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SaMoCon
Senior Scribe
USA
403 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 09:43:44
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I know that in more recent editions of D&D the 9 part alignment system was "simplified" but not to the same level as the basic set with its 3 part alignment. I don't want to have that discussion but the one pertaining to the system that had its day in the sun for the better part of 3 decades 1st-3rd Ed. The alignments as described in the book were never properly handled, tacked on from the very beginning but without any real game mechanics and, really, no point to actual game play. Other game systems that came onto the market under the clear influences of D&D tackled the alignments with clear rules and meanings while others ditched that queer bit of color without losing a thing. The 2nd & 3rd editions of D&D never attempted to do anything with the alignments and only spent a handful of sentences describing each alignment.
Okay... so there is no mechanic, only a suggestion for what your character should do in moral and/or ethical dilemmas. Essentially, these are supposed to be push/pull compulsions for the players characters as their consciences and desires to impose their will mesh into deliberate action. This forum had an earlier discussion on the matter that did not resolve.
Good and evil really do not need much description because every society around the planet instills these morals into every story, teaching, and parable from entertainment to religious indoctrination. Every culture has clear definitions of good and evil even if there are discrepancies between two different cultures. Your gaming group should be just fine. Even if only one is clearly defined, its opposite is also clearly defined because its is an inversion of those values.
Law and chaos... Law is clearly defined but chaos is not. The only thing said about chaos is that it is freedom. How is freedom an inversion or a perversion of law? Law doesn't have anything that says it is slavery or confinement. How is freedom an ethos? It isn't! That definition is claptrap and the result of either laziness, myopia, or extreme over-caution over... something.
On the face of it, the neutral modified alignments are extremes since they are unmodified in their morals or ethics. A neutral good goes out of his way to do the right thing like giving the last of his water to dehydrated children when he knows he will suffer the last few days of the trek across the desert. The neutral evil will scheme to start a blood feud between two families that stand in his way to the McGuffin he wants. The lawful neutral would rule in favor of a person in an argument if the other side cannot prove wrongdoing on the part of the first even if that first person is a jerk and using the power of that ruling to inflict misery on the latter. What does that leave for chaotic neutral... running in glades and leaping into the air screaming "I'm free!"
Each of these extremes puts the character out there and actually compels them into taking risks. Yes, even evil takes risks to be evil because just being selfish or self-centered is neutral. In fact, neutral describes apathy and a lack of impetus to do anything beyond satisfying one's own needs. Any impetus that takes the character out of that safety zone and puts him in harms way for no real reward is just what those morals and ethics are doing. So how is "freedom" an impetus when the very nature of freedom defies compulsion. And if freedom, say from the constraints of civilization's order, is the purpose of chaos then why are animals neutral and not a chaotic anything?
Chaos is the impulse towards disorder, the want to knock things down even if those things serve a purpose that the chaotic person likes or with which it agrees. Modified chaos colors his actions in upheaval towards a moral end but ultimately the chaotic nature rails against any form of structure whether it is subdued muttering with like-minded individuals or bloody rebellion. A person who is chaotically aligned hews towards the counter-culture of society. He is not unfettered by the cultural norms of his civilization but utterly dependent upon them to serve as a guidepost of what not to be or do.
"That's all a... passionately argument. But what does it mean?" Chaotic <whatever> alignment types are not people whom have oppositional defiance disorder or labor under the need to attack figures of authority. From passive to aggressive, peaceful to violent, the chaotic character attacks order. The chaotic character will suddenly invite himself to an outing of three friends who always go fishing together or instigate a fight between a husband and wife because neither are living a "fun" life. In this way I think the morally modified chaotic alignments are more easily identified and playable from both sides of the "GM screen."
In my games I have explained to the players that the alignment of the character is a declaration of what kinds of causes for which the player will hurt his own character. Doing actions for a particular cause is the basis of alignment declarations on the character sheets. That NPC doesn't detect as evil simply because he killed someone but that he would do so for the express purpose of being evil as a matter of his nature. Many of my NPCs fall into the alignment of Neutral because they have no impetus for detrimental actions other than for personal gain or reasons that do not meet the ethical and moral thresholds... which is why they are not heroes.
