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Pisha
2011-05-02, 06:13 PM
Well, their logic was "The Goddess told us not to desecrate her sacred lands, and acted like she was better than us. We are chaotic neutral, and don't like being told what to do by people in power, so we were only RPing our characters. You should have predicted that is how we would play our characters and adjusted the encounter CR accordingly." I thought was insane, but I have seen a lot of similar sentiments on this forum, so I thought maybe I was the one who didn't get it.



Step 1: Never Allow CN aligned PCs ever again.

Step 2: see step 1.

Chaotic Neutral gets a lot of flack.

To an extent, it's fair. While many alignments have their fair share of annoying, potentially game-derailing interpretations (I'm looking at you, Lawful Good), CN tends to lend itself well to a certain disruptive type of character - or maybe it's just that certain disruptive players are drawn to that alignment.

But is it fair? Is Chaotic Neutral truly such a bad alignment, or is it simply the victim of bad players? Could a true CN character, done well, be a fun and valuable addition to a party, or is this alignment doomed to be the province of wild monkeys pretending to be adventurers?

My current character was created, in part, with the idea of playing a Chaotic Neutral character who wasn't Chaotic Stupid. She had high intelligence and a willingness to compromise when necessary, and while she far preferred a chaotic lifestyle she understood that a) not every rule needs to be broken as a kneejerk reaction, b) there are things that can and will kill you if you make them angry, so sometimes doing what they say is a good idea, and c) in a pinch, it is ok to pretend to follow rules (so as to destroy them more completely further down the line.) Also, although the character was (in the beginning) a selfish, every-rogue-for-herself type, she kept the whole "screwing the party" thing to an acceptable minimum, eventually phasing it out once they got to know each other better.

All in all, I'd like to think I managed a decent CN character; the only problem is that eventually, she began to slide towards CG. What do other people think? Have you seen CN played well? If it is played well, does the character generally shift to another alignment in time? How would you envision the ideal CN character?

Can an alignment based on utter personal freedom ever truly play well with others?

Discuss.

Traab
2011-05-02, 06:20 PM
You can play a great game as any alignment, the truth is that a jerk will be a jerk and continue to do his best to ruin the game in the name of his enjoyment no matter what alignment he picks. Chaotic neutral is just the easiest alignment for players to try to use to justify doing anything that pops up when their two remaining brain cells fire off at the same time and overheat. The fact that they can do anything good bad or weird and play the alignment card just gives them more options while they try to look piously innocent, knowing they are just ruining the game for everyone else.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-05-02, 06:22 PM
You can play a great game as any alignment, the truth is that a jerk will be a jerk and continue to do his best to ruin the game in the name of his enjoyment no matter what alignment he picks. Chaotic neutral is just the easiest alignment for players to try to use to justify doing anything that pops up when their two remaining brain cells fire off at the same time and overheat. The fact that they can do anything good bad or weird and play the alignment card just gives them more options while they try to look piously innocent, knowing they are just ruining the game for everyone else.

Yeah, if they can't play CN, they'll play TN and act the same way. If the can't play TN, they'll play LN, and act all uptight and expect their word to be treated as the law. If they can't play LN, they'll play LG, and act the same way. And so on...

dsmiles
2011-05-02, 06:30 PM
To be fair, all of my characters shift alignment over time. It's generally a part of character development, IMO. My CN ones don't shift any faster or slower than any of my other ones (except my Lawfully aligned characters, they shift very slowly or not at all). Many of my characters are CN. Well, those that aren't LE, NE, LG or NG are CN. Rarely do I play LN, TN, CG or CE.

Overall, I'm going to have to say that CN is the victim of awful players. I've never had a DM ban the alignment on my account, so I'm going to have to say that apparently, CN characters can be a fun and useful addition to the group.

There is nothing saying that CN characters (or even CE characters) "don't play well with others." As long as their goals coincide with those of the party, there would be no reason for them to rebel against the group.

Talakeal
2011-05-02, 06:42 PM
or maybe it's just that certain disruptive players are drawn to that alignment.


Definetly this.

I think a lot of players see Chaotic Neutral as "do whatever you want". While "what they want" usually translates into wanting to be Chaotic Evil.

I find the whole Law vs. Chaos thing kind of dumb as no to people, including the game authors, seem to have a consistent idea of what it is.

