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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kurotowa" data-source="post: 2793040" data-attributes="member: 27957">I made my feelings pretty clear on the no-win thing on that last paladin thread.  So let me focus on the other part of the question.  Just so we're clear, I'm going to be arguing from roughly the wikipedia definition.  "An ethical dilemma is a situation that often involves an apparent conflict between moral imperatives, in which to obey one would result in transgressing another."A moral dilemma is forcing someone to pick between two (or more) bad choices.  Both are against the person's moral code and the trick is to find a third way out or rationalize being able to live with one.  The Watchman example is a good one.  The problem is it's still an ultimately negative situation.  It only works on characters who have a moral code, and not one amoral or pragmatic ones.  These people are 'rewarded' for their greater conviction and higher moral standard by being put in situations that try to tear apart their moral code and force them to violate it.  Paladins just get singled out the most because as a class they are both required to have such a code and mechanically punished for violating it.This is really no less adversarial than a DM sending the most powerful critter he can brew against the player proud of his badass combat PC, only in the social arena.  True, some players enjoy the angstfest of a moral character forced to face the inherent immorality of a dark world.  I enjoy that on occation, but that's what I go to the World of Darkness for, not D&D.  If I make a moral D&D PC, paladin or otherwise, I'm usually looking to be a brave hero who brings justice to a dark world and brightens it by rising above the immorality and brute pragmatism.  As always, YMMV, and it helps to know the tastes of your players.  But I don't see a moral dilemma as an inherently fun thing.I should note that I do have more respect for the first cousin of the moral dilemma, the defining choice.  That's where a character is forced to make a choice between two things in a way that defines them.  Like the character out for vengence on the man who killed his family, forced to chose between taking that revenge and saving a family of innocent bystanders from a flaming building.  I see that sort of dilemma as a lot more constructive than a moral one, both better for character divelopement and generating new plot hooks.</blockquote>

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