Paladins with powers being deluded/deceived?

[Celebrim]

Fantastic example. Explain to me how this makes sense? I'm not questioning the fact that the laws in your setting are like this, I just don't get why it is set up this way.

a) Savings throws don't exist in the game world. Saving throws aren't part of the fiction. The populace needs some theory in the fiction for why some people resist magical compulsion and others don't. They notice that people with stronger will power seem more difficult to bewitch, and further those with stronger convictions are also more difficult to bewitch. They therefore come up with the theory that people fail to resist magical compulsion because of some weakness in their makeup. While we are on the subject, exactly what theory would you come up with where you inside the fiction and had only those available facts?
b) Big giant D20's don't exist in the fiction, and don't rattle around and leave evidence behind them. And while some members of the community might consider it all luck who is victimized and who isn't and who can say, many people in the society believe that things are happening for some logical reason and that there are some sorts of rules or laws that govern existence.
c) As a practical matter, the average community of peasant farmers just simply doesn't have the means to investigate claims of charms, domination, and possession. All they know is that Joe has gone berserk. He's in court pleading that a devil made him do it. Either he's lying about being possessed, in which case he is a monster. Or else he's provingly susceptible to the influence of a monster and equally dangerous to the community. Either way, Joe has to go. "Sorry Joe, hope you can forgive us and understand why we are doing it. If you really are innocent, I hope your next life is more pleasant than this one. If we find your monster, we'll try our best to fight it and avenge you."

As a matter of narrative, this is exactly the sort of complex question that I find satisfying to explore within my game. A set up where a harsh judge condemns another for weakness of will, only to find himself the next victim is exactly the sort of difficult question I wish to pose in my games. I'm not sure there is a right answer here, but rather than condemning my governments legal codes come up with a workable framework that doesn't depend on casting high level magics. Keep in mind that the normal tools of magical investigation don't work perfectly well, and generally aren't admissible in court either (because who is going to watch the watchers?) .

What do you want them to do? Trial by combat? Trial by ordeal? If its all random chance anyway, just a 'big d20 rolling in the sky', none of that would work. They work with what they have.

Ah, so essentially saying "he didn't fight hard enough"?

Essentially, yes.

Then my apologies; I thought you were of the opinion that such a law was just, since we were discussing whether a Paladin is held responsible by his god for actions resulting from a failed saving throw. I interpreted your statement of "in my world, he would be held legally responsible" as saying you thought such a stance made sense.

I claim it makes sense. Whether or not it is just, I'm not prepared to rule on. I've not been forced to live in a world where monsters and warlocks go around controlling men's minds. I can say I'm certainly sympathetic to my peasants. It's a brutal world to be a 1st level commoner in. They are scared and they have every right to be.

The reason I brought it up was in general, most inhabitants of my homebrew would think a deity willing to forgive such behavior is far more forgiving than they would be in the same situation. If anything, prevailing opinion would be that the forgiveness - and not the punishment - constituted injustice.

 

[Dandu]

a) Savings throws don't exist in the game world. Saving throws aren't part of the fiction. The populace needs some theory in the fiction for why some people resist magical compulsion and others don't. They notice that people with stronger will power seem more difficult to bewitch, and further those with stronger convictions are also more difficult to bewitch. They therefore come up with the theory that people fail to resist magical compulsion because of some weakness in their makeup. While we are on the subject, exactly what theory would you come up with where you inside the fiction and had only those available facts?

Given my profession, if I were in a fantasy game world, I'd probably be the one casting the spells...

c) As a practical matter, the average community of peasant farmers just simply doesn't have the means to investigate claims of charms, domination, and possession. All they know is that Joe has gone berserk. He's in court pleading that a devil made him do it. Either he's lying about being possessed, in which case he is a monster. Or else he's provingly susceptible to the influence of a monster and equally dangerous to the community. Either way, Joe has to go. "Sorry Joe, hope you can forgive us and understand why we are doing it. If you really are innocent, I hope your next life is more pleasant than this one. If we find your monster, we'll try our best to fight it and avenge you."

Interesting. From my knowledge of medieval history, launching a bunch of witch hunts with the victims pointing out "witches" (which usually started with those low on the social ladder and moved upwards) is also on the table. Or am I thinking of The Crucible?

As a matter of narrative, this is exactly the sort of complex question that I find satisfying to explore within my game. A set up where a harsh judge condemns another for weakness of will, only to find himself the next victim is exactly the sort of difficult question I wish to pose in my games. I'm not sure there is a right answer here, but rather than condemning my governments legal codes come up with a workable framework that doesn't depend on casting high level magics. Keep in mind that the normal tools of magical investigation don't work perfectly well, and generally aren't admissible in court either (because who is going to watch the watchers?) .

What do you want them to do? Trial by combat? Trial by ordeal? If its all random chance anyway, just a 'big d20 rolling in the sky', none of that would work. They work with what they have.

