Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Hey everyone. I’m back. I mostly skimmed the thread up to this point and I’m not going to respond to every post. I’m frankly disinterested in most of the alignment tangent. And there’s no point in responding to the people that just came into this thread to mock me or condescendingly tell me I’m wrong. But I would like to clarify a few points that I felt were either misinterpreted from my original post and explain why I felt the need to create this thread.
Firstly, I’m aware that the Knights Templar and the other holy orders (Hospitaller, Teutonic Order) were not the majority of the crusaders. I was more concerned with the fact that they are the symbol of the Crusades and what most people think of when they imagine a crusader. When you tell someone to imagine a Crusader, they’re not going to picture a poorly armed peasant from the People’s Crusade. 9 times out of 10, they’ll imagine a knight with a cross on their armor/shield. The thread is more concerned with the romanticized image of how a layperson imagines a crusade and how that evolved into the Paladin than the “um, actually” reality that most crusaders did not look like the popular image of a Knight Templar.
Second, I’m aware that there were more brutal medieval wars than the Crusades. I never said that the crusades were the most brutal. But I would definitely consider the massacre of tens of thousands of people during the siege of Jerusalem, sack of Constantinople, and Albigensian Crusade to be brutal enough to make the crusades qualify as “one of the most brutal series of wars in the Middle Ages.”
Third, the fact that other classes might have troublesome origins does not matter. The thread is about the origins of the paladin and how they’re still similar in image and archetype to the popular conception of a Crusader. That is entirely irrelevant to this discussion and does not refute the essence of the original post. That could very well be the topic of a different thread. I once had a player play a Ranger based off of Wild West-style Cowboy. The origins of other classes and how they have changed from or kept key elements from their source material is an interesting source of discussion. I’m disappointed that the namesake of Assassins has been completely lost through the centuries. A stoner Assassin could be a hilarious character. But this thread is about paladins.
Fourth and finally; why I made this thread. I think it’s important to acknowledge the aspects of D&D’s past that are rooted in problematic stories or archetypes and come to term with them. D&D has changed a lot over the decades. The reason I made this thread is because for a while now I have been feeling more and more uncomfortable with many aspects of the foundations of D&D. Why are so many of the “evil races” savage, uncivilized, cannibalistic, subhuman monsters that sacrifice people to Objectively Evil gods? Because that is the sort of ridiculous caricature that was applied to many colonized people to justify their colonization and genocide of indigenous peoples. There’s a reason why the Yuan-Ti are based on native Mesoamerican peoples (or the popular image of them, at least). There’s a reason why D&D has “Mongrelmen.” Why Orcs have been explicitly depicted as racist caricatures of Native Americans and Mongolians. Why adventurers delve into ruins uncovering treasures and fighting “hordes” of savage monsters. Why the most stereotypically good class is based on Christian European knights. Why Gygax said “nits make lice.” Even Eberron indulges in these problematic tropes on occasion. I could go on for a long time. It’s not hard to make these connections for D&D.
There is a deeply Western European colonial undertone to early D&D and some aspects of modern D&D. The Hadozee and Vistani scandals prove this. I don’t think that D&D can avoid stumbling into these issues until there’s a reconciliation with the roots of D&D. Which requires analyzing and critiquing the roots of D&D’s tropes. Like the crusader origins of the Paladin.
I’m not saying D&D, on a whole, is racist or a bad game. Or that people that use these tropes or play old-school D&D games are bad for liking it. I love D&D. It’s my favorite hobby. But it’s not perfect and there are historical parts of it that are racist. I reject the notion that I have to ignore the issues with the hobby to enjoy it. Learning the roots of the Paladin was disheartening and I wanted to share the issue I saw and ask for a solution. Sorry if that offended any of you. I made this a (+) thread to avoid the type of people that mocked me and said I was the problem the last time I did something like this. Sadly it didn’t seem to work.
You’re allowed to disagree with the premise of the thread. You’re allowed to think that the problem is already sufficiently solved. But it hasn’t been for me. And this thread was intended to be a place to brainstorm ideas. Not to tell me that I’m wrong and imagining a problem.