I waltzed a chaotic evil NPC right under my players' noses and caused them to question if the guy is a villain or a hero since every one of his actions revealed flaws hidden in their security, uncovered plots by powerful enemies, brought people together to take action against authorities too intractable to take real threats seriously, saved people from starvation, and had nothing but kind words to say about the PCs wherever he went. It was only by the investigative prowess by one player over the last year of gaming that the group put together all the events and consequences that they realize the CE NPC has sown the seeds of sedition, heightened popular xenophobia, undermined confidence in the leadership, overburdened the local food supplies, and deteriorated cooperation between communities of people in an entire region. The players are now very limited in what they can do because the guy is an unimpeachable hero to the people, sought by lords for his wisdom and publicly recognized for his acts of charity and mercy. The means of his actions are beneficent; however, his ends are to disrupt trade from the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Sword Coast, cause conflict within the Lords' Alliance, rock the foundations of the feudal system, and present a target-rich environment for all the savage bands of humanoids and monsters to tempt them into coming out from hiding in their lairs to see who really dominates in the land. Even if his schemes work out as planned, he gains nothing since few will be left alive and with little remaining material wealth to remember him or shower him with gifts & gratitude. This is one example of what chaos does in chaotic evil.
But that's my take on why I think the core descriptions in the source books are wrong. What's your thoughts on the whole chaotic equals freedom mantra and the opposite of that to define lawful needing to be oppression?
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Make the best use of the system that's there, then modify the mechanics that don't allow you to have the fun you are looking for. |
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Arcanus
Senior Scribe
485 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 10:22:39
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| Law is restrictive, it sets the rules to live by. You cannot be truly free if you are lawful. Chaos does mean freedom, you can do whatever the hell you like because nothing holds you back. |
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Tanthalas
Senior Scribe
Portugal
508 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 12:43:05
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Chaos is more anarchy than freedom.
Freedom has limits too. Usually, your freedom ends where the next guy's freedom starts. |
Sir Markham pointed out, drinking another brandy. "A chap who can point at you and say 'die' has the distinct advantage". |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 13:09:28
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quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
Chaos is more anarchy than freedom.
Freedom has limits too. Usually, your freedom ends where the next guy's freedom starts.
Well said! |
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Rymac
Learned Scribe
USA
315 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 16:40:57
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| Law vs Chaos is (in my humble opinion) how a character or npc views and trusts authority. Being lawful does not mean one is not free. There is a difference between freedom and liberty. |
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Delwa
Master of Realmslore
USA
1268 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 17:03:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Tanthalas
Chaos is more anarchy than freedom.
Freedom has limits too. Usually, your freedom ends where the next guy's freedom starts.
Ditto.
I believe there's some problems with the OP's definitions. The ones that stand out are Neutrality and Chaos itself.
It was said that
quote:
neutral describes apathy and a lack of impetus to do anything beyond satisfying one's own needs.
You just constrained neutrality. One could argue that a truly neutral person would even set aside their own needs. Otherwise, you are imposing a law, an order on neutrality. You no longer have true neutral, but lawful neutral.
It was also stated that chaos is
quote:
Chaos is the impulse towards disorder, the want to knock things down even if those things serve a purpose that the chaotic person likes or with which it agrees.
But right there, you are constraining chaos to fit your own needs. You are putting laws in place to govern something that is, by definition, not bound by law. In order to truly be free, chaos needs the freedom to both create and destroy. If it does not, then it is not free, it is merely destruction.
There is an element of chaos to law, and vice versa. Law does not equal absolute predictability. A devil may find loopholes in his deal/contract that allows him to do what he wants. A Paladin may find provision in the law to protect people he deems worthy of protecting, even if they are condemned in the eyes of the law by most people. They are both acting within the bounds of law, but we may see it as bucking the system if we do not understand the laws fully and absolutely.
Chaos is often defined as anarchy or entropy. You might be able to predict how a chaotic person will act based on other factors, but the one factor you know you can't take into account is the law because law (at least in the D&D alignment system) is the opposite of chaos. A purely chaotic person, by definition, doesn't act with any respect for rules. Even his own self-preservation is out the window if you want to be truly chaotic.
However, pure chaos is extremely rare. I'd say it is even nigh impossible for most races, even demons, for they are bound by evil. Even entropy, a factor of chaos, is bound by law, bound by rules. Entropy has to flow into disorder. It cannot randomly flow backwards and create more order.
Chaos is tempered in the alignment system. There is no "chaotic chaotic" alignment. Chaos is always constrained by something. There is always a rule, a law, to bind it.
Law and chaos are tempered with good and evil, or at the very least neutrality. Good and evil provide an order, a touch of law, if you will, to the chaos.
A Chaotic good person is a bit of a loose cannon, but the good part tempers that chaos into an unbridled passion for the common good. Good sets rules and boundaries for the chaos, it channels it.
