The Effing Paladin

This effort to teach AD&D in a linear fashion has hit a snag with the paladin.  First, it took me three passes to find the right voice for explaining alignment, which cannot be dodged around if teaching the class as it's written. Next, discussing the paladin's codes proved less than ideal, and the consequences for breaking those codes as well. Then that business with the paladin's warhorse that I discussed with the last post.

And now, the arbitrary rules about what a paladin can use as magic equipment, what a paladin must do with their money and who a paladin must associate with.

What seems to happen is this: I begin by intending to describe the rules as written... but these are, in fact, full of holes, since the words don't actually wander all around the subject.  A good example for this is the "henchman," which to the best of my recollection is never described as anything but a hireling. The reason for the name, what it means to "hench," what the person is hired to accomplish, what their role is, or what they are to the player is not discussed. Only how to find them, their statistical details and their loyalty. Why a henchperson is even allowed is not discussed either. This sort of hole, where we spend a page and a half discussing everything about the rule except why it exists, can be very frustrating.

Then, as I drift into pointing out the details of the hole, so the reader will understand what's not being said in the AD&D rule, I end up drifting further into why this rule is illogical, or can be easily circumvented, or indeed why it undermines actual game play and builds resentment.

And then somewhere in that drift, I stop, realise I've gone too far, and then come here and kvetch.

There are two fundamental problems with all these paladin-constraining rules... and it not the theory that paladins need constraint. The first is that every one of them is entirely arbitrary. It's never explained why alignment is necessary for AD&D game play (it isn't), or why the paladin must have codes, or why there must be a punishment for these codes instead of the DM simply saying, "Nope, you can't do that, you're a paladin."  The reason is obviously because it shifts the responsibility from the DM for saying that to the paladin, which in turn allows the DM to be the avenging but righteous angel, bringing the paladin up short not by a simple game rule, "Do not pass GO, do not collect $200," but by an oppornistic jackassery that threatens the player's agency and right to game play on an MADE-UP bullshit moral principle.

Why ten magic items?  Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin keep their money and use it for good? Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin give the money to the party cleric, who ALSO must be lawful good, and is therefore limited? Arbitrary. Because we can't treat the player cleric like one of the NPC clerics of the game world UNDER THE DM'S AUTHORITY.  It's clubhouse rules, so no, you can't give away the tithe to the party's cleric. It's all arbitrary and none of it is ever explained, defined or justified.

The second fundamental problem is that the paladin isn't actually that powerful a class. Turning the undead is in game play a pretty weak mechanic, clerical spells by the time they're gotten are so low-level that they're not a threat, the 18 h.p. a paladin can heal is pathetic compared to the damage a 9th level dungeon bestows, the +2 bonus to AC and saving throws are only against evil creatures and honestly, again by 9th level, these are not that important. A suit of chain mail +2 gives the same benefit and the wearer of the chain mail doesn't have to obey a fucking code. A 1st level cleric can cast protection from evil which lasts for a whole fight and doesn't have a code either. The horse is great, but it's still just a horse. All in all, the paladin, which needs way more experience to go up a level than the mage, is not as powerful as the mage, especially after the mage reaches 7th level. So what gives? What the fuck? Why is ANY of this needed?

So it gets under my skin, I push a little here, I push a little there... and I realise I've gone past the written agenda and I have to stop, rethink and then rewrite.

I need to go back to the Foreword.  I had made a point that any rule that requires an arbitrary judgment that two DMs would not make the same cannot be seen as a rule, no matter how much credit AD&D gives to it. It's not game design, it's the DM cheating and calling it another name.

Steadily, I see that I'm going to have to discuss that in the Foreword, and add some content about rules that serve no real purpose in game play except to arbitrarily empower the DM.

"Gameplay" is defined as the DM presenting the setting, the players acting upon what they learn, the DM conveying the response of the setting to that action and then the players acting again. This symbiosis is the game. "Presenting the setting" can be defined as a situation that arises mechanically from the pretext of the creature or the physical qualities of that setting. It cannot be the DM deciding arbitrary to judge whether or not the player, specifically, ran the character in a way that is arbitrarily, for no actual defined rule, against the DM's personal wishes — which includes the DM putting on a "deity-suit" as if it isn't actually the DM calling the balls and strikes. Game play is that where the consequences of the game are decided by dice, not the DM's mindset about what a character class ought to be about, or represent, or how a player running a character of that class must move their personal game piece. And this is even more egregious if this arbitrary non-rule applies specifically to one player's behaviour and not everyone else's, including the DM's.

Working it out in my head how I'm going to write this, while also working out how to rewrite what I wrote today about the paladin.