D&D 5E Is Anyone Unhappy About Non-LG Paladins?

[Hussar]

I don't think anyone is wrong in this it is a matter of playstyle. I would not enjoy what DDNFan described because it is so rigid and does not take into consideration that players are not paladins in real life and in the end it is just a game.

Fair enough. It is a play style thing. I guess my argument is that paladins, by their nature, exacerbate any differences in play style to the point where it turns into a great flaming row at the table. Mostly, again, IMO, because it always places the DM squarely in conflict with the player. There's no getting around the fact that built into the character is the idea that at some point in time, the DM can turn to you and tell you that you are playing your character wrong.

That's just a recipe for disaster and that's been proven time and time again. The fact that we're STILL arguing about paladins thirty or forty years later shows that pretty clearly.

 

[Greg K]

I'm with Pemerton on this -- the player should have input on how her character worships the relevant divinity -- it's a shared narrative experience.

In some DM's games, maybe.

Deities, in my opinion, are part of setting design and, therefore, their tenets and other factors (domains, symbols, favored weapon, holy days, planar ally, etc.) are part of setting design as well. As such, the appropriate way to worship the relevant divinity is determined by the DM. This info is then made available to the player upfront before character creation. When the player of a character chooses a deity for their cleric, paladin, etc. they are agreeing to worship the deity in the manner prescribed.

 

[Greg K]

However, I think visions are really heavy handed. Especially when micromanaging a player's actions.

In my games, most clerics and paladins never hear, see, or receive direct guidance from their god. They know the basic tenants of what their god stands for and they can attempt to embody these tenants in any way they choose.

Majoru, this was the only time that I had used visions for something like this in my history of DMing. Getting visions is not something that I, normally, do. However, it was also not uncharacteristic for this character. In the character's back story from the player, it was a vision from his deity regarding his missing older sister that led him to leave the temple at which he was raised to search for her and which led him to an island where the party first met. Based on that background he had two or three small visions regarding her along the way establishing that the deity had an established interest in this character and the sister (a former PC).

 

[Kobold Stew]

In some DM's games, maybe.

Deities, in my opinion, are part of setting design and, therefore, their tenets and other factors (domains, symbols, favored weapon, holy days, planar ally, etc.) are part of setting design as well. As such, the appropriate way to worship the relevant divinity is determined by the DM. This info is then made available to the player upfront before character creation. When the player of a character chooses a deity for their cleric, paladin, etc. they are agreeing to worship the deity in the manner prescribed.

Of course there are people who still play this way: that's fine (for them, and you), but it would be enough to make me avoid playing a cleric or a paladin - or any character of faith, for that matter.

In my eyes, it's extra work for the DM up front (since, presumably, many deities will not get used) and the only benefit is to deny the player the opportunity to be creative and use their imagination in their contributions to the story and their own character development. YMMV.

 

[Greg K]

In my eyes, it's extra work for the DM up front (since, presumably, many deities will not get used) and the only benefit is to deny the player the opportunity to be creative and use their imagination in their contributions to the story and their own character development. YMMV.

Some might not get used by the players, but most if not all will come up at some point in long term play (edit: for my campaign settings). There are interconnections between the deities and their individual clerics. For instance, the clerics and paladins for the deity of the Paladin, are sworn protectors of clerics of another deity (a younger sister). They are also sworn enemies of a third deity's clerics, because this third deity had tortured the younger sister. Add to this that the domains of deities (and therefore spell lists in my campaign are specialized per DMG tailored spell list variant), other deities might be needed from time to time (e.g., to perform raise dead).

 

[Greg K]

and the only benefit is to deny the player the opportunity to be creative and use their imagination in their contributions to the story and their own character development. YMMV.

See, I don't have a story until I have the characters. I only have a setting (including deities, organizations, etc.). The backgrounds and goals of the characters and what the characters do are the basis of the campaign. In the campaign in question, I had players give me the following backgrounds

1) The Paladin whom grew up an orphan in a temple dedicated to his deity. He was raised by the high priest almost like a son. His older sister, an adventurer (former PC), disappeared while on a quest. Recently, he had a vision of her and a lich. The vision prompted him to leave the temple in search for her.

2) The Cavalier: The cavalier came from a country in which noble houses vie for power among each other and in the king's court (the nature of kingdom was already set as part of the setting). While on a border patrol, the cavalier and his patrol were ambushed. The Cavalier took a blow from a giant and was knocked from his mount. Dazed, he crawled for cover and blacked out. Upon awakening he set out to find those responsible. He tracked the giants to a cave and witnessed them being paid by a cloaked figure. He followed the figure and confronted him. He received a bit of information about some other people of power behind the attack. Having set out to find them without first sending word to his king, father, and fiance, he is, now, presumed dead.

