D&D 5E So what's the problem with restrictions, especially when it comes to the Paladin?

[Obryn]

While it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission it's easier for a DM to ignore a rule than make it up themselves, and easier to lift a restriction than impose it on the players.

This is really why I prefer a carrot approach over a stick. I agree that a character with a strong moral code has great dramatic potential.

I've found fate points and aspects (like FATE Core) to be pretty easily portable to most other systems, in one form or another. If the DM is pushing a hard moral choice, the player has to pay to resist it, but gets rewarded for playing according to their character. It pulls the PC's dilemma into the player's reward systems. My 4e Dark Sun game was helped immeasurably by adding them in.

-O

 

[Madmage]

By a story consequence, I mean something like "All your friends now shun you, and your steed shies away when you try to approach it." The player can choose to have his/her PC live with those consequences, or not - and maybe if s/he doesn't want to some sort of quest is in order. But I want it to be for the player to make the choice.

Yet the player would have made the choice whether to act in accordance with the Paladin code in the first place. If the character chooses not to desire atonement, then more power to them. They made their peace with it and won't regain their powers. I fail to see the design issue vs the removal of player's choice. If you want to argue that the 2 options aren't equal... well they aren't by a mechanical perspective but if the player is in the position in the first place means they either made a choice based on acting against their moral code > benefits or their moral code = silly. So... what's the problem?

That it shifts the planar balance can't be the explanation for it being Evil, can it? - because it is only because it is Evil that it would shift the planar balance. Some other account of the evil of torture therefore seems to be needed.

So... you want an explanation of why torture is evil?

I don't want to break the board rules, so I'll be a bit circumspect in what follows: but basically, I'm having a really hard time making sense of this example.

If the LG paladin of freedom, in your example, thinks tha the feudal society is horrible (presumably because of the suffering and indignity it reflects), then s/he must think that the paladin who upholds it is not acting properly - is even acting evilly! But, unless that paladin falls from grace, the LG paladin of freedom has sufficient evidence that the feudal paladin is not acting evilly, and hence that in fact the feudal system does not improperly inflict any suffering or indignity. Hence the LG paladin of freedom must infer that her own commitments are flawed, and redress them.

So I don't see how the conflict between the two can last more than a round or two. One or the other will quickly learn what "good" really permits and requires.

(This is another example of why I don't like alignment rules: the debate you set up is quite an interesting one, but the alignment rules leave no room for it.)

Why can't both be right? Doesn't mean the argument will necessarily devolve into a fight but it can be a conflict of discourse or political maneuvering to prove the supremacy of one's beliefs. Taking the above example, the feudal contract might not be evil, but it could be seen as not Good (i.e. neutral) by the paladin promoting institutions based on the people electing their own legitimate authority rather than basing it on landed gentry. While the beliefs of the other paladin would point out that the feudal contract places a priority on the lord to protect the vassal that the democratic system lacks. Both are supporting cases of legitimate authority for the better health of a community.

I don't disagree that moral dilemmas make TTRPGs fun.
But moral dilemmas and purity are at the heart of playing a paladin. A Code of Conduct / vows / oaths separate the paladin from the fighter cleric. It's the defining fluff.

This is like honour being at the heart of playing a knight or samurai. You can play an honourable fighter or wizard but that's a character choice, independent of the class. If you're playing an honourless samurai you're playing against type, against the conventions of the class/ trope.

I'd just add that in the case of the knight or Samurai, usually the consequence is a social one rather than a divine or source of power. Of course, certain games dealing with these types of classes (L5R comes to mind) had mechanics based on status and honour. Characters would be hindered by acting outside of bushido. And in much the same way, the samurai had to redress himself through either ritual suicide (atoning) or becoming a ronin (not atoning).

 

[Sunseeker]

I on the other hand love the challenge of playing moral quandaries. I am not saying all the time but there are times when it adds a nice dimension to the role playing. It is why paladins are one of my favorite classes to play.

