D&D 5E Paladin just committed murder - what should happen next?

[Hussar]

Your assuming that the GM would 'ruin' the character and not just impose a minor 'need to say some hail marry's'. The OP asked others opinions so he could make the best decision not just impose the absolute worst penalty as it seem you believe he would.

Sorry, I was going by the numerous posters who have categorically stated that they would strip the paladin of his paladinhood for deliberately violating his oath.

If the penalty is "say some hail mary's" then, well, we're in agreement.

 

[Hussar]

No mission is a suicide mission. There's always a tiny chance you may fulfill your objective and come out alive.

That is wrong on the face of it. Kamikaze pilots, for example, could not fulfill their objectives and come out alive. There are more modern examples as well.

As far as the whole "death before dishonor" thing goes, well, the unbelievable evil that has been done in that name is a list far too long to list here.

But, ok. Why don't the baddies just kidnap some random person, and demand that every paladin in your world fall on their sword? After all, what's the difference? The NPC will die if the Paladin's so not kill themselves, therefore, according to your logic, exterminating every paladin in the world would take a couple of weeks at most.

Seems a simple answer to getting rid of paladins from the game. @lowkey13 would be proud.

 

[Hussar]

I think that this tends to reinforce my suggestion upthread that if the framing of the game is essentialy Conan-esque S&S or Advanced Squad Leader, then there is little scope for the paladin archetype to manifest itself in a serious way, and there is the risk that poor play experiences will result. (Witness the OP!)

Or, instead, you back off as the DM from judging the behavior of the PC's and allow the players to judge their behavior for themselves. Explore the notion of failure. Your way means that my paladin PC will never, ever fail. After all, failure means that there is no divine providence. Thus, I cannot fail at anything. I might not 100% succeed, but, the entire campaign will be an unending string of successes with minor setbacks at most.

My way, the player actually has to deal with the consequences of failure, without having his character stripped away. He can atone (or not, depending on how the player feels about it) and explore the consequences of his own decisions, free in the knowledge that there is no DM safety net that is going to rewrite failures into successes.

I prefer my way frankly. Your way infantilizes the player. A paladin player winds up with nothing but participation trophies because none of his successes have any real meaning, since there was never any real chance of failure.

 

[pemerton]

Or, instead, you back off as the DM from judging the behavior of the PC's and allow the players to judge their behavior for themselves. Explore the notion of failure.

If the paladin didn't break his/her oath/code, then why are you talking about failure?

Your way infantilizes the player. A paladin player winds up with nothing but participation trophies because none of his successes have any real meaning, since there was never any real chance of failure.

If you want to have a paldin-off I'm game: I'll put my play and my GMing of paladin-themed PCs, knightly campaigns and the like up against anyone else's any day or night.

If that's not what you want, then I'm sorry I've misunderstood. But given that you've already said you've got no interest in how I do things in my games, you've got no basis to form any view about whether or not I infantilise players.

But for what it's worth, I do regard it as a type of "infantilising" or "dumbing down" to take the view that just because there is no way out therefore there must be no wrongdoing by the paladin.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That's hardly a reason to hand the NPC over to the dragon. And I don't see how it's not a reason for the PC not to offer himself up.

Of course if the NPC volunteered to take the hit from the dragon in order to save the paladin for the greater good - "I'm done for anyway; save yurself!" - that would be completely different. But that's not what happened as I understand the OP.

I don't see how it isn't a reason for the paladin to offer himself up. If the NPC won't survive without the paladin's help, and the paladin gets eaten, the NPC dies as well. If we accept that what the paladin did was murder (which, for the record, I don't) then this alternate scenario is a murder-suicide. How is that any better? Because the paladin made a "noble" gesture by dying with the NPC?

Personally, there's nothing noble about such an act. I think that such an act is fundamentally selfish. The sacrificial paladin would rather die with his honor intact than accept dishonor and continue to be a force for good in the world. As I see it, such an individual puts others seeing him as a hero over being an actual hero.

 

[Nagol]

I think if I were GMing it, and we'd got to the point of the dragon offering to let the Paladin go in exchange for the NPC, I think the dragon would most likely be looking to acquire something of value from the Paladin, most likely treasure for its hoard, in exchange for letting both go. It would also want to be treated with respect/deference by the Paladin; dragons tend to be vain and ego-massage probably more important than food. It would likely attack if insulted, or if the Paladin showed himself unworthy of talking to, eg by showing excessive fear/terror rather than respect.

AFAICS the OP was going for something similar.

If I were GMing it, and it got to the point where I'm framing a scene with an inappropriately too powerful opponent demanding to eat a companion -- they'd eat the companion. Any backtalk, any subterfuge, anything else the PC on site could do would end up getting the PC eaten too - probably swallowed whole so raises aren't possible. Then the treasure carried gets added to the hoard, obviously.

As I pointed about many pages back, a functional and logical equivalent for the dragon's speech is "I am taking your companion. Interfere and die."

If such a scene ends up framed there are two possibilities:

• I fully intended it and the players were at a minimum complicit with setting it up either through (a) asking for a fall scenario, (b) willfully ignoring signs in the universe that they were inside an adult dragon's hunting ground, splitting up, and offering a juicy target, or (c) did something specifically to call unfavorable hostile attention from an adult dragon and then offered a opportunity for it to take action. In this case the alpha predator who deliberately picked the fight and is convinced it has the upper hand isn't negotiating -- it is dictating terms.
• I screwed up. I thought the players knew something was going on and would act on their prior knowledge / with a common tactic that would have uncommon effect / however else I misread the situation. It's on me to fix the mess I made.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see how it isn't a reason for the paladin to offer himself up. If the NPC won't survive without the paladin's help, and the paladin gets eaten, the NPC dies as well. If we accept that what the paladin did was murder (which, for the record, I don't) then this alternate scenario is a murder-suicide. How is that any better? Because the paladin made a "noble" gesture by dying with the NPC?

