Would you allow this paladin in your game? (new fiction added 11/11/08)

[Jack of Shadows]

Adding my 2 cents,

I have no problem with the brothel activities providing that such institutions are permitted by society (He is lawful).

My objection is that the character is built on fatalism rather than faith. Now I don't know where the character is going. If the player intended for a fallen Paladin then I would allow the character to start. Actually, thinking about it I might allow it anyway and build a story of truelly finding his faith. Nuts! How do I change my vote?

N.B. When I say faith I'm not refering to belief in a diety but rather faith in himself and his ideals.

Jack

 

[fusangite]

I've been desperately trying to figure out how to continue the dialogue within the limits the moderator has placed. I finally thought of a way. Let me ask this question of shilsen:

Why is the paladin class here being used instead of one of the numerous other holy warrior classes available in D20 material that might be a better fit for this particular lifestyle?

 

[Romnipotent]

I've been desperately trying to figure out how to continue the dialogue within the limits the moderator has placed. I finally thought of a way. Let me ask this question of shilsen:

Why is the paladin class here being used instead of one of the numerous other holy warrior classes available in D20 material that might be a better fit for this particular lifestyle?

could be a PHB restricted thing... needs faith, and divine abilities and full BAB but not a hunter like ranger deal. Gruff man with great Hutzpah

 

[fusangite]

And now to the matter of terminological clarity:

This paladin is most emphatically not a nihilist. Nihilists believe in nothing. This paladin believes in something; he just doesn't believe that he resides in an intrinsically moral universe. Existentialism is a philosophy created specifically to address this problem. While, for most of history, people have tended to believe that at some deep level, the universe shared their morality, with the advent of modern science, non-theistic individuals have had to construct belief systems in which they are moral and the universe is amoral. One might accuse the paladin of being an existentialist in that he does not believe that his moral agenda is shared by the universe in which he is situated but he is by no means a nihilist.

Secondly, premodern people usually believed that fate and free will were powerful real forces. The nature vs. nurture debates of the recent past are simply the latest iteration of the fate vs. free will debates that causes astrologers to fall in and out of favour over the past 2000 years. Often people believed strongly both that many things were fated to take place and yet, at the same time, believed strongly in the Christian idea of free will. Some cultures leaned more heavily in the direction of fate over free will than others; the pre-Christian and early Christian Norse certainly believed very strongly in the power of fate compared to their belief in free will. And yet these cultures produced some of the greatest narratives of heroism in history. So I just don't buy that belief in the power of fate makes you a bad hero.

I would argue that the paladin archetype is one that is premise on belief in a moral universe and the power of free will and that because of cultural referrents specific to the class, the paladin's demeanour and beliefs may be problematic but this is only because the class refers to specific cultural archetypes. A lawful good, code-bound class with different or no real world cultural referrents could absolutely think this way without causing any difficulties.

 

[shilsen]

My little stinky paladin thread - it's ALIVE!!!

Okay, upon impassioned request we're going to give this thread one more chance. I'm going to make this perfectly clear:

Do not discuss real world religions. That includes the history of Christianity.

If you do, expect to be suspended. One warning should be enough, and this is the third. Refer to the "Rules" thread at the top of every forum for the specific rules at EN World. I'm hoping that this thread can provide some additional "untraditional" ways of playing paladins, but we're not going to tolerate any hijacking. If you'd like to discuss this with me, feel free to drop me an email.

(On that note, if anyone ever needs to reach a moderator by email all addresses are listed in a sticky thread in the Meta forum. Alternatively, reporting a post is a great way to get our attention.)

Funnily enough - even though I started this, I'm not one of the people who asked to reopen the thread. For what it's worth, Piratecat, if there's any other hijacking, please shut it down.

 

[Tonguez]

Adding my 2 cents,

I have no problem with the brothel activities providing that such institutions are permitted by society (He is lawful).

My objection is that the character is built on fatalism rather than faith. Now I don't know where the character is going. If the player intended for a fallen Paladin then I would allow the character to start. Actually, thinking about it I might allow it anyway and build a story of truelly finding his faith. Nuts! How do I change my vote?

N.B. When I say faith I'm not refering to belief in a diety but rather faith in himself and his ideals.

Jack

I once had a Paladin-like character (not DnD and no Paladin in the system) who was going through a crisis of faith. He truely beleived himself to be a soldier in the Army of Heaven and had earnest faith in the ArchAngel that lead said Army (and at one early point was spoken to by the ArchAngel). However due to changes elsewhere a Schism in the Church occurs the Emporer is appointed head of the 'True Church' and the ArchPrelate of the Church is stripped of her status. The Grand Inquisitor (an Order whose Patron is the aforementioned ArchAngel) then rebels calling on the faithful to join him and my chracter does so. Unfortunately he supported the losing side! and eventually the Grand Inquisitor is arested for Heresy!

