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NyxMorigan
2017-03-12, 07:09 AM
Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

Kantaki
2017-03-12, 07:47 AM
Avoid breaking your word.

Now that shouldn't mean you can't be dishonest or cheat.
You can twist it, bend it and use misleading phrasing, you can stack the deck in your favour or omit things, but outright lying should only be employed if there's no other option.

An exemption might be if you planned to betray them from the beginning.
Under the condition that they can't come back to take revenge of course.
Someone intended as a sacrifice/cannon fodder- someone expendable -can of course be convinced to help you with false promises.
I mean, you promised the reward after the mission. Not your fault they didn't survive to claim it.
But even then the „reward” should be real enough to make it believable.
The same goes for enemies.
However, isn't it much more satisfying if you get them to misinterpret you? To use their assumption against them?
Let's say the heroes goody-two-shoes have something you need and you have a hostage (or more) important to them.
Wouldn't the hostage’s safety be worth the Macguffin?
Releasing them? Letting them go with the good guys?
You only said you would guarantee their safety.
In fact you still need the hostage for something.
Besides, they wouldn't really be safe with the good guys right now...:smallamused:

Aunt Edith says: But why don't we ask the expert?
Red Fel
Red Fel
Red Fel

Grim Portent
2017-03-12, 09:04 AM
The appropriate way to play LE will vary depending on the character in question and why they are evil and what their long term goals are, but generically speaking:

1) Be consistent. Work out what your responses to certain things are and try to stick to these when possible.

For example a Lawful character should generally respond to bandits the same way every time they encounter them unless there's something important that changes the circumstances, more important than mere whim or first impressions. By contrast a Chaotic character will judge each bandit group they encounter differently, often basing decisions on things as insignificant as if the bandits were polite when trying to rob people or not.

Have your ethical and moral lines planned out beforehand rather than improvising them, then apply them equally to everyone you meet. All pickpockets are punished the same, all allies are expected to hold the same standards of diligence and efficiency in their duties, so on and so forth. Your ethics should be a rock on which people can anchor their expectations, be they just or unjust.

2) Be willing to break the law.

Evil is by it's nature willing to kill, cheat, steal and worse. Being Lawful does not change that. Avoid falling into the trap of thinking Lawful alignment = legal or fair behavior only.

3) Be open to cleaving to group decisions even when they offend your own morals or obstruct your goals. Don't fight other players over things like merciless executions when the majority are opposed.

Unlike a Good character you shouldn't really have moral limits in the way they do. A Good person can't condone the murder and consumption of a harmless innocent and stay Good, but you stay Evil simply by advocating the Evil course of action even if you never get to act on it.

Strigon
2017-03-12, 09:16 AM
We have a person for that.
He'll be along shortly. Please, take a seat.

In the meantime, feel free to do a little light reading. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?448542-Compliance-Will-Be-Rewarded-A-Guide-to-Lawful-Evil&highlight=Compliance)

ErebusVonMori
2017-03-12, 10:24 AM
Choose a code of honour, stick to it.

Warning: Code of honour need not be honourable.

Edit: To aid the summoning of our dread lord Red Fel. Red Fel. Red Fel.

Trekkin
2017-03-12, 02:24 PM
While we await our dread lord, some supplementary advice:

The kind of Lawful Evil that works best in mixed groups is frequently the kind that's Lawful first and Evil second.

First, have a long-term plan for what it is that your character wants. If they want to control the world, fine. If they want to ascend to devilhood, that's cool too. Whatever it is, make sure it doesn't directly damage the other PCs before the projected end of the campaign; if all else fails, be the second-most-urgent problem on their list.

Second, restrict your short-term Evil mostly to those actions that directly further your long-term plan, and recognize that the net worth of a blatant action of which your party strenuously disapproves is quite likely to be negative. Walking around looking for puppies to kick is not only disruptive, it's silly and unbecoming to boot. Bide your time. In time, you will find potential underlings whose efforts can be turned to furthering your goals. They are good targets at which to vent your Evilness. You will also find competitors, which are even better for this sort of thing: Good has a funny way of permitting Evil-on-Evil violence as "the inevitable reward of wickedness" or some such. Remember how I said to be the second most urgent problem on the other PCs' hit list? This is how you deal with #3 and below. For the other PCs, villains are a problem to solve; for you, they're an opportunity for your natural inclination toward merciless brutality to be rewarded rather than chastised.

The rest is largely presentation -- which is of course of considerable importance to playing Lawful Evil enjoyably. Read the Evil Overlord list, sure, but understand that you can totally suspend people feet-first over a piranha tank and leave them to their fate now and again provided you're confident in your ability to recapture them. Recognize where you can afford to get splashy in case efficient Evil gets too dull.

One option is of course to be the voice of hard reason in dialogue. Question whether the party can really afford to save all the innocents or take the most righteous path; be willing to consider the long-term consequences of nominally "good" actions and point out where letting the village burn might actually help the country in the long run. Many Good folks, and especially Neutrals, are strangely willing to tolerate having an evil teammate on whom they can pin the lose-lose situations and necessary sacrifices, provided they think you're acting out of pragmatism.

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-12, 02:37 PM
Lawful evil is a terrible descriptor! Lawful evil is your ALIGNMENT. It is not your character. So while we wait for our fiendish overlord, I suggest you flesh out your character for us. Even typing things out can help some people grapple with thorny issues. And, it gives us a place to start.

There must be a reason you picked evil after all, correct?

BarbieTheRPG
2017-03-12, 02:43 PM
The Lawful Evil guide (http://easydamus.com/lawfulevil.html) :smallsmile:

Loyalty would be very important to Kitsune society and LE characters. Kitsune are normally neutral-aligned but there's always exceptions.

Jay R
2017-03-12, 02:59 PM
You're doing it backwards. Decide how you want to play your character, and then pick an alignment that fits.

Playing a character in a way that isn't what you wanted to do in the first place is like wearing a suit that doesn't fit. You can certainly do it, but it will be permanently uncomfortable.

Besides, there are ten thousand ways to play "Lawful Evil".

veti
2017-03-12, 03:37 PM
Lawful evil is a terrible descriptor! Lawful evil is your ALIGNMENT. It is not your character. So while we wait for our fiendish overlord, I suggest you flesh out your character for us. Even typing things out can help some people grapple with thorny issues. And, it gives us a place to start.

While you're at it, it would also help if you could tell us something about the rest of the party. Are they evil, good, neutral? Lawful, chaotic? Government-employed, freelance heroes or murderhobos? Makes quite a difference.

And anything you know about the setting and the campaign might also be relevant. Is the world ending? Is there a war on? Is the Dark Lord threatening dire whatever that the party is expected to thwart, or is the beneficent ruler planning a railway line through your backyard?

Cluedrew
2017-03-12, 04:48 PM
Aunt Edith says: But why don't we ask the expert?
Red Fel
Red Fel
Red Fel
Edit: To aid the summoning of our dread lord Red Fel. Red Fel. Red Fel.Has anyone just considered a Personal Message? Not sure if he is been one much recently though, he didn't show up in Writing Villains (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517648-Writing-Villains-looking-for-some-tips) either. Although I find it amusing that 3 of 4 people to mention Red Fel so far use the NecromancerGuy avatar.

Without more detail I'm going to have to say "play a lawful character who happens to be evil". Most of the general tips have been covered already (if not here than in a linked thread) and I think we need more information to go further than that.

Berenger
2017-03-12, 06:17 PM
Although I find it amusing that 3 of 4 people to mention Red Fel so far use the NecromancerGuy avatar.

That's because Lawful Evil is well organized.

Red Fel! Red Fel! Red Fel!

Kantaki
2017-03-12, 06:19 PM
That's because Lawful Evil is well organized.

Red Fel! Red Fel! Red Fel!

Who are you calling lawful evil there?:smallyuk::smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-12, 06:22 PM
That's because Lawful Evil is well organized.

I personally prefer to think of you as his cheerleaders, just with a very baggy uniform.


And anything you know about the setting and the campaign might also be relevant. Is the world ending? Is there a war on? Is the Dark Lord threatening dire whatever that the party is expected to thwart, or is the beneficent ruler planning a railway line through your backyard?

Not sure if this was meant as sarcasm, but the more information, the better. Evil characters require integration into the story as much as a paladin does, in my opinion. (Can't have a paladin wandering around in a intrigue based grey on gray morality game, after all!) We can only give good advice if we know what is going on, else...It's going to be pretty general.

Another suggestion is to form a bond with another character, to use as a quick and dirty reason to help. Maybe your character feels like another is a friend and really doesn't want them to die. Maybe they are a relative, and honor demands you help.

Of course, there is always speaking to the DM. If the DM has made their own campaign setting, abuse the fact they love their creation and integrate yourself into it. If it is an established setting, figure out what would work out with his plot the best. Heck, even knowing what sort of stories they favor could be helpful.

ErebusVonMori
2017-03-12, 07:22 PM
More that LE naturally falls into a hierarchy and we all know who's at the top. The reason this happens is because otherwise the number of LE people in a given organisation is one, and a number of corpses. I do however welcome other people challenging our dread lord for the title.

Red Fel. Red Fel. Red Fel.

Pauly
2017-03-12, 08:27 PM
I think LE is best played Lawful first, and then more amoral, not immoral. Especially at lower levels. You don't have a particular grand evil goal in mind or intention to commit harm, you simply just don't care if other people get hurt in the process.

Think of soldiers in a tyrannical regime. They may not have any particular personal motivation to burn the village, but if they get the order they do it as efficiently as possible, then clean the blood off their weapons and sleep soundly at night.

Examples: a prisoner is attempting an escape. Your other party members shout "quick, someone stop him". You: stab the prisoner in the back then get bemused when the other party members get offended "Well he isn't escaping anymore is he?"
If the penalty for stealing is to have your hand cut off. When the orphan steals an apple from a team member, you summarily carry out the punishment while the other team members are discussing on what to do with the poor waif.

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-12, 08:31 PM
More that LE naturally falls into a hierarchy and we all know who's at the top. The reason this happens is because otherwise the number of LE people in a given organisation is one, and a number of corpses. I do however welcome other people challenging our dread lord for the title.

So...What's the difference between this and chaotic evil? How snazzy the uniforms are?

NorthernPhoenix
2017-03-12, 09:07 PM
My interpretation of "Lawful Evil" has less to do with legal law or personal codes, and more to do with values. Lawful Evil people are Evil people who value order, structure, routine and hierarchy. Being evil, they are also selfish and want to enforce these values on others if possible and probably desire the "top spot" within any given structure or hierarchy, and think nothing of achieving this at the expense of others.

sktarq
2017-03-13, 12:55 AM
One way to play LE (there are infinite) that hasn't been mentioned yet.

"Law is my hammer" - Basically you use the law, traditions, etc as your social tools for your very selfish ends.

Another way

Sin Eater - you do what is necessary. You deeply believe in the society or system you serve but know that at times it must be protected with everything from blackmail, blades, the executioner's ax, and torture. The glory or your society is not for you-to accept that would be to mar the very thing you care about. Niceness is a tool for your society that is found in other hands. When a village must be sacrificed to preserve the county-everyone knows you are the one to call o, even to drive the refugee children back into quarantine. Think the Warhammer40K imperial system if you need help.

Others are my tool kit. "Others"? They are things, they have value in how they may help you gain what you want (and that may be something like what you think the world should be and if they help that you may be very nice). When you need to do things that are perhaps against the law-be careful. Be diligent. There are good sources to help you with this but I would toss Hannibal Lecter as an inspiration here. Organized, planning, courteous, whose interests run to what wine is best paired to various of your internal organs.


And remember you want - and will strive to get that without regard to other's well being. It is usually assumed with Lawful character that they want power and to be at the top of a hierarchy many but by no means universally. Becoming the best sculptor may need you drive your apprentices and slaves to death but once you have your workshop noninterference may take priority as more power and responsibility may interfere with your actual goal.

Best of luck, it is a chance to show those foxy fangs

Stealth Marmot
2017-03-13, 01:04 AM
First off let's get it out of the way: Philosophers have been trying to define evil since language was a thing yadda yadda now lets get down to what is generally accepted D&D alignments.

Generally, Lawful Evil is less damaging in the short term and more dangerous in the long term. Lawful Evil is tyranny, whereas Chaotic Evil is sheer destruction and mayhem. When Chaotic Evil marches in and starts murdering for kicks, people rise up and band together and say "Hey knock that crap off!" in so many words and or stabbing motions. On the other hand, when tyranny starts coming around it comes with kind words, politeness, and most of all PROMISE. Lawful evil is pragmatic, negotiable, and worst off all, they think they are in the right. That doesn't mean they aren't selfish, callous, duplicitous, or flat out hateful.

I find examples can help you, and I will steer away from real world examples as they can be pretty ambiguous. My favorite Lawful Evil example is Tywin Lannister.

Let's be clear, this man is callous, hateful, abusive, greedy, and willing to do whatever is necessary to get what he wants. However, he also does so in a very ordered fashion. His word is law and he will do what he promises, at least on paper. But, most of all, he has a purpose that he does all of these things for: His family's legacy. Everything he does, he does in order to make the family legacy grander, better, more powerful. The family legacy is all that matters to him, and YET he is willing to hurt and abuse and manipulate his own family to do it.

That's the crazy thing about evil. Evil is not bound by thoughts of mercy or morality, so it can get so lost in its pursuit of its goals it won't realize its destroying the thing they believe they cherish so much.

So where does this leave your Kitsune Sorcerer? It leaves you with a question: What does your Kitsune value? What is it they are after and are willing to do anything that is necessary for?

See, a chaotic evil character has wants and desires, but they will be fleeting and malleable. "I want to burn that house, now I want to murder everyone. Wait, it's a pain in the butt to try to kill people, I'll just go get drunk and piss on the holy symbols of the local church and start a fight with an orphan."

Lawful Evil on the other hand is more likely to have a goal. They will be far more likely to pursue it doggedly, and they will follow whatever they have to in order to get it. Follow the law, follow a path, be willing to sacrifice anything that is necessary (and favor sacrificing what isn't even theirs).

Ask yourself, what precisely would your Kitsune Sorcerer sacrifice their soul for? When you have that figured out, have them be willing to go through whatever means will get them closer to that goal. Keep in mind however, that lawful evil is LESS likely to look for the quick shortcut, and instead be willing to get in it for the longhaul. Backstab your party for a free level in Sorcerer? Nah, grouping with the party is far more likely to result in many MORE sorcerer levels.

That said, if a member of your party is getting in the way of your goals, feel free to arrange their "accidental" removal from the living world.

I think more than any other alignment, Lawful Evil is most likely to be driven by ambition. So be in it for the longhaul, and figure out what drives your character.

A little piece of advice though: Lawful Evil, and really ANY evil, can make friends they will be loyal to. Make sure your party becomes such people. Hell, it can be a good arc when the Lawful Evil character uses horrific means to attain what the other good aligned characters want. You wanted starvation to be fixed and I fixed it, through forced labor and the merciful executions of those incapable of helping to provide food, like the sick and elderly. Don't worry, I made sure the wealthy did their part as well, they have so generously donated most of their holdings and land by swordpoint. Why at this rate the food will be in surplus, why are you upset?

ShaneMRoth
2017-03-13, 01:09 AM
You want advice?

Play the character, not the alignment.

Let the decision to select the Lawful Evil alignment inform your decisions, but nothing more.

khadgar567
2017-03-13, 01:17 AM
wow still no respond from his evilness red fel color me shocked.

Fri
2017-03-13, 01:20 AM
He's still depressed from the inability of his evil kilbots to make proper breakfast (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21777553&postcount=9)

RazorChain
2017-03-13, 02:11 AM
Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

I'll just post a general advice


Find out who your character is, what she/he likes or dislikes, what motivates her/him. Hopes, dreams, quirks, moods etc.

Don't let alignment hem you in. Evil characters tend toward callous, cruel and selfish. When you have found out who your character is then you can assign alignment.


So if you are playing a Sorcerer who is loyal to a fault, always keeps his/her word and follows a morbid code of honor but is willing to sacrifice almost anyting in his/her pursuit of power, wealth and knowledge then you could assign lawful evil to your character.

hifidelity2
2017-03-13, 06:23 AM
I have a LE Wizard /Thief

His goals were
At Low levels it was to survive (the DM had the local mafia after him) , ingratiate himself into the party (us use them to help him survive) and make money

At medium levels it was to take over the local mafia and set up a rival magic school (the empire controlled magic)

At high Level it was to become the crime boss for the whole empire and to become the power behind the throne within the Empire wizard school

BUT he is loyal to his friends & Family

He does not want to disrupt society he just wants to control it (quietly). A stable, prosperous society is a nice place to live and provides a lot of income.

Mutazoia
2017-03-13, 07:45 AM
Lawful Evil characters will tend to believe that the good of society vastly outweighs the good of the members of said society. They are the ones that advocate and enforce slavery, because free labor makes for better profits. They are the ones that vilify other nations/races to create an external threat that must be guarded against at the cost of certain freedoms...for anyone not of their social status. They are the ones that believe in torture to gain information. They are the ones that would come up with the idea of drowning a person accused of being a witch and say if she lives, she's a witch and must be executed (so the poor person dies either way). They are the ones that believe the ends justify the means, and that might equals right.

They are the insurance lawyers that find loop holes in your coverage to keep the company from paying for the service you paid them for. They are the mafia Don's, and the cartel bosses. They are the politicians who draft laws that make them rich, and squash laws that provide for the common masses. They are the televangelists who live in large mansions and drive expensive cars, and condemn others for their lifestyle choices, simply to play on the fears and insecurities of their viewers (and make more money from donations, of course). They are the crooked cops, and the school bullies, who use the system for their benefit, at the cost of others safety and security. They are the college professors who offer better grades for sexual favors.

They are the ones that twist the system to their advantage, so that everything they do seems perfectly legal, and may very well be so.

BarbieTheRPG
2017-03-13, 09:22 AM
I have a LE Wizard /Thief

His goals were
At Low levels it was to survive (the DM had the local mafia after him) , ingratiate himself into the party (us use them to help him survive) and make money

At medium levels it was to take over the local mafia and set up a rival magic school (the empire controlled magic)

At high Level it was to become the crime boss for the whole empire and to become the power behind the throne within the Empire wizard school

BUT he is loyal to his friends & Family

He does not want to disrupt society he just wants to control it (quietly). A stable, prosperous society is a nice place to live and provides a lot of income.
That's LE by definition.