Generally Good characters actually care about the setting, and Neutral characters are either indifferent, or, they are played by sociopathic players who either want to be evil but don't want any crap for it, or they truly don't understand that their actions are evil because they think everyone is a sociopath like them.

Kylarra
2011-05-02, 06:46 PM
I think any alignment can be played badly and any alignment can be played well (with varying level of difficulty), but CN and CE lend themselves towards a very particular mindset that is generally less than optimal for those other than the player involved.

Lord Raziere
2011-05-02, 06:51 PM
Me, I play Chaotic Neutral like this: an odd guy with a bunch of weird behaviors and eccentricities but nothing that actually hurts anyone, and only does break the law when he knows that it would be a better idea than following it and actively searches for ways for ways to break the law that will only be beneficial, not Good, just beneficial.

ericgrau
2011-05-02, 06:54 PM
Agreed, what you really need to ban is chaotic stupid. If players can't handle it then don't let them have an alignment, just leave it blank. Or put in NG. Why? Most people think they're NG in real life regardless of who they are and will act naturally if given NG.

some guy
2011-05-02, 06:55 PM
I have played/play in 3 campaigns. In one, a LG paladin, he tried to steer the other players towards his preferred choices of action but also respected their autonomy.
In the two others I played CN. In one a rogue who cared less about loot than the paladin did. The most disruptive thing I did with him was making him a lone wolf. In game, this only put my character in possible problems. Out of game, this was a jerkish move on my part, as it consumed time.* So, not a disruptive character, but a minor disruptive player.
In the other I still play a CN druid who showed the (mostly evil) party that with more strategy and teamwork more wealth and power is easier gained. That's like the opposite of disruption.

I really like the freedom of CN, it allows me to play a character how I want to play that character at the moment, not how I envision him/her at character creation. I consider alignment less important than character and playing CN characters make me worry less about not acting in alignment so I can focus on acting in character (not saying that the two preclude each other).
When I DM I never ask someone's alignment (unless alignment-based magic occurs), I do ask, at character generation, that the players will play well with each other.



Can an alignment based on utter personal freedom ever truly play well with others?

Discuss.

Yes, it can. But disruptive players will always be drawn to this alignment. Like Traab and Swiftmongoose have said, if jerkish players are banned from CN they'll play a different alignment but with a jerkish attitude.
Like always, the answer lies in talking with the player.

...And perhaps banning players, not alignments. :smalltongue:


*This campaign ended early and I figure this behaviour would probably fade out as we were still trying how to act as a team by the third session. Still, I played a spotlighthogger with a CN alignment.

Lateral
2011-05-02, 06:56 PM
Yeah, there is a lot of room for Chaotic Neutral that's not stupid; that's really more CE anyway. Most of my CN PCs sort of end up gravitating to CG over time, but that's just me. (Honestly, I think I actually make more CN PCs than CG PCs, and then they all shift. :smallannoyed:)

T.G. Oskar
2011-05-02, 07:06 PM
I'll join to the chorus of voices that claim CN is victim of people who play alignments poorly. If that is your case most of the time, you should go for a nature/demeanor definition of your character (even if it's not D&D and it's really Vampire/Werewolf/Mage), and then extrapolate their alignment based on their nature, demeanor and how they express their attitudes.

CN and LG are really two alignments that are technically extremes but have the same problem, so I would also defend LG if only because most honest, law-abiding people are usually LG. CN's big problem is that people associate it with "how to play evil and wing it" because they can just say "well, I'm CN so I'm expected to play like this". Well...that's not really how you play CN.

Amongst the myriad of interpretations, I've found a mature way of playing CN is really being indifferent, but slowly develop an attachment to something. You may, at first, mistrust the others because you're a loner by nature, or you find grouping with others as a way to get some safety when you do what you need. However, a proper CN character will slowly start to attach to these people, and eventually become a dependable ally that will use every trick on its disposal to protect them. For example: assume you're playing a CN rogue, and an enemy of the PCs has tricked your LG paladin into doing something that will tarnish his code. The type of people that play CN as "any evil" will do nothing, but a true CN will expect to treat the paladin as a friend (even if you have your issues), and will develop the worst of all humiliation congas to the enemy just because "he messed with one of your pals". This includes stealing valuable evidence, lying your way to make him look like the insect he is, and even going underground and finding that bit of evidence, then blackmailing him into submission, then revealing the evidence itself and when the enemy goes "we had a deal" you give it the finger and play the "I do what I do because that's how I am". But in the end, when you talk to the paladin ally, you can either berate him ("Hey, I did this for you! I can't stand someone who devotes its life for a higher purpose to rot in this cell for something he wouldn't normally do!") or go for a sincere apology ("Here; you're free to do with me what you want, but if I were you, I'd consider you owe me one.) That's one way to play CN, but it's usually one that's good enough; you may be a bastard to a few, but to your friends, you eventually become their ally. You can play it as the sly rogue, the bruisin' fighter or the wizard with little scruples, but in the end, your group is your family and you do ANYTHING for them.

