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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2046209" data-attributes="member: 7240">I had assumed that the line you would draw would be one that did not conflict with people's ordinary sense of good and evil. And I'm not just talking about people's sense of these things in modern society. I'm talking about fairly transcultural standards for right and wrong.The idea that people should be summarily executed without trial or a chance to amend their behaviour simply for having the wrong thoughts or state of mind is not an idea that one finds in any culture I have studied. And I find your idea especially absurd in this context. You argue that it is evil for two people, by mutual consent, to sleep together but it is not evil to summarily decapitate a twelve year old child you meet in the street because he has evil intentions. I find it very amusing that you use an LOTR videogame to support this view. The entire narrative hinges on the fact that Bilbo didn't kill Golum because, even though Golum was evil, he didn't have the right to kill him. And this act of mercy is what allowed the ring to be destroyed.I'll take a stand here. Killing people for their thoughts not their deeds is evil, not merely non-good. It's evil. You then proceed to change my argument about killing twelve year olds because you can't answer the question I posed:This is why I chose the word "crime" over "evil act"; there are lots of things that are evil that are not crimes. My point is that your view that it's okay to kill any evil person, any time, regardless of the circumstances breaks down when one recognizes that this includes summarily killing people, without recourse to any due process, who have committed no crime whatsoever. This person might be a narcisissistic jerk who lies, manipulates and hurts people every day. I had imagined one of those really nasty 12-year-old girls we all remember from high school who made it their life's work to hurt people -- like Regina character in the recent film Mean Girls. In your moral system, there would be nothing wrong with someone stabbing the character to death after school one day. After all, the fact that she eventually becomes a better person is irrelevant to you.So, let me get this straight… when two people make an agreement by mutual consent to exchange a service for money, it's intrinsically evil. But a social system premised on the belief in the absolute inequality of persons is intrinsically non-evil? Feudalism is based on vassalage; vassalage is, by its very definition, a system in which the majority cannot be enfranchised and in which inequality is inherent. This strikes be as absurdly subjective. A system that collapses if the individuals within it have equality with one another, or are enfranchised, is, by our limited cultural definitions, an inherently evil way of living. Fortunately, D&D accommodates a level of cultural relativism that allows us to still have good people within this system. How, then do you propose that D&D does not allow a sufficient level of relativism for prostitution to be non-evil in any situation whatsoever?Prostitution is not inherently non-consensual. Feudalism is. Prostitution is not inherently unequal. Feudalism is. Prostitution is not inherently disenfranchising. Feudalism is. So please clarify for me. Which modern values are so transcultural and transhistorical that they make prostitution always bad and which modern values are ones you're prepared to see as an inessential cultural attribute?Well, evidence against you here. Almost every society in history has involved prostitution and none has collapsed because of it. Now war, on the other hand…Okay. Let's test.1. Is patronizing a prostitute violating legitimate authority? Only if prostitution is against the law.2. Is patronizing a prostitute dishonourable? Only if doing so is viewed as dishonourable by the society in question.3. Is patronizing a prostitute lying? No.4. Is patronizing a prostitute using poison? No.5. Is patronizing a prostitute failing to help those in need? Only if the prostitute is being oppressed by her pimp.6. Is patronizing a prostitute associating with evil characters? Only if the prostitute is evil.7. Is patronizing a prostitute offensive to the paladin's moral code? Only if the moral code forbids prostitution.Well, it's fortunate, then that Cedric is not a hedonist. A hedonist is a person who is primarily motivated by the pursuit of pleasure. Cedric's main motivation is do fight evil. You're not a hedonist simply by experiencing pleasure. Hedonism only arises when you choose pleasure over other important things. If hedonism where simply the regular experience of pleasure, nearly everyone would be defined as a hedonist.Really? I thought the GM and the player wrote the paladin's moral code. Is there some moral code template in the SRD I have missed?So, because it's illegal to keep humans unchained in the Orc lands, a paladin must work to ensure that all humans are in chains everywhere?What is honourable in one culture is dishonourable in another. Why is prostitution always dishonourable?So everyone who makes pleasure their first priority, even if they don't hurt anyone, is evil anyway just because them feeling good is their main goal? I thought that was being neutral.Well, that's fine and dandy if you can show that it is. But you can't just declare an absolute transcultural