D&D General Deleted

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This. Also, posting that youtuber is not a good look, that guy is misinformed and biased. Is like the that infamous guy that starts with W, but on the other end of the political spectrum.
Overall, youtube channels should be avoided as a primary source of history analysis and interpretation.

If the video is misinformation, I apologize and will retract that part of my post, but I would like to see a source countering the video’s view. He does list his sources, after all.

 

[MGibster]

When I rolled the dice of a younger man, back when I played AD&D 2nd edition, the Paladin was one of my most favored classes to play. What I enjoyed most about playing a Paladin back in 2nd edition was that I really got to be a good guy. My character wasn't just good at beating up bad guys, he could heal the sick & injured, and was just an all around nice guy who was genuinely interested in helping people. Maybe I just lucked out, because the DM never made or encouraged me to murder little orc babies or just behave like a jerk in general.

I don't think anyone needs to worry about the Paladin class. I don't think many people who pick up D&D these days immediately think of Roland, Lancelot, or the Crusades when they peruse the Player's Handbook. And even then, the Paladin of 2014 is much different than the Paladin in 1983 (?) or whenever it was first introduced.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

If the video is misinformation, I apologize and will retract that part of my post, but I would like to see a source countering the video’s view. He does list his sources, after all.

I am not going to spend time debunking the video of a terminal tankie, quite frankly. Were I am from, we call it the "theory of the mountain of manure", which in brief laments the monumental effort one must spend to carefully debunk wackos. Same reason why I don't have the energy and time anymore to debunk anti-vaxxers.
What I can observe is that you conveniently skipped the answers people gave you about what triggered the crusades in the first place, because it doesn't fit the narrative, or the video author's.
BTW non-nice comment on people's color and stereotypes about those existed already in roman times unfortunately, albeit different from today because of where people that felt superior for being "civilized" dwelled.

I gave you a suggestion: don't base your views on youtube historians. Take it or leave it.
Because if watching this stuff makes you reconsider playing a classic fantasy archetype, it's not healthy at all in my humble opinion. But you do you.

 

[AnotherGuy]

If the video is misinformation, I apologize and will retract that part of my post, but I would like to see a source countering the video’s view. He does list his sources, after all.

Read the commentary.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I am not going to spend time debunking the video of a terminal tankie, quite frankly. Were I am from, we call it the "theory of the mountain of manure", which in brief laments the monumental effort one must spend to carefully debunk wackos. Same reason why I don't have the energy and time anymore to debunk anti-vaxxers.
What I can observe is that you conveniently skipped the answers people gave you about what triggered the crusades in the first place, because it doesn't fit the narrative, or the video author's.
BTW non-nice comment on people's color and stereotypes about those existed already in roman times unfortunately, albeit different from today because of where people that felt superior for being "civilized" dwelled.

I gave you a suggestion: don't base your views on youtube historians. Take it or leave it.
Because if watching this stuff makes you reconsider playing a classic fantasy archetype, it's not healthy at all in my humble opinion. But you do you.

Spoiler: Spoiler for the tangent

I didn’t base my view of crusaders or D&D paladins off that video. It’s a video I saw a while ago and thought sounded correct based on the books it quoted and what I’ve heard of pre-Medieval European racism. From my understanding which you also seem to agree with, Romans didn’t care for other religions and ethnic groups, like Jews, Carthaginians, Gauls, and Germanics, but that was more based on culture than the skin color of the other racial groups. Clearly the modern association of race and skin color emerged sometime, and I thought that the explanation for it coming from the Crusades and Reconquista made sense. Again, if the video is wrong I will remedy my view. But my view of Crusaders remains the same.

And I didn’t want to turn this thread into a debate about if the Crusades were justified. This is not the site for that. I did correct one post that claimed that the Andalusian invasion of France was a cause for the crusades and add that it was the Turkic Migration into Anatolia that caused the Byzantine Emperor to seek the aid of the Pope. I decided not to engage further because the thread about “Paladins are based on crusaders and often depicted as such, that feels gross” shouldn’t have to turn into a debate about if they were justified.

But the larger point is that people still think of Paladins as Crusaders. They’re still modeled after them. “Deus Vult” is a meme. While the subclasses have a diversity of oaths/worldviews, the popular original image of Paladins is still the baseline (Xenk and Dame Aylin for example). I think that they might need to move beyond that.

 

[Kaiyanwang]

But the larger point is that people still think of Paladins as Crusaders. They’re still modeled after them. “Deus Vult” is a meme. While the subclasses have a diversity of oaths/worldviews, the popular original image of Paladins is still the baseline (Xenk and Dame Aylin for example). I think that they might need to move beyond that.

