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Lord_Gareth
2011-02-20, 12:11 AM
I've had a trend of DMs in my past (and present, for that matter) have started bloody rows with me regarding my attempts to play lawful-aligned rogues. "Rogues fight dirty!" they cry. "Rogues steal!" Has no one heard of spies? Honorable contract killers? Royal torturers? Heck, special forces? All rogues. All lawful.

Your take?

senrath
2011-02-20, 12:13 AM
Lemme just say there's a reason that Rogues have "Alignment: Any" listed, instead of "Alignment: Any non-lawful".

I suppose I'm just lucky that none of the DMs that I've done lawful rogues under complained about it.

DragonOfUndeath
2011-02-20, 12:14 AM
Lawful just means following a Code of Honor.
You can have Rogues who lie, kill and steal but never kill innocents, never pull anything off without proof of wrongdoing.
LN, maybe LG Rogue right there,

Lord Raziere
2011-02-20, 12:15 AM
I agree Gareth, no one seems to want some lawful agent rogue.

confounds me really. doesn't seem much of a stretch :smallconfused:

Marnath
2011-02-20, 12:20 AM
http://blog.reflexstock.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/batman/2840125224_2e798fd264_o.jpg


Your honor, I rest my case.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 12:23 AM
http://blog.reflexstock.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/batman/2840125224_2e798fd264_o.jpg


Your honor, I rest my case.

:smallbiggrin:

Starscream
2011-02-20, 12:25 AM
Your honor, I rest my case.

Agreed. I've also heard of Sam Vimes and James Kirk being described as LG rogues. Although in Kirk's case, he seems to have a chaotic streak, especially in the 2009 movie, and might be more NG on average.

starwoof
2011-02-20, 12:31 AM
Batman isn't a rogue, he's a wizard. :smallbiggrin:

senrath
2011-02-20, 12:34 AM
I'd also like to point out that Batman has been successfully placed as every one of the nine alignments.

Raistlin1040
2011-02-20, 12:36 AM
I do not agree with Batman being Lawful. Having a personal code is part of being Lawful, but so is respecting authority and following the rules of society. Batman may have his own code (which is really only "Don't kill"), but I don't think he's a Lawful character. Somewhere in the non-Lawful non-Evil grouping depending on who is writing.

I think the reason that a lot of people have a problem with Lawful rogues is that it's easy to throw out an archetype like "Honorable contract killer" or "secret agent" but much harder to adhere to it. It's a more difficult thing to do and I'd advise against it for many players, but I think if you're up for the challenge, go for it.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 12:36 AM
Sounds fine to me. But then, I find all (with the possible exception of the Druid) core alignment restrictions silly.

A tribal chief who deeply believes in tradition and the established heirarchy and who practices control of his own body to enter a battle-focused state of mind = Lawful Barbarian.

A politician who is an excellent, enrapturing orator and who believes it is important for a person in power to know everything that's going on and to have a few tricks up his sleeve while also believing in The System = Lawful Bard.

A solitary martial artist who believes in independence and relying on the self rather than any external authority = Chaotic Monk.

Not mentioning Paladin, cuz I'm more than willing to allow the alternate-alignment versions.
...crap, I just mentioned it.

RTGoodman
2011-02-20, 12:38 AM
Your honor, I rest my case.


*Clears throat*...

http://punxter.com/pics/G/RPL.jpg

:smallbiggrin:


EDIT: Damn! So many ninjas. I guess this is a Rogues and Batman thread, though... :smalltongue:

Marnath
2011-02-20, 12:54 AM
I do not agree with Batman being Lawful. Having a personal code is part of being Lawful, but so is respecting authority and following the rules of society. Batman may have his own code (which is really only "Don't kill"), but I don't think he's a Lawful character. Somewhere in the non-Lawful non-Evil grouping depending on who is writing.


You have a point, but in my opinion as ineffectual as Gotham's police are, he sort of is the authority. He doesn't follow city laws but he does enforce the rule of law. His laws.

And yes, I've seen the alignment grid. I'm well aware it depends on the writer. We don't really need to make this thread all about batman though. :smallwink:

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 01:29 AM
I'd also like to point out that Batman has been successfully placed as every one of the nine alignments.


http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss24/peregry/batman-alignment.jpg:smallbiggrin:

BiblioRook
2011-02-20, 01:31 AM
Ugh, I hate how so many people quickly assume Rogue = Thief (not the point you were saying, but still)
It's kinda a huge pet peeve of mine as I like to play Rogues alot and people pigeon-hole me like crazy because of it despite none of my characters ever actually being a thief and leads to a great deal of annoying 'in charicter' meta conversations. :smallsigh:
"I don't trust your character. Why? Because he's a thief. What do you mean he's not a thief? Well he's still a Rogue, so he probably looks untrustworthy so I still don't trust him..."

Most of my Rogues are 'agents' of some sort, but also sometimes (and I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet) investigators.
I mean, right there. What could be more Lawful then a member of the police force that specializes in solving crimes?

AslanCross
2011-02-20, 01:36 AM
I've had a trend of DMs in my past (and present, for that matter) have started bloody rows with me regarding my attempts to play lawful-aligned rogues. "Rogues fight dirty!" they cry. "Rogues steal!" Has no one heard of spies? Honorable contract killers? Royal torturers? Heck, special forces? All rogues. All lawful.

Your take?

I completely agree with you.

A counter-terrorist ambushes and attacks a terrorist, taking him by surprise, probably using a flashbang (thunderstone) in the process. That's fighting dirty.

He does it to preserve law and order, and only uses these methods within the context of his duty. If that's not lawful, I don't know what is.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-20, 01:36 AM
Rogues don't even have to steal. Yes, they can, better then certain other classes, but they don't have to. In fact, with all the skills , I want to fluff a rogue as a mundane healer, the sneak attack coming from a knowledge of anatomy. There is nothing about the Rogue class that says "thou must steal" other then Slight of Hand being a class skill.

AslanCross
2011-02-20, 01:38 AM
This is probably the primary reason why they threw out the "Thief" nomenclature.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 01:40 AM
Rogues don't even have to steal. Yes, they can, better then certain other classes, but they don't have to. In fact, with all the skills , I want to fluff a rogue as a mundane healer, the sneak attack coming from a knowledge of anatomy. There is nothing about the Rogue class that says "thou must steal" other then Slight of Hand being a class skill.

Excellent example.

John Campbell
2011-02-20, 01:46 AM
{Scrubbed}

senrath
2011-02-20, 01:55 AM
John, mind if I quote that in my signature?

Amnestic
2011-02-20, 01:57 AM
Lemme just say there's a reason that Rogues have "Alignment: Any" listed, instead of "Alignment: Any non-lawful".
.

And yet Bards are "Any non-lawful"? S'a load of ol' malarky it is.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 01:57 AM
I like it, and its inconsistencies and debate-generation *shrug* It makes general sense to me, I just realise that it's a multi-faceted sliding scale rather than hard-and-fast boxes and use it accordingly.
More to the point, on-topicwise, Rogue possibly more than many other classes describe a skillset (a, moreover, very variable and versatile skillset), not a specific job.

BayardSPSR
2011-02-20, 02:12 AM
I concur with the above complaints (Amnestic, John Campbell, as so on farther above).

I haven't had so much in the way of problems with alignment myself, mostly because I never use it, but I have had a problem related to this - namely, that of a character class being assumed to indicate the nature of that character. For example: "So what are you?" "I'm a Blood Knight." "Uh oh. I'm a Paladin."

That was a quoted, in-character conversation. I had to carefully explain to both of them that not only did their character classes only imply a set of skills applicable to their character concepts, but that the concepts of 'Blood Knight' and 'Paladin' did not exist in that setting (so no character should EVER identify themselves as their class unless they're, say, a Monk), not to mention the fact that even if they DID they wouldn't be inherently opposed.

DragonOfUndeath
2011-02-20, 02:15 AM
A Paladin is one of the In-Game classes. Since it is a profession and there are Guilds made up of only Paladins they can actually introduce themselves as Paladins.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 02:17 AM
A Paladin is one of the In-Game classes. Since it is a profession and there are Guilds made up of only Paladins they can actually introduce themselves as Paladins.If the DM chooses to make it so in their world. Conversely, it's entirely possible for a group of holy warriors to call themselves "paladins" without actually having so much as a dip in the class Paladin.
In fact, there's a couple of places in my game world where people probably do exactly that, and half of them most likely won't even have the right alignment for the class!

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 02:25 AM
I like it, and its inconsistencies and debate-generation *shrug* It makes general sense to me, I just realise that it's a multi-faceted sliding scale rather than hard-and-fast boxes and use it accordingly.
More to the point, on-topicwise, Rogue possibly more than many other classes describe a skillset (a, moreover, very variable and versatile skillset), not a specific job.

I'm the same way. If you use it more as a general reference rather than for any sort of set in stone rules, it works fairly well(at least in my experience).

DragonOfUndeath
2011-02-20, 02:25 AM
Good point. Paladins are one of those Grey area Classes, they can be In-game and they can be Out-of-game

HappyBlanket
2011-02-20, 02:29 AM
Please, you don't even need our opinions on this. Give your DM the examples you're giving us (hired knives) and show him/her the Rogue's entry in the SPH, particularly the two alignment sections on page 49 and 50. But I guess you already did that.

Worst case scenario, just remember that roleplaying takes precedent over alignment. Don't think of alignment as the base for your character's actions. Make a personality and then decide where your character happens to fall on the chart.

BayardSPSR
2011-02-20, 03:18 AM
Good point. Paladins are one of those Grey area Classes, they can be In-game and they can be Out-of-game


If the DM chooses to make it so in their world. Conversely, it's entirely possible for a group of holy warriors to call themselves "paladins" without actually having so much as a dip in the class Paladin.
In fact, there's a couple of places in my game world where people probably do exactly that, and half of them most likely won't even have the right alignment for the class!


A Paladin is one of the In-Game classes. Since it is a profession and there are Guilds made up of only Paladins they can actually introduce themselves as Paladins.

I should mention that the system I play is NOT D&D (so NO Alignments at all and NO explicitly In-Game classes unless the player wants to interpret them that way AND it meshes with the setting). In games I run, I tend to interpret 'paladin' (rather than 'Paladin' the class) more historically: so one of a tiny group of elite quasi-holy knights sworn to a powerful king who also happen to be, by and large, paragons of virtue would be considered paladins by your average person (think Twelve Peers or Knights of the Round Table). Contrast this with the class, which (in this system) could apply to a good and/or religious warrior, a crusader who is somehow neither, an inquisitor who is blatantly evil, and so on (though the build would vary widely accordingly, and though an inquisitor might be better represented by a nasty Monk - Monk being applicable to anything between a kung-fu master, an aging but holy hermit, a Friar Tuck, or even a common person who is religious - but there are subclasses for some of those, and so on).

Ravens_cry
2011-02-20, 03:41 AM
Excellent example.
Thank you. If I do, I will be up front with the others players and look for an ACF for trapfinding. "Traps? Why should I know anything about traps? Do I look like a thief to you? The only time I ever jimmied a lock is when I lost my key to the medicine chest. Damn near broke the thing, the chest that is."

BiblioRook
2011-02-20, 03:55 AM
I would imagine people view a rogue without open locks/disable device to be much like a cleric without healing spells :smalltongue:

They both are capable of doing so much more, but that's the only thing people really expect out of them.

PersonMan
2011-02-20, 04:56 AM
I would imagine people view a rogue without open locks/disable device to be much like a cleric without healing spells :smalltongue:

They both are capable of doing so much more, but that's the only thing people really expect out of them.

If we follow this comparison, will we see that, like a cleric, a rogue who takes other things apart from open lock/disable device can be better than the fighter in melee and use a badly-balanced system to have very powerful buffs up all day?

AslanCross
2011-02-20, 06:24 AM
I like it, and its inconsistencies and debate-generation *shrug* It makes general sense to me, I just realise that it's a multi-faceted sliding scale rather than hard-and-fast boxes and use it accordingly.
More to the point, on-topicwise, Rogue possibly more than many other classes describe a skillset (a, moreover, very variable and versatile skillset), not a specific job.

QFT. Everything.

JaronK
2011-02-20, 06:31 AM
A royal assassin is the epitome of Lawful. You act on orders, you do what you're told. Heck, most assassins in general are going to be lawful (though likely not good). Lawful doesn't mean "won't steal or cheat." It means you're following a specific code first and foremost.

JaronK

VeisuItaTyhjyys
2011-02-20, 06:42 AM
{Scrubbed}

BayardSPSR
2011-02-20, 07:12 AM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I agree with this, though I'd personally cut the "it's almost like" part (and if I'm missing sarcasm, please slap me). I'd even go so far as to say that the same (or something similar) applies to the Good/Evil axis, especially as far as the typical 'Good' PC reaction to an 'Evil' NPC goes. My feeling is that those designations alone often become enough to make the designee deserve them - the paladin doesn't have to do something good, they're Good from the get-go because the player says so. The goblin (to use the famous webcomic example) doesn't have to do anything evil, they are Evil and therefore deserving of smiting by said paladin just because they have that label. If the designations applied to actions rather than states I'd have a much easier time agreeing with them, but I doubt that I'd be able to agree to an individual being assigned as such based on those actions even then.

Sorry for the tangent.

Law/Chaos is definitely so arbitrary that it makes Good/Evil look objective.

dsmiles
2011-02-20, 07:23 AM
If we follow this comparison, will we see that, like a cleric, a rogue who takes other things apart from open lock/disable device can be better than the fighter in melee and use a badly-balanced system to have very powerful buffs up all day?The Charisma-based rogue makes a hell of a merchant prince. Or diplomat. Or con-man/woman. I've played this type on many occasions, not a sleight of hand nor a disable device in sight.

BayardSPSR
2011-02-20, 07:37 AM
The Charisma-based rogue makes a hell of a merchant prince. Or diplomat. Or con-man/woman. I've played this type on many occasions, not a sleight of hand nor a disable device in sight.

Now that you mention it, Lord Shojo would have made a rather good one - had he not been explicitly stated to have been an Aristocrat, of course.

Burner28
2011-02-20, 07:42 AM
If the designations applied to actions rather than states I'd have a much easier time agreeing with them, but I doubt that I'd be able to agree to an individual being assigned as such based on those actions even then.


Even then? So even if Mr. X was killing the goblin only in defense of others and not because of the goblin's race, regularly giving money to charity and making personal sacrifices in order to save the world, you would still have a trouble with people calling her/him Good? I can easily guess why you would think that.

BayardSPSR
2011-02-20, 07:58 AM
Even then? So even if Mr. X was killing the goblin only in defense of others and not because of the goblin's race, regularly giving money to charity and making personal sacrifices in order to save the world, you would still have a trouble with people calling her/him Good? I can easily guess why you would think that.

I meant it in the sense that doing that one Good thing does not necessarily make him a Good person - likewise for Evil. If it did, most characters of any kind would have to flip back and forth multiple times per day - multiple times per hour if we include Neutral! I think there's a character in a webcomic (Supernormal Step?) who suffers from this.

Now, of course, that's simplistic; we just have to draw a line between a certain proportion of Good actions and Evil actions that make one Good or Evil (or Neutral). But are all Good/Neutral/Evil actions equal in weight? They can't be, or we'd have players balancing out genocide by walking old women across the road (knowing players). And does how recent the action was make a difference on our current state? Would some actions count as Good or Evil in multiple ways? What about doing Good with Evil intentions or vice-versa?

In the end, it's all incredibly subjective, making it nigh impossible to call someone unambiguously Good. For example, Mr. X may also well be a wife-beater who abuses his children and makes an honest living working in the slave trade. Given only this information about him, we would be equally justified calling him Good or Evil, depending on what we think is more important (after all, saving the world when you're a part of the world is fairly morally neutral). Yes, it's much easier to say that it balances out enough that we could more easily call him Neutral, but if that's what we're going to do in the end why are we making these distinctions in the first place?

Law/Chaos, of course, is pretty much the same but worse.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 08:15 AM
See: multifaceted sliding scale, mentioned above.

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 08:25 AM
I do not agree with Batman being Lawful. Having a personal code is part of being Lawful, but so is respecting authority and following the rules of society. Batman may have his own code (which is really only "Don't kill"), but I don't think he's a Lawful character. Somewhere in the non-Lawful non-Evil grouping depending on who is writing.

I think the reason that a lot of people have a problem with Lawful rogues is that it's easy to throw out an archetype like "Honorable contract killer" or "secret agent" but much harder to adhere to it. It's a more difficult thing to do and I'd advise against it for many players, but I think if you're up for the challenge, go for it.

Exactly, very well put. If you want to play Lawful, you'd better live up to it. Else, it's little more than just wanting to be "special", without having the stomach for it.

The "Lawful is a Code of Honor" thing is a bit too easy, I think. Rather, the "Code of Honor" IMO is intended for Paladins living under a non-good justice system - a way for them to be "lawful" despite not respecting every law in the land.

Quite frequently the "Code of Honor" turns out to be something like: "My/our personal Code which isn't actually fleshed out when the game begins but will always be equal to what I think is right to do". Which is actually Chaotic.

There are many benefits of being part of a Lawful system: You can command underlings, and expect obedience. You can appeal for help from your superiors, and as long as you're acting within the frames of your Law system, you can expect to get it. You can appeal to others to abide with the Law, and so long as you follow it yourself, you have a strong argument vs. the others.
However, there are penalties as well: There are many things you just cannot do, without breaking the Law (and if done repeatedly: your aligmnent). You must obey your superiors or those, in the context of the law, arranged as such. And you're not free to treat as you wish those "below" you.

Lawful characters, Paladins in particular, are IMO hard to play. It comes much more natural to play a Chaotic or just Neutral character. But then, if you elect to play Lawful, you willingly subjects yourself to another RP-limitation, that can provide fun, challenge and flavor to your play. Part of the fun of playing a Paladin is, IMO, to overcome the challenges with one hand tied behind your back - not easy, but even more satisfying if you succeed.

If one wants to play a Lawful Rogue, I think one should at least make an effort to draw up exactly which Laws is it that this Rogue adhers to. What would it do, what not? Which lines of authority does it follow, lawfully, and which does it disrespect?

BTW Artemis Entreri is LE, so obviously it's possible to pull it off. Not so sure about Tony Soprano and his buddies, though...

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 08:58 AM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I really like the alignment system - even yes, because it's so hotly debated and noone agrees. What should be the point if everyone agreed? Heck, we could just wrap up, end of discussion, everybody agrees. It's good to have something to quarrel about that's not more destructive than alignment discussions...

The main PROBLEM with alignment discussion, IMO, is twofold:

1) Some people insist on bringing Real World moralities into the discussion. This is particularly harmful for the Good-Evil axis, because in RL Good-Evil doesn't exist, or rather: it's super-subjective. Actually, that's how it is in D&D too - only that the game designers and us players (usually) have subjectively picked one side and dubbed it "Good" and the other is dubbed "Evil". It doesn't necessarily make sense, but it doesn't have to: There's no one who is gonna make a verdict after the game is over, to decide whether you actually did "Good" or "Bad". The whole point is to have fun, and to make some manageable rules to help you guide your actions in the game.

Recovering lost babies is dubbed "Good", not primarily because it's a good act (in RL terms), but rather because it's defined in the game that it's something Good characters do. So characters who are "Good" know that they ought to agree to recovering that baby, and they can, through this, find an easy way to RP their character (hopefully being rewarded by the DM with many funny challenges and magic items during the quest). Conversely, an Evil character can play out his Evilness by eating the baby, if he so wishes...

