Can Lawful good ever be ruthless?

[Elf Witch]

Last session I gave my squire an order that has caused a little controversy. Most of the players in the game feel that a lawful good person would not have given this order that it was ti ruthless.

We are on a ship it is basically a privateer with strong leanings to being pirates. We already know some of the crew are evil. on board this ship is a royal family taken hostage in a raid on another ship. There is a woman and two children.

We came under attack from a white dragon. The order I gave to my squire was to protect the royal family and if it looked like the ship was going to sink to get them off onto a lifeboat and kill who tried to stop you.

We are just passangers. The royal family belongs to the same empire that I do and feel it is my duty to protect these innocents.

Was this order ruthless and not the act of someone lawful good?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Depends on what your DM defines as lawful and good.

My view:
GOOD - Protect the innocent, if attacked. Make sure that it is a true attack and not a fient. If you are harmed, so be it. But only attack if attacked first.
LAWFUL - Protect those in your charge. Period. If they die, you have failed.

Overall: you are totally in the right. It was not ruthless. When children are on the line, you defend them. Others will probably disagree with me, but that is my opinion.

 

[Teflon Billy]

You'd be fine in my game.

Stnadard Paladins hew closer to "Good" than "Lawful" I think.

Mine go just the opposite.

The example I gave of them was "Imagine the Jedi Knights, if they were led by Stannis Baratheon rahter than Yoda

 

[WayneLigon]

Was this order ruthless and not the act of someone lawful good?

Doesn't seem like it was that ruthless, especially if you have no means of subduing anyone trying to stop them. Given that some of the crew are pirates, then I think it would be a good call that if anyone did try to stop them from getting away, it was probably someone you want dead to begin with. If you had told the squire 'Put holes in the other lifeboats to increase the chance of the royal family living becasue then we wouldn't have to share any food', then that would be ruthless.

 

[Bloosquig]

I don't think that that is "too ruthless" for lawful good, you basically said, "there is a dragon attacking this ship, if these innocents are in danger get them to safety and kill anyone in the way." If you had murdered everyone in their sleep to free the prisoners, well that would be a tad too ruthless probably.

Honestly I don't really like alignment much because you could say you were being contrary to your alignment when you saw that someone was being held hostage and didn't try to rescue them as soon as possible. I think people get too hung up on the whole alignment thing and though I realize how hard it is to make a simple and effective one I wish it just worked better. Because the way things are now, you could have a "lawful good" inquisitor torturing people to cleanse them of their sins. Its not an evil act because your doing it for the persons own good right? Morality is way too complex to be compressed into the handful of broad and hard to define catagories that are in D&D right now IMO.

But enough ranting (sorry!) no thats not very ruthless IMO.

 

[Rel]

I think what you did was perfectly fine for a Paladin. You'd have to get a lot more ruthless than this to get the stinkeye in my campaigns.

 

[Starglim]

I don't have any problem with that. Lawful, absolutely, protect the leaders and those who are traditionally first in line, against some random commoners. Good has no problem with saving women and children over crew nor fighting those who would prevent a good act for their selfish purposes, and someone has to get to the lifeboat.

 

[Blue]

Not only wasn't that "too ruthless", is you did much less you'd be failing the lawful path of the alignment. Now, that varies by world, but assuming the standard pseudo-European nobility, the noble family was more important then every sailor on the ship.

Cheers,
=Blue

 

[Stone Angel]

I don't think that was wrong at all. In fact if they had been attacked and killed, hurt or kidnapped you might even have been punished because of that, everything I have read about old school nobility and such leads me believe this.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Rabelais]

I concur.

If you had ordered 15 or 20 peasants off the boat, a death sentence, just so the Royals could enjoy the lifeboat in comfort then you're looking at getting some Angry AIM messages from your god. Otherwise, you're just fulfilling your oath to Uphold Law.