Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 2044378" data-attributes="member: 2013">How can the problem be that people are getting caught up in the Lawful Good concept?  Part of the paladin's code of conduct is that he must be Lawful Good!  The question then becomes, "is prostitution a Lawful or Good practice" (not, "is prostitution a lawful or a good practice") because Lawful (the alignment) is not the same as lawful (legal by the laws of the land/culture in which a particular character resides).The problem is that this is really an alignment thread in disguise.To go back the very beginning of the thread... by the "Rules As Written," is Cedric a paladin?Let's bring up all of the "Rules As Written" that ought to be in play here, and slowly trace this out.First acid test: Is a paladin Lawful Good by the Rules As Written?A good character may kill, provided he is not killing an innocent or if the reason he is killing is to protect an innocent (there's the violence angle).Even a "stardust and gumdrops" prostitution service does not exhibit a concern for the dignity of sentient beings, as it places a higher value on sex and money than on human dignity (or "sentient being dignity," if you will).  Prostitution, therefore, cannot be good by definition.I'm going to avoid the question of, "is he making personal sacrifices" or does he expect to be "paid" (in women) for his services toward them?  Myself, I think he makes plenty of personal sacrifices without thought of reward (by putting himself in harm's way); accepting someone's offer of recompense now and again is not "non-good."  To me, the "personal sacrifices" question isn't at issue - Cedric is okay here as far as I'm concerned.  Besides there are PLENTY of other things that are far more obviously problematic.In Cedric's example, the prostitutes are clearly being oppressed... or he wouldn't be working to "spring them from the joint."  While Cedric himself may not be the oppressor, and even the particular brothel he frequents may not be actively oppressing women and instead helping them to get out, the institution of prostitution itself is evil by definition.  Thus, someone involved in providing prostitution services will be someone who consistently offends the paladin's moral code.Furthermore, by frequenting brothels, the paladin is associating himself with an institution he knows to be evil.  While there is no express prohibition of this in the code (it prohibits associating with evil characters), it stands to reason that to associate with an evil institution, one necessarily associates with those who are actively serving that institution (and are thus themselves evil)... it also stands to reason that such association with evil institutions is implicitly forbidden in the code.If the tradition of the church/paladins is to avoid prostitution and heavy drinking (which the exchange between Cedric and Magnus seems to expressly indicate), Cedric's dalliances with prostitutes and heavy drinking are evidence that he is not lawful, as he is not honoring tradition.Cedric does not like being told what to do.  He favors his own ideas over tradition.  He follows his conscience and lets it guide him.  Not only is there concrete evidence in the stories that he's not lawful, his actions are those of a chaotic character - diametrically opposed to lawful.Cedric isn't exactly what I'd call "obedient to church elders." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  In his favor, he does seem to be honorable... we're not sure from what has been shown whether he is trustworthy or reliable.Again, this recalls Cedric's hedonism with regard to wine, women, and song.  Cedric seems to resent authority (in his conversations with Magnus), and enjoys his personal freedom - in fact, he makes it clear that personal freedom is quite important to him..Cedric is neutral at best; I'm not sure he even has a normal respect for authority and clearly feels no compulsion to obey tradition (though I think he seems to have a compulsion to rebel against tradition somewhat).  By the rules as written, Cedric is not lawful, and if he's not chaotic, he's a chaotic-leaning neutral.Cedric does not act as a good person is expected to act (avoiding brothels is clearly expected of a good person per Magnus' comments).  He doesn't seem to be much for discipline (he does, to his credit, appear to be ever-ready to battle evil, but does not seem to be particularly disciplined).  Again, to go back to prostitution, that he's trying to "help the prostitutes get out of the brothel" tells me they're in a bad situation; not only should he be helping covertly, he should be "speaking out" against it.  He's not.On many, MANY levels, Cedric fails to meet the very first requirement of being a paladin that most people think of - being lawful good - by the RAW.  Also note that in most of the examples I cited above, culture doesn't matter - it's not "the law of the land" that's in question (are prostitutes legalized, regulated, etc.) but rather a definition of "Law" or "Good" as moral absolutes (which is the RAW, like it or not, and that was how the question was originally framed).I'll stand by what I said at the beginning.  Cedric is an interesting character.  He's not a paladin... because he's chaotic (with mild neutral tendencies) good (with strong neutral tendencies), not lawful good.  By the RAW, failing even ONE of the tests above is enough to make you "not lawful good."  Cedric has, by my count, at least nine "red flags" that tell me he's not acting as a lawful good character would... and that's just problems with alignment.  I barely touched on "paladins code" violations.--The Sigil</blockquote>

Verification