How bad/abusable is this variant Paladin's Code of Conduct?

[Libertad]

So I'm in the works of making a holy warrior, but of a more revolutionary variety.  Naturally they'd be Good and non-lawful (with a heavy tendency towards CG), and was thinking of changing around their code of conduct.

Of course, the Paladin's Code of Conduct is well-known for causing much drama and heartache, so part of me says that it would better to dispense with it.  But I feel that my codes are less dumb than "don't ever lie, cheat, steal, must respect authority, etc," but I want a second set of opinions.

Code of Conduct: A paladin of liberation must be of neutral good or chaotic good alignment, and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly and knowingly commits an evil act.

Additionally, a paladin of liberation must work to weaken authoritarian and oppressive power structures, either through reform or outright revolution (depending upon the circumstances and what will be most effective).  She must provide succor to society’s powerless and disenfranchised (provided that they do not use said help for evil ends).

As befits their alignment, many paladins of liberation have slight variations to their code of conduct, usually based upon their alignment, patron deity, and/or political ideology.

Code of Conduct: As the normal paladin of liberation’s, except an anarchist can only be of Chaotic Good alignment and must oppose attempts to strengthen the state (defined as an organized community under a hierarchal government) and other systemic power imbalances.  This is an extremely hard ideal to live up to, but an anarchist retains her class features as long as she her actions and goals move people closer to this.

* To head off discussion, I'm using anarchy not in the pop culture "no rules, I do what I want!" sense, but in the political ideology of working to dismantle hierarchical systems (including but not limited to governments) in an attempt to create an egalitarian society.



Thoughts?

[linklord231]

I'm not a big fan of the "fall if you commit an evil act" thing.  "Evil acts" are notoriously under-defined in D&D, and can cause a lot of table conflict. 

For example, what happens if I sneak into the palace of a Lawful Neutral king and murder him in cold blood, in the name of weakening the power structure?  Is that against my code?  It certainly supports my overall goal of overthrowing hierarchical regimes, but generally murdering someone in their sleep is considered evil. 

If you go with something like this, I'd like to see some kind of class feature that says "a Paladin always instinctively knows whether a proposed action is Good, Evil, or Neutral, and only violates his code if he willfully and knowingly chooses to do so." 

[Libertad]

I'm not a big fan of the "fall if you commit an evil act" thing.  "Evil acts" are notoriously under-defined in D&D, and can cause a lot of table conflict. 

For example, what happens if I sneak into the palace of a Lawful Neutral king and murder him in cold blood, in the name of weakening the power structure?  Is that against my code?  It certainly supports my overall goal of overthrowing hierarchical regimes, but generally murdering someone in their sleep is considered evil. 

If you go with something like this, I'd like to see some kind of class feature that says "a Paladin always instinctively knows whether a proposed action is Good, Evil, or Neutral, and only violates his code if he willfully and knowingly chooses to do so." 

This is a good idea.  It puts the onus on the Dungeon Master to inform the player.  On the other hand, I can still see dick DMs using to make the PC do what they want, although I don't think that you can really fix that.

In regards to underhanded and violent actions to bring about equality, that's really a hard question to answer because this stuff is debated all the time in anti-establishment circles (who've yet to come to an agreement on it).  Killing the king might not make much of a difference, in that there's likely to be an heir to the throne, advisers and knights, and other such people to pick up the pace.

On the one hand, this could make for some fun role-playing, and is reflective of hard and nebulous decisions which happen in real life.  But alignment is an ill-defined straitjacket as is.  I mainly want a freedom fighter class and paladin variant who doesn't need to worry about respecting legitimate authority (whatever that means).

[Unbeliever]

I think it's fine.  But, I think the idea of an "abusable" role-playing guideline is a little wonky.  Are Paladins just so powerful as a class that they need codes to balance them?  Or, is anyone interested in playing a Paladin, including any variant of the concept, interested in role-playing a character with moral codes, etc. 

I guess what I'm saying is that if I'm not interested in playing a character with moral dilemmas, then I shouldn't name my character Ned Stark. 

A liberation Paladin seems perfectly cognizable to me.  It's not even that hard to square with your regular garden variety Paladin.  Can George Washington not be Lawful Good?  Or, harder case:  Robert E Lee?  I might argue that the distinction that permits Washington to be "lawful" is that he's meeting the British out on the open field and not operating as a saboteur.  But, I'm not usually put in a position of having to defend that sort of thing.