Actually, with regards to false rape accusations, there's a number of ways investigators use to determine if the accuser is telling the truth or not. For example, victims tend to exhibit PTSD. Most victims tell their families/close friends and are pressured into telling the police later. Rape generally involves more than just sex, but false accusations tend to only mention that sex occurred. (A professional could likely go on forever, so you'll forgive me if I end my examples here.)

There's no guarantee that someone's lying if their story looks suspicious, but a competent investigator is far from helpless in these situations.

Besides, we're dealing with fiction here. Certainly great detectives can exist.

I claim it makes sense. Whether or not it is just, I'm not prepared to rule on. I've not been forced to live in a world where monsters and warlocks go around controlling men's minds.

You do live in a world where people are brainwashed into committing heinous acts. The 20th and 21st centuries are replete with such examples.

The general opinion seems to be that the leaders are held responsible for the acts that result from their teachings, but mentally competent individuals who carry them out are also culpable, as, at the end of the day, it was their decision to obey orders. (Unless you were, say, in a military organization and of sufficiently low rank.)

I imagine, though, if there was a drug that eliminated free will, the victim would not be held responsible.

 

[Celebrim]

Given my profession, if I were in a fantasy game world, I'd probably be the one casting the spells...

Which is a cop out.

Besides, we're dealing with fiction here. Certainly great detectives can exist.

The PC's to the rescue... and sometimes not.

 

[Dandu]

Which is a cop out.

If I'm casting the spells, I imagine that I would know how they worked.

If I were not a spellcaster I would be open to the belief that acceptability to mind control is not a binary situation. Much like becoming sick, it could be that a healthy individual has a chance of becoming ill upon exposure to a pathogen which is modified by his current health at the time - assuming that I am still "me" in your setting.

 

[pemerton]

I imagine, though, if there was a drug that eliminated free will, the victim would not be held responsible.

On this point: the issue of automatism is a significant one in contemporary Anglo-Australian criminal law. As the breadth of psychiatric knowledge grows, and with it the capacity of criminal defendants to have plausible expert testimony that their "actions" were not voluntary, so the number of acquittals on the basis of automatism grows.

(In the common law voluntariness of actions is generally not an element of mens rea; it goes to the physical element of the offence. If a bodily movement was not voluntary, then the relevant conduct that would constitute the offence has not taken place, regardless of the knowledge or intentions of the defendant in relation to that conduct and its consequences.)

 

[Celebrim]

If I'm casting the spells, I imagine that I would know how they worked.

That's not necessarily the the case with magic. Heck, that's not necessarily the case with science.

It's quite possible to work magic without understanding how it works.

If I were not a spellcaster I would be open to the belief that acceptability to mind control is not a binary situation. Much like becoming sick, it could be that a healthy individual has a chance of becoming ill upon exposure to a pathogen which is modified by his current health at the time - assuming that I am still "me" in your setting.

Likening it to succeptibility to illness still admits the moment of weakness theory above, but it also opens up another approach/justification which is not particularly modern but which was adopted by subsistance societies - the notion of quarantine. That is to say, the person who has been mentally dominated has become diseased, and there is a fear that what he carries is communicable or at least dangerous.

As a point of fact, in my current fiction this is how the large and wealthy city of Talernga has been dealing with the problem, albiet in this case the character in question's crime was against a PC who is not making a complaint (because its another PC). And the issue of, "How do we know when he is safe to let out?", has already been raised in game. But Talernga is prosperous, ancient, and powerful with extensive magical resources of its own and a center of learning reknowned through out the world. It is for lack of a better word, 'progressive', though that word is relative because they stll allow trial by combat as a resolution to some civil suits. But "We hand him over the priests of Tinel and they ascertain the truth and nature of the illness and proscribe appropriate quarantine and treatment", isn't a real option for most of the world, to say nothing of the matter of Justice if the accused has committed a crime (arson let's say). If the culpable party is a ghost long dead, where is the justice for the newly devestated family? Who owes the duty of restitution?

On the issue of automatism, I would note that there is even in our spectacularly wealthy societies a great deal of popular skepticism over defenses of insanity, and (especially) temporary insanity and automatism. What for example gaurantee's temporary insanity won't overtake you again, and wow that sure is convienent isn't it? Isn't all or almost all crime at some level a sort of insanity anyway? So the skepticism of my homebrew world to the defense, "Well, it wasn't me doing it", isn't I think that unusual.

In the game world, the bar is set high on the standard of evidence required to prove it, and the bar is set low in terms of the depravity of the crime and the injury incurred before it is natural and easy to excuse it. For some crimes, like murder for example, I can see the society going, "Ok, well accept a plea of manslaughter and in light of the situation your reduced degree of culpability" (as I've already stated). But, I have a hard time believing they so readily go, "Oh, he'd been bewitched; he's innocent."

 

[Umbran]

If I'm casting the spells, I imagine that I would know how they worked.

You just used a very simple procedure to post on the internet. Loads of people do, every day.

How many of them know how HTTP protocols work, and how semiconductor processor chips work, and how the sensors that register keystrokes work (or how voice recognition software or touchscreens work)?

