How to engage a LG Cleric in my morally ambiguous Eberron campaign? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How to engage a LG Cleric in my morally ambiguous Eberron campaign?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
mynameisjudge
Aug 02, 2009 4:50:22 Ok so I finally had the first session of my new Eberron campaign yesterday. I had the PCs start in the town of Stillwater Station (from Dragon 368 as I am still waiting on my ECG to be delivered to Australia) just inside the border of Mournland. I am playing the town as a fairly lawless wild west type place with one of the lightning rail stones that help protect the town being stolen in the night and the PCs being tasked to get the stone back by the town leaders and subsequently getting offered a large amount of gold to instead turn the stone over to a d'Orien agent leaving the town vulnerable... anyway my idea being to present the party with a number of interesting moral dilemmas and intrigue and having them deal with the consequences. What would seem to be the essence of an Eberron campaign...

But of course as players always do there is something of a spanner in the works... at character generation despite extensive information offered to the players in advance in the game world my 5 players make:
Changeling Rogue (unaligned but tending towards evil-ish)
Half-elf Sorceror with the mark of storm of House Lyrandar (unaligned)
Warforged Fighter (unaligned)
Eladrin Wizard (unaligned) with mark of shadow after some hinting from me but not associated with any house
Dragonborn Cleric of Dol Arrah (Lawful Good), he was going to take Bahamut as his deity until I pointed out that he should choose an Eberron god (I am aware that dragons can worship Bahamut but I would rather avoid that for now... plus dragonborn aren't dragons)

The first three are great Eberron characters and fit right in to the game I had planned. The eladrin was a bit of a vanilla 4th ed char but I talked him into the mark of shadow and will point him in the direction of the info about the feyspires so that is not so much of a problem...

But I am semi-stumped as to what to do with the lawful good cleric in this party and in the current setting. I find clerics in general kinda hard to engage in any game as the whole divine thing is just not my bag. Anyone have any pointers on how to get this guy in on the intrigue with the others without it devolving to "it's not ambiguous, I'm lawful good"? So far I am thinking of asking them all to give me some deep(er) back stories just to try to give me more ideas/hook to play off... Help!
#2
RedRider
Aug 02, 2009 5:42:54 To do good and to retain your morals and ethics in any world where injustice and cruelty are common enough to be everyday is a challenge. If it were easy to be a good person, Eberron may not be in such a shabby shape as it is.

The above example, of taking a big payment in exchange for breaking an oath and leaving a town defenseless, is no challenge to a Lawful Good character. Regardless of the material personal rewards, it is more fitting to keep your word and defend the people.

Which is not to say the situation cannot be made more ambiguous.

-The special conductor stone* was paid for by house Orien. An argument could be made for salvage rights, but at the end of the day, it's Orien's resources. Perhaps Prince Ogarev has specifically given House Orien exclusive right to salvage it's own property from dead Cyre.
-Is Stillwater station worth saving? Within the Mournland, it's a base for vulture-like looters and a haven for fugitives against the law. You could probably emphasise this by putting the town leaders on good terms with Ikar's Salvage and it's villainous leaders. If they save the town today, will it become den of iniquity and hive of villainy, or can they steer it towards nobler purposes.
-Do House Orien need the stone for a noble (or even useful) project? Could they be working on building an energy field to push back the Mourning? Or even just rebuilding a line into the Mournland to allow the brave people of New Cyre to retrieve their cultural heritage and national resources.
-Taking the money and giving it back to House Orien is the easy way out. If they do that then they only really lose the favour of Stillwater and possibly make it's evacuation nescessary.
Giving Stillwater the stone should be a bit harder to live up to. First you've got to lug it home through monster-filled territory. Second, you may make an enemy of House Orien, which could complicate matters in the future.
In such a sense, the PCs could be damaging their long-term effectiveness in combatting evil if they choose to keep their word. Do the ends justify the means?

*I'm presuming this conductor stone is special in some way, since House Orien has a million of the mundane variety, quite possibly literally, forming routes across the continent.
#3
Arcane_Guyver
Aug 02, 2009 6:44:21 I think the key here is to force the cleric to make some weighty decisions; not 'good or evil' but 'good yet detrimental or not exactly good but helpful.'

Think of the LG character as the foil for the other characters to work off of. The inevitable minor conflicts that will arise between him and the changeling might be interesting as well.
#4
paideia
Aug 03, 2009 3:38:07 Actually, the ECG contains a bit of advice, that could certainly help you. Instead of focusing on "forcing" your LG player to react in a certain way, make the outcome of his/her decisions morally ambiguous. On page 20 of the ECG there is a small paragraph on "Unhappy ending". Use this as your starting point. Maybe the officer of the guard that the LG cleric decided to help over the merchant is actually corrupt or a member of The Emerald Claw. Trying to "fix" that mistake could be the basis for the next adventure and so on.

