D&D 5E Correct way to RP this Situation

[EzekielRaiden]

In my backstory (Paladin) I was in Training to worship bahamut. One day a Band of DragonBorn attacked our town took me as captive (and others) .

We did infact escape and I finished my training. Now I seek vengeance.


How would a Paladin react iif I met a Dragonborn on the street somewhere. Or what if one was injured and needed my help?

Ive never played a paly before is why I am asking.

Thanks

As others have said, it depends on several factors, though clarifying the Lawful Neutral alignment helps. It would also help to know which Oath you're taking, if you're playing 5e. For example:
Devotion: This Oath is all about making sacrifices for others, and seems to be very much in keeping with the usual depiction of Bahamut (righteous protector). There are a couple paths you can take here. One is simply "internal conflict." She hates dragonborn, all of them, irrationally, because of her experience...yet she worships a dragon god who might even be their (co-)creator, and her oath could easily force her to give aid to those she hates, or even defend an ungrateful dragonborn. How your paladin shoulders this burden--resolving her hate, skirting her oath, etc.--would be interesting indeed. Under this oath, she would never respond with violence to dragonborn just walking down the street, but she could easily be racist as others have said, naturally assuming the worst of dragonborn she encounters.

Ancients: I don't really "get" this oath as well as I do the other two. It also seems rather Chaotic, but still serviceable. Perhaps she sees dragonborn as ugly, crass beings, who have failed to live up to the splendor and goodness of her patron. She could then take a whole different stance on racism--rather than being the "assume the worst," she could be an example of the "White Man's Burden" trope. She is the upstanding, moral, honest one, and they are the poor, lamentable, backward, stupid, vicious ones who must be rescued from their wretched existence and properly educated. She sees herself as a good samaritan, bringing joy, culture, education, righteousness, and civilization, but to the dragonborn she's an imperialist trying to destroy their culture and who cannot see any good or worth in them as they are.

Vengeance: This one is the most obvious, and (from your description) seems like what you really chose. Remember, though, that the Oath of Vengeance still gives consideration to the weak and wounded. Presumably, if you worship Bahamut, your target-of-vengeance would be Tiamat and those who serve her--which includes, I would guess, a lot of dragonborn. Any follower of Tiamat would be your biggest target--"Choose the greater evil"--even if it means killing a human and saving a dragonborn. You can still be suspicious of them though; dragonborn are very likely to worship one of the two draconic deities, so every single one will need to prove their devotion to the true faith, or be eternally suspect as a heretical Tiamat-worshipper.

All three have potential. You have to decide how you want to run it.

 

[Herobizkit]

You _could_ turn the event on its head, blaming the OTHER races for forcing Dragonborn into a life of evil. I mean, after all, even Evil Dragons have to at least give a passing nod to Bahamut, and Dragonborn wouldn't even BE evil if the humans / elves / dwarves didn't force them to integrate into their relative societies.

Then you become... scary, kind of. Be a Champion of Dragonkind.

Point is, those Dragonborn who attacked most certainly had a reason, and a leader. Find THAT person and bring him to vengeance and try to convince the Dragonborn of their misguided ways.

 

[pemerton]

Attacking dragonborn on sight would make you a racist serial murderer. Refusing to aid a wounded person based on racist prejudice is probably not consistent with most Pc dieties either.

My advice: Dont let the paladin label become an excuse for genocide.

I would definitely recommend avoiding any stark racist compulsions in a PC. It makes for rather one-note role-play (somebody hold back the paladin so we can talk to this dragonborn before she kills him in a violent rage.)

Plenty of D&D campaigns have survived dwarves who attack orcs on sight.

In my 4e campaign one of the PCs is a survivor of a city destroyed by humanoid raids. When fighting hobgoblins who had attacked a camp of human refugees, he killed the unconscious ones (to the shock of his fellow party members).

The tiefling paladin of the Raven Queen in the same campaign certainly has a reflexive hostility towards dragonborn, although it hasn't come up very often in play. (In the default 4e backstory, the dragonborn and tiefling empires spent a long time at war before mutually self-destructing.)

In my Burning Wheel campaign one of the PCs - an elven warrior in exile from his homeland - has as an Instinct to attack orcs and goblins on sight. (So far it's come up once - he saw a group of orcs and goblins, and he attacked them!)

I don't think a reflexive hatred of dragonborn need break the game any more than a reflexive hatred of orcs and goblins.

To the OP: why did the dragonborn attack the town and take you prisoner? This seems relevant to thinking about how you might want to develop your character. You also probably want to think about the tone of your campaign. If you play a PC with a reflexive hatred of dragonborn, is that going to evoke contemporary moral concerns about racism in an unpleasant or fun-spoiling way? If so, maybe avoid it. Does your group prefer their RPGing to confront deep moral/thematic questions, or to skip over them? In the end, there is no single correct way to do this, and only you know what will help make a good play experience for you and the rest of your group.

