How do you RP Lawful Neutral?
Greenman019
Member Posts: 206
Pretty much the good and bad alignments write themselves. But Lawful Neutral? Hm. I always play a good character but recently revisited with a Solo Sorcerer (First time with Insane SCS, love the tactical challenge) of Lawful Neutral alignment. Apart from loving order and discipline, what motivates them?
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Contracts are to be honoured to the letter, and dissent is unthinkable - any opposition to lawmakers is considered rebellion and is to be put down before chaos spreads. Individual needs are of secondary import behind the needs of the many. Discipline is high valued, particularly that of self - rash words and acts are seldom a good thing for this alignment.
That's my view of it, anyway!
That doesn't mean he will follow any group, though. For instance, If you are a LN priest of Helm, you'll respect discipline and order, but you still have no allegiance to the cowled wizards, so you'll use whatever tools law can provide you to oppose them.
The fun of being lawful neutral is the fact that they are consistent. While a Paladin may offer na enemy a chance to surrender , a lawful neutral warrior is free to strike him a deadly blow, as long as his code of honor says he must defeat his enemies .
A rigid adherence to any kind of discipline or code qualifies. Also, rigid adherence to a deity's worship could qualify.
I think the key element of the alignment is its rigidity. Lawful neutrals get so intensely focused on order and discipline, whatever the kind, that they are capable of heinous, callous, and even borderline or outright evil acts in the name of the state, the military command, the organization, the institution, "justice", the holy writings of their religion, or whatever. But they will usually be basically good and kind people among their own close contacts and family, as long as no one rebels against the strict norms that define their lives.
A lawful neutral Charname would oppose the Iron Throne because she finds clear evidence in the game that the Iron Throne is deliberately sewing chaos with the aim to provoke a war, and it intends to overthrow the legitimate government of Baldur's Gate.
That's how I see LN.
Onwards and upwards.
LN can be a cold judge calmly striking down those he feels disrupt order and rightness but LN can also be a sort of steward who can see himself (sorry, I reflexively use male pronouns. LN can work for women too of course) pruning the tree of sickly and dying branches. Functionally, it's more important for LN to be consistent, cool, and rational. Don't make emotional choices - once you establish what your character's values and views are stick with them.
his/hers guild instead of Amn.
While a LW soldier of Amn will try to fight and put these Thief to Justic
If you play with that mindset, it should make sense. Problem is that I'm fundamentally good and lean chaotic, so I'm in opposition to LN.
The above ^^^ discriptions wouldn't be anywhere near my interpretation. They sound more like "lawful lawful" or "neutral lawful"
The character is neutral, the lawful bit is the adjective.
I'd read it as not having much of a stake in good/evil but content to follow the law.
Why do thy have to have such a stick up their posterior?
Considering that the fall of Rome led to the dark ages, they had a point.
"Come on you rascal, cough up those ankheg shells!"
A chaotic character will jump on the grass (good place for a pit trap).
A neutral character will stand there for 20 minutes trying to decide if it is worth the risk of getting caught to take a short cut across the grass that will save 5 minutes journey time.
Note that a character can have an alignment, without being at the extreme end of an alignment. Slightly more likely to obey a law than break it is enough to make a character lawful rather than chaotic.
And there is no particular reason why a character's alignment should be their main motivation. People do things for reasons other than morality and philosophy.
For me LN is about following the law you abide too, this does not mean laws others like. This means that if a character is LN and just a commoner they will probably see the laws of the city as just and follow them to the letter. They might even join the militia and uphold them vigorously. But they can equally well join a trading company that has other codes (profit ûber alles?) that break the city laws. So if some other order or group scoops them up and get them to prefer those codes or laws over the city laws, they will instead follow those. I think it would be very hard to play a character who believe ALL laws are absolute and that always strive for upholding them, even laws that should go against other laws they also want to follow, ie; You should not kill, it's against the law! You must kill all thieves, it's the law!
Also for me, in my headcanon, Paladins are better portraied as LN and not LG. They have codes that transcend other laws in cities and states and they will follow their own code no matter the action, meaning killing whatever and whomever they perceive as enemies no matter what. Like Keldorn killing Viccy. There's nothing good in that, but there's plenty of law-abiding and neutrality there.
I've played LN and when I do it's always characters who are in some kind of order or military branch, maybe they've just read about paladins in books and are fiercely into upholding their creed or similar. Same with monks.
I also disregard alignment restrictions I don't like and change them as I see fit myself, so I don't claim to be aligned to the "true" interpretation of alignments. This is all IMHO.