Lawful in Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Lawful in Eberron [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Uller999
12-21-05, 12:55 PM Right, so I do philosophy and I might be thusly overthinking this but...here's the deal.

I was toying around with the idea of a kind of batman character. Basically, this changeling's family is ruined during the mourning, his parent's die in the thing as does everyone he knows, he moves to Sharn, sees the rampant corruption there, and the persecution of his people and decides to use the cities' shadows against it. So build wise I'm thinking monk, ninja. I rather like monks ( I know most everyone else hates them but oh well :rolleyes: ) and the idea of a monk/ninja just strikes me as being aestehticallly cool. Eventually I want the Character to level in Vigilante PrC.

So my question is this, if I want to level as a vigilante, which seem out of the purview of the Lawful (I know it doesn't necessarily require you to be but it says vigilante right on the label) than does this mean I might have a lawful alignment problem? What about using things like poison (which I for one, and any DM I'd play with you agree that using poison isn't evil) which are outlawed, would using such items break the local law and thus violate any alignment descriptor even though I'd be fullfilling the spirit of the law which to establish order, protect the people, blah blah blah. So what do you guys think? is it possible to play a batman as lawful?
makeshiftwings
12-21-05, 01:12 PM Basically this will come down to an argument of you trying to convince your DM what your view of "Lawful" is. No two people in the history of d&d have ever fully agreed on what any of the alignments really mean, so it will all be somewhat subjective.

Personally, I don't use alignment in my games and haven't played with anyone who strongly enforced it in a while, but I think you could make a case that your character's "lawfulness" comes from following a strict internal code of conduct, being honorable, rigid, disciplined, unyielding in his beliefs, never wishy-washy, always likes to have a plan, methodical instead of spontaneous, uncomfortable around people who seem to act without thinking things through, etc. These are all traits of Law, and don't have anything at all to do with what particularly country or even what particular style of government your character would support. Clearly a Lawful Good character who travels to some country where the law is "Kill seven babies a day and feast on their flesh" isn't going to feel compelled to follow that law. In my opinion, a lawful character is completely within their rights to "fight the power" and even support anarchist utopian community as long as he is doing it because he legitimately believes in it, and he does it while remaining disciplined and true to his principles.

I think in general, Lawful characters would be more likely to support custom and laws "just because", while Chaotic characters would be more likely to defy custom and flaunt the law "just because". But either alignment could do either if they felt a reason to.
Uller999
12-21-05, 01:32 PM Yeah personally, when running games I don't strongly enforce alignment save for Paladins and clerics and only than its insofar as their religion is concerned. The logic I was going to go by was that the individual has several personal oaths and follows those explicityly and that his monk training in and of itself represents a discipline to which he rigidly adheres. So like the character is very concerned with the concept of justice and willing to go to any lengths to see justice done. Of course definitionally, justice is a sketcy thing but none the less that was the general tenor of things. Playing rival criminal gangs off of one another and so on. Infiltrate and destory, the joys of being a changeling

PS: I just found out, that WoTC boards give you a nice shiny Tracking Cookie. Let that be a warning to the lot of you
Wolfwood2
12-21-05, 01:47 PM So my question is this, if I want to level as a vigilante, which seem out of the purview of the Lawful (I know it doesn't necessarily require you to be but it says vigilante right on the label) than does this mean I might have a lawful alignment problem? What about using things like poison (which I for one, and any DM I'd play with you agree that using poison isn't evil) which are outlawed, would using such items break the local law and thus violate any alignment descriptor even though I'd be fullfilling the spirit of the law which to establish order, protect the people, blah blah blah. So what do you guys think? is it possible to play a batman as lawful?

"Lawful" covers a lot of area. You might trying the "respect for traditions" route. Have your character always consulting ancient scrolls of wisdom, researching how situations were handled in the past, and finding ways to use the law to your advantage. I think it's possible to have a lawful vigilante, but there has to be a certain self-awareness to the character. He should be able to answer (if only to himself) the questions: Why am I doing this? What, specfically, am I trying to accomplish by stepping outside the law? Is there some outside indicator, other than my own sense of satisfaction, that I can use to see if I'm accomplishing my goals?

