D&D General Deleted

[Cadence]

It's almost as if a certain someone just went over the thesaurus and didn't bother to check the dictionary definitions...

Had to go look them up. My oldest dictionary around the house is the 1988 Webster's Ninth Collegiate.

beatific: (1) of, possessing, or imparting beatitude (2) having a blissful or benign appearance: saintly, angelic (a ~ smile)

beatitude: (1a) a state of utmost bliss, (1b) used as a title for a primate esp. of an Eastern church

saint: relating to, resembling, or befitting a saint: holy

So it might not have gotten right at the process of beatification. Although I would have thought EGG's reading would have led him to know that.



Anyway, thinking back to when this was all coming around in the early 70s, and about CG, and beatific being blissfull - a quick google search brought this up...

from: Crocq, M-A (2020) in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This sort of objection to paladinhood is like criticising the X-Men because instead of doing useful things, like (say) using eye-blasts to drill bores, and using weather-control to alleviate famine, they waste their time fighting Arcade and Dr Doom. What that criticism really is is a rejection of the genre (qv Watchmen).

No, it isn't. Because Dr. Doom is actively trying to harm people. Stopping the man who wants to harm people is good. Also doing common sense out-reach to make people's lives better when you are constantly fighting a PR campaign of how people hate you for being too dangerous is ALSO a smart thing to do, but we don't but we don't refuse to fight evil just because making plows will stop starvation.

A paladin only makes sense within a providential conception of the world - where personal honour is part of what is demanded/expected of human beings as part of the divine plan. When, in Excalibur, Arthur proclaims that no knight who is false can win, in single combat, against a knight who is true he is not making a prediction about prowess: he is affirming his faith in the workings of providence.

In the context of FRPGing, a lot of this is up to the GM, insofar as the GM controls consequences. If the GM frames consequences in such a way that knights who are true lose, rather than prevail - or cause a lot of harm to innocents as a result of their fighting - then the GM is presenting a world in which paladins have no place. That's fine if that's what you want - there's no room for paladins in the world of REH's Conan - but I think it helps to be clear about what's going on.

So... you realize with this you have effectively given the Paladin premier place in the fiction, right? Because by Arthur's assertion, a rogue who fights via trickery and deceit would always lose to someone who uses no trickery or deceit. The wizard who uses magic would always lose to the "true knight" represented by the paladin.

And so if the story is to present that the rogue or the wizard can be heroes whose methods cause good... then the paladin no longer has a place in the game, according to this theory. Which means the person who wants to play a paladin (or the DM who decides this) now gets to dictate everyone else's character and their arc. They all MUST affirm their faith in the workings of Providence, or lose. They cannot find strength in other callings, or approach a problem in different ways.

But, as a counter point, I never said that Paladins couldn't be in the game. I said that the paladin who refuses to sneak, and instead charges the front doors of the keep, is putting their pride in their nobility and honor, before the good of the people.

Consider this. A Devotion Paladin takes an Oath to never lie. They are grabbed by the BBEG, who demands to know where the Orb of Ultimate Power is located. Now, a rogue, might lie, might deceive the dragon and save their own life. The Paladin who says "I cannot tell a lie, the Orb of Ultimate Power is hidden in the Village of Hex" may feel like they are being noble, not deceiving and being honest in all ways.... they are also being an IDIOT. Because "I refuse to tell you" is ALSO not a lie, but hides the Orb. But I have completely seen people do this. They have acted against the interest of the party, against the interest of the innocents, all to make sure everyone is aware that they are Capitol G Good and have never used an underhanded tactic ever. They won't even lie by omission!

This isn't to say the paladin has no place in the game, because I have seen highly honorable, highly courageous, exemplar characters who are Paragons of Good... trick people. They don't lie, they just don't correct your assumptions. They teach humility by being humble, they teach honesty by being honest in ways that matter, not to show off but in ways that a nobleman (who many of the chivalric ideals were based around the ideal nobleman) wouldn't do. And these characters show case to me that it is possible to be honorable and good, meanwhile, characters who are loud and blatant about "I shall never do anything to dishonor my highly honorable honor because I am honorable and will not act dishonorably!"... seem to forget the point is to be good. Being a good person takes second chair behind Honor, Nobility, and being seen being Honorable and Noble!