But there is no reason there needs to be a "moral quandary class". You don't really gain anything as a paladin for acting in a righteous way, you just don't lose anything. There's a stick but no carrot. Moral quandaries can be addressed by any character, of any alignment, they just simply need to be set up in a manner to make players think about their actions. Setting up a lose-lose situation for Paladins because you want to be a dick and force the paladin to fail is where most "moral quandries" go and why they're so obnoxious.

I am not sure why some people take everything to such absolutes or see everything as so cut and dried.

Clearly not only the player felt lying was unacceptable, but the DM did as well. This is exactly the sort of gotcha game I have no desire to repeat.

I don't want to break the board rules, so I'll be a bit circumspect in what follows: but basically, I'm having a really hard time making sense of this example.

If the LG paladin of freedom, in your example, thinks tha the feudal society is horrible (presumably because of the suffering and indignity it reflects), then s/he must think that the paladin who upholds it is not acting properly - is even acting evilly! But, unless that paladin falls from grace, the LG paladin of freedom has sufficient evidence that the feudal paladin is not acting evilly, and hence that in fact the feudal system does not improperly inflict any suffering or indignity. Hence the LG paladin of freedom must infer that her own commitments are flawed, and redress them.

So I don't see how the conflict between the two can last more than a round or two. One or the other will quickly learn what "good" really permits and requires.

(This is another example of why I don't like alignment rules: the debate you set up is quite an interesting one, but the alignment rules leave no room for it.)

Exactly, under the alignment restriction system there really isn't any room for moral quandaries. Players will do whatever lets them keep their cool powers, retreating to "lawful stupid" up until the point that the DM presents them with an impossible situation where everyone in the party walks away unscathed, even if they're lawful good, but the Paladin loses all his class features until they find a high level cleric to atone with. I HATE the idea that everything can be fixed by a high-level cleric. Hell even a high-level cleric who is LG, following a LG deity, heck, the SAME deity as the paladin gets out of the same moral issue completely unscathed.

That's fine. Maybe a paladin isn't the class for you.
Some people don't like support classes or classes that are less active in direct combat. They likely shouldn't play bards. Others don't like managing spells or choosing when to use a daily power. They shouldn't play wizards.

DON'T. YOU. DARE. Throw that kind of crap at me. I've played a paladin in nearly every game I've played, I'm a political scientist. Problems routinely come from the DM playing "gotcha" with the Paladin, and seeking not to challenge the Paladin's morals, but the PLAYERS. Classes should not allow DMs to assault your personal morality by presenting impossible situations that do nothing by slap people across the face for trying. LG alignment restrictions slide towards a conception of universal "lawful goodness", thus making players with a different idea of what "LG" means have to challenge the DM, who is using his personal moral code to determine alignment.

I don't play D&D to argue morality with my friends.

You know what happens when players get tired of this? They roll a Favored Soul or a Cleric and tell the DM to shove it. There are a dozen different "holy" classes whose powers reasonably should be tied to how well they hold to the commands of their god/religion, but only ONE class loses everything for it.

 

[Gorgoroth]

No.

I don't mind a player of a paladin acting wrongly (by their own lights). But I want them to take it seriuosly, and I (as GM) would set up situations in which they have to take it seriously.

But that's perhaps an indicator of the more general sort of game I run.

If I had a player who wasn't interested in the game I was running, I woudn't faff around with codes and alignment to try and make them play seriously. I'd just boot them out!

Or to put it a slightly different way - I don't want a player playing his/her PC any less seriously just because s/he's not playing a paladin!

By a story consequence, I mean something like "All your friends now shun you, and your steed shies away when you try to approach it." The player can choose to have his/her PC live with those consequences, or not - and maybe if s/he doesn't want to some sort of quest is in order. But I want it to be for the player to make the choice.

That it shifts the planar balance can't be the explanation for it being Evil, can it? - because it is only because it is Evil that it would shift the planar balance. Some other account of the evil of torture therefore seems to be needed.

