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ThinkMinty
2015-10-02, 12:27 AM
Paladins are one of those...well, being in a party with one usually irks me. However, they're still ostensibly good, so I don't care that much if they're played well.

Moving on, what are the dos and don'ts of Paladins specifically, and Lawful Good on the whole?

EDIT: In full disclosure, part of my question has to do with my Good leaning way more Chaotic than Paladins put up with. Not Chaotic Stupid, just...Chaotic. Slaves are getting freed with or without them next time it comes up in a game.

This thread is about fluff, not crunch. That's why it's in Roleplaying Games rather than somewhere specific.

Frozen_Feet
2015-10-02, 01:08 AM
Do have at least passing understanding on the concept of natural rights, human rights (or in case of fantasy, creature rights), greco-roman justice system, Christianity, chivalry, bushido and all the other actually existing legal, military and religious doctrines which contribute to the archetype.

Don't play the type if all you want to do is punch bad people in the face while looking good.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-02, 01:23 AM
Don't: Play them, unless you've got a reason ahead of time to think the game is suitable for them.

With most games running on the more more murdery-end of murder hobo, they're generally a poor fit. Even for more serious games, with "Dark n' Gritty" being all the rage these days you're more likely to run into game trying to make mockery of morality as naive than to make it at all rewarding to play. Idealistic Heroism is out, Cynical Anti-Heroes are in.

If you're with the right group that's got the right mindset I guess it could work. Otherwise you're just going to be though of a buzzkill the first time you object to torturing someone for information, or engaging in extortion.

That's why I mostly just GM these days, and don't try to play under other GMs.

veti
2015-10-02, 09:55 PM
Don't: Play them, unless you've got a reason ahead of time to think the game is suitable for them.

This. Although I would rephrase it as "unless you've got a good idea of what kind of paladin will fit in this particular game". Because another big "don't" is "assume there's only one way to play a paladin".


Even for more serious games, with "Dark n' Gritty" being all the rage these days you're more likely to run into game trying to make mockery of morality as naive than to make it at all rewarding to play. Idealistic Heroism is out, Cynical Anti-Heroes are in.

I'd just like to point out that even in a "darkngritty" game, some paladin concepts can work well. You (and the DM, obviously) just may need to be flexible about what a paladin is, because in a game like that, concepts like "lawful good" are unlikely to mean anything even distantly approximating what the RAW say it means.

A charismatic champion of his people, one who leads from the front and courageously puts himself far into harm's way to help his own people - but ruthlessly murders enemies of all ages and laughs while he does it - is a perfectly viable version of a paladin. Another is the unwaveringly loyal and implicitly trusted lieutenant of her king, who will - regardless of her own welfare - do whatever it takes, no matter how distasteful, to keep him safe and in power. In terms of our morality, both these people would be hard-pressed to qualify as "good". Yet they're both completely unselfish and fearlessly loyal to something greater than themselves.

Metahuman1
2015-10-03, 12:47 AM
This. Although I would rephrase it as "unless you've got a good idea of what kind of paladin will fit in this particular game". Because another big "don't" is "assume there's only one way to play a paladin".



I'd just like to point out that even in a "darkngritty" game, some paladin concepts can work well. You (and the DM, obviously) just may need to be flexible about what a paladin is, because in a game like that, concepts like "lawful good" are unlikely to mean anything even distantly approximating what the RAW say it means.

A charismatic champion of his people, one who leads from the front and courageously puts himself far into harm's way to help his own people - but ruthlessly murders enemies of all ages and laughs while he does it - is a perfectly viable version of a paladin. Another is the unwaveringly loyal and implicitly trusted lieutenant of her king, who will - regardless of her own welfare - do whatever it takes, no matter how distasteful, to keep him safe and in power. In terms of our morality, both these people would be hard-pressed to qualify as "good". Yet they're both completely unselfish and fearlessly loyal to something greater than themselves.

Except that Paladin is basically "Inflexible at all times in all things to the point of near total none functionality unless the whole game and game world is tailored to them from start to finish." The Class. What you've described above? RAW? That paladin falls and has to Atone to get there class features back. Period. End of story.

If you MUST attempt it, use another class. Cleric or Crusader comes to mind. Just call yourself a knight or a paladin with out those pesky alignment restrictions or that impossible code of conduct. Bonus, your mechanically actually good at being a warrior championing Good and/or Law.

ThinkMinty
2015-10-03, 02:24 AM
Except that Paladin is basically "Inflexible at all times in all things to the point of near total none functionality unless the whole game and game world is tailored to them from start to finish." The Class. What you've described above? RAW? That paladin falls and has to Atone to get there class features back. Period. End of story.

If you MUST attempt it, use another class. Cleric or Crusader comes to mind. Just call yourself a knight or a paladin with out those pesky alignment restrictions or that impossible code of conduct. Bonus, your mechanically actually good at being a warrior championing Good and/or Law.

They're championing Law, I'm not so sure they always champion Good.

Millstone85
2015-10-03, 05:10 AM
One of my regrets is that, when I first played a P&P RPG, the DM dissuaded me from making a paladin. He explained to me that such a character had to follow a rigid code of honor / set of virtues that he thought made the game no fun at all. Only, we were going to play fourth edition D&D in which, I later understood, a paladin is simply defined as a god's champion. The penalty for straying away from the faith's ideals, which were not necessarily lawful or good, was to get in trouble with the church or possibly the deity itself.

Don't: Just accept someone's verdict that the class sucks, even if they are the DM.

OldTrees1
2015-10-03, 07:05 AM
Do: Hold yourself to a higher standard. (Note: This even applies to paragons of other alignments)

JAL_1138
2015-10-03, 07:26 AM
Do familiarize yourself with the rules of behavior for the class, if any, within the game system you're using (AD&D had an extremely specific code, 4e had practically none, and 5e has broadly-defined oaths).

Do ask the DM for clarification on their definitions of lawful good (or other applicable alignment).

If you're not the party paladin, Do learn how to hide things from them when necessary.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-10-03, 08:41 AM
Do: Hold yourself to a higher standard. (Note: This even applies to paragons of other alignments)

This, and it works both ways. A paladin does not join in any dishonarable behaviour, but he or she does not have to chastise anyone who does something they'd never allow themself to do.

You do not have to stop the rogue from picking the guards pocket for the keys to the jail cell, a paladin would never stoop so low, even if just because having that skill implies a lot of ugly things about ones doings. But it's kind of important that the party gets out of there and save the world now, and this is the way to do it with the least possible bloodshed.

It may not work for every paladin character concept, but it works pretty well for any group of people playing a game together trying not to annoy each other too much.

Amphetryon
2015-10-03, 09:01 AM
DO: Make sure you and the DM are on the same page regarding what is Lawful behavior, and what is Good behavior, within the campaign. More than one DM has made a Paladin fall for adhering to a strict code that didn't meet the DM's notion of what Lawful Good meant, in-setting.

Talyn
2015-10-03, 09:59 AM
To play a Knight, you should do a little reading about what it truly means to have a code of honor. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is in the public domain, and has two different but equally valid paragons of Lawful Good. The first are the knights in The Knight's Tale. The second is the noble husband in the Franklin's Tale.

More generally, Knights and Paladins have been given power - martial power, spiritual power, and political power - with the intention that they use it, and that power needs to be used for the benefit of others. Using that power selfishly is the worst sin a paladin can commit.

Do: Operate under the assumption that you are the most expendable person in the party - if someone has to hold the line and buy time for the others to run, it's you. If someone has to sleep in the road because the party can't afford an inn bed for everyone, it's you. If someone needs to give up their blood, or their treasure, or their good name in the service of the party, it's you.

Do: Operate under the assumption, every day, that you are going to die for your cause, or for your friends, or for someone you've just met and don't know anything about but needs help. A lot of medieval chivalry sounds strange to modern sensibilities because it is, in many ways, a death cult, where knights were expected to abide by their codes of honor, and trust in God that they would die when He sees fit.

Do: Be the example to the rest of your party and to the world at large. A good DM will, given a paladin PC, create opportunities where your character can inspire the other players and the NPCs with their courage, fairness, and generosity. Rise to the occasion every time this happens.

Don't: Expect to be perfect. Nobody is 100% their alignment all the time. Your character will make mistakes, act with unthinking arrogance or selfishness, or fail to be all that they can be sometimes. A DM who demands that you be perfect all the time is missing out on a real opportunity for good character roleplaying - people are, after all, defined by their flaws just as much as their virtues. When your character screws up, though, he should acknowledge it (when he realizes it), work harder to not fail again in the future, and do whatever he can to make amends. The important thing, after all, is to keep trying to be Lawful Good.

Don't: Apply modern standards to thinking to this role. If you have been reading what I posted above and are thinking "this sounds insane, nobody would ever act this way," either talk to your DM about expectations or play a different class.

legomaster00156
2015-10-03, 10:07 AM
I think a good quote about Paladins is this, and I don't remember the source. It sums up their self-sacrifice and the terrible life that being a Paladin really is.

"Why on Earth would anyone become a Paladin?"
"So that others don't have to."

Vitruviansquid
2015-10-03, 10:28 AM
Do: Actually do good.

Don't: Do evil a lot, and make excuses about why you couldn't do good.

Kitten Champion
2015-10-03, 11:05 AM
I would say my major "Don't" is...

Don't be a zealot, or rather, don't assume you have to be. I find many tend to distill faith-based classes to some caricature of how they think overtly religious characters are or should be rather than just people with minds, personalities, outside interests beyond prayer and smiting things, and depth. Faith would likely be their primary source of motivation, and undoubtedly would shape their worldview and sense of ethics... but they're still just flawed people with their own issues and desires who ultimately you should feel some sense of relatability towards if you're going to play them.

Thrudd
2015-10-03, 11:28 AM
In general, make sure you have knowledge of the setting you are in. You need to know what "evil" means in your world, ask the DM what they expect of a paladin or LG alignment before you make assumptions. Know the laws of the land you're supposed to be serving, and the commandments or principles of the deity that give you your powers.

For instance, you shouldn't assume every classically "evil" species is ok to murder with impugnity, unless in your setting it is established that all orcs, goblins etc are inhuman monsters that can't be reasoned with, or your kingdom is involved in a war against them and they are all enemy combatants.

A good person, especially a paladin, would adhere to a sense of fairness and attempt to parley with intelligent creatures before deciding lethal force is required (given the opportunity). You might call for them to surrender before slaughtering them.

You don't need to be a stick-in-the-mud, paladins and LG can have a normal range of personalities and attitudes.

Be fair, don't kill without need, respect the law of the land you serve, display faith in your deity, and be willing to sacrifice to help others.

DigoDragon
2015-10-03, 11:42 AM
Do remember that even paladins can have a sense of humor. My wife has played the best example of Paladin I've ever seen. Upholds the law, does good for no one's sake other than to benefit the one she's doing the good for, and she can still joke with the party and go out for drinks. All in moderation of course.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-10-03, 04:50 PM
I think a good quote about Paladins is this, and I don't remember the source. It sums up their self-sacrifice and the terrible life that being a Paladin really is.

"Why on Earth would anyone become a Paladin?"
"So that others don't have to."


The source is Goblins.

Ears says that, I think just after they've gotten into the sewer.

Hawkstar
2015-10-03, 05:09 PM
Except that Paladin is basically "Inflexible at all times in all things to the point of near total none functionality unless the whole game and game world is tailored to them from start to finish." The Class. What you've described above? RAW? That paladin falls and has to Atone to get there class features back. Period. End of story.

You are two editions out of date.

Keltest
2015-10-03, 05:21 PM
Do: be respectful of your companions' lifestyle choices. Chaotic good is an entirely valid way to be good, and Lawful neutral is perfectly acceptable as well.

Don't: act as the moral police for your group. Barring overtly evil actions, you are not required to control, nor are affected by, the choices your group makes.

Do: lead by example. Observers should be impressed by your commitment to your high moral standards and want to imitate you.

Don't: pick unnecessary fights. You are not compelled to use honorable duels as a resolution to every confrontation. Discretion is the better part of valor, and a conflict avoided is the best kind of conflict.

Do: fight evil when you come across it. It is your job, after all.

Don't: Use searching for evil as an excuse to get into a fight. Getting into a pointless bar fight helps nobody and makes Lawful Good look bad to boot.

Agrippa
2015-10-03, 05:48 PM
Would anyone like to dissect this post/thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?322671-My-Perspective-on-the-Paladin-s-Code-of-Conduct) for paladin dos and don'ts? I'm asking because some of these rules seem overly restrictive.

Templarkommando
2015-10-03, 06:19 PM
This is from my experience playing a decent amount of 2.0 and 3.5.

I actually like the Paladin class as a concept, but I never really play the actual class. I did just finish a campaign where I spent about 10 years playing the concept of a Paladin that only had levels in fighter. Before I really got to know my regular DM, I was really worried about falling. I had played in several 1 or 2 session campaigns where the DM had an unattainable code for Paladins that was so strict you would be liable to fall at least once a session. This standard of course shot down both in and out of game reasons for playing a pally (why play a class known for faith and virtue when your god always abandons you in a dilemma and all morality is a fuzzy gray area?). The original concept of Paladins comes from the Knights of the Round Table, or the Song of Roland. Occasionally these guys had supernatural abilities, but more often than not, they were basically skilled soldiers trying to live up to an ideal. This is why my fallback for this role is to play a chaotic good fighter that is essentially a professional soldier. Chaotic Good is a lot harder to fall from and it allows me to play the character that I want to play.

A lot of this depends on knowing the group you are going to be playing with. I've played in groups with players that really give off an anti-paladin feel just from their out of game demeanor. I've been in groups where pally is reasonable, but frequently it gets played in a way that is always asking dumb questions about alignment. The question "What would a Lawful Good character do in this situation?" it really cuts off role play as far as I'm concerned, and it frequently just bugs the hell out of people that are just trying to play the game. If you're not sure about the group and do roll a pally, if it becomes clear that your group isn't cut out to have a paladin in it very quickly, be ready to retire your character at need. There'll be another chance to play it in another game.

Another part of this depends on knowing the feel of your campaign world. Some campaign worlds are just not conducive to playing as a pally. Ask your DM beforehand whether they appreciate pally as a class or not.

Xefas
2015-10-03, 06:28 PM
Do: Commit baseless genocide until you ping Evil, put on a Helm of Opposite Alignment, and suicide to sneak into heaven.

Don't: Compromise even in the face of Armageddon.



I mean, this is the advice I'm giving you, not the advice you should take.

Delta
2015-10-03, 06:54 PM
Another part of this depends on knowing the feel of your campaign world. Some campaign worlds are just not conducive to playing as a pally. Ask your DM beforehand whether they appreciate pally as a class or not.

And of course be aware what kind of DM you have. I've seen DMs who when asked if a character would fit a certain group (I had no idea about the other PCs characters, new campaign that got set up on pretty short notice) just said "Yeah, sure" and then you ended up with a Paladin of Law in a group full of "anything for loot" rogues, "anything for money" mercenaries and "anything for knowledge" black mages, and when you tell the DM that this is exactly the reason you asked in advance he just shrugs and says it's an "interesting roleplaying challenge" and he didn't want to tell you not to play a class if you like it.

So in essence, yeah always ask in advance, but if you think you might have such a "hands-off" DM willing to let the group implode because it creates "interesting challenges" (obviously, it didn't. There's nothing remotely interesting about an inter-party conflict when there's no middle ground to compromise on which of course happened just about every 5 minutes with a paladin in a "dark neutral" group) then it's better to ask the other players directly. Especially if there's a rogue or smth similar involved, I'd always recommend talking with the player in advance to find out if your characters are compatible. There's a world of a difference between a "steal from the rich, give to the poor" Robin Hood Rogue and a "stab everyone, take their gold and then stab them again for fun" Belkar imitator.

JCAll
2015-10-03, 07:50 PM
They're championing Law, I'm not so sure they always champion Good.

I would say the opposite. That Paladins are champions of Good, Law is simply their preferred way of serving the Good.

Keltest
2015-10-03, 08:21 PM
I would say the opposite. That Paladins are champions of Good, Law is simply their preferred way of serving the Good.

Exactly. Paladins are Good first, Lawful second. They will always prioritize good over law, though they will strive to accommodate both when possible.

Thrudd
2015-10-03, 11:02 PM
Would anyone like to dissect this post/thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?322671-My-Perspective-on-the-Paladin-s-Code-of-Conduct) for paladin dos and don'ts? I'm asking because some of these rules seem overly restrictive.

I think that post sums up what a paladin is meant to be quite well, the code of chivalry is exactly what the class was designed for. I don't think there is anything extreme there. Sone people may find that the always attacking honorably and never turning you back to an enemy are too limiting to their party. But also remember that paladins don't like to be associated with non-good chatacters on more than temporary basis. The type of people likely to use poison and garrote people from behind are not the sorts paladins hang out with. Also, though the paladin may not use sneak attack tactics, they can make strategic use of their environment and be smart in battle. Never turning your back on an opponent doesn't mean you can never retreat or disengage from combat, but it may mean you are the last one to retreat, to make sure others are safe first. You engage in fighting retreats, you never leave anyone behind if you can help it.

Templarkommando
2015-10-04, 12:38 AM
And of course be aware what kind of DM you have. I've seen DMs who when asked if a character would fit a certain group (I had no idea about the other PCs characters, new campaign that got set up on pretty short notice) just said "Yeah, sure" and then you ended up with a Paladin of Law in a group full of "anything for loot" rogues, "anything for money" mercenaries and "anything for knowledge" black mages, and when you tell the DM that this is exactly the reason you asked in advance he just shrugs and says it's an "interesting roleplaying challenge" and he didn't want to tell you not to play a class if you like it.

