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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gammadoodler" data-source="post: 7746409" data-attributes="member: 6914290">I apologize, this likely came off more brusquely than intended. I was intending this as a question regarding whether you, personally, truly do not care. I ask because from the tone of your posts, it seems like you do.I think those assumptions are fairly normal starting assumptions for most normal settings. I've not seen a game where a thief will commit crimes at random without fear of consequences. Likewise I've not seen fighters enter games under the assumption that they can put villages to the sword without consequences. In point of fact, D&D adventuring parties are often conscripted to reinforce the validity of those very assumptions ("Kill these bandits who are harassing travelers and tradesmen on the road" is a fairly vanilla quest for a D&D adventuring party). For all three of these, it's not about the presumption of failure, it's about the possibility of failure and the presence of consequences for good or ill. As it applies to paladins, the notion that you and others have put forward is that they are fundamentally romantic characters. Definitionally, romantic characters are at their core idealistic (heck, Merriam-Webster definitions for "romantic" include "[FONT=&quot]having no basis in fact" and "[/FONT][FONT=&quot]impractical in conception or plan")[/FONT]. Presumably they don't live in ideal worlds, or there would be no need for adventurers. Thus, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me for there to be situations that test, strain, or otherwise jeopardize the belief-system of the paladin. Heroes don't always have to win and it's frequently more interesting when they don't. To be clear, I'm not saying all paladins should always be morally compromised or that they should always lose. I get that accomplishing impossible things is heroic and part of the reason for playing RPGs. But there is no triumph without adversity, and I fail to see why a paladin's beliefs need to be excluded from consideration for such adversity.</blockquote>

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