It's also worth pointing out that the CRB says that a paladin falls for willing committing an evil act, not a dishonorable one.
Your code says you have to act with honour. Which means, no dishonorable stuff.
Like I said, a useless rule that only breeds discontent.Further, because "and so forth" isn't defined, it also doesn't actually do anything. "And so forth" is not a thing. It doesn't do anything. Except start arguments or serve as fuel for bad GMs and worse forum threads. It's the reason we get stupid stuff like people asking if the party's Paladin should fall because their group outnumbered the badguys, or because the Paladin used a bow or x-bow instead of fighting in "honorable melee", or if the Paladin should fall because they didn't decide to stand and go toe to toe with the ancient wyrm and fled rather than commit suicide by dragonfire.No, it being undefined means it's deliberately left to the GM or the group's social contract. Just because it isn't defined doesn't mean the rules would be identical if it had been left out.
It breeds discontent online. In actual games (well, anecdotally from my experience), it sets a baseline expectation for paladins that we can sort out the details on when it becomes relevant. The high level stuff when somebody takes a code of conduct class and the details if the GM or the player thinks something that's about to happen could be a violation.
It's also worth pointing out that the CRB says that a paladin falls for willing committing an evil act, not a dishonorable one.Your code says you have to act with honour. Which means, no dishonorable stuff.
I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly curious about your opinion. Can you imagine a circumstance where a paladin leaves one order because she believes the order is dishonorable in whatever way and joins another without falling? That is, the paladin changes her behavior and the code she follows, but maintains a LG alignment throughout the process, and never falls.
I think you answered your own question, Hitdice. :o
That's what I can imagine, so of course it seems reasonable to me; I'm curious if it flies for other people. :)
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That's what I can imagine, so of course it seems reasonable to me; I'm curious if it flies for other people. :)
That's essentially the issue. Honor means different things to different people and it doesn't define what is honorable. While Berinor thinks that this is only an issue "online", I've met enough players who have had horrible experiences playing Paladins or attempting to play Paladins because of the vagueness of the Paladin's code and notions of "honor".
Honor is not defined outside of using poisons, lying, and cheating. The roleplaying opportunities are not diminished even slightly by just taking what has been defined and using that. Anything else doesn't add up right or can lead to unnecessary arguments when a player feels they are acting honorable and the GM sees otherwise, which by its nature places the two in an adversarial role rather than cooperative. To an extent, it is the GM's job to enforce the rules, yet it's hard for many players to accept that the GM is trying to do their job right when they're stripping them of their class features over something that isn't actually part of the rules (that is, anything the GM decides to add in to "and so on").
Literally no good comes from this.
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It's not useless, it just assumes the reader understands the idea of honorable behavior. It's also worth pointing out that the CRB says that a paladin falls for willing committing an evil act, not a dishonorable one.
That's why I let paladins at my table strangle puppies, but only if they eat the meat; sport puppy strangling is an auto-fall! :P
Breaking the code makes you fall too. Even if you did no evil. And so does changing alignment BTW
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That's what I can imagine, so of course it seems reasonable to me; I'm curious if it flies for other people. :)That's essentially the issue. Honor means different things to different people and it doesn't define what is honorable. While Berinor thinks that this is only an issue "online", I've met enough players who have had horrible experiences playing Paladins or attempting to play Paladins because of the vagueness of the Paladin's code and notions of "honor".
Honor is not defined outside of using poisons, lying, and cheating. The roleplaying opportunities are not diminished even slightly by just taking what has been defined and using that. Anything else doesn't add up right or can lead to unnecessary arguments when a player feels they are acting honorable and the GM sees otherwise, which by its nature places the two in an adversarial role rather than cooperative. To an extent, it is the GM's job to enforce the rules, yet it's hard for many players to accept that the GM is trying to do their job right when they're stripping them of their class features over something that isn't actually part of the rules (that is, anything the GM decides to add in to "and so on").
Literally no good comes from this.
Arguments like you are describing happen if a GM and player don't communicate.
You are clearly biased on how this works. But with a simple conversation between GM and players it can be resolved and expectations can be given ahead of time to what will be considered honorable or not.
It's not difficult. I've been with multiple groups that can handle it. Because we talk about what is to be expected ahead of time.
