D&D General Deleted

[pemerton]

If none was confused, why this was presented as an exception, even a deconstruction of the archetype?

The archetype is not a statistical conjecture about the armaments of a "typical" crusader.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

The archetype is not a statistical conjecture about the armaments of a "typical" crusader.

I recommend you to reread the thread then, OP included.

 

[pemerton]

See above my comment about Aragorn, already covered.

I think is context dependent. Say Aragorn spares Grima but would not accept a Witch King surrender.

What does this "cover"? First, it's assertion. We don't know how JRRT would have authored Aragorn's response to a surrender by the Witch King, in part because the whole fiction around the Witch King makes it almost impossible to envision a surrender.

Second, Gollum and Grima are both true evil, yet mercy was extended to both of them. And both of them played a subsequent role in how things turned out. There is a clear relationship here, in JRRT's works, between the ideas of mercy (or, more generally, humility) and providence.

The stuff in the Book of Exalted Deeds that @James Gasik quoted upthread seems like a completely common-place, if slightly D&D-phrased, reiteration of these well-known ideas.

A completely different approach to fantasy is found in REH's work - except for The Hour of the Dragon, there is no notion of providence at work. Again with that exception, the work is pretty unrelentingly atheistic. (The presence of imaginary gods and priests doesn't change that, any more than the absence of priests from JRRT's work undermines its theistic character.) There is no space, in REH Conan, for a paladin, or even in my view for a cleric. Warlocks fit right in, though!

 

[Kaiyanwang]

What does this "cover"?

That circumstances and judgements, context and specific enemy will dictate the actions in base f the alignment.
I am frankly almost disturbed by the discourse in this thread because is very absolutist and at the same time rejects the idea that creatures, IRL or in the game world, can analyze facts, have introspection and such.

 

[aramis erak]

In the past year or so, I have learned a lot about medieval history that I didn't know before. I'd commonly heard and spouted the phrase that D&D isn't really medieval, it's its own thing more similar to the Renaissance but is filled with anachronisms and stuff of its own inventions (obviously all the magical stuff, but also studded leather armor and similar pseudo-historical stuff). This is accurate, but I didn't understand many of the specifics aside from a few points (Rapiers, Plate Armor, etc) until recently. A lot of D&D is inspired by modern fantasy that is in turn based on aspects of the middle ages or stories from them (Mostly through Tolkien. A ton of D&D was inspired by Tolkien, who was in turn inspired by stories from the middle ages like Beowulf, Arthurian Legend, and Norse Mythology.) That is not to say that all of D&D is based on the middle ages or stories from it, there is stuff stolen from a ton of cultures and stories with varying degrees of accuracy, and of course stuff of Gygaxian invention (mimics, owlbears, displacer beasts, etc).

There is one aspect of D&D that is undoubtedly based on an aspect of the middle ages, and I think causes some issues. Paladins are undoubtedly based on stories of medieval knights, those of Arthurian Legend and stories of Charlemagne's paladins, where they get their name. While Arthurian legend as we know them today was based on earlier Brythonic stories, a major aspect of them, the stories of knights on quests traveling around killing monsters, was added later on.

Mallory's Le Morte d'Artur is technically an early Renaissance work (14-something), and is where about 75% of modern Arthuriana tropes arise. . Nennius Historia Brittonum and the Vulgate Cycle are earlier than Mallory, and about 10% of the arthurian tropes; much of Mallory's tropeset builds on those two. Chrétien de Troyes' Romances get folded and spindled into Mallory, too. .

Then Arthuriana gets the weirdness of TH White's focuses on Lancelot and his anachronisms... but grounded on Le Morte.

Medieval knights did not go on quests. Knights were the lowest form of nobility and acted as law enforcement and guards for more powerful nobles. Knights wouldn't wander the countryside on quests searching for ancient artifacts and killing dangerous beasts. They had a jobs, and no noble would just let their knights shirk their duties to explore. The closest medieval analogue to the stories of Arthurian knights going on holy quests were the Crusades, which the stories were inspired by.

Furthermore, the common image of a D&D paladin, a sword-and-board holy knight with a holy symbol on their shield is obviously based on the common image of the Knights Templar with the cross on their shield.

yep.

Not to mention that the medieval chivalric stories of Charlemagne's paladins tell tales of them fighting against Andalusian Muslims.)

Yep. The tales are mostly renaissance era. THe actual knights-Paladin, however, were not Crusaders. They were 200 years to early, and that puts them in the Dark Ages. Before the crusades. When the crusading was done against the neighbors, not the Muslims.

The D&D paladin is rooted in the Crusades, stories based off the Crusades (Arthurian Knights) and other medieval stories about chivalric knights fighting Muslims. The "lawful good holy warriors" of D&D are based off of the knights of the middle ages that killed thousands of innocent people.

More likely the Renaissance and Romantic eras revisions of those tales.

Paladins are a Christian power fantasy rooted in one of the most horrific series of wars of the Middle Ages.

Not so fast there, skippy...
The D&D paladins are a power fantasy, but there's not much Christian about them.
Holy warriors exist in many traditions. Including the Muslims.
The inspiration source is there, but it's been blanched quite a bit, and even more in later editions.

Since I've learned more about the Crusades and made this connection, Paladins just feel different. Ickier, for the lack of a better word. They don't feel the same as back when I was a teenager playing make believe with fantasy monsters. Knowing about the atrocities that inspired them and their representation throughout D&D history as holy warriors of good that must purge the evil just feels gross now.

Gygax et al didn't know even as much as you. And were writing in a time when political correctness as we think of it was on the opposite side of Gender, Preference, and LGBTQIA rights from now. Essentially, it was the last gasp of the dark ages echoing.

