As a player, do you enjoy moral dilemmas and no-win situations?

[Lord Pendragon]

Oddly enough, a search of the internet shows up a very similiar situation as the example of a moral dilemma. A moral dilemma is "a conflict between two moral norm." One moral norm in this case is stopping and punishing evil. The other moral norm is saving villages from being ravaged. Not being able to do both is a dilemma.

Are you quoting from the wikipedia?

As I've been taught, a moral dilemma is facing a difficult situation and being forced to determine what the moral choice is. i.e. you have to examine and define your own moral stance in a way that most of us don't think about very often. i.e. your child is dying and a certain doctor can save him. Is it morally acceptable to threaten the doctor's life, or his family's, to get him to perform a life-saving surgery that he refuses to do, because you lack the money to pay him? There are certainly two bad things going on here. On the one hand, your child could die. On the other hand, you'd be threatening another person's life. The answer to the dilemma lies in your own (or your PCs) morality. Some might say that it's morally acceptable to defend your child's life, even if it means threatening another's. Others would suggest that others have less of a moral imperative to help you, than you have to not hurt them.

In any case, the key point is that there is an answer to a moral dilemma. It lies in your own moral code.

Now let's look at another example. You are the father of two daughters whom you love very much. Both of them are drowning in the river, and you can only save one. Whom do you save?

This isn't a moral dilemma. There is no right answer. Your moral code does not come into play. You're just screwed.

Look at the scenario offered in the OP. The evil wizard is protecting a town from being destroyed. So you can leave the evil wizard be (allowing him to kill others, enslave souls, what have you,) or destroy the evil wizard, which leads to the destruction of the town. Where is the moral choice here? What are you choosing between? In either case, lots of people die, regardless of your moral stance.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Let's cut the semantics. I do think everyone here really knows what I mean by a "no-win" situation. I even referred to it in the original post.

Then you shouldn't have called it a no-win situation and just described the behavior. I think a lot of this has to do with the stigma that people associate winning with living and losing with dying in an RPG, and thus a no-win situation "must" end in some catastrophic horrible outcome, which I just think is a shame. There are many many outcomes of failure other than going down to -10 hp.



Anything is possibly a good thing if done well by a DM.

 

[Kurotowa]

Having just learned about the wikipedia today, let me just say that it is worthless as any kind of reference or validation of any kind.

I certainly wouldn't use it as a final authority on anything. But it is good for basic terms and information. In this case I was using it as a third party definition for a fuzzy term. Do you have a better source to recomend I quote from in situations like this?

 

[Kurotowa]

Anything is possibly a good thing if done well by a DM.

That's a truism. Of course a good GM with good players can make anything into a good time. That's why they're a good GM and good players. The point of discussions like this is because most DMs fall somewhere inbetween 'amazing' and 'crappy' in their skill. Talking about what works, what doesn't, and why is how we all learn to be better gamers and raise our Spot Bad DM skill ranks. It isn't always obvious right off.

 

[Doctor Shaft]

In any case, the key point is that there is an answer to a moral dilemma. It lies in your own moral code.

Now let's look at another example. You are the father of two daughters whom you love very much. Both of them are drowning in the river, and you can only save one. Whom do you save?

This isn't a moral dilemma. There is no right answer. Your moral code does not come into play. You're just screwed.

Look at the scenario offered in the OP. The evil wizard is protecting a town from being destroyed. So you can leave the evil wizard be (allowing him to kill others, enslave souls, what have you,) or destroy the evil wizard, which leads to the destruction of the town. Where is the moral choice here? What are you choosing between? In either case, lots of people die, regardless of your moral stance.

Precisely

This also why I hate the "moral dilemna" as they severely over simplify situations, and on top of that, they don't really challenge your moral code. Your moral code stays intact when the challenge doesn't even allow you to choose to follow it.

I would go off on a small tangent and say that most "dilmenas" ask questions that go far beyond a human beings control and ability to "perfectly" solve.

In other words, most "moral dilmenas" don't ask you to make a moral decision. They ask you to make a governing decision, and then try to snare you when something doesn't go 100% well. When you ask someone to choose between innocent villages and pillaged souls, that's a question you ask a god to make. "What will the gods do in this situation?" How can you call a man moral or immoral for deciding to save this group of folk over another group of folk in a completely arbitrary scenario in which no matter how he chooses, someone is going to get screwed. It's not his fault. There are other entities involved, not just one man.

Any moral code that fails not because of the individual following it, but because everyone else is loony is a moral code not worth following. Unfortunately, paladins find themselves trapped in these kinds of things in some games.

But onto the topic, I love no-win situations. They're fun. I like being able to win later, of course, and I'm also not into bleak endings with no victory in sight, but the no-win situation is good to create challenges, or further a storyline. But I guess I categorize retreats, or temporarily unwinnable situations as "no-wins."

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There doesn't have to be a right or wrong answer to something. It can just be.

A moral dilemma, by definition, requires a situation with a moral component and a CHOICE that must be made - a dilemma as to the proper course of action. It can't "just be" or there is no dilemma.

 

[LostSoul]

How can you call a man moral or immoral for deciding to save this group of folk over another group of folk in a completely arbitrary scenario in which no matter how he chooses, someone is going to get screwed. It's not his fault. There are other entities involved, not just one man.

My view is that the only person who can call the man (the PC) moral or immoral is the player (or players) involved in the choice. When the DM gets involved, you have to obey his ideas of morality, and then there's not much choice - it's simply a matter of trying to predict what the DM's views are.

Which is my beef with Paladins as a class.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

You're right, but consider this: what if the DM isn't the final judge on what is moral or immoral? What if you leave that up to the player? The DM can just sit back and say, "There's no right or wrong choice. Just do what you want."

If it doesn't matter what the answer is there is no dilemma. If there are no moral consequences and no definition of a right/wrong, better/worse choice there is no moral component to the dilemma.

Again, a moral component to in-game events is good for roleplaying. To insert moral DILEMMA requires that there be a right/wrong or better/worse choice to a situation from a moral perspective. It's either a quiz for the player ("Do you know the moral rules for your character as the DM understands them?") or just a trap for the player or character ("There is no better or correct choice so whether I realize it or not I've faced you with a situation where I INTEND that your character suffer adverse consequences no matter what you do."). The latter being a no-win scenario.

Not that no-win scenarios are only moral dilemmas, but IMO the PC's are supposed to be heroes. Heroes FAIL, sometimes they fail a lot - but they don't fail because there was never a chance of succeeding in the first place.

 

[the Jester]

As a dm, I love moral dilemmas. I also love a well done no-win situation; but this is a hard thing to pull off.

As a player... I love moral dilemmas. I also love a well done no-win situation... I guess either I play like I would enjoy my own dming, or I run my game in a way that I would enjoy playing in it.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

In the course of standard play I find that both pop up occasionally without me as the dm designing them that way. When it does happen I remind my friends that while their characters may feel frustrated or like they've failed, they the players should not feel that way. It is an opportunity for the characters to grow, diverge or regress but the players can rest assurred that at the end of the dungeon they'll still get their rewards. Paladins & like characters won't ever get hit with the nerf-bat so long as they follow the golden rule of trying hard.

Deliberate set-ups otoh have always ime been a total disaster with the dm trying to 'teach some lesson' when player discussion would have been the better forum. Unless the dm is experienced (& by experienced I'm not talking about cheap yearly mileage) I'd place my bet on the planned set-up coming off badly.