Need help in playing lawful characters

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Do the right thing. Always.

Duty to your god comes first.
Duty to your king & country comes second.
Duty to your family comes third.

If it can be said of you,'he loves duty more than he loves life' then you have suceeded as a dutiful hero.

Be honest, open, and frank whenever possible.

Always keep your word but do not give it recklessly.

Give every office and every person the respect that they are due. The respect you owe the crown is greater than any disrespect you might have for the person who wears it.

You might hate your father, but he is still your father.

 

[Iorword]

Does anyone ever make lawful evil characters anymore?

 

[erucsbo]

There was a good article back many many years ago in Dragon that talked about ways of playing alignments based on priorities and superstitions. Essentially as a lawful character you rank family/race/deity/party/self/country/and one other that I can't remember. If you are evil - put self first. If you are good - put self last. if Neutral - put self in the middle.
Neutral characters took some of the things to rank, plus picked up some superstitions.
Chaotic characters picked up superstitions.
In a nutshell though - chaotic characters operate to an internal set of rules (that may be as simple as "if it feels good then do it" or "try and get along with everyone") while lawful characters operate to external sets of rules (family values, religious dogma, state law, etc).

hth

 

[Aaron L]

Do the right thing. Always.

Duty to your god comes first.
Duty to your king & country comes second.
Duty to your family comes third.

If it can be said of you,'he loves duty more than he loves life' then you have suceeded as a dutiful hero.

Be honest, open, and frank whenever possible.

Always keep your word but do not give it recklessly.

Give every office and every person the respect that they are due. The respect you owe the crown is greater than any disrespect you might have for the person who wears it.

You might hate your father, but he is still your father.

Well, that's ok for a strict Lawful Good, but a bit extreme for every Lawful character as a guideline.



In general, you should be orderly and methodical, just as a matter of personality, and not necessarily a conscious decision to be "Lawful." You may not strictly adhere to a code, but you prefer to do things in a set manner and are therefore somewhat predictable, but also reliable. You understand and appreciate laws and authority, and don't get riled up about being given commands unless they are clearly bad ones. You are also comfortable giving orders to those who should follow them, and expect them to be obeyed. You tend to put the interests of the group before yourself, unless you are Lawful Evil in which case you my wish to become the leader of the group and use it to further your own ends instead, (but you will still see the group as a whole and want it to prosper.)

 

[krichaiushii]

Couldn't a Lawful character also be defined by routines regularly followed?

Taboos, daily rituals, etc.

Just a thought.

 

[erucsbo]

Couldn't a Lawful character also be defined by routines regularly followed?

Taboos, daily rituals, etc.

Just a thought.

not unless those rituals were codified in some manner - and then you are approaching dogma.
Superstitions and rituals that are individualistic do not make lawful behaviour.
Superstitions and rituals that are collective can be a basis for lawful behaviour.

Think about it in terms of repercussions to the individual from that individual's PoV.
If breaking a law / not performing a ritual / not observing a taboo means nothing to the individual (even if they are condemned or guilty in society's eyes) then they are chaotic, as the governance for their behaviour is not dictated by external forces. They may follow society's rules / rituals / taboos to avoid unpleasant consequences - but given a choice they would as soon not do so - the rules / rituals / taboos mean nothing to them.
If breaking a law / not performing a ritual / not observing a taboo is seen as "bad behaviour" by the individual regardless of the perceived or actual consequences visited upon them by society - then they are lawful. They follow society's rules / rituals / taboos because those laws provide a stable basis upon which to live and interact with other beings.

Of course - that brings us to which set of rules / rituals / taboos they are following.
Just because they are not following the same set of laws as someone else doesn't make them chaotic.

Where you get clashes or inconsistencies of rules / rituals / taboos between societies / religions / races etc - your response (and motivation for it) is determined by alignment.
Lawful characters may try to merge them to a superset if possible, unwilling submission or subversion within the laws of the conflicting society if the opposition is stronger and non-reconcilable, or oppression / re-education / extermination of the opposition if it is weaker.
Chaotic characters will rather tend to disobedience, rebellion against laws (instead of surplanting the laws with others), mischief, or just absent themselves if possible.

A paladin shouldn't incite a mob - but they may lead / instigate / inspire a resistance.

Someone who is defined by daily routines is more often eccentric, rather than lawful.

 

[Ferghis]

a) Teamwork is very important. Instead of thinking "what can I do to accomplish this goal (helping the party, saving the innocent, etc.)" you think "what can *we* do to accomplish this goal, and how can I help us to do this"? For example, the Aid Another maneuver might be more used by a lawful character. It is not important that you hit the werewolf so long as someone does. (Incidentally, PHB II and DMG II have various "teamwork" maneuvers that may facilitate this idea).

This, to me just seems intelligent behavior, independent of alignment. I think a CG could be just as "cooperative" as a LE character.

b) Try to keep your word once given. (Corollary, don't enter into agreements lightly).

c) Respect authority. If you see a party member pickpocketing some merchant in the streets, help to arrest that party member. If in another situation guards give you sass, suck it up and take it. Offer the guards help in their endeavors. Don't insult the king, even if he is only a level 1 aristocrat.

d) In general, obey the law.

e) Think things through, plan ahead, and don't be impulsive. Be organized.

Strictly speaking, of all these, (c) and (d) seem lawful behavior. The others are either just smart, irrelevant to alignment, or honorable, which seems more a personality trait than anything else.

I really think intelligence and personality are distinct descriptors. Alignment is a very fuzzy thing, so personality might make work into it somehow, but it's still fundamentally different. Here's my take, and anyone, obviously, should feel free to disagree. We are talking about alignment after all.

