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

[Baron Opal]

I didn't see any part of the paladin code which said that you have to be optimistic about your chances. Though admittedly the Cha bonus to saves could predispose one that way

How come? Maybe it just shows that he only has respect for the self, and understands that your character is what makes you a human being, not whether you look pretty or wear shiny armor.

Perhaps, but having a half-dozen empty tankards in front of him makes me think otherwise. And it is not that he isn't optimistic, it's that he feels that his efforts are futile. It seems that he finds no value in his cause and no value to the suffering that he spares the innocent. It is a job to him, little more.

When I first read the opening post, I was reminded of the hotel scene in the movie Vampires. The vampire hunters are sitting around the hotel suite kickin' back with booze and whores. One mentions to his chick something like "It's a tough life we lead, because we know there is a God. And we get the bonus of cleaning up His mess." They were all fighting for the cause of Good, but they had no holiness about them.

You can be rough-and-tumble, bitter, dirty, and afraid and still be a paladin. Because you know what is right and you will do what ever you can to promote it. As was mentioned before, Aragorn and Gandalf had the character of a paladin. Cedric doesn't seem to have that spark.

Again, I don't find his activities to be objectionable given what little we know of the setting. Cedric seems to me to be a perfect candidate for a fallen paladin, however, and it would be interesting to see what it would take for him to shake off his dispair.

 

[Treebore]

Charlamagne's Paladins, whom D&D paladins are the most directly influenced by, make this Paladin look like a saint compared to what they did in their day to day lives, not to mention Charlemagne himself.

Again, a well defined religious code of behaviour is needed to decide what is or is not acceptable for this paladins behaviour. Christian standards are just not an automatic default for moral behavior. Christians have raped, pillaged, murdered, and tortured in the name of God, making such behaviour acceptable and holy because high church officials said it was.

Plus the statement that prostitution is always a situation of slavery is false. They often are, but there are also a number of places of prostitution that they can walk out and never sell themselves again. The world is NOT black or white and neither are places of prostitution.

IT all comes back to the laws of a given church, or government, if the church laws require paladins to defend those governmental laws. Of course church laws can require that a paladin be at odds with the laws of a given government.

So if your the DM step back from your personal default beliefs and see if a good argument can be made that certain behaviours would not be sinful under different deities, churches, and governmental laws.

Or don't, if you are unable to set aside your personal bias'. Just be honest enough to say so to the player instead of just blindly enforcing your personal ethics and saying it is the "proper" interpretation of the paladins code.

 

[LurkerFreak]

Maybe Cedrics god has just seen that he is willing and has the potential. Maybe the deity has also foreseen a situation that will temper his new weapon into a smite evil slightly-holier-than-thou (but a lot holier than before) Cedric. Low-level slob to high-level hero.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Quote:
I was going to respond to Wild Gazebo's post but I got distracted, so I'll make the points here. First, it's incorrect to assume that modern ethics is possible because we no longer live in a brutal world.

My comment wasn't based on modernity it was based on situation...yeah, and I guess the absence of modernity. Though, I never...would ever suggest that we don't live in a brutal world, and it was not my intention to use that as an argument.

Your arguments of ethical contingencies start from the presupposition of a (modern)cultural bias--as if you or I have a choice. The idea that a culture forms differently or is in a more primordial stage lends to the prospect that our idea of ethics deals more with a higher-less grounded ethos (think progressively more abstract such as sun and moon gods). Meaning, sex and violence aren't wrong(as they started, animalistic)--they are a part of survival and everyday life. In fact they become almost meaningless--not the responce to personal attachment or care of family or will to live--it is just that the predominance of these actions are simply what you know of as normal existence. You seem well read, think of a kind of post-structuralist view of society based on the abjection of self determining the bondaries that society creates. These social bondaries would get more difficult and indominable the further in history you progress. Meaning, the further back you travel the more likely they will be as difficult (of course, this is not all encompassing).

Quote:
The blood of the people of Darfur, the excavated interrogation rooms of Iraq, the purges, the death camps of Germany, the gulags in Siberia, the re-education camps in Cambodia, the suicide bombers in the middle east, machete wielding gangsters in El-Salvadore, child slavery and prostitution rings, etc. are just as much reality as our nice sanitized office buildings, sterile operating rooms, and children wearing helmets so they can walk down the street safely. To the extent that ethical theories are true, they are as applicable to the anarchy of Somalia, the atrocities in Sudan, and the political prisons of China as they are to insulated and sheltered American suburbanites.

Watching it on tv is different than walking through it. What would be the poor woman from Sudan's version of a paladin?(silly question, please don't answer) My responce had really nothing to do with atrocities but with the idea that one would know no different. It is difficult to define death, slavery, and sex as evil in of themselves. How people deal with, provoke, incure, and understand these events may well be arguably evil. But I personally don't beleive in 'good' or 'evil' in a non-literary sense--so I'm really the wrong person to debate this with.

