AD&D 2nd ed PHB, reprinted version
The paladin is a warrior bold and pure, the exemplar of everything good and true. . . T]he paladin lives for the ideals of righteousness, justice, honesty, piety, and chivalry.
Not seeing "knight" in here.
Who lives for the ideals of chivalry but a knight?
Through a select, worthy few shines the power of the divine. . . Knights, crusaders, and law-bringers, paladins seek not just to spread divine justice but to embody the teachings of the virtuous deities they serve.
Still no knight
Who does the phrase "Knights, crusaders" refer to if not knights?
The Paladin class in OSRIC superficially resembles such legendary warriors as Sir Galahad or Sir Gawaine of the Arthurian cyclecycle, but is more closely similar to characters described in the works of Poul Anderson. His “Three Hearts and Three Lions” [a book which draws extensively upon the tropes of Arthurian and Carolingian romance] is particularly highly recommended.
This one says your comparisons to Arthurian legend is superficial only
And then goes on to recommend a book which draws upon Carolingian romances such as the Song of Roland. Who do you think figured both as characters in, and the audience for, those romances? Knights.
Paladins are indomitable warriors who’ve pledged their prowess to something greater than themselves. . . As fervent crusaders in their chosen cause, paladins must choose a deity. . . Paladins are not granted their powers directly by their deity, but instead through various rites performed when they first become paladins. Most of these rites involve days of prayer, vigils, tests and trials, and ritual purification followed by a knighting ceremony . . .
Again, no Knights
What do you think happens to someone who undergoes a knighting ceremony? S/he becomes a knight.
(The above is actually all a little bit surreal.)
Perhaps all Paladins are Knights, but not all Knights are Paladins!
Pre-PF, I think all Paladins were Knights, but certainly not all Knights were Paladins
I didn't argue to the contrary. Paladins are ideal(ised) knights.
My point was that, when Sturm Brightblade in the Dragonlance Chronicles becomes a better knight for rejecting rules fetishism, this does not stand in some contrastive relationship to what it might mean to become a better paladin. Rather, it's an instance of what it means to live up to knightly ideals (of which a paladin is the limit case).
(And N'raac, are you conceding or denying that paladins are knights, and the ideal exemplars of knighthood?)
*******************
why must they choose a deity to receive powers a deity doesn't grant anyway?
What makes you say that a deity doesn't grant a paladin power?
From the 4e PHB p 89:
Paladins smite enemies with divine authority . . .Paladins are transfigured on the field of battle, exemplars of divine ethos in action. . . Take up your blessed sword and sanctified shield, brave warrior, and charge forward to hallowed glory!
Plus paladin powers have the "divine" keyword, which is defined as follows (4e PHB p 54):
Divine magic comes from the gods. The gods grant power to their devotees, which clerics and paladins, for example, access through prayers and litanies
The text I quoted states that "Paladins are not granted their powers directly by their deity". You seem to be ignoring the word "directly." The 4e conception of divine power is that it is granted in a mediated fashion - eg it is accessed via prayer and litany. Much the same idea is expressed by Gygax in his DMG: cleric spells below 6th level are not granted by the god directly (unless the god is a comparatively weak demi-god, per Deities and Demigods).
(This another instance of 4e harking back to certain pre-3E traditions of the game.)
Your suggestion that religion does not present rules which may seem somewhat arbitrary is an interesting one. Does the religion prescribe diet (fish on Fridays; no pork; no beef)? Perhaps it sets rules on celibacy or birth control? Does it have writings on tattooing (Leviticus rules against it, I believe).
I don't think the adherents of these religions regard the rules, or adherence to them, as arbitrary. They are underpinned by reasons, against which particular instances of compliance can then be judged (eg in some religions which require fasting, the sick and pregnant are not obliged to fast).
Why could the same result not occur under vision 1? The GM rules, and Player 1 says "Then the Tenets of Good are wrong. My character will do what is right - save those lives"
fetishistic adherence to pointless rules
that sounds much more LN than LG.
Well, you're the one (not me) who has said that the cosmological force of good insists on adhering to certain precepts even when adhering to those precepts will not advance the interest or value at which those precepts obstensibly aim. (The first of the above two quotes illustrates your presentation of such a scenario.)
If you're also saying that you conception of the requirements of LG - ie adherence to precepts when adhering to those precepts won't actually uphold the salient values (eg life) - is actually a conception of the requirements of LN, that's your issue to sort out. (Though I'm not surprised that you've ended up in seeming contradiction: I've already argued upthread that nine-point alignment is not a coherent evaluative framework.)
pemerton said:
if it is established from the start that the gameworld is one without divine providence, what is a paladin even doing in that gameworld?
