D&D General Deleted

[pemerton]

Did you happen to look in the entry for Devils, the most LE of LE beings? Because sure, while the mortals CAN lie and break contracts, the very embodiment of LE CANNOT break their word. Otherwise, Devil Contracts would be utterly worthless, and Devils as a concept would have no reason to exist.

<snip>

They are deceptive, but they do not speak falsehoods, because if they did, then their entire reason for existence vanishes, and they are no different than Demons or Yuggoloths.

Here is the relevant text from page 20 of the AD&D MM:

Devils follow a definite order, a chain of command, which they dare not break for fear of the arch-devils. Still, there is great rivalry, even open antagonism, between the devils of the various planes and between the various arch-devils. While the lesser devils squabble, the dukes of Hell vie to usurp the throne of Asmodeus. But the Archfiend has always succeeded in playing one off against the other, and still rules from his lowest plane. . . .

Devils will serve if properly commanded, but it is risky business, for an improper command will break the law which binds them to service. (It also typically requires a contract for the soul of the creature commanding the internal power to obey.) It is possible for other than lawful evil persons to invoke or otherwise treat with devils (but the long spoon, oft spoken of, had better be used when supping with such monsters). . . .

Devils' Talismans: Each type of lesser devil has a special combination of inscriptions which will bind them to the wielder for the space of nine days, or at least prevent the devils of that type from harming the possessor. Greater devils can likewise be commanded for nine hours or kept at bay. Arch-devils' talismans will cause them to perform a single service, or prevent the bearer from being harmed by a particular duke of Hell, when properly used. The employment of any devil's talisman requires great care and caution. Human sacrifice is required of evil creatures using a talisman.​

This does not say that devils can't break their word. On the contrary, it tends to imply the opposite: being safe from a devil requires magically binding it via its talisman.

As for "vaulable but not good". History is valuable, but it is neither good nor evil. MAthematics and Knowledge are valuable, but are neither good nor evil. Roads are valuable, but are neither good nor evil. Tools are valuable, but neither good nor evil.

I think when you refer to history and mathematics you are talking about knowledge of these things, not the things themselves. And knowledge is a good - or if it is not an unalloyed good (eg suppose someone thinks that humans would be better off without knowledge of nuclear physics) then that suggests it is not unalloyed in its value either.

When you talk about tools being valuable you are referring to instrumental value - utility. I took the conversation to be about intrinsically valuable things. The LN don't assert that order is of instrumental value - that is what the LG assert. The LN treat it as an end in itself.

I have yet to actually see you make any arguments that "Beauty" or "Truth" are in anyways perfectly good, especially beauty which is a mere aesthetic preference.

I have not asserted that beauty or truth have intrinsic value. I have pointed out that Gygax's account of alignment assumes that they do, and incorporates them into his (capacious) notion of good. And it's not an absurd suggestion - again, Gygax is not the first person to affirm the intrinsic value of beauty (see eg GE Moore) and truth (see eg Plato).

I am very aware you keep trying to force the conversation to only be about Gygax's words in the PHB or DMG

I'm not forcing the conversation to be about anything. Gygax's PHB and DMG are what I am talking about. I am explaining why, in my view, the conception of paladinhood presented in those books is coherent.

If you're curious as to why I think Planescape, and the treatment of truth and honour as pertaining to Lawfulness rather than Goodness, are incoherent, I'm happy to elaborate. But explaining why Gygax's account is coherent can be done without doing this.

I got into this discussion because I responded to Umbran who was quoting Gygax, who stated that Stealth should be a "last resort" for paladins. And linked that idea of the authority prescribing morality like that, to the trend of Paladin players who present the Paladin as performative good, over and above doing actual good.

I think playing a paladin consistently with the AD&D alignment and class descriptions does not invite "performative" good. Those descriptions, as I have said, present a coherent picture of what is good, and of why LG people see law as connected to goodness. The problems that you invoke - eg conflicts between the paladin and other PCs, or the possibility that the GM will decide the evil guards kill the orphans if the paladin doesn't lie - are products not of the way alignment and paladins are presented, but of particular approaches to how a group of PCs is put together, how scenes are framed, how consequences are adjudicated, and how the GM dictates morality to players.

 

[pemerton]

I prefer if the player gets to decide their own good and evil too. Problem is, they don't get to do that in DnD. Point of Fact, you keep quoting Gygax and his definitions of Good. Which would be fine if Gygax was a player, but he isn't. And he wasn't writing as a player. So, as you quote Gygax to tell me that lying is evil and not chaotic.... are you not engaging in that idea that as the GM, as the authority of the world, you are defining the morality at play? Exactly as DnD intends?