As for poison... What type of posion and under what circumstances?
DragonWatcher
12-21-05, 01:55 PM "lawfulness" comes from following a strict internal code of conduct, being honorable, rigid, disciplined, unyielding in his beliefs, never wishy-washy, always likes to have a plan, methodical instead of spontaneous, uncomfortable around people who seem to act without thinking things through, etc. These are all traits of Law, and don't have anything at all to do with what particularly country or even what particular style of government your character would support. Clearly a Lawful Good character who travels to some country where the law is "Kill seven babies a day and feast on their flesh" isn't going to feel compelled to follow that law.

I have chimed in on this before, so this may be redundant to some of you, but I fully agree with this part of Makeshiftwings' statement. Lawful was a bad choice of term for this aspect of alignment WAY back in the day, but since the Alignment system as-is, seems to be one of the sacred cows of D&D now, we're stuck with it. I believe that just as Good is the opposite of Evil, Lawful (in this context) is supposed to be the opposite of Chaos... and not necessarily meaning one who follows some national codified laws.

While a lawful character is certainly more likely to follow codified laws in general, they do so only because such laws are an orderly and well-defined system for living, and they will only follow them insofar as they do not conflict with the character's personal code of beliefs and routine.

I (personally) feel that Batman (at least the Batman portrayed in the Dark Knight comics) is a perfect example of how a Lawful Evil character can be a hero. In many incarnations, Batman was all about revenge, using violence to try to satisfy his selfish need for payback for what happened to his family. He may have believed that he was doing this for the greater good of Gotham, but his methods were anything but selfless. He hid his identity, and was not above killing those that he felt were a danger. While ultimately he was protecting the innocents, he was definitely breaking laws and committing many crimes to do so. Though he was in no way Chaotic.

Back on point, yes... I believe that you can play a Lawful character that has a passing concern (if that) for actual societal laws.
Edymnion
12-21-05, 02:04 PM IMO, the Law/Chaos axis boils down to how much you want rule and order imposed on other people.

Chaotic means that you think there should be no laws, everybody should be allowed to just do whatever they want, whenever they want.

Neutral means that you go with the flow, you follow the rules whenever you can, but you don't go out of your way to get others to do the same.

Lawful means that not only do you follow the rules, but that you try to get other people to follow the rules as well.

Just because you do not follow the law of the land does not make you Chaotic (a Paladin in a country where eating slave babies is considered perfectly acceptable is not going to turn Chaotic just because he refuses to say that its the right thing to do).

Yeah, I'd call Batman Lawful. Sure, he breaks the law, but he has a strong personal code, and is fighting to uphold the spirit of the law, if not the exact letter of it. He breaks and enters, he stalks, he assaults, but he commits these lesser crimes in the name of preventing larger ones.

Remember folks, Lawful Good != Lawful Stupid. Batman and Superman both are Lawful Good, they just have differant takes on what that means.
Uller999
12-21-05, 10:33 PM The Poison thing I don't really see as mattering. It is it really more morally dangerous to society or to one's pesonal ethos to stick someone with a poisoned blade or cut-them in two with a greatsword. Magical evil I can possibly see as having some external moral superveniance since they involve mystical energies whose "ethical" standpoint are morally arbitrary. I personally don't understand why Animate Dead is bad in and of itself. What if I was taking the bevie of zombies and skeletons off the battlefield to their graves, it sure would save me a lot of grief as well as keep my people from being at risk of disease and protect the dead from thieves to a stronger extent and yet doing that is evil.

I'm not arguing for culturalism relativism or anything but I think there are really two gradients for alignment, how you deal with things related to you personally and how you deal with things related to the state, unless you're in Faerun of course and than the Gods set moral behavior. Like I understand why poisons might be legal but as far as their moral aspect inregards to maintaing the soverignty of society it really would depend on how you use them. If I'm killing criminals with poisoned shurikens, than surely that's no more evil than killing them with unpoisoned shurikens, if I'm poisoning the water supply that perhaps might be a different story. I don't think "intended use" is taken into enough of an account in D&D. I believe this is done for simplicities seeing as how ethics has been around for well over 2000 years and we still haven't gotten all that far yet
Uller999
12-21-05, 11:27 PM IMO, the Law/Chaos axis boils down to how much you want rule and order imposed on other people.

