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

[Aurondarklord]

Hmmm...."in on the joke" is not quite what I meant...I don't think planescape is inherently as cynical a setting as you make it out. It certainly CAN BE, I mean, it's a product of the 90s, THE age of the dark and gritty anti-hero. If you want to run planescape as a John Constantine-esque world where the great powers of good and evil are having a laugh at the expense of mortals, or playing some game with each other and using us as the pieces, you can do that, and the world can support it well. And in fact, in such a world, a player can choose to have their paladin in on the joke...or to have their paladin on a quest to smack some sense into the corrupt and decadent Heavens and make them get back into the fight!

But planescape doesn't inherently HAVE TO be a world like that. It works equally well as a setting where both good and evil have recognized that if they go to all out war, neither can win, they'll destroy the cosmos in the process of fighting over it and nobody wants that, so under the threat of mutually assured destruction, they've hammered out various agreements and exist in a state of cold war. The powers of good are still just as good as they've ever been, but in their humility and devotion to protecting mortals, they deem the cost of defeating the powers of evil too great, and have taken these lesser measures instead. And while the paladin may have to come off his high horse and occasionally deal with someone who makes his skin crawl, he can still pursue righteous ends and not look at all foolish or naive, so long as he does it in an intelligent way.

I will definitely agree that you can have a world so dark, so cynical, and so soul-crushing that a paladin just doesn't work as a concept, at least unless you're intentionally playing him as a deluded fool. But I also don't think that the world need be so anvil-droppingly moralistic that a good person is impervious to harm simply because they're good for the paladin to work. I think there can be a middle ground. I think the paladin can work as an archetype in any world where good CAN win, not necessarily where it WILL win, or at least is impossible to harm by the romantic definition of harm. I also, tying the conversation back to Sir Cedric, don't believe you have to play the archetype to play the class. Cedric is definitely not the archetype, and that's not what Shilsen is asking, but rather whether the different archetype that Cedric embodies is also allowed under the specifically laid out rules of the class.

As for the broader question of the role of the DM...I think it depends on the group. Sometimes you can give the players more freedom than others. Some groups of players will take that freedom and run with it and create something great...other groups will end up with total chaos at the table and the players all mad at each other. Sometimes the DM needs to act as the referee to make sure the world retains some degree of narrative integrity despite philosophical or personality differences among the players, and sometimes that forces the DM to wade into questions of how morality works in the setting. Especially as you get to higher levels and the Gods and their agents are more likely to appear in person, because the DM will be the one running them. I'm not saying the DM should be a tyrant who acts totally without player input and forces all their characters to think how he thinks, of course not, but sometimes he has to step in and make judgement calls.

 

[pemerton]

Hello pem! Sorry for the delay, traffic in the virtual aether.

Thanks for the reply. I'm really sorry I can't XP it.

What's a DM to do? Either ban the class or cut them some slack.

Or - like you suggest - drop the assumption that it is the GM's job to define and police ingame morality.

What I found the most amusing about this thread was the number of posters who admitted Cedric was an interesting character, but wouldn't allow him, presumably because maintaining a strict interpretation of the paladin class in theory was more important that having an interesting PC active in their campaigns.

Interesting fictional characters (and their exploits) are why I play/run RPGs.

<snip>

There's an unfortunate tendency in the paladin discourse towards making the class less interesting in play, both thematically and ludically (is that even a word?).

For example, by forcing the paladin to, in a strict, literal sense, respect "all legitimate authority", you neatly remove the ability to tell a reformer's story. The paladin cannot oppose their unjust king, or their decadent church. To me, this is pointless, it robs the class of the kind of drama it's ideally suited for

<snip>

fun part is playing that out at the table, not predetermining it during the elevator-pitch phase of chargen.

<sip>

Giving players a script to follow, either in terms of their permitted interpretation of their PCs religion, or of their combat tactics (as Unearthed Arcana does explicitly for the cavalier and paladin) seem like the antithesis of good DM'ing. When I run a game, I'm interested in what the PCs do, not in what I'd do in their place.

And micromanaging PCs is not something I'd do for anyone, regardless of class. It does not lead to better gaming.

I kinda reject the notion that a DM needs to specifically define their setting's moral universe in order to make paladins playable. From a dramatic standpoint, that's the least interesting approach. If I were to run a game with Cedric, I'd leave the question, "is he a reformer or heretic (or both)?" to be resolved during the course of the campaign. Again, that's where the entertainment lies. Just getting players to color within my lines, so to speak, seems dreadfully boring.

All this I agree with. I don't know if you read through any of the (long) recent posts on the thread, but in this one I described a paladin in my last camaign who rebelled against the heavens because they were engaged in cosmological double dealing which resulted in abandoning the innocent and the virtuous to an undeserved fate.

I wholeheartedly agree that the GM predetermining the moral parameters, then having the player colour between the lines, is pointless and boring.

I know the OP, shilsen, so that obviously colors my opinion, but it also means I can dismiss the idea he's a disruptive player, or that Cedric represents a power-gamer's attempt to 'get something for free' from the paladin class (every gamer should be so lucky as to have a shilsen in their campaign).

