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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 429948" data-attributes="member: 4937">Oni: I'm aware of the code of Bushido.In practice, the Bushido code left room for all sorts of 'honorable' treachery.  At times, it is almost laughable.  A similar situation exists in the Kama Sutra.  At its heart, the Kama Sutra is a religious text enumerating the ways in which human sexuality can be practiced 'honorably' (as it were).  Aside from enumerating the many positions and techniques in an Aristotalian fashion, the writer enumerates all situations in which a person can 'honorably' engage in sex.   The list eventually becomes so long, and so filled with loopholes and excuses, that any creative person can justify to himself any sort of illicit and treacherous sexual behavior (indeed, performing sex in order to be treacherous is explicitly listed as an honorable case!).   So, what are we left with?  Certainly some sort of standard or code, but not one which at its heart promotes activity which encourages 'lawfulness' in the society as a whole, nor one which really encourages benevolence on the part of its practisioners.  I'd be hard pressed to find any interpretation of the Bushido code or Kama Sutra (or writings of Confuscious for that matter) which I would defend as 'Lawful Good'.   'Good' is just not a concept that is considered except to mean 'What is profitable for you and your allies at the moment', which is more of a definition of 'Chaotic (Evil?)' to my mind.  At best we must call these 'Lawful Neutral' philosophies that have arisen out of a codification of the customs of highly chaotic (nuetral? evil?) society.   Certainly a history of the battles of Japan reveals that the most critical factor determining the outcome was who could keep his subcommands loyal for the longest portion of the battle - something we _do not_ generally associate with lawfulness.Nonetheless, it is reasonable or at least interesting to assume that certain practicioners of the Code of Bushido (or the Veda's or the writings of Confuscious or whatever) had in addition to there knowledge of these writings and desire to act honorably, a deep felt native understanding of 'Good', and attempted to practice both benevolence and thier societies social code to the best of thier ability.  To that extent, these practicioners probably thought deeply about the 'spirit of the law' as well as the letter of it, and the spirit of most laws (even the ones most poorly written) is to encourage weal in the society as a whole or at least in that element of society that the law is concerned with (in the case of feudal law whether in Europe or Japan, most particularly the aristocracy).  So, I won't say that it is impossible that there could be a Paladin who practiced the Code of Bushido, and in fact, such would make for a very very interesting character.   The player of such a character would have to think deeply about and study the Code of Bushido to find a balance between the law of the Code and truly benevolent and honorable action.   As, to the specific element of Truth vs. Politeness vs. Honor of Ones leige, this is precisely the sort of hard choice that makes Paladin such a interesting class to play.   Somehow the Paladin must balance the needs of each.   If he believes truth to be good and honorable (and to a certain extent I would insist he did), he _cannot_ _cannot_ _cannot_ simply just say, "I can lie in this situation, because otherwise some great evil will befall.", because to do so is the same as saying 'The Code I follow is wrong'.   Instead, if he say lies to protect himself or his leige, he has to feel and act as if this was his failing.   He has to believe that the code provided a means of escape if he had been wise enough, had studied it closely enough, or had he been brave enough to accept it.   He has to have FAITH in the code, and in his deity to protect him when he follows that code.   And he cannot take the easy way out and look for loopholes in the code that let him violate the spirit of the code (this is a Lawful Neutral path).  A good Paladin player forced to be rude when being honest will _want_ to atone for that action (even if only something simple like a Confessional or an Atonement Sacrifice or the equivalent), even if everyone else witnessing the event either thinks he should have lied or else thinks he acted reasonably.   The Paladin knows better.If a Paladin is rude, or lies, or tells the truth and it leads to disaster, I'm not going to take away that Paladin's paladin status so long as the Paladin's player was sincerely trying to follow the code and not weasel out of it and look for loopholes.   Noone is perfect all the time.  And, I agree with those that say Truth should win out over Ettiquette in a conflict of the two.  Part of the challenge of playing a Paladin is figuring out which thing you believe in should win when they are or seem to be in conflict.A Paladin is a terribly interesting class to play.  I'm not going to say that Paladin's are as diverse as say Rogues, because no two Rogues need have anything in common, where as all Paladins will certainly have alot in common.   But, the sort of people who become Paladins are in many ways as diverse as the whole population.  They have weakness (which they do thier best to overcome or compensate for) and they have failings (which they do thier best to atone for).   They have roles in society, and opinions about it and the people in it.   They have tensions between what they want to do, and what they feel they must do.  They have things they are repressing, whether rightly and wrongly.   They can have angst or doubt.  They can be torn between loyalties and beliefs and loves and codes of honor.   BUT, they are not gauranteed to lose.   Unlike the average person, they are not an unending series of defeats.   Quite often they can be truly heroic.   They are in fact embodiements of that idea of heroism.  They can exceed and transcend themselves.   They can have moments of complete victory as well as moments of crushing defeat, and moreso than any other class they are aware of the difference when it occurs.I'm not surprised that Paladins get a bad rap, and when it is suggested that they are in fact truly lawful (and not some weakened version of it) that the first responce from alot of people is to suggest - 'I don't want them to be that way because lawful is boring/bad/evil/stupid/etc.', because we live in a society that teaches consciously and unconsciously that lawful people are 'bad/evil/stupid/etc.'</blockquote>

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