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White Blade
2010-03-28, 03:22 PM
Okay, so I know this topic has been done to death (and, after it' dry brittle corpse was raised again into a life-like form by the greatest foes of the Gods, done to death again) but I'm always looking to hear other people's interpretations of the system as well as get criticisms for my own (which will be at the bottom of this post in spoilers). So how do you handle the law/chaos axis in your game? And how do you manage to get it to actually tell you something about the character if you use it?

My method of doing the Law/Chaos axis is that Lawful characters have formulaic or regimented codes to use, whereas chaotic ones go more on their feelings. For example, two Good characters might give the same amount of gold to a beggar and one would be lawful and one would be chaotic. The chaotic character says to himself, "I feel for this man, who is in need," and the lawful character might say, "I have long since decided that I would refuse to help no one who had need, unless other matters were more pressing." A neutral character would be one who had a limited code, which was often subject to interpretation. He might say, "I should help this man, because I believe in helping others as far as I am able."

Evil characters being those who have either no regard for the lives of others or who are actively malicious regarding some large portion of others might all kill a man. The lawful character would say, "He betrayed me, and therefore it is within my rights to kill him," or he might say, "It is a firm principle that all elves are worthy of death," a neutral character would say, "He crossed me, and I don't believe in second chances," or he might say, "I loathe his kind's existence, so I shall deal with him accordingly," and a chaotic evil character would likely say something like, "That son of a ----- crossed me and I'm gonna get him back for it," or, "I hate people with pointy ears."

Does that make sense? I hope so.

rubycona
2010-03-28, 03:54 PM
Alignment is crazy challenging to do anything with.

My system for alignment in general is that the Gods all individually mark all living things with their opinions of that thing's alignment. X god may decide this PC is LG, while Y god might decide he's CE (I actually have a PC where this would be true). The net result of these divine "touches," with a bias against neutral (decided by the DM) determines their final alignment.

For divine people (clerics, etc) you only have to be considered the proper alignment by your own God. You may even have a "final" alignment that's against your God's alignment, but as long as your God thinks you're the right alignment, you're still game.

These collective marks are what the Alignment spells affect (prot from Evil and so forth). The stuff where these spells actually bind outsiders are when the decision is overwhelming... Angels and Demons and such, they kind of have to follow mental programming of sorts, they don't really get free will, so their judgement is unanimous for whatever alignment they get, and that's why they're bound by such spells.

This does mean that if any mortal becomes Absolute Evil, or Absolute Chaos, or whatever, the related Alignment spells Will treat them as Outsiders. Since all mortals have a touch of Neutral, they will get saves to do stuff like cross Magic Circles against X.


That's how I handle all alignments. As for the Law-Chaos axis specifically, your system's pretty nice, I think. I personally think the Law-Chaos side is crazy hard to judge. So, I tend to leave the heavy stuff out and call it "personal quirks," and simply judge the Law-Chaos alignment based on the individual's values as far as how they regard authority. If it's illegal to do something, do they care? If yes, and they follow it / like the placement of laws, that's lawful, if yes, and they feel it's restrictive / dislike it, that's chaotic, if they don't really care one way or another, that's neutral.

Stuff like keeping your word, and all the other stuff with the Law-Chaos alignment, it's too involved, you know? Take me, for instance. I hate lying, I have a personal moral code to which I adhere strictly, I value honor greatly, and yet, I absolutely balk at authority / legal strictures, and any sort of externally imposed moral system, and often go out of my way to defy these strictures (like sex in public places), and will balk at absolutely any restriction on my own self-expression. I tend to regard myself as chaotic with a lawful streak, since the chaotic side is much more visible to others, but there's strong elements of both.

Alignment is tough to crack, with complex characters.

lsfreak
2010-03-28, 03:54 PM
A lawful character follows laws because they are the laws. They will generally agree with most/all of the laws of whatever organization's laws they follow (religious, societal, whatever), but will generally also enforce/follow the laws they disagree with (though if there's a way of changing the laws, they may try to pursue that). There can be conflicts when one person's laws are based on society and another's on religion, or the like.

A chaotic character follows laws because he feels they are good laws to follow. If society happens to have the same values as the chaotic character, all the better. They won't just run around breaking laws because they can, but will only do it when they feel they are justified in doing so.

Both can be equally shallow ('They told me to do this' for lawful, 'They were too weak to stop me' for chaotic) or deep (theological, philosophical, or humanitarian reasons, for example). Lawful Stupid/Chaotic Stupid tend to be dealt with realistically (LS is hated by people on both sides of the law and is generally disallowed from doing anything by their own organization, except maybe the things that will get them killed by the Mob. CS get a d4 rolled every time they're more than 30 feet off the ground; on an even roll they jump :smalltongue: Or more realistically, they tend to get in way over their heads and have everyone trying to get rid of them).

