Are we still stuck on this point?
The paladin's play can lead to mechanical consequences, such as taking damage.
The invoker's play can lead to mechanical consequences, such as his familar taking damage.
I don't see how this is rocket science.
Yes. It's called the skill challenge mechanic. The player could either have his PC let Vecna have the souls, or have his PC send them to the Raven Queen but take damage to his familiar. He took the latter option.
To the initial question, who is "we"? I don't think billd91, Imaro or I are stuck on this point. It seems like some are, though.
The Paladin’s play may lead to him engaging in combat, wherein a d20 is rolled, an attack bonus added, it exceeds his AC and hp damage is rolled. What mechanic was engaged against the Invoker? The sense I got from your writeup is that you decided, since the choice was made to redirect the souls, Vecna punished the invoker. Not that the player rolled, and his roll determined that his familiar took damage, but he still succeeded in redirecting the souls. Not that he failed by 1 and invoked a power that said “add a +2 bonus to a roll at the cost of your familiar taking 1 point of damage; this can be done after the results of the roll are determined”. That the GM said “because you redirected the souls, Vecna is angered and injures your familiar” with no use of the action resolution mechanics.
As far as I can tell, you are the only person posting in this thread who equates taking damage for angering an NPC with a permanent change to character class for making an immoral choice.
Let me help you out with that:
They kept coming up, as I saw them, because you kept dropping hints that you were judging a PC's actions based on whether or not they were crossing Vecna and imposing a consequence. And frankly the difference between doing that and judging an action based on alignment doesn't exist. It's a player crossing some line and the GM adjudicating the consequences.
Yet you used DM fiat to manifest Vecna's anger against the Invoker... not th actual resolution mechanics. Was the familiar in active or passive mode? I assumed passive since the player didn't declare it was doing anything in your example. If it was in passive mode how was it hurt for the necessary 1 hp? And are their rules for Vecna exerting control over the magic item? In fact in looking at the magic item I don't see it able to perform any type of magic (as described in your example) on Vecna's behalf.
I do not believe I am the only one who perceives an inconsistency. That is, that you previously asserted, as a matter of principal, the player’s role playing should not lead to an impediment to the ability to impact on the shared fiction without the usual action resolution mechanics. Yet here, you have removed one of the character’s abilities which impact the shared fiction.
No one is arguing this is equal in impact to removal of the Paladin’s powers. It is a much more minor reduction to the player’s ability to impact the shared fiction. But it is nevertheless such a reduction, contrary to your stated principal.
Who is the "we" here? It's certainly not me. I don't assume that everything a paladin PC does is consistent with his/her code. I follow the lead of the player in that respect.
OK, my terminology was imprecise. I will rephrase: So, once sole responsibility for assessing consistency with the code is assigned to the player, there's no difficulty assessing their compliance with said code. Just ask the player. Whatever the character does is in perfect compliance, absent the player’s decision that it is not.
You seem to have a great love of judging others' play while posting no examples of your own.
You seem to expect that all will agree that your play examples are above reproach, and expect them to be viewed as the lofty heights to which we should all strive. You posted an example of play and I noted a perceived inconsistency with what you did in play and what you said in your earlier posts. [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] seem to have perceived the same inconsistency, from their posts, and I think others may have as well, but I’m not rooting back to find them.
Second, I have no idea what you are talking about when you say the scene is designed outside the rules and outside the action resolution mechanics. The scene comes about precisely by application of the action resolution mechanics: the PC died in combat, and hence his soul went to the Raven Queen.
Can you cite a page reference that indicates the activities which are undertaken by a dead character? To the extent this is how you run your game, and not how the game rules provide for action resolution on the part of dead characters, then it is outside the rules and outside the action resolution mechanics. Was there a roll to determine whether the PC was, or was not, perceived by RQ as acting consistent with her wishes? If the player is the sole arbiter of his code, how is it that you, through the RQ, assessed his compliance with it? Or is the player the sole arbiter only if he chooses to be, and can delegate that right and responsibility to the GM, in whole or in part, at his sole discretion.
Third, this is the fourth time a dead PC in my game has met with the Raven Queen and been tasked with something. The other occasions involved 2nd, 3rd and 15th level PCs.
Here is a link to the last of those.
The fact that this is a single unique occurrence or a routine feature of your game has no relevance in assessing whether it is, or is not, is outside the rules and outside the action resolution mechanics.
