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

[Tequila Sunrise]

What I was saying was that we can just define the Paladin's code very concretely; instead of saying "act with honor", we say "only speak the truth as you you perceive it." When Bluenose said "It's not because a Code won't cover every possible situation - though it won't", I disagreed. Now, the Paladin can say what he thinks is true (as he perceives it), but anything else breaks his code. We haven't touched on manipulation, so that's fair game. Hypothetically, we'd cover specific bullet points, and these bullet points are clear to see whether or not the Paladin has broken his code. We now have every situation covered. The Paladin told the truth as he saw it, knowing that the enemy might misinterpret it? Fair game; the code doesn't say "don't manipulate the enemy."

That sounds a lot like the Aes Sedai from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. They're physically unable to outright lie, but most of them are good at lying by omission and misleading others with irrelevant truths. As a result, half the people think Aes Sedai are outright liars and the other half don't trust them anyway.

I'd be interested to see a complete and 'concrete' code written up.

 

[pemerton]

The amount of effort and expertise put into statutory drafting is far greater than that put into drafting "codes" for RPG classes. But problems of interpretation arise routinely in respect of statutory directives and prohibitions.

In the suggested example "The paladin must tell the truth as s/he perceives it", both "tell" and "perceive" are obvious points of pressure. If the paladin urges a friend to lie while s/he remains silent, has s/he "told the truth"? If a paladin hopes that X is true, but has niggling doubts about it, but not wanting to learn something that would dispel his/her hopes does not enquire further into the truth of X, has s/he "told the truth as s/he perceives it"?

There's also a further issue that this turns the paladin's code from a measure of virtue into a mere geas or taboo.

 

[Warbringer]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

But those arguments are premised on a relative concept ad morality and ethics, because we as humans argue the relative merits in the absence of the absolute. But DND is not a game where morale and ethical absolutes are disambiguous, indeed the the opposite, they are codified.

IRL, all we have is deconstruction to understand the universe; indeed that is the whole purpose of science and ultimately religion, to help us better understand the universe in a mathematical framework that we don't have access to naturally (moral imperatives aside)

DND by its mathematical constructs determines these ambiguities as obsoletes. The sheer act of alignment in dnd removes morale ambiguity de facto, the only issue that remains is description in the rules of what this means.

(spoken from the unfortunate position of a double first in math(s) and philosophy)

 

[Warbringer]

double post

 

[Sunseeker]

@pemerton

But those arguments are premised on a relative concept ad morality and ethics, because we as humans argue the relative merits in the absence of the absolute. But DND is not a game where morale and ethical absolutes are disambiguous, indeed the the opposite, they are codified.

Really? Even the best philosophers wrote massive books on the subject. Even the longest D&D book is maybe 400 pages, and half of that is pictures! A quarter of it is probably empty space, and then there's probably another 1/8th or so that's indexes and credits and ads. So, at best we've got maybe 75 pages of solid material. And you're suggesting that somehow Wizards has codified a solid moral system within that? Oh wow...I mean, I have to laugh. I'm sorry but that's absolutely hilariously impossible.

Aside from the fact that Wizards has done no such thing, even the morality that is has codified is vague and unspecific at best. Even where it is specific, it's little more than "be good" or "follow the law", if you think that constituted moral and ethical absolutes...well...I can't say much more without violating half a dozen rules here.

IRL, all we have is deconstruction to understand the universe; indeed that is the whole purpose of science and ultimately religion, to help us better understand the universe in a mathematical framework that we don't have access to naturally (moral imperatives aside)

DND by its mathematical constructs determines these ambiguities as obsoletes. The sheer act of alignment in dnd removes morale ambiguity de facto, the only issue that remains is description in the rules of what this means.

(spoken from the unfortunate position of a double first in math(s) and philosophy)

While WE the player may be able to deduce the functioning on the universe in D&D. Our character cannot. Because from our character's perspective the D&D universe looks just like the real world universe from our own perspective. If we play our character and adjudicate their morality from a metagame perspective, morality becomes pointless. There's no point in having it if we can't moralize and rationalize from our character's perspective like they are a real person struggling with finding a balance of morals, ethics and beliefs in a universe where they do no have complete information(which as the player, we do).

