If you’re lawful that means that there are some set of rules that you follow and you want to follow them closely or perfectly if you can. In the case of a lawful good character, you’re going to most likely be following the rules of someone or something that is known to be good as well. This can be the laws of the land, but it’s more often the rules of a good deity, since humans, elves, dwarves, etc are all fallible creatures. That means that sometimes you might not even follow the laws of the land if you believe that they aren’t just.

The good piece just means that you’re not going to do something that’s evil. It seems pretty simple that way. But to go along with that, it doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything. If there’s something that seems like it’s for a righteous and just cause, you’re going to do that or at least be inclined towards that quest line. Good also means that you might not want to be a party to when the other PC’s from the adventuring party are doing something questionable. We’ll touch on some of that earlier, but a lawful good character might see how something can be useful, but wouldn’t ever take part in it themselves because they won’t do something that isn’t either ideally good and lawful. An example of this might be torturing a goblin to figure out what the giant goblin horde is up to. While it might be a goo thing because it would save a lot of people and the goblin is an evil creature, and even the rules of the land might allow for torture, it’s possible and probable that a good character wouldn’t want to be party to that. But they might also understand why other player characters would be, and leave so that they can do what they need to.

Now, when playing a lawful good character there is a chance it could fall into what is called lawful stupid. This is most commonly a trait for paladin or clerics where players lean too heavily into the lawful and good tropes. It’s going to be the case where a paladin sees someone stealing something, and because stealing isn’t lawful or good, run them through with your sword. The king insults you, that isn’t good, run him through with your sword. It’s the simple reaction to everything that can be scene as not lawful, but in particular not good. If it’s not good, that means death. But that doesn’t seem all that lawful or good in and of itself. Killing someone for stealing because it’s evil is an extreme reaction, which really doesn’t keep you in the camp of good. Capturing them and taking them to the city guard, now that makes a lot more sense. Less violent example of something similar though is a lawful good character who refuses to go into an inn because they serve alcohol and drinking is a sin. Even though they just saw the bad guy run into there.

But beyond the reaction of violence for an insult, lawful stupid can also mean that a character is too trusting and naive. Just because you are good and lawful doesn’t mean that you think everyone else is going to be. This can be equally as harmful as it’ll cause strife in the party when the lawful good character just asks someone a question who is clearly hiding something but doesn’t disbelieve them. Especially if you’re dealing with the face of the party or a split party for some reason so that you’re going to be missing information that you would otherwise want to have readily available for the party.

So how do you avoid this as a characterization for your PC? I think it’s just adding in some dimension to your character. I talk in the first article of the series who your alignment isn’t how you only run your character. It’s a framework for developing a well rounded character and for not spending too long while making a decision. If you find it taking too long, just make that decision based off of the alignment for your character. I gave an example for the thieves stealing bread. But for the Kings insult maybe you don’t trust them more. For the Inn and you don’t approve of drinking, you don’t have to have your PC drink. Being suspicious of people isn’t anything that goes against lawful good either. It allows you to have a more developed character if you don’t just treat them purely as in the tropes.

But let’s talk about why a lawful good character would go adventuring.

I actually think that this one is pretty easy to come up with reasons for going out. You can go with the story where something really bad is going to happen, that will motivate a lawful good character to go out and stop it. The adventure might also be something that a good character gives to the player characters. But if you’re playing a heroic campaign, it’s most likely that you’ll have quest givers that are good or that will want something good done. Now, it can be interesting as a DM to subvert that sometimes. Maybe you’re “good” quest giver has given out a quest that on the surface seems good, but is actually something the actually evil quest giver needs done to complete their plan. Or maybe the actual quest itself isn’t good when you get down into it. I will say, don’t do that all the time though, or your players will never trust you again, and yes, I mean players, not player characters.

So what classes work for lawful good?

The two people will think of right away are Paladin and Cleric. Both of them are tied to a deity of your choice, so it would be easy to pick lawful good ones and a lot of the deities are. But I think that there are some other interesting options, you can even play against type with something like a rogue. A rogue assassin who only kills evil people who are above the normal law, that makes a lot of sense for a lawful good character. Warlock is probably the trickiest as your patron almost has to be lawful good. Something like Hexblade might work. Final question for classes would be if a necromancer wizard would work, and I think that it could possibly. It is a little bit trickier, because you have the lawful good wanting to raise not good undead, I think most of them are evil, and that might be a conflict for you depending on how you play it. But there are necromancy options that aren’t just raising the dead which might work.

