I'm having trouble with alignment. Help?

[Ducks & Dragons]

So, my character is a Tiefling who was raised from infancy by a lich and his undead servants in a pocket dimension.
I want him to be lawful neutral, because, despite being raised by pretty much evil incarnate, he doesn't perceive it as wrong, and his ultimate goal is to follow in the footsteps of his father. So, lawful neutral is defined as acting as law, tradition, or a personal code directs, but what if that code is chaotic evil? Lawful evil is defined as methodically taking what they wants within the limits of their code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts, but that's not who he is. What should I do?

[Unoriginal]

A code can't be of an alignment, only the people who wrote it.


What IS the code telling your tiefling to do? How is he actually going to act?

Also, just to cut that short, "not perceiving it as wrong" doesn't make evil things less evil. There is a difference between accidentally hurting someone and knowingly hurting someone but not realizing you're a donkey hole.

[Ganymede]

So, lawful neutral is defined as acting as law, tradition, or a personal code directs, but what if that code is chaotic evil?

Then you are chaotic evil.

Look, your PC doesn't pick his own alignment; you, the player, does. Pick the alignment that best matches your PCs behavior. Anyways, alignment is just an adjunct to traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, another way to help describe your character's personality and motivations.

[guachi]

Write up your Bonds, Flaws, Traits, and Ideals. Those are likely more important than your alignment. Pick an alignment you think fits your character. Play your character and see if the Bonds, Flaws, Traits, Ideals, and Alignment you chose fit your character. If they do, great! If they don't, change them. It's really no different than new characters on a TV show who take a few episodes (or more) to settle on their eventual character.

[Unoriginal]

Look, your PC doesn't pick his own alignment; you, the player, does. Pick the alignment that best matches your PCs behavior. Anyways, alignment is just an adjunct to traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws, another way to help describe your character's personality and motivations.

This, too. Alignment is a description of your PC's typical behavior.

[RedMage125]

A code can't be of an alignment, only the people who wrote it.


What IS the code telling your tiefling to do? How is he actually going to act?

This.

Because if your code has you behave in a manner that would be evil (killing and harming others for your benefit, for example, which it might, since liches must constantly feed souls to their phylactery), then your alignment may be evil.

It's important to understand that alignment comes FROM your character's beliefs, intent, and actions. It does not dictate them.

Your character may kill callously because people get in his way, and HE may believe that doing so is okay, because that's what daddy taught him. He may think of himself as lawful Neutral. But alignment is judged by objective, dispassionate forces. And if he commits evil acts, and mindset is such that to him, doing those acts is acceptable, then he is likely evil.

[Malifice]

So, my character is a Tiefling who was raised from infancy by a lich and his undead servants in a pocket dimension.
I want him to be lawful neutral, because, despite being raised by pretty much evil incarnate, he doesn't perceive it as wrong, and his ultimate goal is to follow in the footsteps of his father. So, lawful neutral is defined as acting as law, tradition, or a personal code directs, but what if that code is chaotic evil? Lawful evil is defined as methodically taking what they wants within the limits of their code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts, but that's not who he is. What should I do?

Heheheh.

Never change GITP; never change.

Come on now man, this isnt legit is it? Fess up.

[Man_Over_Game]

So, my character is a Tiefling who was raised from infancy by a lich and his undead servants in a pocket dimension.
I want him to be lawful neutral, because, despite being raised by pretty much evil incarnate, he doesn't perceive it as wrong, and his ultimate goal is to follow in the footsteps of his father. So, lawful neutral is defined as acting as law, tradition, or a personal code directs, but what if that code is chaotic evil? Lawful evil is defined as methodically taking what they wants within the limits of their code of conduct without regard for whom it hurts, but that's not who he is. What should I do?

A thing I started doing that made alignments a lot easier to understand is to separate your definition of the alignment from their personal life. Rather, compare how they feel about the world around them, outside of their families and goals.