Segev
2017-03-13, 09:45 AM
A Lawful Evil Kitsune is an interesting twist, to me. I usually see them more as chaotic tricksters. I am unsure if you're still going "trickster" with this character, or not.

Remember, above all else, that Lawful Evil plays well with others...at least in its immediate circle. It can be dealt with, because it adheres to rules.

Q, at his more malevolent but playful, strikes me as a good template to follow for an LE trickster-type. A lawful trickster plays games, which means he sets up rules, victory conditions, and even (possibly) prizes. He may well force people to play against their will, and exert force and punishment for refusing to play by his rules, but if they beat him fairly, he will concede. He can be a sore loser or a graceful one, but he WILL concede; that's what makes him Lawful. ("Prizes" can be genuine rewards, or the prize for him could be taking whatever he wants from the victims under the veneer of having won it 'fairly,' and the "prize" for the victims could be simply being allowed to escape with lives and property intact. Or there could be a prize given out that is a Xanatos Gambit: the winner using it still serves him in some fashion.)

In general, though, Lawful Evil is ruthless in applying the rules he follows to his best advantage. He will work with his party without betraying them, because betrayal is not Lawful (as a general rule, at least). He will aid them; as with any Evil alignment, he can be the one who does the hard things behind the party's back. He is trustworthy; if he gave his word, he'll keep it. A well-played LE character in a generally-Good party will often be hard to tell apart from an LN character, at least from moment to moment. It will only be when the chips are down and he consistently chooses the less merciful, more ruthlessly efficient path that his true alignment becomes clear. Not because the Evil isn't important compared to the Law, but because he's working with these people for a reason, and thus allows them their Lawfully-agreed-upon group decisions. He might take matters into his own hands in private, of course, but only to the benefit of his party.

khadgar567
2017-03-13, 10:32 AM
Well atleast we have second best thing happen to thr treat. We may not have red fel answered our summons but atleast gitp regulars very own evil nercomancer overlord answered our pleas

LibraryOgre
2017-03-13, 10:50 AM
For me, a good thing to look at is Palladium's "Aberrant" alignment.



Aberrant
1. Always keeps his word of honor
2. Lie & cheat those not worthy of his respect
3. May or may not kill an unarmed foe
4. Not kill an innocent particularly a child but will harm or kidnap
5. Never kill for pleasure
6. Not resort to inhumane treatment of prisoners, but torture, although distasteful, is necessary means of extracting info.
7. Never torture for pleasure
8. May or may not help someone in need
9. work with others to attain his goals
10. Respect honor and self-discipline
11. Never betray a friend

While the name is weird, it provides an outline of one way of playing LE... a strong central code, based around personal integrity, but with a willingness to inflict harm on others to achieve their goals. You'll note it doesn't really have much to do with following the law, so much as being relatively predictable in certain situations... if he's given his word, he'll keep it. He won't kill an innocent, but enemy combatants are fair game. He doesn't kill because it is fun, but because it is necessary to achieve his goals.

In a lot of ways, the difference between (moral) Neutrality and Evil in D&D comes down to extremes... a neutral person is selfish, but won't necessarily hurt someone to achieve their goals. An evil person is selfish (in that their actions serve to improve and aggrandize themselves), and won't hesitate to hurt someone if it clearly advances their goals; (a good person, for reference, will avoid hurting someone to achieve their goals, but D&D's definition of good has always been a bit more violent than the traditional definition).

Psikerlord
2017-03-13, 05:10 PM
Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

My genuine advice is... ask everyone if they'd prefer to not use alignment at all!

Strigon
2017-03-13, 08:02 PM
Red Fel?
Are... are you okay, buddy?

... We made cookies, if you want some...

Blackhawk748
2017-03-13, 08:07 PM
Red Fel?
Are... are you okay, buddy?

... We made cookies, if you want some...

Hes around, i just saw him in the 3.5 subforum. Did no one PM him?

Kane0
2017-03-13, 08:47 PM
Here's a trick I picked up when playing a LE hobgoblin.

Every time you consider a course of action ask yourself 'Does it serve a purpose?'. The key is to disregard moral implications, that's what makes this kind of thought process evil as well as lawful. It's a quick way to make a call and move on with the game while keeping consistency. You can do the same with pretty much any question so long as it leans to the things Lawful and Evil are known for.

Also make sure to add in one or two things to your character that they consider 'taboo'. For example you might condemn the practice of slavery despite its useful qualities or restrain from drawing blood just because you find it distasteful. This makes you more empathetic to others and more likely to fit into a party and campaign.

Cluedrew
2017-03-14, 07:04 AM
To Blackhawk748: I did bring up the possibility of it earlier but I didn't. Can you PM arbitrary members? I don't know how to without finding one of their posts.

Strigon
2017-03-14, 08:33 AM
To Blackhawk748: I did bring up the possibility of it earlier but I didn't. Can you PM arbitrary members? I don't know how to without finding one of their posts.

Well, I'm not messaging him because I don't want him to have my phone number, but if anyone else wants to give it a shot... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?80567-Red-Fel)

Personally, though, I think he's deliberately avoiding this thread to cause us grief. What his endgame is, I have no idea, but just the title of this thread should be like sticking the bat-signal in the sky.

Stealth Marmot
2017-03-14, 03:51 PM
Red Fel?
Are... are you okay, buddy?

... We made cookies, if you want some...

We made you fiftee-...twelve cookies.

*wipes crumbs off of corner of mouth*

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-14, 03:57 PM
Clearly, it is time for someone to assume his throne, now that he has been seen to be absent and unable to defend it.

Since I have no idea of what is going with the campaign, I will offer a LE I have been wanting to play for a while, that I think will do nicely in a group of non-evil: Someone who believes that the ends justify the means. That to really 'win', you must do whatever is necessary to produce a good outcome. Basically, doing evil for goodness' sake. They would just as easily lay down their lives to save a child as they would be to kill someone endangering one in a brutal fashion (just not in front of the child).

So...Punisher, sorta.

Blackhawk748
2017-03-14, 04:57 PM
Well, I'm not messaging him because I don't want him to have my phone number, but if anyone else wants to give it a shot... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?80567-Red-Fel)

Fine i'll do it, cowards.

sktarq
2017-03-14, 05:38 PM
Awww - was waiting for some Fel-ite to start sacrificing chickens and drawing things in their blood.


Also this delay exemplifies perfectly the weakness of a LE system left unkempt. Really Red should do as the true master of House of Cards (Urquhart) would and "put a bit of stick about"

Strigon
2017-03-14, 08:07 PM
Clearly, it is time for someone to assume his throne, now that he has been seen to be absent and unable to defend it.


I shall get started writing your eulogy immediately, sir.


Fine i'll do it, cowards.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/galv5Il.gif

Edit:
That's, uh...
That's the wrong gif...
I'm going to leave it; we could all use a little more Dadaism.

Red Fel
2017-03-14, 08:10 PM
Wow. Not sure how I missed this thread. Been pretty noisy at work, I suppose, but still, my name has been thrown around a lot here...


Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

Heya, buddy!

Fact is, other people have said plenty. I've said plenty, too - my guide on the subject (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?448542-Compliance-Will-Be-Rewarded-A-Guide-to-Lawful-Evil) has been mentioned.

Here's the thing. A race and a class really don't tell me all I need to know about your character as a person, which is a prerequisite to coming up with how to make your character Lawful Evil. That's always, always step 1 - defining your character as a person.

Once you know who your character is, you start examining them for those traits which make them Lawful (e.g. honorable, traditional, adhering to code, respectful of certain authority, etc.) and Evil (seeing power as a means and an end, being ruthless, being self-interested at the expense of others, etc.). That's something you have to parse for yourself - there's no specific list of "Do this, Don't do this" rules.

I'd recommend reading the handbook. Then, if you have more specific questions, come back here and we can discuss them further.

ATHATH
2017-03-14, 10:24 PM
I do however welcome other people challenging our dread lord for the title.


Clearly, it is time for someone to assume his throne, now that he has been seen to be absent and unable to defend it.

So...What's the difference between this and chaotic evil? How snazzy the uniforms are?

We made you fiftee-...twelve cookies.

*wipes crumbs off of corner of mouth*
How should these traitors be punished, oh great and powerful Red Fel?

Kane0
2017-03-15, 12:30 AM
Might I suggest lifetime imprisonment on the neutral planet?

khadgar567
2017-03-15, 04:35 AM
Might I suggest lifetime imprisonment on the neutral planet?
I dont advise it mate good help is hard to find or train so put geas or mark of evil and call it day

Misereor
2017-03-15, 05:24 AM
Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

Sure, here are my two coppers.

Once you've decided what you want to play, basic character creation goes something like:
First think about your character's personality. What is his/her place in society, relationships with other people, view of the gods, etc..
Then select long term goals and ambitions, and how these were aquired.
Then consider how they might have impacted personality, place in society, etc. and retroactively tweak the details. You now have a basic personality.
Create the outline of the character's history. Characters with a personality are much easier to create an interesting background for, which in turn makes it much more interesting to develop their personality during play.
After that, start considering alignment. Some retroactive tweaking will be on the menu as well. And remember that alignment is there for flavor, not just mechanics.

Let's try an example with simple choices that can be made into a background story in 5 minutes.

Choose an alignment: Lawful Evil. (Preselected because of the thread premise.)
Choose a name and class: Anton the Generic Fighter. Wait. Change generic to "Black".
Choose a look: Standard human with some distinguishing feature involving the color black.
Choose a background: Can't be bothered to think out something better, so son of a local tradesman.
Choose ambition: To be an adventurer. Why? I guess he wants power. Why? Maybe he wants to be respected. Why? Too deep. Decide later.
How did he aquire his ambitions: I guess he didn't get what he wanted, and thinks he can get it if people respect him. Maybe even fear him, alignment considered.
How is his relationship with other people and society in general: Pretty average. No problems most of the time. Considering the respect thing, he probably tries to be friendly with people that are respected by the community.
Fine, now go back over the list again for minor corrections.

So.

Anton the Black, LE Human male fighter 1.
Anton is a young, sturdy man with a big, black beard from which his nickname is derived.
A baker's son, Anton had a fairly normal childhood. He got in about as much trouble as other kids, and received about the same amount of whoopings, but somewhere along the line he became cynical and angry. Maybe it was unrequitted love, maybe he got screwed over too many times, or maybe he was bullied or ridiculed by someone.
Anton respects the law and the gods. In Anton's country there is no law against being evil, and Anton is actually quite friendly with some of the local lawful good clergy. They sometimes admonish him that he is on the wrong path and that he should mend his ways and turn his heart to the gods, but so far it hasn't had much effect. He is who he is. Anton isn't actively evil, but when he becomes angry, he commits the kind of deeds that do not wash away. He has never mastered his temper, and when angry will twist facts to his own satisfaction and try to justify the harm he inflicts. He is rarely repentant (after all they had it coming) and only when he has committed some grievous error in public, will he be embarrassed enough to regret them.

So based on the above, think up some notes for the campaign and how he is to be played:
Anton would never be noticed if he wasn't an adventurer. There are plenty of people with bad tempers, who occasionally do bad things, but manage to get along with the rest of society. But Anton is on a path of power, and he has chosen a profession where he will often kill and inflict harm. The two are a bad combination. Anton is only level 1 and not a raging psychopath, so his evil is immature, but depending on how he is played and how the campaign develops, Anton will either go deeper into the LE rabbit hole, or possibly even become neutral or chaotic evil along the way. Or maybe he will achieve enlightenment and change his ways for the better, becoming a champion of LG truth and justice. Or possibly he will mature into an introspective, disciplined LN individual.

But for the moment, LE is an important part of his personality, and it is the personality that should be focused on when playing him.

ErebusVonMori
2017-03-15, 07:43 AM
Hey, I only said someone else should, not that I would. I thought it would be entertaining.

Red Fel
2017-03-15, 08:44 AM
How should these traitors be punished, oh great and powerful Red Fel?

Part of the fun is keeping them guessing.

Stealth Marmot
2017-03-15, 09:14 AM
Part of the fun is keeping them guessing.

Oh please, I've been in perpetual hiding since I stole your breakfast, I don't bother guessing I just assume all possible pain is imminent if ever caught.

Flickerdart
2017-03-15, 03:30 PM
Hi
I'm playing a pathfinder game where I'm playing a lawful evil kitsune sorcerer. However it's my first go at doing a lawful evil character....any advice for playing?

What it means to be Evil
Evil characters are selfish - but consider what that means. They want to maximize their pleasure, and will stop at nothing to do so. Things that can bring people pleasure include friendship, love, brotherhood. Evil characters can have friends. Evil characters are nice to their friends, because the friendship makes them happy. If a person is not their friend, the Evil character starts thinking long and hard about what benefit that person will be to them. If that person is strong and influential, then influence over them will make the Evil person strong and influential too. If the person has wealth, then influence over them will make the Evil person wealthy too. Influence comes in many forms - the Evil person may choose to be nice, or may resort to duress.

Only when a person has no value, and has no patrons of value, does a wise Evil person consider disemboweling them for fun. After all, one of the greatest pleasures in life is power, and the only proof of power lies in its exercise.

What it means to be Lawful
Rules are great. They organize society into something larger than the sum of its parts. They elevate people by guiding them away from rash, impulsive actions. They mete out reward and punishment in a consistent way, so that people can better themselves with a clear goal in mind. They protect stupid people from themselves, and deliver power to the best and brightest. Structure and order bring meaning to every individual's actions, and nothing is more fulfilling than knowing your role and that you do it well.

Lawful + Evil
Power is control, and order is the greatest source of power. A single word from a lord can turn the lives of millions upside-down. And the more power one has, the easier it is to attain more power, and to mobilize the power of others to aid your own causes. To seize power, one must always see himself as master of a system, not slave to it. A Lawful Evil character respects order, but he does not blindly worship it. He does, however, understand that those underneath him are a valuable resource, since they prop him up. He owes them a tiny bit of loyalty because their successes are the organization's successes, and their failures are the organization's failures - and as the person (soon to be) in charge of the whole thing, that means that it's in the Lawful Evil's character's best interest that his underlings are productive and happy!

Grim Portent
2017-03-15, 04:04 PM
A thought has occurred to me that rarely gets brought up, which is that most evil characters will pretty much ignore the vast majority of people they meet unless they have to interact with them regularly and get to know them.

Unless you're a major sadist there's little benefit or joy to be be gained from the common man through cruelty, compared to what can be gained from them by coin or sharing a drink. Indeed most evil people would probably enjoy a night getting drunk and singing in the tavern with the townsfolk more than one spent making a war banner out of their flayed skins.

Flickerdart
2017-03-15, 04:09 PM
A thought has occurred to me that rarely gets brought up, which is that most evil characters will pretty much ignore the vast majority of people they meet unless they have to interact with them regularly and get to know them.

Unless you're a major sadist there's little benefit or joy to be be gained from the common man through cruelty, compared to what can be gained from them by coin or sharing a drink. Indeed most evil people would probably enjoy a night getting drunk and singing in the tavern with the townsfolk more than one spent making a war banner out of their flayed skins.

Correct. I discuss this in much more detail in my post above - Evil people are still people.

Grim Portent
2017-03-15, 04:17 PM
Correct. I discuss this in much more detail in my post above - Evil people are still people.

Not exactly the same point. Evil people are people isn't the same as most evil people won't usually ever do evil even when a consequence free opportunity arises.

If a shopkeep is lawful evil for example, he'll be almost impossible to distinguish from any other shopkeep because chances are his evil nature would only come out under severe duress.

Day to day he has no reason to hurt people, or even to want to hurt them, but if things plunged into a post apocalyptic hellhole he'd be among the most willing to bash someone's brains out for supplies, while a neutral person would basically avoid anyone who can't offer them something and a good one would be willing to help the needy the neutral would ignore even at personal cost.

I wouldn't consider it an exaggeration to say 70% or more of the evil people in a setting don't ever commit a real evil act, they would just be willing to if it became necessary.

EDIT: To clarify, it would seem reasonable to describe Good as 'will make important sacrifices for strangers,' Neutral as 'will not make important sacrifices for strangers' and Evil as 'is willing to harm others for personal gain under some circumstance,' by which definitions someone with an evil personality/alignment would likely go their whole life never being in a situation where being evil is necessary enough, but there is a point of need or convenience that would make them do it.

Segev
2017-03-15, 04:45 PM
I dunno. I think an LE shopkeeper would show in how he managed his affairs. Far more likely to be ruthless in his deal-making, setting penalties that are the price he really hopes to get and setting terms that are deceptively hard to meet so that the penalties are more likely to be collected. Having more legalistic views of the quality of his products, and being willing to not exactly swindle somebody, but definitely to use exact wording to oversell and then hold them to the deal anyway.

Far less willing to renegotiate when things turn out to be superbly in his favor, even when it is obviously causing harm to the other party. (Even a Lawful Neutral person is likely to have a little compassion if the other party genuinely is trying to live up to their end of the deal and there is discretion left to the LN individual that could spare them without costing the LN person too terribly much. The LE person would be quite willing to let the other party be totally ruined for just a small personal benefit if that's what the agreement specified.)

The LE shopkeeper would be more likely to take delight in demanding the harshest punishments allowed by law be inflicted on thieves and miscreants who do even the slightest harm to his establishment. He is also more likely to be abusive - verbally, if not physically - to any employees, exercising any legal means of control or manipulation he has to keep them under his thumb.

Grim Portent
2017-03-15, 05:01 PM
All of that assumes he possesses multiple qualities of what makes a person evil, and to great extent, such as greed, malice and deceptiveness.

It's entirely possible he could be just as moral and good in his normal dealings as a LG, except if he thought it was necessary he'd smash another person over the head to take something from them. Say he was starving and the other man had a loaf of bread, a good or neutral person would leave them be if they couldn't bargain for it, the evil guy would just steal it or kill the other person if they couldn't get it otherwise. Outside such a circumstance he could act completely normally.

Ravens_cry
2017-03-15, 05:02 PM
I've always wanted to play Lawful Evil as someone with a pretty strict code of behaviour, just with values that end up being evil, honourable to the core though. Like 'remove obstacles in ones path. If killing is the best way, kill, but, if not, don't.' For a villain, I'd be very by the book with a desire not to get ones hands dirty directly.