3) The Shaman: The Shaman grew up among the Northman. By age 13, he had passed his ordeal into the druidic order and was considered a prodigy among the Druids (GR's Shaman replaced the Druid class) excelling in subjects related to arcana, diplomacy, history, nature, music, storytelling and the mastery of basic spell casting, but his young age, inexperience, and uptight demeanor, had limited his progression. Five years later, he desires a chance to prove himself. A month earlier, robed figures from a far of island appeared requesting an alliance with the Druids. The Druids determining these figures could not be trusted turned them away. Upon leaving the strangers vowed to destroy the druids. A week ago, they returned via portals in the dead of night. They bombarding the druids and the jarl's home with fire from the sky. When the sun rose, only four druid's remained- two severely injured. During the raid, the Jarl's daughter was kidnapped. The young druid was sent to negotiate her release.

4) The Barbarian: Whereas his clansman, the Shaman, is reflective and uptight, the Barbarian is brash and impetuous. His goal in life is to gain the following of warriors, marry the Jarl's daughter, and become Jarl himself. When body guards for Shaman were sought, the Barbarian was first to raise his hand, seeing this as the start of building a reputation for himself and what better way to start than by rescuing the woman he wants to marry whom just happens to be the Jarl's daughter. The Barbarian is loyal to the Shaman and will lay down his life for him. He also has much to learn to become Jarl and the Shaman has taken upon himself to teach him- the lessons are often emphasized with a whack from the Shaman's staff to the back of his head accompanied by a slight grin.

5) The Rogue is a layabout and cutpurse growing up on an island ruled by wizards. On the island, he is a second class citizen as he has no magical ability. Currently, he lives by the docks where he plies his trade cutting the purses of recent arrivals disembarking from ships. He dreams of one day leaving the island, but he pisses away the coin on drinks on whores and repeats the process again. One day, however, he will leave the island...one day. If he can screw the wizards over in the process, so much the better.


That was the party and their backgrounds.

The Paladin's player played in the previous campaign so he knew about the Paladins and clerics of the deity and the location of their main temple. He also knew that the cleric and her party had been searching for a lich (hence his vision).

For the cavalier's player, he chose to have his character come from another country that had been established as once being like Camelot during its hey day with knights in shining armor, but had descended into noble houses competing for power amongst one another.

The two Northman players had decided to tie their backgrounds together once they learned that they were coming from the same homeland. The druid player latched onto the attack and made it much worse than it was. Because the Barbarian wanted to marry the Jarl's daughter, they decided that she was abducted during the attack.

The Rogue's player described his player as a layabout and cutpurse that squandered what he stole on women and drink. He asked me to place the character somewhere that made sense with a preference that he might lead the party through his city. When heard about the abduction of the Jarl's daughter,
by wizards, he decided to come from the island that they ruled (the island was already established). This gave us our starting location and we decided that he heard about an auction where she was about to be sold as a slave to a high ranking guild wizard.

From here the Paladin decided that he had a vision of his sister bring him to the island. Similarly, the Cavalier's player decided that the has consistently been a week or two behind the people for whom he was searching. The trail led to the island.

Now, everyone had a reason to be at the island. I started with the rogue at the docks just after sunrise with potential marks disembarking from a recently arrived ship and let things take their course from there.

So despite the setting, its cultures, deities, etc. being set by me, the players brought the basis for the first adventure and numerous "stories" rather than my story. I had no idea where the story was going. I placed hooks as well as riffing off the players decisions, backgrounds, and goals.

 

[Greg K]

I
Look, I'm not saying Greg K is wrong. It's his table and his players enjoyed it. Fine and good. But, I would not enjoy that. I don't see why I am automatically being cast as a bad player (asked to leave the group) simply because I disagree with the DM's ruling. I mean, it's not like Greg K's interpretation is the only possible one, we've seen that.

Hussar, you are not wrong for having your opinion or a bad player. However, given your posts about world building, your posts in the DM Entitlement thread and how you would try to pull players from the group, and other threads, you would just be a bad player at our table. Your view of the game and how it should be approached is far different than ours and other groups that I know and have known. Based on the thread about trying to players, because you don't like a DM banning an option you want, because they don't like it, I don't see you, maturely, handling a situation you seriously dislike or letting it go. At the time of the incident, the group was 3/4 DM's (before two moved cross-country and one player lost his driver's license) and a single player voicing serious objections to how a DM handled something would be met with accepting the DM's decision or don't play. Granted, how you would react if the DM banned something you wanted, because they didn't like it might be coloring my perception of how you would react if you seriously disliked a decision regarding the Paladin situation.

But, this, IMO, is why paladins as written are so problematic. Everyone digs into their positions and refuses to back down. There's no acknowledgement of alternative interpretations. Greg K being right does not automatically make Permerton or myself wrong.