That's what I can imagine, so of course it seems reasonable to me; I'm curious if it flies for other people. :)That's essentially the issue. Honor means different things to different people and it doesn't define what is honorable. While Berinor thinks that this is only an issue "online", I've met enough players who have had horrible experiences playing Paladins or attempting to play Paladins because of the vagueness of the Paladin's code and notions of "honor".
Literally no good comes from this.
I think a lot of your umbrage from my statements comes from taking my counterpoints as absolutes. You say it only ever breeds discontent. I say if you talk about what honor means in your social contract it can improve the game. You say I think it's only a problem online, but I even called out that my evidence is only anecdotal. Dysfunction exists offline but it's amplified and accentuated online.
I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong or even not supported by RAW. I'm saying there are other interpretations that are also supported by the rules. Because although there are places where the rules are prescriptive, there are rules where they aren't. Those are also areas to enhance the game if the player and GM are on the same page. For example, variant curses from bestow curse. Or broader uses of miracle. If you don't have good agreement between players and the GM about what that means, you can read it narrowly. If you do, you can read it as broadly as you like.
I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly curious about your opinion. Can you imagine a circumstance where a paladin leaves one order because she believes the order is dishonorable in whatever way and joins another without falling? That is, the paladin changes her behavior and the code she follows, but maintains a LG alignment throughout the process, and never falls.
I don't really see why not considering paladins don't need to follow an Order....
Well, to me that suggests suggests a certain amount of permissiveness in the code that doesn't exist in the requirement to maintain LG alignment, but if I go into any great detail, it'll just sound like I'm rules lawyering.
Well, to me that suggests suggests a certain amount of permissiveness in the code that doesn't exist in the requirement to maintain LG alignment, but if I go into any great detail, it'll just sound like I'm rules lawyering.
Why would you need to follow an order?
Does the type of honor the paladin must follow depend on if they get their powers from a deity or from a concept?
Eh, I am still annoyed at whoever wrote that paladins had ties to deities in PF.
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That's what I can imagine, so of course it seems reasonable to me; I'm curious if it flies for other people. :)That's essentially the issue. Honor means different things to different people and it doesn't define what is honorable. While Berinor thinks that this is only an issue "online", I've met enough players who have had horrible experiences playing Paladins or attempting to play Paladins because of the vagueness of the Paladin's code and notions of "honor".
Literally no good comes from this.
I think a lot of your umbrage from my statements comes from taking my counterpoints as absolutes. You say it only ever breeds discontent. I say if you talk about what honor means in your social contract it can improve the game. You say I think it's only a problem online, but I even called out that my evidence is only anecdotal. Dysfunction exists offline but it's amplified and accentuated online.
I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong or even not supported by RAW. I'm saying there are other interpretations that are also supported by the rules. Because although there are places where the rules are prescriptive, there are rules where they aren't. Those are also areas to enhance the game if the player and GM are on the same page. For example, variant curses from bestow curse. Or broader uses of miracle. If you don't have good agreement between players and the GM about what that means, you can read it narrowly. If you do, you can read it as broadly as you like.
Are you going to give an example of how the vagueness helps and enhances roleplaying or game balance? Because I've got lots of cases where it actively does the opposite and I see no roleplaying opportunities that don't exist without it and I see no mechanical benefits to it either.
Perhaps if you're going to argue against my belief that no good comes from it, rather than telling me how to minimize or avoid problems, maybe you could give some examples of good that does come from it and explicitly from it, that wouldn't be supported without it.
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To me, this and the whole undead=evil thing, always seems to fall back to people maintaining the status quo without reasoning behind it. I'd like to note that until 3.5, the majority of undead (the mindless ones like skeletons and zombies) were Neutral. Not once through the entirety of 3E, which was at its prime during the internet age and the WotC forums were booming, did I ever see anyone complaining that they were Neutral. It was just accepted as a given, especially since the alignment rules were quite clear that they should be.
The optional Book of Vile Darkness changes up a bunch of stuff, then 3.5 is published with all these undead and such being evil. Suddenly, when it's criticized or questioned, there's always this legion of people acting like it's always been that way and giving very poor arguments on how it's totes logical for it to be this way but all the arguments always stumble through logical potholes. Always.
People argue that the vagueness of the Paladin's "honorable" part of the code is a good thing but never seem to be able to provide any actual examples of how it makes the game better, and the examples that do tend to crop up actually have nothing to do with the code or the mechanic at all (since you don't need "and so forth" to personally roleplay a broader sense of honor).
