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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 1922150" data-attributes="member: 27012">You can get a certain amount of gray, even in a campaign with an objective black and white, due to situations that require a trade-off or contain elements of the unknown.  Allow the Evil warlord to kill one villager so that you have a better chance of saving the rest of them later?  Surrender to a hostage taker so he won't kill a hostage?  Allow the Evil goblin to escape in exchange for him providing you information that will help you find the captives that you've been sent in to save?  Simply shoot the dark shadow lurking in the corner because you are almost certain that it's the assassin you are looking for or call out for it to identify itself and give the assassin a chance to escape?  And so on.  All are gray moral areas, not because there isn't any black and white but because either each white has a black attached or there is uncertainty involved and the characters need to decide which outcome or possible outcomes are more acceptable.  That leaves plenty of open room for debate and disagreement, even when the morality is pretty black and white.  Black and white can get very interesting in the transition from theory to specific case.In some ways, the second axis of Law and Chaos in D&D can tell you a bit about the trade-offs that a character will make.  A Lawful character will play it by the book while a Chaotic character will make it up as they go and probably be willing to take the most risks.  A Neutral character might simply use utilitarian calculus, looking at the odds for the best possible outcome.  And in that, there is plenty of room for tension and debate.That's why I'm not really seeing "black and white" or "gray" as mutally exclusive options.  I think that both can co-exist side-by-side.</blockquote>

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