Queenie122 said:
I am going to be leading a very chaotic party. They tend to do whatever they want, wander off aimlessly, and generally get themselves, and therefore the party, into trouble.
You can try to appeal to their self-interest, though this may only work in the short term. Basically, make a deal that says 'if you guys do X for me, I'll do Y for you." For a single adventure, this might mean you give up your own treasure share, dividing the spoils among the remaining party members, but this is hardly a good precedent to set for later adventures. Not knowing the characters involved, or what kinds of things they might want, it's hard to suggest specifics.
If you can get one other player to actively cooperate with you in this, you might be able to demonstrate the practical benefits of coorperation over "every man for himself." If that happens, the other characters will start to think, "Hey, maybe I'll try this cooperation thing, see how it works out for me."
If you can't get another player to help, recruit the DM. Nothing heavy handed, but if the other players start to see that coordinated group efforts tend to work well, and uncoordinated solo efforts tend to get them into trouble, they may be willing to modify their behavior somehow.
Looking back over what I've just written, it doesn't sound very helpful. But all I can think of is that if the players are going to do whatever they want, you have to make them
want to work with you. You can't really change someone else's behavior, but you can sometimes make them want to change it themselves.
Beating them up is not only, as you say, not very paladin like behavior, it will almost certainly fail.
Bribing them is an approach that would disappoint most paladins, but one does what one must for the common good, so long as the means employed are not immoral or illegal (meaning, you can openly bribe your fellow party members, but not secretly bribe local officials.) It may earn you a label as an easy mark, for any party members who start expecting you to pay them to do their jobs.
There may be circumstances where you can refuse to help these people out of bad situations they've put themselves in, and make it sound as if you're doing them a favor by refusing:
"You will rejoice to hear, friend Rogue, that I have taken your repeated complaints to heart, and have resolved to mend my intolerant ways. I will refrain from "bossing" you and will respect your own considerable skills and talents henceforth. I recognize you as my equal and understand that you "don't need nothing" (as you put it) from me. Therefore, I will ride on to the next town as scheduled, and I look forward to you joining the rest of us there when you have freed yourself from jail, no doubt in some heroic and clever manner."
Sounds a whole lot better than
"You got yourself arrested, now you can just rot", doesn't it?