Having a LG character in your campaign is not a problem. You simply have to highlight what happens when his/her absolute morals meets this imperfect world. The main problem as I see it, is making sure that you keep the group tension among the players at an enjoyable level.
#5
Madfox11
Aug 03, 2009 6:58:11
Actually, the ECG contains a bit of advice, that could certainly help you. Instead of focusing on "forcing" your LG player to react in a certain way, make the outcome of his/her decisions morally ambiguous. On page 20 of the ECG there is a small paragraph on "Unhappy ending". Use this as your starting point. Maybe the officer of the guard that the LG cleric decided to help over the merchant is actually corrupt or a member of The Emerald Claw. Trying to "fix" that mistake could be the basis for the next adventure and so on.

Having a LG character in your campaign is not a problem. You simply have to highlight what happens when his/her absolute morals meets this imperfect world. The main problem as I see it, is making sure that you keep the group tension among the players at an enjoyable level.

Personally I find that that particular text misses one important piece of advice: do NOT overdo these kind of twists. I would especially avoid using unexpected betrayels by NPCs unless you want your players to always ignore NPCs and feel detached from the campaign ("why should help the damsel in distress? she is bound to be a hag that is going to sell us to Darguun."). It is one thing to help the merchant, and learn that by doing so an evil faction gains power as well. It is another to make the merchant evil and laugh in the face of the PCs for their foolishness in trusting them.
#6
paideia
Aug 03, 2009 7:18:14
Personally I find that that particular text misses one important piece of advice: do NOT overdo these kind of twists. I would especially avoid using unexpected betrayels by NPCs unless you want your players to always ignore NPCs and feel detached from the campaign ("why should help the damsel in distress? she is bound to be a hag that is going to sell us to Darguun."). It is one thing to help the merchant, and learn that by doing so an evil faction gains power as well. It is another to make the merchant evil and laugh in the face of the PCs for their foolishness in trusting them.

Of course. You are very right. It is easy to fall into the "saturday morning cartoon"-style of storytelling. The object here is to show that even the best intentions sometimes lead to disappointing or some times even bad ends.
#7
mynameisjudge
Aug 05, 2009 8:17:42 Thanks for the replies (sorry for the delay responding but my internet went down for 3 days).

I definitely agree that the interactions between the cleric and the changeling (and the others) will create a great deal of interesting minor conflicts but I suppose the main problem is for the short term I need to get them all hooked in and tied into this party and that is hard with the somewhat scanty backgrounds.

I think like you say RedRider I will try to emphasise that the lightning rail stone is House Orien property (which it is) and that he is offering a substantial reward for the return of house property to its rightful owner. Also emphasising the outlaw/bandit angle might help. Of course his true motivation is to weaken the town to the brink of annihilation so that he can swoop in with House Orien goods and seize control of the transport into/out of the town allowing the house to make a healthy profit as the scavenging/rebuilding of Cyre gets underway but the PCs won't know that for sure.

Possibly tarnishing the image of the leaders of the town would help also particularly the House Cannith artificer. Like maybe having the PCs interrupt her beating the information out of a scavenger about where they found a secret House Cannith item of some sort perhaps even with some possible link to the cause of the Mourning (though I don't want to go too far the other way) just before they return the stone to her.

Actually I think hardest part in designing two or more ambiguous paths for the players to go down is not getting too attached to one of them and then being disappointed that when the players choose the other option all that story gets shelved unseen... but I suppose it can be re-used later.

Thanks again for the help :D
#8
soyim
Aug 05, 2009 14:51:48 Another possible recommendation: PC's like friendly, helpful, NPC's. A House Orien Politician would have significant wealth to help the PC's (The travel comfortably, they have expenses paid for, a variety of low level magical items are granted to them, a lifetime pass on the lightning rail, etc...) and is trained to be diplomatic and friendly- at least on the surface. The leader of a settlement in the Mournland is going to be stressed, very high strung, and constantly worried: she might react poorly to armed adventurer's asking her questions about a "Necessary Component"- especially if she learns that the party is considering taking it back to its original owners- she might even threaten them.

If you make it so that the good/right/side a person is a bit of a jerk- or mistrustful to the point of conflict, and that the bad/evil/side b is nice, willing to pay, and considerate- you'd be surprised at how willing the PC's are to shift their allegiances around.

