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As a DM,I would never put my paladin in a situation where he could fall.I get what you're saying, but...
You SHOULD put the paladin in positions where they *could* fall. That's kind of the point.
I think he means 'don't put them in catch-22 gotcha situations where they have to determine with game guide like precision precisely which option I want them to choose or else.'
This thread did kind of spawn from concerns about the 'slavery is bad, but paladin must enforce laws! Muahahahaha.' thing.
So basically,
There should be situations where the paladin could fall, not will fall.
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Slavery of a good alignment is better called indentured survitude.
There's nothing particularly good about classic indentured servitude, even a notably benign and non-oppressive form of it. Not to say that a notably benign and non-oppressive form of it is necessarily still evil, or even that a Good person could not act neutrally in this way, but I'm having a hard time seeing where it becomes typically actively moral. Acting decently but not going too far out of your way, is Neutral.
I have a hard time reconciling it with CG as well, but it really does seem to line up with the sort of things we take for granted from dryads, nymphs, etc...
Hmm.
1. A CG creature need not only perform CG acts; thus, that a CG creature does something does not necessarily make that thing CG itself.
2. A CG creature probably is going to feel spurred to let their toy go eventually if it becomes clear that things aren't working out. Or else will fall from CG if they continue holding someone after it's become clear that he or she will never come to be happy with the fey in question.
3. Fey are not necessarily naturally contemplative and self-reflective, and coming to this sort of realization may take some time. (Time which, it's worth noting, may run on a fey scale).
So I tend to look at it in terms of my earlier posted view (an evil system and corrosive over the long term, but not everyone involved will be evil, nor do you become immediately evil upon dipping a toe in the water).
In myths and stories, a fair number of these sorts of relationship do tend to end when mortal gets homesick and the fey reluctantly lets them go (frequently with the added complication that once you leave, you can never come back).
I'd see that playing out in Calypso style, with the fey making last minute entreaties to stay even as they let the mortal go, partly because they have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to leave them.
‘Son of Laertes, scion of Zeus, Odysseus of many resources, must you leave, like this, so soon? Still, let fortune go with you. Though if your heart knew the depths of anguish you are fated to suffer before you reach home, you would stay and make your home with me, and be immortal, no matter how much you long to see that wife you yearn for day after day.
It's a long term low-level conflict with their alignment that's going to have to eventually be resolved either by a) genuinely winning over the mortal b) letting them go, or c) changing alignments. If b) is in the cards, it's likely to come too slow for the mortal, and too fast for the fey, but such is life.
^I think that's how I would run it.
The only "good" form of "slavery" I can imagine would be a set up where a prisoner works off their crime, and as part of that some attempt to actively reform/educate/train the prisoner was involved.
I would say even the "pet" form of slavery is neutral at best. Your still depriving the person of free will and objectifying them, just not as a source of income.
Slavery is either neutral or evil in my opinion. Never good. Good cultures would defeat an enemy, imprison those they could not trust, forgive those they could, and work with the opposing culture to create a peaceful and prosperous relationship that would eliminate the conflict and create long lasting alliance. No slavery involved.
Slavery is neutral when it is used as a form of imprisonment given the inability to imprison defeated enemies. It is a better option than the general massacre of the opponent. There should be laws governing this form and an agreed upon term when it will end.
Borderline neutral when it is lawful slavery with agreed upon contractual terms like indentured servitude or voluntary debt payment. If the terms are fair and just, then you can consider the agreement Lawful Neutral. A fair form of debt resolution with lawful terms of treatment. If the terms turn a person into property and allow unlimited use up to and including death, then that is evil. Allowing women to contract as prostitutes to pay debts is another topic entirely that would require a discussion on the moral nature of prostitution. As we know there are lawful brothels that have agreements with women (some men as well) to act as prostitutes to pay off debts or for money if sold by their family to survive.
Evil when used to tyrannize an entire group based on ethnicity or social status. This is tyrannical slavery and should be considered evil.
Evil when it is forced upon someone else as a form of profit. If people are taking slaves by force and turning them into property to be used as the taker wishes, then it is evil.
Child slavery is always evil. There is no justification other than an evil nature for the enslavement of children.