truth by fiat here. There are cultures that had sacred prostitutes. Is it your contention that the letter of the D&D rules prohibits these cultures from being non-evil?Agreed. Well, I admire your consistency. So, you feel that the rules also prohibit setting games in Roman-style slave societies, Iroquous-style societies where torture is part of the male citizenship ritual and Viking-style or Mongol-style societies where female war captives become the conqueror's sexual property. It seems to me that you have adopted the view that D&D cannot and should not model the vast majority of societies based on the historical past, or even those that comprise a significant portion of those depicted in fantasy novels. I personally like Roman, Iroquous and Mongol inspired D&D societies and would be quite unhappy if I felt the rules prohibited them as settings.I do when they are used to suggest that the rules prohibit D&D from depicting things I find interesting.I'll agree with you there. I think the single biggest flaw is that the alignment system tries to force you to only tell stories about modern people with modern values stumbling around with swords and armour. But you're right. The rules tell me that this is what I should do. Fortunately, the actual practice of gaming doesn't result in that. In fact, people continue to publish settings for slave societies, societies that torture their war captives and societies that make female war captives the sexual property of the conquerors; so, evidently, I am not alone in deviating from your highly literal reading of the rules.Here, I also agree with you to an extent. I agree that there is a sexual morality that attaches to the class. But in my view, the rules as written, do not associate the paladin with these transhistorical, transcultural values any more than they do any other class. My argument against Cedric is one grounded in archetypes not in the rules -- because to ground these things in the rules would make it impossible for there to be good Roman emperors or good khans.Your reading of alignment doesn't seem to do that. I agree that there exist readings of alignment that do so. But yours does not. If there are no conditions under which slavery can be non-evil, you have made the good emperor an impossibility.And in your model, they are not playing culturall in Thay. They are outside Thay's culture looking in. Just as they would be if they found themselves in ancient Rome or ancient Egypt. That's not playing in a setting at all.By being observant. The same way he can tell who he should kill and who he shouldn't.I'm with you here. I think that the paladin archetype doesn't have enough room for Cedric. However, responding more generally to your point, not everything a paladin does has to be admirable. The paladin merely needs to be an admirable individual overall. If there is a requirement that every single a paladin does be admirable, then we are close to beating all the role playing out of the role.I don't. I keep saying that I don't believe Cedric fits the bill. But the reason I keep posting here is to oppose those arguing that it is impossible to disentangle D&D from being operating within modern moral systems.Again, through observation and judgement.Why is going to the island necessary? What portion of the people in medieval society ever got in a boat? Similarly, if a paladin wanted to avoid cereals and subsist on food gathered and hunted in the forests, he could eat without supporting vassalage or slavery.So, a person can distinguish between consensual and non-consensual models of propelling ships but he cannot distinguish between consensual and non-consensual models of prostitution? I would be more likely to take the reverse position; while a person might never meet an oarsman and be able to make an assessment of his relative oppression, the person would have to meet the prostitute whom he patronized, thereby allowing him to gain direct evidence about the person's state, evidence he could not obtain about the oarsman.I wasn't making any such assumption. All I was doing was comparing how a paladin moored to cultural-based values would be ethical to how a paladin moored to transcultural values would be ethical. Next time, however, I'll choose optional rather than essential activities for my illustrations.So, how does that work if the prostitute is independent or part of an all-female priesthood or guild?So, you can acknowledge that there can be non-evil ways of owning people but not that any of the female-run temple prostitution going on in the same society could be non-evil.That's part of my point. They drew the eye away so that the day could be won at Mount Doom. So, yes, he did travel to the gate to win. But at the time he did so, he believed that the strategy he was part of would almost certainly fail. And his men knew it would fail.Hey! When you correspond with Torm, I have no dispute with what you're saying!This is only true in societies in which tradition does not respect prostitution.Whereas killing twelve year old girls who have committed no crime clearly does…Whoa there Sigil! Are you seriously telling me that if your table manners are bad enough you lose your lawful alignment!?I'm with you here EB. Talk about transcultural values… exhorting people to live their lives differently is only transgressive in the weird sick society we live in today.</blockquote>

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