D&D General The Problem With Paladin's Medieval Origins (+)

[Jolly Ruby]

This thread is about finding ways to rectify/reconcile that dissonance.

Honestly, I think this dissonance is already reconciled. While I see how the original paladin can be related to crusaders (they are inspired by the fantasy novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, more on that later) I don't think the crusader roots remain in their current incarnation.

Which points I can see being related to the fantasy crusader inherited from THTL: 1. the paladin must be "lawful good", 2. the paladin must have religious connections. 3. the paladin must kill the "evil aligned races".

The three itens aren't present in the current edition, and the paladin is less a "holy warrior" and more a gish with an oath. Even past editions of D&D didn't delve too deep into the crusader image, being mostly self referential. Other games, mostly electronic RPGs from what I've seen, used the crusader archetype heavily, and maybe it's why the relation between crusaders and paladins still lingers in some corners of the internet like Reddit.

 

[Horwath]

Actual DnD already toss away the concept of Evil race.
The Ranger choosing two humanoid races as favored ennemies is way more « racist » than the paladin.

 

[TiQuinn]

So, any suggestions? How can you have a holy warrior knight-in-shining-armor class without this connection to the Crusades and similar real world atrocities? Is the problem mainly with the paladin, or Gygax's version of always-evil races? How might Paladins be changed to make them feel less gross.

I think this has largely been dealt with in later editions as D&D has further and further disassociated itself from Gygax's early writings. Paladins are no longer just tied to being Lawful Good, they aren't just tied to the idea of being exemplars of chivalry. They are still tied to a code, and as warriors dedicated to fighting for that code, so the door is still open to past interpretations but people have largely moved on. I'm more likely to see Vengeance or Conquest Paladins now, i.e. anti-hero concepts, than chivalric concepts. To be honest, I think everyone comes to this realization at some point - it feels gross to you now with it being new and all, and for that reason, you may want to just not play paladins for a while, but this was something that people have been wrangling with since early editions of the game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think with "idiot," "dumb," "imbecile," etc., some of the issue is that they're so far back in the dysphemism treadmill, it's not worth fighting them--most people today don't even see "dumb" as being a word that reflects mental diagnosis, and it's so mild that it's widely used in children's media. Having words to refer to a thing or behavior seeming to lack intelligence, forethought, or consideration is useful, and that's what those words now are. The issue with the R-word was that people tried to nip the dysphemism treadmill in the bud, and...kinda-sorta succeeded. Mostly in making the word nearly verboten anywhere, even in technical uses, but the breakup of the treadmill seems to have delayed or even completely derailed its effect on newer terms.

I do agree. There are words that have either evolved away from their origins or have become so commonplace in their usage that any attempts to get those words changed or removed from common parlance are facing incredibly uphill battles. Even besides the words used formerly for mental challenges, there are a whole bunch of misogynistic terms that are used nowadays to denote either cowardice or complaint (I need not repeat them, I'm sure people can infer which words I'm speaking of) that might very well at some point have their proponents trying to remove the 'female=bad' dysphemism terms from our vernacular. I actually think that wouldn't be a bad thing, but I just do not know how difficult that would be to change that many people's natural reflexive instincts for using those words.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I also think that paladin as popularised by D&D is a really strange concept. I like knights, but knights in most fiction are completely mundane. They might be religious, but everyone in medieval times was. A religious knight with magic powers is concept that was pretty much invented for D&D.

 

[Umbran]

This post is not meant to stir controversy.

That effect, however, was predictable.

I thought I explained my mindset in the OP. The actual details of the Middle Ages, such as the actual role of medieval knights, the Crusades, and so on are newer knowledge for me.

Understandable. Everyone learns things for the first time.

Paladins are pretty uniquely treated as the “stereotypical good guy class” in D&D, even in 5e where they’re not required to be good anymore, so it was jarring to have the knowledge of their source material when compared to how they’re typically depicted in D&D.

So, if I may, this is where the controversy was predictable.

You make this assertion, but fail to establish that the problematic parts of the inspiration are actually present in the class today.

If time, design, and players have successfully divorced the modern paladin from those problems, at least, as far as one can in a game largely based on using violence to solve problems, that should be a success story, rather than a source for continued dissonance.