So in essence, yeah always ask in advance, but if you think you might have such a "hands-off" DM willing to let the group implode because it creates "interesting challenges" (obviously, it didn't. There's nothing remotely interesting about an inter-party conflict when there's no middle ground to compromise on which of course happened just about every 5 minutes with a paladin in a "dark neutral" group) then it's better to ask the other players directly. Especially if there's a rogue or smth similar involved, I'd always recommend talking with the player in advance to find out if your characters are compatible. There's a world of a difference between a "steal from the rich, give to the poor" Robin Hood Rogue and a "stab everyone, take their gold and then stab them again for fun" Belkar imitator.

I agree, definitely. There are surely pitfalls of just taking the DMs word for party compatibility.

Metahuman1
2015-10-04, 01:08 AM
Exactly. Paladins are Good first, Lawful second. They will always prioritize good over law, though they will strive to accommodate both when possible.

Except that as soon as you fail to be lawful, you stop being a pally. So, in practice, Law just as important. And thats the part that often hangs you.

theNater
2015-10-04, 03:32 AM
Except that as soon as you fail to be lawful, you stop being a pally. So, in practice, Law just as important. And thats the part that often hangs you.
You don't fall for a single Chaotic act. You do fall for a single Evil act. The two alignment axes are not equally important.

GloatingSwine
2015-10-04, 03:46 AM
Except that as soon as you fail to be lawful, you stop being a pally. So, in practice, Law just as important. And thats the part that often hangs you.

No, it's the part a rules lawyering DM will hang you with out of spite.

Remember that a Paladin's version of "lawful" is embodied only by the Paladin code of conduct and their faith in their god, which is an expression of the higher external force that they believe embodies goodness itself.

If a Paladin acts in the way the Paladin code of conduct would have them act, they don't fall, no matter how convoluted a situation the DM arranges to try and force them to.

ThinkMinty
2015-10-04, 10:05 AM
Except that as soon as you fail to be lawful, you stop being a pally. So, in practice, Law just as important. And thats the part that often hangs you.

The Law part's the one that keeps them from helpin' you liberate slaves if it'd be too disruptive or inconvenient, or any other dashing Chaotic Good derring-do the game dangles in front of you like schmuck bait.

Metahuman1
2015-10-04, 11:23 AM
No, it's the part a rules lawyering DM will hang you with out of spite.

Remember that a Paladin's version of "lawful" is embodied only by the Paladin code of conduct and their faith in their god, which is an expression of the higher external force that they believe embodies goodness itself.

If a Paladin acts in the way the Paladin code of conduct would have them act, they don't fall, no matter how convoluted a situation the DM arranges to try and force them to.

What rules lawyering? Slavery is evil, the kings a horrible tyrant, but hey, the law went into place legitimately for slavery and the king got the thrown fair and square. The only things you can do about it are try to go through the obviously corrupt and rigged system, and fail and potentially fall because your allowing evil to go unstopped, or break the laws over your knee, loose your lawful alignment in the process, and since Paladins MUST be both good and lawful, you still loose out doing the paladin bit.


That's not rules lawyering, that's RAW and the unfortunateness of bad game design. A well hence my original suggestion. Use a different class.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-04, 11:24 AM
The Law part's the one that keeps them from helpin' you liberate slaves if it'd be too disruptive or inconvenient, or any other dashing Chaotic Good derring-do the game dangles in front of you like schmuck bait.

This isn't true. Even by rigid 3.P standards paladins need only obey legitimate authority and law. Any law that is inherently evil like the support of chattle slavery is inherently illegitimate because evil is illlegimate and needn't be obeyed.

The "law" of paladin lawful is the law of fairness, honesty, loyalty, consistency and resistance to compromise with evil. Not the law of mortal kings.

hamishspence
2015-10-04, 11:27 AM
Except when the DM's a subscriber to "Formians are LN, they're defined mostly by their practice of slavery, hence slavery is Neutral not Evil"

There's probably not too many DMs like that though.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-04, 11:30 AM
Except when the DM's a subscriber to "Formians are LN, they're defined mostly by their practice of slavery, hence slavery is Neutral not Evil"

There's probably not too many DMs like that though.

They're what I'd call a pile of *****, and I wouldn't play with them. Slavery is evil, full stop. Real world, fantasy world whatever. No ifs ands or buts.

Cazero
2015-10-04, 01:21 PM
Except when the DM's a subscriber to "Formians are LN, they're defined mostly by their practice of slavery, hence slavery is Neutral not Evil"

There's probably not too many DMs like that though.

95% of formians are mindless drones. They're biological golems as far as the alignement system is concerned. Using a golem as you would use a slave so real people don't have to do the hard work is a feature, not a bug.

Now if they enslave people from other races, that's Evil. Unless it's an unfortunate assumption that other races real individual wouldn't be moving outside of their houses. There are drones for that.

Keltest
2015-10-04, 01:57 PM
What rules lawyering? Slavery is evil, the kings a horrible tyrant, but hey, the law went into place legitimately for slavery and the king got the thrown fair and square. The only things you can do about it are try to go through the obviously corrupt and rigged system, and fail and potentially fall because your allowing evil to go unstopped, or break the laws over your knee, loose your lawful alignment in the process, and since Paladins MUST be both good and lawful, you still loose out doing the paladin bit.


That's not rules lawyering, that's RAW and the unfortunateness of bad game design. A well hence my original suggestion. Use a different class.
Nah, that's not even rules lawyering, that's just plain the DM changing the rules to be a jerk. Individual chaotic acts are not enough to change your alignment, trying to fight evil and failing is not a fall-worthy offense, and a Lawful alignment doesn't require you to obey every single law you encounter regardless of context anyway.

hamishspence
2015-10-04, 02:04 PM
Now if they enslave people from other races, that's Evil.

They do.

p108 MM:


They seek to colonize all that they see and incorporate all living things into their hive as workers.

Expansionist in the extreme, formians are dedicated to spreading their colonies until they have taken over everything and their order is unquestioned. To further this end, they attack all other creatures, usually to put them to work building and expanding cities. Formians maintain these "conscripted" workers as well as those mentally dominated by the power of their taskmasters.


95% of formians are mindless drones.

Int 6 isn't that low - and is standard for a worker. Warriors are Int 10 as standard.

GPuzzle
2015-10-04, 02:16 PM
Do: help folks, save them from Evil, bring light into darkness.

Don't: do succubus/incubus/things that might pass Infernal/Abyssal STDs.

Cazero
2015-10-04, 02:44 PM
They do.

p108 MM:

They seek to colonize all that they see and incorporate all living things into their hive as workers.

Expansionist in the extreme, formians are dedicated to spreading their colonies until they have taken over everything and their order is unquestioned. To further this end, they attack all other creatures, usually to put them to work building and expanding cities. Formians maintain these "conscripted" workers as well as those mentally dominated by the power of their taskmasters.
It's not like they were genociding for the heck of it. Expansionism is a perfectly neutral behavior : law of nature, survival of the fittest, etc. And you can't blame them for not realising that humans aren't drones, especially since cubicles. (wait, there are no cubicles in D&D)
The only thing needed for a sapient specie to be classified as cattle is a communication issue.
And if a colony actually knows about the whole sapience thing? That one colony happens to be lead by an Evil leader. The drones are still Neutral.


Int 6 isn't that low - and is standard for a worker. Warriors are Int 10 as standard.
INT score is an extremely inappropriate tool to measure sapience, and I don't understand why D&D associates those concepts. A drone can have an INT score and use basic cognitive capacities to make it more efficient while remaining non-worthy of the qualification of person. That's the whole point of real world AI.

TheTeaMustFlow
2015-10-04, 05:53 PM
Using a golem as you would use a slave so real people don't have to do the hard work is a feature, not a bug.


Although in this case, the features are also bugs.

Hawkstar
2015-10-04, 08:52 PM
95% of formians are mindless drones. They're biological golems as far as the alignement system is concerned. Using a golem as you would use a slave so real people don't have to do the hard work is a feature, not a bug.

Now if they enslave people from other races, that's Evil. Unless it's an unfortunate assumption that other races real individual wouldn't be moving outside of their houses. There are drones for that.

What makes slavery Evil instead of Lawful Neutral is the inherent abuses that mortal minds invest in it when given power over another. The Formian mind remains fair, though, even when given a level of power that would corrupt any mortal.

Cluedrew
2015-10-04, 09:07 PM
DO: Go out of your way to help people, anything from stopping bandits to helping a farmer move a heavy crate. Be friendly and agreeable when you can, which should be more than usual. Be the last one in the retreat and the first one in the charge. Donate some of your spoils to good causes, but don't tell people that, that is not why you are doing it. Go back even when it is dangerous and put yourself at risk for others. Do it the hard way, poring all your blood sweat and tears into it if it will give a better result. Be upfront and honest in your dealings.

DON'T: Do all of these things. The character should be good but not some sort of caricature.

DON'T: Be stupid about it. Morals to not replace common sense. Most of the time, you could play someone like that if you wanted.

I've got a different way to put it up.

DO: Be a hero.

That is in the moral sense, not the literally one.

Zale
2015-10-04, 10:19 PM
Except when the DM's a subscriber to "Formians are LN, they're defined mostly by their practice of slavery, hence slavery is Neutral not Evil"

There's probably not too many DMs like that though.

So we can take from this that alignment is stupid and tends to cause loads of problems.

This is why I feel so bad for Paladins- they're meant to evoke a particular heroic archetype, but they get strangled by the inconsistencies of the alignment system.

OldTrees1
2015-10-04, 10:37 PM
So we can take from this that alignment is stupid and tends to cause loads of problems.

This is why I feel so bad for Paladins- they're meant to evoke a particular heroic archetype, but they get strangled by the inconsistencies of the alignment system.

Paladins are meant for games where the DM, and not WotC, is in charge of Alignment.

Dimers
2015-10-04, 11:09 PM
DO: Act like Florence from Freefall (http://freefall.purrsia.com/default.htm). A whole character who works constantly to do what's right and persuade those around her to higher standards themselves ... unwavering in her moral sense despite urges to the contrary from both inside and out.

Amaril
2015-10-04, 11:58 PM
DO: Act like Florence from Freefall (http://freefall.purrsia.com/default.htm). A whole character who works constantly to do what's right and persuade those around her to higher standards themselves ... unwavering in her moral sense despite urges to the contrary from both inside and out.

On that note,

DO: Act like Michael Carpenter of The Dresden Files. Another shining example for paladins everywhere: always righteous, merciful but not foolish, honest without being aggressive, and never, ever judgmental of his allies for not living up to his own standards.

NRSASD
2015-10-05, 12:28 AM
DON'T: Act like Jayne from Firefly. If you want a shining example of what not to do as a paladin, look no further.

Zale
2015-10-05, 12:56 AM
Paladins are meant for games where the DM, and not WotC, is in charge of Alignment.

That's just as bad. What one DM rules as good, another might state is evil. Which is all well and good for most people, but for a Paladin that has heavy mechanical effects.

Keltest
2015-10-05, 05:16 AM
That's just as bad. What one DM rules as good, another might state is evil. Which is all well and good for most people, but for a Paladin that has heavy mechanical effects.

Presumably your DM is, if not open about what they consider evil, at least consistent enough for you to learn on your own. Yes, it can be problematic if you switch between DMs frequently, but that's hardly a unique problem then.

Bulhakov
2015-10-05, 05:40 AM
A previous thread on the subject:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?288426-Paladin-Rules

Some good advice for DMs:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p9ew?Should-the-Paladin-Fall-A-Guide

ThinkMinty
2015-10-05, 06:07 AM
On that note,

DO: Act like Michael Carpenter of The Dresden Files. Another shining example for paladins everywhere: always righteous, merciful but not foolish, honest without being aggressive, and never, ever judgmental of his allies for not living up to his own standards.

It's the different between being righteous and being self-righteous.


Using a golem as you would use a slave so real people don't have to do the hard work is a feature, not a bug.

Although in this case, the features are also bugs.

I still want the golem to have free will, a choice in the matter, and fair working conditions. Sapient machines don't deserve to be treated like tools either.


They're what I'd call a pile of *****, and I wouldn't play with them. Slavery is evil, full stop. Real world, fantasy world whatever. No ifs ands or buts.

I agree with that statement as much as I possibly can.

Kami2awa
2015-10-05, 06:54 AM
No, it's the part a rules lawyering DM will hang you with out of spite.


Don't let that guy GM!

Cazero
2015-10-05, 07:27 AM
I still want the golem to have free will, a choice in the matter, and fair working conditions. Sapient machines don't deserve to be treated like tools either.

If you were willing [] to craft a golem that gives up the main benefit of employing a golem, who was I to argue?
That's why you make golems to be non-sapient. Or so you hope. Any argument on sapience of the exploited golem now falls into the 'tragic misunderstanding' case and might require suicide by Ender if you ever find out.
Unless you're Evil. Then you're cool with it, but that's off topic.

Garimeth
2015-10-05, 07:42 AM
This thread sums up why I don't use alignments and I allow my players to be paladins devoted to an ideal, cause, or deity. Paladin of Justice? Cool. Paladin of Prator? Cool. Paladin of the God of War? Cool. Paladin of Death? Cool. We just have a brief convo to make sure their goals and expectations line up with the setting, and during the game they get warnings if their character starts to stray but you know what IT WON'T MATTER, because in my setting the Gods or whoever don't give you your powers, you have them already and just devote yourself to their service, which then teaches you how to use the magical power you already had!

I used to like Alignment, but now I just liked well thought out characters.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-05, 08:05 AM
This thread sums up why I don't use alignments and I allow my players to be paladins devoted to an ideal, cause, or deity. Paladin of Justice? Cool. Paladin of Prator? Cool. Paladin of the God of War? Cool. Paladin of Death? Cool. We just have a brief convo to make sure their goals and expectations line up with the setting, and during the game they get warnings if their character starts to stray but you know what IT WON'T MATTER, because in my setting the Gods or whoever don't give you your powers, you have them already and just devote yourself to their service, which then teaches you how to use the magical power you already had!

I used to like Alignment, but now I just liked well thought out characters.

Right but this isn't exactly material to the central idea of

"Magical warrior that is righteous bro to everyone: How to best play the Archetype?"

The champion of a cause is a valid approach to be sure but Champion of War is just a rather different concept entirely.

Garimeth
2015-10-05, 08:46 AM
Right but this isn't exactly material to the central idea of

"Magical warrior that is righteous bro to everyone: How to best play the Archetype?"

The champion of a cause is a valid approach to be sure but Champion of War is just a rather different concept entirely.

That's only one concept of the paladin though, the classic one to be sure. But both 13th Age and 5e kind of cater more towards my concept than previous d20esque games. I would rather have my "lawful" characters like monk, samurai, and paladin have a written code of conduct they and I create than just "ok be LG".

That said, I was more commenting on the conversation than the thesis. I think if I was going to offer one DO, I would go with yours: "Make sure they work in the game to be ran."

Even in my gritty games, the players are heroes, not anti-heroes. The game is gritty because they have to try and get down in the mud sometimes and try to stay clean themselves, but I begin with an explicit conversation that we are playing a game about heroic characters. In a game about a bunch of outlaws and ruffians don't try and roll a paladin. In a game about champions and heroes of the realm don't roll a murder-hobo.

I think most of the "Don't" is for the DM to just not be an ass, and for the player to also not be an ass. "Its what my character would do" justifies too much bad behavior imo. Equally annoying is the DM trying to make his pally fall or micromanaging their RP.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-05, 10:17 AM
That's only one concept of the paladin though, the classic one to be sure. But both 13th Age and 5e kind of cater more towards my concept than previous d20esque games. I would rather have my "lawful" characters like monk, samurai, and paladin have a written code of conduct they and I create than just "ok be LG".

That said, I was more commenting on the conversation than the thesis. I think if I was going to offer one DO, I would go with yours: "Make sure they work in the game to be ran."

Even in my gritty games, the players are heroes, not anti-heroes. The game is gritty because they have to try and get down in the mud sometimes and try to stay clean themselves, but I begin with an explicit conversation that we are playing a game about heroic characters. In a game about a bunch of outlaws and ruffians don't try and roll a paladin. In a game about champions and heroes of the realm don't roll a murder-hobo.

I think most of the "Don't" is for the DM to just not be an ass, and for the player to also not be an ass. "Its what my character would do" justifies too much bad behavior imo. Equally annoying is the DM trying to make his pally fall or micromanaging their RP.


Except the thread is explicitly about "Lawful Do-Goodniks". That's what the thread is about. It's like:
"Motocycle Riders, BMX Bandits, and other two-wheeled tricksters: Dos and Don'ts"
"Well I really prefer not being so uptight about wheels. You can do lots of sick tricks on an ATV, dune buggy or even skis. You're still a sick rider"

That's cool and all, but we're trying to dive into a specific subject here.

super dark33
2015-10-05, 10:30 AM
Do: Be a petty jerk when nothing is on the line. Otherwise, be the champion.

Dont: Be a petty jerk all the time and justify it by being a paladin.

PersonMan
2015-10-05, 11:10 AM
What rules lawyering? Slavery is evil, the kings a horrible tyrant, but hey, the law went into place legitimately for slavery and the king got the thrown fair and square.

That's when the Paladin rips open his armor to reveal a suit and that he's actually Radbruch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Radbruch).

Relevant bit being the Radbruch'sche Formel which pretty much says that law which goes against basic human rights cannot ever be legitimate.

Satinavian
2015-10-06, 05:30 AM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

Keltest
2015-10-06, 05:38 AM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

I would call that into question given that most settings have paladins be servants of good gods who would at least suggest such rights exist, if not state them explicitly. Even if it isn't a literal right to liberty, at least a right not to be tortured and forced to do labor by evil taskmasters.