No. The player can read the rulebook, understand the rules of the game, and decide when their PC is doing something that falls under the game's account of what is good and what is evil. They can decide if their PC needs to atone. Etc.

the very concept of Providence is external. Providence is not found by the internal world of the character finding peace, but with the external validation of an omniscient power. So, for Providence to be what determines if a character succeeds, it must be an external force. And the Players cannot dictate what the Gods say and do. They can offer suggestions, but the Gods are NPCs and NPCs are the realm of the DM.

This is all one possible way of playing D&D. It is not the only way.

Fiction is made up, but within the fiction it happens as stated. Sure, Frodo never set foot on Mount Doom, neither Frodo nor Mount Doom actually exist. But, in the world of Middle-Earth, Frodo did set foot on Mount Doom and Gollum bit off his finger and the One Ring was destroyed. And since the Author controls everything, if JRRT stated "And that was the Will of Eru, according to his plan" then so it was. Because the author is the final word and the control of the reality.

But DnD works differently. DnD does not work on the sole authority of the GM. The dice play a roll. I actively write stories where dice rolls are a key component, and so I do not have the full, sole authority to declare an action will succeed because of just cause. Nor, if an ability lasts one minute, do I have the full, sole authority to declare it lasts longer or shorter, nor could I realistically state that it only lasted one minute because the Gods intervened.

Yes, I get that you are declaring that it was an intercession of the Raven Queen, but would it have been the intercession of the Raven Queen if the cultist had targeted a rogue who doesn't worship any of the gods? Would it have been the intercession of the Raven Queen if the cultist had targeted the party's pet cat? Just like it would be nonsense to declare that an orc thrown off a bridge "was pulled down by the Will of Eru to die as his plan stated" instead of it being gravity, it is equally nonsense to my mind to declare the prescribed, unchangeable mechanics of how an ability works into being the will of the Raven Queen.

I know that you think this is nonsense. This is why I say that you are making assumptions about how RPGs must be played. I don't know how you reconciled that with your play of Fate, though - when you spend a Fate point to change a scene, for instance, what do you think is happening in the fiction?

I mean, suppose you spend a Fate point to have some convenient exit be in the building - who do you suppose built the building with that exit. Or suppose you have the aspect Always Troubled by Suitors, and as your PC is staking out the enemy HQ you say to the GM, "Wouldn't it be cool if some admirers turned up about now?" and the GM says, "Yes, it would" and tosses you a Fate point: in the fiction, those admirers had a reason for being there, for coming past that point, which is not under your PC's control - which may (if we assume a deterministic world) have been caused by factors that have been unfolding since the beginning of time. Yet as creators of fiction you and the GM only bring them onto the stage because of a decision made on the spur of the moment in accordance with the game rules.

The problem is that your paladin is making things up.

The player is making things up - they are playing a game in which a key thing the participants do is make up fiction.

The paladin is affirming his faith, and - given he is a powerful adherent of the Raven Queen, probably at that point the most powerful in the mortal world - I am confident that he is truthfully reporting her doings.

It would be the same as saying that the dawn they see if the work of the Raven Queen, or the fact they find a delicious pie is the work of the Raven Queen. I don't know if you are familiar with many writings that feature Providence, but part of what makes them function is that there never eliminate the possibility that Providence is True. Sure, it makes for a great story for your paladin to yet again declare his faith in the Raven Queen... but we know the mechanics behind the action. We know the physics of it.

Once again you equate the decision-making process at the table with how events work in the fiction. That equation is not required. You say that you have played Fate - but Fate only works if the equation is denied. Nothing in D&D prevents denying it either, and in fact both AD&D and 4e crucially depend upon denying it.

We do know that the Hexer's ability would have worked the exact same way against a different PC. Because the DM used the exact same ability from the exact same statblock.

Ditto. I posted two sentences, one true and one with an unknown truth value. You have presented no argument in relation to the second sentence, except to point back to the first.

Just because the ability does not state that it ends because of a particular effect, does not mean you can insert whatever effect you think fits the story

Why not?

If an ability says "the target is frightened until the end of your next turn" then that is how long they are frightened for.

<snip>

Unlike Fiction, where a single author can manipulate reality to do what the story needs, the reality of DnD is bound by dice and rules that the GM does not alter based on a character's faith or lack thereof.

