playing a paladin in world that is not black and white

[TheAuldGrump]

Now if she is a moistened bink and lobs a scimitar at you...that's a different story.

Heh, the word is bint. I have seen definitions that make that a rather derogatory term, but at is root it is taken from the Arabic word for woman. (Carried back by the Expeditionary Forces.) Some of the words bint has stood in for are rather blue.

The Auld Grump

 

[Raven Crowking]

But what will Captain America do with him?

Go underground and start a revolution? Beat up Iron Man?

RC

 

[Elf Witch]

I've never played Paladin, but I've DMed alot of groups and in my experience its that last part which seems like it should be the hardest part of playing a Paladin. If the muttering was all 'in character', then your fine. The problem is that alot of groups will have one or more players who 'out of character' detest the notion of a Paladin and think that it interferes with the way that as far as they are concerned the game should be played. In trying to bring to life a LG character, you tend to start running a foul of the real life personalities (and dare I say alignments) of the players.

Some of the muttering was in character and was funny. I got an email from one of them making sure that I knew it was just in game and they personally loved it. And thought I handled dealing with the judge and mayor of the town in a creative way.

But there is one player and he is angry about the entire thing. He feels that since the party voted to break the law to get out the two in jail and I refused that I am not a team player and that it makes my character more important than the rest of the party.

He felt that making the party stay a week building the wall interfered with the mission. And the mission was more important than respecting the local law.

He is angry that my paladin would not allow him to sell evil weapons that we found but instead destroyed them even though I took them as my share of the loot.

He is angry at has he put it at my murdering ways. We came across these evil druid who were using animals and Cyrean refugees in a vile ceremony. Thy had killed over a dozen people. We killed most in battle but two didn't die. We tied them up and questioned them. They would not talk. We were in the middle of the wildnerness several weeks from any town or city to turn them in.

So a discussion started about what to do with them. The cleric and I the two lawful good people argued that we just couldn't let them go because of their crimes and we both detected evil and they reeked of it. That to let them go when we knew that they would just kill again would make us a just as guilty as the evil druids.

There was no way we could haul them around with us we were on a part of the mission that required stealth. You know these druids would have given us away the first chance they got.

He felt that since he was a neutral good druid he should have the say in what happened to them he argued that you can't have ggod without evil, that we had to no right to pass judgemment on them let nature decide. If nature decided to spare them then all was right in the world.

The rest of the party stayed out of it so it came down to the druid , cleric and myself. Both the cleric and I decided to kill them which I did. So now I am just as bad as the druids because I killed in cold blood. :\

The DM is getting tired of the arguments so he wrote the cleric who wants to multiclass into paladin and told him no that he couldn't bring another paladin into the party and he asked me to consider changing my paladin into a straight fighter or a fighter cleric.

I have not answered him yet because I am to angry. I have talked to all the other players except the druid's player and they don't have a problem with my character even the rogue's player who is the one that I usually butt heads with in the game. He told me he enjoyed that part of the game because it was fun for him to try and figure how to as he put it get around me and the cleric.

I don't know what I am going to do, but I think the dM is pandering to one player and that is not right.

 

[Elf Witch]

Sorry if you already answered this, but is this the same dm that had your character drive on the wrong side of the road and run over an MP?

Thanks,
Rich

No that is my Shadowrun DM.

He has his good days and his bad days. On the good days the Shadowrun game is one of the best games I have ever played on his bad days I just want to throttle him.

Luckily the good days out number the bad days.

 

[Elf Witch]

If the major issue is cash you could offer the rest of the PCs the difference in rewards to allow you to take him to your preferred option. If necessary you could even go into debt to the other PCs.This would be a noble sacrifice on the part of your PC, some DMs may even make an effort to equalize the Paladin's loss later. I do feel for you playing a character following the DM's story outline when others don't.

This is something I thought about doing as well as what someone else suggested asking the party to allow agents of my King to question the man before we turned him over to the Breland authorities.

I have already started by talking to the cleric and telling him my fears that I was not sure that Breland would share everything they learned. The cleric has seen the plight of the refugees and has a lot of sympthy for them and he agrees that my King has the right to know all the details concerning his people. So I think he would feel that allowing my people to question the man first and then turning him in to Breland would be a fair compromise.

 

[phindar]

I acutally just got done playing a paladin in Eberron, but I had the opposite problem. My GM leaves the tough alignment stuff to the player, in that as the player of the paladin, I would be the final arbiter of whether my character did right or wrong, and whether I would keep or lose my abilities. (Our group is mainly GM's, and there's a lot of player/Gm trust, so we're cool with that.) If my paladin wanted to punt babies from the fo'c'astle of a skyship, I could, providing I could justify that action to myself as something a paladin would do. (I cannot, for the record, but I'm just listing it as an example that my baby-punter's would lose his class abs because I thought it was evil, not because my GM did. Also, there was no baby punting.)