Likewise for Celestia, the Abyss etc. The reason we can tell that they are paragons of good, evil and the like is only because we already have a conception of good and evil.

(This is the cause of my dislike of mechanical alignment. I don't particularly care to have to apply moral labels to my friends' PCs' behaviour as part of my GMing duties. I might have my own opinions, but I'd rather keep them to myself.)

My players, at least, don't play to listen to my morality lectures!

I also think the idea of mollycoddlng is misplaced. Many years ago now, a paladin PC in the game I was GMing killed his first person at 5th level (if that seems high, the system we were using involved crit rolls - so up until then this PC had never actually got a killing crit against another human - but this time he rolled really high and lopped off his enemy's head). Feeling remorseful, he went out into the wilderness to pray.

I rolled on my random encounter chart to see what turned up, and low and behold it was a (low level) demon. The demon comes up to the praying paladin, and starts taunting him - "You've betrayed your values, you've failed in your vows", that sort of thing. Now, I was expecting the player to reason in the following way: this is a demon; and nothing a demon says can be true; therefore I'm not a failure or a traitor; therefore I can kill it and go back to the rest of the group. But instead the player interpreted the demon as having been sent by the PC's god as a punishment. And so as the demon started wailing on the paladin, the PC took no actions in defence. He simply endured his penance.

Eventually, after beating the paladin into uncosnciousness the demon got bored, and realised there was no one here it could corrupt. So it went off. And the rest of the group went out looking for the paladin, found him and revived him.

That's just an example of the sort of paladin play that I think is hard, if not impossible, to achieve if the play of the class is anchored to the GM's interpretation of alignment and code issues. And I don't think that that particular player was being "mollycoddled".

I see what you're saying, but there are indeed plenty of "paladins" being played by immature or just simply greedy players out there, trust me, and the DM needs a way to not have to give them IRL morality lessons. They control the gods, and should be able to turn off the faucet of divine magic to their followers (as well as perform miracles unbidden, OTOH) who displease them. It's very much a 4e mentality that "Oh nooooes, you're not the boss of me. I want my shiny holy avenger while still hoarding the magic items and never once risking my own neck to save others like I'm supposed to". I'm talking of the "Cavalier" build, I mean, the default paladin.

4e takes away way too much power from the DM, IMO, and reduces the gods into being merely divine magic reservoirs, to be drained by any and all followers like pigs at a trough. Removing any penalties for bad game choices only reduces the out of combat portion of the game to be "fluff". I don't want that. I want there to be real worries about PCs losing their powers and spells if they chose to access magic from a divine power source. As I said, on the other hand, if they perform exceedingly well, the DM can reward them with boons that go above and beyond their normal class progression. If a paladin descends into hell and gives up all his worldly possessions, even sacrifices himself to save the weak, why shouldn't he return as the White Knight with a Deus Ex Machina at DM discretion? If you take away penalties that the gods can give, you also take away boons. Because if you only allow boons from deities, that's a munchkin game, meaning your PCs can indeed do whatever they want and get away with it. Bah. As I said before, you haven't encountered munchkin paladins, so consider yourself lucky.

I want D&D gods to have real power, not have the rules shackle DMs with "no, you can't take away their toys because they'll cry" limitations. Earlier editions with morality clauses baked into only one class only made it so PCs who didn't think they could actually play that way would lose it, given they play at a table where DMs aren't just there to hand out goodies and never say no to their players. It sets a tone that says : magic is real, the gods are real, and in the control of the DM, and if your magic source is divine, then the DM should have the right to place restrictions on its use. The gods are not blocks of stupid mana goo up in the sky, they are sentient and have their own morality, foibles, goals, and agendas. Why shouldn't they pick and chose who they will favor based on their actions?

I'm an atheist too, which is precisely why I want my D&D deities to have real power and not just be "absentee landlords" who just cash your rent check, turn the heating on in winter, and fix the plumbing while you're at work. I want them to have an active role. Don't you?

