What *is* it about paladins that makes people nutty, anyway?

[StupidSmurf]

Here are some observations, not in any order, but mostly knee-jerk reactions to the whole "paladin" thing, as well as to a plethora of the posts here so far:

1. I love playing Paladins. It's my favorite class.

2. I think Paladins are a hot button because of many people's inborn sense of contrariness, and Paladins, with their strict moral code, are a red flag to these people, and they want to see if they can trip up the Paladin.

3. I think Paladins exemplify teamwork, and thus are actually the ultimate team players. They're the "one for all" types, the "no man gets left behind" types, the "we all pitch in, we all share the rewards" types.

4. Paladins are not mandatory, and no one's forced to play one. As long as the person playing one isn't trampling over everyone else, where's the harm?

5. Paladins can respect and tolerate other faiths and philosophies, as long as those ideals don't bring harm to innocents. There's a difference between respecting someone's faith, and actually deciding to subscribe to it. A Paladin of Tyr can respect a follower of Tymora, but not necessarily go through life uttering prayers to Lady Luck, you know?

6. A Paladin's eyes are not only focused on the material world with all its struggles, but also on the "bigger picture", the eternal perspective, the world of the spiritual, and the neverending clash between the forces of good and evil. It's not MANDATORY for some in real life to have an understanding, appreciation, and/or belief in spiritual matters, but someone possessing at least some of those attributes may do a better job than someone who has no respect or understanding for such things. Look at it this way: someone who has no respect/appreciation for the environment, animal life, nature, would make a piss poor Druid, in my opinion.

7. Just for reference's sake, so people know where I'm coming from, I'm a Christian, mostly a Baptist background, but between churches.

Here's my specific story: I rarely play (love DMing far too much), but if/when I do, I usually play Alaric Graytower, Paladin of the Triad (Forgotten Realms- Tyr, god of Law and Justice; Torm, god of Loyalty and Honor; Ilmater, god of Suffering and Perseverance).

If Alaric gives his word, he'll keep it. But he's also wise enough not to make foolish promises that he can't keep. He will give thanks to his gods for the victory (say, dropping down to one knee to give thanks after a particularly tough battle ONCE THE AREA IS SECURED), but he won't foist his beliefs on others. If others are so foolish as to insult his gods, he will defend their honor with rational discourse.

Alaric tries to keep a sense of fairness, including division of treasure, everyone pitching in, etc.

Smiting evil doesn't mean that he and his fellow 5th level characters should be stupidly charging a Balrog. But, if there's a fight that's clearly being won by the bad guys and the party is suffering, he has no qualms about sounding "Retreat!", usually followed by "Run! Save yourselves! I'll cover the retreat and buy you some time! I'll catch up with you if I'm able to!"

If someone else wants to be party leader, he has no problems with that, and will do his best to support the party's decision. If the party wants him to lead, he will. Alaric's basic philosophy is "I'm a Paladin and I'm here to serve. How can I best help, while also fighting the good fight?"

If he sees a clear situation of bullying and persecution, he'll march right into the situation and try to put a halt to it. If he sees innocents suffering, he'll do his best to help, anything from giving gold from his purse, to using his power to cure diseases, or drawing his sword to defend the helpless.


I don't know if that helps explain my position, but there you go...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The rules state that they are "often chaotic evil." Not 100% evil. I don't think "he was most likely evil" is really an excuse to kill. However, yes I do tell them this, and I would repeat it if they decided to attack the orc, because most people get into the mentality of monster = evil.

Yeah, this is why paladins have Detect Evil at will. It wraps up the vagaries of moral quandary pretty quick.

And now: the inside of a paladin's head.
"Hmm...orc. Evil: Y/N? Y. Smite."
"Hmm...goblin. Evil: Y/N? N. Move along."

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

But if you are Agnostic, or if you are an Atheist, it is difficult (not IMPOSSIBLE) to role-play someone who is deeply committed to the divine, and especially so if you are roleplaying a class that is by nature prosetlyzistically and militaristically so.

Jeez, could you get any more insulting? Not only does this post violate the no religion rule, but it violates the no insults rule. I suppose next you'll tell me that I can't roleplay an evil bad guy until I've strangled someone to death, or that I can't roleplay grief until my family are killed horribly, or that I can't roleplay greed unless I've foreclosed on an orphanage.

Okay. This is why people get so nutty about paladins. Someone starts a thread. Someone else posts something really dumb, and then arguments get started. Then the thread gets locked. I claim that no thread about paladins can avoid the no religion rule, as we have never seen one that did. Some manage to avoid the no insulting behaviour rule, but most don't. Therefore, I propose that all paladin threads be auto-locked on discovery by a mod, since they're obviously nothing but trouble.

