work if a GM asks the question, and GMs can’t help but play with that button when it would serve their interests more to leave it alone until exactly the right time.<\/p>\n

It is also said that there is a line that each person will refuse to cross, no matter how villainous. That’s more fertile ground for the GM, because it throws a tiny little swirl of light in the Villain, making their motives unclear and complex.<\/p>\n

But these two thoughts, taken together, can form a powerful tool for the delineation and creation of more interesting PCs and NPCs – because I think they are both oversimplifications of more complex phenomena.<\/p>\n

Moral Topology<\/h3>\n

If you were to map an individual’s life in some fashion – job, hobbies and interests, individual relationships, spending, relationship with government & authority, recreation, education, travels, etc – you would find that each area has different lines that the person will not cross, and different prices or valuations that the person places on them. Quite often, moral dilemmas come down to which of two of these the person values more highly.<\/p>\n

This means that you could describe a personal morality as a topography – higher means more moral, i.e. more stringent lines that won’t be crossed, and a much higher value. Lower means less moral restraint.<\/p>\n

What’s more, each of these broad areas would have specific peaks and valleys. For example, few people would contemplate an act of murder, but many will flirt with speed limits and parking restrictions, and it’s considered normal to push the limits when filling out tax returns.<\/p>\n

It is possible for public policy to push morals higher in selected areas, simply by increasing the price of a “moral” violation through fines or imprisonment. Those who are prone to moral behavior in their relationships with authority will increasingly desist from such behavior. This has been proven by the implementation of drink-driving laws, and laws making it an offense to use a mobile phone while driving.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there are some who react to challenges to their independence by embracing the very behavior that is being suppressed. Rebellion and Independence are necessary additions to all such maps.<\/p>\n

Moral limits, in this context, are triggers for a change in behavior; they don’t determine what the new behavior will be or value one above another.<\/p>\n

Different Topological Interactions for different Demands<\/h3>\n

It’s still more complicated than that, of course. If someone makes a demand of you, some areas of the individual’s morality will be engaged, while others will not. The areas that are triggered are cumulatively measured against the value placed on loyalty to the person or organization making the demand, if the loyalty is higher than the price to be paid for any violations, then we accede; if not, then we don’t.<\/p>\n

For example, let’s say that your boss comes up to you and tells you that he needs you to falsify a document to be sent to the government. Do you do it? It’s easy to give a blanket answer, but it’s not that simple. If the reason is just that the boss wants to make more money – no. If the boss is willing to share that money with you – probably not (depends, for some, on how much money). If the boss were to tell you that if you don’t, the business will go under and everyone will lose their jobs – that’s a harder choice, and largely depends on the state of the job market at the time. In the 50s and 60s, when work was plentiful, the answer would be a no – but for anyone who grew up more recently, when the number of applicants started outnumbering the number of vacancies by up to five-to-one, you might have to think twice. And, if in a corner, you might need to find some third option – like becoming a whistle-blower.<\/p>\n

Every demand – no matter what it is – can thus be viewed as presenting a fixed topological overlay to the morality “map”. Where the morals form a deeper valley than the demand, you find it to be reasonable – under the circumstances. Where a moral ‘peak’ tries to push through the overlay, you have some sort of objection – a line that you won’t cross. However, every line has its price; and if that price is met, the “line” is lowered to a new position.<\/p>\n

Compare the example with a demand that you work a couple of extra hours on the weekend. This automatically comes with extra pay, according to most laws, the amount being deemed sufficient by the lawmakers to compensate the worker for the inconvenience involved; but that level of inconvenience would differ both from one individual to another, but with transitory individual circumstances. If you were being asked to miss a friend’s wedding, for example, the answer is probably a ‘no’. If the overtime is to be un-payed, there’s a lot less incentive to accept – but you might do so, anyway, either in self-defense (if the business was struggling and you wanted to help keep it afloat to protect your employment), or because your employment was directly threatened by the boss. Each of these changes – what you are being asked to give up, how inconvenient acceptance is going to be, what the price being attached to the demand is, all change the face of the demand, and how we will respond to it.<\/p>\n

Different Moral Topologies for different Temptations<\/h3>\n

Temptation is the other side of the coin to Demand. Temptation is all about offering a reward, or a value, in return for doing something – that something might be morally questionable, or legally dubious, or personally catastrophic in one or more areas, or just plain wrong in one of these areas. The temptation may be an offer from the outside or an opportunity that has been observed by the individual on the inside.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to sum up all of the above with one simple question. “Here’s a lovely piece of delicious chocolate – do you eat it?” A huge number would respond with an immediate, even enthusiastic, ‘yes’. Some, like those trying to control their weight, or who suffer from diabetes, might hesitate – but most will say ‘yes’ anyway, and make room within their diet plan for the extra calories involved. Others will weigh the pleasure of eating the chocolate against the extra time in the gym needed to burn off those calories, and may or may not refuse. So there is a clear price to the consumption of the tid-bit, and various ways of paying that price. It’s not a temptation unless you are looking for a reason to say ‘yes’; you will only say ‘no’ if you can’t find such a reason (assuming that you like chocolate, of course).<\/p>\n

