A lawful evil fighter who genuinely believes he's a lawful good paladin

But that wasn't the point of the thread, now was it?

He is right doe.

Playing Rune Quest or Call of Cthulhu which notably lack alignment systems or classes, I saw my players being far more creative with character backgrounds.

So substitute 'lawful evil' with 'big ol meanie' and 'lawful good' with 'goody two shoes' and get on with the thread

Post more images of such a character as I want to make one in my head that I'll never get to play

And that gives you much more breadth, you don't "have" to justify what a person is compared to thinks they are when they're not living in a universe where everybody has a position on a nine by nine grid.

Y'know, like real life.

fredstudart.blogspot.com/

here's what came up when I googled the artist

>Nine by nine grid
>Traditional alignment chart is three by three

Hold on, I think we might be onto something fun

If your players only put in effort when the system forces them to, they're shit players. Sorry to break it to you.
Yes, but then the answer is pretty straightforward and uncontroversial, and this is our thrice daily alignment system shitpost

It would certainly make things a lot more interesting. Maybe do it like a graph, instead of a grid

This sort of gave me an idea for the character. Play him as a popular man of the people where society cheers on his heinous acts.

He might be a knight for a local despot, utterly ruthless in his enforcement of the ruler's will. He'll do public executions against the enemies of the state, and the people will cheer him on. He'll give speeches dehumanizing the state's neighbors, painting them as inferior, backwards, and full of evil, completely oblivious to the fact he's much worse. He'll use the law as a tool for ruthless progress and development rather than a shield of justice for the wronged.

After years and years of support from the majority of the people, he'll believe he can do no wrong, and that he is ultimately a force of good.

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," seems fitting here.

What, so something like a line chart, with order on one axis and morality on the other?

Then you just throw dots all over the place representing certain stereotypes?

Oh God, what have I done?

I think it's the other way around.

When you make it clear to a player that they're creating a person not a cluster of stereotypes loosely held together by a backstory they're more likely to be invested enough to put in the effort.

>ohgodnotagain.jpg
>therideneverends.jpg
But isn't that much more a problem with D&D's class system, which is more based around fantasy fiction archetypes instead of function within the party, than the alignment system, which is nothing more than a very broad-strokes descriptor of your character's values?

The problem is that D&D's alignment chart is indicative of actual metaphysical essential qualities of a character on a quasi-mystical level.

Which imposes expectations on everyone and everything, and plasters over the intricacies of realistic character dynamics, moving the default "mode" for the game one notch closer to knights in shining armour and cackling baby-eating villains type morality.

I think most Lawful Evil people believe they are Lawful Good or at LEAST believe they're lawful neut

As long as he's fighting something more evil than him, its easy.

>Which imposes expectations on everyone and everything, and plasters over the intricacies of realistic character dynamics, moving the default "mode" for the game one notch closer to knights in shining armour and cackling baby-eating villains type morality.

But that's exactly the kind of fantasy D&D (especially the first 3 editions) is intended to be used for. If that's not what you want to play, why are you using D&D? That's like saying Shadowrun sucks because it imposes medieval fantasy crap on a cyberpunk game.

Yeah I've done that. He was also a former gravedigger/grave robber.

That's how most of Veeky Forums does actually play paladins, I think. And how Gygax explains his own alignment system.

If the guy who creates the system says executing orcs after making them convert before their savage nature inevitably reasserts itself is good then its good.

Except most D&D games these days are PF or 4th, neither of which are systems Gygax himself created.

But it makes storytelling boring and formulaic, makes such common principals as betrayal and equally justified viewpoints coming into conflict impossible.

It's a ball and chain on storytelling that adds nothing which cannot done without it.

>substitute 'lawful evil' with 'big ol meanie' and 'lawful good' with 'goody two shoes' and get on with the thread

Fucking this. Once you break out of alignment, you'll notice your roleplay gradually maturing and improving.

>TN
>has a plan

I shouldn't be as spooked as I am.

Well we are talking about 'his own alignment system'.

