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

[ThirdWizard]

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.

It can be up to the Player to determine whether or not the action was "right" or "wrong." I'm not one for moral relativism, but as questions that arise within your own alignment are relative to your own morals.

 

[LostSoul]

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.

I just leave it up to the player to decide if it was moral or immoral. (I'm not sure what you mean by moral consequences - something like an alignment shift?) When I run games with Paladins, I'll ask the player if he thinks that he should lose his abilities (and which ones).

I had a situation where the PCs were facing down a woman they knew. She had been possessed by a demon who had nearly defeated them in combat earlier in the campaign (they had failed to keep the demon from possessing the woman). Anyway, she had used some spell-like abilities to gain control of a scummy little town that the PCs were not very fond of.

So when the PCs faced her down, she told them that she was going to get her followers to burn down the town if the PCs didn't leave. When the PCs didn't leave, she started some fires. Then she said that she would kill the woman whose body she was in control of if the PCs didn't leave.

The Paladin attacked her, the demon nearly killed the woman (I reduced her to -9 hp; probably should have made a coup de grace), but the demon was killed. Half of the town was in flames. Then the Paladin went out and killed everyone with a torch in their hands. (He was hasted and 1 hr/level Bull's Strength-ed and mounted, so it was quite a slaughter.)

At the end of the game, I asked the player of the Paladin what he thought about his actions, and if he thought he should lose some abilities or not. I forget what he actually decided; I think he took away his Lay on Hands power for a while.

I think that the whole scenario worked much better because the player didn't have to worry about losing his abilities if he did something that I, as the DM, thought went against his code. He only had to worry about what he thought was the right thing to do, what it meant to play a Paladin who would sacrifice innocent people (that he didn't like) in order to slay evil, etc.

If I, as the DM, was the final arbiter on what was moral and immoral, his only question would be "What does Dave think?"

 

[Nareau]

I enjoy both, but with caveats:

No-win situations work best when they're a long time coming. They should be crucial to the story, and the stakes should be extremely high. The reason? Such situations force the PC to take some responsibility for making a painful sacrifice. When the PC eventually saves the day, it will be much more meaningful in light of the sacrifices made along the way.

Spider

 

[Orius]

I will say as a player, no to both. If either of these reared their ugly heads in a D&D game I was playing, I'd assume rather quickly the DM is simply trying to screw with me. That seems to be the case most of the time anyway.

Moral dilemmas probably wouldn't affect me much anyway; I prefer the old "adventure for gold to pay for ale and whores" motivation, which is straightforward in its amorality anyway. I usually play neutral characters who are more interested in gaining power than anything else, so a moral dilemma will just produce a shrug from those characters. Even if the DM decides to slap a change to evil alignment on me, well, those aren't alignment based characters, and could only be screwed by that if they were using alignment restricted magic items anyway. Only time this could affect me is if I would be playing a paladin, in which case I'd choose to fight the most immediate danger, and then pursue the long-term danger when I'm done.

A no-win situation is usually just a way to screw the PC over because the DM hasn't yet figured out that D&D isn't DM vs. player (and there are DMs who've been playing 20+ years who still haven't figured this out). Too much of this bull and I walk.

 

[Odhanan]

I agree with this, with a couple of caveats.

A no-win situation is acceptable if it eventually leads to a situation where victory can be achieved. I.e. the "no-win" is a setback, not the final end to the situation/plotline that brought it up.

And I like moral dilemmas as long as they're wel done, not too common, and don't force a mechanical change down the players' throats. (That is, a moral dilemma that makes a paladin regret he had to make his choice is fine. One that causes him to lose his paladin status no matter what he does is unacceptable.)

Yes, absolutely, utterly agreed on both counts, Ari.

 

[Haltherrion]

My question is, as a player, do you find that being put in such a situation adds to the game and makes it more enjoyable and fun? Even if it's not fun at the moment, does it add to your overall enjoyment of the game because it makes the world seem more "realistic"?

Both can be fun but both require care. The no-win requires greatest care.

For a morale dilemma to be a real one and an interesting one, then it needs to occur in a properly fleshed out world where such things matter and it needs to be a real dilmema of consequences to the players. Casually tossing one into a hack-n-slash world is a waste of time. Another pitfall is one that singles out a particular PC/player which can seem most unfair to folks. But done well, these can really make a campaign.

