Where do we draw the line between LG and CE?

Remove all ads!

It seems to me that you are lumping paladins in with Knights of (insert Holy Order here).The Knights do have human superiors and must follow orders, however paladins are a chosen champion of their god and so do get their commands direct from their god. Now Knights and fallen paladins may have clerical spells and so resemble paladins but a true paladin should be able to spot them righ-away. For a good book on this topic I would recommend Weber's The War-God's Own as it gets quite specfic on the difference between a knight and a paladin.

 

Yes, I know that paladins work directly for their god, but there are some paladin organizations. The Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart IS one of them. It says so in the Paladin's Handbook. And in those organizations, paladins get orders from people higher in the organization (though their god's will obviously is more important than their superiors' wills. It's just that gods don't always talk to paladins, just like they don't always talk to clerics. Hence the organizations heirarchy)

 

That was exactly my point Master. So until they get over themselves and implement that neat little solution you suggested, I think that paladins are gonna be messed with a lot more. Besides, last I heard, "Sir" Gareth Cormaeril was still a ranking member of the Knights of Samular...
btw on a related note, did they release any novels focusing or explaining the purpose, orgin and power of the 3 rings and the Fenrisbane? As well as more scenes with A young Khelben, his dirty secrets, and dead colleague Renwick "Snowcloak" Caradoon? I'd really LOVE to read on this...

 

I've only read the first few posts in this thread, so forgive me if I repeat anything already said...
A Paladin must be lawful good. Yes. It is therefore obvious (IMHO) that s/he will be able to recognise evil when s/he sees/hears it. (Unless Paladin is sadly lacking in brain power!) SO: s/he would be OBLIGED to question any instruction that even APPEARED to be wrong. It is a natural concommitant of the Paladin's alignment. To make the Paladin a blind follower of orders is to totally corrupt the role of the Paladin. Any game or book that does so is misconstruing the Lawful Good alignment. IMHO, anyway! A Paladin is not a fanatic. A Paladin is a good person and will not do evil in the pursuit of 'good', no matter HOW 'lawful' the instruction may be! So there!

 

Yes. It is therefore obvious (IMHO) that s/he will be able to recognise evil when s/he sees/hears it.

<-- nuh-uh! Of course the evil guy will give the paladin an order that "sounds" good.
"Save the child, no matter what" Of course the guardians would disagree and attack. The paladin would then think that he had slain evil kidnappers. See the pattern?
Of course he's not gonna say "Kidnap the kid and waste her bodyguards"
Paladins are like dinosurs. Crusty old crumudgeons with victorian concepts. The dinosaurs were a dying breed. Maybe the paladins will follow suit

 

But all this doesn't apply just to paladins. If the evil order giver was clever enough anyone would believe him, unless they were really paranoid and looked into EVERY detail of EVERYTHING, before trusting anyone.

 

That's all very well, Ry'sil, but the Paladin doesn't just attack blindly! S/he asks questions! If not of the one giving the order, then of the supposed 'captors' of the child. In every case that I have come across in the games I have played, there is an OPTION, for the Paladin (or other character) to ask questions and find out the truth of a matter. Granted, my experince in ad&d games is probably much less than yours, but I have NEVER had a character in a situation where s/he COULD NOT discover the truth.
Have you???

 

Actually *heh* that's an embarrassing question...
I've never REALLY ACTUALLY played REAL AD&D *blush* Just the roll of the dice, "Make it up as you go along" style... *heh*

 

R'syil: Er.. yeah. Me too, if truth be told! At least if you mean pen-&-paper ad&d. Never played that sort, which I understand is the ONLY way to REALLY play ad&d. According to some people I know. I just play the computer games that CLAIM to be ad&d - or at least claim to use ad&d rules - like Baldur's Gate series, and some others...
And there has ALWAYS been a way out in those for those in a moral dilemma, lol!