The fiction of a RPG is bound by what the participants agree to. The rule set the parameters within which they agree. And the rules text is not a property of the fiction. It is a property of the real world. For example, it tells us how long we, as players of the game playing by the rules, are obliged to agree that the person is frightened.

What the cause of their fear is, what the cause of its duration is, etc, are all matters of the fiction. These can be whatever we agree to make up, provided that we keep to our agreed rules.

Sure, you can look at a die roll and declare "And thus providence has declared my victory over Evil!" just the same as a man could look out of his bedroom window, see a cloud that looks like his house crest and declare "And thus providence as declared that land to the East to belong to me!"

Huh? That man is delusional. Whereas my players and I are authoring fiction. Your comparison makes no sense at all.

JRRT knew from the start that the heroes would succeed. He knew from the beginning the One Ring would be destroyed. He knew none of the Hobbits would die. He, himself, was the Providence in the story, because everything went according to his will to tell his story. DnD does not work that way. The GM can't just make up numbers that fit his story, he can't just arbitrarily alter conditions to punish the wicked, he can't control when or if the players make good choices, and he can't reward the just and true while punishing the wicked players.

I could equally sit down, with a plan in my mind from the outset, to write a story about the randomness or arbitrariness of the world - or about the importance of heroic choice at key moments. Either could be written from an existentialist perspective. I've never read an account of how Camus wrote The Outsider, but I very much doubt he did it by tossing coins, rolling dice, or making whimsical decisions.

The manner in which a story is written does not bear upon the content of its fiction. It is not the manner of JRRT's authorship that makes his story a story about providential events. It is the content of the story (both its literal content, and its extensive allusive content).

There is nothing that stops a RPG being about providence. Imagine a game of Fate in which one of my aspects is Chosen by Destiny. The fact that I might invoke that aspect on a whim does not mean that, in the fiction, what happens is not a manifestation of the destiny of my character.

I could use the exact same logic that we can determine the reason to be whatever we want, to declare it was because the spell was cast on a Tuesday, and therefore only lasted 6 seconds. I would have the exact same evidence.

Would you? What is happening, in your fiction, that makes the day of the week salient? I'm prepared to be that in most FRPGing, most of the time, the participants don't actually even know what day of the week it is in the fiction.

This is an illustration of why I don't think you have a very clear picture of how RPGing works. And as I've already said, it makes me very puzzled about how you played Fate.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Did you also see that episode of Tasting History? Because I just learned this too.

It was a shorts video. I actually don't remember the name of the guy who does them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is not true.

In the fiction, something can be pre-ordained, but at the table determined by rolling.

For instance, there is nothing absurd about a RPG including a random destiny table, where a player can roll to see what their PC's pre-ordained fate or nature is.

More boringly, from the fact that I use dice when playing Traveller doesn't settle the question of whether, in the universe of Traveller, mechanistic determinism is true.

Right, let us say you roll on that table, and it says "you are destined to be king". Then your character goes into their first dungeon, hits a trap and dies. You then roll up a new character... and your original character never becomes King. Their "destiny" was a lie. A False Prophecy.

You can of course say it was actually their destiny to get shot in the throat by an arrow trap and die, but you are now changing the narrative, because the dice decided that your destiny was not going to come to pass, therefore making it not your destiny.

An addendum to my post just upthread:

Suppose a GM is writing some setting backstory, and that includes some stuff about a great hero, destiny, fate, a fall, etc - think something JRRT-ish or DL-ish. The GM isn't sure whether they should call their hero Joran or Linnan. So they toss a coin.

Or the GM isn't sure where the hero met their end, and so makes a list of the exciting places on their world map, and rolls a die to choose one of them.

None of this randomness would change the fact that, in the fiction, this is all fate/destiny etc.

The same is true if the randomness happens in the moment of play, as part of the action resolution process.

No, actually, there IS a difference. The first two examples you give are a writing process to determine specifics. The name of the hero is randomized, not the existence of the hero or their traits. The place they die is randomized, not that they die.