Segev
2017-03-15, 06:10 PM
All of that assumes he possesses multiple qualities of what makes a person evil, and to great extent, such as greed, malice and deceptiveness.

It's entirely possible he could be just as moral and good in his normal dealings as a LG, except if he thought it was necessary he'd smash another person over the head to take something from them. Say he was starving and the other man had a loaf of bread, a good or neutral person would leave them be if they couldn't bargain for it, the evil guy would just steal it or kill the other person if they couldn't get it otherwise. Outside such a circumstance he could act completely normally.

Eh, not quite. First off, your example is NE or CE, not LE, because it's Chaotic to steal. Secondly, he's probably not "moral and good in his normal dealings," because that would push him hard towards LN. He might put up a good facade, if he's big into enlightened self-interest, but even then there is likely to be a...hard edge...that isn't normally associated with Good.

And all of my examples were meant to be potentially stand-alone; he doesn't have to do all of them to be LE. They're flavors he may or may not have in any combination and be LE.

Grim Portent
2017-03-15, 06:22 PM
Eh, not quite. First off, your example is NE or CE, not LE, because it's Chaotic to steal. Secondly, he's probably not "moral and good in his normal dealings," because that would push him hard towards LN. He might put up a good facade, if he's big into enlightened self-interest, but even then there is likely to be a...hard edge...that isn't normally associated with Good.

Behaving well because it's normal to do so, or even because you are actually pretty nice outside your evil personality traits, is not sufficient to drag someone who would be or has been an unrepentant murderer under the correct circumstances out of evil alignment. That's like saying you could eat a live baby and still be neutral just because you don't do anything else evil and are generally pretty nice.

Ravens_cry
2017-03-15, 07:35 PM
Behaving well because it's normal to do so, or even because you are actually pretty nice outside your evil personality traits, is not sufficient to drag someone who would be or has been an unrepentant murderer under the correct circumstances out of evil alignment. That's like saying you could eat a live baby and still be neutral just because you don't do anything else evil and are generally pretty nice.

Indeed. The above sounds like what a lot of video games use for morality, where various acts are assigned a 'point' value, but no single act is enough to push you over the edge one way or the other.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 08:09 PM
You're doing it backwards. Decide how you want to play your character, and then pick an alignment that fits.

Playing a character in a way that isn't what you wanted to do in the first place is like wearing a suit that doesn't fit. You can certainly do it, but it will be permanently uncomfortable.



^ This... is what I was going to say.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 08:13 PM
Eh, not quite. First off, your example is NE or CE, not LE, because it's Chaotic to steal.


And yet somehow the law ends up being used to legally take things in ways that amount to stealing in a moral or ethical sense... lawful characters steal, they just find ways to cover their backsides under the law.

Keltest
2017-03-15, 08:17 PM
And yet somehow the law ends up being used to legally take things in ways that amount to stealing in a moral or ethical sense... lawful characters steal, they just find ways to cover their backsides under the law.

what "the law" says and what lawful people do are not necessarily related.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 08:20 PM
what "the law" says and what lawful people do are not necessarily related.

Look at some of the ways in which eminent domain has been used to seize land for commercial development. Absolutely within the law... also absolutely stealing on an ethical level. (And that concludes my use of real-world examples for this topic.)

Or for fictional examples, look at the onerous taxes that are critical plot points of many a tale.

BarbieTheRPG
2017-03-15, 08:21 PM
A LE Kitsune is a strange bird though since that species has a more neutral-aligned culture. It would be interesting to see what experience(s) drove the character to lean towards order. But it would be fun to play I'm sure. The naturally-gregarious Kitsune nature combined with the socially-manipulative aspects of LE would create a very engaging character (done well). I'd play it telling a series of half-truths in the form of allegorical tales spun to confuse and control everyone he/she met. High ranks in Bluff would make it work. Lawful Evils tend to manipulate the status quo but they also prefer to determine what is and isn't "status quo" based on their own desires.

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-15, 08:22 PM
Might I suggest lifetime imprisonment on the neutral planet?

No! Anything but the biege! Not the earth tones! You monster!


All of that assumes he possesses multiple qualities of what makes a person evil, and to great extent, such as greed, malice and deceptiveness.

It's entirely possible he could be just as moral and good in his normal dealings as a LG, except if he thought it was necessary he'd smash another person over the head to take something from them. Say he was starving and the other man had a loaf of bread, a good or neutral person would leave them be if they couldn't bargain for it, the evil guy would just steal it or kill the other person if they couldn't get it otherwise. Outside such a circumstance he could act completely normally.

Uh...A good aligned person could very well steal the bread...I mean, starving. If the other guy isn't starving, maybe a bit CG, for most. Of course, the law or honor codes might even indicate that theft under certain circumstances is not just okay, but even encouraged!

Which reminds me: Another way to do LE is to be perfectly LG...Except to one race. Obviously, don't pick one the party is playing, and I even suggest a mostly evil race such as drow, orcs, or even demons. If you pick the latter, it might take a while for the figure to suspect you are evil until you are beating a duped demonic cultist over the head with their own severed arm.

I shouldn't suggest doing that...But it'd be really funny.

Keltest
2017-03-15, 08:27 PM
Look at some of the ways in which eminent domain has been used to seize land for commercial development. Absolutely within the law... also absolutely stealing on an ethical level. (And that concludes my use of real-world examples for this topic.)

Or for fictional examples, look at the onerous taxes that are critical plot points of many a tale.

I stand by my statement. That "the law" says something can be done does not mean it is a thing lawful people do.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 08:29 PM
I stand by my statement. That "the law" says something can be done does not mean it is a thing lawful people do.

And good is not something good-aligned people do? :smalleek:

Keltest
2017-03-15, 08:31 PM
And good is not something good-aligned people do? :smalleek:

No, the lawful alignment is just poorly named. "orderly" would be much more accurate, though still not perfect.

Strigon
2017-03-15, 08:34 PM
And good is not something good-aligned people do? :smalleek:

The idea of Law isn't one of legality; it's a worldview and personality type. Otherwise a person's alignment would depend on their geographical location.

Saying a Lawful person always works within the bounds of the law is like saying a Good person always does a good job of whatever they attempt.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 08:52 PM
No, the lawful alignment is just poorly named. "orderly" would be much more accurate, though still not perfect.


The idea of Law isn't one of legality; it's a worldview and personality type. Otherwise a person's alignment would depend on their geographical location.

Saying a Lawful person always works within the bounds of the law is like saying a Good person always does a good job of whatever they attempt.

I don't think that really changes the point that "lawful" / "orderly" people are still quite capable of theft.

Strigon
2017-03-15, 09:09 PM
I don't think that really changes the point that "lawful" / "orderly" people are still quite capable of theft.

Even if it doesn't, that doesn't change the fact that theft would be a chaotic action. Saying someone is capable of a certain action doesn't mean they correspond with that action's alignment.
A Chaotic person is certainly capable of keeping their word, for example.

Besides, you're ignoring context, circumstances, and execution when you really shouldn't. Stealing is pretty Chaotic, and you say that working within a legal framework to forcibly obtain someone else's belongings is the same thing. It isn't. They might both be wrong for similar reasons, but the circumstances and execution are different enough to merit a different alignment. Much in the same way that murdering an innocent civilian is Evil, but killing an armed man who's fighting you to the death isn't, despite them being fundamentally the same action.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-15, 09:31 PM
Even if it doesn't, that doesn't change the fact that theft would be a chaotic action. Saying someone is capable of a certain action doesn't mean they correspond with that action's alignment.
A Chaotic person is certainly capable of keeping their word, for example.

Besides, you're ignoring context, circumstances, and execution when you really shouldn't. Stealing is pretty Chaotic, and you say that working within a legal framework to forcibly obtain someone else's belongings is the same thing. It isn't. They might both be wrong for similar reasons, but the circumstances and execution are different enough to merit a different alignment. Much in the same way that murdering an innocent civilian is Evil, but killing an armed man who's fighting you to the death isn't, despite them being fundamentally the same action.


Stealing isn't by default a particularly chaotic act. Theft can be conducted in a lawful way. Theft can be conducted in an orderly way. I could go into great detail, but it involves a lot real-world and often politically touchy examples.

We'll just have to disagree.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 02:03 AM
The difference is that lawful folks use the rules to steal.
Chaotic people just take what they want.

hifidelity2
2017-03-16, 03:35 AM
The difference is that lawful folks use the rules to steal.
Chaotic people just take what they want.

But we are forgetting the Evil bit. For me Lawful Evil is someone who has to follow their own (warped) moral code. IF Lawful meant you had to follow the local Law then Paladins would have issues in a society that promoted and allowed slavery


For me
CE is “Might is right” – I am more powerful than you and will take what I want regardless of the consequences
LE is “Brains over Brawn” – I am smarter than you and I will take what I want and you will either not know about it, be unable to do anything about it, or even better I will have someone else take the fall

e.g Guy walks into a bar wanting a drink and has no money

CE – walks up to the bar, see a guy with a drink, bash guys head against the bar and take his drink. If he has mates and there is a fight well who cares
LE – Picks someone’s pocket, plants some of the evidence on the nearest person, has a drink and walks out. IF the “pick pocket” is discovered then someone else takes the fall.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 03:56 AM
Did I say anything about respecting the law?
LE is all about using the law, twisting and bending it to their benefit.
Of course they do so while acting according to their own moral code- but so does every other Alignment.
The moral code part, not the abusing the rules one.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 05:14 AM
Uh...A good aligned person could very well steal the bread...I mean, starving. If the other guy isn't starving, maybe a bit CG, for most. Of course, the law or honor codes might even indicate that theft under certain circumstances is not just okay, but even encouraged!

I would say that no, they can't, not if they want to stay good. Taking something that doesn't belong to you for personal benefit is an evil action, it's harming someone else for your own good. It would be almost acceptable to steal to feed someone else who was starving, provided the other person had sufficient food to survive without what you took, and it would be acceptable to steal stolen food to return it to it's proper owner, but under no circumstances is it morally acceptable to steal from someone for personal gain. If a good person is starving they should be willing to die rather than harm someone else through theft, just as they should be unwilling to become a bandit to survive.

Self sacrifice and being unwilling to harm the undeserving is kind of the point of being good after all, breaking those principles just because they become hard means you were never good in the first place.



As regards the discussion about Law and crime, Lawful people break laws all over the place, mob bosses, corrupt cops, or unethical businessmen and so on are often used as examples of LE and they break laws. The only good definition I've seen of Law as opposed to Chaos is consistency vs inconsistency. A lawful person will act in the same way given the same circumstances every single time, or near enough, a chaotic person will act less predictably, basing more of their actions on how they feel in the moment and their personal whims.

For example a Lawful person might decide anyone who picks their pocket should have their hand chopped off, and carry this out regardless of if the pickpocket is a grizzled rogue, a war veteran down on his luck or a cherub faced orphan, even if they feel sympathy for any of them. A chaotic person would decide to punish or be merciful to a pickpocket based on first impressions, what kind of day they'd been having and so on.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 05:35 AM
I would say that no, they can't, not if they want to stay good. Taking something that doesn't belong to you for personal benefit is an evil action, it's harming someone else for your own good. It would be almost acceptable to steal to feed someone else who was starving, provided the other person had sufficient food to survive without what you took, and it would be acceptable to steal stolen food to return it to it's proper owner, but under no circumstances is it morally acceptable to steal from someone for personal gain. If a good person is starving they should be willing to die rather than harm someone else through theft, just as they should be unwilling to become a bandit to survive.

Self sacrifice and being unwilling to harm the undeserving is kind of the point of being good after all, breaking those principles just because they become hard means you were never good in the first place.



As regards the discussion about Law and crime, Lawful people break laws all over the place, mob bosses, corrupt cops, or unethical businessmen and so on are often used as examples of LE and they break laws. The only good definition I've seen of Law as opposed to Chaos is consistency vs inconsistency. A lawful person will act in the same way given the same circumstances every single time, or near enough, a chaotic person will act less predictably, basing more of their actions on how they feel in the moment and their personal whims.

For example a Lawful person might decide anyone who picks their pocket should have their hand chopped off, and carry this out regardless of if the pickpocket is a grizzled rogue, a war veteran down on his luck or a cherub faced orphan, even if they feel sympathy for any of them. A chaotic person would decide to punish or be merciful to a pickpocket based on first impressions, what kind of day they'd been having and so on.
Won't steal bread and starves to death is pretty much lawful stupid I mean someone who self sacrifices themselves over a piece of bread is definitely not the only sort of good character. I mean there are probably thousands upon thousands of rogues who are good aligned who are you to say they can't.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 08:30 AM
Won't steal bread and starves to death is pretty much lawful stupid I mean someone who self sacrifices themselves over a piece of bread is definitely not the only sort of good character. I mean there are probably thousands upon thousands of rogues who are good aligned who are you to say they can't.

A good person should not steal from others to survive, even at the cost of their own life. If they do so they are hardly being a good person, especially if the people they steal from are poor themselves. Theft causes harm to the victim, both financial and psychological, and good should never cause harm except in the defense of themselves or others, and even then only to the perpetrator of that acts being defended against. This is not to say they cannot be redeemed after the act, but they have to make proper amends when able and genuinely regret having stolen from someone.

A thief can be good, but only if they only steal things that were themselves stolen or otherwise unjustly acquired and return them to their rightful owners, like Robin Hood stealing unlawful taxes back from a fake king and returning them back to the towns, villages and churches the money was taken from in the first place, or Bilbo Baggins attempting to help the people of Dale and the Elves of Mirkwood get their shares of treasure that had been stolen by Smaug and then unjustly kept from them by Thorin by stealing the Arkenstone as a bargaining chip.

Keltest
2017-03-16, 08:39 AM
Heres the difference between how a lawful person and a chaotic person operate when somebody else has something they want. A chaotic person just takes it. They may or may not leave compensation depending on whether they are good or not, and what it is. A lawful person will engineer a situation in which the other person is required to give their property to the other party. Notably, this shifts the blame from "its my fault for taking it" to "its his fault for calling down the law, and these are the consequences". at least from the perspective of the lawful person.

Strigon
2017-03-16, 08:48 AM
A good person should not steal from others to survive, even at the cost of their own life. If they do so they are hardly being a good person, especially if the people they steal from are poor themselves. Theft causes harm to the victim, both financial and psychological, and good should never cause harm except in the defense of themselves or others, and even then only to the perpetrator of that acts being defended against. This is not to say they cannot be redeemed after the act, but they have to make proper amends when able and genuinely regret having stolen from someone.

A thief can be good, but only if they only steal things that were themselves stolen or otherwise unjustly acquired and return them to their rightful owners, like Robin Hood stealing unlawful taxes back from a fake king and returning them back to the towns, villages and churches the money was taken from in the first place, or Bilbo Baggins attempting to help the people of Dale and the Elves of Mirkwood get their shares of treasure that had been stolen by Smaug and then unjustly kept from them by Thorin by stealing the Arkenstone as a bargaining chip.

Making a habit out of it is one thing, but being Good just means you have to value other people above yourself, in general.
But not stealing a loaf of bread when it's your only option for survival isn't just putting other people above yourself, it's putting other people miles above yourself.

I don't think there are many people, at all, who wouldn't steal one loaf of bread if they were dying of hunger. I do, however, think there are plenty of Good people.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 09:00 AM
Making a habit out of it is one thing, but being Good just means you have to value other people above yourself, in general.
But not stealing a loaf of bread when it's your only option for survival isn't just putting other people above yourself, it's putting other people miles above yourself.

I don't think there are many people, at all, who wouldn't steal one loaf of bread if they were dying of hunger. I do, however, think there are plenty of Good people.

I would say that Good is the absence of Evil in a person, or the active rejection of any Evil present in them, and the presence of virtues, neutrality is simply the absence or rejection or Evil without the presence of virtues.

90% or more people easily fit into what I define as evil, myself included, wading about in the shallows occupied by those who're pretty much just normal levels of selfish, vain and indifferent to the suffering of others and similar. The sort of person who'd keep a large sum of money they stumbled on rather than try to return it to it's proper owner, or who's judgmental or who secretly think that the world would be a better place with someone else dead and don't feel bad for thinking like that.

The pitfall you seem to be falling into is thinking that good=decent. Most people are decent, perfectly nice to meet and talk to on a day to day basis, donate a little to charity, but not enough to inconvenience them, sometimes but not always help people they don't know with problems like busted tires, but still do a myriad of little things that are bad, and would do worse under the right circumstances. I wouldn't call these people good, but they're still decent, kind and caring, for the most part. That's just not enough to outweigh all the little and large evils they do or would do.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 09:01 AM
A good person can't steal even if they would starve otherwise?
What's next?
Do Paladins fall for eating something instead of giving all their food to someone hungry?
Or for not selling all their stuff to give the money to the poor?

After all they are supposed to be even more good than others.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 09:10 AM
A good person can't steal even if they would starve otherwise?
What's next?
Do Paladins fall for eating something instead of giving all their food to someone hungry?
Or for not selling all their stuff to give the money to the poor?

After all they are supposed to be even more good than others.

Keeping what you have is not evil, so no a paladin would not fall for not giving away all their possessions provided they still represent other virtues. As long as they do no evil and do some good they remain a paladin, what kind of good is up to them. It could be charity, protecting the weak, healing the sick or whatever. If they do no good and no evil they slip into neutrality and would fall that way.

Taking from others is evil however, unless what you take wasn't theirs and you return it to it's proper owner, so I would indeed have a paladin fall from stealing food for themselves until such a time as they at the very least apologize for having done so.

Keltest
2017-03-16, 09:25 AM
Keeping what you have is not evil, so no a paladin would not fall for not giving away all their possessions provided they still represent other virtues. As long as they do no evil and do some good they remain a paladin, what kind of good is up to them. It could be charity, protecting the weak, healing the sick or whatever. If they do no good and no evil they slip into neutrality and would fall that way.

Taking from others is evil however, unless what you take wasn't theirs and you return it to it's proper owner, so I would indeed have a paladin fall from stealing food for themselves until such a time as they at the very least apologize for having done so.

Well... I know I wont be playing a paladin under you then.

