When modern ethics collide with medieval ethics

[kitsune9]

[MENTION=9037]Elf Witch[/MENTION]. I totally hear ya.

 

[kitsune9]

I've seen plenty of these situations become emotionally charged (usually just from discussing them hypothetically) because people tend to view these disagreements as commenting on their personal value system rather than as a difference in play-styles.

Yes, I've seen this too. Usually it involved paladins.

 

[Nifft]

Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.

("Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.")

Therefore, the gods are Cthulhu, and evil is good.

Cheers, -- N

 

[GSHamster]

I guess it depends on one's perspective. You could argue that a slave, regardless of the time era, believed slavery to be unethical.

This might not be true. To use a different example, in aristocratic Britain, the sense of class was often stronger among the servants than the masters. It's said the hierarchy "below stairs" was stricter than the hierarchy above stairs.

Some people rebel. Other people just accept that "this is the way the world is" and live accordingly.

 

[Elf Witch]

Yes, I've seen this too. Usually it involved paladins.

Paladins do seem to bring out the nerdrage. I love paladins I have one in my current game that I DM. I made it very clear that I as the DM have the final say and that the other players around the table who are not playing a paladin can just bite their tongues on their opinions. That they were not to question or tell the player how to play his paladin.

Actually I enforce this for all players at my table it serves no helpful purpose for other players to question and argue with another player on their role playing choices.

 

[Sunseeker]

There problem I see here is a lot of "I" in these statements. Being able to seperate yourself from your character when actions that adversely affect your character arise is important. In my opinion the biggest problem I see here is that YOU were personally upset when their characters reacted equally in character to yours, but did not fall in line with your ideas.

Your character acted in character(in your opinion), their characters reacted in character(in their opinion) and part of that reaction was not approving of your in-character actions. You then became upset that they disagreed with you, which is fine IN CHARACTER, but from reading this it feels like you became upset with the PLAYERS as a fellow player.

So yes, while the setting may be whatever, I think the issue here is that players(yourself and them) are not separating themselves from their characters while role-playing.

 

[El Mahdi]

...Your character acted in character(in your opinion), their characters reacted in character(in their opinion) and part of that reaction was not approving of your in-character actions. You then became upset that they disagreed with you, which is fine IN CHARACTER, but from reading this it feels like you became upset with the PLAYERS as a fellow player.

It's amazing how two people can read the same thing and get two completely different comprehensions.

What I read said that the OP acted in character and consistently with the gaming environment as described by the DM.

The players who took issue with her roleplaying choices did so for completely out of character reasons and contrary to the environment as described by the DM.

Also what the OP said is that the other players took issue with her as a player because of her roleplaying choices.

Your comprehension of the OP is a complete 180 from what I read...

 

[Sunseeker]

It's amazing how two people can read the same thing and get two completely different comprehensions.

What I read said that the OP acted in character and consistently with the gaming environment as described by the DM.

The players who took issue with her roleplaying choices did so for completely out of character reasons and contrary to the environment as described by the DM.

Also what the OP said is that the other players took issue with her as a player because of her roleplaying choices.

Your comprehension of the OP is a complete 180 from what I read...

Yep, I mean we're getting one guy's opinion who thinks they were in the right, it's a very obviously biased argument. Getting the other players to speak up might help, but it's unlikely. In all reality both of our arguments are probably applicable, there's just too little we're hearing.

 

[kitsune9]

Paladins do seem to bring out the nerdrage. I love paladins I have one in my current game that I DM. I made it very clear that I as the DM have the final say and that the other players around the table who are not playing a paladin can just bite their tongues on their opinions. That they were not to question or tell the player how to play his paladin.

Actually I enforce this for all players at my table it serves no helpful purpose for other players to question and argue with another player on their role playing choices.

I think in my case, the player who was playing a paladin just didn't "get it" and made some pretty poor choices in how paladins should act. He even went to trial over some of his petty and greedy behavior and was exiled from his order, but given a chance for atonement. And he did it twice.

It's kind of amusing though when I think about it.

The first instance was the PC's covertly crossed a border into a nation that was actively hostile with their home nation (a war was impending). They ran into a noble and his retinue in which the noble immediately accused them of being spies and sentenced them to hang on the spot. The party said no way and defended themselves. There was another paladin that belonged to the noble's side and the two paladins fought against one another.

What got him in trouble was that he was very much part of looting their unconscious bodies, tying them up to a tree, and leaving them there to the elements. He knew that he faced off against a fellow paladin, but made no effort to revive her, bind the wounds of those he faced off against, or at least grant them their weapons and armor back so they can reach their castle or residence safely in the bandit-infested woods. When the trial was commencing, this paladin (whose husband was killed by the party), testified against the player and the player had to admit it as truth. It was very damning evidence.

This wasn't the first time that the player got caught up in being greedy. I placed a magical armor that was intelligent, yet very evil on a display in some ancient abode in the middle of a volcano that the party was exploring. The armor communicated with mental images. The paladin detected evil, knew the armor to be strong in evil and strong in magic. The paladin then asked what the armor could do. The armor truthfully answered mentally all of its powers, but it lied about it's origins and how it could be "turned" to good. The player didn't even consider that the armor was lying. He just saw it for what he wanted--more powerful bling that he needed to don. Even the other players had counseled against him donning it, but he ignored them as he said he believed the armor. He got cursed. Then started killing innocent people. All sorts of evil fun. The other players had kill the paladin in order to get the armor off of him.

This was the last atonement opportunity I was giving the player. His god made him carry the evil armor, could only fight with poor quality weapons and cheap armor, and his ability to detect evil was always on. He could never shut it off and it was driving him insane. When he went completely insane, then the evil armor would be destroyed, but his next armor would always look like the evil suit of armor he wore as a reminder.

Then, the party came across a frost giant who tortured, locked away in a cage, and actually hobbled by cultists that they were fighting. The frost giant begged to be released, but glowed evil. The paladin wanted to kill him outright. There was a big debate (a lot of them involving the actions of this player and his paladin). One of my other players had enough and packed up his things and left the game for that day.

 

[Kaodi]

Out of curiousity, Elf Witch, if in this game the noble character dominated a commoner and forced that commoner to kill a noble, and this domination was discovered, what would be the punishments for the commoner and the noble character be for the murder of the noble?