The evil of Lawful Good

[Fable Wright]

Party of Lawful Good characters and a true neutral character are traveling with an NPC, the NPC steps on a trap and dies. The neutral player shrugs "sucks to be him" and loots the pockets of the dead man.

The Lawful Good player plants an axe in the back of the neutral players skull. People without empathy are evil they reason...

This is simply Chaotic Evil. There is no law that was enforced, and the justification a defense against retaliation.

Example 2:
A dragon born lawful good paladin introduces himself to a chaotic evil Bard. The Bard explains he doesn't believe in religion. The paladin uses detect alignment and detects the evil in the Bard.. so he runs him through with his sword...

This, too, is Chaotic Evil. "Oh, I don't like you and I've got an excuse to get away with the murder. Die."

If someone sacrifices someone on an altar because their "Lawful Good" God demanded it, and bestows blessings upon the faithful for doing it, and no one will miss the sacrifice anyways because they have it on good faith that he was "Evil", then they're just your bog standard evil cult lying to maintain the veneer of legitimacy.

This is why I don't let players write their own alignments.

[shawnhcorey]

{Scrubbed}

[Gallowglass]

Just curious if anyone else has witnessed the evil of Lawful Good characters attempting to smite evil...

What I commonly see (as player and DM) is Lawful Good characters act out against players who don't meet their alignment in an evil way.

Example:
Party of Lawful Good characters and a true neutral character are traveling with an NPC, the NPC steps on a trap and dies. The neutral player shrugs "sucks to be him" and loots the pockets of the dead man.

The Lawful Good player plants an axe in the back of the neutral players skull. People without empathy are evil they reason...

Example 2:
A dragon born lawful good paladin introduces himself to a chaotic evil Bard. The Bard explains he doesn't believe in religion. The paladin uses detect alignment and detects the evil in the Bard.. so he runs him through with his sword...


What's your opinion, are they doing it wrong? (I think so)

Do you have any funny stories?

I haven't read through the rest of this thread yet, but I'm pretty sure I can guess what it looks like.

My opinion: This isn't an alignment debate. This isn't "are they being lawful good or chaotic evil"

These are just jerks. The players, not the characters. Jerks using the medium as an excuse to be jerks. There is no point to argue whether they were "doing it wrong" as far as being lawful good goes. They are "doing it wrong" as far as playing in a game goes. "Doing it wrong" as far as being a human being goes. So, yeah, of course they are doing alignment wrong too.

But its not a fault of the alignment system. Its a fault of the players.

[Kaptin Keen]

This thread is half assert action that lawful stupid isn't that common - and half justifications of lawful stupid.

I'm currently playing a .. 'morally flexible' bard, in a party with a paladin who feels that all evil must die. Fought for the wrong side: must die. Known evil race: must die. Orc child: must die.

So I persuaded an assassin to surrender, healed him, and convinced him to spy for us. Paladin felt he must die.

I needed to have words with the player - telling him that his character has no special privileges, and calls no shots.

He even told me 'my character can kill yours'. To which I replied that his player couldn't kill mine, so that wasn't really a relevant measure of anything.

[patchyman]

Example:
Party of Lawful Good characters and a true neutral character are traveling with an NPC, the NPC steps on a trap and dies. The neutral player shrugs "sucks to be him" and loots the pockets of the dead man.

The Lawful Good player plants an axe in the back of the neutral players skull. People without empathy are evil they reason...

I love the irony of a Paladin showing a complete lack of empathy when murdering someone for not showing sufficient empathy...

[Mechalich]

in a party with a paladin who feels that all evil must die. Fought for the wrong side: must die. Known evil race: must die. Orc child: must die.

This is not an acceptable ethos for a paladin. It's not an acceptable ethos for a lawful good character of any stripe actually. A character with this ethos probably doesn't even qualify as lawful neutral, since their fanaticism makes it likely that they are unable to honor either societal law or a strict personal code over the long term. If your GM is allowing such an ethos to fall under the 'paladin' umbrella, they have drastically misinterpreted how alignment is supposed to work, period.

[King of Nowhere]

And I can think of lots of different ways to achieve that based on culture and biology.