Stealing is chaotic. Straight up. There is not good/evil judgment in the act of theft. Why you steal something, what you steal, and what you know the consequences of that theft will be could add such implications, but 'starving paladin steals a loaf of bread so he doesn't starve to death" is not an evil act. He doesn't like doing it, and he doesn't want to make a habit of doing it, but the consequences of him not getting that bread are significantly worse that the consequences for that merchant not getting paid for a single loaf of bread.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 09:51 AM
A good person should not steal from others to survive, even at the cost of their own life.


So what if the person being stolen from has 1000 loaves of bread, and the choice for our "good" character is between taking one of those loaves or allowing someone who can't get their own bread to starve? What if taking that loaf of bread allows our "good" character to put of raw hunger long enough to accomplish some task that saves multiple lives?

Morality doesn't work well as hypotheticals in a vacuum, or as a series of small unrelated choices with no knock-on consequences.



Heres the difference between how a lawful person and a chaotic person operate when somebody else has something they want. A chaotic person just takes it. They may or may not leave compensation depending on whether they are good or not, and what it is. A lawful person will engineer a situation in which the other person is required to give their property to the other party. Notably, this shifts the blame from "its my fault for taking it" to "its his fault for calling down the law, and these are the consequences". at least from the perspective of the lawful person.

Using the law as a tool of theft does not make it less of a theft.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 10:17 AM
So what if the person being stolen from has 1000 loaves of bread, and the choice for our "good" character is between taking one of those loaves or allowing someone who can't get their own bread to starve? What if taking that loaf of bread allows our "good" character to put of raw hunger long enough to accomplish some task that saves multiple lives?

Morality doesn't work well as hypotheticals in a vacuum, or as a series of small unrelated choices with no knock-on consequences.

You are still taking something from someone else, depriving them of their rightful property and causing them financial and psychological harm, even if it's not a large amount, it's still wrong to do so.

If a paladin was starving that badly I would expect them to do something acceptable like trade some of their equipment for food, work for their food, or go without if they couldn't get it legitimately. That said if they did steal it, their redemption would be as simple as going back, apologizing sincerely and paying the money retroactively if possible.

In addition, the ends justify the means ideal of short term harm being better than long term harm is an evil perspective, it can justify doing anything if it can be reasonably intuited as stopping something slightly worse later on.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 10:20 AM
You are still taking something from someone else, depriving them of their rightful property and causing them financial and psychological harm, even if it's not a large amount, it's still wrong to do so.

If a paladin was starving that badly I would expect them to do something acceptable like trade some of their equipment for food, work for their food, or go without if they couldn't get it legitimately. That said if they did steal it, their redemption would be as simple as going back, apologizing sincerely and paying the money retroactively if possible.

In addition, the ends justify the means ideal of short term harm being better than long term harm is an evil perspective, it can justify doing anything if it can be reasonably intuited as stopping something slightly worse later on.


So avoiding the small harm is better than preventing the large harm?

OK .


This thread once again proves how cartoonishly silly D&D alignment is as a system of morals/ethics.

Flickerdart
2017-03-16, 10:22 AM
If a paladin was starving that badly I would expect them to do something acceptable like trade some of their equipment for food, work for their food, or go without if they couldn't get it legitimately. That said if they did steal it, their redemption would be as simple as going back, apologizing sincerely and paying the money retroactively if possible.

Indeed. As OotS illustrates, Good is about trying. A Good character that starved would try some of the following:

Do whatever they could to obtain the funds to pay for it legally.
Ask nicely for the food.
Ask for an opportunity to pay for the food later.
Ask for the opportunity to work for the food.
Attempt to forage for food that belongs to no one (DC 10 Survival check, what what)


If it was literally a choice between stealing and death, and stealing did not condemn the other person to die in their stead, a Good character would take only what they needed (a slice of bread, rather than a whole loaf) and attempt to make amends immediately. Not "I will pay this guy back as soon as we finish the current quest" but "the current quest has to wait, I have to pay this guy back."

Segev
2017-03-16, 10:27 AM
Behaving well because it's normal to do so, or even because you are actually pretty nice outside your evil personality traits, is not sufficient to drag someone who would be or has been an unrepentant murderer under the correct circumstances out of evil alignment. That's like saying you could eat a live baby and still be neutral just because you don't do anything else evil and are generally pretty nice.No, you're bouncing between goal post locations here. I was responding to the guy who "is Lawful Evil, but never does anything actually evil" assertion. If he's eating babies (per some orderly ritual, perhaps), then he's not LG.

If he "would" eat babies, but "never has the opportunity," it's hard to say that he's really LE and just "doesn't have the opportunity." That's like saying somebody is "really" LG, but never has the opportunity to do any good.


And yet somehow the law ends up being used to legally take things in ways that amount to stealing in a moral or ethical sense... lawful characters steal, they just find ways to cover their backsides under the law.No, only in a moral sense. Ethically - at least in terms of "ethical vs. moral axis" - it's not stealing.

As these people put it:

Besides, you're ignoring context, circumstances, and execution when you really shouldn't. Stealing is pretty Chaotic, and you say that working within a legal framework to forcibly obtain someone else's belongings is the same thing. It isn't. They might both be wrong for similar reasons, but the circumstances and execution are different enough to merit a different alignment. Much in the same way that murdering an innocent civilian is Evil, but killing an armed man who's fighting you to the death isn't, despite them being fundamentally the same action.


The difference is that lawful folks use the rules to steal.
Chaotic people just take what they want.

Being Lawful is about following rules. "Ownership" as a concept is one that is fraught with rules. A chaotic person, at his core, recognizes "possession is 10/10 of the law." Most ethically neutral people acknowledge the truth that "possession is 9/10 of the law." Even Lawful people tend to accept this, barring extenuating evidence.

Think of it this way: If a bunch of elves come upon some farm land in a territory they'd never explored before, and they meet the Halflings who till it, they would generally accept that the Halflings living there are the land's owners. We start running into ethical and moral problems/quandaries when we have conflicting rules of ownership (these elves were told by their King that they owned this land, but now find somebody here with prior claim that puts the question of whether the King had the right to tell them this or not in question). Even worse if these elves had left a century ago, with only a few of their family staying behind to maintain the land, but something killed off their family in the meantime and these Halflings had moved in and refurbished and rebuilt the farms and settled in and now are on their second generation. The elves didn't abandon their land, but the Halflings found land abandoned and took it over. Wars have been fought for less.


So what if the person being stolen from has 1000 loaves of bread, and the choice for our "good" character is between taking one of those loaves or allowing someone who can't get their own bread to starve? What if taking that loaf of bread allows our "good" character to put of raw hunger long enough to accomplish some task that saves multiple lives? Again, stealing is chaotic, not (necessarily) evil. The CG individual could easily justify stealing 1 loaf to feed the starving orphans; the 1000-loaf owner probably won't count them to ever realize he's down to only 999.


Using the law as a tool of theft does not make it less of a theft.It kind-of does, by definition.



You're conflating morals with ethics, here, and that's where you're deriving the conflict that doesn't otherwise exist. A Lawful person has rules he lives by. He will not take something those rules don't let him have. Notably, two sets of rules can come into conflict; Lawful can fight Lawful, both while being quite Lawful, because their rules have conflicts that cannot be resolved within the others' rules framework.

The LE loan shark isn't stealing when he takes what you agreed to in the penalty clause. He may have been a slimy salesman in convincing you to agree to it, knowing better than you that you would default, but he isn't stealing. Snidely Whiplash isn't stealing when he uses Imminent Domain to take the family home from Nell because he wants to mine her property for gold. He's enacting his rights under the law by which he lives. And he IS being Lawful; his "law" isn't some personal "I get whatever I want" code, but rather something that can be worked against him, too. If he didn't win his suit, our LE version of Mr. Whiplash might not give up, but he wouldn't use force or rule-breaking tactics to force Nell to give up her home. He bows to the rules.

A lot of "LE" people who are heavier on the "E" than the "L" will engage in extra-legal activities they feel they can conceal to use the Law to justify taking something. This does start to look like theft...but note that they're behaving more like NE with L tendencies (or even straight-up NE) than LE at this point. They are willing to commit chaotic acts of a lesser sort to bend the rules in their favor.


But in the end, theft is chaotic. Theft is saying, "It doesn't matter what the rules are; if I have the thing, it's mine." The concept of ownership beyond "I have it and am able to use/keep/consume it right this second" is a Lawful concept.

The deeper into Lawful territory you get, the more you can have a concept of a thing being owned by somebody with decreasingly direct possession of that thing. Until you get to the point where you have rules that can state that somebody who has it has no ownership of it at all, or that ownership can transfer without the current possessor's say-so. Utilizing those rules to transfer ownership of a thing one wants to oneself is a Lawful act. Doing so to the willful (whether indifferent or malicious) detriment of another who has possession and (prior to your actions) had ownership is almost certainly Evil.

But taking that thing from them is not theft. By definition. You cannot steal that which you own.

It is common to say it is "tantamount to theft," but the word "tantamount" is important. It implies that the Law should not allow this transfer of ownership, while acknowledging that it does. It is not theft. It just feels an awful lot like it. Just as execution is not murder, but to the guy being hunted down by the bounty hunters to be dragged to his legally-sanctioned death, it FEELS an awful lot like being murdered.

Keltest
2017-03-16, 10:29 AM
Using the law as a tool of theft does not make it less of a theft.

Only if you define theft as "any taking from somebody else, at all, ever, regardless of context." You aren't taking it from them, youre engineering a scenario where they have to give it to you.

Your tax point above, for example, is payment to ensure the continued upkeep of a service (for example, a road) that the person finds useful. A non-government lawful organization (say, a criminal mob) would call it "protection money", but theyre still genuinely providing that service (as opposed to a chaotic organization, which would take the money and then steal more from you anyway, and just lie about doing it less than they otherwise would).

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 10:29 AM
So avoiding the small harm is better than preventing the large harm?

OK .


This thread once again proves how cartoonishly silly D&D alignment is as a system of morals/ethics.

Depends, if the small harm was torturing a man to death to save a thousands lives, would that be acceptable?

What if it was to save just 100 lives? Or just 10? Or just 2?

What if the person being tortured was just a child?

Would it not be better to not torture and try to save the people otherwise even if you fail?

The only answer that holds consistent in my eyes is that it's evil to do anything evil, even if you stop other evil things in the process. There's no way to do evil and be good, though you can do evil and still be a decent person regardless.

With regards to the bread example, the moral thing to do would be to try and go without the bread at all, or to spend a moment's time and effort to acquire it without theft, or even to consume the body of someone you were forced to kill in the pursuit of your quest, assuming your morality ascribes no evil to cannibalism (I personally don't,) if one is available

Keltest
2017-03-16, 10:36 AM
Depends, if the small harm was torturing a man to death to save a thousands lives, would that be acceptable?

What if it was to save just 100 lives? Or just 10? Or just 2?

What if the person being tortured was just a child?

Would it not be better to not torture and try to save the people otherwise even if you fail?

The only answer that holds consistent in my eyes is that it's evil to do anything evil, even if you stop other evil things in the process. There's no way to do evil and be good, though you can do evil and still be a decent person regardless.

With regards to the bread example, the moral thing to do would be to try and go without the bread at all, or to spend a moment's time and effort to acquire it without theft, or even to consume the body of someone you were forced to kill in the pursuit of your quest, assuming your morality ascribes no evil to cannibalism (I personally don't,) if one is available

In any of your "torturing someone to save a bunch of people" scenarios, it would be A: contrived (because there really is no reason why the torture would be necessary. Either their death is the important factor, or you need information and can interrogate them much more effectively) and B: and evil act which would make a paladin fall, but not necessarily lose their good alignment. A paladin could then get an Atonement spell and quest to regain their powers, because they did it to save people, and not because theyre sadistic and like torturing people. A regular good person would feel extremely guilty, probably disgusted with themselves, and might seek the atonement above just to feel less bad about it, but would otherwise not suffer any specific alignment consequences for one act in a bad situation.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 10:37 AM
Only if you define theft as "any taking from somebody else, at all, ever, regardless of context." You aren't taking it from them, youre engineering a scenario where they have to give it to you.

Your tax point above, for example, is payment to ensure the continued upkeep of a service (for example, a road) that the person finds useful. A non-government lawful organization (say, a criminal mob) would call it "protection money", but theyre still genuinely providing that service (as opposed to a chaotic organization, which would take the money and then steal more from you anyway, and just lie about doing it less than they otherwise would).

Holding a gun to someone's head to make them give you their stuff, or getting society to hold a lot of guns to someone's head to make them give you their stuff... not calling the second theft is just "justification by definition".

Flickerdart
2017-03-16, 10:38 AM
Holding a gun to someone's head to make them give you their stuff, or getting society to hold a lot of guns to someone's head to make them give you their stuff... not calling the second theft is just "justification by definition".

That's the difference between Lawful and Chaotic. Chaos is personal, Law is hands-off.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 10:39 AM
Depends, if the small harm was torturing a man to death to save a thousands lives, would that be acceptable?

What if it was to save just 100 lives? Or just 10? Or just 2?

What if the person being tortured was just a child?

Would it not be better to not torture and try to save the people otherwise even if you fail?


Note that your argument here rests on falsely equivocating taking a loaf of bread, with torturing someone.



In any of your "torturing someone to save a bunch of people" scenarios, it would be A: contrived (because there really is no reason why the torture would be necessary. Either their death is the important factor, or you need information and can interrogate them much more effectively) and B: and evil act which would make a paladin fall, but not necessarily lose their good alignment. A paladin could then get an Atonement spell and quest to regain their powers, because they did it to save people, and not because theyre sadistic and like torturing people. A regular good person would feel extremely guilty, probably disgusted with themselves, and might seek the atonement above just to feel less bad about it, but would otherwise not suffer any specific alignment consequences for one act in a bad situation.

And yeah, there's the simple fact that torture just plain doesn't work.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 10:41 AM
That's the difference between Lawful and Chaotic. Chaos is personal, Law is hands-off.


Sometimes these threads make me think it's more along the lines of "chaos = honest about it, lawful = hides behind society".

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 10:42 AM
In any of your "torturing someone to save a bunch of people" scenarios, it would be A: contrived (because there really is no reason why the torture would be necessary. Either their death is the important factor, or you need information and can interrogate them much more effectively) and B: and evil act which would make a paladin fall, but not necessarily lose their good alignment. A paladin could then get an Atonement spell and quest to regain their powers, because they did it to save people, and not because theyre sadistic and like torturing people. A regular good person would feel extremely guilty, probably disgusted with themselves, and might seek the atonement above just to feel less bad about it, but would otherwise not suffer any specific alignment consequences for one act in a bad situation.

If you prefer we can use the classic trolley problem instead, though it's not the same as the risk to one group in the bread equation comes entirely from the moral actor in question rather than from the trolley as it were.

Two groups of people on the tracks, one is larger than the other, trolley is going to hit one or the other, is the correct thing to do:

A: Save the larger group.
B: Save the smaller group.

In the normal situation there is no third option, but in real situations there is usually at least two more

C: Try to save both groups with a variable chance of failure.
D: Try to kill both groups (Obviously not a morally correct option, but included for completeness.)

I would say both A and B are evil options, though they are both practical and save lives, they still condemn others to death. The moral option is C, but saying something is the morally correct option is not the same as saying it's the best option or the right one to take.


Note that your argument here rests on falsely equivocating taking a loaf of bread, with torturing someone.

The analogy could be as innocent as taking ice cream from one child and giving it to two other children, the moral nature of the problem remains the same even if the moral weight ascribed to it changes.

If you take something from someone and give it to someone less fortunate, you have still harmed the first person even if the good to the latter ones is greater than the harm. Harm has still occurred. The moral thing is to do no harm, and to seek an option that harms no one involved in the equation even if it leads to failure. Good has to try, it has to put in effort rather than go for simple solutions, even if the simple solutions would have a better chance to succeed.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 10:50 AM
"Good has to try" is a great motto for a fictional character.

In the real world, "least bad option" is too often the ugly truth.

Segev
2017-03-16, 10:53 AM
Holding a gun to someone's head to make them give you their stuff, or getting society to hold a lot of guns to someone's head to make them give you their stuff... not calling the second theft is just "justification by definition".

Alright.

Plutocrat Pete left his fortune to be divided evenly between all of his living sons. He died before his plan to announce to the world that Illigitimate Iggy was, in fact, his son, but he left proof of this with Iggy's mother, his childhood sweetheart who he foolishly abandoned to marry a more fitting bride for his social station.

Pete's son by his socially-acceptable wife, Legitimate Larry, has taken possession of all of Pete's property, according to the will as he and everybody he knew understood it. Being less-than-Lawfully-aligned, when Larry learns of Iggy's rightful claim to half of what Larry considers his, and takes steps to try to prevent Iggy from staking that claim. Iggy nevertheless manages to have his day in court and prove that he is the rightful heir to half of what Larry has possession of.

Is it theft to have society use force (or threat thereof) to take the half of what Larry now possesses and give it to Iggy?


Argument could be made that Iggy doesn't have any real right to this stuff. After all, he hasn't lived with Pete, grown up with this stuff, and learned how to manage it. He hasn't worked in Pete's business from the mail room to the executive suite (even with the glow of nepotism to grease the ascent) the way Larry has. Legally, Pete had every right to leave his fortune to whomever he chose, however. Iggy is his son, even if not legitimate by marriage, and Pete wanted to leave half his fortune to Iggy. Larry - initially quite innocently - took possession of all of it, his own share and Iggy's share, out of ignorance. He has managed it for some time. Iggy's claim looks awfully opportunistic. But is it his right or not? Legally, of course it is.

Do you call exercising that right "theft?"

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 11:08 AM
"Good has to try" is a great motto for a fictional character.

In the real world, "least bad option" is too often the ugly truth.

Which is why most people aren't good. We take the easy route rather than chance it all on the hope for something better. We don't try, or put the effort in, we just do a half hearted effort that salves our conscience then go away and do something we find more interesting.

It's not the wrong thing to do, but it is enough to make us the same sort of petty minded selfish evil that most people like to think they aren't. The sort who gossips, who lies, who steal and cheats in little ways every day, and dream about revenge on their ****ty boss, or flipping everyone the bird and moving to Barbados to live out the rest of their life sipping rum on the beach surrounded by underpaid cleaning and catering staff. All the little things that are bad, and a lot of bigger ones as well, and are just sort of normal for us to do stay bad even though almost everyone does them.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 11:16 AM
Taking from others is evil however, unless what you take wasn't theirs and you return it to it's proper owner, so I would indeed have a paladin fall from stealing food for themselves until such a time as they at the very least apologize for having done so.