2) Some people - it seems to me - are so peroccupied with being "special" that they cannot stand conforming to game conventions. They just "have" to be that Evil Paladin, because everybody else are Good Paladins. They "have" to be that "Lawful" Rogue, just to stand apart from the Chaotic ordinariness. To me (41 years old) that's mostly a sign of immaturity/teenage rebellion: Not in itself something wrong with it, but not a lasting strategy when you grow up. The problem, of course, is people who refuse to grow up and accept that at least in some instances, conformity isn't a threat or a prison, rather it's a time-proved way to help guide your actions. Just look at Haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0314.html): There is always a time of your life when you just want to be "different" - without understanding that juts about everybody else your age are being exactly like you. At my age, it's more satisfying to play the archetypical Paladin well, than to be just another guy trying to be "Look at me! I dare to break game conventions!! Yohooo! Look at me!".

As for the Law/Chaos, I think it works quite fine. If you elect to play Lawful, you know that usually, when a Law enforcer approaches the party, you should usually force yourself to follow his commands, rather than for instance trying to escape. You should, usually, agree to follow him to the HQ, "to sort things out", comforting your comrades that "let's just explain everything to the Magistrate, then he will understand and let us go". On your way, you'll probably have much fun and RP as a reward - you can even let yourself be shepherded by the DM all the while "RP-ing your aligment" and having "intraparty banter".
If you find a flashy magic item with a known owner, you can get to use your RP by returning it to its owner, denying yourself the benefit of it. Sounds boring? Heck, this is a game where your DM actually looks at a table to ensure that you, at any given moment, have just about the right amount of wealth by level. If you give up that nice item, you can be sure to be awarded something else - and maybe even some small amount of RP-XP.

I haven't really seen much true and troublesome disagreement about the alignment system - other than the two problems I mentioned above. If players were mature enough to accept the consequences of their own choices, and if the DM isn't of the stupid "punish-the-players"-type, most disagreements should be able to work out at the table.

Yora
2011-02-20, 09:02 AM
The problems really arise if you are starting to look for lawful or chaotic acts, or even just good and evil ones.
But alignment is not about actions, but about mindsets. There are no lawful actions. There are only lawful ideologies that affect what a persons considers to be "the right thing to do".
Problem is, that even many writers of official rulebooks don't understand that and cause a lot of confusion that way.

This is all alignment is:
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alignment_graph_9564.jpg

Everything beyond that is besides the point.

Burner28
2011-02-20, 09:06 AM
This is all alignment is:
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alignment_graph_9564.jpg

Everything beyond that is besides the point.

Ah, but one can ask, who's rule do you play by?

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 09:13 AM
Yora - I agree with your scheme. Just to explain the four boxes: They're not defined by Real-world moralities. They're predefined for game purposes, to smoothen game-play. You don't have to reinvent the wheel (however, if it makes for added fun for you and your player comrades and the DM - you're of course free to reinvent the aligment system just as it fits you.

Yora
2011-02-20, 09:13 AM
I'd say the rules of mainstream society. That's what I think of as "the rules".

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 09:22 AM
I'd say the rules of mainstream society. That's what I think of as "the rules".

Exactly. Only teenagers have a problem with recognizing and embracing mainstream.

(I was intentionally being unpleasant there! please don't take offence, it's just a part of me being old an boring, and most other people will experience the same, once you gets kids and a house and work and maybe a dog, and to your surprise you find that you actually feel quite comfortable following the rules and being just like everybody else, being mainstream, because "mainstream" actually is the accumulated wisdom of countless generations before you that has accumulated through trial and error...)

What exactly is the problem with "Lawful" declining to steal, "Chaotic" for those who want to keep whatever they stumble across, "Good" for the PCs and "Evil" for the NPCs?

Burner28
2011-02-20, 09:26 AM
I'd say the rules of mainstream society. That's what I think of as "the rules".

You know, specific rules can change from society to society. for example in some fictional cities ruled by Evil people slavery could be legal, whislt in other places slavery could be illegal

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 09:29 AM
You know, specific rules can change from society to society. for example in some fictional cities ruled by Evil people slavery could be legal, whislt in other places slavery could be illegal

But in no DnD society would slavery be "Good" - unless the DM and all the players agreed to that it would be cool if it was so. And then it wouldn't be a problem.

Yora
2011-02-20, 09:39 AM
Slavery is neither good nor evil. Slavery just is a practice.

The question would rather have to be "would a good person be okay with owning slaves".

And that in turn depends a lot on what the term "slave" all implies within a given society.

Volthawk
2011-02-20, 09:41 AM
2) Some people - it seems to me - are so peroccupied with being "special" that they cannot stand conforming to game conventions. They just "have" to be that Evil Paladin, because everybody else are Good Paladins. They "have" to be that "Lawful" Rogue, just to stand apart from the Chaotic ordinariness. To me (41 years old) that's mostly a sign of immaturity/teenage rebellion: Not in itself something wrong with it, but not a lasting strategy when you grow up. The problem, of course, is people who refuse to grow up and accept that at least in some instances, conformity isn't a threat or a prison, rather it's a time-proved way to help guide your actions. Just look at Haley (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0314.html): There is always a time of your life when you just want to be "different" - without understanding that juts about everybody else your age are being exactly like you. At my age, it's more satisfying to play the archetypical Paladin well, than to be just another guy trying to be "Look at me! I dare to break game conventions!! Yohooo! Look at me!".

Right, because any time someone wants to play something a little different from the norm, they're automatically immature attention-seekers.

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 09:45 AM
Right, because any time someone wants to play something a little different from the norm, they're automatically immature attention-seekers.

As I wrote, I was deliberately being stupid there. The point is: Most people complaining about the alignment rules is that they want to play outside the rules, or adjust the rules to fit their own desires (not the group's but their own), and then they complain that the rules don't work. That's just my experience, anyway.

As for being "immature" - that's just the inevitable way to view something that you have been yourself but then moved on from. I really don't mean it in a condescending way, not really. Just think about the freedom surge over parts of the world - led by youths mostly. If everyone were so willing to "accept the rules" as you mostly get when you get older, there would perhaps be no revolutions.
But a game needs (some) rules and conventions. If one accepts the conventions of the alignment system, I don't personally think that there would be so much debate about how it's "broken".

BTW I'm a bit surprised that Yora wouldn't agree that Slavery is Evil, according to the scheme. Obviously Slave owners living in a system where slavery is legal and expected may be Good (lots of literature examples there, and also from ancient Greece). But the system of slavery itself (keeping people without freedom, without their own worth as a human being) - I cannot understand how it can be anything but Evil in DnD terms.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 10:04 AM
Might be more productive to ask whose :smallwink:

Yay, a lead-in to my treatment of alignment! :D Similarly to my use of racial alignment (in another thread goin' on), I see individual alignment as having three levels, listed roughly in order of importance:

1. Long-term goals, beliefs, and ideology. At its most basic, does the character believe in Law (/order/tradition/security/whatever that means to them), Chaos (/freedom/innovation/anarchy/whatever that means to them), Good (/optimism/altruism/niceness/whatever that means to them), Evil (/selfishness/survival of the fittest/speciesism/cynicism/whatever), or Neutrality (/balance/impartiality/laziness/whatever)? If given the choice, what would the world be like? What do they hope to achieve in their lifetime? ...I feel like I should be able to express this another way, but it just comes down to what do they believe, and believe in?

2. Their actions and deeds. What do they do? How do they go about succeeding in their goals, and handling everyday obstacles? What decisions do they make? Why do they make those decisions? Classic alignment determinant, really.

3. Their personal behaviours and personality. How do they act? How do they order themselves? How do they treat those around them, what sort of things do they or do they not like, what are they like?

Often, these will all line up. Where they don't, they all need to be taken together. Obviously a person whose #1 is Lawful Good but whose #2 is Evil is pretty classic villain fodder. But there is room to move - a police officer who has to do some nasty things while going undercover to catch a notorious, nasty criminal isn't going to be suddenly Evil just because of his short-term deeds. But he might still slip - he might lose sight of his bigger task, he might get into the habit of being bad, or he might even start to enjoy it. The questions, if #2 deviates from #1, include: does the person keep sight of their ideals? Does excessive devotion to those ideals actively get in the way of those same ideals? Is their ideology really just an excuse for those actions? Are they getting into the habit of behaving that way? Is there a forseeable end to having to act that way? Do they have to act that way? Is there an alternative - particularly one they're aware of? Annnnd so on.
As a general rule of thumb, when using an alignment chart (where the point can slide all over) #1 offers a starting point for the character. If there is a dramatic change in ideologies, beliefs or long-term goals then that may result in a dramatic change in alignment. #3 will also factor into this starting point, but not to the same degree - truly overwhelmingly aligned "personal attributes" may cause significant shift (say, if a person is defined by their OCD), but not just simple habits.
#2 tracks the change in alignment over time. If it adheres to the initial alignment from #1, jolly good. If it doesn't, then the degree to which it changes the alignment depends on what exactly the action is and how "aligned" it is, and on accumulated factors such as the list of questions above. A single deed is unlikely to shift a character from one alignment to a whole new one unless they're already extremely borderline. Unless they decide to do a large-scale genocide for no reason or something like that, they're probably not gonna go straight from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil. Rather, they'll slip and slide around, and may eventually lead to a true crossroads that tips them over the edge.
I view alignment as sort of "sticky", too. It's hard to explain without having an actual chart... So I'll use Yora's :smallwink: (be easier if it had numbers, though). So, if you have a character dead on the middle (True Neutral) and they're shifting towards "does not play by the rules", they will become "Dnpbtr Neutral" further to the right on the chart than a character all the way to the right (Dnpbtr Neutral) would become True Neutral. If that makes sense. I guess, basically, I'll tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that it's a temporary setback, sorta thing.

Lord Raziere
2011-02-20, 10:18 AM
well I believe in freedom, and I believe in a form of balance within your own soul.....

so I'm Chaotic Neutral?

Burner28
2011-02-20, 10:18 AM
BTW I'm a bit surprised that Yora wouldn't agree that Slavery is Evil, according to the scheme. Obviously Slave owners living in a system where slavery is legal and expected may be Good (lots of literature examples there, and also from ancient Greece). But the system of slavery itself (keeping people without freedom, without their own worth as a human being) - I cannot understand how it can be anything but Evil in DnD terms.

So you are willing to say that Slavery is Evil ,but not that the Slaver themself areEvil?

JaronK
2011-02-20, 10:28 AM
Exactly. Only teenagers have a problem with recognizing and embracing mainstream.

So, a Paladin and the adventuring party head into the underdark and find a society where all women are chained up and beaten regularly, and this is the law at all times. The law enforcers come up to the party, seeing that their Sorcerer, a woman, is unchained. The Paladin, being Lawful, must obey their request to chain and beat her?

I don't think that's what Lawful means.

What's "mainstream" in society changes. I'm pretty sure most people would say that what's "mainstream" in certain societies with ethnic cleansing is pretty horrific, and it's not you being an immature rebel for not falling in line. And considering D&D LOVES having evil societies, saying that someone roleplaying a character who isn't following that mainstream is immature is pretty ridiculous.

Nor does Lawful mean you're following the laws of the society you're in right now. It means you're following some very specific code that defines your actions. That could be the Bushido code, your oath of service to a higher lord, the laws of the great land you grew up in, or whatever.

I mean, seriously, I've played the "Lawful Rogue" type before. It was a ninja who was sworn into service, who followed a very specific code. Is that really so against mainstream in general? He wasn't necessarily following the laws of the area he was currently in, but he followed a certain set of laws to the letter, no exceptions, and was willing to die for that.

JaronK

Shademan
2011-02-20, 10:33 AM
doesnt the books say that slavery is evil?
youre robbing a sentient being from their freedom. sounds evil to me

also, lawful good:
http://the-coa.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Vimes.jpg

Yora
2011-02-20, 10:42 AM
Slavery can't be evil, because slavery is not a person. Slavery is not acting.

First you need a definition of "evil" and of "slavery".
For the sake of D&D, let's stick with "Evil is causing or allowing suffering and harm to others to gain personal benefits."
And I think a definition that most people here will agree on is "Slavery is a relationship in which one person has to work as commanded by another person, without being given the option to refuse the assignment or leaving the relationship."
Any objections to that?

So let's assume a society in which certain people, by birth, are not given any personal rights by the laws and customs of the society. Killing or injuring them is not a crime, since they are not considered people by the law. Most citizens will not give them employment since doing so makes you an outcast who does not play by the common rules. If you have a slave and chose to let him go, where would he go? He can't get a job or a home, and if you give him money, everyone could steal it from him without any legal consequences.
So supposed you are a good wealthy farmer and your late uncle leaves you some of his slaves. You could keep them and give them shelter and food on your farm and grant them a lot of freedoms as long as they are willing to become members of the household and help support the farm.
Or you could chose to not keep them. One option would to sell them, but you have no idea who will own them. Or you just kick them out on the street and any citizen who finds them first can claim them and gain complete legal ownership.

So by keeping these slaves as respected and well treated servants on your farm, do you cause them suffering for your own benefit? Maybe a little bit, as they help on the farm and they would rather be free men. But you don't have the option of making them citizens or simply can't afford to find a new home for all your slaves in a distant land where they can be free farmers. So everything else you could do with them would cause them even more suffering.
While not neccessarily Good, keeping the slaves is the best thing you can do to minimize their suffering, which is certainly not Evil.

Shademan
2011-02-20, 10:46 AM
a slave owner can be good, sure. but remember that societes have alignments too (as per DMG) and slavery is considered an evil trait for a society

Yora
2011-02-20, 10:53 AM
Okay, so I have to leave RAW here and say that alignment for societies just don't work.

But there are so many different official sources that have been written about alignment, that completely contradict each other, that any RAW interpretation of alignment has to end with "it doesn't" work.

I believe that alignment is a system that can be made to work very well. But for that you have to go all the way back to the very basic ideas and work with that, ignoring a lot of the written "commentaries" to the idea found in the sourcebooks.
And what I'm trying to do here is to explain how the idea can be made to work. Sure, this ignores quite a lot of RAW, but if we want to stick to that, the most productive thing we can hope to accomplish is yelling at each other and calling names. :smallbiggrin:

RndmNumGen
2011-02-20, 10:56 AM
I would guess that the act of keeping slaves is still evil, but treating them kindly and granting them other freedoms they wouldn't normally have is good, so the combined total would probably be a neutral act. That doesn't mean the slave owner can't be good however, since if they do other charitable things that would tip the scales.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 11:03 AM
well I believe in freedom, and I believe in a form of balance within your own soul.....

so I'm Chaotic Neutral?This is not even close to an adequate basis for determining alignment. I guess you could be Chaotic Neutral, but at the very least I'd need to know what you mean by "balance".

edit: I have an extra factor in what makes alignment debates so hard: I think most people have a "favoured" alignment - one they most agree with, and/or the one they think they are, as well as their own beliefs etc. Thus they are, I think, inclined to designate "things I agree with" as that favoured alignment (in particular Good), and "things I don't agree with" as the opposing alignment.

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 11:16 AM
So you are willing to say that Slavery is Evil ,but not that the Slaver themself areEvil?

Some few particular slave owners may, perceivably, be non-Evil. If they live in a society where Slavery is the norm, and there will anyway be no freedom for the slaves if you set them loose (they might instantly be picked up by another, viler, slave owner), you might be a Good person (and perhaps lawful) just wanting to make the best out of it. Not a heroic anti-slavery-campaigner, just someone trying to be good. What about Schindler, for instance, from the film Schindler's List?

Yora
2011-02-20, 11:19 AM
Well, I think at first he did keep slaves. Wasn't it until much later that he changed his view and used his reputation as a Slave Keeper to cover the fact that he switched sides?

Lord_Gareth
2011-02-20, 11:23 AM
I agree that many folks do have preferred alignments - I, myself, often play Lawful characters for that reason. But I do disagree that the "typical" Rogue is supposed to be chaotic, hence why I started the thread.

Burner28
2011-02-20, 11:27 AM
Some few particular slave owners may, perceivably, be non-Evil. If they live in a society where Slavery is the norm, and there will anyway be no freedom for the slaves if you set them loose (they might instantly be picked up by another, viler, slave owner), you might be a Good person (and perhaps lawful) just wanting to make the best out of it. Not a heroic anti-slavery-campaigner, just someone trying to be good. What about Schindler, for instance, from the film Schindler's List?

I kinda doubt you can be Good under D&D definition and still be a slaveowner. Good is about caring about the dignity of sentient beings. The state of being a slave itself is pretty depersonalizing- one can't really say one would not feel emotionally hurt if you were not allowed to be free, but rather is treated as someone else's property, dehumanized.

The slave owner that you described yourself isn't really Good under D&D definition, because if he was he would realise how humiliating and undignifying, not to mention the lack of self esteem they would feel if their dignity and respect were being taken away by the laws of the land. If that person was actually Good, he would actually make actual attempts to free the slaves whilst at the same time not getting them into trouble

dsmiles
2011-02-20, 11:27 AM
I agree that many folks do have preferred alignments - I, myself, often play Lawful characters for that reason. But I do disagree that the "typical" Rogue is supposed to be chaotic, hence why I started the thread.To be quite honest, I can't remember the last time I played a chaotic character. Not even a rogue, or barbarian, or bard.

Yora
2011-02-20, 11:28 AM
And if he just doesn't find a way? Can you fail to be good because the challenge was too great?

Gravitron5000
2011-02-20, 11:29 AM
Batman isn't a rogue, he's a wizard. :smallbiggrin:

If you go by the old TV show, he's an over-prepared commoner/aristocrat with a belt of holding :smallbiggrin:

Burner28
2011-02-20, 11:32 AM
And if he just doesn't find a way? Can you fail to be good because the challenge was too great?

Nope but you can fail to be Good because you took the easy option even though it is evil. You can fail to be Good under D&D definition if you do not treat people with respect and dignity- and how you can treat people with respect and dignity when you are devaluing their worth with unjust free labour I have no idea

Lord Raziere
2011-02-20, 11:34 AM
This is not even close to an adequate basis for determining alignment. I guess you could be Chaotic Neutral, but at the very least I'd need to know what you mean by "balance".
.

well balance wouldn't be perfect, since nothing in the world is perfect. but it would be preferable to being wildly imbalanced, the best state the world can achieve is an imperfect imbalance of all things that forever causes change and progress towards new form of balances that while similar are different in various ways than the previous. balance however is not passive, it is active as there is always conflict , therefore balance is forever conflicting with itself and working with itself in a yin-yang of conflict and cooperation to produce chaotic change that keeps things the same in a crazy absurd world that likes to screw with you every time you think you figure it out. also, luck and the balance are the same thing.

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 11:48 AM
You didn't actually explain what you mean by balance. Like, at all. I don't particularly want to try to work out what alignment you are, but if you want me to you need to give me more information.

Weighing in on the slavery issue: I consider acts and deeds to be aligned, and in my opinion slavery would be an Evil practice. However, one deed does not determine an alignment. If they are otherwise good people, probably including treating their slaves well (probably even better than required by the law), then there's an excellent chance that they are - ordinary ol' flawed Good, in fact.
There's also varieties of slavery, keep in mind: I'd consider the type of slavery where it's used as a way to punish criminals to be Neutral in alignment. I don't know if there's any way you could make it Good, but there's certainly Neutral and of course degrees of Evil.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 11:56 AM
I would imagine people view a rogue without open locks/disable device to be much like a cleric without healing spells :smalltongue:

They both are capable of doing so much more, but that's the only thing people really expect out of them.

You ever played DnD Online? That really is the only reason most parties want rogues. You can buy hirelings of every class besides rogue for a single dungeon-romp. They don't have rogue ones because if they did, people would just hire those and never play a rogue.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-20, 12:04 PM
Rogues have two big things going for them: sneak attack and skills.

The first one implies "dirty" fighting a - but you can be Lawful and still fight dirty. Not all laws and codes of honor require you to be "fair" in life and death situations, in fact, some demand the opposite! Even if you count dirty fighting as neutral or chaotic, if the rogue does overall more lawful than chaotic acts.