A chaotic evil person can be counted on to act selfishly, his chaos is predictably going to be self-seeking, evil.
Chaotic neutral might not always play to good or evil, but they will play towards balance. You can count on them to not always be good, and at the same time not always be evil.
The point I'm driving towards here is this: pure chaos is still bound by at least one rule: it cannot act predictably. It could be a creative force one instant, and a destructive one the next.
To paraphrase John Locke, "there is no freedom without the law."
There will always be a rule defining chaos.
A die roll is not chaos. It is bound by the rules of physics. Just because we as human beings cannot predict the outcome with 100% accuracy doesn't make it chaotic, it's simply beyond our comprehension.
Chaos is, to me at least, merely a lack of understanding. Some force, some law does govern how a thing acts. Just because I as an individual do not understand that force might lead me to label it chaotic, but it isn't truly chaotic. Something drives it.
It is my opinion that true chaos does not exist, at least in a tangible way. We can create an abstract concept of pure chaos, but the moment you constrain it to an individual personality, you put it into a set of rules.
I can define a squirrel as chaotic, it acts in a seemingly random manner, but ultimately it is acting on its instincts of self-preservation. Those instincts may fail it and the squirrel then gets hit by a car, but just because I couldn't predict that the little fuzzball would run out into the road doesn't mean it was purely chaotic, but instead that I was unable to predict how its impulses would drive it. The problem is that I do not understand the laws governing its actions, not that it is actually a force of chaos.
The entire universe is driven by the laws of physics. Things my appear in the world that our understanding of physics cannot explain, but that is not a failure on physics' part, but on our own limited understanding. The universe is still acting according to the rules that govern it, even if I do not understand them. The stars still move in precise patterns, the terrestrial sphere we abide on still turns on its axis, all governed by laws that we sometimes fail to grasp.
Even in a world with magic, there are still laws governing how things behave. We may not fully comprehend them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Anyway, that's my thoughts. I think I'm starting to ramble.  |
- Delwa Aunglor
I am off to slay yon refrigerator and spoil it's horde. Go for the cheese, Boo!
"The Realms change; seldom at the speed desired of those who strive, but far too quickly for those who resist." - The Simbul, taken from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Conspectus |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 17:21:30
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| I do not think abstract concepts can be clearly defined. There can be no absolute definitions of something like chaos. It is a broad guideline or concept not a truly definable truth |
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Rymac
Learned Scribe
USA
315 Posts |
Posted - 22 Mar 2015 : 18:15:26
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| Here's my understanding of Law to Neutrality to Chaos. Law = laws are always good to have. Neutral = some laws are good, some laws are bad. Chaos = if I happen to obey a law, it's only because [I, me, we, etc..] HAPPEN to be following it. It's not that chaotic people are looking to break laws, it is (at least in terms of being Chaotic Good) being care-free. I would not ascribe neutrality to being in a state of apathy. With my earlier post about Law vs. Chaos being about authority, just substitute in the same way law in the earlier example. Law = someone in authority is good, whereas neutral = some authority is good to have, some authority is bad, and chaos = If I'm obeying/following an authority, it's only because [I, me, we, etc..] HAPPEN to be doing it, not because it was a conscious act to follow said authority. |
Edited by - Rymac on 22 Mar 2015 22:18:44 |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 00:54:54
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| If there are only nine alignments and all beings/people are assigned one how can they be as absolute as some people suggest? |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7981 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 02:46:41
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quote:
MrHedgehog
If there are only nine alignments and all beings/people are assigned one how can they be as absolute as some people suggest?
The 17 or 18 Outer Planes of the old AD&D Great Wheel represent intermediate stages between the 9 classic alignments, and people can end up enjoying/suffering an eternal afterlife at any one of these blurred-alignment destinations.
An explanation from Planescape lore is that Planars have a more sophisticated understanding of the true workings of the cosmos than ignorant Primes locked onto a single muddy little world can readily comprehend.
Then again, some Planar natives are locked into even more extreme viewpoints than most Primes. A modron can only see everything in the cosmos being "Law" or "non-Law", any other possibility is a barely comprehensible and completely irrelevant abstraction. Celestial archons see anything beyond the "pure Good" they champion as Evil. Fiends are Evil and, quite simply, think any other viewpoint is simply weakness to be exploited.
The 9-peg alignment system is, by necessity, an oversimplification. Most people in any world cannot be so conveniently categorized. D&D is a game, not a simulation. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 23 Mar 2015 02:53:01 |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 05:07:54
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I agree with you Ayrik (not sure if you were refuting me?)
