Dilemma: The encounter forces the player characters to choose between two or more alternatives, both equally attractive or equally undesirable.

A dilemma can really get players’ hearts pounding when they have to make a decision quickly and with minimal forethought. It is best if the potential rewards and consequences are immediately apparent—such as life or death for the PCs or an important NPC. For example, the player characters find themselves on a demiplane where their spells and magical items work erratically and sometimes misfire dangerously. While exploring, they are caught in a small room with a sphere of annihilation in pursuit. Do the PCs try to control the sphere (not always a safe task), exit through a magical portal to an unknown destination, or teleport out of danger (and risk a misfire)?

A moral dilemma can help shape the players’ views of the campaign world and force them to examine their characters’ deepest convictions and emotions. For example, consider what might happen if the party finds an orphaned drow child in the wilderness. As DM, you know if the child is born to be evil or if alignment is something that has to be nurtured over time; perhaps the child is naturally inclined to become chaotic evil but can learn to follow another alignment. What does the party do with the child? Abandon it? Adopt it? Kill it? The choice could spark a lively debate among characters of different alignments.

Note that high-level player characters might frequently be called upon to make determinations that fall within the gray areas of their experience. Right or wrong, the PCs’ decisions could profoundly shape commoners’ attitudes toward the world. Other powerful mortals and even the gods themselves also note the heroes’ decisions and judge the PCs accordingly.

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