Do you think the common person is worth investing in and sacrificing for? If yes, you're Good.
Do you think the common person is just a resource or an obstacle to your goal? If yes, you're Evil.
Do you not care about the common person, practically invisible in your eyes? if yes, you're Neutral (on the Good/Evil scale).

Do you think that more laws are necessary to evolve the world towards your vision? If yes, you're Lawful.
Do you think that the common law hinders your goals and your plans for the world? If yes, you're Chaotic.
Do you feel that laws are obeyed simply to avoid conflict, and you otherwise are passive about them? If yes, you're Neutral (on the Lawful/Chaotic scale).

Even a Chaotic Evil person can obey a master or have a loved one. Everyone has a reason to believe they're doing the "right" thing. So take that out of the equation. Take out all of the factors closely tied into your life. Consider what the average person and the common law means to you, and THAT's what defines your alignment.

--------------------

In your case, if you only care about the laws that your master defined, and are hellbent on disestablishing the establishment of every other society, then it's fairly clear that you'd be Chaotic.

However, if your character feels that laws need to be obeyed, and that even laws that counter your master's definitions deserve respect, then it's clear that your character is Lawful, and may even break the laws of other societies, if only for the sake of obeying your own. After all, pillaging, raping, and murder has been historically acceptable (legal) as long as it's done in the name of your country, as commanded by your country.

[Darth Ultron]

Your character, as described, would be Chaotic Evil.

Though I should note that when talking about Alignment, you should not be thinking of ''right" and "wrong". There are simply ways of thought, but no way is right or wrong.

[Malifice]

My character was raised in an isolated rape dungeon by Charles Manson and Hitler. There we engaged in soul violation, murder, sex crimes and brutal torture for fun and pleasure.

My character is therefore indoctrinated into this kind of thing and sees it as normal, noble and even good.

Am I evil?

Lol.

[Man_Over_Game]

My character was raised in an isolated rape dungeon by Charles Manson and Hitler. There we engaged in soul violation, murder, sex crimes and brutal torture for fun and pleasure.

My character is therefore indoctrinated into this kind of thing and sees it as normal, noble and even good.

Am I evil?

Lol.

Are you just going to keep talking crap about this thread every few posts?

I'm not really sure what the goal is.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Are you just going to keep talking crap about this thread every few posts?

I'm not really sure what the goal is.

The idea that this character can:
a) be convinced that the actions of their father (a lich in a demiplane filled with undead) aren't wrong
b) also be neutral
c) wants to follow in the footsteps of their father (just to remind you, he is a lich with undead servants)
and consider themselves "Lawful Neutral" deserves a bit of an eye roll.

You can write Lawful Neutral on the character sheet but if your character is acting within these boundaries, which have been established as being okay with lichdom and wanting to be one, you're definitely not Neutral.

Which I believe is the goal in treating it as absurd, because it is absurd.

[Ninja_Prawn]

it is absurd.

Yet someone comes along every other week and asks the exact same thing. It's no surprise people get frustrated.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Yet someone comes along every other week and asks the exact same thing. It's no surprise people get frustrated.

I think the problem is they should be asking their DM rather than a forum. Although I suspect they ask a forum to gather support in favor of an argument that they might already believe lacks a foundation. I may be reading too deeply into this but it almost seem like the player is trying to convince themselves with some support of the idea.

Calling it absurd might be a bit too harsh in retrospect, even if I personally don't see how the stretch could be made to call this character Lawful Neutral.

I think we can see a degree of responses with differing levels of patience remaining for the idea of "Written Alignment -v- Displayed Alignment" but all selling more or less the same answer: This character is almost certainly Evil, believing that their Evil actions are okay doesn't excuse them.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It's kind of a problem with alignments mapping to something philosophers have debated for all of human history. They have definitions intrinsic to D&D in the book that are more concrete and divorced from the philosophical underpinnings, but people will keep arguing the definition based on the idea that we're discussing those philosophical conflicts because of the names being used.

It's faster and easier to point out page 122-123 of the PHB. Don't think about what your character thinks. Consider what they do, look at what alignment best defines it. That's the one.