Fighting for his chosen cause. He doesn't really need to if everything will work out whether he tries or not.
Are you asserting that all believers in providence must be fatalists? I think you'll find that the actual history of human religious belief provides little evidence for that assertion.
Just to pick one example, when the abolitionists took the view that providence was on their side, they took that to be a reason to produce more pamphlets, and to work harder on the underground railroad, not as a reason to abaondon all effort.In folk wisdom, the denial of your apparent assertion is summed up in the phrase "God helps those who help themselves."
****************
some acts are inconsistent with playing LG.
Some acts are also inconsistent with being cunning. So if a player's description of his/her PC is "cunning thief", but the GM thinks s/he is not being very cunning, is the GM allowed to rewrite the PC's character sheet?
How is interpreting the game rules for alignment markedly different than interpreting the game rules for spells, class powers, combat, etc.? Why can't the player decide exactly how his spells work, whether he hits and how much damage he does to match the concept of the character? Who would know better than the player how powerful his character is, based on his conception of that character?
This has been answered repeatedly upthread.
The reason that a player doesn't get to adjudicate his/her own action resolution mechanics is because s/he has a conflict of interest. But [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=79401]Grydan[/MENTION] and I have described a playstyle in which
there is no conflict of interest in the player deciding what counts as living up to his/her ideal. As I put it to [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] ten or twenty posts upthread (post 1195),
I've posted and linked to
this example before, but no one has taken up the question: this is a case in which a player, playing his PC, elected to be bound by his code of honour, and hence to keep a promise, that he had never made but that had been made in his name, even though the upshot was that a villain lived whom he believed deserved to die. What is the conflict of interest?
Answer: there isn't one! The only reason that it matters that the villain die is because this is what the player, inhabiting his PC within the fiction, thinks should happen. The only reason that it matters that the promise be kept is because this is what the player, inhabiting his PC in the fiction, thinks should happen. If, within the fiction ,the player can't see a way to satisfy both these desires for what happens, why should the GM rather than the player choose which way to go?
Or, if the player takes a different interpretation and decides that there is a way that both desires
can be satisfied, and so decides that breaking the promise is consistent with the PC's code, what is the problem? The player still exercised ingenuity and engaged with the game.
Perhaps in your game there
is a conflict of interest in the player deciding what it is involved in a character living up to his/her professed ideals. I'd certainly be interested to read an explanation of that, perhaps illustrated by some examples from actual play.
Furthermore, I have repeatedly stated upthread that adjudicating the action resolution mechanics does not require judging the adequacy a players' expressive responses and evaluations. Wheres deciding whether or not his/her play of a PCreally lives up to the ideas that s/he believes that it does live up to does require such judgement.
I will repeat this again: if someone
believes that, in playing their PC a certain way, they are exemplifying certain ideals; and I, as GM, correct them, then I am telling them that their judgement as to what those ideals demanded and permitted is in error. And that is not something that I want to do when engaged in a reasonably light-hearted, collaborative creative endeavour.
Now it is obvious that these things that matter to me (and I believe to some other posters) don't matter to you. It does not follow that the relevant differences don't exist!
both characters could easily be, and remain, LG in the scenario set. Even if I accept PC 2's act, however motivated, remains an evil act, a single evil act does not cause him to change alignment.
It makes no difference to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point whether or not the GM rules that the PC's alignment changes. The point is that the GM is ruling that the player's judgement as to what is permitted by his/he PC's professed ideals (LG)
permit is wrong.
So you are judging the player or character who presumes to judge as committing a sin, then, and failing in a virtue.
No. I'm not judging a player or a character. I didn't describe an episode of play.
I'm telling you how I understand the archetype of a paladin; what sort of experience I am looking for when I play a paladin; and how I configure a gameworld so as to create room for that archetype and that paladin.
pemerton said:
Once again you seem to have mistaken me for you. You are the one who is asking these questions about whether or not defensive violence is good or evil if perpetrated by someone who wants that assailant dead anyway (in post 1176). I just offered an answer to your question - but I didn't write that answer to adjudicate a D&D game, I can assure you!
I believe the question under review was whether defensive violence was good or evil in the game context. That would logically lead to assessing the question in light of the game rules and definitions of Good and Evil.
You still seem to be mistaking me for you. I don't play with mechanical alignment. Hence for me nothing "logically leads to assessing the question in light of the game rules and definitions of Good and Evil". When I play there are no such game rules, nor any such definitions.
(Though I am mildly curious as to what
your method is for undertaking that assessment, given that you appear to repudiate the only method I am familiar with for assessing whether a given sort of conduct is consistent with, or falls short of, certain ideals.)
