Greetings!
Well, in my campaigns, paladins had better be prepared to carry fire and death to the enemy! Paladins are *Holy Warriors* that are charged with bringing death and judgment to the enemies of their gods. Indeed, they also have concerns with bringing good about, law, order, civilization and such, but really, their main purpose is to fight evil. Yes, *TO FIGHT EVIL* Paladins are not defense attorneys, or social workers.
Now, indeed, paladins can, and should be concerned with numerous activities--I'm not saying that they shouldn't. However, it's a matter of priority and focus. Kindly old clerics can man the soup kitchens. The sweet girl with a talent for baking and a gift for healing and counseling troubled teenagers and caring for impoverished young women--they are charged with focusing on these kinds of things. 'Tis not *their* calling, or charge, to go forth and lay waste to the pagan world. It is the paladin's holy and divine mission. He is annointed for the task, and is called to march to the ends of the earth in pursuit of the glory and majesty of his gods, in spreading their dominion, and tearing down the strongholds of the dark enemy, and bringing freedom, righteousness, and enlightenment to an oppressed and desperate peoples, wallowing in the sin of debauchery and darkness, enslaved to the whim of foul demons and wicked masters. It is for the cause of defending the holy lords of heaven, and the mortal creatures across the land, that the paladins ride forth to crush evil and ride it under hoof wherever they find it!
Oh yes, indeed, there may be some few abominable and pagan creatures that seek to bow before the lords of Good and be redeemed, and indeed, if they bow down and proclaim their desire to embrace the light of goodness, the fire of righteousness, and repent of their blasphemies and their wickedness, then they shall have mercy.
Take for example, a fortified palisade settlement of orcs. The company of paladins rides forth into the forest, and locates them from the scouting of some accompanying rangers. The paladins are not under some strange obligation to "arrest the orcs" and "take them to trial". What right-thinking human would want to have an orc stand trial? A trial presupposes the possibility of innocence. What, pray tell, would the orcs be *innocent of?* Orcs are vicious, nasty, wicked, horrifying creatures that worship the Dark Gods. Orcs have always been at war with humans and other races, and have never desired peace. They seek to eat, slaughter, and enslave. There is no common ground between a righteous and civilized human kingdom and a savage, bestial, wicked realm of pagan orcs.
In some ways, that would be like expecting people to have remorse or seek to communicate and "understand" a cockroach, or rats. These views are common human views of such creatures in my own campaigns, for they have a generally common medieval mindset, rather than some post-modernist world-view. Why would the humans, or the elves, or the dwarves, for example, even consider that orcs might want peace? How would they ever discover such, even if a few individuals found some way to not be evil? In the Monster Manual, it says "Usually Chaotic Evil" etc. Well, that doesn't mean that 55% are Chaotic Evil, and 45% are Good. No, rather, the division would be more likely to be along the lines of 55% are Chaotic Evil; 22% are Lawful Evil; 20% are Neutral Evil; 2% are some form of Neutral alignment, and 1% or less, are actually of Good alignment.
That doesn't repesent good odds for a force of invading paladins to break out the cookies and milk and try to have a picnic with the orcs, you know?
I mean really, I suppose I am talking less here about strict game mechanics, and approaching it from more of a sociological approach. With hundreds, or thousands of years of warfare, butchery, and rape being brought against the humans by Orcs, why would anyone rational want to even consider peaceful negotiations with them? It seems like it would far more consistent with human nature, and especially a medieval mind-set, to seek to exterminate them all. In such a world where orcs are evil, why is it somehow not desireable to wipe out all evil creatures?
There is this idea propogated subtely through some of the rules, or magazine articles, and so on, in quasi-game philosophy, that Good and Evil are these polar forces, with Neutral being in the middle, and of course, Good can't be allowed to destroy evil, because...? You see, somehow, there is this idea that there is something *evil* about being Good. Good should triumph over evil. Everyday, in every way, Paladins would seek to root out evil and destroy it. Like Corinth said, sure, there is room for the evil creatures to grovel and beg for mercy, and for them to sincerely seek to repent for their evil ways. That's fine. And on occasion, it could happen. But why is something that is probably statistically very rare to occur such an issue? When such occurs, a good paladin grants them mercy, and begins to preach to them the Holy Truth, and train them in the ways of righteousness, or seeks out another who can carry on the good work for him, as a paladin, he should be out on the frontier, killing monsters, and bringing death and judgment to the wicked, evil spawn of the Dark Gods seeking to devour the world of men, and bring the mortal world to its knees, so that the evil demonic gods can feast upon them all!
I think that some of you may seek to superimpose our own modern world-views on a game world that is generally thought to have a more medieval world view. Indeed, in my own campaigns, there are some few humanoids that aren't evil, but what is the chance of the player characters encountering them? And if they did encounter them, how often would such an occurence actually happen? Then, even if they did so, how often would other paladins in the campaign world or anyone else for that matter, encounter such non-evil humanoids? Furthermore, even if they did encounter a precious few non-evil humanoids like goblins, orcs, or beastmen, who would believe them? Then, even if a few did believe them, why would that be sufficient for an entire society to change its world-view and behaviour in light of the past hundreds and thoudsands of years of experience? Then, despite having encountered a precious few non-evil brutish humanoids, the vast majority of all of their other encounters would be with hostile, savage humanoids seeking to burn, rape, and slaughter.
