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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 189110" data-attributes="member: 177">Methinks Rounser has a point. I don't think the quality of moral quandries faced in a game are strongly linked to the names "high fantasy" or "gritty".  I'll go on to suggest that basing our discussion on stereotypes of game-play is probably not constructive.I have put my brain to the grindstone, and realized that the discussion actually comes down to a simply phrased question:When is it moral to make the child pay for the sins of the father?There have been cultures where the sins of the father reflected strongly on the progeny.  Blood feuds could carry from father to son, curses would be laid upon a family unto the third generation.  Look at "Romeo and Juliet".  Look at Star Trek's Worf (son of Mohg, who's alleged crime tainted the son's position in the Klingon Empire).  Examples of this abound in literature. So surely, there are cultures which find punishing the child for teh father's sins acceptable, and even just.I am not sure I concur, though, that the culture is actually relevant.The populace at large are... armchair generals.  They are not the ones dealing with the problem.  It isn't the collected populace of Hommlet that's standing there with a sword covered in a hobgoblin's gore, trying to decide if the child should die.  The general polulace aren't going to decide what happens to the character's immortal soul ("I'm sorry, Morag the Bold, but we the people of Freeport have decided to vote you off Morality Island.").  The views of the culture and the people in it are a basis for a character to work from, but to have a PC simply keep to the "party line" is poor roleplaying.  To claim a behavior is right "because everyone else thinks so" is a pretty weak excuse, morally speaking.The culture is also a fine source of plot complications.  We've seen it in real life - U.S. soldiers have come home from battle to find the populace passing moral judgement upon them, and that has affected their lives.  Having the populace agree or disagree can be an important part of the story, yes.  But in a game with deific magic, the opionon of the Cobbler's Guild is not the final arbiter.To steal from Shakespeare's Henry V (Act IV, scene 1): "Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God."and, later in the same speech:"Every subject's duty is the King's, but every subject's soul is his own."</blockquote>

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