A neutral person probably doesn't really care. They follow the laws because it's troublesome not to, or they haven't thought deeply about whether they feel the laws are good or bad. They may break some laws, but not in major ways, and only if they feel they are justified.

For example, someone might choose to follow religious laws because they're supposed to. A chaotic person follows them because they're good things to believe in. A neutral person follows them because it doesn't hurt to follow them, or because of punishments for not following them (heaven/hell, for example).

Realistically, most people are probably neutral. They just don't care, and it causes problems to break laws. Sure, they'll go a little over the speed limit when they're in a hurry, they'll complain about jury duty, and they won't correct the Walmart cashier that gave them an extra $10, but they won't blatantly ignore laws either. Lawful and Chaotic alignments are ones that tend to analyze more deeply why they believe in something and uphold it much more than the normal person. But like I said, they can be pretty shallow as well.

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 04:11 PM
I think using "Lawful" was a mistake on WotC's part. They actually say nothing about Lawful characters always (or usually) following the law, and just that they have some code they won't break. "Lawful characters follow the law" was, if I'm not mistaken, a result of it being called "Lawful". I say Lawful just means the character is rigid, ordered, etc., not that they necessarily follow the laws. Thus, trained military personnel will tend towards Lawful, whereas the berserker raiding parties will tends towards Chaotic. It makes the requirements for Paladins less stupid (breaking laws set by the LE tyrant doesn't risk falling for not be LG, and LG is a broader spectrum in general), and makes more sense. At least, it makes more sense to me.

Emmerask
2010-03-28, 04:15 PM
I think using "Lawful" was a mistake on WotC's part. They actually say nothing about Lawful characters always (or usually) following the law, and just that they have some code they won't break. "Lawful characters follow the law" was, if I'm not mistaken, a result of it being called "Lawful". I say Lawful just means the character is rigid, ordered, etc., not that they necessarily follow the laws. Thus, trained military personnel will tend towards Lawful, whereas the berserker raiding parties will tends towards Chaotic. It makes the requirements for Paladins less stupid (breaking laws set by the LE tyrant doesn't risk falling for not be LG, and LG is a broader spectrum in general), and makes more sense. At least, it makes more sense to me.

I think thats correct

Riffington
2010-03-28, 04:18 PM
I think using "Lawful" was a mistake on WotC's part. They actually say nothing about Lawful characters always (or usually) following the law, and just that they have some code they won't break. "Lawful characters follow the law" was, if I'm not mistaken, a result of it being called "Lawful". I say Lawful just means the character is rigid, ordered, etc., not that they necessarily follow the laws. Thus, trained military personnel will tend towards Lawful, whereas the berserker raiding parties will tends towards Chaotic. It makes the requirements for Paladins less stupid (breaking laws set by the LE tyrant doesn't risk falling for not be LG, and LG is a broader spectrum in general), and makes more sense. At least, it makes more sense to me.

Well, the rules actually do say they obey authority (most laws are made by an authority, though it's possible a tyrant is not a properly-constituted authority) and tradition. It is, however, true that some of the things included in Lawful are basically unrelated. Being a person of habit and being a person who obeys tradition are both Lawful but may not be present in the same person.
So you're right, except that the Paladin does have to follow the laws within reason. If the King happens to be LE and puts an extra tax on Pelor-worshippers, the Paladin probably still has to pay it. If it's high enough to be actively tyrannical, he can be disobedient or even lead a rebellion - but there has to be a darn good reason.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-28, 04:19 PM
How a lawful person behaves depends on if they are Lawful Neutral, Evil or Good, the same goes for chaotic, I don't believe they can be as easily separated to like good vs evil can.

A lawful good character would believe in laws as a means to justice. But that doesn't mean he'd follow an unjust or evil law just because it was the law.
They respect legitimate authority,

How else would a paladin stand against a tyrant? but by breaking the law and opposing him.

A chaotic character is of course quicker and faster to break a law they oppose. A lawful character would probably look for a more legitimate way to change the system if he can.

While a lawful character would probably respect a law that says they must Peace-bond their weapon. (tie it in the seethe or in such a away it can't be readily accessed).

A chaotic character would be more likely to break it simply because it interferes with their freedom.

I will once again stress that a character has only ONE alignment not two, how a lawful or chaotic character behaves depends largely on if they are good, evil or neither.

