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

[Hussar]

But Doom is only interested in following the rules that he makes. Anyone else's rule can go hang. For Doom, might makes right. He's not interested in creating a system that would not have him on the top.

He's pretty clearly CE.

 

[The Human Target]

You guys just keep proving the unintuitive insanity of the alignment system.

And the awesomeness of Doctor Doom.

 

[pemerton]

Wait, so now we are treating Law as being instrumental? I thought you were against that notion. What's wrong with having both things--instrumental and whatever the not-instrumental side would be, because my brain is fried at 3 am--counting as "values"? You even use the word that way: "Its value." What if L/C is by its very nature an Instrumental axis?

I think that, as Gygax presents alignment in his AD&D books (DMG p 23f, PHB p 33f), the LG and the LE have a purely instrumental regard for law: the LG because they think that social order is a necessary underpinning of universal wellbeing, the LE because they think it will enable them to impose their yoke upon the world. The LN have a non-instrumental regard for law - they treat it as an end in itself - but this is obviously a moral failing on their part (within the framework presented) because they are not good.

On the terminological point, I had hoped it was clear that in saying that the LG don't regard Law as a value in itself, I was reiterating that they regard it as having purely instrumental value.

it is Gygax's fault for presenting a standard that is incoherent. Hence why I'm not really big on using his definitions.

I am not seeing why it is incoherent to characterise the evil as scorning truth. One may not agree that a disregard for the truth is evil, but that doesn't show that it is incoherent.

How do we deal with that sort of situation--which is perfectly cromulent and crops up all the time in D&D fiction, especially now that the Warlock has been a core class for two editions running?

For me, these examples of devils et al bound by their own contracts set of two trains of thought.

The first is that Gygax does not distinguish between two sense of "lawfulness" - a concern with social structure (typical of paladins and samurai) and a concern with self-discipline (typical of monks and also of samurai). Some readings of self-discipline head in the direction of honour, which in turn head in the direction of truth. Push that thought too far and you end up with LE being oxymoronic - because the self-discipline of the notionally evil person ameliorates their evil.

I think the only easy way out here is to drop the equation of "lawful" with self-discipline (which crops up mostly in relation to monks and samurai, and also the rule that barbarians can't be lawful) and to treat "lawful" as referring to social organisation.

The second is that it seems to me there is no necessary connection between having a tendency to keep one's promises, and being lawful. On the CG side, I don't see why a classic Robin Hood type can't regard his/her word as his/her bond. And on the evil side, if a villain has a quirk that s/he keeps his/her word that suggests that s/he's not as evil as the other more treacherous villains, but it doesn't seem to me to particularly suggest his/her lawfulness.

3E takes a different view on this from what I have just expressed, though. Whereas Gygax equates truth and honour with goodness, 3E equates it with lawfulness. But, as I've already said, I think this is taking the first step on the path to LE as oxymoronic. The basic issue is that valuing truth and honour is having regard to something outside oneself, which is thereby failing to be maximally evil.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not convinced at all. The thing about values is that they can and do conflict, and that doesn't mean you don't value them.

Whether or not values conflict is a matter of philosophical disagreement.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that values can conflict. That doesn't mean that they're not all good.

Here's a standard example: I can stay home and cook dinner for my family (thereby realising certain aesthetic, creative and interpersonal/relational values); or I can go to a seminar and dinner afterwards, not getting home until my kids are in bed asleep (thereby realising certain intellectual and scholarly values). It might not be obvious which choice is better; and it may even be that neither is better or worse than the other, and that the choices are therefore incommensurable.

In this sort of case, choosing either is still choosing a valuable thing. Perhaps one choice is better, but either choice is good.

The problem with treating law as a value in and of itself is that the domain of the valuable has been divorced from the domain of the good. That makes no sense to me from either the linguistic or the logical point of view. That's why I think Gygax's framework makes sense, but the 3E one doesn't: he recognises that for the LG, law is of only instrumental value, and that those who make the moral error of treating it as a value in and of itself are not good (hence LN), though not fully evil because still acknowledging an external constraint upon their behaviour (they are not simply committed to imposing their yoke upon the world).

 

[Hussar]

My issues with alignment are largely pragmatic ones. If there is no real difference between lawful neutral and lawful good, at least in their behaviour, then why bother having both?

 

[Shasarak]

Here's a standard example: I can stay home and cook dinner for my family (thereby realising certain aesthetic, creative and interpersonal/relational values); or I can go to a seminar and dinner afterwards, not getting home until my kids are in bed asleep (thereby realising certain intellectual and scholarly values). It might not be obvious which choice is better; and it may even be that neither is better or worse than the other, and that the choices are therefore incommensurable.

In this sort of case, choosing either is still choosing a valuable thing. Perhaps one choice is better, but either choice is good.

Excepting, of course, the situation that if you were not home to cook for your family then they went hungry.

Which still would be good if they needed to lose weight I guess.

 

[Shasarak]

My issues with alignment are largely pragmatic ones. If there is no real difference between lawful neutral and lawful good, at least in their behaviour, then why bother having both?

Exactly, if you dont bother to have any difference between LN and LG then why have both?

 

[Grainger]

Seeing the often very sophisticated models of alignment in this thread just makes me conclude that it's probably better to ditch alignment altogether. If we have to argue definitions to such a degree, I think we should just ignore the concept as something that's far too complicated for the purpose. And in any case, why do we actually need it?

Let's just create characters, and have them be who they are, and not worry about assigning a label. We don't have alignment on our passport in real life, no-one assigns alignment to characters in any other field of fiction, and most other RPGs don't bother with such a system, so why in D&D?

The only reason seems to be a quirk of the original design, that very few people actually understand. However, as 5e has dispensed with the rule systems that depend on it, I would argue we should just drop it. As a DM, I don't make my players assign an alignment, and to be honest, I would slightly resent any DM asking me to come up with one for my PC, as I can't really relate to a character design in such terms.

Additionally, we are better off ignoring alignments chosen by other players, as what they mean by their chosen alignment is most unlikely to be what we (or any of the other players at the table) take it to mean. Instead, we'd be wiser to judge based on the the deeds and words of their characters, which is what we do in real life and all other fiction.

 

[pemerton]

If there is no real difference between lawful neutral and lawful good, at least in their behaviour, then why bother having both?

Exactly, if you dont bother to have any difference between LN and LG then why have both?

In this thread, I'm having more trouble telling the difference between LN and LE in many posts.

As I read it (following Gygax's PHB and DMG):

LG - seek human wellbeing and happiness (which is good) and believe that social order is the way to do it;

LE - seek to impose their yoke upon the world, and believe that social order is the way to do that;

LN - fetishise social order as an end in itself, without regard to whether or not it serves human wellbeing and happiness.​

In a campaign that doesn't particularly care about the conflict between social order and individualistic self-realisation, the law/chaos divide as Gygax characterises it will not be very helpful.

 

[Imaculata]

My issues with alignment are largely pragmatic ones. If there is no real difference between lawful neutral and lawful good, at least in their behaviour, then why bother having both?

Wouldn't a lawful neutral character be someone who respects order or the law, regardless whether those rules are good or evil? I think a lawful neutral character is basically someone who doesn't take a side, but follows either the law, or some code. A lone traveling samurai could be lawful neutral. He does not care whom he fights for, but when hired, he does the job and questions not the morality of it all.