D&D 5E So what's the problem with restrictions, especially when it comes to the Paladin?

[Grydan]

black and white/ spidey punisher comic book morality

While the Punisher may have a rather black & white view of morality (matches the outfit nicely), when he interacts with Spider-Man he represents a very grey area. That's pretty much the point of him as a character in Spider-Man's world: someone who fights evil but crosses a line that, in Spider-Man's eyes, makes him almost as bad as the people he fights, forcing Peter to question whether he should be working with him or against him.

Even without the Punisher around, Spider-Man morality has rarely—if ever—been a black & white affair. Peter is constantly struggling to find the right way to do things, balancing the cost of his overdeveloped sense of responsibility against the fact that it means spending most of his life living a lie. He lies outright to the faces of people who love him and who have put trust in him. Over the years, the majority of the money that Peter Parker has ever made depends on taking pictures of himself and pretending he's not the subject of his own photographs, which seems rather fraudulent.

On most black & white approaches to morality, he'd have to be judged as a rather immoral person, despite all of his good deeds. Either that, or we have to assume that it's a black & white system in which lying to people isn't ever immoral. Once you start saying that it's moral in some situations, we're starting to add grey areas.

 

[Hussar]

If you DROPPED the Rules of Alignment, then you don't have to make a call. And I can't reply to your why, because we are not on the same rule set anymore.

hussar..Granted, in traditional D&D, yes, it was the DM who got to tell the players what morality means in his world.... And I am following tradition. If I want to have a dicussion on morality, I will leave my dice at home, and have roundtable discussion.
At the table, my paladin wants to kick Amosdeus head in and get the loot. D&D = Game = DM who set some of the rules .
Players either play according to DM rules or get new DM. Both ways work. My games were black and white/ spidey punisher comic book morality. One or two players hated and either left the table or didn't play pcs with alignment restrictions. I played in their worlds and accepted their verison of good and evil.

Yeah, see, the whole, "Play by my rules or get out of my table" approach to gaming is a tradition that I'd prefer to get left behind. Remove the DM oversight of paladins, allow players to interpret good and evil and trust that the players are not there to screw up the game and need to be babysat by the DM is a much healthier approach to gaming IMO.

 

[pemerton]

If you DROPPED the Rules of Alignment, then you don't have to make a call. And I can't reply to your why, because we are not on the same rule set anymore.

I don't really follow this. Mechanical alignment is not inherent to D&D - I give you B/X and 4e, for starting counterexaples, plus the many many people who ran AD&D while disregarding mechanical alignemnt.

This is a D&Dnext thread. We're talking about what sorts of assumptions about alignment and paladins should be default in D&Dnext, and the related issue of the assumpations about alignment and paladins that are default to D&D.

So when you said "Sooner or later the DM is going to have to make a judgement call on morals in the game" I took you to mean, by the game, something like "The game of D&Dnext (or D&D more generally) that we are all discussing together." If what you really mean is In my version of D&D, played by my rules, the DM sooner or later must make a judgement call on morals then I'm sure you're right. You know your own game better than anyone else. But what does that tell us about how D&Dnext should be designed?

 

[pemerton]

it appears the ideal solution is to continue to include it in the game to satisfy the traditionalists because, as always, you can continue to omit alignment and a particular paladin's code from the game.

Except you have game designers trying to build classes around those mechanics, which removing the mechanics doesn't actually FIX.

What AbdulAlhazred said. Alignment is more heavily baked into 3E than AD&D, for instance.

I'm FINE with having alignment as ONE OPTION AMONG OTHERS where none of them are automatically assumed to be in play.

This.

 

[jasper]

Yeah, see, the whole, "Play by my rules or get out of my table" approach to gaming is a tradition that I'd prefer to get left behind..., allow players to interpret good and evil and trust that the players are not there to screw up the game.. and need to be babysat ...

Only problem there is when players ARE there to screw up the game or act out their teenage\college age fantasies. So Hussar okay with paladins blood eagling their captives, or tying down the prisoner between two limb trees to get them to spill the beans. Insert new cool torture scene they just saw on HBO, as good thing. ETC. Both of those scenes were from my table when I was teenage DM and let the players rule the game.
I occasionally have put down copies of Knights of Dinner Table due flashbacks of bad\horror\sick players.
Letting the players decide good evil is great if they are all adults, or don’t need consulting. By adopting the Comic good\evil , it a trip wire for new players (which I will ban from my game but not the group), and the old timers know how far they can go.

 

[jasper]

I.... Mechanical alignment is not inherent to D&D - I give you B/X and 4e, plus the many many people who ran AD&D while disregarding mechanical alignemnt.

This is a D&Dnext thread. We're talking about what sorts of assumptions about alignment and paladins should be default in D&Dnext, and the related issue of the assumpations about alignment and paladins that are default to D&D.

