D&D 5E Paladin just committed murder - what should happen next?

[Ovinomancer]

I would not say it was egregiously evil and they need to become an Oathbreaker. I would have a discussion about what kind of character they want to play. There would probably be some kind of divine censure or penance required. It might have been in service to the greater good, but it was still an evil act.

I would have explained that during play when they declared their action, before we were committed to it.

Yes, it would have been better if the situation was better communicated and played -- this would solve lots of problems. It's also not the situation that obtained. More on this in a bit.

 

[Nagol]

Not a lot of wars would be won with soldiers who had this attitude. I find it striking that people expect less from a fictional Paladin than armies traditionally expected from common soldiers IRL.

France lost a lot of battles it should have won after it raised the "take no prisoners' flag. Common soldiers are often expected to surrender rather than stupidly waste their lives.

 

[Campbell]

Part of the issue from my perspective is there is a tendency to treat Player Characters as if they were an island. Paladins and Clerics do not get the benefit of their fictional positioning, but are expected to uphold the fictional demands of their place in the divine hierarchy.

A Paladin worthy of the name is a favored scion of a god. They have divine authority and a place in the hegemony of their faith. Even if they are not personally a threat to the dragon that fictional positioning should at least be considered and addressed.

I agree if they are treated in the fiction like fighters with magic powers changing tune when they act like fighters with magic powers is acting in bad faith.

 

[pemerton]

If the GM had instead narrated "rocks fall, everybody dies" would anyone be arguing that, in the fiction, the PCs helms and armour should have kept them alive?

See, here I dont know what you are arguing.

I think everyone agrees that "rocks fall, everybody dies" is poor GMing. BUt I don't think anyone thinks that that therefore changes what counts as a life-ending event for a PC. Or to put it another way, I think everyone agrees that the proper response to that sort of GMing is to discuss how the GM is handling the game, not to argue that the fiction should come out the way the players want while also containing the fiction of rocks falling.

Yet in this dragon case, people seem to be arguing that because the GM has put the paladin (and, at the table, the player) in a hard if not impossible situation, that means that the paladin is entitled to disregard his/her duty and do the expeident thing so that the player can keep playing the game with his/her PC.

Everybody can see the category error that would ve involved in the "rocks fall" version of the scenario. I'm saying that the you have no way out scenario has exactly the same structure.

Is trying to solve a puzzle, failing and making the best of the bad results. Evil in your book?

This is being put from the player's point of view not the paladin's. The paladin isn't trying to solve a puzzle. The player may be, if that's the sort of RPG that is being played. But that doesn't tell us about the paladin's duty.

I'm not saying the player is evil. I've got no reason to think the player's not a top bloke. I'm saying that the paladin violated his/her duty.

Tried to run - failed - was caught and cornered.
Tried to talk out of it - got strong result - this was it.
Player expressed after it was done to not die and be able to continue world saving quest.

It seems pretty clear that if there is dome new way around this it's not present at the table shown in that scene as far as we can tell.

Is your position that the paladin should just stand there and be killed? That letting the dragon kill both while hoping something else happens is not evil ?

How far down does this rabbit hole of being forced to believe a better option might pop up from somewhere, somehow go?

It's not a rabbit hole. It's simply not doing something that you're sworn not to do, because it would be dishonourable and evil.

There's no doubt that some people think it's permissible, even obligatory, to do such things in pursuit of a greater good (in this case, the "world saving quest"). But such moral views would normally be contrasted with a morality of duty and ethic of honour - not presented as instances of such!

 

[pemerton]

I think from a moral perspective there is a phenomenal difference between not being able to act and actively doing something (even under durress) that runs counter to your belief system.

There's also a difference in the wrongness of various responses.

Pointing at the sky while saying to the dragon, feigning surprise, "Huh - is that an androsphinx up there?!" and then running away while the dragon responds to your bluff is dishonourable, but not a sacrifice of someone else's interests.

And I don't think anyone has yet discussed why the paladin didn't offer himself to the dragon in exchange for the life of the PC.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree with this. This GM may well have been unfair. But that's not relevant to the question of whether or not the paladin did the right thing. It is relevant to the question of whether or not I would want to play (a paladin? at all?) in this GM's game.

