Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ian0311 03-29-07, 09:17 AM	A simple village fighter, unedified in the ways of the world, having only seen his society and its rules until just a short time ago, is beginning to see laws and regulations as a necessary thing. He has seen how they hurt people and how they help people, and realizes that they are beneficial when good people stand for them. How could I possibly roleplay an alignment change? It's not like I can just go, 'Oye, DM, make me lawful now plz!'; I actually have to make it work out ICly or I have failed at upholding the IC. I would much appreciate all input on the issue.
MatthiasKaiser 03-29-07, 12:20 PM	I suggest you find a cause, and swear an oath to it. Nothing demonstrates that you take custom, tradition, and the social order seriously like a good oath. Make sure your DM knows about your intent beforehand, then write an oath pledging service to whatever cause you please. The ideals of an established Good-aligned organization that's impressed you, for instance, might be a great place to start looking, and you might even get the benefit of partial or full membership in the organization.
Ian0311 03-29-07, 05:50 PM	I see, thank you for your advice.
Ensjak 03-29-07, 09:48 PM	Something else less drastic that you could do without binding yourself to an oath is simply support laws. For instance, after seeing bandits apprehended and tried rather than simply executed you could attempt to apprehend bandits and theives rather than simply kill them. You've seen that laws are good and should be followed. Best way to show the alignment change to lawful imo is to start following and being a proponent of the law. Taking an oath to some abstract LG organization just to show that you're lawful is kind of drastic and doesn't really seem to fit the reason for your alignment change. You could even have your character try to study the local laws of the lands he passes through to make sure that he abides by them. Your character could talk a lot about how laws are made to protect the weak and vulnerable and possibly even take a role of executor of the law.
MatthiasKaiser 03-30-07, 12:07 PM	That's not a transition. That's just jumping into the other alignment. I still think that, at the very least, he should try to find an example of everything that he feels is good about law, tradition, and obligation as he now sees it and try to follow that example. Otherwise, he's not giving proper respect to his current NG beliefs. The guy sounds like a good roleplayer, paying attention to his character's motivations. If his character was just starting out and without a belief structure concerning law or chaos yet, I'd agree with you, Ensjak, but it sounds like he wants to change existing beliefs, not just take his developing character down a path not reflecting what he carelessly put on his character sheet at the beginning.
Ensjak 03-30-07, 01:45 PM	Good point Kaiser. I interpretted his original post as saying that his character had no concept of law before setting out from his original home. In that case, simply being exposed to a society (presumably one more impressive than his own home) that was governed by laws would be enough to start the character on a lawful path. He should still be questioning the effectiveness and the actual implications of law, not blindly swear allegiance to an organization. This involves learning, studying, or reading up on the law. If the character is familiar with lawful society and its workings and understands that laws can be bent towards evil, then yes, I agree joining an organization that upholds both good and law or following its tenets makes sense. But on its own, up and deciding to follow the tenets of an organization that he believes are lawful good is no less of a straight alignment change than just following the law. It seems to me that following the law and trying to uphold it is the growth that would lead to LG. The law becomes the focus of the character's alignment during this transition. From there, the character can learn that law does not necessarily always result in "good" and must then make the distinction. I still hold the understanding that the character is new to a codified law system as opposed to just doing the right thing. Learning about the law and the reasoning behind the need for law THEN choosing to follow it certainly shows a change and growth in the character. From there he can choose to follow a lawful group that also upholds good.
