How common or uncommon is it for players to choose to play Lawful Good because they want to as opposed to have to? In 3E or earlier, you play Lawful Good because you want to play a paladin or a cleric of a particular deity. 4E doesn't have class alignment restrictions. How often is Lawful Good chosen because the player really wants to be?
I have seen it happen 2 1/2 times, not counting myself. The first time was 20 years ago in 2E where a player chose to play a Lawful Good fighter. The second time was about 5 years ago when I was temporarily in a group with a Lawful Good wizard. The 1/2 is a private joke, where as the Fighter in my group is Lawful Good yet the player doesn't realize how Lawful he's playing his character insisting he's Neutral Good, but that's a different topic.
I'm not a 4E player, but I am curious how often is Lawful Good played in 4E and not because the DM forced it with "Good Only Campaign" and the player is not playing the paladin or cleric with alignment legacy issues. Even if you're playing an earlier D&D edition I'm still curious.
All in all though, I've known quite a few people who want to play Lawful Good, because they enjoy it.Technically (I am not sure how many DMs and players follow this) you are supposed to pick a diety that compatible with your alignment as your character if you are playing a cleric. So no good clerics who serve evil, chaotic evil, unaligned, or lawful good dieties, but unaligned clerics can serve any diety. I think it is silly that Lawful good clerics can't serve good dieties while unaligned clerics can, but them's the rules.
If the game has no LG alignment, then it's going to be as close as possible to it.
He likes to play truely heroic characters. Was fun to see his LG barbarian running around.
Myself, I always liked the NG alignement, where heroes do not abibe to strict laws but rather a strict morale.
I think a lot of it has to do with youth culture, which most hobbies are tied to even for the older generations. There's also the natural vigilante nature of most parties - by being adventurers already you typically take the law into your own hands. Some players might be afraid of getting penalized if they dare to roleplay a Lawful Good character as anything less than a saint. And lastly, I've seen a few loud personalities on forums like this one declare ideas of honor and mercy as "stupid" and put down Lawful Good alignments as a crutch that keeps the party from doing anything necessary to stop evil.
I'm big on teamwork, so the whole 'let's work together like civilized beings' aspect appeals to me. I play characters who are responsible and dependable and trustworthy, so there we go. Not big on 'scoundrels'.
I just felt like mentioning that because I had several LG players in those earlier editions even though it wasn't required for them. In 4e, like I said I don't actually know what alignment they chose. There were two that appeared good, but I don't think either would count as LG. I also started a new 4e future campaign, and while it's too early to really tell how the characters are developing, I'm pretty sure at least one of them is good and might even become LG.
If the chracter supports the growth of their village into a city-state, or the orderly expansion of some arcane order's influence, or the triumph of a (presumably just) hierarchical ruler over monsters and adversaries expanding the royal domain, there's a good argument he/she should be lawful.
If the character questions authority, bucks convention, prefers to be a loner, enjoys wandering, or values independence from courtly constraints and bureaucracies, it probably doesn't make any sense to call your character lawful.
Even if your character is just undecided, if they don't have a definite pro-civilization or pro-particular-order mission, it may make sense to just call them Good (or whatever).
When I DM I leave things pretty loose in regard to alignment. Specifics of character motivations and actions are more important in driving the story.
1) A 1e paladin many many years ago. Yes, I know, as a 1e paladin you could argue that I didn't really choose this.... But I wanted to play LG . So, yes, I DID choose LG. Infact I chose the alignment first & then built the character around it. Turns out what I wrote up was very paladin like.
2) I play a LG Roman fighter in a long running 1e game at GenCon every year. He's an ex-legionaire. He comes from a generally lawfull society. I have great difficulty imagining as anything but Lawfull.
And there's no doubt that he's Good.
But he's nowhere near being the stupid-good so many think of when you say LG.
3) I played a LG Ramadeen warrior for awhile in one of our ongoing 3.5 games. It was a perfect fit for the story/world we have going. (wich was why I chose it....)
4) My eladrin swordmage in our Thur night 4e game is LG. I could have played any alignment. But in writing him up I realized that the best fit for what I'd written was LG. (kinda the oppiste of how I made that paladin)
Back in 1 & 2e it wasn't that uncommon to see LG characters in games I either ran or played. Much more common than any sort of evil.