Cedric's a thought experiment - is Cedric legal under the 3e RAW? Amusingly enough, despite my ongoing participation in this thread, that's the question I'm least interested in. It's the wrong question to ask. Unless adhering to rules-orthodoxy is the principle goal while gaming.

This is interesting because it gives me a slightly different perspective on the issue (I haven't read the whole thread - ony the first page or two when it was originally posted, and the last few pages since it was necro-ed).

I've seen posts coming from the direction you describe, but your gloss on that direction has made it much clearer to me: the idea is that if a player is free to shape his/her PC's own moral universe, than s/he is getting something for free. As if part of the "discipline" of playing an RPG is, as a player, subordinating your own moral and aesthetic judgements to those of the GM. In my view a very strange perspective to come from, but I think you're right that it's there.

I find the whole idea of "unearned pleasure" in RPGing bizarre in and of itself, but this is a particularly bizarre instance of that general outlook. Particularly when you look at the intellectual and artistic effort in conjuring up interesting PCs, which is clearly greater than just turning up and playing an Aragorn clone, or otherwise colouring between the GM's lines.

the idea that paladin's should follow the rigid strictures of tournament combat while on the battlefield seems equally counter-productive.

<snip>

Some gamers go so far as to equate smart tactics with dishonor. This doesn't make sense in a game derived from wargames, where smart tactics are a central component of play (it's also not very historical, so far as I can tell).

This is the only bit where I have a slightly different perspective from yours. Because the game is a fiction and not a history, if a player wants to project tournament chivalry onto the battlefield that is in my view his/her prerogative. Depending on the game's combat resolution system this may or may not be a mechanically effective strategy (4e is reasonably forgiving in respect of it, GURPs I would suspect not so much), but in at least some systems mechanical effectiveness is not always crucial for a player achieving his/her objectives in the game (eg maybe there are Fate Points earned for playing to character even at mechanical cost or the cost of losing a scene - Burning Wheel is an example).

Anyway, thanks for a reply which was as thoughtful as I'd hoped for!

 

[pemerton]

Hmmm...."in on the joke" is not quite what I meant...I don't think planescape is inherently as cynical a setting as you make it out. It certainly CAN BE, I mean, it's a product of the 90s, THE age of the dark and gritty anti-hero. If you want to run planescape as a John Constantine-esque world where the great powers of good and evil are having a laugh at the expense of mortals, or playing some game with each other and using us as the pieces, you can do that, and the world can support it well. And in fact, in such a world, a player can choose to have their paladin in on the joke...or to have their paladin on a quest to smack some sense into the corrupt and decadent Heavens and make them get back into the fight!

When I talked about being in on the joke, I was thinking slightly differently - the forces of evil think everyone is all friendly and on a par (drinking together in Sigil, gambling together over the fate of Job, etc), but the forces of good (and the paladin) know what the real story is, and that evil is on the losing side (and in fact has already lost - they just haven't noticed it yet). So I was envisaging the joke being one that good plays on evil by treating them as if they're tolerable.

I'm not saying the DM should be a tyrant who acts totally without player input and forces all their characters to think how he thinks, of course not, but sometimes he has to step in and make judgement calls.

As you say, I think this depends a lot on group composition and experiences, preferred styles, etc.

When there are issues in my game about philosophical disagreements, I do step in as the GM to help conciliate, but at the metagame level - ie talking to people out of character and perhaps out of game - rather than via ingame devices like the voices of the gods.

 

[Aurondarklord]

But then what do you do if, for whatever reason, Heironeous has to appear in person in a given situation, and you have two different players at the table whose characters both worship him, but put forwards radically different notions of his dogma and expectations. Merely by the fact that he appears and you're running him, you have to, at least to some degree, settle the question of what he stands for and why. And while I know this whole question can be avoided simply by playing a setting where the Gods are aloof and don't personally involve themselves, that's not everyone's preference, especially at epic levels or in games that involve a lot of traveling the planes.

I also, once again, disagree that the inevitability of good's victory is necessary for a planescape paladin or any paladin. It's certainly one way to do it, and a central concept of one particular archetype of paladin, but I don't see it as necessary FOR ALL CONCEIVABLE types of paladin.

 

[pemerton]

But then what do you do if, for whatever reason, Heironeous has to appear in person in a given situation, and you have two different players at the table whose characters both worship him, but put forwards radically different notions of his dogma and expectations. Merely by the fact that he appears and you're running him, you have to, at least to some degree, settle the question of what he stands for and why.

Then you (as GM) have to play Heironeous. But it has to be open to the player (or players, if Heironeous differs from the view of both their PCs) to have their PC declare that Heironeous has become corrupted, and has turned his back on the virtues that he once espoused.

 

[Aurondarklord]

But then how do you explain that they continue to get class abilities and spells, ostensibly FROM Heironeous? It just seems to me like the format of D&D has to be bent quite a lot if one wishes to insert the assumption of "the players can never be provably wrong about how the universe works".