You are still taking something from someone else, depriving them of their rightful property and causing them financial and psychological harm, even if it's not a large amount, it's still wrong to do so.

So under this logic would freeing slaves be good or evil?
And would it make a difference wether they were born in slavery or freedom make a difference?

Flickerdart
2017-03-16, 11:19 AM
Sometimes these threads make me think it's more along the lines of "chaos = honest about it, lawful = hides behind society".
Both alignments delude themselves about different things. Law downplays the influence of the individual. Chaos downplays the long-term consequences of an act.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 11:27 AM
So under this logic would freeing slaves be good or evil?
And would it make a difference wether they were born in slavery or freedom make a difference?

The slaves are not legitimate property to begin with unless they volunteered themselves as property without duress. Freeing incarcerated or born slaves is good. This would fall under the same general morality as Robin Hood type characters stealing back someone's property and returning it, but in this case it's liberty rather than a physical good.

Freeing a volunteer slave is more complicated, but I would call it good if they want to stop being a slave and the deal by which they chose to become one does not allow them to do so legitimately or the master is not letting them go when they should. If there is a legitimate way out of being property, such as some indentured gladiators in Rome occasionally had, then it's generally more moral to end the slavery contract the formal way than by simply freeing them and running, but such deals may not be honored at which point refer to Robin Hood morality again.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 11:31 AM
Alright.

Plutocrat Pete left his fortune to be divided evenly between all of his living sons. He died before his plan to announce to the world that Illigitimate Iggy was, in fact, his son, but he left proof of this with Iggy's mother, his childhood sweetheart who he foolishly abandoned to marry a more fitting bride for his social station.

Pete's son by his socially-acceptable wife, Legitimate Larry, has taken possession of all of Pete's property, according to the will as he and everybody he knew understood it. Being less-than-Lawfully-aligned, when Larry learns of Iggy's rightful claim to half of what Larry considers his, and takes steps to try to prevent Iggy from staking that claim. Iggy nevertheless manages to have his day in court and prove that he is the rightful heir to half of what Larry has possession of.

Is it theft to have society use force (or threat thereof) to take the half of what Larry now possesses and give it to Iggy?


Argument could be made that Iggy doesn't have any real right to this stuff. After all, he hasn't lived with Pete, grown up with this stuff, and learned how to manage it. He hasn't worked in Pete's business from the mail room to the executive suite (even with the glow of nepotism to grease the ascent) the way Larry has. Legally, Pete had every right to leave his fortune to whomever he chose, however. Iggy is his son, even if not legitimate by marriage, and Pete wanted to leave half his fortune to Iggy. Larry - initially quite innocently - took possession of all of it, his own share and Iggy's share, out of ignorance. He has managed it for some time. Iggy's claim looks awfully opportunistic. But is it his right or not? Legally, of course it is.

Do you call exercising that right "theft?"


I'd call that a situation that's not really analogous to those that have been under discussion, and that doesn't involve anyone deliberately taking things that don't belong to them.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 11:33 AM
Which is why most people aren't good. We take the easy route rather than chance it all on the hope for something better. We don't try, or put the effort in, we just do a half hearted effort that salves our conscience then go away and do something we find more interesting.

It's not the wrong thing to do, but it is enough to make us the same sort of petty minded selfish evil that most people like to think they aren't. The sort who gossips, who lies, who steal and cheats in little ways every day, and dream about revenge on their ****ty boss, or flipping everyone the bird and moving to Barbados to live out the rest of their life sipping rum on the beach surrounded by underpaid cleaning and catering staff. All the little things that are bad, and a lot of bigger ones as well, and are just sort of normal for us to do stay bad even though almost everyone does them.


Oh great. You're one of those sorts.

Your judgement of others has been noted, given the consideration it deserves, and dismissed.

*plonk* (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_(Usenet))

Segev
2017-03-16, 11:40 AM
I'd call that a situation that's not really analogous to those that have been under discussion, and that doesn't involve anyone deliberately taking things that don't belong to them.

It's a situation where somebody is using the law to take something he does not currently possess, nor has ever possessed, from its current possessor, by whatever force society and the law bring to bear to compel the possessor to hand it over to the legal owner.

You had stated that there was no difference between holding a gun to somebody's head and taking that which they had by force, and having society compel somebody to hand it over to you. You implied that the shifting of ownership of something according to society's rules in order to get society to do that is likewise equivalent.

Iggy has shifted legal ownership of half that property to himself from Larry by virtue of revealing and proving his identity as an heir to Pete's fortune.

Iggy's ownership is purely based on the rules. He has never had possession of it, and until Pete died, had no ownership of it.

Is it theft to reveal his identity and prove his heirship, thus using force of law to compel Larry to turn over half of what he possesses to Iggy?

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 11:45 AM
The slaves are not legitimate property to begin with unless they volunteered themselves as property without duress. Freeing incarcerated or born slaves is good. This would fall under the same general morality as Robin Hood type characters stealing back someone's property and returning it, but in this case it's liberty rather than a physical good.

Freeing a volunteer slave is more complicated, but I would call it good if they want to stop being a slave and the deal by which they chose to become one does not allow them to do so legitimately or the master is not letting them go when they should. If there is a legitimate way out of being property, such as some indentured gladiators in Rome occasionally had, then it's generally more moral to end the slavery contract the formal way than by simply freeing them and running, but such deals may not be honored at which point refer to Robin Hood morality again.

Well, one could* argue that someone born in slavery never had any freedom that could be given back to them, meaning all that remains is hurting the „rightful” owner- which according to you makes theft evil.
Following this logic freeing slaves is evil unless you determine wether they were born free before doing so.:smallamused:

*Could, not should, unless you are capital L, capital E lawful evil.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 11:55 AM
It's a situation where somebody is using the law to take something he does not currently possess, nor has ever possessed, from its current possessor, by whatever force society and the law bring to bear to compel the possessor to hand it over to the legal owner.

You had stated that there was no difference between holding a gun to somebody's head and taking that which they had by force, and having society compel somebody to hand it over to you. You implied that the shifting of ownership of something according to society's rules in order to get society to do that is likewise equivalent.

Iggy has shifted legal ownership of half that property to himself from Larry by virtue of revealing and proving his identity as an heir to Pete's fortune.

Iggy's ownership is purely based on the rules. He has never had possession of it, and until Pete died, had no ownership of it.

Is it theft to reveal his identity and prove his heirship, thus using force of law to compel Larry to turn over half of what he possesses to Iggy?

I'd say Larry is committing theft if he doesn't hand over what Iggy was allocated in the inheritance myself.


Well, one could* argue that someone born in slavery never had any freedom that could be given back to them, meaning all that remains is hurting the „rightful” owner- which according to you makes theft evil.
Following this logic freeing slaves is evil unless you determine wether they were born free before doing so.:smallamused:

*Could, not should, unless you are capital L, capital E lawful evil.

I assume liberty is an inherent quality, which cannot be rescinded or retracted by the nature of your parents or your birth, nor on your behalf prior to maturity. Slaves give birth to free babies essentially, and parents cannot enslave a child. It would be a strange moral system that determines unwilling slavery is bad but that people can be assumed willing by birth alone.

In a moral system where that's not considered the case it would be wrong to free the slave without compensation to their owner, much as would be the case with stealing any livestock, but that would still butt up against my perspective that only someone who signs themselves over to slavery can be a slave legitimately, and their freedom should be given back when requested and the terms of ending it are met, if any exist.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 12:03 PM
It's a situation where somebody is using the law to take something he does not currently possess, nor has ever possessed, from its current possessor, by whatever force society and the law bring to bear to compel the possessor to hand it over to the legal owner.

You had stated that there was no difference between holding a gun to somebody's head and taking that which they had by force, and having society compel somebody to hand it over to you. You implied that the shifting of ownership of something according to society's rules in order to get society to do that is likewise equivalent.

Iggy has shifted legal ownership of half that property to himself from Larry by virtue of revealing and proving his identity as an heir to Pete's fortune.

Iggy's ownership is purely based on the rules. He has never had possession of it, and until Pete died, had no ownership of it.

Is it theft to reveal his identity and prove his heirship, thus using force of law to compel Larry to turn over half of what he possesses to Iggy?


Possession is not ownership -- if it was, every change of possession would be a change of ownership, and under such a mistaken system, there'd be no theft in that subjective sense.

Half of the "estate" wasn't Larry's to begin with, per Pete's stated wishes. When Larry learned of those wishes and engaged in efforts to thwart them, he went from innocently in possession of property that Pete intended for Iggy, to engaged in active theft.

That is, your example doesn't work because it entirely misplaces the theft -- Larry is the one engaged in stealing.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 12:19 PM
I'd say Larry is committing theft if he doesn't hand over what Iggy was allocated in the inheritance myself.



I assume liberty is an inherent quality, which cannot be rescinded or retracted by the nature of your parents or your birth, nor on your behalf prior to maturity. Slaves give birth to free babies essentially, and parents cannot enslave a child. It would be a strange moral system that determines unwilling slavery is bad but that people can be assumed willing by birth alone.

In a moral system where that's not considered the case it would be wrong to free the slave without compensation to their owner, much as would be the case with stealing any livestock, but that would still butt up against my perspective that only someone who signs themselves over to slavery can be a slave legitimately, and their freedom should be given back when requested and the terms of ending it are met, if any exist.

I did say it is lawful evil logic.:smalltongue: Or at least as close as I can get to it being neither.
Besides, I consider your view of „stealing bread because you're starving=evil, no matter the circumstances” just as weird.
Surviving- outside of murdering others* -in itself is neutral, stealing outside of modifiers is chaotic, making stealing to survive chaotic neutral at worst in my book. And even then I wouldn't hold it against lawful folks if it is their last resort.

Good would feel somewhat guilty for it and only take the absolute minimum, from someone who can take the loss**, evil would do it gleefully and take and/or destroy stuff it doesn't need, but the act itself is neutral.
If stealing were evil most of the Order of the Stick would be non-good after all.

*Ignoring the handful of exemptions were things get fuzzy.
**that part should apply to neutral too.
Stealing a loaf of bread/ a piece of silver to buy bread from some rich noble or merchant is neutral. Taking a beggar’s three copper pieces? Evil. Without a question.

Segev
2017-03-16, 12:23 PM
I'd say Larry is committing theft if he doesn't hand over what Iggy was allocated in the inheritance myself.

I believe - though I could be wrong - that most people would agree with you.

Now, what if it turned out that Larry was actually his mother's illegitimate offspring from an affair with the pool boy, and proof of this surfaced around the same time Iggy was proving his own status as heir? Pete never knew Larry wasn't his son, so he never legally adopted Larry, and Pete's will now technically doesn't include Larry in it. Iggy, by law, is the heir to the whole estate.

Is Iggy stealing from Larry when this all comes out and Larry is forced to hand over the whole thing to Iggy? Is this theft? It's as much a surprise to Larry and Iggy as anybody else still alive that Larry is not a legitimate heir, and that Iggy is the sole true heir according to what is laid out in the will.

Does your answer change if it's widely known that Pete was paranoid about his wife cheating on him and probably would have disinherited Larry if he'd known he was not Pete's actual genetic son? Does it change if it's widely known that Pete loved Larry dearly and would have eagerly adopted him legally if he'd found out that Larry was not really his genetic offspring?



This situation is designed to illustrate why ownership is a legal construct as much as anything else, and to make it clearer why ownership being proven to change hands such that possession must be enforced by society is not theft.




Another Example

This one's closer to some classic "he's stealing with the law!" plot lines.

Mabel and Mark have mortgaged their farm to Sam, the owner of the local Savings & Loan. They're a little behind on their payments due to poor crop years, but Sam's always been lenient and has informally allowed them to pay what they can. Their account is still marked as behind on payments, but everybody involved understands that the plan is for them to make it up, or just pay longer as more interest accrues.

This farm's been in their family for years, so they refuse to sell it to the drilling company that has found oil in the land nearby.

Sam, however, also comes on hard times, and his Savings & Loan goes under. His creditors take over its accounts in lieu of the moneys he owed them, and they see Mabel and Mark's farm is behind. By their estimates, Mark and Mabel will not pay off this loan on time, and they have no interest in running a longer-term loan on this unprofitable venture than they have to. The drilling company, meanwhile, informs the creditors who've taken over ownership of this mortgage that they're willing to pay beaucoup bucks for that farm.

The creditors don't care about Mabel and Mark's family history there. They just see an asset they have rights to that could gain them far more than they invested (when they'd expected to be losing money on this collapsed Savings & Loan). They give Mark and Mabel notice that they have until a specific date to catch up on their payments, or they're foreclosing.

Mabel and Mark can't make that catch-up date. The farm is foreclosed upon, and the creditors sell the land to the drilling company.


Did the drilling company steal the land from Mark and Mabel? Did the creditors? (I don't know if foreclosure lets the debtor with partial equity in the property get that equity in a "cut" of the proceeds from the sale or not.)

Does your answer change if Mark and Mabel are told by the drilling company that the drilling company will buy their land for a significant fraction of their original offer, letting Mark and Mabel pay off the debt and keep the rest? Keep in mind that Mark and Mabel don't WANT to sell.

Segev
2017-03-16, 12:29 PM
Possession is not ownership -- if it was, every change of possession would be a change of ownership, and under such a mistaken system, there'd be no theft in that subjective sense.

Half of the "estate" wasn't Larry's to begin with, per Pete's stated wishes. When Larry learned of those wishes and engaged in efforts to thwart them, he went from innocently in possession of property that Pete intended for Iggy, to engaged in active theft.

That is, your example doesn't work because it entirely misplaces the theft -- Larry is the one engaged in stealing.

That is exactly my point. But note that Iggy never HAD that property. Heck, as far as Larry is concerned, he thinks Iggy's a liar and opportunist who's faked the evidence. Larry doesn't believe he's stealing; he believes he's preventing fraudulent evidence whose fraud he can't otherwise prove from tricking the courts into letting Iggy steal from him.

The only way in which Iggy can be said to own that property is through legal rights.

Iggy is using the law to take away Larry's possessions and claim them for himself, as their rightful owner.

It is therefore not theft.

The vast majority of LE "theft" is of this nature. Sure, the LE type might be gaming a system, but he's gaming it within that space where the only definition of "ownership" is a legal one. Larry, notably, isn't being Lawful here - he used extralegal means to try to suppress Iggy's evidence of his claim (regardless of whether Larry believed himself morally justified in doing so or not; heck, regardless of whether Iggy is lying or not, the use of extralegal means to suppress the potentially fraudulent evidence is still non-Lawful).

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 12:32 PM
I did say it is lawful evil logic.:smalltongue: Or at least as close as I can get to it being neither.
Besides, I consider your view of „stealing bread because you're starving=evil, no matter the circumstances” just as weird.
Surviving- outside of murdering others* -in itself is neutral, stealing outside of modifiers is chaotic, making stealing to survive chaotic neutral at worst in my book. And even then I wouldn't hold it against lawful folks if it is their last resort.

Good would feel somewhat guilty for it and only take the absolute minimum, from someone who can take the loss**, evil would do it gleefully and take and/or destroy stuff it doesn't need, but the act itself is neutral.
If stealing were evil most of the Order of the Stick would be non-good after all.

*Ignoring the handful of exemptions were things get fuzzy.
**that part should apply to neutral too.
Stealing a loaf of bread/ a piece of silver to buy bread from some rich noble or merchant is neutral. Taking a beggar’s three copper pieces? Evil. Without a question.

I'd say it's evil because the harm inflicted is an evil thing even if you would die if you didn't cause it and the harm inflicted is minor. The only times it's ok to cause someone harm is when you are actively trying to stop them from harming you or someone else, when you are redressing prior harm they caused, or when they have consented to the infliction of harm on them.

The moral difference between stealing a loaf of bread from a merchant and stealing a handful of bread from a beggar is more one of how evil the act is, not that one is evil and the other isn't. Either way a person is having their property taken from them and being harmed, but one of them is harmed more than the other.

Basic idea is that extenuating circumstances don't change the morality of the situation, though they should still change the ethics and morality regarding how to respond to the situation. Just because something is evil doesn't mean it's worth doing anything about, and the fact that someone was starving in the first place is more of an issue than the fact that stuff was stolen by them to change that circumstance.

EDIT: Was typing when this was posted:


I believe - though I could be wrong - that most people would agree with you.

Now, what if it turned out that Larry was actually his mother's illegitimate offspring from an affair with the pool boy, and proof of this surfaced around the same time Iggy was proving his own status as heir? Pete never knew Larry wasn't his son, so he never legally adopted Larry, and Pete's will now technically doesn't include Larry in it. Iggy, by law, is the heir to the whole estate.

Is Iggy stealing from Larry when this all comes out and Larry is forced to hand over the whole thing to Iggy? Is this theft? It's as much a surprise to Larry and Iggy as anybody else still alive that Larry is not a legitimate heir, and that Iggy is the sole true heir according to what is laid out in the will.

Does your answer change if it's widely known that Pete was paranoid about his wife cheating on him and probably would have disinherited Larry if he'd known he was not Pete's actual genetic son? Does it change if it's widely known that Pete loved Larry dearly and would have eagerly adopted him legally if he'd found out that Larry was not really his genetic offspring?

This situation is designed to illustrate why ownership is a legal construct as much as anything else, and to make it clearer why ownership being proven to change hands such that possession must be enforced by society is not theft.

Depends on if Pete's will specified his biological son, or just Larry by name. If Larry was mentioned specifically then he's an inheritor regardless of his legitimacy I'd say.

If he is no longer considered an inheritor then it's not legally or ethically theft for Iggy to take everything from the inheritance, though I would say it's morally reprehensible for him to leave Larry with none of it.

As for if the changeable factors like what Pete would do if he knew about legitimacy and so on, I wouldn't change my interpretation of the will for stuff learned after Pete is dead. His will cannot really be changed post death based on 'well he would have done this,' type rationales. What's written has to stay written.



Another Example

This one's closer to some classic "he's stealing with the law!" plot lines.

Mabel and Mark have mortgaged their farm to Sam, the owner of the local Savings & Loan. They're a little behind on their payments due to poor crop years, but Sam's always been lenient and has informally allowed them to pay what they can. Their account is still marked as behind on payments, but everybody involved understands that the plan is for them to make it up, or just pay longer as more interest accrues.

