Paladins at dinner parties: Polite or Truthful?
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Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Dragonblade said:
Actually, seeing as he is unburdened with such irritating concepts as mercy and compassion(the core of what it means to be Good), Galad is, at best, LN. His self-righteous belief in his own superiority leans him in the LE direction, IMO.
This makes the assumption that deities think and act like mortals. Unless it's integral to the cosmology somehow, deities, IMO, are less concerned about the petty squabbles of mortals and who wins wars than they are about beliefs and ideas. Even a War god isn't necessarily all about who won a battle, he's more about who executed a brilliant tactical maneuver and who showed heroic behavior on the battlefield. Also, unlike mortals, a deity should be capable of comprehending absolutes, and I see no problem with good deities holding their paladins as close to absolute good as a mortal can get. That doesn't mean they need to forego intelligent tactics when confronted with evil, but it does mean they consider any definitively evil act, such as lying, wrong all the time. It's not wrong to lie to this guy over here because he's Good, but perfectly acceptable to lie to that one over there because he's evil. As Celebrim said, that shows total lack of conviction in your own morals, and it's sinking to their level. And what's the point of a paladin if he's just going to sink to their level? A paladin's supposed to be better than that.
I also believe that Good is more important than Lawful to paladins. And schmuck can be Lawful. It takes a strong person to be Good, even when it entails personal hardship.
IMO, your description of a paladin is Lawful Pragmatic with a hint of charity.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Interesting analysis, Canis. You make some excellent points. 
However, I don't think gods are so remote or removed from their worshippers that they hold them to an impossible standard when it comes to following the tenets of LG.
They wouldn't very well be LG gods, IMO, if they weren't somewhat flexible in the judgement of their paladin's actions in no-win situations.
Obviously, both the DM and the player need to reach an understanding of what the code of the paladin's god is before playing. But as long as the paladin is striving to uphold that code they should not be punished for not being able to follow it in certain situations that are forced upon them by circumstances beyond their control.
As long as the paladin keeps the big picture in mind, avoids sophistry, and his/her actions are reasonably justifiable as the best choice they can make in light of their current situation, then they should never be in danger of losing their powers.
The entire notion of the "paladin's dilemma" is ridiculous, IMO.
However, I don't think gods are so remote or removed from their worshippers that they hold them to an impossible standard when it comes to following the tenets of LG.
They wouldn't very well be LG gods, IMO, if they weren't somewhat flexible in the judgement of their paladin's actions in no-win situations.
Obviously, both the DM and the player need to reach an understanding of what the code of the paladin's god is before playing. But as long as the paladin is striving to uphold that code they should not be punished for not being able to follow it in certain situations that are forced upon them by circumstances beyond their control.
As long as the paladin keeps the big picture in mind, avoids sophistry, and his/her actions are reasonably justifiable as the best choice they can make in light of their current situation, then they should never be in danger of losing their powers.
The entire notion of the "paladin's dilemma" is ridiculous, IMO.
Seyrn Lerramir
First Post
Oni said:
"Your Lady has a beauty unlike any other in the land, my Liege."
As to the dinner party. I would, as a lawful good paladin (...though I've never played that alignment... I'm too ambiguously inclined, as no doubt a number of my other posts will show...) likely compliment something that did come out good. Totally avoiding offering an opinion on anything else. Because having an opinion doesn't make you unlawful or nongood. And frankly... being lawful and good... I imagine calls for you to be discourteous from time to time.
Another option is this.... Leave the Paladin ... somewhere else when invited to dinner parties
Yay diplomacy and bluff!
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Agreed. The "paladin's dilemma" is the invention of DMs who get way too much enjoyment out of making their players lose out.Dragonblade said:
Of course, on the other extreme, I get irritated with people who treat paladins as little different than fighters.
Maybe I'm just tough to please
I'm going to let my hair down for a few moments and tell people who some of my personal heroes are: Jesus Christ, Siddharta Gautauma, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. The reason is because they're very, very, very good people. Amongst the best that have ever lived whose lives have come down to us. I say this as an atheist, too, and I do not mean that to slight good people of any faith or philosophical persuasion who might have been passed. The list is of necessity partial.
