There is this false meme out there in (A)D&D land that the Paladin HAS to be and always IS played as Lawful Stupid and as a pain in the posterior to all of the other players, to the whole party. This is completely at odds with and counter to the whole concept of the Paladin. If you are a player and you play like this: STOP IT! If you are the Ref (aka DM) and you force the player to play like this and even worse are always giving the player two EVIL choices as the only choice: STOP IT!
Now I am not going to speak to the concept of the Paladin (or any other class for that matter) in any version of D&D other than OD&D. OD&D is the 3LBBs. It is not only acceptable in OD&D to house rule the game; it is implied, stated, encouraged and expected that you will house rule the game. The Supplements: Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardy and Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes are not OD&D; they are supplements, optional, a house rule source, nothing more and that is the way they were both written and intended to be used. The supplements are to be used as much or as little as you want to or even not at all. I love Paladins so I use them, I don't like thieves and I don't use them (subject for another post).
The seven issues of the newsletter The Strategic Review are essentially short supplements and should be viewed that way. It was replaced by The Dragon magazine (later called just Dragon) and many view the first 20 to 30 issues as the best, but I would not limit it so. The Dragon was another source of house rules and the things written for AD&D could, if one so desired, be ported into OD&D as house rules. I myself only saw the first few issues of The Dragon and did not read the rest until the 1990's.
OD&D was and is a mix of many different things from fantasy and pulp fiction to a more than skin deep veneer of a Christian world view in some areas, which in later versions was mostly dropped and replaced with more explicit polytheism. Therefore, when you look at OD&D Clerics, Paladins, Rangers and Lawful alignments, you should view them through the correct lens with the correct assumptions; then if you want to do something different, go ahead and house rule it however you want to.
Now the Greyhawk write-up of the Paladin starts out:
Charisma scores of 17 or greater by fighters indicate the possibility of paladin status IF THEY ARE LAWFUL from the commencement of play for that character. If such fighters elect to they can then become paladins, always doing lawful deeds, for any chaotic act will immediately revoke the status of paladin, and it can never be regained.
In my experience, other than my experiment noted in the first paragraph above, I have never had a player ask to switch to a Paladin from a Fighting-Man. Bitd we always, without exception started Paladins as Paladins at first level. While I don't think there is anything wrong with doing it that way, I think the actual rules strongly imply that Paladin status is to be earned after there has been a track record of consistently LAWFUL play, not that I place much store in BtB as a reason for doing anything.
A few concepts: a Lawful Fighting-Man is just what it says - a good guy. A Lawful Cleric is a Holy Warrior and Clerics are Lawful and Anti-Clerics are Chaotic (Neutral there is not). Rangers are a more dedicated Lawful Fighting Man and Paladins are more deeply dedicated Lawful Fighting-Man & Holy Warrior. The deeper the level of dedication, the greater the penalty for transgressions and the greater the reward for obedience.
The revised first paragraph reads:
Human fighting-men or clerics who have a Charisma score of 17 or greater may become Paladins at fourth level IF THEY ARE LAWFUL from the beginning of play for that character and must continue to be LAWFUL. Depending on the severity of any chaotic or evil deed, the remedy ranges from atonement/quest to revocation of paladin hood and once lost, it can never be regained.
I will continue this in my next post.
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