Sredni Vashtar
2015-10-06, 05:55 AM
DO: Read a Superman comic. Emulate that. (Note: Batman, Captain America, and even Wolverine can also pass for decent paladin-type personalities given some flexibility. It also depends on the portrayal of said character.)

Frozen_Feet
2015-10-06, 06:22 AM
Would anyone like to dissect this post/thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?322671-My-Perspective-on-the-Paladin-s-Code-of-Conduct) for paladin dos and don'ts? I'm asking because some of these rules seem overly restrictive.

If they seem overly restrictive, that's a good sign you should not play a paladin. Because those rules are old-fashioned chivalric code as it was. That's the inspiration behind the whole class. That's the rules an actual member of the medieval warrior caste was supposed to follow.

If you can't imagine how to play a functional character who sticks to such rules, you're not ready to play the role.


The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

Yes and no. The concept did not exist in the actual middle ages, but human rights are rooted in the same legal and religious tradition as chivalry.

More importantly, D&D alignment system does acknowledge such rights; it calls them creature rights in 1st ed AD&D DMG. Human rights serve as a useful starting point for understanding what Good, and especially Lawful Good, is supposed to act like.

Hawkstar
2015-10-06, 07:35 AM
I would call that into question given that most settings have paladins be servants of good gods who would at least suggest such rights exist, if not state them explicitly. Even if it isn't a literal right to liberty, at least a right not to be tortured and forced to do labor by evil taskmasters.

Nothing in there about being forced to work for nonevil taskmasters.

Maintaining the a functioning society is everyone's responsibility.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-06, 09:14 AM
If they seem overly restrictive, that's a good sign you should not play a paladin. Because those rules are old-fashioned chivalric code as it was. That's the inspiration behind the whole class. That's the rules an actual member of the medieval warrior caste was supposed to follow.

If you can't imagine how to play a functional character who sticks to such rules, you're not ready to play the role.


I can't remember any time I've played run in, or heard a story (other than internet horror stories) about someone running D&D in any way that was reflective of the Middle Ages beyond the technology level and general window dressing. Maybe that's just my gaming groups but it's been my experience.

Things like women's rights and children rights are assumed, evils like slavery and ethnic discrimination are at least acknowledged as bad or backwards. Nobility and Knights and other people in authority tend to actually be pretty fair and respectful of citizens rather than glorified gangsters. People don't burn cats for public entertainment, or place bets on who can headbutt a restrained animal with the least number of injuries. Nobody dies in the stocks because they're too short, broken on the wheel, burned to death, or winds up having a run in with the pear of anguish.

In general everything runs by modern sensibilities and what we'd expect of Paladin is more shaped by the likes of Superman than actual medieval codes.

Frozen_Feet
2015-10-06, 09:30 AM
Yes and no.

Again, (A)D&D's concept of Good is built on largely modern sensibilities.

The Paladin, however, starting from the name, is obviously and blatantly inspired by chivalry. There is very, very little of Superman in sight, anywhere.

If you expect Paladin to be shaped more by superheroes, your expections have in turn been shaped by something completely different than the actual rulebooks or their source of inspiration.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-06, 09:46 AM
Yes and no.

Again, (A)D&D's concept of Good is built on largely modern sensibilities.

The Paladin, however, starting from the name, is obviously and blatantly inspired by chivalry. There is very, very little of Superman in sight, anywhere.

If you expect Paladin to be shaped more by superheroes, your expections have in turn been shaped by something completely different than the actual rulebooks or their source of inspiration.

I ran into the term "Paladin" first in a video game, namely Final Fantasy IV. I ran into it used in various games, various ways long before I ever ran into the sort of "Fun Fact!" bit of trivia it originally came from a real-world group of knights. The word has certainly taken on a life of it's own, well beyond whatever originally pulled it into use.

I can't speak to earlier editions as I never played before 3.5. However in the current edition paladins are dealt with in language like this:


Whatever their origin and their mission, paladins are united by their oaths to stand against the forces of evil.


Although many paladins are devoted to gods of good, a paladin’s power com es as much from a commitment to justice itself as it does from a god.


How did you experience your call to serve as a paladin? Did you hear a whisper from an unseen god or angel while you were at prayer? Did another paladin sense the potential within you and decide to train you as a squire?Or did some terrible event—the destruction of your home, perhaps—drive you to your quests?


Through your acts of mercy,kindness, and forgiveness, kindle the light of hope in the world, beating back despair.


Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom .

Lots and lots in there about the power of truth, justice and kindness and the need to help others and protect the weak. Relatively little about hierarchical relationships, battle etiquette and fealty to mortal lords. Near as I can see there's about two words on that entire class, in one sub-heading for one oath power. Certainly nothing about always accepting duels, or being chaste/temperate. It's also explicit that the power comes from the Paladins commitment to their cause and that matters of god are secondary and personal, never mind being bound to the will of some earthly church.

GloatingSwine
2015-10-06, 10:49 AM
It's also explicit that the power comes from the Paladins commitment to their cause and that matters of god are secondary and personal, never mind being bound to the will of some earthly church.

True, though if the player chooses to be a Paladin aligned with a certain god, their cause should be something that god would naturally support and so their behaviours would be close to those expected by that god.

The duels thing comes from the idea that Paladins should be honourable and not cowardly. In most cases a duel would be fought over a matter of honour, but the Paladin should also be aware if someone is manipulating them into a duel for untoward reasons (to isolate or distract them, or because it's a trap), that's why they get tools like sense motive and detect evil.

That's also why people say that Paladins can't go along with sneak attacks, which is sort of true, a Paladin would be the guy telling the opponents that they are surrounded and should surrender (with that diplomancy class skill and probably decent Cha), even if he doesn't give away the actual position of hidden allies, the enemy is now duly and honourably warned what they're in for.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-06, 11:00 AM
True, though if the player chooses to be a Paladin aligned with a certain god, their cause should be something that god would naturally support and so their behaviours would be close to those expected by that god.

The duels thing comes from the idea that Paladins should be honourable and not cowardly. In most cases a duel would be fought over a matter of honour, but the Paladin should also be aware if someone is manipulating them into a duel for untoward reasons (to isolate or distract them, or because it's a trap), that's why they get tools like sense motive and detect evil.

That's also why people say that Paladins can't go along with sneak attacks, which is sort of true, a Paladin would be the guy telling the opponents that they are surrounded and should surrender (with that diplomancy class skill and probably decent Cha), even if he doesn't give away the actual position of hidden allies, the enemy is now duly and honourably warned what they're in for.

Thing is, 3.P only refers to "Honor" in the abstract defining it like this:

act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth)

Which leaves a lot to filled in with per-table or per-GM definitions. You can say the spirit of it is a bit more defined, in that it's geared an attitude of "Play Fair" but those aren't hard lines. 5e defines it a bit more concretely:


Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm.

We can see that this is really divorced from anything that might resemble "Honor" in the chivalric/middle-ages sense. At least working from the 5e definition, duels would generally be considered to be dishonorable. As they generally do no good while having a considerable chance of causing harm. We've come to learn since the olden days that causing grievous harm or death over a perceived slight, breach of etiquette, insult or disagreement is preposterous. D&D I've found generally reflects that modern sensibility in practice, and certainly in the current edition's text if not the previous.

Satinavian
2015-10-06, 01:29 PM
I would call that into question given that most settings have paladins be servants of good gods who would at least suggest such rights exist, if not state them explicitly. Even if it isn't a literal right to liberty, at least a right not to be tortured and forced to do labor by evil taskmasters.You can't have a pseudomedieval society and a lot of modern gods teaching modern philosophy and modern laws and rules.


Yes and no. The concept did not exist in the actual middle ages, but human rights are rooted in the same legal and religious tradition as chivalry.Of course the rights didn't come out of nowhere and have far older roots. But the ideal of chivalry is pretty different from the ideal of human rights.

I can't remember any time I've played run in, or heard a story (other than internet horror stories) about someone running D&D in any way that was reflective of the Middle Ages beyond the technology level and general window dressing. Maybe that's just my gaming groups but it's been my experience.I can't remember a game of D&D that was in any way more reflective of modern society than medieval society that didn't play on Ebberon. None of my gaming groups everread all those medieval inspired books assumed modern societies. Gender equality is the one big exception that was always done (and even here i had a lot of players from both genders complain it wouldn't feel historical enough)

Keltest
2015-10-06, 01:51 PM
You can't have a pseudomedieval society and a lot of modern gods teaching modern philosophy and modern laws and rules.

Why not? The idea that there were lines you don't cross has existed in some form for a very long time.

LudicSavant
2015-10-06, 02:26 PM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins.

:smallannoyed: No, it isn't anachronistic. Human rights legislation shows up in history well over a thousand years ago. Check out, say, the Constitution of Medina from 1400 years ago (which detailed rights like "The security of God is equal for all groups" and "Non-Muslim members will have the same political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion"). Or the Al-Risalah al-Huquq ("The Treatise of Rights"), also from around 1400 years ago. Both the Magna Carta and the Statue of Kalisz were some 800 years ago. The Stoics were in ancient Greece and had the concept of natural rights emerging from natural laws. And tons of other examples...



Of course the rights didn't come out of nowhere and have far older roots. But the ideal of chivalry is pretty different from the ideal of human rights.

Chivalry was not the only ideology of the time. Moreover, chivalry includes an awful lot of things that wouldn't apply in many fantasy worlds. For instance, it has an awful lot to say about Christianity.

OldTrees1
2015-10-06, 02:44 PM
That's just as bad. What one DM rules as good, another might state is evil. Which is all well and good for most people, but for a Paladin that has heavy mechanical effects.

Why is that bad? People vary in there own moral/ethical beliefs but usually group with compatible minded people. In contrast WotC has written such a self contradictory web that it might as well be demonstrably false. I think most Paladins(characters that need a consistent morality) would prefer to be in worlds with self consistent moralities that are similar to what their player's expect.

Velaryon
2015-10-06, 11:18 PM
Do: Be on the same page with your GM as far as what being a Paladin/Knight/Lawful Good character means.

Don't: Be the party policeman. You are not there to put limits on other players' enjoyment of the game.

Do: Work with the other players out-of-game to figure out how best to integrate your character with any other characters that don't share his morals and values.

Don't: Put a lot of ranks in Spot, Listen, or Sense Motive if you have party members who do a lot of things your character doesn't approve of. :smallwink:

Mando Knight
2015-10-06, 11:30 PM
Don't: Be the party policeman. You are not there to put limits on other players' enjoyment of the game.

However, this isn't to say you can't be a moderating force. If they're doing their damnedest to suggest or enact crazy, chaotic "plans", suggesting a more reasonable solution isn't limiting others' enjoyment until you start getting unreasonable in trying to promote it.

Satinavian
2015-10-07, 06:41 AM
:smallannoyed: No, it isn't anachronistic. Human rights legislation shows up in history well over a thousand years ago. Check out, say, the Constitution of Medina from 1400 years ago (which detailed rights like "The security of God is equal for all groups" and "Non-Muslim members will have the same political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion"). Or the Al-Risalah al-Huquq ("The Treatise of Rights"), also from around 1400 years ago. Both the Magna Carta and the Statue of Kalisz were some 800 years ago. The Stoics were in ancient Greece and had the concept of natural rights emerging from natural laws. And tons of other examples...I said there were earlier roots. But not a single one of them are the same as the modern concepts of human rights as a whole.

Yes, the idea of freedom of religion is extremely old. And closely linked to failure of enforced religion.
Freedom and equality for everyone ? Not so much.
Right to live (e.g. no death penalty) ? Not really
No slavery and no servitude ? Hm ... only as thought experiment
No degrading punishment ? Well, no.
No arbitrary arrests ? Impartial tribunals for everyone ? Pretty modern idea. That was an ideal, not a right
presumption of innocence ? Yes, pretty old but not regarded as "right"
Right for asylum ? No
Right to nationality ? No. Even the concept of nationality is pretty new.
Right to partake in gouvernment ? No.
Right to education ? Certainly not

All of them at once ? Never.

I could accept the natural rights as discussed during Enlightenment as similar enough to count. But not the earlier examples, even if they include one or two concepts that are now considered human rights.


I think most Paladins(characters that need a consistent morality) would prefer to be in worlds with self consistent moralities that are similar to what their player's expect.Exactly. But what do players expect ? A modern morality system in a medieval world (which makes pretty much every authority figure evil as modern standards are not met) ? Or a morality actually fitting the world ?

PersonMan
2015-10-07, 10:09 AM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

You can just call them the 'Pillars of True Goodness' and have them be part of the universal Good that empowers paladins (assuming you're in a setting where Good itself is the boss of all paladins, and they don't work for deities).

Mr.Moron
2015-10-07, 10:22 AM
You can just call them the 'Pillars of True Goodness' and have them be part of the universal Good that empowers paladins (assuming you're in a setting where Good itself is the boss of all paladins, and they don't work for deities).

It's the kind of thing that might make an awesome mechanic when you think of it. Rather than a typical spell slot or uses per X scenario, the more good a paladin did the more powerful they get. Do at least one good deed in a day? Get a valor point. Do a particularity big good deed? Get 2 per act. Risk your life to do good in way above/beyond the usual call of duty, gain 5. Spend these on spells & abilities.

Yeah I'm aware lots of RPGs have somewhat similar RP rewards to this. I've played in them. I'd just love seeing it built into a kind of more mechanics driven, math & rules defined resolution, D&D-type chassis than they typically appear in.

(I realize this post is kind off topic here but the direct empowerment idea just kind of made me go "That'd cool to represent in a strict mechanical sense")

Garimeth
2015-10-07, 10:55 AM
I think this becomes a lot easier when you make the distinction between the various types of "Lawful Good". I feel there is a distinct difference between a knight, a samurai, a monk, a cleric, and a paladin who are all LG.

The question is this: to whom/what does the character ULTIMATELY answer to?

A ruler? Probably a knight or samurai.
A church/god? Probably a cleric or paladin.
A code of conduct? Probably a knight or monk. Could also possibly include paladin or samurai.
An IDEA? Probably a paladin, cleric, or monk.

They are all LG, so the distinction comes from who their ultimate LAWFUL authority is - which varies, and changes how they view "Good".

Millstone85
2015-10-07, 11:47 AM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.You can just call them the 'Pillars of True Goodness' and have them be part of the universal Good that empowers paladins (assuming you're in a setting where Good itself is the boss of all paladins, and they don't work for deities).Or if paladins do work for deities, you can emphasize how the latter are much more than medieval fellows with lotsa magic. The gods are otherworldly and ageless. They have seen the rise and fall of a thousand civilizations in a thousand realities. They know all about the setting a paladin was born in and they demand higher standards. It just so happens that divine ideals match the DM's morality.

Satinavian
2015-10-07, 12:23 PM
That would somehow assume that our current modern morality is the best possible morality. I really don't like that. From the view of those gods modern morality and medieval morality should be nearly equally insufficient.

But yes, if a player would want to ignore the official contradictory statements of D&D morality and instead make some system with more internal consistancy which matches the setting (whichever it is) better, i would not be opposed to include some modern ideas. But i think i would really insist that this morality actually works in the society the paladin is from without declaring it evil. At least if the paladin is not supposed to be some kind of rebel. But most of the time no one really wanted to bother and we played with official alignement rules.

The only thing i nearly always changed was not alignement but the part of 3.x paladin code that prohibits association with evil. It is really not fun, if a supposed good class loses its power for trying diplomacy or integrating evil beings into the society or avoiding intra-partyconflict.

Garimeth
2015-10-07, 12:38 PM
The only thing i nearly always changed was not alignement but the part of 3.x paladin code that prohibits association with evil. It is really not fun, if a supposed good class loses its power for trying diplomacy or integrating evil beings into the society or avoiding intra-partyconflict.

This is true, and is why the number one DO listed here is to make sure your character works in the party/game.

If I still used alignment I would definitely throw a flag at character creation if the party seemed like it would have future problems, it helps that I explicitly don't run murder-hobo games. Because in all serious-ness the murder hobo PCs would probably not survive long before getting crushed by the local powers that be of Law and Good, or recruited by the local powers that be of Chaos and Evil.

Millstone85
2015-10-07, 01:18 PM
That would somehow assume that our current modern morality is the best possible morality. I really don't like that. From the view of those gods modern morality and medieval morality should be nearly equally insufficient.Only if those are the best possible gods. That is something I would keep in the realm of the unfathomable, where the outer gods dwell. Perhaps they want to destroy/remake the planes because, from their view, Mount Celestia and the Abyss are nearly equally insufficient.

LudicSavant
2015-10-07, 03:32 PM
I said there were earlier roots. You did, yet your posts do not illustrate a sufficient understanding of those roots, as we see in the rest of your post.


Yes, the idea of freedom of religion is extremely old. And closely linked to failure of enforced religion.
Freedom and equality for everyone ? Not so much.
Right to live (e.g. no death penalty) ? Not really
No slavery and no servitude ? Hm ... only as thought experiment
No degrading punishment ? Well, no.
No arbitrary arrests ? Impartial tribunals for everyone ? Pretty modern idea. That was an ideal, not a right
presumption of innocence ? Yes, pretty old but not regarded as "right"
Right for asylum ? No
Right to nationality ? No. Even the concept of nationality is pretty new.
Right to partake in gouvernment ? No.
Right to education ? Certainly not

This list demonstrates how little you know about anthropology and history. Pretty much everything you put "No" for has tons of historical precedent. In many cases, historical societies even took these rights further than our own does.

