50ShadesofGoblin's page

Disagreement

I admit I flashed on the Elcor when I read this.

I've taken some liberties. - 50Shades

A paladin walks up to a Buddhist monk. The two of them begin talking.

"You know," says the paladin, "I have it so bad! There's this war going on, and it would just be so much simpler if I could poison the water supply!"

"I know!" says the monk. "Not only can I not poison, I'm not allowed to take anything impure into my body. I have longed for a taste of that heavenly vintage, 'Cherry Mana Cola.' In addition, I eat only once a day, and must be content with that!"

"Woah!" says the paladin, "I can at least have stew! And three or four times a day if I like!"

"No meat!" replies the Buddhist. "And we must practice discipline and compassion for everyone. There is no killing."

"No killing! No kidding! I've been known to give a good, swift kick to a few bullies. Not even a punch?"

"Not even a punch," says the Buddhist monk. "In fact, I should stand up from my cot and offer my home were it invaded, rather than kill another being."

"Well, what about respecting authority? I mean, I'm supposed to respect good government and all that s$!%," says the paladin.

"Oh, yes. I am forbidden from visiting a king's palace at night, for example, or teaching words that the order considers untrue to the meaning of the Dharma and the Buddha. To ensure I maintain my own inner discipline, I meditate for several hours a day, no matter the weather and get up at 3 in the morning. In addition, I must not give untrue advice or create regret within another person. Tickling is forbidden, as is eating a meal at the incorrect time."

"...tickling? You're kidding, right?"

"I do my best to speak honestly. I am also forbidden from showing favoritism and playing in water."

"...heck with that s@@$," says the paladin. "So, like. What do you get if you fail?"

"I am doomed to return again and again to a life of suffering. Forever," says the monk.

Part One
As humans, we continually lie, in small ways and in larger ones.

1. Strangers will lie 3x within the first 10 minutes of meeting eachother.
2. Extroverts lie more than introverts.
3. Men lie 8x more about themselves than they do other people.
4. Women lie more to protect other people.
5. You will lie to your spouse every 1 in 10 interactions.
6. Every day, you will be lied to up on average, up to 200 times.

...and so on. Reference: TED Talk on Lying and Deception

Point Two
Within any religious faith, practitioners are given not a single set of rules, but books and books of "how to interpret this seemingly simple set of rules."

Sources: Luther's Small Catechism, The Catholic Catechism, focusing on a specific example: "How to interpret the Lord's Prayer, The Five Buddhist Precepts, Benedictine Monastic Vows...

...and so forth.

Point Three
The paladin's oath is actually less strict than real world religious examples. In some cases, the real world example may be more frightening: some societies believed that breaking these vows resulted in the eternal damnation of the soul. That is pretty serious. In other ways, some are much more strict: The Buddhist admonition against both killing and eating meat, and the direction to not sleep on too high of a bed.

Conclusion
The "paladin's code" is a mere and brief guideline that must be interpreted according to the setting and the paladin's order. In addition, this code is actually less strict than many, real world world lay and dedicated orders. It is also shorter.

By demanding that the paladin's code is "exactly as written," we ignore thousands of years of tradition by our own religious orders, traditions, and societies.

Even the famously "simple" Lord's prayer is given books of explanatory text, depending on your denomination, and theological rifts have formed from them.

Demanding that all paladins interpret the oath "exactly the same" is akin to arguing that Catholics and Baptists should agree on a word-for-word interpretation of the Lord's Prayer.

Not happening.

An important part of Evil is:
1. You're willing to go further than other alignments
2. The moral justification; for example, arguing to yourself that you're offering a better chance, or someone else would, anyway. Even soldiers within the death camps possessed this--it's what we tell ourselves that we're really doing a good thing, despite what the acts actually are.

...the justification is a key element of the story and characters' motivation.

Such prostitution rings often include the underaged and children, because of ease of smuggling (they're smaller), and higher profit. An organizer or runner might even feel they're "offering these kids a chance when no one else will," and morally justify it. Or, "if I'm not doing it, someone else will." We'd still argue that it's Evil, though.

Glad you like the ideas.

