The Nature of "Lawful"

[Lonely Tylenol]

I lean toward "lawful," although I see how you could make a case for chaos. Mr. Fighter has a very orderly way of life. He finds pedophiles and then he kills them. He lives by a code of ethics: pedo = kill. His code does not include "respect local authority," which is a wee bit on the chaotic side, but there's no indication of whether he's what you'd call a "team player" or a "lone wolf." He just has a set of principled beliefs (ie. pedophiles should be killed on discovery) that drive him more than other concerns like legal authority do.

This seems to me not to be a question about whether the fighter is lawful or chaotic. It seems to me to be a question about priority of rules. Do the rules that the fighter has chosen to live by determine his behaviour, or do the laws of the land he happens to be in at the moment determine his behaviour? It seems that if he's dedicated to following a code of ethics--maybe even sworn an oath to follow it, for the sake of argument--it would be more chaotic to set aside that code just because the locals don't agree with it. That's circumstance, and circumstance has no place in ideology. It certainly has no business interfering with an oath (regardless of how ill-advised the oath might have been considering these sorts of practical concerns).

So, if the fighter is slaying pedos because he likes to, it's probably chaotic. But if it's part of some code of ethics or code of behaviour that he has decided to follow, and that code trumps local laws in his opinion, then it's probably lawful behaviour.

 

[Kyrail]

I would say lawful if it was a different scenario, knowing breaking laws to me has nothing to do with being "lawful" to me. Something people dont think about enough though is Alignment is about personality not action. A CG, NG, LG all seem likely to kill a pedophile if it offends their personal beliefs, maybe a CG more likely for his disregard for establishment, but others would *want* to do it just as much. Regardless if guy did nothing but break laws by killing pedophiles but lived his life in a regimented manner strictly following his personal beliefs while killing those pedophiles, but is still a good person... hes LG.

I know it's been said before but someone like Batman would be LG, and he definally breaks quite a few laws.

 

[Sejs]

Lawful.


The fighter is described as having a strict, disciplined life, and an ordered, rational way of thinking. He has a set belief system and consistantly and regularly acts in a matter that is in accordance with such. If he did not take some form of action against the pedophile just because he was in a civilized area and assumed that "well, the local law enforcement will do something so I don't have to" (aka - it's somebody else's problem), then that would have been a chaotic act. I'm not saying necessarily not killing the guy, but if he just let the guy go instead of at the least hauling his butt in - then that would be contrary to his beliefs and established behavior, and hence chaotic.


Your alignment stops at your skin. It is totally contained within yourself. It has nothing what so ever to do with how you interact with Local Legal Structure. The Mafia would be Lawful Evil, and they break laws by definition.

Orderly, disciplined, consistant, reliable = Lawful.
Intuitive, adaptive, spontaneous, unconventional = Chaotic.

 

[Li Shenron]

It may be probably too much a simplification, but I tend to say that a Lawful character believes in order, while a Chaotic character believes in freedom.

That's not enough to always adjudicate whether an act is lawful. As a matter of fact, IMXP it's usually easier to say if an act is good or evil, while whether it's lawful or chaotic it's more difficult to say...

In this case he is following his own code (but doesn't a chaotic character follows his belief in freedom?) against the legal order in the country. Reminds me of gangsters/mafia associates who are extremely lawful towards their "society" but completely outlaw with respect with the legitimate authority, which they basically consider illegitimate.

Very hard to say. I could say he's lawful because he has a code, but then he's not very different from a Robin Hood who steals from the rich becaus of his very strong beliefs (chaotic characters are not whimsical and unpredictable loonies!). I could say he's chaotic just because he's outlaw therefore unlawful, but being intolerant he's definitely not supporting freedom.
However, being tolerant/intolerant involves somewhat also the good-evil axis and the thing gets more complicated.

 

[Lord Pruitt]

When in Rome....

... do as the Romans.

I don't think it should be asked if it was Lawful or not, but was it good or evil. The first instance could only be judged on what was considered "normal" for the lawless country. If pedophilia was an accepted, common occurance & the thought it was wrong, he should have simply moved. Especially if the local populace didn't want to change. So, killing the perps could be classified as "good."

However, in the second instance, it would definitely be considered "evil," no questions about it.

Course, thats just my warped opinion about the subject.

 

[Haloq Jakar]

First of all everyone one seems to get hung up on the word lawful. What the term means to me in the sense of alignment means "ordered", because if you used it to mean lawabiding than Lawful-Evil would be a next to impossible combination. Lawful evil to me equates somewhat like the Mafia according to "The Godfather". Order would mean that he would strive to act the same way each time in a consistant manner.
So that being the basis of my thinking his act would be lawful according to his own beliefs.
Now as to whether his action was good or bad is another story.

 

[Thanee]

I think lawful is more about having some sort of common "rules" for everyone and, of course, order, while chaotic is more about the individuals.

Since he lives by his very own code, I'd see him somewhere between lawful and chaotic. Lawful, since he is very strict and orderly and chaotic, since he believes more in what one individual thinks.

I'd put him at neutral, I think.

Bye
Thanee

 

[FireLance]

I agree with the posters who have said that Lawfulness does not necessarily mean law-abiding or slavish devotion to law. A lawful character simply believes that rules should govern behavior. These rules could be the actual local laws, or they could be traditions, customs, the code of conduct of an organization, etc.

As such, whether the fighter was acting lawfully or chaotically depends on why he killed the pedophile. If the fighter did so because "the rules" said the pedophile should be killed, he was acting lawfully. If the fighter did so because he felt the pedophile should be killed, he was acting chaotically.

 

[FireLance]

Perhaps just an analogy to follow up. A lawful person picks a religion that is most in line with his beliefs, and then tries to do everything the religion tells him to. A chaotic person picks a religions that is most in line with his beliefs, but only does what he originally wanted to do anyway.

 

[Drifter Bob]

In my games lawful alignement does NOT equal "law-abiding"! That's just one of many possible "lawful"'s...

"Lawful" (usually!) indicates that the character has some sort of code, ethic or philosophy he lives by. This could be anything from a set of personal standards he strives to live up to, to the rules of some guild or order, or the teachings of a particular religion. Of course, it could also be the official laws of the land the character tries to uphold; a dedicated sheriff or policeman would count as lawful.

So IMHO, the murder was a lawful act. The killer followed his personal ethics and did what he had always considered to be the right thing. Even if pedophilia had been legal in that country (though who'd want to raise children there if it was?!? ), I would still consider it a lawful act.

Thats funny, because to me, Chaotic characters, including chaotic neutral or even chaotic evil characters, can have their own code on how they do things. Lawful characters by contrast recognize external codes of behavior, to them the law is greater than the individual.


DB