So, now that we’ve delved into this alignment. Would you want to play a character with a lawful good alignment? If you have, how have you avoided the lawful stupid trope?

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Just to explain what lawful stupid is and why you should avoid it: this is when you have a character that is so lawful good that they won’t do anything or be party to anything that might be even a little bit shady. For example, if the rogue in your party steals a single copper piece, you bring them in to the city guard. Or if a non-player character insults you slightly, you challenge them to a duel. That’s lawful stupid, and it can happen when players think their character needs to always be doing “good,” and that lawful good means that you have to follow every rule perfectly and can’t do anything that might cause you to slip up, like have a drink in a tavern. It’s better to look at it this way — lawful good is your alignment, not every single character trait that you have. Finja in Dungeons and Flagons was lawful good, but she would still have a drink or be part of the party’s random shenanigans, and she wasn’t always perfect in that she let Tate get away with less-than-savory antics.

The Paladin is the fighting cleric, and almost always falls onto the lawful good side of the spectrum. There are a few mechanical ways that you can handle this character, the first being that you can be more of a fighter who doesn’t really spend their spells on anything except dealing extra damage. Or you can lean into the healer side of it, taking on a combative role but with more of a focus on supporting and healing other characters in their party. Paladins use charisma for casting spells, so they can lean into being the face of the party if they want. This can also allow the paladin character to spread the good news of their faith.

As I mentioned, mechanically speaking, you can either go as a damage-bumping tank or a support healer. The different paths you can follow focus on areas from nature to law and order. The team at Wizards of the Coast did a good job of giving you options to be a fallen or even evil-focused paladin if you want. You get some spellcasting and fighting, but the strength of a paladin, in my opinion, is more in the combat aspect.

But because you aren’t fully focused on that, it allows you to play in a number of areas–let’s take a look at a few of those in my paladin backstory ideas:

As a young child, you became a squire for a paladin who was charged with protecting the head of your religious order. You learned under him, and eventually, when he was no longer able to do his job, you took over for him. One night, you were watching at his door and were relieved by a guard you didn’t recognize. That wasn’t all that odd; there were new guards coming in fairly often. But when you woke up the next morning, that guard had disappeared, and the head of your religious order had been killed just a single room over from where you slept. In your guilt, you headed out on the road, where you met up with an adventuring group. While traveling with them, you’re still searching for any clues about what might have happened to your leader.

When you were a teenager, a horde attacked your village. You didn’t know what to do as your friends and everyone you knew were dying around you. The only thing you could think of was to drop to your knees and pray to your deity. You didn’t think your call would be heard, but you felt a surge go through your body, and holy energy poured out of you, striking down the bulk of the horde while the rest fled. When they were gone, those who were still alive lauded you as a hero, but you felt lost. You weren’t anything special, and you had no one left. A kindly family took you in, but when a cleric of your deity came through the town, they heard of you and offered you a chance to come with them and train to be a defender of the deity. It was something to do, so you left your town and started training until you became a paladin who people loved and revered for miles around. But now, you have a mission that you are going to need help with.

The life of a paladin was what you had always wanted — a life of devotion and holding to the oaths you had sworn. That had been your life, but that life had become boring. You felt a call from somewhere else, in a moment of weakness — or was it newfound strength? Hearing that call, you struck down the priestess of the temple and left. The connection you had to the deity of your order had been severed, but you felt something take its place — a darkness now filled you, and you were going to use it. It would be great if this was something you could do by yourself, but the darkness is calling you to others to help you complete your new goal.

There is so much evil in the world. When you were young, there were some from far away who came and took control of your town, making you and your family slaves. You were only recently able to escape, thanks to the help of a missionary who came and saw what horrors were being wrought on your village. He told you about his deity, and how that deity could bring law and order to the world. You listened, and you understood. You understood what you needed to do, as well. This missionary had been brought to you to help you get away, so that you could ride against those who did not believe and bring law and order and justice to the world, something you never could have hoped for before. Now you’ve been trained, and you have found a party of those whom you think can help you.

Have you had a chance to play a paladin before? Were you very lawful good, or did you try and find a way to play a paladin who was conflicted? How did that go? Would you try it another way the next time?

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