Most players when they want to play evil, really just want to play:
- Murderhobo, or
- Badass

Ascertain if one of these or a combination of these is what they're actually after. If they're actually wanting to play evil, then it will require some more research and effort.

If they truly want Evil, let them dig into the dregs of society and depravity. Let them revel in it. For example:

- Run a profitable, forced prostitution ring. Such business can include travel and end up turning quite a profit. Include drug trafficking on the side--many forced rings use some illegal means to control their chattel, and keep them compliant. This isn't glamorous. It's the backs of buildings and the removal of will from another person as a means of profiteering and gratification.

- Participate within or run an underground mafia and life of crime including bribery, coercion and etc., while turning profit; this means delving into exploitation and the limits of profit. The mafia leaders may even see themselves as the good guys...but they're still going to be the s++~ out of your kid if you don't pay up, or worse.

- Explore actual medieval scenarios. For example, the PCs could begin life as enforcers for nobility. One method is that they're hired on to enforce taxes paid and due. However, it's done in an evil way than "just a reasonable tax." The duke's methods push people into poverty. With a fantasy/magic twist to it, they could be in the business of undead conversion in order to pay off the family debt (a lifetime spent in the fields). Perhaps the PCs eventually take over.

- If they want twisted, consider a necromancer offering special services to the populace. Hey, you can't get pregnant with the dead! There could also be bounties on "recovering" well-known or beautiful faces on the side. Has the young princeling always admired Lady Driua from afar? Etc.

- Special forces during war who go beyond the Ruse of War engagement guidelines. This falls in line with spreading diseased blankets among families, rounding up and threatening the vulnerable to control a populace. Look to recent acts committed in the Middle East for inspiration, or...hey, human history, genocides. I am not going to go into these here, but it demonstrates the limits of what humans are willing to do in order to accomplish a cause or maintain power.

TLDR: they want Badass, make it Badass. If they want Evil...make it Evil.

A focus on profit is an easy driver. "I'm doing this for business," but with Evil--how far are they willing to go? Likely, based on real world examples, far. It should be further than a neutral or good person.

Wiping out entire generations with diseased blankets is an example of "going further." So is the "forced dishonorment" one real-world dictator ordered, where his soldiers, in an organized fashion, assaulted the wives of enemy solders in order to dishonor the men. (Forced dishonorment means what you think it means, by the way).

Back to the fantasy world, perhaps forced magical experimentation on behalf of a powerful wizard's group, just done...in the dark, because of what it involves. Permanent disfigurement, kidnappings, etc.

I wouldn't feel comfortable running most of these stories (I really tend towards humor), but yes, understand what they're after and have that conversation. Badass is easier to do and in my own experience, what most are looking for.

I feel if you can look up the appropriate rules in a timely manner, there's no harm pausing momentarily to look it up. As long as it doesn't get out of hand.

I had a few GMs do this when I started using the Dirty Tricks Combat Maneuver.

GM: "Not sure if you can do that in this situation..."
Me: *Flips right to the mechanic in APG*
GM: *GM Reads* "Okay, but I'm limiting you to Dazzle, Blind, or Entangle for this enemy."
Me: "Cool Cool."

This happens a lot, especially with GMs new to my character. It even says in the APG that the maneuver is GM discretionary.

That's my example at least. I also agree with Jiggy, on his stance of knowing when to pick your battles.

Jiggy and Brigg got the right of it. Old as the game itself, if not older, this is.

Keep two things in mind:
1. Gotta handle it respectfully.
2. Don't take too much time away from the game.

Can't quickly and reasonably resolve it? Then thank them for bringing it up and say, "That's a good point. We'll look into it after the game, but for now I'd like to keep things moving."

Then DO review it after the game. You may offer a compromise in the meantime.

General rule at tables I game at--you can bring up an objection twice. After that, it's post-game, but it IS handled. The last part is important. Also important is: don't insult the DM and don't insult other players.

We are being too hard on ourselves.

I recently undertook an event very special to me. A few weeks ago, I and two others knelt with a monk and adopted the five precepts of Buddhism. As I reviewed the precepts and reflected on them, I was reminded of course, as I am also a lifelong roleplayer, of the infamous "paladin code."

