Quote Originally Posted by Zale View Post
Keep in mind that being Lawful doesn't mean you have to slavishly obey every law or tradition. It just means (In my own opinion) that they respect laws and traditions because they bring order.

As a Lawful Good character, you should consider what Order means to you. I'd personally, if I were running a lawful good character, go with the idea that Lawful Good characters respect the idealistic concept of Order- what laws and traditions are supposed to do. They're meant to bring fairness, equality, respect, dignity and safety to people. That's why they exist, and why a Lawful Good character respects them.

But that's the perfect ideal of it. In reality, the law falls short.

Because of this, it's not a good idea to blindly follow every law and tradition- examine them closely in order to understand them, if they're good, follow them- if not, find some way to try to improve them. If necessary, ignore them or try to change them.

A paladin should not risk falling for refusing to bow to the laws of a known tyrant. An unjust law is not a law at all- it is a perverse mockery of all that the law stands for.

Heck, a LG character may well agree with, say, the motives of a CG-Robin-Hood style character (Balancing social inequality and helping people), but not agree with their methods (Violating laws). But they aren't entirely in the wrong, because as personally satisfying and quickly beneficial stealing from the rich may be, it fails to solve the underlying social issues that cause poverty and doesn't help in the long run. /alignmentbabble

However, your team mates should not automatically decide to try to make you fall. This is especially true for people who are supposed to be your friends.

I would personally go for smacking them in the head, but do whatever works for you.
I get what you're saying. Maybe I should just ask them nicely to knock it off, but I think my friends are seeing my playing a Paladin as a challenge, particularly the guy behind the Chaotic Neutral Barbarian. Let me give an illustration of how our alignments are working within the group:

Last session, we fought a few bandits and went to town for the end of the session. In town, we found out that the bandits are a problem in the area, stealing from and/or killing merchants and travelers along the road (and said bandits are based in an old keep/fort that had been previously abandoned). Now, my Paladin sees this as a cause for upholding the law, and getting evildoers off the road, so he's willing to work with some more neutral- (and profit-) oriented folks to accomplish the same goal of making the area safe from bandits. My Paladin, being the respectful upholder if the law that he is, decides to pay a visit to the town officials and see what's going on. I speak with one of the officials and work out an arrangement where in exchange for ridding the town of the bandits, my group will be granted right to the fort the bandits are operating from. I reason this is a fair trade, and that while Paladins are called to stamp out evil, there's nothing wrong with this arrangement. After all, if some adventurers set up shop in the fort, perhaps turn it into a profitable enterprise or a way to protect the area, everybody wins (my personal opinion is that LG Paladins are not required to do everything for free. After all, you need some way to cover the costs of smiting evil).

Meanwhile, the Ninja and Barbarian (seeing dollar signs) go in search of the town's merchants and do their best to come to an arrangement with them for a cut of their profits in return for ridding them of the troublesome bandits. The Barbarian even went to the point of intimidating one of the merchants into agreement. That's all well and good because my Paladin wasn't there to object to such behavior, but where does it cross the line? When party members do something of questionable morality that would directly benefit my character (assuming I get a cut of said profits), what does that mean for me?