RP conflict

[greypawn]

It goes back to the Dead Three, Mournas. When they took Jergal's power Bane was to rule over all the living, Myrkul to rule over all the dead, and Bhaal to act as the gatekeeper between the two planes controlling death itself. My Myrkulite does give praise to Bane, he isn't a monotheist. Most give praise to the dark three or at least respect them, even if they don't respect each other (we've had plenty of in house drama ourselves). Heck, we tolerate some of the nature gods because we play humans who understand that Sestra is a farming community and we need to eat.

Now in our setting, Bane made Colibrus a god and then raised his old buddy Myrkul up from the dead. Serving Colibrus and Myrkul is ultimately serving Bane due to this, perhaps to all but the most fanatical/delusional of servants. Even a god of Tyranny needs to delegate power to get things done.

Sparky nailed heresy in Sestra.

Feel free to toggle me hostile whenever. Not sure what your beef is.

[Doubtful]

First, let's get past this Lawful/Law thing. They're not related. You can break the law everyday and be Lawful, you can follow the law and be Chaotic. THEY'RE NOT RELATED. Paladin's are not bound by the laws of any town/country they happen to walk into. But, sorry FE, in FR I'm afraid just as with Good and Evil, Law (in the alignment, not the legal sense) and Chaos are tangible and quantifiable on a universal scale. A Characters personal interpritation of these things doesn't enter into it (though that doesn't mean they can't delude themselves otherwise, for almost all characters Alignment is an OOC stat. No matter how much Dave the Mad Prostitute Garroter tells himself otherwise, he's still a crazy evil son of a gun.

As the description says: Respect Legitimate Authority.

Respect, not blindly adhere to.

Legitimate - this will vary wildly according to the dogma of the Paladin's god. Would a Paladin of Siamorphe consider a new Republic to be legitimate authority? How about a Meritocracy? What would a Tormarter make of democracy, communism, or military dictatorship. Would Sune and the Red Knight have different views on each? Of course.

Some gods will care about that kind of thing, others will adopt a more 'Chi se ne frega ' approach.

...

Regarding 'Fighting Evil'. Depressingly I think all to often people get hung up on the literal aspects of those words and fail to look at the broader meaning. While fighting does often mean punching, brawling and stabbing, it can also encompass a wider range of actions. 'Fighting Poverty' for example is rarely done with broadswords and battlecries. There's more to your Paladin than BAB/Combat stuff, you have a slew of class-skills that are social based, try using them in your conflict. Remember, violence begets violence.


Lastly, on the whole 'No/Minimal RP Ganking' thing. I always feel this comes down to respect for yourself and for your fellow players. This is an RP server, together we write interactive stories of deeds both grand and petty, devilish and angelic. Consider your actions as a part of not only your narrative, but of the narratives of others. Suddenly turning up and committing wordless or near wordless gankings marks you out as inconsiderate and lacking in basic respect for yourself and other players.

Reach for the narrative, write cool stories and do cool things. Find your nemesis, let character development happen. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, everyone comes away a little richer for having partaken. Have fun together, not at each others expense.


Edit:

Just for Greypawn, pretty much everyone in FR is, or should be, a polytheist. It's a part of life. The one in your character box is just the one you hold dead and/or the one that has probable dibs on your soul. During the day everyone is going to pay homage to many, many gods.

[greypawn]

Sorry, I derped. I meant he isn't a monotheist.

[Taintedglory]

This is why my Paladin of Helm is a paladin who would protect an evil person just to protect him. Its his code of conduct to treat everyone with his guardianship.

I had an argument with another DM years ago because I refused to attack an evil character who was just RPing and talking with me. The guy was not known for doing super evil things. He was just evil 'alignment'. I was socially "fighting" him, by trying to convince him that he should stop being just evil, and consider the actions he did and what they did to others and the land.

Im fully of the belief that Paladins are of the exact alignment and did things that their god would approve of. Helm would approve of protecting an Evil person from the actions of a Good person if the Good person was doing things that was unwarranted of the evil person.

[Fateful Encounter]

I should probably clarify by "beliefs" I meant religious beliefs. And yes, law & chaos are tangible and quantifiable, but perspective does matter. Legitimate authority isn't universally the same for all characters everywhere after all, as Doubt already pointed out.

