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gibbo88
2010-01-22, 07:07 PM
So I'm fleshing out my Halfling Outrider and him being LN I've been running around with a vague code, but I want to solidify it a bit more, but I need some personal suggestions.

For a bit of background, he's a Halfling ranger/commander who serves in the guard of one of the dozen caravans travelling around after a war of the gods. If you follow the link in the sig you might get an idea of what we've been through. Ask any questions you have.

Thanks for your help.

Devils_Advocate
2010-01-23, 12:29 AM
One might think that two Lawful characters don't necessarily have all that much in common at all, since standards of behavior can vary so much from culture to culture. But within a fairly broad geographic area and time period, you'll probably find a lot of similarities due to similar circumstances. There will be a bunch of basic stuff that various authorities, traditions, and societies will agree on and that will be popularly regarded as right conduct.

But what that stuff is depends on the setting. Like, in the real world, we don't so much actually have magic, so obviously there can be no common understanding about how it's socially appropriate to go about using it. But in a world where the public understands that d20 style spellcasting exists and the basics of how it works, it will be regarded as common sense that if you suddenly and without explanation start making strange gestures and spouting weird gibberish, that's about on par with suddenly and without explanation pulling out a knife: quite Chaotic and dangerous and something that the local law enforcement will not look kindly on, whether or not it's technically illegal.

Frank and K discuss the concept of honor and speculate a bit on a D&D setting's code of proper behavior for heroes in Races of War (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=33294). Relevant excerpt follows:

Fighting with Honor
"There is only one ethical system and it is pragmatism. Only goals change."

The concept of honorable combat is pretty fishy when you look at it carefully. Your goal is to painfully kill another sapient being with a deadly weapon, and the other guy is attempting to do the same to you. Why then, would any rational person take time to consider the "honor" of whatever horribly painful and potentially lethal act they were intent upon inflicting on another?

The answer is: The Long Term. The concept of honor in War is incredibly ancient, and the ideas of what is and is not an honorable act have varied unrecognizably over that period. But one thing has remained the same throughout: the idea of what is honorable in warfare has always been inextricably linked to the needs of the powerful. In olden days, the powerful had superior nutrition, superior training, superior equipment and came in really small numbers. So naturally of course, the rule was that you didn't gang up on people or use poison. In modern days, bullets go through pretty much anything, but powerful people have more troops and helicopters, so the rule is that you don't assassinate people in honorable combat. The penalties for being dishonorable have remained pretty static over the generations – you get kicked out of the rosters of the powerful and other power blocs attempt to band together to crush you.

That's all fine and dandy, but what does that mean for characters in the D&D world? The risks of using poison gas in terms of collateral damage really aren't there (cloudkill goes pretty much exactly where you tell it to), and the ranks of the powerful really do include high level Rogues and Assassins. Most of the stuff you think of as being dishonorable in historical chivalric codes are perfectly fine in D&D chivalric codes. Like all chivalric codes, the one found in the D&D universes is there to keep people in their place – in this case powerful adventurers on top, and little people and monsters on the bottom. Here's how it works:

* Getting a lot of help on any project is dishonorable. A 9th level wizard can wave his hands and make a dungeon, and two rogues can stab a frost giant in the back of the head and the face in synchrony. But peasants can't do jack without the help of like 20 guys. Therefore, working in groups larger than about 10 on any single project is dishonorable in the extreme. The end result is that decent goods can really only be produced by the master artisans and the little people are trapped in obscurity.
* Poisoning Food is without honor. Druids can spit poison and Assassins can shoot poison darts, but pretty much anyone can put warfarin into an enchilada. So while injected poisons aren't considered dishonorable, ingested poisons are.
* Being Gargantuan or Larger is dishonorable. It may seem downright bizarre that people in the D&D world endeavor to look down on things which stand tall. But when you think about the locations that the truly tremendous live in, it makes sense. When gargantuan creatures rear themselves, it is expected practice for all groups to drop what they are doing and attack. And that is why Titans and Dragons live on remote mountaintops instead of owning the world. It isn't that taking them down isn't a lot of effort, it's that the small creatures made a gentleman's agreement to actually put that effort in a long time ago.
* Honorable people do not create Spawn.: This is one that bones the monsters and certain kinds of spellcasters like necromancers, and its designed so that people don't take Steve the Crap-Covered Farmer and turn him into a hero-level threat like a vampire spawn. We know how this works for the people that do it: they tip the balance in favor of the monsters and the heroes and society loses. Even if every Shadow only makes one other Shadow each day, in three weeks your kingdom is full of Shadows….people in the DnD universe know how this is going to end and it makes them very unhappy.
* Impersonating specific people with magic is a dishonorable act. Heroes live and die by their reputation, and part and parcel of being a hero is that people know who you are and where to find you so that they can shower you with job offers and money. That actually works for society, because this is a pre-Internet universe and we don't have Craigslist to make sure that people get the right jobs.
* Destroying Magic Items is something no honorable person would do. Magic is in many ways, a finite resource. The people in power, need it to stay in power. Artifacts are essentially irreplaceable, but they are corruptible. Maybe not by you, but by someone. If you destroy a great artifact of Evil, you've actually hurt Good some too. You've reduced the total amount of power available to anyone. And that doesn't fly for people who have all the power.
* Changing Alignment is dishonorable. Every power group wants people to pretty much stay on whatever side they are on, because otherwise how do you know who is on what side? It's very pragmatic, those who switch sides are never afforded the same trust in their new side as they were given from their old side lest they change back. That isn't to say that Good and Evil aren't proselytizing
* Honorable people take credit for their kills. Not only is it just good form to advertise your abilities so that people know who in the kingdom actually can kill an Ettin in single combat, but its actually safer for everyone if society in general know why powerful monsters keep dropping out of the sky. When people find an Old Red Dragon dead in a random field, they are going to want to know what killed it and if it has plans on their favorite tavern. Not claiming your kills means that actual hero-hours are going to be spent finding out the nature of this threat when they could be better spent curbing the excesses of the Wytch King's Empire. That pisses people off, and leads to occasional hero-on-hero violence that only serves Team Monster.