Do alignments improve the gaming experience?

[Imaro]

I'm going to couple these two together if you don't mind. First, I want to just mention that (i) such an oath (as outlined above) would be but one specified moral directive amongst others and (ii) there would be an overarching faith that binds the general dogma (eg punish the wicked, protect the meek, et al). Together, they would form a coherent whole. All would be expected to be observed but only the oaths (which would be specific aspects that define the dogma) would have the feedback system attached.

Well I still think there would be holes and gray areas (just like with alignment) unless we get codes of a ridiculous level of detail... and then who ultimately would decide those blurry areas of the code, player or DM??

I primarily want to address the bolded bits. Making qualitative value judgements is, of course, an inescapable part of being human. Where this interfaces with the classical D&D alignment system and how it manifests in play is my primary issue.

Consider what you have outlined above. A Paladin ruminating upon a present conflict and considering it hopeless and, therefore, any sacrifice by himself as in vain and/or senseless (when considering the good he could potentially produce elsewhere were he not tied up with this "lost cause"). Then we have a Paladin reviewing a situation and applying cost-benefit analysis to determine what is the most expedient means (rather than what is the most idealistically rigorous or robust) to achieve his sought end. Let us say you and I are pals in real life and you are at my table. Lets say that at the edges of the general faith, and the specificity of the oaths, there are corner cases (such as the one you have outlined) that require addressing the situation from a perspective of moral idealism or utilitarianism. Suddenly, I'm in a conversation with my buddy Imaro (whom I really just want to be playing D&D with) about philosophy. We're invoking Mill and Kant and examining if a Paladin should be making qualitative value judgements from a perspective of maximizing utility and/or that moral judgements stem from the application of reason. I don't want to be doing this. Certainly not at the table and I don't really want to be doing it later. At least not as a means to the end of determining if these edge-case actions that may skirt the periphery of his oaths and overarching dogma are in-line with the sui generis Paladin code.

I don't think we would agree anyway and even if we got to the point of "agree to disagree and live with my decision as final arbiter", I don't think either of us would be happy (at least that is my experience).

So are you advocating that as the player of the paladin that I should create my own code, decide my own gray areas, etc.? If so why am I not just playing a pious fighter with some type of religious background? I guess my question boils down to at the point where I can act however I want because I am defining my own code and gray areas and behavior... what makes a paladin a paladin, since anybody can choose to define and follow a code?

I think one of the issues that keeps coming up here is the player who is playing in Pawn Stance amongst a table consensus that expects a "fiction first", (relatively) tightly focused thematic game from Actor Stance (perhaps with a smattering of Director and Author Stance). If a player continuously makes qualitative value judgements based on "stuff I personally want or don't want to happen to me the player" that are out of line with "stuff that is thematically appropriate or inappropriate for Bob the Paladin", while the rest of the table expects (and follows themselves) the inverse, you're going to have problems no matter if you use carrots or sticks or a combination of the two. Alternatively, if you take the same player (who keeps playing in Pawn Stance despite the table consensus to not do so) and place him in a situation where his interests as a player match up with the thematics of the character build and progression mechanics (the positive feedback system), then the rest of the players at the table (GM included) won't notice the Pawn Stance play (because the two are married).

It sounds to me like you are saying this style of paladin can only operate "correctly" with players and groups who have a certain playstyle and (narrow??) assumptions... is that a good thing?

the other point is that there is no incentive for the player not to pick a paladin since he is deciding everything about his code... i think you are making the mistake of assuming that the player will be acting out of the character of a paladin all the time, but I was clear that this was not the situation I was speaking to. i am speaking of a player who for the most part plays the paladin as a paladin but every so often, when it is expedient or optimal, does something no paladin would do but suffers no repercussions for it. that is the player I am talking about.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because you could have every intention of playing the paladin correctly up until the point where you have 3 hit points left, an unscathed giant is bearing down on a mother and her child and you think... sacrificing myself in a hopeless situation isn't REALLY about commitment or duty... it's just senseless stupidity... and so you decide to hide or run as the mother and child are killed...

There isn't one "correct" answer here. How this plays out depends on the nature of the particular Paladin and his divine patron.

