Dissapointing Reaction to end of Campaign

[Starbuck_II]

True, but there were no mortals challenging Ao. And the evil gods who did so only stole from Ao (none tried to out right challenge him). But it was an important artifact so punishments were in order.

[Tyndmyr]

True, but there were no mortals challenging Ao. And the evil gods who did so only stole from Ao (none tried to out right challenge him). But it was an important artifact so punishments were in order.

Right. However, I can only assume that a mortal challenging Ao directly for his position is likely to be treated at least as harshly as a diety who is merely after an item. Both are challenging him, and if anything, the first one seems a more serious offense.

Edit: Though since Ao actively eradicates knowledge of himself among mortals, rebellion is...difficult. Either way, it's not likely to work terribly well.

[JonRG]

Paladin: I'm not going to tell people how to live, as long as they don't be evil, then I'll talk them out of it (Diplomacy)

Well thar be your problem. 3.5 diplomacy delivered by epic god-kings basically is brainwashing. :smallamused:

[Talakeal]

It was already late and we had been gaming all day, and we would not have had the opportunity to game again for several weeks.

I would have had to recreate all of their characters before the fight to account for the changes in power.

I didn't want the campaign to end with a big PvP fight where the loser (and probably the winner's) last memories of the campaign are how much they hate the other character's.

So I told them the game was over and I am not running a fight between you and the paladin, which you would probably not have a realistic chance in anyway.

Then I tried to ask what their motivation for attacking the paladin was, to try and find a compromise, but they wouldn't have it. I spent half an hour trying to get an explanation out of them and trying to change the ending so they could live with it.
The artificer said he wasn't terribly happy with how it turned out, but he could live with it. His GF (the fighter) was fine with the ending and didn't see the problem.
The wizard refused to compromise, and said that they would not live in a world "without free will", no matter what concessions I made. So he said he was going to kill himself. I tried to talk him out of it, and when I said, what about the rogue (his in and out of character lover), do you really want to leave her alone, she said "I really am not happy with how it turned out either. I'll just kill myself with him" and went off to play WoW.
I then offered to backpedal and let the wizard have another option, to change the epilogue so he didn't have to kill himself, and presented him a number of possibilities (including leaving the world and finding a fresh new world in need of his help) but his only response was "My decision stands".

[Oracle_Hunter]

So... what else would you, the OP, like out of this thread? :smallconfused:

[Talakeal]

At this point mostly just nothing better to do, and answering questions for people who are still curious about the situation.

I am also told by several people that my mistake was not running a special PvP session post campaign, and I would like to understand how this is a good idea, because I think it is a horrible one, but clearly other people disagree, so I am trying to figure out where I wrong in my thinking, and what I could do should the situation rise again (or to prevent it from rising).

[Tyndmyr]

There really isn't a compromise that's possible between "Ok, Im supreme being and have all the power" and "we don't think you should be in power". That's just conflict. There's no way for both sides to get what they want.

You've got a few people, the majority on the unhappy side. Pretty much the only thing you could have done at that point was address the one reason for unhappiness they gave you...the lack of free will. No, not convincing them about some philosophical points that you were right after all...that's not giving them anything but excuses.

Free will as in the ability to stand up to him. Ideally, it'd have been better not to allow a split in the first place, but once you have such a split and irreconcilable goals, you already have conflict, no matter how you try to squelch it.

[DeltaEmil]

I am also told by several people that my mistake was not running a special PvP session post campaign, and I would like to understand how this is a good ideaPvP in D&D is one of the most stupid things ever, and you should categorically disregard any posting that suggests that you should have implemented it, or at least ignore that part.

In this regard, you not doing Pvp is the correct thing.

Now, you should stop playing with the wizard-player, because you're only going to have more similar problematic situations, and it will be your own fault if these happen again and again...

[Oracle_Hunter]

At this point mostly just nothing better to do, and answering questions for people who are still curious about the situation.
Ha! Well, fair enough :smalltongue:


I am also told by several people that my mistake was not running a special PvP session post campaign, and I would like to understand how this is a good idea, because I think it is a horrible one, but clearly other people disagree, so I am trying to figure out where I wrong in my thinking, and what I could do should the situation rise again (or to prevent it from rising).
PvP is really a matter of taste. Personally, I've never liked it in my RPGs (well, except those designed with PVP in mind) and I've always found D&D a particularly poor system for those sorts of battles.

If you don't like running PvP then you shouldn't bother trying it - it wouldn't have made anything better.

[JonRG]

Personally, I think the Pally could have - after a short while under the mighty "despot" - kicked the protesters to the Anar-kingdom next door. Let them see the sites, the sounds, dodge a shiv or five. Then they can either decide "Hey, free will isn't always great but it beats the hell out of stagnation. I'm gonna raise an army to fight the mighty god-king." You end with them recruiting the first inklings of a human resistance, and so the paladin gets his GF (so he's good), the wizard gets to fight the powers that be (provisionally good), and the artificer gets to provide his magic Atlantean technology!soul to whatever side he wants. (Also, where are these evildoers being exiled to? If it's "in the backyard somewhere," don't be surprised if everyone living on the borders either dies painfully or evacuates.)

Or, they can decide, "This is awwwwwwwful." Then they come back, ask Pally for forgiveness, which he should because, he's a paladin god and they're his friends - misguided as they may be. Then they live happily ever after until the wizard does something obnoxious.

[Talakeal]

Remember, the wizards player NEVER admits he is wrong, and this extends to his in character actions. He won't return and ask forgiveness, no matter what.

[DeltaEmil]

So what are you going to do now, knowing that we all suggest you to drop the wizard player?

[Talakeal]

Well, I am moving next year (hence why I had to end the campaign) so it won't be an issue. But if the problem is me (and I am sure it partly is) I need to know what to correct next time.

[Tyndmyr]

Remember, the wizards player NEVER admits he is wrong, and this extends to his in character actions. He won't return and ask forgiveness, no matter what.

And I think it's generally agreed that this is a problem with the player, and it's probably advisable to replace him in the long term. His complaint here appears to be legit...but regardless, such an attitude is not commendable, and will likely cause problems in the future.

Note that allowing them free will does not mean running a pvp session. That's one possibility sure, but leaving the epilogue as "these characters are working to bring down the god-monarchy" is fine. Allow their actions to impact the final result. And a result of the world remaining in conflict is fine, as it accurately reflects their motives and actions.

[DeltaEmil]

Then you know know the answer. Don't play with obnoxious and disruptive people.

You make mistakes, but you are willing to correct them. That's okay, it's normal, it happens.

The rest of this thread is only off-topic discussion that serves no purpose for you anymore.

[Sipex]

Tal, to be fair, I don't think you did anything wrong, or...at least, nothing you haven't already acknowledged. You TRIED to fix it and it sounds like the Wizard wouldn't have it. The rogue sounds like she just went along for the ride so I'd not get too upset about her reaction.

That said, you're not going to please everyone this includes all the forumers. Someone here is always going to say you're in the wrong. All you can do is figure it out for yourself now. Do you think there is anything else you could have done?

Overall are you happy with the campaign?

[Talakeal]

Overall yes, I wish I had a clearer vision of where it was heading from the start, but then again I can't imagine a long running campaign going any different.

[Sipex]

There you go then! You have something you'd like to improve in the future but your time wasn't wasted.

Move on with your life and don't let people get you down, you sound like a pretty awesome DM. Making one mistake doesn't condemn you to horrible-ism regardless of what people might make you think.

[krossbow]

You stuck them in the matrix (first one); Humanity refuses to accept a perfect world; hence the machines just lost 2 batteries as those characters couldn't accept a perfect society.

Long and short, basically your players were just like what agent smith said about humanity and utopias.

[Claudius Maximus]

Wasn't it the architect that said that stuff?

[krossbow]

Wasn't it the architect that said that stuff?


Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization. (http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000745/quotes)

[EvilJames]

As you make a society increasingly lawful, the difference between LE and LG diminishes. The only real difference is what motivates the creation of the laws. The evil dictator will do it because it'll make society function, since it's in his best interest to have the society he controls working well. The good person will do it because he thinks it's morally right.

And oddly, laws that make society function well have a lot of overlap with what people tend to think are morally right. After all, if it's a law that makes society worse, can it really be morally right?
In what way does it diminish? LG societies don't care if you like to smoke or drink or stay up late or read trashy romance novels. They don't have regulations on every little aspect of your life. Despite what people seem to think a LG society likes personal freedoms, as was said before they would explicitly define and write out every freedom so they can be kept track of (bookkeeping is another thing LG utopian societies like) Such a document would be updated any time someone thinks of something they forgot to add. The only real difference between a LG utopian society and a CG utopian society is that CG's would be considerably less formal about their procedings and freedoms wouldn't be written out and documented as everyone already has a decent idea of what they are. (also CG's hate bookkeeping and/or are bad at it)

[Yahzi]

But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery.
That is the most cynical, depressing, and nihilistic statement imaginable.

Yet it is tossed off in the movie to explain a plot hole, and no one ever questions it. At the end, when Neo makes his phone call and "saves" everyone from the matrix, the audience is supposed to think it is a "good" thing even though we've already been shown that the matrix is the best possible world.

Dog but I hate that movie.

The wizard player has the attitude he has because he watched too much Matrix and read too much Ayn Rand. Tell him he's got his libertarian ubermensch fantasy in your Arthurian hero fantasy, and it is the opposite of getting peanut butter in chocolate.

[Totally Guy]

Can someone summarise this thread. I'm confusing myself by misremembering who said what and when...

[FelixG]

I only read the first couple pages

But were I one of the players I would likely be annoyed as well.

"Here you go, you get a toy, you get a toy, oh and you Pali, you get a car"

0.o They are sitting there with their consolation prizes thinking "WTF this isn't fair..."

They could have gone about it a better way but if they tromped other gods to steal their powers will a Paladin really be that much of an issue?:smallbiggrin:

Though I did think that gods of all sorts stopped other gods from mucking around in the mortal world in this way?

[Aotrs Commander]

I only read the first couple pages

But were I one of the players I would likely be annoyed as well.