 

[Henry]

First of all, the better thing to do if one sees insults is to report the thread, and don't worry about returning fire, as some have done. Let the mods observe and comment if needed.

Second, I appreciate the avoidance of discussing real-world religions so far, and just using generalizations, but there are some value-judgments seeping into some of the previous statements (particularly comments about Agnosticism and Atheism) that are getting insulting to other posters. I don't think it was meant as an insult, but let's steer back closer to topic.

It is getting to the point that people get so intense about alignment discussions that I'm wondering if it's worth keeping them as a possible topic, because it's ten times the watchful eyes needed for them versus other types of discussions.

Thanks.

 

[Pielorinho]

Moderator's Notes
Dangit, Henry, you beat me to the punch again! I've deleted the items from my post that you said better than I did, and will just leave in a few additions.

41) Be careful that your talk about non-real-world religion doesn't constitute a thinly veiled metaphor for real-world religion--again, especially if you're making value judgments.

381) This one's really important, folks: please assume the best about other posters' intent. Unless someone calls you a poopyhead, please assume that they don't mean anything insulting; look for an interpretation of other folks' posts that does not result in your being offended, and if you can find such an interpretation, please adopt it. We often end up in snarkmatches that start with a perfectly innocent comment that gets misinterpreted, responded to in heat, and the downward spiral begins.

Thanks, all!
Daniel

 

[ForceUser]

I assume you had to alter a lot of the base classes to better reflect the Vietnam histories and culture ?

There are fantastic backdrops in Viernam as well and the kind of border wars they often had with their neighbours make for fascinating events to explore.

I used the OA classes exclusively. Vietnamese Adventures!

On-topic, I'm actually rather stoked about civil this thread has remained, overall. It's been a stimulating discussion.

 

[lukelightning]

In other words, paladins characters are fine as long as the other players make their characters adapt to the paladin.

I completely disagree. Paladins are the epitomy of team-oriented, as long as the team is composed of like-minded team members.

 

[ForceUser]

In other words, paladins characters are fine as long as the other players make their characters adapt to the paladin.

Correct. I would never force a paladin upon a group of players. Instead, I'd ask first--"You guys okay with me playing a paladin?" If not, I'd play something else.

 

[Hussar]

I just finished watching Batman Begins today (Yeah, I know, way late, but whatever). Got me to thinking about this thread. If you look a the Batman character in that movie, not in the comic books, not in any other media, only in that single movie, you've got a pretty decent paladin role model. Here's a character who could do "good" by executing a known criminal, yet chooses the higher road.

THAT'S how people should play a paladin. Paladins don't have to be incredibly squeaky clean all the time. However, when it comes to crunch time, they choose the more noble course. Every time.

The big hiccup comes when you combine this with a DnD game, which includes lots of killing. Let's face it, by the time a character reaches tenth level, he's probably whacked an awful lot of intelligent creatures out there. And, legally, he's probably a mass murderer. But, mixing real world ethics into fantasy morality is just a recipe for disaster.

In DnD, evil and good exist as actual forces. They are tangible elements of the world in which the characters reside. Good and evil can be detected, it can be seen, it has real effect on how other forces interact with the individual. After all, if evil had no real effect, then why can't my LG cleric summon a demon? Standing on hallowed ground affects different people differently, not because of any real world element, but simply because of their alignment. Evil and good are ontological.

If a paladin kills something that is evil, he is actually, physically, lessening the evil in his universe. That has to be a good act. With beings that are "always evil", for a paladin to kill them on sight isn't just a good idea, it's practically required if possible.

The problem becomes that DM's want to ignore this element of DnD mechanics. Too many DM's see paladins as a big red flag and want to do everything in their power to punish their existence. I've seen this and I'm sure anyone else who likes playing paladins has seen it too. People need to sit back a bit and contemplate the morality of their campaign world before jumping up and down on the poor paladin.

It's a shame really that so many people are so adverse to the paladin. It's a great class when it's done properly.

 

[lukelightning]

I have always had bad experience playing with paladins. We had this one guy who took the "lawful" part waay too far. He stuck firmly to the idea that "a palidin is not allowed to lie or decieve" so there goes all our attempts to sneak into the Temple of Elemental Evil in disguise. The paladin dominated our entire strategy and action. Can we do this? Nope, too chaotic. Can we do that? Nope, that might be "evil."

Correct. I would never force a paladin upon a group of players. Instead, I'd ask first--"You guys okay with me playing a paladin?" If not, I'd play something else.