I wonder, sometimes, if 3.5 had changed mindless undead to always being good, if we'd be having the opposite argument right now.
Look, you keep making statements like "literally no good" and "only breeds discontent". I keep saying that there is some good (serves as a jumping-off point for making a more robust meaning of being a paladin and puts together a RAW defense of a coherent attitude as the code rather than a handful of random prohibitions) and, with healthy communication, it sparks communication rather than breeding discontent.
Also, if you'd like to play an everybody-by-the-same-rules game and you want a disgraced but not fully fallen paladin, it gives you the wiggle room for understanding that as an NPC. That's not a big deal since people generally won't complain about power loss unless it's their character, but it's a situation where it's helpful for verisimilitude.
So I'm not trying to defend that it has a net positive outcome (although I believe that in my group at least it has). I'm defending that interpreting those vague statements as something other than a meaningless waste of words has merit as far as RAW is concerned. I was stating without proof that your negative experiences with broader interpretations are not universal. Unless you think I have an agenda that would lead me to lie about that, my word should be sufficient that those statements are not actually true. It's possible you meant them as hyperbole, in which case counterexamples aren't sufficient to disagree but the emphatic way you have kept it up makes me think it's not intended as hyperbole. Tone is hard in text, though.
Robin Hood is stealing from people who have already stolen and oppress from the poor. He is a freedom fighter given the title outlaw. The barons and the church have gotten rich by taxing the people Robin Hood gives it back to. That isn't an evil act.Stealing is wrong no matter who you do it to. It's always a form of harm or oppression of someone, even if the effect isn't strongly felt by the victim. Robin Hood stealing can't actually be good, so every time Robin Hood was stealing, he was doing something that was bad.
However, the reason Robin Hood is typically considered the iconic chaotic good character (though according to PF alignment he'd actually be Neutral Good) is because of all the other GOOD things that Robin Hood was doing alongside stealing. During his thefts he was being Alruistic, putting his own life in danger for other people. He was acting out of a Concern For the Dignity of Sentient Beings, and he was Protecting Life.
The premise is wrong. Robin Hood is simply returning money that had been stolen from the people through unjust laws passed by a greedy tyrant. HIs stealing is the act of redressing a prior theft.
(actually Prince John gets a bum rap here. He imposed the heavy taxes to raise money to pay King Richard's ransom. (the idiot had gotten himself captured by insisting on being on the frontlines during the Crusades.) While Prince John got the cooperation of the nobles to collect the taxes, it was at the price of signing the Magna Cata, forever limiting the powers of future English kings.)
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Robin Hood is stealing from people who have already stolen and oppress from the poor. He is a freedom fighter given the title outlaw. The barons and the church have gotten rich by taxing the people Robin Hood gives it back to. That isn't an evil act.Stealing is wrong no matter who you do it to. It's always a form of harm or oppression of someone, even if the effect isn't strongly felt by the victim. Robin Hood stealing can't actually be good, so every time Robin Hood was stealing, he was doing something that was bad.
However, the reason Robin Hood is typically considered the iconic chaotic good character (though according to PF alignment he'd actually be Neutral Good) is because of all the other GOOD things that Robin Hood was doing alongside stealing. During his thefts he was being Alruistic, putting his own life in danger for other people. He was acting out of a Concern For the Dignity of Sentient Beings, and he was Protecting Life.
The premise is wrong. Robin Hood is simply returning money that had been stolen from the people through unjust laws passed by a greedy tyrant. HIs stealing is the act of redressing a prior theft.
Never really works though. Taxes just get raised higher and higher and the poor just get slammed more.
For all the good he does 'one family', ten more live in misery. After all, Taxes are collected uniformally, but the redistribution wasn't.
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Robin Hood is stealing from people who have already stolen and oppress from the poor. He is a freedom fighter given the title outlaw. The barons and the church have gotten rich by taxing the people Robin Hood gives it back to. That isn't an evil act.Stealing is wrong no matter who you do it to. It's always a form of harm or oppression of someone, even if the effect isn't strongly felt by the victim. Robin Hood stealing can't actually be good, so every time Robin Hood was stealing, he was doing something that was bad.