So you missed, then, the further posts by the OP and the part where it transpired that, while, the general consensus is that DM could have handled things better, he did realise he'd made a mistake and tried to fix things. The wizard player, however, it transpired is kind of a jerk (who has caused this sort of trouble before and who holds grudges for years, never admits he's wrong and seems like a general frack-tard most of us advised the DM to never play with again), flat-out refused to compromise or work with the DM to make a better ending; and who's main complaint would seem to be not so much that the paladin got the power, but in that it contradicted his personal belief that all monarchies are inherently and irredeemably evil and corrupt.

[Totally Guy]

So you missed, then, the further posts...

That's more like it. :smallsmile:

[Irbis]

he did realise he'd made a mistake and tried to fix things.

Trying to gather milk after it was spilled is not often an useful tactic.


The wizard player, however, it transpired is kind of a jerk (who has caused this sort of trouble before and who holds grudges for years, never admits he's wrong and seems like a general frack-tard

Which we know from precisely one brief account. This is why I didn't commented on this.


most of us advised the DM to never play with again

You mean the two of you? :P


who's main complaint would seem to be not so much that the paladin got the power, but in that it contradicted his personal belief that all monarchies are inherently and irredeemably evil and corrupt.

Which is a problem why, exactly?

As I said, I wouldn't comment on this until I say that from the player in question or until we have more facts.

[Aotrs Commander]

Trying to gather milk after it was spilled is not often an useful tactic.

Refusing to accept that other people sometimes make genuine mistakes and accepting their apologies is a far worse one.


You mean the two of you? :P

There were quite a lot of people who thought his behavior was unacceptable. Perhaps I should have said "many". (I normally would have apologised for my error in wording, but, you know, the whole spilt milk thing, so...!)

I exaggerated slightly to make the point (you'll note even I mentioned - in passing - talking to the player, though my personal opinion would have been to kick him out if he's like that, which both the OP and the paladin's player seem to agree he is*.)


Which is a problem why, exactly?

Because it doesn't matter what your beliefs are, they never give you an excuse to be a jerk.



*And Oracle_Hunter is right - again, the man has a lot of wisdom (you should look into cleric, dude) - that even if the pair of them only SEE the player as a jerk, whether his is or not in actuality (a statement you are correct in that we cannot make with a 100% certainty), that fact alone is enough to say that they probably shouldn't be playing together due to the personality conflict.

[WinceRind]

{Scrubbed}

[Jornophelanthas]

I've read most of the thread, and I must disagree with Irbis (three places above this post). And someone beat me to the punch.

The paladin player has corroborated the OP's account of the campaign's ending, with a near-verbatim account of who said what.

Additionally, the OP has referred to an older thread about the same wizard player in a different campaign, who refuses to compromise in this other situation too, with the stated reason that serving the Queen is wrong because all monarchy is necessarily corrupt, and the Queen must thus be of evil alignment. And if she isn't, the DM must be stupid, according to this player. Note that in this campaign, the DM was not the OP.) This is the exact same (OOC) argument used by this player to get upset about the paladin becoming the ruler of the world.

And why was this argument OOC, you ask? Because the player got upset at the DM for disagreeing with this reasoning in both cases, not (only) his fellow players.

While the statement that the player in question prides himself on not compromising or forgiving slights ever might be an exaggeration, these two examples demonstrate sufficiently, as far as I am concerned at least, that this player cannot be reasoned with on a sufficient level to enjoy his company inside or outside of a game. At least by me. There have been more than two people saying this in this thread so far. There have been more than
five, and I am now adding myself to that list.

Finally, what the problem really is, is that this player has such strong (and poorly reasoned) moral and political opinions, that he is apparently unwilling to participate in a fantasy setting that does not conform to his views. In my opinion, he is either an overzealous fanatic, or he has some kind of personality disorder. And neither make good roleplayers.

On a last note, I do agree that hearing this player's side of the story may give me cause to reconsider my opinion of him and these two situations.

[DarkEternal]

This reminds me of something similar that I'm playing with my group currently, though on a much smaller scope of course.

Basically, after an adventure, the wizard used Teleport to transport the people towards the town where they would get their supplies. However, he botched the roll(yeah, I know, small chance, but it happened) so I took the map of Faerun out to see where he would teleport that was fairly close to the place. The nearest place was Bloodstone village. I said ok, you appeared there, and then I went to Forgotten realms wiki to read about it, to tell them a bit what it was like.

Apparently, said village is a part of the barony or something, which is led by a paladin Gareth Dragonsbane, an epic level badarse who ripped Tiamat's heart out with his bare hands or something like that. So, I investigated a bit more, and it seems there's a tree or something in that barony that makes this place almost an utopia, since it serves as ward that prohibits all demonic creatures to enter it, like a gigantic Protection from Evil or something.

I spun the story that the citizens of the village didn't bat an eyelid when they saw a fully armed party of characters walk around the village, instead they were all friendly, nice and tried to help out whenever they could. After getting the audience with the paladin, who was a benevolent leader of his people, they really liked that there was this one kingdom, one place in Faerun where evil couldn't touch it, where it had it's protector, and served as a safe haven in the world of evil to the point that half of the party started to discuss they would buy lands here with their adventure money and retire here once they were satisfied with their adventuring.

So, basically, I don't know, it depends on the group? My group liked that there was an utopia kingdom where evil can not enter, where there is happiness, productivity and is overall a great place to live. Power can corrupt, but I would say, taking into account what sort of character your paladin was, he could be an awesome leader. Maybe his kid or his kid's kid became a fascist dictator one day(I would spin it that the paladin transferred his Godhood when all of his party members died of old age, or when he was satisfied enough with living in this world to go and be at the side of his God-ascend to whatever plane he would go to) and world turned to ruin once more afterwards.

[AstralFire]

You mean the two of you? :P

More than the two of them; I also back this up. DM made a mistake, but not an irreversible one; player is a jerk, do not play with again.

EDIT: Four of us. At -least-. There's a good deal more siding with the DM than not, particularly as the thread gets deeper.

[Tyndmyr]

In what way does it diminish? LG societies don't care if you like to smoke or drink or stay up late or read trashy romance novels. They don't have regulations on every little aspect of your life. Despite what people seem to think a LG society likes personal freedoms, as was said before they would explicitly define and write out every freedom so they can be kept track of (bookkeeping is another thing LG utopian societies like) Such a document would be updated any time someone thinks of something they forgot to add. The only real difference between a LG utopian society and a CG utopian society is that CG's would be considerably less formal about their procedings and freedoms wouldn't be written out and documented as everyone already has a decent idea of what they are. (also CG's hate bookkeeping and/or are bad at it)

Why would a lawful good society, as it gets increasingly more lawful, allow people to drink? Actually, aren't a great number of good outsiders already immune to poison, and thus, alcohol(reference...nearly any spell treats alcohol as a poison)? And are not poisons already defined as not a good thing?

In fact, I could even see a case made that smoking is similar to a mild form of poison.

Chaotic Good is much more accepting of individual freedoms. Consider the classic example brought up in this thread as suicide as the exercise of free will. Most lawful good societies, even if they couldn't entirely prevent it, would try to get rid of that. The standpoint that a person should be free to do that is a more chaotic one. By opting to commit suicide, the characters in the original example WERE rebelling against the lawful good society.


Yahzi...a libertarian philosophical viewpoint is just that, a viewpoint. It stems from the values they place on rights and freedoms. The values you hold are no more objectively "right", and forcing your values on others as the only right ones is usually considered bad form. No one viewpoint is a problem, the problem comes in when party members hold diametrically opposed viewpoints. Don't bother trying to directly change the opinion of any one of them...that just gets you a philosophical/political argument instead of a D&D game. D&D is more fun. Instead, be aware of the differences in them, and avoid bringing party members into direct conflict, while allowing them to slowly explore their philosophies throughout the game. Differences of opinion will arise, but in a much more interesting context than just arguing over politics.

Edit: Oh, and the biggest plothole in the matrix is not the idealism. It's using humans as batteries in the first place. The cowtrix would have been about ten thousand times easier.

[Yukitsu]

Ok, so question. As a DM, what should I have done in this situation?

I felt that making the paladin become an evil overlord and doom everything would have been overly dark, and if the paladin had then killed or enslaved the other players I figured they would flip out and get mad, so I tried to make a more ambiguos ending where they could still be happy within the world (which apparently they couldn't).

What did I do wrong here? I am not being defensive, I am genuinly curious, as you are apparently looking at this from an angle that I missed.

Also, do you see their in character motivation for their suicide pact, or was it just manifestation of out of character jealousy and dissapointment about the "Bait and switch?"

What you did wrong, is make the stakes different for every player. The paladin player needed the same kind of incentive to give up power as the others, as you were by far, too actively encouraging the paladin remain the soul inheritor of divine power, or too actively discouraging the wizard from remaining in power.

What you did is no better than giving the players each a cookie. One player was said there would be no cookies for anyone ever if he didn't give his away, one player was told if he gave his away there would be more cookies later, or he could eat his now, and one player was told he'd bring out a school bully if he gave his away.

[Lost Demiurge]

*SNIP*

Ah, forget it. I was feeling grumpy.

[Oracle_Hunter]

*And Oracle_Hunter is right - again, the man has a lot of wisdom (you should look into cleric, dude) - that even if the pair of them only SEE the player as a jerk, whether his is or not in actuality (a statement you are correct in that we cannot make with a 100% certainty), that fact alone is enough to say that they probably shouldn't be playing together due to the personality conflict.
Aw, I'm blushing :smallredface:

:smalltongue:

Anyhoo...

Oracle Hunter's Thread Recap
(1) Three PCs (Paladin, Wizard, Artificer) reach the end of their 6 year campaign and face a choice:
The world is dying and Entropy is threatening to unmake the world. All the gods are dead and the sum total of Divine Power now rests in the hands of the PCs, Lover Goddess, and Erebus of the Primordial Dark. The Lover Goddess suggests that if the PCs each sacrifice their Divine Power then the world can be renewed - life will return and the forces of Good & Evil will resume their eternal battle. If they do nothing, the forces of Entropy will surely unmake the world.

(2) Each PC looks at this choice and makes a decision:
The Wizard has The Power of Magic. If he gives up his Divine Power, then all the people in the world will be blessed with the ability to use magic. Otherwise, only he will be able to use Magic. He gives up his power.