This farm's been in their family for years, so they refuse to sell it to the drilling company that has found oil in the land nearby.

Sam, however, also comes on hard times, and his Savings & Loan goes under. His creditors take over its accounts in lieu of the moneys he owed them, and they see Mabel and Mark's farm is behind. By their estimates, Mark and Mabel will not pay off this loan on time, and they have no interest in running a longer-term loan on this unprofitable venture than they have to. The drilling company, meanwhile, informs the creditors who've taken over ownership of this mortgage that they're willing to pay beaucoup bucks for that farm.

The creditors don't care about Mabel and Mark's family history there. They just see an asset they have rights to that could gain them far more than they invested (when they'd expected to be losing money on this collapsed Savings & Loan). They give Mark and Mabel notice that they have until a specific date to catch up on their payments, or they're foreclosing.

Mabel and Mark can't make that catch-up date. The farm is foreclosed upon, and the creditors sell the land to the drilling company.


Did the drilling company steal the land from Mark and Mabel? Did the creditors? (I don't know if foreclosure lets the debtor with partial equity in the property get that equity in a "cut" of the proceeds from the sale or not.)

Does your answer change if Mark and Mabel are told by the drilling company that the drilling company will buy their land for a significant fraction of their original offer, letting Mark and Mabel pay off the debt and keep the rest? Keep in mind that Mark and Mabel don't WANT to sell.

If Mark and Mabel can't make payments the loan company has every legal right to take their land with or without the drilling company offering to buy it but it is still reprehensible to leave them out in the cold. In the situation no one's legally in the wrong, though I would say both companies are somewhat in the moral wrong.* The ideal thing would be for the bank to make an ultimatum that M&M have to sell, because they're getting kicked out one way or another, so they walk away with some money from the sale rather than nothing, but that's M&Ms fault because they've been rejecting offers to buy a property they weren't managing to pay the mortgage on for years really. The company is of course not obliged to do so, but it would be the best realistic solution for all involved, since it's the closest that can be come to a solution that works for everyone.




*Moral wrong with regards to companies is difficult to actually apply. On the one hand they are entitled to the money they are owed, M&M failing to pay it back is similar to theft on their part when you get down to it, but it is also uncharitable to throw them out with nothing when they fail to make payments. M&M have no real right to the land itself, family history means little as far as I care, but I would say they do have a right to a place to live that's greater than the companies right to their money, if nowhere else is available for them to go I would actually consider it legitimate for another party, like a government body, to step in and prevent the loans company from evicting them.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 01:08 PM
That is exactly my point. But note that Iggy never HAD that property. Heck, as far as Larry is concerned, he thinks Iggy's a liar and opportunist who's faked the evidence. Larry doesn't believe he's stealing; he believes he's preventing fraudulent evidence whose fraud he can't otherwise prove from tricking the courts into letting Iggy steal from him.

The only way in which Iggy can be said to own that property is through legal rights.

Iggy is using the law to take away Larry's possessions and claim them for himself, as their rightful owner.

It is therefore not theft.

The vast majority of LE "theft" is of this nature. Sure, the LE type might be gaming a system, but he's gaming it within that space where the only definition of "ownership" is a legal one. Larry, notably, isn't being Lawful here - he used extralegal means to try to suppress Iggy's evidence of his claim (regardless of whether Larry believed himself morally justified in doing so or not; heck, regardless of whether Iggy is lying or not, the use of extralegal means to suppress the potentially fraudulent evidence is still non-Lawful).

The LE version of this example is if Larry KNOWS that Pete wanted half the estate to go to Iggy, but still attempts to use the law to take the entire estate.

It's still theft in the true and ethical senses, even if it's not "legally theft".

Segev
2017-03-16, 01:22 PM
The LE version of this example is if Larry KNOWS that Pete wanted half the estate to go to Iggy, but still attempts to use the law to take the entire estate.

It's still theft in the true and ethical senses, even if it's not "legally theft".

The LN version wouldn't care whether Pete "wanted" half to go to Iggy, either, though. It would only care where Pete legally set it up to go.

Only the LG version really starts taking into account whether Pete "wanted" it to go other than where the Law says it must. (And even then, the LG version would use legal means to transfer it. e.g., an LG Iggy who learned that Larry got nothing because he turned out to be some other man's son might still gift half of the estate to Larry, or otherwise make provision for Larry to share in the wealth. But that's out of the goodness of his heart, and still obeying the law.)


My point is one you've basically agreed with a couple of times now, tangentially: Legal means to transfer ownership of property against the will of the former owner and current possessor are not theft. Whether they're morally reprehensible or justified is irrelevant to the question of "theft or not."

The LE guy is going to be as morally reprehensible as he has to be to maximize his gain, of course. But he's not going to steal. He's going to exercise the law to its fullest extent. He might engage in what is "tantamount to theft." But he will not bend nor break the law; everything he does will be within the rules. And that's why it's not theft, no matter how much you might hate him for exploiting the advantages he has at the expense of others.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 01:25 PM
The LE version of this example is if Larry KNOWS that Pete wanted half the estate to go to Iggy, but still attempts to use the law to take the entire estate.

It's still theft in the true and ethical senses, even if it's not "legally theft".

Hence „Lawful folks steal using the rules”.
The end result is the same. As is the morality in my book.
But the methods are very different.
And, to make matters worse, it means they are almost untouchable through regular channels*.
After all everything they did was absolutely legal.

*Irregular ones on the otherhand...
Well, that's how you write an adventure hook.
Or a episode of Leverage.:smallamused:

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 01:37 PM
I don't think theft as chaotic and 'technically theft' as lawful makes sense.

All sorts of outright criminal actions are described as being done by characters who are pretty comfortably lawful, like members of organised crime rings. An old style Russian or Italian mobster stereotype is pretty comfortably lawful, they have codes, rules, formal systems of address, keep careful track of the books, manage often complicated logistical issues, are fastidious in covering things up, value at least the veneer of civility, often inherit through familial lines and often place the group ahead of individuals. But they also murder, steal, sell illegal substances, kidnap, torture and commit fraud, among other things.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-16, 01:42 PM
My point is one you've basically agreed with a couple of times now, tangentially: Legal means to transfer ownership of property against the will of the former owner and current possessor are not theft. Whether they're morally reprehensible or justified is irrelevant to the question of "theft or not."


I do not recall agreeing with that at any point.

Using your example, Larry was never the owner. He had possession. The moment of Pete's death, legitimate ownership of that half of the estate passed directly from Pete to Iggy.




The LE guy is going to be as morally reprehensible as he has to be to maximize his gain, of course. But he's not going to steal. He's going to exercise the law to its fullest extent. He might engage in what is "tantamount to theft." But he will not bend nor break the law; everything he does will be within the rules. And that's why it's not theft, no matter how much you might hate him for exploiting the advantages he has at the expense of others.


So you're insisting that "theft" is purely a matter of legal definition, and that one cannot steal / commit theft as long as one remains technically within the law...

Whereas I'm saying that the LE is stealing, he knows who the property rightfully belongs to, and he's using the law to deprive them of it. That is, he's using the law as a tool of theft.




Hence „Lawful folks steal using the rules”.
The end result is the same. As is the morality in my book.
But the methods are very different.
And, to make matters worse, it means they are almost untouchable through regular channels*.
After all everything they did was absolutely legal.

*Irregular ones on the otherhand...
Well, that's how you write an adventure hook.
Or a episode of Leverage.:smallamused:


I agree that they're stealing using the rules. Others are insisting that if it's in the rules, it cannot "by definition" be "stealing" -- that's what I'm absolutely disagreeing with.

(For another example, go back to look at the use of eminent domain and eventually force to clear out landowners to allow construction of dams under the Tennessee Valley Authority. Of course, a lot of that land didn't end up under water, but it wasn't given back to the legitimate owners. Instead, it was sold off as new lakefront property and the profit from those sales retained by the federal government. I don't care what ANYONE else says, that was blatant theft, but perfectly legal at the time.)

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-16, 01:47 PM
A good person should not steal from others to survive, even at the cost of their own life. If they do so they are hardly being a good person, especially if the people they steal from are poor themselves. Theft causes harm to the victim, both financial and psychological, and good should never cause harm except in the defense of themselves or others, and even then only to the perpetrator of that acts being defended against. This is not to say they cannot be redeemed after the act, but they have to make proper amends when able and genuinely regret having stolen from someone.

I think any morality system that allows evil to win by simply stealing everything from good people and trick neutral people into taking it. The neutral people could have 'rightfully' bought those goods, without knowing they are fenced. Even if they weren't rightfully theirs, it would cause equal amounts of financial and psychological harm, because the neutral person doesn't know any better and wants 'their' stuff.

And since Chaotic Good isn't a thing (I personally believe that Robin Hood is the literal inspiration for the Chaotic Good alignment), the chances of being able to take that stuff back without abusing the law or forcing them to give up the goods is slim.

I also like how you can steal to defend yourself, but starving a loaf of bread from an evil wealthy person? No way!

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 01:59 PM
I think any morality system that allows evil to win by simply stealing everything from good people and trick neutral people into taking it. The neutral people could have 'rightfully' bought those goods, without knowing they are fenced. Even if they weren't rightfully theirs, it would cause equal amounts of financial and psychological harm, because the neutral person doesn't know any better and wants 'their' stuff.

And since Chaotic Good isn't a thing (I personally believe that Robin Hood is the literal inspiration for the Chaotic Good alignment), the chances of being able to take that stuff back without abusing the law or forcing them to give up the goods is slim.

I also like how you can steal to defend yourself, but starving a loaf of bread from an evil wealthy person? No way!

I have stated in several posts that a Robin Hood type figure can steal stolen goods to return them to their rightful owners and it not be a morally wrong act, which is in fact what Robin Hood does in the stories, they just can't steal from people and keep the goods for themselves. If the goods have already been given to good or neutral people, or evil people uninvolved in and unaware of the theft even, the proper course of action would be to enact suitable retributive harm on the original thief/thieves, which was also mentioned as acceptable in one of my posts that you appear to have skipped, and try to reimburse everyone from what you can take from them as penalty for their prior wrongdoing. It would not fully redress the situation, but it minimizes further harm caused to people who've done nothing wrong.

I also cannot think of a situation in which theft would be part of self defense, though if such a situation did arise it would be fine, just like killing or maiming someone in self defense is fine, but killing and eating someone's livestock because you're starving isn't.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 02:28 PM
I do not recall agreeing with that at any point.

Using your example, Larry was never the owner. He had possession. The moment of Pete's death, legitimate ownership of that half of the estate passed directly from Pete to Iggy.




So you're insisting that "theft" is purely a matter of legal definition, and that one cannot steal / commit theft as long as one remains technically within the law...

Whereas I'm saying that the LE is stealing, he knows who the property rightfully belongs to, and he's using the law to deprive them of it. That is, he's using the law as a tool of theft.




I agree that they're stealing using the rules. Others are insisting that if it's in the rules, it cannot "by definition" be "stealing" -- that's what I'm absolutely disagreeing with.

(For another example, go back to look at the use of eminent domain and eventually force to clear out landowners to allow construction of dams under the Tennessee Valley Authority. Of course, a lot of that land didn't end up under water, but it wasn't given back to the legitimate owners. Instead, it was sold off as new lakefront property and the profit from those sales retained by the federal government. I don't care what ANYONE else says, that was blatant theft, but perfectly legal at the time.)

Thing is technically it isn't „stealing”.
Of course it actually is when you finally get through all the technicalities, obscure paragraphs bend like steel bars during a strong man contest and laws that got twisted like a five-dimensional pretzel.
But thanks to those technicalities, those bend and twisted rules, those obsure half-forgotten laws that only exist because no one ever bothered to remove them?
Lawful Evil gets away with stealing without stealing.
That's the ground the alignment thrives on.
The art of breaking the rules to your benefit without breaking them.

To use the inheritance example:
A lawful evil Larry might either reject Iggy’s claim using a old law* (or combination of laws) that make it impossible for illegitimate children to inherit, while using different laws regarding the legitimacy/inheritance issue to protect his own claim.
Alternatively he might admit Iggy’s claim and then use- just as above -find some obscure law(s) that force Iggy to step down from his inheritance in Larry’s favour.
Let's- just for amusements sake -say some weird combination of laws that make Iggy’s prefered way of dressing technically public nudity (he wears no hat)- with according to another half-forgotten law disqualifies him from owning the estate.

*bonus points if it only technically applies because it was written by a kingdom that somehow is/was part of the realm they are in.

Honest Tiefling
2017-03-16, 02:35 PM
I have stated in several posts that a Robin Hood type figure can steal stolen goods to return them to their rightful owners and it not be a morally wrong act, which is in fact what Robin Hood does in the stories...

Actually, no. He didn't return stolen property, he took taxes that were legally obtained and stole them. It wasn't stolen, it was tax money that left people destitute. He outight STOLE things, else he wouldn't have gotten the moniker of 'Prince of Thieves' not 'Prince of Guys who Return Things'.

As for the other point...Wouldn't taking a large part of someone's wealth that was obtained through fishy means be MORE damaging financially and psychologically then a mere loaf of bread? It could easily ruin someone who made a bad deal with a fence if a lot of their assets were tied up in the deal. You could also wind up shaming them, as they might be revealed to have dealings with a fence or were incompetent enough to have done deals with Not Very Nice People. That could easily ruin their name. But no, a MERE LOAF OF BREAD is more damaging to someone's livelihood or mental well being.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 02:56 PM
Actually, no. He didn't return stolen property, he took taxes that were legally obtained and stole them. It wasn't stolen, it was tax money that left people destitute. He outight STOLE things, else he wouldn't have gotten the moniker of 'Prince of Thieves' not 'Prince of Guys who Return Things'.

The taxes were not legitimate taxes, at least not as seen by the peasants or Robin Hood himself. They were imposed by a regent against the normal policy of the rightful king who was absent at the time, and whose authority was not recognized by Robin Hood in favor of allegiance to the true king. This version has held since the 1600s or so, at least in loose form.


As for the other point...Wouldn't taking a large part of someone's wealth that was obtained through fishy means be MORE damaging financially and psychologically then a mere loaf of bread? It could easily ruin someone who made a bad deal with a fence if a lot of their assets were tied up in the deal. You could also wind up shaming them, as they might be revealed to have dealings with a fence or were incompetent enough to have done deals with Not Very Nice People. That could easily ruin their name. But no, a MERE LOAF OF BREAD is more damaging to someone's livelihood or mental well being.

I would say that anyone who knowingly deals with a fence and purchases stolen property is essentially party to the theft of the item by that point, and therefore should be included in the punishment of the thieves, as should the fence. Any unreasonable personal, social or financial damages incurred by individuals party to criminal activity is a regrettable side effect of trying to get stuff back to the people who it belongs to.

If they did not know the person was a fence and that the item was stolen then they should be compensated for stolen goods being confiscated out of the pocket of the fence and thieves if they can be captured or their assets seized, because those are the individuals ultimately at fault and redress for damages caused is their responsibility.

By comparison the theoretical merchant or baker who would be stolen from in the loaf of bread example is guilty of no wrongdoing. There is no moral justification for taking bread from them beyond 'I need it and will die without it,' which is not the merchant's responsibility. We don't punish people for not giving stuff away. It is the correct thing for them to do, but it is not required. The thief has still done something immoral, even if punishment shouldn't be applied.

You seem to be assuming that when I say an act is evil that it means it should be punished. I am not, many acts are evil, most are not harmful enough to be deserving of or worth punishing. The specific example of a starving man stealing food, I would call the man evil for choosing to harm others, even slightly, to benefit himself, I still don't think he's done anything wrong in a meaningful sense, nor that any recompense beyond an apology and possible retroactive payment for what was taken is required.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 03:14 PM
The taxes were not legitimate taxes, at least not as seen by the peasants or Robin Hood himself. They were imposed by a regent against the normal policy of the rightful king who was absent at the time, and whose authority was not recognized by Robin Hood in favor of allegiance to the true king. This version has held since the 1600s or so, at least in loose form.



I would say that anyone who knowingly deals with a fence and purchases stolen property is essentially party to the theft of the item by that point, and therefore should be included in the punishment of the thieves, as should the fence. Any unreasonable personal, social or financial damages incurred by individuals party to criminal activity is a regrettable side effect of trying to get stuff back to the people who it belongs to.

If they did not know the person was a fence and that the item was stolen then they should be compensated for stolen goods being confiscated out of the pocket of the fence and thieves if they can be captured or their assets seized, because those are the individuals ultimately at fault and redress for damages caused is their responsibility.

By comparison the theoretical merchant or baker who would be stolen from in the loaf of bread example is guilty of no wrongdoing. There is no moral justification for taking bread from them beyond 'I need it and will die without it,' which is not the merchant's responsibility. We don't punish people for not giving stuff away. It is the correct thing for them to do, but it is not required. The thief has still done something immoral, even if punishment shouldn't be applied.

You seem to be assuming that when I say an act is evil that it means it should be punished. I am not, many acts are evil, most are not harmful enough to be deserving of or worth punishing. The specific example of a starving man stealing food, I would call the man evil for choosing to harm others, even slightly, to benefit himself, I still don't think he's done anything wrong in a meaningful sense, nor that any recompense beyond an apology and possible retroactive payment for what was taken is required.
No the reason people believe Robin Hood is good is because what he steals from the rich and gives to the poor not because he doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of the government.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 03:23 PM
No the reason people believe Robin Hood is good is because what he steals from the rich and gives to the poor not because he doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of the government.

And yet pretty much every modern version still includes Prince John being a regent and ruling differently from King Richard, who Robin Hood and his men say they are waiting to return so he can throw John out for being an ass.

The reason Robin is good is because he was stealing unjust taxes taken from the people by a wicked ruler and giving them back to the people they were taken from, not because he was stealing and then being charitable alone independent of the wider context. Even bloody Disney realized that when they were translating the story into an animated format.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 03:32 PM
And yet pretty much every modern version still includes Prince John being a regent and ruling differently from King Richard, who Robin Hood and his men say they are waiting to return so he can throw John out for being an ass.