Mikeavelli
2010-03-28, 04:42 PM
Agreed with a few sentiments above, if you simply replace the word "lawful" with "ordered" - or just see it as a Order/Chaos axis, it becomes much easier to see what was intended by that particular axis.

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 04:57 PM
Agreed with a few sentiments above, if you simply replace the word "lawful" with "ordered" - or just see it as a Order/Chaos axis, it becomes much easier to see what was intended by that particular axis.
This is exactly what I was getting at. "Lawful" was a horrible word choice.


Well, the rules actually do say they obey authority (most laws are made by an authority, though it's possible a tyrant is not a properly-constituted authority) and tradition. It is, however, true that some of the things included in Lawful are basically unrelated. Being a person of habit and being a person who obeys tradition are both Lawful but may not be present in the same person.
I like paladins. I don't like their code of conduct; as I said, I like to make being a paladin easier.

Riffington
2010-03-28, 05:07 PM
I like paladins. I don't like their code of conduct; as I said, I like to make being a paladin easier.

What parts of the Paladin code would you change?

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-28, 05:18 PM
A paladin's code requires that they be good and not work with evil, its the strictness of it that makes it lawful.

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 05:21 PM
What parts of the Paladin code would you change?
I'd drop most of it.
I'd keep the alignment restriction, but it would just be "a paladin must be Good", drop the association bit entirely and keep only "a paladin must help those in need" for the behavior part.
It's much simpler, keeps a less narrow-minded view of how to do good (it allows redemption of evil, specifically) and makes it tougher to force a fall. Of course, it also makes self-sacrifice (called out in BoED as a Good thing) a more likely event. Paladins are supposed to be among the most Good characters around, and requiring Lawful makes it tougher to stick to that.

Merk
2010-03-28, 05:37 PM
I usually associate "Lawful" with "Conservative" and "Chaotic" with "Liberal", respectively. So far it has helped me design characters that were interesting and consistent with D&D ideals of law and chaos.

Lapak
2010-03-28, 05:43 PM
I just made a post about this in another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146072), so I'm going to quote myself here:

The official materials don't do a good job of defining this, I agree. I've seen two frameworks imposed on the Law/Chaos axis that make a lot of sense and work mechanically in a D&D world, though.

Framework 1: Civilization/Individuality. Under this framework, Chaotic characters/monsters/etc. strongly believe not just in their own individual freedom, but that civilization and organization are inherently wrong. A ranger who lives alone in the woods and wants to let the townsfolk choose to live in the town isn't CG under this structure; he's NG. A Chaotic Good character would believe that civilization is inherently corruptive, decadent, and destructive of morality and goodness in general. The honorable-barbarian type, who is suspicious of cities and believes that people living there are worse for it is Chaotic Good in this framework. It's not enough to want your own freedom to be Chaotic; you have to believe that individuality should be imposed on everyone else too. (For their own good if Good, for your benefit if Evil.) This is what I generally treat it as in my games; a lot of player character types generally thought of as Chaotic fall into Neutrality on that scale here.

Framework 2: Cosmic Creation/Destruction. The forces that create and maintain the Material Plane are all Lawful under this context, and forces that wish to tear it down and return it to the primordial randomness are Chaotic. Whether you are good or evil, selfish or altruistic, bandit or dictator or vigilante or wise magistrate, people aligning themselves actively with the forces of preservation are Lawful in this framework, and Chaotic alignment is limited to people or creatures actively seeking destruction or bound in the service of forces that are.

In both cases, Chaos is not sheer weirdness and randomness, and has a distinct flavor of its own that could be represented in a sourcebook. But neither is the 'official' version.

Riffington
2010-03-28, 05:51 PM
I'd drop most of it.
I'd keep the alignment restriction, but it would just be "a paladin must be Good", drop the association bit entirely and keep only "a paladin must help those in need" for the behavior part.
It's much simpler, keeps a less narrow-minded view of how to do good (it allows redemption of evil, specifically) and makes it tougher to force a fall. Of course, it also makes self-sacrifice (called out in BoED as a Good thing) a more likely event. Paladins are supposed to be among the most Good characters around, and requiring Lawful makes it tougher to stick to that.

Redemption is allowed. First, Paladins are permitted to associate with an Evil person who is sincerely trying to reform. Second, they are supposed to defeat evil, and a redemption is a much sounder defeat of evil than would merely sending them to prison/hell would be.