The Artificer has The Power of Science. If he gives up his Divine Power he can restart the Ancient Magitek underpining the world and usher in a new age of Science. Otherwise, the world will be stuck in a Medieval Stasis for the forseeable future. He gives up his power.

The Paladin has The Power of Civilization. If he gives up his Divine Power then the world can rebuild and develop the civilization it had before. Otherwise, only the dominion directly controlled by the Paladin will be civilized and the rest of the world will fall into anarchy. He hesitates.
(3) Erebus tempts the Paladin
The Lover Goddess has The Power of Life. If she sacrifices he soul - erasing herself from existence - then life will return to the world. If she does not, the world will die. While she is willing to die for the world, neither Erebus (her secret ancient lover) nor the Paladin (her current lover) are willing to let her.

Erebus goes to the Paladin and offers him a way to preserve the Lover Goddess. If the Paladin is willing to host the essence of Erebus and allow him entrance into the World, Erebus will place his powers at the Paladin's disposal. In exchange, Erebus will use his power to make the world's current inhabitants immortal rather than let them die to the forces of Entropy. They will not be able to create (much) new life, but the Lover Goddess will still be alive.

Although the Paladin does not realize this, Erebus needs to enter the world in this fashion in order to reshape it to his desires. Even though he will not force the Paladin to do anything Evil to the living, Erebus will use his new access to devour all the souls in the Afterlife, the essences of the dead Gods, and anyone else who happens to die later.
(4) The Paladin accepts Erebus's offer.
The Paladin uses his Divine Power to become a God-Emperor and rule over a kingdom of Perfect Goodness. Anyone who is Evil or commits serious crimes is exiled into the dying world beyond.

(5) The Wizard and the Artificier are horrified by the current turn of events
The Artificer believes that the God-Emperor has removed Free Will and hates him for it.

The Wizard believes that monarchy is inherently Evil and that the God-Emperor's kingdom is therefore Evil. He wants to kill the Paladin.

(6) The DM tells them that there is nothing they can do to stop it.
First, the DM tells the Players that this new world does indeed have Free Will and that the God-Emperor's kingdom is, in fact, Good.

Second, the DM tells the Wizard that not only will it be impossible to kill the God-Emperor, but that it is so out of character to even attempt it that the Wizard cannot try.

(7) The Wizard suicides and the Artificer is unhappy

(8) The DM offers to "redo" the ending for The Wizard's Player. The Wizard's Player refuses.
Now, there are many confounding issues:

(1) The DOOM Prophecy
Initially, the OP mentions that the PCs had seen prophecy which said that, if the PCs all kept their powers, they'd destroy the world. However, it is later revealed by the OP (to us) that this prophecy was presented by The Trickster God through one of his agents, and that it was false - the OP never intended to force the PCs to destroy the world if they kept their powers.

However, it is not clear whether the PCs ever knew this was a false prophecy. The OP says that its falseness was obvious to the PCs but then why bother mentioning it at all? If the PCs believed that keeping their powers would DOOM the world, then the Paladin's ability to "have his cake and eat it too" is particularly galling.

(2) The Wizard's Player is a Jerk
This Player prides himself in never forgetting a slight and still holds a grudge against the DM for cancelling a game years ago. Both the DM and the Paladin's Player believe this to be true about the Wizard's Player, at the very least.

Such a person could react poorly to any situation, yet in this particular one there are many good reasons for him to object to the Paladin's action.

(3) Erebus - God or Devil?
The Paladin's Player has stated that he believed Erebus to be no more than a power-battery for him to use. However, Erebus is not only a fully sentient being but he is also a nihilist who loved the Void that predated creation and was killed by the Gods at the Dawn of Time to preserve the world. Still, the DM has said he doesn't consider Erebus to be Evil.

My personal advice was as follows:
(1) Don't play with the Wizard's Player
Either he's a jerk, or you believe him to be a jerk. Worse, the Paladin's Player has shown that he considers the Wizard's Player to be a whiny brat; there is so little respect at the table that any future games with this guy are simply going to end in tears.

(2) Don't tell your Players "no;" say "no, but..."
Listen to your Players when they object to plot details. It is obvious that both the Wizard and the Artificer took issue with the "sweetness and light" ending that the Paladin received - find out why. If you can accomodate them, all the better; if not, at the very least you can find out what is bothering your Players.

(3) Never tell a Player "you can't do that, it's out of character"
Players hate it when a DM yanks autonomy from them. If a Player is telling you how their character is acting and you can't figure out why it's not because the Player is bad - you've missed something as a DM. In such a case, always ask the Player to explain his actions; if he is mistaken about facts, explain his mistakes and ask if he still wants to go forward.

In the event that you actually have Players who are taking radical action out of OOC Spite, this practice will reveal them to you so that you can either try to counsel them or keep them out of your games.

[Sipex]

well, /thread pretty much there

[Tryll]

well, /thread pretty much there

Yep - but it was a pretty lively discussion! :)

[EvilJames]

Why would a lawful good society, as it gets increasingly more lawful, allow people to drink? Actually, aren't a great number of good outsiders already immune to poison, and thus, alcohol(reference...nearly any spell treats alcohol as a poison)? And are not poisons already defined as not a good thing?

In fact, I could even see a case made that smoking is similar to a mild form of poison.

Chaotic Good is much more accepting of individual freedoms. Consider the classic example brought up in this thread as suicide as the exercise of free will. Most lawful good societies, even if they couldn't entirely prevent it, would try to get rid of that. The standpoint that a person should be free to do that is a more chaotic one. By opting to commit suicide, the characters in the original example WERE rebelling against the lawful good society.



Why wouldn't they allow people to drink? While alcohol could technically be considered a poison. It's not one that any that a typical LG society would care about (it essentially a very weakened sleep poison which is OK for everyone but the paladin to use, but even they don't complain when it is used). I think the problem here is your assumption that the LG society can only move along the lawful axis, ie. becoming more lawfu,l where in my mind the good axis would be just as important. Now you are probably correct on the suicide thing, most LG societies would probably frown upon that. (not all mind you) Ideally in such a society there would be little reason for such an action though. (Although this could probably also be said of a chaoitc good society)

[Fenrisnorth]

Oracle, you are pretty awesome.

[Tryll]

Why wouldn't they allow people to drink? While alcohol could technically be considered a poison. It's not one that a typical LG society would care about...

I was thinking the exact same thing. I've never yet heard of a campaign where the paladin turns evil and looses his paladinhood for (*gasp*) buying everyone a round of drinks!

Outlawing every little thing that might possibly reduce a citizen's productivity would be done in a Lawful Evil society, not a lawful Good one.

[Talakeal]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I don't understand what you are trying to say, is this supposed to be a joke post or a troll post or something? You seem to be just belittling everyone instead of taking a side, and even contradicting yourself. I can take absolutely no meaning from this aside from "everyone is stupid".

[An Enemy Spy]

I was hoping someone could shed some light on the actions of some of my players.

On Sunday I just concluded a campaign which I have been running for over six years now.

The campaign takes place in a post apocalyptic world, and over the course of the campaign the party paladin discovered that she was descended from the royal family of the empire that ruled the world before the apocalypse, and took it upon herself to defeat the evil warlords that currently ruled the world and restore the old empire.

The last portion of the campaign was an epic level adventure in which the player's became involved in the affairs of the immortals, killing several gods and each player taking on the powers of the gods they slew. At the climax of the campaign each of the other PCs chose to give up their powers and return them to the gods.

The paladin, however, chose to keep her powers as it was the only way for her to resurrect her lover that had been slain years before. She then continued her crusade, now with godly abilities.

In the epilogue I said that she was able to drive evil from the land and reestablish her empire as a utopia free of disease and poverty. To which the other player's reacted extremely violently.

They claimed that the paladin was now a tyrant and had removed free will from the world. When I asked how they said that power corrupts, and that a monarch is innately evil. People would never obey a monarch willingly, no matter how good, charismatic, and wise they are. Several of the player's said they refused to live in a world without evil, and without evil there can be no good, and therefore no free will.

I tried telling them this was nonsense, but they refused to listen. Two of the players said the world was now so horrible (at the start of the campaign it was literally a wasteland ruled by demon worshippers and genocidal warlords) that they refused to live in it. They said they wanted to attack and kill the party paladin. I told them that not only was it not feasible while the paladin had godly powers and they didn't, but it was extremely out of character as they were long time friends and allies where both of good alignment.

Their response was to kill themselves.

I am blown away by this. I can see disagreeing with the paladin philosophically, but to actually be so opposed to living in a LG utopia that they would rather die? They couldn't give any other explanation other than
"I have no free will" and the above mentioned clichés about power corrupting and there being no good without evil, and as far as a can tell they are just jealous that one of the other characters kept divine power while they didn't and are acting out in a childish manner as a response.

I am hoping this is not the case, as I am extremely offended and hurt by this, as after running the same characters in the same campaign for over six years and almost 200 adventures they have no more attachment to the world or their characters, and to just kill themselves for no good reason.

So anyone got any ideas on why they might feel this way or what I can do to correct the situation? I told everyone (including the paladin) that they could change their mind and I would change the epilogue if it would make them happier, but so far no one will budge.

Thanks for reading and any input you may have. I tried to keep the summary of the game and the player's brief, but I will answer any questions anyone may have.

Tell them they're idiots. History is filled to the brim with good monarchs, and with people willing to die in their names. This just makes me sick that someone would make an assumption that stupid.

[Talakeal]

A few things I wanted to bring up about alignment that I wanted to say earlier but held my tongue for fear of derailing the thread. But now that it is winding down:

I do not enforce alignment, so no, the paladin was never in danger of falling. There is absolutely no game reason why a mid-low tier class like paladins should have huge behavior restrictions slapped on them that other classes do not, and most other classes alignment restrictions only make sense superficially.

In a broader sense I find D&Ds alignment system very poorly executed. Their good / evil axis representing actual morality as well as objective supernatural forces clashes very strongly with itself and even the books do not present a consistent view.
The law / chaos axis is even worse, as D&D never made up their mind on what it means. Is it respect for society, following the laws, being honorable, following tradition, following logic, following the principles of order, insanity, etc. It is presented as all of these things at times by different authors, usually in contradictory fashion.

