Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Vaxalon]

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?

What do you mean by "disposed of"?

Why must they be disposed of?

Is the source of this information trusted, or is it possible that this information comes from an evil source?

In order to judge the "good thing to do" in most cases, the specifics must be known.

 

[jgbrowning]

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?

thats a pretty good list.

but i view 1. lying, as not evil. lying to me is more Non-lawful than evil, because you can lie to promote good. IMHO

and I'd add
18. Cooperating with evil (knowingly allowing evil to continue performing evil acts upon innocents) with the eventual goal of good in mind. Agreeing to accept evil and their actions, with the thoughts of eventually ending evil.


here's my scenerio, tell me how you get out of it without performing an evil act or breaking your word (not following the paladins code).

You're a paladin on campaign deep in the heart of the evil undead lord's kingdom (He's LE). Your king is with you and his army of 10,000 soldiers. Your getting close to coming to terms with the evil lord and know that, if you exercise all of your might and abilites you stand a chance of defeating the undead king.

But then, the evil undead lord sends such a viralent plague that the healing capacities of your collective magic cannot stop it. Your army is going to be wiped out if you can't find someway of healing your comrades. you can't call upon the gods, or their helpers to fix your problem, you must find another way.

Unfortunately you cant safely withdraw because you were forced to leave undefeated castles behind you as you advanced because if you were to invest them you wouldn't have had enough strength to destroy the undead king. Turning back isn't an option.. it leads only to the death of the entire army, excepting the lucky few who will survive. And you know that if your this army and the king dies, your good kingdom stands a good chance of being taken over by the undead king.

The king learns of an ancient relic that will heal the army and charges you with getting it. This ancient relic is held by a group of N druids and they wont give it to you because they believe the undead king, though himself an ananthama to nature, is serving a vital purpose by remaining evil in a world heavily balanced towards good. They believe that though the undead king is evil, he has provided great stability to the lands and knows that without him the average person would suffer dramtically more because there would be a form of civil war were he to be killed. The druids knows that your army is too small to prevent a full fledged civil war and prefer the balance of an strong evil lawgiver over the chaos of a weak good lawgiver. They welcome his lengendary honesty and respect his centuries of abiding by his word.

The undead king learns of your plot to use the relic and he sends a threat to you, "If you use the relic, i will send this virulent plague upon your countries people, not just upon your army. I give my word. If you attempt to save your liege, i will send the plague upon your people. I give my word. If you surrender your kingdom to me now, i will never send the plague upon them. I give my word." You find his threat (on a note) in the king's tent, but the king is gone. Upon inspection, the note appears to be made of human skin.

Since you're the second in command, you now have complete authority over the army. What do you do?

joe b.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

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.

Alright. First off, you're proceeding from an entirely different kind of morality. Morality answers one question: "How should one live his or her life?" And it gives ONE answer. Not a conditional set of probabilities. For a paladin, that answer is Lawful Good. These are NOT separable. I'm not talking about game mechanics here, I'm talking about morality and philosophy. If a moral code could give you two separate and distinct "answers" but not provide you with the means to intertwine them and build the strengths of one into the other, than it's not a moral code... it's a game mechanic .

You were insisting on consistency from the gods, and now you want inconsistency from the character?! I fail to see how that makes sense.

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

Might I suggest looking for it? Quality programming in general, and apropos to paladin discussion.

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..

Exactly... Selfishness. And, not incidently, denying one's responsibility to society, so it's CE all the way.

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

Nope. Both the connotation AND the definition of corruption include the notions of "defiling" "ruining" "tainting" etc. A LE society is by its nature corrupt.

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 are not gods. They are flawed beings trying to live toward a higher standard. Again, you can't seem to decide if you want your arbiters of divine power to act consistently or capriciously.

Also, most Christians don't claim living an ideal is 100% possible, either. The idea is to encourage people to live as closely to it as possible as a flawed being. Our problem is that we put too much emphasis on the "flawed being" part and not enough on the actual lifestyle.

