Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
My Paladin killed a child molester (and now my DM wants to take away my powers!)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Herpes Cineplex" data-source="post: 1564736" data-attributes="member: 16936"><p>I think you are--and please don't take this as an insult, because it isn't--instinctively applying modern, real-life standards of criminal justice and morality to a much less ambiguous and much harsher fantasy setting.</p><p></p><p>It's not an insult, because it's says something nice about you when your gut reaction tells you that people should be innocent until proven guilty, that you must prove that guilt even if you actually witnessed the crime as it happened, that rehabilitation and reform is preferable to punishment, and that mercy should be extended to everyone, even (and perhaps especially) to those who most would say do not deserve it. I'm a big fan of all of those things.</p><p></p><p>I just don't assume that a fantasy setting where devils and demons and gods and monsters are all visibly present and active, where people live in pseudo-medieval communities, where dictatorships and monarchies and the like seem to be the rule rather than the exception, and where people can be magically forced to speak the truth <em>even when they're dead</em> is necessarily an appropriate place for those sentiments to be considered normal. In the 21st century, in this country? Absolutely they should be normal, and I wouldn't want it any other way. But in this swords-and-sorcery setting, I'm not going to put any money on most countries (or <em>any</em> of them, for that matter) having such an enlightened, complicated, and comprehensive legal and ethical system in place.</p><p></p><p>I also make a distinction between the secular authorities, who cannot revoke paladinhood, and the actual god who grants paladinhood in the first place. And D&D-style gods seem to be an awfully pragmatic (and often dogmatic and intolerant) bunch; obviously, the paladin's god can know the full truth about the situation in an instant and will know that the paladin has, in modern cop parlance, made a righteous bust. He has caught a child molestor with his pants literally down, and it takes an unreasonable amount of pretzel logic to see that situation any other way. Now all we need to know is whether this paladin's god is the kind of god who thinks that everyone, even a vile rapist, deserves a second chance, or if it's the kind of god that says that certain crimes are so heinous that they permanently stain the soul of the criminal and that it is the sacred duty of all that is Right and Good to send that besmirched soul off to the Abyss where it can suffer the eternal torments meted out to such creatures.</p><p></p><p>I tend to think the latter kind of god is more likely to ordain paladins, but without either of us knowing more about this particular setting, we're both just speculating. If this is a paladin of a god of mercy and redemption, he's totally screwed because you're right, he should have at least made an attempt to do something other than mete out swift, uncompromising justice to the evildoer; but if he's a paladin of a god of righteousness and shielding the innocent, he's just won some serious spirtual brownie points for doing exactly the right thing.</p><p></p><p>So I'm going to stick to my original diagnosis and say that in this case, the GM is simply playing kick-the-paladin. He's inventing new, undocumented restrictions, adding them to the paladin's code without mentioning it to the player, and then setting the PC up to fail. I'm with the player here in crying foul over this.</p><p></p><p>--</p><p>and i'm also firmly in the "good is more important than lawful" paladin camp anyway</p><p></p><p>Edit to add:</p><p></p><p>Well, considering that you're not a paladin, you probably aren't allowed to carry around any weapon (sheathed or not) that could cut my head off, and that I live in a society where the criminal justice system specifically forbids that kind of rogue-vigilante act...wait, do I actually have to make this any more clear, or can I just pretend that you're joking about actually trying to start this argument?</p><p></p><p>Obviously, we don't live in the setting where this event occurred. We never will live in that setting. That setting is under no obligation to mimic our modern-day world in any respect.</p><p></p><p>In fact, let's all take a moment to remember that in this particular scenario, it was the GM's decision to have the paladin stumble across this rape-in-progress. This wasn't random, this wasn't real, this was an event specifically selected by the GM and--I'm fairly sure--meant to be a little "test" for the paladin. The only reason this thread exists is because the GM and the player disagree about whether that test was actually passed or not, and all I'm saying is that the player's case is better supported in most of the settings I've read and/or played in.