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

[jadrax]

You don't think that the same group of players, playing the same module, with the same characters, in the same room, but with two different DM's, would have fairly similar experiences?

I have played the exact same scenario with different GMs and it has been completely different experience. To my mind, the whole point of the DM is to stop it being similar.

You think that their experiences would be so radically different that rulings in one would be mutually exclusive from the other?

Again, this is not an 'I think', it is an 'I know from experience'.

If that's true, then why have any rules in the first place? If tables are so different that simply plopping down a different DM, is going to completely change the experience to that extent, why waste time with all these rules? It's not like there's any consistency anyway.

They are a starting point and a initial guideline.

Of course, this completely ignores organized play.

A stance I would heartily recommend. Nothing has done more to destroy D&D than organised play.

 

[Hussar]

A stance I would heartily recommend. Nothing has done more to destroy D&D than organised play.

In your opinion, of course. Although, I would think that the hundred thousand or so RPGA members might disagree with you.

What do you feel made the experience between different DM's so, well, different? Did they adjudicate the rules completely differently?

 

[jadrax]

In your opinion, of course.

Recommendations normally are opinionated, yes. ;o)

What do you feel made the experience between different DM's so, well, different? Did they adjudicate the rules completely differently?

Yes, because there being adjudicated based on a mixture of life experience and personal research.

Various DMs have different goals for the session, various interpretations of what Alignment and other factors mean. There's so many gaps in what the rules cover that your going to have vastly different experiences just based on minor issues like 'is grease flammable?' before you even start moving onto house rules. Does the GM see the game as a sandbox or a set 'story'? Does he like encounter based design or not? When do the enemies run away, if at all?

Ultimately DM'ing is an art rather than a science. So the same way in that Van Gogh and Mondrian will give you totally different pictures of a vase of flowers, two DMs are going to give you completely different renditions of Keep of the Border.

 

[billd91]

A stance I would heartily recommend. Nothing has done more to destroy D&D than organised play.

I don't know about that. It's fun, but it is a bit of a double-edged sword. It's good for promotion and giving people access to quite a diversity of other players if they go to play the events at conventions. But it's also bad because you have to bring a character to build a scratch adventuring group and that puts pressure on the styles of play the character and scenarios should support. You also get some blatantly toxic encounters with socially inept optimizer-style players when they think some players at the table haven't brought a PC up to their standards. I don't think that turns as many people away as organized play brings in, but it's still a negative factor.

 

[Tuft]

In your opinion, of course.

Yes, because there being adjudicated based on a mixture of life experience and personal research.

Various DMs have different goals for the session, various interpretations of what Alignment and other factors mean. There's so many gaps in what the rules cover that your going to have vastly different experiences just based on minor issues like 'is grease flammable?' before you even start moving onto house rules. Does the GM see the game as a sandbox or a set 'story'? Does he like encounter based design or not? When do the enemies run away, if at all?

Ultimately DM'ing is an art rather than a science. So the same way in that Van Gogh and Mondrian will give you totally different pictures of a vase of flowers, two DMs are going to give you completely different renditions of Keep of the Border.

Oh, there are so many details that can differ in playstyle even outside pure rules.

The success failure of sneaking, for example, is entirely dependent on how often you have to roll stealth rolls. Too many rolls, and you will fail.

Does the DM concentrate or spread fire when distributing enemies in combat?

Do you have to roll skills, or describe actions when you do various things? Do you have to poke at the jewel in the statues right eye to discover that it is a fake, or do merely entering the room grant you a perception roll?

How do NPCs react when approached and talked to? Does the king like you telling a rude joke about the arch-chancellor or get insulted? What happens when the PCs are creative and think outside the box?

 

[pemerton]

It means that "the code should be well-defined." Rework the code, in my opinion. Make it less ambiguous.

My personal view is that this is ultimately a hopeless goal.

Here's why.

Any list of particular rules is going to have to be interpreted, at some point or other, by reference to the purpose/underlying value that those rules serve. After all, no one thinks (as far as I know) that the paladin's code is arbitrary in its content; it is a code adherence to which makes the paladin a certain sort of exemplar.

But as this very thread show, when it comes time to interpret the code by reference to the underlying values, disagreements abount. A paladin must respect life: some people think this permits, or even mandates, the killing of orcish children; whereas others think it forbids that killing. A paladin must never lie: some people think that lying to fiends is an obvious exception; others (including me) think that telling the truth to fiends, no matter what the cost, is part of the very point of paladinhood - it is a confrontation of iniquity by honour and valour. Etc, etc.

If all the group of players hold roughly the same moral/political views - or if the ingame situation is designed so as not to raise any matters on which members of the play group disagree - then disputes may not arise. But that's a fragile assumption on which to build a core mechanic for a game. Hence my preference for options here.

 

[JamesonCourage]

My personal view is that this is ultimately a hopeless goal.

If you mean that people will misinterpret it no matter how clear it is, I agree.

Any list of particular rules is going to have to be interpreted, at some point or other, by reference to the purpose/underlying value that those rules serve. After all, no one thinks (as far as I know) that the paladin's code is arbitrary in its content; it is a code adherence to which makes the paladin a certain sort of exemplar.