Saying they can't have the power to alter something on their followers' character sheets, for good or ill, is really hampering your toolkit as a DM. PCs who don't like that should just play those who aren't explicitly worshippers of those gods. It's a give and take, not a take and take. The PCs have to live up to their end of the bargain, especially Paladins but Clerics too. You trade off the ability to do whatever occurs to your on a whim, change your alignment, steal, whatever, to gain powers that most envy or want but are not worthy to get.

This is a good way to do the Apprentice levels for those classes, you gotta "earn" your divine favor and boons, earn the god's approval. Sort of like a pre-atonement to join the fan club. It should have RP criteria baked into the class. Again, if the PCs aren't willing to do what's required of that order to join their ranks, they can just play a fighter or something else. Only the few should make it. Not everyone IRL can become a cop or a fireman, you need not only certain stats but also a certain character. If humans are selective about hiring people, why shouldn't D&D gods be?

 

[Gorgoroth]

This is really why I prefer a carrot approach over a stick. I agree that a character with a strong moral code has great dramatic potential.

I've found fate points and aspects (like FATE Core) to be pretty easily portable to most other systems, in one form or another. If the DM is pushing a hard moral choice, the player has to pay to resist it, but gets rewarded for playing according to their character. It pulls the PC's dilemma into the player's reward systems. My 4e Dark Sun game was helped immeasurably by adding them in.

-O

The DM should speak the will of the gods through the game, softly, but still carry a big stick in his back pocket just in case. The PCs should fear gods, especially the displeasure of their own.

i.e. you need both carrot and stick in the core rules to really exert some control. If a PC doesn't like the DM having any say about their character, they need to play a mundane class or an arcane caster instead. The gods are played by the DM, there has to be some DM fiat as to how and when the gods can affect the world, which let's face it, is usually primarily though granting powers to their followers. If they can't take it away under any circumstances, that screams munchkin rules to me and puts the DM in handcuffs.

 

[Obryn]

The DM should speak the will of the gods through the game, softly, but still carry a big stick in his back pocket just in case. The PCs should fear gods, especially the displeasure of their own.

i.e. you need both carrot and stick in the core rules to really exert some control. If a PC doesn't like the DM having any say about their character, they need to play a mundane class or an arcane caster instead. The gods are played by the DM, there has to be some DM fiat as to how and when the gods can affect the world, which let's face it, is usually primarily though granting powers to their followers. If they can't take it away under any circumstances, that screams munchkin rules to me and puts the DM in handcuffs.

Why should it scream "munchkin" if gods don't strip clerics of their power? You're acknowledging that arcane and martial classes don't have similar limits.

-O

 

[gyor]

I'd like to point out that a Druid, Favoured Soul, Cleric, and anyother divine classes or partial divine classes like Dread Necromancer could have thier powers pulled just as easily as a Paladin. Just replace broking oath with defying your deity and bam, bye bye powers. The Paladin just got more attention for it.

Also in FR if an arcane caster pissed Mystra off enough she could deny him access to the weave and Shar could do the same with the Shadow Weave.

I'm okay with this as long as its not over played. It needs to come with clear guidelines so it doesn't become a disaster or mistreatment of the Paladin player.

I do agree Lawful Good can mean different things to different people, but a good rule of thumb is to look to a Paladin's God as they are the ultimate interrupter of code violations. So if a Paladin of Torm puts saving innocents over some archiac and forgotten law that would not be a violation of the code because Torm values duty above all. Tyr on the other hand is law first greater good second and so might be less forgiving.

Also under 5e rules you can be a Lawful Good cavalier devoted to Chaotic Good God. So they maybe have a very different code to fallow and thier interuptation of violations maybe either more unpredictable or vastly more forgiving or even in some cases counter to the Cavalier's lawful nature.

 

[gyor]

Most of this debate has been focused on the cavalier, but lets flip it around, what about the Blackguard and Warden and thier codes.

I think for the Warden a focus on nature should trump one on alignment. If doing a Chaotic act serves nature better or even thier Gods will, then that should not be punished. I The Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral alignment for the Warden I think speaks more to the Knightly discipline then thier Code.

