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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5580422" data-attributes="member: 18280">Well, then you are a wise individual, and a real humanitarian to boot!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /><s></s><s></s><s>If you set up a believable context, and follow-through with the naturally occurring consequences that flow from player choices, there is no contrast.  Even if the players try to focus on "smart play", the in-game consequences for ignoring ethical considerations can bring the "smart" part of "smart play" into question pretty quickly.</s><s></s><s>But there is still a major difference between "In taking an ethical stand, my character can only die if I choose to let it happen" and "In taking an ethical stand, my character must bear the brunt of whatever consequences naturally occur, good or ill."  </s><s></s><s>The first is, IMHO, "ethics lite" and ignores what is probably the most fundamental problems of human existence:  We don't get to choose when our moral/ethical decisions come back to haunt us, or how much we have to pay to make an ethical stand.</s><s></s><s>An example of an ethical problem in a 3e version of B2:  When the PCs encounter the evil clerics, I had decided to make them priests of the spider-goddess Mellythese.  The players engaged the priests in debate, as part of the natural course of the game.  I paraphrase the following:</s><s></s><s>PC1:  But you can't sacrifice human beings!  It's wrong!</s><s></s><s>Priest:  We never sacrifice the innocent.</s><s></s><s>PC2:  But....babies!  You can't sacrifice innocent babies!</s><s></s><s>Priest:  No one is born innocent....</s><s>Needless to say, the situation was not wholly black and white.</s><s></s><s>The same group decided to use its last healing on an NPC orc they had rescued from the bugbear cave (and whose honourable behaviour they admired) rather than a more wounded PC.</s><s></s><s>The Caves themselves are automatically set up to force the players to decide what to do about the non-combatant females and young......And the PCs don't get to choose the consequences of what they decide!</s><s></s><s>(In a different setting, recently, the PCs decided to let a group of hobgoblin mercenaries go....they even let them keep their arms and armour!....on the basis of ethics.)</s><s></s><s>RC</s></blockquote>

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