Can you help me to determine what alignment is this?

[Celebrim]

Lastly, this is how the same character would have spoke if he was LE:

"The code of the Brotherhood of Foo always comes first. It is a priviledge and an honor to serve with my brothers to advance the noble rights of the great nation of Foo. All the brothers are men of valor, but those that do not put the code of the Brotherhood first dishonor Foo. Some of the brothers go from battle to battle and war to war but they only seek after their own glory and honor. You can tell they do not feel the pride that they should feel in serving our rightful rulers, who have been installed by the gods and the King to rule over the people after our part is complete. We do not crush the enemies of Foo and conquer those that oppose us that we recieve recognition, but to advance the greater glory of Foo. Sometimes I do not think all of my brothers are honest in thier oaths.

Duty compells us to protect those who are beneath us in the rightful social order, just as we obey those above us. The duties of a villain or a slave are not as great as our own, but they also serve to advance the power of the nation in their way and where they will not then they must be made to serve. Sometimes sacrifices of the people must be made, though they are to be avoided.

My dream is to serve the King of Foo with honor, and to one day hear from him, "Well done, my servant." I feel the honor of my position keenly, but if I am placed in some higher position I will serve in that capacity as faithfully as I may. It is always best if other nations submit to our inevitable triumph and our rightful rulership, but if they will not then they must be put to the sword without mercy to serve as an example to others and to rid the world of the disease of disloyalty and division.

Some of my brothers are not truly loyal except to themselves. I will tell my superiors of their true intentions of rebellion once I have proof of their dispicable and decietful ways. Once the order is purfied of their inquities, there will be a new dawn and a greater brotherhood will emerge. I have served with these men in battle, and held my shield to my left over their hearts just as the man on my right sheltered me. Their foolishness breaks my heart, but their intentions are misguided and the code must be obeyed."

You can see that, except with regards to his notions of power and mercy, this almost exactly the opposite character in his essential nature.
__________________

 

[Vegepygmy]

Lawful Evil, without much doubt.

Celebrim's conception of Law is too limited, in my opinion.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] In my experience, most players are Chaotic Good in practice (even if their sheet says Chaotic Neutral), and Chaotic Neutral comes second.
/nothingelsetosay

 

[Celebrim]

Celebrim's conception of Law is too limited, in my opinion.

You would perhaps like it to be broader than this:

"4) Law: Considers the good of the group greater than the good of the individual. Indeed, probably considers the individual to be a non-thing, an illusion of separation brought about my ignorance or brokenness. Considers the source of all meaning and moral judgement to be external and residing in some higher power."

Explain if you would what you think is wrong with my limited definition.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Explain if you would what you think is wrong with my limited definition.

It focuses too tightly on the "group vs. individual" aspect of Law. That is one aspect to consider on the Law-Chaos axis, to be sure, but it's not the only one.

 

[Sekhmet]

[MENTION=40109]Vegepygmy[/MENTION] I think his definition of Lawful is about as correct as you can get for the very far right. Of course, there are varying degrees of lawfulness, which is why the majority of people in the thread said Lawful anyway.
Look at the most Lawful plane in the D&D Cosmology, the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus. Complete order through complete control, there are no individuals, only the Borg. I mean, the Collective. I mean.

 

[Celebrim]

It focuses too tightly on the "group vs. individual" aspect of Law. That is one aspect to consider on the Law-Chaos axis, to be sure, but it's not the only one.

It focuses tightly on the group vs. individual divide because that is I think the core division between the two. If we are to be able to accurately separate what it means to be 'chaotic' and 'lawful' we have to use as a touchstone something which isn't relative and situational.

Typically, people who define law through other standards run into all sorts of contridictions once you pursue them:

1) Organized: While it might be true that lawfulness tends to lead to organization, this turns out to be more of a personality trait when applied to an individual than anything else. It's possible to a be an untidy disorganized lawful individual or a neat freak chaotic. Personalities do not strongly indicate what a person is going to choose when 'the chips are down', and we would not wish to equate personality with alignment because it leads to gross simplification of characters and sterotypes that hinder roleplay and give the very notion of alignment a bad name.
2) Belongs to an Organization: This turns out to be a terribly weak distinction, since it implies that a lawful person can never be a 'loner' (again, personality), or that there is no such thing as a chaotic society or organization. While it might be the case that in perfect chaos there is no society, just as we would expect that in perfect law there is no individual, amongst mortals especially we'd expect there would be societies with a strongly chaotic inclination. Just because all lawfuls belong to some group, doesn't mean that belonging to a group is a trait exclusive to lawfuls.
3) Obeys 'the Law': This also turns out to be a terribly weak distinction, since it also follows that all chaotics are criminals (and conversely that all lawfuls are not), and that there are again no such things as chaotic societies. Often it is presumed that 'the laws of the land' are what must be obeyed, but this fails to deal with issues like heirarchies of potential loyalties - to a society, to the nation, to a god - who could have contridictory codes or with what happens if a lawful moves from one society to another with contridictory laws. This standard is ultimately impossible to apply and naturally leads to arguments in play, which in turn leads to alignment being discredited (among groups that misuse it).
4) Has 'a code': Related to 3 above , you'll often hear people argue that anyone who has a code that they try to adhere to is perforce 'lawful'. While it is true that all lawfuls have a code that they follow, following a code is not a trait exclusive to lawfuls which can lead you into all sorts of confusion. The common trait of all the codes that lawfuls follow (even where two codes disagree on some point) is that the codes are lawful. That is to say, the codes originate with some external source (a god, a lawgiver, an idealized form), and that they are in some sense public codes shared by others, reviewable by others, and that the holder is subject to judgment by others on the basis of his adherence to the code. You'll often find people trying to argue that a private code of honor ('Don't rob children', 'Always repay insults double', 'Never back down from a fight unless outnumbered', etc.), made up by the person holding it according to his particular fancies, where the person can only be judged on how well he is adhering to the code by himself is somehow 'lawful', which is just nonsense. For a code of honor to be lawful, it has to be shared among a group and not subject to the whim of the person holding it. Otherwise, you get into a situation where even the fey with their inscrutable internal codes and logic are 'lawful' by the given definition.

You leave me at a great disadvantage when you say that there are these other aspects to the Law/Chaos divide I'm not considering. Ok, just what are they? And even if there are some, you haven't demonstrated that the divide I suggest isn't the essential quality.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Of course, there are varying degrees of lawfulness, which is why the majority of people in the thread said Lawful anyway.

This is probably closer to what I was trying to say. I actually agree with Celebrim that the core (or essence, really) of Law vs. Chaos is collectivism vs. individualism. I just don't think one has to be as perfectly/ideally Lawful as he seems to be arguing in order to qualify as Lawful. I can see how the hypothetical character might be interpreted as Neutral-Evil-thinks-he's-Lawful, but Chaotic is stretching things too far, in my estimation.

 

[Celebrim]

I just don't think one has to be as perfectly/ideally Lawful as he seems to be arguing in order to qualify as Lawful.

Granted, my counter example is intended to be exemplary, however...

I can see how the hypothetical character might be interpreted as Neutral-Evil-thinks-he's-Lawful, but Chaotic is stretching things too far, in my estimation.

Frankly, I don't even get 'nuetral'. He makes only one lawful statement in the entire rant, and he immediately backs down from it. He is decietful, treacherous, disloyal, and self-absorbed. Yeah, my counter example is extreme, but I didn't create my counter example by writing something just a little bit different than the original example. Rather, I got to my example by stating almost the exact opposite of the original dialogue - reversing the subjects and objects of sentenses so that the Brotherhood rather than the speaker really did 'come first', replacing singular pronouns with plural pronouns to stress that the speaker saw himself as part of a group, dropping the persistant possessiveness, inverting the meaning of sentenses, and giving the character almost the opposite motivations from the OP's character. The character that I'm contrasting with is about as far to the end of the chaotic spectrum as my example character is lawful. His fondest dream is to overthrow the existing social order and rule as an absolute despot. The only way you could write the original character more chaotic is to have him more self-aware, so that he could a give a Don John (or Joker for a more modern reference) style chewing up the scenary speeches about his villany but that would tend more to 'Chaotic Stupid' than actually good characterization.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Your definition of lawful is logical [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] but IMO perhaps you should consider having it as a description of someone who is 100% through and through Lawful and who eats and poops law. People who aren't so stringently lawful should still be lawful. [MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] mentioned "lawfuls" and "Lawfuls". It's an appealing thought.

I'm not saying you should change anything; you have a clear view of what is lawful. I'm just saying that maybe you're being too lawful about the lawful alignment, you know?