Cheating Death

[Felix]

AuraSeer, were you looking over my shoulder while I was posting?

Talk about a one-two punch.

 

[Mark Chance]

1) He could refuse Fitch's request. That would be failing to help those in need, which is against the code of conduct.

2) He could accept Fitch's request, find out what is required of him, and then decide not to talk to Death. That would mean going back on his word to Fitch, which is not honorable.

3) He could go through with Death's mission, and end up killing an innocent. That's a clear no-no.

4) He could agree to Death's terms, and then change his mind on learning the target. Not only would this involve breaking an oath, it would get him stuck with a curse to boot.

5) He could accept Fitch's request, find out what is required of him, and talk to Death. Upon hearing Death's terms, the paladin could decide that they are unacceptable due to the paladin's code. He could then try to negotiate acceptable (from the paladin's POV) terms. That failing, he refuses Death's request. End of story. Paladin status intact.

 

[youspoonybard]

I think this is an excellent scenario, and if there's a problem, it's with the Pally CoC rather than the DM.

Player -> chose to play a paladin. Sometimes things like this happen. If he wants out of the whole scenario, he could ask the cleric to try and get Molly rezzed, but realize it's for the better good not to. Or that that's the way life is. Perhaps he will hide from the dwarven tavern. A dark secret in the Paladin's heart, nothing to take away his powers, but a sore spot indeed.

Perhaps he will lose his powers for a while, and have to undertake a quest for atonement. That's not the end of the world, nor the end of a character.

Then have the assassins come, take Molly's body, and use it to haunt the paladin. Or have them send him nightmares about her. Perhaps allow him to do a quest to revive her someother way, or to convince Death, or do it a favor.

 

[Nifft]

Give him some pain, but allow some outs.

1) Specify a non-obvious target. "Slay the oldest soul within the walls of Torm's Home for the Aged on 443 West Baldur Street in Waterford." It looks like he wants you to kill some old guy, who may be good or evil, but actually he's asking for you to kill an ancient, advanced ghoul who literally lives in the walls, and eats the dead when they are interred. For those who like investigation. If you fear your PC won't get the subtle hint, make the old men unsure of their ages, so he has to investigate for a while, and you can drop clues about the ghoul.

2) Allow a mercy killing. "The soul of one in Waterford calls out to me: find him in the stockade, weeping." The poor guy is a deaf/mute with a painful disease who was falsely accused of stealing, and couldn't defend himself in court. He's miserable, but his religion forbids him to take his own life. The Paladin can walk up and slay him, and he will be grateful. The Paladin's god will not have any problem with the situation. However, the church -- or at least the local authorities -- may have a problem with it. On one hand, they may think that the Paladin is dealing out divine justice, but being far too harsh -- stealing isn't a capital crime! On the other hand, some may think that the gods no longer forbid murder, since a godrotting Paladin can just walk up and kill some helpless guy.

3) "Unbind the soul of the chief of the Blood Red Sky tribe." Go kill me an Orc. This will be earthshaking if previously Orcs were thought to not have souls. Interesting moral problem, but not the one that it looked like at first.

-- Nifft

 

[psyronin]

to approach the city temple and ask the cleric to bring Molly back to the world of the living.

The Paladin, caught in the emotion of the moment, agrees. (setting the hook)

To what exactly did the Paladin agree? To ask the cleric? Once he's asked he's fulfilled his obligation to Fitch. Or did Fitch ask for the Paladin himself to bring Molly back to the living? If this is a no-rez campaign like it sounds, the Paladin would have been quite foolish to promise anything monumental like that without knowing what it might entail.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

My biggest problem with this entire scenario is that it's been engineered to screw the paladin, as others have said. It's not a moral dilemma, it's a moral trap.