And you are applying moral relativism (a damaged construct even in RL) to a game world BASED on the idea of moral absolutism, and then complaining when the seams don't line up. That's your problem, not that of the system.

I think civil disobeience, no matter the reason, is a non-lawful act.
...
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.

Of course, you just labeled all civil disobedience as a non-Lawful act. So that guy is Chaotic Good, by your definition. Sounds to me like you can't put Lawful and Good together as one moral construct in your mind. That's your problem, and taking it out on your players who wish to play paladins is bad form, IMO.

btw- That particular admission lost you a lot of credibility. You now come off as one of those whiny DMs who hates paladins "just because" or, more accurately, because you don't "get" them.

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.

Now you're redefining terms. I never said anything about LN. Besides, what do we hate more, the alien? Or something that is very much like us, but with just a few subtle differences?

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?

Because "Paladin" comes from a specific literary and cultural tradition separate and distinct from D&D while "Cleric" does not.

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?

I wasn't talking about druids in game. I was talking about RL druids, and nature in general. We like to act like morality is a human construct. Total B.S.

I accept the fact that D&D is presented from a fallacious Western perspective that tries to pretend nature is amoral. (All the better to abuse it at our whim.) It would be nice if you could accept that a similar Western perspective is necessary to understanding the D&D concept of the paladin, but that doesn't seem likely at this point

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

Both are, in their own way, selfless. Though I would consider staying with the 5 the most morally supportable act, personally. Unless she had good reason to believe a) she could successfully rescue the 1, and b) the other 5 had someone who would take care of them if she didn't.

...
In order to judge the "good thing to do" in most cases, the specifics must be known.

Precisely. That is why...

"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." -Socrates

 

[jgbrowning]

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

there's good arguement either way.... willing sacrificing the life of an innocent due the chance that, in rescueing them, you may cause harm to loved ones is.... well a difficult choice no?

I think this goes to show the unusual leaps that selfishness can take and still appear to not be selfish..

joe b.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

there's good arguement either way.... willing sacrificing the life of an innocent due the chance that, in rescueing them, you may cause harm to loved ones is.... well a difficult choice no?

I think this goes to show the unusual leaps that selfishness can take and still appear to not be selfish..

The selfishness comes in with her motivations. If she secretly wants to die because she can't handle taking care of the children anymore, than going into the building is selfish but staying out with the 5 is selfless.

If she's completely blinded by love of her children to any posible danger to herself, it becomes hard to attack her actions either way, and she's probably going to suffer for the rest of her life either way.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

...Undead King & Psychotic Druids scenario...
What do you do?

Easy. I take the relic from the druid apologists/collaborators. Only a psychopath would base a morality on the tenets of "Neutrality" that you've described, so at best, the druids are apologists/collaborators of the Undead King, and at worst they're a collection of psychopaths with great magic powers.

You're relying upon that old non-sensical meta-game B.S. in regards to druids and their vaunted "Neutrality" But again, this isn't a druid thread. And it's looking decreasingly like a paladin thread for that matter.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I'd like to comment on this:

jgbrowning----

1. Why does Pelor care if his paladins lie, if by doing so they promote good? Why would he take away their power?

2. Why would a Paladin of Wee Jas lose his abilities if he passed by a peasant being attacked by a demon, because the paladin was ordered by his king to go with all haste and report to someone?

Who ever said that Pelor or Wee Jas take away a Paladin's power if he falls from grace? It doesn't say that anywhere in the PHB.

PHB pg. 43

Ex-Paladins
A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all special abilities and spells, including the service of the paladin's warhorse.

Paladins devote themselves to LG and their code. If they break the code, they fall. End of story. Anything else is a house rule.

I want good ingame logic how these two gods can have paladins,

Gods do not have paladins. Certain paladins may align themselves with gods, however, gods play zero part in whether a paladin has his abilties or not. Nowhere in the PHB does it say that Paladins must devote themselves to a single diety to gain their powers. That is your assumption.
.
.
.
.
Obviously, the campaign setting of FR is an exception, but that's it. FR is a house rule of DnD.

