Alignment and party actions question

[titans4ever]

Here is the set up. Sorry for long set up, but want you to get whole story.

We are running a 5 character group of people mostly newer to D&D that finished one campaign up to epic level on a guided "tour of the Forgotten Realms." We got our feet wet playing and now are on to campaign #2 with a new set of characters.

This party is getting their feet wet in adventuring by doing bounties or small things to protect/help the area. It is a more no holds barred adventure this time where if we pick the wrong fight at the wrong time a party wipe is acceptable. DM is encouraging more role playing to character abilities and alignment. DM wants us to learn limits and what we can/cannot handle.
My character died in a blaze of glory protecting the party from a wyrm while they all escaped. OK, I actually ran up, took a swing at it, got swallowed whole, died instantly, and then the party ran. Lesson learned.

I needed a new character to get introduced into the party so I created a dwarven crusader and the god I chose for it made me a Lawful/Good character. The party had previously gone out and got into trouble with a minotaur and his minions and were preparing to make an attack on it before he comes and finds them. My in was that I needed to go that way anyway to map the area for a trade route before I moved on so I went along. They of course would not tell me anything about the trouble they were in or what exactly they were planning. Our day of adventuring turned out to be an attack on the open plains by a manticore and a party of hobgoblins with the minotaur's insignia on them. That night we get attacked by a bunch of bugbears with the same insignia. They say nothing as to what the insignia means and I don't recognize it. The next day, we find the camp and make tactics to assault the encampment. The party still won't say why they are doing this, but that it needs to be done and I don't think I can leave without being spotted or killed so I am now in till the end. We wipe out everything moving in the camp including the big, bad minotaur. All there is to find is treasure/plunder from the bodies and chests. Nothing to recover, no damsel in distress, etc.

Would a Lawful/good character look at this as a massacre? He had no real reason to attack this place minus the two encounters as we tried to find the camp. Is that enough for him to help wipe out this encampment? Would he walk away from this party and say, "Good luck, this is not for me."?

[aeauseth]

Alignments can be tricky. Most alignment issues are generally overlooked because they bring about lots of argument and conflict. Most of which doesn't really add to the game.

Lawful/Good has a tendency to bring about the Superman complex, but you don't have to be that drastic.

Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. You may have a cult or other social group that may have their own laws, and thus not respect the laws of other lands.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient being. I have always had a problem with this one. Is slaughtering a band of bugbears just because they got in the way evil? I tend to add a racists slant to the "good" description from the SRD. I don't see any problems with a player of good alignment slaughtering a band races that aren't yours. Terrible isn't it? Sounds horribly racists, I know. But otherwise how would DnD work? You have to wait for the evil devils to make an overt evil act before you intercede? Just not practical, and even the published WoTC modules don't make that assumption.

[jedipotter]

Would a Lawful/good character look at this as a massacre? He had no real reason to attack this place minus the two encounters as we tried to find the camp. Is that enough for him to help wipe out this encampment? Would he walk away from this party and say, "Good luck, this is not for me."?

I depends how you see ''lawful good''.

1.Would you say your character needs ''a reason'' to do anything?
2.Would you say your character can't act against someone unless he has proof that they are doing something wrong, bad, illegal or evil?
3.What does your character consider wrong, bad, illegal or evil?

[Clistenes]

I think that the character would be more annoyed about being tricked into joining the fight without warning and without asking for his consent, that because of the carnage itself. Dwarves usually have no sympathy for goblinoids and giants, so if the characters tell him that the minotaur and hobgoblins were really evil and had to be defeated, he will probably give them the benefit of the doubt.

Anyways, if he DOES think of it as an unjustified massacre, what is he going to do? Attacking his allies without being sure that they were in the wrong would be a worse infraction than participating in that carnage he was dragged into.

As I said, at worse he will feel slighted, be annoyed and refuse to work with them anymore once they are back in his city. If he's really strict about honor matters or really prickly or just very pissed, he could challenge the team leader to an honor duel once they are back in the dwarven city.