Right to live? Not really? History shows us examples of societies that were really hardcore about pacifism. For example, the Moriori people, when discussing what they were going to do about an incoming cannibal invasion where they knew that the guys were going to ritually torture them all to death and then eat them, said "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative." They did not raise arms, even in that situation.

No slavery or servitude? Only a thought experiment? Innumerable societies went without slavery or subservient classes for centuries. Were those just "thought experiments"? Or do you just think that getting rid of slavery is something that the Europeans/Americans came up with?

Speaking of which, equality and freedom for everyone? We have an entire category of societies in anthropology called egalitarian societies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalous_society).

No arbitrary arrests? Geez, what next, are you going to claim that the rule of law is a new concept?

Right to partake in government? Check out acephalous societies again.

Right of asylum? To quote wikipedia: "The right of asylum (sometimes called right of political asylum, from the ancient Greek word ἄσυλον[1][2]) is an ancient juridical concept, under which a person persecuted by their own country may be protected by another sovereign authority, a foreign country, or church sanctuaries (as in medieval times). This right was already recognized by the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Hebrews, from where it was adopted into Western tradition; Descartes went to the Netherlands, Voltaire to England, Hobbes to France, and each state offered protection to persecuted foreigners."


All of them at once ? Never. And this right here is a straw man argument against everyone in the thread you've replied to. Nobody has suggested it would be the exact same culture.

Satinavian
2015-10-07, 04:07 PM
Right to live? Not really? History shows us examples of societies that were really hardcore about pacifism. For example, the Moriori people, when discussing what they were going to do about an incoming cannibal invasion where they knew that the guys were going to ritually torture them all to death and then eat them, said "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative." They did not use violence, even in that situation.An odd exception and no full set of human rights. Also a modern example.

No slavery or servitude? Only a thought experiment? Innumerable societies went without slavery or subservient classes for centuries. Were those just "thought experiments"? Or do you just think that getting rid of slavery is something that the Europeans/Americans came up with?No slavery ? Yes. No subserviviant class ? While that has been true for small societies, there has been no realm of any significant size without subserviant classes.

Speaking of which, equality and freedom for everyone? We have an entire category of societies in anthropology called egalitarian societies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalous_society).Again only small scale. Small societies differ a lot from larger ones. And even if one counts them, they rarely have their equality as codified rights for every human including outsiders.

No arbitrary arrests? Geez, what next, are you going to claim that the rule of law is a new concept?While arbitrary arrests have long been recognized as a potential abuse of power, a proper right for everyone including foreign beggars to not be arbitrarily arrested by whoever keeps the law is a new idea, yes.


And this right here is a straw man argument against everyone in the thread you've replied to. Nobody has suggested it would be the exact same culture.If a culture doesn't have at least the majority of human rights, it is not gouverned by human rights. You can't tak a single right that has later been included into the list to say that human rights are as old as cultures respecting this particular one. The ideal of human rights is not older than them appearing together.

LudicSavant
2015-10-07, 04:14 PM
An odd exception and no full set of human rights. Also a modern example. How the heck is a 16th century tribal Polynesian culture a "modern" example?

Okay, here's one that's way older. Jainism. There's a really ancient one. They're so hardcore about pacifism they sweep where they walk for fear of crushing an insect, and filter their water with cheesecloth for fear of harming tiny organisms (such as "nigoda," an ancient concept of microorganisms).


No slavery ? Yes. No subserviviant class ? While that has been true for small societies, there has been no realm of any significant size without subserviant classes.
That's no different in the modern world either, so you trying to draw a difference there is erroneous.


If a culture doesn't have at least the majority of human rights, it is not gouverned by human rights. You can't tak a single right that has later been included into the list to say that human rights are as old as cultures respecting this particular one. The ideal of human rights is not older than them appearing together.

Except... yes it bloody well is, and moreover your list of human rights isn't even universal to modern ideas of human rights.

I've given numerous examples and citations. You've provided absolutely nothing except empty, extraordinary claims, such as "While arbitrary arrests have long been recognized as a potential abuse of power, a proper right for everyone including foreign beggars to not be arbitrarily arrested by whoever keeps the law is a new idea, yes." Somehow I doubt that you actually looked through every historical culture to make that claim.

Enran
2015-10-07, 04:23 PM
An odd exception and no full set of human rights. Also a modern example.
No slavery ? Yes. No subserviviant class ? While that has been true for small societies, there has been no realm of any significant size without subserviant classes.
Again only small scale. Small societies differ a lot from larger ones. And even if one counts them, they rarely have their equality as codified rights for every human including outsiders.
While arbitrary arrests have long been recognized as a potential abuse of power, a proper right for everyone including foreign beggars to not be arbitrarily arrested by whoever keeps the law is a new idea, yes.

If a culture doesn't have at least the majority of human rights, it is not gouverned by human rights. You can't tak a single right that has later been included into the list to say that human rights are as old as cultures respecting this particular one. The ideal of human rights is not older than them appearing together.
You talk about these small scale things as if it's a bad thing. The point is that there's plenty of precedent to go around. Is it not normal that Paladins should work towards things that are better than what currently exists? Can a Paladin's code, and the cosmic Good of the universe, not be better than what currently exists? I mean, heck, you're pointing out that these are the small, the few, the exceptions... Which is also just what Paladins are. Exceptions, granted cosmically good power for it.

I'll admit that I kind of got lost during this discussion so maybe you were just talking about setting anachronisms rather than their relation to Paladins, but this is a thread about Paladins. If societies within the setting all lived up to the ideals of Paladins, you wouldn't have Paladins. They exist because things aren't good enough yet. They exist to make things better. There's no part of "no large-scale society had these humans rights" that prevents Paladins from pursuing every single one of them simultaneously. I mean, hello, they aren't just knights, they're literally being granted divine power through their goodness, expecting them to fall mostly in line with a largely true-neutral-at-best society is absurd.

LudicSavant
2015-10-07, 04:34 PM
You talk about these small scale things as if it's a bad thing. The point is that there's plenty of precedent to go around. Is it not normal that Paladins should work towards things that are better than what currently exists? Can a Paladin's code, and the cosmic Good of the universe, not be better than what currently exists? I mean, heck, you're pointing out that these are the small, the few, the exceptions... Which is also just what Paladins are. Exceptions, granted cosmically good power for it.

I'll admit that I kind of got lost during this discussion so maybe you were just talking about setting anachronisms rather than their relation to Paladins, but this is a thread about Paladins. If societies within the setting all lived up to the ideals of Paladins, you wouldn't have Paladins. They exist because things aren't good enough yet. They exist to make things better. There's no part of "no large-scale society had these humans rights" that prevents Paladins from pursuing every single one of them simultaneously. I mean, hello, they aren't just knights, they're literally being granted divine power through their goodness, expecting them to fall mostly in line with a largely true-neutral-at-best society is absurd.

This girl gets it.

Thrudd
2015-10-07, 06:10 PM
It's possible for a setting to have "lawful" slavery and unlawful/evil slavery. A paladin and other good characters and rulers might accept slavery as a natural part of a functioning society. Someone might be justly enslaved as a punishment for breaking certain laws or not paying someone a debt, and this might be a temporary condition sometines. Prisoners of war may be also be justly enslaved. Evil slavers raid villages and take people against their will to be sold, or kidnap people from the street.
A "good" slave owner is kind and considerate of the slaves and considers freeing them after some time. An evil slave owner is cruel and abusive. A paladin in this world would be justified in attacking raiding slavers and freeing their captives or protecting or freeing the slaves of a cruel tyrant. They would not interfere with the just laws of the land which allows slavery to exist under certain proscribed circumstances.

It all depends on circumstances. There always has been and still is a servant/worker class of people, the details surrounding their relationship with the overlords is described differently. If this was a thing paladins had to actively be against, they would basically be anarchists in any society that has ever existed.

Templarkommando
2015-10-07, 07:10 PM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

This is not exhaustively true, but I think it's frequently true. I'm splitting hairs a little bit, but let me explain. The case of Peter von Hagenbach deals with this to a certain degree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_von_Hagenbach

http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-1563/1474-The-Peter-Von-Hagenbach-Trial-The-First-International-Criminal-Tribunal.aspx




"In 1474, while occupying the town of Brisach, the troops of Peter Von Hagenbach pillaged the town and murdered civilians.

Von Hagenbach was accused of crimes against the laws of God and humanity and tried before a tribunal which included judges from Alsace, judges from Switzerland and judges from elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire.
In his defence, he argued that he had followed superior orders. The court denied this plea, convicted him of the crime and executed him."

It *might* be that at some later time we will discover an earlier example of this, but that's just conjecture. 1474 is toward the end of what is generally called the Late Middle Ages - a period that includes canons, a few types of firearms and some comparatively advanced technology, but there you go.

LudicSavant
2015-10-07, 07:21 PM
It's possible for a setting to have "lawful" slavery and unlawful/evil slavery. A paladin and other good characters and rulers might accept slavery as a natural part of a functioning society. Someone might be justly enslaved as a punishment for breaking certain laws or not paying someone a debt, and this might be a temporary condition sometines. Prisoners of war may be also be justly enslaved. Evil slavers raid villages and take people against their will to be sold, or kidnap people from the street.
A "good" slave owner is kind and considerate of the slaves and considers freeing them after some time. An evil slave owner is cruel and abusive. A paladin in this world would be justified in attacking raiding slavers and freeing their captives or protecting or freeing the slaves of a cruel tyrant. They would not interfere with the just laws of the land which allows slavery to exist under certain proscribed circumstances.

It all depends on circumstances. There always has been and still is a servant/worker class of people, the details surrounding their relationship with the overlords is described differently. If this was a thing paladins had to actively be against, they would basically be anarchists in any society that has ever existed.

It is perhaps worth noting that the word slavery has applied to many different practices throughout history. There is a difference between slave traditions where a slave might marry, own property, own a slave himself, swear an oath, be a competent witness, or even become heir to his master, where drawing the blood of a slave was completely illegal (e.g. no lashing), and another entirely to have something like early American slavery, where slaves are subhuman property and would be packed into ships like sardines, knowing that many would die as a result of such conditions on the voyages, suffocating in blood and sweat and packed bodies, but feeling that it was acceptable because it was thought to be more profitable that way despite the mass casualties.

I seem to recall this even being the butt of a joke in Discworld, where an ascetic foreigner from a Europe-like society takes pity on a slave in a land he visits, only for the slave to remark on how much better he seems to have it than the foreigner when they discuss what it's like to be free and lower class in his (Europe-like) land.

It's also worth noting that, while the "any society that ever existed" statement is inaccurate, some historical cultures did indeed believe that slavery was a necessary part of "civilized" society. In such societies though, we still get guys like Seneca the Younger advocating that slaves are people just like us and should be treated justly. If you want to play a paladin that isn't outright anti-slavery to the point of revolution but is still a kinda decent guy (as opposed to Good merely being a deceptively named colored hat), I suggest looking up guys like that.

Here's some primary source for you: Moral letters to Lucilius by Seneca, Letter 47 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_47)

In short, even if you're in freakin' Rome, there's room for people to go around insisting that slaves need to be treated much better than they are.



It *might* be that at some later time we will discover an earlier example of this, but that's just conjecture. 1474 is toward the end of what is generally called the Late Middle Ages - a period that includes canons, a few types of firearms and some comparatively advanced technology, but there you go.

Early guns such as the fire lance are around as early as the 10th century. Guns were a part of the real middle ages, and took quite a while to actually get rid of bows and knights and such.

Real history is not subject to fantasy gun control (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/FantasyGunControl).

Templarkommando
2015-10-07, 08:42 PM
Early guns such as the fire lance are around as early as the 10th century. Guns were a part of the real middle ages, and took quite a while to actually get rid of bows and knights and such.

Real history is not subject to fantasy gun control (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/FantasyGunControl).

I agree 100%. There's a lot of arbitrary rules that disallow firearms in settings that are supposed to be in the middle ages. All that I meant was that the Late Middle Ages is considerably more advanced than some people think it is.

The Fury
2015-10-07, 10:04 PM
Mr. Moron's post waaaay back on the first page about being an honorable knightly type doesn't fit within a Grim 'n Gritty party or setting got me thinking. You can be the Token Good Teammate, and a group of murderhobos might actually want to keep you around. Mind this isn't guaranteed advice. Murderhobos can be unpredictable and might just kill your honorable do-gooder because it'd be funny.

Do: If your group does decide on playing a team of Grim and/or Gritty murderhobos and you decide to play the Token Good Teammate, remember that you're the Token Good Teammate. Much like how the Token Evil Teammate in a more traditionally heroic group still has to be a team player, the greatest asset to your survival and being a do-gooder is being too useful to get rid of. Your murderhobo companions might whine that you get indignant about extorting people, you don't find jokes about burning orphanages funny, and you always ride your horse at the posted speed limit. Then again, you're the one that can get the town guards to actually volunteer actionable info, your do-gooder antics sometimes help the group's image, and the murderhobos know that you're the only one for sure that you won't try to kill them in their sleep. Plus you've always got a pen.

Don't: Expect that any noble conduct will win you respect from these guys. Murderhobos will mock you and call your ideals outdated or childishly naive with varying levels of colorful language. It'd be nice if you can get one of them to come around to your side of thinking but it probably won't ever happen.

Satinavian
2015-10-08, 02:13 AM
You talk about these small scale things as if it's a bad thing. The point is that there's plenty of precedent to go around. Is it not normal that Paladins should work towards things that are better than what currently exists? Can a Paladin's code, and the cosmic Good of the universe, not be better than what currently exists? I mean, heck, you're pointing out that these are the small, the few, the exceptions... Which is also just what Paladins are. Exceptions, granted cosmically good power for it.

I'll admit that I kind of got lost during this discussion so maybe you were just talking about setting anachronisms rather than their relation to Paladins, but this is a thread about Paladins. If societies within the setting all lived up to the ideals of Paladins, you wouldn't have Paladins. They exist because things aren't good enough yet. They exist to make things better. There's no part of "no large-scale society had these humans rights" that prevents Paladins from pursuing every single one of them simultaneously. I mean, hello, they aren't just knights, they're literally being granted divine power through their goodness, expecting them to fall mostly in line with a largely true-neutral-at-best society is absurd.This guy gets it.
Are you actually trying to misrepresent my arguments ?

I don't argue against Paladins following single human rights or trying to be better than the rest of the society. I argue against taking the code of human rights itself, meaning all of them as measurement for the idea of good the paladin has to follow. That is why i consider if the code as a whole is an anachronistical idea, not if single elements of it are anachronistic.

It's also worth noting that, while the "any society that ever existed" statement is inaccurate, some historical cultures did indeed believe that slavery was a necessary part of "civilized" society. In such societies though, we still get guys like Seneca the Younger advocating that slaves are people just like us and should be treated justly. If you want to play a paladin that isn't outright anti-slavery to the point of revolution but is still a kinda decent guy (as opposed to Good merely being a deceptively named colored hat), I suggest looking up guys like that.

Here's some primary source for you: Moral letters to Lucilius by Seneca, Letter 47

In short, even if you're in freakin' Rome, there's room for people to go around insisting that slaves need to be treated much better than they are.And that is exactly why i argue against a paladin of human rights in such a setting. A paladin with setting appropriate morals like a Stoic could consider Seneca a good man. But a paladin of human rights would still consider slavery of any kind as evil.
But per the rules the "good" of the paladin is a cosmic force actually defining what is good and evil. Thus, when a paladin of human rights would detect evil, Seneca would ping evil for having slaves and arguing for some kind of system with slavery. (And some other things where ) Either that or the paladin of human rights is not following the force of good.

Now, if you put the same paladin into Eberron, which is a strange mix, but does give a strong late 19th/early 20th century vibe, just with magic instead of technology and more monsters+swords, it is not a problem. He would be a reformer but in many cases his ideas of good and evil would nearly align with the societys ideas of good and evil and the rest could be a matter of idealism vs. pragmatism. There would be still problems, but managable.

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 02:14 AM
Are you actually trying to misrepresent my arguments ? By saying that Enran gets it? :smallconfused:

Satinavian
2015-10-08, 02:15 AM
Implying as opposed to me.

Especcially as he says pretty much the same thing and also argues against having the full code of human rights be the good a paladin has to follow.

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 02:16 AM
I don't argue against Paladins following single human rights or trying to be better than the rest of the society. However, you did rather explicitly claim that certain individual ideas were not present in historical societies, which was false. See post #86 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923165&postcount=86) and post #88 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923359&postcount=88).


I argue against taking the code of human rights itself, meaning all of them

This seems like an odd statement to me (as does the one in post#85). It makes it seem like you think there was only ever one modern philosophy of human rights, or perhaps that they all recognize the same "complete" set of rights. :smallconfused:



And that is exactly why i argue against a paladin of human rights in such a setting. A paladin with setting appropriate morals like a Stoic could consider Seneca a good man. But a paladin of human rights would still consider slavery of any kind as evil.

Must a paladin think like that? Perhaps being Good could simply mean supporting progress in the right direction -- whatever context that progress might be in -- rather than judging the society as a whole by how far away it is from theoretical perfection.

Maybe being good means pushing in the right direction, wherever you may be. Maybe you just aspire to make the world a better place than it was yesterday.

hamishspence
2015-10-08, 02:18 AM
In Forgotten Realms - "following societal norms" + "still being exceptionally compassionate" may allow for Good or Neutral-aligned slaveowners.

Champions of Ruin gives Thay as an example - saying that there "even a good person may keep a slave or two simply because it is a societal norm.

Most people in western Faerun think of slavery as an abomination - but in eastern Faerun it's much more common - and despite this, Good people exist in those societies.