But... so you don't need your Paladins to be trustworthy? You're ok with underhanded subterfuge, gambling, starting bar brawls? In short, you don't mind a Paladin like Malcom Reynolds?

absolmorph
2010-03-28, 05:58 PM
Redemption is allowed. First, Paladins are permitted to associate with an Evil person who is sincerely trying to reform. Second, they are supposed to defeat evil, and a redemption is a much sounder defeat of evil than would merely sending them to prison/hell would be.

But... so you don't need your Paladins to be trustworthy? You're ok with underhanded subterfuge, gambling, starting bar brawls? In short, you don't mind a Paladin like Malcom Reynolds?

No, they can't.

While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters, nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

And Mal is an awesome paladin... except I'm not sure he's quite Good. And there's the whole "helping those in need" that he's somewhat inconsistent about (when it's major, and not extremely difficult, he'll probably do it. Like the medicine, and the Reaver attack in Serenity).

Riffington
2010-03-28, 06:05 PM
No, they can't.
3.5 oversimplifies things. Go back a couple editions for a better look at the Paladin's associates:
"A paladin may employ only lawful good henchmen (or those who act in such a manner when alignment is unknown). A paladin will cooperate with characters of other alignments only as long as they behave themselves. He will try to show them the proper way to live through both word and deed. The paladin realizes that most people simply cannot maintain his high standards. Even thieves can be tolerated, provided they are not evil and are sincerely trying to reform. He will not abide the company of those who commit evil or unrighteous acts. Stealth in the cause of good is acceptable, though only as a last resort."

Starbuck_II
2010-03-28, 06:11 PM
You can't judge 3.5 by X editions standards and vice versa.

3.5 Paladins can't redeem evil because this is asssociating. They did this on purpose or it would have been changed by 3.5 (same language in 3.0).

Cisturn
2010-03-28, 09:14 PM
White Blade, your take on alignment is fine, personally i think that s Lawful Good person might help out a poor man stirctly out of empathy but really that's neither here nor there

Yukitsu
2010-03-28, 09:32 PM
Law: Structured, ordered, organized, predictable.
Chaotic: Random, unpredictable, lack of organization and structure.

huttj509
2010-03-28, 10:10 PM
White Blade, your take on alignment is fine, personally i think that s Lawful Good person might help out a poor man stirctly out of empathy but really that's neither here nor there

Might be more general empathy for the plight of the poor that led to the lawful character's habit of assisting them, rather than simply being moved by this specific person's plight, is the impression I got.

Ravens_cry
2010-03-28, 10:33 PM
Lawful tends to follow a code, either external, like the laws of a country, or internal, like the paladins code. They also tend to find a certain satisfaction in a hierarchy. Even if they aren't king of the mountain, they like to know where they stand in the pecking order.
Chaotic tends to go more for the gut feeling, they do what they feel they should do. They tend to value personal freedom, though how much they value that of others depends largely on their stance on the moral array. They often dislike having to answer to others and may dislike others answering to them.
These are my thoughts. Feel free to disagree entirely, but I like to think I have raised some good points.

White Blade
2010-03-28, 11:02 PM
The following post is divided in three sections, based on whom I am responding to.

Huttj:
Might be more general empathy for the plight of the poor that led to the lawful character's habit of assisting them, rather than simply being moved by this specific person's plight, is the impression I got.

The idea is the lawful person vets her actions through her system, whereas the chaotic person vets his actions through his emotions. The lawful person decided, based on empathy or philosophy or any other reason, that helping people was the way to go. But the chaotic person decided that they should help this person specifically. A chaotic good person is the kind of person who makes that kind of choice consistently, though not (mostly) on principle (though a chaotic good character might have a code or principle stating, "I'll always try to do good," which doesn't have a significant value on interpreting whether or not individual actions are good.).

On a neutral level, as another example, suppose your society has a taboo about not wearing blue because it is considered an insult to the king. A chaotic person might not wear blue because it feels churlish and a lawful person might not wear blue because she considers it an insult to the king, even if both are in a nation in which blue clothes are not reserved for royalty. Maybe the chaotic character considers it an insult to the king and maybe it feels churlish to the lawful character, but the predominant reason is emotional or rational, depending on the law/chaos axis.

Rubycona:
Alignment is crazy challenging to do anything with.

My system for alignment in general is that the Gods all individually mark all living things with their opinions of that thing's alignment. X god may decide this PC is LG, while Y god might decide he's CE (I actually have a PC where this would be true). The net result of these divine "touches," with a bias against neutral (decided by the DM) determines their final alignment. This is a very solid system, though I've always preferred a bit more absolutism in my system.