I do like Linklord's suggestion, though:  to the extent that a DM wants to play "gotcha, and now I turn off your class abilities and character concept, mwaahaahaaa!" this is a very good idea.  I mean, the Paladin herself, that is the character is not the player, would presumably have a very strong grasp on the moral code that they have committed themselves to. 

[Raineh Daze]

Now I want to play a paladin again. D:

[Stratovarius]

Now I want to play a paladin again. D:

Sorry Raineh, flying pretty ghosts are all that's allowed. 

Most of the time I've seen a Paladin's code of conduct come up, it's been as a means to punish the Paladin. I guess my question is, what benefit does having that code add to the class and the player? From a RP perspective, there's nothing that's stopping the player from inventing a code with whatever class, regardless, so there has to be some mechanical reason having that code is there, and given it's a paladin, it's not because it's too powerful. So... why?

[MeanFightingGuy]

If you go with something like this, I'd like to see some kind of class feature that says "a Paladin always instinctively knows whether a proposed action is Good, Evil, or Neutral, and only violates his code if he willfully and knowingly chooses to do so."

Not necessarily: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0406.html
Part of the burden of a paladin is to never commit an evil act, and to figure out what an evil act constitutes. However, if seriously in doubt a paladin should be able to ask before acting whether he jeopardizes his status and get a truthful answer from the DM, or should be warned whether inaction can be permissible or not (f.ex. he witnesses the torture of an innocent being but would totally screwed in one way or another if he tries to safe him or her - the kind of sadistic choices poor DMs make on a regular basis).

Then again, even a LG character can't be both all of the time. What I liked about The Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones is that all alignments (without being explicitly named as such) are represented within the story, and the conflicts a character has to endure because of that. F.ex. I assume no one would argue that Ned Stark is a LG poster boy - but nevertheless his first act is executing a shell-shocked deserter, which in itself may be strictly lawful, but certainly is anything but good.

Concerning the revolutionary paladin: I guess what you're looking for is a holy liberator of sorts. http://dndtools.eu/classes/holy-liberator/
However, I would reconsider your stance oh him being a fulltime revolutionary - he should be subject to toppling evil governments, not any government he encounters. Don't forget that most successful revolutionaries in the history of mankind were quite the opposite of nice guys, but rather single-minded adherents of ideologies and know-it-alls who thought they could do better and often did worse (the free-riding opportunists aren't much better and certainly not holy man-material either). If your paladin of anarchy has a comparable mindset, he shouldn't be a paladin.

So, even a committed liberator should have enough common sense to know that most regimes have little choice but to be morally grey, at least when you're playing in a semi-realistic setting. The assassination of the LN king for example would have been an evil act if he would have been the head of a neutral society, because it serves little but to further turmoil and chaos (and therefore deaths) for nothing but the sake of a revolution, for...what exactly? An egalitarian society that may not come to pass after all (because humans are flawed)? "The end justifies the means" doesn't sound very paladin-like.

Back to the liberator: The killing of strictly LN characters may be very well an option when they're agents of a (usally lawful) evil government. A LN* commander may be decent, honorable and respect his duty, but nevertheless a punchclock-villain who is instrumental in upholding a fundamentally questionable order; and trying to convert him to your cause or take him out without fatal measures isn't always a viable option. So in that regard, it depends on how hard you try and how good your chances are.

*A LG character on the other hand is unlikely to protect such an order unless you're playing in a system where morals win over ethics, unlike the standard D&D system where it's the opposite.

[MeanFightingGuy]

From a RP perspective, there's nothing that's stopping the player from inventing a code with whatever class, regardless, so there has to be some mechanical reason having that code is there, and given it's a paladin, it's not because it's too powerful. So... why?

Because for RP reasons (a paladin is the archetypical knight in shining armor and notorious do-gooder and that hasn't changed much over time for the basic paladin) and for balance reasons because the creators obviously didn't put much thought into properly designing the classes. Back in AD&D, the paladin was vastly better in pretty much any regard than the warrior except when it came to their limit on worldy possessions (most importantly magical items) and their code of conduct, and he hasn't changed very much since then. At the same time, their progression rate was the 2nd slowest in the game (after the wizard). So, the most likely answer would be: Because they simply thought paladins were okay and in fact needed to be reined in by a code and absurd requirements (CHA 17 and human only) so they wouldn't be too attractive or accessible for the players.