And know that the Paladin in D&D bears only passing resemblance to both the brutal warriors of Charlemagne, and the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitler. The Hospitlers became, eventually, the Knights of Malta, and still exist as a very expensive and active charitable fraternal order with Papal knighthood.

They are far closer to the unrealistic and heroic tales with their Renaissance and Romantic period embellishments. They're a myth borrowing a name.

I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but this thread is largely about how learning about the medieval roots of paladins has sort of ruined them for me. I'm not saying that they should be removed from the game. I think that Paladins can be fixed for me if they change enough, it may require a new name and broadening/changing their identity. If they didn't borrow as much of their identity from medieval knights, it wouldn't be as much as a problem. The Oath of Heroism for example, which is more inspired by demigod heroes of Greek mythology don't have as much of the gross Crusader theme to them.

Not medieval
The concept of a holy warrior and what good means are not quite universals, but are hardly uncommon as myth. And equally as grotesque in historical documentation.

So, any suggestions? How can you have a holy warrior knight-in-shining-armor class without this connection to the Crusades and similar real world atrocities? Is the problem mainly with the paladin, or Gygax's version of always-evil races? How might Paladins be changed to make them feel less gross.

The only connection to the crusaders is the one you showed: the holy symbol on the shield.
They're connected to the myth, and the myth is disconnected from the reality by 600-800 years...

Keep in mind that this is a (+) thread. The last time I made a thread similar to this one, it got bogged down by posters telling me that the problem I was bringing up didn't exist and accusing me of being overly sensitive. If you disagree with the premise of the thread, move along. Make your own thread if you like. If threadcrapping/trolling occurs, it will of course be reported.

I'm not saying it's not a problem. You're clearly distressed.
I am saying, "The evidence you present is extremely thin and based upon versions told 600-950 years later than the people they are about and being annoyed by the disconnect that the story authors could not know" and "Gygax didn't do his homework very well" - plus, I don't know whether the Paladin was Gygax's. I know the non-LG paladinical types are very much not his.

Just ignore the linkage, because it's not strong enough nor well known enough to be a problem for most, unless you make it a problem. It's just not worth the stress. Go with the myth, not the historical reality. It's just more fun that way.

 

[teitan]

Again, though, you're ignoring a LOT of representations of the Paladin. It's more than just Three Hearts and Three Lions. After all, 3H&3L isn't written in a vacuum. The ideas in the novel were also influenced by culture of the time. You can't just claim a single source and then expect everyone else to ignore everything else.

Did I say ignore that? No. It’s a starting point but the OG Paladin is straight up Holger.

 

[Cadence]

Again, though, you're ignoring a LOT of representations of the Paladin. It's more than just Three Hearts and Three Lions. After all, 3H&3L isn't written in a vacuum. The ideas in the novel were also influenced by culture of the time. You can't just claim a single source and then expect everyone else to ignore everything else.

Tangent ...

Are some literary things like Markov chains, where they as X_(n+1) depend on their immediate source X_n, but not anything before that? If someone sets out to adapt something by Shakespeare and doesn't know the things the Bard cribbed from, do those things actually have any affect on the adaptation beyond the use Shakespeare made of them?

I think clearly Gygax did know about Arthurian legends and Templars, and etc... beyond 3H3L so that isn't the case here. But I wonder how many people playing Paladins, for example, didn't have anything besides the PHB to go on. (Maybe more so for Druids or Bards?).

 

[aramis erak]

Tangent ...

Are some literary things like Markov chains, where they as X_(n+1) depend on their immediate source X_n, but not anything before that? If someone sets out to adapt something by Shakespeare and doesn't know the things the Bard cribbed from, do those things actually have any affect on the adaptation beyond the use Shakespeare made of them?

I think clearly Gygax did know about Arthurian legends and Templars, and etc... beyond 3H3L so that isn't the case here. But I wonder how many people playing Paladins, for example, didn't have anything besides the PHB to go on. (Maybe more so for Druids or Bards?).

THere's not much history about the druids at all... and it's almost all from dubious sources at least a few hundred years after the last known druids & bards. (noting that the bards were roughly equivalent to journeyman druids.)
And it was largely written by cultures hostile to their memories. Reliable? Hell no!

And the picti of what is now Scotland are only known from contemporary enemies. Not even the softening of time.

 

[Hussar]

Did I say ignore that? No. It’s a starting point but the OG Paladin is straight up Holger.

And rangers were straight up Aragorn. It's not 1977 anymore.

 

[Hussar]

Tangent ...

Are some literary things like Markov chains, where they as X_(n+1) depend on their immediate source X_n, but not anything before that? If someone sets out to adapt something by Shakespeare and doesn't know the things the Bard cribbed from, do those things actually have any affect on the adaptation beyond the use Shakespeare made of them?

I think clearly Gygax did know about Arthurian legends and Templars, and etc... beyond 3H3L so that isn't the case here. But I wonder how many people playing Paladins, for example, didn't have anything besides the PHB to go on. (Maybe more so for Druids or Bards?).

All literary things are chains. They are all influenced by what came before and they in turn influence what comes after. Nothing in literature exists in a vacuum. That's the point of discussing and critiquing these things - to illuminate where the ideas come from and how they are changing over time.

Because someone adapting, say, The Merchant of Venice, may not know all the things that Elizabethan English writers might know about Venice and the treatment of Jews of the time, but, if they make an adaptation that plays into Shylock being the villain and 100% deserving of his fate, they're very, very likely to slam into some pretty serious criticism of their work.