A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

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Hazard
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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Hazard » Sun May 22, 2022 8:31 pm

garrbear758 wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 8:29 pm
Hazard wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 7:46 pm
I just want to clarify that when I made the little comment about paladin 'not being good' I did not mean killing is evil or anything even close to that. I fully expect paladins to smite evil.

I was poking fun at all the obviously evil (but mechanically good) paladins I have come across over the years. The ones that slaughter innocents, or go into murderous rages, the ones that take great pleasure in the suffering of others whether it be simply killing them, or ruining their lives, or just making them miserable.

I've seen some really nasty, horrible "paladins", that if they were blackguards I'd recommend an RPR boost, but they weren't. They were paladins.

That's what I meant. I just wanted to make that clear, so that I'm not put in the camp of 'paladins should be nice' or whatever is going on above me.
Except we're talking about a world where good and evil don't mean nice and mean. Killing innocent goblin children is considered "good" in FR. The best played paladins I've seen were terrifying.
Yeah, that's not what I mean by innocent.

I mean when they kill non-evil humans who have done nothing wrong in a world where good and evil don't mean nice and mean.

I don't care about nice and mean. I am saying, and I thought I was saying it pretty clearly, that there have been some pretty evil paladins. Evil by FR standards.

Evil as in, they should have their alignment shifted towards evil and their paladin levels removed or changed, but that kind of thing (as far as I know) isn't enforced here.

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by xanrael » Sun May 22, 2022 11:53 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 1:30 pm
'Paladins are just murdering people without giving rp!' or whatever. But... and big thing here, here's the head-explosion moment...

That's not a problem with Paladins, that's a problem in general.

PvP is cool. PvP is neccesary, PvP Is useful. I like PvP. BUT! Killing (or at least killbashing) someone should not be your first call of option because, in my expereince, it is ultimatly Dull.
I've felt the desire to state something like this in a few recent threads but this was better put than I could have so I'll just reference it.

Honestly I think it could be helpful for there to be somewhere on the wiki, forums, or other place easy to find for newer players giving some examples of interactions in what should be a vast gray area between BEST FRIENDS FOREVER and !<KILLBASH>. For some players that gray area seems significantly smaller than it should be and I'd like to believe it was them being unable to think of alternatives in the moment and either freezing or defaulting to the extremes.

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon May 23, 2022 12:16 am

I don't care about nice and mean. I am saying, and I thought I was saying it pretty clearly, that there have been some pretty evil paladins. Evil by FR standards.
I must confess I don't... think I've encountered many bad paladins like this in my time? But! That may be me and my luck! I am curious about these.

Keeping in mind that like, I'm probably wrong here and you are right - (I can be ridiculously nieve about these things) I will add a few points for people 'in general' to remember when judging brutal paladin rp.

1) The paladin may have reason to think that someone is Bad News, that you, In game or out of game, arn't awear of.
2) The Paladin may also just be /wrong/ and not have information that you do have.
3) Fr gets a bit wierd when it comes to morality, esp when monster races come into it (It's reasonable for a Paladin, imo, to kill a LG Drow, even if said Drow claims to be a paladin themselves. Drow are tretcherous, tricksy beings after all)
4) This is a big one - sometimes the person you think is a Paladin... isn't. Several times I've come across this, both as a player and a DM, where people have gone 'How can you tolerate this rp from a Paladin!' And I've quietly looked at teh character sheet and (mentally) replied 'uh, they arn't.'

Again - I want to stress here, not saying 'you're wrong.' or anything, but this is something to keep in mind in general too.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by msheeler » Mon May 23, 2022 12:46 am

I think what a lot of people are tired of, and it doesn't just come from paladin characters, is the instant latching onto some idealistic need to grind another character into the ground until that character is either rolled or the player quits over some pretty small ridiculous things:

"I saw you talking to x'y'z'theDrow and now I must gather myself and my 5 compadres and make sure you die a horrible and much needed death many many many times because you MUST be evil if you talked to x'y'x'theDrow and did not try to kill them on sight."

"I have 3 lines of text I caught in 4 seperate 2 minute intervals of scrying on your 2 hour conversation with Joe Blow and based on what you said YOU MUST BE EVIL AND ARE IN NEED OF EXTERMINATION!"

It's that sort of stuff that deflates people. There is no back and forth. No discussion. Essentially no RP. Just you got that one thing you were looking for and you are not going to let it go ever, no matter how much I might try to convince you and no matter what proof I might submit to you.

This just becomes especially irksome when the person doing this is a paladin and theoretically should be above such behavior.

