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Thread: How would you roleplay a LE?
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2007-02-10, 01:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
You've pretty precisely described an evil, insane murderer. Yep, Neutral Evil with a good dose of crazy. He'd make a great villain in any campaign.
Not really. He's clearly a crazy murderer who thinks he's invested with some higher moral authority that compels him to act. The only thing that keeps him from killing innocents is implausible author's fiat. He doesn't investigate, he obviously decides innocent people are criminals who must be killed...
His motivations sound a lot like those of, say, various serial killers who murdered prostitutes.
Not really. The character is clearly evil - he's a murderer. He's just not the greedy, self-advancing kind of evil. He's the crazy kind of evil, acting on his own demented motives - Neutral Evil.
Hilarious, appropriate, and accurate.
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2007-02-10, 02:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
But he's not insane. He kills people who deserve it. Therefore sane and good. Also, if my DM introduced the Punisher, exactly as he is, as a villain, I would refuse to fight against him.
Not really. He's clearly a crazy murderer who thinks he's invested with some higher moral authority that compels him to act. The only thing that keeps him from killing innocents is implausible author's fiat. He doesn't investigate, he obviously decides innocent people are criminals who must be killed...
For example, this happened in a Punisher comic book:
Two groups of people meet in an abandoned warehouse to do a drug deal. One side brings money, the other drugs. Everyone there is clearly armed and involved heavily in the drug trade, except for one guy who's just there because he's friends with the guy who's bringing the money. He doesn't take part in the sale, just stands there smoking a cigarette the entire time. The Punisher shows up, a gun battle starts, and the Punisher kills everyone except this guy. He leaves him alive, just warns him to get better friends. Doesn't kill him. Doesn't even smack him around some.*
As for moral authority, it's relative at best. You may ask, "What does the Punisher think gives him the right to kill these people?"
And he would reply, "I decided to give it to myself."
He doesn't just think he's got moral authority, he decides he's got moral authority, and takes action accordingly. I still say he's Good--he only kills those who deserve to die. Just because you don't think you should make the decision about who lives and dies doesn't mean no one should. And you know what? I agree with him. The people he kills deserve to die.
His motivations sound a lot like those of, say, various serial killers who murdered prostitutes.
The character is clearly evil - he's a murderer. He's just not the greedy, self-advancing kind of evil. He's the crazy kind of evil, acting on his own demented motives - Neutral Evil.
*Okay, later he kills him, but only after the guy pulls out his cellphone and calls another friend of his, telling him to get over there so they can score all the money and drugs.
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2007-02-10, 03:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
It seems we have a basic disconnect here in how you, Muller, and I (and I assume others here) view the world. In the example you give, for example, drug dealing is not a capital offense. Walking in on a drug deal and killing everyone directly involved (how magnanimous of you, letting the bystanders off) - what does that accomplish? Justice? Murder doesn't produce justice. Punishment? Well they've certainly learned their lesson, I'm sure they'll never do it again.
More fundamentally, you seem to admire the Punisher for deciding that he's going to enforce his morality on the whole world using lethal force. It sounds like your own morality aligns with him enough that his judgments don't bother you that much. Consider, though, what happens when you have a Punisher-like character with a different set of morals - say, a guy with a sawn-off patrolling the streets enforcing Shari'a law, or kneecapping anyone who practices usury, or firebombing churches which perform mixed marriages. Such a figure would be pretty clearly evil - I hope you'd agree! Well, that Punisher takes such actions in "defense" of morals you support does not make them less wrong.
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2007-02-10, 03:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
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2007-02-10, 03:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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2007-02-10, 04:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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2007-02-10, 01:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
See, here's the problem:
You look at that and think, "He's sociopathic!"
I look at that and think, "He's got balls."
At the risk of offending everyone who's religious, let me say this.
There is no set morality in the Punisher's view, no code everyone has to follow. The Punisher makes his own code, and decides to enforce it. That's why I admire him. He sees a problem, decides it needs to be fixed, and fixes it. It's the same process by which the government passes laws, except instead of passing laws, the Punisher kills people.
It seems we have a basic disconnect here in how you, Muller, and I (and I assume others here) view the world. In the example you give, for example, drug dealing is not a capital offense. Walking in on a drug deal and killing everyone directly involved (how magnanimous of you, letting the bystanders off) - what does that accomplish? Justice? Murder doesn't produce justice. Punishment? Well they've certainly learned their lesson, I'm sure they'll never do it again.