But in play, unless you decide to have the hero never actually face death and always succeed until their fated death, you cannot guarantee anything. If you planned to have the hero die to a demon, but they die to an owlbear, sure you can declare "actually destiny stated it was an owlbear the entire time" but you are not dealing with Providence then anymore than if you have a series of warlords declaring that they are going to be the chosen one. and who the chosen one is changes with who is currently winning. What you are doing is just declaring any event that has happened in the past, to be the destined event that was always meant to happen. You are justifying, not prophesying.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Here is the relevant text from page 20 of the AD&D MM:

Devils follow a definite order, a chain of command, which they dare not break for fear of the arch-devils. Still, there is great rivalry, even open antagonism, between the devils of the various planes and between the various arch-devils. While the lesser devils squabble, the dukes of Hell vie to usurp the throne of Asmodeus. But the Archfiend has always succeeded in playing one off against the other, and still rules from his lowest plane. . . .​

​

Devils will serve if properly commanded, but it is risky business, for an improper command will break the law which binds them to service. (It also typically requires a contract for the soul of the creature commanding the internal power to obey.) It is possible for other than lawful evil persons to invoke or otherwise treat with devils (but the long spoon, oft spoken of, had better be used when supping with such monsters). . . .​

​

Devils' Talismans: Each type of lesser devil has a special combination of inscriptions which will bind them to the wielder for the space of nine days, or at least prevent the devils of that type from harming the possessor. Greater devils can likewise be commanded for nine hours or kept at bay. Arch-devils' talismans will cause them to perform a single service, or prevent the bearer from being harmed by a particular duke of Hell, when properly used. The employment of any devil's talisman requires great care and caution. Human sacrifice is required of evil creatures using a talisman.​

This does not say that devils can't break their word. On the contrary, it tends to imply the opposite: being safe from a devil requires magically binding it via its talisman.

That isn't what it says at all? Before any mention of the Talisman it says "for an improper command will break the law which binds them to service. (It also typically requires a contract for the soul of the creature commanding the internal power to obey.)" So, an improper command, which is vague I will grant, will break the law enforced by their contract. And note, nowhere in this, does it say they will lie or that they will break their word.

I think when you refer to history and mathematics you are talking about knowledge of these things, not the things themselves. And knowledge is a good - or if it is not an unalloyed good (eg suppose someone thinks that humans would be better off without knowledge of nuclear physics) then that suggests it is not unalloyed in its value either.

When you talk about tools being valuable you are referring to instrumental value - utility. I took the conversation to be about intrinsically valuable things. The LN don't assert that order is of instrumental value - that is what the LG assert. The LN treat it as an end in itself.

Knowledge is neither good nor evil, but is is valuable. If you want to call it utility, then you can, but it seems to me that while we can demonstrate the utility of ideas, you are referring to something else when you claim value, then declaring it self-evident and only existing in the things you consider good. YOu are just arguing in a circle, declaring your facts self-evident.

I have not asserted that beauty or truth have intrinsic value. I have pointed out that Gygax's account of alignment assumes that they do, and incorporates them into his (capacious) notion of good. And it's not an absurd suggestion - again, Gygax is not the first person to affirm the intrinsic value of beauty (see eg GE Moore) and truth (see eg Plato).

Right, you have never made a claim, everyone else makes claims that you insist we must follow. And sure, Gygax isn't the first to declare Beauty good, nor truth good, nor genocide good (after all the destruction of all those biologically evil beings is nothing but good to Gygax) but if you are just going to sit here and keep acting like no other viewpoint holds value, because Gygax said something to the contrary, then there is really little point in any discussion. And I'm not exactly going to be convinced that blind adherence to extreme viewpoints is necessary for the paladin to exist, just because Gygax said it.

I'm not forcing the conversation to be about anything. Gygax's PHB and DMG are what I am talking about. I am explaining why, in my view, the conception of paladinhood presented in those books is coherent.

If you're curious as to why I think Planescape, and the treatment of truth and honour as pertaining to Lawfulness rather than Goodness, are incoherent, I'm happy to elaborate. But explaining why Gygax's account is coherent can be done without doing this.

But, I was never once trying to discuss Gygax's coherency. In fact, digging back to the original point I was discussing, I was responding to a quote from the text of the 2e Player's Handbook. Which, was written by Zeb Cook, not Gary Gygax. I have also spoken of the presentation in 3.X, written by Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. And of course, to 5th edition, which was also NOT written by Gygax.

If you want to say that every author after Gygax ruined his perfectly coherent vision of the paladin, fine, but it is getting increasingly frustrating to talk about things that Gygax had no hand in, and get in return "But Gygax said..."

I think playing a paladin consistently with the AD&D alignment and class descriptions does not invite "performative" good. Those descriptions, as I have said, present a coherent picture of what is good, and of why LG people see law as connected to goodness. The problems that you invoke - eg conflicts between the paladin and other PCs, or the possibility that the GM will decide the evil guards kill the orphans if the paladin doesn't lie - are products not of the way alignment and paladins are presented, but of particular approaches to how a group of PCs is put together, how scenes are framed, how consequences are adjudicated, and how the GM dictates morality to players.