I think we mean to say the same thing Doubt, I likely just phrased my post poorly.

[Mournas]

First, let's get past this Lawful/Law thing. They're not related. You can break the law everyday and be Lawful, you can follow the law and be Chaotic. THEY'RE NOT RELATED. Paladin's are not bound by the laws of any town/country they happen to walk into.

Well, Doubtful, I'm a little doubtful on this as the one and only time Andelain fell was due to this exact reason. His alignment was and still is 93/100. Clarification would be good as to how important this is because to certain DM's it's obviously a huge fuck up.

[roguethree]

You can break the law everyday and be Lawful, you can follow the law and be Chaotic. THEY'RE NOT RELATED. Paladin's are not bound by the laws of any town/country they happen to walk into.

Everything there is literally true, but there's thematic context that needs to be considered.

A paladin is bound by the laws of a town or country except where the laws are obviously unjust. Whereas a paladin won't take chaos points for refusing to bend the knee at a shrine to Bane in Sestra, he is going to take a knock for assisting a petty child thief in his escape from an angry merchant in a lawful society. Whether or not an authority is legitimate is not a matter of opinion: a legitimate authority is a lawfully installed authority.

For example, during the Second Sundering, paladins could have taken issue with Emperor Nautius installing himself as such without due course and then refused "lawful" orders from Legion personnel without taking a chaos hit, but a paladin wouldn't refuse a lawful order for the shit of it; it would be something like the Legion trying to drag a person in for some reason and the paladin deciding he's going to interfere.

In Sestra, the "authority" there is an invader on Sundren soil; the authority is illegitimate until such time as Sundren "grants" Sestra its sovereignty or Sundren State otherwise ceases its claim on that land. In that regard, a paladin isn't obligated to follow laws he deems to be unjust while in Sestra.

If the law of the land says you talk before you smite, you don't get to decide that the lawful authorities that decreed that are suddenly illegitimate; you abide or you pay the spiritual price.

[bipolar bear]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD71ip1osM4

[Mournas]

Well let's see, this is one of the long list of reasons why playing a Paladin can be extremely frustrating. A while ago Andelain Dovenian is speaking with this one child who was cursed with immortality. I can't remember the name of the character. It was one of GodBeast's creations. And yes Andelain seriously thought this child was ALIVE living with a curse because apparently she wore relic robes made by Shar to block any and all magic to discern what she actually was - Undead.

RogueThree, this is where you step in and OOCly yell at me and tell me that I'm an Undead lover, if my reaction to your accusation wasn't enough - me asking you what the fuck you're talking about, and genuinely being surprised - to cue you in that something is smells like bullshit. Like maybe that whole situation in the first place.

So after the first time you yelled at me you did it a few more times like I was supposed to some how translate your OOC knowledge into IC Knowledge. Eventually Drake informed Andelain, which I'm pretty certain he used OOC information to just end the bullshit, and he was pretty tired of you yelling at him (granted he did do some silly things for a Tyrran). The extent that he informed Andelain was that he thinks she might be undead due to some obscure source. Next time Drake and Andelain see her, she walks into the Second Wind Inn, where Drake and Andelain confront her and question her (TALKING NOT SMITING FIRST). Probably about 5 minutes after she admitted to being undead both Andelain and Drake lost favor. Excuse me if I'm wrong but ...

Rule 1 for PvP: -PvP combat is permitted everywhere in Sundren. However, you should consult with a DM before attacking in cities, towns, or highly-populated areas. Witnesses and guards might intervene, and it would be unfair to all parties involved to allow unintelligent, un-possessed NPCs to represent reactions to a violent conflict.

So instead of fighting within the Inn which holds the Bad Ass Bruiser Otto, Drake and I were TALKING and RPing and attempting to get her to leave the Inn but the two friends she was there with were interrupting and and making things a bit of a hassle. Especially since we were under your oppressive microscope. During this time both Drake and Andelain fell from grace with our deity.