However, the reason Robin Hood is typically considered the iconic chaotic good character (though according to PF alignment he'd actually be Neutral Good) is because of all the other GOOD things that Robin Hood was doing alongside stealing. During his thefts he was being Alruistic, putting his own life in danger for other people. He was acting out of a Concern For the Dignity of Sentient Beings, and he was Protecting Life.
The premise is wrong. Robin Hood is simply returning money that had been stolen from the people through unjust laws passed by a greedy tyrant. HIs stealing is the act of redressing a prior theft.
(actually Prince John gets a bum rap here. He imposed the heavy taxes to raise money to pay King Richard's ransom. (the idiot had gotten himself captured by insisting on being on the frontlines during the Crusades.) While Prince John got the cooperation of the nobles to collect the taxes, it was at the price of signing the Magna Cata, forever limiting the powers of future English kings.)
Except it hadn't been stolen. It was legally their right to claim it, which is part of the hallmark of the Lawful Evil tyrant. Now if a bunch of bandits came through the village and raided everything, then that would be a different thing entirely, but as it was, taxes were raised and it put commoners in a bad way.
Technically, nothing was stolen from the taxation. Robin went out and stole, however. He used a form of harm and oppression to fight a form of harm and oppression, for the betterment of others, which is 100% what I've been saying thus far.
It's the reason that killing is wrong and yet you can run an orc through and be a good guy. Intent and circumstances matter and the alignment system has your back on that. :)
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Robin Hood is stealing from people who have already stolen and oppress from the poor. He is a freedom fighter given the title outlaw. The barons and the church have gotten rich by taxing the people Robin Hood gives it back to. That isn't an evil act.Stealing is wrong no matter who you do it to. It's always a form of harm or oppression of someone, even if the effect isn't strongly felt by the victim. Robin Hood stealing can't actually be good, so every time Robin Hood was stealing, he was doing something that was bad.
However, the reason Robin Hood is typically considered the iconic chaotic good character (though according to PF alignment he'd actually be Neutral Good) is because of all the other GOOD things that Robin Hood was doing alongside stealing. During his thefts he was being Alruistic, putting his own life in danger for other people. He was acting out of a Concern For the Dignity of Sentient Beings, and he was Protecting Life.
The premise is wrong. Robin Hood is simply returning money that had been stolen from the people through unjust laws passed by a greedy tyrant. HIs stealing is the act of redressing a prior theft.
Never really works though. Taxes just get raised higher and higher and the poor just get slammed more.
For all the good he does 'one family', ten more live in misery. After all, Taxes are collected uniformally, but the redistribution wasn't.
Even today, thefts cost the honest people even more as merchant associations raise prices to make up for losses.
I can't tell if you are being serious, equating the myth of Robin Hood to a shoplifter.
I knew I sent the thread off topic with discussion of the morality of good and evil but now we are so far off topic it is untrue.
And that is coming from a person who once worked in Sherwood Forest.
I would say that someone who steals to feed his family is doing a Good, though Chaotic, action. Obviously YMMV ;-)
Is an undead thief Evil then ? Can we at least get that ? ;-)
That is because Stealing is aligned chaotic by nature. If for a good cause it is usually good or neutral in the end.
If for a bad cause, evil.So someone stealing for family is neutral (remember neutral helps only their family by nature).
If stealing to help another it can be argued good.
But Robin good sometimes killed too (if he just stole it might be good, but the killing is aligned too))
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I can't tell if you are being serious, equating the myth of Robin Hood to a shoplifter.
I knew I sent the thread off topic with discussion of the morality of good and evil but now we are so far off topic it is untrue.
And that is coming from a person who once worked in Sherwood Forest.
It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
For example, if there are 100 citizens spread out over the lord's lands and each is paying 3g in taxes each month to meet the lord's goal of 300g / month. Our well-meaning adventurer steals 100g of the total taxes and redistributes it back to 30 citizens. The lord, having only made 200g raises taxes to 4g / month per citizen. So now the other 70 citizens that didn't get money back are coughing up an extra 1g / month to make up the difference, and the 30 that were gifted the stolen money also have to pay 4g/month, meaning our benevolent bandit has to steal even more money to maintain them.
That's before you consider any additional costs in manpower to stop the thief in question. Law enforcement, guards, and arms cost money. Higher costs in maintaining order mean higher taxes, so now the citizens are going to be paying even higher taxes to fund the extra patrols and guard to protect the tax collectors.
This is why such robbery is a really **** idea.