Third, paladins DO NOT need to follow or answer to a god. The only campaign setting where this applies is forgotten realms, and even there it is still the principles of goodness, NOT their deities code, which they must adhere to to keep their powers.

[Starbuck_II]

I was thinking the exact same thing. I've never yet heard of a campaign where the paladin turns evil and looses his paladinhood for (*gasp*) buying everyone a round of drinks!

Outlawing every little thing that might possibly reduce a citizen's productivity would be done in a Lawful Evil society, not a lawful Good one.

It happens in 2E Temple of Elemental evil. You serious fall if enter a drinking contest,

[Yahzi]

Why would a lawful good society, as it gets increasingly more lawful, allow people to drink?
What do you think Lawful Good even means?

In D&D, alignment is divided into two axis: Good, which is good, and Evil, which is not. By definition, a Good society would only pass laws that were good. This is what D&D is trying to say when it applies the Good tag: this person/object/society is good.

So a LG society would only outlaw drinking if it were the right thing to do. In which case, why do you have a problem with it? (Starbuck brings up a good point, but as others elsewhere have pointed out, the Paladin's code is just that: a code. It is not the definition of LG; it is additional restrictions on behavior on top of LG.)

Your position essentially asserts that drinking is bad; and then you complain because a LG society would eliminate it. Well, what is wrong with eliminating things that are bad?

Perhaps you mean to say that you think mild drinking is good, but you are afraid that other people think it was bad. And those are the people making the rules. Well, we're not talking about real life here: we're talking about D&D, and if you want to know if drinking is good, you can just ask. Commune takes what, 10 minutes? Bam. Problem solved. Now we know.

So either you are in favor of keeping things that are actually bad (in which case your argument can be dismissed as hypocritical, because we already know in advance that you don't mean keeping things that are bad to you), or you just disagree on what amount of fun is good. I strongly suspect the latter, which is a fair point, since it is a hard question. But in D&D that hard question can be definitively answered, so it is not a problem.



Chaotic Good is much more accepting of individual freedoms.
How can that even be true? All Chaos means is that sometimes good is applied consistently, and sometimes it isn't. How can that be anything but worse than good being applied consistently?

Also, D&D, by many different ways, has made it clear that LG is the pinnacle of perfect goodness, so rather than interpreting perfect good to be something else, we should just accept that whatever we consider perfect good is what D&D was trying to say when it said LG. (Although I actually agree with you somewhat; in my world the pinnacle of goodness is NG, where law and chaos are seen only as tools to achieve good).


Most lawful good societies, even if they couldn't entirely prevent it, would try to get rid of that.
I don't how to respond to this without getting into politics. Suffice to say, I never considered Sweden to be CG.



Yahzi...a libertarian philosophical viewpoint is just that, a viewpoint. It stems from the values they place on rights and freedoms. The values you hold are no more objectively "right", and forcing your values on others as the only right ones is usually considered bad form.
Actually, I hold that there are objective values, but I don't want to derail this into philosophy.

I will point out, however, that given that I believe in objective values, your telling me that they don't exist is forcing your values on me as the only right ones. From what objective standpoint do you assert that objectivity is impossible? :smallbiggrin:


D&D is more fun.
Exactly. In real life I would never hire a prostitute, beat her to within an inch of her life, and then heal her back to full health as part of my religious rituals to Lovithar, Goddess of Pain.

Given that they were playing a game with a Paladin for six years, it should have been obvious that in the world they were pretending in, objective good did exist and made sense. Throwing a hissy fit about it at the end of the game is no more meaningful than suddenly complaining, "Wait - how did the wizard teleport across the continent instantly? That would require faster than light travel!"


Oh, and the biggest plothole in the matrix is not the idealism. It's using humans as batteries in the first place. The cowtrix would have been about ten thousand times easier.
No, that's the second biggest plot hole. Especially since just raising plants and burning them would have been a billion times easier. But I don't actually mind that plot hole, because I can fix it by pretending that they are using the human's neuroprocessing power to drive the matrix (in other words those people are microprocessors, not batteries).

In fact I can fix quite a lot of the Matrix's plot holes by re-writing the dialogue. Except for that bit in the middle where the bad guy says, "Only a miracle can save you now," and then on cue a miracle happens. I can't fix that. :smallfrown:

[Yahzi]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Er, that's a matter of taste.

I, personally, feel there's nothing that can;'t be improved with large quantities of garlic. But I recognize not everyone wants garlic for every meal. I don't understand it, but I recognize it.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Those are all very good points. For an answer, I invite you to click on my sig and download my (free) worldbook, wherein I attempt to answer many of those questions.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Well, our judgments don't have any impact on those players. We are only offering advice to the OP. The quality of advice he gets will depend on the quality of information he provides. As always.

So we advise the OP based on his understanding of the issue. Obviously if he was wrong, then our advice will be wrong. I think that is well understood by all parties.

[Thefurmonger]

I do not enforce alignment, so no, the paladin was never in danger of falling. There is absolutely no game reason why a mid-low tier class like paladins should have huge behavior restrictions slapped on them that other classes do not, and most other classes alignment restrictions only make sense superficially.

Just a Nitpick, But mentioning this on page 1 or 2 would have helped a LOT.

As a general rule if you do not follow a rule that directly affects something your asking about, it's a decent idea to say so.

For what it's worth and after reading all 10 pages I hate to side with a jerk like the wiz but I think I would be 10 shades of pissed as well.

Did he handle it well? no.

Does it seem in a lot of ways that he got the shaft? At least to me it does.

[Fenrisnorth]

Honestly though, what does it matter? my alignment wasn't what made Wizzy throw a fit. In fact, as a Paladin, it should have assuaged his fears.

[EvilJames]

I had another random thought in response to something someone posted here.
Something about if there is no evil or if we get rid of evil then we can't have any good. How and why would that be. Good isn't defined by evil any more than evil is defined by good. If I were to go out and destroy all that is good in the world so that nothing good can exist. Would that get rid of evil? I don't think it would. Pretty much everything around would be evil (neutrals wouldn't last long as the occasional good act would get them in trouble) Good destroying evil would not cause evil it would cause LG and CG to shake hands and do a little dance as NG sighs and says "See I told you so."

Alright that's the end of my derailment.

[Mystic Muse]

The argument is that without both, you don't have free will, and if you can't choose, you can't be considered either.

[Tvtyrant]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Democracies tend to treat their poor exactly the same as everyone else does; you just pushed responsibility from whoever was born to it to whoever can convince everyone else they would do the best job. Or maybe you mean a "true" democracy where whatever idea is held by the most amount of people is done (including killing Socrates). Political systems still require people to work, hence they will never be perfect.

Then why bother to respond to the thread? If you think its worthless ignore them and look at the threads you want to look at.

[Jornophelanthas]

The argument is that without both, you don't have free will, and if you can't choose, you can't be considered either.

Which is a very Chaotic Neutral argument. I take it the artificer had this alignment, because it was basically his argument?

Furthermore, what was the wizard character's alignment? I'm guessing either Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. The former fits best with the suicide, while the latter fits best with the "all monarchy is evil" line of reasoning, which honestly comes down to "all lawfulness is evil", which comes down to "I am the opposite of both Lawful and Evil, which are the same".

Honestly, I believe the wizard player is unable to separate his personal opinions from his characters' alignments and beliefs, so it wouldn't surprise me much if his alignment ended up being something else entirely.

Talakeal, could you answer this please?

[Mystic Muse]

Which is a very Chaotic Neutral argument. I take it the artificer had this alignment, because it was basically his argument?

Furthermore, what was the wizard character's alignment? I'm guessing either Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. The former fits best with the suicide, while the latter fits best with the "all monarchy is evil" line of reasoning, which honestly comes down to "all lawfulness is evil", which comes down to "I am the opposite of both Lawful and Evil, which are the same".

Actually, I think he'd just be a delusional chaotic neutral. Chaotic good doesn't Necessarily mean you believe all monarchy is evil and the attitude that you're not evil does not make you good.

[Jornophelanthas]

Actually, I think he'd just be a delusional chaotic neutral. Chaotic good doesn't Necessarily mean you believe all monarchy is evil and the attitude that you're not evil does not make you good.

Chaotic Neutral doesn't necessarily mean you believe all monarchy is evil, either. So I guess we at least agree that he is likely both chaotic and non-evil. (Being Chaotic Evil means you don't like monarchy if it limits you in any way, but you couldn't care less about anyone else affected by it.)

[Demonix]

Tal, to be fair, I don't think you did anything wrong, or...at least, nothing you haven't already acknowledged. You TRIED to fix it and it sounds like the Wizard wouldn't have it. The rogue sounds like she just went along for the ride so I'd not get too upset about her reaction.

That said, you're not going to please everyone this includes all the forumers. Someone here is always going to say you're in the wrong. All you can do is figure it out for yourself now. Do you think there is anything else you could have done?

Overall are you happy with the campaign?

Incorrect. He did do something wrong; he attempted to control his players actions by DM fiat (telling them "no, you can't do that").

If you take away control of the player's character and start dictating thier actions, then what the hell are you playing for? just go make your own characters and write a story. It is as much thier campaign as it is yours, and they have the right to act as they see fit.

They may not like the -consequences-, however.

For the record, I wouldn't have liked that ending either and I would be wondering why the paladin wouldn't fall after making that decision. He can still be good, but the utopia he thought he was creating turns out a little less then perfect. Or perhaps he thinks the gods dont talk to him anymore because he has made this perfect society, but its really because he fell and never realized it. That would make a better ending in my eyes.

-edit- I thought this thread was done, but yeah, it would been good to know you weren't holding the pally to lawful good restrictions so he basically can't fall. Still, whats the fun in that?

[Mystic Muse]

For the record, I wouldn't have liked that ending either and I would be wondering why the paladin wouldn't fall after making that decision. He can still be good, but the utopia he thought he was creating turns out a little less then perfect. Or perhaps he thinks the gods dont talk to him anymore because he has made this perfect society, but its really because he fell and never realized it. That would make a better ending in my eyes.

Paladins don't have codes and can't fall in his campaign.

[DeltaEmil]

Also, not allowing any players to do PvP (no matter what kind of crappy and jerkish stupid justification comes up to do it) is one of the things Talakeal did definitely right.