 

[Vaxalon]

thats a pretty good list.

but i view 1. lying, as not evil. lying to me is more Non-lawful than evil, because you can lie to promote good. IMHO

and I'd add
18. Cooperating with evil (knowingly allowing evil to continue performing evil acts upon innocents) with the eventual goal of good in mind. Agreeing to accept evil and their actions, with the thoughts of eventually ending evil.

I think that this is not evil.

Why?

Because a paladin can only combat one evil at a time. If allowing an evil to continue while you pursue greater evils would cause a paladin to lose his paladinhood, then yes, no paladin in the world would be able to retain his paladinhood.

We must come to a resolution on this, I think, before we can go farther.

 

[jgbrowning]

Alright. First off, you're proceeding from an entirely different kind of morality. Morality answers one question: "How should one live his or her life?" And it gives ONE answer. Not a conditional set of probabilities. For a paladin, that answer is Lawful Good. These are NOT separable. I'm not talking about game mechanics here, I'm talking about morality and philosophy. If a moral code could give you two separate and distinct "answers" but not provide you with the means to intertwine them and build the strengths of one into the other, than it's not a moral code... it's a game mechanic .

Well thats a whole big bag 'o worms. I'd suggest before you start trying to tell people that morality give ONE right answer you investigate into philosopies/religions that say there is more than ONE answer. Try buddhism, taoism, hinduism, anamisim and almost every religion/philosophy outside of Judeao -christianity/Islam. I here too am talking morality and philosophy, not game mechanics

And you are applying moral relativism (a damaged construct even in RL) to a game world BASED on the idea of moral absolutism, and then complaining when the seams don't line up. That's your problem, not that of the system.

Of course, you just labeled all civil disobedience as a non-Lawful act. So that guy is Chaotic Good, by your definition. Sounds to me like you can't put Lawful and Good together as one moral construct in your mind. That's your problem, and taking it out on your players who wish to play paladins is bad form, IMO. [/B]

One has difficulties performing civil disobedience to protest a law if there is no law, yes?

by perform civil disobedience one is breaking a law (if it is unjust or just it does not matter)

If a paladin consistantly breaks laws i would have to question his "Paladinship"

btw- That particular admission lost you a lot of credibility. You now come off as one of those whiny DMs who hates paladins "just because" or, more accurately, because you don't "get" them. [/B]

And you've probably lost a lot of your credibility by calling me "one of those whiny DMs" who happen to disagree with you and say so on a public board. Im sorry if my opinions make me lose credibity with you, but you should, if you wish to maintain your own credibilty, phrase your thought in perhaps more civil ways.

and, i do understand. just because i dont agree, does not mean im ignorant. That dicotimy, I believe, goes back to your original concept of there being only ONE morality... ie. one right way of thinking (if i really understood what it is to be a paladin i'd have to agree with you, no?)

Now you're redefining terms. I never said anything about LN. Besides, what do we hate more, the alien? Or something that is very much like us, but with just a few subtle differences? [/B]

how was i redefining terms? Just because you never said anything about LN doesn't mean that a i cannot mention it as an example of how more similiar a LN and a LG paladin would be than to the two dimetrically opposed clerics.

you were talking about the need to recognize significant difference with different words. Im saying the need for Cleric to be redefinded to indicate the hundreds of different ways they can be played, but yet they are not , should perhaps allow a little difference into the word of "Paladin" and how they are played.

To me, that is a valid point that should be addressed.


joe b.

 

[Vaxalon]

(Y)ou can't call upon the gods, or their helpers to fix your problem, you must find another way.

Why not? It seems to me that a trip to a high-level cleric, who can cast a "Commune" spell to ask, "How can this plague be averted?" is a perfectly reasonable way for a paladin to deal with this problem.

It also makes for a dandy plot hook.