It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
Except that the lord can never make enough in taxes, so you are just cutting into the lords riches, and the populace is going to get the same bare minimal crap they have always gotten.
"How much is enough, Gordon Sheriff of Nottingham? When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?"
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I can't tell if you are being serious, equating the myth of Robin Hood to a shoplifter.
I knew I sent the thread off topic with discussion of the morality of good and evil but now we are so far off topic it is untrue.
And that is coming from a person who once worked in Sherwood Forest.
It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
For example, if there are 100 citizens spread out over the lord's lands and each is paying 3g in taxes each month to meet the lord's goal of 300g / month. Our well-meaning adventurer steals 100g of the total taxes and redistributes it back to 30 citizens. The lord, having only made 200g raises taxes to 4g / month per citizen. So now the other 70 citizens that didn't get money back are coughing up an extra 1g / month to make up the difference, and the 30 that were gifted the stolen money also have to pay 4g/month, meaning our benevolent bandit has to steal even more money to maintain them.
That's before you consider any additional costs in manpower to stop the thief in question. Law enforcement, guards, and arms cost money. Higher costs in maintaining order mean higher taxes, so now the citizens are going to be paying even higher taxes to fund the extra patrols and guard to protect the tax collectors.
This is why such robbery is a really **** idea.
Interestingly, this doesn't even really equate Robin to a shoplifter. Taking these assumptions (which I have no problem with), it shows that Robin is worse than a shoplifter. Or at least less effective.
The argument about any increase in costs being passed on to the customer has holes because the customer has the option of not doing business. It's likely it'll lead to an increase in price because the unit margins decreased, which will lead to a decrease in sales. If the shopkeeper could have raised prices without reducing sales, it's likely they would have done so already.
On the other hand, assuming tax collectors are overall effective at collecting but fail to bring the revenues home, 4g for some and 1g for others is more oppressive than 3g for each. Also, the real oppression is in the form of jackbooted guards and the increase in banditry will lead to a marked increase in that. Monetary oppression is a hassle, but curtailed freedoms are likely at least as bad.
So the robberies Robin undertakes don't really achieve the goal of reducing the oppressiveness exerted by the government. It's possible seeing some "effective" resistance will increase morale. Otherwise Robin's actions don't really do a good job of furthering his goals and that would be better done with a revolution (which happens in some versions of the tales).
But if he doesn't think it through, the above doesn't jeopardize the goodness of his actions. That's mostly because he steals like a bandit rather than a burglar and his tactics don't isolate the perpetrators - he attacks caravans with innocent civilians, not just agents of the corrupt state.
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It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
Except that the lord can never make enough in taxes, so you are just cutting into the lords riches, and the populace is going to get the same bare minimal crap they have always gotten.
"How much is enough,
GordonSheriff? When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?"
That's just not how taxation traditionally works and immediately jumping to 100% taxation rates is a terrible idea for rulers for a number of reasons, including but not limited to, spurring violent resistance that has to be put down, or starving off your people and making taxation unsustainable.
The thing is, Robin Hood is an archetypal resistance character, and is well known as the benevolent bandit. It doesn't change the fact that stealing in this manner is a **** idea in any case and doesn't solve anything and is more likely to actually hurt people than not.
If the level of taxation is really to the point that people are already completely destitute and it's a known thing by the local law enforcement, anyone who shows up with money after the fact (having been gifted it) is probably getting arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, treason, and whatever else the local law enforcement wants to charge the poor peasant with.
It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
Except that the lord can never make enough in taxes, so you are just cutting into the lords riches, and the populace is going to get the same bare minimal crap they have always gotten.
"How much is enough,
GordonSheriff? When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?"That's just not how taxation traditionally works and immediately jumping to 100% taxation rates is a terrible idea for rulers for a number of reasons, including but not limited to, spurring violent resistance that has to be put down, or starving off your people and making taxation unsustainable.
The thing is, Robin Hood is an archetypal resistance character, and is well known as the benevolent bandit. It doesn't change the fact that stealing in this manner is a **** idea in any case and doesn't solve anything and is more likely to actually hurt people than not.
If the level of taxation is really to the point that people are already completely destitute and it's a known thing by the local law enforcement, anyone who shows up with money after the fact (having been gifted it) is probably getting arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, treason, and whatever else the local law enforcement wants to charge the poor peasant with.