Also, with regards to the question of the world vindicating the paladin's faith, and the paladin being required to be hopeful and believe in inevitable triumph, I present a passage from the book of exalted deeds, describing a heroic archetype they refer to as the "fated champion":

"Martyrdom is the inevitable doom of the fated champion. She knows that her passion for righteous deeds will lead to her death, and so all she does is tinged with a melancholy fatalism. At times, she might speak glowingly about the great reward that certainly awaits her and her companions in the celestial realms, but at other times she focuses on the inevitability of her doom. Her heroism is undiminished by her certainty that it will cause her death, however, and she is capable of truly astonishing acts of valor performed with no regard for her own safety."

Aside from the use of a female pronoun, that sounds like a biographical description of Cedric's worldview.

The book of exalted deeds also provides a sample multiclass rogue/paladin who still uses rogue-like weapons, carries thieves tools, and can sneak attack, with no mention of these things endangering his paladinhood

 

[S'mon]

I guess I don't really have a good handle on what a valid 3e Paladin is; IME people still played 3e and even 4e Paladins much like 1e Paladins.

Certainly there is no question of powergaming through ignoring or twisting alignment & code restrictions; the 3e Paladin is a weak class anyway. It's not like the 1e situation where Ranger and Paladin alignment & code restrictions are meant to offset mechanical power advantages.

I guess my requirement for a Paladin is a degree of humility, I absolutely won't accept a Paladin PC as a Nietzschean value creator, or a player of one who declares himself entitled to define his own morality. The Paladin player who declares "Heironeus has become corrupt!" because the GM's view of Heironeus differs from that of the player, is almost certainly being a dick.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I guess I don't really have a good handle on what a valid 3e Paladin is; IME people still played 3e and even 4e Paladins much like 1e Paladins.

Certainly there is no question of powergaming through ignoring or twisting alignment & code restrictions; the 3e Paladin is a weak class anyway. It's not like the 1e situation where Ranger and Paladin alignment & code restrictions are meant to offset mechanical power advantages.

I guess my requirement for a Paladin is a degree of humility, I absolutely won't accept a Paladin PC as a Nietzschean value creator, or a player of one who declares himself entitled to define his own morality. The Paladin player who declares "Heironeus has become corrupt!" because the GM's view of Heironeus differs from that of the player, is almost certainly being a dick.

3E is definitely noted as being horribly balanced, but I am under the opinion they did try to make the alignment restriction an offset to the perceived mechanical advantages. Under any kind of decent scrutiny that of course is BS which is probably why they changed things in 4E.

As to the player who says Heironeous (or any other deity) is corrupt, I'd wager there is a subset of players that could do it seriously and have it be a part of the game without being jerks. However, the setup for that would have to be such that the DM and players accepted and could perform to the level of the extra maturity involved in that level of roleplay since it is quite difficult to play a character that can accuse deities of being corrupt. That's a truly massive can of philosophical worms being opened up and it'll only work for a very small percentage of players. It really is a philosophical exercise more than anything else at that point and I can think of very few people who could do it seriously.

 

[pemerton]

I guess my requirement for a Paladin is a degree of humility

Agreed.

I absolutely won't accept a Paladin PC as a Nietzschean value creator

Agreed.

or a player of one who declares himself entitled to define his own morality.

Not agreed. The paladin has to be humble. The player is just another player at the table, who is entitled as the rest of the group to play a role in exploring moral issues.

The Paladin player who declares "Heironeus has become corrupt!" because the GM's view of Heironeus differs from that of the player, is almost certainly being a dick.

I've played with players whose PCs have questioned the morality of the gods who purport to direct them. It has nothing to do with being a dick. Nor with Neiztschean value creation (the Euthyphro explains why gods are beholden to morality, not creators of it, and Plato is hardly a Neiztschean value creator!).

I mean, the GM has to play humble NPCs, including clerics and paladins, and the GM gets to define the morality of those NPCs!

As to the player who says Heironeous (or any other deity) is corrupt, I'd wager there is a subset of players that could do it seriously and have it be a part of the game without being jerks. However, the setup for that would have to be such that the DM and players accepted and could perform to the level of the extra maturity involved in that level of roleplay since it is quite difficult to play a character that can accuse deities of being corrupt. That's a truly massive can of philosophical worms being opened up and it'll only work for a very small percentage of players. It really is a philosophical exercise more than anything else at that point and I can think of very few people who could do it seriously.

My own experience has been that a wide range of players can play a serious game that puts moral commitment at the forefront, provided the GM steps back and doesn't pounce on their every move.

My own view is that the idea that the game will collapse into juvenile amoralism unless the GM polices it via alignment rules and heavy-handed roleplyaing of deities is no more valid than the idea that the game will generate a satisfactory and engaging story only if the GM maintains a heavy rein on the plot.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

My own view is that the idea that the game will collapse into juvenile amoralism unless the GM polices it via alignment rules and heavy-handed roleplyaing of deities is no more valid than the idea that the game will generate a satisfactory and engaging story only if the GM maintains a heavy rein on the plot.

What can I say, I'm a bit cynical when it comes to games and religion/philosophy butting heads. I didn't say that a GM has to police it of course, but I do recommend everyone at the table know what they might be getting themselves into to avoid alienating those who aren't up for such discussion and storytelling.