Anyway throughout this process he begins to question his faith and whether everything he was taught to beleive by the Church was true and indeed whether the gods really care about mortals. He prays to the ArchAngel but his Patron remains silent, after the Grand Inquistor is arrested he becomes cynical and fatalistic (a part from feeling persecuted lest the Imperial Guard is hunting him as an Inquistor).

Anyway the point being that Fatalism as part of a backstory should not be 'Anti-Paladin', he may not be a shining example of unswerving submission, who questions the futility of it all and waxes melancholy about the endless battle with evil and that eventually it will kill him - but even a crisis of faith shows that faith is strong. He is walking the fine line between faith and the fall but then that is the very ground that a Paladin is called to walk

 

[shilsen]

I have no problem with this Paladin, provided...

So speaks Torm, The True, The Loyal Fury, God of Paladins.

Aha! The big guy's on Cedric's side. So "nyaaah!" to you nay-sayers

Ill repute? They may very well be reputable! In fact Im sure Cedric wouldn't settle for anything less, I mean he's not knocking up some girl. As long as the girls aren't being abused, underpaid, drugged, dominated (spell), and the like into this work then chances are they know the business. This is there job and to slur there fine work is less respectful in a society that has legalised companionship (to spit on their trade is worse than to use it).

Yup! I thought about adding a little bit about Cedric having an arrangement with the madam, whereby she uses the money he provides as a "retirement fund" to allow the prostitutes to quit the job and move on. But again, that would remove some of the tougher questions, so I didn't.

Let me ask this question of shilsen:

Why is the paladin class here being used instead of one of the numerous other holy warrior classes available in D20 material that might be a better fit for this particular lifestyle?

Simple. Because I think the character concept fits within the boundaries of the PHB paladin class, which I think is generally viewed in far too limited a manner. I am explicitly not aiming to meet the paladin archetype, but simply dealing with the PHB paladin as written. To quote your previous post, "A lawful good, code-bound class with different or no real world cultural referrents could absolutely think this way without causing any difficulties." I think it's fine and dandy to play the PHB paladin without the cultural referrents it usually brings to mind. Cedric is my tabula rasa PHB paladin

 

[Brother MacLaren]

While, for most of history, people have tended to believe that at some deep level, the universe shared their morality, with the advent of modern science, non-theistic individuals have had to construct belief systems in which they are moral and the universe is amoral.

Is the D&D universe amoral? Is a universe in which the evil gods are powerful, numerous, and theoretically quite capable of "winning" amoral? I would say so. In most worlds there seem to be a lot more undead, demons, and devils than their good counterparts. The game has equally powerful deities, spells, gods, creatures, classes, and items for both Good and Evil. Good survives only because Evil things attack each other just as often (e.g. Blood War). Although Good has its unique champions such as Paladins, Evil has Blackguards and Assassins who are just as powerful.

I also think a character only slightly less cynical than Cedric (or with different phrasing) might recognize that the final victory over the forces of darkness - the final severing of the Lower Planes from the Prime, the extermination of the last undead and the ability to create such, the redemption of the last Blackguard - will not happen in his lifetime, nor the next hundred generations. And that it is merely his job to do what he can, hoping that he can make some slight difference. The difference of any one man will almost certainly be so slight as to be unnoticeable from a mortal point of view, but 1000 years later Cedric's destruction of the Talisman of Ultimate Evil may prove to be important at a crucial moment.

 

[fusangite]

Is the D&D universe amoral?

Wow! That's a subject for another thread. Now that you throw the question back at me, I cannot immediately answer. It's a great question, though. One that will plague me for the rest of the day. The closest comparison I can think of is the universe the Manicheans believed in. But was it intrinsically moral? Again, I would answer "yes" and "no."

I like the case you make below for it being amoral:

Is a universe in which the evil gods are powerful, numerous, and theoretically quite capable of "winning" amoral? I would say so. In most worlds there seem to be a lot more undead, demons, and devils than their good counterparts. The game has equally powerful deities, spells, gods, creatures, classes, and items for both Good and Evil. Good survives only because Evil things attack each other just as often (e.g. Blood War). Although Good has its unique champions such as Paladins, Evil has Blackguards and Assassins who are just as powerful.

So, what do people think? Is this question worth starting a thread over?

 

[Joker[ZW]]

Why is the paladin class here being used instead of one of the numerous other holy warrior classes available in D20 material that might be a better fit for this particular lifestyle?

I think its may be, because in Cedric's case the char creation process went "class ->char concept" instead of "char concept -> fitting class".
So the decision may have been made for Cedric to be a Paladin before it was decided what his character traits should be.
As this is a RPG char it is not really important how low the chances are that a Paladin, who has a character like he has, exists. As long as the chance is above 0 Cedric is fair game.
And you know what they say about chances of 1:1 000 000