Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Chun-tzu]

good post! but i have to disagree with you here. (imagine that, me being disagreeable.. )

Implicit in your thought pattern is the idea that only Lawful Good "represent an ideal. They are meant to be larger than life heroes. The best of the best." I disagree.

Disclaimer: This isn't so much my perspective, as it is the perspective behind why Paladins were made LG in the first place.

every alignment represents an ideal (it may not be a straightforward ideal like a paladins, but it can often be just as hard.. True Neutral, IMHO, is just as tough).

The idea that every alignment represents an ideal is more of a moral relativist position. D&D comes from a moral absolutist position, which claims Lawful Good (or, arguably, Neutral Good) is the best possible alignment, or the alignment we should all be striving for.

Any LG character is like this "This means they do the things that regular guys like us don't. They are ready to sacrifice everything solely in the defense of innocents. They take honesty and fair play very, very seriously, and don't take short cuts in such matters just because it's easier. They don't associate with persons of dark or corrupt character. They have a code that they follow to the strictest letter." Paladin is just the only class that HAS to be lawful good.

No, not all LG characters take the precepts of Law and Goodness as strictly as Paladins do. Not all LG characters feel obligated to sacrifice themselves for an innocent. Not all LG characters think hanging out with morally questionable people is wrong; some might see a kernel of goodness in the selfish NE rogue and try to stimulate that bit of decency.

A LG Monk would act exactly the same way... they would have a code (not a paladin's code mind you, but a code nonetheless).. and if they broke that code they would lose thier abilities as well, just like a paladin.

I'd argue that the problem you have with Paladins being LG is not that different from the requirement that Monks be Lawful, Bards and Barbarians be non-lawful, and so on. (Well, that's my problem with all this, anyway.)

The D&D alignment system IS simplistic. There are people who DON'T FIT into it. Take Batman, for instance. Exceptionally disciplined, and clearly fights on the side of law enforcement, but he won't hesitate to break some of those laws himself. This is a contradiction that the D&D system can't handle.

Likewise, the assumption that Paladins (and Monks) are lawful because they strictly follow a code of honor is flawed.

Personally, I could probably go along with Paladins of NG and CG alignment (but I don't want more generic Holy Warriors of all alignments replacing the Paladin).

 

[jgbrowning]

The D&D alignment system IS simplistic. There are people who DON'T FIT into it. Take Batman, for instance. Exceptionally disciplined, and clearly fights on the side of law enforcement, but he won't hesitate to break some of those laws himself. This is a contradiction that the D&D system can't handle.

Likewise, the assumption that Paladins (and Monks) are lawful because they strictly follow a code of honor is flawed.

Personally, I could probably go along with Paladins of NG and CG alignment (but I don't want more generic Holy Warriors of all alignments replacing the Paladin).

I'd always viewed batman as neutral good. neutral people can be extremely disiplined and he obviously repects the concept of law as being necessisary overall, but believes it it to limiting is the pursuit of good.

thanks for the ideas, i tend to agree. I'd still like paladins of all alignments.

joe b.

 

[Xarlen]

Paladin is walking down the street. A guy jaywalks. Now, in this LE area, anyone who Jaywalks must be executed on the spot, by anyone capable, or those who are not capable will be jailed.

Now, does he go ahead and execute this perfect innocent person, and thus lose his paladinhood, or does he refute the law, and thus lose his paladinhood for not being lawful?

I see flaws there. A paladin's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, since he Obviously can't fight a LE ruler, seeing as it's Lawful.

Yeah. Right.

 

[jgbrowning]

Paladin is walking down the street. A guy jaywalks. Now, in this LE area, anyone who Jaywalks must be executed on the spot, by anyone capable, or those who are not capable will be jailed.

Now, does he go ahead and execute this perfect innocent person, and thus lose his paladinhood, or does he refute the law, and thus lose his paladinhood for not being lawful?

I see flaws there. A paladin's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, since he Obviously can't fight a LE ruler, seeing as it's Lawful.

Yeah. Right.

The guy's NOT innocent. He broke the law and is responsible for his actions.