 

There's been an ignored point in this thread; in virtually every case, the superior of a paladin is -- guess what -- a paladin. Wait -- didn't we say paladins are always lawful good? Huh. I guess then a superior couldn't be evil by definition, eh? If a superior were to turn towards evil (doesn't take too much in AD&D), they would lose their paladin status. That is blatantly obvious to anyone around, so a PALADIN is extremely unlikely to be duped in these hypothetical situations.

 

Capstone -- good point, but there is a "practical" flaw.

Have you ever been in a group, say a church, where the "rule" is holiness and purity. Unfortunately time passes and people "take their eyes off the ball". Instead of focusing on the basic tenants of the faith, they begin to major on minor points of doctrine and decoration. After a few generations of this progression, you begin to have leaders who are still "lawful good" but the law has changed. They now follow their laws instead of God's laws.

Think of the Pharisees of Jesus' day. Lawful Good? Definitely. Upholding the ideal and able to train new recruits? Definitely not. (Jesus said that they make their disciples twice the sons of Satan they they themselves were)

The same progression can happen to Solomic Knights or to the Order of the Radient Heart, etc.

 

That is an excellent point. However, in AD&D, when you stray from your god, he tends to notice and consequences are immediate. Thus you can't really establish your own laws and traditions and remain lawful good; by following your own laws instead of your god's, you've denied the good.

On a parallel track, I would like to point out that the Pharisees were NOT Lawful Good. As you said yourself, Jesus called them of their father the devil. That puts them pretty squarely on the side of evil. Evil does not have to be ugly to be evil; the lack of good is enough to condemn.

 

I believe that Paladins are not close-minded automatons. They are not fanatics, zealots, jihadist, religious freaks, bigots, zenophobes, nazis, etc. and shouldn't be roleplayed as such. They are honorable men and women that wander the world to champion the causes of the downtrodden and to help his fellow man. They must fight evil in all of its forms, whenever, and wherever it may grow. They must endeavor to be fair, just, and good at all times. This is the code of ethics that their God has given them to live by. If they don't, they're not paladins.

They do not mindlessly put to the sword anyone that disagrees with their ideals. Murder justified by religious doctrine is not the creed of a true paladin.

In my opinion, paladins really should not be associated with so called "Holy Orders". These orders tend to have a political agenda and thus a narrow focus on what their goal should be,ie Knights Templars, Teutonic Knights, Knights Hospitaler as prime examples. The goals of the Holy Orders are to further the cause of their religion and their Order which isn't always the cause of "Good". They definitely wouldn't want someone in their Order who would question their motives and always strive to do what is right. Those types might existbe within the ranks but would be stifled and probably not ever obtain a position of authority.

I don't think that paladins should necessarily be "Lawful Good". Lawful denotes structure and organization, both of which would limit the paladins options in life, because he becomes merely an instrument of his Holy Orders political agenda. I see no reason why a paladin couldn't be "Chaotic Good". A chaotic nature simply means that the paladin does not believe in structure or organization, but he does believe in doing the "Right" thing for himself and others throughout his life.

I'll step down from the pulpit now.

[This message has been edited by Havok (edited May 17, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Havok (edited May 17, 2001).]

 

If anyone reads Dragonlance books they may remember the gods talking about balance. Without the balance between good/neutral/and evil then paladins are evil. Too much good and rightousness leads to intolerance and prejudice. A paladin believing himself to be in the right no matter what is not different than a bloodthirsty evil tyrant.

Too much neutrality leads to anarchy. Too much evil leads to selfdestruction. And so even paladins can be evil, especially if they view themselves as the only force of rightousness and such. Only with balance can true good/evil/and neutrallity be defined.

(god i starting to sound like those annoying harpers!!!)

 

Believing yourself to be in the right has nothing to do with being good. Plenty of evil people believe themselves to be in the right. The core of good I think as it pertains to AD&D and even to RL is in service to others. Unselfishness is primarily what separates evil from good. Naturally everyone is selfish to some extent (how many can claim they have never once thought about what THEY wanted?), so no one can claim to be purely good. But what defines your alignment is what your basic goals are in life, as well as your usual actions. I don't think one mistake is enough to change a paladin's alignment.