-The creature might be born capable of independence and taking care of itself (e.g. Sharks). I use this model with goblins.
-The creature might be abandoned before birth and rely on other creatures to nurture it (e.g. the Cuckoo). I use this model with cambions.
-The creature might be abandoned and left to hatch on it's own. (e.g. some turtles and frogs).
-Offspring may be viewed as dynastic tools (pawns or commodities) and keeping them alive may accrue purely selfish benefits to their parents. Drow, I'm looking at you.
-There could be a biological or cultural factor at play where the more closely related members of a group are the more they are able to trust each other and cooperate. This gives an advantage to groups that reproduce. Possibly a model for Orcs?
-And some creatures simply recognize the strength of the pack. Hyenas are well documented cannibals that will eat their own young when food is scare. They're the basis of gnolls. Heck, rabbits will eat their own young just because they're bored.
-Is there a model whereby the more violent males are cast out into bachelor bands while extended families of females work together to ensure their protection? (e.g. elephants or lions).

That for biology. Then you've got creatures that reproduce via contagion (Ghouls, Viruses), created creatures, awakened creatures, abominations, and insanity. If we get to memetic reproduction then we can get into some truly terrifying examples (from fiction we can possible draw from the Reavers of the Firefly-verse, from real life we can look at the multi-generational chains of abuse that arguably are equivalent to reproduction).

While it may work well for your setting to say that no creatures that can reproduce are truly evil, it works well for me to say that they can reproduce. If for no other reason than the cool lore behind that reproduction.

that's some good worldbuilding. I will add mine

- goblins have a very strong sense of community. individually, they are weak and they die fast, so they look at the goblin nation as something that will survive them. goblins actually display a lot of heroic traits; they are evil because they consider everyone else to be an enemy. they are a lot like nazis in that regard, loial to their people and genocidal towards everyone else.
Also, they are explosive breeders in a resource-poor environment, and instead of trying for birth control, they control their population by killing most of their young (those they deem useless to the goblin nation) as their reach adolescence.
On the plus side, it's very easy to be a teacher in a goblin school; the kids study real hard, knowing that if they don't show excellence they will be sent in the desert...

- orcs are violent and kill each other regularly. they don't go extinct because they treat women as cattle. 90% of male orcs will die before sexual maturity, but female orcs are not harmed because they are valuable.
When an orc male survives to maturity, he'll have on average 10 orc females to reproduce with, so he'll have lots of children. the females are also the ones raising the children until they are old enough to care for themselves.
orcs also consider this as perfectly normal to ensure the survival of the strongest. they don't complain if someone stronger than them beats them up and takes their stuff, and they are baffled that other races wouldn't accept to be ruled by the strongest.

- despotonia is the fiefdom of hextor. despotonians are taught that the purpose of life is to dominate over others. most despotonians live in virtual slavery, and spend their little free time in petty squabbles over who has the nicer shanty or the less ugly wife or who gets whipped the less by the taskmasters. they generally manage to look down on enough other people to feel satisfied with themselves.
the despotonian oligarchy is not dumb, and they know the value of gifted, skilled people. especially in a world where "gifted and skilled" can mean "a 20th level wizard". So, while the country is crap for most things, it has the best public schools in the world, and promising students get any kind of training for free as long as they have skill. talented people are treated well, and they can easily get rich and join the aristocracy. Most people drop out early and are consigned to slavery, of course. But families are paid to send their children to school, so they make children and try to grow them strong.
for the country rulers, it's a win-win. if the children are capable, they will make a fine addition to their ranks. they will be able to dominate others because of their greater social status, so they will have good reasons to stay loial; in other nations they won't have slaves. and if the children are not capable, they will be exploted as cheap labor.
the system has also proved very resilient towards revolution, because of how it encourages petty squabbles among the paesants. give a despotonian mob weapons, and they will all kill each other for slights. paladins gave up long ago on trying to fix the country.

- demons will spawn already grown up. basically, the lower planes have a certain amount of evilness permeating them; if there is too much evil, it coalesces into a fiend. fiends feed upon the evil that surrounds them, so if there are many of them around, new ones won't spawn. so the overall number of fiends remains roughly constant.

[ErdrickOfAliaha]

Characters such as those presented in this thread inspired me in the past to create a strongly militaristic scenario where the forces of Chaos conspired to unbind creation and the forces of Law joined forces to preserve it. Hence, Solars and Pit Fiends working together. It beautifully illustrated the "Group is more important than the individual" aspect of the Lawful alignments. I also used the old 2e rules for Anti-Paladin (reverse all occurrences of good and evil in the ability descriptions). Sadly, every group of players I presented this to wanted to be on the side of Chaos... So I never got to run it. Had all these hybrid elementals ready to throw at the party too.

