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Message: <blockquote data-quote="balterkn" data-source="post: 3286959" data-attributes="member: 46546">Others have said it, but remember that lawful does not equal to blindly obeying the law.  I generally go for that a lawful person prefers an orderly existence.  That same person prefers to operate in the context of the law because they may believe that those laws foster the best way for people to work together, and thus are inclined to initially follow the laws.  However, even a lawful person may "park in the handicapped only spot" to achieve some moral goal (say stopping ot help someone in need, or stopping for a gangland killing).On the "sometimes it depends on the law" track, a LG paladin traveling through a LN power center may notice that some laws are oppressing people - that those laws are against his deity's code, thus he may not care if he observes people breaking those laws - and yet that same paladin may immediately give chase to a mugger without even knowing if there was an explicit law against mugging in that locality, just because such things shouldn't happen in an orderly society.On the "orderly existence" track, consider the following story (paraphrased from memory from a real-world book on spirituality):Two male monks travel through the wilderness.  Their order forbade them from any contact, physical or otherwise, with women - to keep their minds pure and focused and away from distraction.  When they came to a river, there was a damsel caught in a sudden surge in the current, stuck in the middle of the ford on a rock.  As they pass, the older monk reaches out and carries the damsel to the river bank, places her down , and promptly continues on.  The younger monk, says nothing for several miles, but obviously becoming more and more distressed by this obvious flaunting of their vows.  The younger monk suddenly burst out, saying "why did you touch that woman?  Don't you know it is against our order's most sacred vows?"  The older monk replies "I put her down back at the river bank, why do you still carry her?"The context of that story in the text was that the older monk, although by the letter of the vow, had broken the vow; however, he had not violated the spirit of the vow (and hence had no problem) - but the younger monk had broken the spirit of the vow, by letting his mind become unfocused.Orderly/lawful people aren't machines that blindly apply the same rule over and over - many of them accept "shades of gray" in determining the most orderly and lawful course of action.  Lawful government officials have to figure out the difference between a gift from a friend, and the fact a gift from one specific friend may be considered a bribe (can a government official never get a gift from anyone?  Birthdays would suck if your spouse couldn't get you a gift).  And lawful people may disagree on application of law or order or whether something is ethical (as opposed to moral discussions).In the end, Law/Chaos is a spectrum - say from 1-3 is lawful, 4-6 is neutral, and 7-9 are chaotic -  True "1" Lawful people are probably as rare as true "9" chaotic people.  IMNSHO, the lawful most people describe (about caring more for the laws than people) would result in a person as insane as that over the top chaotic person who rolls the die to decide if he will help his friends in battle.</blockquote>

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