This has to do with this thread because these heroes strongly shape what I think of as being good and evil. I suspect that at least one of them strongly shapes what just about everyone who reads this views as good and evil.
Given that, I've got to say: war is evil. War is the problem, it is not the solution. Whenever there is a war, for whatever reason, evil has already won -- the fight is only to see if the greater evil has won.
Allow me to repeat: war is evil. <i>Every</i> war is evil for even the noblest wars debase and corrupt what they touch. War puts people in the position of having to choose between death and committing vile, horrible acts. Some will die, of course, and others will stain their hands and souls -- but live with misery and regret their whole lives. Some will come to revel in warfare and bloodshed; some will create very clever justifications to continue and perpetrate slaughter. They will plague the winning side for generations as they pass their brutal ways on to their children and their children's children. War is the soil in which evil grows to perpetrate more evil; this is as true in the victors as the defeated.
Paladins, IMC, have very strict rules where violence is permissible. Violence is allowed when someone is attacking someone else; a paladin is morally obliged to use appropriate force (for instance, you don't hack off the head of a person who can be stopped using non-lethal force). The paladin is obliged to stop fighting when the threat is over, either because the attacker is incapacitated or because the attacker surrenders. In short, a paladin is obliged to use roughly the same rules of force that we demand a policeman uses.
All the time. Even in battle. Even against evil enemies.
I think I have a clear grasp of the implications of this. Paladins rarely serve governments save in the most radically defensive fashion -- a paladin bodyguard, perhaps, or even a castle guard. Paladins make lousy generals because they don't like to kill. Their conscious becomes before victory, even if it means evil will "win." (After all, if a paladin abandons their conscience to win, evil wins, anyway.) No paladin would ever engage in a war over a country's "honor" or a king's "honor." To send people to kill and die because someone called you a nasty name is the heights of absurdity, and it is evil to allow vanity such a place -- yet it has happened sufficiently often in history that we know it happens.
No paladin would ever be for invading another person's country. Ever. Even if that country had attacked you.
Yes, I know that this means that the enemy can regroup and perhaps attack, again. No-one said being good was <I>easy</i>. The reason why people are neutral and evil is because you have greater freedom of action. But we're not talking about neutral or evil people -- we're talking about good people. Really good people. Amongst the best. When given a choice between violating their sense of right and wrong or die . . . they die, or stop being paladins.
So, to answer the question, if a paladin player in my game asked me if they should lie, the answer would be, "No, never. Heck, you can't even prevaricate. You have to be honest in intent as well as actual deed." So, IMC, if the paladin felt an urge to comment on how awful the cooking was, he'd say, "No insult, m'lord, but I do not like the food."
However, since most paladins wear their class on their helmets, so to speak, I can't imagine many people would be surprised by the humble bluntness of a paladin. I mean, what are you doing inviting a <i>paladin</i> to your party if you expect him to tell polite lies?! They don't do it and if some lord is so dim as to ignore what is likely to be common knowledge and invite a paladin, anyway . . . they deserve to be embarassed by the paladin.
This has to do with this thread because these heroes strongly shape what I think of as being good and evil. I suspect that at least one of them strongly shapes what just about everyone who reads this views as good and evil.
Given that, I've got to say: war is evil. War is the problem, it is not the solution. Whenever there is a war, for whatever reason, evil has already won -- the fight is only to see if the greater evil has won.
Allow me to repeat: war is evil. <i>Every</i> war is evil for even the noblest wars debase and corrupt what they touch. War puts people in the position of having to choose between death and committing vile, horrible acts. Some will die, of course, and others will stain their hands and souls -- but live with misery and regret their whole lives. Some will come to revel in warfare and bloodshed; some will create very clever justifications to continue and perpetrate slaughter. They will plague the winning side for generations as they pass their brutal ways on to their children and their children's children. War is the soil in which evil grows to perpetrate more evil; this is as true in the victors as the defeated.
