D&D General Deleted

[EzekielRaiden]

The whole original game reeks of the gospel of prosperity. And was deeply linked with puritanism and evangelical Christianity.

Oh God, does it really? That's...okay, that's unacceptable for completely different reasons. I won't go into details here in the thread but...yeah, "prosperity gospel" is one of the very few things that cross a certain line for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think this fails to understand how the universe work. You spare humanoids but this is a universe in which there is literal material, physical evil in the form of fiends (spare me more BoED nonsense please, I remember those succubi).

Here's the thing: The universe does not care if you're humanoid or outsider.

Holy Word flays Robin Hood for stealing just as handily as it does Turbo Satan for Turbo Sataning.

And the snark about the succubi is just plain ignoring the rules, as even by core, outsiders aren't 100% their alignment.

The game and its universe still champions disproportionate violence for a philosophical dispute.

I think what the designers failed to do here is to overestimate the common sense available to the average player if this cannot be easily considered at the table.

The designers failed to write a good system--or recognize a bad legacy system they should have jettisoned.

But go off telling all the people arguing the point that they lack common sense.

 

[Umbran]

In my experience, players made the Paladin Lawful Stupid. And I don't just mean the Paladin's player. I've seen groups try to distract the Paladin while they torture a prisoner, steal, or otherwise do pretty bad stuff. And I mean in the most obvious stupid ways possible. The Paladin isn't stupid and when he comes back to see the prisoner missing a few fingers and teeth he's going to put two and two together. But plenty of groups expected the Paladin to buy whatever flimsy excuse they gave him and often the player did just to avoid interparty conflict and derailing the game.

Yeah. This approach to Paladins was birthed back in 1e, a time when, Session Zero and "make sure you all have compatible goals and expectations of play" weren't common things. Players who have spent a bit of effort to align their approaches to play, and don't actively subvert that agreement, don't have those old problems.

This has been paired with updates to the paladin, and to the game's approach to "alignment" that make it easier to have aligned approaches to play.

 

[Umbran]

Oh God, does it really? That's...okay, that's unacceptable for completely different reasons. I won't go into details here in the thread but...yeah, "prosperity gospel" is one of the very few things that cross a certain line for me.

Folks, please leave commentary of real world religion out of the discussion. Thanks.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Removed.

 

[Umbran]

There absolutely is. Among the things the Paladin is supposed to do is avoid any association with people who aren't also LG.

In 3e? That does not seem to be in the Paladin class description in my PHB. Cite, please?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In 3e? That does not seem to be in the Paladin class description in my PHB. Cite, please?

It would seem I was slightly overstating my case, but it does explicitly say the paladin has rules about who they're allowed to associated with as part of the oath...without actually stating the rules beyond an incredibly high-level summary.

 

[Umbran]

It would seem I was slightly overstating my case

More than slightly.

it does explicitly say the paladin has rules about who they're allowed to associated with

Yeah, but most of us have rules about who we will associate with, don't we? And most of us don't hang around with those who consistently offend our own morals. So, I don't know if this is all that telling.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Here's the thing: The universe does not care if you're humanoid or outsider.

Holy Word flays Robin Hood for stealing just as handily as it does Turbo Satan for Turbo Sataning.

This is untrue. First and foremost, the universe tells apart normal orcs from fiends in 3e. As an example, look how detect evil works - the HD table is related to the creature type. Outsiders ping strongly with less HD.
Robin Hood does not get flayed because Holy Word does not punish stealing, or specific actions, but Evil, and RH's robberies are often depicted as a Chaotic Good acts. If for some reason I cannot fathom RH is evil in your universe, his motivations and actions will be different and Holy Word will work.
The people that get "flayed" by Holy Word committed acts very different from stealing to feed orphans or such.

 

[Yaarel]

In 2024, all spells names that refer to alignment should refer to planes instead.

Protection from Evil or Good renames as Planar Protection.

The D&D planes are other levels of existence beyond the material world of the five sense. It makes sense for magic to care about and recognize these otherworldly beings.