D&D General For those that find Alignment useful, what does "Lawful" mean to you

[Neonchameleon]

Voted "I don't find alignment useful" because there was no "None of the Above".

I don't find 3x3 alignment as is used in D&D today to be useful - but I do find original Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic alignment useful. The original D&D was a Fantasy Western with Lawful being aligned to "Civilization Back East" or to the ever encroaching, Chaotic aligned to the original inhabitants/Native Americans/mix of folk on the Borderlands, and Neutral to those who don't want the control of lawful and "civilised" society but want to stay on the borderlands and not be pushed back off by the orcs. A single alignment axis can very much ground a game - and Law/Neutrality/Chaos works. But 3x3 just gets confused.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Bard - have to be at least part neutral.

3e only opened up alignments for a bunch of classes. It did not create any new alignment restrictions in core classes.

Bards in 3.X are "any non-lawful". I forget who it was that asked why a concert pianist couldn't be LN.

 

[billd91]

Neutral Good is the purist form of Good, switching between Lawful group and Chaotic individual, whichever happens to accomplish the most Good in a particular scenario.

I don't think this is a good way to look at it - one form of good being more "pure" than another. It is pragmatic good - not adhering too strongly to either a philosophy favoring society or individuals. That's not necessarily more "pure" than lawful good or chaotic good.

 

[Voadam]

Bards in 3.X are "any non-lawful". I forget who it was that asked why a concert pianist couldn't be LN.

You are right, in 3e they lost the option for LN while gaining the option for CE and CG.

So 3e did have at least one restriction on alignment compared to AD&D.

 

[RuinousPowers]

and again. I am reminded of many characters on many shows, but one is a TV comedy (with alot of philosophy) were a very GOOD person who teaches philosophy constantly reminds everyone he doesn't lie because his own philosophy is against it... the show is the Good Place, and I would 100% recommend it.

Every few episodes you know what happens... that character is put into a spot where he has to be deceitful if not out right lie OR break OTHER tenets of his personal philosophy. A running theme is him having an internal struggle over this ideal or that ideal.

I would not take a character like that and assume that when the DM (well the writer in that case) puts the character in a position to weight 1 ideal vs another ideal, it should not be held against them that they choose one over the other.

Example: I want to save those 10 children's lives. I have no weapon and no ability even when fully equipped to kill all of the evil slaver demons holding them... but one comes up and says 'are you here to take the kids to the slave pit' do I lie and say yes, take the 10 captured kids using deception, or do I tell the truth and either A die or B fail to save them,..,. no one not another PC not the DM better say I am wrong no matter what I am aligned or breaking an oath or changing my alignment... I choose a or b both are bad...

now if You don't put the character in said spots..

The Good Place character is clearly a Lawful character, not Chaotic.

Would a Chaotic character even have an internal struggle if it's very nature is to be fickle or unconstrained by rules or codes? Would a Chaotic creature, being honest, just state that it can never be held to a promise or personal code, hence my question to the person I originally quoted.

 

[Marandahir]

Fey have codes too (Wild Beyond the Witchlight puts this front and center). Maybe even Great Old Ones have codes - just ones that are entirely inscrutible to our black-and-white morality (a la, Blue-and-Orange morality). It doesn't make them Lawful.

To me, Lawful is stubborn, it's clumping, it's spacetime, it's gravity.
To me, Chaos is capricious, it's spreading, it's quantum, it's superpositions.

There are "laws" in the quantum realm, but they're really more like guidelines… It's only at larger scales that the laws of spacetime fall into place. That's how I play it at least. And I use the World Axis model, so my Elemental Chaos is actually a sort of Quantum Realm, while my Astral Sea is a sort of Large-Scale Outer Space. Feywild and Shadowfell and Material Place all are influenced by Law and Chaos, but they're on the moderate scale, so we see a bit of both, in different capacities.

 

[Yaarel]

I don't think this is a good way to look at it - one form of good being more "pure" than another. It is pragmatic good - not adhering too strongly to either a philosophy favoring society or individuals. That's not necessarily more "pure" than lawful good or chaotic good.

It seems to me, if there is a situational conflict between doing the Good thing versus doing the Lawful thing, the doer is conflicted or compromised. Thus Lawful Good is ultimately less Good.

 

[billd91]

wrong neutral means you believe there is a reason and a purpose for everything in creation. Doesn't mean you will do bad things or have evil behaviors. Probably more likely you can justify evil behaviors. I.e. lets waive the geneva conventions because our enemies don't follow them anyway. Alignment is not personality or behaviors in the game it's just a guide for what your character believes in to give the roleplayer a framework to be a person within.

I don't know why being neutral would mean you believe there's a reason and purpose for everything in creation. Someone could have that worldview and be neutral, but I don't think everyone who is neutral would fit that outlook. It might also mean that they just aren't willing to embrace the alternatives with any strength of conviction. They aren't setting out to murder people, but if a merchant passing through gets bilked out of a few extra coins, that's fine. They aren't moral crusaders or putting themselves at grave risk to help strangers, but they might risk drowning to help rescue their neighbor from a flooded river. They are aware of social expectations for them and probably follow most of them, but if they don't follow all of the proper forms of the religious season because they personally think it's a bit much, that's fine too.

 

[Baron Opal II]

It seems to me, if there is a situational conflict between doing the Good thing versus doing the Lawful thing, the doer is conflicted or compromised. Thus Lawful Good is ultimately less Good.

I disagree because I don't see Lawful Good as Lawful + Good but rather its own entity. The 3x3 alignment grid is nine specific alignments not two sliding axes.

I also understand that I am in a minority with this view. Lately I've moved toward a Law / Chaos axis, with Neutral becoming Pattern (Life / Evolution). Neutral is more for animals. In any case, it's more descriptive of cosmic allegiance than personal motivation. When I use the nine-fold system it is as a shorthand for motivations or personality and not subject to sophistry.

 

[Rabulias]

It seems to me, if there is a situational conflict between doing the Good thing versus doing the Lawful thing, the doer is conflicted or compromised. Thus Lawful Good is ultimately less Good.

I picture it kind of like a Venn diagram; there is a big overlap between LG and CG, but a few things are outside the LG section, that, while good, would violate their lawful sensibilities. Same for CG -- some good actions might prove too orderly and rigid for their taste, even if it is good. Neutral Good can dispense with the lawful/chaotic question and focus entirely on the moral (good) part, and is a "purer" good. Lawful Neutral is a purer form of lawfulness, untroubled by moral questions of good and evil. Neutral Evil and Chaotic Neutral are left as an exercise for the reader.