1) Senseless sacrifice is not required of the Paladin by any code I can think of, but it may still happen in the objective sense but not the subjective sense. Depending on the Paladin's faith, he may believe that the sacrifice of interposing himself will enable some other actor within the world- possibly even the deity itself- to complete the rescue. IOW, he interposes himself, hoping for a miracle: he has subjectively made a sensible sacrifice based on his faith. Objectively, if the innocents are not saved, he has made a senseless sacrifice. (If I'm the DM, at the very least, the innocents will be saved, because rewarding that heroism follows the Rule of Cool.)

2) Alternatively, the Paladin does not interpose himself and the innocents die, but he swears to avenge their deaths. This is consistent with his oath & virtues. As long as the Player/PC takes concrete steps to fulfill that vow, he retains his status as a holy warrior in one of my campaigns "...when a good man goes to war." If, OTOH, he makes the vow and doesn't follow through- or worse, is unmoved by the deaths he couldn't prevent and let's the evil stand without even the contemplation of some kind of retribution? Well...as Burke said, all that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing: he has allowed evil to triumph through inaction; he loses his Paladin satus.

 

[N'raac]

What Hobo says here is true for me - it's the starting point of why alignment serves no purpose for my play. The reason that alignment is an active impediment for me, as opposed to merely a waste of time, is that by pigeonholing behaviour into pre-determined moral categories questions are answered by stipulation that I don't want to answer by stipulation.

This is true only if we assume one may be Lawful Good only by always making the most Lawful and Good choice at each and every turn. And even then, where Law and Good collide, a decision of which to follow must be made. Alignment is not "every character of an LG Alignment will always make the same choices". Since we're citing old school Dragon Magazine, a great article once noted that Thor and Aphrodite are both Chaotic Good - will their followers take the same problem solving techniques? Tyr and [Celtic healing god - name escapes me] are both LG - do they share the same priorities?

And I certainly don't need aligment as a roleplaying guide. If I, or one of my players, wants to play a paladin, or a sneaky thief, or a chaotically tainted drow, or whatever, no guide in the form of alignments is needed. Having decided what to play, we just play it - and then let the character evolve in play as Hobo describes.

Does the character have consistent character traits, or just evolve in play? After many sessions, would I as a player adventuring with the character consider him a pious man, a man defined by honour, or a man who pays lip service to both concepts when it serves him? And, if his abilities depend on piety and honour, I suggest the latter losing those abilities is perfectly appropriate. Nothing stops the character evolving in play - but certain evolutions have consequences. If you wanted to play a character who may or may not retain the tenets of Law ad Good (I want that to develop in play), then you should either not choose to play a Paladin, or choose a Paladin knowing loss of his powers is a possible consequence of straying from those ideals, such that this fall and loss is part of the game you want to explore, or at least are considering exploring.

This doesn't relate to playing with jerks. I play with people whose company I enjoy. It doesn't mean that we have the same moral outlook, or have the same ideas about how to develop PCs or respond to situations posed in play. Sometimes I'm shocked by the things my players have their PCs do. I can express that shock by saying as much - I don't need to do anything additional like telling them "By the way, that shows that your PC is evil".

By the same token, if you describe your character as honourable and righteous, then stab people in the back and lie, cheat and steal your way through life, then I think I am justified in saying your character is not, in fact, honourable and righteous. And, if a deity in the game grants special powers only to those who demonstrate honour and righteousness, then you have no right to complain when those abilities are taken away. Should the Paladin fall because of one grey area corner case dispute? No, he should not - in grey areas, neither choice indicates he is non-lawful or non-good, only that he is not a 10% perfect exemplar - and humans are not.

This is exactly what I mean by the player having to subordinate his/her judgement to that of the GM: this is the GM telling the player how his/her PC should act, given that the player wants his/her PC to do the right thing.

I don't see the GM "telling you how your character should act". I see it as the GM telling you that, under the code imposed by the Paladin's order, his religion, his deity, etc., the act he is contemplating is prohibited, and he would lose his paladinhood for undertaking it. It remains open to the character to decide that the code, religion, deity or even the very philosophy of good is, in fact, wrong and your actions are correct - that is your choice to make in playing your character. It is not open to you to decide the consequences of that action, nor to say that your character's choice makes him "good", or "more good" than a second character who makes the other choice.

Why is it not OK for the GM to impose his definition of Good and require you abide by it, but it is OK for you to impose hyour definition of Good (the actins my character takes, which do not result in loss of his Paladin abilities) on the rest of the table, GM and players alike?

