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Musings on the "Lawful Jerk" Paladin
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<blockquote data-quote="QuietBrowser" data-source="post: 7349429" data-attributes="member: 6855057"><p>There are, in my opinion, three reasons why "The Lawful Jerk Paladin" is a thing: Alignment Is Stupid, Gygaxian Mechanical Flubs, Hack DMs.</p><p></p><p>Alignment Is Stupid: There is no subject in D&D more divisive than "what is the definition of (X Alignment)?" Defining what is Lawful, what is Good, and what is the median intersection of the two values has seen more ink (physical and virtual) spilled over D&D's history than anything else. No two people honestly believe the same way, which is why it's problematic for any class to rely on it as integral to its identity. The fact that Paladins rely on a single specific alignment (vs the Any Lawful, Any Chaotic, Any Neutral, Any Good, Any Evil classes) is a particular hinderance to it - druids used to be just as bad for alignment-based quibbles in 2e, when they were Must Be True Neutral.</p><p></p><p>Gygaxian Mechanical Flubs: The alignment issue was problematic enough. But, the paladin's problems go beyond that. In addition to mandating a required alignment, paladins originally had a huge laundry list of Do Not Do This, any one of which could see them stripped of their powers. And most of these items were based on being present when the party did things or just existed, depending on the character; associating with Rogues, for example. This meant that paladins could not only lose their powers because of stuff they did, but because of stuff the other players did, which encouraged paladin players to "police" the party. This was made worse by the sheer difficulty in qualifying for the Paladin in the first place, the fact that falling was permanent, and the fact you became an inferior Fighter if you fell.</p><p></p><p>Hack DMs: Not every DM is as good a storyteller as they think they are. More importantly, not every DM is wiling to listen when a player is not interested in the story the DM wants to tell. If a DM wants to tell the story of a Paladin's fall from grace, that's problematic if the player doesn't want to partake in such a story. In fact, I rather doubt many players choose Paladins because they want to struggle with crises of faith or have themselves fall from grace - many paladin players legitimately want to be the Knight in Shining Armor, the Holy Champion, the literal White Knight that can revel in simply being on the side of good and fighting the good fight, and find DMs insistent on trying to pull them away from that to be just plain irritating. This would be bad enough, but D&D's wargame roots bred a "player vs. DM" mentality during the early editions of the game, one that's still going strong in some circles. A lot of Lawful Jerk paladins are acting that way to try and cut off DMs they suspect might be trying to push them towards falling.</p><p></p><p>Now, I'm not saying that there aren't players who take the paladin as an excuse to be self-righteous or so they can bully the rest of the party. But, the bad decisions in the paladin's theme and the mechanical enforcements of that theme, alongside bad DMs, have given Paladins a stigma that they are still struggling to shake off, even after everything that three editions have done to try and scrape the gunk of AD&D away from the class's workings.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="QuietBrowser, post: 7349429, member: 6855057"] There are, in my opinion, three reasons why "The Lawful Jerk Paladin" is a thing: Alignment Is Stupid, Gygaxian Mechanical Flubs, Hack DMs. Alignment Is Stupid: There is no subject in D&D more divisive than "what is the definition of (X Alignment)?" Defining what is Lawful, what is Good, and what is the median intersection of the two values has seen more ink (physical and virtual) spilled over D&D's history than anything else. No two people honestly believe the same way, which is why it's problematic for any class to rely on it as integral to its identity. The fact that Paladins rely on a single specific alignment (vs the Any Lawful, Any Chaotic, Any Neutral, Any Good, Any Evil classes) is a particular hinderance to it - druids used to be just as bad for alignment-based quibbles in 2e, when they were Must Be True Neutral. Gygaxian Mechanical Flubs: The alignment issue was problematic enough. But, the paladin's problems go beyond that. In addition to mandating a required alignment, paladins originally had a huge laundry list of Do Not Do This, any one of which could see them stripped of their powers. And most of these items were based on being present when the party did things or just existed, depending on the character; associating with Rogues, for example. This meant that paladins could not only lose their powers because of stuff they did, but because of stuff the other players did, which encouraged paladin players to "police" the party. This was made worse by the sheer difficulty in qualifying for the Paladin in the first place, the fact that falling was permanent, and the fact you became an inferior Fighter if you fell. Hack DMs: Not every DM is as good a storyteller as they think they are. More importantly, not every DM is wiling to listen when a player is not interested in the story the DM wants to tell. If a DM wants to tell the story of a Paladin's fall from grace, that's problematic if the player doesn't want to partake in such a story. In fact, I rather doubt many players choose Paladins because they want to struggle with crises of faith or have themselves fall from grace - many paladin players legitimately want to be the Knight in Shining Armor, the Holy Champion, the literal White Knight that can revel in simply being on the side of good and fighting the good fight, and find DMs insistent on trying to pull them away from that to be just plain irritating. This would be bad enough, but D&D's wargame roots bred a "player vs. DM" mentality during the early editions of the game, one that's still going strong in some circles. A lot of Lawful Jerk paladins are acting that way to try and cut off DMs they suspect might be trying to push them towards falling. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't players who take the paladin as an excuse to be self-righteous or so they can bully the rest of the party. But, the bad decisions in the paladin's theme and the mechanical enforcements of that theme, alongside bad DMs, have given Paladins a stigma that they are still struggling to shake off, even after everything that three editions have done to try and scrape the gunk of AD&D away from the class's workings. [/QUOTE]
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