Looking at the second, it's easy to notice that rogue's skill list is broad enough to allow them to focus entirely on skills that neither include or imply anything unlawful. For example, you can focus Rogue's skill set around being a great diplomat and socialist - there's hardly a more lawful job than, say, working as a King's councelor or international treaty negotiator.

Lord Raziere
2011-02-20, 12:30 PM
yea, I imagine if your a lawful good secret agent your code would be "in life or death situations, seek all advantages no matter what because fighting fair gives evil a chance to kill you and everyone you care about, don't give them that chance."

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 01:26 PM
Might be more productive to ask whose :smallwink:

But there is room to move - a police officer who has to do some nasty things while going undercover to catch a notorious, nasty criminal isn't going to be suddenly Evil just because of his short-term deeds. But he might still slip - he might lose sight of his bigger task, he might get into the habit of being bad, or he might even start to enjoy it. The questions, if #2 deviates from #1, include: does the person keep sight of their ideals? Does excessive devotion to those ideals actively get in the way of those same ideals? Is their ideology really just an excuse for those actions? Are they getting into the habit of behaving that way? Is there a forseeable end to having to act that way? Do they have to act that way? Is there an alternative - particularly one they're aware of? Annnnd so on.

Serpentine, it the very least you're in line with Rich's Deva here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html

:smallsmile:


So, a Paladin and the adventuring party head into the underdark and find a society where all women are chained up and beaten regularly, and this is the law at all times. The law enforcers come up to the party, seeing that their Sorcerer, a woman, is unchained. The Paladin, being Lawful, must obey their request to chain and beat her?

I don't think that's what Lawful means.

....

I mean, seriously, I've played the "Lawful Rogue" type before. It was a ninja who was sworn into service, who followed a very specific code. Is that really so against mainstream in general? He wasn't necessarily following the laws of the area he was currently in, but he followed a certain set of laws to the letter, no exceptions, and was willing to die for that.

No, as I mentioned - those cases where Paladins meet unjust justice systems are exactly what that "Code of Honor" is there for. That class, foremost among the basic classes, has indeed its "Paladin Code", which allows them to be both Good and Lawful (and only that) even in an Evil, unjust environment.

But still, I think a Paladin ought to be Lawful enough to realize the usefulness of Law, and if a Law exists in the land, he would prefer to follow it as long as it didn't demand any compromise with his own Code. After all, most of his own thinking is along rigid laws, so he can surely appreciate "law" as the foundation of society. Then he can use, among other things, his own Charisma and shining example to try to use the law of the land to do good, even though Evil forces vie for supremacy. After all, one aspect of law is that it must always be interpreted. One way of thinking about "law" is that's it is more "Let's talk about this", and less "Never mind, I'll do this my way anyway".

The problem I have with this "Code of Honor" thing is when other, non-Paladin-classes, claim to follow one, without really establishing a credible code, without making any sacrifices to follow it, basically just naming their own decision a Code and still pretending to be "lawful". That's profoundly unimpressive in my view.

The ninja/assassin type is also a fine example, I mentioned Artemis Entreri myself. However, even here, I think sometimes "Lawful" is misinterpreted for Neutral, just because it's not Chaotic.
If you're an assassin and you "always finish a contract", I agree that's somewhat Lawful - you're the prototype of reliability for the ones hiring you. But being Lawful should require somewhat more than being just reliable, IMO. Even if you have this very classy style, all kinds of rituals and so on, you must compare this to all the ways in which you break the law of the land. If you claim to follow only the laws of the secret society you belong to, that may allow for Lawfulness - but then your involvement in that society should be very deep and make a significant contribution to your daily life.
For instance, just because you've been training with some monks previously doesn't necessarily maintain your Lawfulness.

"Lawful" and "Chaotic" describe, among other things yes, how you relate to the laws of the society you belong to. Usually, that's just "society". In some cases, it's a Brotherhood or an Order, but then you should demonstrate that your belonging is clearly more to this Order than to society, if you want to use this Order and its laws to show you're Lawful.


Well, I think at first he did keep slaves. Wasn't it until much later that he changed his view and used his reputation as a Slave Keeper to cover the fact that he switched sides?

Yay alignment shift! Character development!


I kinda doubt you can be Good under D&D definition and still be a slaveowner. Good is about caring about the dignity of sentient beings. The state of being a slave itself is pretty depersonalizing- one can't really say one would not feel emotionally hurt if you were not allowed to be free, but rather is treated as someone else's property, dehumanized.

The slave owner that you described yourself isn't really Good under D&D definition, because if he was he would realise how humiliating and undignifying, not to mention the lack of self esteem they would feel if their dignity and respect were being taken away by the laws of the land. If that person was actually Good, he would actually make actual attempts to free the slaves whilst at the same time not getting them into trouble

With due respect, now I think you're mixing up "Good" with "heroic". Being willing to sacrifice yourself, everything, isn't necessary, I think, to have the Good alignment. And in some harsh societies, even the acts you suggest for the slave owner might soon turn out to be Lawful Stupid, even to the detriment of your other slaves. If freedom isn't possible at all, isn't it "Good" to at least provide acceptable terms of living for those doomed to be slaves?


yea, I imagine if your a lawful good secret agent your code would be "in life or death situations, seek all advantages no matter what because fighting fair gives evil a chance to kill you and everyone you care about, don't give them that chance."

This might well be part of a warrior's code, I guess, but it's also an example of what I find waaay to little to constitute the "code" you could claim to adher to, when you name your character Lawful-but-still-not-obeying-the-laws-of-the-land. In fact, it would seem more like a Chaotic stance. The "no matter what" - that's profoundly Chaotic, in my view.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 01:53 PM
{Scrubbed}

Callista
2011-02-20, 01:56 PM
Quite so; evil people are capable of self-sacrifice in some situations. It's rare, but it's not impossible. Alignment's not a straitjacket.

Remember: Alignment is not something that defines who your character is. Who your character is defines his alignment. It's simply a label on his personality, not something that constrains him in any way, and changes as your character changes. Don't feel like just because you are a certain alignment, you can't do something that would be in character for your character--and if your alignment changes, then so be it; that's character development, and it's a good thing.

Personally, when I used to DM, I would not penalize anybody for changing alignment, if they did it because of real character development (rather than just "I want the shiny so I'll have my PC do something out of character to obtain it"). I've not encountered it before as a DM, but permanently losing class powers due to alignment change is something that can be easily fixed by giving the player permission to rebuild the character as a similar, non-alignment-restricted class. The barbarian who becomes lawful and loses his Rage, for example, could be rebuilt as a more disciplined soldier type--fighter or one of the many variants on it. The paladin who becomes chaotic could become a Holy Liberator or Paladin of Freedom. The bard who becomes Lawful... well, he's gonna stay a bard, because I think bards should be able to be Lawful.

In any case, I think we worry too much about staying within the bounds of our characters' alignments, and not nearly enough about staying within our characters' personalities.

I have played in games where we didn't use alignments... you would think this would solve the problem; but unfortunately, it usually just seemed to be replaced by playing your character's class instead of his personality. So it's probably not an alignment thing per se; more of a role-play thing.

Burner28
2011-02-20, 01:58 PM
With due respect, now I think you're mixing up "Good" with "heroic". Being willing to sacrifice yourself, everything, isn't necessary, I think, to have the Good alignment. And in some harsh societies, even the acts you suggest for the slave owner might soon turn out to be Lawful Stupid, even to the detriment of your other slaves. If freedom isn't possible at all, isn't it "Good" to at least provide acceptable terms of living for those doomed to be slaves?

But Good as defined by the D&D rules is about making personal sacrifices in order to do what is under the D&D rules a Good deed. Otherwise what you have here is a classic example of Nice Guy Isn't A Good Guy

Callista
2011-02-20, 02:16 PM
Yes, but personal sacrifices to do an Evil deed aren't good.

Depending on the evil character, it's not out of character for some to occasionally make personal sacrifices for Good ends. The vast majority of Evil characters are not irredeemably evil.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-20, 02:16 PM
No one is saying an evil person can't make a personal sacrifice. But who he will make them for, and in what circumstances, could be that much narrower.

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 02:18 PM
But Good as defined by the D&D rules is about making personal sacrifices in order to do what is under the D&D rules a Good deed. Otherwise what you have here is a classic example of Nice Guy Isn't A Good Guy

I stand corrected (just re-read the description in the PHB). But once again - this is primarily directed towards the player characters, a.ka. the heroes. How much sacrifice can you demand, unless the NPC is stripped of his Good alignment and shoved into Neutral? The slave owner in question would already have sacrificed a lot, compared to his peers, by treating his slaves better, spending more gold on feeding them, perhaps providing clerical services to his slaves instead of just executing those lagging behind and buying new ones.

If you demand so great sacrifices from Good characters to qualify - it would seem impossible to have - as you have - large Good-aligned, Good-dominated societies all over Faerun, with lots of Good bakers and merchants and soldiers and street cleaners - people most of the time getting along with their lives, perhaps never getting even the opportunity to do really great and good acts. But always, throughout their lives, being kind and gracious, concerned about the well-being of others, offering what little they have to spare (while still keeping what they need to florish) to those in need, etc.

If the question here is: Can a PC be a slave owner, and still be "Good" - I would probably agree with you. That would be the start of an entire quest, adventure or campaign: Freeing your own slaves, either by taking them out of the oppressive country and seek a new and free land, or by bringing down the Evil regime in that country so that all slaves may be free, or maybe work as an underground agent (like Zorro, maybe) to provide the secret anti-slavery movement in the land with weapons and other support.

Ravens_cry
2011-02-20, 02:25 PM
My Paladin of Saranrae bought slaves . . .with the explicit intention of freeing them, which he did, providing each with gold and clothes and sending them on their way. He knew, alone, he couldn't go barging into the slave market of an entire metropolis, however much he may have wanted to, that would just get him and others killed. So he worked within the system. He also knew he couldn't do it too much as that would just feed the system. But as long as he kept it below noise level, he could remove people from a life of injustice.

Mike_G
2011-02-20, 02:26 PM
I've hated Alignment since 1st edition.

The fact that it's trying to force fit subjective values into objective categories that affect game mechanics is a bad idea. The fact that it's all subjective is illustrated by the Batman in Every Square or Doctor Who in Every Square grids.

The system just isn't good for more than shorthand for a character's worldview. You can argue almost anyone into almost any square if you try hard. My Rogue was often the voice of reason and decency in the party with two "Smite em all and let St Cuthbert sort 'em out" Paladins. They objected to robbing tombs, but not to filling them. Madness.

We now play without it, and it isn't hard. Take five minutes and write whether your character respects authority or won't fight dirty or shoot prisoners or harm the innocent or whatever. Guy with "rogue" skills and a code of honor: no problem. Jack Bauer with a Smite ability: sure. Less time arguing, more actual character development.

Marnath
2011-02-20, 02:30 PM
Slavery can't be evil, because slavery is not a person. Slavery is not acting.

First you need a definition of "evil" and of "slavery".
For the sake of D&D, let's stick with "Evil is causing or allowing suffering and harm to others to gain personal benefits."
And I think a definition that most people here will agree on is "Slavery is a relationship in which one person has to work as commanded by another person, without being given the option to refuse the assignment or leaving the relationship."
Any objections to that?
*snip*


There are no words for how offensive that bit of justification is. Slavery is where one person is property, you can do so much more to a slave than demand they work. Slavery is the single worst atrocity ever committed on one person by another, and no amount of logical gymnastics can EVER justify what is one of the most evil acts you can do. It's not possible for a slave owner to be good.

If you don't believe me, do some research into actual slavery and the things that happened to slaves. It's one horror story after another.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-20, 02:37 PM
There are no words for how offensive that bit of justification is. Slavery is where one person is property, you can do so much more to a slave than demand they work. Slavery is the single worst atrocity ever committed on one person by another, and no amount of logical gymnastics can EVER justify what is one of the most evil acts you can do. It's not possible for a slave owner to be good.

If you don't believe me, do some research into actual slavery and the things that happened to slaves. It's one horror story after another.

And what are your views on indentured servitude?

Edhelras
2011-02-20, 02:38 PM
There are no words for how offensive that bit of justification is. Slavery is where one person is property, you can do so much more to a slave than demand they work. Slavery is the single worst atrocity ever committed on one person by another, and no amount of logical gymnastics can EVER justify what is one of the most evil acts you can do. It's not possible for a slave owner to be good.

If you don't believe me, do some research into actual slavery and the things that happened to slaves. It's one horror story after another.

When I read this, I came to think about Sid Meier's Civilization IV, where Slaver is one of the 5 sociatal Civs you can pick. And actually - it's treated just like you describe, in that game: After a certain point of enlightenment, slavery is banned and those civilizations clinging to it suffer diplomatic consequences.
So, it's fair to say, IMO, that Slavery is a classical game trope that should be dubbed as Evil, while as in any system, you can find people distancing themselves from it and working against it.

BUT - when reading the last paragraph, I wonder if perhaps this strong condemnation of slavery (which I suppose most people naturally can agree to) is based very much on the most well-known slavery we can relate to, that in the Americas in the 17th Century etc. There are other examples of slavery that were, maybe, not so harsh and atrocious. For instance in ancient Greece and Rome, slavery was wide-spread (I believe), but not in the form we think of it. For instance, it occurs to me that physicians in ancient Rome were often Greek slaves. They were slaves in that they were owned by the Roman patrician, not free to leave town nor establish themselves on their own, marry at will (I think?) and many other limitation. Probably, they might be beaten. But anyway their conditions of living were quite different from those of the American slaves of the Slave trade and cotton plantations, and some got even quite powerful despite technically being slaves.

If you look at Faerun, I think perhaps Thay is a typical Evil and atrocious slave state, whereas Mulhorand may perhaps have more similarities to the ancient slave states. Interestingly, the "state alignment" for Mulhorand is listed as LE, LN and LG.

hewhosaysfish
2011-02-20, 02:48 PM
a slave owner can be good, sure. but remember that societes have alignments too (as per DMG) and slavery is considered an evil trait for a society


Okay, so I have to leave RAW here and say that alignment for societies just don't work.


Where in the DMG? The Worldbuilding section in chapter 5 only assigns alignments to the "power centres" in a community. Much less crazy IMHO.

BiblioRook
2011-02-20, 04:02 PM
In my current campaign the DM likes to think of himself as 'anti-alignment' and has tried to set up the game around the deconstruction of alignments. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't seem like he's doing so just in an attempt to be 'edgy and innovative' (it's his first time DMing and needless to say he's not doing a great job).

THe odd thing is that the alignment scale he went about attacking wasn't Lawful/Chaotic but rather Good/Evil. The crazy rogue God (who is 'without alignment', despite being a lunatic that runs around in a clown persona who kills people on a wilm) we are fighting even 'cursed' the warrior in our party so that he could 'no longer comprehend Good and Evil'.

I personally never really had with the alignment scale. I agree wholeheartedly on how subjective it is, but sadly I've apparently always played with really shallow people that never seemed able or willing to truly test the depths of their characters.

THe problem I'm having with the game I'm in is how it just seems to me people are overthinking the alignment scale, it's almost as if they see it as this horrible mechanic that does nothing but constrain you character wise so they have to fight against it. The problem here is that apparently they choose their alignments first then chose how they are going to play the character... It should be the opposite! It's sort of a form of self-assessment, look at your character and look at how he or she would act in certain circumstances and judge yourself from there.

Two of the worst examples I've had to deal with was a Bard that took her 'True Neutral' alignment too seriously (in which she was completely devoid of personality so she wouldn't 'slip one way or the other' despite the fact she clearly felt inclined to act otherwise) and in this one campaign where the entire party found themselves turned into undead (but still of sound mind), so half the party (who started off Good) just arbitrarily decided to now be Evil just because 'that's what undead are'.

Then there's how people seem to take alignments always to extremes! Mostly on the Lawful/Chotic scale, but expessially when Good/Evil comes into the mix. If you are Lawful Good/Evil you must be a tyrant, if you are Chaotic Good you basically have to be a philanthropist, if you are Chaotic Evil you have to be a psychopath.
It's alot like how pigeon-holed Rogues and Clerics are in that it's not so much that the alignments don't work as much as people have built so many preconceived notions on how they should work that they can no longer consider the idea of it being played any other way.

But really, I hate people playing letting their alignments play them. People basically use it as a scape-goat as if it allows them to turn of their brain and pass off responsibility as a player as their character is now running on autopilot.
"Why did you just use a fireball in the middle of the tavern?"
"Lol, because I'm Chaotic."

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-20, 04:04 PM
The fact that it's trying to force fit subjective values into objective categories that affect game mechanics is a bad idea. The fact that it's all subjective is illustrated by the Batman in Every Square or Doctor Who in Every Square grids.


I think I've had enough of this.

First of all, some of squares in both grids are taken grossly out of context, or obvious spoofs to begin with. They aren't actually presenting the characters, or the alignments, accurately in each box.

Second, characters change, and their alignment can obviously change as well, by time. It's right there in the rules. Neither Batman or the Doctor have stayed constant throughout their lives, indeed the latter goes through explicit, literal reincarnations which differ from previous iterations. Trying to cram such long-running, mutable characters into one alignment box is obviously going to fail, because alignment doesn't work that way. You need to break their careers to smaller blocks if you want meaningful results.

Finally, much subjectivity of D&D morality is injected to it by players. If you stick to things which are clearly labeled in the rules, and accept that sometimes the results will offend your modern sensibilities, the system works just fine. Trying to disprove or undermine Alignment by bringing loads and loads of out-of-game baggage to it misses the whole point of having such a system within the game in the first place.

Amnestic
2011-02-20, 04:07 PM
"Why did you just use a fireball in the middle of the tavern?"
"Lol, because I'm Chaotic Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticStupid)."

Fixed :smallwink:

BiblioRook
2011-02-20, 04:14 PM
Fixed :smallwink:

Exactly my point, but in those situations it's not the fault of the alignment, the stupidity is entirely due to the character, regardless what they try to claim,

Callista
2011-02-20, 04:45 PM
There are no words for how offensive that bit of justification is. Slavery is where one person is property, you can do so much more to a slave than demand they work. Slavery is the single worst atrocity ever committed on one person by another, and no amount of logical gymnastics can EVER justify what is one of the most evil acts you can do. It's not possible for a slave owner to be good.

If you don't believe me, do some research into actual slavery and the things that happened to slaves. It's one horror story after another.I wouldn't say "offensive", simply incomplete. Forcing someone to work without the option to quit is part of slavery, but there's more to it than that, and not realizing that doesn't seem offensive so much as "hasn't studied slavery and its implications". So don't go jumping on people for not knowing everything...

I think I would probably disagree with slavery being the single worst atrocity. There are others that are at a similar level. It's pretty far up there, though.

The problem with defining slavery as "One person is another person's property" is that if your society doesn't have a concept of property, or has different ideas of property rights and such, then you've just changed the definition of slavery. I think you need a more general statement--probably something along the lines of "One human being given control of another human being to the extent of superseding that person's human rights," and then of course you have to define human rights...

I think it could be possible for a Good person to buy a slave under certain conditions--with the intent of protecting or freeing them, for example. There's the issue of what happens to a slave when you free them--if you don't think about that then they may end up dead and that's just bad judgment. And if you've got an entire race or species in slavery, then you've got to look at the implications of their being free in a society where all their kind are enslaved. So it's not something categorical really. You can't say "A Good person would never buy a slave." You can, however, say that "A Good person believes that a slave has the same rights as any other sentient being." That naturally leads to working to end slavery; but the situation is often pretty complicated, especially since his ultimate goal is the welfare of the enslaved people--it's not enough just to get them out of slavery.

navar100
2011-02-20, 04:52 PM
The Mafia

Ta-da!

You can also play a Lawful Good Rogue. You could be part of covert ops for your country. You could be a detective. You could just be a run-of-the-mill adventuring hero who happens to have particular abilities that require using the Rogue class.