Consider, though, what happens when you have a Punisher-like character with a different set of morals - say, a guy with a sawn-off patrolling the streets enforcing Shari'a law, or kneecapping anyone who practices usury, or firebombing churches which perform mixed marriages. Such a figure would be pretty clearly evil - I hope you'd agree! Well, that Punisher takes such actions in "defense" of morals you support does not make them less wrong.
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2007-02-10, 02:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Nick Naylor is my ideal Lawful Evil character.
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2007-02-10, 02:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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2007-02-10, 02:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
That's called "radical terrorism." If I decide to blow up a subway car because I think human beings have spurned the Earth-Mother and damaged Her life force by tearing into Her flesh with tunnels and farming implements, does that make me Lawful Good?
That's right, they'll never do it again. Because whether or not they've ever directly killed someone, they're murderers. Selling drugs makes them murderers just as surely as if they'd put a gun to someone's head and pulled the trigger.
I would respect that guy just as much as I respect the Punisher. They're both fighting for their beliefs. Granted, I would kill this guy, because I don't happen to share his beliefs. But I would respect him for standing up for what he believes in and taking the fight to those he believes to be evil.
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2007-02-10, 03:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Before I get into this: should we continue discussing this here? Should those of us interested in analyzing the Punisher start a new thread in the Comic Books forum? I do think the guy makes an interesting model of how to play a non-standard LE character, but if people feel the thread's being hijacked, I'm willing to take it elsewhere.
To get a couple of things out of the way:
Yeah, uh... I was being sarcastic there. It's not really a punishment if the person being punished isn't there anymore afterwards, therefore unable to learn from the punishment. The point of punishment is to change behaviour, whereas killing someone just stops them from having any behaviour. At that point it's not punishment but vengeance or, possibly, deterrence (unless you're taking a religious view that fatal 'punishment' has a useful effect on someone's soul... hmmm... I notice that Punisher's listed on WP as a Catholic, does he have a 'kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out' thing going on?).
Because whether or not they've ever directly killed someone, they're murderers. Selling drugs makes them murderers just as surely as if they'd put a gun to someone's head and pulled the trigger.
I also find it strange that, apparently, being partly indirectly responsible for someone's death (in much the same way as a gun shop owner is partly indirectly responsible for the gun suicide of a man he sold ammo to) gets you labeled a murder deserving of summary execution, but shooting people in the face does not, not if you're the Punisher.
Anyway, those were minor points. What I really want to respond to is below.
There is no set morality in the Punisher's view, no code everyone has to follow. The Punisher makes his own code, and decides to enforce it. That's why I admire him. He sees a problem, decides it needs to be fixed, and fixes it. It's the same process by which the government passes laws, except instead of passing laws, the Punisher kills people.
I would respect that guy just as much as I respect the Punisher. They're both fighting for their beliefs. Granted, I would kill this guy, because I don't happen to share his beliefs. But I would respect him for standing up for what he believes in and taking the fight to those he believes to be evil.
It seems to me that your ideal figure is someone free of doubt or the suspicion that he might ever be wrong, who goes out and kills those who don't conform to his morality. You apparently think this makes for an admirable person who is clearly Good because he believes that what he is doing is Good. To me, it is a person who is basically insane, who is Evil by D&D standards, and who is working against the entire foundation of civilization.
What do I mean? Well, let me try to describe a simple model for a society. You have a bunch of people, none of whom have exactly the same values - for any pair taken from the population, you're certain to find at least one thing that one will say is right and the other wrong. These people will each pursue their interests, and sometimes those interests will conflict. In those cases, since each party is biased in their own favour, a third party recognized by both judges between them. This judging mechanism gets formalized to the point where you have the whole legislative and legal apparatus, designed to produce a sort of codified set of shared values of the entire society, off of which judgments can be based in order to ensure fairness and consistency.
A central part of this is that the enforcement of these shared values and punishments for going against them are handled by entities that act on behalf of the whole society: police, courts, etc. Thus, since everyone in the society (ideally) has a voice in this process, no one person's values are privileged over the rest of the society. (Of course, this may work well or poorly, depending how fairly distributed is the influence people have over this value-structure.) The price you pay for knowing your crazy neighbour doesn't have the right to kneecap you for wearing a hat on Tuesdays is that you don't get to break his thumbs to stop him eating cheese on toast.