I know more than most do about semiconductors, as I know some stuff about solid state physics. HTTP protocols? I know there is such a thing, and know it is insecure, while HTTPS uses encryption. If I put myself to it, I could probably understand it tin full, but I've never bothered.

Miracles can be enacted with little or minor understanding.

 

[Umbran]

I agree that some players would be unhappy (at the least), if a GM made this interpretation.

But, from a story telling point of view, the interpretation fits. Or could be made to fit.

Oh, yes. There have been cultures on Earth for whom the failure (be it a failed Will save, or a failed Strength check) would be seen as a weakness of the paladin, and that weakness means teh person is unworthy of holy power and/or should be punished. And, if there are cultures who think that, one could have gods who think that. Sure.

But, here's where we remember that we are playing a game. The player's enjoyment matters.

 

[Cadence]

I can say I'm certainly sympathetic to my peasants. It's a brutal world to be a 1st level commoner in. They are scared and they have every right to be.

I really like your explanation of how something like this could arise -- changed me from hating the set-up to seeing the potential and how it reasonably could have developed that way in a not-crazy society.

The reason I brought it up was in general, most inhabitants of my homebrew would think a deity willing to forgive such behavior is far more forgiving than they would be in the same situation. If anything, prevailing opinion would be that the forgiveness - and not the punishment - constituted injustice.

That seems a little strange if they think the deity _knew_ what really happened.

I'm picturing a known evil sorcerer having captured a dozen or so officers of the law. He says some magical mumbo-jumbo (casts a spell apparently), seems to take over the mind of one of them, and the taken over one kills one of the other officers of the law. Evil guy then escapes. Has he set it up so that the other officers of the law must now execute the one who did the killing even though they witnessed the whole thing?

In that case there could be some doubt (maybe their fellow officer was just faking)? But presumably the deity wouldn't have the doubts. (If one of the other officers had detect magic running the whole time and could verify a charm spell was cast, would that change things?)

On the other hand, I can imagine lots of people being pissed at the gods for not having created a world where such evil mind control existed and not having provided a corresponding way to detect the innocent (a wandering order of marshals with the ability to detect whether someone had been charmed in the past 24 hours?). Of course the world is set up where lots of other bad things happen to good people that no divine minions come to save them from.

Do your peasants have some belief that those executed in such cases get justice in the after-life?

 

[Celebrim]

But, here's where we remember that we are playing a game. The player's enjoyment matters.

Which I why I think that from a level of artful game mastery, the real rule here is that you should never be playing 'Gotcha!' with the PCs. Whatever you rule, the PC needs to be expecting you to rule that way.

If the player wants to be the Champion of The Red God, Blind Izenzan the Merciless, God of Slaughter, He of the Many Limbs you need to fully specify to the PC what standards Izenzan expects him to uphold and whether that literally includes, "No retreat. No mercy. No failure. Come back with your shield and the head of your enemy or not at all.", so that he must atone every time he loses a battle - including having fled involuntarily because someone threw out a Symbol of Fear that didn't even allow him a saving throw. You want fairness, justice, and compassion, well then weakling, you are serving the wrong deity. Izenzan wants blood, and he'll take yours if nothing else is being offered.

But whatever the rules of the Champion's code, you have to make it really clear what the deity demands and what consitutes 'gross misconduct' before the player even gets into the game. Good DMs talk to their players and clearly communicate so that the player understands the world they are living in and the precepts it works under.

Good players, really great RPGers IMO, are trying to get into the head of their Champion and understand that the Champion is a champion precisely because he's on the same wavelength as the diety, sees things from the deities perspective, so that a really good player is, "Crap, I've just failed to live up to expectations, woe is me I'm going to be justly punished", or whatever a True Follower of the deity is going to do in such a situation (after all, the code of the God of Pride might include, "Never admit, even to yourself, that you have been in error."). If you don't want to occassionally RP out these existential crisis of faith and conflict and dont' want to be occassionally having to Atone through whatever method is required, don't play a champion. Pick something less demanding from a RP perspective. If you picked 'Champion' because you were greedy for the mechanical benefits, IMO you are doing it wrong. You should have picked it because you were greedy to experience and explore stuggle, failure and insufficiency. You should have picked it because you wanted something hard and wanted to be held to a very high, maybe even impossibly high, standard. Exploring the boundaries of just how close to an ideal a mortal can get is where this experience is at.

After we spent hours hashing out the code, don't come whining to me when you are held to it. Losing your powers temporarily is not a big deal. You are a slightly weak fighter for a short duration. Find someone that can provide you penance, play out your penance, and so forth. You only get bit hard if you make choices that makes it look like (to me) you aren't even trying, and I'm going to try to give you the benefit of the doubt until I run out of wiggle room. Heck, even if you get banned by your deity, I'm fully into the idea some other deity picks you up. I don't want to crush your game, but if you are complaining how this rigorous standard isn't fun, maybe the class isn't for you.