Callista
2011-02-20, 04:53 PM
Yep, rogue is a very versatile class. It's just a skillset and you don't have to follow the fluff if you don't want to. There's nothing intrinsically chaotic about it; I've played Lawful rogues on a couple of occasions and it really didn't seem strained at all.

sonofzeal
2011-02-20, 04:54 PM
There have been different forms of slavery over the years. Some slave-masters treated their slaves well. The system as a whole has massive potential for abuse, and indeed often has taken extremely abusive forms, but that's not to presume that every man who owned slaves was cruel and malicious to them.

That said, if I met an NPC who kept slaves, I'd assume he's more towards the Evil end of the spectrum.

Lord Raziere
2011-02-20, 05:09 PM
This might well be part of a warrior's code, I guess, but it's also an example of what I find waaay to little to constitute the "code" you could claim to adher to, when you name your character Lawful-but-still-not-obeying-the-laws-of-the-land. In fact, it would seem more like a Chaotic stance. The "no matter what" - that's profoundly Chaotic, in my view.

"I need to stem chaos from breaking out no matter what."

Sine
2011-02-20, 05:14 PM
Sounds fine to me. But then, I find all (with the possible exception of the Druid) core alignment restrictions silly.
Me too, and I even include paladins and druids. Why do so many devs and DMs feel the need to tell me how to play my character?

Serpentine
2011-02-20, 10:30 PM
There are no words for how offensive that bit of justification is. Slavery is where one person is property, you can do so much more to a slave than demand they work. Slavery is the single worst atrocity ever committed on one person by another, and no amount of logical gymnastics can EVER justify what is one of the most evil acts you can do. It's not possible for a slave owner to be good.I sort of agree with your first part, but not at all with the last.
For the first, there are different sorts of slavery. Indentured servitude, for example, or slavery-as-punishment. There's slaves as a specific class of people, and there's slaves as prisoners of war. There's temporary slavery and there's slavery for life and there's slavery of different degrees of cruelty...

As I already said, I agree that almost all types of slavery is evil. But I cannot agree that merely being a slave-owning member of a slave-owning society means you are Evil. You are performing an Evil act, and there's an excellent chance I'd rule that you can't be, say, Exalted, but one single act or aspect of character does not an entire alignment make.

Ozymandias
2011-02-20, 10:57 PM
At the core the alignment system isn't so much a "the way things are" as "the way things work." Is raising undead Evil? The laws of magic/the gods say so. Does this make it morally unjustifiable? Probably not.

Killing kobolds because they have the evil tag isn't a capital Evil act in that it doesn't makes detect evil ping you. It's something that would be considered evil in our world, if we apply our standards of morality to it, but this is completely separate.

Of course, people in D&D could come to the same conclusions that modern society have, but the fact that Good is correlated with saving babies 99% of the time probably makes it difficult for skeptical philosophy to come about. Plus, it's all based on medieval theocracy anyway.

Of course, there are circumstances where this doesn't work so well (such as restricting nonmagical classes to certain alignments) but that's just design flaws, really.

MeeposFire
2011-02-20, 11:06 PM
Oddly thieves/rogues could always be lawful except lawful good 9until 3e where lawful good became an option). So even if your DM is from old school D&D they should be fine with lawful thieves.

Callista
2011-02-21, 12:02 AM
Killing kobolds because they have the evil tag isn't a capital Evil act in that it doesn't makes detect evil ping you. It's something that would be considered evil in our world, if we apply our standards of morality to it, but this is completely separate.Except that D&D is pretty much built on modern standards of morality to define Good... so, yes, it's evil to kill a random evil kobold who isn't hurting anybody. It comes up pretty often in the rule books.

For example:
"...the mere existence of evil orcs is not a just cause for war against them, if the orcs have been causing no harm."
--Book of Exalted Deeds


Of course, people in D&D could come to the same conclusions that modern society have, but the fact that Good is correlated with saving babies 99% of the time probably makes it difficult for skeptical philosophy to come about. Plus, it's all based on medieval theocracy anyway.It actually isn't. It's based much, much more on Tolkien's Middle-earth than on the historical Middle Ages; and while Tolkien's orcs were Always Evil, his elves, men, and halflings varied much more (with good, neutral, and evil specimens existing from all three races).

As for it being a theocracy--well, it's polytheistic, and that changes everything. Gods are no longer omnipotent. They can even die. They don't determine morality (though they may exemplify it). And that's just the beginning. We have male/female equality in many cultures; we have multiple species; we have gods that are active and involved, in many cases. It's just not as simple as saying, "Oh, it's like the Middle Ages." It's not.

Ozymandias
2011-02-21, 12:14 AM
Except that D&D is built on modern standards of morality to define Good... so, yes, it's evil.

Necromancy isn't evil in real life, for fairly obvious reasons. Even if it were (and, say, it existed) it wouldn't be so because Pelor says so, or at least most people wouldn't accept that as a reasonable justification.


It actually isn't. It's based on a fantasy world in which morality works differently than it did in medieval times; it's based much, much more on Tolkien's Middle-earth than on the historical Middle Ages. As for it being a theocracy--well, it's polytheistic, and that changes everything. Gods are no longer omnipotent. They can even die. They don't determine morality (though they may exemplify it). And that's just the beginning. We have male/female equality in many cultures; we have multiple species; we have gods that are active and involved, in many cases. It's just not as simple as saying, "Oh, it's like the Middle Ages." It's not.

The world it is based on and the world it portrays are different things. I'm not trying to insinuate that it's just a carbon-copy of 14th century Europe. Rather, I'm referring to the idea that it's generally materialistic and un-intellectual, with most people being famers or fishermen or adventurers or whatever outside of big cities despite the fact that magic should probably shake that up a bit.

Philosophers (at least, those concerned with nonmagical metaphysics or ethics) don't seem particularly common, just like how "theology" and "philosophy" tended to refer to the same thing for quite a while in Western Europe. The smarties become Wizards, and the sages become Clerics. It's possible that there are a bunch of 16 Int Experts with Skill Focus (Meta-ethics) but they don't play a very big part in determining the way most people act.

Serpentine
2011-02-21, 12:19 AM
Necromancy isn't evil in real life, for fairly obvious reasons. Even if it were (and, say, it existed) it wouldn't be so because Pelor says so, or at least most people wouldn't accept that as a reasonable justification.Some people do believe in it or something similar, and it's pretty generally considered evil amongst such people.
In-game, I wouldn't necessarily consider it Evil - or at least I wouldn't necessarily consider someone who practices it Evil. And - although it's disproportionately so (which I sometimes disagree with) - not all spells in the Necromancy school are Evil.

Callista
2011-02-21, 01:03 AM
Necromancy isn't evil in real life, for fairly obvious reasons. Even if it were (and, say, it existed) it wouldn't be so because Pelor says so, or at least most people wouldn't accept that as a reasonable justification.But Pelor hasn't got much to do with it. Alignment is an independent thing--it's not determined by the gods; it's more like a force of nature, or an element, or a power. Gods have alignments, too; and gods can change alignments. Alignments are hooked to their respective planes, more than anything; and when you change alignments, you move metaphysically closer to one plane or another. That's why you end up in an appropriate afterlife--when your body's not holding you down any longer, you naturally are attracted to another plane, unless your connection to your deity's plane is stronger (and even then, your deity's plane is likely aligned, and your alignment will be pulling you toward that too).

Think of alignments as being a quality of souls. A sentient soul naturally has an alignment just like matter naturally creates gravitational force... You know how we say "the laws of physics"? It's a lot like that. They're not laws set down by a ruler nor written down in a book somewhere and enforced by cosmic cops--they're simply the way the world works. Alignment is part of the way the D&D multiverse works.

Techsmart
2011-02-21, 01:31 AM
People assume rogues, by name and function, are gonna be thieves. If you check out pathfinder, I think that's the best one that explains rogues who can be in a lawful alignment. The Investigator, scout, spy, and trapsmith rogue templates in the advanced players guide are good examples of rogues that are very good at being lawful.

Edhelras
2011-02-21, 05:33 AM
Except that D&D is pretty much built on modern standards of morality to define Good... so, yes, it's evil to kill a random evil kobold who isn't hurting anybody. It comes up pretty often in the rule books.

For example:
"...the mere existence of evil orcs is not a just cause for war against them, if the orcs have been causing no harm."
--Book of Exalted Deeds

But this is made more complicated than that: Actually, most or all orcs, kobold and their like are actually causing harm. They're a constant threat to the sivilized world, and if they haven't come swarming the little village already, they sure will do so in the near future.

They're evil to the heart, they're destructive just to destroy. And the underlying reason here is that they exist just to fill this role in the role-playing game: They're the ones who are there to be slaughtered by Good-aligned characters without penalty. It's a lousy job, sure. And it's totally unbelieveable, from a RL point of view. But in a game, it works quite fine.

I don't know how you play, but in-game, can you really take the time to get to know each wandering monster you encounter? If you do, at least you're playing a "RP-heavy" variant of DnD.

In RL I'm actually a pacifist (heh, I once heard that in latin american that's translated as cowardo..) and one important point for me is this: How can you actually know, until the other guy actually has fired his gun, that he really is gonna shoot you? Even though the other guy is wearing the uniform of the enemy, and you know that people wearing that uniform have killed your allies or even shot at you, how can you know about this particular guy that you're aiming your gun at? This was very movingly described in a great film by Elem Klimov "Come and see" (1985).

I'm sorry if this brings RL moralities into DnD alignment discussions - exactly what I think makes the DnD alingment appear "broken" - but with this way of looking at another armed fellow, all soldiers, even "our" soldiers, might appear to do "Evil" acts and risk being drawn into Evil - if you could use DnD alingment on real-life moralities and vice versa.

But for most people in RL, I guess, the simplification that "those are our enemies, it's OK to kill them because we expect them to try and kills us and our allies" is widely accepted (I'm the strange one because I object). Based on this, I find it very peculiar that so many people, in DnD alignment discussions, have qualms about Good characters slaughtering monsters of Evil alignment. All right, killing babies and young ones, killing injured or defenseless creatures - that's never OK. But attacking an armed orc without trying to parley, that's completely compatible with "Good" as I see it.

Despite the citiation from the Book of Exalted deeds. For in the extremely dynamic and conflict-abundant DnD environment (just think of the multitude of Random Encounters generated per day of travelling, on those charts) it's almost unrealistic that a tribe of orcs can exist for a long period of time, without actually proving to be a threat to the good guys...

BayardSPSR
2011-02-21, 06:20 AM
After some thought, I have a question or two:

Do you think the camp-based Alignment system might be connected to the fact that the earliest D&D rules were modified from a wargame? After all, there are other elements of that still exiting through the editions (spells as ammunition, levels, dungeons, and even classes). My instinct is that it is.

Perhaps more importantly: do you think these wargame holdovers reduce D&D's utility as a (taken more literally) Role-Playing Game (since role-playing was not the intention behind the rules as they began)?

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 07:11 AM
But this is made more complicated than that: Actually, most or all orcs, kobold and their like are actually causing harm. They're a constant threat to the sivilized world, and if they haven't come swarming the little village already, they sure will do so in the near future.

They're evil to the heart, they're destructive just to destroy. And the underlying reason here is that they exist just to fill this role in the role-playing game: They're the ones who are there to be slaughtered by Good-aligned characters without penalty. It's a lousy job, sure. And it's totally unbelieveable, from a RL point of view. But in a game, it works quite fine.

This might have been the case in early D&D- but later on, it tended to move away from this, with "Usually X Evil" or "Often X Evil"

And, in Eberron Campaign Setting (and several others) there was an

"Evil does not automatically mean "deserves to be attacked on sight"

trend- so good characters who attacked beings simply for detecting as Evil- might be murderers.

Ozymandias
2011-02-21, 09:35 AM
But Pelor hasn't got much to do with it. Alignment is an independent thing--it's not determined by the gods; it's more like a force of nature, or an element, or a power. Gods have alignments, too; and gods can change alignments. Alignments are hooked to their respective planes, more than anything; and when you change alignments, you move metaphysically closer to one plane or another. That's why you end up in an appropriate afterlife--when your body's not holding you down any longer, you naturally are attracted to another plane, unless your connection to your deity's plane is stronger (and even then, your deity's plane is likely aligned, and your alignment will be pulling you toward that too).

Think of alignments as being a quality of souls. A sentient soul naturally has an alignment just like matter naturally creates gravitational force... You know how we say "the laws of physics"? It's a lot like that. They're not laws set down by a ruler nor written down in a book somewhere and enforced by cosmic cops--they're simply the way the world works. Alignment is part of the way the D&D multiverse works.

This is my point, with one caveat - you can't say that an action is morally justified just because it aligns with the laws of nature. Why should some nonsentient mystical energy do a better job of deciding what is "right" than logical thinking beings?

Sine
2011-02-21, 09:42 AM
This is my point, with one caveat - you can't say that an action is morally justified just because it aligns with the laws of nature. Why should some nonsentient mystical energy do a better job of deciding what is "right" than logical thinking beings?
Because the mystical Goodness is sentient, and the logical thinking beings you refer to [us] are by nature not purely logical?

That's my take.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 09:53 AM
"Evil does not automatically mean "deserves to be attacked on sight"

trend- so good characters who attacked beings simply for detecting as Evil- are murderers.
FTFY. The unprovoked killing of individuals who are not apparently causing harm to another being would constitute murder, whether they detect as evil or not.
For instance: Joe Schmoe the Evil Overlord(TM) is drinking at a local bar, not particularly paying attention to anyone. The party comes in, with their stick-up-the-rear (paladin, if you didn't get the reference) detecting for evil. Joe Schmoe pings as evil, the party slays him out of hand. Murder. Plain and simple. The paladin falls, the party is arrested, end of story.

Ozymandias
2011-02-21, 10:03 AM
Because the mystical Goodness is sentient, and the logical thinking beings you refer to [us] are by nature not purely logical?

That's my take.

There's no reason to believe that magic is sentient; it's a law of nature, as brought up.

Even if it is, there's no reason to accept its judgments when they aren't substantiated. "I can smite you" is not exactly a good argument (although it may change the tone of the debate somewhat).

Also, philosophers are generally very good at logic, certainly better than Mystra or whoever.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-21, 10:17 AM
This is my point, with one caveat - you can't say that an action is morally justified just because it aligns with the laws of nature. Why should some nonsentient mystical energy do a better job of deciding what is "right" than logical thinking beings?
*sigh* This is what I ranted against earlier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10413527&postcount=92). Within the game world, "right" and "wrong" are quantifable measures. There is no distinction between "subjective" and "objective" morality that would justify argument like yours within the game universe. For the system to work, you have to accept this core premise. It doesn't matter what your own sensibilities say about the matter - within the game, act labeled good by the cosmic laws of good, is good in every sense of the word, and the same goes for opposite.


For instance: Joe Schmoe the Evil Overlord(TM) is drinking at a local bar, not particularly paying attention to anyone. The party comes in, with their stick-up-the-rear (paladin, if you didn't get the reference) detecting for evil. Joe Schmoe pings as evil, the party slays him out of hand. Murder. Plain and simple. The paladin falls, the party is arrested, end of story.
Yup. The correct way for Paladin detecting evil would be to investigate for potential crime or evil deeds, arrest the subject and hand them over to authorities, or if nothing nasty is going on, trying to talk the evil person to changing their ways.

"Pre-emptive violence" in general is rarely good or even lawful.

Lord Raziere
2011-02-21, 10:20 AM
But for most people in RL, I guess, the simplification that "those are our enemies, it's OK to kill them because we expect them to try and kills us and our allies" is widely accepted (I'm the strange one because I object). Based on this, I find it very peculiar that so many people, in DnD alignment discussions, have qualms about Good characters slaughtering monsters of Evil alignment. All right, killing babies and young ones, killing injured or defenseless creatures - that's never OK. But attacking an armed orc without trying to parley, that's completely compatible with "Good" as I see it.


beh, the people who do that I rate as True Neutral or Lawful Neutral cause they don't do all they can to save as much lives as possible, my definition of Good would be to try and negotiate with them first. if that didn't work, infiltrate and find the good orcs among the evil ones and help them stage a coup so that the good orcs rule and change the evil orcs to the path of goodness. if that didn't work, then then I'd be forced to kill all the armed orcs, but I wouldn't be happy with it and I don't really see it as the best I could've done. I'd then go to the innocents and such and tell them to please change your ways, to stop the violence from perpetuating.

the people who just play to get loot and exp? they're chaotic evil. nothing more.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 10:26 AM
FTFY. The unprovoked killing of individuals who are not apparently causing harm to another being would constitute murder, whether they detect as evil or not.
For instance: Joe Schmoe the Evil Overlord(TM) is drinking at a local bar, not particularly paying attention to anyone. The party comes in, with their stick-up-the-rear (paladin, if you didn't get the reference) detecting for evil. Joe Schmoe pings as evil, the party slays him out of hand. Murder. Plain and simple. The paladin falls, the party is arrested, end of story.

Agreed. Though BoVD does argue that the unprovoked killing of "beings of consummate, irredeemable evil, such as chromatic dragons", purely out of a desire for their wealth, would

"not be an evil act, though it's not a good act, for it still prevents the being from preying on the innocent".

And goes so far as to say "Killing a fiend is always a good act. Allowing one to exist, let alone helping it in any way, is clearly evil".

I prefer Savage Species's "even fiends can be redeemable, victims of their own psychoses" take. (in the "Chaotic-Accepting" campaign model)

BoVD seemed like a bit of a retrograde step in that respect- compared to other 3.0 and 3.5 sources.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 10:30 AM
I prefer Savage Species's "even fiends can be redeemable, victims of their own psychoses" take. (in the "Chaotic-Accepting" campaign model)Agreed. Succubus Paladin, anyone?

faceroll
2011-02-21, 10:36 AM
There have been different forms of slavery over the years. Some slave-masters treated their slaves well. The system as a whole has massive potential for abuse, and indeed often has taken extremely abusive forms, but that's not to presume that every man who owned slaves was cruel and malicious to them.

That said, if I met an NPC who kept slaves, I'd assume he's more towards the Evil end of the spectrum.

I see slave ownership as extremely lawful, but it's what you do to your slaves that makes it good or evil. Of course, as an extremely chaos aligned person, I would also have the same inclination as you.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 10:39 AM
Question is- if one runs a campaign in somewhere like Sigil or Union (where fiends and celestials alike are accepted as customers as long as they don't misbehave-

is having the character Fall (and be charged with murder- and gain 5 Corruption points) for killing fiends who are not attacking others- reasonable, or should "murder" be redefined to exclude killing even peacable fiends?

I suspect some would argue that fiend-killing should never count as Murder by the rules.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 10:44 AM
Question is- if one runs a campaign in somewhere like Sigil or Union (where fiends and celestials alike are accepted as customers as long as they don't misbehave-

is having the character Fall (and be charged with murder- and gain 5 Corruption points) for killing fiends who are not attacking others- reasonable, or should "murder" be redefined to exclude killing even peacable fiends?

I suspect some would argue that fiend-killing should never count as Murder by the rules.However, in a place like Union or Sigil, where fiends are accepted members of society, it is murder, by legal standards. Perhaps it is still a good act, but it is definitely not lawful. Either way, that is one fallen paladin.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 10:48 AM
The tricky part is which take precedence- legal standards or "moral standards"?

In Fiendish Codex 2, Murder is a Corrupt act- which art acts which can send Lawful individuals to Baator after death.

However- for some, "Murder" in D&D is entirely a moral issue- and a paladin who "Murders" (legally speaking) a villain, might not qualify as having "murdered" them in the D&D sense- and might not Fall (unless the DM defines the act as a gross breach of the code).

faceroll
2011-02-21, 10:53 AM
I've always seen murder as unlawful killing. A paladin, by his own semantic set, is incapable of murder, should he always kill within his deity's parameters of lawful killing. He can, of course, be guilty of murder in whatever nation he's in.