Westbound 04-06-07, 12:25 AM	Alignment changes, done by the character, should be major life-changing experiences, even if the change is something from Neutral Good to Lawful Good. Basically, you're a character that's putting more value in law than he used to put in deeds. At some point, you're saying that no one is above the law, and that the law must be obeyed until it is lawfully changed. As a Neutral Good person, doing good or justice was more important to you than following the law, no matter if the law was made under the best of intentions. A Neutral Good person likes proper application of just laws, but is willing to violate such laws in order to further the cause of what is good and right. A Lawful Good person wants to do likewise, but if he violates the law he's going to make amends, if he can. He sees a need for a body of law as a force for good and abhors law that is twisted to serve evil. If good cannot be enforced through law, then the LG person will act to see the law changed somehow or justice be done anyway. For the NG person to go LG, he has to be convinced that laws coupled with deeds are equally important, and has to see that without laws, individual interpretation of justice can get a little hazy. Perhaps there was an event when someone important in the character's life acted in such a way that the PC didn't quite like. It might've even been an act of evil, but demonstrated that, in his view, no one can be above the law.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 04-12-07, 02:19 AM	Alignment changes, done by the character, should be major life-changing experiences, even if the change is something from Neutral Good to Lawful Good. Not quite so sure about that. I was going to take my character from chaotic nuetral to chaotic good in a similar fashion. Its a subtler change in his world view though. For me the change depends heavily on why the character's alignment is what it is. My character is chaotic nuetral because he trust noone and nothing. He sees the world in a take what you can or it will be taken from you sort of way. While he adeventures however he will learn to rely on companions and trust more. This switches him slowly over to good where he realizes that by helping others you can help yourself. From nuetral to lawful may be a similar slow process. Simply seeing that he can operate under a lawful system is important. As he spends time in the city and sees the law being merciful and harsh as appropriate he may find it less constraining than once he did. Back in the village it's possible that most disputes were settled just between 2 people and maybe 1 arbiter. Now he finds that a force of law that is unbiased is needed when more people are added in. He sees disputes settled without preference for a popular figure because the law is appied equally and this becomes a superior system. The actual change may occur at a pivotal moment but the character needs to be predisposed to the change beforehand. I had another character die trying to save me and looked on him as a fool because my character couldn't understand why he would do that yet. If it happened after he began trusting others than it might have become a life changing moment.
Westbound 04-12-07, 04:05 PM	When I speak of major life changing experiences, I'm not necessarily saying that one or two traumatic events would cause the alignment change. An alignment change is basically a change in the values a person holds dear. A Neutral Good character is a person who acts for good causes with little regard for laws or traditions. For him, such things can and often do get in the way. There may be very good reasons for such laws and traditions, but once they become a hindrance to what he deems to be important, he will ignore them. It's not that he's particularly impatient, but he knows how evil can use and abuse laws and traditions of society to further their own aims. For such a person to go from Neutral Good to Lawful Good, he has to come to the conclusion that laws and traditions, coupled with a desire to protract the cause of good, are mutually important. For that to happen, he has to realize that, though laws and traditions may not be perfect, people are less so, and are prone to more mistakes. The letter and the spirit of the law must both be consulted, not just the spirit, and that everyone is entitled to those protections if justice is to be served, rich, poor, the powerful and the powerless all alike. Events in one's life could contribute to this sort of thing; people rarely, especially these days, think about their convictions and change their minds accordingly. The NG character, perhaps, made rash presuppositions about someone he thought was evil by virtue of the wealth or power he held, and deemed him guilty of committing evil. Perhaps some new evidence proved him wrong, but his words and actions unduly influenced others to bring an innocent person harm. Kinda like...the Duke Lacrosse case, come to think of it. A person with values will find them difficult to change, and requires something bold and dramatic to prove that some or all of those values to which he held were either mistaken or misapplied. That's what I mean by major event.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 04-13-07, 04:38 AM	OK. I don't think we're really disagreeing here. My main point is that the important thing is to understand the motivation behind the alignment. That for him to roleplay the alignment change he needs to understand why his character held a belief in good over law before and to explain what has changed to alter his viewpoint. You're saying major life changing experience means a new way of looking at the world and I agree with that wholeheartedly. Maybe I'm just colored on the phrasing "major life changing experience" because I've seen too many cliched cases of villian turns over a new leaf as the result of one innocent helping them.