The Good - Evil axis is how much trust a character has in the folks she or he meets and deals with. It's very interpersonal, but takes the circumstances into greater consideration. This probably dictates how the character would react to some strangers encountered on the road. If the character is evil, they're only as interesting as they could be useful to the character. If the character is good, they might need assistance, and who knows if they'll be able to return the aid, or if they in turn will help someone else some other day.

The Law-Chaos axis represents the degree of trust that the character has in the larger, impersonal social institutions she or he knows. This could be the government, the church, the thieves' guild, or the forum that the character visits on the internet. This determines how the character reacts to common social situations without examining the circumstances. It will determine how the character reacts to characters formally imbued with authority, like the notary that asks for a fee to register the purchase of a license to carry a weapon in the city. A lawful character will have a reaction that is more akin to that of the institution that is close to him or her: a LE member of the thieves guild might try to bribe his way into a couple of spare documents, passing them on to the guild to copy. A CG character will question the necessity of the license out of basic mistrust, and might refuse to pay if she or he thinks he can get away with it.

This is how I make sense of it. Other solutions I've thought of blur the two axis too much, like the Particle_Man's teamwork example. And I can't say the alignment system makes utter sense to me, but I had the opposite problem that you were having: I kept thinking that chaotic characters had to be played as random-acting lunatics. But that doesn't make any sense.

So pick a few institutions that makes sense for your lawful character, and, when confronted with some behavior that might have a "standard" reply, make a note of how the institutions would want you to react. "My uncle says that whenever someone takes something, he should get a one part in ten" is just as good as "The king's men are a bunch of good for nothings, but if they don't keep the order we won't be able to sleep through the night without someone stealing our beds from under us" or even "You're a nice lady, but I wouldn't be doing the right thing by accepting your kind welcome tonight. Would you be like to come with me to Wazzio's on Thursday? I'm told there's a fiddler who sold his soul to a demon." You can't stray from the lawful alignment once you know that the situation warrants a different reaction, because lawful behavior only really guides your gut reaction to a situation. The long term reactions to the same person should be guided more by the good-evil alignment.

That's my 2 coppers.

 

[arscott]

More than one person has recommended personal codes.

That's a load of hooey, in my opinion. Having a personal moral code is basically the same thing as saying "I live by my own rules". That's the essence of chaos, in my book.

Being lawful is about deference to the judgment of others. A lawful character trusts his father's advice over his own experience. He trusts the magistrate to keep order in the village rather than resorting to vigilantism.

A lawful character will follow the law by force of habit, even when there's no particular reason to do so--He'll walk all the way to the end of the street and use the crosswalk, even though there are no cars in the street.

The law/chaos axis is always about first instincts. The first instinct of a lawful character is to follow the law and obey authority. Even if you ultimately choose to take actions that are against the law, your first instinct was to obey and you had to convince yourself to do otherwise.

Just because an authority is evil or unjust does not mean he is to be disobeyed. The Baron may be raising an army of undead, but that's not an excuse to avoid the wool tariff.

 

[shilsen]

More than one person has recommended personal codes.

That's a load of hooey, in my opinion. Having a personal moral code is basically the same thing as saying "I live by my own rules". That's the essence of chaos, in my book.

Alas, I think the people suggesting it are using the Player's Handbook, rather than your book

Check the emphasis on consistency in the description of lawfulness and the personal code as an example of LN. You may not agree with it, but in the 3e D&D conception of alignment, a consistently followed personal code is a lawful activity.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

You really need to talk to your DM about what HE/SHE thinks is lawfull.

I have played with a DM that penalized a player who was Lawful for inadvertantly breaking the law of a land he was not from. Dm basically wanted the lawful characters to search out all the laws of wherever they were and then follow them, though he would not come out and say this.

Some DM's would me more concerned with mala in se (something wrong in and of it self murder/theft etc) that are univeral as opposed to mala prohibita (wrongs that are merely phohibited often arbitrarily.)

Some want characters to be robat slaves to their alignment others are not as strict.

Think about the differance between a LEGAL SYSTEM and a JUSTICE SYSTEM. In the states currently we have more of a legal as opposed to a justice system. Think Batman vs Superman. Superman is more of the Legal system and Batman is more of the Justice system. Both can be LG for example and have VASTLY opposing views. Some things in this country are leagal and unjust and some are illegal and just. Depending on the state where you live and even the locality if you use force to defend your self and you are wholy justified (moraly) in doing so you can still go to jail and or be sued in civil court. It happens all the time. It is an out cropping of our legal system, and though you were not in the wrong for defending your self or familly you could have commited an illegal act and end up in jail anyways. Unjust but legal.

This is where the phrase ignorance is no excuse comes from. It is refering to mala in se acts which are wrong in and of them selves. IE going up and killing a little old lady for no reason but you wanted to. No human on the planet would argue that is right anywhere. Ignorance of any local ordinace not with standing. But having a masked burgler come in your bedroom with a knife or gun and you grab your pistol from your night stand drawer and shoot him you can go to jail. In NY for example you have a duty to retreat first, only use force when there is no retreat. If you say in your testimony you were surpised, sacred and shot first you get a nice trip to club fed. In FL same situation cops say have a nice day and you go free (castle doctrine). And if you are ignorant of the law in NY tough beans. They are applying the saying meant for mala in se to mala prohibita which are 2 different things entirely. This is a politicaly and ethicaly charged senario on purpose. You can have zelots from bothsides be LG and not agree on this issue and feel very strongly about it and have very good arguments bothways.

For gaming advice you have seen lots of good ideas in this thread some of them contradicotry. Talk to your DM first find out what his views are and then apply the said applicable advice