You can think that if you want, however, as I keep saying, when the paladin is encouraged to not even lie by omission, and the party in any way shape or form wants to hide information from anyone, then you have a problem coming from how the paladin was presented.

Now, to the eternal benefit of the game, much of that is gone. The books very rarely attempt to tell the DM how things must be, for example, nothing in alignment or the paladin in 5e declares that "stealth is a last resort". Heck, the Devotion paladin oath is almost written to be wishy-washy, constantly addending their oaths. Courage: Never fear to act, though caution is wise. Why immediately tack on the idea of wise caution? Because whether or not Gygax said it in the AD&D PHB, many many people have played Paladins who must be courageous, and played that to mean they must never back down from a fight and charge face-first at any enemy, for honor and glory.... and generally the frustration of their party members.

What did Gygax have to say about courage? I have no idea. I don't care. But the paladin players who are problematic aren't the ones who showcase courage, they are the ones who want to dramatically showcase blind courage without any thought of consequences, even if the party would be forced to abandon them, so they can show off how courageous they are. Did Gygax intend for that to happen? I have no idea. I don't care. It has happened. Many times. And it is the current source of most of the problems people run into with problematic paladins.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. The player can read the rulebook, understand the rules of the game, and decide when their PC is doing something that falls under the game's account of what is good and what is evil. They can decide if their PC needs to atone. Etc.

SO the game, written by Gygax, is what they need to reference to decide if what they did was good or evil. Because if the game says it is evil... hmm, if it is the player's decision the entire time, why does it matter what the rules say? Why would they even need to reference or compare their actions to those rules?

This is all one possible way of playing D&D. It is not the only way.

Sure, it isn't the only way, but 99.9999% of the time, the DM decides what NPCs do, not the Players. There is even a song about, quite good, called "Literally everyone else in the world" because that is what the DM traditionally is.... literally everyone that isn't the PC.

I know that you think this is nonsense. This is why I say that you are making assumptions about how RPGs must be played. I don't know how you reconciled that with your play of Fate, though - when you spend a Fate point to change a scene, for instance, what do you think is happening in the fiction?

I mean, suppose you spend a Fate point to have some convenient exit be in the building - who do you suppose built the building with that exit. Or suppose you have the aspect Always Troubled by Suitors, and as your PC is staking out the enemy HQ you say to the GM, "Wouldn't it be cool if some admirers turned up about now?" and the GM says, "Yes, it would" and tosses you a Fate point: in the fiction, those admirers had a reason for being there, for coming past that point, which is not under your PC's control - which may (if we assume a deterministic world) have been caused by factors that have been unfolding since the beginning of time. Yet as creators of fiction you and the GM only bring them onto the stage because of a decision made on the spur of the moment in accordance with the game rules.

Because meta-control of the narrative doesn't prevent random chance. Random suitors showing up because I have an ability that says random suitors might show up is perfectly fine. Declaring that the omnicsicient plan for the universe from the beginnning of time stated that those exact suitors would show up at that exact time, as planned in the perfect Divine Plan.... doesn't work.

You seem to think I have an issue with changes or declaring fiction in general. I don't. It is specifically Providence. It is specifically the idea of an unchanging, unalterable Divine Plan. As was what many of the writers of those mediveal chivalric tales wrote. They did not write that the stone tomb in Dolorous Gard shifted to bear the name of Lancelot, when the fort was built, a man chiseled Lancelot's name into stone, because he was the only one who would ever conquer it and Lancelot could never have been buried anywhere else in all the world, because he was fated to be buried in that tomb. That level of immutablilty CANNOT happen when the actions, lives, and deaths of the characters rely on dice rolls.

Sure, you can look at history and declare it Fate, and plenty of people have done so. I'm sure Cortes said that he was destined to conquer the Aztec, and Alexander the Great said he was destined to conquer all of Greece, and ect ect ect. But looking at what has already happened, and saying "those events were part of an immutable Divine Plan that has been in place since the birth of time" while rolling dice to see what happens next makes no sense to me.

The player is making things up - they are playing a game in which a key thing the participants do is make up fiction.

The paladin is affirming his faith, and - given he is a powerful adherent of the Raven Queen, probably at that point the most powerful in the mortal world - I am confident that he is truthfully reporting her doings.