[Talakeal]

To everyone saying I made a mistake by telling the player's they couldn't attack each other, please look at the following:

This was the ONLY time I ever told a player that they couldn't do something, as I am a firm believer in the DM never telling the player's what they can do. I know many DMs do not allow PvP, and I know that the RPGA has a zero tolerance policy about it. I normally would allow it, except for the following reasons:

The campaign was OVER at that point.

I would have either had to narrate a PvP story, or spend a lot of time and prep work to run a special PvP session several weeks from now.

I felt in either case this would ruin the experience for the loser, especially since I couldn't find any justification for it other than lashing out due to OOC jealousy.

Honestly, although this thread has given me a little more insight into WHY they are jealous, I still can't see any other motivation for their actions.

EDIT: I have been in several situations where a PvP fight broke out. I have never been in one where it did anything but weaken the party (both on a literal and social level) and usually it ended the campaign, or at least ended with the losing player leaving and never coming back. PvP is, in my eyes, just as big an evil as railroading, so to say someone is in the wrong for doing one over the other is kind of an absolutist and irrational position.

[EvilJames]

The argument is that without both, you don't have free will, and if you can't choose, you can't be considered either.

I'd still prefer the good version of this "no free will" over evil "no free will."

And honestly, how does the elimination of one choice eliminate free will? I can still chose steak or fish, beer or soda, to be a repair man or a farmer, to go to sleep at 7 or 8 etc. all still choices, all still exercises of my will. Does it make that big of a difference if "murder my neighbor and mutilate the body in an unholy ritual" isn't on the list? Anyway, now we are getting into the murky waters of non-determinism vs varying flavors of determinism, which is a dead end argument for everybody involved.

A world were good triumphs entirely over evil is going to be a very different world than one where evil triumphs. To me at least that means that there is still good even if evil is gone. Maybe it won't matter as much, but is that such a bad thing? Is it really possible to be too good? I don't think so.

[Talakeal]

Also, please I was frankly a little disappointed in the paladins player choosing to keep the power as well, it was no what I expected or what I had set down as the "good" path.
I am still not clear on what I should have done at that point. If you simply punish people for making selfish choices, then they aren't really selfish choices. That IS removing free will from the players, if I reward all their sacrifices and punish all their indulgences it removes the natural consequences of their actions. No one would ever choose to be good in such a situation.

[DeltaEmil]

That free-will stuff and philosophical discussion about is irrelevant in the grand scheme. All that matters is if the players and the gm (you) were happy with the game. The last moments were not good, and now you know that you shouldn't ever play with the guy who played the wizard anymore.

[kyoryu]

Which is a very Chaotic Neutral argument. I take it the artificer had this alignment, because it was basically his argument?

Furthermore, what was the wizard character's alignment? I'm guessing either Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. The former fits best with the suicide, while the latter fits best with the "all monarchy is evil" line of reasoning, which honestly comes down to "all lawfulness is evil", which comes down to "I am the opposite of both Lawful and Evil, which are the same".

Honestly, I believe the wizard player is unable to separate his personal opinions from his characters' alignments and beliefs, so it wouldn't surprise me much if his alignment ended up being something else entirely.

Talakeal, could you answer this please?

Ever see/read A Clockwork Orange? That's the entire point that the book and movie were making - it's not the *action* that matters, but the *choice*. This is driven home in the original ending of the book, where Alex becomes a decent member of society by his own choices. In fact, the title refers to Alex when he has no choice - he becomes something that looks alive on the outside, but on the inside is really dead and mechanical, like a mechanical orange.

[Talakeal]

Yet all of our actions are predetermined by our neural pathways, which are shaped in response to our past experiences. If conditioning produces something that is not "alive" you need to redefine what "alive" means, because there is no life form on Earth that meets that meets that criteria, at least speaking from a purely scientific standpoint.

[Yukitsu]

Yet all of our actions are predetermined by our neural pathways, which are shaped in response to our past experiences. If conditioning produces something that is not "alive" you need to redefine what "alive" means, because there is no life form on Earth that meets that meets that criteria, at least speaking from a purely scientific standpoint.

Psychological determinism isn't actually a proven state, nor is there any such thing as morality if that is the case, hence the paladin didn't do anything, since any action, by definition, must be devoid of responsibility of the agent of cause, nor can there be good as intent is no longer a sensible statement. Basically, if that's your view, paladin saying "people can only be good in place X" means nothing, because there is no good act, nor are there evil acts.

If that's the basis of your argument, I'd be ticked off too. So would my philosophy prof. So would my psychology profs.

[Emmerask]

uhm wrong thread...

[Sucrose]

Also, please I was frankly a little disappointed in the paladins player choosing to keep the power as well, it was no what I expected or what I had set down as the "good" path.
I am still not clear on what I should have done at that point. If you simply punish people for making selfish choices, then they aren't really selfish choices. That IS removing free will from the players, if I reward all their sacrifices and punish all their indulgences it removes the natural consequences of their actions. No one would ever choose to be good in such a situation.

So think of natural consequences of your player's actions that aren't all positive. For example, while the paladin might be able to keep the kingdom he created as a utopia, describe how him giving the rest of the world over to the God of Primordial Darkness has resulted in a blighted, hellish landscape that is completely inhospitable. Point out how a society unable to produce much new blood results in stagnation. He gets what he wants, and the world continues to exist, but the people of the world are now trapped in a gilded bubble. And, of course, when they finally die, by violence or accident or what have you, their souls, rather than getting a decent afterlife, will be devoured by the same god that the paladin let into the world.

I don't think that anyone has suggested that you contort matters to bring about negativity, but if someone makes a choice that would probably result in something terrible happening, it's taking away the meaning of their choice for the full consequences not to occur.

Edit: In addition, if you're going to flat-out disallow PvP, even in the epilogue, you should make that clear to your players beforehand. I know of a fair few groups that permit it, with few, if any, hard feelings between the participants. A player from one of those groups would feel that you're unreasonably taking away his/her autonomy if this wasn't explained as a condition of the game.

[Jornophelanthas]

Psychological determinism isn't actually a proven state, nor is there any such thing as morality if that is the case, hence the paladin didn't do anything, since any action, by definition, must be devoid of responsibility of the agent of cause, nor can there be good as intent is no longer a sensible statement. Basically, if that's your view, paladin saying "people can only be good in place X" means nothing, because there is no good act, nor are there evil acts.

If that's the basis of your argument, I'd be ticked off too. So would my philosophy prof. So would my psychology profs.

I am reminded of an urban legend about a court of law. The defendant in a murder trial states: "Your Honor, my killing the victim was predetermined by my neural chemistry and the set of circumstances that actually transpired immediately before my killing the victim."
To which the judge responded: "Then I am predetermined by my neural chemistry and the current set of circumstances to sentence you to imprisonment for life."

Back on topic, to the OP:
Instead of forbidding your players to go and kill the Paladin-Emperor-God, you could have done what someone else already suggested. Tell the players that their disagreements have sparked conflict, which results in a civil war that rages for a long time. The Paladin-Emperor-God is too powerful for the rest to get close to, but they are too powerful for the P-E-G to be flat-out defeated. There is no lasting peace, and much of the stagnant utopia is wrought asunder over time. Lives are lost that cannot be replaced because no new children can be born. Do not tell who, if anyone, wins in the end, but instead fade to black.

[Tiki Snakes]

Back on topic, to the OP:
Instead of forbidding your players to go and kill the Paladin-Emperor-God, you could have done what someone else already suggested. Tell the players that their disagreements have sparked conflict, which results in a civil war that rages for a long time. The Paladin-Emperor-God is too powerful for the rest to get close to, but they are too powerful for the P-E-G to be flat-out defeated. There is no lasting peace, and much of the stagnant utopia is wrought asunder over time. Lives are lost that cannot be replaced because no new children can be born. Do not tell who, if anyone, wins in the end, but instead fade to black.

So in short, end the six year campaign with an 'everyone loses' epilogue. Not that changing it to that would help, because the Wizard is incapable of forgiveness or even changing his mind.

With a player like the Wizard, you might even be lucky and the above might even vaguely have molified him had you gone with it the first time round. Of course, it would have been directly screwing every other player over on the off chance of making Grumpy McWizardpants smile, but them's the breaks I guess.

I for one prefer the original ending.

[Psyx]

Why would a lawful good society, as it gets increasingly more lawful,

'More lawful' doesn't mean 'more laws'. It means more law-abiding.

A lawful society doesn't need over-regulation. A lawful society might only have one law: Do unto others and you would have done to you, or similar perhaps.
Certainly we've seen very structured societies which either have relatively few laws or which use those laws to strengthen personal freedom, rather than remove it.


Certainly it has. It does not tend to be a long lasting government(most extremist things have issues), but google can easily find you real world examples. I'd prefer not to delve into them myself, thanks to board restrictions, but while uncommon, they have existed.

Care to go into it off-board? I'm intrigued by the possible examples.

[Irbis]

{Scrubbed}


I would have either had to narrate a PvP story, or spend a lot of time and prep work to run a special PvP session several weeks from now.

No, all you needed to do was to say something like "guys, hang on", spend 30 minutes post-session writing new character sheet of the paladin as NPC and his allies, give the two players a few levels and chance to describe their preparations, then run a 30 minute session next week where they would try to kill the now NPC paladin, as a fitting end to their characters. Win or lose, dominate or surrender, their characters would receive the same measure of closure as the paladin did. It needed not have any PvP at all, the paladin ascended above player control.

The paladin player needed not to come into this in any way, even be present at that mini-session, he got his closure already. There, 30 minutes and it all would be fixed, without expending a lot of time or insulting them by giving them different ending.


I felt in either case this would ruin the experience for the loser, especially since I couldn't find any justification for it other than lashing out due to OOC jealousy.

Instead, it completely ruined experience for anyone else who wasn't a paladin, then ruined it doubly when they learned they have no say anymore in the most crucial moments.

{Scrubbed}

[kyoryu]

Another thing that seems to have popped up is that there was an ordering issue - you asked the players in a specific order, and that was that. If the paladin had chosen first, there may have been a different result.

Since the actual giving up of power was not likely to happen in that way, but rather (I'd assume) through some ritual or something, it may have worked better to allow the players time to confer amongst each other about what they were doing, giving the players time to convince each other, and/or react to what the others did.