In the passage I quoted above N'raac posits that the GM would frame a choice for the paladin PC, and then tell the player of that PC the best way to choose. From my point of view, the player looks pretty superfluous in that situation!

If the choice is clear and obvious? Sure. The Paladin wants to go on an adventure, but the King orders him to remain and defend the faithful, and the Paladin says "I will cut down the King and dump his body in the swamp", yes that is an Evil and non-Lawful act, and yes, it jeopardizes his status as a Paladin. Can he choose to take that action nevertheless? Yes. He cannot choose that his deity accepts it and he is still a Paladin who has never committed an evil act.

Now, let's add some shades of grey. The King is ensorcled and cannot see that the party's planned adventure is necessary to stem the tide of evil and win the war. Striking down the King is still not on the table, but he may well take the lesser non-lawful act of disobeying orders and sneaking away to join the adventuring party. Does that one act condemn him? Clearly not.

In the situation I described and to which you were responding, the player decided that his paladin had done the wrong thing and hence the PC went off to do penance in the wilderness. I rolled an encounter, which turned out to be a demon encounter. The demon started taunting the paladin for having done the wrong thing. My initial thought with the encounter was that the player would reason as follows: a demon never speaks the truth; hence the demon is lying; hence the paladin didn't do the wrong thing; hence no penance is required. But the player actually interpreted the situation this way: that the paladin had done the wrong thing; that this rendered him on a par with a demon; and that the demon was here to invest him into the ways of evil. The players response to his interpreation, therefore, was to have his PC put up no resistance as the demon proceeded to beat him to a pulp, until it got bored and wandered off. (The PCs friends then tracked him down with some sort of divination spell, and nursed him back to health.)

Again - to me, the player decides what the PC believes that demons always lie, or that the demon is using his failure to uphold the highest ideals of Good to tempt him, or whatever, and we play out the consequences. If he decides "the greatest good will be served by joining the Demons to later destroy them from within, and first I must demonstrate my devotion to his ideals by ripping out a newborn's throat with my teeth, then slaughtering the mother", does he get to keep his Paladin powers? I say no, he has committed an evil act. I don't say that the character cannot take this action, but I do say that, however justified the Paladin may consider them to be, the act remains an act of evil.

In the case of the chaste paladin, the question I had, as a player, was "Should I marry the other PC and consumate my feelings for her?" I had to make a decision as to what my PC ought to do. Either way there of course were consequences - for the other PC (and her player), for the party as a whole, for the campaign, as well as for the outlook and values of my PC.

So why is it wrong for those consequences to include loss of powers granted by an entity which demanded the Paladin remain chaste?

These characterisations of "advantage", or of "temptating the player of the paladin to have his/her PC act expediently rather than honourably", seem to me to make a whole lot of assumptions about both mechanics and playstyle.

Assumptions are always required. Again, is the Paladin less effective at torturing a peasant to gain information? No, so why shouldn't he? Is it the act of an honourable and good man? I say it is not. He may be good, he may accomplish good, and his actions may be swept under the rug, but his actions were not those of an honourable and good man.

I think this is unavoidable... you assuming the player will act honourably as opposed to optimally or expediently make just as many assumptions...

Yup.

Not sure why you're choosing to only focus on the death example since I gave others (such as not wanting to suffer the loss of a favored magic weapon)... or as another example maybe the paladin's player wants to achieve a goal so much that he is willing to put his code aside to do it... Maybe regardless of his code that he won't kill, Batman (the paladin) decides to kill Joker, I mean there are no repercussions so why not??

I'm also not sure what fail forward has to do with my examples either since failing forward doesn't mean I won't suffer loss that I don't necessarily want to happen... and it doesn't auto-guarantee I won't compromise my conception in order to make sure that or numerous other things won't or will happen.

Alternatively, the playstyle (or mechanic) provides that the character will never, in any way, be disadvantaged by any failure - that is, fail forward is interpreted to mean that the character will never actually be disadvantaged by failure and/or the player's goals will always be achieved, either by success or by fail-forward. Whatever we do, we win. Did someone ask about why we bother showing up for some games?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Since we're citing old school Dragon Magazine, a great article once noted that...