Doesn't change the fact that people will love Robin for sticking it to The Man and helping them out and then not blame him when he's the indirect cause of more suffering down the line. Barring good propaganda from the Sheriff, that is. :-)
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Of course, it also illustrates why characters of the same alignment might end up opposed to each other. I mean, by Pathfinder standards, a Robin Hood style character would be good because they're constantly trying to do good. However, it's just as likely that another good character doesn't agree with the way that he's going about it and believing he is or will cause more harm than help, they set out to stop him.
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Doesn't change the fact that people will love Robin for sticking it to The Man and helping them out and then not blame him when he's the indirect cause of more suffering down the line. Barring good propaganda from the Sheriff, that is. :-)It's just basic cause and effect. If the lord isn't making enough in taxes, taxes would get raised further. Further raising taxes would hurt the populace more. It's not complex.
Except that the lord can never make enough in taxes, so you are just cutting into the lords riches, and the populace is going to get the same bare minimal crap they have always gotten.
"How much is enough,
GordonSheriff? When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?"That's just not how taxation traditionally works and immediately jumping to 100% taxation rates is a terrible idea for rulers for a number of reasons, including but not limited to, spurring violent resistance that has to be put down, or starving off your people and making taxation unsustainable.
The thing is, Robin Hood is an archetypal resistance character, and is well known as the benevolent bandit. It doesn't change the fact that stealing in this manner is a **** idea in any case and doesn't solve anything and is more likely to actually hurt people than not.
If the level of taxation is really to the point that people are already completely destitute and it's a known thing by the local law enforcement, anyone who shows up with money after the fact (having been gifted it) is probably getting arrested on suspicion of conspiracy, treason, and whatever else the local law enforcement wants to charge the poor peasant with.
Oh yeah definitely. It's a popular idea and even this thread proves that lots of people won't immediately recognize that it's a dreadful idea. XD
EDIT: Your average stooge - I mean citizen - would just see this dude risking his neck to try to help them, and then groan that the local lord is growing ever greedier still as taxes get raised, never being aware enough to realize that it's directly related to the thefts and increased need for law enforcement.
So our hypothetical benevolent bandit would steadily get more and more popular and the lord get less and less popular. Because the ignorant masses are ignorant masses. :P
Ashiel, do you understand that the tale Robin Hood is a story?
Are you discussing this in those terms? I'm happy to discus it with you on the understanding that we are discussing a legend, and not historically accurate facts.
Resistance to tyranny is always painted as doing more harm then good, until the tyrants lose power, then the resistance is lauded as heroes, freedom fighters, etc.
If you look at most nations, they often start with deeds that were considered serious crimes by the former power. Their actions are often even considered awful by the newly created regime, when they are repeated later on.
Also, the idea that taxes and such are based on shrewd economic planning and not greed ignores well... reality. Monarchs and their modern equivalents don't live in preposterous decadence because it is good for there subjects/citizens/workers.
I think this sums up the philosophy of most governments and businesses these days.
Ashiel, do you understand that the tale Robin Hood is a story?
Are you discussing this in those terms? I'm happy to discus it with you on the understanding that we are discussing a legend, and not historically accurate facts.
that is not necessarily true
Robin Hood is a British Folk legend. I should know I'm from the area, and a historian and a gamer lol.
He fulfills a very similar role to King Arthur in British lore. The stories are pervasive and there are many recorded tales. Both were heavily embroidered and added to in later centuries and in both there are many theories for potential candidates but no real evidence beyond the existence of the stories themselves.
Nevertheless, they are great tales.
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I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly curious about your opinion. Can you imagine a circumstance where a paladin leaves one order because she believes the order is dishonorable in whatever way and joins another without falling? That is, the paladin changes her behavior and the code she follows, but maintains a LG alignment throughout the process, and never falls.It's also worth pointing out that the CRB says that a paladin falls for willing committing an evil act, not a dishonorable one.Your code says you have to act with honour. Which means, no dishonorable stuff.Nope.
The individual codes DO NOT replace the code in the core book. It very clearly states they ADD TO they do not REPLACE so, for example, dishonorable behavior is dishonorable.
I'm, honestly, more sad that people don't really seem to be able to agree on what is honorable.
Killing an enemy in their sleep... People can argue that it is not evil, I disagree, strongly... Okay... Though I can't see how anyone can think that is honorable.