Okay, I went a bit far back to pull this quote, but I think it goes to part of the issue that's being discussed here in isolate or in different contexts. There's the thinking of the paladin's oath and nature that divorced from the fact that the paladin class is part of a game. I agree with a lot of what's been said about the nature of such a divine warrior in fiction in general, and in archetype. However, I think that such thinking is in error when analyzing what's happened in a game. Even assuming a better scenario than what's presented, the consideration of how a character's archetype is realize in a specific game given the mechanics will vary a great deal. There's the fact that you have imperfect communication, or small (or large) differences in underlying assumptions. Heck, this thread alone is a good indicator of how honest engagement on the topic can result in some small but intractable difference of opinion in what a paladin archetype is.

So, I think that the game being played is a critical part of interpreting the ability and fidelity of the archetype. When we see the holy warrior, the knight, the super-solider trope, it's almost always best rendered in straight fiction where the toils and troubles faced are constrained to allow the trope to shine. It also works well in RPGs that have mechanics that strongly enable player input to the fiction, or that adjudicate the game according to the player proposed fictions. PbtA games do this, as does BW. These games enable the trope by directly making the game about the trope (at least to a large degree), and functionally enable exploring the trope in a way that rarely levels character ending consequences, or does so after a clearly engaged spiral of play towards that ending. D&D does none of these things. The nature of the DM-directed play in D&D means that there's much more room for DM/player disagreements about the trope to hide until character ending consequences are already being employed. Further, the nature of D&D says that the DM should arbitrate the player's play against the trope and level character ending consequences for whatever the DM determines to be sufficient divergence from the trope (and, yes, I'm calling pushing oathbreaker of removal of class abilities character ending -- it's not the same character anymore and may not be something the player has any interest in playing). This makes evaluation of the trope a bit different, and, indeed, I believe it requires alteration of the trope as it exists in pure fiction. If the trope requires sacrifice for it's tenets, then it's going to run afoul of many of D&D's other tropes, like the DM's interpretation is the correct one (woe to a player that doesn't guess right), the DM establishes both the scenario and many options and the outcomes of said (again, woe to the player that doesn't guess right), and there's a heavy bias towards lethal outcomes in combat. Given that the nature of the trope in question literally begs to be tested, these two D&D tropes will always cause problems in attempting to realize a more full version of the trope. It becomes a suicide mission, not in service of the trope, but because the nature of the game will eventually cause conflict with the other tropes of the game.

This requires either modification and softening of the trope, which the sidebar in the PHB does, to some extent, or a better negotiation of outcomes between the player and DM, which is somewhat outside the usual guidance for running D&D games.

I'm seeing a lot of evaluation going on the is either focusing on how the trope plays in fiction, which is a bad fit, or how it plays in games that treat it better than D&D does, which, again, is a bad fit. I also see modifying the scenario to be more engaged with the play in a more open manner, which is always good advice, but not necessarily helpful with the immediate case. Counterfactuals rarely illuminate a situation. I think all of these lines, while interesting, don't really address the situation in the OP. Nor do they really address how the trope plays in 5e. Evaluation of the trope in other situations or methods of storytelling is good, and I agree with a lot of what's been said about the nature of the trope in these evaluations, I just don't see much utility in them in regards to how the trope plays in 5e in any healthy way. Applying those considerations to 5e play ends in the exact scenario presented in the OP -- where the DM may have imperfectly run a scene but now the character representing the trope must be held to it, regardless. This isn't a healthy game.

To play the trope in 5e, there needs to be either a relaxing of trope requirements on the player side -- ie, making transgression harder and more pragmatic in consideration, or the DM must take great care in how they engage the trope in play. This latter is difficult because it's trivially easy to create normal D&D play scenarios that directly implicate "stupid" play under the trope. I scare quoted stupid because I mean stupid in the sense of actively going against other existing D&D tropes that will result in poor outcomes for the character just by the nature of D&D.

 

[Hussar]

(1) It's not sucide.

(2) Yes, the paladin who hands over the NPC clearly is violating his oath to protect those entrusted to his care (I'm assuming the Oath of Devotion in framing it that way. But any paladin who has staked his/her honour on protecting this NPC is going to be in much the same boat.)

