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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aurondarklord" data-source="post: 6056667" data-attributes="member: 6667464">Narse, by that logic (defining all prostitution as inherently coercive) you go right back into discussions that came up much earlier in the thread that essentially amount to "why is sex a moral special snowflake that functions by different rules than everything else?", because by that logic, ANY trade of money for services, or at the very least any trade of money for services not utterly essential for survival, is coercive.  You think the town blacksmith wants to work his butt off all day in the forge patching up the paladin's armor?  no, he does it because the paladin pays him to.  Wouldn't it be so much more honorable for the paladin to just give him the money as charity?  by the logic you've put forth, the paladin's relationship with the blacksmith is coercive, and therefore evil.  I have never heard of a paladin losing his powers for retaining the services of a blacksmith in the capacity of his trade.  Perhaps the blacksmith wishes he weren't a blacksmith, he wishes he had been born a noble in a tropical land and could lounge on the beach all day sipping the medieval equivalent of mai tais, but the mere fact that becoming a blacksmith was not his ideal vision of how his life might have gone does not make retaining his services evil.  Nobody's chained him up in the forge or addicted him to drugs to compel him to fix armor all day.  Of course, a lot of prostitutes ARE held prisoner and drugged into compliance, and THAT is a coercive, exploitative relationship between them and their johns, but if you characterize the act of prostitution ITSELF as coercive as an absolute, regardless of circumstances, you are essentially saying that all trade of goods for services is coercive (clearly not the case in D&D), or that sex is a special moral snowflake with inherent moral dangers not present in other aspects of life (contradictory to the BOED defining sex as a normal and healthy act), so therefore the wording of the passage on prostitution must be holding it as an example within a category, and not as an inherent absolute, and you are interpreting the RAW far too literally.Baron Opal, while I was being a bit snarky before, I do seriously believe that this conversation would have a different tone if Cedric were a dwarf.  Dwarves are usually LG, so it can be inferred that stereotypical dwarven behaviors and character archetypes fall within what WOTC considers LG behavior.  And stereotypical dwarves, the beardy, clannish, ale-swilling, vaguely Scottish mixed with vaguely Viking warrior-miners we know so well from Lord of the Rings onward seriously like to party, especially to drink, tend to speak crudely and plainly (contrasted with the stilted, flowery speech of elves), and are often dour and grouchy around people they haven't warmed up to yet.  All traits Cedric has, and people have loudly objected to as unbefitting of a paladin, or even outright contrary to a lawful alignment.</blockquote>

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