Same for LG. You can play the police, but the LG really cares for others and generally shows (rarely orders) why following the law and living an orderly life is the right thing. In fact, one of the biggest issues with "Lawful" is that it doesn't represent necessarily "law-abiding" but "orderly". An orderly character doesn't simply follows the law; he understands why the need to follow that law and the repercussions of not doing so. An LG fighter is disciplined, and whenever someone's plan wins over your carefully crafted plan, the only thing you ensure is that the plan is done without no one getting hurt except those whom you'll deliver the hurt. Generally, as far as I can interpret it, is "doing good in an orderly way", not "forcing everyone to do good" because that enters into LN territory.

Although all interpretations here are mostly that (interpretations, not the rigid guidelines to play a character of X alignment), the idea is that there are some misunderstandings amongst both CN and LG that make people play it wrong, and perhaps the description on the PHB doesn't really help (or people really don't seem to read it). Most LG people act that way because of poorly-played Paladins who serve as the party police, while most CN are usually evil people masquerading as non-evil people in order to do so. If they are problematic enough, the DM can simply tell them "dude, you're really CE" or keep it hidden and all of a sudden have the Good Cleric's Detect Evil ping him as evil but keeping it hidden. That way, you can mislead the character into thinking he's one thing but you and the party knows he's another, and when things get rougher, you can simply go ahead and give it a piece of your mind. Not the cleanest way to do it, of course.

If anything: remember that this is an RPG, that it's partly rules and partly story, and that if you care about the story at ALL as a player or as a DM, you'll have character development in mind (because the player character is a construct of the player and its surroundings, after all; even the evil character can be friendly to the group until a better opportunity offers or until you fulfill your main objective, then you leave them to their own luck).

Talakeal
2011-05-02, 08:15 PM
Are you sure that Lawful implies Orderly? To me that seems to be the case only for outsiders, while for people lawful usually means irrational adherence to tradition and prejudice.

Most people I have talked to say that lawful means following rules or traditions even if it is illogical to do so, while a chaotic character will asses an individual situation and act according to the facts. People tell me that Spock is an extremely chaotic character because he follows logic at all times, even when it opposes rules and regulations.

Also, I find it very hard to play good, especially lawful good. Not because I have trouble doing what I feel is right, but because I am expected to be "merciless in punishing the evil" when I would prefer mercy, and because I have to sit back and be an accessory to all the chaotic stupid or downright evil jackassery the rest of my part is constantly pulling to avoid being labeled as a lawful stupid buzz kill. Alignment is a mess.

Ajadea
2011-05-02, 08:20 PM
It's easy to play CN as CStupid. But that might be more about the player wanting to play a wandering sociopathic hobo who kills people and dresses up in their stuffs than them being new to the game.

My first character ever was CN. She was perfectly fine with people who 'bowed to every authority figure without even thinking' and 'randomly decided that they couldn't do fun things, or necessary things, without consulting every book of law in the kingdom first' (basically her exaggerated descriptions of Lawful characters). At least, as long as they didn't try and make her follow their ways.

Anyone who wanted to force her to follow their ways was in for an attack wolf to the unmentionables and a handful of flames or a pointy blade up their snout. If she does something, it's because she chose to do it, not because someone ordered her to. She can agree with laws, but she doesn't agree with laws because they are laws, she agrees with them because she thinks they make sense (e.g. no killing people in the streets because they looked at you funny).

She stuck with the party for emotional reasons, not because of responsibilities or anything else of that nature.

And while she doesn't understand law, and doesn't want to be bound by it, she won't try and go make other people follow her-that's not her shtick. She doesn't like people bossing her around, and equally, she doesn't boss people around. Everyone's got to make their own choice in the end. Wanting to bow and kiss someone's ugly feet? Your choice. Stupid choice. But she won't stop you.