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Watchful Glare » Mon May 23, 2022 3:12 am

msheeler wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:46 am
I think what a lot of people are tired of, and it doesn't just come from paladin characters, is the instant latching onto some idealistic need to grind another character into the ground until that character is either rolled or the player quits over some pretty small ridiculous things:

"I saw you talking to x'y'z'theDrow and now I must gather myself and my 5 compadres and make sure you die a horrible and much needed death many many many times because you MUST be evil if you talked to x'y'x'theDrow and did not try to kill them on sight."

"I have 3 lines of text I caught in 4 seperate 2 minute intervals of scrying on your 2 hour conversation with Joe Blow and based on what you said YOU MUST BE EVIL AND ARE IN NEED OF EXTERMINATION!"

It's that sort of stuff that deflates people. There is no back and forth. No discussion. Essentially no RP. Just you got that one thing you were looking for and you are not going to let it go ever, no matter how much I might try to convince you and no matter what proof I might submit to you.

This just becomes especially irksome when the person doing this is a paladin and theoretically should be above such behavior.
This is in line with what I have observed happening to others, which was frustrating to watch even from the outside and being uninvolved. It seems rare that, sans previously vetting or knowing the accused, that kind of antagonistic roleplay can be carried out in a satisfactory manner.
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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Skibbles » Mon May 23, 2022 4:24 am

It seems like a some of this is just about PvP being mishandled, which should hopefully extend to all classes and concepts when it comes to our expectations.

Whether my PC is being attacked by a paladin or blackguard - while their motives being wildly different for the initiation of a conflict - I will still expect the same overall attention towards an outcome that has at least has workable finality at the end of the tunnel.

I still think the 'Paladin Question' is answered by simply burying the word 'Paladin.'

Change the class name and you change all the preconceptions that anchor it down. Delete the player headcanon. Give it some room to breath. Maybe some of the oaths can allow the PC to be LN as well. Keep people guessing. All these flavorful oaths could open up so many angles and interesting concepts but instead we get an ongoing lore debate that, by now, would have long since 'solved' it. It hasn't.
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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Kuma » Mon May 23, 2022 5:26 am

UilliamNebel wrote:
Sun May 22, 2022 5:23 pm
Can see a lot of points.

My take, modern on the web cynicism of morality informed by religion, coupled with a need to be edgy.

Unlike a careful preface made in the OP, I'll be blunt. Social media clicktivism and bringing political ideological lenses into a fantasy game space, poisoned the well. I see it in other classes to. Modern, uninformed, radical environmentalism combined with political ideological lenses making a lot of continual push to extremism the norm among wilderness types. Applying thoughts, and values, toward something meant to address global industrialization in the real world, toward the nature reverence of the Forgotten Realms is insane, and I do mean insane, as it holds no internal consistency to any of its values at that point. Coupled with all the cherry picking of lore, or outright misrepresenting of its context (or a particularly insidious Arelith'ism 'FOiG' where I am the only source and if you look at D&D source material you are a meta gamer).

Basically, the same people who poison discourse on social media, bring those same tactics to the D&D hobby, to 'win', by engaging in scorched Earth on the social aspect. Its why we have folk from 4Chan here, for the LoLs using cancel culture on certain players as a way to create disruption. While also having genuinely political ideologically motivated people, who because of their online engagement and indoctrination now have to make everything a battleground for the culture war.

In the case of paladins, the class roleplay features, the cynicism of many toward social constructs (regardless their actual benefits and detractions), religion, and morality, just have made it a flame for the moths more so than any other class. If anything, the creep of political modernity into the setting and hobby, seen across a lot of hobby subcultures in the last two decades, is perhaps the single greatest issue here.
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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Ork » Mon May 23, 2022 5:46 am

Guys what the hell. Conspiracy theories? Veganism? Athiests? This thread has been through the ringer.

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Kenji » Mon May 23, 2022 5:53 am

I played an Ilmatari Paladin once and got called out the Ilmatari wasn't deus vult enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by Ork » Mon May 23, 2022 5:58 am

Kenji wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 5:53 am
I played an Ilmatari Paladin once and got called out the Ilmatari wasn't deus vult enough ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thats okay, kenji. Canonically, you're just as good an ilmateri if your dude was a raging drunk.

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Re: A discussion on paladins, and zealotry

Post by DM Monkey » Mon May 23, 2022 6:56 am

Ork wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 5:46 am
Guys what the hell.
^ Is basically what I came in here to say.

Please consider that YOU (whoever is reading this) may not always be correct about the way you want to play something. There are many different interpretations of base lore/rules for PnP, and they're not always applicable in NWN or specifically Arelith. Do your best to play characters that are true to the classes/stats/gods/choices you make.

This isn't real life, this is a game. We're playing within the game world, with game morality.

Try harder! Help set a good example of roleplay for the server culture.


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