Which I think goes against the spirit of the class. Just like a hero who is more concerned with a "fair fight" isn't much of a hero when they care more about being fair, than the safety of the citizens who are in danger.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Exactly. That's why paladins had to atone for chaotic acts in AD&D, even if those acts were done in the pursuit of a greater good. It's because the paladin was prideful enough to not put their faith in their god to make sure the greater good would come about while the paladin obeyed their strictures.

The paladin has to show complete trust in their deity that not lying, not using poison, etc, will always result in the greatest amount of good.

It took me a long minute to figure out what bothered me about this. And I'll be skirting the topic a bit, but I think this is a clear line where you pass out of paladin and into Templar or Crusader.

The idea that it is prideful for the paladin to act outside of their oath, because it means they did not trust their god/goddess... assumes that god or goddess is omniscient and always correct. For it to be wrong to see a situation where it appears your oath will cause greater harm than good, when your oath was created potentially thousands of years ago in a completely different context, would require the entity who made that oath to be able to predict this situation and know that the path of the oath as you interpret it, would be the better path.

This is not how deities in DnD work. They are not omniscient. They are not always correct. We know this, because they have been lied to and deceived in the past.

Additionally, it feels very "paper clip maximizer" to me, to consider that they are correct, but only in the long term. That, for example, allowing a small, preventable tragedy would cause more good in the long-run because that is what the math of universe says. This, again, feels like it misses the spirit of what a Paragon archetype should be, and Paladins are the Paragon class. It shouldn't be an equation of maximizing goodness. It should be true-hearted, kind, goodness reaching out to help everyone you can.

I think it may be the remnants of the Chivalric Knight, which can be traced to some of the most anti-party actions and behaviors of Paladins, not the commitment to doing good.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Probably reading to much onto it. Even the real tales they're vased on you're kinda neglecting the reason why things happened.

Crusades started essentially because of raiding. Armies got into France and as far west as Vienna.

No one's gonna look good using modern lens.

Agreed. There's really no way to look at anything based on medieval times or the Renaissance or basically any time more than a few decades ago (at best) without running into, by modern standards, a bunch of awful people doing awful things. You just have to find a way to deal with that if you're going to appreciate the past in any meaningful way.

 

[pemerton]

The original system of Gygax is occasionally awful, such as actual warcrimes and sociopathy being as if "Lawful Good".

This is not stated anywhere in the PHB or DMG.

the original system conflated and confused unrelated concepts about what "Chaos" means ... ethically. Meanwhile there was an immature inability to distinguish ethical Good from "obedience" to the system in power.

I don't think that latter thins is stated anywhere in the PHB or DMG either. As far as what chaos means, the focus is on individualism and self-actualisation. The contrast is with falling social norms and externally-dictated precepts.

Plus, the original system is so fifty years ago! Evolution and sanity have happened since then.

Well, my view is that the core question that is framed by Gygax - namely, is Law or Chaos the proper way to ensure human flourishing - remains as cogent now as it did then.

Whether it's cogent in some ultimate sense I don't know, but I don't think it's obviously absurd - although it may have had more immediate currency in 1968!

With regard to an alignment map of eight plus a center, I still find it useful. These are directions of movement: actions, behaviors, habits.

In my view this way of talking about alignment makes no sense, because if they are just habits then why would LG people conflict with CG people, or for that matter with CE people? This is the issue with Planescape - the contrast between LG, CG and CE seems to be purely an aesthetic one, not a genuine moral or even political one.

 

[pemerton]

Exactly. That's why paladins had to atone for chaotic acts in AD&D, even if those acts were done in the pursuit of a greater good. It's because the paladin was prideful enough to not put their faith in their god to make sure the greater good would come about while the paladin obeyed their strictures.

The paladin has to show complete trust in their deity that not lying, not using poison, etc, will always result in the greatest amount of good.

I 100% agree with this. 200%!