I then shifted and began to think of other codes of morality that I have studied, such as that of the Lutherans or the Methodists. I have some history with these faiths and as a child had spent countless hours memorizing the Catechism, though today I would need to pull out the old documents to tell you what precisely its words were.

So, and here I will get to the point of this, yet I should also say that this is something I am still exploring, and still coming to understand.

I also wish to state that at no point do I wish to imply that my understanding of other faiths is absolute, nor am I implying anyone's interpretation of theirs is correct or incorrect in any way. Nor am I implying these beliefs are correct or incorrect. What am implying, and have been considering for my own thoughts and perusals are several things:

My first thought is that we are being too hard on ourselves.

My second is that nothing exists within a vacuum, that few of these codes as we know or study them "stand alone." Luther's Catechism comes with its own vaults of explanatory text, and makes for an easy example in this case. When undertaking the Catechism, the student is not expected to "understand" any single of the 10 Commandments on their own, but are given paragraphs and teachings of interpretation along with them. Again, I am not advocating or arguing for or against; it is simply illustrative.

What this suggests to me is that in much a similar way, the PRD should or could be seen as merely an outline of rules, that a setting and its flavour is meant to fill in the details. If we take this interpretation, then the paladin's code is merely statement--the interpretation, understanding, and details to be filled in later.

My third thought is that perhaps some of the real world codes and guides are actually more restrictive than what we're given as part of a game. For example, the paladin is not restricted from divorce or even explicitly, sexual misconduct (though you could argue this perhaps, depending on your setting). There is no celibacy clause, no clause against killing or in the case of the precepts: no clause against the harm of minerals.

These are examples only, and I would need to go through my books to pull more of them. The lists of do and do nots however, of various moral codes and institutions, break shelves beneath their weightedness, whereas the paladin's is but three lines.

The risk of breaking various guidelines and rules may be that of bad karma, to damnation or discoloration of the eternal soul, to eternal suffering, to extended suffering in purgatory as a means of cleansing. Some indeed are quite harsh (and please do not take my words as advocation, insult, or argument for or against). These are serious topics and worthy of both respect and consideration.

My fourth thought is that, the cure of misdeeds is often a form of atonement...though this varies and changes according to region, culture, and so forth. For example, atoning may be good works, may be confessionals, may be the recitation of prayers. In some ages, there was no cure: but there were however, the more severe punishments of various kinds, such as stoning...perhaps just as often where the answer was a heartfelt apology. We are then, already familiar with the concept and see it practiced both currently and throughout history.

...those are strong words, and again and again, I mean no insult. This is merely curious to me, an exploration of thought as I said.

The -fifth- thought is that again, we are too harsh on ourselves in interpreting these codes, at times. For example, I chose this name with deliberation: there is nothing within the precepts which prevents me from having a sense of humour. I am, however, asked not to partake in killing, which...the paladin is absolutely not. We face many codes and vows within life which appear to me more restrictive than what is found as part of a game.

The final thought is that "despite" undertaking many of these beliefs, precepts, vows and so forth...and even seeking or facing atonement when tenets are breached, the followers of these various codes are perfectly normal people.

They are perfectly playable PCs and NPCs.

Ahem. :) Okay, forgive my small joke there, but for those of you who have read this far, I hope I have not offended. I also hope you've enjoyed this thought exercise, and that perhaps it means something to you, as well. I also hope that none of you are offended, or take this as my advocation of any one particular belief, or another. To me, this is only a reflection on what can be learned from ourselves, our nature, and history.

It is also a reflection of the absolutely rich and wonderful backdrop we have to draw from for our roleplay, and perhaps should. That we should encourage ourselves to view the PRD as what it is here, an outline of rules...to be filled in by our own tapestries. Finally, that given our own history as a race or species...to realize that the code is not as restrictive as we are led to think or are wont to interpret. We have within our own histories longer documents, expectations.

One day the Paizo server will flub again.

And this thread will be necromanced.

I wait for that day.

Traps are out of date.

They are draped in paisley wallpaper and smell like old men knitting.

Rogues need to evolve beyond traps or have their class features merged into other classes.

...wait.