[Tiki Snakes]

You really seem to be taking this quite personally Ibris. There's really no need to get so worked up about it.

A little more politeness in our disagreements would go a long way, don't you think?

Personally, I think it boils down to the fact that you and I, as well as several of the others, disagree with what is meant by Lawful Good. Your description rings closer to Lawful-Neutral or even Lawful Evil to me, whereas the opposite appears to be true for yourself. No big deal, we are just talking at cross-purposes.

For what it's worth, I'm guessing when the OP refers to Lawful-Good he is referring to the general type of behavior that us Lawful-Good-Society-isn't-Automatically-Hell types are discussing, rather than the set of attitudes and Behaviours that you, yourself, view as 'Lawful good'.

Would that change any of your rather strongly held opinions, if you look at the situation with that in mind?

[edit] Oh, and yes. Even if the choice is Do as you are told, or die horribly, you still have free will. The choices might all be bad, but it's still your choice.

[Yukitsu]

You really seem to be taking this quite personally Ibris. There's really no need to get so worked up about it.

A little more politeness in our disagreements would go a long way, don't you think?

Personally, I think it boils down to the fact that you and I, as well as several of the others, disagree with what is meant by Lawful Good. Your description rings closer to Lawful-Neutral or even Lawful Evil to me, whereas the opposite appears to be true for yourself. No big deal, we are just talking at cross-purposes.

For what it's worth, I'm guessing when the OP refers to Lawful-Good he is referring to the general type of behavior that us Lawful-Good-Society-isn't-Automatically-Hell types are discussing, rather than the set of attitudes and Behaviours that you, yourself, view as 'Lawful good'.

Would that change any of your rather strongly held opinions, if you look at the situation with that in mind?

[edit] Oh, and yes. Even if the choice is Do as you are told, or die horribly, you still have free will. The choices might all be bad, but it's still your choice.

To be fair, there are several strong indicators that the "LG" society being aimed at by the paladin are of the former variety, such as exiling all dissidents that have not committed evil. I haven't read into anything thusfar that counters the notion that it's closer to forcing people into acting in a manner as opposed to encouraging it, which is very much evil.

[Irbis]

'More lawful' doesn't mean 'more laws'. It means more law-abiding.

{Scrubbed} no matter how you cut it, to be law abiding, you need to have laws in the first place. And once you do, these tend to be updated with more precise meanings, new cases, new examples, etc. It's a constant creep or regulation that will never stop in any kind of lawful society, for one, because it's easier to be law abiding when your law keeps in touch with reality.


A lawful society doesn't need over-regulation. A lawful society might only have one law: Do unto others and you would have done to you, or similar perhaps.

What. That's not a law, that's anarchy. Even chaotic societies will be far more regulated than that.

For one, if someone likes being raped, does that mean he can rape others? Masochists can beat others legally? Gangsters have a free pass in crime? It's not a recipe for functioning society at all.


Certainly we've seen very structured societies which either have relatively few laws or which use those laws to strengthen personal freedom, rather than remove it.

It is impossible. Structured societies always have lots of laws, even if unwritten, and laws can't give you any liberties in the first place. They can only strengthen those you already have, or repel laws that took away your freedom.


You really seem to be taking this quite personally Ibris. There's really no need to get so worked up about it.

A little more politeness in our disagreements would go a long way, don't you think?

I'm not taking it personally. I just find attempts at passing neutral, chaotic or even evil societies as LG rather... meh.

{Scrubbed}


Personally, I think it boils down to the fact that you and I, as well as several of the others, disagree with what is meant by Lawful Good. Your description rings closer to Lawful-Neutral or even Lawful Evil to me, whereas the opposite appears to be true for yourself. No big deal, we are just talking at cross-purposes.

Since when LN or LE care about your good?

But yes, now that you mention it, these alignments will use pretty much the same methods as the LG state does, just for different reasons. It is what being 'lawful' means. Law (not anarchy) being as important as the other word of the alignment. They will regulate you for your own good... regardless of your own wishes. The only difference is, when LG state does that, people find most regulations... bearable.

Just look at Miko what happens when you go extreme law/good end. Or Soon. Or any D&D Plane where 'L' is as important as G/N/E.


For what it's worth, I'm guessing when the OP refers to Lawful-Good he is referring to the general type of behavior that us Lawful-Good-Society-isn't-Automatically-Hell types are discussing, rather than the set of attitudes and Behaviours that you, yourself, view as 'Lawful good'.

Would that change any of your rather strongly held opinions, if you look at the situation with that in mind?

First, what they're taking about as LG aren't LG societies at all, they're neutral ones with few LG leanings.

Second, my issue isn't with LG society with neutral leanings (which can form in itself, and I guess would be a pretty good place to live in). My issue is with something some people take for granted - that you can create pure LG society by force, using normal humans as subjects. It is in no way possible, unless you tighten the screws so badly they'll bleed.

{Scrubbed}


[edit] Oh, and yes. Even if the choice is Do as you are told, or die horribly, you still have free will. The choices might all be bad, but it's still your choice.

No, it's not. It's shambles of choice that was taken from you long ago, leaving lifeless corpse that pretends to be the real deal. When you don't have option D) None of the above; your choice doesn't really exist.

[Claudius Maximus]

Why would you think a literally, capital G Good society would mean a horrible place that isn't good for anyone? I think that when other people talk about such a place they take it for granted that it's actually good and not the worst possible stretched interpretation of "law" and "good."

It is literally ruled by what might, for all we know, actually be the purest and wisest of all beings in the universe in question. Maybe we can assume that he knows something about morality we don't. I think it should be implied that whatever choices he does make are in fact for the best. Otherwise it wouldn't really be a happy ending, which is clearly what the DM was trying to describe here.

[Yukitsu]

Why would you think a literally, capital G Good society would mean a horrible place that isn't good for anyone? I think that when other people talk about such a place they take it for granted that it's actually good and not the worst possible stretched interpretation of "law" and "good."

It is literally ruled by what might, for all we know, actually be the purest and wisest of all beings in the universe in question. Maybe we can assume that he knows something about morality we don't. I think it should be implied that whatever choices he does make are in fact for the best. Otherwise it wouldn't really be a happy ending, which is clearly what the DM was trying to describe here.

What was described wasn't "Good" with a capital G, but rather a George Orwellian Dystopian "good" where people are good or they get kicked out of their houses.

[kyoryu]

What was described wasn't "Good" with a capital G, but rather a George Orwellian Dystopian "good" where people are good or they get kicked out of their houses.

That and the DM also said that he pretty much nuked whole Good and Evil thing, which makes it a weak justification for the society not sucking.

[Talakeal]

So, any sort of law enforcement is "Orwellian Dystopia" then? I said people who are actively evil with no desire to be redeemed are exiled, not everyone who isn't actively good.

Also, I didn't say I removed good and evil. I said I don't play with the D&D style black and white alignment where actions are innately good or evil, even when it makes no sense given the circumstances.

For example, the adventuring party is attempting to stop a group of devil worshippers which will allow the world to be taken over by devils. The adventurers are not strong enough to stop them. At the same time a group of CE demon worshippers who wish to stop the cultists because they have a vested interest in not seeing the entire world used to resupply their enemies in the blood war. Said demon worshippers are also not strong enough to stop the cultist alone. If the adventurers ally with the demon worshippers to fight a common enemy this is EVIL. In this case it is, according to D&D canon, far better to let the bad guys win and make the world a literal hell on earth, than to sully ones hands by working together with unsavory sorts.
Combine situations like this with the whole Law vs. Chaos axis (ask any 10 players or game designers what law and chaos means and you will get 10 completely different answers) and you will see that AS WRITTEN the alignment system just doesn't work.

[Anxe]

Your campaign must've been pretty cool to spawn all this intellectual discussion.

[Talakeal]

I don't know about that. Pretty sure the word "Alignment" can spawn a 10 page discussion on its own.

[Seerow]

I don't know about that. Pretty sure the word "Alignment" can spawn a 10 page discussion on its own.

While this is true, based on what I read of the campaign it seems interesting enough. Despite anything I said earlier, I'd happily play at your table.

[Coidzor]

I don't know about that. Pretty sure the word "Alignment" can spawn a 10 page discussion on its own.

I was wondering why this discussion was still going....

[Thunder Hammer]

Well... While this thread is still Going Talakeal, where are you moving to?

[Yukitsu]

So, any sort of law enforcement is "Orwellian Dystopia" then? I said people who are actively evil with no desire to be redeemed are exiled, not everyone who isn't actively good.

Allow me to quote every indicator that the paladin is a selfish and petty tyrant given from your account, and not the saint as portrayed, with an analysis of each passage woven in with information from the others. Evil will be underlined, while sick evil will be bold and underlined.

Part 1The paladin king used no form of mind control or oppression. They merely banished those who simply could not live within the society and were unwilling to change their alignment or receive medical help for mental illness,and...

OK, non-cooperation comes in 2 forms. Chaotic individuals, and evil individuals. Forcing those people out of the society for non-conformity, no matter the scope and extent of those liberties or evils, is in and of itself tyranical and evil. Also, saying "brainwash or wasteland" is evil.

Also reference 5. This is just a nice pretext for an execution due to point 5.

Part 2against those who lived outside the society and refused to co-exist peacefully they were slain in honorable combat.

This is evil for reasons below, specifically reference part 5. If everywhere else, the homes, the lands of all other peoples is a barren wasteland, peaceful coexistance with other realms guilty only of having nothing will inevitably come into conflict with this paladin. Other realms should not be seen as evil simply because the paladin took from them everything and gave them to himself. And what chance do raiders honestly have in "honourable" combat?

Part 3They could all keep their god powers. They were granted a vision of what would happen some time ago, and in this vision they would go to war with each other, the wizard eventually killing the paladin and the world being nearly destroyed in the battle.

Which player is evil had the wizard kept his powers? Seriously here, the paladin risked destroying the world for personal greed and desire.

