Back on the alignment thing, I was chatting with Alex last night and had an interesting thought with the hacker analogy:
Hacking is a chaotic action, yet it is being used for a lawful purpose. Can one's actions and values have conflicting allignment?
A paladin can be a surpreme police officer, tracking down and defeating criminals in all directions, earning respect and admiration from the public and peers. Lawful traits for a lawful purpose. But does she understand why they are criminals?
A rogue can be a police officer too. By having a shady past, he can understand why criminals do what they do. He can understand what they see and how they plot. By understanding the enemy, rather than just tracking them down, he can give himself a different advantage. Chaotic traits for a lawful purpose.
Could lawful traits be used for a chaotic purpose?
intriguing question,for which i can't come up with a definitive answer. but i'll try to explain what little i can think of.
i'll limit myself to the d&d world & crpg's in general, as real life can have many, many iterations. at least in d&d, we can confine ourselves within the framework of such alignments as lawful good,lawful evil,neutral good, chaotic good, chaotic evil, etc., etc., etc.
a paladin is by default a lawful good character, and she detests evil. of course, other characters can be LG as well, but i'm taking the pally as an example as this started because of kiya's pally/thief char. a pally can understand evil, but that doesn't necessarily mean she was once evil or associated with evil creatures. she doesn't need to be; her powers are granted to her by her faith. iirc, in icewind dale ii and temple of elemental evil, the pally can detect or sense evil. and that leads to interesting dialogue options, and often, to fights.
in diablo ii (i know this isn't d&d, but just to broaden the example), the pally is the best fighter against undead creatures. scepter-class weapons,most often used by pallies, deal extra damage to the undead. plus, the pally has several weapons against the undead at her disposal: holy bolt & fist of the heavens. one aura, sanctuary, repulses the undead. as the d2 manual says, pallies are "effective against the undead as they know many holy incantations against these creatures". bottomline, pallies do not have to be the walking dead to understand them.
as for a rogue who becomes a police officer,i think he would be more of a chaotic good character to me. i know he's there for a lawful purpose, but what's to stop him from going over to the dark side again? it's in his character to be, well ummm, "roguish". and that is why i find it hard to reconcile his character to that of a lawful good paladin. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
