D&D 5E The "Lawful" alignment, and why "Lawful Evil" is NOT an oxymoron!

A while back, I was discussing alignments with some other posters over in "The Multiverse is back!" thread, and one of them asserted that the 4e system (with 5 alignments - LG, G, UA, E, and CE)was more logical and coherent than the usual one (the nine-alignment system - LG, LN, LE, NG, N, NE, CG, CN and CE). He felt that LE was a contradiction in terms. I think I've finally figured out why.


I suspect that to some people's minds, "Lawful" = "Legitimate". Therefore, when they hear/read the term "Lawful Evil", they think it means "Legitimate Evil", which would indeed be a oxymoron! At the time, I attempted to bolster my argument by making the mistake of referring to a notorious, real-world organization as an example of "Lawful Evil". Without naming said group again, I want to make it crystal clear that I was NOT asserting any sort of legitimacy for said group, because by my understanding of the rules, "Lawful Evil" doesn't MEAN that! Judging by the way the term has been used IN THE GAME for many, many years, there is NO implications of legitimacy intended when the term is applied to an individual or a group (Devils, say). I realize that some people view the term "lawful" as a synonym for "legitimate" in the real world, and It's understandable that they might assume that the term should have the same meaning in the game, but I think that looking at how the term has actually been applied shows that that is simply not the case. Perhaps this could have been avoided had another term, such as "Orderly Evil" or "Ordered Evil" been used instead - I trust nobody denies that evil can be orderly.

Another assertion was that "Lawful" characters must be honorable, and that Devils do not behave in an honorable fashion, therefore they could not be "Lawful". The first problem with this argument is that there are numerous "Lawful Evil" villains who DO INDEED follow a honorable code of conduct, for instance not cutting down an unarmed opponent (indeed, even "Chaotic Evil" villains such as Death Knights sometimes behave in this manner!) The Archduke Levistus is described as behaving in this manner in Fiendish Codex II, and I'm sure if I did some more digging I could find additional examples. Devils do not, for instance, break the letter of any agreement they make, though they will violate the spirit of it. The other problem is that honorable behavior differs from culture to culture - for instance, a "Lawful" Samurai who was verbally insulted by a peasant could kill said peasant without violating the honorable rules of conduct as determined by his society - indeed, he would be dishonored if he did NOT act to avenge the insult. (I think there is a tendency to equate "honorable" with "good", but the archtype of the honorable villain is well-established, especially in Japanese fiction and anime - there's almost always one such person in any "Bad guy" organization, and a popular cliché is having said character aid the heroes when it becomes clear that his/her boss is NOT honorable...)

Yep. The 9-alignment system is logical and, well, systematic. 4e's 5-alignment system wasn't - it was more intuitive for people who found LN, CN, CG or LE confusing, seemingly contradictory, or forced - but it wasn't neat, logical, and consistent like the 9-aligment system (which is ironic considering how neat, logical, and consistent so much of the rest of 4e was, and how much flack it got for being so).

The one thing I liked about the 4e system was 'Unaligned' instead of the protect-the-balance Moorcockian 'True' Neutral of the 9-alignment system. It gave you the option of a character with personal motivations not tied to cosmic forces. But, I like to think Unaligned was there all along, implied in neutral without the 'True.'

"Unaligned" was ported into 5th edition as well, though there it is usually used for animals and monsters who lack the intellect to choose an alignment. The entry for the Deck of Many Things seems to suggest it can be used for PCs and NPCs as well, however...

Some people also have issues with the "Chaotic" alignments as well, wanting to know what Chaos has to do with a dislike for rules and a love of individuality and freedom. All I can really say to that is, that's how the game uses the term(s), having borrowed such from the fiction of Michael Moorcock. Essentially "Chaotic" as used in the game means "autonomous".

I trust (hope) nobody needs "Good" and "Evil" spelled out for them...(?)

It's all pretty much gibberish to me.

Not your post, D&D alignments.

Lawful just means there is a rule of law. That can be a benevolent democracy or a tyrannical despot. The vast majority of societies IRL are Lawful, just to make sure stuff works properly - and that societal lawfulness will tend to leach into ones individual lawfulness as part of ones world view.

LE makes perfect sense. Evil which is ordered, organised, and planned malice aforethought is a lot more chilling than evil that is random and undirected.