Paladins, IMC, have very strict rules where violence is permissible. Violence is allowed when someone is attacking someone else; a paladin is morally obliged to use appropriate force (for instance, you don't hack off the head of a person who can be stopped using non-lethal force). The paladin is obliged to stop fighting when the threat is over, either because the attacker is incapacitated or because the attacker surrenders. In short, a paladin is obliged to use roughly the same rules of force that we demand a policeman uses.
All the time. Even in battle. Even against evil enemies.
I think I have a clear grasp of the implications of this. Paladins rarely serve governments save in the most radically defensive fashion -- a paladin bodyguard, perhaps, or even a castle guard. Paladins make lousy generals because they don't like to kill. Their conscious becomes before victory, even if it means evil will "win." (After all, if a paladin abandons their conscience to win, evil wins, anyway.) No paladin would ever engage in a war over a country's "honor" or a king's "honor." To send people to kill and die because someone called you a nasty name is the heights of absurdity, and it is evil to allow vanity such a place -- yet it has happened sufficiently often in history that we know it happens.
No paladin would ever be for invading another person's country. Ever. Even if that country had attacked you.
Yes, I know that this means that the enemy can regroup and perhaps attack, again. No-one said being good was <I>easy</i>. The reason why people are neutral and evil is because you have greater freedom of action. But we're not talking about neutral or evil people -- we're talking about good people. Really good people. Amongst the best. When given a choice between violating their sense of right and wrong or die . . . they die, or stop being paladins.
So, to answer the question, if a paladin player in my game asked me if they should lie, the answer would be, "No, never. Heck, you can't even prevaricate. You have to be honest in intent as well as actual deed." So, IMC, if the paladin felt an urge to comment on how awful the cooking was, he'd say, "No insult, m'lord, but I do not like the food."
However, since most paladins wear their class on their helmets, so to speak, I can't imagine many people would be surprised by the humble bluntness of a paladin. I mean, what are you doing inviting a <i>paladin</i> to your party if you expect him to tell polite lies?! They don't do it and if some lord is so dim as to ignore what is likely to be common knowledge and invite a paladin, anyway . . . they deserve to be embarassed by the paladin.
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Squire James
Explorer
I think paladins should be allowed some lattitude in how they handle dinner parties. I can't really think of too many things I would revoke paladinhood over that don't involve drawing weapons or seducing someone (and some of those would still be okay). Mere sharp words may make the paladin hunted by the King's Men, or shamed at the party, but he'll probably walk (or run) out of the castle as a paladin.
Overall, I can't imagine a high-Charisma paladin being easily embarrassed at a dinner party. If the player says something the party would consider uncouth, I give him a Diplomacy check to see if he notes his faux pas before he says it, and at a higher DC I simply assumed he found a diplomatic way of saying it that most people will not get upset over.
"Only Jandar could call the King a rat-fink and get away with it..."
Overall, I can't imagine a high-Charisma paladin being easily embarrassed at a dinner party. If the player says something the party would consider uncouth, I give him a Diplomacy check to see if he notes his faux pas before he says it, and at a higher DC I simply assumed he found a diplomatic way of saying it that most people will not get upset over.
"Only Jandar could call the King a rat-fink and get away with it..."
Celebrim
Legend
Chrisling: Both you and DragonBlade make very good points, and I agree with most of them.
That may seem contridictory to you.
I think that DragonBlade strays a little too far into Lawfulness when describing a Paladin, and perhaps you stray to far into Good. That is not to say that either of you are completely wrong, but that each of you present what I would consider the absolute extremes of behavior that a Paladin could live his life by and still be a Paladin.
The moral code you describe (and I would guess ascribe or aspire to) is almost certainly a form of True Good, and not mixed with the tensions and complexities of Lawful Goodness. It is in fact a more extreme and difficult code than a lawful good code in its own way. It doesn't make any exceptions for good because of law, nor any exceptions for law because of good. It has a mode of benevolent behavior that is unwavering.
