Hijacked Thread in need of closure.

[Vaxalon]

Imagine a situation where a paladin (3rd level) is completely surrounded by evil. -snip-B]

That's an extremely contrived situation. Why the heck would the baddies spend all that effort on one puny little 3rd level character?

And honestly, in that situation, how long would the enemy let him keep his sword anyways?

by your definition the paladin would be justified in never doing anything because he would never be able to defeat them. But honestly, would you rule the paladin maintains his paladin ship after he's watched and done nothing while hundreds of innocent people are killed?

There's no reason he has to do nothing.

This kind of problem has presented itself to good people through history. They have done things besides fight... in the various death camps that have and still do exist in the world, good folk do things like ministering to the sick, leading prayer services, and the like. With his abilities to heal, a paladin would find a great deal of good he can do in this situation by staying alive.

And if he feels that it will do some good for him to stand up at some point and get slaughtered, he can do that too.

But it's not a necessary thing that he loses his paladinhood.

I normally dont like to use extreme examples, because people tend to rebutt by only pointing out how the example is silly or biased. But here i think it serves it point pretty well.

I think it's a pretty poor example, because it bears no relation to the real world OR any fantasy world that has been published, or that very many people game in. Worlds where evil is as triumphant as that usually don't have paladins.

Now, after you decided the guy loses his paladinship, when, what NUMBER, of innocent people had to be tortured and killed infront of him before he lost it?

Now, why does it matter if it was one, or one hundred?

I didn't decide that he did.

...and finally why can the paladin run away from a villiage that needs his help just because its a dragon, and not an orc, when the results of his running away result in the death of the villigers, and his attacking of the dragon wouldn't change that. How is that essentially different than the torture scenario?

Did I say that he runs away? Again, there is more that the paladin can do than just throw himself into the jaws of the dragon. He can round up the people, using his aura against fear to help keep them from panicking, and guide them to whatever safety may be found.

In either situation the paladin has NO CHOICE.?

So you say, but you are wrong. You seem to be saying that he can either fight (and die) or lose his paladinhood, but that isn't necessarily so. There are other ways to fight evil than with a sword, and there are other ways to protect the innocent than with a shield.

If a paladin were to think as narrowly as you want him to, then yes, it's easy to bind him in your windings, but not all need be so closed-minded.

this is the track of thought i go down... Just because you can't win, doesn't mean you're morally off the hook. If it was an orc attacking and it was a 10th level paladin you take his paladinship away in a heartbeat.

Depends on what the orc was doing, and what the paladin did. If the paladin stood between the orc and his victim, and merely said, "Go away." without striking the orc down, then of course not.

If the paladin gathered up the victim in his arms, healed him, and took him away on his horse without slaying the orc, then of course not.

In an morally absolute system, like DnD, situation does not determine morality. If situation determined morality, it would be a relative morality system, which i much prefer.

No, situation does not determine morality... ACTION determines morality, and there are always choices.

Occasionally, yes, the only morally correct thing one can do is die well. I maintain that in the real world AND in fantasy worlds of literature, and in most people's games, these situations are rare. There is ALWAYS good one can do, even if one is too weak to fight.

 

[jgbrowning]

Occasionally, yes, the only morally correct thing one can do is die well. I maintain that in the real world AND in fantasy worlds of literature, and in most people's games, these situations are rare. There is ALWAYS good one can do, even if one is too weak to fight. [/B]

Well i agree with you here. And the reason this so rarely happens is that in literature, and in most people's games, the reader/player DOESNT want to deal with anything resembling reality.

People normally dont read fantasy literature to watch the good guys loose. Unfortunately it happens a lot in RL, and it would happen a lot in my "Real" fantasy world (from my DM's perpective here.. a world that doesn't think the PC's are special).

As for the teleporting arena thing i can easily see it happening with the drow. It doesn't happen in peoples games because most people dont want to have such difficult moral gaming experiences and, again, the PC's are supposed to win.

And why would the baddies want to spend the time on the paladin? Because the the epitome of lawful goodness! what could be more fun then giving him a sword when its pointless and grinding down his worthless patheticly good spirit and then savor that delicious moment when you see his "calling" leave? in short, they are evil and like to hurt people. They'd keep throwing him his sword, and heal him, and do it over and over, because its fun.