You may not view jaywalking justifies such a harsh punishment, but you can come up with reasons why it might... say far, far int he future cars speed so quickly and are organized by computers that its possible that a jaywalker could cause a multivehicle pile up and cause many many deaths.

All im saying is that you MUST separate law from your concepts of good and evil, because law and chaos are independant of good/evil in the DnD system.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

You're the one asking for consistency from the gods. If a law is evil, why wouldn't a LG god want his paladins to root it out? it's ruining the perfection of the combination of Law with Good.

Furthermore, following every piddling little secular law is one of the roads that leads to Lawful Stupid. The DIVINE MANDATE far outweighs any secular law. Hence, disobeying an unjust law is not Chaotic. Dismantling the Law may be, but trying to change it is NOT. Even if that means changing the entire system, provided your goal is Law, Order, and Justice.

You're treating Lawful Good as if it can be separated into its component parts (a common error around D&D). It's a single mindset. You uphold the SYNTHESIS of Law and Good, not one or the other at different times and places.

*im trying my new posting skills.. hope this works *

I hold law/ chaos as divinely mandated as well as good/evil. fighting, (creating civil disorder) over what Type of Law you want is not terribly lawful in my view. Lawful neutral characters dont care about good/evil in law, they care about order and organization. Fighting over laws does not promote order.. its chaotic.

Do you actually believe this? We might have less common ground than I thought... [/B]

yeah i really do think so. I probably should have stressed that i ment "fight" as to engage in physical combat. Trying to change the laws i wouldn't view as a chaotic thing. I think civil disobeience, no matter the reason, is a non-lawful act. to most classes or people it wouldn't matter.

Again, that's insisting on a narrow and ill-considered definition of what it means to be Lawful, and completely disregarding what it means to be Good. And still treating them as separable concepts in the mind of a LG character or his god.

Also, for an example, again I point you to Samurai Jack. He's constantly fighting a LE regime in Aku, but he never acts in a non-Lawful Good way. [/B]

I'm sorry i dont know anything about Samurai Jack.

No, it's worse. It's the tools of Good, corrupted to do Evil. That's the one thing I never understood about Planescape. They kept insisting that LG outsiders hated CE ones more than LE ones. Huh? Not only are they Evil, but they have corrupted Order in order to spread their Evil. There's nothing that should be more galling to a paladin (or any LG character) than that, IMO.

Again, I think it's part of treating the two components of alignment as independent parts of the person. [/B]

Corruption exists to serve a selfish end. Since Selfish = Evil, Corruption = Evil. [/B]

Well thats an interesting idea. Selfishness is evil? I dont necessarily think so. I'd venture to say that a lot of people around the world dont think so. Corruption (at least the way im using it) means going outside the law for personal gain. That's like not reporting tips on your IRS..

Thats definitely a law/chaos question and not a moral good/evil one. The issue of good/evil that often surrounds corruption is that many laws are designed to prevent evil and stepping around the law in that case means you're doing evil.

Corruption in a LE society could easily mean stepping outside of the law to do GOOD.

Again, find me an educated non-D&D player who doesn't recite Aristotlean virtues when confronted with the word paladin. D&D Players are the ones with the skewed perspective on this word. Personally, I think it comes from years of sitting around a table watching a character with no discernable morality "play a paladin." That's the only reason you can wrap your head around a "paladin" who isn't Lawful Good.[/B]

Actually it comes from being a Hindu and knowing that the ideal is just that, an IDEAL, and is not possible. Give me one session with any paladin (as a DM) an i'll make him fall. RL doesn't allow that type of absolutism and any forme of armed conflict will eventually end with a paladin doing an evil act to promote a greater good.

Paladins can't do evil to promote a greater good, and remain paladins. Foresight and hindsight aren't even included in the action of doing evil.. a paladin that accidentaly does evil falls just as much as one that does it with malic. He may be able to atone for it but he still falls.

However, i understand the game is fantasy. I also understand that alot people want to play in a fantasy world and not in one that more closely resembles RL. There are also bunches of us who like more RL type stuff in our DnD and we'd like the rules to allow more diversity than limit it.

