Establishing what sort of shades of conflict/morality are in the setting?

I'm just giving my newly-created world and its characters (there's only twelve this time) a full Continuity Reboot, as my last attempt got too tangled up and poorly-written, so better to start from a clean slate.

The setting's during the tail-end of the Turn of the Millennium (a Period Piece ?), so around 2007-2008, and it's focusing on a small group of friends.

It follows ordinary people, ordinary setting, although the Inciting Incident has yet to be decided...

While there are conflicts, nothing like the type in an MCU film, nothing earth-shattering.

My main problem is what sort of Shades of Conflict fit my setting: I know from the outset that anything Evil Versus Evil won't fit my setting.

I'm trying to have a Grey-and-Grey Morality setting, but without having the protagonists be so unlikeable they're unrepentant jerkasses, especially as a few of the characters are Nice Girl types (although Nice Girl isn't the defining trait; just that they're likeable).

Although, I was considering White-and-Grey Morality but wasn't sure what the advantages/disadvantages were in my sort of setting.

I've got the antagonists as more Anti-Villain -type characters (good goals, not so much they way that they decide to get there) rather than just being For the Evulz -type; someone the audience could sympathize with. In truth, the antagonists fall more towards the Harmless Villain type on a sliding scale, but In-Universe, they probably wouldn't be seen as such.

My only problem is how to make the setting feature Grey-and-Grey Morality without going too Crapsack World in setting; my setting's not a romance novel, but no Jack Reacher either in tone, so a middle ground is what I'm aiming for.

Any advice is welcomed, and thank you for reading this, sorry for Wall of Text.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 15th 2020 at 3:21:48 PM

Why not have it so the "good" characters are of the type that they want to do nice things for others, but simply aren't good enough to make them happen without problems of their own, such as lack of courage, misunderstandings, and some times get chewed out over their actions by the police for "endangering themselves" when there were no need to.

Here is one example of a situation in that nature.

1. A man, a nice guy at heart but a bit too quiet and a little bit too tall, looks around in a mall on his spare time.

2. He sees a crying little girl in the middle of the crowd, next to the fountain, alone.

3. Regretfully, he hesitates for a bit and then, sighs, before walking over to the kid.

4. Crouches down to get in height with the girl and asks what's wrong.

5. "I lost my mom" the girl cries and starts crying again.

6. He looks around, sees people rather mind their own business than get involved.

7. He turns to the girl, sighs (as he realize that walking around with a stranger's child in a mall would be nothing but a bad idea in every way), smiles, and nods for her.

8. "Then let's just wait here." He says and sits down on the fountain-frame with his hands on his knees.

9. The girl follows and sits down next to him.

10. They wait.

11. Eventually, the mall-security arrives, having been asked to look for the child, and finds it through the cameras, next to the man at the fountain.

12. Questioning.

13. The Man asks if they can bring the girl's mother to her first, (as he doesn't think it's a good idea to let the kid just walk off with the security in the mall) and states that he's not leaving the girl alone until that happens.

14. They mumble and says something in the walkies.

15. Cue police arriving at the scene.

16. Apparently getting the report that a "hostage situation" involving a "suspicious male" and a "little girl" is underway at the mall.

17. Cue drama.

18. The mother arrives as the police are straight up ready to arrest the guy, handcuffs and everything.

19. Cue more drama as she accuse him of kidnapping her daughter in the first place.

20. Cue more drama.

21. Despite the child objecting to the whole thing, the mother doesn't listen, and with her prompting, the cops wrestle the man down and put handcuffs on him, against his protests.

22. Now the crowd is noticing the whole thing.

23. All of them looking down at the man in contempt for what they think happened.

24. The man keeps objecting in confusion as he's carried away into the police-car for questioning at the station.

25. End of drama.

(The reluctant hero is eventually released once the full testimony from the girl, him, and the footage of the security-cameras clears his name of any wrongdoing, but he still gets a warning for "suspicious behavior" before being set free. Making him more reluctant to act like this in the future, but he might do so anyway if there's no other choice.)

Something like this?