(3) Who said There are NO OTHER OPTIONS? Not the rules of 5e, as best I'm aware. How does bad GMing make it the case that the paladin didn't do the wrong thing?

After all, in character the paladin can't know there are no other options - as per @Wiseblood's recent post, the paladin may (and, if faithful, should) believe that there is still a possibility of things turning out well. And should s/he die, well that was also part of the providential plan.

Ok, yup. We're done.

You cannot even be bothered to read the thread. The paladin was Oath of Ancients. You are deliberately misinterpreting the "suicide" line. You are deliberately ignoring the mechanics in 5e where it is not possible, and the player and the paladin know it, for the paladin to defeat the dragon. You are deliberately ignoring the fact that in this thread, the offer to eat the man and walk away WAS THE BEST RESULT that the player could get from negotiation.

So, yeah, what you actually want to discuss the thread, I'm over here. You want to discuss hypotheticals? Don't reply to me.

 

[CleverNickName]

And I don't think anyone has yet discussed why the paladin didn't offer himself to the dragon in exchange for the life of the PC.

The implied reason is that the paladin's own mission was far more important...without the paladin to save the world, everyone (including the NPC) is doomed. "You don't know this about me but I'm kind of a big deal."

It doesn't really hold water unless he is (or believes he is) the only hero that exists, or will ever exist, in the world. But it seems to be a popular defense.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's also a difference in the wrongness of various responses.

Pointing at the sky while saying to the dragon, feigning surprise, "Huh - is that an androsphinx up there?!" and then running away while the dragon responds to your bluff is dishonourable, but not a sacrifice of someone else's interests.

And I don't think anyone has yet discussed why the paladin didn't offer himself to the dragon in exchange for the life of the PC.

Well, there's the point that this, fundamentally, goes against some of the goals of play in D&D. There's also the point that such a thing may be offered and rejected by the DM. There is no mechanical way or game structure that would enforce such a sacrifice as having meaning. This is the kind of deep uncertainty I"m trying to get at with my previous post -- that D&D doesn't operationalize the trope in any meaningful way and so any attempt is under the uncertainty of the DM agreeing that 1) is feasible, 2) is agreeable to the DM as an outcome, 3) survives any mechanical test the DM uses (mistakenly or not), and 4) aligns with the DM's interpretation of the trope.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Part of the issue from my perspective is there is a tendency to treat Player Characters as if they were an island. Paladins and Clerics do not get the benefit of their fictional positioning, but are expected to uphold the fictional demands of their place in the divine hierarchy.

A Paladin worthy of the name is a favored scion of a god. They have divine authority and a place in the hegemony of their faith. Even if they are not personally a threat to the dragon that fictional positioning should at least be considered and addressed.

I agree if they are treated in the fiction like fighters with magic powers changing tune when they act like fighters with magic powers is acting in bad faith.

The way I see it, the paladin is a servant of their deity, not the other way around. Their deity gave them those magical powers, presumably, so that they can handle things themselves. It's not the master's duty or role to step in for the servant if they are failing. Perhaps if what the servant is doing is crucial to the deity, and even then only maybe. For example, in many of my campaign worlds the gods are forbidden from intervening directly in the mortal world, hence why they rely on mortal servants in the first place. Admittedly though, that's just my own campaigns.

In my opinion, if Thor (or other deity) is just going to take care of things every time the going gets tough, what's the point of anything? The paladin can do literally anything they want, assured of the fact that their daddy... Ahem... deity... will bail them out. At which point heroism becomes basically impossible, because nothing is ever at risk if a nearly omnipotent powerhouse is just going to magically fix everything. It's like Bruce Banner signing up for the UFC. What's the point? We all already know that Banner is going to get his butt handed to him until Hulk emerges and ends the fight with one punch.

On the other hand, if the deity's intervention is far more intermittent and unpredictable, that puts the paladin on far shakier ground. It's almost the same as never getting assistance from the player's perspective, and their behavior is likely to reflect that. If the paladin does step up and their deity lets them down, don't be surprised if the player's response is wtf.

That is why I believe that deities should not intercede on the behalf of their servants, except perhaps in the rarest of circumstances. The servant has already been granted a boon in the form of magical powers. I think it's hardly unreasonable for deities to expect their servants to use those abilities to take care of themselves.