Examples of moral dilemmas:

1. The One vs. the Many: An evil god's holiest day draws near. The paladin learns through dreams that two priests of the evil god will be performing fell rites in his name. Only the paladin can stop them, yet the priests are located hundreds of miles apart, and he can only stop one of them. Does he ride to prevent the pure maiden from being sacrificed, or does he leave the maiden to her fate and ride to prevent the other cleric from poisoning the town well? Here, the dilemma ties into the philosophical question of the one vs. the many. Some philosophers believe many lives are worth more than one, others believe that you cannot quantify quality of life, and the maiden should have the same right to be saved as the villagers. The paladin must decide. Either way he is performing a good act, but in either case, he must live with the knowledge that he could have prevented the other death(s) if he'd chosen.

2. Evil Now vs. Evil Then: A tyrranical overlord puts a young knight's family to death. Years later, the overlord has a change of heart and gives up his power, retiring to a small village to tend to the land and repent. However, the knight cannot forget the death of his family. He pursues the overlord, performing several morally questionable acts in the process. While the paladin is visiting the village, the knight finally catches up with the overlord. This scenario revolves around past and present evil, and what justifies killing. The knight was good, but has fallen into neutrality, the overlord was evil but has risen into neutrality, now they come into mortal conflict right before the paladin's eyes. Does he side with the knight whose family was killed? Does he side with the overlord trying to become a better person? Does he allow them to cross swords and let fate decide? Here, the paladin can take any number of actions, but inevitably he'll be forced to truly examine the morality of the situation, and make some hard judgements.

These are the kinds of situations that I think paladins should be faced with. Situations that cause the player to look at morality, to make decisions that they may not entirely be comforable with, to examine what justice and honor really mean.

But I don't think that by deciding on a paladin, the player implicitly or explicitly agrees into being railroaded into losing his powers. That's just bunk.

 

[Agback]

G'day

Does the character-player involved with this story want to keep plying a paladin? If so, how do you expect him to pull his chestnuts out of the fire? Because you have to face the fact that there is a very strong chance that if you play this scenario out either the paladin will lose his class or the player will lose sympathy for his character.

As for paladins losing their status 'temporarily', don't forget that 'temporarily' can become 'permanently' if it lasts long enough for the character to gain a level (a rule that I think is highly unappealing, but which will weigh on your player's mind).

I have, I will admit, harrowed player characters with setups like this. My advice is that you have to be prepared for these situations to turn out badly. If the player loses a favourite character, he had better feel that the outcome had a tragic inevitability to it, not that he was set up using plot devices.

As things stand, it seems to me that there is no inevitability to Lord Death's choice of good victim, and that this is the point at which the player will feel that you have treated him with malice. So you are going to have to do some work on that part.

Finally: what happens when one of the paladin's lawful Neutral buddies helps his code-bound friend out of a jamb by offing Lord Death's target du jour? (I always encourage players in campaign with little moral script immunity to generate parties that include at least one sin-eater: a character who can do those necessary things that the others' heroic concepts will not permit.)

Summary: D&D is a game in which characters tend to by generated below concept, and in which players often work long and hard to get what they want. Tragedy is a genre in which heroes are destroyed. Be careful how the two mix.

Regards,


Agback

 

[babomb]

I'd hate to see what would happen if you WERE trying to screw the paladin.

First, the way you worded your post, the only thing the paladin agreed to do was ask. If so, that's all he has to do.

Second, you made it clear that he didn't know about the fact that another life must be taken to bring her back. The paladin didn't swear an oath, but simply agreed (from the way your post read). Finding new information is good enough for insubordination; I think it's good enough for breaking an informal agreement.

Third, you seem to imply that this was the player's choice, as he didn't have to agree. Making a simple uninformed choice is no reason to punish a player. Besides, it seems to me you'd probably have taken his powers for not agreeing, seeing as he'd be refusing to help the needy for no good reason. You say the Paladin can wash his hands at any time, but then he's stuck with a curse and at least temporarily loses his Paladinhood.

Fourth, it's not a moral dilemma if there's nothing you can do about it. You're not so much hooking him and reeling him in as pumping all of the water out of the pond and blaming him for not growing lungs.

