In my gaming experience, people rarely - if ever - play a character with lawful good alignment unless they're playing a paladin. Furthermore, those players who do come up with a character they envision as lawful good end up gravitating toward paladins anyway - as if to say that if they're going to be lawful good, they might as well be a paladin and enjoy all the benefits that paladinhood brings.
Is this true for anyone else, or perhaps this is just a theme common to my gaming groups?
I've played in parties with LG monks, an LG wizard, an LG fighter who just wasn't good enough to be a paladin... It's common enough when people don't consider the having an alignment swung toward those two axes to be a detriment to roleplaying.
If you want to play a good monk, it has to be LG. Personally, unless I am playing a class that has to be LG, I am usually going to play NG for good characters. I believe if PF had a more detailed list of deities for the system, that had more flavor, like the old Greyhawk pantheon, that more players may play characters that followed a specific LG deity, especially clerics. I guess the general consensus was that was too restrictive.
I've played with several people actually. I know a few people who have an affinity that they'll only play lawful goody two shoes.
On the other hand, I hate being tied to that. You can get away with much more and you aren't questioned about things when your neutral or chaotic. I'm never too good of a bad guy, but if I'm good its hard to go a few days without being questioned. The other day someone questoined my brother becuase he left people alive. Obvoiusly that was being a bad person and he should fall for it.
All dwarves are lawful good. (This is just common knowledge.)
All dwarves are lawful good. (This is just common knowledge.)
Usually the grumpiest lawful good you have ever seen, too.
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All dwarves are lawful good. (This is just common knowledge.)
Its the beards. All my dwarves have beards. They look down upon the chaotic dwarves and their lack of a well kept beard. So almost all my dwarves have beards and are lawful.
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I'm playing a LG samurai right now. He started off as LN tending slightly towards LE but after several years adventuring he has developed a profound respect for the common people and fights unapologetically on their behalf. Fortunately his LN feudal lord has a grudging respect for his refined sense of compassion and allows the samurai a little bit more freedom to interpret his orders provided he always remain loyal to the clan.
I default to playing LG unless I have a specific reason to play something else. I like playing people who are heroes and work within the rules.
Of course, some characters insist on being other things, but the default is LG even if I'm not a paladin.
I have played a lawful good monk and a lawful good knight, both in 3.5 days. Most of my characters are chaotic good or neutral good. LG isn't terrible though. You're still playing a personality, and not a list of alignment traits. LG is seen as such a terrible alignment because LG supposedly means you have to be an ass hat, but thats just lack of imagination. I should add though, that two LG characters mentioned above each had one or more annoying or aggravatin traits. :)
Most dwarven characters seem to bend towards the chaotic good drunken berzerker types....
Which explains why they're out adventuring...
The lawful alignment is problematic for adventurers. The law and society exist largely for the benefit of the people in charge of that society, and unless you're playing kingmaker that ain't the pcs. You can't rifle through someone's inn for evidence that they're a thief, you can't break into Duke Goatee's castle to look for evidence that he's really the necromancer, and you can't run around beheading every slaver you meet or even play Harriet tubman with the halflings.
In short, the law tends to get in the way of doing the right thing and having a good time when the genre focuses on the need for rationales of small bands of adventurers to be the heroes instead of a king at the head of his army.
So your lawful good without high morals or being of excellent morality?(Thats the definition of noble I know anyway.)
So your lawful good without high morals or being of excellent morality?(Thats the definition of noble I know anyway.)
Not everyone defines noble that way. ;-)
I played in a agme where the characters were all members of a Lawful Good Order. But we were not all Paladins. The party included a Cleric, Fighter, Wizard, and a Paladin. It was a fun game.
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I actually play Lawful Good as often as any other alignment (Chaotic Evil is likely my least played, simply due to their difficulty in staying with a party.)
In PFS alone I currently play not only a Paladin but also a Lawful Good Bard and a Lawful Good Cleric. All three fall under the LG alignment and they are each fun to play.
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So your lawful good without high morals or being of excellent morality?(Thats the definition of noble I know anyway.)
He's a drunk. Low charisma- because he drinks so much. He is loyal to a fault and is utterly dedicated to helping those around him. He follows the laws and customs of people when he can and has is loathe to bring harm to others, often desiring to offer them an opportunity to surrender first. He even deals non-lethal damage if he can.
He's lawful good.
But until you got to know him, you'd think he was a loud, obnoxious drunk with no sense of values. Sure, he has none towards himself (part of why he drinks) but he sees the value in others which is why he works to hard to keep them safe from harm.