And as to your PC paladin helping who he could against the dragon, what if the dragon just wants to punish a paladin.. (the dragon is evil right?) what if the dragon decides to just follow the paladin around where ever he goes and kill people?

such things dont happen because players and DM's dont find them fun. But real evil creatures would find them fun.

So far most of your counter- arguements have been that 1. there's more choices then im presenting (which of course that can slowly be weeded down to where the paladin must make a choice that i am speaking about.. the one of chosing the lesser of two evils) or 2. that what im talking about doesn't happen in roleplaying games or DnD.

Evil creatures would go out of their way to do these things to paladins you know.... they'd deliberately try to make him lose his paladinship.. Course if i was to role-play this as a DM people would say i was being unfair.

hrm..

joe b.

 

[Darkness]

The proliferation of Lawyers in the U.S. is driven by a litigiousness that values money and attention over what is best for society. Lawyers, as they are increasingly used in the U.S., are not a function of an orderly, Lawful society. They are a response to a legal system that is bogged down in selfish, petty detail and a public that increasingly cares only about what profit a situation can provide them. I think I'm being kind in not labeling that as CE.

Besides, the way the legal system is set up, lawyers are often required to do morally reprehensible things or get disbarred. If the function of law is to benefit society, what sense does that make?

Just for the record:

I think that some of these clients are CE, while most are NE (as a side note, CN and N are also possible alignments - or even LE or LN, in some cases).

Consider:

PHB, p.89: "A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn't have the reestless nature or love of conflicet that a chaotic evil villain has. The criminal who robs and murders to get what she wants is neutral evil."

versus

PHB, p.90: "A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spead of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Tyypically, chaotic evil people can only be made to work together by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him. The demented sorcerer pursuing mad schemes of vengeance and havoc is chaotic evil."

The alignments of lawyers who have cast aside their conscience are harder to discern. Maybe N to NE, on the average?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

The alignments of lawyers who have cast aside their conscience are harder to discern. Maybe N to NE, on the average?

I'd buy that. As for N clients, I doubt it, as the level of self-serving necessary for a lot of this B.S. goes well-outside the purview of Neutral.

 

[Dragongirl]

So, how many hijacks does this make?

 

[jgbrowning]

please oh please oh please oh please oh please give us back our thread name...


joe b.

 

[reapersaurus]

People normally dont read fantasy literature to watch the good guys loose. Unfortunately it happens a lot in RL, and it would happen a lot in my "Real" fantasy world (from my DM's perpective here.. a world that doesn't think the PC's are special).

And as to your PC paladin helping who he could against the dragon, what if the dragon just wants to punish a paladin.. (the dragon is evil right?) what if the dragon decides to just follow the paladin around where ever he goes and kill people?

such things dont happen because players and DM's dont find them fun. But real evil creatures would find them fun.

Your world doesn't think the PC's are 'special'?

I will call you on your crap, because unless you have some high-level Evil guy enslave the PC's as soon as they start to gather any noticeable power and/or wealth, than you're not being realistic.

What's this? You don't do that to every single party that would bother gaming with you?
Than you're not being "real" (why that's something you'd be striving for is beyond me, tho).

To have a "real" campaign, you'd have to explain away how somehow the threats usually scale in power level with the PC's, so they don't meet that hugely destructive villain that they have to defeat too early in their careers.

As for your dragon who follows the paladin, killing villages - now that's getting closer to a difficult situation for the Paladin.
Your teleport-and-torture example was weak.
A paladin is not affected when it is not HIS actions which cause the torment.

But the dragon killing everything the paladin gets close to DOES start to insidiously hint that it's the Paladin's very existence that is causing the deaths of people.

You know what? Even in this case, the paladin's heart is Light - because it is still not his hand causing the Evil. He doesn't possess the power to change the situation, and I guess the paladin perhaps would be doing some good by being tormented by the Evil, since by necessity, the Evil thing COULD be doing much more effective things with its time than torturing the righteous paladin.
(Heck, you might as well invent the extreme example which uses a special squad of high-level demons whose only existence is to harry and torture young paladins.
In such a contrived example, wouldn't this effectively kill off all paladins in a generation or two thru attrition?