No, they think about people on a crusade. Or on a jihad also, if you will. But intended not militarily, or not only - more as a struggle, as something that is a fight for justice and good, from their point of view.
In the real world we all know how tragic and often ironic this can get, but in the world of D&D this makes sense because of how the cosmology works. There are actual good and evil forces, angels, demons, devils, and Good and Evil are actual component of the universe. Since Outsiders like those exists, Good and Evil exist on a physical level.

This is because Paladins are champions of Justice and Good. And for their appearance and demeanor they don't need to necessarily follow any Crusader with capital C template - hence my example with Rostam which is basically a Persian Paladin up to the intelligent mount. BTW I don't even think Rostam is supposed to be a Muslim but something more ancient, but don't quote me on that.
They often are depicted like Crusaders because the initial inspiration of the class came from that part of human culture. Paladins of the court of Charlemagne. Way before the crusades BTW even if later popular culture mingled a lot.
Is the ideals they reflect are the important part. In some DM guide they suggested to use them in an oriental setting for an honorable Samurai. Because they didn't represent the brutality of the Sengoku Jidai, but the IDEAL the Samurai was supposed to follow.
We are talking fairy tales. Ignoring this is in my opinion the fundamental misunderstanding.

 

[Scribe]

I think that they might need to move beyond that.

They have.

So far beyond it, that you do not need to consider Alignment, or even Gods. That someone, somewhere, decides to run with a different interpretation, a different view, is not a slight against the class "Paladin" in the 10th year of the 5th Edition, after decades and decades of examples of what a Paladin within the "Western Fantasy Tradition" is.

Its not a Crusader associated with the real world political/religious movements and wars, any more than an Orc is a stand in for some real world ethnic group.

Most people, are going to think "WoW Paladin" or "WoW Orc" when asked about these things, and for those people a Paladin is a holy warrior, tied to a Code and/or God, who defends the weak, the sick, and stands for a cause or institution, because "Paladin" has moved on from its original roots over the last 50 odd years.

We are talking fairy tales. Ignoring this is in my opinion the fundamental misunderstanding.

This should be Rule 0 on most of this.

 

[Chaltab]

Yeah I see the Paladin more rooted in this and things like Arthurian legend (that is well before the crusades). The armor of the paladin tends to be anachronistic but I wouldn't say the paladin therefore meant to reflect the crusades. I think if you did the crusades you would likely have paladins on both sides of the battle in a D&D campaign (and if you got into the historical realities of such conflicts, you would certainly want to take a hard look at things like alignment and the morality of what is going on in the war-----that would all depend on the specifics of the campaign I think)

It makes sense, given that both the 12 Peers and Arthurian legends really took off in the 1000s to 1200s, which is when that armor would have been the most common. Throughout history and legend, armor is often described in ways that would be contemporary to historians and authors rather than to the figures and legends being depicted.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In more recent usage "Knight Templar" does have some negative connotations based on how often Templars are brought up in conspiracy theories. Sometimes as part of the Illuminati or as some rival of the Illuminati. And there was a cartel in Michoacan State called the Knight Templars, but they were apparently wiped out by the Mexican Federal Police and the New Family Cartel.

Actually though the last one might be interesting if there was a criminal organization of Paladins out there.

 

[tetrasodium]

Spoiler: Spoiler for the tangent

I didn’t base my view of crusaders or D&D paladins off that video. It’s a video I saw a while ago and thought sounded correct based on the books it quoted and what I’ve heard of pre-Medieval European racism. From my understanding which you also seem to agree with, Romans didn’t care for other religions and ethnic groups, like Jews, Carthaginians, Gauls, and Germanics, but that was more based on culture than the skin color of the other racial groups. Clearly the modern association of race and skin color emerged sometime, and I thought that the explanation for it coming from the Crusades and Reconquista made sense. Again, if the video is wrong I will remedy my view. But my view of Crusaders remains the same.

And I didn’t want to turn this thread into a debate about if the Crusades were justified. This is not the site for that. I did correct one post that claimed that the Andalusian invasion of France was a cause for the crusades and add that it was the Turkic Migration into Anatolia that caused the Byzantine Emperor to seek the aid of the Pope. I decided not to engage further because the thread about “Paladins are based on crusaders and often depicted as such, that feels gross” shouldn’t have to turn into a debate about if they were justified.

But the larger point is that people still think of Paladins as Crusaders. They’re still modeled after them. “Deus Vult” is a meme. While the subclasses have a diversity of oaths/worldviews, the popular original image of Paladins is still the baseline (Xenk and Dame Aylin for example). I think that they might need to move beyond that.

There are still people who think the earth is flat and that the moon landing was fake. The existence of people who think a thing does not always imply that the thing is credible.