Kitten Champion
2015-10-08, 04:27 AM
Ultimately the moral standards of the world should be discussed before you begin regardless of whether you've a Paladin in your party or not, be they anachronistic or not.

As was said in that link from a while back, the main thing is to not simply spring these things on players so the choice to fall is a conscious one and not some Dark Knight-esque convoluted morality trap designed to screw them up nor to have such vague standards of what constitutes the moral spectrum that they're afraid to sneeze.

The Fury
2015-10-08, 09:57 AM
Ultimately the moral standards of the world should be discussed before you begin regardless of whether you've a Paladin in your party or not, be they anachronistic or not.

As was said in that link from a while back, the main thing is to not simply spring these things on players so the choice to fall is a conscious one and not some Dark Knight-esque convoluted morality trap designed to screw them up nor to have such vague standards of what constitutes the moral spectrum that they're afraid to sneeze.

Absolutely. I'd take it a step further and say that if your character has a code of conduct, it might be helpful to write it out and have the DM approve it.

Enran
2015-10-08, 01:07 PM
This guy gets it.


Implying as opposed to me.

Especcially as he says pretty much the same thing and also argues against having the full code of human rights be the good a paladin has to follow.

First off, that's a "she." I'm not angry, I know "he" is the default term when doing the online thing, but that's why the gender tag is there. I mean, and to make my forum profile look all nice and pretty and complete, but mostly the first thing.

Second, I think you misunderstood me, Satinavian. I was actually that the full host of human rights totally could be Paladin's Code, though it's by no means the only option, because Paladins don't have to fall in line with the definitions of good and evil of their time. Human rights are anachronistic in a medieval setting, yes, but cosmic Good is anachronistic in all settings based on the real world. One anachronism breeds another; in my opinion, people's standards of non-extraordinary good and evil in most settings fall will generally fall within the Neutral category. Let me explain; extraordinary good and evil (serial killing on the evil side, sacrificing oneself to save others) are almost always categorized in their places as good or evil, but most societies attribute good and evil qualifiers to neutral things. Maintaining a society's standards of honor isn't inherently good or evil but rather affects the law/chaos portion of the alignment axis, but that doesn't mean society won't celebrate those with impeccable honor as the most morally upstanding of their society, and this can happen even in a world where you can detect alignments on people. Morality can be subjective even in an objective alignment system, in no small part because perfectly sane people can hold the belief that, say, Lawful Neutral people are more morally upstanding than Neutral Good folk, simply based on what morals are held as paramount in that society.

D&D Paladins strictly follow cosmic Good and (perhaps to a lesser extent) cosmic Law, or the will of their gods, depending on the setting. That can totally mean "a whole bunch of human rights that are anachronistic to the time period." Paladins don't need to reasonably extrapolate from the society they were raised in any more than cosmic forces need to extrapolate from such. That's usually one of the primary conceits in D&D, after all; the fact that the average morally upstanding person by society's standards in-game is far below the ideal of Good in a cosmic sense. It seems like a major case of setting break because in the real world, morals are a product of society and personal belief, and even the so-called paladins of history could be reasonable breaks from the norm of their society, like a group who pushes for better treatment of slaves in a society known for heavy mistreatment of said slaves. In our world, a person in that society outright rejecting the notion of slavery and declaring that slaves should be freed would be seen as not only a lunatic but amoral, and would be promptly laughed off the street at best and perhaps persecuted, unlike the person vouching for better treatment, who may be tolerated or even taken seriously. And maybe this "laughing off the street" happens to Paladins too. But that doesn't make the Paladins invalid for holding that view, especially since they have the literal power of cosmic Good backing their beliefs.

Paladins get to be unrealistic. They're powered by unrelentingly unrealistic powers of awesome Goodness. Those haven't existed in any real society I've heard of.

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 02:18 PM
First off, that's a "she."

I know you were talking to Satinavian (since he's the one that used the word "he"), but I feel I should note that I generally use "guy" for both genders. Like "you guys." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/guy (I prefer the second definition)

That said, I'll edit it to be more specific. :smallsmile:

veti
2015-10-08, 02:24 PM
In light of the last four pages of rules argument (which seems to happen absolutely every time the P-word gets so much as mentioned in a thread, funny dat) - I'd just like to add one more rule to what I said back on the first page (which I stand by fully, incidentally):

Don't assume that D&D 3e rules are universal. Or any other edition for that matter. Just because D&D has a class called "paladin", that doesn't give it a monopoly on the definition.


It *might* be that at some later time we will discover an earlier example of this, but that's just conjecture. 1474 is toward the end of what is generally called the Late Middle Ages - a period that includes canons, a few types of firearms and some comparatively advanced technology, but there you go.

1474 is around the beginning of the Renaissance, which is precisely when abstract political ideas (such as "human rights") first started to form in Europe. (The trigger date is widely pegged at 1453, when the Ottomans' capture of Constantinople caused a whole lot of Greek scholars to take refuge in the Holy Roman Empire and points west.)

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 02:34 PM
1474 is around the beginning of the Renaissance, which is precisely when abstract political ideas (such as "human rights") first started to form in Europe.

It would be much more accurate to say that they gained new traction, rather than that they "first started to form." Abstract political ideals were flying around Europe for thousands of years. There were libraries full of the things, which then got burned down, and then new libraries were filled with the things again. Despite all the library burning and such that went on, we still have tons of books from ancient European sources that go on and on about abstract political ideas.

I keep encountering this trend where people seem to assume that if western culture gained access to some technology or idea at some point, that prior cultures did not have that thing. The British leadership didn't know about America in year X? Whelp, nobody else must have, so Columbus discovered it! Many Europeans weren't aware of the heliocentric model of the solar system in the 16th century? Galileo must have discovered it for the first time, instead of guys who predated him by over a thousand years! Galileo was important not because he discovered the heliocentric model of the solar system, but because he rediscovered it in a time when it had been declared heresy and evidence for it had been thoroughly suppressed.

I personally blame a politicized narrative of history where things are portrayed as always advancing, making leap after leap forward towards the modern status quo (which is of course implied to be the pinnacle of human achievement so far). In real history, things aren't so clear cut, and progress is lost all the time.


(The trigger date is widely pegged at 1453, when the Ottomans' capture of Constantinople caused a whole lot of Greek scholars to take refuge in the Holy Roman Empire and points west.)

This supports my point. The reason that Greek scholars had this effect is because the Greek literature already had tons of abstract political ideas, and we got to preserve some of that literature because the Middle East liked it. Greece is totally a part of Europe which was around long before the 15th century.

Zale
2015-10-08, 02:47 PM
DO: Chill with Charlemange.
DO: Fight the good fight in Hispania.

DON'T: Die like a dweeb.

veti
2015-10-08, 03:07 PM
It would be much more accurate to say that they gained new traction, rather than that they "first started to form." Abstract political ideals were flying around Europe for thousands of years. There were libraries full of the things, which then got burned down, and then new libraries were filled with the things again. Despite all the library burning and such that went on, we still have tons of books from ancient European sources that go on and on about abstract political ideas.

What do you call an "abstract political idea"? Because I haven't heard of any European work pre-1450 that talks about anything approximating to "human rights", or "divine right", "separation of church and state" (in abstract terms at least - many practical applications of this last, but no serious theoretical thought), "nationalism", etc.


This supports my point. The reason that Greek scholars had this effect is because the Greek literature already had tons of abstract political ideas, and we got to preserve some of that literature because the Middle East liked it. Greece is totally a part of Europe.

Not... necessarily. The idea of "human rights" itself didn't come from the Greeks, or the Arabs. It grew from the meeting of Eastern and Western ways of thinking. The "abstract ideas" that came from Greece were - very abstract, about metaphysics and ethics and aesthetics and other ideas that to this day have Greek names in our language. It was Western humanists who synthesised (another Greek word) those ideas with Latin ways of thinking, and started to write about the sorts of ideas we'd at least recognise today.

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 03:08 PM
What do you call an "abstract political idea"? Because I haven't heard of any European work pre-1450 that talks about anything approximating to "human rights", or "divine right", "separation of church and state" (in abstract terms at least - many practical applications of this last, but no serious theoretical thought), "nationalism", etc.

Then, like most people, you haven't read an awful lot of ancient literature. There is a mountain of philosophical material on right and rights, the divine right of rulers, the separation of church and state (or even outright atheist movements and philosophies), and so forth. Not to mention that if you would research the practical applications, you would often find that there is a background of theoretical thought behind them.

As for nationalism, check this out: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1468&context=theses



Not... necessarily. The idea of "human rights" itself didn't come from the Greeks, or the Arabs. It grew from the meeting of Eastern and Western ways of thinking.

None of that has anything to do with the quote you responded to, which claimed that abstract political ideas did not originate sometime around the 15th century.

The notion that there weren't abstract political ideas in Europe prior to the 15th century is outright farcical.


What do you call an "abstract political idea"?


The "abstract ideas" that came from Greece were - very abstract

...

...

...

One could almost say they were... abstract political ideas.

Templarkommando
2015-10-08, 04:11 PM
1474 is around the beginning of the Renaissance, which is precisely when abstract political ideas (such as "human rights") first started to form in Europe. (The trigger date is widely pegged at 1453, when the Ottomans' capture of Constantinople caused a whole lot of Greek scholars to take refuge in the Holy Roman Empire and points west.)

Again, I think it really depends on the jurisdiction that you're in. The 1474 event with Hagenbach is certainly late, but there are other things to take into consideration. It also depends on when you mark the Renissance as beginning. Some people mark it as being in the 14th century, which would include this period, and others mark the beginning of the Renaissance with the Reformation in 1517. It's sort of an abstract concept. Regardless, you're right in saying that it's really quite late.

That said, I think there are still ideas that exist about human rights before this period, though the enforcement and utilization of such laws tends to be a little sketchy. The Magna Carta for example was enacted in 1215 after the First Baron's War - a war that was fought over the concept that a King couldn't simply do anything that he wanted.

There are some earlier examples. English Common Law was codified by King Alfred the Great in the Doom Book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_book) in 893 A.D. One of the concepts enshrined in that ancient tome is the following: "Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!" This of course is an early example of the rule of law in a medieval culture. It is one that explains that everyone is equal under the law. Again, it depends on what period of English history you are in as to whether or not this gets applied.

One of the things that I find interesting about England in particular is the concept of a Reeve. In some situations, a Reeve (which is actually a noble title) would be elected from among the peasants every year on a holiday called Michaelmas. This Reeve would oversee a large portion of the community for the course of the next year. He would make sure that food was stocked sufficiently for a certain number of households for the winter, and other responsibilities. When looking at a medieval society, the right of peasants to vote for a Reeve seems down-right egalitarian when compared to a lot of the portrayals of medieval society. Apparently this was common practice after the Norman conquest in 1066., but parts of it may have been practiced before.

Apologies as my knowledge of history is rather Anglo-centric.

LudicSavant
2015-10-08, 04:17 PM
There are some earlier examples. English Common Law was codified by King Alfred the Great in the Doom Book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_book) in 893 A.D. One of the concepts enshrined in that ancient tome is the following: "Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!" This of course is an early example of the rule of law in a medieval culture. It is one that explains that everyone is equal under the law. Again, it depends on what period of English history you are in as to whether or not this gets applied.

Oh yeah, the Doom Book is awesome. :smallbiggrin:

I absolutely adore the idea of calling legal punishments "dooms." I do it in my D&D campaigns for some cultures. Usually dwarven ones. Also I often have them refer to justice as fulfilling "grudges."



One of the things that I find interesting about England in particular is the concept of a Reeve. In some situations, a Reeve (which is actually a noble title) would be elected from among the peasants every year on a holiday called Michaelmas. This Reeve would oversee a large portion of the community for the course of the next year. He would make sure that food was stocked sufficiently for a certain number of households for the winter, and other responsibilities. When looking at a medieval society, the right of peasants to vote for a Reeve seems down-right egalitarian when compared to a lot of the portrayals of medieval society. Apparently this was common practice after the Norman conquest in 1066., but parts of it may have been practiced before.

I actually didn't know about that one. That's really cool. I'm off to read more about Reeves now :smallsmile:

Thanks for sharing!

Templarkommando
2015-10-08, 05:07 PM
I actually didn't know about that one. That's really cool. I'm off to read more about Reeves now :smallsmile:

Thanks for sharing!

A couple of things about that. I remembered a lot of the information about England from a documentary series called Monarchy. I know it was on Netflix for a while, but I don't know if it's still there. It's a worthy watch in any case.

Also, I used a reference to pull up information. It's wikipedia, but I figured it's worth linking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeve_(England)

The_Shaman
2015-10-08, 05:26 PM
Do: Familiarize yourself with the setting, your DM´s ideas of the setting and alignment, and the dogma of whatever organization your charater is part of (likely some cult). There is a reason why s/he is where she is.

Do: remember that there are things more important than your own temporary comfort and even your life, and be ready to fight and if need be, die for them.

Do: remember that there are good and worthy people who haven´t sworn your oaths, and their well-being is why you do what you do.

Do: have principles and lofty ideals, and stick to them. If you want to make a change in this world, be that change. Live the life you want to inspire other people to.

Don´t: forget to chill out now and then with a nice book, a mug or three, or a nice song and dance. You may be a hero, but you are also human, and things like that make life worth living. A pretty young thing may be an option too - but do right by them as much as you do right by anyone else (if not more).

Don´t: however, be afraid to be the old school big damn hero when it is needed.

Don´t: be afraid to get up when you are down. You will fail, and maybe you will fall. It happened to many before you, and most of them had it in them to get up.

Satinavian
2015-10-09, 02:41 AM
However, you did rather explicitly claim that certain individual ideas were not present in historical societies, which was false. See post #86 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923165&postcount=86) and post #88 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923359&postcount=88).
I said "The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins."

That is not a statement about all historic societies. It's about subset of RPG-stttings more or less closely modelled on real cultures and periods.

The next thing i said was
"You can't have a pseudomedieval society and a lot of modern gods teaching modern philosophy and modern laws and rules."
"I can't remember a game of D&D that was in any way more reflective of modern society than medieval society that didn't play on Ebberon. None of my gaming groups everread all those medieval inspired books assumed modern societies. Gender equality is the one big exception that was always done (and even here i had a lot of players from both genders complain it wouldn't feel historical enough) "
gain, nothing about all cultures and all times. medieval implies a certain timeframe and Europe (including Eastern Europe). I's not even used in context to arab or turkish countries, much less for anything else.

But from the beginning you ignored those qualifiers and treated my statements as if i had said something about all cultures and all times.


Then all your counter-examples list only certain rights. None of these societies followes the human rights.

This seems like an odd statement to me (as does the one in post#85). It makes it seem like you think there was only ever one modern philosophy of human rights, or perhaps that they all recognize the same "complete" set of rights. :smallconfused:Yes.

The modern UN-List is, what is the term "human rights" is understood as. It's the most common definition. Whenever someone takes a constitution and asks if that includes/respects human rights, it is matched against the UN-List. And it doesn't matter what the constitution calls its laws, if it's not at it's core similar enough, it doesn't include/respect human rights. The UN-List is what human rights are.

Lists of rights exist pretty much everywhere, but if there is not a significant overlap (no need to be exactly the same but the mayority has to be) to the modern list, those are not lists including the human rights.

Must a paladin think like that? Perhaps being Good could simply mean supporting progress in the right direction -- whatever context that progress might be in -- rather than judging the society as a whole by how far away it is from theoretical perfection.

Maybe being good means pushing in the right direction, wherever you may be. Maybe you just aspire to make the world a better place than it was yesterday.Because "benevolent slavery" is still forbidden by the human rights. A paladin trying to make the life of slaves better without abolishing slavery doesn't chance the points where the society falls short of human rights a single bit. There is nothing about compassion in the ruman rights. There is nothing about kindness or rspect. There are very very view articles that might contain anything ralated to treatment of slaves (es. Art 25) outside of forbidding all slavery or being impossible with slavery.

A paladin trying to make the lives f slaves better is certainly following some idea of good. But this idea has nothing to do with human rights.

@Enran

First off, that's a "she." I'm not angry, I know "he" is the default term when doing the online thing, but that's why the gender tag is there. I mean, and to make my forum profile look all nice and pretty and complete, but mostly the first thing. Deepest apologies. Those tags and pictures are not displayed during "reply with quote" but i should have paid more attention.

It is as you said. But i don't like the results in game.

If the view of the paladin is too strange and recognized as lunatic, NPCs and even the other PCs will treat those ideas as wrong, dangerous and probably evil. The paladin ceases to be regarded as a champion of what is good and right and is regarded and treated like a champion of a neutral force like cosmic blue at best. And as he is opposed to society and tryditions, he willl be regarded as chaotic or even an evil threat.

But now the paladins powers are linked to the real cosmic good and real cosmic law. And suddenly the result is even more of a mechanical nightmare than normal with good things not really being Good, the most virtuus members of society fending of the percieved "evil" paladin and all alignement-based powers giving results that no one can explain.

That is also usually not, what any paladin player actually wants.

LudicSavant
2015-10-09, 02:42 AM
That is not a statement about all historic societies. It's about subset of RPG-stttings more or less closely modelled on real cultures and periods. Yes, and that statement was wrong.


The modern UN-List is, what is the term "human rights" is understood as. It's the most common definition. It's not the only definition, however, and moreover I don't see anyone in this thread actually claiming that Paladins should be following the UN's declaration of human rights to the letter. That's what we call a straw man argument.

Let's remember that you objected to other people using the word, so of course it's their definition that counts. I honestly doubt that people mean "use the UN declaration of human rights to the letter" when they talk about human rights any more than they mean "your setting should have lots of ideas about Christianity" when they talk about Chivalry in this thread.

