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Problem Player: An Apology

My character was an elvish paladin. Coming from the ancient world of A,D&D, with its racial alignments, I still thought of D&D elves as ‘Chaotic Good’. The unusual image of a law-focussed elf made me wonder how someone would approach a law-abiding philosophy if they came from a society of well-meant maniacs, libertarians, and hippies (at least that’s how I picture an elvish settlement).

The GM gave us the mission:

The town’s slums have been overrun by bugbears! They’ve started a protection racket, demanding money from everyone in the area.

He didn’t say what the job was. He thought it was obvious, but my aspirationally-law-abiding paladin had questions.

Do they kill people who fail to pay taxes?

No, but they destroy their property, or beat them up.

Why do the local law-enforcement not do anything about the bugbears?

Corruption, complacency and fear. The bugbears are a powerful gang, and they’ve ganged up with local goblins in the city.

And they do actually protect people who pay the money on time?

Well yes, I suppose, they want the money, so they would want to keep those people safe.

After the GM answered apparently pointless questions, I declared I wouldn’t intervene. In fact, this particular paladin would be supporting the local, rightful law: the bugbears.

So this is the point where I became ‘a problem player’. Nobody said so, but I could see nobody could take my arguments seriously. They all felt certain that I had decided to be argumentative and weird for no good reasons.

Clearly, the bugbears were simply the local law. Law-enforcement take taxes, punish people who fail to pay their taxes, and punish people who break the local laws. Paladins don’t support a particular king, while breaking all the rules they want once they travel to a nearby kingdom. They follow the laws where they are, as long as those laws are reasonable. And if someone does something evil, a paladin should attempt to resolve the situation within the local laws, rather than declaring that someone is ‘bad’, and exploding with a barrage of justice-to-the-face.

The point is not that I’m right (although, obviously…); the point here is to demand a solution to one person who feels certain they are in the right, while a full room feels they’re being nothing but difficult for bad reasons. This is a hard problem, and people treating it lightly don’t help.

It’s tempting to just say

‘Ugh, yea nah just don’t be a dick’

…but we could both play that game. I might say ‘hey listen, you say this group is law, and that group is a “gang” because of skin-colour - don’t be a dick!’. Both sides could dismiss each other easily. The dismissal does nothing, and it’s cheap.

But this is different, because one side is actually right.

This makes no difference. You can read this sentence in one direction or another, and it fails to solve both problems in exactly the same way.

It’s just a game!

Also true both ways.

Majority rule - that’s the real lawful thing to do.

Does that mean ‘we are many, therefore we are correct’, or does it mean ‘we are many, so could you do the thing you don’t feel it right’? That last one works fine - most people accept just not pissing people off, even if they’re pissed off for bad reasons. But it’s also not a request to leave implied. You can’t tell someone ‘your values are bad, and you don’t understand this’, then imagine they will slide their internal narrative into a world where you asked them to put your values and understanding aside, for the sake of keeping activities smooth.

Someone may accept a majority’s wishes, but nobody actually makes these requests. And if nobody’s willing to make that request, rather than actively blocking it, then it doesn’t make a real solution.

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I don’t have a solution to this mess. I doubt you do either.

I want people to acknowledge that ethical beliefs are difficult, and we don’t have the shared understanding and firm grasp on our value systems that people who’ve never read a book on the subject always think we do.

I am hear to preach the gospel of doubt.