And since I can read the ability, and it doesn't have a special clause for the most powerful adherent of the Raven Queen... I'm confident he is not. Just like I am confident that the Raven Queen didn't determine the radius of the Fireball spell, or the DC of Night Tears.

The Raven Queen did not lay out the laws of the Multiverse, nor determine exactly how all spells would work, and certainly didn't do so to create this specific set of magic to protect this specific paladin.

If it was a saving throw the paladin had to make, and they wanted to declare that that was because of the Raven Queen, I'd be less frustrated with the example, because maybe she did give him a little nudge. But it isn't even a roll, it is just a brute fact of spell duration.

And, just to get this point out of the way, if the Raven Queen is helping on all of the Paladin's saves, why does he fail some? The answer is not, because the Raven Queen determined his faith was insufficient and decided not to aid him, at least, not to my mind. The answer is because an opposing force was more powerful than her aid this time. Because the Raven Queen is not omniscient, nor omnipotent. She is opposed, her champion is opposed, and those who oppose her are largely her equals. Which, again, does not fit the mold of the Providence. Providence does not leave room for the uncertainty that evil might win, because Good is equally matched. Providence states that victory for Good is inevitable, because Evil stands no chance against the power of Good.

So even "all of my saves are because my god is backing me" is not Providence to my mind, because Providence is that you are part of a perfect, immutable Divine Plan, not just that you have god juice in the tank.

The fiction of a RPG is bound by what the participants agree to. The rule set the parameters within which they agree. And the rules text is not a property of the fiction. It is a property of the real world. For example, it tells us how long we, as players of the game playing by the rules, are obliged to agree that the person is frightened.

What the cause of their fear is, what the cause of its duration is, etc, are all matters of the fiction. These can be whatever we agree to make up, provided that we keep to our agreed rules.

I disagree. The cause of the fear from the Fear spell is the caster of the Fear spell. It cannot be the funny shaped rock behind the caster who cast the Fear spell. Effects have origins, you cannot just alter those origins without altering the effect. The duration of the Fear spell is also spelled out.

You may as well say that gravity only works when the players agree to the fiction, and they can just declare gravity doesn't work for no reason just to bypass hazards and traps. Yes, agreement is needed, because you may have strange effects and bizarre origins for things, but the rules text lays out the rules of the reality of the game world, as best it can. Getting bit by a snake, saving against the poison, then declaring it is because your goddess made you immune to all poisons this day because of your divine destiny would instantly fall apart if the next time you got bit by that same snake, you failed the save.

Huh? That man is delusional. Whereas my players and I are authoring fiction. Your comparison makes no sense at all.

It is the same action. It is looking at an event, which we can source the origin of, and making up a claim of Divine Fate to cover it. You say you are authoring fiction, but you didn't author the ability that would end after a single round. The game did. Just like that man didn't create the cloud, the weather did.

I could equally sit down, with a plan in my mind from the outset, to write a story about the randomness or arbitrariness of the world - or about the importance of heroic choice at key moments. Either could be written from an existentialist perspective. I've never read an account of how Camus wrote The Outsider, but I very much doubt he did it by tossing coins, rolling dice, or making whimsical decisions.

The manner in which a story is written does not bear upon the content of its fiction. It is not the manner of JRRT's authorship that makes his story a story about providential events. It is the content of the story (both its literal content, and its extensive allusive content).

There is nothing that stops a RPG being about providence. Imagine a game of Fate in which one of my aspects is Chosen by Destiny. The fact that I might invoke that aspect on a whim does not mean that, in the fiction, what happens is not a manifestation of the destiny of my character.

Yes, there is. There is the fact that you cannot have an immutable Divine Plan set forth then randomly determine the events of the story. I don't know exactly how Chosen by Destiny works, but if you are Chosen by Destiny to be the one who slays the evil wizard, and you die before you can do that... then there was no Providence. There was no Divine Destiny that cannot be escaped. Because you died and did not slay the Evil Wizard.

Now, if you want to say "I am destined to do... something!" and then play off every event as being destiny, okay fine, but you have created such a vague sense of what "destiny" is in that case, that it is no longer Providence. Because it could be literally anything or nothing.

Would you? What is happening, in your fiction, that makes the day of the week salient? I'm prepared to be that in most FRPGing, most of the time, the participants don't actually even know what day of the week it is in the fiction.

This is an illustration of why I don't think you have a very clear picture of how RPGing works. And as I've already said, it makes me very puzzled about how you played Fate.