.what does that tell us about how D&Dnext should be designed?

Lost the point this being a D&D next discussion. Sorry, but you repeat… “many people who ran AD&D while disregarding mechanical alignment” . So if drop the rule of mechanical alignment. Then my Good/Evil Black/White discussion does not affect you.
As D&D next discussion goes, any way you do alignment is going to tick people off, so they will drop the mechanical alignment rule. So drop Paladins. No Paladin, No Anti Paladin. Etc. Or if must have “Paladin” come up with a couple of different codes of conduct like the 1E UA cavalier with check boxes. Have a paladin of Thor and a paladin of Loki. Have paladin of Lolth. Then “Paladin” name becomes a subclass general name.

edited to add.
AbdulAlhazred
I'm FINE with having alignment as ONE OPTION AMONG OTHERS where none of them are automatically assumed to be in play.
DITTO DITTO DITTO. to all Abdul quotes in the post above me.

 

[billd91]

What AbdulAlhazred said. Alignment is more heavily baked into 3E than AD&D, for instance.

Explain.

 

[Hussar]

Explain.

That's a fairly easy one to explain.

There are a bajillion effects in 3e that are keyed off of alignment. Spells actually have Good or Evil as descriptors right in the first line of the spell. A spell without an alignment descriptor is always alignment neutral in 3e. For example, is a reversed Neutralize Poison in AD&D a good or evil spell? You can kill someone with a touch with that spell.

In 3e, Poison is not keyed to any alignment, so, by the rules, it's not an evil spell in and of itself. A Lawful Good priest of Heironeous can cast that on an evil enemy without consequence. In AD&D, it's more up to the DM.

Heck, the whole Bane magic weapon property keys off of alignments and it's a fairly standard effect straight out of the DMG. How many AD&D weapons are keyed off of alignment besides a Holy Avenger?

I can make more examples if you like.

Only problem there is when players ARE there to screw up the game or act out their teenage\college age fantasies. So Hussar okay with paladins blood eagling their captives, or tying down the prisoner between two limb trees to get them to spill the beans. Insert new cool torture scene they just saw on HBO, as good thing. ETC. Both of those scenes were from my table when I was teenage DM and let the players rule the game.
I occasionally have put down copies of Knights of Dinner Table due flashbacks of bad\horror\sick players.
Letting the players decide good evil is great if they are all adults, or don’t need consulting. By adopting the Comic good\evil , it a trip wire for new players (which I will ban from my game but not the group), and the old timers know how far they can go.

So, we need to have DM oversight baked into the rules so that the DM can babysit his players and police their behavior to make sure that they play the "right" kind of paladin. No point in actually trying to teach people anything about actually playing a role. We need big daddy DM to make sure that we're the right way.

No thanks. I'd much rather the DMG spends more time discussing problem players than trying to spackle over problems with easily abusable mechanics setting the DM on the shoulders of players.

 

[TwoSix]

Only problem there is when players ARE there to screw up the game or act out their teenage\college age fantasies. So Hussar okay with paladins blood eagling their captives, or tying down the prisoner between two limb trees to get them to spill the beans. Insert new cool torture scene they just saw on HBO, as good thing. ETC. Both of those scenes were from my table when I was teenage DM and let the players rule the game.
I occasionally have put down copies of Knights of Dinner Table due flashbacks of bad\horror\sick players.
Letting the players decide good evil is great if they are all adults, or don’t need consulting. By adopting the Comic good\evil , it a trip wire for new players (which I will ban from my game but not the group), and the old timers know how far they can go.

I wonder how strong the correlation is between early bad experiences with players and a preference for games with stronger "DM force" assumed. Or the corollary of having early bad experiences with DMs leading to a preference for more narrative games that constrain the role of the DM. It would be an interesting poll.

 

[Starfox]

Only problem there is when players ARE there to screw up the game or act out their teenage\college age fantasies. So Hussar okay with paladins blood eagling their captives, or tying down the prisoner between two limb trees to get them to spill the beans. Insert new cool torture scene they just saw on HBO, as good thing. ETC. Both of those scenes were from my table when I was teenage DM and let the players rule the game.
I occasionally have put down copies of Knights of Dinner Table due flashbacks of bad\horror\sick players.
Letting the players decide good evil is great if they are all adults, or don’t need consulting. By adopting the Comic good\evil , it a trip wire for new players (which I will ban from my game but not the group), and the old timers know how far they can go.

We discussed this case earlier. Does it really differ if a paladin or a wizard plays the game in a way you do not like? You can kick a player you don't like, and his class doesn't matter. You can do that regardless of class, origin, or code.

If you are ok with such behavior from players, just not from paladins, your problem is that only paladin players do this... You obviously need to introduce those players to the Blackguard. And this is where the 4E take on paladins (no alignment restrictions, evil gods do have paladins) worked better.