However, if you want a paladin with more leeway, pick a grey guard who is pretty much a paladin in every way that matters but can be a lot more ruthless when the situation calls for it.

[Stratovarius]

Yes, I know all that. My question was why his Paladin of Anarchy had one, not the Paladin class. The Paladin is just one of the screwed up PHB classes, all of which besides the bard are more or less broken.

[Raineh Daze]

Yes, I know all that. My question was why his Paladin of Anarchy had one, not the Paladin class. The Paladin is just one of the screwed up PHB classes, all of which besides the bard are more or less broken.

Tradition, I presume. Also because it's one of the defining features of paladins.

[Kajhera]

Ever reviled, accursed, ne'er understood,
Thou art the grisly terror of our age.
"Wreck of all order," cry the multitude,
"Art thou, and war and murder's endless rage."
O, let them cry. To them that ne'er have striven
The truth that lies behind a word to find,
To them the word's right meaning was not given.
They shall continue blind among the blind.
But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.
I give thee to the future! Thine secure
When each at least unto himself shall waken.
Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's thrill?
I cannot tell--but it the earth shall see!
I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!

-- John Henry Mackay, 'Anarchy'

This political ideology fascinated me. Even my Lawful Good paladins consider long and hard about when the use of force is justified, despite (because of?) often being a manifestation of the benevolent state. My actual paladins of freedom do tend to have a revolutionary bent or background.

My question, dear writer, is this one: Does the anarchist paladin have strictly ... stricter requirements than the liberation paladin? Considering it's 'as liberation paladin+' the way you have worded it now, this is leaving liberation paladins with a lot more flexibility than anarchist paladins. Do they gain corresponding benefits? Is this unbalancing? Should you make an entirely separate code of conduct, so they are not directly comparable; or have the Anarchist one unlock alternative class features?

[Unbeliever]

Then again, even a LG character can't be both all of the time. What I liked about The Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones is that all alignments (without being explicitly named as such) are represented within the story, and the conflicts a character has to endure because of that. F.ex. I assume no one would argue that Ned Stark is a LG poster boy - but nevertheless his first act is executing a shell-shocked deserter, which in itself may be strictly lawful, but certainly is anything but good.

Really?  He staged an ultimately successful revolt against his lawful king.  A king whose authority his father had sworn to uphold, and whose obligations, according to the rules of Westeros, passed to Ned by succession. 

It's not that I'm disagreeing with you at all.  I think he's a great example of an interesting paladin-like character.  It's just that you've put your finger on the problem with putting rules around this.  You don't want to have to have a debate with the DM at a table on the nature of lawfulness and goodness.  People have been doing that for decades, if not centuries as it is (viz. the Hart-Fuller debate, Antigone). 

It's the dilemma and the hard choices that are interesting.  There's no point to playing a Paladin, or a character with any moral code whatsoever, if you aren't going to have to make hard choices.  That's the fun of it.  The difference, though, between say Antigone and Ned and the Paladin at the gaming table is that there isn't an authoritative figure saying that they are right or wrong.  There's no rules designer or DM saying "Antigone should have privileged her civic obligations over her familial ones!" 

[MeanFightingGuy]

Really?  He staged an ultimately successful revolt against his lawful king.  A king whose authority his father had sworn to uphold, and whose obligations, according to the rules of Westeros, passed to Ned by succession. 

Revolting doesn't necessarily constitute a chaotic act in itself, especially since Ned wasn't a revolutionary but a rebel. Ned never went against the existing order, but against the royal house and specifically the guy on the throne who was batshit insane and a danger for the realm: If the existing order is threatened by the ruler himself, then someone loyal may very well feel being obligated to turn on him in order to avoid worse consequences. The fact that Ned stepped back and let his more charismatic brother-in-arms, who (more importantly) had a legitimate claim on the crown have the throne even though he himself was the better candidate (and, as it's stated in-universe, no one but him and Jon Arryn would have bothered) shows that this was ultimately a campaign for the preserving the realm, not upsetting it.*

And then again, consider the unsuccessful revolt against Joff -

(click to show/hide)

because this one wasn't the rightful king since he wasn't the son of Robert Baratheon, therefore Ned was obligated from a strictly lawful point of view to depose him by the means at his disposal. In that case, Ned was lawful above being good, and though he tried to be both (warning Cersei before informing Robert to give her time to escape), he was ultimately driven by his sense of duty: He didn't act against Joffrey because he was a scumbag and would definitely have accepted his authority despite his poor character; and he would have behaved the same if the heir in question would have been the nice boy Tommen instead.