However, in a place like Union or Sigil, where fiends are accepted members of society, it is murder, by legal standards. Perhaps it is still a good act, but it is definitely not lawful. Either way, that is one fallen paladin.

Is a Paladin required to make sacrifices to Hextor every Sunday when he's in Baator?

If a paladin slays 100 sleeping red dragons, does he fall?

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 10:56 AM
The tricky part is which take precedence- legal standards or "moral standards"?

In Fiendish Codex 2, Murder is a Corrupt act- which art acts which can send Lawful individuals to Baator after death.

However- for some, "Murder" in D&D is entirely a moral issue- and a paladin who "Murders" (legally speaking) a villain, might not qualify as having "murdered" them in the D&D sense- and might not Fall (unless the DM defines the act as a gross breach of the code).I take into account both aspects of alignment when determining whether a paladin falls. "Respect for authority" is part of the Law/Chaos axis, which is just as important for maintaining a Lawful Good alignment. Respecting authority means following the laws of the land (as long as they are fair and just) even if you don't personally agree with them (IMO).

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-21, 11:00 AM
I'd argue fiend killing is at worst Neutral on Good-Evil axis, as Fiends are Evil incarnate even when their actual alignment is something else.

However, I agree with dsmiles - respecting and acting within the limits of law is part of being a Paladin too. So if law dictates a fiend should not be killed and Paladin does not have other reasons to do violence to them, the Paladin should stay his blade.

aart lover
2011-02-21, 11:00 AM
*Clears throat*...

http://punxter.com/pics/G/RPL.jpg

:smallbiggrin:


EDIT: Damn! So many ninjas. I guess this is a Rogues and Batman thread, though... :smalltongue:

BATMAN

he doesn't like chocolate srry, just had to say it:smallbiggrin:. but really, you raise a good point. if u ask me, the whole alignment restrictions on classes is a little flawed. but you're absolutely right, a rogue CAN be lawful if play properly(which is kinda hard to do, believe me, i've tried).

faceroll
2011-02-21, 11:06 AM
However, I agree with dsmiles - respecting and acting within the limits of law is part of being a Paladin too. So if law dictates a fiend should not be killed and Paladin does not have other reasons to do violence to them, the Paladin should stay his blade.

I can see this only if the paladin's actions in slaying the fiend would lead to a greater amount of chaos or evil in the system. Letting a fiend live simply due to local bureaucracy seems like the corrupt sort of act that eventually leads to Baator.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 11:13 AM
In this case it wouldn't be "local bureaucracy" but the fact that the society has "absolute respect for the rights of the individual".

The "fiends are Evil incarnate" description may fit BoVD- but not Planescape Torment, or the aforementioned Succubus paladin.

Fiends incorporating a large amount of Evil energy in their physical makeup- I could see- but not to the extent of being "totally made of evil".

After all, they can change alignment- and if lucky, they can survive that ritual in Savage Species that removes the Evil subtype from a being.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-21, 11:15 AM
I can see this only if the paladin's actions in slaying the fiend would lead to a greater amount of chaos or evil in the system. Letting a fiend live simply due to local bureaucracy seems like the corrupt sort of act that eventually leads to Baator.

Yes, but remember that [Evil] subtype most Fiends have means that simple Detect Evil is not reliable method of telling what their actual alignment is. So if law says a fiend should not be slain outright, the Paladin should make sure there are no extenuating circumstances that justify the Fiend's existence before taking up arms.

A good example would be the Succubus Paladin. Seeing such a creature in a King's court should ring alarm bells on any Paladin - but if a sufficiently high authority (say, pope-equivalent of the Paladin's own faith) says that the Succubus is not to be harmed, the Paladin should listen until further information is gained. Otherwise, his rash actions will not only violate law, but destroy a fellow paladin.

faceroll
2011-02-21, 11:21 AM
Yes, but remember that [Evil] subtype most Fiends have means that simple Detect Evil is not reliable method of telling what their actual alignment is. So if law says a fiend should not be slain outright, the Paladin should make sure there are no extenuating circumstances that justify the Fiend's existence.

As a paladin, I would rather risk the minute chance I would fall in slaying a fiend, rather than start playing sleuth to figure out if the DM was ****ing with me. The cost in doing nothing, otherwise, is too high. And if I fall, then I seek atonement. And St. Cuthbert is totally cool, so he'll be like "yeah, crack those demon skulls," then we brograb and it's all good.


A good example would be the Succubus Paladin. Seeing such a creature in a King's court should ring alarm bells on any Paladin - but if a sufficiently high authority (say, pope-equivalent of the Paladin's own faith) says that the Succubus is not to be harmed, the Paladin should listen until further information is gained. Otherwise, his rash actions will not only violate law, but destroy a fellow paladin.

Sure, if his pope's like "hey, she's cool", sure. But then, that's within the church stuff and he's following their own internal laws.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 11:33 AM
I can see this only if the paladin's actions in slaying the fiend would lead to a greater amount of chaos or evil in the system. Letting a fiend live simply due to local bureaucracy seems like the corrupt sort of act that eventually leads to Baator.
Emphasis mine.
Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should.

"Chaos" implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them.

Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a normal respect for authority and feels neither a compulsion to obey nor a compulsion to rebel. She is honest but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.

Devotion to law or chaos may be a conscious choice, but more often it is a personality trait that is recognized rather than being chosen. Neutrality on the lawful-chaotic axis is usually simply a middle state, a state of not feeling compelled toward one side or the other. Some few such neutrals, however, espouse neutrality as superior to law or chaos, regarding each as an extreme with its own blind spots and drawbacks.

Animals and other creatures incapable of moral action are neutral. Dogs may be obedient and cats free-spirited, but they do not have the moral capacity to be truly lawful or chaotic.
Lawful Good, "Crusader":
A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Killing a fiend out of hand in a society that allows fiends to exist as part of said society solely because they are evil is following one's own conscience, which, by the SRD is a marker of being chaotic. Lawful Good paladins must remain both Lawful and Good in order to maintain their abilities as a paladin. Respect for authority is right there in the description of being lawful. A "commitment to oppose evil" does not necessarily involve killing. There are other ways to oppose things. Yes, you may hate to see the fiend go unpunished, however you are bound by your lawful alignment to act within the confines of the law. Thus, killing a fiend out of hand in Sigil or Union is a chaotic act, and leads to another fallen paladin.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-21, 11:34 AM
As a paladin, I would rather risk the minute chance I would fall in slaying a fiend, rather than start playing sleuth to figure out if the DM was ****ing with me. The cost in doing nothing, otherwise, is too high. And if I fall, then I seek atonement. And St. Cuthbert is totally cool, so he'll be like "yeah, crack those demon skulls," then we brograb and it's all good.
I shoud note there's a magic item called Phylactery of Faith that allows the Paladin to directly ask a deity whether ann action would lead to fall. There are also loads of fairly available divining spells that allow a Pally to cover his bases in a timely manner to ensure that killing or banishing the fiend is, indeed, a reasonable thing to do.

A Paladin can also easily have non-violent methods of defusing any threat a fiend might pose, to give him chance to examine or even redeem the thing.

Worrying about whether the DM is screwing with you is taking it one step too far. You only need to worry about whether the fiend is fooling someone. That kind of detective work is par for the course when playing a smart Paladin.

Edhelras
2011-02-21, 11:41 AM
*sigh* This is what I ranted against earlier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10413527&postcount=92). Within the game world, "right" and "wrong" are quantifable measures. There is no distinction between "subjective" and "objective" morality that would justify argument like yours within the game universe. For the system to work, you have to accept this core premise. It doesn't matter what your own sensibilities say about the matter - within the game, act labeled good by the cosmic laws of good, is good in every sense of the word, and the same goes for opposite.

I just have to say again: Exactly.


Yup. The correct way for Paladin detecting evil would be to investigate for potential crime or evil deeds, arrest the subject and hand them over to authorities, or if nothing nasty is going on, trying to talk the evil person to changing their ways.

Which is Paladin's are actually Lawful. They abide by the Law. Unless it's clearly unjust, then they follow their Code. Falling isn't just abide Evil, is it?

Callista
2011-02-21, 01:50 PM
But this is made more complicated than that: Actually, most or all orcs, kobold and their like are actually causing harm. They're a constant threat to the sivilized world, and if they haven't come swarming the little village already, they sure will do so in the near future. They're evil to the heart, they're destructive just to destroy.That might be true if they were always evil, but they're not. There are nearly as many evil humans as there are evil kobolds, orcs, etc. (Humans "have no alignment tendency", so they are 1/3rd Evil, 1/3rd Neutral, 1/3rd Good. Elves or Dwarves, with their CG and LG tendencies respectively, might say the same thing about humans as humans say about orcs or kobolds.)


And the underlying reason here is that they exist just to fill this role in the role-playing game: They're the ones who are there to be slaughtered by Good-aligned characters without penalty. It's a lousy job, sure. And it's totally unbelieveable, from a RL point of view. But in a game, it works quite fine.

I don't know how you play, but in-game, can you really take the time to get to know each wandering monster you encounter? If you do, at least you're playing a "RP-heavy" variant of DnD.Well, yes. If the wandering monster doesn't attack me right away, most of the characters I play (and all of the Good-aligned ones) will greet him, ask what the roads are like further on, and pass by peacefully. I don't see how that's "RP-heavy". It's more like "role-playing at all".

it's almost unrealistic that a tribe of orcs can exist for a long period of time, without actually proving to be a threat to the good guys...Same is true of neighboring human kingdoms. Humans get into fights all the time. Wait fifty years, wait a hundred years; there'll be a battle eventually. Yes, the fighting is inevitable. Orcs aren't irredeemable, though; and it's possible to live in peace for a long time in between the fighting, and for lots of young orcs and young humans to grow up in safety. Diplomacy is not ineffective on orcs (though it may involve a lot more arm-wrestling than usual); neither are orcs impervious to the idea that "If we both benefit from something, it might make sense to do it."


Do you think the camp-based Alignment system might be connected to the fact that the earliest D&D rules were modified from a wargame? After all, there are other elements of that still exiting through the editions (spells as ammunition, levels, dungeons, and even classes). My instinct is that it is.Absolutely. D&D started as a wargame, back when people didn't have a concept of "tabletop role-playing game". It's possible to ignore role-playing and use it as little more than a board game, if you want to; but you do so at the cost of having realistic characters and realistic enemies.


This is my point, with one caveat - you can't say that an action is morally justified just because it aligns with the laws of nature. Why should some nonsentient mystical energy do a better job of deciding what is "right" than logical thinking beings?I wouldn't say nonsentient. You know how, after you die, you blend into your aligned plane after a few thousand or million years, usually? That's what makes up that alignment. It's not "nonsentient" so much as "all the Good-aligned people who have ever gone before you and made moral decisions and interacted with others and changed the world"... Alignment is a basic property of the souls of sentient creatures.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 02:31 PM
That might be true if they were always evil, but they're not. There are nearly as many evil humans as there are evil kobolds, orcs, etc. (Humans "have no alignment tendency", so they are 1/3rd Evil, 1/3rd Neutral, 1/3rd Good. Elves or Dwarves, with their CG and LG tendencies respectively, might say the same thing about humans as humans say about orcs or kobolds.

The PHB table which shows 9 alignments, and some races/classes for which the alignment is typical, had humans for TN- so it's possible that it's slightly commoner than other alignments, while still not common enough to say that humans have a clear alignment tendency.

That said, the point is pretty sound.

Even within, say "usually Lawful Evil"- there is variation as to how much is inborn, and how much cultural- the PHB gives kobolds and beholders as the examples- alignment is much more due to culture, in kobolds, than it is for beholders.

Ozymandias
2011-02-21, 02:59 PM
*sigh* This is what I ranted against earlier (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10413527&postcount=92). Within the game world, "right" and "wrong" are quantifable measures. There is no distinction between "subjective" and "objective" morality that would justify argument like yours within the game universe. For the system to work, you have to accept this core premise. It doesn't matter what your own sensibilities say about the matter - within the game, act labeled good by the cosmic laws of good, is good in every sense of the word, and the same goes for opposite.

Good and Evil exist in D&D objectively; I have no argument with that. Whether Good is morally right or Evil is morally wrong is still an open question, in and outside of the game.

Within the game world, it makes sense that people would generally accept the universe's judgments... but it also makes sense that some people wouldn't. And they'd be Evil. And consider themselves good.

These aren't "my sensibilities," rather a more or less elementary logical objection.

hamishspence
2011-02-21, 03:15 PM
Good and Evil exist in D&D objectively; I have no argument with that. Whether Good is morally right or Evil is morally wrong is still an open question, in and outside of the game.

Within the game world, it makes sense that people would generally accept the universe's judgments... but it also makes sense that some people wouldn't. And they'd be Evil. And consider themselves good.

These aren't "my sensibilities," rather a more or less elementary logical objection.

That's pretty much what Champions of Ruin states outright- not everyone who is evil aligned, will believe themselves to be evil aligned.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 03:17 PM
That's pretty much what Champions of Ruin states outright- not everyone who is evil aligned, will believe themselves to be evil aligned.I certainly enjoy the "misguided savior" trope for villains.

Rasman
2011-02-21, 03:27 PM
*Clears throat*...

http://punxter.com/pics/G/RPL.jpg

:smallbiggrin:


EDIT: Damn! So many ninjas. I guess this is a Rogues and Batman thread, though... :smalltongue:

well played...well...played...

but still...I have to agree, Rogues are pigeonholed quite easily into the cutthroat stereotype, but it's quite easy to play around it

Heck, right now I'm playing a LG Rogue Sniper, he's techincally True Neutral because I have a general dislike of playing LG, but his OUTWARD personality is LG

Batman is a good example though, because what you appear to be and what you really believe can be two totally different things.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-21, 03:58 PM
Good and Evil exist in D&D objectively; I have no argument with that. Whether Good is morally right or Evil is morally wrong is still an open question, in and outside of the game.

Within the game world, it makes sense that people would generally accept the universe's judgments... but it also makes sense that some people wouldn't. And they'd be Evil. And consider themselves good.

These aren't "my sensibilities," rather a more or less elementary logical objection.

Okay, seems like I misinterpreted your argument slightly. I agree with your conclusion, though I find your reasoning shaky still. I'm not coming up with a good idea how to discuss the issue, unfortunately.

Edhelras
2011-02-21, 05:16 PM
I never understood the Batman issue with DnD alignment system. All right - you can show him to fit with all 9 alignments. What does that show, other than perhaps that Batman is a poorly written character?
Alternatively - I don't know Batman much so I cannot tell -that he's written very good, and that those different alignment illustrates the depth of his personality, and character development, and the difference between his outward and his inner persona.

After all - looking at another Superhero - Elminster (who I like less the more I get to know him...) - he too can be quite hard to place alignment-wise, if you read all the books about him.
I think it's hard to keep one protagonist in a very epic and grand-scale story in the same alignment for a length of time. It would put too tight reins on the author, and become boring to readers/spectators.

But neither Batman nor Elminster are what I envision as ideals for playing a PC. They're too grand.

Reverent-One
2011-02-21, 05:19 PM
I never understood the Batman issue with DnD alignment system. All right - you can show him to fit with all 9 alignments. What does that show, other than perhaps that Batman is a poorly written character?

That Batman hates chocolate ice cream.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 05:20 PM
That Batman hates chocolate ice cream.Which happens to be a heinous offense no matter what alignment you are. :smallfurious: (:smallwink:)

KnightDisciple
2011-02-21, 05:25 PM
Actually, what's really happening is that several of those frames (mostly the Evil alignment ones) contain quotes taken out of context, or (in the case of Chaotic Evil) a picture devoid of context (where that ice cream is deadly poison, and that kick saved that man's life by preventing him from ingesting any). In fact, several of those quotes are from what amount to Alternate Universe stories, or are from other characters.

At his core, on his best, most consistent portrayal, I'd argue Batman is Lawful Good. He not only has a "personal code", he actively works to help reinforce the existing law and order of Gotham. Remember, when he started out, Jim Gordon was probably one of only a very few non-corrupt cops in the whole city. Nowadays, he's generally working with the police, and it's basically a friendly-ish arrangement of mutual back-scratching (especially when Gordon's in charge). So, yeah, that's the Lawful part, and the Good part is his devotion to helping others. Remember, the oath he swore was, essentially, that he would help protect other innocent children from going through his pain. He shows mercy on more occasions than one, and suffers countless scars because he refuses to kill. He's been repeatedly willing to sacrifice himself to help and protect others. That's the Good part.

As for Rogues being Lawful...You don't even need to consider Sneak Attack "dirty fighting". Just consider it "knowing where best to stab things when they're distracted". It's knowing how best to put pointy things in squishy things. That's all. You could easily make a Rogue into something like a Medieval Navy SEAL or whatnot.

Amnestic
2011-02-21, 05:27 PM
Alternatively - I don't know Batman much so I cannot tell -that he's written very good, and that those different alignment illustrates the depth of his personality, and character development, and the difference between his outward and his inner persona.

Batman is a character who has persisted for 70+ years (1939->2011) and has gone through numerous incarnations, changes, dozens upon dozens of writers and editors, and crossed ages of comics.

I think the idea that you'd ever have a coherent character which fits snugly into one alignment given that is insane. Comparing the Batman of Adam West to the Batman of Michael Keaton alone shows huge disparities which may as well be explicit alternate universes.

Callista
2011-02-21, 06:32 PM
My first lawful rogue was an honorable swashbuckling sort of character who first served as a scout/spy for the military. She was a very unassuming-seeming sort of halfling with high charisma and dexterity. Her primary source of sneak attacks was feinting in combat with a rapier, which worked very well because we were fighting mostly humanoids. There were some surprise attacks--but these were against enemies in a declared war, and thus my honorable character had no objection to them. She would not have been happy about surprise attacks otherwise, though the other side of her alignment--Good--would have persuaded her into them if necessary to save lives.

This particular character eventually multiclassed into Paladin, though nothing like the traditional paladin--she actually had a strength penalty and never wore more than light armor--but I made good use of Bluff (for feinting), Diplomacy (obvious uses--including gaining allies while behind enemy lines), and Use Magic Device. That with the paladin save bonus made my character the sort of character who just never gets hit to begin with.

So, yeah, a charismatic Lawful rogue makes an absolutely wonderful scout, spy, or duelist. If you just get rid of your preconceived ideas about what rogues are "supposed" to be like and just look at the skill set, you realize you can do a lot with them.

The second time I played a Lawful rogue, it was just a couple of levels in the middle of a combination of magic and sneaky/magic-using prestige classes; sneak-attacking with touch or ranged touch attacks is pretty cool. The character in question was a human who had discovered his sorcerous talents in his late teens but, afraid of magic and afraid he would hurt someone or kill himself, he became very restrained and very focused on controlling himself and his emotions and actions. The Lawful in this case was a more monk-like sort of Lawful, focused on personal discipline primarily rather than honor and order. The rogue levels, I explained as his learning how to strike precisely rather than in an uncontrolled fashion, because he was almost afraid of his own magic for a good long while and desperate to have absolute control over it.

dsmiles
2011-02-21, 07:04 PM
So, yeah, a charismatic Lawful rogue makes an absolutely wonderful scout, spy, or duelist.Or merchant prince. :smallwink:

Ormur
2011-02-22, 08:41 AM
I've statted a few pretty lawful NPC nobles and merchants as rogues, just because it's a class that has an appropriate skill set and fighting abilities for that type of character.

Since this predictably turned into an aliment debate I'd just like to say that keeping people as slaves, as property where you have absolute control over them is defiantly evil. It's a dehumanizing institution that robs people of their dignity and gives others very abusable powers over them. Definitions may vary but if you can own, buy and sell a person as opposed to just the right to employ or tax it then I'd call it slavery.