Fourth, if a player wants his PC to talk with his mistress - whom he is meeting, having died - about whether or not he should be more resolute, why would I not play through that scene? And how is this meant to resemble judging whether or not a player is playing his/her PC properly?
There is no necessary correlation between a player “playing his character properly”, “playing his character in accordance with the wishes of his deity” and “playing his character in accordance with his alignment”. The character can be well role played, and be inconsistent with, or even in violation of , his alignment. A well role played Paladin could fall, and a poorly role played one act in lockstep with his alignment. Or a poorly role played Paladin could fall, and a well role played one could be an exemplar of LG ideals. “Alignment” is not the sole aspect of role playing. It is not even close. This misconception also seems common to detractors of alignment.
OK, so here's a new move: all those literary and mythical figures who are the inspiration for the paladin class - the ones who can pull holy swords from stones, who heal with a touch, whose mere presence lends inspiration to the followers and companions, who are warded by the divine from evil magic - are not actually paladins.
When did Arthur or Aragorn heal with a touch, or show evidence of being warded by the divine from evil magic? BTW, how did the Ranger of the North become one of your top choices for the inspiration for the Paladin class? I seem to dimly recall there might be another class which he inspired, but the name escapes me. Was it Northerner? Was it OfThe? It’s right on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t seem to place it…
Each to their own, I guess, but I play paladins and clerics because I am moved by those stories and the themes they embody, and want to emulate or explore them in some way.
This depends largely on which themes we wish to explore. Can Lancelot’s player declare that adultery is a virtue, and thus it is so?
Who are you speaking for? @
N'raac has just posted implying that when he wants to play a character inspired by Aragorn, or Arthur, he plays a fighter.
Depending on which aspects of the character I am inspired by, I might select a fighter, a paladin [likely not a barbarian or a spellcaster – hey, don’t Paladins cast spells?] or some other martial class – maybe a Ranger. Anyone know of any fictional characters that might have inspired the Ranger? D&D was influenced a lot by Tolkein – any chance there was someone in Middle Earth that somehow was connected to a class like a Ranger?
You assert this as if it were self-evident. And you don't even engage with the N-thousand words I have posted explaining my opinion on this point - including in the very post that you were replying to.
[MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] is not the only one who believes it is pretty clear that
you were judging a PC's actions based on whether or not they were crossing Vecna and imposing a consequence. And frankly the difference between doing that and judging an action based on alignment doesn't exist. It's a player crossing some line and the GM adjudicating the consequences.
How many times you express a contrary view is unlikely to change our interpretation – no more likely than these repetitions are to change yours.
In my view, judging that a PC has upset Venca by thwarting him is not the same as judging that a PC's action is good or evil. I have explained why in some detail that I won't both to repeat, given you seem uninterested in it - except to reiterate that only one involves evaluative judgement, in the sense of judgement that pertains to matters of value or morality.
Well and good. Both involve imposing consequences on the player’s ability to impact the fiction based on the moral judgements his character makes, regardless of whether the judgment in question is whether the actions were ”good or evil”, or were “pleasing to Vecna”. I am not discussing what you are evaluating, but that the consequences of your evaluation were a denial of the player’s resources to impact the shared fiction. That was why you indicated denying the Paladin’s powers due to failure to comply with his alignment was inappropriate.
Frankly, we have long moved past “alignments” to “mechanics that deny a character his abilities”, largely due to the insistence on focusing pretty much entirely on Paladin’s mechanics (linked to alignment), and not on alignment in general.
You can repeat until the cows come home that you don't care about that difference, or even that you can't see it, but that won't change my mind that the difference is real, and that therefore I find that mechanical alignment detracts from my play experience. (And just in case anyone thinks that I'm out on my own in thinking that the difference is real, I refer them to the bulk of twentieth century English-language writing on moral philosophy, plus a good chunk of the French and German writing also. For those who are interested in seeing the difference at work in a literary context, the existentialist authors are the most obvious to go to. My personal favourite is the Catholic existentialism of Graham Greene.)
I find that real world ethical philosophy has about as much place in a fantasy RPG as real-world legal principals applied to RPG adventuring contracts, real world appellate court procedures being applied to address disputes on GM calls or real world historical feudalism being imposed on the player characters. Which is to say, virtually none.
Some gods are infallible exemplars and/or upholders of certain values.
I think we all know the real world examples, so I don't need to go there.
They also have no place in the game, precisely for the reasons we don’t want to go into here.