Yes, I could. Because the mechanics of the event are the exact same. The duration of the spell expired, and the Paladin declared something unrelated as the reason. The fact that your Paladin had faith it was the Raven Queen because he is a servant of the Raven queen is no more salient than it would be if an archer rolled a critical hit and the Paladin declared it was because the Raven Queen wished to punish him. All you are doing is a post-hoc explanation that fits into the mold your paladin wants it to fit into. There is no change in the actions, the source, the origin, and the NPCs don't even need to act. The explanation only appears to hold meaning, because your character is religious. You could declare that "because I have faith" is why a shield gives +2 AC. It has nothing to do with faith, it is mechanics.

 

[Redwizard007]

This is why I've said that the issue is not the paladin's alignment and code - rather, it's an approach to play in which the GM gets to tell the player whether or not they are playing their character correctly.

Once upon a time, that was how RPGs were commonly played. IMO, it's nice that we have moved away from that type of game, but every now and then I run into someone who enjoys a... well, a more adversarial role for DM/GM. Someone who waxes poetic about the good old days of save-less death traps, or feels that paladins and rogues can't coexist in the same party, and that characters MUST do X because of Y. I usually steer those guys towards 2e groups that enjoy the older style of play, and the rules that support it.

 

[Redwizard007]

I completely agree.

And I think one of the aspects that is driving me in this conversation is a particular player at a table I am at, who is very much trying to play a Crusader-styled warrior (he is an author who wrote a fantasy series based on the idea of the Crusades) and how some of his behavior is far more about "the nobles" than it is about "Good, Truth and Justice"

It also doesn't help that a few weeks ago I learned that the origin of the word "villain" is "villager" which deeply highlights for me the issues in the idea that "nobility" is good and how those narratives interact with each other.

Edit: I should clarify. It isn't that this guy is a bad player. He isn't exactly (bit of a spotlight hog, but nothing serious). But he has gotten borderline a few times and when comparing him to other paladin PCs I have had over the years, the comparison had me picking out the differences between those excellent PCs and his PC that comparison troubles me.

Yeah. The crusader orders are not what I would look to for inspiration on a D&D paladin in 2024, but they are definitely esential to the mythology from which the paladin has sprung. I could see a PC like that being a problem with some of my groups, but he would fit right in at others.

 

[pemerton]

Once upon a time, that was how RPGs were commonly played.

True. And judging from some of what I read online, I think it remains not that uncommon.

Speaking just for myself, it was in the latter part of the 1980s - GMing the original OA in particular - that I started to identify and implement an approach which put the player's conception of their character at the centre, rather than the GM's conception of what the player's character should do.

 

[pemerton]

The duration of the spell expired, and the Paladin declared something unrelated as the reason.

Your assertion that it is unrelated is just that - mere assertion. The game rules do not specify any particular fictional reason for why the fiction will include the victim of the baleful polymorph turning back to their normal shape. My player supplied one. You are in no position to say that he was wrong, or lying, or self-deceived: the fiction at our table is not something that you are a part of establishing.

Right, let us say you roll on that table, and it says "you are destined to be king". Then your character goes into their first dungeon, hits a trap and dies. You then roll up a new character... and your original character never becomes King. Their "destiny" was a lie. A False Prophecy.

OK.

What does that have to do with my point? I didn't say anything about when a PC dies. I said that, from the fact that something is rolled up on a table (and so, in the real world, is shaped by randomness) doesn't mean that, in the fiction, it is random.

You can of course say it was actually their destiny to get shot in the throat by an arrow trap and die, but you are now changing the narrative, because the dice decided that your destiny was not going to come to pass, therefore making it not your destiny.

<snip>

But in play, unless you decide to have the hero never actually face death and always succeed until their fated death, you cannot guarantee anything. If you planned to have the hero die to a demon, but they die to an owlbear, sure you can declare "actually destiny stated it was an owlbear the entire time" but you are not dealing with Providence then anymore than if you have a series of warlords declaring that they are going to be the chosen one. and who the chosen one is changes with who is currently winning. What you are doing is just declaring any event that has happened in the past, to be the destined event that was always meant to happen. You are justifying, not prophesying.

There is no changing of the fiction in the examples that I have posted, so I don't know what you light you think your posts are shedding.

That level of immutablilty CANNOT happen when the actions, lives, and deaths of the characters rely on dice rolls.