So even if Wizards did create a complete moral system so perfect the philosophers of old would be run off crying; which they didn't; it wouldn't matter. It would be completely meaningless to play a character who is attempting to balance these things by being a player who makes no effort to RP that. If we treat morality from a metagame perspective as simply a set of numbers, it loses all meaning and having alignment restrictions in order to force players to RP out the "moral challenges" and make Paladins(or other classes) "moral challenge classes" has no purpose, no value and no meaning because if we treat D&D morality from a metagame perspective where "good" and "evil" are facts and numbers, not opinions and believes, then there is NO "moral challenge" to the class.

 

[pemerton]

But those arguments are premised on a relative concept ad morality and ethics, because we as humans argue the relative merits in the absence of the absolute. But DND is not a game where morale and ethical absolutes are disambiguous, indeed the the opposite, they are codified.

I mentioned upthread my response to this.

If you decouple the morality and values of the gameworld from real life, then the paladin is no longer an "exemplar of everything good and true" (to quote the 2nd ed AD&D PHB). Rather, s/he is an exemplar of some fictional values that have been stipulated by the GM. Conversely, if we want the paladin to be an exemplar of the real values of goodness and truth, then unless we think the GM has some sort of special access to the content and implications of those values, we have (in my view) no reason to give the GM any special authority to judge when a player, in playing his/her paladin, has or hasn't exemplified them.

 

[Balesir]

But those arguments are premised on a relative concept ad morality and ethics, because we as humans argue the relative merits in the absence of the absolute. But DND is not a game where morale and ethical absolutes are disambiguous, indeed the the opposite, they are codified.

Yes, but by codifying them you remove their meaning.

RPGs "exist" in the imaginary world in only the most tenuous of ways, but they also exist in parallel in the "real" world inhabited by the players. In that real world, the terms "good" and "evil" have non-absolute, or at least incompletely defined, meanings. As soon as you place a fixed definition or "code" about such terms - even in a fictional and imaginary world - the terms no longer refer to what the players in the real world recognise as what the terms normally refer to. They now represent some warped, distorted thing in the fictional world that carries the label "good" or whatever, but which no longer genuinely represents what the real-world players playing the game would be comfortable referring to as "good".

The problem is that "good" really IS a slippery concept, so that you can give some codified and fixed 'team' the label 'Good', as suggested up-thread, but the resulting thing will not be recognisable as actual, real "good" as perceived by real-world denizens. If you want to play a game that allows for the dramatic and thematic impact of actual real questions of good and evil, therefore, no codification will work.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If you want to play a game that allows for the dramatic and thematic impact of actual real questions of good and evil, therefore, no codification will work.

Again, I respectfully disagree, for reasons I've gone into in this thread. Will it work for everyone? No. Will it for most people? I don't know, but I really doubt most people play D&D to explore morality anyways, so I think that, in the end, it's not super important anyways.

And one more time, for the record, I'm for optional alignment, options other than the code, etc. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

RPGs "exist" in the imaginary world in only the most tenuous of ways, but they also exist in parallel in the "real" world inhabited by the players. In that real world, the terms "good" and "evil" have non-absolute, or at least incompletely defined, meanings. As soon as you place a fixed definition or "code" about such terms - even in a fictional and imaginary world - the terms no longer refer to what the players in the real world recognise as what the terms normally refer to. They now represent some warped, distorted thing in the fictional world that carries the label "good" or whatever, but which no longer genuinely represents what the real-world players playing the game would be comfortable referring to as "good".

Yes. This is what I have been getting at upthread in talking about the "fictional" values/morality.

 

[Balesir]

Again, I respectfully disagree, for reasons I've gone into in this thread.

I don't see that the issue is amenable to disagreement - it's essentially indisputable. If you have a code that will prove the world wrong by encapsulating the actual essence of good, please publish it - a Nobel Peace prize, at the very least, awaits!