I think it also shows why, in many D&D games, paladins are not a good fit. If the whole way the game is framed and adjudicated makes the paladin's faith/trust obviously silly to everyone at the table, then the exercise becomes pointless.

A simple example: if every roll of the d20 is interpreted as modelling or revealing random causal factors or sheer chance, then a nihilistic assumption has already been built in, and the paladin's trust looks foolish. But if the roll of the d20 can be interpreted as revealing the workings of providence, then the paladin is not per se a fool.

 

[pemerton]

I personally think D&D alignment as it has been expressed over many editions, with maybe the exception of the old Law and Chaos approach which I think is simple enough to work, is strange, and doesn't reflect real world moral systems well at all.

Well, if you read Gygax's PHB and DMG you will see that his description of good encompasses all the major moral outlooks: Benthamism (greatest good of the greatest number), wellbeing, human rights, all the widely recognised values (happiness, beauty, truth, self-fulfilment).

And he describes evil as pursuing self-interest without accepting any sort of moral constraint on legitimate choices.

So the alignment system will not answer any moral questions. I've seen some people suggest that utilitarianism is evil in D&D terms, but not on Gygax's acccount, Nor is Kantianism. Nor is a straightforward virtue ethics. (Some forms of virtue ethics, like Stoicism, probably end up True Neutral in Gygax's scheme, but these are peculiar in that they deny the possibility of human action producing good - in Gygax's language, they are "naturalistic" philosophies.)

It's only if you try to force alignment to answer moral questions, or if you treat statements like Although it's good, it's not what I ought to do as coherent, that alignment breaks down. The poster child for this sort of breakdown, of course, is Planescape.

 

[pemerton]

The Neutral Good explicitly says they are just tools, right? (1e DMG, page 23)
View attachment 365861

Going for L-C axis, they don't seem to concern themselves with G&E: (pg. 23 and then 24)
View attachment 365863
View attachment 365864

It's been a while since I read the whole thing in the DMG, and I had forgotten he punted (pg. 24)
View attachment 365862


I find it kind of funny that in Appendix III of the PHB that Saintly is LG and Beatific is CG given beatification is a step on the say to sainthood.

The point is that NG is making a claim. That LG and CG disagree with! It's not a neutral description, it's a partisan position.

And moreso for LN and CN. We already know that LN and CN people are not good. So what is their opinion worth? LN are a type of order-fetishist, who have mistaken a means for an end, but are not actively evil. Likewise the CN, except that they fetishise individualism.

Again, it's only if we take the view that LN is itself a defensible meritorious outlook - which is to say, if we ignore the ordinary meaning of the word "good" and hence what it would mean to be neutral towards (ie indifferent about) goodness - that we get the silliness of supposing that Law and Chaos have independent value, and nonsense like the idea that NG is more "purely" good than (say) LG or CG.

 

[pemerton]

I find it kind of funny that in Appendix III of the PHB that Saintly is LG and Beatific is CG given beatification is a step on the say to sainthood.

I don't think that beatific here refers to the process of beatification. I think it is being used with its meaning imparting holy bliss.

Whether or not that contrast with being a saint is a further question: I take the contrast to be between place in a hierarchy and individual self-realisation. Of course, if the LG are correct than the beatific are a distraction that leads to error - a focus on the individual that will ultimately undo the social structures necessary to secure goodness. And mutatis mutandis if the CG are correct.

 

[Cadence]

Again, it's only if we take the view that LN is itself a defensible meritorious outlook - which is to say, if we ignore the ordinary meaning of the word "good" and hence what it would mean to be neutral towards (ie indifferent about) goodness - that we get the silliness of supposing that Law and Chaos have independent value, and nonsense like the idea that NG is more "purely" good than (say) LG or CG.

It feels like to me that that is what Gygax was aiming for though. Perhaps trying to put the Elric cosmology and his own in the same world without identifying them with each other.

Is ending up taking up the cause of law or revolution as it's own thing something thing that some political and religious groups fall into IRL (or at least get widely accused of)?

Did any of the warring parties in WWII, for example, actually think of themselves as evil? So is one of the actual problems that this system has that all the other groups concede the word "good"?

(IANAL, so thank you for sharing your expertise.)