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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6336011" data-attributes="member: 42582">"Answering questions through play" is somewhat metaphorical.What I mean is: there are two PCs, different in outlook and perhaps religions, but each of which presents him-/herself, both within the gameworld fiction and as played at the table among the real-world participants, as a paladin, a holy and honourable warrior. (This situation is part of my 4e game: there is a paladin/questing knight/marshall of Letherna who serves the Raven Queen; and a fighter-cleric/warpriest/eternal defender who serves Moradin. Each presents as a holy and honourable warrior who is realsing the divine will.)It probably can't be true, in the fiction, that both are equally honourable and holy. (Because they are different, and come into conflict as a result of those differences.) Hence, both within the fiction and to the game participants as audience, a question arises - who is the real paladin?This question is unlikely to receive a literal answer - just as the question "Who is the real villian, Macbeth or Lady Macbeth" does not receive a literal answer in Shakespeare's play. It is a matter of audience interpretation. But there is no disputing that the play provides material which is relevant to that question, and which bears upon the villainy of each of those characters. Likewise, in the sort of play that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and I are describing, there is an expectation that the actual play of the game will generate material that will be relevant to the question "who is the real paladin?".For instance, the GM might frame and adjudicate situations which force <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?312367-Actual-play-another-combat-free-session-with-intra-party-dyanmics" target="_blank">choices to be made between honour and justice</a>. Or which force the PCs (and hence the players) to <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?332755-PCs-bring-destruction-down-upon-the-duergar" target="_blank">decide their attitude towards devil-worshipping but honourable duergar</a>. Etc. As these episodes of play are resolved, the nature of the two characters emerges more clearly, and more refined judgements about them become possible.This requires certain GMing techniques - eg flexible backstory and gameworld development, so that the GM is going where the players take him/her. World exploration becomes secondary. It also requires the players to be willing to take a chance, to put themselves out there a little bit, and perhaps to find that not all the other players share one's own conception of one's PC. In that way it has something in common with authorship! (That's why the Forge calls it "Story Now".)In this and other threads on paladins I have described this phenomen - that, for a paladin, being virtuous is not a burden but a benefit - as "providential morality". I agree that it is hard to realise this phenomenon in traditional D&D play. But I don't think it is hard to realise it in RPGs in general: all the GM has to do is to stop framing and adjudicating situations such that pragmatism is the best path!</blockquote>

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