All is fair in love and war?

[Shinoskay]

Lawful neutral and war

War is a beast of its own laws, right? So a lawful neutral char could support an evil force committing covert war against a good entity? maybe? yes? no? thoughts?

[Berenger]

"All is fair in love and war?" - "War is a beast of its own laws, right?"

These statements are mutually exclusive. Either war has it's own laws or there are no laws. Pick one.

A lawful neutral character could plausibly support any war as long as the criteria of bellum iustum (consisting of jus ad bellum, "right to go to war" and jus in bello, "right conduct in war") are met. Acceptable reasons for war and acceptable conduct in war will vary by culture. As this is obviously steeped in politics, I can't give real life examples, so you will have to provide a detailed decription of the involved fantasy cultures if you wish further elaboration.

[Kurald Galain]

To give a fictional example: Prince Blerple is the eldest son of the late King Gnorf, and therefore Blerple he is the proper ruler of Fooland by right of inheritance. Therefore his invasion of Fooland is justified by right divine; it doesn't matter how he or anyone else behaves or what their alignment is, Blerple is the Rightful King.

[pabelfly]

Lawful neutral and war

War is a beast of its own laws, right? So a lawful neutral char could support an evil force committing covert war against a good entity? maybe? yes? no? thoughts?

I'd say a Lawful Neutral character would hope the participants in a war abide by some code of conduct that they would find reasonable. This might include the weapons and spells that are acceptable to use in a war, what targets to attack, and so forth. They might go against the army that doesn't care about killing level one commoners, but won't care about which army's cause is right or wrong.

[Shinoskay]

"All is fair in love and war?" - "War is a beast of its own laws, right?"

These statements are mutually exclusive. Either war has it's own laws or there are no laws. Pick one.


No, you can just go away


To give a fictional example: Prince Blerple is the eldest son of the late King Gnorf, and therefore Blerple he is the proper ruler of Fooland by right of inheritance. Therefore his invasion of Fooland is justified by right divine; it doesn't matter how he or anyone else behaves or what their alignment is, Blerple is the Rightful King.

But what of flerple, who wants either of those two kingdoms, and so starts tricking blerple to attack fooland's strong holds so flerple can get a foot hold of his own in the distracted fooland?


I'd say a Lawful Neutral character would hope the participants in a war abide by some code of conduct that they would find reasonable. This might include the weapons and spells that are acceptable to use in a war, what targets to attack, and so forth. They might go against the army that doesn't care about killing level one commoners, but won't care about which army's cause is right or wrong.

Well presented, thank you

[Kurald Galain]

But what of flerple, who wants either of those two kingdoms, and so starts tricking blerple to attack fooland's strong holds so flerple can get a foot hold of his own in the distracted fooland?
Flerple is not the rightful king so he should not get a foothold.

[Shinoskay]

Blerple is not the rightful king so he should not get a foothold.

Huh... and that sounds like Lawful neutral to you?