 

[Shasarak]

You can play THAT and still get to call yourself a "good guy".

You can always call yourself whatever you want - Alignment has nothing to do with it.

Even Darth Vader was the hero of his own story.

 

[Sunseeker]

You can always call yourself whatever you want - Alignment has nothing to do with it.

Even Darth Vader was the hero of his own story.

You could not play that character in editions that required you to be of Lawful Good alignment to be a paladin.

 

[Bacon Bits]

In my backstory (Paladin) I was in Training to worship bahamut. One day a Band of DragonBorn attacked our town took me as captive (and others) .

We did infact escape and I finished my training. Now I seek vengeance.


How would a Paladin react iif I met a Dragonborn on the street somewhere. Or what if one was injured and needed my help?

Ive never played a paly before is why I am asking.

Thanks

Quite honestly -- and the reason I don't like these type of situations -- is that your church would already have accepted doctrine on this. The church of a lawful deity doubly so. You're not the first worshiper of Bahamut. You're not the first paladin. You're not going to be the first worshiper of Bahamut to encounter a dragon or dragonborn. Your training isn't purely martial, and it's absurd to expect players to guess about their character's church's doctrine.

Your church has doctrine about how to handle dragonborn.

Your church has doctrine about what to do with orc babies.

Your church has doctrine about what to do with treasure in tombs.

Your church has doctrine about how to handle helpless and surrendering evil creatures, and what obligations you have for prisoners.

Your religious training was so your character wouldn't have to guess how to act in these types of situations.

 

[redrick]

Plenty of D&D campaigns have survived dwarves who attack orcs on sight.

In my 4e campaign one of the PCs is a survivor of a city destroyed by humanoid raids. When fighting hobgoblins who had attacked a camp of human refugees, he killed the unconscious ones (to the shock of his fellow party members).

The tiefling paladin of the Raven Queen in the same campaign certainly has a reflexive hostility towards dragonborn, although it hasn't come up very often in play. (In the default 4e backstory, the dragonborn and tiefling empires spent a long time at war before mutually self-destructing.)

In my Burning Wheel campaign one of the PCs - an elven warrior in exile from his homeland - has as an Instinct to attack orcs and goblins on sight. (So far it's come up once - he saw a group of orcs and goblins, and he attacked them!)

I don't think a reflexive hatred of dragonborn need break the game any more than a reflexive hatred of orcs and goblins.

Pemerton, I don't think a dwarf who attacks orcs on sight is game-breaking, but, personally, as far as character concepts go, I find it weak sauce, and I don't love DM'ing for it. The "my character hates all (insert humanoid here)" trope is all over the place, and, while it's easy to play, I don't think it really adds a lot to the role-play. The game is full of reasons to fight and kill monsters. I don't need my players to come up with a backstory that gives them an excuse to roll for initiative. Instead, when there are situations when PCs might be motivated to actually role-play an interaction with another NPC (that might end in combat), that one character just charges in with his battleaxe. So much for a unique role-play scene.

I am also, personally, pretty uncomfortable with players declaring "my character is racist!" and having that mean nothing more than, "so I fight orcs a lot." That's a very flippant approach to something that is pretty dark.

Now, I feel like I'm a college freshman who's just picked an intellectual fight about quantum physics with the professor at a research university, because I have a ton of respect for you and your approach to D&D based on what you've written on these boards.

 

[epithet]

The "my character hates all of creature type X" is a fun thing to mess with as a DM. For example, a Lawful Good vengeance paladin in my campaign is driven by a personal hatred for demons. Y'know who else hates demons? Devils! This is how a devil becomes a "quest NPC" and patron for a LG paladin.

Similarly, any character driven by a grudge opens the door to interesting possibilities that come from other characters who share that hatred. Nothing prevents you from giving a similar motivation to any of the creatures in your game. Your paladin hates all dragonborn? Those goblins in tonight's first encounter could become dragonborn-haters, and introduced as they're in the middle of a fight with a dragonborn. The PC can pick a side, there's no wrong answer, and if you as the DM run with it you can turn that into a thread that runs as far as you want it to.

 

[Shasarak]

You could not play that character in editions that required you to be of Lawful Good alignment to be a paladin.

You could always "call" yourself a Paladin in any edition.

Even if you were an evil back-stabbing baby eating monster.

 

[Sunseeker]

You could always "call" yourself a Paladin in any edition.

Even if you were an evil back-stabbing baby eating monster.

I feel like you're trying real hard to be obtuse.