The reason Robin is good is because he was stealing unjust taxes taken from the people by a wicked ruler and giving them back to the people they were taken from, not because he was stealing and then being charitable alone independent of the wider context. Even bloody Disney realized that when they were translating the story into an animated format.

Hey if someone stole legitimate taxes and gave them back it would be still be a good act just super non lawful

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 03:43 PM
Hey if someone stole legitimate taxes and gave them back it would be still be a good act just super non lawful

It would not be a good act, those taxes are necessary for funding things like law enforcement, standing armies, roads, grain silos, and a thousand other things. If the ruler had no money to spend they'd be unable to do any of the stuff they're supposed to. Without all those things the realm falls apart piece by piece, or all at once if a feudal warlord decides to get a bunch of guys together then go start a war with the king.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 03:47 PM
It would not be a good act, those taxes are necessary for funding things like law enforcement, standing armies, roads, grain silos, and a thousand other things. If the ruler had no money to spend they'd be unable to do any of the stuff they're supposed to. Without all those things the realm falls apart piece by piece, or all at once if a feudal warlord decides to get a bunch of guys together then go start a war with the king.
doesn't prince john need taxes for stuff like that as well?:smallamused:

Berenger
2017-03-16, 03:53 PM
doesn't prince john need taxes for stuff like that as well?:smallamused:

Historically, he raised the taxes to pay the ransom for his brother, some lawful good paladin guy (...not!) named Richard I the Lionheart.

Kantaki
2017-03-16, 03:54 PM
It would not be a good act, those taxes are necessary for funding things like law enforcement, standing armies, roads, grain silos, and a thousand other things. If the ruler had no money to spend they'd be unable to do any of the stuff they're supposed to. Without all those things the realm falls apart piece by piece, or all at once if a feudal warlord decides to get a bunch of guys together then go start a war with the king.

Okay, if everything is either good or evil what is the law/chaos axis for in your opinion?
Because I don't really see the need going by your posts.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 03:55 PM
doesn't prince john need taxes for stuff like that as well?:smallamused:

No, the ones already put in place by King Richard were those taxes, the ones John put in place in the stories of Robin Hood were used to line his own pockets and those of his cronies, not fulfill his feudal obligations. John is also usually depicted as using threats and force to take the money where the smaller taxes from before the regency were given freely to Richard.

A modern equivalent would be paying taxes to pay for roads and schools compared being extorted to pay for a statue of the current ruler, who is themselves only in charge because the official one is ill or on holiday.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 04:01 PM
No, the ones already put in place by King Richard were those taxes, the ones John put in place in the stories of Robin Hood were used to line his own pockets and those of his cronies, not fulfill his feudal obligations. John is also usually depicted as using threats and force to take the money where the smaller taxes from before the regency were given freely to Richard.

A modern equivalent would be paying taxes to pay for roads and schools compared being extorted to pay for a statue of the current ruler, who is themselves only in charge because the official one is ill or on holiday.

would it make it any different if they paid the taxes to a legitamate ruler who wants a statue of themselves?

veti
2017-03-16, 04:07 PM
And yet pretty much every modern version still includes Prince John being a regent and ruling differently from King Richard, who Robin Hood and his men say they are waiting to return so he can throw John out for being an ass.

The reason Robin is good is because he was stealing unjust taxes taken from the people by a wicked ruler and giving them back to the people they were taken from, not because he was stealing and then being charitable alone independent of the wider context. Even bloody Disney realized that when they were translating the story into an animated format.

You should check out the evolution of the story of Robin Hood. The name first appears in medieval court records, apparently as a common pseudonym for generic bandits and highwaymen. He becomes a folk hero purely because he's poor and against the rich, not because he's particularly virtuous.

The political aspect, the idea that Robin was righteously opposing a usurping ruler, was part of a highly successful Tudor program (several hundred years later) to co-opt the anti-aristocratic figure and make him a hero of the establishment. It's a miracle of transformation. In the process, they invented this idea that John was somehow not the "rightful" ruler.

In the 19th century, when nationalism was the rising ideology, Robin morphed into some kind of Saxon freedom fighter dispossessed by Norman invaders - and became a nobleman himself in the process. That's how promotion goes, in mythology.

And the idea that he specifically targeted tax collectors and distributed their cash to "the poor" - that's a very modern interpretation. I suspect, in fact, that Disney themselves invented that idea.

LibraryOgre
2017-03-16, 05:20 PM
Here's my definition of the Law v. Chaos and Good v. Evil axes.

Good v. Evil (the moral axis) is concerned with life, including artificial life (robots and warforged and such); primarily sophonts, but extending to other life, to a lesser degree. Good people seek to support life; that is a goal in and of itself. Good is not necessarily completely self-effacing nor above being paid for their work... a good person can still want glory for their deeds and accept rewards for them; folks still have to eat, after all. But they won't want a reward that the person can't afford. Nor does Good always mean non-violent... Good can fight evil, even in a proactive fashion, if they are working to reduce the potential pain others will cause (i.e. "We went out and killed orcs because, unchecked, they would kill many people.")
Evil people are not necessarily malevolent, but they are self-centered, seeking to advance themselves, often at the expense of others. An evil person might heal people, or give to charity, but they don't do that because they want to help people, but because it serves their ends... it is useful for this person to be healthy (or they have a personal investment in that person; an emotional connection, for example), or to appear to be charitable.
Neutrality, on this axis, is self-centered, but not quite as willing to sacrifice others for their goals. For an evil person's death, a random stranger's death is almost always an acceptable price; for a neutral person, it has to be really worth it.

Law v. Chaos (the ethical axis) is concerned with property, including ideas and institutions. Lawful people hold that property, including the mores of others, are important, so in the pursuit of their goals, they try not to violate them. They maintain their own oaths, don't put people into positions where they have to violate their ethical precepts if they can avoid it... they may not agree with them, they may try to change them, but they respect that other people HAVE those precepts and that they are important to them. A lawful person has a personal code, even if it's not fully articulated, and though they might violate it, it will not be without careful thought.
Chaotic people don't care a fig for other folks property and mores... they don't necessarily steal willy-nilly, but that's less out of respect for property as respect for consequences. A Chaotic person may have a personal code, but that code is almost always flexible and, even then, they'll discard that code if it gets in the way of their goals.
Neutrality on the ethical axis, again, is a balance between these two... their personal code may be important to them, but they don't care about the mores of others, for example. Conversely, they might respect the mores of others, but find themselves unable to really commit to an ethical standard.

So, the traditional Robin Hood is Chaotic Good. While he had personal loyalty to Richard the Lionheart, he had no such loyalty to John, and was happy to violate the laws of the land (external code) to achieve his personal goals... not just opposition to John, but also improving the lives of the poor. If he'd primarily kept the money, he'd slip to Chaotic Neutral. If he'd been a bit more about killing (rather than humiliating) tax collectors, then he'd be moving towards Chaotic Evil. The Errol Flynn/Disney Animated version of Robin Hood didn't want to KILL John or the Sheriff, he wanted to humiliate them.

Grim Portent
2017-03-16, 05:33 PM
Okay, if everything is either good or evil what is the law/chaos axis for in your opinion?
Because I don't really see the need going by your posts.

Neutrality does exist in my view, it's just a very narrow field, mostly occupied by sentient trees and rocks, or people who act like sentient trees and rocks.* :smalltongue:

Law is consistent responses, Chaos is whim based ones. It makes more sense to me than any other explanation for the axis I've seen. I described it in passing earlier, but I can try for a better description.

So Law as I prefer it is the idea that a person in a situation will respond roughly how they would in every prior similar situation they've been in. A property dispute is solved based on precedent, a crime is punished based on precedent, how things have been done in the past is considered an important part of how things should be done in future. Outside of exceptional circumstances responses to most situations are essentially rote and ritual and things are basically a foregone conclusion once all is known. Tradition is highly important, formality is highly important, procedure is important.

Chaos meanwhile is based on individual moments and situations, with whim, impression and mood playing major parts in decision making. Just because something has been done before doesn't mean a Chaotic person will care. Things are decided in the moment, based on gut feelings and rationales made then and there rather than on procedure or precedent. Modes of address are less formal, traditions are thrown out when no one is interested in them, the strictness of law varies from judge to judge and from day to day. How one thinks something should be dealt with now matters a lot more than how your father, and his father etc would have handled it.

I view Law/Chaos as more of a spectrum than Good/Evil, which I view as essentially a set of yes/no statements. Neutrality on L/C would essentially be those who rest in the middle of the axis, caring about procedure but being happy to waive it when they can't be bothered, and often making decisions based on simple precedent, other times going with their gut.

To go to the classic conflict people have with defining Law as an alignment, that of criminals:

I'd say legality is not specifically important to Lawful people but the criminals are still recognizable as part of a structured group . Those who are Lawful and criminals still have clear protocols, modes of address and rules for inheriting leadership, like stereotypical mafias. There are ways you act around a don, ways you dress if you expect to advance, an expectation of respect paid to your superiors, often an element of family involved, systems of favors and traditions that have to be adhered to to maintain trust in one another.

Chaotic criminals meanwhile would be more exemplified by characters like the Joker, lazy example I know, not because he is insane, but because how he responds to people is incredibly hard to understand. Sometimes a man who stands up to him gets a gun put their head and threatened until the Joker feels his ego is satisfied or until he pulls the trigger, sometimes they get incorporated into some elaborate hostage situation, or he laughs, declares he likes their moxie and lets them go. There is no formal system or consistency with which he chooses underlings, nor by which he puts them in charge of any given operation, nor is there any formal system of address used for him, or consistency in how he metes out punishment for failure, or even what he considers failure. The usual depiction of street gangs in pop culture would probably fit here, the boss is usually depicted as being in charge through being tough and smart, with no real clear successor or formal structure, and whether or not the boss cares about terms of address depends on the speaker.


*Deciding how far I would consider neutrality to cover on the Law/Good axis is actually hard to properly express. I prefer the view of evil as the default, and good the active rejection of it, rather than the frequent good or neutral as the default and evil as corruption. However evil is still morally corruptive in nature, tainting things it comes into contact with. While most evil is harmless and petty, that is still enough to drag people down and make them essentially dark grey morally rather than light grey or white. It's very easy for the little things to drag people down, especially as many of them cause unforeseen harm and are people taking pleasure at other's expense.

A very convenient shorthand would be the Christian sins/virtues idea, especially as represented in the CK2 computer game. The presence of any 1 sin makes you a sinner in the eyes of the game, even if you have 6 of the 7 virtues and just 1 sin. Same fundamental principle, though I differ on what I would consider 'sinful'. Neutrals would be equivalent to people with no sins or virtues in that game.


You should check out the evolution of the story of Robin Hood. The name first appears in medieval court records, apparently as a common pseudonym for generic bandits and highwaymen. He becomes a folk hero purely because he's poor and against the rich, not because he's particularly virtuous.

The political aspect, the idea that Robin was righteously opposing a usurping ruler, was part of a highly successful Tudor program (several hundred years later) to co-opt the anti-aristocratic figure and make him a hero of the establishment. It's a miracle of transformation. In the process, they invented this idea that John was somehow not the "rightful" ruler.

In the 19th century, when nationalism was the rising ideology, Robin morphed into some kind of Saxon freedom fighter dispossessed by Norman invaders - and became a nobleman himself in the process. That's how promotion goes, in mythology.

And the idea that he specifically targeted tax collectors and distributed their cash to "the poor" - that's a very modern interpretation. I suspect, in fact, that Disney themselves invented that idea.

There is also a theory that some of the middle period (pretty sure it was the middle period) pieces about him were commissioned by cloth merchants who resented the taxes against them which I rather like.

The fact he started as a brigand forced into banditry by misrule doesn't actually bear much weight as part of the modern figure people are most familiar with, though it is highly interesting as a look at how stories change over time.

Though a lot of elements do seem date back a long time. He was an Earl in the 1598 play The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington and several stories of that period link him with a romanticized version of King Richard and a wicked John. King Richard marrying Robin and Maid Marienne after his return from the crusade is very old. The giving to the poor thing also seems very old, in A Gest of Robyn Hode from the 1500s he states:


Of my good he shall haue some,
Yf he be a por man.

In the context of talking about the next people to walk down the road he has an ambush on.

The Gest also has the lines:


he was a good outlawe,
And dyde pore men moch god.

Also it is hurting me physically not to update the spelling.


would it make it any different if they paid the taxes to a legitamate ruler who wants a statue of themselves?

Not really, the ruler's a douche and wasting money, but he is entitled to the money by the feudal contract (or other tax arrangement,) and it's not a proper abuse of the situation as long as he doesn't make whole new taxes to pay for his extravagance. He's just being negligent rather than actively harmful. Also depends on if he's taking the money out of the amount that would normally go his personal expenses or to those of the land I suppose, if he chooses to forgo a few feasts and festivals to commission a statue then it's perfectly fine, nothing else is suffering as a result of his vanity.

Pre-edit: Sorry if this took a while to post. My internet went down part way through writing it.

Newtonsolo313
2017-03-16, 06:40 PM
Neutrality does exist in my view, it's just a very narrow field, mostly occupied by sentient trees and rocks, or people who act like sentient trees and rocks.* :smalltongue:

Law is consistent responses, Chaos is whim based ones. It makes more sense to me than any other explanation for the axis I've seen. I described it in passing earlier, but I can try for a better description.

So Law as I prefer it is the idea that a person in a situation will respond roughly how they would in every prior similar situation they've been in. A property dispute is solved based on precedent, a crime is punished based on precedent, how things have been done in the past is considered an important part of how things should be done in future. Outside of exceptional circumstances responses to most situations are essentially rote and ritual and things are basically a foregone conclusion once all is known. Tradition is highly important, formality is highly important, procedure is important.

Chaos meanwhile is based on individual moments and situations, with whim, impression and mood playing major parts in decision making. Just because something has been done before doesn't mean a Chaotic person will care. Things are decided in the moment, based on gut feelings and rationales made then and there rather than on procedure or precedent. Modes of address are less formal, traditions are thrown out when no one is interested in them, the strictness of law varies from judge to judge and from day to day. How one thinks something should be dealt with now matters a lot more than how your father, and his father etc would have handled it.

I view Law/Chaos as more of a spectrum than Good/Evil, which I view as essentially a set of yes/no statements. Neutrality on L/C would essentially be those who rest in the middle of the axis, caring about procedure but being happy to waive it when they can't be bothered, and often making decisions based on simple precedent, other times going with their gut.

To go to the classic conflict people have with defining Law as an alignment, that of criminals:

I'd say legality is not specifically important to Lawful people but the criminals are still recognizable as part of a structured group . Those who are Lawful and criminals still have clear protocols, modes of address and rules for inheriting leadership, like stereotypical mafias. There are ways you act around a don, ways you dress if you expect to advance, an expectation of respect paid to your superiors, often an element of family involved, systems of favors and traditions that have to be adhered to to maintain trust in one another.

Chaotic criminals meanwhile would be more exemplified by characters like the Joker, lazy example I know, not because he is insane, but because how he responds to people is incredibly hard to understand. Sometimes a man who stands up to him gets a gun put their head and threatened until the Joker feels his ego is satisfied or until he pulls the trigger, sometimes they get incorporated into some elaborate hostage situation, or he laughs, declares he likes their moxie and lets them go. There is no formal system or consistency with which he chooses underlings, nor by which he puts them in charge of any given operation, nor is there any formal system of address used for him, or consistency in how he metes out punishment for failure, or even what he considers failure. The usual depiction of street gangs in pop culture would probably fit here, the boss is usually depicted as being in charge through being tough and smart, with no real clear successor or formal structure, and whether or not the boss cares about terms of address depends on the speaker.


*Deciding how far I would consider neutrality to cover on the Law/Good axis is actually hard to properly express. I prefer the view of evil as the default, and good the active rejection of it, rather than the frequent good or neutral as the default and evil as corruption. However evil is still morally corruptive in nature, tainting things it comes into contact with. While most evil is harmless and petty, that is still enough to drag people down and make them essentially dark grey morally rather than light grey or white. It's very easy for the little things to drag people down, especially as many of them cause unforeseen harm and are people taking pleasure at other's expense.

A very convenient shorthand would be the Christian sins/virtues idea, especially as represented in the CK2 computer game. The presence of any 1 sin makes you a sinner in the eyes of the game, even if you have 6 of the 7 virtues and just 1 sin. Same fundamental principle, though I differ on what I would consider 'sinful'. Neutrals would be equivalent to people with no sins or virtues in that game.



There is also a theory that some of the middle period (pretty sure it was the middle period) pieces about him were commissioned by cloth merchants who resented the taxes against them which I rather like.

The fact he started as a brigand forced into banditry by misrule doesn't actually bear much weight as part of the modern figure people are most familiar with, though it is highly interesting as a look at how stories change over time.

Though a lot of elements do seem date back a long time. He was an Earl in the 1598 play The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington and several stories of that period link him with a romanticized version of King Richard and a wicked John. King Richard marrying Robin and Maid Marienne after his return from the crusade is very old. The giving to the poor thing also seems very old, in A Gest of Robyn Hode from the 1500s he states:



In the context of talking about the next people to walk down the road he has an ambush on.

The Gest also has the lines:



Also it is hurting me physically not to update the spelling.



Not really, the ruler's a douche and wasting money, but he is entitled to the money by the feudal contract (or other tax arrangement,) and it's not a proper abuse of the situation as long as he doesn't make whole new taxes to pay for his extravagance. He's just being negligent rather than actively harmful. Also depends on if he's taking the money out of the amount that would normally go his personal expenses or to those of the land I suppose, if he chooses to forgo a few feasts and festivals to commission a statue then it's perfectly fine, nothing else is suffering as a result of his vanity.

Pre-edit: Sorry if this took a while to post. My internet went down part way through writing it.
ok so what i got from your view is that they are entirely incompatible with d&d i mean what is the point of detect evil if everyone detects as evil or even writing it on the paper. that just sort of opens up problems like the city of sodom except with a paladin playing the role of god and other dude. evil would need to have a stricter definition

Segev
2017-03-17, 12:17 AM
I don't think theft as chaotic and 'technically theft' as lawful makes sense.