...two paladins could face each other in battle/war without either losing their holy warrior satus because their faiths and the edicts of their deities differed.

I see it as the GM telling you that, under the code imposed by the Paladin's order, his religion, his deity, etc., the act he is contemplating is prohibited, and he would lose his paladinhood for undertaking it. It remains open to the character to decide that the code, religion, deity or even the very philosophy of good is, in fact, wrong and your actions are correct - that is your choice to make in playing your character. It is not open to you to decide the consequences of that action, nor to say that your character's choice makes him "good", or "more good" than a second character who makes the other choice.

Yup.

 

[pemerton]

I think this is unavoidable... you assuming the player will act honourably as opposed to optimally or expediently make just as many assumptions.

I'm not so much making assumptions as talking about my own play experiences as I know it to have happened. And thereby explaining why alignment is, in fact, an impediment to getting out of the game those things that I want to get out of the game.

It's true that if I wasn't who I am, and if my players weren't who they were - ie if some of the assumptions that you and [MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION] seem to be making held true for me and my group - then alignment may not be an impediment in the ways that in fact it is. But the truth of that counterfactual doesn't change the actual state of affairs, which is that on the whole those assumptions do not hold good for me and my group, and hence that alignment is an impediment to my desired play experience.

This is also relevant to your question to me and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] along the lines of, "But how do you deal with this problem?" My answer is that it is a problem only if certain things are true - namely, the assumptions that I mentioned. But those assumptions aren't true of me or my group. Hence the problems you ask about don't really arise.

Maybe regardless of his code that he won't kill, Batman (the paladin) decides to kill Joker, I mean there are no repercussions so why not??

Because it's wrong to kill?

Why would the player choose to play PC A, and then just on a whim ignore that earlier choice? This really goes back to my comments about assumptions that don't hold good at least within my group. Or, if the decision to kill the joker is not just on a whim - if it emerges out of play in something like the way I described upthread for my chaste paladin who had to reconsider whether chastity was the proper course for him - then why not? Character development of that sort seems to me to make for a good game, so why would I want a mechanic that impedes it?

Ultimately, I feel that I don't really understand the question. I mean, the 24th level drow chaos sorcerer in my game could destroy every peasant holding in the known world while barely breaking a sweat (fly at will, area burst 2 blazing starfall for a typical 55 points of damage on a hit). But he doesn't, because that's not who the character is and that's not why the player is playing the game.

The only character in my game who has ruthlessly killed captives is the somewhat vengeance-obsessed invoker/wizard (although that was back before he discovered that his lifetime spent in human form was just the latest of his 1000 lives as an immortal deva). The chaos drow, in particular, but also the dwarven fighter/cleric (who is, for story purposes, a paladin), take oaths of renunciation of violence from those who surrender or whom they defeat without lethal violence.

I'm also not sure what fail forward has to do with my examples either since failing forward doesn't mean I won't suffer loss that I don't necessarily want to happen... and it doesn't auto-guarantee I won't compromise my conception in order to make sure that or numerous other things won't or will happen.

Fail forward is relevant because (i) it is associated with, on its flip side, "success means success", and hence (for instance) means that successful extraction of an oath to renounce violence won't just be ignored by the GM later on in the game, and (ii) it is associated with the GM not narrating consequences that bring the game to a halt, so if the paladin's virtue is part of the game then whatever consequence the GM narrates won't foreclose the continued exploration and development of that aspect of the game, and (iii) it means that the player of the paladin can afford to "lose" a scene without therefore "losing" the whole campaign.

So in your example of the paladin down to 3 hp, if the game is being adjudicated in "fail forward" style then if the player of the paladin interposes himself between the giant and the innocent NPCs, then there are a few options I can think of.

(1) The paladin - whether by marking, or Intimidate, or whatever other mechanic is relevant in the ruleset being used - successfully distracts the giant from the innocents. The GM is obliged to honour that success - so they're safe. And the GM will adjudicate the giant's subsequent pounding of the paladin in a way that does not result in the paladin's death, but rather keeps the game going. (Perhaps the giant beats the paladin to a pulp but then, finding the paladin's continued display of resolution distasteful, wander off to do something else.)