There wouldn't be any sufficient evidence to believe otherwise about such humanoids. In addition, why would humans or elves, or dwarves, even in their own cosmological, religious philosphy, feel any kinship or need to accomodate orcs, goblins, and beastmen? Culturally, religiously, physiologically, such savage, inhuman creatures wouldn't even be seen as a necessary component in the world. It wouldn't be a stretch to see their base populations asking themselves, "Why shouldn't these beasts be exterminated? Wouldn't the world be better off if we were able to just sweep these savage races into the ashes and fire of history, to be entirely forgotten except as campfire stories?"
Well, at any rate, I think it's important to remember that paladins are primarily HOLY WARRIORS. Their purpose is to fight wars for their church; defend the faithful; destroy evil. All of these missions require that the paladin be focused and driven, ruthlessly determined to serve his gods faithfully and with utmost zeal; There isn't anything mild or meak about paladins; they are warriors, and should be zealous to bring fire and steel to the enemies of their gods.
I also think that many in their efforts to superimpose modern world-views on paladins in such a fantastical, medieval environment may be forgetting, is the real impact of what some are arguing; namely, that these savage humanoids eat people; they rape people; they worship demonic gods, that gain power from not only killing you, but destroying or devouring your soul, as well. They are absolutely committed to destroying everything that Good people hold dear; I don't really see why paladins would be interested in compromising in such an horrifying, absolute war for survival.
In my own campaigns, humans and elves, and dwarves, are generally surrounded and outnumbered by more numerous forces of savagery and evil; the Dark Gods have empowered millions of beastmen, orcs, goblins, and other foul monsters to sweep against the borders of good kingdoms, always seeking for an advantage, an opening, to pour into the soft, peaceful realms and rape, slaughter, and enslave them. Meanwhile, there are groups of evil cults that work from within the good realms, seeking to spread the faith of the Dark Gods. If that wasn't enough, there are evil empires, evil kingdoms ruled by vampires, awesomely powerful dragons that seek to dominate and destroy entire cities, as well as numerous kingdoms and settlements of evil giants that are quite capable of destroying a local human army, and then ploughing into a human town, and either slaughtering the whole population, or carrying off women and children for food or to keep them as slaves, locked away in giant fortresses, deep in the dark forests and towering, fog-enshrouded mountains.
The environment is deadly, savage, and full of war, disease, and conflict. The humans and their allies struggle for survival against evil humans and the forces of darkness, seeking to dominate the whole land.
It is in just such an environment that paladins must march forth, and bring war to the enemy. Let fire and death be their portion! The paladins lead the way in the desperate struggle. If the paladins fail, who then are the blessed champions of the forces of Good?
Paladins are a difficult class to play well, as there are many ways of discipline and honour that must be observed; but it seems to me that it would be far easier, and indeed more enjoyable for many to play a paladin if there were not so many Game Masters that get some kind of thrill in seeking to entrap every paladin characters in yet another stupid trap to strip the paladin of his powers; It's actually amazing that more players don't just say, "Paladins? Heh, forget it. I'll just play a savage barbarian, or an ordinary fighter so I don't have to worry about getting screwed by the Game Master every time I turn around!" Or, it seems to me that many Game Masters don't really like the paladin, so they seek to hinder, cripple, and entrap the paladin into some kind of myopic straightjacket where either the paladin loses his paladin abilities; or, because the paladin can't avoid such traps, the character gets killed trying to always play according to some myopic straightjacket. "Paladins can never lie": well, there wouldn't likely be that hard of a situation where the paladin would die for it. "Paladins can't use trickery or deception?" Well, then the paladin is never going to command troops, or even be very successful on the battlefield; war is not like a tournament between knights; a paladin expecting such is guaranteed a quick death.
Some also seem to think that paladins exist in some kind of Barney World, or a Teletubby World. Imagine what paladins must really be engaged in--the D&D world, by default, is a terribly dangerous and evil world, where a paladin operating with such restrictions quite literally couldn't function. No one would ever be paladins, because paladins wouldn't be likely to survive getting too far out the gate, because some rogue or wizard would take advantage of such gullible, irrational paladins, and kill them before they got out of town; or, they would be slaughtered by the first competent organized force deployed against them; all of those chivalrous tournament ideas and notions and restrictions would be easily used against them, and they would likely be slaughtered. Thus, there would be no training cadre of paladins, and they would be hard-pressed to even exist, because the world environment itself wouldn't neatly conform itself to the paladins' restrictions and honour codes that seem to be irrational, and require that the paladin always behave like he is "Lawful Stupid".
How would paladins survive in such a world, where they always had to treat everyone like they were all in a noble tournament where everyone fights fair?
Just some thoughts though!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
