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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 7972905" data-attributes="member: 6750908">It's not intended to be an "input into play"-- it's intended to be a controversial statement that provokes people into reexamining the relationship between the two axes of alignment, specifically that Chaotic Good is an unprincipled, undiscplined lesser form of Good, and that Lawful Evil is an honorable, reliable, acceptably heroic form of Evil.The positive spin on Lawful societies is that they are preserving traditional mores-- preserving and enforcing those mores upon people who do not conform to them. This means, by definition, that they are harming the well-being and liberty of people-- sometimes quite severely-- on the basis of behaviors that are not harmful to the well-being and liberty of others. Being Lawful is inimical to being Good.Likewise, being Lawful is about preserving the legitimate political authorities of your culture... however one defines them. This means, among other things, respecting their authority to police themselves. Respecting that legitimate authorities-- however they are selected-- have prerogatives that do not need to be justified because they are superior to others and only their superiors, in turn, may discipline them. If a low-ranking official is predatory and his chain-of-command is apathetic... well... that's just the system. The system is more important than its victims.Before you tell me that's "not Lawful Good", ask me how many separate incidents of Fallen Paladins I can name-- from other people's tables-- that were exactly this.Do I actually believe this? Well... yes. Do I want the game to work this way? No. I just want it to stop working the other way, where more "heroic" games allow Lawful Evil than Chaotic Neutral.The purpose of retaliatory strikes is to make the prospect of attacking your people again less attractive-- a lot of contemporary people have a lot of very stupid ideas about war, but I do think most of them recognize this as a negotiable middle-ground between "pre-emptive self-defense" and "actual self-defense".</blockquote>

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