I'm big on non-exclusionary role-playing. Your limiting of the paladin and his specialness to only one alignment is a subtle insult to other viewpoints. I dont think he's the paragon of virtue. Really. I don't. The real paragon of virtue, IMHO, is the paladin that puts away his weapons and promises to never use force to "prove" his point, and is willing to be cut down by evil rather than use evil to fight evil. But DnD is a game and that is damn boring..

Also, I'm not talking about the power of the name to ME. I'm talking about the need to acknowledge significant differences with significant labels. That goes WELL beyond my personal preference. [/B]

Well it all depends where you draw the line about acknowleding significant differences. I see a MUCH MORE radical difference between a LG cleric of Pelor and a CE cleric of Grummsh than i would of the difference between a LG paladin and a LN paladin.


You just think the word "Paladin" should be "special" and only have one meaning. I disagree. Why must "Paladin" mean only one of the many definitions the word means while "Cleric" means all of the various definitions?

DON'T get me started. Druids ARE Lawful Good. It's our inability to take the long view that labels them as Neutral (but that's a whole 'nuther argument).

At any rate, D&D treats druids very poorly, actually. And they are NOT considered a moral ideal by the game, like paladins are.

EDITED to add content [/B]

I have wacky views on druids as well, i was just using them as an example. Also if you really think Druids are Lawful Good how can you have a Paladin fight a Neutral Evil druid with good conscious?

Ah, the mutability of Good...

thanks for the reply,

joe b.

Edit: WOOHOOO!!!! it wasn't a mass of jumbled syntax driven nightmares! heh

 

[Vaxalon]

Selfishness is evil? I dont necessarily think so.

I disagree entirely. Selfishness is at the core of ALL acts of evil. Thinking that you are more important than the people around you, more deserving of life, happiness, power, whatever, that's what evil is all about.

 

[Vaxalon]

Give me one session with any paladin (as a DM) an i'll make him fall. RL doesn't allow that type of absolutism and any forme of armed conflict will eventually end with a paladin doing an evil act to promote a greater good.

I'd like to take you up on that.

First, let's get a good definition of Evil. Any good paladin would know what an evil act is... shall we use the BoVD as a reference on that?

1> Lying
2> Cheating
3> Theft
4> Betrayal
5> Murder, that is, killing for a nefarious purpose
6> Vengeance, that is, revenge out of proportion to the crime
7> Worshipping evil gods and demons
8> Creating undead
9> Casting evil spells, that is, casting spells with the [evil] descriptor
10> Damning or harming souls
11> Consorting with fiends
12> Creating evil creatures
13> Using others for personal gain
14> Greed
15> Bullying and cowing innocents
16> Bringing despair
17> Tempting others (to evil)

This seems like a fairly complete description to me. How does it sound to you?

Where would you like to play out the scenario? On the boards, IRC?

 

[jgbrowning]

I disagree entirely. Selfishness is at the core of ALL acts of evil. Thinking that you are more important than the people around you, more deserving of life, happiness, power, whatever, that's what evil is all about.

Selfishness can be evil. It doesn't mean that selfishness IS evil.

example. a mother with 6 kids is faced with the choice of saving one kid from a fire at the chance that she will die attempting to do so and leave her other 5 without a mom.

its a selfish act that does both good and evil. selfishness is at the core of all evil acts, but that doesn't mean selfishness must be evil.

 

[Xarlen]

All right. Then let's use the example of all children born with X quality must be disposed of.

Is the child considered Innocent, despite the law?

 

[Vaxalon]

Selfishness can be evil. It doesn't mean that selfishness IS evil.

example. a mother with 6 kids is faced with the choice of saving one kid from a fire at the chance that she will die attempting to do so and leave her other 5 without a mom.

its a selfish act that does both good and evil. selfishness is at the core of all evil acts, but that doesn't mean selfishness must be evil.

Neither going in after the first child, nor staying out for the sake of the five others is a selfish act.