Party Conflicts and Different Moral Agendas

[mmadsen]

My paladin solved this issue by handing any surrendered orcs and goblinoids over to the local authorities. The local authorities could then apply justice to the humanoids.

That's a bit of a moral cop-out though, isn't it? Handing Gnolls over to authorities who will kill them is equivalent to killing them yourself, isn't it?

If your Paladin is empowered with dispensing "justice", then yes, I could certainly see a Paladin acting as Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Imagine a knight who's liege has granted the Knight with the full power to try and punish criminals.

I think that's an important part of the paladin's knight-errant image: he dispenses justice.

 

[Umbran]

That's a bit of a moral cop-out though, isn't it?

Like many things, I think it depends...

If, for this particular Paladin, a large part of "lawfulness" is following the law of the land, then turning evil-doers over to the law is appropriate.

 

[mmadsen]

If, for this particular Paladin, a large part of "lawfulness" is following the law of the land, then turning evil-doers over to the law is appropriate.

Which brings up a great source of moral dilemmas for Lawful Paladins: wicked customs and unjust laws in foreign lands.

 

[mmadsen]

Having this many characters in the party is a challenge. It takes not only good organizational skills, but also sharp mental flexibility in keeping in mind who does what, who hasn't done X yet, and who is moving where.

Incidentally, Pinnacle's Savage Worlds was designed with that as one of its criteria. They wanted a game where keeping track of dozens of enemies and loyal "spear carriers" wasn't a burden.

 

[kibbitz]

Hi, SHARK, long time since I've seen your threads around. Been busy? Sounds like everything's going fine over there.

For one thing, it's impressive having 16 PCs there. You must be one heck of a DM to be able to manage 16 characters, and your players must be good to be able to actually juggle those multiple characters while role-playing.

Anyway, praise aside, let's look at the situation at hand. For one thing, the people from the Vallorean empire seem to come across as something similar to the Spanish in the Americas, and part of the play-acting represents stuff that I probably wouldn't agree with even while playing a character anyway (the Cleric/Paladin bit going around proclaiming his superior civilization and religion bit) so if I were there, I'd probably be acting somewhat like the Elves of the Seren Empire. Of course, things aren't totally that simple (I suspect they never ever are in your campaigns, eh? ). Again, I blame the alignment system

Just kidding. Well, I don't know really. For one thing, as a player, I'd think I'd have my character slaughter all the Gnolls (out of rage for that which was done to the girl) right then, side with Axel and co, and probably feel some measure of guilt much later after cooling off. It somewhat falls into a set of questions: do I think they're evil? if so, do I believe that redemption is a possibility? For the humans, it could be seen as removing possible threats to the safety of all Good folk, like what Axel said. But can and should one be allowed to slay ALL gnoll-kin without consideration of them as individuals? It doesn't take too much to step beyond that and declare that anyone who doesn't share similar beliefs as evil and thus give themselves fake justification that everything out there that doesn't conform requires extermination. And anyway, should there be gnoll-kin who are actually innocent out there, slaughtered just because "it's better that way", well, I don't think we're really as Good as we claim, are we?

On the other hand, it's remarkably hard to actually do what the Elves wish to do, which makes me wonder. Oh boy...

How well do I think the different alignments will work it out? Not for long, I guess... while they may work together for a while to achieve common goals, they seem to have too many differences in opinion, choice of methods and personality to keep at it for long. I can almost imagine an accident with those Sleep spells earlier and a lucky, rabid gnoll taking advantage of that opportunity...

Anyway, interesting post. Hope to see more of your posts sometime, preferably some of those High Magic bits which Dragonblade mentioned, since I've never gotten to play in such a campaign, nor was I really exposed to fantasy to actually envision a High Magic campaign.

 

[kibbitz]

Which brings up a great source of moral dilemmas for Lawful Paladins: wicked customs and unjust laws in foreign lands.

I just wonder if the majority will go "Well, all these laws go against what my deity stands for, fundamentally, so I can skip these". Of course, we still have those paladins without deities or patrons, and those, well, I wonder...

It just reminds me of that particular article and documentary I saw recently on National Geographic, I think, regarding this ethnic group in South America, I think. They still follow the old ways somewhat, and they have this particular festival where a lot of bare-handed combat takes place among the populace. The given reason was to entertain the spirits (I think they were ancestral) and blood from the wounds were the offerings, supposedly.

Comments were solicited from tourists there, generally, everyone thought it barbaric and horrible. In front of the TV and the newspaper, I thought to myself "Oh well, personal beliefs, who am I to say anything if they all want to do it and don't involve anyone else?", but I really wonder if I'd say the same thing if I saw it in person...

 

[LuYangShih]

I think Axels justification for the acts he commited is paper thin. It basically equates to "kill them all and let my god sort them out". Faced with a difficult situation, he takes the most expedient and easy route, and slaughters all the Gnolls. I thought the point of being good was doing the right thing even when it was difficult.