Now, looking at what you've said, it sounds like in your mind it'd be preferable if everyone just went out and beat on or killed those who went against their values. If you don't like the values some other dude is enforcing through violence, you enforce yours on him, again through violence. The idea of bowing to the will of the people doesn't seem to be a factor. You're describing a War of All Against All, and this is not generally held to be a good thing.
Feh... this is terribly wordy. I'll boil it down. You don't get to kill people just because they do things you don't like. The most you can do is help authorized enforcers rein them in if their actions are recognized by consensus to be wrong. Otherwise you a) put up with it or b) use nonviolent means to change people's minds and actions. Doing otherwise is unquestionably antisocial in the real world and definitely Evil in D&D. Based on your rather alarming comments in this thread, it seems to me that you would be clearly Evil if translated into game form; and, speaking without any intent of personal attack here, you self-describe as someone I would really prefer never to have to deal with. I say this not as an attack on you or as an insult, but as a simple statement of fact, because I don't think you're really aware of how far outside the Pale the opinions you express really are.
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2007-02-10, 04:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Okay, it's clear that there are a lot of misunderstandings about what I'm trying to say.
I respect the Punisher because he fights for what he believes in.
I think he's LG because I agree with his beliefs. If I didn't, I'd say he's clearly LE, as you do. There's a difference between respecting someone and agreeing with them. Someone mentioned above that they'd love to put someone like the Punisher into a campaign as a villain. I said that I'd refuse to fight him. But if it was someone like the Punisher, a person I could respect, then sign me up for that campaign, because those are the people who make the best enemies.
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2007-02-10, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
uhmm so you condone killing people who are criminals without letting them undergo any way of defending their innocence?
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2007-02-10, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
If you have proof, as the Punisher makes sure he does, then yes, a lot of criminals deserve to die.
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2007-02-10, 04:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
No, I have understood that. My point is that going out and punishing lawbreakers with lethal force without any kind of authority and with no attempt to bring them to justice (because murdering someone who has broken the law is not justice, not even if bringing them to trial etc. would just get them executed anyway) is itself Evil. Appointing yourself judge, jury and executioner is not a Good act. This is independent of the values he's trying to uphold. Even if every single person the Punisher killed were someone who, if brought to trial, would be executed under laws I personally agreed with fully, I would still think he was doing Evil, because individuals do not get to murder in the name of justice. There are objective standards for what constitutes Good and Evil in D&D and the Punisher, in his actions rather than his beliefs, can be objectively judged Evil, regardless of whether his beliefs accord with yours.
edit:
People who have been "proven" deserving of execution in legal trials have later been shown to be innocent when new evidence arose. There's a movement afoot to have DNA evidence considered for current death row inmates, because chances are something like 20% of them are not guilty at all. Given that the legal system is this fallible, how much more fallible must be a single individual looking only for proof enough to convince himself, who never has to defend his conclusions in open court?Last edited by kamikasei; 2007-02-10 at 04:43 PM.
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2007-02-10, 05:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
A Lawful Evil individual is someone who does evil things, but doesn't believe them to be wrong. An example is Artemis Entreri. He doesn't kill anyone he doesn't believe doesn't deserve to die. A LE follows laws, but only if they agree with what he's trying to do.
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2007-02-10, 05:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Actually, that's any Evil character who's not insane. (And even most insane murderers don't think what they're doing is wrong.)
In fact, the idea of someone who thinks what they believe and do is fundamentally wrong is kind of... er... unlikely. All Evil alignments are just as likely to have pangs of conscience (i.e. some individuals do, some don't).
Check out characters like Vic Mackey (and his squad) in The Shield, Tony Soprano and his crew in The Sopranos, and so on. They're Evil characters, in D&D terms, but they all justify themselves - heck, watching Tony talk about "real" criminals is plain hilarious, considering he doesn't hesitate to murder a life-long friend if it's to his advantage.
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2007-02-10, 05:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
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2007-02-10, 05:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
There's a lot here about Punisher's alignment and whether his fight against crime constitutes as good, neutral, or evil, so I'll weigh in myself. He's evil. Evil, evil, crazy evil. He's killing criminals because he was wronged by criminals, thus all criminals deserve terrible death at his hands. If anyone else had wronged him, he'd be killing them instead.