[Pleh]

Remember, 3E describes both paladins and themLG alignment as merciless and demands they not let wrongs go jnpunished, and some DMs will have you fall for being too leniant.

I played more 3.5 than 3e, but I don't remember the rules saying this. Sure, they generally can't allow crimes to go unpunished, but that doesn't mean jumping immediately to execution. Punishment can include a simple fine.

As someone else mentioned earlier, "you looted the corpse? I suppose you'll be reimbursing their next of kin."

[Quertus]

Characters such as those presented in this thread inspired me in the past to create a strongly militaristic scenario where the forces of Chaos conspired to unbind creation and the forces of Law joined forces to preserve it. Hence, Solars and Pit Fiends working together. It beautifully illustrated the "Group is more important than the individual" aspect of the Lawful alignments. I also used the old 2e rules for Anti-Paladin (reverse all occurrences of good and evil in the ability descriptions). Sadly, every group of players I presented this to wanted to be on the side of Chaos... So I never got to run it. Had all these hybrid elementals ready to throw at the party too.

Beautiful is. Chaos too dim multiverse is to notice most of the.

[Segev]

Remember, 3E describes both paladins and themLG alignment as merciless and demands they not let wrongs go jnpunished, and some DMs will have you fall for being too leniant.

"Punishment" need not be "death" for every wrong. And paladins can take a long view as easily as anybody else. A DM who enforces a murderous bloodlust on his paladins is as much a problem as a player who tries to claim he's being LG while indulging such a bloodlust.

[Talakeal]

"Punishment" need not be "death" for every wrong. And paladins can take a long view as easily as anybody else. A DM who enforces a murderous bloodlust on his paladins is as much a problem as a player who tries to claim he's being LG while indulging such a bloodlust.

I would agree, but they do exist, and nothing in the rules indicate that it isn't a valid interpretation.

I played more 3.5 than 3e, but I don't remember the rules saying this. Sure, they generally can't allow crimes to go unpunished, but that doesn't mean jumping immediately to execution. Punishment can include a simple fine."

Page 103 claims that a paladin fights evil "relentlessly and without mercy".

IMO the author didn't intend that to mean that they could never show mercy, but that does appear to be RAW, just like the RAW 5E paladin of vengeance would be required to wipe out all life in the entire universe Thanos style if it meant killing even a single evil creature that would otherwise escape their grasp.

[Pleh]

I would agree, but they do exist, and nothing in the rules indicate that it isn't a valid interpretation.

Page 103 claims that a paladin fights evil "relentlessly and without mercy".

IMO the author didn't intend that to mean that they could never show mercy, but that does appear to be RAW, just like the RAW 5E paladin of vengeance would be required to wipe out all life in the entire universe Thanos style if it meant killing even a single evil creature that would otherwise escape their grasp.

Ok, whatever then. Stupid rules should be disregarded with prejudice. I've never been a fan of RAW manipulation to erase RAI, especially when it detracts from the quality of play.

It's not a point that merits defending. When LG possesses no concept of mercy as a virtue or value, it's lost all logical consistency. That's more or less the point and joke of Miko. It's not what anyone should do in their games, but an example of what to avoid.

[Talakeal]

Ok, whatever then. Stupid rules should be disregarded with prejudice. I've never been a fan of RAW manipulation to erase RAI, especially when it detracts from the quality of play.

It's not a point that merits defending. When LG possesses no concept of mercy as a virtue or value, it's lost all logical consistency. That's more or less the point and joke of Miko. It's not what anyone should do in their games, but an example of what to avoid.

I personally agree with you.

But for a lot of people, the paladin is some combination of Judge Dredd and the Spanish Inquisition, and for those people the RAI and RAW are in perfect alignment, and its kind of hard to tell them they are doing it wrong.

[Manyasone]

In the second case, while someone pinging Evil on your Evilometer is certainly someone you should watch out for and be aware of what they're doing... Well, if you want a GOOD example of Lawful Good, read Dresden Files. Specifically, look for a chap named Michael Carpenter.

I couldn't agree more. The moment I read about Michael Carpenter was the moment I saw a true Paladin written. Never has there been a character more deserving of the title.
For those who don't know of him, have a link

[Avrahamagirl]

Great topic! I actually find most lawful good has to be somewhat 'bad' in order to follow through with the laws that they follow. Punishments, etc. Just look at Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the Disney movie, He was definitely supposed to be a representative of the 'good' the 'order' the 'law, etc.