Also Pathfinder alignment is a complete joke even by DnD alignment standards. The devs outright stated that a fertility/marriage deity would become evil if they did not uphold modern western attitudes to gay marriage.

I generally interpret Alignment is independent of a character's beliefs.

Alignment should be an objective evaluation of a character's aggregate actions regardless of why he took those actions.

So yes, it can be done.

Though I'd avoid the "I know I'm doing bad but it's for good!" speeches. People here like to gush about that assassin from Serenity as a great example of Lawful Evil, but I found him the most annoying and poorly-written character in that whole movie.

Placebo

Would the punisher fit that description, or would he be more lawful neutral?

The Punisher can only barely qualify as Lawful. His entire ethical code is just "remove bad guy."

He doesn't even really do it to fix society. He just likes killing criminals.

Hell yeah, this is awesome

As per the definition of "Good" and "Evil" in the alignment system, his motives for killing criminals are not selfish. He doesn't do it to benefit himself, and in fact does it at great cost and to himself.

That means his actions are Good. They are not, in fact, Lawful.

Punisher is Chaotic Good.

That's cucking pretty damn hard.

Chaotic Good it is

"Beasts all over the shop....you'll be one of them....sooner or later."

Whether or not the Punisher is "Good" depends entirely on the writer.

The Daredevil version:
>I do what I do because I like it!
>Hell, I love it!

That's not a totally Good (as in capital G) reason to massacre people.

What a person SAYS about their motives doesn't actually change their actual motives, nor their methods.

He could say he does it because he enjoys it, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not why he does what he does. He risks his life to take out criminals that cause harm to other people. It's extreme, sure, but it's still self-sacrificing, and that's the definition of Good in the D&D alignment system.

No one who's Evil, and thus self-serving at the expense of others, would risk so much personal harm just to take out people who specifically cause harm to others, while protecting innocents.

Even more so in that, if they instead made morality defined by the gods instead of it being its own thing, it would make sense as being an actual, measurable force in-universe, and you'd have some much-needed social friction that can be used to flesh out the world and create conflict for the players to deal with through roleplaying.

Dolts who write that pig slop really need to pay for their lack of vision.

>protecting innocents

Punisher doesn't care about protecting people, only punishing them. In some versions he's a little more conscientious about collateral damage, but he doesn't really rescue people. He does what he does because he has a personal vendetta against criminals. His actions are like chemotherapy. Yeah he kills the cancer, but he's also invasive and destructive in the process.

Rorshach is more altruistic than the Punisher.

The way I play, that's more LN. The guy would not be doing the shitty stuff he's doing if there was another way. However any other way goes contrary to his code and, regrettably he has to push forward.

For most LE I figure questions of right or wrong don't matter much to the character. They have a code or ideal but it has nothing to do with the well being of others. Order exists for the sake of order, doing good has nothing to do with it. This can be taken as LN but usually they figure Law=Good.
In the case of OP's example I would put the fighter as a generally evil person in denial. He will kill the orc baby because it's the fastest means to an end not because it's the only option. However later he will lie to himself, saying he had no other choice. He WANTS to be a good guy, or at least treated like a good guy, but it's so much faster and easier being evil. He walks straight towards moral grey territory because that's where he can justify killing and stealing. It's so much easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Just talk like an American. People will buy it.

The Punisher's internal monologue completely supports his statement of "I kill them because I hate them." Again, this all depends on the writer, but that aspect has been fairly consistent ever since Welcome Back, Frank.

This. Villains in real life don't carry cards - they legitimately believe themselves to be doing the right thing, the holy thing - and think everyone else is too spineless or too corrupt to join them.

I mean, look at /pol/ and Tumblr. They're basically the same, and they're both idiots, but try telling them that.

Scarlet Crusaders in Warcraft

especially Renault Mograine

There you go, OP

You mean Kore from Goblins?