Chaotic means that you think there should be no laws, everybody should be allowed to just do whatever they want, whenever they want.

Neutral means that you go with the flow, you follow the rules whenever you can, but you don't go out of your way to get others to do the same.

Lawful means that not only do you follow the rules, but that you try to get other people to follow the rules as well.

Just because you do not follow the law of the land does not make you Chaotic (a Paladin in a country where eating slave babies is considered perfectly acceptable is not going to turn Chaotic just because he refuses to say that its the right thing to do).

Yeah, I'd call Batman Lawful. Sure, he breaks the law, but he has a strong personal code, and is fighting to uphold the spirit of the law, if not the exact letter of it. He breaks and enters, he stalks, he assaults, but he commits these lesser crimes in the name of preventing larger ones.

Remember folks, Lawful Good != Lawful Stupid. Batman and Superman both are Lawful Good, they just have differant takes on what that means.

I disagree to a certain extent with your analysis of chaotic, obvious a chaotic good character wouldn't just do or advocate everone doing what they want to do whenever they want to do when they want to do it. I think its more an issue of how one views the legitimacy of society, for a example a chaotic good character would look at the state and say, as long as it doesn't oversee the rights of individual its fine but if it does it'd be tyranny, (this is extreme, think of a Millsian on crank) whilst chaotic evil would adovcate the do whatever you want when you want including stopping to smell the roses or to spikard the babies.
Edymnion
12-22-05, 01:40 AM Well, thats where the Good/Evil axis tempers the Law/Chaos axis.
Good is where the respect for other people and all around "lets not put babies on spikes" thing comes in. Chaotic Good would be the people you catch lounging in the park on a fine summer's day, right next to the "Keep off the Grass" sign. Chaotic Evil is where you get into the psychotic people that do whatever they want, and don't care who they hurt in the process.
Calibim
12-22-05, 09:55 AM Chaotic Evil is where you get into the psychotic people that do whatever they want, and don't care who they hurt in the process.

See you call that "psychotic"....I call it a weekend in Vegas :rimshot: :D

Seriously folks. Here’s the thing that causes such debate about alignment…it’s subjective! It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!!

So while those destitute denizens of the seedier side of Sharn would see your “Batman” character as a savoir, fighting crime and corruption and enforcing law in an area that The Watch can’t (or won’t) venture into, The Watch, as well as a certain grey haired, crew cut sporting, bristle brush mustache having Chief Editor of the ‘Sharn Inquisitive’ will see him as, and I quote, “A F :censored: ING MENANCE, who should be locked up with the rest of the riff-raff!!”

Ok…. I think I just mixed comic book worlds…..

That’s about as bad as “crossing the streams”……

…ok…. I’ll stop now….
Uller999
12-22-05, 12:53 PM See you call that "psychotic"....I call it a weekend in Vegas :rimshot: :D

Seriously folks. Here’s the thing that causes such debate about alignment…it’s subjective! It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!!

…ok…. I’ll stop now….