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The only "good" form of "slavery" I can imagine would be a set up where a prisoner works off their crime, and as part of that some attempt to actively reform/educate/train the prisoner was involved.
I would say even the "pet" form of slavery is neutral at best. Your still depriving the person of free will and objectifying them, just not as a source of income.
A good culture rehabilitates their criminals as best they can. Enslavement of criminal to work off crime I would consider neutral.
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If the definition of slavery is 'lacking the rights afforded to regular citizens' and 'forced to work without pay' then prisoners are effectively slaves, in many parts of the 'civilized world' (including the USA, where even an *ex* prisoner may be assigned to 'volunteer' work without pay or 'community service,' and, years after serving out their sentence and being returned to the community, have lesser or different rights than regular citizens).
Slavery is a matter of degrees. The people who make clothing for Wal-Mart, in fenced off compounds they can never leave, kept working by men with guns, are effectively slaves, and yet representative of our government *praise* the way things are done in the Marianas, because they have so 'wonderfully' nipped 'the union problem' in the bud. Because it's a US territory, they can even snarkily put 'Made in the USA' on their labels. And we Americans totally support this, long after having outlawed chattel slavery.
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In response to Set,
Yes I agree, Prisoners are slaves. That is why I am opposed to prisons and a justice system that has prisons. Since liberty is more valued that life. And freedom more valuable than slavery. I support the death penalty for all criminals that are so dangerous that others would think them needing imprisonment. Basically, I would send criminals to counseling and/or pay property damages, and if that couldn't solve the problem I would put them to death since slavery is worse than death and I believe cruel.
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I've seen it mentioned a few times, but it bears mentioning that slavery can be probably be a part of a good society when that slavery comes about as punishment. Most of your Golarion societies don't really have the infrastructure for prisons and you're not going to execute every criminal. Prior to the introduction of expansive legal codes, magistrates, and the like in Anglo-Saxon England (just as a f'r instance), law was primarily an economic matter. A crime was a harm done to someone else and therefore punishment was directed at making restitution for the loss. For really heavy fines, offenders could be given up to a year to make restitution, or could be delivered into slavery, either of the local government or of the offended.
For city-states, such as Magnimar, or even larger, but new countries, such as the nation PCs will build out of the Stolen Lands in Kingmaker, there might be a jail in larger towns, but that's a solution for the first two dozen malefactors you run across. More important in these situations is a question that rarely comes up in adventure games: what is the purpose of the law? What rights, if any, are we trying to protect? Early law focused on protection of property or individual rights (at least for those deemed worthy of such rights). Slavery as a means of restitution could probably end up morally palatable.
As a DM,I would never put my paladin in a situation where he could fall.
If one of your players was a pacifist, you would never put him in situation where he should fight?
Isn't slavery institution of LAW instead of EVIL as the freedom is value of CHAOS, not one of GOOD?
In Rome, every man was property of state as every son was property of his father. Even friends couldn't be equal, as one always took place of 'big brother' with command and responsibility. When they meet Celts first time, they were horrified of their pagan freedom, which defied their view of world to core.
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Slavery is a tough one. Even limited slavery, such as indentured servitude where a person sells themselves for a period to pay off a debt or forced labour in prisons (as an aside - the US still legally allows slavery for convicts, which is messed up) tend to be more economically based than anything else. When something can make money, someone will exploit it - see the current US Prison system and the huge imbalance between people found guilty of certain crimes and the sentencing depending on background and race.
And indentured servitude, again, punishes poor people for being dumb enough to be poor.
So as a general rule, it's going to be evil. BUT ending slavery isn't automatically the good alternative. There were riots recorded in Egypt when Pharaohs proposed ending slavery for one reason or another - and it was the slave rioting. In Egypt, a slave, as property, had certain rights and a level of care that needed to be given to them. A freeman had no such rights.
Say you manage to free two hundred slaves. Are you going to provide for them until they can do so themselves? Freedom doesn't feed people,after all. And there will be slaves that prefer being slaves, whose lives were so awful beforehand that slavery is the better life for them. Do you force those slaves to be free? Again, it was a problem - slaves who were freed and didn't want to be.