Does he still need high morals and to have 'excellent morality' by your definition?
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I've played a LG fighter, member of some crusade. It was a lot of fun, claiming religious authority to boss people around and drag people before religious tribunals. He wasn't as strictly LG as a paladin (a few questionable acts here and there), but in general he was LG and pretty clear about it. I had a blast.
But I find myself tending away from LG characters because they tend to be more closely involved with authorities; my CG characters focus on personal responsibility. It's a difference (for me) between passing things up the chain of command and asking for orders on how to proceed, vs. deciding with your own best conscience.
It can be fun working for some organization, especially if the whole party at least nominally supports it, but on the other hand, I've grown to resent being the one PC with a tight organization while the rest is free to prance about.
I default to playing LG unless I have a specific reason to play something else. I like playing people who are heroes and work within the rules.
Of course, some characters insist on being other things, but the default is LG even if I'm not a paladin.
Same here.
I've played with gaming groups that tend towards chaotic characters and groups that tend towards lawful characters. I enjoy variety but I have found over time that I do poorly at lawful characters (and also at evil characters) so I usually play neutral good, chaotic good or true neutral.
Wow, very interesting responses! I guess it's just my group then that shies away from LG characters.
LG is seen as such a terrible alignment because LG supposedly means you have to be an ass hat, but thats just lack of imagination.
+100
Most people you know and like, in the real world, tend toward Lawful Good. They generally obey just laws and customs and treat people with respect, and barring that, at least don't try to steal from, pickpocket, or throw down with the first (or second)person/shopkeeper/drunk they meet everyday. They don't start bar room brawls as a matter of course on every night out.
And most of those people you know and like are not asshats.
I think playing LG correctly, is one of the most challenging roleplay options, and also one of the most rewarding when done right. Anyone can play Chaotic Neutral, right?
I can think of a couple examples of fantasy literature that are great examples of Lawful Goods. Sturm Brightblade of the Dragonlance novels is one heroic example. And how about Roy Greenhilt, from Order of the Stick, the LG fighter, that apparently did not have the charisma to be a paladin? In each case, the choices that a LG character has to deal with, are more difficult than those of their companions, in most cases. However, by overcoming those obstacles, and staying true to their beliefs, in my opinion it makes them that much more heroic when they succeed.
Some may measure success in the game by how much treasure they amass, how much DPR they achieve, or some other more measurable method. I think the most successful are those that strive to attain goals that force them to follow the straight and narrow path.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I play a LG cleric of Iomedae in PFS. Fairly commonly, people mistakenly refer to him as a paladin (i.e., "someone distract the paladin while we 'interrogate' this guy").
The general vibe I get in my area is that instead of having the classic 9 alignments, there are instead about 4 alignments:
• Paladin
• Hellknight
• Too cool for rules
• Smite target
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im sick of playing with chaotic neutral players tbh
LG has so many more benefits if you play it correctly, i remember getting past a whole 10 man fight with a diplomacy check and i didnt even kill anyone, and still got full XP for the encounter
CN is more for the people who dont care about RP and want to kill everything that moves and steal everything
as far as im concerned if you're gonna be CN, you're basically already CE
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im sick of playing with chaotic neutral players tbh
LG has so many more benefits if you play it correctly, i remember getting past a whole 10 man fight with a diplomacy check and i didnt even kill anyone, and still got full XP for the encounter
CN is more for the people who dont care about RP and want to kill everything that moves and steal everything
as far as im concerned if you're gonna be CN, you're basically already CE
The thing about CN is it works both ways. Yes it can be the alignment for those that just want to do whatever they want and at the same time it can be used to have the most complex characters out there.
The thing about CN is it works both ways. Yes it can be the alignment for those that just want to do whatever they want and at the same time it can be used to have the most complex characters out there.im sick of playing with chaotic neutral players tbh
LG has so many more benefits if you play it correctly, i remember getting past a whole 10 man fight with a diplomacy check and i didnt even kill anyone, and still got full XP for the encounter
CN is more for the people who dont care about RP and want to kill everything that moves and steal everything
as far as im concerned if you're gonna be CN, you're basically already CE
true, but im not used to seeing it played that way
most times i see players do it just so they can troll the DM and not have their character taken away for being too evili should mention that in our games if a character goes evil enough the DM turns him into an NPC and that character becomes a bad guy that we have to fight, sometimes recurringly, i cant tell you how many times ive killed dave.....
My last two PCs that I played to the end of the campaign were both LG.