“Here’s a lovely piece of delicious chocolate laced with arsenic – do you eat it?” Suddenly, the price of enjoying the treat rockets up to a life-or-death decision. Almost everyone who said “yes” before is now saying “no” – and society considers those who aren’t<\/em> doing so to be mentally abnormal.<\/p>\n

The temptation – to enjoy a delicious piece of chocolate – is the same in both cases, but the prices are extremely different, they engage in different areas of the moral map, and so yield markedly different results.<\/p>\n

The details, therefore, matter, and markedly influence how we interpret the various temptations that come our way, which we will accept, and which we will deny.<\/p>\n

Ambition is like Rainwater<\/h3>\n

That was about as far as my initial burst of thought on this subject took me; I had the one insight (moral topology), deriving from reflection upon the two maxims that I listed earlier, and that was it – at least until I began organizing this article a day or two later, when a fresh thought came to me.<\/p>\n

In this context, Ambition is like rainwater – it will run to the lowest point of the moral topology, forming lakes that will fill until they overflow, overcoming lesser boundaries.<\/p>\n

Ambition is wanting something, or wanting to achieve something. It might be a promotion at work, or the respect of your peers, or a solid-B average, or becoming a millionaire, or buying your own home, or marrying someone and raising a family, or studying beekeeping – there are as many ambitions as there are characters. In fact, we can generally sustain two or more ambitions in most of the different regions of our map.<\/p>\n

The questions are always, What would you do to satisfy the ambition? What would you not do? What price is too high? And always, what is the smallest possible price we can pay?<\/p>\n

There may be multiple different ways of satisfying the ambition. Choosing between them is a function of the price and the degree of satisfaction; we naturally want to maximize the reward while minimizing the pain. That price might not be purely or even mostly financial, there is often a time component, for example. If you’ve always wanted to study astronomy, that ambition might be satisfied by stealing a telescope – but the potential price is high (jail) and the potential for self-education in the field using the telescope is limited, especially if it gets found and taken off you. But how about buying a black-market telescope? Is that quite as morally worrying as stealing the telescope yourself? Some will answer ‘yes’, but others will have no problems with a bargain – “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”.<\/p>\n

The low-ground of the topology are our weak points, the areas in life where there is the least amount holding us back. That can be a good thing, making us agreeable to what someone else (who we value) wants – or it can be a very bad thing, when we see a shortcut that isn’t quite moral or legal to getting what we want.<\/p>\n

Ambition isn’t general, affecting the entire morality map; it’s regional or even specific. In other words, moral weak points aren’t relevant if they don’t provide an avenue to the satisfaction of the ambition.<\/p>\n

It follows that the arrangement of the different areas of morality is critically important, because quite often decisions are based on the way the different areas relate to each other.<\/p>\n

An RPG is not a 500-page novel<\/h3>\n

You don’t have pages of exposition to explore a character’s thought processes; it follows that the morality map has to be simplified, even abstracted as much as possible (to be fair, a good novelist shouldn’t use multiple pages for this purpose, either!).<\/p>\n

One attempt at doing so is clearly the traditional alignment of D&D, but this has extreme problems – it’s too<\/em> generalized to be useful, either full of exceptions or an invitation to a cliche or caricature of a personality.<\/p>\n<\/a> Click on the thumbnail to open a larger (higher-resolution) version suitable for printing and pasting.\n

But it’s possible to take that basic concept – two axes – and map out where a character stands on a given topic, as though we were taking a spot measurement of the moral topology. Let’s call the result a Moral Compass.<\/p>\n

One axis should be desire vs caution – or, perhaps, risk-vs-reward ratio, from low to high. Most people will find the first pairing easier to visualize. One extreme points to a character who is very risk-averse in a particular area, even for considerable reward, the other to a character whose desire is sufficient to outweigh considerable risk.<\/p>\n

The other should be fear vs bravery within the specific field of morality that is being considered.<\/p>\n

What those fields should be is up to the individual – the more strong opinions he holds about what he will and won’t do, the more of them are needed. Of course, this should be carefully documented.<\/p>\n

The image below is of a blank moral compass. Below are nine examples – all for the same player (Matthew), character (DeBarre), and topic (Patriotism) but showing all the possible choices, so that each can be analyzed.<\/p>\n