If your PC refuses to budge: thats actually a good thing- but don't reward him by having the woman start to be kind or nice. Having two good people, who don't get along- and in fact might dislike each other intensely is excellent roleplaying. Especially if she decides to trust one of the PC's and its the one who most advocates for betraying her and taking the stone! The interparty conflict should never reach critical mass- but its an excellent way to get that "Grey" feel for morality.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mynameisjudge Aug 02, 2009 4:50:22	Ok so I finally had the first session of my new Eberron campaign yesterday. I had the PCs start in the town of Stillwater Station (from Dragon 368 as I am still waiting on my ECG to be delivered to Australia) just inside the border of Mournland. I am playing the town as a fairly lawless wild west type place with one of the lightning rail stones that help protect the town being stolen in the night and the PCs being tasked to get the stone back by the town leaders and subsequently getting offered a large amount of gold to instead turn the stone over to a d'Orien agent leaving the town vulnerable... anyway my idea being to present the party with a number of interesting moral dilemmas and intrigue and having them deal with the consequences. What would seem to be the essence of an Eberron campaign... But of course as players always do there is something of a spanner in the works... at character generation despite extensive information offered to the players in advance in the game world my 5 players make: Changeling Rogue (unaligned but tending towards evil-ish) Half-elf Sorceror with the mark of storm of House Lyrandar (unaligned) Warforged Fighter (unaligned) Eladrin Wizard (unaligned) with mark of shadow after some hinting from me but not associated with any house Dragonborn Cleric of Dol Arrah (Lawful Good), he was going to take Bahamut as his deity until I pointed out that he should choose an Eberron god (I am aware that dragons can worship Bahamut but I would rather avoid that for now... plus dragonborn aren't dragons) The first three are great Eberron characters and fit right in to the game I had planned. The eladrin was a bit of a vanilla 4th ed char but I talked him into the mark of shadow and will point him in the direction of the info about the feyspires so that is not so much of a problem... But I am semi-stumped as to what to do with the lawful good cleric in this party and in the current setting. I find clerics in general kinda hard to engage in any game as the whole divine thing is just not my bag. Anyone have any pointers on how to get this guy in on the intrigue with the others without it devolving to "it's not ambiguous, I'm lawful good"? So far I am thinking of asking them all to give me some deep(er) back stories just to try to give me more ideas/hook to play off... Help!
#2 RedRider Aug 02, 2009 5:42:54	To do good and to retain your morals and ethics in any world where injustice and cruelty are common enough to be everyday is a challenge. If it were easy to be a good person, Eberron may not be in such a shabby shape as it is. The above example, of taking a big payment in exchange for breaking an oath and leaving a town defenseless, is no challenge to a Lawful Good character. Regardless of the material personal rewards, it is more fitting to keep your word and defend the people. Which is not to say the situation cannot be made more ambiguous. -The special conductor stone* was paid for by house Orien. An argument could be made for salvage rights, but at the end of the day, it's Orien's resources. Perhaps Prince Ogarev has specifically given House Orien exclusive right to salvage it's own property from dead Cyre. -Is Stillwater station worth saving? Within the Mournland, it's a base for vulture-like looters and a haven for fugitives against the law. You could probably emphasise this by putting the town leaders on good terms with Ikar's Salvage and it's villainous leaders. If they save the town today, will it become den of iniquity and hive of villainy, or can they steer it towards nobler purposes. -Do House Orien need the stone for a noble (or even useful) project? Could they be working on building an energy field to push back the Mourning? Or even just rebuilding a line into the Mournland to allow the brave people of New Cyre to retrieve their cultural heritage and national resources. -Taking the money and giving it back to House Orien is the easy way out. If they do that then they only really lose the favour of Stillwater and possibly make it's evacuation nescessary. Giving Stillwater the stone should be a bit harder to live up to. First you've got to lug it home through monster-filled territory. Second, you may make an enemy of House Orien, which could complicate matters in the future. In such a sense, the PCs could be damaging their long-term effectiveness in combatting evil if they choose to keep their word. Do the ends justify the means? *I'm presuming this conductor stone is special in some way, since House Orien has a million of the mundane variety, quite possibly literally, forming routes across the continent.
#3 Arcane_Guyver Aug 02, 2009 6:44:21	I think the key here is to force the cleric to make some weighty decisions; not 'good or evil' but 'good yet detrimental or not exactly good but helpful.' Think of the LG character as the foil for the other characters to work off of. The inevitable minor conflicts that will arise between him and the changeling might be interesting as well.