If you recognize the right to keep another person as a slave then I'd never allow you to be of good alignment. Someone that treated his slaves well might be neutral but owning people for personal benefit is still a 24/7 evil act. A good person might buy slaves to let them free or even keep up the pretence of owning slaves but would never recognize that it had any right to exploit others like that.

SITB
2011-02-22, 09:59 AM
Good and Evil exist in D&D objectively; I have no argument with that. Whether Good is morally right or Evil is morally wrong is still an open question, in and outside of the game.

Within the game world, it makes sense that people would generally accept the universe's judgments... but it also makes sense that some people wouldn't. And they'd be Evil. And consider themselves good.

These aren't "my sensibilities," rather a more or less elementary logical objection.

But than don't you run into the problem that an act which in game is considered good and OOC is considered evil? For instance, an AU version of Planescape where most of the primes believe that slavery is inherently good. So a character who endorses the abolishment of slavery will be branded by the universe as evil.

Or to use the oft given example, necromancy (Skeletons or otherwise non sentient undead).

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 10:35 AM
But than don't you run into the problem that an act which in game is considered good and OOC is considered evil?

Only a problem if you refuse to accept that this happens, or if all players aren't on the ball about it.

In the former case, it falls to the same category as "hit points are stupid and unrealistic" - maybe so, but that's how the game works. Either you homebrew something to "fix" it, or accept any oddities as being part of the game and fundamental to its working.

In the latter case, it's the same as with a player being oblivious to any other rule - "wait, what is good now" is equivalent to "wait, ranks in diplomacy let me do what now?" If the player says "well, that's stupid", you can reply with "so are dwarfs using their beards as weapons. That's how the rules work, live with it". Alternatively, "yeah, let's change that".

SITB
2011-02-22, 12:47 PM
Only a problem if you refuse to accept that this happens, or if all players aren't on the ball about it.

In the former case, it falls to the same category as "hit points are stupid and unrealistic" - maybe so, but that's how the game works. Either you homebrew something to "fix" it, or accept any oddities as being part of the game and fundamental to its working.

In the latter case, it's the same as with a player being oblivious to any other rule - "wait, what is good now" is equivalent to "wait, ranks in diplomacy let me do what now?" If the player says "well, that's stupid", you can reply with "so are dwarfs using their beards as weapons. That's how the rules work, live with it". Alternatively, "yeah, let's change that".

So Aligment works if both the DM and the players agree on a specific set of code beforehand and agree to follow it?

Works for me, but than all aligment debate becomes solely the realm of 'How my group view it', which make topics such as this somewhat superfluous.

Callista
2011-02-22, 02:53 PM
Well, not really, because the alignment definitions do still have to be interpreted properly, and there you'll end up with differences of opinion whether or not you are all using the same basic statements to define them.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 03:01 PM
So Aligment works if both the DM and the players agree on a specific set of code beforehand and agree to follow it?

Works for me, but than all aligment debate becomes solely the realm of 'How my group view it', which make topics such as this somewhat superfluous.

Not exactly. The "specific code" is partially build to the system. Debating how RAW views alignment can be relevant, just like debating whether some early entry trick works can be relevant, as those are the pre-packaged content of the game and available to all who own the books; any deviations from that fall to the same realm as all other houserules.

Other than that, I think you just had an important epiphany about alignment debates. :smallwink:

randomhero00
2011-02-22, 03:27 PM
I completely agree with the OP. Law just means a code of conduct to follow. It obviously doesn't mean you adhere to every law out there....or you'd turn into some yellow brown mix of chaotic evil.

In fact, I'd wager that in real life, there's more lawful rogues than chaotic (of course more are neutral than both put together).

Jayabalard
2011-02-22, 03:37 PM
Has no one heard of spies? Honorable contract killers? Royal torturers? Heck, special forces? All some rogues. All some lawful.

Your take?Fixed that. Some of them are rogues; and some of them are lawful. not All.

spies? I suppose it's possible that some of these would be lawful, but I'd imagine they are few and far between. Possibly a rogue of some flavor, though not a certainty by any means.

Honorable contract killers? Firstly, a lot of people are going say that this is oxymoronic (you know, like military intelligence). Secondly being "honorable" (whatever that means in this context) does not mean that they're lawful; more likely, they are neutral or chaotic that adhere to some particular code (which isn't antithetical to chaos). There's no real reason to assume that they're rogues.

Royal torturers? Nothing particularly roguish about them; nor is there any reason to assume that they're lawful. More likely to be a good showman/actor than either.

Special forces? This is really a grab bag as far as alignment goes. Most likely not rogues (though some of them would be).

Callista
2011-02-22, 03:44 PM
"Honor" has often been conflated with "Good" in many cases, so let's give it a definition without Good/Evil overtones:

--Believes in fighting fair, without tricks
--Believes in keeping his word; will either keep promises, or not make them to begin with
--Will not betray someone he has sworn allegiance to or promised to protect

So... yeah, you could be an honorable contract killer, probably LE. The person who's hired you knows you'll follow through on your contract. You believe in clean kills rather than elaborate deceptions. You won't betray those you've promised to work for; once you've been bought, you stay bought. You most likely will keep your employer's secrets and may have a policy of never asking questions about why the target needs killing, so that you can't betray your employer's confidence. You can probably be hired to work as a reliable bodyguard just as you could be hired to kill someone, because you're just that dependable...

Jayabalard
2011-02-22, 03:47 PM
That might be true if they were always evil, but they're not. There are nearly as many evil humans as there are evil kobolds, orcs, etc. (Humans "have no alignment tendency", so they are 1/3rd Evil, 1/3rd Neutral, 1/3rd Good. No; having no alignment tendency does not mean that they're evenly distributed through a given population.

There's no contradiction between "have no alignment tendency" and "all humans in this city are good" ... or even "all currently living humans happen to be good"

After an infinite amount of time, if you examine all humans who have ever lived, you'd probably get a fairly even distribution... but even that's not really guaranteed.


"Honor" has often been conflated with "Good" in many cases, so let's give it a definition without Good/Evil overtones:I'd agree that you can be an "honorable" contract killer... but that doesn't mean that you're an honorable contract killer (note the lack of quotes). Nor does it mean that you are necessarily lawful; most likely you are not.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 03:52 PM
Out of the examples given, I think spies would have hardest time being or retaining Lawful alignment. Contradicting allegiances and having to lie constantly don't jive well with core definition of lawful. That said, if the spy is the kind who just sneaks around people gleaning information, without having to directly lie or give false promises, they could prolly pull it off.

Callista
2011-02-22, 05:08 PM
Absolute loyalty to one's home country, a strong sense of personal discipline, etc., could easily make up for lying to enemies.

BiblioRook
2011-02-22, 06:37 PM
Honorable contract killers? Firstly, a lot of people are going say that this is oxymoronic (you know, like military intelligence). Secondly being "honorable" (whatever that means in this context) does not mean that they're lawful; more likely, they are neutral or chaotic that adhere to some particular code (which isn't antithetical to chaos). There's no real reason to assume that they're rogues.
Artemis Entreri has been brought up at least once in this thread already as he's pretty darn Lawful. But a Lawful Rogue? It's easy to assume that he would be, being the grand Archetype of assassins everywhere, but he's actually stated mostly as a Fighter with just a little bit of multiclassing.

Lord.Sorasen
2011-02-22, 07:04 PM
Sounds fine to me. But then, I find all (with the possible exception of the Druid) core alignment restrictions silly.

Why druid? It's not that I disagree but that I don't understand.

JaronK
2011-02-22, 07:25 PM
Out of the examples given, I think spies would have hardest time being or retaining Lawful alignment. Contradicting allegiances and having to lie constantly don't jive well with core definition of lawful. That said, if the spy is the kind who just sneaks around people gleaning information, without having to directly lie or give false promises, they could prolly pull it off.

Lying if under orders to do so is lawful. Deciding it's wrong to lie and disobeying orders as a result is chaotic. A spy who works due to loyalty to their country is likely to be extremely lawful, willing to do anything simply because the country demands it.

I think actually the worst book alignment restriction is the Bard... real life bards were people who went from town to town informing people of new laws and often acting as judges!

JaronK

Sine
2011-02-22, 07:39 PM
So Aligment works if both the DM and the players agree on a specific set of code beforehand and agree to follow it?
Or if players simply allow the DM to be the rules referee he's supposed to be.


Works for me, but than all aligment debate becomes solely the realm of 'How my group view it', which make topics such as this somewhat superfluous.
Bingo.

dsmiles
2011-02-22, 07:42 PM
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that people think rogues can't be lawful.

aart lover
2011-02-22, 07:51 PM
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that people think rogues can't be lawful.

mostly noobs or people who are none too smart:smalltongue:

BiblioRook
2011-02-22, 07:54 PM
Why druid? It's not that I disagree but that I don't understand.

Druids are expected to be neutral because nature itself is. That's not to say they aren't allowed to have leaning towards one alignment or another, but they are supposed to stay neutral on at least one of the two axles.
Interestingly this often makes them proactively Neutral, defending that balance if the scale tips to much in one way or another. (I know a great book that is about just that when the force of Good gets too strong and a Druid has to go about reintroducing 'evil' into the world.)

dsmiles
2011-02-22, 07:55 PM
mostly noobs or people who are none too smart:smalltongue:
But, where does that concept come from? I can remember, back in the day, when they were thieves and couldn't be good. That I can understand. Stealing in and of itself isn't exactly a good act. Sure your intentions can be good, but the act itself isn't really good. Not necessarily evil, but not good either. But lawful? Even thieves could be lawful.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 08:12 PM
Lying if under orders to do so is lawful. Deciding it's wrong to lie and disobeying orders as a result is chaotic. A spy who works due to loyalty to their country is likely to be extremely lawful, willing to do anything simply because the country demands it.
I agree with your conclusion, but disagree on alignment you assigned on the acts. I'd beg both acts as described as neutral.

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.
Lying under orders runs counter to telling the truth, while disobeying orders runs counter to respecting authority. Both can lead to character having to break his word. On the other hand, both can fit some or all remaining qualities of Lawful.


I think actually the worst book alignment restriction is the Bard... real life bards were people who went from town to town informing people of new laws and often acting as judges!

JaronK
Tell me about it. Whoever though that one up should be shot.

H Birchgrove
2011-02-22, 08:17 PM
Lying if under orders to do so is lawful. Deciding it's wrong to lie and disobeying orders as a result is chaotic. A spy who works due to loyalty to their country is likely to be extremely lawful, willing to do anything simply because the country demands it.

I think actually the worst book alignment restriction is the Bard... real life bards were people who went from town to town informing people of new laws and often acting as judges!

JaronK
I agree about bards. I suppose there's some "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" argument for it, but not all musicians are all about that IRL. Another reason it bugs me is that the probably most famous bard in fiction (after Robin Hood's minstrel Allan-a-Dale, at least), Cacafonix in the French comic book series Adventures of Asterix behaves far from a Chaotic manner in general and specifically calls everyone who doesn't like his music barbarians. He also works as a teacher for the kids.

aart lover
2011-02-22, 08:43 PM
But, where does that concept come from? I can remember, back in the day, when they were thieves and couldn't be good. That I can understand. Stealing in and of itself isn't exactly a good act. Sure your intentions can be good, but the act itself isn't really good. Not necessarily evil, but not good either. But lawful? Even thieves could be lawful.

i'm guessing people don't see roguish activities as exactly lawful, either.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 08:50 PM
i'm guessing people don't see roguish activities as exactly lawful, either.

Which is justified, but a rogue is under no imperative to act "roguish" in the way people think. This is why the restriction on Bards is particularly stupid; they aren't under any such imperative either and lack some of the most "roguish" skills, yet somehow they can't be Lawful by RAW, while Rogues totally can.

Callista
2011-02-22, 08:51 PM
You ever met a DM who wasn't willing to let you play a Lawful bard? I haven't. You have to be pretty dead-set against house rules of any sort to forbid that.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-22, 08:53 PM
^ That's besides the point. Someone, somewhere still thought the alignment restriction was a good idea, and some DM, somewhere enforces that rule because of it. As such, the person who came up with it should still be shot. :smalltongue:

dsmiles
2011-02-22, 08:55 PM
You ever met a DM who wasn't willing to let you play a Lawful bard? I haven't. You have to be pretty dead-set against house rules of any sort to forbid that.Honestly, I've never had anyone ask. They just write down "Neutral X," but play "Lawful X." It's never given me any sleepless nights.

WarKitty
2011-02-22, 09:41 PM
One of my own favorites, an NPC that I created (and am debating making a PC):

Dirk was part of the mage's guild, despite his own limited set of casting abilities. He was a bit of a special case. He wasn't that good at casting spells himself, but he was excellent at using magic items that other people had made. He also had a few other useful skills. Most of these wizards couldn't find their own pocketbooks in the morning. Oh sure, they had spells to make up for it, but spells only go so far when you don't know what you're looking for. The guild was responsible for the regulation of magic in the city. It was a measure that had been put in place 50 years ago, after a necromancer had unleashed a plague of allips on the city. The guild had set up certain "mage halls" for casting spells, after that. You could cast in other places, but you had to be registered.

Of course, rules like that don't enforce themselves. There's always someone looking to make a quick buck on the black market. Usually it was con men, passing off cheap gold-foil amulets as magic items, or petty thugs who had figured out a quick magical sleep would save them the trouble of possibly getting a knife to the gut. Sometimes it was something bigger - like the slavers last month that had been using magic charms to obtain victims. Either way, the mage's spells couldn't find these criminals unless they had a name and a face to them.

Dirk's job was to get those names and faces. He was skilled at hanging out in the worst parts of town, posing as whatever scum might be looking for illicit services. That was something the mages could never do. Nor could they overhear half the information he got while sitting out pretending to be an old blind man.

He would have made a good thief. He knew that. But he wasn't a thief. In his heart, he knew that the good of the city must be upheld. So he turned his skills to catching thieves, instead. The ones that came willingly, he turned over to the authorities. Those that didn't he tried to immobilize. When that failed, he was willing to kill, his blades unerringly finding their way to the weak points in the target's body.

Class? Straight rogue. Alignment? LG to LN.

Sine
2011-02-22, 09:54 PM
But, where does that concept come from? I can remember, back in the day, when they were thieves and couldn't be good. That I can understand. Stealing in and of itself isn't exactly a good act. Sure your intentions can be good, but the act itself isn't really good. Not necessarily evil, but not good either. But lawful? Even thieves could be lawful.
In 2e, thieves could be anything but LG.

Because, ya know, LG is the goodest good and the lawfullest lawful. And thieves can't do that.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

White Blade
2011-02-22, 10:08 PM
I'm going to weigh in on the Bard bit, because I actually agree with it.

Bardic music is a special kind of music, one which has to come from an unfettered heart. It comes from someone who is, first and foremost, true to themselves. Maybe they're a saintly, kind old woman. Maybe they're an angry, brutal youth. Maybe they're an easy going man from down the road. But whatever they are, they're that. They aren't that and... and they aren't that plus or minus whatever my code says.

A lawful person is shaped by something outside of his or her self. They follow a code, which either is so rigid that it restricts their desired actions on a daily basis, or they follow a leader, whom they obey with zeal. A lawful person isn't someone who says, "I feed the hungry according to what I have to give." A lawful person says, "25% of all that I possess or gain goes to the poor, no exceptions."

And the sort of person who can learn the wild, beautiful words or notes or dances that bards use, which were sung by eladrin and danced by the fey and roared in the demons' dens? They aren't someone who belongs to anything outside of themselves. A lawful person belongs by choice to something (that isn't their heart, their minds, or any other personal choice processes), that's what makes them lawful.

Callista
2011-02-22, 11:38 PM
In 2e, thieves could be anything but LG.

Because, ya know, LG is the goodest good and the lawfullest lawful. And thieves can't do that.

Yes, that was sarcasm.Yeah, no kidding. 2e had some issues. But when you call the class "Thief"...

I personally think it's really odd that some people think LG is "more Good" than NG or CG. It's not. Actually, if you really want to say that one alignment is the most Good, it's obviously NG, because someone who's NG isn't paying attention to anything but Good. (Individual characters may vary, naturally.)

WarKitty
2011-02-23, 01:22 AM
I'm going to weigh in on the Bard bit, because I actually agree with it.

Bardic music is a special kind of music, one which has to come from an unfettered heart. It comes from someone who is, first and foremost, true to themselves. Maybe they're a saintly, kind old woman. Maybe they're an angry, brutal youth. Maybe they're an easy going man from down the road. But whatever they are, they're that. They aren't that and... and they aren't that plus or minus whatever my code says.

A lawful person is shaped by something outside of his or her self. They follow a code, which either is so rigid that it restricts their desired actions on a daily basis, or they follow a leader, whom they obey with zeal. A lawful person isn't someone who says, "I feed the hungry according to what I have to give." A lawful person says, "25% of all that I possess or gain goes to the poor, no exceptions."

And the sort of person who can learn the wild, beautiful words or notes or dances that bards use, which were sung by eladrin and danced by the fey and roared in the demons' dens? They aren't someone who belongs to anything outside of themselves. A lawful person belongs by choice to something (that isn't their heart, their minds, or any other personal choice processes), that's what makes them lawful.

See this is where I think we're importing modern cultural ideas into the D&D world. The classes were built with certain specific archetypes in mind, and it's very difficult to build a character that deviates.

In many of the settings that D&D comes from, the bard is the exact opposite. He is the storyteller and the keeper of the tribe's history. The bard is, above all, the most disciplined and the most lawful, for he is the guardian of tradition. He must learn the stories word for word, note for note, inflection for inflection, and while he may add new stories, he must not deviate in the slightest from the old.

Now if I wanted to stat a character like that in D&D, I'd be out of luck...

On a side note, I always thought druids should be the "any non-lawful" class, because they reject the laws and customs of civilization.

BiblioRook
2011-02-23, 02:02 AM
On a side note, I always thought druids should be the "any non-lawful" class, because they reject the laws and customs of civilization.

But Nature has it's own laws :smalltongue:

Callista
2011-02-23, 03:31 AM
Yep. And Lawful is more than just following law or tradition. It's possible to be very honorable and disciplined even in the absence of civilization.

ffone
2011-02-23, 03:43 AM
I've had a trend of DMs in my past (and present, for that matter) have started bloody rows with me regarding my attempts to play lawful-aligned rogues. "Rogues fight dirty!" they cry. "Rogues steal!" Has no one heard of spies? Honorable contract killers? Royal torturers? Heck, special forces? All rogues. All lawful.

Your take?

One of my longest-running and favorite PCs was an LG rogue. She was of the "agent" archetype (for her goddess's church, and good-aligned governments) in her backstory, rather than being the Aladdin street-rat / Robin Hood good-outlaw sort.

Point to James Bond as an example - a "maverick" like most Western heroes and therefore superficially Chaotic-seeming; but he's a force of Law and it must suit his principles of he keeps doing it - and his methods are primarily Lawful insofar as you recognize MI6 / CIA type ops as 'legitimately Lawful'. Debating the alignment of any particular character is an endless exercise, but it illustrates the plausibility.

Also point to the Justicar prestige class (bounty hunter archetype, CWarrior I think?) - which has to be Lawful, and has prerequisites (gather info) and abilities (nonlethal sneak attack) suited to a Rogue base.

Also point to the Agent Retriever epic prestige class - similar flavor, archetype and requirements to the Justicar (with a more ridiculous/epic/planar flavor) incuding Gather Info ranks and a Lawful alignment.

Also if you think about what the characters do in a lot of crime procedural / detective-cop shows, a lot of it seems like things on the rogue's skill list and not many other classes', like Gather Info and Sense Motive. A rogue's probably the most natural class for a (nonmagical, urban) detective.

In an LE society they would also be a natural class for the goons that go quietly silence dissidents and enemies of the state.

For LG societies' agents, rogues are pretty good at nonlethal takedown, since the sap is a crummy weapon for most people, but for a rogue it's just a vehicle to make the sneak attack damage nonlethal.