Part 4The paladin's decision is a bit more complicated. As the god they would need to sacrifice was their lover, they had more to lose than the others. Erebus, the god of primordial darkness, made a deal with the paladin. If the paladin would allow herself to become the vessel of Erebus and thereby giving Erebus complete dominion over the world, Erebus would allow the paladin to use Erebus' powers for good ends, and avoid sacrificing their lover. The paladin accepted. Whether this is "good" or not, I don't know, it's a deep philosophical issue, that the wizard's player and his GF refused to even acknowledge as having merit let alone accepting as valid.

You're doing Erebus a disservis if just handing him the world on a silver platter entails sunshine and happiness. It's not a deep issue, giving evil what it wants just because you're too selfish to do what needs to be done the hard way is no excuse.

Part 5Also, the rest of the world was a barren wasteland with no major kingdoms. The party had recovered the Holy Grail, granting health and eternal life to those they allowed to drink from it. The rest of the world was dying, and most animals and people had become sterile. Eventually those who refused to join the paladin's kingdom and receive the blessing of the grail would eventually die on their own, and so after several centuries the paladin would rule the entire world.

One assumes this is because the world was not fully rejuvinated, which is directly attributable to the paladin. The paladin chose his own power, his own lover and his own kingdom over the rest of the world, watching from his castle window as everything else withered and rotted.

Telling people they all need to bow down and worship him or die, because he couldn't save the world is pretty blatantly a sign that the paladin isn't an agent of good, but an agent out for himself.

part 6The paladin's lover would have been sacrificed to renew the world. Giving its life to put everything back to normal, end the corruption, heal the land, and put the gods of good, evil, and neutrality back into their rightful, balanced positions.

Proof that 5 is the paladin's direct responsibility.

Simply put, the paladin took the easy way to get what he wanted. He didn't care 1 wit about the world. If that's how the kingdom, and ultimately the world is run, yeah, George Orwellian Dystopia.

I believe you also said there was no poverty. What happens to those who don't want to work, or those who cannot do work? Are they forced to leave the kingdom as well, and thus killed for being poor? Is the money taken from the hard working, stolen from those who put in daily efforts? There can be no "good" solution in eradicating poverty from a kingdom.


Also, I didn't say I removed good and evil. I said I don't play with the D&D style black and white alignment where actions are innately good or evil, even when it makes no sense given the circumstances.

You said there is no such thing as true free will because of biochemical as yet unfounded premises. That eradicates all pretense or morality.


For example, the adventuring party is attempting to stop a group of devil worshippers which will allow the world to be taken over by devils. The adventurers are not strong enough to stop them. At the same time a group of CE demon worshippers who wish to stop the cultists because they have a vested interest in not seeing the entire world used to resupply their enemies in the blood war. Said demon worshippers are also not strong enough to stop the cultist alone. If the adventurers ally with the demon worshippers to fight a common enemy this is EVIL. In this case it is, according to D&D canon, far better to let the bad guys win and make the world a literal hell on earth, than to sully ones hands by working together with unsavory sorts.
Combine situations like this with the whole Law vs. Chaos axis (ask any 10 players or game designers what law and chaos means and you will get 10 completely different answers) and you will see that AS WRITTEN the alignment system just doesn't work.

No, the problem is, you agreed to give the evil cult the world if your combined efforts won. That's why it was evil. Good and evil can pool their efforts to stop a greater evil (paladins cannot, but it's not a tenant of good) but they cannot push the lives of good people under the thumb of evil for the sake of making the fight easier.

[Tiki Snakes]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

My Bad. Touch of dyslexia (Or possibly Dispraxia, the diagnosis was back before they were quite so seperately defined, so not really sure at this point), tend to misread words and names sometimes, there was no offence intended.
Actually I spent the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy thinking the Dwarf's name was spelt 'Glimi'. :smallsmile:

Anyway, more on-topic, I don't think references to real world society or historical cities would really make any difference. As examples, they just aren't really applicable. For example, I doubt you will ever see a real world civilisation completely iradicate poverty, or disease (let alone both). And yet, any discussion about this particular City-state begins with the assumption that it has, infact, already been accomplished.

I can't help but feel that there's an element of the 'slippery slope (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#The_slippery_slope_as_fallacy)' to your arguments reguarding Law and the Lawful Good society.

[Anxe]

{Scrubbed}

[Yukitsu]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Most religions haven't reduced all of the world sans their own portion into an inhospitable wasteland. So, yes, that's exactly my argument as I want it. Also, most people don't say you're a good guy for running around killing people of other religions these days.

[Anxe]

{Scrubbed}

EDIT: I missed your edit. Totally true, but we live in a world where proof of a religion's truth is hard to come by. In the Paladin's world it is very obvious that he is a god.

[Yukitsu]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

EDIT: I missed your edit. Totally true, but we live in a world where proof of a religion's truth is hard to come by. In the Paladin's world it is very obvious that he is a god.

No, this guy nuked the living world, not the afterlife. He took every country that wasn't his, and made it a barren wasteland. Religions don't do that. This would be like the vatican turning everything outside of Rome into a Nuclear wasteland.

[Anxe]

If you believe in eternal life which clearly exists in the D&D universe, how is that different?

[Yukitsu]

If you believe in eternal life which clearly exists in the D&D universe, how is that different?

Because one kills people who have committed no wrong other than geographic inconvenience, while the other is what they get for dying with the wrong beliefs. And in the main religion with that notion of an unpleasant afterlife, virtuous non-believers don't end up in that terrible a place.

D&D cosmology in particular, souls are sent based on alignment, not worship. So if you did good but believed in a bad trickster God, you are still sent to Celestia, or ellysium or whatever.

[Talakeal]

Yukitsu, I don't know what to say, but each of your points involves a gross twisting of my words, you are actually making a less logical argument than the wizards player did.

Part 1 only refers those who commit serious crimes, not to everyone who is non lawful or non good.

As for part 2, as I am referring to bandits, raiders, predators, and invading armies, which you seem to acknowledge. Thus you are saying that anyone who defends them self from attack is evil. So all governments, and virtually all individuals are "evil" by your definition.

Part 3: The vision is not set in stone. In addition the wizard had already given up their powers when the paladin made their decision. The wizard was actually hoping that this vision would come to pass even without him keeping his powers so that he could punish / get his revenge on the paladin.

Part 4: I agree with you on this one actually. Although I didn't make any mention of it in the original post as it is more of a metaphysical one (which the suiciding player's were completely unaware of) and thus not really relevant.

Part 5: Never said bow down and worship him. Simply being able to coexist peacefully is enough. The paladin would give life freely to anyone, save the unrepentant evil, those who would, in a "real world" society be executed or imprisoned for their actions. People can CHOOSE to refuse the paladins help and live in the wilderness because they have free will.

Part 6: Sure there can, when using divine powers and epic level magic. Snap your fingers and a mountain of food, clothing, gold, and whatever else you desire appears in the town square for the poor to rummage through freely.


{Scrubbed} The LE cult will control the world if you fail. The CE cult you are working with has no interest in ruling the world, and will receive nothing in the short term from the alliance other than seeing the LE cult fail. In D&D if you work with evil outsiders for ANY reason it is an irredeemable act of the worst sort.


You keep saying this is Orwellian, have you actually read 1984? It's been almost a decade for me, but I seem to recall it being all about controlling people by manipulating information and systematically lying to people, and I don't see any similarity to my campaign.

[Talakeal]

No, this guy nuked the living world, not the afterlife. He took every country that wasn't his, and made it a barren wasteland. Religions don't do that. This would be like the vatican turning everything outside of Rome into a Nuclear wasteland.

The world was already a wasteland, the paladin took no action save to not heal the land of people who preferred it that way for whatever reason.

[Talakeal]

Also, claiming that neuro science is "unfounded" is kind of a bold claim. There have been thousands upon thousands of experiments on human thought, none of them showing any evidence that any "supernatural" process affects human thinking.

As to whether this removes the concept of morality is debatable. I don't think it does, but I can see the argument. It is a very deep philosophical question which people a lot smarter than us have spent a lot more time than us pondering and debating. It looks rather arrogant to simply proclaim it as an absolute face.

[Talakeal]

{Scrubbed}

[Yukitsu]

Yukitsu, I don't know what to say, but each of your points involves a gross twisting of my words, you are actually making a less logical argument than the wizards player did.

Part 1 only refers those who commit serious crimes, not to everyone who is non lawful or non good.

It deliberately says you're deporting the mentally ill that have egosyntotic disorders. Those aren't necessarily criminals.


As for part 2, as I am referring to bandits, raiders, predators, and invading armies, which you seem to acknowledge. Thus you are saying that anyone who defends them self from attack is evil. So all governments, and virtually all individuals are "evil" by your definition.

Most governments don't reduce the world to a barren wasteland, thus denying independant people the right to live. You can't argue that "well they can just abandon their ancestral homes, everything they own and their way of life and come live with me, because I can't be arsed to save them because my girlfreind is more important than the world." and say the guy isn't a complete prick. People will fight to maintain their way of life, and the only place they can fight, is your paladin's kingdom.


Part 3: The vision is not set in stone. In addition the wizard had already given up their powers when the paladin made their decision. The wizard was actually hoping that this vision would come to pass even without him keeping his powers so that he could punish / get his revenge on the paladin.

For what? Prior to paladin building evil marysuetopia, there was no real discernable grudge that I read into.


Part 4: I agree with you on this one actually. Although I didn't make any mention of it in the original post as it is more of a metaphysical one (which the suiciding player's were completely unaware of) and thus not really relevant.

Flaws of character, in this case that the paladin is willing to not only corraborate with evil, but actively give everything to evil to further his own ends, be they good or not shows that a society as invisioned by him, would not be a good one. Which is why it's relevant.


Part 5: Never said bow down and worship him. Simply being able to coexist peacefully is enough. The paladin would give life freely to anyone, save the unrepentant evil, those who would, in a "real world" society be executed or imprisoned for their actions. People can CHOOSE to refuse the paladins help and live in the wilderness because they have free will.

Or anyone who has committed the grave sin of living in another country, and being a nationalist. Those people aren't evil, and yet the paladin has condemned them to death.


Part 6: Sure there can, when using divine powers and epic level magic. Snap your fingers and a mountain of food, clothing, gold, and whatever else you desire appears in the town square for the poor to rummage through freely.