The fun part of playing a moral character in an amoral world was precisely the act of figuring out what I thought the right thing to do would be. (Paladins, I'd like to point out, don't have a monopoly of being moral. They are the most famous example of it in D&D, but I think that playing any character will involve figuring out what is the right thing for that character to do.)

I ended up switching out my paladin for a half orc barbarian/fighter because after awhile, that game fell into a more traditional series of adventures. To vastly simplify things, when you are being exposed to a series of encounters that can be reduced to, "You see Evil People attacking Innocent People," there's not a lot to figure out. Playing a paladin shouldn't just be the GM asking you over and over, "Are you doing the right thing? What about now?" At that point, the rp'ing is just you replying, "Doin' the right thing... still doin' it. Still shaking the bush, boss."

I think paladins (like any character) should be put into lose-lose situations; or morally grey areas where there is no easy answer. Because for me, figuring out what the character believes the right thing to do is far more interesting than the GM telling me or setting it up beforehand. I don't think a lose-lose situation should lead to the loss of class abilities, only that decisions aren't always black and white, and doing the right thing will necessarily entail some cost.

In this particular situation, it sounds like you know what the character believes the right thing to do is, and as the player of said character that gives you some authority. (It doesn't supercede the GM perhaps, but you're still the final arbiter of what is in your character's heart.)

Also, mad props to Man in the Funny Hat for the whack-a-mole line. The GM should either let you decide what the right thing is, or he should be upfront about what he expects of you. DM-Mind Reading is not a class ab of the Paladin.

 

[Aaron L]

Go underground and start a revolution? Beat up Iron Man?

RC

Alright then. That's what he should do.

 

[Celebrim]

Some of the muttering was in character and was funny. I got an email from one of them making sure that I knew it was just in game and they personally loved it. And thought I handled dealing with the judge and mayor of the town in a creative way.

It's that kinda stuff that I RP for. Good times.

But there is one player and he is angry about the entire thing. He feels that since the party voted to break the law to get out the two in jail and I refused that I am not a team player and that it makes my character more important than the rest of the party.

There is always one. If this was an in character position it would create for really interesting party tension and lots of beautiful role playing. As a DM I would love to have a PC say that to one of my other player's characters ICly. That would be great. But if someone said that OOC to another player and tried to play OOC politics turn the party against a particular player, I think I'd pull that player aside and ask him privately if he wanted to continue to be welcome at my table. I hate it when people can't treat the game as a game.

He felt that making the party stay a week building the wall interfered with the mission. And the mission was more important than respecting the local law.

It probably did. And his character has every right to feel that, just as your character has every right to decide how to handle his conflicting loyalties.

He is angry that my paladin would not allow him to sell evil weapons that we found but instead destroyed them even though I took them as my share of the loot.

And again, his character has every right to be angry about that and to ICly confront your paladin and for both of you to have a good time role playing. But he has no right as a player to get upset with you as a player for playing your character in an intersting way.

He is angry at has he put it at my murdering ways. ...he argued that you can't have ggod without evil

I'd like to note my objection that no Neutral Good person would ever believe that. Nuetral, sure. LN or CN, sure. Perhaps some LE's or CE's feel that good must exist in order for 'the strong' to always have something to repress and put thier boot down on (this argument is made in Orwell's 1984). But no NG's accept the idea that the universe needs evil in it.

that we had to no right to pass judgemment on them let nature decide. If nature decided to spare them then all was right in the world.

Your druid friend sounds distinctly neutral in world outlook.

I don't know what I am going to do, but I think the dM is pandering to one player and that is not right.

I agree. The DM does need to get control of the arguing, but I don't think thats the way to do it. He needs to make sure everyone remembers that the argument is just in the game, that ultimately what happens doesn't matter so long as everyone has fun and that caring so much about what happens that you are getting angry at other players is destroying the fun far more than anything short of a TPK could.

 

[rgard]

Heh, the word is bint. I have seen definitions that make that a rather derogatory term, but at is root it is taken from the Arabic word for woman. (Carried back by the Expeditionary Forces.) Some of the words bint has stood in for are rather blue.

The Auld Grump

Cool, didn't know that, thanks!

 

[rgard]

No that is my Shadowrun DM.

He has his good days and his bad days. On the good days the Shadowrun game is one of the best games I have ever played on his bad days I just want to throttle him.

Luckily the good days out number the bad days.

Ok, thanks. Sounds like a not so good run on DMs.