Lawful Good alignment (1 Viewer)

tomwaits

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I saw one of those "Fill out our survey and see what D&D alignment you are!" things on Facebook, and it got me thinking.
If a character is "lawful - x" does it depend on what laws the character bases their life on?

Say they live in a place where it is illegal to brush your hair with your left hand, but they say natural law says they own their own person and that supersedes the state law, do they ignore the "illegal" state law?

Or if the state contradicts itself in creating a law that says people have to work everyday, but a higher law says people can't work on Mondays, do they ignore the work everyday law? What if the state does not enforce the no work on Monday law, but does enforce the work everyday law? Do they base their behavior on what the state enforces?
 
The question is which law, and what if the law contradicts itself?

In D&D terms, it's better to think of alignment more as religion than academic/constituional law (which generally doesn't exist in a D&D environment and if it does it's limited to specific locales). Think of "good" being some omnipresent religion - lawful good is the absolute adherence to that guideline. Chaotic good would be a more interpretive version of that (the "spirit" of the law, rather than the "letter" of the law), and neutral good would be closer to adherence as a matter of convenience.

In my opinion, of course.
 
I am not clear whether we are talking about Dungeons and Dragons or religion, but there is no such thing as a "higher law" or "natural law".

Good and evil are subjective.

If you are not clear on what we are talking about, how can you make a definitive statement like that?
 
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there are some D&D geeks in here

Kinda miss those days. The people I played with never took it overly serious and there was generally a lot of alcohol involved
 
I'm just glad Georgia finally dropped that sodomy law.

I was worried an ex girlfriend and I would still be wanted there.
 
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I saw one of those "Fill out our survey and see what D&D alignment you are!" things on Facebook, and it got me thinking.
If a character is "lawful - x" does it depend on what laws the character bases their life on?

Say they live in a place where it is illegal to brush your hair with your left hand, but they say natural law says they own their own person and that supersedes the state law, do they ignore the "illegal" state law?

Or if the state contradicts itself in creating a law that says people have to work everyday, but a higher law says people can't work on Mondays, do they ignore the work everyday law? What if the state does not enforce the no work on Monday law, but does enforce the work everyday law? Do they base their behavior on what the state enforces?

The alignments thing in D&D was always somewhat problematic.

I believe Gygax explained the lawful/chaotic split on to what degree the character had for laws/society to further the end of good/evil, or in the case of a lawful/chaotic neutral, laws and chaos being ends in of themselves or to further some other end which did not really have a good/evil label.

A chaotic good character, would have no problem working outside the law in order to further the cause of good. An example would be superhero vigilantes.

A lawful good character, on the other hand, would attempt to work within the law. If not possible, they would probably work to change the law. Modern examples would be someone like a benevolent political leader.

A lawful neutral character, would use the law to further ends not necessarily fitting a good/evil dichtomy. Greed/personal advancement being a common motiviation. A modern example would be something like a corporate lawyer.

A lawful evil character, would intentionally work to enforce and/or change laws to advance evil purposes. Modern examples would be people like Nazis.
 
Because it fits both.

So if a D&D game is being played and in this particular game the dungeon master says that the scenario is in ancient Grecian times and that Zeus has made himself known to the players and given them his divine laws, but the local government has conflicting laws, then in this case there is absolutely a higher law.
So it does not fit both.

Kudos on pushing your agenda though, you are very consistent.
 

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