This is important because there are some superficial contradictions in the axis labels – how can you be cautious and brave at the same time?<\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. Bravery & Desire both high: The character has no fear of consequences and will take any reasonable risk which has a reasonable chance of benefiting his nation, with or without orders. He is quite capable of sacrificing his life for even a moderate chance of gain for his nation. A suicide-bomber mentality. Capable of betraying anyone if the reward is high enough.<\/li>\n
  2. Strong Desire, balanced bravery-vs-fear. The character will accept moderate risks, if the benefit to his country is strong enough; and will accept small risks for a moderate return. He considers his life to be valuable and not to be thrown away unless a tangible benefit to his nation would result. A professional soldier. Will be cautious if approached for any kind of illegal activity, but can be corrupted.<\/li>\n
  3. Strong Desire, high fear. The character is capable of sending hundreds of people to die on a battlefield but won’t risk his own life; it is too valuable, at least in his opinion. Will pursue risky foreign-policy and military options if there is no personal risk and potential gain for his nation. The ruthless-commander type. No potential gain is worth the risk of illegal activity – a by-the-book mentality<\/li>\n
  4. High Bravery, moderately cautious. If his nation gains, any risk is acceptable, but must be managed. He will actively pursue measures to reduce the risks involved, even if that compromises the chances for gain. Resources should not be thrown away without a clear objective to be gained. Not overly self-protective. Many would consider this the ideal military commander; he will keep his men alive if he can, but will do what is necessary to achieve the mission. Not the type to take a bribe or betray his country at any price, but is fully capable of playing along to get more information and getting himself in too deep.<\/li>\n
  5. Moderate in all ways. Will protect himself, but not be overcautious; will look for certainty of achievement before committing himself. A planner, who can hesitate to seize opportunities and who is as protective of the status quo as he is desirous of advancing it. Can be seduced into corruption and betrayal but will always try to cover his backside.<\/li>\n
  6. Strong Fear, Moderate Desire. Will protect himself first, and look to advance his nation second. Will tolerate measured and controlled risk to others if the reward is reasonable. A back-seat driver who is capable of issuing orders so long as he can dodge responsibility for them. Might be promoted into middle-ranks of command but will lack the ambition and drive to rise higher – and is fine with that. Better to be an adviser, a whisperer behind the throne, than to stick one’s neck out. The “Yes, Minister” ideal of a civil servant. An honest Joe, most of the time – unless there’s an opportunity for substantial gain at minimal risk. Likes to bet on sure things.<\/li>\n
  7. High Bravery, High Caution. The reluctant hero who will see a commitment through to the end, and knows it – so he is careful not to over-promise. Will follow orders to put himself at risk, but constantly belly-ache about it. Very typical of privates and other low-ranking military types who will do their duty but never volunteer. Annoying but reliable. Unwavering loyal to his country, so long as they behave honorably.<\/li>\n
  8. High Caution, moderate Bravery. Take no risks, but accept responsibilities. There are times when this personality type makes the ideal leader – such as preserving as much as possible after a defeat, or when severely outmatched. Will always take back doors to success without direct confrontation. Put someone of this personality in charge of your intelligence apparatus in peace-time, and you will only have to take half the precautions they recommend to be reasonably safe; the trick is to know which half! Supports his nation so long as they don’t put him at risk – genuinely conservative.<\/li>\n
  9. High Caution, High Fear. This person will never take a chance, either personally or indirectly. That could make them a good supply sergeant or other specialist role. Loyal to his country just enough not to make waves, but otherwise can’t be bothered. Not brave enough to commit treason for any reason.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, there can be other interpretations. That’s part of the virtue of the system!<\/p>\n

    Abstractions – Things an important character cares about<\/h5>\n

    You can also choose to forego that level of detail, and no-one would think any the less of you as a GM. An alternative is to get the player to list a few abstract guidelines to the character’s priorities, or to do it yourself for an important NPC.<\/p>\n

    Let’s start with three things that the character cares about that he already has, or is already in the process of acquiring.<\/em> Name them, one to a line or so, and then think about them.<\/p>\n

    What will the PC do to protect each of them if it’s necessary?<\/em> (This shouldn’t be the same answer for all). Some things will be more sensitive to risk, temptation in some things will be sweeter.<\/p>\n

    Examples: What will a character do to get a promotion? Where will he draw the line?
    \nWhat will a character do to become rich? Where will he draw the line?
    \nWhat will a character do to become successful – and how does the character define success, anyway?<\/p>\n

    Abstractions – Things an important character opposes<\/h5>\n

    Next, list three things that the character hates or would oppose. These shouldn’t simply be the opposite of any qualities that he values – those can be taken as read!<\/p>\n