(2) The paladin valiantly intervenes but fails to save the NPCs eg because his/her Intimidate check against the giant doesn't succeed. In that case the player has not got everything s/he wanted out of the scene, but the paladin has not acted in any way dishonourably. The actual pounding by the giant - if it happens at all, which it may not (the GM might just have the giant wander off carrying the NPCs to munch on later, leaving the 3 hp paladin to lament his/her failure) - can be adjudicated in whatever fail forward style it would be adjudicated in option (1).

(3) The player of the paladin chooses to have his/her PC hang back, leaving the innocents to their fate. Because the player knows that, from the point of view of participating in the game with this PC, there is no special reason to make this choice - after all, options (1) and (2) still enable the player to continue to participate in the game with the same PC - then the player would only make this choice because s/he deliberately wants his/her PC to forsake his/her code. In which case we play that out in the game. Maybe in 3E we rebuild the paladin as blackguard, or in 4e we swap a blackguard at will for a typical paladin at will. Or maybe "playing it out" is, at least initially, a story thing without mechanical implications at the level of PC building.

But anyway, there is a worked example that explains why I think that worries about players of paladins choosing expedience over honour rest on an assumption that adjudication is not taking place in fail forward terms.

You seem focused on narrowing down the situation to one where the paladin can either fight this way or fight that way

I was replying both to you and to N'raac, who had framed things in terms of "underhanded fighting".

I don't see what difference it makes to my response to generalise beyond fighting. The same remarks hold true - for instance, a 4e paladin is likely to be either strong and athletic, charismatic but not tricky (Diplomacy and Intimidate but not Bluff as class skills), or perhaps both. Also s/he has a good chance of being able to see the truth about those s/he meets (WIS plus Insight as a class skill). So if the paladin PC chooses not to fight, s/he is still likely to do better by trying to reason with a wrongdoer (Diplomacy) or simply stare the wrongdoer down (Intimidate) rather than to try the sorts of tricky things that Stealth, Bluff, Thievery etc involve. So my point - that a game can be designed so that a paladin's mechanical effectiveness is optimised not by being sneaky or underhanded, but by being bold and forthright, and that 4e is at least a rough example of such a game - can be generalised across both combat and non-combat domains of resolution.

 

[pemerton]

are you advocating that as the player of the paladin that I should create my own code, decide my own gray areas, etc.? If so why am I not just playing a pious fighter with some type of religious background?

The difference between these two characters, at least to my mind, is firstly a story one: one is blessed by the gods, the other is not - s/he is a mortal who admires the gods but isn't specially chosen by them. In some systems, but not all, it may also find mechanical expression via PC build. In AD&D, for instance, or in Rolemaster, the paladin's mechanical resources include spells. In 4e the paladin has options - particularly for self-sacrificial healing, for ranged attacks and for dealing radiant damage - that aren't open to the fighter. Those mechanical differences express the story difference - for instance, the paladin's prayers are answered in a literal fashion (eg the paladin speaks a "Name of Might" - ie the word of his/her deity - and his/her foes crumble before that power).

 

[pemerton]

is the Paladin less effective at torturing a peasant to gain information? No, so why shouldn't he?

D&D doesn't have mechanics for torture, of peasants at least. (Some editions have mechanics for torturing other planar entities in binding circles.) If it did, then I would expect that paladins wouldn't be very good at them. In those games which do have torture mechanics (eg Burning Wheel), paladin characters are not likely to be good at them. That is a feature, not a bug.

What a typical D&D paladin is good at, if s/he wants to get information from a peasant, is persuading him/her to cooperate, whether by word (Diplomacy, or straight CHA in AD&D) or deed (laying on hands to relieve the peasant's ailment, or even better the ailment of the peasant's sick child/spouse) or command (Intimidate, or again straight CHA in AD&D).

Whereas an assassin who wants that information would use disguises to trick the peasant. And a mage would use ESP, or Charm Person, or - at the more brutal end - just blast the peasant and then summon his/her shade to interrogate it.

If the different class builds don't support these different approaches that are pretty inherent to the archetypes then something has gone wrong.

if his abilities depend on piety and honour, I suggest the latter losing those abilities is perfectly appropriate. Nothing stops the character evolving in play - but certain evolutions have consequences.

<snip>

if you describe your character as honourable and righteous, then stab people in the back and lie, cheat and steal your way through life, then I think I am justified in saying your character is not, in fact, honourable and righteous. And, if a deity in the game grants special powers only to those who demonstrate honour and righteousness, then you have no right to complain when those abilities are taken away.