And I think it's safe to conclude that IF you actually ran such BS contrived "real-world"* storylines in your games, not many people that have bothered reading this thread would come very close to your games.

* your "real-world" examples of evil seem straight from a movie to me.
Evil doesn't usually go to that much trouble when there's no real benefit to them.
If you're going to introduce such high-powered Evil entities that solely exist to torture Good, than why not have high-powered Good entities sweep in and slaughter tham all, saving the day and defending the tortured Paladin?

 

[Vaxalon]

Well i agree with you here. And the reason this so rarely happens is that in literature, and in most people's games, the reader/player DOESNT want to deal with anything resembling reality.

Reread the bit you quoted. I said that this kind of thing doesn't happen often in the real world, either.

I'll say it again, simpler:

It is rare that the only good you can do is die well, in the real world.

People normally dont read fantasy literature to watch the good guys loose. Unfortunately it happens a lot in RL, and it would happen a lot in my "Real" fantasy world (from my DM's perpective here.. a world that doesn't think the PC's are special).

If the PC's lose on a regular basis, how do you keep players coming back? You have already admitted that most people don't want to deal with this level of reality.

As for the teleporting arena thing i can easily see it happening with the drow. It doesn't happen in peoples games because most people dont want to have such difficult moral gaming experiences and, again, the PC's are supposed to win.

I don't see it happening with the Drow. They have arenas, yes, and torture, yes, but they wouldn't give a captured paladin the opportunity to do MORE good by healing people, leading prayers, that kind of thing. They'd sacrifice him to Lolth pretty quickly. Remember, Lolth is a HUNGRY goddess.

And why would the baddies want to spend the time on the paladin? Because the the epitome of lawful goodness!

And a 10th level paladin is even more of an epitome than a 3rd level paladin. There are eight times as many 3rd level paladins in the world as there are tenth level paladins, the weenies are meaningless.

what could be more fun then giving him a sword when its pointless and grinding down his worthless patheticly good spirit and then savor that delicious moment when you see his "calling" leave?

Because generally speaking it doesn't leave. Paladins, when faced with a moral "dilemma" that is this simple don't generally turn... they need to be turned more subtly than any of the problems you have presented so far.

And as to your PC paladin helping who he could against the dragon, what if the dragon just wants to punish a paladin.. (the dragon is evil right?) what if the dragon decides to just follow the paladin around where ever he goes and kill people?

Then the Paladin would go out into the wilderness where there are no people. By doing so, he has removed a very powerful dragon from the world as surely as if he has killed it; he wins.

such things dont happen because players and DM's dont find them fun. But real evil creatures would find them fun.

Even with all of your contrivances, you have still not given me any more than five seconds pause in considering what a paladin would do. Can't you do any better than this?

So far most of your counter- arguements have been that 1. there's more choices then im presenting (which of course that can slowly be weeded down to where the paladin must make a choice that i am speaking about.. the one of chosing the lesser of two evils)

Prove it. Give me one. There ALWAYS choices. You are relying heavily on the "Fallacy of the Excluded Middle"... it's used very often by my conservative friends at work, so I'm very good at dealing with it. You're going to have to abandon it if you're going to make a convincing argument.

or 2. that what im talking about doesn't happen in roleplaying games or DnD.

Or the real world, or fantasy literature. And I think that's a strong, if not telling counterargument.

You have to contrive your situations very very tightly in order to create the kind of situation you want... and the further you contrive them, the rarer you make them.

So keep on twisting, it makes your argument less and less relevant.

Evil creatures would go out of their way to do these things to paladins you know.... they'd deliberately try to make him lose his paladinship..

Oh, yes, they'd try, but there's no way they could force it to happen.

And the paladins could rejoice in the fact that all of the effort being spent trying to turn THEM to evil is NOT being spent trying to turn folks who are not so well-schooled in its nature, and whose ability to resist is not so strong.

Course if i was to role-play this as a DM people would say i was being unfair.

Quite possibly, but that is outside the realm of our argument.

 

[jgbrowning]

"Prove it. Give me one. There ALWAYS choices. You are relying heavily on the "Fallacy of the Excluded Middle"... it's used very often by my conservative friends at work, so I'm very good at dealing with it. You're going to have to abandon it if you're going to make a convincing argument."