To everyone that actually engaged in the premise of the thread, I sincerely thank you. I probably won’t post again in this thread, so don’t expect me to respond if you respond to this.
Firstly, I’m aware that the Knights Templar and the other holy orders (Hospitaller, Teutonic Order) were not the majority of the crusaders. I was more concerned with the fact that they are the symbol of the Crusades and what most people think of when they imagine a crusader. When you tell someone to imagine a Crusader, they’re not going to picture a poorly armed peasant from the People’s Crusade. 9 times out of 10, they’ll imagine a knight with a cross on their armor/shield. The thread is more concerned with the romanticized image of how a layperson imagines a crusade and how that evolved into the Paladin than the “um, actually” reality that most crusaders did not look like the popular image of a Knight Templar.
Second, I’m aware that there were more brutal medieval wars than the Crusades. I never said that the crusades were the most brutal. But I would definitely consider the massacre of tens of thousands of people during the siege of Jerusalem, sack of Constantinople, and Albigensian Crusade to be brutal enough to make the crusades qualify as “one of the most brutal series of wars in the Middle Ages.”
Third, the fact that other classes might have troublesome origins does not matter. The thread is about the origins of the paladin and how they’re still similar in image and archetype to the popular conception of a Crusader. That is entirely irrelevant to this discussion and does not refute the essence of the original post. That could very well be the topic of a different thread. I once had a player play a Ranger based off of Wild West-style Cowboy. The origins of other classes and how they have changed from or kept key elements from their source material is an interesting source of discussion. I’m disappointed that the namesake of Assassins has been completely lost through the centuries. A stoner Assassin could be a hilarious character. But this thread is about paladins.
Fourth and finally; why I made this thread. I think it’s important to acknowledge the aspects of D&D’s past that are rooted in problematic stories or archetypes and come to term with them. D&D has changed a lot over the decades. The reason I made this thread is because for a while now I have been feeling more and more uncomfortable with many aspects of the foundations of D&D. Why are so many of the “evil races” savage, uncivilized, cannibalistic, subhuman monsters that sacrifice people to Objectively Evil gods? Because that is the sort of ridiculous caricature that was applied to many colonized people to justify their colonization and genocide of indigenous peoples. There’s a reason why the Yuan-Ti are based on native Mesoamerican peoples (or the popular image of them, at least). There’s a reason why D&D has “Mongrelmen.” Why Orcs have been explicitly depicted as racist caricatures of Native Americans and Mongolians. Why adventurers delve into ruins uncovering treasures and fighting “hordes” of savage monsters. Why the most stereotypically good class is based on Christian European knights. Why Gygax said “nits make lice.” Even Eberron indulges in these problematic tropes on occasion. I could go on for a long time. It’s not hard to make these connections for D&D.
There is a deeply Western European colonial undertone to early D&D and some aspects of modern D&D. The Hadozee and Vistani scandals prove this. I don’t think that D&D can avoid stumbling into these issues until there’s a reconciliation with the roots of D&D. Which requires analyzing and critiquing the roots of D&D’s tropes. Like the crusader origins of the Paladin.
I’m not saying D&D, on a whole, is racist or a bad game. Or that people that use these tropes or play old-school D&D games are bad for liking it. I love D&D. It’s my favorite hobby. But it’s not perfect and there are historical parts of it that are racist. I reject the notion that I have to ignore the issues with the hobby to enjoy it. Learning the roots of the Paladin was disheartening and I wanted to share the issue I saw and ask for a solution. Sorry if that offended any of you. I made this a (+) thread to avoid the type of people that mocked me and said I was the problem the last time I did something like this. Sadly it didn’t seem to work.
You’re allowed to disagree with the premise of the thread. You’re allowed to think that the problem is already sufficiently solved. But it hasn’t been for me. And this thread was intended to be a place to brainstorm ideas. Not to tell me that I’m wrong and imagining a problem.
To everyone that actually engaged in the premise of the thread, I sincerely thank you. I probably won’t post again in this thread, so don’t expect me to respond if you respond to this.
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