Falling wasn't so bad, it was an interesting time, however. Point being you made it exceptionally clear that the reason why Andelain fell was because he didn't obey the Law, that was your justification for it. On the guidelines for Paladins (which was put in place after this fiasco of bullshit) guess what a 93 Lawful / 100 Good Paladin falls because of the LEAST important aspect of those guidelines: #5 DO NOT BREAK THE LAW
Importance: Least Importance.

Then your last post here says a Paladin will take a knock if they break the law? And oh wait, Doubtful says that Andelain isn't bound by said laws (so obviously there's still confusion among DMs as to how Paladins should be played). You know what, I accepted that, bitterly - but I bit the bullet and in the end it ended up as an interesting ordeal. Still it was 150% BULLSHIT and everyone knows it, I never asked for an apology because from you, I'd never get it.

So please excuse me if you playing a Paladin was laid on a silver platter to be Tyr's champion and me playing a Paladin is a little different because noone can get their facts straight. So instead of being told 100 different contradictions every time I log into play Andelain on what he can and can't do as a Paladin. I'm going to suggest that the rules are in place for a reason and as such, following the Sundren rules posted in the wiki IS THE LAW and as such CIRCUMVENTS ALL DMs opinions and everyone else's opinions on how a Paladin should be played. Don't like the rules in place, well take one from the Tormtar book and suggest a modification or replacement - not an addition (Well, maybe an addition in this case).

This is the whole reason why Andelain stopped having RP encounters with Black Hand Members and just started flat out smiting them after some words were exchanged. Because in my experience Talking and having enjoyable RP for anything over 5 minutes = Loss of Favor.

Conflict Resolution baby - Think I'm just gonna have to quote the Nature Boy himself - "WOOOOOO!" - Ric Flair.

PS: Sorry for the long post, but I think everyone who's ever RPed with Andelain to suddenly find his RP lacking and land sliding down. There you have it. An explanation.

[Fuzziebunny]

I don't think it is reasonable to ask for a bunch of hard and fast rules. In the first place, RP is sujective and situational. And while I know that it sucks when you feel that your RP is judged in a negitive contex, (Believe me, I really do know), it is sometimes better to just move forward. If you enjoy RPing, then get out there and RP. People want to have fun with you, it is what we are here for; to have fun and play the game.

[Taintedglory]

Personally, Im on Mournas side here. I feel like his side of the story is how I felt years ago when I first played on the server, back in 2011, and my Paladin fell because of being in Aquor and told he had to attack some evil aligned character on sight. It was OOC knowledge that the guy was evil, he just made an off hand remark that was slightly evil and I was told by a DM I had to attack and smite him. Large argument ensued and I just logged off in anger because said DM was forcing me to play exactly a 1 Dimensional way of being a Paladin, using OOC knowledge aswell with alot of bullshit involved.

I think we should have a more clear and defined definition of Paladins, one well enough to cover a Paladin of different gods, belief system, and codes of conducts. One that DMs cant force us to lose our grace because of random BS.

[Mournas]

The Rules are already up: http://www.sundren.org/wiki/index.php?title=Paladin

[roguethree]

Poking the wrong bear, man. I've got a fuzzy memory of the interactions you're talking about, but it was a staff-wide decision to block your paladin powers based on a body of work (for both you and Drake). I think you're being a little revisionist, and truth be told, staff is very careful with blocking anyone's divine powers because of the inevitable complaining that ensues. If you get blocked, you've earned it, and it was the spree of people not self-governing their paladin conduct that inspired the change to make paladin a restricted class, which was, again, a staff-wide decision.

[Fateful Encounter]

Let's stay on topic please; this isn't the appropriate place to dispute prior DM rulings. Mournas, Taintedglory, if you want to discuss your character's falls with the staff, please use a character request thread.

And yes, there were reasons Andelain fell, and yes, the staff agreed as a whole to it.

[Mournas]

I'm not discussing that, I took that for what it was. Just saying how I'm going to go through with playing Andelain is through the rules set up here on the Wiki. The DMs can have their opinions on what playing a Paladin should be, but it certainly doesn't stand up to the rules written in the Wiki. So gab away with what ever you think a Paladin should be. Fact is their all different.

There I bumped my Character Request from 2013. Looks like that's the only reason given ...