In a homebrew game that started in 3.0 and switched to 3.5 when that came out, I played a LG human fighter/sorcerer/eldritch knight. He was heroic, regularly risking his own life to help others, but had a very sardonic sense of humor. Of course, he was also very much a ladies' man, and rarely slept alone. (Nothing non-LG about that, as long as the women are treated with kindness & respect!)
Another LG PC was a single-class fighter (okay, he had 1 level of aristocrat NPC class). He was a minor nobleman whose father had bankrupted the barony, and was on a quest to regain the trust of his people and restore the good name of his family. He was also a ruthless badass, who used a redeemed bastard sword that had been forged in the Abyss.
im sick of playing with chaotic neutral players tbh ...
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CN is more for the people who dont care about RP and want to kill everything that moves and steal everythingas far as im concerned if you're gonna be CN, you're basically already CE
Yeah, that is my general sentiment, especially with "experienced" players that want to be evil, but know that they could not fit into the party that way.
An expression one of my old groups coined for CN is "Chaotic Psychotic". They can justify anything they do, by just having a mood swing.
im sick of playing with chaotic neutral players tbh ...
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CN is more for the people who dont care about RP and want to kill everything that moves and steal everythingas far as im concerned if you're gonna be CN, you're basically already CE
Yeah, that is my general sentiment, especially with "experienced" players that want to be evil, but know that they could not fit into the party that way.
An expression one of my old groups coined for CN is "Chaotic Psychotic". They can justify anything they do, by just having a mood swing.
ive also heard chaotic convenient
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ive also heard chaotic convenient
Going to have to steal that from you, without giving you credit. (A highly CN action).
Does he still need high morals and to have 'excellent morality' by your definition?
He sounds noble to me actually. You aren't required to be fancy or anything to be noble. Thats another use of the word, but he is truly a noble dwarf.(though my mental image involves lots of beer and a bar)
You have to be careful when you start hating on alignments btw. Its not always the evil players or chaotic players that start trouble, sometimes its the immaturity of the people around them. You can be chaotic and stay out of trouble, and you can play evil without burning an orphanage. Chaotic Crazys and Stupid Evil archetypes are the least of my problem. Its those players who think your out to mess with them and start to act out on it. Bad feelings are bad.
I loved my LG Life Oracle.
Intriguing. BTW, he's a human MrSin. ^_^
A very well disguised one... Maybe I'm just racist towards dwarves. I'm sorry dwarves! I didn't mean to call everyone who's drunk a dwarf! I'm sure tall people get drunk too.
I mostly play Chaotic Neutral or True Neutral simply because I don't like all the standards and tropes that come with playing in the Lawful or Good Paradigm (or any sort of evil for that matter). They basically allow me to just play the game without having to deal with moral or philosophical arguments.
Edit: At the OP, no you don't have to be Lawful Good to be a Paladin. In my experience, those who play LG tend to just play Paladins anyway as your getting more for a character concept you where going to play anyway.
Lawful Good is a fine alignment. One need not fulfill the bright and shiny paladin archetype in order to be lawful good.
My dwarven cleric of Torag is lawful good. He's plenty cynical and sarcastic, even appearing lazy because he is rarely moved to quick action, preferring to smoke his pipe and consider all options. Yet, he's got a heart of gold, and is generous with his attention when the situation calls for it. He'll even bend the law when it's necessary "for the greater good, hmph!"
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People can rally behind the LG banner of the Common Good. Large groups of people will be willing to cooperate for a just and safe society. LG can motivate people (Good) and get them working together in an efficient and reliable way (Lawful). That's very strong.
So while playing a Chaotic character has the advantage of having no restrictions, LG characters tend to be in accord with "The System".
I think a nice take on this is the show White Collar; Peter Burke is a smart, professional LG FBI agent, while Neal Caffrey is more like a suave master-forger/art-lover posterboy for CN.
While Peter looks a bit stiff compared to Neal, he's actually much more powerful and influential, because he's working with The System, and he's got a lot of loyal allies.
Interestingly, they both seem to slowly shift a bit in alignment during the series; Peter becomes more willing to bend laws a bit to advance justice (drifting towards NG), while Neal finds that he does enjoy being the good guy, although he still wants his freedom (drifting towards CG).
Go watch it. It's a nice show :)
Because no one ever loves a good revolutionary right?
With Ascalaphus, White Collar is a great example of how to play the LG,NG,CG,CN alignments. Niel is the true CN rogue.
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I've played characters of every good alignment and CN, and I think one of my CN characters might have properly been TN by the end of the campaign (and another might have gone CE after the antipaladin convinced her to kill some random guards on a bet). I've also played alongside characters of every alignment including the evil ones.