*An interesting RL-comparison would be the 20th July plot - the would be-assassins were pretty much all nobles, military men and bureaucrats of the Prussian tradition, the very people who are (rightfully) accused to be so utterly loyal and duty-driven regardless of the moral fiber of their superiors that the term "Kadavergehorsam" (slavish obedience) was coined with their esprit de corps in mind. And even they, who pretty much unquestioningly followed Hitler before, tried to topple his regime for the greater good of the nation once they realized that continuing his course of action would lead to its downfall.

tl;dr: A rebellion isn't necessarily a chaotic act, and under the right circumstances, it can actually be a lawful one.

Unrelated to this: It's interesting how GRR Martin plays with the different alignments in his work, especially when it comes to my favorite LG character, Davos Seaworth. Here people may also argue that he's more of a NG guy because of his shortcomings (his past as a smuggler, being not entirely faithful to his wife, circumventing the orders of his king by saving Edric Storm etc.), but he's still utterly loyal to his lord in a Captain America way ("My country right or wrong - if right, to keep it right, if wrong, to make it right again"), willing to serve and bring order to the realm, and despite his past as a smuggler, he was absolutely ready to accept the punishment instead of trying to weasel out of it - in a way, he was a LG person that was forced to rely on shady methods due to his modest upbringing, but jumped at the call when the opportunity presented itself to do what's right.

It's the dilemma and the hard choices that are interesting.  There's no point to playing a Paladin, or a character with any moral code whatsoever, if you aren't going to have to make hard choices.  That's the fun of it.  The difference, though, between say Antigone and Ned and the Paladin at the gaming table is that there isn't an authoritative figure saying that they are right or wrong.  There's no rules designer or DM saying "Antigone should have privileged her civic obligations over her familial ones!"

Yeah, you're probably right. It's just that a DM shouldn't heap sadistic choice upon sadistic choice on his paladin or, when in doubt, deny him any input what this or that action may have as consequence. Of course a paladin player shouldn't beg for hand-holding all the time, but sometimes getting feedback can be an utter necessity.

[Unbeliever]

I don't necessarily disagree with the above.  And, I like the example of the July 20th plot, too.  Although I think the distinction between rebel and revolutionary is cutting it too fine.  House Targaryen had a right to the throne by the rules of the day.  House Stark and House Baratheon had pledged fealty to Targaryen.  There is no clause in the vows that permits "and I get to argue/fight against the boss if he's batshit crazy and murders my entire family."  It's exactly the kind of moral dilemma that Antigone faces.  And, what makes it a dilemma is that there are obligations on both sides. 

Further, I'm pretty sure whatever claim Robert had to the Iron Throne only springs into existence after you murder a bunch (what's the collective noun for dragons?) of Targaryens. 

But, I know for an empirical fact that many DMs would argue about all of this.  It happened just a couple of weeks ago.  I made a contention, outside of a game, sort of along these lines.  I was arguing that a Paladin was not slavishly obliged to uphold the rule of a terrible baron.  But, that the difference between him and perhaps the Chaotic Good "solution" that another person was putting forward, namely sneaking and assassinating the baron, was that the Paladin would have to "call his banners" and meet the baron the field of battle.  Alternatively, he could challenge him to a duel, trial by combat, etc.

This was treated as an extremely unviable option.

Davos is also awesome.  And, I guess my problem with all of this within a game framework is that all these characters -- Ned, Davos, the Prussians who rebel against Hitler, my above example -- seem like viable Lawful Good or Paladin-like characters.  They seem to be making choices against the right kind of moral background, i.e., not just rapine and loot hunting.  And, the choices they make are interesting.  Putting something into the game where the DM can turn your character off if you make the "wrong" choice, you chose Creon over Polyneices, has a very strong potential to kill or derail what I think we can acknowledge is great stuff.

[MeanFightingGuy]

Although I think the distinction between rebel and revolutionary is cutting it too fine.