Edhelras
2011-02-23, 05:14 AM
Point to James Bond as an example - a "maverick" like most Western heroes and therefore superficially Chaotic-seeming; but he's a force of Law and it must suit his principles of he keeps doing it - and his methods are primarily Lawful insofar as you recognize MI6 / CIA type ops as 'legitimately Lawful'. Debating the alignment of any particular character is an endless exercise, but it illustrates the plausibility.

Please - James Bond as Lawful?? That makes no sense at all. He's disobeying his superiors at will, he's betraying (and expecting betrayal) from his female enemies/lovers, he's lying shamelessly, driving too fast and wild, abusing any costly item Q equips him with... What? Lawful? Yes, he almost states his true name "My name is Bond. James Bond". Hence Lawful? :smallconfused:

This is useful to the debateanyway: Why ever bring up James Bond as possibly Lawful? What's the point, anyway, of trying to squeeze him (or just any rogue, for that matter), into the Lawful category? Why is it a goal in itself to try to depict someone as Lawful? Why not just accept the definitions of the game in which someone like Bond is clearly Chaotic.
The alignment rules are not there to punish the players or make them hurt. They're there to help, to create a skeleton of rules in an otherwise extremely liberal and creative game. I just cannot understand why even the basic rules like Alignment can cause so much controversy - unless the reason is that people want to object to something, anything. Or, more likely, that people seem to be unable to accept that this is a game, with game rules, it's not about real world moralities.
I like Chess, sure, but I don't expect farmers to only take one step at a time, and only straight ahead, except when their killing someone. I sense a distinction between game and reality.

Sure, we can debate every aspect of the alignment system, even claim that James Bond is Lawful. But how does that help us having fun at the table? All right you can be a Lawful James Bond-character, go ahead, let's house-rule that. What is the benefit of that?
It might on the other hand cause some problems with aligned weapons and spell effects - game tools that are supposed to deal precisely with characters for instance of a non-Lawful alignment. All right, you house-ruled yourself out of that corner, now you're not subject to Lawful weapon damage. Your character overcame one challenge, just by scribbling "Lawful" on the character sheet. Great!

MeeposFire
2011-02-23, 05:34 AM
Of course one can ask why do we need alignment at all. I remember when I first started playing 4e and we all decided to play as "unaligned" just so we did not have to worry about anything. It was very liberating. Instead of trying to play an alignment we could just concentrate playing a character.

For instance a character in my game saw his superior was about to punish his thieving sister. Now up to this point in traditional D&D he would have been called lawful neutral so he would normally obey his superior if he was to follow his alignment. Due to his back story he had his character be very much for the law but his family is more important than anything to him. He prevented the punishment and had to fight off his superior and his men. In many games that use alignment this would be seen as a chaotic act and so would be against his alignment. What purpose does that serve? Further in older editions you could be penalized for going against alignment often by losing out on XP for a length of time.

The reason you are seeing so many people making these conversations is that many people do find them limiting (some call them straight jackets) and there are many people out there that no longer see a use for them anymore.

By basing your character on character traits rather than an alignment you can avoid questions like does a lawful neutral character have to accept slavery in his lawful country even though in every other way ever he is not upholding a good alignment. If you just said my character obeys the law but hates slavery we are done with no ambiguity or conversations about whether this fits some alignment.

Yora
2011-02-23, 05:36 AM
As a dm, I like having an alignment listed for NPCs in published materials. Helps me to get a general idea about their personalty almost instantly.

MeeposFire
2011-02-23, 05:44 AM
As a dm, I like having an alignment listed for NPCs in published materials. Helps me to get a general idea about their personalty almost instantly.

I could see that though I find I really do need more than that to really get into a NPC's head. For instance lawful evil can be expressed in many ways and just listing that is not enough for me to get into the character. List a few traits like "will try to trick the players into bad contracts" and I have a better idea but by then do I need the label, maybe as a quick reminder at best (at least for me though if it saves you time and energy then it truly is worth it for you). And even so you never have to worry about DMs saying that the NPC is not playing their alignment...unless for some reason you want to argue with yourself.:smalltongue:

Edhelras
2011-02-23, 06:34 AM
Of course one can ask why do we need alignment at all. I remember when I first started playing 4e and we all decided to play as "unaligned" just so we did not have to worry about anything. It was very liberating. Instead of trying to play an alignment we could just concentrate playing a character.

For instance a character in my game saw his superior was about to punish his thieving sister. Now up to this point in traditional D&D he would have been called lawful neutral so he would normally obey his superior if he was to follow his alignment. Due to his back story he had his character be very much for the law but his family is more important than anything to him. He prevented the punishment and had to fight off his superior and his men. In many games that use alignment this would be seen as a chaotic act and so would be against his alignment. What purpose does that serve? Further in older editions you could be penalized for going against alignment often by losing out on XP for a length of time.

Well then perhaps this disagreement is about likes and dislikes. I once played with some people who were very liberal, creative, making or bending the rules at will. Not just using the rules to achieve funny things, but more often just disregarding them.

For some, this is the ultimate fun. For me, the fun lies in treating the rules as both an aid to communicate with the other players, make sure we're all on the same train, and also as a chain of "obstacles" to be overcome by my (and my character's) smartness and creativity.

For instance, I simply love the way smart players can use utility spells to overcome overpowering challenges (one reason I dislike the per-encounter-system; I'm especially fond of that part of the game-play where you're down on your best spells and abilities, and really have to make creative use of what you've got left). But some people (this is just in my own experience, I know, it's subjective) would rather "house-rule" that their magic missiles make double damage, because they're back story is that they were bathed in a magic fountain as a kid. Or something like that - anyway, not overcoming the challenge, just changing the rules so that the challenge goes away.

Point is - I like restrictions, some people don't, and I guess we'll never agree. BUT - if we are to communicate and have fun while playing together - at some point, the rules-guys are gonna have to have the final word. Or at least, unless you really want to play a total free-no limts-just imagination dreamy kind of game - which is very fine, but which is not exactly DnD as per the rule-books at least.

RE: Your example, some comments:

1) Alignment is not a straight-jacket. You're the player, you're in control, you can choose freely, no DM or other player can ever tell you how to play your character. The alignment system doesn't change that.

2) One single act should not, or only very rarely, cause an alignment shift. BUT an action contrary to your should feel problematic for your character. As I'm sure this was in your case, even though you didn't have an alignment system in that game. Actually, the dilemma between following his alignment tendencies, and the loyalty to his family, would create a superb basis for genuine role-play. And a lot of subsequent conflicts and interactions - which is what the game is all about.

3) If a character acts consistently against his alignment, either the DM or the player himself should question why do you actually call him LN, when he always follows his own priorities and best interests, and not adheres to any obvious Laws (remember that the basis of "law" is that it has aspects of predictability, universalness, consistency - "consistently doing what I think is right" isn't lawful except in a perversion of the word)?
Is there any point to sticking to the Lawful category, when obviously both you and your character aren't interested in following these restraints?
Is it just because you feel that some categories are "cooler" than others (I sure do, so nothing wrong with that).
Worst case: Is it purely metagaming reasons (to be able to use an aligned weapon, or to be allowed entry to some alignment-restricted city, etc.)?

KnightDisciple
2011-02-23, 08:13 AM
I'm going to weigh in on the Bard bit, because I actually agree with it.

Bardic music is a special kind of music, one which has to come from an unfettered heart. It comes from someone who is, first and foremost, true to themselves. Maybe they're a saintly, kind old woman. Maybe they're an angry, brutal youth. Maybe they're an easy going man from down the road. But whatever they are, they're that. They aren't that and... and they aren't that plus or minus whatever my code says.Why does it have to come from an "unfettered heart"? Why couldn't a Lawful Bard be tapping into the Song that Sung the World, or whatnot? In other words, tapping into the orderly nature of Creation Itself to empower his comrades. Remember, "bardic music", in rule terms, is just a magic-enhanced Perform check that gives a boost to your allies. Nothing about it seems to inherently require "non-lawful alignment".

Plus, what WarKitty said about the historical roots of bardic tradition (reflected in things like Bardic Knowledge).


A lawful person is shaped by something outside of his or her self. They follow a code, which either is so rigid that it restricts their desired actions on a daily basis, or they follow a leader, whom they obey with zeal. A lawful person isn't someone who says, "I feed the hungry according to what I have to give." A lawful person says, "25% of all that I possess or gain goes to the poor, no exceptions." Wait, so "lawful" equals "so rigid they're restricted" or "following a leader with blind zeal"? Why can't it mean "going about things in an orderly fashion, with an understanding that things like laws help make society better by giving everyone an equal footing" (assuming a non-LE person, I suppose).

Why can't a lawful person spontaneously give? Show me where they can't in the rules. Go on, show me. Oh, to be sure, a Lawful Good person would likely say "I shall dedicate *this much* of my income, at minimum, to be given to charitable causes". But nothing says they can't then say "and if I see more opportunities to help along the way, I will". A Lawful person wouldn't just shove money in the beggar's hands, he'd direct him to the nearest shelter for the homeless. Or maybe teach these people how to fish, or a dozen other things. Way I see it, being Lawful only means you have a minimum that you're likely giving, not a maximum.

It's not like "lawful=no spontaneity" or something like that. You really seem to be artificially projecting personal bias onto the whole matter (not that I'm not doing it too, but still).


And the sort of person who can learn the wild, beautiful words or notes or dances that bards use, which were sung by eladrin and danced by the fey and roared in the demons' dens? They aren't someone who belongs to anything outside of themselves. A lawful person belongs by choice to something (that isn't their heart, their minds, or any other personal choice processes), that's what makes them lawful.What about the beauty of harmony, of multiple songs coming together to create an ordered, greater whole? What about the beauty of someone hitting all the right notes just so, creating a masterwork of sound? What about the Song that started Middle Earth, sung by Eru Ilúvatar, the Valar, and the Maiar? Was that not a pinnacle of Order, yet something of incalculable Beauty?

I mean, are Archons not allowed to sing nice songs now? What about Angels? Is it only Eladrins who have the corner on Beauty?

White Blade
2011-02-23, 10:56 AM
Why does it have to come from an "unfettered heart"? Why couldn't a Lawful Bard be tapping into the Song that Sung the World, or whatnot? In other words, tapping into the orderly nature of Creation Itself to empower his comrades. Remember, "bardic music", in rule terms, is just a magic-enhanced Perform check that gives a boost to your allies. Nothing about it seems to inherently require "non-lawful alignment".

Plus, what WarKitty said about the historical roots of bardic tradition (reflected in things like Bardic Knowledge). Maybe the strict mechanics don't indicate that kind of restriction, but the story of bards does. Also, the Bard has much more basis in the troubadors (whose music, I think, is plain awful, which is besides the point) than in the bard of celtic society. A historian and a priest is something much better represented by cloistered cleric or just straight up cleric than the multifaceted, wandering minstrel. As to why the bard can't do that, it's because the music is heart-based inspiration.


Wait, so "lawful" equals "so rigid they're restricted" or "following a leader with blind zeal"? Why can't it mean "going about things in an orderly fashion, with an understanding that things like laws help make society better by giving everyone an equal footing" (assuming a non-LE person, I suppose).

Why can't a lawful person spontaneously give? Show me where they can't in the rules. Go on, show me. Oh, to be sure, a Lawful Good person would likely say "I shall dedicate *this much* of my income, at minimum, to be given to charitable causes". But nothing says they can't then say "and if I see more opportunities to help along the way, I will". A Lawful person wouldn't just shove money in the beggar's hands, he'd direct him to the nearest shelter for the homeless. Or maybe teach these people how to fish, or a dozen other things. Way I see it, being Lawful only means you have a minimum that you're likely giving, not a maximum.

It's not like "lawful=no spontaneity" or something like that. You really seem to be artificially projecting personal bias onto the whole matter (not that I'm not doing it too, but still). I'm a lawful person. I love tradition and order and law, and if I felt that I really belonged to myself I would consider that a failure. I'd rather belong to something greater. That's what makes me lawful. Yes, that means harsh restrictions. Yes, that means strict standards and acting in ways I sometimes do not understand. Because that's what being lawful means. It means belonging to something else, or someone else, so that their desire is your desire, their will is your will.

So yes, your code is rigid. So yes, obedience must gladly done. When a lawful person gives his allegiance, he gives it in trust that it will not be abused. He says, "I believe that you know better than me and are looking out for me, and your will is better than my will." and so he does what that person/thing says even when he does not understand or feel comfortable with it. There are lines to such obedience, but they are broad and generous lines, usually laid in place by the fact that he is not purely lawful. It may be the things which, as an evil character, he is unwilling to live without. It may be the morals which, as a good character, he is unwilling to compromise.

But they are broad, generous lines. If they were not broad, generous lines, the character would be neutral or chaotic. I should add that I was not intending to say that lawful people cannot give above and beyond what they consider their lawful obligation. I was merely saying that they would always abide by the amount they were obligated to, even when they were sick, or tired, or giving that much would make them poorer than those they are giving to.


What about the beauty of harmony, of multiple songs coming together to create an ordered, greater whole? What about the beauty of someone hitting all the right notes just so, creating a masterwork of sound? What about the Song that started Middle Earth, sung by Eru Ilúvatar, the Valar, and the Maiar? Was that not a pinnacle of Order, yet something of incalculable Beauty?

I mean, are Archons not allowed to sing nice songs now? What about Angels? Is it only Eladrins who have the corner on Beauty?

Bardic music isn't choir music. It's something that comes from one person, and only one person. The fey dance in their myriad halls, the eladrin sing in the courts above, and demons lift their voice over one another in furious discord. But none of them plays or sings or dances or speaks somebody else's note. Bardic music is improvisational and two bards do not continue to stack up if you have them in a group (I can only imagine then how obnoxious that would be.).

balistafreak
2011-02-23, 11:00 AM
Predicting a "reflavoring" debate in three... two... one...

dsmiles
2011-02-23, 11:07 AM
[QOUTE=SRD]Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should. [/QUOTE]Show me where a bard or rogue can't fall within these RAW guidelines. Other than the wording in the bard class, that states:

Bard
Alignment
Any nonlawful.
Under the guidelines that define lawful, there is no reason a bard can't fit in there. "Lawful" doesn't mean "emotionless and/or cold-hearted." Music springs from the emotions, not from a non-lawful alignment. The only reason bards can't be lawful is because the (silly) RAW says so.

I mean, really, who better to pass on the oral history of a culture than a bard. A bard who would have to, as WK said earlier, memorize the words, tone, inflections, and music to each story.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-23, 11:13 AM
Yep. And Lawful is more than just following law or tradition. It's possible to be very honorable and disciplined even in the absence of civilization.
Specifically, in addition to respecting authority and honoring tradition, being lawful means being truthful, keeping your word, and completing your duty while judging those who do not.

It should be noted that "respecting authority and honoring tradition" aren't limited to written laws - they can also apply to inviduals. In a barbaric land, this would manifest in respecting the ability and methods of someone who's more skilled in living in the wild, and obeying him if there's no weighty reason to do otherwise.


Of course one can ask why do we need alignment at all. I remember when I first started playing 4e and we all decided to play as "unaligned" just so we did not have to worry about anything. It was very liberating. Instead of trying to play an alignment we could just concentrate playing a character.


Shortly: D&D is a roleplaying game. Alignment is a scoring system to help define the role of characters for players and GM alike.

More specifically:

1) Alignment defines the core conflict(s) of the game (Law vs. Chaos and Good Vs. Evil). As should be easy to see, D&D is a very open-ended system, applicable to many settings. It's also a system focused around combat; at some point the question arises, who is supposed to fight who?

Alignment is there to give pointers, directions for potential games to follow.

(It should be noted that there's been a slow paradigm shift in the importance of these conflicts. In early D&D, Alignment was solely about Law and Chaos, and had deeper connections to Moorcock's work etc. where the conflict was much more influential and deeper-running than in modern D&D.

Later editions slowly drifted towards more traditional conflict of Good Vs. Evil. 4th Edition took this to its logical conclusion and effectively did away with Law and Chaos as influential aspects of the game.)

2) Alignment maps where player characters stand in this conflict. It's a way for the GM and players to tell whether PCs are the heroes, villains or bystanders of the story. It gives a quick feel for both of how NPCs should view and interact with them.

3) Alignment enforces and facilitates some core elements of the genre. Whether you like it or not, Good and Evil are usually pretty clear-cut in fantasy, and D&D rules mirror that.

I'll take Paladin and concept of Fall from Grace as examples, as it's best known. The concept of a virtuous servant of good who's beholden to oaths and codes is ancient; so is the concept of such servant falling short of his duties and having to atone and seek redemption for his misdeeds. Alignment and the Paladin's code give a framework for this to happen.

4) Alignment is shorthand for personality. There are some fairly easy-to-grasp qualities associated with each alignment. They give a simple framework for actions and reactions of a character.

Of course, problems start to come up when people perceive alignment is all there is to a character's personality. This is a misperception - the nine alignments are fairly archetypical, and applicable to multitude of different characters. Great many personality traits might be influential to a character, but uninfluential concerning his alignment - liking or disliking strawberries is a good example.

(Another problem is that some people refuse to accept that alignment can, and should, change in many situations. This is particularly poignant when there's disagreement between GM and players - I call this the "director - actor conflict". As noted, alignment defines a character's role - in this case, the GM (director) has a differing opinion on how the character should act in his role than the player (actor).

There are few things to keep in mind when this happens: first, Alignment is about actions that persist. Singular deeds rarely affect it.

Second, alignment can change. There are rules for it, dammit! By extension, this also means that a character's role in the story can change. If the character's actions fit CN better than LG, he becomes CN; if the character acts more like a villain than a hero, then he is a villain.

Third, avoid picking roles you can't pull off. Don't argue you're pulling off a role when you obviously aren't. Remember Alignment's nature as a scoring system; trying to argue your character is Lawful Good when he's anything but is like arguing with your computer about a lost game of solitaire.)

You can argue that D&D Alignment system serves there purposes poorly; it's a fair argument. Alignment is very much an artefact, and hails from time when D&D had just descended from wargames and there weren't more complex notions of giving characters a personality or a specific role. But I'd say many modern games have some form of alignment still hidden in their systems, and they owe D&D alignment for that - sometimes, the system isn't even hidden, it's in plain sight for everyone to see.

Telonius
2011-02-23, 11:28 AM
I tend to think of D&D Bards as the equivalent of rock stars. I can see them running the range from Sid Vicious and Ozzy Osbourne on the one side, to Bruce Springsteen and Dolly Parton on the other. I see no reason a generally "lawful" person can't get in touch with that part of themselves, and use it to inspire others.

Also, consider Perform: Oratory as a use of Bardic "Music." Multiclassed Cleric/Bards as missionaries of Lawful deities makes perfect sense to me.

For Rogues, it's a bit easier. What really defines a Rogue? Sneak attack, trapfinding, and lots of skills. Sounds a lot like a member of the Special Forces, or maybe a streetwise cop or private investigator. Sneak attack doesn't have to be "fighting dirty," it can be "fighting precisely because I want to end the fight quickly."

WarKitty
2011-02-23, 11:54 AM
Maybe the strict mechanics don't indicate that kind of restriction, but the story of bards does. Also, the Bard has much more basis in the troubadors (whose music, I think, is plain awful, which is besides the point) than in the bard of celtic society. A historian and a priest is something much better represented by cloistered cleric or just straight up cleric than the multifaceted, wandering minstrel. As to why the bard can't do that, it's because the music is heart-based inspiration.

Except the character I described isn't just a historian. The whole essence of the character is the ability to perform, word for word, note for note, the tribal stories, and to add new stories to that collection as needed. And what would he do with cleric casting? The character's abilities are to capture the attention of an audience, not to heal and do funny buffs! This is why I don't like D&D alignment restrictions on class - it shoehorns characters into the archetypes the developers happened to be thinking about.

