LE Lolthite (Warning: Alignment debate)

[Kaote Bruchedaine]

Not to long ago I had an argument with someone on another RP site about the potential of a Lawful Evil Drow Wizard in a Lolthite society, Specifically Menzobarranzan.

Now the debate was not if one could exist, the debate was if one could attain a high station. My opinion was no, based on the grounds that by being lawful one is subject to obeying the word of the law the majority of the time. In my opinion that would put one at a brutal disadvantage if a person is obligated to have most of their actions obey the law, while most of their rivals had no such restriction. While a LE Drow maybe able to gain rank, it would only be because someone else carried them to a high rank killing their enemies around them and otherwise doing the work for them. A LE Drow would never be able to gain such rank on their own merits if they are not willing to play dirty under the table.

His argument was that to be chaotic is Drow law and therefor by being lawful he can break the laws because they are meant to be broke in a chaotic society. This to me sounds like an argumentum ad populum to state that since the majority break the law, breaking the law is the law, thus to obey the law is to break the law.

So, the debate went to the next level where I asked him to defend his opinion that a lawful Drow can gain rank. His natural first and only option was Ryld. A character whom in my opinion was never able to do anything on his own and was a sidekick the whole time he was in the novels. First to Pharaun then later to Halisstra. We saw he had pretty much no motivation but claimed he rose to the rank of Master on his own from the slums below the slums pretty much. I responded to this pointing out that Ryld demonstrated no meaningful merits of his own. It seems he was never meant to be a character of his own as much as he was meant to be a supporting character for those two and that's it. We never get to hear or see anything about his past that shows he was deserving of the rank. His primary redeeming quality is having a sword that's unusually large for a Drow. Sometimes it's indicated to be a greatsword, other times a long sword. The art on the cover of the book is that of a longsword which makes him less impressive. He is shown to in the books to be a decent fighter as long as he is fighting something that isn't Drow but once again nothing truly impressive.

At this point the debate degraded with the other individual simply saying variations of " It doesn't matter, Ryld did it so I can do it too. " Seem in mind though, this person wants their wizard to be a ranking master of Sorcere. A school with much more competition and underhandedness than Melee. When I continued to press my question as to how he expected to rise up the ranks when by definition Lawful means he won't attempt assassinations on his rivals and the like to clear the way for him to get promoted. No Answer.

Eventually he redirected the conversation to what lawful/chaotic and good/evil mean. His justification was that it doesn't matter if your actions are lawful or chaotic, good or evil. If you believe you are obeying the law you are lawful. If you believe you are doing good, you are good. The example he provided to justify this is the person that steals from the rich to help those in need. He quickly changed that to be steal money to buy a meal when said character can't afford a meal otherwise. I came back at this was three specific examples. The story of Robin Hood, stealing from the oppressive wealthy to give to the oppressed poor would qualify as Chaotic Good. Stealing from the rich to feed yourself would would be chaotic neutral. It's still breaking the law but it was an issue of survival with no real intent to hurt or harm anyone. But if the person was to steal from a poor family to feed one's self while aware that family won't be able to eat now because their only meal was stolen from them, that would be chaotic evil because that brought suffering to the offended family. He insisted that this was wrong, they are all chaotic neutral because he's breaking the law for survival in all cases.

The next example he tried to use was to say the necromancer that regularly engages in necromatic experiments on already dead bodies in his basement while hurting nobody in the process. On the other hand that same necromancer regularly donates large sums of money to charity as a means of keeping attention off his illegal activities in his basement can't possibly be considered a good or lawful person because all their good activities are a front for terrible activities that harm nor effect nobody.