I'd say that as a general rule slavery should be fought against by any good character - but as per usual there are always exceptions and grey areas which mean a smart character can't just smash down the door, free all the slaves and walk off. Slavery, in a country where it's legal at least, needs some fairly careful consideration and work - otherwise Captain Pallwwhack The Smiter will be responsible for hundreds of former slaves starving to death when they're freed into a life without any means of support.
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Isn't slavery institution of LAW instead of EVIL as the freedom is value of CHAOS, not one of GOOD?
Slavery itself is lawful, but the Required secondary powers it takes to run chattle slavery are pretty evil. You need to kidnap people, which oddly enough is force against them and the people that are (rightly) defending themselves (which is evil), it apparently makes the most economic sense to treat people in horrible, inhumane conditions, since slaves are already owned there's no incentive to work, so you have to do some evil things to keep them working at peak efficiency, and you need some mechanism for keeping people from making a break for their freedom: the worse the conditions for slavery are the worse you have to make the punishments to keep them from running.
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In response to Set,
Yes I agree, Prisoners are slaves. That is why I am opposed to prisons and a justice system that has prisons. Since liberty is more valued that life. And freedom more valuable than slavery. I support the death penalty for all criminals that are so dangerous that others would think them needing imprisonment. Basically, I would send criminals to counseling and/or pay property damages, and if that couldn't solve the problem I would put them to death since slavery is worse than death and I believe cruel.
I am sure the criminals put to death will be celebrating your humanitarian nature for saving them from cruel slavery.
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If you own a slave and you are NOT legally allowed to free that slave (which would be a weird law, but hey fantasy)
For what it's worth, all 5 of the "big 5" slave societies (ancient Greece, ancient Rome, American South, Caribbean, Brazil) made various attempts (some sustained, some intermittent, some successful, some not) to clamp down on owners' ability to manumit their slaves and/or to limit the ability of manumission to provide actual freedom, by creating an intermediary caste for freedmen.
The Roman systematization of this began with the Lex Fufia Caninia, which limited the number of slaves a testament could manumit (the more slaves you owned, the smaller proportion you were allowed to manumit). Generally another facet of the distinction I wrote about earlier, in the treatment of small scale household slaves vs. large scale agricultural/industrial slaves. Over the course of the Empire, later laws added new layers of barriers.
Looking at the United States (and with help from Google), it seems like in the earlier part of the nineteenth century Southern courts began making efforts to undermine the legitimacy of manumission contracts. Searching for court cases from the South I find several denying the legal standing of a slave to enter into a manumission contract with his master.
Legislatively, a quote from the first article that popped up:
Certain states frankly wished to discourage emancipation. Louisiana and Mississippi enacted a blanket ban on further manumissions in 1857, followed by Arkansas (1859), Alabama (1860), and Maryland (1860). At a much earlier date, a slave could only be freed by a special act of the legislature in Georgia (1801-1865), Alabama (1805-1834), Mississippi (1805-1865), and South Carolina (1820-1865).
I don't think you'll find manumission totally prohibited very often (if nothing else, slave owners understood perfectly well that teasing a slave with the prospect of manumission was often a much better way to motivate them than the whip was). Looking at the Southern timeline, the total bans are clearly a feature of the extremism that arose right before the Civil War. But I think you will find that in general heavily slaveholding societies usually put up some legal barriers to keep manumission limited. In some cases sharply limited.
You'll find the limits on freedom for those who do manage to get manumitted almost across the board.
So it may not be that weird. Or possibly it's that history is weirder than fantasy. Take your pick.
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non-subjective standards of good and evil......do not exist.Erm...except in Golarion, where several characters have the equivalent of a Geiger counter of evil - point it at someone and it pings. Good and Evil are objective forces with physical manifestations. It's one of the great challenges of the modern D&D/PF game writer: Lots of them believe in subjective morality, but the game quite explicitly does not.
It throws all sorts of monkey wrenches into efforts to write nuanced stories, but also opens up weird and interesting possibilities.
