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Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)
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<blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1956660" data-attributes="member: 7240"><p>While I'm on your side Sigil, I have real difficulty with the idea that brothels are such exemplary cases of terrible oppression. In a previous post, I suggested that women working in brothels in many pre-modern societies were more likely to be a self-selecting group than women working in many other fields. </p><p></p><p>In the pre-modern world, a lot of women were having sex they did not want to have. Many were in arranged marriages that entailed them having carnal relations with a man they did not choose. Many also chose to escape virtual slavery as serfs or peasants on rural estates by becoming prostitutes in towns. Now, I agree that the majority of women who lived in unhappy arranged marriages or were virtually owned as low-grade farm machinery felt that these lives of suffering and drudgery were better than those of prostitutes but a minority felt that prostitution was the lesser evil and selected that profession. </p><p></p><p>Even in the modern world, while we would like to believe that all people who trade sex for money are doing it to support their crack habit or whatever, many modern sex trade workers also state that this is a job they are choosing to escape far less bleak forms of drudgery and oppression than prostitutes were escaping in the past. While these individuals are perhaps a minority of the prostitutes working today, they are a sizeable one.</p><p></p><p>If this paladin is living in the quasi-medieval fantasy world one expects, perhaps he should consider abstaining from grains given the oppressive yoke under which so many serfs toil. Perhaps he shouldn't associate with aristocrats whose wives find them repugnant. Perhaps he shouldn't fight alongside men who have been awarded war captive brides. I just don't see the special case for boycotting prostitutes compared to other activities that involve some kind of systemic power imbalance. </p><p></p><p>While I generally agree with your arguments, I think you are making a mistake in arguing that prostitution is something lawful good characters shouldn't engage in. I agree that prostitution does not fit with paladinhood but that incompatibility does not stem from the alignment requirement.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We're not being asked to judge this question simply on the basis of the letter of the rules. As GMs I thought it was pretty clear that the question was whether we invoke rule zero over it. Just as I would not allow someone to be a monk under any conditions in my European-style campaign, I would not allow a carnal paladin because, in my view, the paladin class is designed to represent the ideal of the grail knight. For the same reason, if I were running an Asian-flavoured campaign, I wouldn't allow paladins at all. I know that for some people, classes are simply mechanics that exist outside for any cultural context but that doesn't work for me and the games I run.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="fusangite, post: 1956660, member: 7240"] While I'm on your side Sigil, I have real difficulty with the idea that brothels are such exemplary cases of terrible oppression. In a previous post, I suggested that women working in brothels in many pre-modern societies were more likely to be a self-selecting group than women working in many other fields. In the pre-modern world, a lot of women were having sex they did not want to have. Many were in arranged marriages that entailed them having carnal relations with a man they did not choose. Many also chose to escape virtual slavery as serfs or peasants on rural estates by becoming prostitutes in towns. Now, I agree that the majority of women who lived in unhappy arranged marriages or were virtually owned as low-grade farm machinery felt that these lives of suffering and drudgery were better than those of prostitutes but a minority felt that prostitution was the lesser evil and selected that profession. Even in the modern world, while we would like to believe that all people who trade sex for money are doing it to support their crack habit or whatever, many modern sex trade workers also state that this is a job they are choosing to escape far less bleak forms of drudgery and oppression than prostitutes were escaping in the past. While these individuals are perhaps a minority of the prostitutes working today, they are a sizeable one. If this paladin is living in the quasi-medieval fantasy world one expects, perhaps he should consider abstaining from grains given the oppressive yoke under which so many serfs toil. Perhaps he shouldn't associate with aristocrats whose wives find them repugnant. Perhaps he shouldn't fight alongside men who have been awarded war captive brides. I just don't see the special case for boycotting prostitutes compared to other activities that involve some kind of systemic power imbalance. While I generally agree with your arguments, I think you are making a mistake in arguing that prostitution is something lawful good characters shouldn't engage in. I agree that prostitution does not fit with paladinhood but that incompatibility does not stem from the alignment requirement. We're not being asked to judge this question simply on the basis of the letter of the rules. As GMs I thought it was pretty clear that the question was whether we invoke rule zero over it. Just as I would not allow someone to be a monk under any conditions in my European-style campaign, I would not allow a carnal paladin because, in my view, the paladin class is designed to represent the ideal of the grail knight. For the same reason, if I were running an Asian-flavoured campaign, I wouldn't allow paladins at all. I know that for some people, classes are simply mechanics that exist outside for any cultural context but that doesn't work for me and the games I run. [/QUOTE]
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