In default 4e, I think the good and unaligned gods fit this description: Kord exemplifies and upholds prowess, courage, and also arguably honour. Corellon upholds beauty. Erathis upholds civilisation. And so on. Whereas for the evil gods this is more doubtful: secrecy is sometimes a value, for instance - see the current debates in some countries around the release of state secrets - but Vecna is not an exemplar of the value of secrecy. He is corrupted, and treats secrecy primarily as a means to his own power.
So only evil gods are not perfect exemplars? Why?
Anyway, to continue: sometimes, probably typically, when a player plays a paladin or cleric of a god who upholds/exemplifies a value, the player thereby aspires in the play of his/her PC to have the Pc uphold/exemplify the value. This player's play, in virtue of this aspiration, expresses an evaluative response by the player to the situations that arise in play. My principle objection to mechanical alignment is that it obliges the GM to form judgements about the adequacy of these expressive and evaluative responses. And that is something I don't want to do, for much the same reasons that, in Pictionary, I wouldn't want a referee to vet the pictures players draw before they can be shown to the rest of the participants.
I find that a poor comparable. A more valid comparable would be prohibiting the player announcing an action until it has been approved by the GM – that is, the player cannot actually play the game unless his desired play is first approved by the GM. In Pictionary, the player’s drawing is judged – if it is well done, the players guess the right answer. If not, “THAT was supposed to be a horse” is a common result. Pictionary lacks a third party judge, where RPG’s require a GM to evaluate success.
The GM is not, once again, evaluating the player, or character’s response. He is assessing its result within the larger context of the game world.
It follows from this aversion on my part that I would not play the god as judging the character adversely, either - moving the terrain of judgement from metagame to ingame doesn't change the nature of the judgement, given that all participants understand that the god is an exemplar and upholder of the value at stake.
So Vecna judges, but Kord does not.
For instance, if I played Kord telling a PC worshipper of Kord that he was a coward, in circumstances in which the player of that PC regards his PC's conduct as brave, I am telling that player that s/he is wrong about what bravery requires: because it is an undisputed premise between us that Kord is an exemplar of bravery, and therefore knows it when he sees it, and similarly for cowardice. And this is what I don't want to do.
Where I could easily see Kord looking to a tactical retreat as “cowardice in the face of the enemy” and having far more respect for the berserker who throws his life away battling against impossible odds. Kord is the god of strength and courage, not tactics and strategy. It seems unlikely he would favour stealth, ambush, etc. – just get out there and crush your foes, or be crushed yourself. As Kord intended!
For instance, if a player of a paladin of Kord has his/her PC run away, and makes it clear that in doing so s/he is being a coward, it is not questioning his/her expressive/evaluative judgement to have Kord be angry. It is affirming that judgement!
So what happens when the Paladin runs away and the berserker/Cleric stands and fights (somehow surviving), after which he berates the cowardice of the Paladin. Which of them has been true to the principals of their deity? Both insist that they are right. Both are bound up in the tenets of Kord. Both are PC’s. One is adamant that fleeing was cowardice, and the other that it was not. One of them has to be wrong.
Let’s build on it – both were killed in battle, the Berserker/Cleric battling to the bitter end and the Paladin caught fleeing from the battle and slain. They now stand face to face with Kord, awaiting his judgment (just as your Dwarf met his God and discussed his own actions). Neither character has any doubt they were correct – each player believes his character was played perfectly within conception and the tenets of Kord.
Based on previous posts, I thought you would have had Kord judge the character based on what Kord considered brave. (Similar to having some good/lawful/chaotic/evil god judge the character based on that gods particular flavor of good/lawful/chaotic/evil that probably disagrees with the flavors other gods would use so that the characters were free to disagree with that flavor.) But I hadn't pictured you making the gods infallible exemplars of things like bravery...
Agreed.
And if he/she regularly bravely runs away with coconut-clattering minstrel in tow and makes it clear they think that running away has nothing to do with bravery...
Can any NPCs in the game even rationally question Sir Robin about it? The NPCs obviously can't appeal to Kord to find out with a commune spell because you wouldn't have Kord condemn the paladin. Couldn't the PC even do a commune to prove to the NPCs that Kord (who defines bravery) doesn't condemn the action? Does having exemplars who won't contradict a PC's player allow a really bad paladin player to redefine basic words?
