While a LG might go all Spartacus and lead a slave uprising, such a character would probably prefer (if possible) to work through channels, encouraging owners to manumit their slaves, purchasing slaves’ freedom, petitioning the government to prohibit slavery, and so on. Of course, at least some of those aren’t an option, here.
True. Especially if they didn’t think they had the power to pull off such a revolution successfully.
What I’m mainly trying to point out here is that to be Lawful Good, you have to be Good as well as Lawful. I’ve noticed than in conversations about paladins and such that people often presume that they are going to be overwhelmingly lawful and not really good at all.
That would make them more like Lawful Neutral.
Yes, and that’s how people sometimes try to portray paladins (when they aren’t doing the Miko Miyazaki routine).
Good thing neither of these has anything to do with the situation Lynn described, isn’t it?
There is if the action is motivated by an unyielding belief in their own moral framework.
Of course it does. What exactly do you think happens to enslaved women?
What I meant was, they’ll tolerate slavery if there’s a lawful way of ensuring that no innocents are wronged. For instance, captured enemy soldiers were usually made into slaves, if they weren’t killed outright. A paladin might consider this to be both Lawful and Good. On the other hand, raiding another country for slaves and other goods might be Lawful (depending on the society), but it’s certainly not Good, and innocents are harmed.
In fact, that scenario is pretty much the definition of Chaotic…doing what you think is right, despite what the law of the land is.
This, precisely, is how I think that a paladin would go about it. A paladin would use his/her awesome charisma to sway people’s opinions about slavery. Paladins aren’t just LG fighters, they are the champions of their gods, and the leaders of people.
In some societies, raping or beating a slave for jollies was considered to be an assault. Well, beating a slave was allowed under the same circumstances as beating a free person. Americans tend to think that the American model of slavery in the Bad Old Days was the only system of slavery, when it wasn’t. In some cases, slaves had certain rights. We tend to look at issues through modern eyes, and modern sensibilities. I’m as anti-rape as the next person, and I’ve scorned and mocked a great many players (mostly teenage males) who thought that rape was a joke, and that it was OK to rape (mostly female NPCs), because “rape doesn’t really hurt them”, but slavery was a part of society, and while moderns might be disgusted with it, that doesn’t mean that a D&D society must be completely PC.
Wasn’t there something unequivocally stating in one of the Players Handbooks (maybe first or second edition) that slavery is always evil and that a Paladin can never approve of it? It’s right up there with poison, killing prisoners, and using a bow.
That has of course happened throughout both real history and innumerable fictional histories-lawful organization starts off with the best of intentions and ideals, but soon (usually after all the “wise founders” die off) the laws/bureaucracy become self-sustaining, with their original raison de etre forgotten. Off the top of my head, Farscape’s Peacekeepers are the first example I can think of.
The Middle-Earth D&D campaign started by What Exit? in The Game Room and still current elsewhere appointed the elven bard Gil-Gandel as leader pretty early on. There’s no reason why a lore-wise, charismatic inspirational character shouldn’t take the lead - the heavy hitters, mundane and magical alike, have better things to occupy their time with. It’s just that Elan seems to have been the kind of character for whom everything is a dump stat.
Quoth Der Trihs:
This is true. There’s a reason why the stereotypical paladin is referred to as “lawful stupid”, not “stupid good”. This despite the fact that the game rules have always made it clear that, while a paladin must be both Good and Lawful, the Good is more important: They have the power to detect and smite Evil, but not Chaos, and a single Chaotic act will not cause a paladin to fall from grace unless it’s significant enough to cause an alignment shift.
I think the tendency towards Lawful Stupid comes because most folks self-identify as good, and most PCs are good, so making a paladin good doesn’t do much to distinguish him, but players can easily self-identify as, and characters can easily be, chaotic, so it distinguishes a paladin more to emphasize the lawfulness.
The latest one is up. #762 Found here.
Of course Evil people don’t self-identify as evil. Very few people actually consider themselves to be evil. It’s your actions that show your character.
But I was wrong about Tarquin sabotaging the mission!
That clinches it. Tarquin is the coolest character in the story now.
Oooo, innnnnnnnteresting. So we have a character here who appears to be Evil but not underhanded. I do wonder if Tarquin will show a different side towards Elan in the end.
And I’m still mightily intrigued – why is it that Elan’s mother didn’t die of ‘mysterious causes,’ as so many of Tarquin’s wives seem to have done, and why did she agree to give up Nale instead of taking both boys?
Oh, he’s plenty underhanded… His whole behind-the-scenes conquest plan proves that. He’s just not evil-for-the-sake-of-evil.
Elan’s mom wanted to keep both the kids, but (like Tarquin himself) had to settle for what she could get from the courts. And I suspect that it was the drawn-out, messy divorce proceedings that inspired Tarquin to seek more expeditious means of dissolving a marriage. Like, in sulfuric acid.
OK, Tarquin is going to die. I’m betting Xykon (who we haven’t seen for a while, which means he’s about to do something major) will kill him within the next 20 strips.
But the Ring of Regeneration will grow back whatever Xykon chops off. It got mentioned for a reason. Chekov demands that it be used!
A Ring of Regeneration is a perfectly cromulent magic item and a worthy addition to any character sheet, but it’s not much use against a Meteor Swarm.
The Ring of Regeneration will be for when Elan loses that hand.
Except that it looks like Tarquin, for once, isn’t going be Vader in that scene. So, ah… his hand just falls off from acute drama-itis?
You guys all seem to be taking what Tarquin said at face value.