Consider this, however.

pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Mengkare

A Gold Dragon who rules an island nation and essentially runs a eugenics program. They've deliberately left his alignment undefined, because - BY THEIR OWN ADMISSION - if they confirm him to be objectively Lawful Good, others can take that as them saying that eugenics is objectively Lawful Good. This could lead to Godwin's Law faster than you can say 'Alignments suck.'

It depends on the dragon's perception of his own behavior. If he intends genuine benevolence, then he is good. Just as "good" does not mean "nice", it also doesn't necessarily mean "correct".

But of course, people would take it the wrong way if they saw "dragon hitler" listed as "good"

ARISE MY CHAMPION

Literally New Phyrexia, or any kind of zealot, really. The 'I'm doing you a favor by killing you' kind of zealot.
But yeah Phyrexia is the best example

There are tons of examples of this in real life, as well as in games.

Real life: Islamic Terrorists believe they are doing gods work.

Games: Space Marines often follow a sadistic set of guidelines.

But that gets right back to the core of the matter of OP. If the fighter in OP's example believed himself to be good, and his actions did have a positive to them, then he would be considered good. Evil I suppose in that case would be knowing you're doing wrong and doing it anyway for some reason.

This. The Punisher works better when you treat him like a force of nature rather than a hero. Bleeding hearts should stop pushing the well-intentioned extremist angle onto the character.

Is that how he comes off in Daredevil? People never reading the comics might account for that read of the character.

>Is that how he comes off in Daredevil?

No.

Once he gets arrested, Karen Paige pushes that angle on him and tries to convince everyone he's just a broken guy who needs help. He then stomps on this when he tells everyone at court he kills criminals because he likes it and that he's completely in his right mind

youtube.com/watch?v=28oQ3IPYzyg

Pic related?

didn't he only pull that so that he could talk to king pin?

He's got a rather frank personality.

He would get by with sheer physical ability and martial skill and attribute it as a blessing from his chosen deity. He does whatever he believes to be the morally sound decision and keeps going all the while claiming that this is what his deity wants him to do because if it weren't then why does he continue to receive these blessing?

I'm sure he wasn't just saying those things because he wanted to, I don't know, throw the court case, so he could get into prison, so he could get information as to who killed his family.

Don't forget the rooftop scene where he's laying out why he kills people in a much less public setting, and without Kingpin's goon's offering tempting him.

He didn't know who he was gonna talk to. Just that he'd be taken care of if he went to jail.

I have a feeling he was being genuine here, because he knew he could say whatever he wanted. Frank's a lot of things but he's not really a liar.

No. That's person that couldn't find a career elsewhere so joined the one place that would take them in. That describes most people in the military in my experience.

Except militaries have minimum standards, low as they are, and many countries have mandatory military service.

While there certainly are some dudes who end up in the military because they've got nowhere else to go, anymore it's not a great place for those guys.

Even the military needs them smart now, and as it gets smaller it can get far more selective in it's choices.

>would've been the Hero in basically any other story

Seems legit.

You know....
>Great Crusade
>alien genocide
>mutants are untermench
>pure humans - submit or get rekt
>his relations with primarchs showing that he's no saint warrior
>all for the good of humanity

>still the best Imperium gonna get

...

Batman?
>A violent hypocrite that claims superiority with his moral code

...

This is about as altruistic Frank gets.

...

He's a bloodthirsty psychopath who was fortunate enough to be found by somebody who could direct him. He's always been violent at heart and felt like a freak because of it, never being able to form connections with others. Whoever this person that found him was (maybe another party member), and whatever they tought him gave structure and purpose to his life that he would have therwise never been able to find on his own. Play the guy as being somebody who desperately needs direction from an authority figure, somebody he recognizes as wise and good whether it's true or not (they could just be charismatic and manipulative). Some art of him should recognize that he is somehow wrong, but is overcome by his belief in the righteousness of his cause or his mentor.

...

It already has been done and is pretty easy. All you have to do is warp the character's perception of "good" enough to make the awful things he does either necessary evils or even desirable goods.

Pic related should help. Black Templars are a bunch of crazy racist religious fanatics.