Incidentally, I don't agree that a paladin can be Chaotic Good either. A paladin is a military warrior, not a lone warrior, and so serves within the framework of the order. A better example of Chaotic Good is a ranger, who serves on his own terms, not what someone else tries to dictate to him. This is not to say that you can't DM a world where paladins are lone warriors of their god however. It's just not the usual conception.

 

The fact that one of the Paladin kits is called the "Inquisitor" says it all really. Probably all the inquisitions, holy wars, witch hunts etc. in history have been commited by people who fervently believed that they were doing "God's work" in protecting people from heretics and so forth, and saving the souls of the heretics. Think "the Crucible" if you want to see what harm "Lawful Good" people can do in trying to ensure all "evil" is stamped out.

 

Grrrrr.... the point I'm trying to make is just because you say you are doing something in the name of God -- even if you do fervently believe it -- doesn't make it true!! The inquisitors, Salem Puritans, etc. were not good just because they believed they were. Nor were all those holy wars holy. People look at the Dark Ages and say, "HA! See! That's why all these God-believers are wrong! See what they did!" But they were not actually following Christ's commandments, who not only taught against murder and killing, but told his followers to turn the other cheek and return good for evil.

 

And I naturally assume that just because Faerun is a fantasy world, that doesn't mean that things are always black and white. I think that Paladins are just human beings, they can stray from the path, they can become deluded, they can be zealots or fanatics, all the while not realising it. Possibly there are whole orders of Fallen Paladins who don't even know that they've fallen. The point about balance is interesting. I would argue that pure goodness can only be done by a neutral good character. Too much chaos and there is anarchy and destruction, too uch order and there is oppression and stagnation. And to be fair, I would probably put witch hunters etc. into Lawful Neutral, they follow what they percieve to be God's laws without thought for the consequences or if the laws they are following are really just. I'm just really trying to support someone else's post (read steal their ideas) by saying that the real world has had plenty of "holy" organisations forget what they stand for and why should fantasy be any different. As Trias says in Planescape, "If you believe in something strongly you must be prepared to betray it" History has shown many people who believed in something (Christianity, Communism etc.) so strongly they were blinded to the fact that the organisation they supported was betraying the principles they stood for originally. Another few points, how far can a Paladin fall before it is noticed. Blindly following rules in my opinion is Lawful neutral and wouldn't show up on detect evil. Also in the game Lawful good is assumed to be "better" than Chaotic Good, this would generally be the case in the situations I have encountered, with a benevolent monarchy and evil outsiders such as criminals barbarians et al. However, maybe there are places where the populace is distrustful of authority and taken with Liberty and Democracy, and Chaotic good is more popular.

[This message has been edited by Ironbeard (edited May 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Ironbeard (edited May 20, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Ironbeard (edited May 20, 2001).]

 

Had a thought over the weekend on this . . .

If you read the stats of most "knights", they are fighters, not paladins (c.f. Sturm Brightblade).

Consider also that a Paladin must have AT LEAST a 17 charisma. This reduces them to probably less than 1% even being eligible.

My point: The Rank and File of the "holy orders" are probably NOT PALADINS. They are fighters with good intentions, following commands.

Paladins are the 1 in 100,000 of the people who rise up and are "stamped" by approval by thier god & given the ability to heal, etc.

So who would be paladins from pop SF? Paxinarion is an obvious example, but maybe not the rest of the knights she trained with. Not Sturm from Dragonlance, but Huma would be.

 

****History has shown many people who believed in something (Christianity, Communism etc.) so strongly they were blinded to the fact that the organisation they supported was betraying the principles they stood for originally.****

I would just like to point out (AGAIN) that the problem with these people is that they believe in the organization. If they truly believed in Christianity that strongly, they wouldn't be led astray by the organization. But they accepted men to stand between them and God and act as go-between; they were willing to put their belief in fallible men.