Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

That's as ridiculous in the D&D milieu as it is in the real world. Sure, sex is fun. I'll be the first to admit it. Sex outside of carefully controlled scenarios leads to all kinds of complications. Teen pregnancies, or heck, any single mother or unwanted pregnancy scenarios are only the tip of the iceberg. STDs is another tip of the iceberg. Pretending that there aren't any reasons to be careful about sex other than cultural is a bit quixotic.

I didn't pretend that. I don't think I explicitly trivialized anything. If the poor attempt at humor made it sound like I was trivializing it, that was not my intent. I laugh so as to avoid crying. In any event, I made no judgment, moral, practical, or otherwise, on sex in that comment. I said we are wired to think that sex is fun. Which we are. (I could get into an explicit description of how that works, but detailed conversations about the medial preoptic area and dopamine receptors tend to make people's eyes glaze over.) I also said that our culture generally equates fun with sin or "badness." Which it does, if you belong to the same determinedly Judeo-Christian culture I do (your culture may vary, check your parents for washing instructions)

In any case, I am not espousing the opposite idea that fun = good. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. My problem with the cultural mandate on the subject is that it is too broad. Some types of fun ARE bad. Some of them are good, bad, or ugly depending on circumstances. For example, I do believe that giving other people pleasure is good. But when you are also simultaneously giving them an STD, that's not so good (downright evil if you have an inkling that you might be doing it). If you're also giving them a significant contribution towards an embryo, that's either really good or really bad depending on the circumstances.

However, in terms of responding to this post as a response to The Sigil's post, there seems to be very little in the D&D milieu that says sex or even prostitution is evil or chaotic either one. In fact, in the FR at least, there seems to be a fair amount of circumstantial and indirect evidence to the opposite viewpoint.

Absolutely. I specifically said "our culture" not the D&D one. As you said, in D&D terms, neither is evil or chaotic. But if people were really basing their judgment of what made a paladin on the D&D milieu, we wouldn't have a couple hundred posts on the subject. Which is not to say that we couldn't have a difference of opinion on the subject, but that we (hopefully) wouldn't feel so strongly about it as to keep posting. It is very clear to me that decisions in this thread are almost entirely based on the cultural and personal inclinations of the posters, and have very little to do with D&D, really.

 

[Seeten]

Another point, everyone seems to assume the Gods have a personal stake and relationship with each and every paladin. That they micromanage every single one. I dont see it. I am more of the mind that even if one was falling from grace, it'd take more than one incident for the whole affair to get noticed. Once it is noticed, however, and the eye is on you, you could lose your powers fast.

There is a neat story in the Divine and the Defeated, about Corean's Fallen Paladin, and his redemption. It tells a story of his fall(which took multiple selfish and evil acts) and the story of his redemption. I think its a dim and narrow view that gods have nothing better to do than micromanage each and every one of their paladins

 

[Dakkareth]

Magnus blushed at the comment, but Shikuna went on, almost as if talking to himself. "You were right. The paladin does stand on the edge between light and darkness, but every paladin besides Cedric faces into the light. He looks over the edge into the darkness. Every moment of every day, he watches the dark, and he watches the dark watch him, and he walks the edge between the two. He is one of the few - the very few - whom the High Lord blesses with true sight and understanding, and that is as much of a curse as a gift."

I haven't read the discussion in this thread, but I'd like to say, that I'm reminded of Eadric in Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre 'walking the diamond path'.


Edit:

I think its a dim and narrow view that gods have nothing better to do than micromanage each and every one of their paladins.

It may be different from setting to setting, but the general assumption is, that they CAN, if they want. And paladins being important extensions of a deities will, they'll probably do it. Even going only by rules (which some think of as not representative of a deities true power) gods can do many things at once and have more than enough servants to delegate.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm not sure how much I can add to this discussion without crossing over boundary lines, but I'll make an attempt anyway.

I think the paladin described herein suffers from two things that keep him from being a true paladin - misogyny and fatalistic doubt. And by that I mean 1) he had no respect for women and 2) he doesn't believe in his calling.

To my mind, (2) is a debatable subject that will ultimately be between Cedric and his god (or Shilsen and his DM). (1) is pure nonsense. You are conflating patronizing a prostitute with misogyny. At best, you are mistaking correlation for causation. I wouldn't feel bad about it. It seems to be a common problem.

 

[Seeten]

Quote:
I think its a dim and narrow view that gods have nothing better to do than micromanage each and every one of their paladins.

It may be different from setting to setting, but the general assumption is, that they CAN, if they want. And paladins being important extensions of a deities will, they'll probably do it. Even going only by rules (which some think of as not representative of a deities true power) gods can do many things at once and have more than enough servants to delegate.

No Gods in my settings are omniscient. It'd have to be a single god world for omniscience to be supported. Lack of omniscience = Lack of micromanagement. There are certainly not Invisible Angels hovering around every Paladin to insure he isnt "Falling from grace" and if there were, and he was about to die, they'd have to intervene, IMC, or THEY would fall from grace. Basically, I think its a contrivance and is silly. YMMV, but thats how I do it.

Falling from grace is harder, and lengthier. If your alignment hits LN, you've fallen, just like you'd expect, but a single act of "badness" is not enough to do it. A single act evil enough to attract attention might warrant it, but sleeping around on your wife, or going on a good drunk dont qualify. Patterns of behaviour over a period do.

Perhaps mine is different because I play with more roleplayers and less hackers, and thus, we like more substance than, I am Paladin, so my dm demands I take this action for A situation, and that action for B and any deviation loses my paladinhood.

 

[Voadam]

Another point, everyone seems to assume the Gods have a personal stake and relationship with each and every paladin. That they micromanage every single one. I dont see it. I am more of the mind that even if one was falling from grace, it'd take more than one incident for the whole affair to get noticed. Once it is noticed, however, and the eye is on you, you could lose your powers fast.

There is a neat story in the Divine and the Defeated, about Corean's Fallen Paladin, and his redemption. It tells a story of his fall(which took multiple selfish and evil acts) and the story of his redemption. I think its a dim and narrow view that gods have nothing better to do than micromanage each and every one of their paladins

Under RAW a paladin does not need a god. However godless paladins still lose their paladin powers immediately if they commit an evil act.

A good way to think about it is that paladin powers require a certain kind of spiritual purity that can be disrupted by the paladin doing an evil act.

No micromanagement required whether they have patron gods they serve or not.

 

[shilsen]

I haven't read the discussion in this thread, but I'd like to say, that I'm reminded of Eadric in Sepulchrave's Tales of Wyre 'walking the diamond path'.

You just compared something I wrote with Sepulchrave's Story Hour? Okay, that does it - I'm going off to throw myself on my holy avenger, since from this moment, the wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees is left this vault to brag of. Oh yes, thanks!

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

Would I allow this paladin?

Do you want it in one word or two.

No and/or Hell No!

He's not a paladin in my campaign, not even a cleric or favored soul.

 

[Torm]

Do you want it in one word or two.

No and/or Hell No!

He's not a paladin in my campaign, not even a cleric or favored soul.

But...

Tell us what you REALLY think!

 

[Darth K'Trava]

You'd think that they'd know by NOW whether or not this guy is still a paladin in this game...... :\