Personally, there's nothing noble about such an act. I think that such an act is fundamentally selfish. The sacrificial paladin would rather die with his honor intact than accept dishonor and continue to be a force for good in the world. As I see it, such an individual puts others seeing him as a hero over being an actual hero.

I don't really know what framework you're working with. I'm using one that is found (in various forms, but the differences don't matter I don't think to the current discussion) in mainstream non-consequentiaist moral philosophy, in the criminal law, and in LotR-ish storytelling.

Key to all versions of the framework I'm using is that particular agency matters. This is related to ideas like responsibility, duty, honour, excuse, etc.

To take a graphic example: if I am killed defending my child from an assailant, and then my child suffers at the assailant's hands, I am not (posthumously) liable for negligent parenting or child endangerment. If I give my child to the assailant then I am. The fact that my child suffers either way isn't relevant - what the law fastens on is my conduct.

Likewise in the scenario at issue in this thread: the measure of the paladin's conduct isn't simply the outcoe it produced. There is no version of paladins that presents them as Benthamites. The measure of a paladin's conduct is what s/he did by way of honouring duties, respeciting values, etc.

As for the suggestion that it's selfish to follow duty when that results in one's death: what you're saying, in effect, is that honour and duty don't matter. That only outcomes count. That's obviously a tenable position - Peter Singer is probably the best-known contemporary proponent of it. But it can't possibly be reconciled with the idea of a code or of personal honour. This becomes obvious if we look at the standard bugbears for act utilitarians, like some cases of torture or punishment of the innocent. But likewise in the current scenario: what is the meaning of a duty to protect those in one's care if it can be set aside in order to pursue some (so-called) greater good?

And for the sake of clarity: this post is not arguing that utlitarianism if false and the morality of duty true (nor the reverse). That's not what the thread is about and is possibly contrary to board rules. This post is talking about what paladins believe, by reference to the general archetype of a duty-bound and honourable warrior.

 

[Hussar]

If the paladin didn't break his/her oath/code, then why are you talking about failure?

If you want to have a paldin-off I'm game: I'll put my play and my GMing of paladin-themed PCs, knightly campaigns and the like up against anyone else's any day or night.

If that's not what you want, then I'm sorry I've misunderstood. But given that you've already said you've got no interest in how I do things in my games, you've got no basis to form any view about whether or not I infantilise players.

But for what it's worth, I do regard it as a type of "infantilising" or "dumbing down" to take the view that just because there is no way out therefore there must be no wrongdoing by the paladin.

He did fail though. The NPC got eaten. The NPC was in his protection and he failed to protect the NPC.

Failing =/= breaking your oath. For you, though, apparently, any failure must be a violation of the paladin's oath. Therefore, in your games, the paladin can never fail. You will never allow the paladin to fail, since that would violate the paladin's oath, and you apparently don't want to do that. The examples of what you would do - maybe the dragon was actually a gold dragon and was "testing" the paladin - bear that out.

None of your examples end with the NPC eaten. Therefore, by the examples you've given, the paladin can never actually fail.

For me, failure is FAR more interesting. What we do when faith is tested is far more interesting than constantly succeeding at everything because we've been "chosen by the gods" or some such thing.

Hey, that's what you want to do, that's fine. Cool. Groovy. But, you've made some pretty broad statements - Conanesque games don't work with paladins, for example - when I'm demonstrating exactly how they DO work and, for me at least, are far more interesting.

See, because there is no way out, it's a no win situation, there was no willingness on the part of the paladin. He was forced into it. So, to me, no, it's not dumbing down. It's taking a pretty healthy moral view of a paladin's oath and then incorporating it into the game without taking a big old dump on the player's character or getting out the magic fudge eraser and changing the scenario so that it's rigged to let the paladin win.

 

[Fanaelialae]

To take a graphic example: if I am killed defending my child from an assailant, and then my child suffers at the assailant's hands, I am not (posthumously) liable for negligent parenting or child endangerment. If I give my child to the assailant then I am. The fact that my child suffers either way isn't relevant - what the law fastens on is my conduct.

I'm going to focus on the example you provided. IANAL but I'm fairly certain that if a child is abducted from a parent at gunpoint, that parent is not culpable.

While many parents would gladly die for their children, it isn't necessarily their duty to die for their children, as they have a far greater duty to live for their children.

Similarly, this paladin did have a duty to the man he was protecting. However, he also had a duty to the world itself (because he was on a quest to prevent the destruction of said world). Sacrificing himself for the former duty would almost certainly accomplish nothing, as his charge would still probably die, and moreover would be an abandonment of the latter duty. All for the sake of the paladin's ego, so that he would not be thought a coward.

Both duties are important, but in this scenario I believe that the paladin's duty to the world trumps the duty to the NPC (and his desire to protect his own image). Dying to the dragon is therefore a fundamentally selfish act unbefitting of a paladin, in my opinion.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, I have to say, that if your child is abducted at gunpoint, at no point did you willingly give up your child.

So, @pemerton, is it your contention that any parent who does not throw themselves on the gun, thereby dying, is culpable and morally responsible for what happens to the child?