When I returned to D&D midway through 3.5 though I'd found that things had changed. And no, not for the better.
Now? Neutrals & Unaligned are the most prevalent. Evil is accepted. And those playing good often do only the min. to claim that. LG? An endangered species.
Worse is the attitude that alignment doesn't matter.
I think it's interesting to RP how such an upright and regulated character interacts with the typical unaligned LFR hack and slasher. He's often the only one advocating the strictly lawful alternative, which creates some interesting RP, and he often sways the party to take measures that they nromally would not. As can be expectied in a coopertative game, has to comprimise his ideals occasionally for the good of the group. When that happens, it's just as much fun to RP his passive aggressive resentment and lingering guilt.
An example...which actually involves my PC being the neutral party. The plot is a little hazy as it was a few years ago, but the basic gist was we were working with a military group who needed us to kidnap either the Tyrant Baron or his commander/someone else who was close to him. Basically, he was an LE guy who since he hadn't actually broken laws couldn't be publically touched by the military, so the Pc's were needed. I was playing a LN monk...who had qualms about the whole thing, but ultimately felt that obeying the military was still lawful. The other Pc's ended up drawing the guards away by setting a small fire to the grounds and then sneaking into the building during the chaos...which is where my character ended up drawing the line. In hindsight, I was probably just being too narrowminded and taking the whole "alignment is god" stance but *shrugs* I dunno...it just seems like Lawful always ends up being a bit...restrictive.
I've been playing without alignment for awhile now...in 3.5 we tweaked the system a bit so it was a "morality system" vaguely similar to VTM's humanity system...or pretty much an exact copy of the Light/Dark side system in Starwars. 4e though doesn't have specific spells/items/feats that require specific alignments though so it can be taken out.
That said, I'm not averse to the opposite ends of the spectrum (Though I do tend to scare a couple of my friends when I play evil. They don't expect it and I unnerve them ).
I like lawful good for heroic adventures, and it is fun to play an over-the-top do-gooder for fun. But in general I prefer unaligned or neutral characters precisely because it makes it harder for the DM or other players to try to tell me how I should play my character.
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
Well, I'm lucky enough to have a mature group that strays away from the chaotic stupid line of acting or puppykicking evil. Even when we did have alignments though, people normally went chaotic good/neutral good so *shrugs* that's probably how I'd generally classify them.
He is a LG paladin and I also truly play him like that (eventhough he was betrayed by the law once because of corruption) but I find it great fun. In RL I am kindoff a goodie two shoes too so RPing that is pretty easy for me and it creates some more dynamics in the homecampaign I play him in. Simply because I am lawful stupid and the rest of the party is neutral at best.
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
What makes you think there are no consequences for actions just because there's no alignment?
I know I am hesitant to play LG specifically because of many DM styles. I have DM's who don't care one way or another for alignment, except LG. Because, "you know, its LG". You have to be held to a higher standard, you have to be tested, you have to resist temptation to fall at every turn, ect.
Its rare to find a DM that will simply let you play a guy who is generally good, and also appreciates just laws.
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
Not really a loaded question. Like I said, I pretty much did away with alignment. I don't want to see or hear a character's alignment and it has no in game effect, although players are free to choose one as a guide for their RP (which is really what it should be IMO, a guide and nothing more). At first I was worried about what you said about not having any consequences, and I started to see a little of that (and one player specifically said something along those lines). Then I thought back and realized that these guys doing this were the same guys that played evil or neutral characters in the past so that they could do whatever they wanted. So really, nothing changed.
On the other hand, players that had played lawful, good, or lawful good characters in the past still acted good or lawful. They didn't start running wild killing peasants just because they were no longer burdened by alignments that they had chosen to play. And if they had, well there's always in game consequences. If the PCs want to be the bad guys, they better be prepared for the heroes to come knocking.