This is actually one of my favorite things about the otherwise difficult system that is alignment. I love to play up the fact that "evil" is an accepted part of society. There is infact nothing "wrong" with being evil in most fantasy worlds. Players could in fact be surrounded by evil individuals in most cities. As long as no one is breaking laws they all live and work together, evil-neutal-good. Heck there is temple to an evil god right down the street.
I think being a Paladin would be pretty frustrating when the inn keeper is evil, the gov't official is evil, the gate guard is evil, etc. but they are all doing their jobs and otherwise not causing trouble. Maybe that is why Paladins are generally so tense.
I was recently reminded of this thread and particularly of the discussion I had above with Jeff Erwin about Stoic attitudes toward slavery. So, to return to that discussion we were having a few years ago:
A bit of healthy skepticism about the Stoics’ saintliness is nothing new (Their miseries philosophic quirks deride/Slaves groan in pangs disowned by Stoic pride) but a new (2015) book, which relates to the topic we were discussing, did cross my desk recently. I quote a few paragraphs below that relate to our old discussion – the book is on Chrysostom, but on this topic Chrysostom’s approach in many ways is Christianized Stoicism.
What then do Chrysostom's homilies tell us about the effects of Christianization on the discourse of slavery in the later Roman world? What changed, and what remained the same, and what were the consequences for slaves and slaveholders? Christianity did not offer an entirely novel response to slavery. Chrysostom himself was influenced by various ideologies regarding slavery. His views on slavery have a strong Stoic and Pauline character. Like the Stoics, Chrysostom believed that slavery was nothing but a label – it was transitory and fleeting. He showed the same indifference toward slavery that the Stokes did; like the Stoics, he was much more concerned about the condition of the human soul. By Chrysostom's time, slavery had been extensively denaturalized and interiorized through centuries of Christian ethical and theological formulations. Chrysostom was not a slave. He could not know what it felt like to be a slave. Perhaps his experience and views changed during the time of his exile, when he was under the domination of another, had very limited agency, and lived in harsh circumstances where safety was never guaranteed – but we will never know.
The homilies exhibit very little empathy toward slaves. Chrysostom showed much more concern for people who were slaves of sin and slaves to the passions – "real" slaves in his mind. Chrysostom readily employed the metaphor of slavery to press the argument of the nature of sin and governance. He needed to convince his audience of an important point – the heteronomy of their bodies; if they could not identify themselves as slaves of Christ, then they were slaves to sin. Free moral agency could be found only in being a slave of Christ, and by being a slave of Christ, one was truly free. People had to master their passions, and not become enslaved to them, as this signified a loss of agency. Free will could be regained only through obedience to Christ, since sin was disobedience, and disobedience spawned slavery. The metaphor of slavery came in many garbs – Chrysostom uses the metaphors of regular domestic slaves, slaves belonging to other slaves, nurses, pedagogues, prostitutes, eunuchs, and even slave dealers; each metaphor with its very own special edge and emphasis. Unfortunately the more the metaphor of slavery was developed and spread in Christian theology, the more insouciant and blasé Christian attitudes became toward institutional slavery.
These findings are important for scholarship because they show how crucial it is to understand the theological metaphor of slavery in relation to its real, institutional counterpart. Institutional slavery informed the metaphor, and the metaphor sustained the institution. Admittedly, Chrysostom shows much discomfort with slavery at times, and he does indeed come close to abolishing it – yet in not one instance docs he succeed in looking past the banality of slavery to see its oppressive and destructive social effects. Slavery was the elephant in the room, and rather than addressing it directly, the discourse was elevated to a spiritual plane that universalized and totalized slavery – rather than promoting abolition and making no one a slave, everyone now became slaves, either of God or of sin and the passions. Thus, the spiritual modalization of slavery and freedom exposed institutional slaves to even more oppression, since acts like violent and intrusive correction, punishment, and general pathologization were recommended and authorized by the metaphor. Most importantly, the metaphor of slavery had scriptural support, whereas abolition had none.
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I'm finding it a bit strange that slavery is being discussed in the past tense (in relation to our world). Chattel slavery is illegal in all countries (as of 2007) but slavery of other types are more prevalent than ever before.
However, it continues through such practices as debt bondage, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, human trafficking, and forced marriage. Accordingly, there are more slaves today than at any time in history, with an estimated 45 million slaves worldwide.