I like that. There are far to many equivicating relativists out there today, and it is nice to have someone else on this thread who is willing to say 'no absolute means absolute'. I certainly respect any good philosophy, even if I think the philosophy you deccribe is perhaps even unwavering enough to make me uncomfortable (and I describe myself as NG in so far as the game term covers my real philosophy). That is not to say that it is wrong, merely that if it is right, I haven't gotten so far in my journey. I will say that I suspect that if your philosophy isn't more advanced toward enlightenment than my own, the clue is in this statement: "The reason why people are neutral and evil is because you have greater freedom of action." Do you really believe that is true?
Just because I'm courious, and seldom meet people who hold strongly to absolutist good philosophies more extreme than my own, do you mind addressing the critical tests of the branches True Good that lean toward pacifism in a strong way?
a) Suppose you are beaten and raped. Do you believe that person who did this should be arrested and if so why?
b) Suppose you discover that a child is being abused by its parents. To what lengths is it right to go to protect the child?
That may seem contridictory to you.
I think that DragonBlade strays a little too far into Lawfulness when describing a Paladin, and perhaps you stray to far into Good. That is not to say that either of you are completely wrong, but that each of you present what I would consider the absolute extremes of behavior that a Paladin could live his life by and still be a Paladin.
The moral code you describe (and I would guess ascribe or aspire to) is almost certainly a form of True Good, and not mixed with the tensions and complexities of Lawful Goodness. It is in fact a more extreme and difficult code than a lawful good code in its own way. It doesn't make any exceptions for good because of law, nor any exceptions for law because of good. It has a mode of benevolent behavior that is unwavering.
I like that. There are far to many equivicating relativists out there today, and it is nice to have someone else on this thread who is willing to say 'no absolute means absolute'. I certainly respect any good philosophy, even if I think the philosophy you deccribe is perhaps even unwavering enough to make me uncomfortable (and I describe myself as NG in so far as the game term covers my real philosophy). That is not to say that it is wrong, merely that if it is right, I haven't gotten so far in my journey. I will say that I suspect that if your philosophy isn't more advanced toward enlightenment than my own, the clue is in this statement: "The reason why people are neutral and evil is because you have greater freedom of action." Do you really believe that is true?
Just because I'm courious, and seldom meet people who hold strongly to absolutist good philosophies more extreme than my own, do you mind addressing the critical tests of the branches True Good that lean toward pacifism in a strong way?
a) Suppose you are beaten and raped. Do you believe that person who did this should be arrested and if so why?
b) Suppose you discover that a child is being abused by its parents. To what lengths is it right to go to protect the child?
Moorcrys
Explorer
I'd imagine that there are tenets of a lawful ethic and morality of good which every paladin upholds regardless of who they are. Then there are the smaller murkier elements of day-to-day existence which, I would argue, enjoy much more latitude in terms of a paladin's actions.
In terms of the honesty at the dinner table quandry, I would argue that while a paladin strives to be honest and forthright in all circumstances, a wise paladin would realize that to potentially offend his host for such a triviality as the quality of someone's honest and humble attempt at good cooking would serve no one, least of all the good god or the lawful and benevolent noble the paladin were representing.
While I admire Celebrim's responses (I'd love to see the games he's in... jeeze no one talks like that in my 3E campaigns, I always get paladins who want to torture small animals and argue with me about how morality is relative), I think he's assuming that the paladin responding is rather intelligent -- certainly intelligent enough to have a quick mind and excellent skill with words. In 3E that simply isn't the case with all paladins. You can be a paladin who's basically dumb as a post. However, even a relatively stupid paladin should have the wisdom to realize he isn't good with words, and if in order to save the evening and hurt feelings he has to simply smile and say "Yes, it is a fine meal" I don't feel the heavens are going to clang with disharmony and anger at this 'white lie'.
I'd also argue that a paladin should strive for honesty, but he wishes to be both lawful, AND good... brutal honesty is not always the moral highground. In fact, every society, even lawful and good ones, allow for these white lies so that people can function harmoniously and without strife. Honesty at all or any cost is, in my opinion, lawful neutral more than lawful good. Following the laws of civility (which allow for these white lies), is lawful (because it follows those laws) and good (because no one is harmed by it, no one's honor is disgraced by it, and the cook and household is spared embarrasing gossip that begins with 'Did you hear was said to lord x yesterday evening by sir y?').