One player in my group (the paladin) is lawful good, though we had an instance in Winterhaven (from KotS) where he got drunk and unruly and tried to have his way with Salvana Wrafton. It was really funny when I had him roll a strength check against her reflex (using stats from MM for Human Rabble) and he critically missed, so she knocked him out and threw him out on the stoop. Then the zombies came.
Basically, he's a perfectly good paladin, at least until he gets his liquor.
Basically, he's a perfectly good paladin, at least until he gets his liquor.
Clearly he aint a Dwarf. They can hold their liquor. Eventhough when the other dwarf player in our home campaign was absent for a session we joked she was present in the boat with us but knocked out from too much booze....
Anyways, the rogue himself is certainly pretty lawful good, although he does occasionally slip up -- like the one time when he lied to an old lady so he wouldn't have to give her back a Feather Fall charm that had been stolen from her by a bad guy the party later killed but had promised her they'd find and retrieve. (They were in Sharn, chasing a changeling who had just been uncovered. While running from the players the changeling robbed a rich old lady, grabbed her Feather Fall charm, and jumped off a tower, escaping. They later hooked up with some Tharashk bounty hunters, and asked them to find the lady again with the idea of having the Tharashk guys cast Locate Object on the Feather Fall charm to locate the escaped changeling, but by the time the Tharashk bounty hunter found the lady they'd already caught the changeling through other means and had the Feather Fall charm on their possesion and the rogue lied through his teeth to her to not have the Tharashk's Locate Object reveal it was in this very room. Was quite a funny scene. In his defense, the lady was a total bitch about the whole thing going so far as to accuse the players for the changeling's actions because they were chasing him.)
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
Why does it come to you're either Lawful Good, or just doing whatever you want anyway? I know 4e removed some alignments, but I was under the impression it was more then just Lawful Good or Chaotic Douchebag
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
What makes you think there are no consequences for actions just because there's no alignment?
It's not a question of there aren't any consequences for action by DM playing the NPCs but rather the players are relieved of feeling guilty.
I know I am hesitant to play LG specifically because of many DM styles. I have DM's who don't care one way or another for alignment, except LG. Because, "you know, its LG". You have to be held to a higher standard, you have to be tested, you have to resist temptation to fall at every turn, ect.
Its rare to find a DM that will simply let you play a guy who is generally good, and also appreciates just laws.
Ah, very good counterpoint. It is indeed a problem to play Lawful Good when the DM "doesn't get" what it means to be Lawful Good. I'm reminded of playing a 2E Lawful Good Fighter in a game where the DM equated Lawful Good to pansy. Not fun.
Alright, so you've taken alignment out of your game (colloquial "your", not anyone in particular). How many players choose to behave in what would have been Lawful Good behavior anyway? Loaded question: Or has the removal of alignment unburdened your players from feeling "guilty" for not behaving in a Lawful Good way, i.e. no consequences so they can do whatever they want.
Why does it come to you're either Lawful Good, or just doing whatever you want anyway? I know 4e removed some alignments, but I was under the impression it was more then just Lawful Good or Chaotic Douchebag
In my experience it's always been Lawful Good that has issues. Players freely play Chaotic Good with any non-Paladin class or 3E monk. They get to be the good guys yet still have "wild fun". Neutral Good was for those players who wanted to be good guys but less inclined to be "wild". Players didn't have issues with being the Good guy heroes. It was only Lawful Good that had the baggage of burdens such as can't do anything fun, must play with stick up butt, or actually believed "gullible" is not in the dictionary.
One player in my group (the paladin) is lawful good, though we had an instance in Winterhaven (from KotS) where he got drunk and unruly and tried to **** Salvana Wrafton.
Fixed.
Basically, he's a perfectly good paladin, at least until he gets his liquor.
This is why this thread is even more academic than most; when people are capable of saying 'He's lawful good if you don't count the drunken sexual assault', you're going to get a lot of false positives.
As for my response, I mostly DM. I don't get to play much. Next campaign, though, I get to be a character, and I'll be fairly Neutral with some Chaotic Good leanings. I've been itching to play someone roguish for years. After that's out of my system, though, I'll be rolling up someone with a personality based on Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and I submit to you that there is no character more Lawful Good than he.
ETA:
MrCelsius
Killing alignment threads dead since 2003.