That said? Absolutely everything on the UN's declaration of human rights (or at least, all the bits you listed) has a great deal of historical precedent, including in the middle ages, as numerous people have patiently explained to you (with plenty of examples and sources) while you simply went about declaring wildly historically inaccurate things with no source whatsoever (pretty much everything in your list you posted in post #78 was a completely false claim, as I and others have pointed out). Your primary objection now (after every single one of your prior arguments has been refuted) seems to be that you don't have a specific government document which explicitly states all of that specific set of rules in the same exact way.

Satinavian
2015-10-09, 03:17 AM
Yes, and that statement was wrong.No it isn't. And none of your examples is a medieval society which inspired RPG-Setting meant for paladins.


Let's remember that you objected to other people using the word, and said that those posters were wrong. I honestly doubt that people mean "use the UN declaration of human rights to the letter" when they talk about human rights any more than they mean "your setting should have lots of ideas about Christianity" when they talk about Chivalry in this thread.When people say human right, i assume human right. Not sets of values that are also regarded as somehow good in modern society which have nothing at all to do with human rights.

That said? Absolutely everything on the UN's declaration of human rights has a great deal of historical precedent, including in the middle ages, as numerous people have patiently explained to you (with plenty of examples and sources) while you simply went about declaring wildly historically inaccurate things with no source whatsoever (pretty much everything you listed in post #78).
Again. I said there were older roots. Which means historical precedents of single rights are not sources that can prove me wrong. I know that those existed. Nearly all your sources are directed at a strawman.

And as for lack of my own sources : How could i prove the absence of something with sources ?

As for the list ?
Freedom and equality for everyone ? -> Which medieval society had this ? There are egalitarion ones, but which of those did extend the right to foreigners ?
Right to live (e.g. no death penalty) ? -> Which medieval society had completely given up death penalty. Ok, honestly i think there are some, but it was at least uncommon.
No slavery and no servitude ? -> Which medieval society of significant size did this ? No slavery yes, but no servitude based on class too ?
No degrading punishment ? -> Which medieval society did this ? Degrading punishment is more practical and nice than corporal punishment and imprisonment was not yet the way to go.
No arbitrary arrests ? Impartial tribunals for everyone ? Which medieval society had this ? There might be one, but it is at least incompatible with the common understanding of law enforment and authority.
presumption of innocence ? I give you that one. There are examples
Right for asylum ? None that i know of. There are many instances of taking refugees, sure. But a right for every foreigner bassed on his needs instead of the ability and willingness of the host ?
Right to nationality ? What would that even mean i the middle ages ?
Right to partake in gouvernment ? Where could e.g. landless non-citicens partake in this way ?
Right to education ?

All of them proven wrong ? certainly not and i don't think you can do it.

Your primary objection now (after every single one of your prior arguments has been refuted) seems to be that you don't have a specific document which explicitly states all of that specific set of rules in the same exact way.That was the core of my argument from the beginning. If you had actually read what i wrote.


All of the ideals have precedence in the middle ages. Often they were related. There's absolutely no actual anthropological reason that it would be unrealistic to abide by any or all of them in a fantasy setting. Middle ages = certain time period (exact times still a bit debated but usually ending middle or late 15th century) and European. No. Not all of them have precedend there. And even if they had, it's still not human rights until theyy come together.

As for the fantasy setting : Yes. but not one modelled after medieval socity.

LudicSavant
2015-10-09, 03:32 AM
No i isn't.

:smallsigh:

Edit in response to your edit: Okay, so, I'm repeating myself here, but whatever. Your list is wrong. We've already patiently explained why it's wrong. I'll do it again for your retconned list, and I'll try to be brief.



Again. I said there were older roots.



I said there were earlier roots. You did, yet your posts do not illustrate a sufficient understanding of those roots, as we see in the rest of your post.

In fact, your post even outright denied that many of the roots existed, claiming that no medieval societies had such concepts, which is flat out incorrect.


equality for everyone ? "Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!" http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19927836&postcount=110


There are egalitarion ones, but which of those did extend the right to foreigners ?
Which ones didn't? Pretty sure you just learned about egalitarian societies the second I mentioned them. There's no o in there, by the way.


Right to live (e.g. no death penalty) ? -> Which medieval society had completely given up death penalty. Ok, honestly i think there are some, but it was at least uncommon. Don't care if it was common or not. As Enran points out, it's thoroughly irrelevant how common an idea was: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923404&postcount=89


No slavery and no servitude ? -> Which medieval society of significant size did this ? No slavery yes, but no servitude based on class too ? Trick question. That one's not a medieval or modern thing. No very large society has ever not had servitude based on class, as far as I know. Stratified societies can grow larger than egalitarian ones ever have.


No degrading punishment ? -> Which medieval society did this ? Degrading punishment is more practical and nice than corporal punishment and imprisonment was not yet the way to go.
Ideas about what constitutes degrading punishment varies a lot by culture, but tons of societies and philosophies have punishments they regard as unjust or taboo. Any given past culture may have different ideas of what "degrading" means than you do. Heck, some cultures regard long term imprisonment as degrading.


No arbitrary arrests ? Don't be arbitrary is pretty much the point of establishing legal codes. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus#Origins_in_England


Right for asylum ? None that i know of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#Medieval_England

This one should be very well known. It's in Disney cartoons and everything. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtdbyugYO7A



Right to nationality ? What would that even mean i the middle ages ?

It would tie in with concepts like "abjuring the realm."


Right to partake in gouvernment ? Where could e.g. landless non-citicens partake in this way ? This is a trick question again, because things like modern America don't let non-citizens vote or anything like that. And yet it still has an answer: Pretty much any acephalous society that used consensus-based decision-making.

Satinavian
2015-10-09, 06:07 AM
"Doom very evenly! Do not doom one doom to the rich; another to the poor! Nor doom one doom to your friend; another to your foe!" http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19927836&postcount=110That is only equality before the law. Actually it is only equal punishment. That is only a small subset of equality.

Which ones didn't?Mostly i said that that so you can't point to Free Cities and conveniently exclude all the people living in them or in the lands they rule but don't have citicenship. Or to other societies where e.g. every land owner is considered equal but everyone without land or without right to common land is not considered part.

Don't care if it was common or not. As Enran points out, it's thoroughly irrelevant how common an idea was: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19923404&postcount=89For the original argument including "have RPG-settings modeeled after them" it was important. Now it isn't anymore. That is why i said that i think there are some.

Trick question. That one's not a medieval or modern thing. No very large society has ever not had servitude based on class, as far as I know.True. But the UN-version does actually have the kind of servitude the rights of coloni degraded to in mind as much as some other things. Also nowadays a classless society is a widespread ideal.

Stratified societies can grow larger than egalitarian ones ever have.Exactly. That is why a lot of thing that are nowadays guaranteed rights only become feasible with technological advancement. Which in turn is why many things have not really been considered for practical application before e.g. logistical and communication possibilities arose.

Ideas about what constitutes degrading punishment varies a lot by culture. But tons of societies and philosophies have punishments they regard as unjust or taboo. Any given past culture may have different ideas of what "degrading" means than you do. Just as some cultures regard long term imprisonment as degrading.Imprisonment as the way to go did not really gain traction until later. The three big kind of punishemnt are monetary punishment, corporal punishment and pushishment where the public humiliation is the main ingrediant not a side effect. Things like pillories. I am not aware of any medieval society that shun humiliation as punishment for moral reasons. There are some that shun other, more cruel punishments but not this category.

Don't be arbitrary is pretty much the point of establishing legal codes. Its also part of the eternal struggle between ruler/law enforder and the rule of law. While arbitrary arrests have been reagarded as bad for a very long time, there was always the problem that a ruler who can't do it, may appear to weak to do his duties. While there were many attempts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#Medieval_EnglandThat is sanctuary or church asylum. It's mostly directed at criminals of the own country, severy limited in duration and usually leads to exile. How is that in any way the same as the asylum human right ?

It would tie in with concepts like "abjuring the realm."I know quite a number of historians who argue in essence that every society that relies on loyalty to persons or families has no concept of nationality and should not be called a nation. And that most historical "nations" are an invention of the 19th century. But now i also remember that this topic is politically charged in my country and that i am discussing in a foreign language and the english word "nation" means not necessarity the same as the one in my native language.

This is a trick question again, because things like modern America don't let non-citizens vote or anything like that. And yet it still has an answer: Pretty much any acephalous society that used consensus-based decision-making.Yes, it is another tricky one.
The important part would be how easy it is for a poor landless foreigner to become part of the group with full voting rights. That is a sliding scale. Make it too restrictive and the human right is de facto not fullfilled. If nearly every residend who is not a short-time visitor can participate, it is fullfilled.

LudicSavant
2015-10-09, 06:15 AM
snip

This is just getting silly.

I link you a published scholarly thesis about nationalism in ancient cultures? Not even acknowledged, followed by the simple declaration that
most historical "nations" are an invention of the 19th century.

I tell you about acephalous societies? I get told that they somehow don't count because they're small.

I give primary sources of philosophers arguing at length that all people are people and ought to be treated with respect and government documents that declare the equality of people before the law, and you just say it doesn't count because it's "only a small subset of equality."

I give you sources on forms of asylum in medieval societies? I just get told that seeking asylum from persecution in other countries with the aid of an international organization (the Catholic church) doesn't count as asylum somehow.


and that i am discussing in a foreign language Well, that may explain a lot, anyways. If that's the case, I suspect this may be unresolvable; I don't know how I can overcome the language barrier.

Satinavian
2015-10-09, 06:22 AM
Letting people flee to other countries is not remotely the same as accepting refugees from other countries.

Templarkommando
2015-10-09, 08:08 AM
I said "The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins."

That is not a statement about all historic societies. It's about subset of RPG-stttings more or less closely modelled on real cultures and periods.

The next thing i said was
"You can't have a pseudomedieval society and a lot of modern gods teaching modern philosophy and modern laws and rules."
"I can't remember a game of D&D that was in any way more reflective of modern society than medieval society that didn't play on Ebberon. None of my gaming groups everread all those medieval inspired books assumed modern societies. Gender equality is the one big exception that was always done (and even here i had a lot of players from both genders complain it wouldn't feel historical enough) "
gain, nothing about all cultures and all times. medieval implies a certain timeframe and Europe (including Eastern Europe). I's not even used in context to arab or turkish countries, much less for anything else.

But from the beginning you ignored those qualifiers and treated my statements as if i had said something about all cultures and all times.


Then all your counter-examples list only certain rights. None of these societies followes the human rights.
Yes.

The modern UN-List is, what is the term "human rights" is understood as. It's the most common definition. Whenever someone takes a constitution and asks if that includes/respects human rights, it is matched against the UN-List. And it doesn't matter what the constitution calls its laws, if it's not at it's core similar enough, it doesn't include/respect human rights. The UN-List is what human rights are....




Ok, I'm confused. Your initial objection was that human rights were anachronistic in all settings that have Paladins, but the clarification of that example is that Paladin's don't follow the UN's declaration of human rights. The UN of course adopted that declaration on 10 December 1948. My question is this: Were there human rights before 1948? I ask because at any time before that point no one could point to the 1948 declaration and say that they had human rights that were being violated.

Satinavian
2015-10-09, 08:57 AM
I have problems following you.

The UN-List is from 1948. The rights in their are well, rights, ideals, ideas. If someone would have followed them earlier he would have followed human rights, even if no international body endorsed them.
In fact, as i said, even if someone followed only most of them it would probably count. Which means, that certain earlier ideas for sets of human/natural rights from the age of enlightenement onward could be regarded as close enough to call its proponents champions for human rights.

Which is still anachronistic for medieval inspired settings but would not be anachronistic for e.g. a steampunk setting.



Your earlier example was also about war crimes and international laws. Could it be that your definition of human rights is linked to supranational acceptance ?

Templarkommando
2015-10-09, 12:08 PM
I have problems following you.

The UN-List is from 1948. The rights in their are well, rights, ideals, ideas. If someone would have followed them earlier he would have followed human rights, even if no international body endorsed them.
In fact, as i said, even if someone followed only most of them it would probably count. Which means, that certain earlier ideas for sets of human/natural rights from the age of enlightenement onward could be regarded as close enough to call its proponents champions for human rights.

Which is still anachronistic for medieval inspired settings but would not be anachronistic for e.g. a steampunk setting.



Your earlier example was also about war crimes and international laws. Could it be that your definition of human rights is linked to supranational acceptance ?

I'm still confused.

I was under the impression that you were saying that the only rights that are rights are contained in the 1948 declaration. Is that not the case?

I would argue further that the human rights that begin to gain more widespread acceptance from the Enlightenment period have their basis in rights that existed both the middle ages in addition to earlier periods.

I wouldn't argue for international acceptance as a basis for human rights, no. One of the examples was the case of Hagenbach (or whatever his name was) which was an international thing, but I also used examples that were specific to Medieval England.

Enran
2015-10-09, 04:19 PM
It is as you said. But i don't like the results in game.

If the view of the paladin is too strange and recognized as lunatic, NPCs and even the other PCs will treat those ideas as wrong, dangerous and probably evil. The paladin ceases to be regarded as a champion of what is good and right and is regarded and treated like a champion of a neutral force like cosmic blue at best. And as he is opposed to society and tryditions, he willl be regarded as chaotic or even an evil threat.

But now the paladins powers are linked to the real cosmic good and real cosmic law. And suddenly the result is even more of a mechanical nightmare than normal with good things not really being Good, the most virtuus members of society fending of the percieved "evil" paladin and all alignement-based powers giving results that no one can explain.

That is also usually not, what any paladin player actually wants.
To be frank, the Good and Evil (and Law and Chaos to a lesser extent) alignments as described in the big book disagree strongly with my own perceptions of good and evil (and law and chaos). So I generally treat the alignments as just names in my game, colors almost. Paladins are powered by Red aura while also being required to have Blue aura. They have the ability to detect and smite Yellow aura. Yellow aura is caused by debasing and destroying life, and Red aura is caused by helping others and sacrificing for their sake. Therefore, people with Yellow aura must be bad guys, and people with Red aura must be good guys. Inconsistencies are justified by "the cosmos know what's right and wrong better than us." Unless you disagree with the coloring system, because your society really thinks people with just a Blue aura (and no Red or Yellow) are the best, so they're the good guys and whatever color we assign to Chaos is the bad guys.

And yeah, it's not as heroic or awesome. But I think we left behind awesome heroicness when we put our foot down on anachronistic social mores.

Also, I might like to put forward the concept of the "smart, realistic Paladin," sort of like what LudicSavant was talking about. What does the Paladin actually believe? Slavery should be abolished right this second and we'd make it happen if it were possible. But what is the Paladin smart enough to realize? Society won't budge at attempts to instantly turn it on its head. So instead, we help make small reforms consistently, so the slaves suffer less and over the years they start being perceived as more and more equal in small increments until the system most likely abolishes slavery on its own, even if that takes decades.

Anyway, I guess I'm rambling by this point, so I'll leave my thoughts there.

Cluedrew
2015-10-09, 04:58 PM
Times like this I think people over the concept of ... well not paladin, but the super-heroic type that paladins are built off of by adding in some knightly imagery and chivalry. The heroic type is someone who tries to be good and to do good, tries really hard and does for selfless reasons. Not all of them succeed of course and some times the ones that do succeed aren't called heroes by their peers.

And that is really it. I mean the paladin has a few extras added (such as religion and honor) but in the general case there aren't really any other requirements.

...

On a different note 'freeing the slaves' is not necessary a good act, for instance if the society is based on slavery than suddenly freeing the slaves could actually cause a lot more damage than you might think. Plus if the slaves are well cared for than freeing them may not improved there lot in life that much. I'm not saying slavery is good, just that full slavery to no slavery may not be a healthy transition for anyone involved.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-13, 08:02 PM
The Idea of Human Rights is anachronistic in pretty much every setting that has paladins. I would argue it should not be a pillar of the moral philosophy of a paladin in most cases.

This, boiled down, is why I'm not a fan of the Paladin class---don't like 'em, won't play one, won't have one in my games unless a player is really determined to be one. As written, the class enforces what I might as well call Presentism on any campaign setting, imposing values that are familiar and comfortable for 20th century liberal democracies even where it makes no sense they would exist. Because the class is supposed to be "good, pure and simple" basically no one is comfortable with the idea of a Paladin who's okay with slavery or execution by dismemberment or a caste system or other things that are unpalatable.

Fundamentally the problem is in the game's insistence that this class stands for GOOD, pure and simple, no wriggle room allowed. If it was "this class conforms to general Rosseauian principals in its behavior" that'd be one thing but the insistence that the Paladin must always and simply be GOOD breaks a whole lot of things. If you want to pull your campaign out of the dungeon and have your players negotiate a more complex world than hacking and slashing through underdark denizens I can't say a class that's supposed to be pure-and-simple objective good brings more to the table than it closes off.

Keltest
2015-10-13, 08:09 PM
This, boiled down, is why I'm not a fan of the Paladin class---don't like 'em, won't play one, won't have one in my games unless a player is really determined to be one. As written, the class enforces what I might as well call Presentism on any campaign setting, imposing values that are familiar and comfortable for 20th century liberal democracies even where it makes no sense they would exist. Because the class is supposed to be "good, pure and simple" basically no one is comfortable with the idea of a Paladin who's okay with slavery or execution by dismemberment or a caste system or other things that are unpalatable.