An extreme example which, as expected, is dismissed. But I suspect the players might well be chanting that refrain to the Paladin player in my example above. Does mocking him somehow make the character less brave? Does the consensus of the table overrule the single player’s vision? Would it matter if one of the two characters was an NPC (and thus the GM decided what was in accordance with the tenets of Kord for one of them)?
N'raac, I found this on another thread:
Given this, I don't really understand why you find it objectionable that (for instance) a typical paladin build should be mechanically more effective when played honourably rather than dishonourably.
The context of that thread was much more mechanical, and addressed the question of whether the game should have “best options” – options so inherently superior to other choices that making any other choice clearly results in a sub-optimal character.
While that thread was largely about mechanics, it can be extended to character personality. I would not expect the honourable player to be ineffectual. I would expect there to be times when his honour is advantageous and times when it is disadvantageous, as well as times when it makes no difference. Similarly, I would expect there to be times when the lightly armored character is at an advantage to his heavily armored comrade, times when he is at a disadvantage and times where they are more or less equal. If choosing light armor (or heavy honor) basically spells character ineffectiveness (or even character suicide), then why include that choice in the game at all?
More importantly, if the game is going to be played in a manner that equates honour with suicide, then the honourable Paladin should not be a character option in that game. How many of us would look at a proposed PC whose sole goal in life is to own a tea shoppe, who refuses to engage in combat in any form, and whose character abilities are all designed around growing, blending, brewing and serving tea? It’s not a viable choice – don’t include it in the game.
The alignment rules, or the expectation that an honourable character will be held to a standard of honour, do not make Paladins, or honourable characters, non-functional in the game compared to their peers, so they are not in the same ballpark.
Speaking of
another thread, I mentioned this topic earlier. In that thread folks are debating whether a Paladin should lose his powers if he believes he is supporting a noble cause but is actually being duped into perpetuating evil. We've seen many times in this thread that people have stated that it is poor GMing to have a Paladin fall when his actions are not clearly and transparently good or evil, law or chaos. That has been asserted pretty adamantly, as if it is self-evident and my contention that this interpretation isn't a uniform is (at least mildly) off the reservation. Nonetheless, in that thread you have good, thoughtful people, with well-considered opinions and a vast swath of GMing experience, differing on "if he committed evil (knowingly or not), he loses his powers until he redeems himself."
It stands to reason, extended from the logic supporting that position, that an obtuse Paladin, who perpetuates evil or chaos unknowingly due to unforeseen consequence of his actions (which I've contended that people absolutely maintain this position...and they obviously do given that thread), would also have an alignment shift imposed upon him, thus losing his powers until he redeems himself. As such, I say again, I don't think the interpretation of "morality is judged solely by intent rather than consequences" (and thus a Paladin falling due to unforeseen, unintended consequences) is as orthodox as has been implied in this thread.
I find the general consensus of that thread pretty consistent. The Paladin cannot
willingly commit an evil act if he is duped. The bigger discussion seems to be whether his deity (or philosophy) should be dropping hints that he is, in fact, being lead down the wrong path, perhaps having his powers abandon him as he unwittingly pursues an evil objective.
But if the player then argued discretion is the better part of valor... Would Kord still be "angry" and if so, why? Is it because he is corrupted and the player can in fact define bravery however she wants? Is it because this concept of bravery does not align with Kord's? Or does Kord just agree and ignore it?
Imaro, a great post overall to which I have little to add.
To take the above one step further, is it possible the character has grown? Can he see beyond Kord’s singleminded dedication to “bravery” that there are times when self-preservation is not “cowardice”? Is he, in fact, coming to believe that single-minded devotion to Kord’s ideals is not appropriate behaviour? Is he, in fact, becoming “unaligned” with Kord?
The fact that thread exists strikes me as a good argument for not using mechanical alignment! Or, at least, for me it confirms my reasons stated upthread - because alignment and its technical minutiae have become the focus, rather than the dramatic significance of the events that are actually taking place in the game.
So the fact there may be confusion or misinterpretation in respect of a rule indicates it should be removed… If we removed every game element that has ever had a rules thread with debate, what would be left? We also have a thread questioning whether we should have Fighters, and many that suggest various classes are over or under powered. If we removed all of those classes, which would remain?
It also seems to me the problem is less one of mechanical alignment (having game mechanics which are impacted by alignment) and more mechanistic alignment (an insistence on every action having a precisely measurable and determinable impact on alignment), which its detractors seem to mistakenly attribute to those in favour of alignment because, at least in some cases, that is the only manner they can perceive for implementing it.