Ravens_cry
2011-05-02, 08:41 PM
Chaotic Stupid can be fun as long as you are not hindering other peoples fun. In the right campaign and group, a character who smashes stuff without so much as a fare-thee-well can be quite enjoyable. Maybe the charachter genuinely is stupid. And I don't mean Forrest Gump stupid, I mean Groo the Wanderer stupid, but without the introspection. Comparing them to a sack of rocks is an insult to rocks, not to mention the sack.
As I said, in the right game, it works.

Talakeal
2011-05-02, 08:49 PM
Stupid people who just act on emotion and don't understand the consequences of their actions are fine, especially if they respect the party. Its people who are actively sadistic and manipulative that are the problem. Both would fall under the heading of "chaotic neutral" (aka chaotic stupid) if they were PCs, but I would much rather have Thog in my party than Belkar.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-05-02, 08:57 PM
Stupid people who just act on emotion and don't understand the consequences of their actions are fine, especially if they respect the party. Its people who are actively sadistic and manipulative that are the problem. Both would fall under the heading of "chaotic neutral" (aka chaotic stupid) if they were PCs, but I would much rather have Thog in my party than Belkar.

Thog and Belkar are chaotic evil/stupid. Yes, Thog is chaotic evil, and his low mental abilities dont give him any leeway in the matter.

Fiery Diamond
2011-05-02, 09:07 PM
Are you sure that Lawful implies Orderly? To me that seems to be the case only for outsiders, while for people lawful usually means irrational adherence to tradition and prejudice.

Most people I have talked to say that lawful means following rules or traditions even if it is illogical to do so, while a chaotic character will asses an individual situation and act according to the facts. People tell me that Spock is an extremely chaotic character because he follows logic at all times, even when it opposes rules and regulations.

Also, I find it very hard to play good, especially lawful good. Not because I have trouble doing what I feel is right, but because I am expected to be "merciless in punishing the evil" when I would prefer mercy, and because I have to sit back and be an accessory to all the chaotic stupid or downright evil jackassery the rest of my part is constantly pulling to avoid being labeled as a lawful stupid buzz kill. Alignment is a mess.

Your interpretations (or the interpretations of those who explained their view to you and tried to impose it) are essentially the "propaganda" interpretations: that is, the way someone opposed to Law or Good would portray Law or Good. Which is to say, I disagree with those interpretations rather strongly - they are in no way balanced at all and are solely negative portrayals.

Lawful: Orderly, Disciplined, Respectful of authority. Tend to be moved more by logic than by emotion. Tend to give authority the benefit of the doubt, and consider authority to be legitimate and worthy of being obeyed unless they have reason to suspect otherwise. Tend to adhere to personal codes rather strictly. One possible negative is that they can be rigid and inflexible.

Good: Altruistic, helpful, and willing to sacrifice for others (even those they have no personal attachment to). Opposed to evil and wickedness. They may believe that justice is most important, the punishing of evil actions (though they don't necessarily care about punishment for breaking laws if they are Neutral or Chaotic). They may believe protection of and helping innocents is most important. They may believe that mercy and kindness are most important. Important thing to note: not all good is going to be in agreement.

Talakeal
2011-05-02, 09:43 PM
Thog and Belkar are chaotic evil/stupid. Yes, Thog is chaotic evil, and his low mental abilities don't give him any leeway in the matter.

Yes, both are chaotic evil. There is no question about that in my mind.

People will try and paint Thog as chaotic neutral because he is likeable and seems out for fun (go to a war hammer board sometime and see how many people say orcs aren't evil because they are just out to have a good time, which in their culture means slaughter). I doubt Thog himself has ever given any thought to the matter, and I doubt his player would try and justify it.

Belkar, on the other hand, strikes me as a manipulative jerk, the kind with no loyalty to anyone, who tries to defend all of his evil actions as necessary, for example when he tells the paladins they are oppressing his culture.

Of the two I would prefer Thog, because he won't turn on his allies, and because I don't see the player trying to force his "I'm just misunderstood" down my throat.