Considering one of the notes about honorable is the disuse of poison.
You can't use poison because it is dishonorable... But you can stab an enemy who is asleep, helpless, and unaware and it is fine. It just... Honestly as a person it causes me pain.
Because it goes against your individual notion of honor. But it might not go against my notion of honor.
For example, if my goal is to kill an evil dude, I see no dishonor in approaching the situation like an elite group of navy seals and taking the dude out with as little resistance as possible. In fact, some would see successfully carrying out such a bold ambush as honorable due to its boldness and success. Likewise, I don't see anything about the Paladin 1-shotting a dude held by a hold person spell in the middle of combat, or attacking someone being held down in a grapple.
Which is something that came up in a game I was running where a vampire jumped one of the squishier members of the party. The party's barbarian grabbed the vampire and tackled her to the ground while the party's Paladin ran over there and began smiting her while she was grappled. Some GMs would be like "Dishonor on you, dishonor on your cow!"
I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly curious about your opinion. Can you imagine a circumstance where a paladin leaves one order because she believes the order is dishonorable in whatever way and joins another without falling? That is, the paladin changes her behavior and the code she follows, but maintains a LG alignment throughout the process, and never falls.It's also worth pointing out that the CRB says that a paladin falls for willing committing an evil act, not a dishonorable one.Your code says you have to act with honour. Which means, no dishonorable stuff.Nope.
The individual codes DO NOT replace the code in the core book. It very clearly states they ADD TO they do not REPLACE so, for example, dishonorable behavior is dishonorable.
I'm, honestly, more sad that people don't really seem to be able to agree on what is honorable.
Killing an enemy in their sleep... People can argue that it is not evil, I disagree, strongly... Okay... Though I can't see how anyone can think that is honorable.
Considering one of the notes about honorable is the disuse of poison.
You can't use poison because it is dishonorable... But you can stab an enemy who is asleep, helpless, and unaware and it is fine. It just... Honestly as a person it causes me pain.
If they add to it and don't replace then the example I've given numerous times of Torag causes some major problems.
The code is very basic and requires more information and both GMs and players with the ability to work it out, or else your paladin falls for buying the bar a round of drinks (alcohol is a poison).
The core information is a starting point, not an ending point.
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Robin Hood is a British Folk legend. I should know I'm from the area, and a historian and a gamer lol.
He fulfills a very similar role to King Arthur in British lore. The stories are pervasive and there are many recorded tales. Both were heavily embroidered and added to in later centuries and in both there are many theories for potential candidates but no real evidence beyond the existence of the stories themselves.
Nevertheless, they are great tales.
Robin hood as a historical figure is pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is the archetype, the idea, of the benevolent bandit. The whole rob from the rich and give to the poor is a crappy idea that in most cases will lead to the greater ruin of everyone involved and some that aren't (for the aforementioned reasons).
But it's a good example of how someone can be a good character while doing both wrong and poorly thought out things, and how a character can find opposition with other good characters (most of my good characters would probably end up trying to convince the thief to stop and acting against them if diplomacy failed, also while promoting goodness).
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But it's a good example of how someone can be a good character while doing both wrong and poorly thought out things, and how a character can find opposition with other good characters (most of my good characters would probably end up trying to convince the thief to stop and acting against them if diplomacy failed, also while promoting goodness).
I would say that Robin Hood would very much be Chaotic Good, with the emphasis on the chaos part. Lawful good characters and some neutral good, would disagree, but stealing from the evil rich and giving to the poor is VERY Chaotic Good.
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Robin Hood is a British Folk legend. I should know I'm from the area, and a historian and a gamer lol.
He fulfills a very similar role to King Arthur in British lore. The stories are pervasive and there are many recorded tales. Both were heavily embroidered and added to in later centuries and in both there are many theories for potential candidates but no real evidence beyond the existence of the stories themselves.
Nevertheless, they are great tales.
Absolutely. It's sometimes illuminating and often entertaining to revisit stories with often one-sided treatments and think about it from a different perspective.
To Fergie's point, yes. Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better. If they have the power to make a go of it, it's potentially worth it. If their resistance doubles as gathering power or recruiting collaborators it might be worth it, too. Finally, if you either can win over support from the oppressor or materially weaken their ability to oppress people that's worth doing.
But you should keep in mind that if you only have the power to make them mad, you might be making a bad situation worse.