Quote:
Second, it's incorrect to assume that, because paladins are set in a brutal medieval world, they must have no problem with vice. The paladin does not embody the actuality of such a society with its filth and its dirt. On the contrary, even on the most relativistic interpretation of a paladin, he embodies the society's ideals. The paladin is the Good Man. He doesn't make the little compromises that "everyone" makes. Fusangite writes that his campaign is medieval and that he therefore tends towards violent prudishness in paladin codes. The medieval paladin is less likely to approve of Sir Cedric's behavior than one a paladin operating by distinctively modern ethics.

The idea of vice would most likely be different as well as ideals. Beating small children into submission, selling slaves, burning witches, interrogating (torturing)suspicious individuals, having two of your thirteen siblings survive childhood, believing that a caste system is defined by a god, public executions, public brothels, ......ect(all everyday realities-not once or twice removed situations) would most likely colour your perspective of right, order, and justice. It seems to me that most 'freedom fighters' have been oppressed by a system before they act to oust it. Not to many nobles died for the cause of livable wages--and I'd have to say most paladins I imagine are or were nobles. Ok, I'm getting off topic...and giving you fuel for your argument.

Your idea of the paladin being above the rabble appeals to me, just more in the sense of devotion, piety, and the will to stand his/her ground in the face of insurmountable odds--for an honorable cause, and the tennets that a paladin should follow would hold them to that...not incure penalties for social trespasses.

 

[hong]

See, if you banned paladins, you'd be able to play all sorts of cool white-hat character concepts -- like the one that Shilsen posted that started this thread -- without getting bogged down in stupid arguments over whether it's class X or class Y.


Hong "and rangers got teh shaft, BTW" Ooi

 

[Tonguez]

So its sorted that legal, 'decent' Prostitution isn't bad (I'd probably call it Neutral at worst) also alcohol and swearing aren't bad as long as their is a sense of moderation and 'one knows his limits' which leaves us with the Nihilism

and I point us all to Koheleth (& the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes) some of the most cynical and nihilistic theology around and yet it forms part of the Biblical Wisdom literature. Take a look at some of the quotes

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was emptiness and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (2:11)

As he came from his mother's womb he shall go again, naked as he came, and shall take nothing for his toil, which he may carry away in his hand (5:15)

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Sir Cedrics musing fit in with Koheleth's and so Yes I'd accept him as a somewhat unorthodox Paladin jaded by the seemingly endless battle with evil and prone to melancholy and cynicism but a Paladin nonetheless. One whose faith is such that despite his apprehensions he will willingly go where his god leads him - even to the very pit of hell to die if that is required...

 

[Romnipotent]

A simple example from the BoEF is that if the relationship is understood to be a one night thing, then its not wrong. Chaotic relationships are the random stuff... this was an understanding little bit of fun. Content wise I'd let it in any of my games but I dont generally have anyone under 15, and those between 15 and 20 often have a different view on sex anyway.

I cant see at any point where he breaks the code, maybe substance abuse... but hey, even the pope dables in giving wine out to anyone. ("Dont bring religion into this!" "Its a debate on paladins..." etc)

Fortunately the man we clal Cedric has never assaulted anyone, seems like a happy mellow or isolative drunk. Every hero has a foible, even your precious Cthulhu. Now just re read the Code of Conduct, just to be sure, seems like Cedric is the A class hero I would like my Paladins to be. I mean he's gruff but follows the code, he respects the authority of the house of Burlesque (mistress), he doesn't lie about his actions or conspire to keep them hidden, and helps those in need. HE HELPS THOSE IN NEED!

 

[shilsen]

I would never forbid you to play such a character but it doesn't seem memorable to me. And not even very original, at least in my own experience the most common way to play a Paladin is the old cliche' of ultra-moralist who detect-evil-kill-evil all the time, but the first variant to be conceived by players always seems to involve brothels for a reason...

Guilty as charged, but intentionally so. I just threw together that piece of text in 5 minutes, and there are a lot of other possible subjects that I could have put in there, but I took the easy route and put in the kind of material that gets a rise (pun unintended) out of people

I think that's the second variant.

The first usually involves spiked black plate armor, a lot of attitude and kewlness, as well as a 180° shift in alignment.

Come to think of it, I did once play a paladin with black plate armor, who also functioned as an executioner on the side But he definitely would not have raised alignment questions like old Cedric does.

 

[Seeker95]

I would not allow this in my current campaign.
I have two kids under 16 in my campaign, the youngest is a 12 year old girl. The approach you take with your character does not fit with my group.

However, this denial is based on my group, and not upon my concept of the paladin. What you have described would work in some campaigns, and I see nothing wrong with it as far as paladins go. Not my cup of tea, but then again, I don't have to drink it.

 

[Romnipotent]

But he definitely would not have raised alignment questions like old Cedric does.

For me no alignment issues were raised... he adheres to the law and respects those that enforce it, be it local, business, or country. He does no evil and looks like he would defend good. All in all he's more LG than some and in fact most other paladins I know, and has more humanity and romanticism than any other I've seen.