To me anyway. And not to fall foul of Godwin's Law or anything, but...yeah. Those guys.

Although, to the LE guys themselves, they'd consider themselves LG (Google Mitchell & Webb "are we the baddies").

So any alignment graph is essentially taking sides before you even start. Although most people will agree that building hospitals, rescuing people, and bringing safety to the community are "good" and murder, pillage, and wanton destruction are "bad".

Haaaaang on...

Aw. Crap. Adventurers are therefore almost by definition Evil.

Maybe there's something to that satanic panic thing after all.

I'll just be off scourging myself.

I think in play, the reason they got rid of the Lawful/Chaotic ends of the 9 point alignment is because it rarely actually had any impact. LE devils are devious plotters and planners with nested plans and whatnot. CE demons are devious plotters and planners with nested plans and whatnot. What's the point of having one Lawful and the other Chaotic when they play exactly the same at the table? The Chaotic Good character and the Neutral Good character, again, at the table, were largely indistinguishable. Chaotic Neutral tended to attract problem players who wanted to disrupt the table. And a LN character, again in play, was more or less indistinguishable from a LG character.

IOW, they dropped the alignments in 4e because there was so little point to them in play - and I imagine it was the CN alignment that started that snowball rolling. When you're designing a game to be played with strangers, you want to cut out all the problematic bits before you start.

5e resolved the issue by simply making alignment a non-issue. There's virtually no mechanical element to alignment and it really doesn't matter what you write on your character sheet.

Thought - if we all live in an essentially Lawful paradigm (collectively), and have no real experience of a "Chaotic" (sans rules) world (with some localised sub cultures that nonetheless exist within the wider Lawful society and depend upon it to support their own chaotic philosophy but without it would be effectively unable to function, making it a de facto lawful society by default), then Chaotic really represents the true, absolute absence and disregard of an overarching concept of rules and law and order - something only the animal kingdom understands, truly. Therefore there could be only 4 alignments:
Lawful Evil
Lawful Good
Lawful Neutral
Chaotic Neutral (animals)

*strokes beard*

The Grassy Gnoll said:

So any alignment graph is essentially taking sides before you even start. Although most people will agree that building hospitals, rescuing people, and bringing safety to the community are "good" and murder, pillage, and wanton destruction are "bad".

Haaaaang on...

Aw. Crap. Adventurers are therefore almost by definition Evil.

Maybe there's something to that satanic panic thing after all.

I'll just be off scourging myself.

Click to expand...

Depends on the "style" of play you favor. I'm a "Paladins & Princesses" (it's about 2/3 of the way into the first post) fan myself, which means I favor a very "clean" fantasy. Not in the sense of "nothing bad or horrible happens," but in the sense that bad things happen because good people failed to act for whatever reason, and good people can set things right again; "clean" because being just and honorable and kind actually works, especially in the long run, and being dastardly/underhanded/vicious is only a short-term solution if it even works at all.

Stuff on that specific subject cropped up in the "The Paladin is Dead" thread--to make the Paladin character (in what I consider the "default" mode, aka not a Witch Hunter but a Hero-Saint) a fulfilling experience, there generally need to be certain tropes in play, e.g. prisoners who beg for mercy and make an oath to reform actually reform, "always CE" monsters can in fact change their ways if you give them a chance, striking down the unrepentantly evil is a tragic but necessary act, etc.

When these tropes are intentionally averted--when mercy is something only a fool grants, and when claims of "repentance" are honeyed poison--then yeah, the PCs are going to be naturally inclined toward the grim and cynical. The nature of their world induces it. When the DM decides more often than not that mercy is stupid, honor is pointless, and the only "justice" you'll get is what you carve out with your own blade, that DM will reap what he sows.

Lot of assumptions about my game being made there - maybe I'm being sensitive.

I had abandoned D&D and journeyed into Philo&sophy.

Hussar said:

I think in play, the reason they got rid of the Lawful/Chaotic ends of the 9 point alignment is because it rarely actually had any impact. LE devils are devious plotters and planners with nested plans and whatnot. CE demons are devious plotters and planners with nested plans and whatnot. What's the point of having one Lawful and the other Chaotic when they play exactly the same at the table?

Click to expand...

I always thought the difference was that LE devils are devious plotters and planners with nested plans and whatnot, and CE demons are mindless animals that just destroy whatever happens to be in front of them at the moment.