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Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Paladins
Message-ID: <14282@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-May-85 12:20:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.14282
Posted: Mon May  6 12:20:54 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 7-May-85 22:25:10 EDT
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

[...]

I know the whole Paladin business is getting a little tedious, but
no one has made what I consider to be an important point.  It seems
that a number of people are objecting to a player character playing
his personality, even when it is not expedient...in this case,
Paladins being too noble for the party's good.  Pardon me, but this
is one of the most interesting aspects of role-playing: your character
has a personality all his/her own, and you have to go with that personality,
even when your own inclinations are different.  It's known as having
*character*.

A Paladin happens to have a more restricted range of personalities than
most other character classes.  However, I would hope that GMs enforce
character consistency in ALL player characters, even if the personality
traits are not directly linked to class/race/etc.  As a simple example,
I have a character in one of my campaigns who fancies himself a ladies'
man and will chase wenches with abandon.  Of course, this makes him
vulnerable to being set up in a number of ways.  Tough.  If that is the
character he has chosen to play, he is not going to be allowed to throw
it aside just because the player suspects that a particular woman's come-on
is a trap.  The player must play the personality and take the lumps as
they come.

Of course, I am not advocating that GMs demand that their players be
stupid.  If the character himself has some reason to suspect a trap, he
can take whatever precautions he wants.  However, the Player should not
be allowed to change personality traits because of suspicions.  (For the
last three weeks, the character has bedded a different wench each night.
We didn't play any of those encounters out because they were uneventful.
Now we begin to play out an encounter with a new wench, and because we're
spending time on it, the Player suspects that there is more here than
meets the eye.  Of course.  But to the character it's just another night,
and he should not be allowed untypical behaviour.)

Paladins, Christian or non-Christian, are just special cases of this
principle.  They happen to get special powers out of the deal, so they're
more visible.  However, I don't see that they're really any different in
the long run.

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo