D&D General Deleted

[Hussar]

Plus thread or not it needed to be said.

D&D Paladins are NOT Christian Cruasaders, for one think Paladin's are Polythiests.

And having regilous symbols on shields predates Christianity by a lot.

True - but having actual CROSSES on shields is kind of a giveaway.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

True - but having actual CROSSES on shields is kind of a giveaway.

Most D&D Paldins don't have crosses on their shields.

 

[pemerton]

Again, @pemerton, if the definitions of good and evil were so clear in the AD&D rules, why does no one seem to agree on them? You can argue from quotes until the cows come home, but, the fact of the matter is, alignment was a convoluted mess that no one seemed to really understand and that caused nothing but endless problems for many, many tables.

So, no, the PHB and the DMG are not clear. Not even a little.

I think the problem is this: that people expect alignment to help them adjudicate good and evil, when in fact alignment presupposes an understanding of what is good and what is evil.

All alignment does is set up a conflict about how best to achieve good - by way of social organisation and order, or by way of individual self-realisation?

When you combine (i) an aspiration to have good and evil defined rather than assumed with (ii) the terrible gameplay (which Gygax actively encourages) that flows from the GM telling players how they should play their PCs, it is no surprise that alignment produces a bad experience.

I've been arguing (ii) on these boards for 15-ish years - that play is best when players decide what their PCs convictions and commitments demand of them (this is why I strongly disagree with @Chaosmancer that the attitudes of the gods are the sole province of the GM).

When it comes to (i), I think the issue is a bit more subtle, but I first set out my view on this nearly 10 years ago: "Narrativist" 9-point alignment

I guess the TL;DR is this:

*If a group can't work together in the way they accommodate players' play of their PCs into the moral logic and cosmology of their fantasy world, I doubt a rulebook can do much to help;

*If a group is not interested in the question as to whether law or chaos is the best way to achieve good, then the 9-point alignment system has nothing to offer them.​

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

@Levistus's_Leviathan I'm sorry we as a Community failed you. Though I'm not entirely sure what a solution looks like for you. Your OP and follow up lacked clarity in that regard. What do you envision when you visualize a solution?

Well, I did give an example of a Paladin subclass that doesn’t rub me the wrong way, Oath of Heroism. But it is the outlier, coming from the Ancient Greek setting.

I’m not sure what would fix the Paladin for me. That’s why I asked for ideas in the OP. Maybe if their scope was broadened a lot so things like Oath of Heroism was the norm, not the exception. I’m curious what the 2024 PHB Paladins will look like. If they look similar to the 2014 version, I don’t think that would be an improvement. Paladins are proficient with all weapons and armor. They could have as much visual diversity as Fighters do. But they’re still mostly knights in shining armor, sometimes with just different styles (spikes for Conquest, antlers for Ancients, etc).

Or D&D could lean more into the troublesome roots and make morally gray/outright evil knights. Like the Templars from Dragon Age, Space Marines from 40k, or Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout.

I think either of those would be improvements. I do think 5e’s move to remove the alignment restriction and add in some thematic diversity was a great step. I’m just not sure that it’s enough.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well, because that vision of crusader paladin is grounded in some pretty icky history?

Yes but idea is that one is supposed to have an issue with that and one is not allowed to NOT have an issue with that?

For instance I can accept that each side within history had its holy warriors who quested for a "higher purpose". I may enjoy playing a paladin questing for a higher purpose who maybe has that purpose challenged in the course of an adventure (crisis of faith) or maybe not (the "evil" is defeated, and the "righteous" find victory, our deity is stronger).

 

[pemerton]

The biggest problem I see with paladins (and it affects a big chunk of the game IMO), is that oaths/virtues built within ideals, bonds and flaws are not well mechanised which leaves "alignment" or ethics/morals very much nowhere unless the DM/players make a concerted effort to shore up that massive hole which exists.

EDIT: Where is the paladin that fights against pride, lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, love of the forbidden, being vengeful or cruel, suspicions, worldliness that takes away from his spiritual centre...etc
It is all well and good to be immune to diseases or give out +x on saves to all allies within a certain range, but I fear they missed the mark big time, by not including the personal challenges you'd imagine a paladin to have.

Isn't this where some of the technical limitations of D&D's mechanics reveal themselves? For instance, there are no temptation mechanics, nor is there any clear way of correlating the paladin's inner struggle, of falls from perfection, with external consequences.

 

[Blue Orange]

For what it's worth, I'd like to encourage you again to write up your own paladin code for what you think an actual warrior for justice would be like. I think a lot of people would be interested, given the popularity of archetypal characters like Batman and Superman, and it might even provide a template for further developments in the hobby.

I mean, I've used the 'X' Card.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Isn't this where some of the technical limitations of D&D's mechanics reveal themselves? For instance, there are no temptation mechanics, nor is there any clear way of correlating the paladin's inner struggle, of falls from perfection, with external consequences.

Sadly yes.
EDIT: The archetype is there for play and yet it is not fully formed, 50 years on.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

I agree with some of your points and disagree with others.

For example, I think the other classes DO matter for this discussion, because the issues you are concerned with are more clearly seen when you allow for a wider discussion. For me, for instance, I found it very hard to find a problem with a knight in full-plate with a holy symbol on their shield. That visual wasn't a problem as far as I was concerned. But showcasing that it is a combination of the visual with other problematic elements, and I can more clearly see where your concerns are.

Amusingly, I think one thing that could have aided moving the Paladin away from the Crusader image, would have been allowing Divine Smite at range. Which sounds completely bonkers, because why would that change anything? Well... because the moment I heard that idea, I wanted to play a character based on Kikiyo.

Reborn Paladin of Vengeance, using a Bow and Arrow as their primary weapon. And, if it became popular and made it into the art, that the Japanese-style Shinto Priestess with a Bow was a Paladin take... then the paladin becomes more multi-cultural, more about oath-sworn heroes depicted in a variety of fashions with a variety of moralities.

Because I don't think the class fantasy in and of itself is problematic. Even as a visual. I find it much more in the "evil is uncivilized" take. The pitting of grand empires against "the wilds" and things like that. Which can all be dealt with by simply taking a more nuanced approach in our storytelling, and occasionally flipping the script.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The biggest problem I see with paladins (and it affects a big chunk of the game IMO), is that oaths/virtues built within ideals, bonds and flaws are not well mechanised which leaves "alignment" or ethics/morals very much nowhere unless the DM/players make a concerted effort to shore up that massive hole which exists.

Um... that is absolutely not a problem? This is in fact the only possible way Paladins can exist and move forward? Like, okay, you could include punishments for the player who doesn't follow whatever they say their oath is... but you immediately run into the problem of the Paladin PLayer and the DM disagree with an interpretation. Which is fine if it is not mechanical, because unless it is REALLY egregious then a disagreement won't really go anywhere. But once it is mechanical, the paladin and the DM have an end point beyond debating morality. Penalties for the player, enforced by the GM. And that was where the old paladins broke down.

EDIT: Where is the paladin that fights against pride, lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, love of the forbidden, being vengeful or cruel, suspicions, worldliness that takes away from his spiritual centre...etc
It is all well and good to be immune to diseases or give out +x on saves to all allies within a certain range, but I fear they missed the mark big time, by not including the personal challenges you'd imagine a paladin to have.

IF you want a paladin who does those things, make them. But I don't want a paladin that is going to tell me that I must be against "lust" and that they poorly define to make all sexuality bad. Or falling into the trap of "pride" and how THAT is such a mess. Or why in the absolute HECK would I want a paladin even touching the idea of forbidden love or worldliness?

And the more you make these into mechanics that cannot be altered, the more you will inevitably start enforcing morality and cultural standards. Which is the WORST possible way to go forward.