Ajadea
2011-05-02, 10:00 PM
This is always how I've read the alignments at their core:

Good: Others > Self. Good people help other people. Mercy and Altruism would be the two things I look for, with Mercy being slightly less important. Good people help others.
Moral Neutral: Close Friends ≥*Self ≥ Strangers. Neutral people help those they care about, may not always act on behalf of strangers, and don't hurt random strangers 'just because'. This is a big one, and the one people forget.
Evil: Close Friends ≤ Self, Self > Strangers. Here is where I place Sadism, Greed, and Hubris. Evil people have the ability to understand that people exist outside of them, but do not consider others when they act. Evil people do not help others unless they value the other person or have an ulterior motive. Friendship trumps alignment. Count Puppyeater, he who has murdered legions without thoughts, who has sacrificed children to his dark gods and eats live puppies, would sacrifice his life for his friends without a second thought. That doesn't make him any less Evil.

Those who act without compassion because they do not possess the capacity to understand that other people are more than objects are a darker Neutral at worst.

Lawful: Group > Individual. Plays/is willing to play by someone else's rules. Will almost never willingly break a code they choose to follow. Justice is sometimes a Good thing, but is more often a Lawful thing. Lawful characters are disciplined, methodical, and reliable. However, they can be very rigid, stubborn (some would rather break than bend), and reactionary.
Ethical Neutral: Group and Individual may be worth more or less than each other at different times. Is willing to play by someone else's rules, but may not always. May break a code they choose to follow. Neutral characters are not as reactionary or trustworthy as Lawful people, and they are not as unreliable or spontaneous as Chaotic people.
Chaotic: Group < Individual. Plays by their own rules. The codes they put on themselves are flexible, and are subject to change. Chaotic characters are flexible, spontaneous, and free-spirited. However, they may prove unreliable, inefficient, and they may not follow the set plans (Leeroy Jenkins is Chaotic).

Even Chaotic Evil can be a team player.

Epsilon Rose
2011-05-03, 12:54 AM
I'll join to the chorus of voices that claim CN is victim of people who play alignments poorly. If that is your case most of the time, you should go for a nature/demeanor definition of your character (even if it's not D&D and it's really Vampire/Werewolf/Mage), and then extrapolate their alignment based on their nature, demeanor and how they express their attitudes.

CN and LG are really two alignments that are technically extremes but have the same problem, so I would also defend LG if only because most honest, law-abiding people are usually LG. CN's big problem is that people associate it with "how to play evil and wing it" because they can just say "well, I'm CN so I'm expected to play like this". Well...that's not really how you play CN.

Amongst the myriad of interpretations, I've found a mature way of playing CN is really being indifferent, but slowly develop an attachment to something. You may, at first, mistrust the others because you're a loner by nature, or you find grouping with others as a way to get some safety when you do what you need. However, a proper CN character will slowly start to attach to these people, and eventually become a dependable ally that will use every trick on its disposal to protect them. For example: assume you're playing a CN rogue, and an enemy of the PCs has tricked your LG paladin into doing something that will tarnish his code. The type of people that play CN as "any evil" will do nothing, but a true CN will expect to treat the paladin as a friend (even if you have your issues), and will develop the worst of all humiliation congas to the enemy just because "he messed with one of your pals". This includes stealing valuable evidence, lying your way to make him look like the insect he is, and even going underground and finding that bit of evidence, then blackmailing him into submission, then revealing the evidence itself and when the enemy goes "we had a deal" you give it the finger and play the "I do what I do because that's how I am". But in the end, when you talk to the paladin ally, you can either berate him ("Hey, I did this for you! I can't stand someone who devotes its life for a higher purpose to rot in this cell for something he wouldn't normally do!") or go for a sincere apology ("Here; you're free to do with me what you want, but if I were you, I'd consider you owe me one.) That's one way to play CN, but it's usually one that's good enough; you may be a bastard to a few, but to your friends, you eventually become their ally. You can play it as the sly rogue, the bruisin' fighter or the wizard with little scruples, but in the end, your group is your family and you do ANYTHING for them.

Same for LG. You can play the police, but the LG really cares for others and generally shows (rarely orders) why following the law and living an orderly life is the right thing. In fact, one of the biggest issues with "Lawful" is that it doesn't represent necessarily "law-abiding" but "orderly". An orderly character doesn't simply follows the law; he understands why the need to follow that law and the repercussions of not doing so. An LG fighter is disciplined, and whenever someone's plan wins over your carefully crafted plan, the only thing you ensure is that the plan is done without no one getting hurt except those whom you'll deliver the hurt. Generally, as far as I can interpret it, is "doing good in an orderly way", not "forcing everyone to do good" because that enters into LN territory.