<snip>

I don't see the GM "telling you how your character should act". I see it as the GM telling you that, under the code imposed by the Paladin's order, his religion, his deity, etc., the act he is contemplating is prohibited, and he would lose his paladinhood for undertaking it.

<snip>

why is it wrong for those consequences to include loss of powers granted by an entity which demanded the Paladin remain chaste?

I understand all this. You are restating your preferred playstyle for paladins, which is an instance of your overall preferred playstyle as stated in the "Surprising the GM" and "Fighters vs Casters" threads. I don't see how any of this is relevant to my claim that I, playing the game as I like too, have found and would find mechanical alignment to be an impediment.

What you are positing here is a situation in which the player can choose to evolve his/her PC at the cost of having the GM strip him/her of basic mechanical elements gained via the PC build rules. I think that is incredibly poor design for a game that wants to encourage players to explore their PCs values, and valuation more generally, as it straight away establishes a coercive dynamic between certain choices and the GM's own view of the answer to those questions of value.

It is good design for the sort of game that [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] described above - in which the players explore the ins and outs of the GMs moral conception for the gameworld - but as I hope I've made clear I am not interested in that particular approach to play either as player or GM.

I can cash the piety example out by reference to the example of the paladin who turned on the heavens, for instance: in his view he wasn't being impious at all. By upholding the values to which the heavens at least paid lip service, and by achieving a solution to the cosmological crisis that made the heavens compliance with their old pacts unnecessary, he was - in his view - being more pious than would have been the case had he blindly followed heaven's will, because he was realising the true intent of the gods and the heavens rather than (what he regarded as) their actual corrupted intent. (For my part, in framing the elements of the campaign that drove this forward I was partly inspired by Wagner's Ring Cycle, in which Wotan is trapped in chains of his own making, and can ultimately be liberated and have his will realised only by Siegfried, the wild man beholden to no one who sets himself against Wotan's will.)

That sort of play - in which the player considers what piety requires and then gives effect to that judgement through play - is not consistent with the GM imposing his/her judgement of the values in play onto the player and his/her character.

And as I've already asked several times, how would my game have been better had I told the player that he was wrong, that his paladin was being impious, and that he therefore loses most of the mechanical effectiveness of his PC (and in practice, therefore, has to retire it and bring in a new PC)? How would that make for a better game?

It remains open to the character to decide that the code, religion, deity or even the very philosophy of good is, in fact, wrong and your actions are correct - that is your choice to make in playing your character. It is not open to you to decide the consequences of that action

I have two issues with this.

First, I don't think it's coherent for a character in a D&D world containing mechanical alignment to judge that a lawful good god, living in the Seven Heavens, is in fact mistaken as to what lawfulness and goodness require. The god has an INT and WIS in the neighbourhood of 25 each (using AD&D ability scaling) or 30+ each (using 4e ability scaling). If you're playing in standard AD&D s/he has been imbued with the ethos of an aligned plane for an eternity or so. In some interpretations of the Great Wheel cosmology, s/he is literally an incarnation of law and good, as are his/her servants like archons, devas etc. So I don't see how it is really open for the character to decide that the good is wrong if the paladin is stripped of power.

Second, I think that when what is at stake is PC build it is generally quite fine for players to determine the consequences of their actions. PC build is a part of my game that the players, not the GM, are in charge of. If the player chooses to have his/her PC fall, and wants to rebuild to reflect that, then that is his/her prerogative, but why would I as GM want to force that on him/her? I don't see how my game would be improved by forbidding players from playing the PCs they want to play.

Now before you retort with "What about the players who want to play paladins who torture peasants for information?" let me repeat that I don't, and never have, played with any such players. Given that so many people seem concerned with such players, and with building the game around the threat of them, I guess they must exist. But whether by dint of good fortune or good management I'm not having to deal with them.

Why is it not OK for the GM to impose his definition of Good and require you abide by it, but it is OK for you to impose hyour definition of Good (the actins my character takes, which do not result in loss of his Paladin abilities) on the rest of the table, GM and players alike?

First, it's OK for the player to play his/her PC because that's the player's role within the overall dynamic of my game.