It can also be said that to murder in cold blood is set down in stone as evil. Poison is a tool of evil. Banditry is lawless and unacceptable. Whether or not a meal tastes good is opinion. And a paladin, in my belief, would be fully justified to decide that good company, a fine atmosphere, and a warm hearth would overcome any shortcomings regarding the food itself, thus allowing him with confidence to say, 'it is a fine meal.' Of course, as a cruel DM you might require the paladin to make a bluff check or diplomacy roll to see if the other guests who absolutely detest the food believe him or forgive his terrible lack of culinary taste.
Or what if the dinner is a meager supper prepared by a grateful village? Is the paladin bound by an oath of law and goodness to embarrass and demean them by saying 'no, honestly, I do not care for this food.'? What if the paladin serves a god of mercy? A god of peace and civility? Would his god be pleased at that response?
Not all paladins need be the exact same, so one paladin could feel honor bound to speak truthfully about the food while another could feel that the societal norms and good manners would allow such a 'bent truth' comment to be spoken without guilt. Not all paladins believe the same things either, and even if you're lawful good and lawful good, that doesn't mean you have to get along all the time or agree to precisely the same methods of operation and etiquette.
In terms of the honesty at the dinner table quandry, I would argue that while a paladin strives to be honest and forthright in all circumstances, a wise paladin would realize that to potentially offend his host for such a triviality as the quality of someone's honest and humble attempt at good cooking would serve no one, least of all the good god or the lawful and benevolent noble the paladin were representing.
While I admire Celebrim's responses (I'd love to see the games he's in... jeeze no one talks like that in my 3E campaigns, I always get paladins who want to torture small animals and argue with me about how morality is relative), I think he's assuming that the paladin responding is rather intelligent -- certainly intelligent enough to have a quick mind and excellent skill with words. In 3E that simply isn't the case with all paladins. You can be a paladin who's basically dumb as a post. However, even a relatively stupid paladin should have the wisdom to realize he isn't good with words, and if in order to save the evening and hurt feelings he has to simply smile and say "Yes, it is a fine meal" I don't feel the heavens are going to clang with disharmony and anger at this 'white lie'.
I'd also argue that a paladin should strive for honesty, but he wishes to be both lawful, AND good... brutal honesty is not always the moral highground. In fact, every society, even lawful and good ones, allow for these white lies so that people can function harmoniously and without strife. Honesty at all or any cost is, in my opinion, lawful neutral more than lawful good. Following the laws of civility (which allow for these white lies), is lawful (because it follows those laws) and good (because no one is harmed by it, no one's honor is disgraced by it, and the cook and household is spared embarrasing gossip that begins with 'Did you hear was said to lord x yesterday evening by sir y?').
It can also be said that to murder in cold blood is set down in stone as evil. Poison is a tool of evil. Banditry is lawless and unacceptable. Whether or not a meal tastes good is opinion. And a paladin, in my belief, would be fully justified to decide that good company, a fine atmosphere, and a warm hearth would overcome any shortcomings regarding the food itself, thus allowing him with confidence to say, 'it is a fine meal.' Of course, as a cruel DM you might require the paladin to make a bluff check or diplomacy roll to see if the other guests who absolutely detest the food believe him or forgive his terrible lack of culinary taste.
Or what if the dinner is a meager supper prepared by a grateful village? Is the paladin bound by an oath of law and goodness to embarrass and demean them by saying 'no, honestly, I do not care for this food.'? What if the paladin serves a god of mercy? A god of peace and civility? Would his god be pleased at that response?
Not all paladins need be the exact same, so one paladin could feel honor bound to speak truthfully about the food while another could feel that the societal norms and good manners would allow such a 'bent truth' comment to be spoken without guilt. Not all paladins believe the same things either, and even if you're lawful good and lawful good, that doesn't mean you have to get along all the time or agree to precisely the same methods of operation and etiquette.
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