I generally figure they'll work it out among themselves. It hasn't come up yet in AS&SH. Everyone is Neutral except my NPC CG ranger, who is very dubious about the whole enterprise with these freaks. But in our regular AD&D game, anyone who wants to play Evil pretty much knows to keep things under wraps until he/she is powerful enough to make a big play. My players . . . discourage paladins. The second to last one was taken out by friendly fire before he could detect evil. My gut feeling is that paladins demand a certain kind of game, where alignments match up. But I also consider a lot of that to be "players' business." They can make what they want. I just let them know whether they hit their paladin in the back of the head or not.

I also think the AD&D barbarian is irredeemably broken. The AS&SH one seems much more like what it should be.

One of my players has a berserker rolled up and waiting in the wings. I'm pretty excited for his debut. He's CN and and Amazonian. And male. All sorts of backstory are summed up in just those character-sheet entries. That's all we need to move forward, I find.

Is there any reason why you can't have more than one Warlock? I guess I'm thinking that maybe you should tweak your campaign so that there are many Warlocks, perhaps in different factions or whatever. (Sort of like in Harry Potter, where everyone has some magic talents. But more adult.)

finarvyn wrote:

Is there any reason why you can't have more than one Warlock? I guess I'm thinking that maybe you should tweak your campaign so that there are many Warlocks, perhaps in different factions or whatever. (Sort of like in Harry Potter, where everyone has some magic talents. But more adult.)

I had 2 rangers in the campaign at one point and one had much better characteristics.  Rather than develop a different character based on role-playing he (the one with lower cha) griped all the time. 

My fear especially for new folks is that they differentiate by things like class.  One is cool the second is competition for the niche in the group.  The one with the higher characteristics was subsequntly killed by a cyclops.  So much for the importance of Characteristics in a campaign.

If your players can differentiate (via class of magic and / or roleplaying) and find their role in the group then why not have all warlocks?
 

I generally let the players figure this sort of thing out and then let things play out at the table. However, it usual for my group to play games with a theme, so part of the backstory is assumed. For instance, the last campaign I ran involved a crusade of sorts and all the characters were involved somehow, whether as members of chivalric orders, religious orders or soldiers attached to such. Like has been said though, none of this means that individual characters have to like one another.

Handy Haversack wrote:

I also hope to keep them worried enough about getting out alive that they don't have too much time for intra-party squabbling. The mountain ape just doesn't care what alignment you are!

That's how I see it but even then, without much effort from my part inter-party conflict will happen.

Thing is I don't care since my players seem to enjoy it. The player using the Paladin is best buddy with the Necromancer. I know that eventually their character will clash but so do they and they seem to look forward to it way more than I do.

I would be loathe to restrict classes, but also loathe to ignore the conflict entirely. So, I think your idea of requesting the players to create a backstory that explains why conflicting classes might associate makes the most sense. Maybe they have a distant relative in common - or were childhood friends? Maybe they have loved ones wronged by the same person - that they are both seeking? Maybe they both survived a near-death experience together - and now feel a strange kinship that transcends their philosophical disagreements? Maybe the first saved the second's life, even accidentally - and now the second insists on traveling together until the debt is repaid? Perhaps they are both on the run because of a mutual enemy - someone who framed them? Maybe one's lieing to the other and, in time, the players will have to resolve it? Maybe they've been compelled on a life-long quest by a powerful being (sorcerer, demon or god) that they cannot refuse because of something each of them did in their past, either separately or together? With tweaks, I think you can make it work even for three or more conflicting classes (especially the last one).

I think it's actually a potentially fun situation because you have jumpstart the campaign with something a little more creative than "We were both sitting in the same bar looking for other adventurers." You can use that backstory to juice up the regular adventures with little bits and pieces that make the world seem bigger and fuller.

Now, for the record, I'm not one of these guys that insists on elaborate backstories prior to first level. In fact, usually one sentence is enough. In this case though, where you have a few people that would not normally adventure together, it may be helpful.

Ha-klek wrote:

So How is a Ref to keep a party together when their immediate and long-term goals differ so greatly.

My advice would be to ask yourself why you feel it's important to keep them together in the first place

If it were my game, I would suggest to the paladin's player that he could create a new character (or, if there are NPCs routinely traveling with the party, he could take one of them over) for the trip to Vikland while the paladin goes off and does something else.  The paladin could then rejoin the party after they return, if the player so chooses, or the paladin could become a permanent NPC if the player decides he prefers his new character.  Or he could swap back and forth.

It's a common presumption that there is one party which always sticks together and each player has one character that he always plays, but it doesn't have to be that way.  Ars Magica coined the name "troupe-style play" for the playstyle where each player has multiple characters and those characters are mixed and matched to create constantly-shifting parties based on the current storyline (whether that's "I'll bring my rogue because we know there will be a lot of traps" or "my paladin isn't interested in this, so my warlock will go instead").  It's not for every group, of course, but it's worth at least considering if you find yourself asking "why would this party stick together?".

It's a tough nut. I think nDervish has the right of it. It sounds like they've had some good fun with that party but that they've reached a point where in- and out-of-game logic seems to be pulling it apart. You wouldn't even have to lay it all on the paladin's player. Everyone could roll up another char. for the mainland group, characters with slightly different goals if not necessarily alignments. Then you'd always have a choice of games.

Paladins. The rocks against which parties founder. Last time we had one in the game, he was taken out by friendly fire as soon as the fighter realized what he could do. It was all good fun and really well played (and the entire party was killed not long after), so there were no hard feelings among my players. But not every group can roll that way, I figure.

My personal policy is to have players agree on a party theme and background before anyone starts thinking about their own character. While campaigns in which the PCs got together by coincidence and ended up getting forced to work together can be great fun, I normally run games in which everyone is supposed to work as a team with shared goals.

Thank you all for the advice! 
After last nights session, we had a group discussion as to how to proceed. Coincidently, both of nDervish's suggestions came up. The party conflict came to a head, and the Paladin nearly cholked the Warlock to death over an escaped slave's execution (some great roleplaying).

Having this party conflict has had interesting consequences, but the group seems to feel that its run its course, so the player of the Paladin has put his character at a moral crossroad: either renounce his faith to travel with these despots (essentially becoming a fighter or cataphract) damning his soul but possibly gaining him enough loot to rebuild his temple in Khromarium (ends justify means style). Or, leave the character in Khromarium penniless but morally intact and make a new character to travel with the party (or adopt an NPC).
The latter option makes more sense from a narritive perspective and it also opens up the possibility of having the Paladin form a Goodish anti-party to stop those voracious vikings, an idea the players seem to like.
Either way I'm excited to see how this plays out, and thank you again for all the responses.