What makes a paladin fall?

[Rashak Mani]

I will quote:


Battle not with Monsters,
lest ye become a monster,

and if you gaze into the abyss,
the abyss gazes into you.

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche


... in all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.

- Plato

 

[Piratecat]

Lord Pendragon, that was superb. Nice example.

- PCat

 

[Don21584]

Well, if they do something evil and just decide to not attone for it, that would make them fall.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Well, it had been a difficult decision, of course, but in the end, they'd had no choice. Six lives bartered for the lives of six hundred. Of course, they had no idea that the man would torture them!

Salutations,

I am a bit confused- is this the villages justification for their evil or are you suggesting they were justified in their decision?

While I would agree the burning of them alive out of anger would probably be a good reason for the fall from role of paladin, I don't disagree with the paladin's decision that these are evil people.

FD

 

[Jezrael]

Overzealousness does it in my campaigns usually, mainly because of the way alignment works...

Your average (read, mortal, non-cleric, non fallen/blackguard, oh yes and non PC, but that's another discussion) "evil" person in a game (or at least my game) isn't usually the psychomurdering type, they could be anything from the sociopath at the extremes to a merchant who bilks people out of their money to a thief who steals because he enjoys it, and anything in between. The problem comes when the players in the game treat all evil as the same, and start smiting away, killing a merchant for fleecing people is a bit much, and if the thief doesn't put up a fight he should be turned in to the proper authorities, not killed out of hand because "he's evil".

Players often forget that evil also can mean selfish, it doesn't mean that everyone is a megalomaniacal fiend bent on world domination, unfortunately for the paladins in my games often forget to...temper their responses appropriately. In that case:

Paladin fall down, go boom.

 

[Christian]

Gravity.

Thank you, thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

 

[Artoomis]

The FRCS example actually works for me, but more explanation would help.

Imagine that the paladin is fooled by the demon - okay, now that doesn't, by itself, cause the paladin to fall. But the demon continues to manipulate tha paladin under the guise of reforming its behavoir - eventually, he gets the paladin to do something evil - BANG, fallen paladin.

Of course, a paladin is both lawful and good.

I think it's also possible to fall for taking the law into your own hands without proper cause. The Galahad example can be looked at in this light - let's say the whole town detects as evil (slight evil, maybe, but evil nonetheless). Not attempting to get the town to see the error of their ways and make up for it within the law would have Galahad fall from grace - he took the law into his own hands and passed judgement.

The paladin's job is NOT to pass judgement on everyone he meets - that's okay in the lawless wilderness, but not in civilized areas. In civilized areas he needs to work within the law for the good - not outside the law. That's for Rangers and the like.

Life is MUCH harder for a paladin in civilized areas where he cannot simply impose his own "proper" view on everyone else. It's also important to remember that's its really not too hard to atone for your sins as a paladin - simply go to your church and do your penance (which might be considerable, or might just be a few prayers). Pretty much everything is forgivable, if the paladin genuinely seeks forgiveness. For course, doing an act knowing you can get forgiveness later will involve a rather lengthy and involved atonement to ensure it doesn't happen again.

 

[Nightfall]

Gravity.

Thank you, thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

LOL I was think a rock but that one works too!

 

[Umbran]

Gravity.

Dang, you beat me to it.

To answer the question, I'll ask a similar one for comparison...

What might turn a genuinely happy, friendly, optimistic person into an anti-social, mean-spirited cynic?

 

[Enkhidu]

There are some very good points here, and most of the classics are covered.

Temptation, righteous anger, feelings of hopelessness...

But I can't believe no one has brought up the idea of hubris.

An example: One of the greatest personages of the campiagn world my group has been building for the past 12 years is a fallen paladin.

He didn't fall because he wasn't strong enough to resist temptation.

He didn't fall because he wasn't able to control his righteous rage at all things evil.

He didn't fall because he no longer felt capable of righting wrongs.

He fell because he believed that he was the only one who could do these things.

And when began his descent, he didn't stop until he was one of the most terrible tyrants to ever live.

The worst way for a paladin to fall is for him or her to believe they haven't done anything wrong...