The actions of my RPG characters do not depend on dice rolls. The dice rolls happen in the real world, not in the fiction! In the fiction, they live and die for whatever reasons are apposite in the fiction.

To reiterate, the use of dice rolls in a sci-fi RPG does not mean that, in the fiction, mechanical determinism is false. If I'm playing a historical RPG in which my PC is Newton, or Einstein, it doesn't refute my conviction that the world is deterministic to point out that, at the table, we use dice!

Random suitors showing up because I have an ability that says random suitors might show up is perfectly fine. Declaring that the omnicsicient plan for the universe from the beginnning of time stated that those exact suitors would show up at that exact time, as planned in the perfect Divine Plan.... doesn't work.

This is obviously false. From the fact that I am playing a game of Fate, nothing follows about whether the fiction affirms Calvinism, existentialism, mechanistic determinism, Hegelianism, Buddhist "emptiness", or any other position on the causal nature of the universe and the relationship between and meaning of events.

Getting bit by a snake, saving against the poison, then declaring it is because your goddess made you immune to all poisons this day because of your divine destiny would instantly fall apart if the next time you got bit by that same snake, you failed the save.

Would it? Or would it suggest that something else has happened between the two events?

You make these dogmatic assertions about what must be possible in RPGing, but all they actually reveal is the narrowness of your conception of what is possible.

if the Raven Queen is helping on all of the Paladin's saves, why does he fail some?

This is a version of the problem of evil. Theodicy is a well-ploughed field. It doesn't raise any particular puzzle, in the context of RPG play, that is distinct from the general ones that it raises in the real world, and that real world believers resolve using the various intellectual and emotional devices that are open to them. The two that I'm most familiar with are the best of all possible worlds and mystery.

The cause of the fear from the Fear spell is the caster of the Fear spell. It cannot be the funny shaped rock behind the caster who cast the Fear spell. Effects have origins, you cannot just alter those origins without altering the effect. The duration of the Fear spell is also spelled out.

This is all just repetition. You are asserting that the rules of the game must be part of the causal process in the fiction. This is the same thing that makes people conclude that hp are meat, that Come and Get It is martial mind control, etc. Suffice to say that other approaches to RPGing are possible - Gygax identified them in his PHB and DMG 45 years ago, and subsequent designers have developed them further.

The fact that your Paladin had faith it was the Raven Queen because he is a servant of the Raven queen is no more salient than it would be if an archer rolled a critical hit and the Paladin declared it was because the Raven Queen wished to punish him.

<snip>

It has nothing to do with faith, it is mechanics.

More dogmatic assertion! The reason why the player of paladin has authority over what happens to him, and how that relates to the Raven Queen, but not over another player's character, is obvious: RPGs distribute "ownership" of different elements of the fiction to different participants. It is then the job of the rules to integrate these cohesively (and it a sign of a poor ruleset that it doesn't do this very well).

And you say it is not faith, it is mechanics as if these contrast. Which is bizarre: one (faith) is fiction, the other (mechanics) a real-world process used by the players of the game to help determine the shared fiction. You may as well say that the reason a fighter PC killed an Orc is not fighting prowess but mechanics. I mean, that would be an absurd thing to say, and your example is the same. Similarly, we may as well say - in our game of Fate in which a character's aspect is Always Troubled by Suitors - that the reason the suitors accost the character is not because they are besotted, but because the player spent a fate point.

It's not possible to say anything useful about how RPGing works until we distinguish events in the real world and the imagined events of the fiction.

the rules text lays out the rules of the reality of the game world, as best it can.

No. The rules text first and foremost tells us what we have to agree to about the shared fiction, and what the process is that governs the establishing of that agreement.

You said upthread you've played Fate. Fate does not tell us anything about the "reality of the game world". What it does tell us is that, under certain circumstances, a player is entitled to insist that something-or-other (typically connected to an aspect) is part of the fiction. This is why, in my earlier post, I expressed surprise that you were able to successfully play Fate while holding such dogmatic views about the relationship between RPG rules and the fiction that is created and shared among the participants.

I don't know exactly how Chosen by Destiny works

In my post I was proposing it as an aspect, that would work the same way that any other aspect does in Fate. Upthread you said that you have played Fate, but now you do not seem to be very familiar with some of its basic features.

You may as well say that gravity only works when the players agree to the fiction, and they can just declare gravity doesn't work for no reason just to bypass hazards and traps.

Now you seem to be getting it!

Fiction is not self-creating, or self-validating. In the context of RPGing, it is joint. It is shared imagining.