Granted determining objective morality isn't the easiest thing in the world but if its concretley subjective in the game than there shouldn't really be a game mechanic for it. I personally don't like alignment as I feel the 9 alignmentd aren't indicative of all moral positions. I just find the chaos/law axis particular hard to measure. I'm aware of what the PHB says but I don't know I just find such thigns unsatisifactory.
Edymnion
12-22-05, 11:41 PM It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!! Actually, that sort of thing is already in Eberron. The Sahuagin worship the Devourer as their patron protector and provider, despite him being an evil god. Why? Because all those ships he sinks out in the open sea go to the sea bottom, where the Sahuagin get to harvest the cargos and eat some man-flesh. Just because someone is evil does not mean they can't be a caring provider. It just means they don't mind doing horrible things in order to do it. And yeah, Magneto would definately be Lawful Evil. He has an honorable goal, to help out his race, but he's still evil because he doesn't care about hurting and killing humans to achieve it. Heck, Hitlor was Lawful Evil for essentially the same reasons. Sure, he was a horrible monster that did terrible things, but he was still looking out for his country and trying to right the injustices visited upon Germany (and the embargos on Germany after WWI really were exceedingly harsh).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Uller999 12-21-05, 12:55 PM	Right, so I do philosophy and I might be thusly overthinking this but...here's the deal. I was toying around with the idea of a kind of batman character. Basically, this changeling's family is ruined during the mourning, his parent's die in the thing as does everyone he knows, he moves to Sharn, sees the rampant corruption there, and the persecution of his people and decides to use the cities' shadows against it. So build wise I'm thinking monk, ninja. I rather like monks ( I know most everyone else hates them but oh well :rolleyes: ) and the idea of a monk/ninja just strikes me as being aestehticallly cool. Eventually I want the Character to level in Vigilante PrC. So my question is this, if I want to level as a vigilante, which seem out of the purview of the Lawful (I know it doesn't necessarily require you to be but it says vigilante right on the label) than does this mean I might have a lawful alignment problem? What about using things like poison (which I for one, and any DM I'd play with you agree that using poison isn't evil) which are outlawed, would using such items break the local law and thus violate any alignment descriptor even though I'd be fullfilling the spirit of the law which to establish order, protect the people, blah blah blah. So what do you guys think? is it possible to play a batman as lawful?
makeshiftwings 12-21-05, 01:12 PM	Basically this will come down to an argument of you trying to convince your DM what your view of "Lawful" is. No two people in the history of d&d have ever fully agreed on what any of the alignments really mean, so it will all be somewhat subjective. Personally, I don't use alignment in my games and haven't played with anyone who strongly enforced it in a while, but I think you could make a case that your character's "lawfulness" comes from following a strict internal code of conduct, being honorable, rigid, disciplined, unyielding in his beliefs, never wishy-washy, always likes to have a plan, methodical instead of spontaneous, uncomfortable around people who seem to act without thinking things through, etc. These are all traits of Law, and don't have anything at all to do with what particularly country or even what particular style of government your character would support. Clearly a Lawful Good character who travels to some country where the law is "Kill seven babies a day and feast on their flesh" isn't going to feel compelled to follow that law. In my opinion, a lawful character is completely within their rights to "fight the power" and even support anarchist utopian community as long as he is doing it because he legitimately believes in it, and he does it while remaining disciplined and true to his principles. I think in general, Lawful characters would be more likely to support custom and laws "just because", while Chaotic characters would be more likely to defy custom and flaunt the law "just because". But either alignment could do either if they felt a reason to.
Uller999 12-21-05, 01:32 PM	Yeah personally, when running games I don't strongly enforce alignment save for Paladins and clerics and only than its insofar as their religion is concerned. The logic I was going to go by was that the individual has several personal oaths and follows those explicityly and that his monk training in and of itself represents a discipline to which he rigidly adheres. So like the character is very concerned with the concept of justice and willing to go to any lengths to see justice done. Of course definitionally, justice is a sketcy thing but none the less that was the general tenor of things. Playing rival criminal gangs off of one another and so on. Infiltrate and destory, the joys of being a changeling PS: I just found out, that WoTC boards give you a nice shiny Tracking Cookie. Let that be a warning to the lot of you