As for my suggestion, either have Lord Death choose the dwarf or the assassins. Either is much more interesting for the player than a one-way ticket to Fighter-Without-Feats-ville, population you.

Oh, and if the Paladin offers his own life in exchange WITHOUT prompting from you or any of your NPCs, I'd give him the girl's soul for free (though maybe <i>reincarnated</i> instead of <i>raised</i>).

 

[HeavyG]

My biggest problem with this entire scenario is that it's been engineered to screw the paladin, as others have said. It's not a moral dilemma, it's a moral trap.

It certainly sounds like it.

Moral dilemmas require that the person who suffers the dilemma be informed about it. I'm not 100% sure but it does sound like the paladin's player is in the dark about a whole lot of things.

You see, Molly was the daughter he never had, and losing her is simply too much to bear. He appeals to the Paladin, who is also a dwarf, to approach the city temple and ask the cleric to bring Molly back to the world of the living.

The Paladin, caught in the emotion of the moment, agrees. (setting the hook)

At that point, I would certainly hope that the player knew exactly how Raise Dead worked. I mean, the character would, being a religious man and raising the dead certainly warranting tons of stories and legends (as well as certainly warranting many stanzas in the paladin's god's equivalent of the bible).

If the player wasn't informed of this beforehand, the scenario is completely wacked.

Now comes the fun part. Lord Death will give Molly to the Paladin. However, if a soul is taken, a soul much be given. A soul of Lord Death's choosing.
The soul could be anyone, a party member, Fitch, or any other NPC. Lord Death has no concern for good or evil.

The wise thing for the paladin to do would be to refuse the offer and let Molly go on to the afterlife. But I have a feeling he won't.

He only wouldn't if he didn't have complete information.

And the clerics casting the raise dead spell would certainly warn the paladin beforehand how this would work, including that Lord Death would ask for a soul whose identity would not be revealed before the paladin agreed. They would know this seeing as though they would have seen it tens (or hundreds) of times before and would have no reason to keep such information to themselves (unless they were sick and twisted that is, and the paladin would probably not be dealing with them then).

If he keeps his word, he will have to kill a good npc. That will definitely cost him his paladinhood. (reeling him in)

So, really, you're choosing to screw the player over since Lord Death doesn't care about good or evil, right ?

It would seem to me that he would want people to accept these deals and so wouldn't seek to screw everyone over every chance he gets ? After all, he benefits from these deals or else he wouldn't be doing them.

Man, I'm an evil gm.

Yeah, way to go, you're so l33t ! *swoon*

Instead it grants an audience with Lord Death, whose job it is to ferry souls from this life to the next.
The person must then barter with Lord Death for the soul of the deceased.

Calling this blind "take it or leave it" exchange a deal and "bartering" is really a stretch, IMO.

You have a wonderful opportunity here. Heroes outwitting powerful negative forces (death, the devil, whatever) in a deal is a staple of heroic tales. It would require a real negociation, though. If you make the terms negociable and if the player can negociate on who he has to kill, or how he must do it, or if there are terms that can be interpreted creatively (well, not too creatively, this is a paladin, not a lawyer), then this could be a really cool roleplaying opportunity, IMO.

 

[Steverooo]

5) He could accept Fitch's request, find out what is required of him, and talk to Death. Upon hearing Death's terms, the paladin could decide that they are unacceptable due to the paladin's code. He could then try to negotiate acceptable (from the paladin's POV) terms. That failing, he refuses Death's request. End of story. Paladin status intact.

6) Upon finding out Death's terms, the Paladin refuses to accept the offer. He attacks Death, and is slain... End of problem (and character).

7) Upon finding out Death's terms, the Paladin refuses to accept the offer. He attacks Death, and is successful in defeating It. The Paladin becomes Lord Death, and grants Molly her life, again... At this point, God steps in, demotes the Paladin from Lord of Death back to Paladin, and appoints a new Lord Death. Situation Normal, again.