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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 4004319" data-attributes="member: 19675">I don't have time to actually review it right now, but I'll say this:I was an honors philosophy major (Phi Sigma Tau), and the train dilemma is not a mere theoretical construct.There really are RW situations that have no "good" answer, and/or have answers that vary depending upon your philosophy (pragmatism, stoicism, solipsism, etc.).  In the thousands of years of human history, nobody has devised an ethical system that has ZERO possibility of a dilemma.  On occasion, I post examples of this.One such example I posted some time ago (WWYPD: What Would Your Paladin Do) involved casting a Paladin in an actual, RW situation- the Paladin was the lone bridge officer of a sinking ship who made it to a lifeboat containing 1 other crewman and a bunch of civilians in and around it- too many survivors for the boat, in fact.  The RW person (and thus the Pally) alone knew the ship's position at the time of sinking, so only he could do the navigating.  He alone knew how many days out from land and major shipping lines the ship was, thus knowing that there was insufficient supplies for the number of people on the lifeboat, much less for those hanging onto the sides in shifts.  He also knew that everyone would die if the lifeboat's load was not lightened- there was an approaching storm they couldn't avoid, and the waves would capsize the boat, dumping supplies and survivors overboard.Even though the Paladin could do some things to improve the survivors' lot that a RW person couldn't, like casting Create Water, even his magic wasn't going to save everyone.  Even with fresh water, there was insufficient food to go around.  Still, death by starvation was the least of their worries, since the overloaded lifeboat had no chance to avoid being capsized in the approaching storm.IOW, the only options were 1) Everyone dies, or 2) Some innocents die that other innocents live.  Because of his rank and training, the Pally was the only one in a position to make the neccessary decisions in a non-arbitrary fashion, and couldn't abdicate his responsibility to do so.Interesting though it was, unfortunately, the thread was lost in a site crash (at least AFAIK).(There is a whole field on this stuff- commonly called "Lifeboat Ethics.")But one of my main points was this- DMs really shouldn't place their Paladins in Kobayashi Maru situations unless they have a way for the Paladin to redeem his decision, whatever it is.  Its usually not fair to the player, and usually not fun for the other partymembers as well.</blockquote>

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