I agree. It is just play style preferences. However, when I run, my style takes precedence. If I were to run Dungeon World, I would build the setting first and then tailored playbooks for certain classes (e.g., clerics tailored to different deities). Then again, I like to have the setting pre-determined (and one of the booklets on the Dungeon World site states that creating the setting can work) and characters fit within the setting's limitations. Having the setting determined ahead of time, makes it easier for me to see what happens in play. Similarly, if I run Fate Core, I am also building the setting ahead of time and someone introducing elements that I feel do not fit would be overridden.

 

[Elf Witch]

Fair enough. It is a play style thing. I guess my argument is that paladins, by their nature, exacerbate any differences in play style to the point where it turns into a great flaming row at the table. Mostly, again, IMO, because it always places the DM squarely in conflict with the player. There's no getting around the fact that built into the character is the idea that at some point in time, the DM can turn to you and tell you that you are playing your character wrong.

That's just a recipe for disaster and that's been proven time and time again. The fact that we're STILL arguing about paladins thirty or forty years later shows that pretty clearly.

I have seen arguments at the table over clerics and how the player interprets following their deity. I have seen arguments and some nasty ones over players who play rogues as lone wolves. Any class can bring arguments to the table depending on how that player is playing his character. I had issues awhile back with a player who didn't like that I held back spells when I played the wizard he played wizards going nova a lot.

You realize that DMs can take away abilities from monks and druids too if they violate their alignments yet we rarely hear about that.

I personally feel that paladin issue stem back to the time when it took lucky dice rolls to play them and the fact that and that many players view them as special and tried to play them as leaders and other players resented that as well as the goody two shoes getting in the way of doing what was easiest when it came to certain things. Add in many players think playing a paladin means forcing others to live up to their code as well and playing paladins as lawful stupid.

I think as long as you have any class that has a code of any kind there will be disagreements at some tables and on the internet.

 

[pemerton]

Of course there are people who still play this way: that's fine (for them, and you), but it would be enough to make me avoid playing a cleric or a paladin - or any character of faith, for that matter.

In my eyes, it's extra work for the DM up front (since, presumably, many deities will not get used) and the only benefit is to deny the player the opportunity to be creative and use their imagination in their contributions to the story and their own character development.

This is my take too.

I picked up a copy of Fate Core recently, and this sidebar on p 74 seems relevant:

GMs, remember that a player is ultimately responsible for everything that the character says and does. You can offer decision-based compels [=, roughly, imposing a small mechanical penalty on the player if s/he doesn't go along with the GM's idea for his/her PC's behaviour], but if the player doesn't feel like the decision is one that the character would make, don't force the issue . . . Instead, negotiate the terms of the compel until you find a decision the player is comfortable making [for his/her PC] . . . If you can't agree on something, drop it.​

That expresses a view fairly similar to mine, at least about the whole code-enforcement issue: it's one thing for the GM to work with a player to make the code, and loyalty/disloyalty, matter in play; it's another thing altogether for the GM to unilaterally override the players' conception of his/her PC and whether or not s/he is being faithful.

In some DM's games, maybe.

Deities, in my opinion, are part of setting design and, therefore, their tenets and other factors (domains, symbols, favored weapon, holy days, planar ally, etc.) are part of setting design as well. As such, the appropriate way to worship the relevant divinity is determined by the DM. This info is then made available to the player upfront before character creation. When the player of a character chooses a deity for their cleric, paladin, etc. they are agreeing to worship the deity in the manner prescribed.

I don't think this fully states the strength of your position. Because, unless I've misunderstood you, you are stating not only that the GM has sole authority over these initial matters of backstory, but also that the GM has ongoing authority during play. So not only does the GM get to tell the player what all the gods and their prescriptions are, but the GM gets to tell the player, as play actually takes place, whether or not the player's interpretation is correct.

It's that second bit, rather than the first bit about backstory authority, that is my main departure from your approach.

 

[Uchawi]

My biggest problem with alignment based classes is it immediately places the player and DM at odds when playing the class. The interaction becomes a struggle on when a class looses access to their ability when not following an alignment. If they did that for all the classes, you either have a very tolerant table, or someone it going to leave when the DM says you lost the ability for reasons x, y and z. When it is not clear even if reasons a, b, and c will end up in losing the class ability.

If they did emulate a system that used some type of scale to track alignment, then it should track it every game session. So it may take a series of 5 to 10 game sessions, with multiple warnings that the player may lose something, but during those 5 to 10 sessions they have a chance to recover. But that is a lot of book keeping, where it is just easier to let the player choose how to role-play their character.

So with the stated I am happy with a paladin being based on any alignment.