In fact, there was a story exactly like this that really shows the Punisher's true morality- Punisher Vs. Marvel (I'm pretty sure that's the title of it). He was wronged by superpowered individuals. So what does he do? He brutally murders every single one on the face of the planet, even his best friend (Daredevil in that story). Come on. While Cyclops was in the process of appologizing because his team's actions led to the death of Castle's family, he just snapped and shot him in the face instead. There is no doubt. Castle's revenge-driven, and very horrific in his application of this revenge. Hence, evil.
Does this mean he isn't a hero or ultimately working for the greater good? Not really. But his basic morales are psychotic and twisted, regardless of how beneficial they might be to society at large.
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2007-02-10, 05:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Whoa, that came out wrong. Sorry about that, it must be later than I thought.
A Lawful Evil individual does what he or she wants to inside the laws. As in, they don't break any laws in letter, but they have no scruples against going against the meaning of the laws.
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2007-02-10, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
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2007-02-10, 05:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Woo, little angry quote box posts! I don't think it's really that important whether the Punisher is evil; also, I think that you can all find a Punisher to suit any argument you can make, because he's been portrayed differently by different people over time. Can we move on, please?
[EDIT] Kind of destroying my point, but: yeah, he cleans it up with a mop, after he's done using his pliers.Last edited by Inyssius Tor; 2007-02-10 at 05:59 PM.
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2007-02-10, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Yeah, the pliers that get better results than anything the police can use...
But I digress. You're right about different people portraying the Punisher differently. Personally, I prefer my Punisher LG. Obviously, some people's palates are better suited to him as LE.
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2007-02-10, 06:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
No, not necessarily. If the laws are inherently unjust, rebelling against them is justified. If a dictator is twisting the law to his own beneft, rebelling against him is justified. If the laws are just too inconvenient for you to deal with them, rebelling against them is not justified.
It's not just the laws, though: It's Castle's methods which make him Evil (at best, he could be morally Neutral with strong Evil tendancies). He has alternatives. It is quite possible for him to nonlethally subdue at least a few of his marks for due process and the like. All other superheroes do the same. Peter Parker's uncle was killed by a crazy burglar who thought the Parkers were hiding a large stash of cash, but you don't see him running around killing all criminals. Granted, Parker also has a fair amount of guilt regarding that incident, but Uncle Ben's murder was no less arbitrary than that of Castle's family, and his solution could just as easily have been Castle's: "All criminals are scum, and so I must kill them all." Granted, Spiderman has a few more super-tricks than the Punisher which could make nonlethal apprehension of criminals somewhat easier, but the Punisher doesn't even try to subdue his marks: He wants them all to die.
EDIT: Bah. Ninja posted by the worst possible moment. Now I feel like I'm breaking up the great "agree to disagree" truce. I wonder if I should just delete this and let the issue lie...
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2007-02-10, 06:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
No, don't bother. We'll draw up a treaty!
Firstly, we must gather the two parties and meet in a tent in no-man's land. I'll oversee the drafting of the treaty and the legitimacy of the truce, but I'm way too lazy to write it myself.
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2007-02-10, 06:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Now, admittedly, this is a perception of Lawful Evilness that annoys me a bit. Granted, it comes from the fact that your stereotypical D&D kingdom is Good, and has laws that reflect that. I don't think a penchant for twisting the rules is a defining characteristic of Lawful Evilness, it's just what LE characters have to resort to in most settings. In a land where the law really IS crafted to serve the powerful and exploit the helpless, I can see it being the Lawful Good characters who tend to use the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law. ("I bought these slaves fair and square, and if I want to send them to That Kingdom Where Slavery Is Illegal And They'll Likely Be Set Free, that's my buisness, not yours!")
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2007-02-11, 01:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Last edited by Maerok; 2007-02-11 at 01:10 AM.
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2007-02-11, 02:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Jeeze, how funny is this. My gaming session has had almost weekly debates about the Punisher's alignment. Among us, it was recently decided that he is Lawful Evil, just because of his code. There are certain things that he simply won't do.
Know what is the BEST way to play LE?
Quietly.
Way I figure it, there are two kinds of LE. The Hexxtor, Gruumsh kind of LE, the kind of LE that literally believes in lording strength over those weaker than you (read:physical strength). They're the bullies, the ones who'll rape and pillage in a second if it suits them. Then, there's the intelligent LE. They use their intelligence, wisdom, and wit to advance, usually being extremely charismatic in the process.