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Is it 'evil' for a lawful good paladin to uphold the law by capturing and returning slaves to their master, if tasked by authorities?Yes. Instant fall.And this is why people can't play Paladins. GMs deciding that the paladin will instantly fall if he *does what the GM has his boss orders him to do.* Catch 22.
Easier to just say 'No, you can't play a Paladin' during character generation than hose your player this way.
If a region in the setting both has active Paladins, and has slavery, then there will *have* to be some sort of accomodations or 'wiggle room' built into the system. Religious exceptions to lawful orders, for instance, or forms of slavery that a LG Paladin can reasonably accept (such as prisoners who would otherwise be sentenced to death for their crimes being allowed to choose a lifetime of servitude, instead, making them slaves by their own choice, and yet also in that situation because of their own wrong-doings, making their status as slave also their *just and lawful punishment*).
Again, you're all forgetting. Paladins are not obliged to obey laws which promote evil. This would include slavery.
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I'm finding it a bit strange that slavery is being discussed in the past tense (in relation to our world). Chattel slavery is illegal in all countries (as of 2007) but slavery of other types are more prevalent than ever before.
However, it continues through such practices as debt bondage, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, human trafficking, and forced marriage. Accordingly, there are more slaves today than at any time in history, with an estimated 45 million slaves worldwide.
I expect it is because Pathfinder is more based on historical slavery. Internationally, Golarion slavery reflects the situation in the early to mid nineteenth century (with some nations embracing slavery and others rejecting it). Intranationally, the various nations reflect the philosophies and cultures of a random grab bag of slaveholding eras and cultures, but none take modern slavery as inspiration (and it basically wouldn't make sense to in a world that still has nations embracing slavery openly).
Furthermore, while there are many people in the modern world who fall somewhere on the spectrum of unfree labor, a lot of them would not fall into a typical definition of slavery - especially not a definition of slavery as encountered in Pathfinder games.
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I love how it only took about 20 posts for this to become a Paladin Falls thread.
Is there an equivalent of "Godwins Law" for Paladins?
Contributor
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This is actually one of my favorite things about the otherwise difficult system that is alignment. I love to play up the fact that "evil" is an accepted part of society.non-subjective standards of good and evil......do not exist.Erm...except in Golarion, where several characters have the equivalent of a Geiger counter of evil - point it at someone and it pings. Good and Evil are objective forces with physical manifestations. It's one of the great challenges of the modern D&D/PF game writer: Lots of them believe in subjective morality, but the game quite explicitly does not.
It throws all sorts of monkey wrenches into efforts to write nuanced stories, but also opens up weird and interesting possibilities.
Yup. This is just like in real life. Evil people exist, many people in positions of power are absolutely evil. Many CEOs are incredibly evil. Bankers who do things they know will inflict harm on people but don't care because, "Profit" are a thing.
You can be a heartless self-serving jerk and legally there is little a Paladin can do.
Coriat did summon "Jeff" a few posts ago so here I am.
A Paladin serves law and goodness. Depending on the particulars of their code, "law" might be defined as immutable or natural rights, or religious dictates, or carefully thought-out philosophy. We tend to think of revolutions or law-breaking and non-lawful, but it is clear that, for example, the American revolution and the emancipation and suffrage movements were based on notions of "higher law" or justice that trumped unjust or wicked laws. A Paladin doesn't "fall" if they support an alteration in society that seems, to their code and faith, a closer adherence to justice and order than one that promotes cruelty or arbitrary hierarchy. While it's interesting to consider the RP or narrative potential of a paladin serving an amoral or tyrannical state, inevitably, such stories either involve burn-out and surrender or rebellion on some level.
The alignment paradigm, however, is flawed by its nature: Good and Evil were added to the Old School Law-Neutral-Chaos choices because Law-Neutral-Chaos are ultimately abstractions, and Good and Evil are much less so. This makes Good and Evil much more meaningful in RP. Inevitably, Paladins are mainly Good, and I think, reasonably so. Perfect lawfulness is a function of constructs and angels.