Which is why I think trying to discuss the final truths of things like what is "Chaos" is futile |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7981 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 05:24:57
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| I have met all too many players who assume CN equates to unrestrained *freedom*. And far too many who cannot understand LE or CG. And, sadly, many who automatically translate LG into Lawful Stupid. Or True Neutral into disinterested apathy. |
[/Ayrik] |
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SaMoCon
Senior Scribe
USA
403 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 07:23:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Delwa
I believe there's some problems with the OP's definitions. The ones that stand out are Neutrality and Chaos itself.
It was said that
quote:
neutral describes apathy and a lack of impetus to do anything beyond satisfying one's own needs.
You just constrained neutrality. One could argue that a truly neutral person would even set aside their own needs. Otherwise, you are imposing a law, an order on neutrality. You no longer have true neutral, but lawful neutral.
It was also stated that chaos is
quote:
Chaos is the impulse towards disorder, the want to knock things down even if those things serve a purpose that the chaotic person likes or with which it agrees.
But right there, you are constraining chaos to fit your own needs. You are putting laws in place to govern something that is, by definition, not bound by law. In order to truly be free, chaos needs the freedom to both create and destroy. If it does not, then it is not free, it is merely destruction.
Then why are animals and things of animal intelligence or less neutral and not chaotic? And as for the charges of "constraining" - yeah, by defining every alignment we are constraining them in their meanings to (key point here) mortal creatures with the reasoning to understand morals and ethics. Animals and those of or less than their capacity for awareness are not on the alignment grid. Yet animals strive to be free, must be conditioned for cages, bent to the collar, and broken into being saddled. Even dogs, bred for thousands of years to be subserviently domesticated to humans will revel in that moment of being unleashed to run in open space. Still neutral.
To me alignments seem to be the convictions and ideals players want their characters to act upon. Are these "too pure" to live by in any realistic sense? As long as there are consequences to the ideal actions that detrimentally affect the pious when there are options to profit by behaving sinfully then ideals are something that even the most reverent will have difficulty with which to live in accordance. It is easy to act in harmony with a respected set of mores when there is nothing lost by doing so.
True neutral was the moral and ethical balancing act and the awareness of it about which other neutrals are either unknowing or do not care enough to take action to the detriment of themselves. These individuals are uncommon compared to the rest of the transapients. The other neutral sophonts are not philosophical zealots. That does not make these neutrals lazy or beings incapable of action. They will protect the people they love, denounce those they hate, fight, laugh, cry, and do other actions for their own reasons. Though a few of their actions aspire to higher ideals the grand majority are for personal reasons.
Have you ever encountered the saying "your character is revealed by the actions you make when you believe no one is looking?" I think a character's alignment is revealed when the actions taken to the detriment of the character when everyone is watching and the actions taken to the detriment of the character when no one is watching are the same even though there are different and available courses of action that lead to more desirable outcomes. This detriment is real danger of actual or potential: loss of life, extreme bodily harm, harm to dear relationships, or loss of treasured property.
Characters are not confined since they are representative of thinking beings with free will to act upon their vices or follow their virtues. When characters break their alignments is when we see real changes where the moral codes do not matter as much as for what those ideologies are being broken. Is this an evolutionary change where pragmatism prevails over idealism? Is it a tragic spiral and fall for the aspiring paragon into a despairing cynic? Maybe something extreme was happening requiring extreme actions for which the character needs to repent and atone. But, if, as you say, chaos is freedom, then how does one violate that alignment? Even acting in accordance with the law is something a chaotic alignment would do by Rymac's statement "if I happen to obey a law, it's only because [I, me, we, etc..] HAPPEN to be following it." Chaotic is an alignment impossible to violate. |
Make the best use of the system that's there, then modify the mechanics that don't allow you to have the fun you are looking for. |
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Entromancer
Senior Scribe
USA
388 Posts |
Posted - 23 Mar 2015 : 23:42:41
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Chaos =/= Freedom.
Case in point: Michael Moorcock's A CURE FOR CANCER
In this novel, Jerry Cornelius would be given a CHAOTIC NEUTRAL alignment. He works for a group that perform transmogrifications on people. A few of those seen early on are usually taken at vibragun-point, kicking and screaming all the way to the compound for the procedure. Not much freedom there, yet Jerry is clearly Chaotic Neutral. |
"...the will is everything. The will to act."--Ra's Al Ghul
"Suffering builds character."--Talia Al Ghul |
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Old Alignment Talk: Why does Chaotic = Freedom?