My last ditch effort to get something to work in this was to cite the alignment system in Neverwinter Nights as an example. Where law vs chaos is on a 100 to -100 scale and good vs evil is on a 100 to -100 scale and every action you take that someone is aware of has a point value moving your dot on the grid. I then asked him to think about how his actions will move him around on that grid. His counter for that was it doesn't matter because thats Neverwinter Nights and they had a crappy system anyway. I then asked him how he thinks it would pay out if he were to sit down at a pen and paper game with a DM that planned to track player's actions and respond to the players accordingly. His counter was that any DM that would do that is a bad DM because the DM should not be telling players how to play their characters. I came back with a few examples where alignment and actions are important for certain characters. Knights can't fight dirty, clerics and paladins have to stay within the dogma of a diety, so on and so forth. After some comment about clerics and just get a new god, and its not dirty if it works, and such I just gave up. It seemed this guy was from the school of "I wanna therefor I can and you are a bad person for holding me accountable" thought and nothing would get him to think otherwise.

So long rant over. What do you all think? Should a Law abiding character be able to rise to the top in a chaotic system like Menzobarranzan without engaging in the same chaos by themselves? Or would a law abiding character be stuck at the button of the food chain without the means to rise the ranks without someone to carry them to the top?

[Shir'le E. Illios]

[quote="Kaote Bruchedaine":efrfkhct]based on the grounds that by being lawful one is subject to obeying the word of the law the majority of the time.[/quote:efrfkhct]
I don't think that this is correct. I think that being of Lawful alignment doesn't necessarily mean "follows the low". I think that the alignment should perhaps have been named "Order" (Ordered? Orderly? Orderedness?) and it's more about liking structure and rules and conformity than about following laws. Sure, in a lawful society that tends to mean following that society's laws (though being evil it tends to become more about abusing the laws and finding loopholes), but in a chaotic society I can imagine a Lawful individual living by their own strict set of rules more than by those of society (since society as a whole doesn't really follow its laws anyway which defeats the purpose of following the laws for the Lawful individual).

And I believe that you can have a Lawful Evil killer (or even serial killer) in a largely lawful society if that individual believes they're following a higher law or if they feel that the law justifies the killing (they might even expect and fully accept being punished themselves in due time).

As such, I do definitely think that a Lawful individual could attain a high station. Even more since wizards in Lolthite society tend to be quite on their own anyway. Getting a high station as a wizard tends to be much more about being a powerful wizard than about climbing some social ladder.

But even if the character were to follow the local law to the letter I can see them attaining a high station (if might be more difficult, but I believe it's still possible). It just requires a higher degree of cleverness to be able to manipulate situations to one's advantage. And if wizards are one thing then it tends to be that they're clever. Play adversaries out against each other, pull things enemies want to keep hidden out in the open (so it has to face the law), etc. Turn things around and set the playing field to your own advantage.

In the end though alignment isn't the arbiter of a character's actions (and more a general guideline to inform what direction decisions the character makes tends to take). Don't let alignment dictate, but inform. Human(oid) beings are much more complex than a single entry on a character sheet after all.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

[Kaote Bruchedaine]

[quote="Shir'le E. Illios":2csgohae]I can imagine a Lawful individual living by their own strict set of rules...[/quote:2csgohae]

By that sentiment it would seem that Zaknafein and Jarlaxle would qualify as lawful as well. Later versions of Artemis as well.

[Bhaern Quel]

Alignment is not about laws of a city, it is of the cosmos. The divine order or chaos of things, the Good and Evil of things.
Of course the fact that alignment has been redefined though the Editions only makes it harder to use the system.

It is clear that a Drow can be Lawful Evil, using the laws of Order to further personal gains or not caring about harm done to others.

One example of unLawful was making or owning slaves, this though was modified that in some cases it is Lawful to own slaves. The making of undead is generally considered Evil, however such activity certainly can be considered Lawful to defend a location or item.

Look at some of the Lawful Evil deities, that would be the gauge one should use to judge if a mere Drow is that or more Chaotic Evil or Neutral Evil. In the end in a table top game it is up to the DM, in discussion such as this there will be a range of opinions. Odds are very low that any character will perfectly all points of any alignment. There is always something a character will do maybe only once or twice in their long lives that would not be classed as Lawful and Evil. The alignment classification is based on their over all life as to what they are closest to.

[Shir'le E. Illios]

I think, long story short, that alignments can quickly start to break down when looking too closely at them. Hence why they're never meant as anything more than a very rough guide, at least not for fleshed-out characters.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le