From my experience, it's just as challenging and just as rewarding to play a realistic and believable CN as it is to play a LG character who isn't an asshat or a superman clone. The good characters may get tricky moral dilemmas, but they also get easy motivation - they want to help people. The neutral alignments need to be personally engaged, or offered a reward.
And CG characters can get into just as many moral dilemmas as LG ones:
Do I encourage the slave rebellion that will likely fail and cost many lives?
Do I trust the villain who says he's looking for redemption?
Do I save my loved one or the innocent child?
Does he still need high morals and to have 'excellent morality' by your definition?He sounds noble to me actually. You aren't required to be fancy or anything to be noble. Thats another use of the word, but he is truly a noble dwarf.(though my mental image involves lots of beer and a bar
The multiple interpretations of the word "noble" can be confusing in these cases. I've seen at least four versions: acting in a morally correct manner (though possibly out of enlightened self-interest), acting truly altruistically, acing gentlemanly, and having a title of nobility.
Plenty of good characters aren't gentlemanly and lack titles, and some may not act out of altruism (I've had at least one character feel her good deeds were essentially selfish), but I'd have a hard time imagining a good character who wasn't noble in the sense of "acting in a morally correct manner."
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Well, Weirdo, I agree. I don't think of my character (and neither does he) as 'noble'. It seems an inappropriate word to describe him. But he's good- he's interested in helping others, and the welfare of others beyond himself. He's also lawful on many levels: he respects the law of the land as he understands it, even if not the letter, he respects authority, believes in and promotes hierarchy (he's a simply bodyguard) and despite being a drunken, possibly lazy and quite loud mouthed spark of alcohol fueled fire, he's self disciplined in training, action and belief. His fault, alcohol, is due to low self esteem (adopted by halflings caused him to be the object of many jokes once in human lands). So yeah, he drinks away his pain. He gets a little loud, a bit too obnoxious but he's sincerely dedicated to helping others and following a code of conduct or ethics (which have nothing to do with alcohol, thankfully).
That's the beauty of alignment, there is room for quite a lot of personalities within an alignment definition. Again, people tend to think alignment defines the character when it is just a tool to help flesh them out. If anything, alignment is a starting point or capstone to me in character creation. But it's not the definition. I think that some people lose sight of that, maybe.
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I've played a lawful good monk who really clashed with the party rogue/marshal who was trying to do the morally questionable thing of gaining influence at the expense of a few poor bastards. Also currently playing a lawful good kickboxer who is in a group of non lawful individuals. Not even sure any of them are good aligned aside from maybe the reformed fighter. It can set up some really awkward situations for the party and the lawful good character in question. One such situation arose recently when a duel went very wrong. Lets just say that everyone in the group who could spit in the face of honour and lawful conduct did just that. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get to finish the duel since it was really close but the opponent was pulling ahead. I've also seen lawful good rogues. Agents of the crown and all that played really well. Patriotic individuals infiltrating enemy lines of the neighbouring plotting empire and all that. Lawful good can be flavourful in many ways but it is also potentially the most difficult to play at times. Depends on the group mechanic I suppose.
In my gaming experience, people rarely - if ever - play a character with lawful good alignment unless they're playing a paladin. Furthermore, those players who do come up with a character they envision as lawful good end up gravitating toward paladins anyway - as if to say that if they're going to be lawful good, they might as well be a paladin and enjoy all the benefits that paladinhood brings.
Is this true for anyone else, or perhaps this is just a theme common to my gaming groups?
I've played a lawful good warmage, seen lg monks.
I've played a lawful good monk who really clashed with the party rogue/marshal who was trying to do the morally questionable thing of gaining influence at the expense of a few poor bastards. Also currently playing a lawful good kickboxer who is in a group of non lawful individuals. Not even sure any of them are good aligned aside from maybe the reformed fighter. It can set up some really awkward situations for the party and the lawful good character in question. One such situation arose recently when a duel went very wrong. Lets just say that everyone in the group who could spit in the face of honour and lawful conduct did just that. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get to finish the duel since it was really close but the opponent was pulling ahead. I've also seen lawful good rogues. Agents of the crown and all that played really well. Patriotic individuals infiltrating enemy lines of the neighbouring plotting empire and all that. Lawful good can be flavourful in many ways but it is also potentially the most difficult to play at times. Depends on the group mechanic I suppose.
For experienced adventuring parties that are not lawful, the auto setting can be to kill the foe, duel or no, dishonour doesn't always come into what other characters will or won't do. Now if you tooled around with a pack of knights on the other hand...