The Blackguard comes off as do what is nessassary to achieve your goals types. Like slaugher a diseased village to stop the plague from destroying a nation. Stop it before it spread. Use torture to extract the location of the demon layer. Use magical compulsion to make the Princess repay the damages she did to your brothel when she went on a drunken ramapage. The End justify the means.

The does mean they have to be evil, although the Zealots will be.

That extra flexiblity comes with a price, a piece of your soul to darkness and vice.

Some maybe evil, but not all

 

[Jester David]

DON'T. YOU. DARE. Throw that kind of crap at me. I've played a paladin in nearly every game I've played, I'm a political scientist. Problems routinely come from the DM playing "gotcha" with the Paladin, and seeking not to challenge the Paladin's morals, but the PLAYERS. Classes should not allow DMs to assault your personal morality by presenting impossible situations that do nothing by slap people across the face for trying. LG alignment restrictions slide towards a conception of universal "lawful goodness", thus making players with a different idea of what "LG" means have to challenge the DM, who is using his personal moral code to determine alignment.

I don't play D&D to argue morality with my friends.

You know what happens when players get tired of this? They roll a Favored Soul or a Cleric and tell the DM to shove it. There are a dozen different "holy" classes whose powers reasonably should be tied to how well they hold to the commands of their god/religion, but only ONE class loses everything for it.

Sorry.
I have offended and upset you and for that I sincerely apologize. That was not my intent.
Far too often I see posters saying things that amount to "I dislike <class X> because of <Y> so they should remove that." It has become a sore spot because not every class can or should appeal to everyone. I was hasty and jumped to the wrong conclusion in my post and for that I am sorry.

I agree with you. Earlier I said:

The problem with a paladin losing their powers is four-fold.
1) It makes the character useless. In 3e they basically became a warrior, an NPC class.
2) There are no clear rules for what counts as a violation.
3) It's a one-strike you're out policy
4) It's hard to reverse in low level or low magic campaigns.

These can be easily handled by reducing the number of lost powers and adding some wiggle room for failure. Such as you lose X on a first offense but regain your powers after fasting for two-days and praying. (Or so something.) But second offense is harder to atone for and a third costs you everything.
Likewise, the focus should be less on something vague like "evil acts" and have oaths and codes of conduct. Each paladin swears to do certain things and avoid certain things. Make it clear and less up to DM fiat (while also adding a Worldbuilding element for the DM to play with).

And, of course, the DM can just say "naw, ignore that".

I'm strongly in favour of far more clear cut definitions of what is considered a violation. This simultaneously makes playing a paladin narrower and broader. So you could have an Oath to "protect the innocent" with a code about aiding the helpless, not refusing a request for assistance, defending the weak, and the like. Or you could have an Oath for "eradicating the wicked" that might be more focused on not letting an evil creature live, not working with evil creatures, and the like.

 

[Starfox]

I want D&D gods to have real power, not have the rules shackle DMs with "no, you can't take away their toys because they'll cry" limitations. Earlier editions with morality clauses baked into only one class only made it so PCs who didn't think they could actually play that way would lose it, given they play at a table where DMs aren't just there to hand out goodies and never say no to their players. It sets a tone that says : magic is real, the gods are real, and in the control of the DM, and if your magic source is divine, then the DM should have the right to place restrictions on its use. The gods are not blocks of stupid mana goo up in the sky, they are sentient and have their own morality, foibles, goals, and agendas. Why shouldn't they pick and chose who they will favor based on their actions?

And this is exactly the reason why players avoid divine classes - because it forces them to live up to some other human's ideas of what their patron's morality is. For me, this seems to be a recipe for conflict. Thus my reading that a cleric that is dissatisfied with his patron can rather easily find another patron. A human trained to channel the powers of divinity is a valuable agent, one that the gods need to manifest their power on earth. If that means the god has to be a bit mercenary and upstage each other, so be it. Isn't that what the devil is constantly doing, trying to tempt the righteous?