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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6886194" data-attributes="member: 4937">When you have conflicting motivations like that, it might suggest you've got a character that has worked out some compromise.  In D&D, compromise positions are usually neutral.However, sometimes when you dig a bit deeper, you find that positions that seem to be in conflict aren't really, but are simply expressions of an underlying theme.  Let me suggest a different way of looking at this character.  The fact that he doesn't seem to have a shred of self-interest suggests that he's probably not chaotic.  Merely being in opposition to the law doesn't guarantee that you aren't lawful.  A lawful person could decide that the laws of particular nation are wrong, because they don't actually further the things that the law was meant to advance.   For example, a lawful person could decide that the nation has become corrupt, and has created laws that hinder justice.  This person could be motivated to break the law because he thinks its letting the guilty escape their just punishment, or because he thinks that it is letting the powerful and the corrupt abuse the innocent.   This person would be lawful because he sees the world as having a higher law which all laws, if they are correct laws, have to be derived from.   In that case, all that matters is whether the person sees himself as being the source of this higher law or above this higher law, or whether he sees himself as being subject to it.  Two lawful persons can argue over which law they ought to be subject to, just as two good persons can argue over which is the better expression of goodness.On the good/evil axis, one good test of where a person lies is exactly what they interpret as justice.  For simplicity, consider the "Eye for an Eye" test.  A neutral character tends to see justice as applying the appropriate and proportional penalty to a law breaker.  Lawful neutrals tend to see this as a matter of what the law demands - usually in the form of punishment (since the main injury was against society).  Chaotic neutrals tend to see this as a matter of what the private contract or understanding between them and the other party specified implicitly or explicitly - usually in the form of restitution (since the main injury was against the individual).  But the point is always proportionality.  Good on the other hand sees a standard like "Eye for an Eye" as being a maximum cap on the punishment, and that justice is always tinged with mercy, often with the end of rehabilitation.  Being forced to take a standard of "Eye for an Eye" is a last resort because the wrong doer is making forgiveness impossible by persistently being destructive, and when it happens always tragic.Evil on the other hand sees the standard of justice as being disproportional.  After all, what's the justice in giving the wrong doer the same or better than what the innocent received?   Evil sees justice as being purely retribution, and as something that has as its primary purpose the inflicting of fear and terror.  Whenever evil is done (to you or what you stand for), you hit back twice as hard.  If someone takes from you, you take back ten times as much.  If someone injures you, you hit back ten times as hard.   Most commonly in literature this is encountered as the idea of street justice.   It's most prevailing trait is that any insult to your honor or the honor of your group deserves to be repaid with death.  Forgiveness is weakness and just invites more wrong.So ask yourself a question about this characters methods?  Does he believe in proportional justice?  Does he believe in only punishing evil doers to the extent it is made necessary in order to protect the innocent from further harm?  Or does he have a theory of unlimited retribution, whereby those people who get on his 'bad list' are to be subjected to the full fury of his wrath?With the limited information you've given me, it's suggestive of someone who is in the LN-N-LE wedge of the alignment map.  But that may only be because you are leaving out keep facts about his motives and behavior.   Is he inconsistent?   Does he take the tact that the law is whatever he decides it is?  Does he have nothing higher he reports to?   Under what circumstances would he consider himself wrong and deserving of punishment, and how would he respond to that?</blockquote>

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