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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dias Ex Machina" data-source="post: 4005177" data-attributes="member: 58907">So as Firelance was joking about, placing characters in such situations as to force them to make such a decision with only TWO options, both breaking a class rule, is pretentious and sloppy.  Whenever I see it in a movie or read it in a book, it feels very forced, eventually bringing armchair quarterbacking into play with an easy solution available the writer doesn't think of that circumvents these choices.  They say it’s a theoretical construct, but being theoretical without real-world application renders it null and invalid.  ON the subject of authority making a decision, it comes to the impact of the decision.  If a Paladin is the highest authority on a lifeboat doomed to sink, there are many options, the most obvious one is to leave it to volunteers (which is known to actually happen).  When it finally comes to it, a Paladin would give his own life to save another, despite the fact his own presence is more valuable on the ship.  There are rarely only two options.  On an episode of Criminal Minds (a show I used to watch and now despise), a killer would tie up a married couple and force the husband to a choice: kill his wife and life or both of them die.  In every situation but one, the couple was murdered.  In the end, the husband did not kill his wife, the psychopath did it (except for that ONE exception).  Back to the Paladin topic again, I was against defining a rule system about vows, breaking them, and atonement because it endorsed a specific system of procedure.  Every Paladin would have to follow this procedure.  It wasn't specifically saying Christianity, but it still felt like a specific concept a paladin may not wish to endorse.  I don't want to play a character who has to flay himself with whips at any point during a campaign.  The class as proposed by my contributors was defining what they thought was "fun" and "interesting.”  One could claim I was doing the same, but at least I didn't define rules about loosing your abilities.  I just said in lots of words, "You're a hero.  Be a hero.  Don't sully this one."  That last one was a direct quote.  Don't tarnish the ideals of knightly virtue.  If you want to play the Punisher, then roll a fighter.  If you want a good paladin with a spotty past or borderline personality, then  be prepared for the role playing, because its a role playing event, and it should not be corrupted or defined by rules telling you how your character should be played at this critical moment.    Oh, and by the way, Green Slime, we are not shying away from controversy.  We do have a fanatical paladin in our next book, but does not gain any of the abilities of our other paladin.  Further, you can choose Muslim and Christian as religious paths for cleric, so we know some negativity is coming our way regardless.  I turned away from the other paladin, not because of controversy, but because I thought it was dumb.  I wanted our code to be basic.  I didn't want vows unless the player wished it.  It deals with values or a personal morality, not one dictated by a faith or be the laws of a knightly order.  The paladin is a paladin because he wants to be, not because of the power it flaunts.  Our Paladin, for example, has several abilities that protect and buff other players, but not the paladin.  One ability is the bodyguard shield where he takes all the damage inflicted on another nearby target.  Stuff like that.  When I said we re-wrote paladin, we did it from the ground-up.  Nothing survived from the old book.    In the end, I didn't want any rules dictating oaths or costs and punishments.  It should be handled by the DM and player.  The player should know what they are getting into by choosing the class.</blockquote>

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