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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 1766012" data-attributes="member: 2486">The notion that chaotic characters cannot have their own personal code is a hangover from the 2e CN-madman archetype whose death was greeted with little or no mourning.  Chaotic characters can and do have their own personal codes: clerics of Tempus and Robin Hood have been cited as good examples.Indeed, there are few characters of any alignment that don't have some sort of belief: even pragmatists believe in the notion of pragmatism and self-centred CEs believe in their own personal advancement.  To argue that having any sort of guiding principle, on any issue (eg. paedophilia) automatically renders one lawful, would be to impose a lawful alignment on nearly every sentient being in existence.  Elves, classically chaotic good, have clearly defined principles.Given the rebuttal of the old code = lawful fallacy, I'd say that this character acted in a chaotic fashion.  Lawfulness implies, whilst not the veneration of all laws, a broad respect for the procedure of law, or in a primitive society, the binding power of tradition.  Lawfuls only reject the legal process under certain specific conditions: possibly when it is perceived as corrupt or tyrannical (LG) or when it clashes with established vested interests (LE).  Generally, however, the default lawful accepts the legal process.  He may reject the law, but civil disobedience is frowned upon, and vigilantism is scorned.  Particularly in a society where the character agrees with the laws, he must accept due legal process and proceed through the proper authorities.  Where he disagrees, he accepts that the legal process is superior to the opinion of one man- particularly one without any 'higher' moral principle (and here I applaud the wise choice to avoid the tired paladin's dilemma of temporal versus divine authority).In modern society, theft is often punishable by imprisonment.  Yet if I catch a burglar in my home, it is not a lawful act to lock him in my cellar for five years.  Nor is it lawful for me to chop off his hand if I believed that to be an appropriate punishment.  Lawfuls don't accept that every law is good, but they accept the fundamental process of law.  The proper code for a lawful is both situations is to act in accordance with local custom.  It may gall to see one whom you feel guilty of death released, but if the legal process is valid, then the laws it creates are also valid and can only be challenged through the appropriate channels.  To practise extra-legal methods of enforcement repudiates not only the law, but the entire legal system: and a lawful only does that under extreme circumstances.</blockquote>

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