Complex Morality in Dark Fantasy D&D Campaigns! | DM Advice | TTRPG | DnD 5e | Ben Byrne

This was a great vid. I think it should have been titled "Crafting a Dark Fantasy Campaign through Morality" but other than that great info and framework.

Great video, gives us DMs a lot to work with. I once ran for a group of 5 with very similar settings to the intro of the video, and my players ended up siding with the king, betrayed the king and took over the kingdom. It was fun LOL.

The dragon just want's the egg(s) of his dead mate back that the knight took in order to send to the King in return for a higher title (and lands). The king wants to hatch the eggs and turn the babies into ultimate war machines to use against the rival kingdom that is invading the lands. Oh man.... what a dilemma!
And that Thanos cut scene hit me right in the feels!! Nicely done.
The last segments on self reflection and the players in the campaign is excellent advice!
Great video once again! Keep it up Ben! I'm legit loving this series.

Dark fantasy 101. Keep up with the awesome work!

I remember a story about a party of murder hobos who used the alignment of "chaotic neutral" to run around terrorizing a kingdom.
The king, powerless to stop them, becomes a lich in order to utilize undead to work the fields and help rebuild the kingdom.
To complete his lichdom, an innocent was required.
The king's own granddaughter volunteered as tribute, and while the ritual worked, the lich-king was no match for the party, who FINALLY began to regret their actions.

I love the three to four option method. Side with blue, side with red, a little of both. Sometimes I even add a perfect solution but the perfect solution is very difficult and has high risk.
Love the video

An apocalyptic cult convinced vampirism is their only choice or chance for survival.

One such vampire who was patterned off Barnabas Collins pleaded for the party to not kill him but to find a cure. The cleric chose, with great difficulty and remorse, to take his higher moral ground. It closed the doors to a storyline and that’s okay. The villains remain for future encounter opportunities.

I have had many dark themes in my campaign testing my players moral dilemma.

I have gone the route of “Fractured Fairy Tales” currently because it can feel a little bit more wholesome and whimsical but with shadows ever lurking.

Thank you for reinforcing this idea. I look forward to investing in your projects.

My main problem as DM is that my players are expert and tend to choose evil or chaotic alignments.
A dark story is typically something sociopathic for them.
So they just do evil acts, and creating a dark and scary story is absolutely hard with them.
My solution is: no peace, everywhere is a danger, the players are hunted by monstrous beings, the good lawful paladins are more severe and hateful of what my evil players are, monsters are always different, surprising and fearful, the story is mysterious, weird, the solutions are complex and require a bit of intellect and a lot of observation, some monster cannot be defeated and the players have to flee anyway, characters are bombarded by curses, illness, poisons, magic and influence from other planes, the players suffer feeling the damage that their characters receive, the doubt is instilled in the player party, information gathered are personal and shared only and how each player decide, the local population hate them, shops refuse to trade or apply high prices, no rest, no escape...
And in general the deity rules, characters have to choose and obey to their deity always in battle and the alignment is absolutely fundamental and has to be respected.
Without the support of the Gods clerics cannot help and even the healing potions do not run with the characters following the wrong deity. Evil characters can be resurrected only by super evil clerics, and so are the good! etc... A very hard job!

Great video! It seems to me that ultimately, the key is to let players have their choice--including third-option choices--and let those choices come with consequences that are in line with what those choices are. The characters who think big-picture have to put up with small-scale suffering. The characters who think small have to see big-picture situations changing for the worse. Good outcomes can be achieved but sacrifice is required, while characters who choose the path of rapaciousness and evil gain the benefit of their actions but find hands turned against them. But there should never be a "correct" choice that results in a red-carpet ride to success and glory (which is the narrative copping out and picking a side), and the scenario should never be a glorified trolley problem where player choice is solely between artificially fixed outcomes.

Alignment ahs always been a waste of time, imo.

Idk if I quite agree with giving a blank check that acting out Anything in ttrpgs is unconditionally okay and does not at all reflect on the players

I feel like bandits are a really good way to segue into something like that revolution plotline. If the characters kill some bandits and later find a poverty stricken village that is missing most of it's menfolk and with a faily low perception check you can describe some physical feature on one of the children that mirrors something you described on one of the bandits. It also doesn't have to be a village, instead it could be a group of refugee's, who it may turn out have been displaced by the kingdom rather than say war drought or natural disaster.

I think it's interesting how he always uses unisex pronouns except with fey queens. Why are there no fey kings? I find a fey king to be a lot more believable and thematic than a powerful female knight.