Hickory: You are absolutely and completely missing the whole point, which has been apparent right from the start of your series. You want to play a paladin, but you don't want to 'be' the role that you play. You can't make a series about a paladin and her 'ethos', and completely dismiss actions that go against everything that a paladin stands for and still have people take you (or your paladin) seriously. You are not doing yourself any favours here.

Hickory: That's it, right there. As I read these posts and view the videos, I see a person with a (Complete Paladin's) handbook, role playing the handbook and having great difficulty translating anything within to a (virtually) real paladin -- 'have book, will follow'.

Bookwyrm627: This I genuinely don't understand. How is roaming the world contrary to being lawful?

Jonesy89: You know what, I think I'll go ahead and quote some more scripture while I'm at it.

algi: Being a paladin isn't about finding trouble.

Hickory: Nor is it about running away from trouble or avoiding it. Over your head again, it seems. Hickory: This is just more confirmation that you're completely missing the whole point. I suspect that no amount of discussion will ever change that.

algi: Okay, let's say I do what you want and I go out of my way to find monsters I can fight and I have to either die or run away. Let's say I put hundreds of hours in this and I don't get forward in the game and I make hundred videos about my paladin dying and dying over and over again for no reason, but to accomodate your bloodthirst. Would that be satisfactory? Let's pretend I did all that, I just didn't upload all those videos ,and then I went back to my mission, keeping a promise I made, as a paladin should do.

And no, looking for trouble isn't in the spirit of being a paladin. And this isn't in the rules exactly. This is in the spirit of the rules.

Hickory: It's not about what you want. It's not about what I want. It's not about making videos. You really have no clue, do you?

algi: Then you're in the wrong thread.

Bookwyrm627: The Pit Fiend ate her.

algi: Okay, let's say I do what you want and I go out of my way to find monsters I can fight and I have to either die or run away. Let's say I put hundreds of hours in this and I don't get forward in the game and I make hundred videos about my paladin dying and dying over and over again for no reason, but to accomodate your bloodthirst. Would that be satisfactory? Let's pretend I did all that, I just didn't upload all those videos ,and then I went back to my mission, keeping a promise I made, as a paladin should do.

And no, looking for trouble isn't in the spirit of being a paladin. And this isn't in the rules exactly. This is in the spirit of the rules.

algi: This is about me making videos of a paladin character following the paladin's ethos from The Complete Paladin's Handbook.

...

PS. I didn't promise I would play in the spirit of the rules, I didn't promise that I myself would behave as a paladin, I just promised to make dumb videos about me playing as a paladin character, following the ethos, because I think it would be a dumb, fun idea.

PPS. Also, I am far from being my character. I'm a white male, living without much of an ethos, brought up by my parents in the comfort of Western society, and she is a brown skinned girl who was brought up in a monastery full of books, by an old guy, and the paladin's ethos is her life.

Pangaea666: Sounds a bit like the paladin in the Book of Unwritten Tales.

Ryan333: While Baldur’s Gate is heads and tails better than most action-RPGs in terms of dialog, it can still feel constraining when you’re trying to play a very specific personality or ethos – such as a paladin. Some of the “good” dialog responses might not be “good enough” for a paladin to say.

You had a perfect example in the video where Garrick was trying to recruit you to aid Silke. The “good” response is something like “tell us more – we’re always on the lookout for more coin”, which is definitely NOT the right motivation for a paladin. So, if you try to pick the dialog option that a paladin would say, and you force yourself to be limited to the exact options given, you really have no choice but to turn down the quest - not because you don't want to take the quest, but because the game didn't give you a dialog choice to accept the quest in a "paladin way".

Realizing that you’ll run into these limitations of game design quite a bit, there are two ways to deal with them.

The first option is to assume that what your character "really" says doesn’t necessarily match the literal dialog text shown. If the spirit and intent of a dialog choice is “I will help you”, and there are no better-worded choices that would also result in helping the NPC, then that’s the choice you pick, and you assume that your paladin says it in a little more noble and dignified manner.

The second option is to assume that one of your other party members is responding instead of your paladin. I never liked that my party members all just stood there mute, accepting every word I said in every conversation (at least in BG1 - they do speak up in BG2). If I really want to pick a sarcastic response, I just assume Imoen blurted that out (as my paladin spins around and glares at her). Or if I want to take the “kick butt now and ask questions later” approach, Minsc is great for that (as my paladin stammers, “wait Minsc, maybe we should… errr… oh boy, here we go again… blades out, team – the big guy’s goin’ in!”)

Remember that The Complete Paladin’s Handbook was written for playing a tabletop game with a live dungeon master that you can roleplay with. Computers do a pretty lousy job of understanding the spirit and intent of your actions.

Ryan333: While Baldur’s Gate is heads and tails better than most action-RPGs in terms of dialog, it can still feel constraining when you’re trying to play a very specific personality or ethos – such as a paladin. Some of the “good” dialog responses might not be “good enough” for a paladin to say.

You had a perfect example in the video where Garrick was trying to recruit you to aid Silke. The “good” response is something like “tell us more – we’re always on the lookout for more coin”, which is definitely NOT the right motivation for a paladin. So, if you try to pick the dialog option that a paladin would say, and you force yourself to be limited to the exact options given, you really have no choice but to turn down the quest - not because you don't want to take the quest, but because the game didn't give you a dialog choice to accept the quest in a "paladin way".

Realizing that you’ll run into these limitations of game design quite a bit, there are two ways to deal with them.

The first option is to assume that what your character "really" says doesn’t necessarily match the literal dialog text shown. If the spirit and intent of a dialog choice is “I will help you”, and there are no better-worded choices that would also result in helping the NPC, then that’s the choice you pick, and you assume that your paladin says it in a little more noble and dignified manner.

The second option is to assume that one of your other party members is responding instead of your paladin. I never liked that my party members all just stood there mute, accepting every word I said in every conversation (at least in BG1 - they do speak up in BG2). If I really want to pick a sarcastic response, I just assume Imoen blurted that out (as my paladin spins around and glares at her). Or if I want to take the “kick butt now and ask questions later” approach, Minsc is great for that (as my paladin stammers, “wait Minsc, maybe we should… errr… oh boy, here we go again… blades out, team – the big guy’s goin’ in!”)

Remember that The Complete Paladin’s Handbook was written for playing a tabletop game with a live dungeon master that you can roleplay with. Computers do a pretty lousy job of understanding the spirit and intent of your actions.