So, maybe there is your answer about how to deal with the dissonance - recognizing that the romantic (in the literary sense) reinterpretation of knighthood has thankfully divorced the class from that past.

 

[Cadence]

Granted, I’m not as familiar with French tales of Charlemagne’s Paladins as I am with Arthurian Legend, but it seems to me that Paladins, while being named after Charlemagne’s knights, take more inspiration from Arthurian Legend and the Crusades. Going on quests, killing monsters, etc. And that root isn’t much better. It’s still tied to the Christian power fantasy of a holy warrior fighting Muslims.

I never associated Paladins with the crusades, I did with Lancelot and Galahad. I'm not sure how that ties into the crusades at all? (Based on a scene in Holy Grail I think it gets us to Lawful Stupid).

Clerics are just as much crusaders and templar knights as paladins, except more so. They don't have any specific origin or inspiration except the Knights Templar. The reason they avoid edged weapons is because some crusaders did. That's where that came from. [Edit: To be clear, this is a myth to the best of my knowledge, but it was a commonly believed myth during Gygax's time and it's what justified this mechanic... it's like ring mail and banded mail.]

Exactly, I always thought it was the clerics that were originally more tied into the religious orders in the crusades.

I also think that paladin as popularised by D&D is a really strange concept. I like knights, but knights in most fiction are completely mundane. They might be religious, but everyone in medieval times was. A religious knight with magic powers is concept that was pretty much invented for D&D.

It feels like they recognized that Paladins were in no way meant to be just a standard knight pretty early - [edit: with the Cavalier in] Dragon #72 in April 1983 as a fighter sub-class and then Unearthed Arcana in 1985 as its own thing.

There were also the other "alignment paladins" from Dragon 106 that hit everything the Paladin and Anti-Paladin didn't.

My own preference would be a full caster priest class, a half-caster cleric class, and a splash of divine combat based paladin, where they weren't necessarily tied to positive or negative energy and could have some other sources too. It feels like the name is now general enough "priestly related warrior" that it could be separated from the good/evil (Paladin of the Fire God, or whatever).

 

[James Gasik]

I never associated Paladins with the crusades, I did with Lancelot and Galahad. I'm not sure how that ties into the crusades at all? (Based on a scene in Holy Grail I think it gets us to Lawful Stupid).


Exactly, I always thought it was the clerics that were originally more tied into the religious orders in the crusades.


It feels like they recognized that Paladins were in no way meant to be just a standard knight pretty early - Dragon #72 in April 1983 as a fighter sub-class and then Unearthed Arcana in 1985 as its own thing.

There were also the other "alignment paladins" from Dragon 106 that hit everything the Paladin and Anti-Paladin didn't.

My own preference would be a full caster priest class, a half-caster cleric class, and a splash of divine combat based paladin, where they weren't necessarily tied to positive or negative energy and could have some other sources too. It feels like the name is now general enough "priestly related warrior" that it could be separated from the good/evil (Paladin of the Fire God, or whatever).

No, not as it's own thing. In Unearthed Arcana, they became a Cavalier sub-class, doubling down on the Arthurian Fantasy Knight. In fact, the Aura of Courage that Paladins now have was actually not one of their class abilities in the 1e PHB (instead they Protection from Evil), but was acquired from the Cavalier!

 

[Tonguez]

That being said... in this particular case I do think the word 'paladin' has evolved its definition culturally (with D&D doing its part to assist in that) to the point where it's no longer connected to the Crusades and those atrocities, but rather has become its own identity of the knight-in-shining armor trope.

I understand the confusion but it needs to be restated that Paladins were never connected to the Crusades nor did they ever go on a crusade to the Holy Lands. The Paladins were the 12 peers of Charlemagne (the word Paladino literally means "of the palace") who defended France from invasion, fought in Spain and went on various noble quests.

The Paladins were active about 300 years before the first Crusade

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Actual DnD already toss away the concept of Evil race.
The Ranger choosing two humanoid races as favored ennemies is way more « racist » than the paladin.

The 3e ruling, but I remember that if your Ranger could pick Human (which non-evil Human Rangers couldn't pick) as a favoured enemy it was actually a smart idea to do so since your enemies are more likely to be Humans in almost every campaign.