#4 paideia Aug 03, 2009 3:38:07	Actually, the ECG contains a bit of advice, that could certainly help you. Instead of focusing on "forcing" your LG player to react in a certain way, make the outcome of his/her decisions morally ambiguous. On page 20 of the ECG there is a small paragraph on "Unhappy ending". Use this as your starting point. Maybe the officer of the guard that the LG cleric decided to help over the merchant is actually corrupt or a member of The Emerald Claw. Trying to "fix" that mistake could be the basis for the next adventure and so on. Having a LG character in your campaign is not a problem. You simply have to highlight what happens when his/her absolute morals meets this imperfect world. The main problem as I see it, is making sure that you keep the group tension among the players at an enjoyable level.
#5 Madfox11 Aug 03, 2009 6:58:11	Actually, the ECG contains a bit of advice, that could certainly help you. Instead of focusing on "forcing" your LG player to react in a certain way, make the outcome of his/her decisions morally ambiguous. On page 20 of the ECG there is a small paragraph on "Unhappy ending". Use this as your starting point. Maybe the officer of the guard that the LG cleric decided to help over the merchant is actually corrupt or a member of The Emerald Claw. Trying to "fix" that mistake could be the basis for the next adventure and so on. Having a LG character in your campaign is not a problem. You simply have to highlight what happens when his/her absolute morals meets this imperfect world. The main problem as I see it, is making sure that you keep the group tension among the players at an enjoyable level. Personally I find that that particular text misses one important piece of advice: do NOT overdo these kind of twists. I would especially avoid using unexpected betrayels by NPCs unless you want your players to always ignore NPCs and feel detached from the campaign ("why should help the damsel in distress? she is bound to be a hag that is going to sell us to Darguun."). It is one thing to help the merchant, and learn that by doing so an evil faction gains power as well. It is another to make the merchant evil and laugh in the face of the PCs for their foolishness in trusting them.
#6 paideia Aug 03, 2009 7:18:14	Personally I find that that particular text misses one important piece of advice: do NOT overdo these kind of twists. I would especially avoid using unexpected betrayels by NPCs unless you want your players to always ignore NPCs and feel detached from the campaign ("why should help the damsel in distress? she is bound to be a hag that is going to sell us to Darguun."). It is one thing to help the merchant, and learn that by doing so an evil faction gains power as well. It is another to make the merchant evil and laugh in the face of the PCs for their foolishness in trusting them. Of course. You are very right. It is easy to fall into the "saturday morning cartoon"-style of storytelling. The object here is to show that even the best intentions sometimes lead to disappointing or some times even bad ends.
#7 mynameisjudge Aug 05, 2009 8:17:42	Thanks for the replies (sorry for the delay responding but my internet went down for 3 days). I definitely agree that the interactions between the cleric and the changeling (and the others) will create a great deal of interesting minor conflicts but I suppose the main problem is for the short term I need to get them all hooked in and tied into this party and that is hard with the somewhat scanty backgrounds. I think like you say RedRider I will try to emphasise that the lightning rail stone is House Orien property (which it is) and that he is offering a substantial reward for the return of house property to its rightful owner. Also emphasising the outlaw/bandit angle might help. Of course his true motivation is to weaken the town to the brink of annihilation so that he can swoop in with House Orien goods and seize control of the transport into/out of the town allowing the house to make a healthy profit as the scavenging/rebuilding of Cyre gets underway but the PCs won't know that for sure. Possibly tarnishing the image of the leaders of the town would help also particularly the House Cannith artificer. Like maybe having the PCs interrupt her beating the information out of a scavenger about where they found a secret House Cannith item of some sort perhaps even with some possible link to the cause of the Mourning (though I don't want to go too far the other way) just before they return the stone to her. Actually I think hardest part in designing two or more ambiguous paths for the players to go down is not getting too attached to one of them and then being disappointed that when the players choose the other option all that story gets shelved unseen... but I suppose it can be re-used later. Thanks again for the help :D
#8 soyim Aug 05, 2009 14:51:48	Another possible recommendation: PC's like friendly, helpful, NPC's. A House Orien Politician would have significant wealth to help the PC's (The travel comfortably, they have expenses paid for, a variety of low level magical items are granted to them, a lifetime pass on the lightning rail, etc...) and is trained to be diplomatic and friendly- at least on the surface. The leader of a settlement in the Mournland is going to be stressed, very high strung, and constantly worried: she might react poorly to armed adventurer's asking her questions about a "Necessary Component"- especially if she learns that the party is considering taking it back to its original owners- she might even threaten them. If you make it so that the good/right/side a person is a bit of a jerk- or mistrustful to the point of conflict, and that the bad/evil/side b is nice, willing to pay, and considerate- you'd be surprised at how willing the PC's are to shift their allegiances around. If your PC refuses to budge: thats actually a good thing- but don't reward him by having the woman start to be kind or nice. Having two good people, who don't get along- and in fact might dislike each other intensely is excellent roleplaying. Especially if she decides to trust one of the PC's and its the one who most advocates for betraying her and taking the stone! The interparty conflict should never reach critical mass- but its an excellent way to get that "Grey" feel for morality.