Read the culture for what this will produce non-good societies. It's basically the only realistic depiction I can find of a post scarcity society.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} The LE cult will control the world if you fail. The CE cult you are working with has no interest in ruling the world, and will receive nothing in the short term from the alliance other than seeing the LE cult fail. In D&D if you work with evil outsiders for ANY reason it is an irredeemable act of the worst sort.

No It's not. It's merely part of the paladin's code to not corraborate with evil outsiders. Normal characters simply can't enter into a pact with them, as the stakes for those are your soul. And the problem with your analogy, is in the Erebus case, you explicitly are giving the "CE" side control of the world. Hence why either your analogy fails, or CE has to be given the world.


You keep saying this is Orwellian, have you actually read 1984? It's been almost a decade for me, but I seem to recall it being all about controlling people by manipulating information and systematically lying to people, and I don't see any similarity to my campaign.

The similarity is, people within it are happy (or in this case good), not because they want to be happy, but because they have to be. Any dissidents are removed from society or brainwashed.

[kyoryu]

Talakeal,

I've been somewhat critical, but keep it in perspective - I'd play in your game. My criticism is of the "hey, this may have been handled better" variety, not the "you suck" variety. I think I've been pretty consistent in this.

However, in this thread you're frankly exhibiting some of the same behaviors you accuse the wizard player of. I know you're probably feeling a little beat on, but sit back, take a deep breath, and with an open mind try to understand where some of these other people are coming from. You may not agree with them, but there's a reason they hold these opinions. Even if you are not swayed to their POV, it might be worth further understanding why they're saying the things that they're saying.

[Yukitsu]

Also, claiming that neuro science is "unfounded" is kind of a bold claim. There have been thousands upon thousands of experiments on human thought, none of them showing any evidence that any "supernatural" process affects human thinking.

As to whether this removes the concept of morality is debatable. I don't think it does, but I can see the argument. It is a very deep philosophical question which people a lot smarter than us have spent a lot more time than us pondering and debating. It looks rather arrogant to simply proclaim it as an absolute face.

I'm saying there has been no scientific study refuting the notion of free will, nor any neural mechanism that maps out conciousness. Why? Because that question isn't within the purview of science, nor do we have any rational measure of conciousness. You will find literally no psychiatric study that states that we know which mechanisms determine our actions rather than simply influencing them.

And I'm basically relying on smarter people here, smarter people argue that if you have no free will, there is no relevance to morality. No one has argued otherwise since the Calvinists.

[Talakeal]

Question then, what would you do with people who are criminally insane? You can't heal them against their will, because that is evil. You can't imprison, kill, or exile them, because that is also evil. And you can't let them go, because then you are allowing them to perform evil deeds, also evil. Is there a right answer to this? Or is this just an unwinnable argument that is thrown around to make anyone look like the bad guy?

Let me say this again. No one is being exiled because they are non good, or non lawful, or quirky, or speak their own mind, or practice their own religion, or anything else of that nature. They are only exiled if they are committing serious crimes and are refusing rehabilitation.

The world has been destroyed by 100 years of cataclysm, the paladin had nothing to do with this. The rest of the world was dead, dying, or sterile before the paladin had any power at all. You keep saying that she "nuked the world", this is flat out wrong.

Also, throwing around the term Mary Sue to insult a PC is laughable. The term is thrown around so much it has lost almost all meaning, but if you want to go with the modern interpretation than I would say that just about every single PC ever is a Mary Sue, certainly those in a heroic fantasy game that has reached epic levels.

Also, let me say this again. I am not saying the paladin made the right decision. I am not saying that the paladin committed no evil acts. I am not saying that the paladin is as good as they can be. The paladin has committed horrible crimes on a metaphysical level, primarily against the souls of the dead and those who have yet to be born.
I am merely trying to understand why two of my players would kill themselves rather than live in the world as it stands post campaign, which is, while certainly not perfect, a place that appears to me to have both more freedom and more good than any real world culture or most fantasy societies I can think of.

[Talakeal]

Talakeal,

I've been somewhat critical, but keep it in perspective - I'd play in your game. My criticism is of the "hey, this may have been handled better" variety, not the "you suck" variety. I think I've been pretty consistent in this.

However, in this thread you're frankly exhibiting some of the same behaviors you accuse the wizard player of. I know you're probably feeling a little beat on, but sit back, take a deep breath, and with an open mind try to understand where some of these other people are coming from. You may not agree with them, but there's a reason they hold these opinions. Even if you are not swayed to their POV, it might be worth further understanding why they're saying the things that they're saying.

I appreciate everyone's feedback, even those I don't agree with, and I thank everyone for responding. I am just getting a little fed up of people repeatedly, putting words in my mouth and making absolute statements about open ended subjects, although I still prefer these posts to silence :).

[kyoryu]

I appreciate everyone's feedback, even those I don't agree with, and I thank everyone for responding. I am just getting a little fed up of people repeatedly, putting words in my mouth and making absolute statements about open ended subjects, although I still prefer these posts to silence :).

Well it's hardly our fault that you advocated child slavery. :smallwink:

[Talakeal]

I'm saying there has been no scientific study refuting the notion of free will, nor any neural mechanism that maps out conciousness. Why? Because that question isn't within the purview of science, nor do we have any rational measure of conciousness. You will find literally no psychiatric study that states that we know which mechanisms determine our actions rather than simply influencing them.

And I'm basically relying on smarter people here, smarter people argue that if you have no free will, there is no relevance to morality. No one has argued otherwise since the Calvinists.

Are you sure that is a dead subject? CS Lewis wrote about the issue of morality and free will in the 20th century, and I don't think he believed the two were necessarily mutuality inclusive, although it has been a few years and I could be wrong. Still, I would be very surprised if no one has pursued the issue since, there are very few closed cases or conclusive arguments in philosophy.

[Yukitsu]

Question then, what would you do with people who are criminally insane? You can't heal them against their will, because that is evil. You can't imprison, kill, or exile them, because that is also evil. And you can't let them go, because then you are allowing them to perform evil deeds, also evil. Is there a right answer to this? Or is this just an unwinnable argument that is thrown around to make anyone look like the bad guy?

Hmmm. What does God do?


Let me say this again. No one is being exiled because they are non good, or non lawful, or quirky, or speak their own mind, or practice their own religion, or anything else of that nature. They are only exiled if they are committing serious crimes and are refusing rehabilitation.

Sure, I'll just assume that's what you meant when you said "deport the mentally ill."


The world has been destroyed by 100 years of cataclysm, the paladin had nothing to do with this. The rest of the world was dead, dying, or sterile before the paladin had any power at all. You keep saying that she "nuked the world", this is flat out wrong.

Sitting idly by when you have the ability to save the world, is no less irresponsible than doing it yourself. It's just the lame self justification of the weak willed that while they didn't do everything they could have, at least they didn't do it themselves.


Also, throwing around the term Mary Sue to insult a PC is laughable. The term is thrown around so much it has lost almost all meaning, but if you want to go with the modern interpretation than I would say that just about every single PC ever is a Mary Sue, certainly those in a heroic fantasy game that has reached epic levels.

I agree all PCs basically are, but you're describing some arbitrary, non-sense society, which is much less common in RPGs, save as that thing that's going to get blown up by the main villain for plot reasons.


Also, let me say this again. I am not saying the paladin made the right decision. I am not saying that the paladin committed no evil acts. I am not saying that the paladin is as good as they can be. The paladin has committed horrible crimes on a metaphysical level, primarily against the souls of the dead and those who have yet to be born.
I am merely trying to understand why two of my players would kill themselves rather than live in the world as it stands post campaign, which is, while certainly not perfect, a place that appears to me to have both more freedom and more good than any real world culture or most fantasy societies I can think of.

Because they know that the paladin is an agent of evil, and that to survive, they would have to live under the rule of a selfish, tyranical agent of evil. I can't fathom that given the past of that paladin, that it would be a benign rulership.

[Yukitsu]

Are you sure that is a dead subject? CS Lewis wrote about the issue of morality and free will in the 20th century, and I don't think he believed the two were necessarily mutuality inclusive, although it has been a few years and I could be wrong. Still, I would be very surprised if no one has pursued the issue since, there are very few closed cases or conclusive arguments in philosophy.

A lot of people have discussed it, but only the calvinists argued that things are predetermined and that there is morality. Other arguments are about what free will is, to what extent it can be defined (is one choice freely chosen out of 1 possibility free will? General concensus is no), and how morality, God and free will can be reconciled. The topic is very much still of interest, it's just that your conclusion has been discarded by modern philosophers.

[Talakeal]

Deporting the mentally ill ONLY refers to the criminally insane who, for whatever reason, refuse to get treatment. Once again, this is a damned if you do damned if you don't position. If you don't help them, you are encouraging evil, if you do help them, you are crushing their free will.

[Yukitsu]

Deporting the mentally ill ONLY refers to the criminally insane who, for whatever reason, refuse to get treatment. Once again, this is a damned if you do damned if you don't position. If you don't help them, you are encouraging evil, if you do help them, you are crushing their free will.

Yes, it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't argument. It's the basis of the ongoing question of morality, dieties, free will and the existance of evil. There are strong and accurate arguments for the gods being evil no matter what stance your argue from. If you wanted to argue that the leader of this place was a good guy, and thus worthy of ruling it, he would have given up the rulership of it.

[Gnaritas]

{Scrubbed}

[Skaven]

{Scrubbed}

[Iceforge]

It's not that stupid.

Morality requires accountability; if you are not accountable to anyone, then you are not capable of being moral. So a supreme ruler/godlike being will inevitably fall into evil, simply because they don't have any feedback (i.e. accountability) to guide them.

On the other hand a Paladin by definition is accountable to someone else, so... ya. Kinda stupid.

Just not too stupid for words. :smallbiggrin:

Strongly disagree.

Morality only requires an internal concern about right and wrong, don't think it in any way requires accountability for someone some superior to yourself.

Besides, you can have accountability to those around you or even of lower social class than yourself; A king has accoutnability to his people, to protect them.

If that is not the case, then you'd have to ask how come some of the Greater Gods of DnD-settings are good and not evil, as they have no accountability in the sense you was using it

[Zeb The Troll]

Troll Patrol: The thread has gotten off topic, and the discussion has gotten into rules-breaking territory. Thread locked.