Most rich people say the same thing Ashiel funnily enough I don't often hear poor people say it.
The Barons that Robin Hood stole from, were passing through Nottinghamshire as were the taxes being sent south to London by the Barons. The sheriff of Nottingham was responsible for public order in the area. Robin Hood was stealing from the barons from out of the area and giving it to local peasants starving and brutalised because of the oppression by the sheriff of Nottingham. By doing this Robin puts more pressure on the Sheriff who retaliated by trying to get the peasants to turn on Robin, which they do not. This is the environment in which the tales occur. They largely revolve around 'stupid' peasants turning the tables on the rich sheriff.
i am not aware of any evidence in the stories that the northern Barons was oppressing their people, just that the wealth wasn't getting south and the Barons were being robbed of personal possessions, jewellery coin etc on the way to and from the capital. The sheriff takes the flak from this as he is in a very precarious position as he is held responsible.
Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better.
Without getting political, I would point out that resistance is almost never successful without violence, the threat of violence, or severe economic consequences. While the success of movements if often attributed to the non-violent aspects, the truth is that those in power don't care about protest and resistance unless they are forced to. Often these things can be ugly because those in power, especially governments, usually have an edge, if not a monopoly on violence.
Without getting political, I would point out that resistance is almost never successful without violence, the threat of violence, or severe economic consequences. While the success of movements if often attributed to the non-violent aspects, the truth is that those in power don't care about protest and resistance unless they are forced to.
Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better.
Gandhi?
Martin Luther King?Apartheid Africa?
There is a world of difference between violence uprising and economic pressure.
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I would say that Robin Hood would very much be Chaotic Good, with the emphasis on the chaos part. Lawful good characters and some neutral good, would disagree, but stealing from the evil rich and giving to the poor is VERY Chaotic Good.
But it's a good example of how someone can be a good character while doing both wrong and poorly thought out things, and how a character can find opposition with other good characters (most of my good characters would probably end up trying to convince the thief to stop and acting against them if diplomacy failed, also while promoting goodness).
It could also be very Chaotic good to Stop the Tax Collectors BEFORE they take all the peasants money. Hence, My CG character could disagree with your CG character.
One of my favorite Disney Zorro episodes involved him needing to help someone being punished for not paying taxes. He admitted he coulsn't do anything about it since the peasant was required to pay them... until he found out there was thievery going on and the peasant had done his duty... THEN he broke him out of prison.
There are multiple verison of 'good' even crammed inside the individual alignments. My LG Paladin and a friends LG Sorcerer used to bicker all the time about what was 'the right thing to do'...
Without getting political, I would point out that resistance is almost never successful without violence, the threat of violence, or severe economic consequences. While the success of movements if often attributed to the non-violent aspects, the truth is that those in power don't care about protest and resistance unless they are forced to.
Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better.Gandhi?
Martin Luther King?
Apartheid Africa?There is a world of difference between violence uprising and economic pressure.
I can't really get into those without this getting really political. I would just point out that all of those movements also had violent counter-parts (also, WWII aftermath for the brits). Violence, property destruction, riots, protests, boycotts, etc. are all very closely related, especially because those in power rarely tolerate resistance of any kind without resorting to forms of violence themselves.
Without getting political, I would point out that resistance is almost never successful without violence, the threat of violence, or severe economic consequences. While the success of movements if often attributed to the non-violent aspects, the truth is that those in power don't care about protest and resistance unless they are forced to. Often these things can be ugly because those in power, especially governments, usually have an edge, if not a monopoly on violence.
Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better.
I'm not saying violent resistance can't be worthwhile. Just that poking the bear is a dangerous idea and you shouldn't do it unless you have a plan to deal with the angry bear.
I'm not saying violent resistance can't be worthwhile. Just that poking the bear is a dangerous idea and you shouldn't do it unless you have a plan to deal with the angry bear.Without getting political, I would point out that resistance is almost never successful without violence, the threat of violence, or severe economic consequences. While the success of movements if often attributed to the non-violent aspects, the truth is that those in power don't care about protest and resistance unless they are forced to. Often these things can be ugly because those in power, especially governments, usually have an edge, if not a monopoly on violence.
Violent resistance pretty much always makes things worse before it sometimes makes them better.
If you want to be successful, show up with a thosand times the numbers and fight until the troops run out of ammo. Its bloody, but it works.