That's how I handle all alignments. As for the Law-Chaos axis specifically, your system's pretty nice, I think. I personally think the Law-Chaos side is crazy hard to judge. So, I tend to leave the heavy stuff out and call it "personal quirks," and simply judge the Law-Chaos alignment based on the individual's values as far as how they regard authority. If it's illegal to do something, do they care? If yes, and they follow it / like the placement of laws, that's lawful, if yes, and they feel it's restrictive / dislike it, that's chaotic, if they don't really care one way or another, that's neutral. I generally don't like this method of doing it, because I always feel like there's that one guy who would be very lawful who just does not believe in laws (such as yourself, according to your statements). Still this is murky water at best, and if you've found a system that works for you that's cool. Also, a very absolutist system and I always approve of a bit more absolutism in everyone's lives.


Stuff like keeping your word, and all the other stuff with the Law-Chaos alignment, it's too involved, you know? Take me, for instance. I hate lying, I have a personal moral code to which I adhere strictly, I value honor greatly, and yet, I absolutely balk at authority / legal strictures, and any sort of externally imposed moral system, and often go out of my way to defy these strictures (like sex in public places), and will balk at absolutely any restriction on my own self-expression. I tend to regard myself as chaotic with a lawful streak, since the chaotic side is much more visible to others, but there's strong elements of both. I'd put you as lawful if you balk at those things on principle and not because you don't like them. If it is primarily because you don't like them, I'd put you at neutral. Your system is only partially dominant, in that case (even if your system has nothing against that attitude), and a large portion of your actions are dictated by it but a fair part of them are not. Unless, of course, your moral code is sufficiently broad in potential interpretations... But I'm assuming not.

Paladin's Code Debate: I've always assumed the Paladin's code wasn't really given much thought and just tried to play a consistently Lawful Good character. Generally, that means living up to the code as written, but when it doesn't most DMs let it slide.

rubycona
2010-03-29, 01:00 AM
@White Blade Yay! I was quoted ^-^ (First time I've been quoted on this forum :D)

I'm not too pleased with my own system for Law-Chaos (I DO like the deity thing), because of those very issues you brought up. I just find it so hard to judge! So many elements, attributes. I can't have everyone Neutral, you know?

Sometimes I get frustrated with it, and feel like ditching alignment entirely. Other times, it seems that it's necessary to get newbie players to do anything roleplay-wise at all. Sometimes, it seems blatantly obvious that it should be there, in cases of paragons or villains that should probably have visible auras of good/evil, respectively.

Excepting stuff like aligned Outsiders, which I consider to lack freewill and Must exist as an embodiment of their alignments, I tend to dodge Law-Chaos entirely, only giving it a nominal mention, and as DM, I never have any Law/Chaos stuff for any enemies or items or whatever. I find Good and Evil easier to work with, to define.

That's just me, though.

hamishspence
2010-03-29, 12:20 PM
The Save My Game section of the 3.5 archive, had this snippet on Lawful & Chaotic:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

rubycona
2010-03-29, 01:22 PM
The Save My Game section of the 3.5 archive, had this snippet on Lawful & Chaotic:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20050325a

That's... really nice, actually. Holy crap, Wizards knows what it's doing? :P It doesn't address the fact that people can have a plethora of traits from either side, but it's still nice.

JaxGaret
2010-03-29, 08:15 PM
The Lawful character does what they think their higher authority (whether that be an organization, a god, or their own personal code) would say is right; the Chaotic character does what they feel is right at the time.

Note the dichotomy between think and feel. Lawful characters are more logically driven, and Chaotic characters are more emotionally driven.

How does that sound?

Geiger Counter
2010-03-29, 08:26 PM
The Lawful character does what they think their higher authority (whether that be an organization, a god, or their own personal code) would say is right; the Chaotic character does what they feel is right at the time.

Note the dichotomy between think and feel. Lawful characters are more logically driven, and Chaotic characters are more emotionally driven.

How does that sound?

Personally I'd say logic is neutral, chaotic is more everyone for themselves and lawful is for god and country. Though Chaotic characters can be patriotic, but only when their god and country are for everyone for themselves.

Ravens_cry
2010-03-29, 08:40 PM
That's... really nice, actually. Holy crap, Wizards knows what it's doing? :P It doesn't address the fact that people can have a plethora of traits from either side, but it's still nice.
Well, that's what the Neutral alignment portion of the axis is for. Some traits of the other can be contained in a opposite, but if you contain many of each, then Neutral about covers that continuum.
*Tangent Alert*
People like to rag on WoTC. However, looking through the 1st edition AD&D books; the TSR definitions were far worse.
Apparently, a Chaotic Neutral characters goal is "ultimate chaos", and Lawful Neutral seeks to bring "all to predictability and regulation.".