Roleplaying an Incarnate

[Wacky89]

I'm going to start playing an incarnate soon.
I chose the LN version, how would you about roleplaying that?
I didnt pick the evil version since it seems difficult to roleplay "incarnation of evil"

please help :)

[Troacctid]

Consider dedicating yourself to a LN deity and following their teachings. Incarnates tend to be real serious about their alignment, and that often manifests in religious devotion. And it's great for roleplaying, because it can give you a ton of material to work with.

[Andor13]

Incarnates are supposed to be fanatical adherents to the ethos of their alignment. There is actually some fluff in the Incarnum book about a a LN Incarnate as delivered by a Paladin, iirc.

Basically you should be the ultimate law and order type. You are not concerned with whether the law is good or bad, just whether or not it's enforced. Inspector Javert from Les Miserables might be a good archetype.

Such a character should probably want very much to become a part of law enforcement, whatever form that take in the society in your game. This is not the sort who will consider himself above the law however. If given a scenario where he has to break the law to enforce it, he would do that, then turn himself in and confess.

[BowStreetRunner]

There are lots of ways to play a Lawful character. When you create your character just remember - you only have to play ONE of those ways. Once you set in your mind how THIS character interprets his ethos, and how that ethos will manifest itself in the choices he makes, then be prepared to ignore all of the people who tell you that your character would/wouldn't do something based on THEIR interpretation of the Lawful ethos.

The only person besides you who should have a say in how your PC plays Lawful is your DM. As long as you are able to work it out with him, everything else is just a suggestion that you can take under advisement and ignore if you wish.

I've seen too many players hamstrung by being forced into paradoxical situations by too many versions of Lawful that conflict with one another. For instance, the Lawful Evil member of a crime family who is ordered to do something by his patriarch and that something is illegal in the country where they reside, is perfectly able to choose to follow his patriarch's orders while ignoring the laws of the kingdom.

What you won't do is something totally random and truly chaotic. As long as you follow A law, you don't need to follow ALL laws, but you will never follow NO law.

[The Viscount]

When focusing on something like Lawful, I find it helpful to consider the two types of Law that a character might encounter in the D&D world. The first is the more mundane governmental law, which in a D&D setting may vary from region to region (as in Faerun) or be relatively the same throughout (as in Khorvaire). The second is the personal code. This may be following the edicts of your Lawful Deity, the restrictions of your class (like Knight), or even the code set by your society (as in some organized crime, where codes can be very strict). Both are entirely valid interpretations of Law for a character to follow, but I find it helps to define a character to know which they ascribe to more.

Another help for something like this is using characters you know as a jumping-off point. Two prominent examples that spring to mind are Judge Dredd and Robocop. Both enforce the law with brutal force, and both are stoic characters. But you can see a difference between them. Dredd is harsh and uncompromising with a devotion to enforcement that borders on cruel. Robocop, on the other hand, is good-hearted Alex Murphy underneath all the OCP programming, and is incapable of violating his procedure.

Not to say that all LN characters have to be joyless martinets. Another character archetype that can be useful to contrast with them is the lawyer/advocate. This can vary depending on the work, so I'll use Law & Order to be specific. The ADAs we see there are passionate people who view upholding the law as a way to keep society together, and view justice as something that can be tempered with mercy.

In general it can be helpful once you know that your character is a devoted paragon of Law to think about why. For this sort of thing it can be very helpful to me to refine the idea by contrasting it with opposites. Why was this character not swayed to LG? What prevented them from going LE? What is it about Chaos that makes them oppose it so strongly?