Although all interpretations here are mostly that (interpretations, not the rigid guidelines to play a character of X alignment), the idea is that there are some misunderstandings amongst both CN and LG that make people play it wrong, and perhaps the description on the PHB doesn't really help (or people really don't seem to read it). Most LG people act that way because of poorly-played Paladins who serve as the party police, while most CN are usually evil people masquerading as non-evil people in order to do so. If they are problematic enough, the DM can simply tell them "dude, you're really CE" or keep it hidden and all of a sudden have the Good Cleric's Detect Evil ping him as evil but keeping it hidden. That way, you can mislead the character into thinking he's one thing but you and the party knows he's another, and when things get rougher, you can simply go ahead and give it a piece of your mind. Not the cleanest way to do it, of course.

If anything: remember that this is an RPG, that it's partly rules and partly story, and that if you care about the story at ALL as a player or as a DM, you'll have character development in mind (because the player character is a construct of the player and its surroundings, after all; even the evil character can be friendly to the group until a better opportunity offers or until you fulfill your main objective, then you leave them to their own luck).
Agreed. Many problems could probably be solved by replacing the word lawful with ordered on the alignment chart.


This is always how I've read the alignments at their core:

Good: Others > Self. Good people help other people. Mercy and Altruism would be the two things I look for, with Mercy being slightly less important. Good people help others.
Moral Neutral: Close Friends ≥*Self ≥ Strangers. Neutral people help those they care about, may not always act on behalf of strangers, and don't hurt random strangers 'just because'. This is a big one, and the one people forget.
Evil: Close Friends ≤ Self, Self > Strangers. Here is where I place Sadism, Greed, and Hubris. Evil people have the ability to understand that people exist outside of them, but do not consider others when they act. Evil people do not help others unless they value the other person or have an ulterior motive. Friendship trumps alignment. Count Puppyeater, he who has murdered legions without thoughts, who has sacrificed children to his dark gods and eats live puppies, would sacrifice his life for his friends without a second thought. That doesn't make him any less Evil.

Those who act without compassion because they do not possess the capacity to understand that other people are more than objects are a darker Neutral at worst.

Lawful: Group > Individual. Plays/is willing to play by someone else's rules. Will almost never willingly break a code they choose to follow. Justice is sometimes a Good thing, but is more often a Lawful thing. Lawful characters are disciplined, methodical, and reliable. However, they can be very rigid, stubborn (some would rather break than bend), and reactionary.
Ethical Neutral: Group and Individual may be worth more or less than each other at different times. Is willing to play by someone else's rules, but may not always. May break a code they choose to follow. Neutral characters are not as reactionary or trustworthy as Lawful people, and they are not as unreliable or spontaneous as Chaotic people.
Chaotic: Group < Individual. Plays by their own rules. The codes they put on themselves are flexible, and are subject to change. Chaotic characters are flexible, spontaneous, and free-spirited. However, they may prove unreliable, inefficient, and they may not follow the set plans (Leeroy Jenkins is Chaotic).

Even Chaotic Evil can be a team player.
I disagree on the points of good and chaos (and Monsieur Jenkins).
Good need not be kind which your definition seems to imply it must (note it need not be cruel either). Your others>self is probably mostly accurate though some might throw in an =.
Chaotic need not be less efficient, in fact there are many situations where it'll be more efficient than law. And Leeroy isn't chaotic, he's an idiot. There's a difference. A better example of chaotic might be Lupin III or Spike Spiegel.


Lastly, I take great issue with people who suggest banning alignments as a Knee jerk reaction to bad players. It's the player who's the problem and they'll be a problem regardless of their alignment. All banning alignments does is hurt actual rpers. Further more, if you ban chaotic for it's stupid tendencies, evil for it's stupid tendencies (and being evil) and LG for party police/stupid tendencies than all you're left with is LN, TN and NG and you could probably find a reason to ban LN. And that's kinda boring.

Ajadea
2011-05-03, 01:27 AM
I'll take your word on Lupin and Spike, as I have no clue who those people are. I say inefficent because I cannot think of a better definition for someone who acts without thinking and then has to go back and fix as much as he can.

I didn't say good had to be kind or nice. Good has to be altruistic-that means they help others. It doesn't mean they like it.

Chaotic was harder to define. Perhaps a more apt way to phrase it is 'Chaos causes collateral damage'. Chaos tends to plan short term and improvise from there, Law will think in long term and try to map out every possible outcome.