Wolfwood2 12-21-05, 01:47 PM	So my question is this, if I want to level as a vigilante, which seem out of the purview of the Lawful (I know it doesn't necessarily require you to be but it says vigilante right on the label) than does this mean I might have a lawful alignment problem? What about using things like poison (which I for one, and any DM I'd play with you agree that using poison isn't evil) which are outlawed, would using such items break the local law and thus violate any alignment descriptor even though I'd be fullfilling the spirit of the law which to establish order, protect the people, blah blah blah. So what do you guys think? is it possible to play a batman as lawful? "Lawful" covers a lot of area. You might trying the "respect for traditions" route. Have your character always consulting ancient scrolls of wisdom, researching how situations were handled in the past, and finding ways to use the law to your advantage. I think it's possible to have a lawful vigilante, but there has to be a certain self-awareness to the character. He should be able to answer (if only to himself) the questions: Why am I doing this? What, specfically, am I trying to accomplish by stepping outside the law? Is there some outside indicator, other than my own sense of satisfaction, that I can use to see if I'm accomplishing my goals? As for poison... What type of posion and under what circumstances?
DragonWatcher 12-21-05, 01:55 PM	"lawfulness" comes from following a strict internal code of conduct, being honorable, rigid, disciplined, unyielding in his beliefs, never wishy-washy, always likes to have a plan, methodical instead of spontaneous, uncomfortable around people who seem to act without thinking things through, etc. These are all traits of Law, and don't have anything at all to do with what particularly country or even what particular style of government your character would support. Clearly a Lawful Good character who travels to some country where the law is "Kill seven babies a day and feast on their flesh" isn't going to feel compelled to follow that law. I have chimed in on this before, so this may be redundant to some of you, but I fully agree with this part of Makeshiftwings' statement. Lawful was a bad choice of term for this aspect of alignment WAY back in the day, but since the Alignment system as-is, seems to be one of the sacred cows of D&D now, we're stuck with it. I believe that just as Good is the opposite of Evil, Lawful (in this context) is supposed to be the opposite of Chaos... and not necessarily meaning one who follows some national codified laws. While a lawful character is certainly more likely to follow codified laws in general, they do so only because such laws are an orderly and well-defined system for living, and they will only follow them insofar as they do not conflict with the character's personal code of beliefs and routine. I (personally) feel that Batman (at least the Batman portrayed in the Dark Knight comics) is a perfect example of how a Lawful Evil character can be a hero. In many incarnations, Batman was all about revenge, using violence to try to satisfy his selfish need for payback for what happened to his family. He may have believed that he was doing this for the greater good of Gotham, but his methods were anything but selfless. He hid his identity, and was not above killing those that he felt were a danger. While ultimately he was protecting the innocents, he was definitely breaking laws and committing many crimes to do so. Though he was in no way Chaotic. Back on point, yes... I believe that you can play a Lawful character that has a passing concern (if that) for actual societal laws.
Edymnion 12-21-05, 02:04 PM	IMO, the Law/Chaos axis boils down to how much you want rule and order imposed on other people. Chaotic means that you think there should be no laws, everybody should be allowed to just do whatever they want, whenever they want. Neutral means that you go with the flow, you follow the rules whenever you can, but you don't go out of your way to get others to do the same. Lawful means that not only do you follow the rules, but that you try to get other people to follow the rules as well. Just because you do not follow the law of the land does not make you Chaotic (a Paladin in a country where eating slave babies is considered perfectly acceptable is not going to turn Chaotic just because he refuses to say that its the right thing to do). Yeah, I'd call Batman Lawful. Sure, he breaks the law, but he has a strong personal code, and is fighting to uphold the spirit of the law, if not the exact letter of it. He breaks and enters, he stalks, he assaults, but he commits these lesser crimes in the name of preventing larger ones. Remember folks, Lawful Good != Lawful Stupid. Batman and Superman both are Lawful Good, they just have differant takes on what that means.
Uller999 12-21-05, 10:33 PM	The Poison thing I don't really see as mattering. It is it really more morally dangerous to society or to one's pesonal ethos to stick someone with a poisoned blade or cut-them in two with a greatsword. Magical evil I can possibly see as having some external moral superveniance since they involve mystical energies whose "ethical" standpoint are morally arbitrary. I personally don't understand why Animate Dead is bad in and of itself. What if I was taking the bevie of zombies and skeletons off the battlefield to their graves, it sure would save me a lot of grief as well as keep my people from being at risk of disease and protect the dead from thieves to a stronger extent and yet doing that is evil. I'm not arguing for culturalism relativism or anything but I think there are really two gradients for alignment, how you deal with things related to you personally and how you deal with things related to the state, unless you're in Faerun of course and than the Gods set moral behavior. Like I understand why poisons might be legal but as far as their moral aspect inregards to maintaing the soverignty of society it really would depend on how you use them. If I'm killing criminals with poisoned shurikens, than surely that's no more evil than killing them with unpoisoned shurikens, if I'm poisoning the water supply that perhaps might be a different story. I don't think "intended use" is taken into enough of an account in D&D. I believe this is done for simplicities seeing as how ethics has been around for well over 2000 years and we still haven't gotten all that far yet