    What will the PC do to protect himself\/others from these things if it’s necessary?<\/em> Again, the same answer for all is unacceptable. The PC should be more sensitive to some subjects than others. The answers will also likely vary from one relationship to another – note any important deviations from the standard.<\/p>\n

    Things to think about in relation to these issues: What might a partner do to their husband\/wife to protect their children?
    \nWhat might someone put on their children’s future to protect\/benefit their parents?
    \nWhat burdens might someone impose on their parents to benefit their children?
    \nWhat will a character do to help someone they care about that they wouldn’t dream of doing to benefit themselves?<\/p>\n

    Abstractions – Ambitions, Things a character wants to do<\/h5>\n

    This is the area to go wild. List three ambitions that are long-term bucket-list items, no matter how pie-in-the-sky; list three that are mid-term and reasonably realistic; and list one or two that the character expects to achieve in the next six-to-twelve months.<\/p>\n

    What will the character sacrifice to achieve them? How strong is each desire? How will the character react to something that threatens these achievements in the short-term – or forever?<\/p>\n

    Try to distill these questions down to a single answer. “This character confronts obstacles by digging his heels in and refusing to change unless forced.” or “This character confronts obstacles, no matter how trivial, by immediately abandoning any plans for achieving them and looking for a different path to his satisfaction. This never bothers him because he never grows too attached to anything.”<\/p>\n

    The Depths Of Morality – even more complex characters<\/h3>\n

    It’s entirely possible that a character’s morals are more akin to an onion skin, a series of lines that will not be crossed – unless the reward is good enough.<\/p>\n

    What will a character with a chronic illness do to be free of his medical problems?
    \nWhat will he or she do if it’s a husband or wife with these problems?
    \nWhat will he or she do if it’s his or her child?
    \nWhat will he or she do if it’s someone else’s child?
    \nWhat if it’s a friend? Or a parent? Or a sibling?<\/p>\n

    This is far too complex for simple modeling of the sort I’ve offered in this article. But you can simulate it fairly effectively by prioritizing and nesting ambitions – in which one of the things that can be sacrificed is the capacity to achieve one of the long-term goals (or, more likely, one of the short-term goals because you can always start one of them again in a year or two).<\/p>\n

    Such a character may be bought – but that only takes you through one layer of the onion, and brings into play a new line that the character will not cross – not without some additional benefits or reassurance, anyway. And that, in turn, will only cut through to another moral limit.<\/p>\n

    “Listen, I don’t mind a little petty mischief on the side, but you’ll have to pay me a lot more to get me to commit murder.”<\/p>\n

    “Okay, so we had no choice but to kill him, but I won’t abandon my wife. We have to take her with us.”<\/p>\n

    “All Right, so the cops got to her first, but I’ll never buy my freedom by betraying my country.”<\/p>\n

    “I guess, technically, that was committing treason, but I’ll die before I step aside for mass murder. I’ll do whatever I have to, to stop you.”<\/p>\n

    (Sorry about the chunkiness of that example, I’m running out of time to get this posted).<\/p>\n

    At the same time, there is the opposite phenomenon – the Slippery Slope. A good person lets one small thing slide, has to let something more substantial go undetected to keep his slip secret, and so on – one thing leading to another until the stakes are truly enormous and the person has to ask “how did I get myself into this mess? It all started so innocently…”<\/p>\n

    I have no problems with a villain who will knock on the hero’s door to alert them to a bigger threat that he’s uncovered, and even work with the PCs to eliminate the threat. Only afterwards should the PCs discover that the Villain has been able to obtain something that will materially advance his own plans. He need not have had any ulterior motives; just have seized an opportunity when it presented itself. Or maybe the PCs discover what their “ally” has done just when they are most dependent on him for assistance, turning this into a ‘deal with the devil’.<\/p>\n

    Morally-complex characters don’t have to be all gray, and not all gray needs to be washed-out and faceless. Morality can be a rainbow of neon gray – and your characters, both the PCs in your game and your NPCs – will be more realistic, and more interesting, as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Part 4 of the Sixes System is almost done – It only needs another day-and-a-half of work. Sadly, 1.5 doesn’t fit into 1, and I reached that point with only 1 more working day to get a post ready. So here’s one of the fill-in articles that I’ve been keeping in my back pocket for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[67,70,89,12,13,94,95,96],"tags":[155,127,172,218,282,140,283,250,165,232],"series":[],"class_list":["post-27743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dnd","category-gm-ing","category-npcs-etc","category-pcs","category-players","category-ideas-and-inspiration","category-tools","category-write","tag-dd","tag-inspiration","tag-npcs","tag-pathfinder","tag-pcs","tag-player-goals","tag-players","tag-resources","tag-tools-techniques","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1toiD-7dt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27743"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27751,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27743\/revisions\/27751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27743"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=27743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}