What do you think is worth more? The ability to face things face to face, and win by your sheer competence or the ability to deceive, to manipulate things and win through trickery or similar?

I don't think I phrased the question very well... I'll give a few examples:

There's a guy who scores a high grade in an exam because he studied hard for it and got most of it right, and there's a guy who could cheat his way really well through the exam and also got an excellent grade.
Which one deserves the most praise, or should they both be praised equally?

A warrior who slays an ogre, one-on-one, using his sword, a thief who slays an ogre by backstabbing it, a diplomat who talks his way out of an ogre-situation. Who should get the most experience points for the task? Or should the amount be the same?

What is the most "efficient" style of martial arts? Muay Thai, where you go head-on against an opponent and learn to withstand blows and deal blows the way that hurts most... or capoeira, where you learn to dodge strikes and leg sweep your opponent down to the floor in the first opportunity you find (and in the real street variation, either run away or fight dirty from there)?

... I think it's clear enough now.
What do you guys think?

All of this is what I would refer to as modally contigent.

In other words, there is more than one 'existing' answer to each question simultaneously, but the only one that actually matters depends on the criteria that is designated (i.e. for a mode of function).

In other words, there is no such thing as an actual inherent 'deserving of praise' value. It is an existing imaginary value, but not an actual one until you set forth the criteria for the desgination of meaningful value.

If your designation is 'getting the grade', the cheater deserves as much praise as the non-cheater. If your designation is 'working for the grade' AGAIN, the cheater deserves as much praise as the non-cheater, but if your desgination is 'working in a way that is complying with the rules to get the grade without cheating' the cheater does not deserve as much praise (logically, that is unless you are not limiting your domain boundaries to logical domains (i.e. in an irrational or absurd domain)).

It all depends on the who, what, when, where, and why you are talkiing about.

... I think it is better to win by facing a problem head-on. At least to me, in most cases choosing the latter option of manipulation, etc. shows that you have no courage, nor very much of a persevering heart. Taking the easy way out of things is often foolish. Having gotten the same results from an exam that you simply cheated on as the person who did all of the work of studying surely wouldn't give you much of a personal feeling of accomplishment, would it? *Regal shrug*

... Although, I am certain there are a few exceptions. For instance, in the ogre scenario you described earlier, Gnasher, I thought the diplomat's way out was best, although it falls more on the side of trickery than competence like the warrior would display by fighting the ogre fairly.
However, the diplomat had done a good thing by using this tactic, right?
He put himself out of the danger of possibly losing his life, and did not have to take a life himself by fighting them, either. ... So, there you have it. ^_^

Crap, you guys have been reading my mind or something, I was going to make a topic similiar to this yesterday.

And since I was going to ask the question, that means I really can't find an answer.

What would Jesus do? How would he handle an adversarial situation? What would he do when there was someone threatening him or trying to kill him?

That's your answer for which action deserves the most praise.

@Bo - in short, "everything is relative"? Yes, of course it is. ^^

@SK - Isn't the skill and the effort needed to conquer a situation in the "smart" way equivalent to the skill and effort needed to conquer a situation with "courage", but in a different field?
RPG language really helps in this subject =P So, isn't a Thief with Strength 3 / Manipulation 10 just as good as a warrior with Strength 10 / Manipulation 3, only in a different aspect?

SURE you were!

Seriously dude, quit waiting until tomorrow to post your ideas!

Maybe we all have the same things on our mind for some reason.

@The Gnasher
If this is for an RPG, I guess it depends on how detailed your parameters or skills are, like if someone uses decite to trick an enemy to put him into a situation where he could beat him up vs. pure fighting power to take him down , they may still gain the same experience in battle, increase different amount in the STR and INT (or MAG) attributes, and learn entirely different abilities or magic skills.

I'll try and do that, Bo. Procrastination is a terrible thing to have