All sorts of outright criminal actions are described as being done by characters who are pretty comfortably lawful, like members of organised crime rings. An old style Russian or Italian mobster stereotype is pretty comfortably lawful, they have codes, rules, formal systems of address, keep careful track of the books, manage often complicated logistical issues, are fastidious in covering things up, value at least the veneer of civility, often inherit through familial lines and often place the group ahead of individuals. But they also murder, steal, sell illegal substances, kidnap, torture and commit fraud, among other things.By their rules, they're not stealing. They're essentially collecting taxes and making deals that just so happen to benefit them more than their victims, and their victims may not have a choice. But to them, it's all within the rules. And they DO have rules about it. They don't just come in and grab stuff and say "mine now." They set up elaborate schemes that create a "right" to the property they want for themselves.

And it's noteworthy that even LE people can commit Chaotic acts. They just will tend to avoid them.


I do not recall agreeing with that at any point.

Using your example, Larry was never the owner. He had possession. The moment of Pete's death, legitimate ownership of that half of the estate passed directly from Pete to Iggy. He was the owner as far as the law was concerned until new evidence came to light. Ownership transferred.

The Mark and Mabel example is perhaps better; they did have ownership, and the foreclosure took it from them. Legally, and - at least you seemed to agree - without it being theft.

Each case where you identified something you saw as theft, you pointed to an extra-legal action. Where you called into question the morality of something, but agreed it was legal, you seemed to agree it wasn't theft, because the people gaining ownership did have a right to it.

I'm going to turn this back to you: can you provide an example of somebody using the law to steal? Not to perform a reprehensible, immoral act of acquisition that is nonetheless legal and thus not stealing, but actually stealing while using the law?


So you're insisting that "theft" is purely a matter of legal definition, and that one cannot steal / commit theft as long as one remains technically within the law...

Whereas I'm saying that the LE is stealing, he knows who the property rightfully belongs to, and he's using the law to deprive them of it. That is, he's using the law as a tool of theft. I'm saying that ownership, if it is distinct from possession, is purely a matter of legal definition. We have a lot of "he deserves to own that" thoughts that we carry around with ourselves, but the actual concept of ownership is a legal thing. "This is mine. I have a right to it." Why? What gives you that right?

Literally anything you say explaining what constitutes ownership of (and right to own) that thing is essentially establishing a law.

The butler's son who lovingly cares for his dad's boss's kid's car, makes sure it's always spic and span, well-maintained, etc., might well be said to "deserve to own" that vehicle, particularly if the rich man's son who actually owns it abuses it, treats it like an entitlement, and generally gets it damaged, dinged, and in need of frequent tune-ups due to the punishment his careless disregard for it puts it through. But the law says that the rich man's son is the owner, and even if the rich man's son decides to sell it to a monster truck rally as fodder, the butler's son who loved and cherished it has no right to stop him. I'm sure that, as the climactic scene in a movie about this tale, the audience would be generally loathing the rich kid for his callous cruelty to a car that had practically been a character, and for how horrid he is to the butler's son by having the car simply destroyed. Nearly everyone would likely say, "after all the love he gave it, the butler's son deserved to own that car." But deserving and actually getting are two different things.

Ownership of that car is defined by the law. Nothing else.



Others are insisting that if it's in the rules, it cannot "by definition" be "stealing" -- that's what I'm absolutely disagreeing with. Please, provide an example. I cannot think of a way for this to happen.

Oh, okay, here's one you give:

(For another example, go back to look at the use of eminent domain and eventually force to clear out landowners to allow construction of dams under the Tennessee Valley Authority. Of course, a lot of that land didn't end up under water, but it wasn't given back to the legitimate owners. Instead, it was sold off as new lakefront property and the profit from those sales retained by the federal government. I don't care what ANYONE else says, that was blatant theft, but perfectly legal at the time.)
Oh, it is morally reprehensible. It certainly feels like theft to the former owners who were forced to sell. But the same logic that says that taxes are not theft says Imminent Domain is not theft. It might be corruption, but it's not theft. This is what I would call "tantamount to theft."

It all comes back to the simple point that "ownership" is a legal construct and concept. There are a number of reasons ownership can be forcibly stripped from somebody. Some we've discussed as being rightful (if not exactly good). Others, like Imminent Domain, seem wrong to us...but the fact remains that the concept of ownership as separate from possession, as something which can be forcibly removed for any reason, means it is legally defined. And thus anything that is done as a matter of law wrt ownership transfer cannot, by definition, be theft.

As people with - if not alignment, at least - appreciation for Goodness, we tend to draw a line that defines ownership at least close to how we feel it is "deserved." But it remains a legal definition.

If the law didn't give Pete, form our first example, the right to spell out his will, but instead said that his oldest biological son inherits, and failing that, it goes to his oldest biological daughter, etc. following some legally-defined heirship order, then Iggy gets it all if he's the older son (or only biological son). Is that right? Is that Iggy "stealing" it, even if Pete would have chosen to leave it all to Larry if he could? No, because the concept of ownership is a legal construct.

sktarq
2017-03-17, 12:30 AM
By their rules, they're not stealing.

Redefining it to suit themselves as legal doesn't make the crime any less true.

True for lots of things. Command Rape in the military for example. In fact there are a whole bunch of "crime"-under-the-color-of-law crimes that are exactly about this sort of thing you describe.

improper ownership transfer is still stealing. unlawful ownership transfer has much less to do with it. and while a fair number of evil characters will like to muddle that distinction for their advantage (lawful or chaotic both). That is a big part of what makes them evil.

Kantaki
2017-03-17, 12:48 AM
Redefining it to suit themselves as legal doesn't make the crime any less true.

True for lots of things. Command Rape in the military for example. In fact there are a whole bunch of "crime"-under-the-color-of-law crimes that are exactly about this sort of thing you describe.

improper ownership transfer is still stealing. unlawful ownership transfer has much less to do with it. and while a fair number of evil characters will like to muddle that distinction for their advantage (lawful or chaotic both). That is a big part of what makes them evil.

That's why it is called lawful evil.
Of course it is wrong, but technically it doesn't break whatever rules they (pretend to) follow.
Or made as the case may be.

Dappershire
2017-03-17, 05:00 AM
If its your first time, I say go easy on yourself.

A lot of the Lawful Evil characters from books and media (Those who can be identified by alignment spectrum at least) tend to be characters that serve.
They may have leadership qualities, don't get me wrong. A mangy minion you aren't.
But it might help you get in character, if backstoried in, you serve an evil Master. Be they some kingdom tyrant, a power abusive grand wizard (Thay anybody?), or even a God. My favorite play with Lawful Evil, was as a Knight of Takhisis. I got to go around, clericing around, smashing things with heavy mace and heavy armor. I followed the code of my Knighthood, but I did it all for the glory of an evil dragon goddess. That was a fun character.

So find yourself someone to serve. They don't have to be present in your game, but their orders are what give you the "law" of your alignment. Fun gives you the "evil".

Segev
2017-03-17, 08:42 AM
Redefining it to suit themselves as legal doesn't make the crime any less true. Actually, given the definition of "crime," it does. What I think you're looking for here is "sin."


True for lots of things. Command Rape in the military for example.I am...unfamiliar with the term, and don't like what it implies. c_c;


In fact there are a whole bunch of "crime"-under-the-color-of-law crimes that are exactly about this sort of thing you describe. Again, I think you're conflating "things which are morally wrong" with "things that are crimes." These are often similar lists, but need not be. In an ideal LG society, laws would exist only to prevent harm to others and preserve and protect innocent people (and help grease the interactions of otherwise well-intentioned people who benefit from a shared set of expectations). But that's because the LG society creates laws with the intent to support good, moral lifestyles.

Once you move south to LN and LE, more and more laws exist for their own sake or for the sake of those in power.

Anything which is a legal construct or concept, and has no meaning without a legal code to define it, is by definition only (il)legal if the law says so.

The trap that people may think I'm falling into is the notion that "I have a code that says I do whatever I want, so I'm Lawful!" is a valid code. It isn't, and I'm not. The rules the villain uses to take what he wants must be rules that are external to him, and that define and shape his worldview. They can't be contextual, and they certainly can't be unevenly applied. If he benefits from an uneven application of the rules, it must be due to a station he holds, not due to his individual identity. And, to an extent, a Lawful [anything] King will be bound by rules, because he is Lawful and he holds himself to them.

When rules change, or are of the semi-facetious "the rule is that things have to go my way" variety, they're not really Lawful. Lawful rules aren't subjective.

And the villains we're discussing, who "steal" with the law, aren't exercising arbitrary, subjective rules. The rule system to which they subscribe really does give them ownership.


improper ownership transfer is still stealing. unlawful ownership transfer has much less to do with it. and while a fair number of evil characters will like to muddle that distinction for their advantage (lawful or chaotic both). That is a big part of what makes them evil.Define "improper ownership transfer." I'm serious. Define it without resorting to any laws or rules. Hint: you'll have to define "ownership" (or "proper ownership") first. And you can't do that without rules/laws.

Ownership as a concept independent of possession is a Lawful concept. If you are using Lawful means to gain ownership of a thing, it cannot be stealing. Stealing is therefore Chaotic.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-17, 08:50 AM
By their rules, they're not stealing. They're essentially collecting taxes and making deals that just so happen to benefit them more than their victims, and their victims may not have a choice. But to them, it's all within the rules. And they DO have rules about it. They don't just come in and grab stuff and say "mine now." They set up elaborate schemes that create a "right" to the property they want for themselves.

And it's noteworthy that even LE people can commit Chaotic acts. They just will tend to avoid them.

He was the owner as far as the law was concerned until new evidence came to light. Ownership transferred.

The Mark and Mabel example is perhaps better; they did have ownership, and the foreclosure took it from them. Legally, and - at least you seemed to agree - without it being theft.

Each case where you identified something you saw as theft, you pointed to an extra-legal action. Where you called into question the morality of something, but agreed it was legal, you seemed to agree it wasn't theft, because the people gaining ownership did have a right to it.

I'm going to turn this back to you: can you provide an example of somebody using the law to steal? Not to perform a reprehensible, immoral act of acquisition that is nonetheless legal and thus not stealing, but actually stealing while using the law?

I'm saying that ownership, if it is distinct from possession, is purely a matter of legal definition. We have a lot of "he deserves to own that" thoughts that we carry around with ourselves, but the actual concept of ownership is a legal thing. "This is mine. I have a right to it." Why? What gives you that right?

Literally anything you say explaining what constitutes ownership of (and right to own) that thing is essentially establishing a law.

The butler's son who lovingly cares for his dad's boss's kid's car, makes sure it's always spic and span, well-maintained, etc., might well be said to "deserve to own" that vehicle, particularly if the rich man's son who actually owns it abuses it, treats it like an entitlement, and generally gets it damaged, dinged, and in need of frequent tune-ups due to the punishment his careless disregard for it puts it through. But the law says that the rich man's son is the owner, and even if the rich man's son decides to sell it to a monster truck rally as fodder, the butler's son who loved and cherished it has no right to stop him. I'm sure that, as the climactic scene in a movie about this tale, the audience would be generally loathing the rich kid for his callous cruelty to a car that had practically been a character, and for how horrid he is to the butler's son by having the car simply destroyed. Nearly everyone would likely say, "after all the love he gave it, the butler's son deserved to own that car." But deserving and actually getting are two different things.

Ownership of that car is defined by the law. Nothing else.


Please, provide an example. I cannot think of a way for this to happen.

Oh, okay, here's one you give:

Oh, it is morally reprehensible. It certainly feels like theft to the former owners who were forced to sell. But the same logic that says that taxes are not theft says Imminent Domain is not theft. It might be corruption, but it's not theft. This is what I would call "tantamount to theft."

It all comes back to the simple point that "ownership" is a legal construct and concept. There are a number of reasons ownership can be forcibly stripped from somebody. Some we've discussed as being rightful (if not exactly good). Others, like Imminent Domain, seem wrong to us...but the fact remains that the concept of ownership as separate from possession, as something which can be forcibly removed for any reason, means it is legally defined. And thus anything that is done as a matter of law wrt ownership transfer cannot, by definition, be theft.

As people with - if not alignment, at least - appreciation for Goodness, we tend to draw a line that defines ownership at least close to how we feel it is "deserved." But it remains a legal definition.

If the law didn't give Pete, form our first example, the right to spell out his will, but instead said that his oldest biological son inherits, and failing that, it goes to his oldest biological daughter, etc. following some legally-defined heirship order, then Iggy gets it all if he's the older son (or only biological son). Is that right? Is that Iggy "stealing" it, even if Pete would have chosen to leave it all to Larry if he could? No, because the concept of ownership is a legal construct.

The problem is, I consider ownership primarily a moral matter -- and as with all other matters it touches on, the law's legitimate function here is not to define, but simply to reflect what's just and right as best as it can.

The plethora of immoral laws throughout history should serve as an overwhelming avalanche of examples of what law is and is not. Just because the law in certain places and times included ownership of human beings, doesn't mean that those human beings were ever legitimately, actually owned in any sense beyond "I can get the state to enforce my claim". On any legitimate moral or ethical level, one cannot own another human being.

Theft is theft, regardless of what the law in a particular time and place offers up as definition. I only care about the law's definition in so much as it succeeds or fails to call a spade a spade, and punishes thieves.

Strigon
2017-03-17, 09:08 AM
The problem is, I consider ownership primarily a moral matter -- and as with all other matters it touches on, the law's legitimate function here is not to define, but simply to reflect what's just and right as best as it can.

The plethora of immoral laws throughout history should serve as an overwhelming avalanche of examples of what law is and is not. Just because the law in certain places and times included ownership of human beings, doesn't mean that those human beings were ever legitimately, actually owned in any sense beyond "I can get the state to enforce my claim". On any legitimate moral or ethical level, one cannot own another human being.

Theft is theft, regardless of what the law in a particular time and place offers up as definition. I only care about the law's definition in so much as it succeeds or fails to call a spade a spade, and punishes thieves.

And here's the whole root of the problem.
You're operating under an entirely different set of assumptions from other people, and using entirely different definitions.
You say things that are very clearly defined as not theft are, in fact, theft by your own personal definition. Then you go and argue with people who use the commonly accepted definition of theft.

You can't expect everyone who meets you to automatically begin using words in a way that doesn't reflect their general meaning. Simply taking something in an immoral way is not theft. Not being theft doesn't mean it's a good thing, it just means it isn't theft.

Segev
2017-03-17, 09:19 AM
The problem is, I consider ownership primarily a moral matter -- and as with all other matters it touches on, the law's legitimate function here is not to define, but simply to reflect what's just and right as best as it can. This is a very LG view of things. It is a statement of what Laws ought to be. I happen to agree with it.

I do not dispute that the laws defining ownership should reflect a moral imperative of righteousness and fairness to the owner. I can give lengthy Enlightened Self-Interest-based treatises on why defining ownership in ways that align with most people's view of "he deserves to own that" will tend to lead to better societies. (I should note that it isn't because it aligns with people's views, but that observationally I have noted that most people's views USUALLY align with optimal ownership rules.)

What I dispute is that ownership has a definition that is able to be articulated without Law. What I've attempted to demonstrate with my examples is that any concept of ownership that does not fall back on "that's just not RIGHT, so we're ignoring the rules we'd established" can be used to take something from somebody else. Even the most well-meaning of rules, in a bad situation, can look like "theft" - in the moral sense you want to ascribe it - to those who don't know the full story or who think the owner is being reprehensible in exercising his ownership rights.

Even Imminent Domain is a thing without which a nefarious application of ownership laws can be used to commit what might be considered "theft" in a moral sense. To create a overly-dramatic example, if a town wanted to build a hydroelectric dam to create a tourist-attracting lake and cheaper power, and the farmers who owned land around the river in the flood zone agreed that they wanted to move into town and sell their land to the new power company, raising the value of the land they keep that's outside the flood zone because it's now lakefront property, this could be good for a lot of people.

Now, the classic use of Imminent Domain would be to deal with the one hold-out who didn't want to do this, and I tend to personally find that a questionable use, but I do understand why it's there. (As you've noted, this often gets abused.)

But let's say that what actually happened here is that Bob and Betty decide that they don't really want to participate in this tourism and power company thing, and would rather move to the big city to retire if they're going to leave their farm. Coal Plant Kate, owner of the town's primary supplier of electricity, doesn't want this project to go through because the hydroelectric dam would seriously cut into her bottom line via competition. She offers Bob and Betty twice what the hydroelectric dam project people have in their budget for individual farms, and then refuses to allow her new property to be sold to the project.

Calling this "theft" is a stretch, but she has seriously undermined the property values of all the rest of the people involved, and done so maliciously in a way that was not within reasonable expectations that anybody could foresee it. She is abusing ownership of land she has no intention of utilizing for any purpose other than to deny others the legal right to use their property as they want to. Definitely a Lawful Evil maneuver.


The plethora of immoral laws throughout history should serve as an overwhelming avalanche of examples of what law is and is not.Not really, though I get what you mean. You're defining "good laws" vs. "bad laws." The trouble is, you're still conflating legitimacy of a law with its morality. At the very least, in the dual-axis system we have for D&D, that is not a valid conflation. Not when dealing with the definition of what is lawful and chaotic, at least. (By all means, an LG person can argue that his alignment is the right one and that laws should be good laws because otherwise they aren't right and should be changed/abolished.)


Theft is theft, regardless of what the law in a particular time and place offers up as definition. I only care about the law's definition in so much as it succeeds or fails to call a spade a spade, and punishes thieves.You still have to define ownership before you can define a particular act as theft, because theft is "taking that which does not belong to you."

A repo man is not stealing, despite often using all the same tactics as a sneak thief. But he's taking something protected by the one who possesses it because it doesn't belong to that person. He's returning it to the rightful owner.

Which brings us right back to defining "rightful owner." Which is inherently a matter of law.

We can say, "Man, he deserves to own that," and we might even be able to spell out why, but so often there's an arbitrary and subjective element to that which makes it so that nailing down specifics will lead to holes one way or another.

I agree with you that ideal laws minimize means of using ownership or the means to acquire it to take something that generally you don't deserve to have from somebody else who generally does. But ownership - or "rightful ownership" - is still a concept which only exists when we carve it into law in order to define it.

Max_Killjoy
2017-03-17, 09:22 AM
We'll have to disagree.

Segev
2017-03-17, 09:23 AM
We'll have to disagree.

Very well. Disappointing, but fair enough.

And we have diverged from the main topic of the thread, anyway. ^^;

LibraryOgre
2017-03-17, 09:32 AM
The mod Wonder: Closed for Review.