[Lord Raziere]

I couldn't agree more. The moment I read about Michael Carpenter was the moment I saw a true Paladin written. Never has there been a character more deserving of the title.
For those who don't know of him, have a link

Heh, I know of him.

But man, we should get some Kaladin and Knights Radiant love up in here. he probably isn't as great as Michael, but hes pretty great as well just look at some of the Windrunner tenets he follows as apart of the Knights Radiant:

(this particular one all knights radiant follow):
“Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.”

Windrunner oaths:
“I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.”

“I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.”

or the ideals of the Bondsmith, that Dalinar follows:

“I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.”

“I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better person.”

[JNAProductions]

Great topic! I actually find most lawful good has to be somewhat 'bad' in order to follow through with the laws that they follow. Punishments, etc. Just look at Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the Disney movie, He was definitely supposed to be a representative of the 'good' the 'order' the 'law, etc.

Frollo might be Lawful, but he certainly ain't Good.

[Kaptin Keen]

This is not an acceptable ethos for a paladin. It's not an acceptable ethos for a lawful good character of any stripe actually. A character with this ethos probably doesn't even qualify as lawful neutral, since their fanaticism makes it likely that they are unable to honor either societal law or a strict personal code over the long term. If your GM is allowing such an ethos to fall under the 'paladin' umbrella, they have drastically misinterpreted how alignment is supposed to work, period.

That's debatable. I'd agree with you - but obviously the player doesn't, and the GM chooses to allow i.

I've told the group many times that my thieving, lying, trickster/bastard bard is the closest thing to a 'good' character the party has (paladin, ranger, elf wizard and my bard). They laugh at that - but I'm consistently the only one willing to show mercy, or even negotiate.

It's worth mentioning that negotiation has thus far led only to betrayal.

[Segev]

I would agree, but they do exist, and nothing in the rules indicate that it isn't a valid interpretation.



Page 103 claims that a paladin fights evil "relentlessly and without mercy".

The whole rest of the rules on what it means to be Good defies the interpretation. In context of that, "relentlessly and without mercy" means they will not let mercy stay their hand from necessary acts to curtail evil, not that they will revel in slaughtering anything that pings evil for any reason.

[Inchhighguy]

You may want to rethink that. Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo? All looted the dead. Drizzt? Yeah, some of his items came off corpses. Of all the iconic characters I can think of, I only know 1 who supposedly exclusively looted the living rather than the dead.

D&D is pretty firmly based on loot, and only slightly less firmly based on killing stuff. By your logic, I imagine all the big names from Mordenkainen to Bigby are Evil.

Not much need to, as it's simple enough: as a general rule good people do not loot the dead.

You can be ''survivalist good", that you are allowed to..slightly..bend the no loot rule for survival. So if you were in the wilderness, FAR, from your home civilization, and in need of food, water and such....then yes, you could ''loot'' a body.

Plenty of good cultures would also approve of taking a ''trophy" of a kill. And even more so it does depend on person gain. Is the person taking the loot to A) GIVE nearly all of it to a good/needed cause and/or B) to otherwise keep it out of Evils hands? Then fine. However....just about anything else would be wrong, even more so vile greed.

And, then you do have good people from cultures with no concept of money, or even value.

"Punishment" need not be "death" for every wrong. And paladins can take a long view as easily as anybody else. A DM who enforces a murderous bloodlust on his paladins is as much a problem as a player who tries to claim he's being LG while indulging such a bloodlust.

The twist here is that...well....paladins are violent, aggressive warriors that primarily KILL.

Just look at the basic paladin: Do they have say a Word of Good Ability where they can talk to someone and influence them with goodness? Do they have any basic non lethal attack forms? Can they say charm someone? Put someone to sleep? Paralysis?

Or do they have a big sword and the ability to SMITE people?

But for a lot of people, the paladin is some combination of Judge Dredd and the Spanish Inquisition, and for those people the RAI and RAW are in perfect alignment, and its kind of hard to tell them they are doing it wrong.

That does describe the basic paladin. Judge Inquistion Dread. The basic idea of a Marshal, even more so a Western one also fits. Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke is a good example, as is Paladin from Have Gun – Will Travel.

[JNAProductions]

Not much need to, as it's simple enough: as a general rule good people do not loot the dead.

You can be ''survivalist good", that you are allowed to..slightly..bend the no loot rule for survival. So if you were in the wilderness, FAR, from your home civilization, and in need of food, water and such....then yes, you could ''loot'' a body.

