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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6120433" data-attributes="member: 42582">Balesir gave part of the answer to why it would make a difference, here:But as well as the "exploratory", imaginative dimension that Balesir discusses here - the player is expressing their view of their PC, not their view of what the GM thinks the PC is required to do in that situation - there is another element present too.For me, the most important two aspects of what I described are these:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The dwarf became bound by a promise given not by him, but by those who were reasonably taken to be his agents, which he himself would never have made; and which those agents only made because they thought it wouldn't count (because they would kill the prisoner anyway without the dwarf learning what had been done). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The paladin of the god of death became bound not to kill someone whom he thought deserved death, because to do so would mean the dwarf going back on a promise that had been made on his behalf.</li> </ul>In each case, then, the giving of the false promise creates a situation where honour and loyalty (the dwarf's sense of obligation to uphold the promise; the paladin's sense of obligation not to make the dwarf go back on his word) mean that someone whom both PCs agree deserves death will not be killed.When that conclusion is reached by the players, playing their PCs as they see them, and expressing what they take to be important consequences of the values to which they regard their PCs as committed (promise-keeping, for the player of the dwarf; respect for loyal and honourable companions, for the player of the paladin), the event has a certain poignancy, a certain pathos, a certain heft at the table. It's memorable. It mattered. The players were talking to one another about what was required. About what the promise meant. The player of the dwarf was complaining to the other players that they had locked him into a course of action because of the values he's committed to in playing his PC.Whereas if the situation had been governed by a GM-enforced code, the whole dynamic changes. There is no poignancy, no pathos. The situation becomes one of statutory or contractual interpretation: here are the words of the code; here's what I'm thinking of having my PC do; here's what I know about how the GM is likely to adjudicate and apply the code; so what's the most rational cause of action? Now I'm an academic lawyer as well as philosopher, and I enjoy a good bit of statutory interpretation as much as the next person - but it's not generally a source of poignancy, or pathos, or emotional depth. The players talking to one another about what's expedient, given the rules, is very different from the players talking to one another about what' s permissible, given what has happened in the game and in light of the values to which they are committed.I already posted upthread (or maybe in another recent thread) that there is no difference, archetypically, between the paladin and the warrior-cleric: as is shown by the fact that, in his PHB, Gygax tells us that the cleric class is based on the crusading warrior ideal (Knights Templar et al) and also gives us the paladin, another class based on the crusading warrior ideal.There is no gap between the ideals to which the Knights Templars ostensibly held themselves, and the ideals to which Roland or Lancelot or Galahad ostensibly held themselves: courtesy, honour, valour, devotion to God.The different classes make a mechanical difference, but not an archetypical difference.The difference becomes greater if you have a PC who is devoted to a code or deity but is not drawing upon divine power; because at that point (especially in a fantasy RPG) there is not quite the same intimacy between the character and the object of devotion. But that's a matter of degree, at least in my view. It's not a fundamental difference.In additin to what Balesir says here, there is this point: if you are playing the game because you enjoy the emotional experience; and if part of that emotional experience comes from seeing the participants in the game, including the players of paladins, express via their play their views about what matters, and what doesn't, in a given situation - in short, to express values - then giving the GM the role of prejudging all that defeats that part of the purpose of playing.Other parts of the game would be left intact, including the intellectual aspect of working out what is or isn't permitted by the GM's interpretation of the code. But a very big part of what I play RPGs for would be gone. That's why, ever since I read the discussion in Dragon #101 (from memory in 1984) which crystalised this issue for me, I have not used AD&D alignment rules in my games.Well, I thought my players payed well. The reward was that I got to work with them in generating, and experiencing, an emotionally engaging bit of fiction, without anyone actually having sat down with the intention of creating that bit of fiction. For me, that's the genius of RPGing - combining authorship and audience via an allocation of roles that means no one has to set out to be an author.</blockquote>

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