</p><p></p><p>I don't see anything here that tells me that the paladin performed an overtly evil act or a gross violation of the standard paladin's code. If the standard-issue code has been modified in their game to encompass modern philosophies about criminal justice, I kinda think it's the GM's responsibility to make those modifications clear to the player <em>before</em> setting up a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Herpes Cineplex, post: 1564736, member: 16936"] I think you are--and please don't take this as an insult, because it isn't--instinctively applying modern, real-life standards of criminal justice and morality to a much less ambiguous and much harsher fantasy setting. It's not an insult, because it's says something nice about you when your gut reaction tells you that people should be innocent until proven guilty, that you must prove that guilt even if you actually witnessed the crime as it happened, that rehabilitation and reform is preferable to punishment, and that mercy should be extended to everyone, even (and perhaps especially) to those who most would say do not deserve it. I'm a big fan of all of those things. I just don't assume that a fantasy setting where devils and demons and gods and monsters are all visibly present and active, where people live in pseudo-medieval communities, where dictatorships and monarchies and the like seem to be the rule rather than the exception, and where people can be magically forced to speak the truth [i]even when they're dead[/i] is necessarily an appropriate place for those sentiments to be considered normal. In the 21st century, in this country? Absolutely they should be normal, and I wouldn't want it any other way. But in this swords-and-sorcery setting, I'm not going to put any money on most countries (or [i]any[/i] of them, for that matter) having such an enlightened, complicated, and comprehensive legal and ethical system in place. I also make a distinction between the secular authorities, who cannot revoke paladinhood, and the actual god who grants paladinhood in the first place. And D&D-style gods seem to be an awfully pragmatic (and often dogmatic and intolerant) bunch; obviously, the paladin's god can know the full truth about the situation in an instant and will know that the paladin has, in modern cop parlance, made a righteous bust. He has caught a child molestor with his pants literally down, and it takes an unreasonable amount of pretzel logic to see that situation any other way. Now all we need to know is whether this paladin's god is the kind of god who thinks that everyone, even a vile rapist, deserves a second chance, or if it's the kind of god that says that certain crimes are so heinous that they permanently stain the soul of the criminal and that it is the sacred duty of all that is Right and Good to send that besmirched soul off to the Abyss where it can suffer the eternal torments meted out to such creatures. I tend to think the latter kind of god is more likely to ordain paladins, but without either of us knowing more about this particular setting, we're both just speculating. If this is a paladin of a god of mercy and redemption, he's totally screwed because you're right, he should have at least made an attempt to do something other than mete out swift, uncompromising justice to the evildoer; but if he's a paladin of a god of righteousness and shielding the innocent, he's just won some serious spirtual brownie points for doing exactly the right thing. So I'm going to stick to my original diagnosis and say that in this case, the GM is simply playing kick-the-paladin. He's inventing new, undocumented restrictions, adding them to the paladin's code without mentioning it to the player, and then setting the PC up to fail. I'm with the player here in crying foul over this. -- and i'm also firmly in the "good is more important than lawful" paladin camp anyway Edit to add: Well, considering that you're not a paladin, you probably aren't allowed to carry around any weapon (sheathed or not) that could cut my head off, and that I live in a society where the criminal justice system specifically forbids that kind of rogue-vigilante act...wait, do I actually have to make this any more clear, or can I just pretend that you're joking about actually trying to start this argument? Obviously, we don't live in the setting where this event occurred. We never will live in that setting. That setting is under no obligation to mimic our modern-day world in any respect. In fact, let's all take a moment to remember that in this particular scenario, it was the GM's decision to have the paladin stumble across this rape-in-progress. This wasn't random, this wasn't real, this was an event specifically selected by the GM and--I'm fairly sure--meant to be a little "test" for the paladin. The only reason this thread exists is because the GM and the player disagree about whether that test was actually passed or not, and all I'm saying is that the player's case is better supported in most of the settings I've read and/or played in. I don't see anything here that tells me that the paladin performed an overtly evil act or a gross violation of the standard paladin's code. If the standard-issue code has been modified in their game to encompass modern philosophies about criminal justice, I kinda think it's the GM's responsibility to make those modifications clear to the player [i]before[/i] setting up a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Meta - Forums About Forums
Archive-threads
My Paladin killed a child molester (and now my DM wants to take away my powers!)
Top