They will have to be interpreted to a point, yes. Much as a druid "reveres nature", or the like, and people have different takes on what that means (even if the author goes on to clarify).

A paladin must respect life: some people think this permits, or even mandates, the killing of orcish children; whereas others think it forbids that killing.

I only played in 3.X, but I don't remember "respect life" at all in the code. If it was, the sentiment should be made more clear, I agree.

A paladin must never lie: some people think that lying to fiends is an obvious exception; others (including me) think that telling the truth to fiends, no matter what the cost, is part of the very point of paladinhood - it is a confrontation of iniquity by honour and valour. Etc, etc.

If the code says "act with honor (not lying...)", then I think it's abundantly clear that the Paladin can't lie without losing his powers. People will still misinterpret it, yes, but the same goes for any strong thematic material (druids, clerics, warlocks, etc.). I still want to keep those strong themes around, so I say if some people misinterpret things, oh well. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good, and all that. Make it as clear as possible, and then let people play the game.

If all the group of players hold roughly the same moral/political views - or if the ingame situation is designed so as not to raise any matters on which members of the play group disagree - then disputes may not arise. But that's a fragile assumption on which to build a core mechanic for a game. Hence my preference for options here.

I think the "problem" has more to do with trying to squeeze standard moral views into the alignment system. In my game, Good was literally a defined force, but to my players, it wasn't always "the right thing to do" (and they were Good throughout most of the game... two started as Neutral, but transitioned to Good). This led to some pretty interesting conflicts in the game (the Herades philosophical discussion, backing up Good people just because you're Good, clashing with but never attacking a Lawful Evil Monk NPC that only hunted Evil people, siding with Asmodeus for the greater good [not Good], etc.).

Hopefully alignment is optional anyways, though. I like it in my D&D, but clearly enough people have real problems with it that it's just an option. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

If you mean that people will misinterpret it no matter how clear it is, I agree.

<snip>

People will still misinterpret it, yes, but the same goes for any strong thematic material (druids, clerics, warlocks, etc.).

<snip>

I think the "problem" has more to do with trying to squeeze standard moral views into the alignment system.

I think the notion of "misinterpret" is not all that helpful here. Suppose player A advances a certain interpretation, and GM B replies "That's a misinterpretation", from the point of view of A the meaning of "minsinterpretation" is nothing more than "interpretation differing from B's preferred interpretation". There is no shared methodology, in this sort of domain, for establishing a robust consensus on what counts as misinterpretation.

Which also goes to the issue of "strong thematic materia" and "squeezing stardard views into the alignment system". You can't at one-and-the-same-time preserve the strength of the thematic material, and tell people that it's all about a fictional moral system that has no bearing upon or connection to real world values.

People gerally don't play paladins because they adhere to some fictional, stipulated moral code which (for no particular reason?) we happen to label "lawful good" or "honourable" or "chivalric" - at least, not in my experience. They are interested in exploring the idea of a genuinely lawful good warrior who is genuinely honourable and chivalric. That's what gives the material it's thematic heft.

That's not to say there's not some scope for tweaking on the margins - the GM might explain to the players, for instance, that certain social norms are different in the gameworld from the contemporary USA (eg that debt bondage is widely understood as a permissible institution, even though it is obviously at odds with contemporary human rights norms as well as bankruptcy practices). But the more the GM says "This isn't about real world values, it's about these fictional values that I'm elucidating for you", the more the GM is killing off the strength of the thematic material.

 

[pemerton]

In my game, Good was literally a defined force, but to my players, it wasn't always "the right thing to do"

Putting too much pressure on this has the tendency to cause the paladin ideal to collapse into incoherence, or perhaps self-delusion on the part of the paladin - for a D&D example, sse Sturm Brightblade in Dragonlance - did he exemplify paladinhood, or ought he to have fallen?

 

[billd91]

Putting too much pressure on this has the tendency to cause the paladin ideal to collapse into incoherence, or perhaps self-delusion on the part of the paladin - for a D&D example, sse Sturm Brightblade in Dragonlance - did he exemplify paladinhood, or ought he to have fallen?

I'd say the answer to both your questions is no. Sturm wasn't a paladin. In the earliest Dragonlance modules, he was a fighter. Once the Dragonlance hardcover was released in 1e, he could conceivably be written up as a Knight of Solamnia (were he not mainly still a squire)... who aren't paladins. Subclasses of cavalier, true, but not paladins. So Sturm Brightblade really shouldn't be held up to a paladin's expectations. His are somewhat different.

That may sound like a nitpick, but I think it serves to highlight that paladins aren't medieval knights, nor stand-ins for any knightly order. They're an idealized paragon, filtered through the D&D alignment rules with a morality that any medieval knight probably couldn't hope to touch (certainly not if the church had to step in and declare certain days of the week as no-fighting days just to cut down on the mayhem).

In the end, it has been many years since I read the first Dragonlance trilogy (though I did manage to remember he wasn't a paladin). Were Sturm actually a paladin, why would you think he might have fallen?