Fundamentally the problem is in the game's insistence that this class stands for GOOD, pure and simple, no wriggle room allowed. If it was "this class conforms to general Rosseauian principals in its behavior" that'd be one thing but the insistence that the Paladin must always and simply be GOOD breaks a whole lot of things. If you want to pull your campaign out of the dungeon and have your players negotiate a more complex world than hacking and slashing through underdark denizens I can't say a class that's supposed to be pure-and-simple objective good brings more to the table than it closes off.

I disagree. Standing for Good is not so prohibitively difficult as to negatively impact the experience of anyone at the table. Sure, it requires some thought, but its easily doable as long as the DM makes their expectations clear.

LudicSavant
2015-10-13, 08:18 PM
Also, I might like to put forward the concept of the "smart, realistic Paladin," sort of like what LudicSavant was talking about. What does the Paladin actually believe? Slavery should be abolished right this second and we'd make it happen if it were possible. But what is the Paladin smart enough to realize? Society won't budge at attempts to instantly turn it on its head. So instead, we help make small reforms consistently, so the slaves suffer less and over the years they start being perceived as more and more equal in small increments until the system most likely abolishes slavery on its own, even if that takes decades.

So yeah, I only mentioned it in passing, so here's a bit of an elaboration on what Enran refers to as the "smart, realistic paladin:"


Must a paladin think like that? Perhaps being Good could simply mean supporting progress in the right direction -- whatever context that progress might be in -- rather than judging the society as a whole by how far away it is from theoretical perfection.

Maybe being good means pushing in the right direction, wherever you may be. Maybe you just aspire to make the world a better place than it was yesterday.

You want to be good, and have that actually mean something other than being a funny-looking cosmic colored hat? (Not that there's anything wrong with running alignments as cosmic colored hats, I do that in some of my own games myself)

Here's how you do it.

Don't: Actually pay that much attention to anything WotC has to say about Good and Law. Seriously. Their material is so inconsistent as to be completely incoherent. You're not going to get a serviceable moral philosophy out of there. Just sticks of varying shapes.

Don't: Compare the world to a standard of perfection and smite everything that doesn't meet that standard... because that generally either means your standard of ideal good is pretty low (a common standard for virtue is merely ethnocentrism, e.g. "my culture is good"), or that every culture that is or has ever been is insufficient and requires judgment. Either way you've just got a self-righteous murderhobo. Or you just end up in this situation: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-157/

Don't: Waste much time about worrying who is or isn't a "good person." When asked "why do the right thing" your answer should be "to make the world better" not "to be a good person." The difference, is subtle, yet important. One perspective is about utility and optimization, the other is about ego.

Do: Keep on pushing in the right direction, wherever you may be. Make the world a better place than it was yesterday. Don't worry about how far we are from the ideal... just keep pushing the world closer and closer to it.

That's it. Do that. Every day. EVERY. DAY.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-13, 08:37 PM
I disagree. Standing for Good is not so prohibitively difficult as to negatively impact the experience of anyone at the table. Sure, it requires some thought, but its easily doable as long as the DM makes their expectations clear.

The problem is that D&D and its writers have an idea of 'Good' that's more in line with Star Trek than with Lord of the Rings. And that's fine on its own but it's pretty hampering if you want to do something else.

LudicSavant
2015-10-13, 08:38 PM
The problem is that D&D and its writers have an idea of 'Good' that's more in line with Star Trek than with Lord of the Rings. And that's fine on its own but it's pretty hampering if you want to do something else.

I'd say that the idea of Good as presented in the canon is not like Star Trek, so much as it is an idea of Good that's wildly diverse and self-contradictory, given the inputs of dozens of writers who don't appear to have made any coherent attempt to get on the same page with each other.

The main thing that's hampering is pretending that a coherent, canonical alignment system exists. :smalltongue:

Generally speaking, people aren't following the canon so much as they are using their own alignment systems and (in the case of some) cherry-picking references from the books in order to make their views appear official. Which is why alignment threads are generally so awful.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-13, 08:51 PM
I'd say that the idea of Good as presented in the canon is not like Star Trek, so much as it is an idea of Good that's wildly diverse and self-contradictory, given the inputs of dozens of writers who don't appear to have made any attempt to get on the same page with each other.

The main thing that's hampering is pretending that a coherent, canonical alignment system exists. :smalltongue:

Generally speaking, people aren't following the canon so much as they are using their own alignment systems and (in the case of some) cherry-picking references from the books in order to make their views appear official. Which is why alignment threads are generally so awful.

I don't really disagree with any of that (esp. Alignment threads being awful) but there is a degree of consistency in that slavery and other forms of economically exploiting others is always evil.... even though our idea of "exploitation" is pretty culturally subjective. Obviously Paladins shouldn't go around slaying landlords just because they might be ***** but it's implicitly understood by like 99% of D&D's writers I'd expect, that a 'good' landlord does not leave his renters in poverty (well, what's poverty anyway and where do the criteria you judge it by come from?)

What I mean by Star Trek values is that it's inherently understood a system where 99% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the population and a fraction of that population (doesn't even have to be the majority) lacks personal/economic freedom is not good, and civilizations with an ethos that supports that are wrong. I would suggest the overwhelming bulk of D&D written materials would be in line with that.

LudicSavant
2015-10-13, 09:01 PM
What I mean by Star Trek values is that it's inherently understood a system where 99% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the population and a fraction of that population (doesn't even have to be the majority) lacks personal/economic freedom is not good, and civilizations with an ethos that supports that are wrong.

Hold on, I'm trying to understand you here... do you think that that understanding is recent and that it would be unrealistic for a historical character to exhibit such an understanding? Because countless wars and reformations throughout thousands of years of history have had that idea as their basis. Wherever there has been stratification, there have been people who rebelled against it.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-13, 10:01 PM
Yeah odds are pretty high that out of the range of possible meanings, I meant the most extreme and stupid one.

LudicSavant
2015-10-13, 10:06 PM
Yeah odds are pretty high that out of the range of possible meanings, I meant the most extreme and stupid one.

Maybe instead of being sarcastic, you could clarify when asked for clarification? I don't actually know what the meaning you intended was, which is why I asked in the first place.

Mando Knight
2015-10-13, 10:21 PM
I'd say that the idea of Good as presented in the canon is not like Star Trek, so much as it is an idea of Good that's wildly diverse and self-contradictory, given the inputs of dozens of writers who don't appear to have made any coherent attempt to get on the same page with each other.

Wait, isn't that almost exactly what Trek's idea of good is like, if taken as a whole rather than cherry-picked for a semi-consistent ideology? Between the Tuvix incident and a certain Denobulan doctor's advocacy of not saving an entire race supposedly forming the cornerstone of the most inconsistently applied piece of doctrine in the Federation, there's plenty of other instances where Trek's morality isn't exactly on solid ground.

LudicSavant
2015-10-13, 10:22 PM
Wait, isn't that almost exactly what Trek's idea of good is like, if taken as a whole rather than cherry-picked for a semi-consistent ideology? Between the Tuvix incident and a certain Denobulan doctor's advocacy of not saving an entire race supposedly forming the cornerstone of the most inconsistently applied piece of doctrine in the Federation, there's plenty of other instances where Trek's morality isn't exactly on solid ground.

Maybe, I haven't actually watched much Star Trek.

goto124
2015-10-14, 12:47 AM
What I mean by Star Trek values is that it's inherently understood a system where 99% of the wealth belongs to 1% of the population and a fraction of that population (doesn't even have to be the majority) lacks personal/economic freedom is not good, and civilizations with an ethos that supports that are wrong. I would suggest the overwhelming bulk of D&D written materials would be in line with that.

Is it Evil, or just Lawful, or a case of taking Lawful so far it became Evil as well?

It's not a system I would like to exist. But does it qualify for cosmic Evil?

Does it help to choose one author and stick to hir definition of Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic? I have a fairly firm idea of what makes Law and Chaos (collectivism vs individualism), not so much on Good and Evil.

Templarkommando
2015-10-14, 01:13 AM
This, boiled down, is why I'm not a fan of the Paladin class---don't like 'em, won't play one, won't have one in my games unless a player is really determined to be one. As written, the class enforces what I might as well call Presentism on any campaign setting, imposing values that are familiar and comfortable for 20th century liberal democracies even where it makes no sense they would exist. Because the class is supposed to be "good, pure and simple" basically no one is comfortable with the idea of a Paladin who's okay with slavery or execution by dismemberment or a caste system or other things that are unpalatable.

Fundamentally the problem is in the game's insistence that this class stands for GOOD, pure and simple, no wriggle room allowed. If it was "this class conforms to general Rosseauian principals in its behavior" that'd be one thing but the insistence that the Paladin must always and simply be GOOD breaks a whole lot of things. If you want to pull your campaign out of the dungeon and have your players negotiate a more complex world than hacking and slashing through underdark denizens I can't say a class that's supposed to be pure-and-simple objective good brings more to the table than it closes off.

Here's one of the problems - when you get 4+ people and a DM at the table there are already pre-existing notions of good at the table. If one of those players sits down and says that their particular notion of good and how to bring it about is superior, it gets really annoying after about the fourth or fifth time that that character steamrollers over your cunning plan in the name of achieving some notion that you may or may not(more likely) agree with. If I want to play a cool and collected secret agent-inspired character that deals out justice from the shadows, he's going to clash with the character that can't stand the notion of anything other than a stand-up fight where all partakers are aware and armed.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 01:30 AM
Is it Evil, or just Lawful, or a case of taking Lawful so far it became Evil as well?

It's not a system I would like to exist. But does it qualify for cosmic Evil?

Does it help to choose one author and stick to hir definition of Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic? I have a fairly firm idea of what makes Law and Chaos (collectivism vs individualism), not so much on Good and Evil.

My honest opinion is alignment hurts games more than it helps: the best thing you can do is dump it but since in 3.x that involves screwing with a bunch of mechanics the best compromise is usually to ignore it excepting game effects.

Especially Law and Chaos. I have my own thoughts about what might constitute a reasonable definition of 'chaotic' vs 'lawful' individuals, and if I had to bet knowing nothing else I'd say it's different from yours.

But yeah, if you want to do alignment and do it well, you have that discussion before the game even begins. Best thing to do is probably just have a short discussion or just give everyone a typed page about what alignment means for your world---not telling anybody their own ideas are wrong, but you're the DM and this is how Good/Evil/Law/Chaos will work in your game, so everybody can at least know where they stand.


Wait, isn't that almost exactly what Trek's idea of good is like, if taken as a whole rather than cherry-picked for a semi-consistent ideology? Between the Tuvix incident and a certain Denobulan doctor's advocacy of not saving an entire race supposedly forming the cornerstone of the most inconsistently applied piece of doctrine in the Federation, there's plenty of other instances where Trek's morality isn't exactly on solid ground.

Killing Tuvix wasn't a good action; the only thing that made it defensible was they were effectively killing one person to save two. And what are you crazy, nobody watched Enterprise.

But yeah I just used Star Trek as shorthand for "liberal democratic values." Things like "respect other cultures," "everyone deserves a basic means of subsistence," "everyone should be allowed to pursue the life they want as long as they aren't harming others." Everything we usually boil down as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

You don't have to think of the Imperium in WH40k for an example of a culture opposed to those values. What about a culture that considers land to be "held in common" (so everyone has a right to its natural bounty) but refuses the idea of any individual right to develop that land, even if it would ultimately bring more benefits to everyone? Now you have two kinds of "good" at odds, and that's a cool, interesting conflict but the Paladin as-written kinda ruins that sort of thing because as long as he's not falling, well.... he's an infallible authority. He is big-G Good and people should reasonably be expected to get onboard with that. Or if he isn't, and he represents just one specific ideology of "good" and there are others that are metaphysically equally good, well I've seen a lot of internet bloviators who think that spoils the whole idea. Or if you had two Paladins take opposite positions on that issue, again, the Paladin has lost its alleged connection to perfect big-g Good. It's an idea that just can't handle complex, nuanced conflicts between ideologies with real grounding.


Here's one of the problems - when you get 4+ people and a DM at the table there are already pre-existing notions of good at the table. If one of those players sits down and says that their particular notion of good and how to bring it about is superior, it gets really annoying after about the fourth or fifth time that that character steamrollers over your cunning plan in the name of achieving some notion that you may or may not(more likely) agree with. If I want to play a cool and collected secret agent-inspired character that deals out justice from the shadows, he's going to clash with the character that can't stand the notion of anything other than a stand-up fight where all partakers are aware and armed.

Exactly. Check out the Knight Class in the 3.5 Player's Handbook II. That Knight class comes with a "code" that actually docks you class abilities due to dishonoring yourself if you A) attack a prone character or B) take a bonus from flanking. Now look, that is stupid, even He-Man will flank with Battle-Cat, but somewhere out there is a guy who thought that made so much sense it should go in official WotC product. You have to look for a compromise, but...

Satinavian
2015-10-14, 01:58 AM
Exactly. Check out the Knight Class in the 3.5 Player's Handbook II. That Knight class comes with a "code" that actually docks you class abilities due to dishonoring yourself if you A) attack a prone character or B) take a bonus from flanking. Now look, that is stupid, even He-Man will flank with Battle-Cat, but somewhere out there is a guy who thought that made so much sense it should go in official WotC product. You have to look for a compromise, but...That is just an honor code. Not some "this kind of fighting is the cosmic good way to fight"-thing. An honor-code forbidding some effective and thus unfair tactics as cowardly is not exactly strange or uncommon. Doesn't mean they are not still used, if needed.
And mechanics trying to make the intended behavior of a certain class beneficial and discourage certain tactics for certain classes are not wrong either.

Don't see anything wrong with the knight per se. Beyond being a class with limited options that somehow was intended to be balanced with a core only fighter.


If a paladin was more similar to a knight, with more straightforward ideals which are setting appropriate (or as a core class better a set of ideals to choose an apropriate one ) and without being linked to the borked cosmic good/evil stuff any more than a cleric is, we would not have those problems.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 02:08 AM
effective and thus unfair tactics

o _ O

okay, here's a fun fact: actual, late-medieval chivalry clarified that it was perfectly okay to utilize ambuscade, underminding and other "effective and thus unfair tactics" as long as you gave your opponent the chance to surrender once you had him surrounded and totally boned. Because the point was to win with minimal loss of life--both of your followers' and your enemy's followers'.

The idea of a 'knight' having that kind of code is so stupid---look, real knights wanted to take their enemies alive so they could ransom that dude for fat cash prizes, so they trained very specifically in the art of tripping opponents or knocking them on their butt and then beating the hell out of the guy while he was on the ground while shouting "do ya give!!? do ya!!? do ya!!?"

It's a really just dumb thing, sorry.

Satinavian
2015-10-14, 02:19 AM
And what about poison ? What about using wrong colors and crests ? What about atacking during a truce or violating hospitality ? What about poisoning wells ? What about banned weapons (which exactly varied in time and place, but the idea of banning certain weapons was very much present) ?

I did not say, the exact code from PHII is historically correct for knights. But that effective and unfair tactics are often forbidden by codes of honor. And yes, many knights did have some honor code. Which exactly varied wildly for several dozens of countries with knights, dozens more of knight orders and many centuries of the existence of knights. And yes, having a code does not mean everyone followed it all the time, but a violation was still dishonorable.

The PHII code is linked to game mechanics and can be easily applied. That is why it is a mechanically good solution instead of a code which relies basically on fluff and DM discretion.
Also iirc the PHII knight is not prohibited from knocking perople prone or taking them for ransom.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 02:23 AM
Please find me the RL order of knights that would wait for a dude to get up before smacking him back down---and I mean in real life and death fights. Like all that other stuff you listed were indeed considered dishonorable IRL with good reasons (mainly going back to that "preventing gross levels of casualties, esp. of the rich and important) but this specific thing is really stupid. ****, if you want to play Dudley Do-Right the sensible thing is to keep smacking your enemy until he yields, or once he's on the ground hog-tie him or whatever.

goto124
2015-10-14, 02:24 AM
Best thing to do is probably just have a short discussion or just give everyone a typed page about what alignment means for your world

It sounds easy in theory. How would I write that page? What sort of questions about alignment should I answer? How well does 'Good will not harm life' work out when adventurers are 'harming life' all the time? What counts as 'harming life' anyway?


look, real knights wanted to take their enemies alive so they could ransom that dude for fat cash prizes, so they trained very specifically in the art of tripping opponents or knocking them on their butt and then beating the hell out of the guy while he was on the ground while shouting "do ya give!!? do ya!!? do ya!!?"

:smallbiggrin: I think that's called an adventurer or a bounty hunter :smalltongue:

I've always thought of Knights as Lawful Neutrals who serve some organisation down to the letter. Judge Dredd maybe?

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 02:31 AM
It sounds easy in theory. How would I write that page? What sort of questions about alignment should I answer? How well does 'Good will not harm life' work out when adventurers are 'harming life' all the time? What counts as 'harming life' anyway?

Well, 'Good' won't do anything, the question is what Jim the Fighter Who Tries to be Good will do. You basically just think about what your players are apt to try and get up to and write a few guidelines so they know where you stand on that. Say you have a guy in your group like one of my friends who likes to play mad scientist type wizards and abduct animals and people and experiment on them in campaign after campaign (it's..... a thing). Inform him that, in your opinion, that's evil as **** (probably less so in the case of most animals); maybe he has a totally brilliant argument prepared why that should in fact be neutral because betterment of science but it is your cosmos. Let him do his thing but let him be braced for how that's going to bounce off the game world.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 03:03 AM
I've always thought of Knights as Lawful Neutrals who serve some organisation down to the letter. Judge Dredd maybe?

Speaking as a junior medievalist who's read many books relating the behavior of knights, there should be no connotation of 'lawfulness' attached to the name.