Second, the player isn't imposing his/her definition of "Good" on anyone. S/he's just playing a character, which s/he takes to be good. If other players (and/or their PCs) disagree, they can voice that disagreement. That happens all the time in my games. In my current 4e game, the paladin of the Raven Queen regards the invoker who serves (among many gods) the Raven Queen as a backslider, and regards the ranger/cleric who serves the Raven Queen as insufficiently pious. They both regard the paladin as a bit simplistic in his zealotry, while the non-Raven Queen worshippers - a paladin (= fighter/cleric) of Moradin and a sorcerer who is part of a Corellon-worshipping secret society of drow - regard the whole Raven Queen cult as something to be tolerated but not indulged. No one is imposing a moral conception on anyone else. Each of the paladins regards the other as morally flawed. The game mechanics don't need to take a view on this, and if they did then the whole setup I've just described would be impossible to get off the ground.

Assumptions are always required.

No. I don't have to make assumptions to know what would be good or bad for my game. I actually know what I want from my game. I know how to run a game that my players enjoy. From many years experience, I also know a suite of GMing techniques that will get players engaged with a political, moral or cosmological situation in the sort of way I like them to, which is the sort of way I've described in this post and my other posts upthread. No doubt there are other techniques that might do the same thing, but I have no reason at all to think that traditional D&D alignment mechanics are among them.

 

[pemerton]

Alternatively, the playstyle (or mechanic) provides that the character will never, in any way, be disadvantaged by any failure - that is, fail forward is interpreted to mean that the character will never actually be disadvantaged by failure and/or the player's goals will always be achieved, either by success or by fail-forward. Whatever we do, we win. Did someone ask about why we bother showing up for some games?

I discussed fail forward upthread in my reply to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] about three posts above this one. I refer you to that for an explanation of how "fail forward" is relevant in the paladin context.

This post actually gives me the impression that you are either incapable of drawing (or unwilling to draw) distinctions between consequences within the story, and consequences within the mechanical sphere of PC building; or alternatively that you don't really understand what "fail forward" is as a GMing technique.

Have a look at option (2) that I set out in my reply to Imaro: the paladin tries to save the innocents, and fails, but the player of the paladin gets to keep playing his/her PC in the game because the GM adjudicates the giant's response to the paladin's presence in a "fail forward" fashion - eg the giant walks off chewing contentedly on the innocent NPCs while all the helpless paladin can do is lament his/her failure to rescue them (that's the story consequence). The player hasn't achieved his/her goal - but knowing that the GM was adjudicating in a "fail forward" fashion, and therefore wouldn't just gratuitously have the giant kill the paladin, the player had no reason to hold back and not have his/her PC make a valiant effort to save the NPCs (that's the lack of adverse consequence in the sphere of PC building).

Once the GM is framing and adjudicating scenes using those sorts of techniques, the choice of whether to fall or not lies with the player, which is where I want it to lie.

 

[Imaro]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] : Let me try approaching this in a different manner since we are now speaking specifically about your play experiences...

You are a proponent of DMs (and only DMs) framing scenes since you worry that the players may frame themselves into easy situations or with easy obstacles to overcome... yet you trust the paladin player to adjudicate his own actions when it comes to his code. Why don't you share the same concerns when it comes to the paladin, since he is in essence (through creating his own code, deciding the gray areas of the code, and having the ability to ignore it if he truly wants) also choosing whether a moral obstacle or scene is weak or strong... I'm finding it hard to see a difference in these two areas and also wondering why you don't trust your players as a whole to create meaningful, strong obstacles and thematic pressures through scene framing but you do trust that whoever is playing the paladin will not do the same through self adjudication and occasional manipulation of his code?

OAN: A paladin in 4e is pretty good at torture, i.e. Intimidate...

 

[Bluenose]

I think this is unavoidable... you assuming the player will act honourably as opposed to optimally or expediently make just as many assumptions...

If your deity expects you to act in a particular way, then the rules should reflect that by making acting that way beneficial. And conversely, not acting that way should have consequences too, if not always as major as falling.

There isn't one "correct" answer here. How this plays out depends on the nature of the particular Paladin and his divine patron.

Different deities should have different views of what is a proper way for their followers to act. I'm inclined to say that in the specific example of a paladin retreating in the face of a giant and leaving a mother/child to die, some gods (FR's Helm, for example) would make a very different judgement than some others (FR's Red Knight, to pick another).