Lawful Stupid or Chaotic Ignorant? The Alignment system & who are you?!

Mortael

Something that I've always wanted to discuss is the D&D alignment system; it's something that I particularly enjoy, especially on the odd occasion where I like to role-play and immerse myself with the other players

Anyway, so I at one point used to always be 'that guy', yeah... that's right, the Lawful Stupid. For those who do not know what Lawful Stupid is, it's basically summed up like this: "...A battle we cannot win and possibly out-numbered? Wait... I AM A HERO, I MUST FIGHT. ATTACK!" Albeit, a little level 1 Paladin against 2 3rd level Mages, one of which cast a sleep spell. I rolled. I got very unlucky, to say the least and got my face smashed in with a quarterstaff, karma for you. Playing Lawful Stupid with thieves- oh, that's interesting.

In my opinion, I always believed that Lawful Good did not necessarily have to be played in a stupid fashion, for example, if there was an 'easy way out' so-to-speak, they would still take it, perhaps even to turn a blind eye? But, before I came to that conclusion, I played 'Lawful Stupid'. Having done it all myself, every time I see another character roll a Lawful Good, I have to ask them this one question 'you're not stupid are you?'

ANYWAY, what are your favourite alignments and why? Or which alignments do you detest the most?

Yannir

Personally, I like Neutral Good. I like my heroes to be unrestricted in their choices, but still be on the good side of the table. I really like the 3rd ed paladins that are not restricted in alignment, I always played them as NG, atleast in NWN.

Kamigoroshi

Apathetic Neutral, with Chaotic Lolful tendences and a spoon full of Lazy Evil flavour mixed in. Wouldn't have it any other way.

FinaLfront

It all depends what wisdom score you give your character. If you want to roleplay accurately, the lower the wisdom score, the more lawful—neutral, chaotic— stupid you should play them, good-evil.

Dragonspear

My personal favorite is playing lawful good, trying to uphold the law when possible, while doing the most good. But a damn blind eye to imoen's kleptomania. It's very much a case of "Don't ask, Don't tell". I don't ask where she got the awesome items to help my dogooding, and she doesn't tell me,

Nimran

Chaotic Chaotic. Because you can never have enough Chaotic.

Skatan

If it were me personally, I would go with lawful neutral as the most probable alignment. I am lawful, follow the rules of my society but not necessarely act for the common good, nor the opposite. In my humble opinion I would argue that 90% of the world's population (earth I mean, not Faerun) is LN rather than lawful good (though the world's leaders are prolly all CN or LE, hehe).

I like to play CN though, since it allows me to play my CHARNAME differently in every situation. He/she can go rogue and do some f-cked up evil shit one time only to swing full around and do something very benevolent the next. It seems fitting to being a bhaal spawn as well. You have that chaotic urges but you don't always go postal, sometimes you can control it and sometimes you don't.

Edit: spelling.

Svar

Neutral Good is definitely my favourite alignment. Good for the sake of good, siding with law or chaos purely on the context of the situation, is very appealing to me and I think of it as the ultimate hero alignment. That being said, I find other alignments interesting from an interpersonal dynamic point of view. The subtle conflicts that can occur between people of two close alignments are fascinating.

For example, a NG character and a CG might get along extremely well, but the moment there is a question of personal freedom that conflicts with what the NG character's idea of what is best, they become opposed to each other, because the CG character will most likely side in favour of personal freedom. That's friendship ruining stuff.

Similarly, a LN might not usually mind a LE character manipulating the law for their own gain, because they haven't done anything illegal, but they might put their foot down if they felt the LE character was being too cruel, which could result in a nasty fight.

elminster

Somewhere between neutral good and chaotic good.

BelgarathMTH

@Svar , one thing I think would be interesting to see roleplayed more often is conflicts between people of the *same* alignment. Just because two people are of the same general ethical orientation does not mean they are going to agree with each other about every issue of right and wrong, especially in the gray areas.

People of chaotic alignments, and especially of evil alignments, should be in conflict with each other all the time by their very natures, and even people of lawful good or neutral good alignments would be expected, when you think of human nature, to always be arguing about what course of action best serves the common good. Neutral people would likely disagree regularly about where to draw the lines among appropriate self-interest, absolute apathy, and outright cruelty.

Svar

@BelgarathMTH , I totally agree. People are enormously diverse, in fact, infinitely so. There are opportunities for major conflict between even the most similar of people because of all the little differences that make us uniquely who we are. You always have to remember that morality is culturally relative, so two people of the same alignment will view the world through the lens of different ethical codes, depending upon their cultural background. For example, an elf might believe that it is totally wrong to cut down a tree that is the home of many animals, but a dwarf might think the idea completely silly when her family is in desperate need of firewood to keep them warm in winter. Both of those characters could be NG.

semiticgoddess

I like Neutral Good because it seems like the most people-friendly alignment. No law or chaos to get in the way. Just pure neutral goodness.

I can't stand to play characters with evil alignments. It just seems alien to me.

abacus

I like playing Neutral Evil... Calculating and manipulative... Selfish, but smart enough to keep it hidden when necessary.

"I am not what I am."

T2av

Neutral Evil and or Chaotic Neutral are the best self serving, I do what I want types.

DragonKing

Neutral any thing, I'm not a large fan of having my actions labelled as good or evil.

mlnevese

No Chaotic Insane option?

CaloNord

Neutral or Chaotic Good, sometimes Lawful Neutral. I tend towards the good end of the spectrum and find being evil to be extremely difficult to role play, mainly because of the lack of self serving evil dialogue/action options. I want to be smart, powerful, cunning evil. Not bash in the beggars face with a halberd and steal his loincloth.

Cunning like Blackadder. . . but a bit more successful.