1st. Sorry i misunderstood your statement about RL.. my bad.

2nd. i was saying that there would be situations where the only choices are choices between two evils. literally intepreted that is a bit more rigid than i'd intended.

i'll just change that to situations where the only choices are the lesser of many evils..

Do you honeslty mean to tell me that there are NO situations where chosing the lesser of many evils is the only choice you have?


If you respond to that one with "yes there are no situations like that" i'll have to sign off on this conversation with you. remember.. we are talking about an absolute morality universe, not this one we live in of realtive morality.

Every class but a paladin can make the lesser of many evil choices without consequence.

OK, not to get political, but sometimes ya have to. Bombing Afghanastan was a choice between two evils. Innocent people got killed. Paladins wouldn't be able to do that because in a morally absolute universive killing evil is wrong regardless of circumstances.

given situation. Bombing Afghanastan saves innocent lives, but kills innocent lives = not bombing afghanastan saves innocent lives, but kills innocent lives.

ok give me your options about what a paladin can do in such a situation.



sorry to bring this up as it a touchy subject, but it is a relavent one. im not interested in the real afghanastan here, im just talkinga bout a pretend one..

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

Your world doesn't think the PC's are 'special'?

I will call you on your crap, because unless you have some high-level Evil guy enslave the PC's as soon as they start to gather any noticeable power and/or wealth, than you're not being realistic.

I never said that I was being realistic. i was merely saying that the concept of paladin was not realistic. perhaps the use of "my" to indicate my DMish idea of a real world?

What's this? You don't do that to every single party that would bother gaming with you?
Than you're not being "real" (why that's something you'd be striving for is beyond me, tho).

To have a "real" campaign, you'd have to explain away how somehow the threats usually scale in power level with the PC's, so they don't meet that hugely destructive villain that they have to defeat too early in their careers. [/B]

It is a game after all..

As for your dragon who follows the paladin, killing villages - now that's getting closer to a difficult situation for the Paladin.
Your teleport-and-torture example was weak.
A paladin is not affected when it is not HIS actions which cause the torment. [/B]

I was referring to the idea that a paladin could stand and watch torture without doing anything, just because he knows that he isn't powerful enough to stop it, and not lose his paladinship.

the paladin isn't causing the torment, but he's sure not trying to stop it.

this concept of course was just a lead up to my dragon idea

But the dragon killing everything the paladin gets close to DOES start to insidiously hint that it's the Paladin's very existence that is causing the deaths of people.

You know what? Even in this case, the paladin's heart is Light - because it is still not his hand causing the Evil. He doesn't possess the power to change the situation, and I guess the paladin perhaps would be doing some good by being tormented by the Evil, since by necessity, the Evil thing COULD be doing much more effective things with its time than torturing the righteous paladin. [/B]

Well you know, ocassionally CE creatures just may do things that dont "Maximize" their evil potential because they just like the crazy idea behind it.

I'd think a red dragon would laugh his butt off about following a paladin around and tormenting him.

and to read into you post... since when did "he doesn't possess the power to change the situation" matter a bit when discussion actions in a morally absolute universe?

that attitude is not far from the "just following orders" attitude that has be discredited in our realativist one.

(Heck, you might as well invent the extreme example which uses a special squad of high-level demons whose only existence is to harry and torture young paladins.
In such a contrived example, wouldn't this effectively kill off all paladins in a generation or two thru attrition? [/B]

First you tell me evil would focus more on maximizing their evil, and then you give me a wonderful example of how they would, and then call it contrived? Im confused.

And I think it's safe to conclude that IF you actually ran such BS contrived "real-world"* storylines in your games, not many people that have bothered reading this thread would come very close to your games.

* your "real-world" examples of evil seem straight from a movie to me.
Evil doesn't usually go to that much trouble when there's no real benefit to them.[/B]

Evil doesn't usually go to that much trouble when there's no real benefit to them? WHAT? what do you think LE is all about... Organized evil.... terrifying evil...

how would killing all the paladins NOT benefit them?

If you're going to introduce such high-powered Evil entities that solely exist to torture Good, than why not have high-powered Good entities sweep in and slaughter tham all, saving the day and defending the tortured Paladin? [/B]

I do. They're the PC's, once the PC's reach that level.

joe b.