Lawful != Law-Abiding?

[Jeph]

Excellent!

However, instead of avoiding such a vile city, the paladin would seek it out and bring noble laws and justice to such place. By the sword if necessary.

Unless the next city over required the slaughter of 6 peasants upon entrance.

 

[Dragonblade]

Unless the next city over required the slaughter of 6 peasants upon entrance.

ROFLMAO! That's great!

 

[jgbrowning]

something that i consider is that any law in the right circumstance is unjust because exceptions to the rule always occur.

What do paladins do with laws that are just 90% of the time? What % of justice is required before paladins just up and say "forget this law, its not good so i'm not going to obey it because it opposes good?"

And why can't they do the same the other way? Why can't they say "forget this good, its too chaotic so i'm not going to obey it because it opposes law?"

Promoting social order (to use an example throughout history and fiction, that aristocrats have more legal rights) should be as important to a paladin as promoting good.

ie. paladins should work to promote both situations equally. The typical oppresion of a peasant is "good", but a harsh and cruel lord should be combated, either legaly, socially, or physically.

Most paladins i've seen are simply extensions of what a modern western world considers "good" and not any form or fashion a consideration of what the fantasy world the PC is interacting with considers good.

joe b.

 

[DWARF]

Ask someone to give their solution to a morally challenging problem. Then after they answer, ask "why?"

If they shrug their shoulders and say "because" then they're Chaotic.

If theyspend more than a minute answering because they need to explain their system of evaluation or code of ethics, then they're Lawful.

 

[Dremen]

arcady:

If you were from the south you'd say Abe Lincoln was LE!

 

[Dremen]

double post

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Promoting social order (to use an example throughout history and fiction, that aristocrats have more legal rights) should be as important to a paladin as promoting good.

Not at all. Saying "Lawful-Good" is like saying "Lieutenant-Colonel." The "Colonel" part is more important than the "Lieutenant" part. To phrase it another way, the goal is good, how you go about achieving it is the "lawful."

DWARF: That's the best law/chaos test I've ever seen.

Myself, I think some people mistake "lawful" as meaning "law-abiding." But the way it's described in the PHB leads me to believe it means "Ordered," which is the natural opposite of Chaos, even as Evil is the opposite of Good.

If Lawful meant Law-Abiding, then Chaos should mean Law-Breaking, but I don't think that anyone would argue a Chaotic character must break laws out of principle...

 

[WayneLigon]

If Lawful meant Law-Abiding, then Chaos should mean Law-Breaking, but I don't think that anyone would argue a Chaotic character must break laws out of principle...

Certainly they could. It's classic to have someone feel 'this town is too uptight; what can I do to upset things?'. Most anarchists are going to break laws for the sheer principle of the thing: they feel any laws are too much, so they make things as difficult for 'the system' as they can. This is what your classic street thief is doing when he teases the guards and leads them on a merry chase. He's having fun, yes, but he's also showing his disdain for the authority they support.

'Must' is probably too far, but then not even a Paladin 'must' be totally law-abiding, provided those laws are bad or unjust ones.

 

[Umbran]

Not at all. Saying "Lawful-Good" is like saying "Lieutenant-Colonel." The "Colonel" part is more important than the "Lieutenant" part.

This can be true, it is not necessarily true. Not every LG individual must weigh good over law. Some might. Some might weigh order over good. The most "pure" LG would give both equal priority. There is variation in all things.

To answer the original question - there are some lawful folks who follow the laws of the nation or culture in which they find themselves. Some instead follow personal codes.

Supporting the needs of the many over the few or the one, following some form of code, supporting the organization over the individual, these are all lawful things. However, an individual can be lawful by only doing some of these things, and then only most of the time. Alignment, being a long term average of motives and behavior, only reveals the general bent, not all the specifics.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The more I read all the arguments, the more I like Umbran's comments the best. That it can mean any of the things we're all arguing, but does not have to mean all of them at once, or any of them always.

Well put, Umbran.