I always found it likely that in most cases, slavery isn't quite the view that we had of slavery ala pre-Civil War USA. Though that form exists. I'd say the most common, especially in 'good cities' is similar to the stuff we see nowadays, human trafficking that results in essentially sex slavery, worker slavery, etc.
Just as there are reasons why in modern society slavery in this form continues, so it 'makes sense' in the odd world of Golarion. Its not pleasant, and generally its not a topic that my previous groups would dwell on, and I wouldn't be inclined to either. My real life is social work, and that can touch on some of the horrible things humans can do to other humans, so in a fantasy setting I'm not going to be inclined to be involved in rp/topics that mirror my real life professional responsibilities, etc. Better to slay evil dragons and fight true evil demons and devils, than look too much at the dickish things even golarion societies do to its own.
As for alignment, eh, after 30+ years I've seen many variations of systems, official and homebrew. I've yet to find one that accurately describes 'the human condition'. Mechanically, I can see the use in a system that needs you to be able to differentiate between things (bonuses, penalties, special abilities, etc). But you could get by with a comic-book-hero style of 'alignment' if you wanted to.
Serfdom has been mentioned before in this thread a few times, but I think it should be highlighted in a discussion because of its prevalence. Feudalism hinges upon it. Whereas you can enter bondage in return for protection, it's a social position passed on from generation to generation in perpetuity.
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Non-PFS, the only experience I've had with Golarion was a home Rise of the Runelords campaign.
There was no depictions of slavery as anything other than vile and horrendous (what the ancient Runelords did to those poor giants and the people that became Shoanti/Varisian as well as the Sinspawn is just *off the chart* EVIL, imo).
The only time it was even marginally close to a borderline was during one of the later chapters, and even then it was more a matter of 'given thousands of years of boredom and lack of resources what would happen in a closed environment' and even that was exceptionally distasteful to our group.
I'm terrified to ask -- are there games out there that dwell on these darker aspects, not for the concept of defeating evil but for other Reasons?
Non-PFS, the only experience I've had with Golarion was a home Rise of the Runelords campaign.There was no depictions of slavery as anything other than vile and horrendous (what the ancient Runelords did to those poor giants and the people that became Shoanti/Varisian as well as the Sinspawn is just *off the chart* EVIL, imo).
The only time it was even marginally close to a borderline was during one of the later chapters, and even then it was more a matter of 'given thousands of years of boredom and lack of resources what would happen in a closed environment' and even that was exceptionally distasteful to our group.
I'm terrified to ask -- are there games out there that dwell on these darker aspects, not for the concept of defeating evil but for other Reasons?
Yes but let us not go there it is a silly place.
This list is just from me skimming a few random books. Once I hit a reference in one, I did not bother to comb them for more references.
Chiaong, CN male Tiefling, owns a "...small army of slaves." that serve his customers relaxing herbs and can be rented out for 'other forms of entertainment'. Dark Markets page 38.
Alaeh A'kaan, N male Half-Elf. Runs an inn and bistro with slave girls literally kept in golden cages to do nothing but sing and entertain his customers. City of Strangers page 20.
Muminofrah, CN female Human. Influential Osirian aristocrat. One of her slaves is referenced in Shifting Sands, page 14.
See where I'm going with this? First three books I pick and each have a reference to a non-evil slave owner.
Heck, the evilest one of of the group is true neutral and he has slaves kept in golden cages!
So you see, there IS a precedent for non-evil slave owners in Golarion, no matter what you or I believe.
I could probably find one if I look deep enough into the material. Like I said, that was the first three of about six or seven random books.
Alignments don't include 'with tendencies' anymore, although it would probably be a good idea to include that at some point.
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I could probably find one if I look deep enough into the material. Like I said, that was the first three of about six or seven random books.
Alignments don't include 'with tendencies' anymore, although it would probably be a good idea to include that at some point.
No, you're not.
In any Pathfinder product. Ever.
And yeah you can have "tendencies" since alignment isn't static.
You're missing the entire point of what the OP was asking.
Part of that was 'can you have slaves and still be at least neutral'. The answer is yes, according to the canon.
People can headcanon that away or retcon it for purposes of PFS, but it doesn't change what has been published.