 

Depends on one's definition. For me, a revolutionary would be someone who is willing to destroy a social order with the intention to replace it with one of his own making. Of course a revolutionary can be lawful too (think Ayatollah Chomeini) and will rarely be chaotic, but successful revolutions tend to get out of hand very quickly, draw questionable people into its fold and hand out increasingly arbitrary sentences when the civil war drags on because in the long run, history has shown that it's oftentimes the more radical faction that turns out to be the winner (that's also the reason why I think you can't have truly committed CG "paladin of revolution"). A rebellion, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily have all that.

House Targaryen had a right to the throne by the rules of the day.  House Stark and House Baratheon had pledged fealty to Targaryen.  There is no clause in the vows that permits "and I get to argue/fight against the boss if he's batshit crazy and murders my entire family."  It's exactly the kind of moral dilemma that Antigone faces.  And, what makes it a dilemma is that there are obligations on both sides. 

Of course there isn't such a clause, but I would argue there's no obligation that says "you have to put with everything the king does to your house because well screw you if you don't" - don't forget that the Targaryens started all this with Rhaegar abducting Lianna; and after Stark Sr. and son inquired what happened to their daughter/sister, they were executed in the most wanton and arbitrary way possible, by a king who pretty much raped law and custom himself because he thought this within his rights, thus legitimizing revolt. That's the difference to Antigone who had two conflicting but valid options by two legitimte sources of authority.

Further, I'm pretty sure whatever claim Robert had to the Iron Throne only springs into existence after you murder a bunch (what's the collective noun for dragons?) of Targaryens. 

Of course, Robert's motivation was entirely different and more along the lines of "that albino fucker snatched away my GF, let's kill that bastard", but then again, no one says that Robert was a lawful character... Tywin (the guy who took care of half of the Tagaryen contenders) on the other hand clearly was, but a LE character would have other ways to handle things - Tywin also engineered, well, stuff *coughredweddingcough* which went totally against tradition but were considered necessary steps to secure royal authority without risking defeat.

But, I know for an empirical fact that many DMs would argue about all of this. It happened just a couple of weeks ago.

Oh, I believe you. The problem is also that many people seem to think that there's only one course of action for a specific alignment and only one way to play it, thus effectively limiting their player's choice. And saying that a paladin would be obliged to obey an evil overlord because otherwise that'd be chaotic... well, that's not just a sadistic "heads I win tails you lose"-choice from the DM, but also an extremely stupid one since it doesn't make much sense.

  I made a contention, outside of a game, sort of along these lines.  I was arguing that a Paladin was not slavishly obliged to uphold the rule of a terrible baron.  But, that the difference between him and perhaps the Chaotic Good "solution" that another person was putting forward, namely sneaking and assassinating the baron, was that the Paladin would have to "call his banners" and meet the baron the field of battle.  Alternatively, he could challenge him to a duel, trial by combat, etc.

This was treated as an extremely unviable option.

Well, I too would consider it an unviable option, but because it was impractical and not because it was out of character for a paladin Funny that you take exactly this as an example, because it perfectly mirrors the course of events in Robert's Rebellion, and how LG measures alone can backfire:
- the LG Starks demand a trial by combat (=duel) and get shafted because Aerys doesn't play by the rules
- the remaining, equally LG Ned Stark forges a coalition and meets the Tagaryen loyalists on the field of battle
- the CG (at least back then, judging by the retrospective in his PoV characters) Jaime Lannister assassinates the king, thus preventing the death of half a million people, who would have bitten the dust if only the LG characters would have had their way.
- the LG Ned Stark wants to punish the CG/CN assassin Jaime Lannister by sending him to the wall because in his book, his act was utterly dishonorable although he helped his cause and (what he didn't know) prevented a catastrophe.

the Prussians who rebel against Hitler [...] seem like viable Lawful Good or Paladin-like characters. 

Here I beg to differ. Prussian tradition can be summed up as "lawful neutral no matter the costs". This kind of obedience is already somewhat problematic in a society that's militarized by default, but gets truly out of hand once a totalitarian order takes its place. And don't forget that they were perfectly fine with following Hitler when he was still winning, and even though a number of them probably were out of the loop concerning the circumstances in the concentration camps, they knew that they were working for a definitely LE system that considered war crimes against the "right" targets a good thing and was out to enslave whole populations. A LN character could probably justify "just doing his duty" under these circumstances, and rein in any misbehaviour from his soldiers, but a LG character with a certain measure of information who isn't totally in denial regarding everything would have little choice but to refuse working for such a system.