Uller999 12-21-05, 11:27 PM	IMO, the Law/Chaos axis boils down to how much you want rule and order imposed on other people. Chaotic means that you think there should be no laws, everybody should be allowed to just do whatever they want, whenever they want. Neutral means that you go with the flow, you follow the rules whenever you can, but you don't go out of your way to get others to do the same. Lawful means that not only do you follow the rules, but that you try to get other people to follow the rules as well. Just because you do not follow the law of the land does not make you Chaotic (a Paladin in a country where eating slave babies is considered perfectly acceptable is not going to turn Chaotic just because he refuses to say that its the right thing to do). Yeah, I'd call Batman Lawful. Sure, he breaks the law, but he has a strong personal code, and is fighting to uphold the spirit of the law, if not the exact letter of it. He breaks and enters, he stalks, he assaults, but he commits these lesser crimes in the name of preventing larger ones. Remember folks, Lawful Good != Lawful Stupid. Batman and Superman both are Lawful Good, they just have differant takes on what that means. I disagree to a certain extent with your analysis of chaotic, obvious a chaotic good character wouldn't just do or advocate everone doing what they want to do whenever they want to do when they want to do it. I think its more an issue of how one views the legitimacy of society, for a example a chaotic good character would look at the state and say, as long as it doesn't oversee the rights of individual its fine but if it does it'd be tyranny, (this is extreme, think of a Millsian on crank) whilst chaotic evil would adovcate the do whatever you want when you want including stopping to smell the roses or to spikard the babies.
Edymnion 12-22-05, 01:40 AM	Well, thats where the Good/Evil axis tempers the Law/Chaos axis. Good is where the respect for other people and all around "lets not put babies on spikes" thing comes in. Chaotic Good would be the people you catch lounging in the park on a fine summer's day, right next to the "Keep off the Grass" sign. Chaotic Evil is where you get into the psychotic people that do whatever they want, and don't care who they hurt in the process.
Calibim 12-22-05, 09:55 AM	Chaotic Evil is where you get into the psychotic people that do whatever they want, and don't care who they hurt in the process. See you call that "psychotic"....I call it a weekend in Vegas :rimshot: :D Seriously folks. Here’s the thing that causes such debate about alignment…it’s subjective! It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!! So while those destitute denizens of the seedier side of Sharn would see your “Batman” character as a savoir, fighting crime and corruption and enforcing law in an area that The Watch can’t (or won’t) venture into, The Watch, as well as a certain grey haired, crew cut sporting, bristle brush mustache having Chief Editor of the ‘Sharn Inquisitive’ will see him as, and I quote, “A F :censored: ING MENANCE, who should be locked up with the rest of the riff-raff!!” Ok…. I think I just mixed comic book worlds….. That’s about as bad as “crossing the streams”…… …ok…. I’ll stop now….
Uller999 12-22-05, 12:53 PM	See you call that "psychotic"....I call it a weekend in Vegas :rimshot: :D Seriously folks. Here’s the thing that causes such debate about alignment…it’s subjective! It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!! …ok…. I’ll stop now…. Granted determining objective morality isn't the easiest thing in the world but if its concretley subjective in the game than there shouldn't really be a game mechanic for it. I personally don't like alignment as I feel the 9 alignmentd aren't indicative of all moral positions. I just find the chaos/law axis particular hard to measure. I'm aware of what the PHB says but I don't know I just find such thigns unsatisifactory.
Edymnion 12-22-05, 11:41 PM	It depends on who is observing the action. I’ll use Marvel’s Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a. “Magneto” as an example. In DnD terms he would be seen as “Lawful Evil”, however if you ask the mutants of Genosha they would say he is a saint! He is the one looking out for them, helping them. So what if he sticks it to the flatscans (i.e. normal humans), they deserve it, what with they way they prosecute mutants!!! Actually, that sort of thing is already in Eberron. The Sahuagin worship the Devourer as their patron protector and provider, despite him being an evil god. Why? Because all those ships he sinks out in the open sea go to the sea bottom, where the Sahuagin get to harvest the cargos and eat some man-flesh. Just because someone is evil does not mean they can't be a caring provider. It just means they don't mind doing horrible things in order to do it. And yeah, Magneto would definately be Lawful Evil. He has an honorable goal, to help out his race, but he's still evil because he doesn't care about hurting and killing humans to achieve it. Heck, Hitlor was Lawful Evil for essentially the same reasons. Sure, he was a horrible monster that did terrible things, but he was still looking out for his country and trying to right the injustices visited upon Germany (and the embargos on Germany after WWI really were exceedingly harsh).