The latter is my favorite way to go about it. Fzoul Chembryl from Forgotten Realms is a great example of this kind of LE (Read the novel Prince of Lies. Fun stuff!) . A LE character who can sit in a CG aligned city, and force Paladins to evil acts when they strike him down when they've never seen him do an evil act? That's the kind of thing that makes you laugh maniacally inside.
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2007-02-11, 03:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
Like any alignment there are hordes of ways to portray a Lawful Evil character. I happen to see the alignment systems as a sort of sliding scale rather than a set of predefined concepts.
First off, Evil; an alignment many DM's like to prohibit thier players from playing because, honestly, some people just don't know how to play a Something Evil character with playing him as a greedy party stabbing hell cow. In my personal opinion, evil characters are the kind who can enjoy someone elses suffering while good characters can't stand it. Neutral just sort of sits back and just doesn't want to be dragged in. Simple, effecient, and I've never really seen it fail.
Now as major NPC's or PC's our character is most likely going to be in the buisness of fighting for thier life, often killing monsters and what not. Any character who enjoys this life is one I would define as Evil. If perhaps your character merely enjos the thrill of battle and the uncertainty that fighting for ones very survival provides, you may not be evil, but again there are shades here, and discerning between good evil, and neutral often times comes down to the little details.
I would not count a hired killer Evil enless he enjoyed his work. Some assasins do what they do for the 'greater good of the kingdom' or what not. Likewise many tyrants rule with an iron fist in order to keep themselves in power rather than to protect the people, though those who build such kingdoms may be Lawful.
Speaking of which, as to the Law aspect of a character, this is an area that can get tricky. You could try and decide by whether or not someone follows a code of rules or not, but in the end everyone has a set of preferences, a code of conduct, or merely a preferred way of dealing with things that they follow. But who would beleive I was playing a Lawful character if I stated my character was ordered by his mother to never endanger himself and thus had to refuse to help the orc besieged town? I go by the standard of whose well being is more important to the character. Thus a lawful character whould be anyone who puts others before themselves, whether it be a few or a multitude of people
While this can at times make it hard to differentiate lawful from good, it prevents me from having a problem with the choatic charaters who do have a personal code of honor but do not extend it past thier friends, the lawful monkeys who may lie, cheat and bluff, but in the end always choose to endanger thier lives for some random barwench and the multitudes of other characters that often fall into the grey areas between the extremes.
So, from the variety of character you could create from this combination, I shall give some examples;
You could, for instance, make a king who wishes to build a peaceful world, but just happens to enjoy the act of removing his obstacles. Not even a tyrant, this benevolent ruler is hailed as a hero by his people, save those unfortunate few who have earned his wrath and those who would harbor them. This is an example of a character who is more bent toward Lawful than Evil, for even between ones alignment thier will oft be prejudices towards oneside or the other.
Another concept one might concieve could be a bandit out to ensure the safety of hs breathren. Sure he may disregard the laws of the land, loot and pillage, and enjoy it. But in the end, when the chips are down and a rag tag band of adventurers threaten his friends, this fellow will stand by his comrades and lay down his life to see that they may get away to start up another gig elsewhere.
But of course, my favorite LE characters would have to be the Heroes who go out into the world and combat Evil for the greater good and enjoy it. Not the ones who go and slay a dragon because he threatens thier town or may have treasure, but the ones who slay the beast merely because they search for a fight he is fair game.Last edited by Yami; 2007-02-11 at 04:48 AM. Reason: Addition
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2007-02-12, 11:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How would you roleplay a LE?
It's common sense that evil characters can't be friends with good ones. Mainly because, good characters oppose evil wherever they can lol. But can it happen sometimes? I recently finished reading the Erevis Cale Trilogy, and clearly Drasek Riven is evil. NE, by my assumptions. Yet in the end, he recognizes Jak (CG Cleric/Rogue, if I'm not mistaken) as a friend. And Cale, too, but Cale is neutral, so that's possible, I guess... I had an argument about this with my DM, because he wouldn't let me play an evil character in a good/neutral party, because I would do evil stuff for my cause (like brutally torturing someone for information, it doesn't mean I'll set a kindergarden on fire as soon as I see it!), but that doesn't necessarily that my cause is evil. I could just aspire to rule, be rich, or something like that.