I can't recall playing a real no-win situation and the only one I ref'd ages ago was a disaster. I think in principle, a well done no-one situation could really set up a nice following story arc but that typically players see this as the referee taking advantage of them. Speculating here (since as I've said I've neither played one nor executed one well), think you need to firmly establish the possibility of the no-win and then give the players some sort of "carry over" beyond the failure to give them something to look forward to (their heirs continue on, the PCs continue on in a world completely reshaped by their loss), etc.

To cite a couple of fiction examples:

T3: there was no way to stop the machines from destroying civilization but there clearly was value in how the PCs survived the transition and then defeating the machines afterwards.

Firefly: this was mostly in flashbacks but the main characters faced a no-win in the rebellion then went on to cool stuff in the aftermath.

You could do something comparable in your campaign and use the no-win situation to start the campaign. (Come to think of it, I've used and experienced no-wins as campaign starters. Just haven't successfully ended a campaign with one.)

 

[StupidSmurf]

I've watched movies or read books where the protagonist is screwed from the git-go. When you finish watching/reading, you realize that the hero never stood a chance, and was fated to lose from the beginning. This is especially prevalent in horror stories.

And I HATE it. Absolutely DESPISE it. I consider it the prose equivalent of someone getting their jollies by burning ants with a magnifying glass.

To me, what makes a story worth reading (and, bringing this round to gaming, adventures worth running), is when the protagonist has a fighting chance. That's drama. That's tension. That's excitement. The so-called edginess of the "never had a chance tale" is a cheap cliche, and smacks of railroading and DM-to-Player bullying.

Now, that being said...first of all I agree with the earlier post about the no-win situation being a setback along the way, and not the ultimate payoff. That I can deal with. Secondly, there's also the APPARENT no-win situation, which falls into Admiral Kirk territory. I see nothing wrong in a DM, through an NPC, informing the players that they "can't win", and go on a protracted BS explanation as to why not. If they swallow it, hey, it's their own fault.

In my campaigns, there's ALWAYS an escape hatch. Always. Sometimes it's better hidden than others, but it's always there. Find it, and you've earned the right to use it, and the bragging rights to follow Sure, the concept of "always an escape hatch" may not jibe with reality, but neither do the concepts of routinely raising dead people, power rings, FTL starships, turning people into ferrets, and groin-mounted plasma cannons.

As for moral dilemmas, well, used sparingly, they're ok. If your sessions are becoming "moral dilemma of the week," then that could get really tedious.

 

[Haltherrion]

...
And I HATE it. Absolutely DESPISE it. I consider it the prose equivalent of someone getting their jollies by burning ants with a magnifying glass.

...

Seems like there are two issues here. One is a matter of principle: is it ever right to have a no-win situation? There will be some who say 'no' and if you have them as players, it could cause problems. It's a matter of taste; nothing wrong with it either way but StupidSmurf seems to feel strongly about it

But even if you and your players like no-wins in principle, they still can be difficult to do right in practice. Fundamentally, the ref is all powerful and can always make anything a no-win. The challenge is to construct a no-win situation that felt right to the players. That is a lot harder.

I've never pulled one off that was mid-game or end-game. Partly because like StupidSmurf, I like to leave some way out for the very clever players and will accept clever solutions that I hadn't thought of ahead of time. But the real reason I don't use true no-wins is that by forcing myself to make sure there is at least one solution to a problem I don't fall into the sloppy refereeing trap of throwing too much at the players. Making sure there is a possible win helps me tune my scenarios.

Only thing that comes close for me is that I often start the campaign with a situation that the players have little real chance of changing, usually because they are low level or not plugged into things yet. But even then, if they were clever enough, they could extract a win.

 

[Odhanan]

As for moral dilemmas, well, used sparingly, they're ok. If your sessions are becoming "moral dilemma of the week," then that could get really tedious.

Agreed on this as well. And it goes like this with pretty much any "technique" or "theme" you'd use as a DM in RPG sessions over and over and ... over again.

 

[Mercule]

Moral Dilemmas, oh yes.

No-win situations? Occasionally. Every once in a while, I like to try and Kirk my way out of one.

Exactly my thoughts. The first thing that occured to me was Kirk.

So, moral dilemmas are fine. As are apparent no-win situations. A genuine no-win situation, especially one in which a Paladin will lose his status shows a GM who should avoid philosophy in his game.

Sometimes even certain death (for really and truly) can be enjoyable, because it forces the focus on the character's thought process and mentality.