Plenty of good cultures would also approve of taking a ''trophy" of a kill. And even more so it does depend on person gain. Is the person taking the loot to A) GIVE nearly all of it to a good/needed cause and/or B) to otherwise keep it out of Evils hands? Then fine. However....just about anything else would be wrong, even more so vile greed.

And, then you do have good people from cultures with no concept of money, or even value.

The twist here is that...well....paladins are violent, aggressive warriors that primarily KILL.

Just look at the basic paladin: Do they have say a Word of Good Ability where they can talk to someone and influence them with goodness? Do they have any basic non lethal attack forms? Can they say charm someone? Put someone to sleep? Paralysis?

Or do they have a big sword and the ability to SMITE people?

That does describe the basic paladin. Judge Inquistion Dread. The basic idea of a Marshal, even more so a Western one also fits. Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke is a good example, as is Paladin from Have Gun – Will Travel.

Do you need hard-coded abilities to talk to people? See, roleplayers are fully capable of talking to their surrendered enemies and trying to use compassion and mercy on them even WITHOUT mechanics that explicitly say "Roll against DC 20 to convert evil to good".

[Koo Rehtorb]

Converting people is a cleric's job. A paladin is the sword of his deity.

[Cygnia]

Converting people is a cleric's job. A paladin is the sword of his deity.

If that's the case, then why do paladins have Diplomacy on their skill list?

[Max_Killjoy]

I thought looting the defeated, dead or otherwise, was part and parcel of the same game that made the paladin into a special RPG character class...

[comk59]

I mean, I HAVE played the Judge Dredd style paladin, after making sure with everyone that it was okay. It was pretty fun! But I certainly wouldn't consider it the default state for a Paladin.
If I had to choose a role model for that, I'd probably go with Captain Carrot.

[Segev]

Not much need to, as it's simple enough: as a general rule good people do not loot the dead.

Nonsense. Lawful people raised in a tradition that believes either in grave goods or inheritance rights will refrain from looting the dead (though the latter will possibly take goods to try to return them to the heirs). Good and Evil have little to do with matters of unclaimed property.

The twist here is that...well....paladins are violent, aggressive warriors that primarily KILL.

Just look at the basic paladin: Do they have say a Word of Good Ability where they can talk to someone and influence them with goodness? Do they have any basic non lethal attack forms? Can they say charm someone? Put someone to sleep? Paralysis?

Or do they have a big sword and the ability to SMITE people?

So, since evil clerics have cure spells, that means they're pacifists who go around helping the wounded and trying to soothe pains, which is definitely an evil act because evil clerics have mechanics geared towards doing it?

Paladins are PROTECTORS, and protectors must be able to destroy that which would harm their charges. That doesn't mean they are hair-trigger blood knights.

[Pleh]

I personally agree with you.

But for a lot of people, the paladin is some combination of Judge Dredd and the Spanish Inquisition, and for those people the RAI and RAW are in perfect alignment, and its kind of hard to tell them they are doing it wrong.

I disagree that the RAI and RAW are in perfect alignment. I think it's better to say RAI and RAW are commonly incoherent and self contradicting. This shouldn't be allowance to interpret any way you want.

I think back to Jay R's rules. Players have the right to screw up the plot, not the game. Assuming Paladins must be a little evil to do their jobs is tantamount to redefining the setting.

[Morty]

Y'know, the alignment system really has enough problems without people coming up with entirely made-up ones.

[Inchhighguy]

Nonsense. Lawful people raised in a tradition that believes either in grave goods or inheritance rights will refrain from looting the dead (though the latter will possibly take goods to try to return them to the heirs). Good and Evil have little to do with matters of unclaimed property.

Sure you can say Good and Evil have nothing to do with anything. That does not really help much. Ok, so nothing is really anything?

But in D&D there is good and evil.

So, since evil clerics have cure spells, that means they're pacifists who go around helping the wounded and trying to soothe pains, which is definitely an evil act because evil clerics have mechanics geared towards doing it?

Paladins are PROTECTORS, and protectors must be able to destroy that which would harm their charges. That doesn't mean they are hair-trigger blood knights.

Maybe you mussed my point? Paladins are warriors that kill evil, and that is what their abilities do. IF they were meant to do other things....then why in oh 30 years of D&D history have they never been given such abilities to the base class?

So, where do you see ''protection" abilities for a Paladin? Can they use Shield Other as a supernatural ability? Maybe some special divine aid another? Bodyguard abilities? Maybe some ''intercept attack directed at another?" Does the paladin in your official game book have abilities like that?