The funny thing about LN people is that they're pretty much a joker in these scenarios like these because they can be found in all camps with little to no adjustment to their character.

[Libertad]

I really don't watch Game of Thrones, so I don't know the specifics of the discussion.

I personally am not a fan of alignment-as-mechanics, especially as an avenue of punishment.  Would it be best to just keep an NG/CG restriction, but leave the specifics of the code of conduct to role-playing and setting details?

[MeanFightingGuy]

I really don't watch Game of Thrones, so I don't know the specifics of the discussion.

Well, you would have to read the novels anyway, and even though I say that GRRMs work is probably one of the best out there to discuss alignments because there are loads of characters with some measure of depths, it would probably not be worth it in itself

I personally am not a fan of alignment-as-mechanics, especially as an avenue of punishment.  Would it be best to just keep an NG/CG restriction, but leave the specifics of the code of conduct to role-playing and setting details?

Probably. Then again, if you want to stick to the paladin-mechanics, I'd suggest you to check the Holy Liberator-entry above or the Paladin of Freedom (https://sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/extras/community-creations/house-rules/classes/paladin-of-freedom#TOC-Code-of-Conduct).

[linklord231]

what's the collective noun for dragons?

A Flight.  Or, if they're young, a clutch.

Putting something into the game where the DM can turn your character off if you make the "wrong" choice, you chose Creon over Polyneices, has a very strong potential to kill or derail what I think we can acknowledge is great stuff.

I absolutely agree.  I firmly believe that when or if a Paladin falls should be entirely up to the player, even if it isn't necessarily up to the character.  The DM doesn't get to decide unilaterally that a Paladin has broken her code.  Using a moral code to force tough decisions on a character is all well and good and can lead to great gaming moments, but putting a character in a no-win situation and going "Gotcha!" when the character chooses "wrong" is, to me, offensive enough to warrant some mechanical limits on the DM to prevent him from pulling that. 

[MeanFightingGuy]

I absolutely agree.  I firmly believe that when or if a Paladin falls should be entirely up to the player, even if it isn't necessarily up to the character.  The DM doesn't get to decide unilaterally that a Paladin has broken her code.  Using a moral code to force tough decisions on a character is all well and good and can lead to great gaming moments, but putting a character in a no-win situation and going "Gotcha!" when the character chooses "wrong" is, to me, offensive enough to warrant some mechanical limits on the DM to prevent him from pulling that.

Wasn't that what atonement was for - giving you a way to repent for your transgressions if you truly had no other choice?
But then again, a malicious DM could make you perma-atone which was as good as having you become fallen for real.

[Unbeliever]

Even atoning is a giant pain and costly.  I'd rather incentivize people to do interesting things with their character rather than punishing them for it. 

I kind of don't want to continue getting into the morass of what constitutes Lawful X or Chaotic Y, as I don't think it's particularly profitable.  I just want to point out that things are highly debatable, which makes it really problematic to hang game mechanics off of it, especially important ones (e.g., all of your class abilities). 

Just to pick on one thing

Of course there isn't such a clause, but I would argue there's no obligation that says "you have to put with everything the king does to your house because well screw you if you don't"

This is a perfectly fine position.  No less a thinker than Saint Augustine endorsed it:  "an unjust law is no law," or less poetically, you're not obliged to obey truly heinous laws.  But, this is a debate that's gone on, literally for centuries.  A more recent, at least relative to Augustine, version is the Hart/Fuller debate. 

Note that it does just define away the dilemma:  Good > Law.  So, there's no dilemma.  Problem solved.  It'd be like in Antigone's case if we just declared familial obligations > civic obligations.  That'd make Antigone's life easier, but now Sophocles' masterpiece is like 8 pages long. 

And, that's before we get into a common, but bizarre interpretation in D&D circles that defines "Lawful" as "slavish devotion to law no matter its source and its content."

I don't doubt that you can cash out Lawful X or Chaotic Y in interesting ways.  But, at that point, I'm pretty sure it's the cashing out that's the helpful part.  Or, at the very least, I'd rather not have to solve one of the main debates of legal philosophy just to be able to play D&D ...