Real knights would break into churches and steal the good silver while holding a priest at sword-point because he had bought some property they considered to be part of their family's extended estate. It was only fair.

goto124
2015-10-14, 04:12 AM
Quite clearly, my idea of 'Knights' has no real-life historicsl basis.

What about DnD though?

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 04:28 AM
Quite clearly, my idea of 'Knights' has no real-life historicsl basis.

What about DnD though?

The Knight-class is defense-oriented, especially built to thwart both enemies that try and use the Tumble skill to maneuver past them and the attacks of casters targeting the Will, as well as to soak up damage generally. The class makes the most sense as a sort of elite bodyguard. I like to use it for Darth Vader type no. 2 villains who are good at soaking up your bull**** attacks.

Basically, you're a knight if you can convince people you're a knight---if you've got the horse, the armor, the lance, you're a knight. There's a lot of stuff about ancestry and property but if you've got the outward signs, you can bull**** your way through the rest. A lot of people did bull**** their way in that way. Historically.

Keltest
2015-10-14, 07:32 AM
Here's one of the problems - when you get 4+ people and a DM at the table there are already pre-existing notions of good at the table. If one of those players sits down and says that their particular notion of good and how to bring it about is superior, it gets really annoying after about the fourth or fifth time that that character steamrollers over your cunning plan in the name of achieving some notion that you may or may not(more likely) agree with. If I want to play a cool and collected secret agent-inspired character that deals out justice from the shadows, he's going to clash with the character that can't stand the notion of anything other than a stand-up fight where all partakers are aware and armed.

Paladins are not obligated to ensure that their party members are all lawful, only that they aren't evil. If you plan on playing Batman, the appropriate response to a paladin uncomfortable with the shadows is to tell him to go do something distractingly paladin like over there in the light instead of helping you. If they refuse to do that, that is a player issue, not a class issue, because paladins are perfectly allowed to do that.

Roderick_BR
2015-10-14, 09:46 AM
Exactly. Paladins are Good first, Lawful second. They will always prioritize good over law, though they will strive to accommodate both when possible.
This. Paladins are supposed to be the good guys. If you want a knightly heroic campaign, go paladin. If the game is about mercenaries just filling contracts and killing stuff, pick something else. Easy

I often play paladin, and my friends say I'm LG even when playing something else. The quicker? The DM that usually makes the campaings with lots of hero stuff likes to play CN fighters when I'm the DM, and can kill stuff without caring. We accomodate each other's play styles and never got a problem with it.
Fun fact, my latest character is a dwarf paladin.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-14, 09:48 AM
Speaking as a junior medievalist who's read many books relating the behavior of knights, there should be no connotation of 'lawfulness' attached to the name.

Real knights would break into churches and steal the good silver while holding a priest at sword-point because he had bought some property they considered to be part of their family's extended estate. It was only fair.

Yeah, Knights were basically just old-timey gangbangers but we'll get from the idea they represent than the jellybeans they actually were.

LudicSavant
2015-10-14, 09:59 AM
Real knights were generally pretty awful. Their idealized codes of honor often weren't much better, either.

Honor systems generally exist for the benefit of a ruling class's long term interests. They're there to keep people in their place.

Honor states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Honor states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Honor states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

The guys in power are individually better trained, better armed, healthier, and fewer in number, so of course you're supposed to let them see you coming and not team up, because then they'll win. Giving people the idea that that kind of fight is "honorable" and "fair" (even though it's anything but) gives an advantage to the ruling warrior-thug class.

Generally, if something can make a peasant beat a knight, it's "dishonorable."



The PHII code is linked to game mechanics and can be easily applied. That is why it is a mechanically good solution instead of a code which relies basically on fluff and DM discretion.

I find the PHB II Knight code to be a complete joke. I don't know what the hell the designers were thinking. For example, the knight can't hit someone standing up in a Grease effect (because they're flat-footed while balancing), but they can hit them after they've fallen down in the grease (because they're prone, not flat-footed). What? I mean, what code of honor, fictional or otherwise, is that supposed to represent? I can only assume that whoever wrote the Knight's code of conduct had no earthly idea how the D&D combat rules work. How else do you explain them being prohibited from staking vampires?

Mr.Moron
2015-10-14, 10:47 AM
Also, I find the PHB II Knight code to be a complete joke. I don't know what the hell the designers were thinking. For example, the knight can't hit someone standing up in a Grease effect, but they can hit them after they've fallen down. What? I mean, what code of honor, fictional or otherwise, is that supposed to represent? I can only assume that whoever wrote the Knight's code of conduct had no earthly idea how the D&D combat rules work. How else do you explain them being prohibited from staking vampires?

As I read it, it was mostly meant to represent: "Fight fair. Face your opponent directly and on the most even terms you can, setting aside your relative strength. Don't attack while your opponent is unduly impaired from defending themselves, skill and determination should decide victory not numbers or circumstance".

I turns out that's really rather difficult to turn into cohesively written-RAW in an engine like D&D.

goto124
2015-10-14, 10:54 AM
Honor systems generally exist for the benefit of a ruling class's long term interests. They're there to keep people in their place.

Honor states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Honor states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Honor states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

The guys in power are individually better trained, better armed, healthier, and fewer in number, so of course you're supposed to let them see you coming and not team up, because then they'll win. Giving people the idea that that kind of fight is "honorable" and "fair" (even though it's anything but) gives an advantage to the ruling warrior-thug class.

Generally, if something can make a peasant beat a knight, it's "dishonorable."


May I borrow this for my CG characters? I love the Robin Hood archetype.

LudicSavant
2015-10-14, 10:56 AM
As I read it, it was mostly meant to represent: "Fight fair. Face your opponent directly and on the most even terms you can, setting aside your relative strength. Don't attack while your opponent is unduly impaired from defending themselves, skill and determination should decide victory not numbers or circumstance".

Yeah, but it's pretty clear that what it was meant to represent and what it actually does are not related. Which is why it's a terrible mechanic.


May I borrow this for my CG characters? I love the Robin Hood archetype.

Sure.

Mr.Moron
2015-10-14, 11:02 AM
Yeah, but it's pretty clear that what it was meant to represent and what it actually does are not related.


I think it does as good a job as can be expected given the environment it has to work in, at least if you're taking a rules oriented rather than abstracted approach. They're certainly related it's just that it's a very hard thing to represent and will naturally have some failure cases. It's dismissive hyberbole to imply that the rules put forward are arbitrary or otherwise not given good considerations to how they represent the concept.

LudicSavant
2015-10-14, 11:15 AM
I think it does as good a job as can be expected given the environment it has to work in, at least if you're taking a rules oriented rather than abstracted approach. They're certainly related it's just that it's a very hard thing to represent and will naturally have some failure cases. It's dismissive hyberbole to imply that the rules put forward are arbitrary or otherwise not given good considerations to how they represent the concept.

The only dismissive hyperbole I'm seeing here is where you dismiss out of hand the notion that the rules may not have been given good consideration to how they represent the concept. Especially in the face of specific examples of how they fail to represent the concept.

I do not agree that it "does as good a job as can be expected given the environment it has to work in." I am totally capable of expecting better class design than what I feel the Knight offers, and feel that others have succeeded in doing a better job.

I also disagree that it will "naturally have some failure cases" given that I've seen homebrewed versions that manage to avoid such failure cases, let alone ones as frequent and silly as WotC's version.

Heck, I question whether it would even take effort to improve those rules. I mean, you'd think things like "maybe being unable to deal lethal damage to helpless targets would be a problem with things immune to nonlethal damage" would occur to someone who knew that undead and constructs exist in the world. These aren't narrow, obscure failure cases here.

Cazero
2015-10-14, 12:12 PM
I mean, you'd think things like "maybe being unable to deal lethal damage to helpless targets would be a problem with things immune to nonlethal damage" would occur to someone who knew that undead and constructs exist in the world.

Considering you had to beat the thing into submission before it got helpless, the fight is over and considerations of fairness of fighting are moot. Just like they can hang chained criminals instead of freeing them and giving them weapons.

LudicSavant
2015-10-14, 12:21 PM
Considering you had to beat the thing into submission before it got helpless, the fight is over and considerations of fairness of fighting are moot. Just like they can hang chained criminals instead of freeing them and giving them weapons.

Well, yeah. The Knight's Code mechanic does not allow you to hang chained criminals any more than it allows you to stake vampires or win duels to first blood or use iaijutsu or attack people who balance successfully instead of failing balance checks. Well, at least not without suffering the penalties for breaking the code.

It does allow you to use poisons, diseases, get all the outside help you want including all manner of buffs for you and most types of debuffs for them, bluff all you want and generally use "trickery and guile," kick and stab people while they're down, deal sneak attack damage, all of the benefits of flanking except the +2 bonus to attack rolls, change shape to impersonate others, and pretty much everything else that might actually make sense as being prohibited. Heck, you can even do all sorts of things to flat-footed enemies as long as it doesn't involve striking them.

Satinavian
2015-10-14, 01:01 PM
Yeah, but it's pretty clear that what it was meant to represent and what it actually does are not related. Which is why it's a terrible mechanic.
Well, it does represent those ideas and it does have enough impact that you can actually see a difference in fighting style between a knight and a Fighter regardless of weapon or feat choice. Good enough.

Well, yeah. The Knight's Code mechanic does not allow you to hang chained criminalsExecutioner is not the most honorable profession. Why should a Knight do those things himself ? There are other people who can do the dirty work.

Piedmon_Sama
2015-10-14, 01:48 PM
Yeah, Knights were basically just old-timey gangbangers but we'll get from the idea they represent than the jellybeans they actually were.

I wouldn't go that far. We have many, many historical examples of Knights Behaving Badly (because that's what tended to show up in legal records, natch) but as an old professor of mine once put it, "I'm sure there were many knights who understood what Christianity expected of them and took it seriously."

Here's the thing, the aforementioned examples I brought up (surrounding the enemy, undermining an enemy fort, beating an opponent into submission) were intended to save lives. Yes, principally the lives of the nobility, but often their followers too. Anything that ended a battle with minimum bloodshed, say by forcing an enemy surrender, that was considered very chivalrous and admirable. Even in the example I gave, the knights robbed the church because they considered it to have (illegally) laid claim to their property and were taking recompense (under the universally understood laws of war at the time).

Sure, knights were far from the ideal that Victorian novelists and painters imagined, but they weren't 'just' scoundrels or gangsters either. They were often expected to act as judge and juror (and admittedly sometimes they summoned people to court just to collect a bond, then dismissed the case), to chase down dangerous animals, to give alms, or subscribe (with money not just encouragement) to public projects like bridges or a new church. And of course they had to take care of the people of their household (which might comprise several households).

ThinkMinty
2015-10-14, 09:35 PM
Real knights were generally pretty awful. Their idealized codes of honor often weren't much better, either.

Honor systems generally exist for the benefit of a ruling class's long term interests. They're there to keep people in their place.

Honor states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Honor states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Honor states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

The guys in power are individually better trained, better armed, healthier, and fewer in number, so of course you're supposed to let them see you coming and not team up, because then they'll win. Giving people the idea that that kind of fight is "honorable" and "fair" (even though it's anything but) gives an advantage to the ruling warrior-thug class.

Generally, if something can make a peasant beat a knight, it's "dishonorable."

Honor is a fancy word for cheating by the book.

LudicSavant
2015-10-14, 11:26 PM
Executioner is not the most honorable profession.

Tell that to the Starks. Or Ogami Itto. :smalltongue:


Why should a Knight do those things himself ? There are other people who can do the dirty work.

Oh, you can totally execute people as a Knight. You just can't do it by dealing lethal hp damage while they're Helpless. So, for instance, you could administer lethal injections while they were Helpless. Or use Death effects. Or just kill them while they're suffering any other disadvantage besides being Helpless.

Amaril
2015-10-15, 12:30 PM
Tell that to the Starks. Or Ogami Itto.

I find the Starks kind of a funny comparison, since one of the big things that distinguishes the Northerners from the other Westerosi is that they don't have knights. That tradition isn't part of their culture; the code of honor they do follow is quite different from chivalry.

Hawkstar
2015-10-17, 04:18 AM
Real knights were generally pretty awful. Their idealized codes of honor often weren't much better, either.

Honor systems generally exist for the benefit of a ruling class's long term interests. They're there to keep people in their place.

Honor states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Honor states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Honor states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

The guys in power are individually better trained, better armed, healthier, and fewer in number, so of course you're supposed to let them see you coming and not team up, because then they'll win. Giving people the idea that that kind of fight is "honorable" and "fair" (even though it's anything but) gives an advantage to the ruling warrior-thug class.

Generally, if something can make a peasant beat a knight, it's "dishonorable."Ehh... the thing about poison and assassination is that they destroy trust and create uncertainty, as well as divorce action from consequence. For example - If Inigo Montoya barges in on Lord Reugan while he's at his best friend's wedding shouting "Hello! My Name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" then everyone knows that Lord Reugan's gonna die because he's a murderous jackass. But what if Inigo had just taken a crossbow, and sniped the man dead while he was raising a toast to a long life and happy marriage to his liege and best friend? Or if he keeled over dead from poison in his wine glass after said toast? What sort of message would that send to everyone?

LudicSavant
2015-10-17, 09:19 AM
Ehh... the thing about poison and assassination is that they destroy trust and create uncertainty, as well as divorce action from consequence.

Destroy trust for who? Create uncertainty for who? Divorce action from consequence for who?

Plenty of things that divorce action from consequence for the nobility and create uncertainty for the underclass are totally okay under codes like chivalry and bushido. Heck, just look at things like seisatsu yodatsu.

ThinkMinty
2015-10-17, 01:20 PM
Destroy trust for who? Create uncertainty for who? Divorce action from consequence for who?

Plenty of things that divorce action from consequence for the nobility and create uncertainty for the underclass are totally okay under codes like chivalry and bushido. Heck, just look at things like seisatsu yodatsu.

This, again and again and again.

Talion
2015-10-17, 01:40 PM
Do: The right thing for as many people as you can.
Do: Help people with their problems.
Do: Lead by example (especially important if you hope to convert someone).
Do: Protect people who can't protect themselves.
Do: Talk things out in a civilized manner.
Do: Volunteer your own services to a worthy cause for reduced payment.
Do: Give people a chance to explain themselves.
Do: Give people a chance to make amends for their mistakes.
Do: Understand that not everyone is able to live up to your standards or lifestyle.
Do: Avoid doing anything you would find repugnant in someone else.

Don't: Force your lifestyle down anyone else's throat.
Don't: Immediately opt for violence the moment things aren't going as you want them.
Don't: Treat everyone as "Guilty until proven innocent."
Don't: Put yourself through a living hell to live up to an impossible standard.

Rockphed
2015-10-17, 08:24 PM
Real knights were generally pretty awful. Their idealized codes of honor often weren't much better, either.

Honor systems generally exist for the benefit of a ruling class's long term interests. They're there to keep people in their place.

Honor states that men may not gang up because nobles are individually better armed, trained, and educated, while peasants are numerous. Honor states that poison and assassination is vile, because it deals with the individual who transgresses rather than making war on their minions while they hide within their castles. Honor states that fire and swords are honorable, because castles do not burn like cottages, and steel does not slice like linen.

The guys in power are individually better trained, better armed, healthier, and fewer in number, so of course you're supposed to let them see you coming and not team up, because then they'll win. Giving people the idea that that kind of fight is "honorable" and "fair" (even though it's anything but) gives an advantage to the ruling warrior-thug class.

Generally, if something can make a peasant beat a knight, it's "dishonorable."

As with many things, honor works best when the strong apply it to themselves rather than attempting to force it upon the weak. Or, to put it another way...

Honor states to take the fight now, rather than waiting in the shadows for a comfortable mob to join. Honor states to allow the accused to confront their accusers, rather than killing them before they know what is coming, no matter how compelling the evidence against them.

I would come up with a rebuttal to the fire and sword comment, but I really can't think of a good reason to ban a weapon. Well, a conventional weapon at least. Banning chemical, biological, and incendiary weapons makes plenty of sense since they are generally good at causing collateral damage and civilian casualties.

At any rate, when the ruling class enforce honor on themselves, it leads to them being more just in their actions. When they try to enforce honor on their subjects, things just don't work so well. As with "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one", it isn't bad as an internal pillar of a character, but is stinking rotten when used as justification for atrocities.

LudicSavant
2015-10-17, 10:40 PM
I would come up with a rebuttal to the fire and sword comment, but I really can't think of a good reason to ban a weapon.

There were actually quite a few instances where swords were banned in various medieval period societies, especially from certain classes of people.

Rockphed
2015-10-17, 11:11 PM
There were actually quite a few instances where swords were banned in various medieval period societies, especially from certain classes of people.

Oh, I can think of lots of reasons to ban weapons. Most of them, however, devolve into "I don't like how hard it is to defend against that weapon, so I don't want people to use it."

LudicSavant
2015-10-17, 11:22 PM
At any rate, when the ruling class enforce honor on themselves, it leads to them being more just in their actions. When they try to enforce honor on their subjects, things just don't work so well.

What you seem to be overlooking is that codes of honor like bushido and chivalry have the nobility come out way ahead if the code is enforced for everyone. It's not that the rules are disproportionately enforced for one class over another (though that happened too), it's that the rules themselves disproportionately benefit one class over another.

Cazero
2015-10-18, 01:28 AM
What you seem to be overlooking is that codes of honor like bushido and chivalry have the nobility come out way ahead if the code is enforced for everyone. It's not that the rules are disproportionately enforced for one class over another (though that happened too), it's that the rules themselves disproportionately benefit one class over another.

And the code itself is supposed to reduce how problematic that situation is, by limiting potential abuse from the ruler class it empowers. Wether or not it worked is a different question.