Shattered Kingdoms

If you played a pacifist wouldn't you have to remain an amateur your whole life?

I think it could be fun to play, for instance, a sorcerer pacifist who went around protesting laws in silly ways, but you'd never get any of the fun spells if you didn't at least kill NPCs. I guess you could always hope for enlightenment from the Gods but that's not really the way the system's set up. Or is the experience from casting spells enough to let you level? I'm enough of a newb to admit there are a lot of things I don't know.

Marilyn

Go Wert!

Examples of scrupulous lawmen.


Mel Gibson in lethal weapon.
Axel foley from beverly hills cop.
Samuel L Jackson in The Negotiator


These men found the law to be red tape and went around it. They committed minor crimes themselves in order to take down really bad men. Axel (eddie murphy) is probably on the lower spectrum since most of his stuff was minor pranks and b and e. Mel's cop blows stuff up, causes a lot of collateral damage and kills people who get in the way of the major bad man (these people are bad too, but not really all that bad). In short, he does things where innocents -might- get hurt, ie crap blows up all the time and someone could conceivably get hurt in that, but he doesn't go out of his way.

Jackson's character in the Negotiator is the far line of scrupulous. He breaks major laws and puts innocents in harm's way to take down the bad guys. He's a little selfish in this because he has something to gain from it (his own freedom). People get killed under his watch. However, he doesn't willingly kill innocent people himself and he takes down a large amount of bad men by putting these few innocents in harm's way. Not willfully killing innocents is what seperates the scrupulous from the unscrupulous as I will show where the line breaks in a moment.


Perfect unscrupulous law man example.

Vic Macky from The Shield.

Vic believes in the law, he's generally an okay guy but he will intentionally hurt and even kill innocent people to get what he wants. The ends truly justify the means with him. He will torture, beat, and kill for the greater good; however, he will also torture beat and kill for the good of vic macky. He shot his team member and killed them because they were a threat to turning in vic's team. He steals drugs and money from evidence and crime scenes constantly to not only set up bad guys (which would be a scrupulous move) but also to pocket for himself (this is where he becomes unscrupulous). He is not a mass muderer, its not something that he does often. He only kills as a very last resort and only if its a perceived as a personal threat to him (thus seperating him from a dark aura) but he will kill for personal gain if he has to (grey aura move).


Principled law men examples just for kicks

Serpico (probably the best example of principled) and kevin costner's character in The Untouchables.

Cannibal, your Vic description follows more closely to unprincipled than scrupulous. If Vic is suppose to be the herald of scrupulousness, then there really is only one lightie alignment. Vic is selfish. He does not only do things for the greater good, he also has an alterior motive: himself. That is the definition of unprincipled in SK.

Jack Bauer = scrupulous. He fights for the good cause but will do nearly anything to achieve his goals.

When a man he needed information from refused to talk, he shot his wife in the kneecap. He needed to save millions of lives, and if shooting some woman in the knee is what it takes - that's what it takes.

Jack Bauer is the scrupulous.

Muktar, go back to your eye doctor and request better reading glasses.

The only thing that bothers me about the Jack Bauer = scrupulous comparison is that it doesn't meet the root word definition:
scru·ple = An uneasy feeling arising from conscience or principle that tends to hinder action
Does Jack Bauer ever feel hindered by his conscience?

Maybe somewhere in the dark corner of his brain he does. But he probably shot his concience when it started to feel heavy.

Jack Bauer didn't let that kid die in the airport when the terrorists captured him - he turned himself in and risked death rather than let somebody else die in his place. Sure, he escaped, but that's because he's Jack Bauer.

He could have sat and watched the terrorists for a while longer and let a few people die, but instead he acted.

Dunno!

The wording is fine. The fact that peopla re willing to misinterpret it is the problem here.

Harsh or going to the limit, does not mean breaking it. The Hammer will NOT kill good people to get evil people who haven't done anything out. Or even people who have done something. They might, as a last resort, stun the good people, IF THEY HAVE TO. Otherwise, they'll find other ways.

To be good, means to not want to harm others, if possible and minimize the harm if it must be done. Many players take this clause and completely rape it, making it "not want to harm others, unless it suits me". That's grey. The good path is the difficult path. I mean, yea, take action heroes. They do become nasty with bad guys, or even good guys at some point, but really, they might be anti-heroes, and they hold on to their beliefs and don't take easy ways out, even to defeat their nemesis.

Scrupulous characters will not care about some restrictions that are largely ethical and law-abiding. That doesn't mean they will sacrifice others without their consent to do good. The ends do not generally justify the means for good people. The ends never justify the means for principled people. Some ends justify SOME (not terrible, dark, cruel, in other words EVIL) means for scrupulous people.