Sine
2011-02-23, 12:01 PM
Yeah, no kidding. 2e had some issues. But when you call the class "Thief"...

I personally think it's really odd that some people think LG is "more Good" than NG or CG. It's not. Actually, if you really want to say that one alignment is the most Good, it's obviously NG, because someone who's NG isn't paying attention to anything but Good. (Individual characters may vary, naturally.)
Agreed.

Thanks to paladins though, and a general favoritism toward LG since LG was invented, 'LG is the goodest good' is a very pervasive idea.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-23, 02:10 PM
Except the character I described isn't just a historian. The whole essence of the character is the ability to perform, word for word, note for note, the tribal stories, and to add new stories to that collection as needed. And what would he do with cleric casting? The character's abilities are to capture the attention of an audience, not to heal and do funny buffs! This is why I don't like D&D alignment restrictions on class - it shoehorns characters into the archetypes the developers happened to be thinking about.
As funny aside, UA has a divine bard. It doesn't have a Bard that's allowed to be Lawful.

RAEG.

Jayabalard
2011-02-23, 02:22 PM
Which is justified, but a rogue is under no imperative to act "roguish" in the way people think. This is why the restriction on Bards is particularly stupid; they aren't under any such imperative either and lack some of the most "roguish" skills, yet somehow they can't be Lawful by RAW, while Rogues totally can.It's the whole "sex, drugs and music with rocks in" bit...
Well ... one out of three ain't bad.. Actually, it's only thirty-three percent, but it could be worse.

You ever met a DM who wasn't willing to let you play a Lawful bard? I haven't. You have to be pretty dead-set against house rules of any sort to forbid that.I have, and the game was fairly heavily houseruled; it had to do with precisely how bardic music worked in that world.

In general though, the default fluff is that bards are wanderers... which tend to be assigned to the chaotic end of the spectrum.


In 2e, thieves could be anything but LG.

Because, ya know, LG is the goodest good and the lawfullest lawful. And thieves can't do that.

Yes, that was sarcasm.It was more that you could justify theft if you were either non-lawful (you don't care that much about laws or traditions regarding property ownership, so violating them doesn't necessarily bother you), or non-good (you don't care that much about harming people), but a lawful good... not so much.

Daftendirekt
2011-02-23, 03:03 PM
In general though, the default fluff is that bards are wanderers... which tend to be assigned to the chaotic end of the spectrum.

Because it's not like DnD monks EVER do any wandering. Oh no, not at all.

Yes, that was sarcasm too.

Jayabalard
2011-02-23, 04:41 PM
Because it's not like DnD monks EVER do any wandering. Oh no, not at all.

Yes, that was sarcasm too.No, not generally; they form monasteries and meditate. When you add in level of discipline that's intimately part of their fluff, it's easy to understand why the class was given the alignment restriction that it has.

WarKitty
2011-02-23, 04:49 PM
In general though, the default fluff is that bards are wanderers... which tend to be assigned to the chaotic end of the spectrum.

This would be why I said druids ought to be the "any non-lawful."

Narren
2011-02-23, 04:49 PM
No, not generally; they form monasteries and meditate. When you add in level of discipline that's intimately part of their fluff, it's easy to understand why the class was given the alignment restriction that it has.

Until the monastery is attacked and all but the lone monk are viciously slaughtered, so he dedicates his life to helping others and/or perfecting himself. There's like a 78% chance of this happening to EVERY monk.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-23, 04:49 PM
"Wandering" does not imply anything chaotic. A ranger or rogue can easily be as much or more of a wanderer than Bard, yet they can be Lawful. Heck, a Knight Errant, represented by a Paladin of all things, could reasonably travel side-by-side with a Bard, yet still be the most Lawful thing around.

Callista
2011-02-23, 05:14 PM
Yes. It's why you're wandering that's the question, isn't it? If you're on a quest to make the world a better place, you have clear goals, you're on a mission--that's very lawful. On the other hand, if you're just out to see the world, don't have a plan, just going to see what happens next, then you're probably chaotic.

I can see why Barbarians can't be lawful; lawful people are just too inhibited to fly into a violent, heedless rage.

I can see why monks have to be lawful; their discipline is what allows them to use their abilities.

I can even understand druids needing to be true neutral or one step away; if they have too much of an agenda beyond that of Nature, they lose their connection to the natural world.

But bards... I don't see that there's anything about performing music, encouraging others, and passing on knowledge that is necessarily chaotic.

hamishspence
2011-02-23, 05:24 PM
And becoming Lawful doesn't lose a bard any of their powers- they just can't take further levels.

There's also a feat that allows paladin/bards to multiclass freely between those two (and keep taking bard levels despite being Lawful).

All in all it does seem a bit odd.

Callista
2011-02-23, 05:32 PM
Hey... maybe this has to do with earlier editions, like the Thief/Rogue issue?

What was the bard like before 3rd?

Jayabalard
2011-02-23, 05:32 PM
"Wandering" does not imply anything chaotic. A ranger or rogue can easily be as much or more of a wanderer than Bard, yet they can be Lawful. Heck, a Knight Errant, represented by a Paladin of all things, could reasonably travel side-by-side with a Bard, yet still be the most Lawful thing around.Wandering doesn't really belong in quotes; it's not the word used, and lacks some of the same connotation that "wanderer" has.

Being a "wanderer" implies quite a bit more than just traveling around; a wanderer is someone who roams around aimlessly, with no particular destination and no purpose. It really does indeed imply something quite chaotic about any individual who's labeled as a wanderer.

A ranger or rogue can be lawful, because they aren't required by their fluff to be wanderers the same way that bards are. Sure, they can be, but if you're making one who's a wanderer you shouldn't be lawful (and it's up to the DM to deal with that, if you continue to act in a way not matching your listed alignment)... So that's not really a valid counter-argument.

Knight Errant != Paladin. In general, Knight Errants are not paladins; they're a class of people who (generally) are adventuring in the name of a lady. They're a romantic ideal, not necessarily a paragon of virtue. Sure, there's some overlap, but it's far from universal.

Now, as for Paladins in specific: even the ones who are labeled as a Knight Errant aren't really wanderers. If they travel, it is with a very clear purpose. In general, being a paladin is defined by having that clarity of purpose.


This would be why I said druids ought to be the "any non-lawful."I can see that (and I kind of agree), but they went a very different direction with druids... they're focused on balance in some way (and each druid in a different way). I think it made sense in 1e, where they had to be true neutral... but the 3e fluff is kind of silly.


Hey... maybe this has to do with earlier editions, like the Thief/Rogue issue?

What was the bard like before 3rd?Very druidic in 1e AD&D; after having spent time as a fighter, and then changing class to thief, you finally became a bard... at that point they are under druid tutelage. They cast spells off of the druid spell list. Think Fochlucan Lyrist... iirc, it's based off of the 1e bard. For the most part you can think of them as first prestige class (2 editions too early).

1e bards had to be neutral on at least one axis, while druids had to be true neutral.

I think 2e had the same alignment requirements, but the fluff got changed quite a bit. Bards became a normal base class, part of the rogue group and lost a lot of the ties to druids, casting wizard spells iirc.

In 1e (and I think 2e), bards prepared spells; I have a feeling that the change to being a spontaneous caster may have also been related to the alignment requirement change. Not the spontaneous casting itself, but how that ties in to the whimsical nature of bards in general.

Frozen_Feet
2011-02-23, 06:18 PM
There's also a feat that allows paladin/bards to multiclass freely between those two (and keep taking bard levels despite being Lawful).


Waitwaitwait - where's that from? Does it do anything else? It might be consequential to a build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187990) I'm making... :smallbiggrin:

Amnestic
2011-02-23, 06:50 PM
Waitwaitwait - where's that from? Does it do anything else? It might be consequential to a build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187990) I'm making... :smallbiggrin:

Devoted Performer, ComAdv pg. 107. Stacks levels for smite evil and bardic music, lets you multiclass freely and lets you take Bard levels even though you're lawful.

Sine
2011-02-23, 07:29 PM
I can see why Barbarians can't be lawful; lawful people are just too inhibited to fly into a violent, heedless rage.
It's funny, to my mind, lawful makes much more sense for a barbarian. I mean, if I believed in alignment restrictions and unchangeable class fluff in the first place, I'd require barbarians to be non-chaotic rather than non-lawful.

Why? Because 'barbaric' societies have to stress traditions, cultural norms, gender roles, honor, and personal obligation more than 'civilized' societies do, just to survive. Not being able to fall back on superior technology means people have to rely on all that stuff to eke out their lives in the wilderness.

And the whole anger=chaotic thing, please! Who's more likely to fly into a blind rage, the free spirited wanderer or the dude who loves all those traditions, codes, roles and/or laws? Lawfuls are like emotional land mines!

BiblioRook
2011-02-23, 07:30 PM
Second, alignment can change. There are rules for it, dammit! By extension, this also means that a character's role in the story can change. If the character's actions fit CN better than LG, he becomes CN; if the character acts more like a villain than a hero, then he is a villain.

Extending on this.
Whenever I hear people complain about how restrictive alignments are I can't help think that they are just simply playing them wrong. Sadly this probably has to do alot more with rule apathy then the systems itself.

Yes, alignments can (and probbaly should) change, but I'mhaving a hard time remembering the last time a DM utilised this. There's alot that could be done with a charicter who is redefining their values and veiw of life, but that also can mean a great deal more work for the DM so many just opt not to bother with it.

Heck, now that I think about it I can't really remember when alignments last ever came up at all. Seems most games I see they just degraded into a minor arbatary part of charicter creation that doesn't really mean anything, much like stuff like height and weight, exept to use as a scapgoat for when they do something really stupid but 'in charicter'.

This sort of goes back to something I said once already. Charicters shouldn't be defined by their alignment but rather the alignment should be based on the charicter. Why do people always do that the other way around!? Is it that hardto make a charicter that you feel you have use something such as alignment to dictate what you do or don't do? It's no wonder people find alignments so restrictive, they are continuously trying to force their charicters into alignments they probably shouldn't be in!

dsmiles
2011-02-23, 07:33 PM
And the whole anger=chaotic thing, please! Who's more likely to fly into a blind rage, the free spirited wanderer or the dude Certainly not...
The Dude
http://lazydabbler.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/the-dude.jpg

Roderick_BR
2011-02-23, 08:49 PM
Yes, rogues are no longer "just" thiefs. They can be adventurers specialized in technical stuff instead of heavily armored warriors or casters.

AD&D had the Alignment: Any non Lawful-Good, and even that was a stretch as you could be Lawful-Neutral or Lawful-Evil (image a guild leader that controls his minions with an iron hand and carefully designed tactics and assigned allies.)

Sine
2011-02-23, 08:56 PM
Certainly not...
The Dude
http://lazydabbler.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/the-dude.jpg
The Dude abides!

And is definitely Chaotic Stoned.

WarKitty
2011-02-23, 09:27 PM
Extending on this.
Whenever I hear people complain about how restrictive alignments are I can't help think that they are just simply playing them wrong. Sadly this probably has to do alot more with rule apathy then the systems itself.

Yes, alignments can (and probbaly should) change, but I'mhaving a hard time remembering the last time a DM utilised this. There's alot that could be done with a charicter who is redefining their values and veiw of life, but that also can mean a great deal more work for the DM so many just opt not to bother with it.

Heck, now that I think about it I can't really remember when alignments last ever came up at all. Seems most games I see they just degraded into a minor arbatary part of charicter creation that doesn't really mean anything, much like stuff like height and weight, exept to use as a scapgoat for when they do something really stupid but 'in charicter'.

This sort of goes back to something I said once already. Charicters shouldn't be defined by their alignment but rather the alignment should be based on the charicter. Why do people always do that the other way around!? Is it that hardto make a charicter that you feel you have use something such as alignment to dictate what you do or don't do? It's no wonder people find alignments so restrictive, they are continuously trying to force their charicters into alignments they probably shouldn't be in!

This is why a lot of people don't like alignment restricted classes. It's why I will never play a paladin with my current DM, despite liking the idea. We have very different views on what should constitute "lawful good," and I don't feel that I could play a character like that with him without having to play to his view of LG rather than playing the character.

ffone
2011-02-23, 09:59 PM
Wow, Eheiras, holy cow, did I offend you in a past thread or past life? If so, I'm sorry!


Please - James Bond as Lawful?? That makes no sense at all. He's disobeying his superiors at will, he's betraying (and expecting betrayal) from his female enemies/lovers, he's lying shamelessly, driving too fast and wild, abusing any costly item Q equips him with... What? Lawful? Yes, he almost states his true name "My name is Bond. James Bond". Hence Lawful? :smallconfused:

As my own post said - Bond has the classic "maverick" traits of most Western heroes, which are usually mapped to Chaotic in DnD, but arguably Lawful principles and even methods - 'agents' like him are an interesting case b/c the whole point of a MI6/CIA field agent is to go around the laws of other countries (and sometimes their home country) and use sneaky methods in order to further their own government's ambitions.

As I said in my post: the point is not to prove Bond is Lawful (reading http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm, Chaotic does sound better, as it does for maybe 95% of all fictional protaganists) but that he's by far the most famous example of what could be used for a Lawful rogue background; a gov't agent. If not Bond, there's his more straight-laced and dumpier CIA counterpart in some of the movies whose name escapes me. Or M (I don't know if she was a past field agent, but if she was, rogue levels would suit a DnD counterpart).

Also, I tend to a more Lawful interpretations of many characters, not b/c I prefer Lawful, but b/c Chaotic is so much easier to justify ("you do what you want to or think is right" - well gosh, who doesn't?) and it's rather boring to have the 'demographics' of alignment be so lopsided.



This is useful to the debateanyway: Why ever bring up James Bond as possibly Lawful? What's the point, anyway, of trying to squeeze him (or just any rogue, for that matter), into the Lawful category?

*facepalm* It's what the OP / thread was about. How to justify a Lawful rogue to a skeptical DM. Not *every* rogue, but *a* rogue.



Why is it a goal in itself to try to depict someone as Lawful? Why not just accept the definitions of the game in which someone like Bond is clearly Chaotic.
The alignment rules are not there to punish the players or make them hurt. They're there to help, to create a skeleton of rules in an otherwise extremely liberal and creative game. I just cannot understand why even the basic rules like Alignment can cause so much controversy - unless the reason is that people want to object to something, anything.

I agree - and the outraged tone of your own post is the best example of this which I've seen in a long time.



Or, more likely, that people seem to be unable to accept that this is a game, with game rules, it's not about real world moralities.
I like Chess, sure, but I don't expect farmers to only take one step at a time, and only straight ahead, except when their killing someone. I sense a distinction between game and reality.

Sure, we can debate every aspect of the alignment system, even claim that James Bond is Lawful. But how does that help us having fun at the table? All right you can be a Lawful James Bond-character, go ahead, let's house-rule that. What is the benefit of that?
It might on the other hand cause some problems with aligned weapons and spell effects - game tools that are supposed to deal precisely with characters for instance of a non-Lawful alignment. All right, you house-ruled yourself out of that corner, now you're not subject to Lawful weapon damage. Your character overcame one challenge, just by scribbling "Lawful" on the character sheet. Great!

Straw man. That's only an issue if the DM lets players change alignment on the fly in respect to an impending spell effect (whether in the current encounter, or one they anticipate). As long as the PC has *some* prespecified alignment, it makes little mechanical difference what the fluff interpretation of it is.

You totally missed the point of my post - which, as per the OP, was to illustrate ideas for a Lawful rogue. Not ways to justify changing someone's alignment on the fly. Almost the opposite: the more background fluff you give pursuant to your PC's alignment, the harder it will likely be to justify p changing it on the fly.

Edhelras
2011-02-24, 03:52 AM
You totally missed the point of my post - which, as per the OP, was to illustrate ideas for a Lawful rogue. Not ways to justify changing someone's alignment on the fly. Almost the opposite: the more background fluff you give pursuant to your PC's alignment, the harder it will likely be to justify p changing it on the fly.

Sorry, ffone, if my post was too harsh, that wasn't my intention. Maybe I got carried away, I apologize, then.

Actually, I think lots of posters have justified why there may be some Lawful Rogues, even though I must admit the type of Rogues I myself like to play are more on the chaotic side, typical bluff/burglar/thief-types, and not aligned with any Lawful mafia-like system. But sure, it's easy to imagine a Lawful Rogue, and I cannot see how a DM can have a problem with that - as long as the Rogue actually plays Lawful (one reason that a DM might be strict on this, is because I could imagine some thievery-wards that used the Chaotic alignment-effect to ward off burglars, for instance - so as you say Lawful should be a reflection of how the character is played, not just a convenient pick to avoid some alignment-related obstacles).

My exasperation, maybe, was a reaction to your mentioning Bond as a possible Lawful character. Or did I misinterpret that too? I agree that MI5/6 might be depicted as a Lawful organisation, and at least M would certainly be a possible Lawful character, so that would make Bond a Chaotic character working within a Lawful organisation (personally, I would prefer Neutral for MI5/6 and M, but that's not uberimportant to me).

The alignment system is based on archetypes, and I simply cannot see how Bond can be seen as a Lawful archetype, that's all. And all those heated alignment discussion, the least productive of them are IMO those where either Real Life moralities or personal preferences are made to bear on the system. Sure, this is a free game and you can do whatever you want. But if one decides to alter some fundamental aspects of the game, it can't come as a surprise if either mechanic or communication problems arise.

But again - I apologize for any harsh words, I'm a nice guy when I'm calm...

Callista
2011-02-24, 04:23 AM
Yeah, people are far to hesitant to change their characters' alignment when appropriate... I mean, come on, it's not a penalty; it's a reflection of character development. And that is a good thing.

Anyway, if you lose class abilities, there's always the option of re-building your character. Got a paladin who's now CG and going to stay that way? Rebuild him into a Cleric/Holy Liberator. Got a barbarian who's become civilized and turned LN? Rebuild him as a fighter, with more tricks but no Rage.

Seriously, people seem almost to think it's a bad thing to switch alignments, when it's not at all unusual for realistic characters to undergo alignment changes, especially over the long term, especially during the young adult years when they are still figuring out the world and their place in it. Most adventurers are young adults; and they're in situations where their views and ideas are going to be challenged constantly. Why in the world wouldn't you see alignment changes? They're practically inevitable!

hamishspence
2011-02-24, 04:57 AM
Point to James Bond as an example - a "maverick" like most Western heroes and therefore superficially Chaotic-seeming; but he's a force of Law and it must suit his principles of he keeps doing it - and his methods are primarily Lawful insofar as you recognize MI6 / CIA type ops as 'legitimately Lawful'. Debating the alignment of any particular character is an endless exercise, but it illustrates the plausibility.

In Complete Scoundrel, Bond is cited as an example of a Lawful Neutral scoundrel character.

While this might not fit all versions of Bond- it does show that some D&D designers thought he was compatible with a Lawful alignment.

Sine
2011-02-24, 07:52 AM
Yeah, people are far to hesitant to change their characters' alignment when appropriate... I mean, come on, it's not a penalty; it's a reflection of character development. And that is a good thing.
Going from one kind of Good to another is fine, but going from Neutral to Evil might be a problem. Especially if the DM has an 'Evil PCs become NPCs' rule, which is entirely understandable.


Anyway, if you lose class abilities, there's always the option of re-building your character. Got a paladin who's now CG and going to stay that way? Rebuild him into a Cleric/Holy Liberator. Got a barbarian who's become civilized and turned LN? Rebuild him as a fighter, with more tricks but no Rage.
I imagine the problem comes when you have a rules lovin' DM. "NO, you can't retrain class levels! NO, you can't just play a NG paladin! We follow rules here, what kinda game do you think we run here!? You violated your alignment code, you pay the consequences! If you're lucky I'll let you roll up a new character at a level lower!"

Also, a few players/DMs are probably still stuck in the 'changing alignment means a huge XP loss' mindset.