Law takes longer to get started, but Chaos's methods are...highly unorthodox, and the lack of planning may damage others around him/her. In the long run, this waste of resources is inefficent. Short term, Chaos got more done in a shorter amount of time.

Because Chaos also values the individual over the group (note the difference between putting self above strangers and individual over group- the former is self-interested, the latter puts individuality at the forefront without necessarily forgetting about others), it is highly unlikely that Chaotic Non-good will feel all that hurt about the lies or the bribes or the single murder they had to commit to free their friend or whatever.

Epsilon Rose
2011-05-03, 01:39 AM
I'll take your word on Lupin and Spike, as I have no clue who those people are. I say inefficent because I cannot think of a better definition for someone who acts without thinking and then has to go back and fix as much as he can.

I didn't say good had to be kind or nice. Good has to be altruistic-that means they help others. It doesn't mean they like it.

Chaotic was harder to define. Perhaps a more apt way to phrase it is 'Chaos causes collateral damage'. Chaos tends to plan short term and improvise from there, Law will think in long term and try to map out every possible outcome.

Law takes longer to get started, but Chaos's methods are...highly unorthodox, and the lack of planning may damage others around him/her. In the long run, this waste of resources is inefficent. Short term, Chaos got more done in a shorter amount of time.

Because Chaos also values the individual over the group (note the difference between putting self above strangers and individual over group- the former is self-interested, the latter puts individuality at the forefront without necessarily forgetting about others), it is highly unlikely that Chaotic Non-good will feel all that hurt about the lies or the bribes or the single murder they had to commit to free their friend or whatever.

Thing is, chaos can plan. Look at the Joke, I'd peg him as chaotic, but he can plan like there's no tomorrow, conversely look at the stereotypical bureaucrat, they'd be order incarnate, and they get literally nothing done. And as even in you're own example, you're saying that chaos would be willing to lie and bribe their way to there goal (they would) but seem to be implying that somehow makes them less efficient. I'd argue the reverse, it makes them more efficient both in the long term. Think about it, which take more effort catching an official on some technicality and forcing him to give in or slipping him a bank note? And if you ever run into him again who do you think he's going to want to deal with?

Savannah
2011-05-03, 01:47 AM
It's easy to play CN as CStupid. But that might be more about the player wanting to play a wandering sociopathic hobo who kills people and dresses up in their stuffs than them being new to the game.

So...basically every D&D character ever? :smallamused: Yeah, yeah, I play a ton that don't do that, too. But it's fairly typical.


[Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic explanation]

I'm stealing this next time I have to explain Law vs Chaos. I particularly like the bit about codes they choose to follow.

And I think that the "problem" with CN comes from not having good enough explanations of law vs chaos in the rules, and from players who really want to be evil but for whatever reason can't.

Ajadea
2011-05-03, 02:42 AM
Thing is, chaos can plan. Look at the Joke, I'd peg him as chaotic, but he can plan like there's no tomorrow, conversely look at the stereotypical bureaucrat, they'd be order incarnate, and they get literally nothing done. And as even in you're own example, you're saying that chaos would be willing to lie and bribe their way to there goal (they would) but seem to be implying that somehow makes them less efficient. I'd argue the reverse, it makes them more efficient both in the long term. Think about it, which take more effort catching an official on some technicality and forcing him to give in or slipping him a bank note? And if you ever run into him again who do you think he's going to want to deal with?

I do not read Batman comics, but I've seen the Joker on many Chaotic Evil motivators, so I'll trust you on that one.

Lying, cheating, whatever, that can be more efficient. These actions are also more likely to cause collateral damage-the fake money you bribe the trader with means he can't buy the food he thought he could buy for his kid, an promise made to the watchman to hire him after he gets fired for letting a prisoner escape ends up being forgotten, and the man ends up starving to death.

And that's assuming that the watchman doesn't crack and spill the beans about the bribe in exchange for a reduced sentence. If they do tell all, now the government knows you've used bribery and helped a convicted criminal escape. They may send people out to hunt the party and then where are you going to go? Is that worth it?

And if you are going to say "kill the watchman", I have to point out that while killing in self-defense is Neutral, killing someone because they are in your way is actually Evil.

Being Chaotic Evil is in fact a very good way to get your goals done now. It's also going to get people out for your head on a pike.

Firechanter
2011-05-03, 04:59 AM
I think I expressed my opinion in the original thread, but I'll reiterate my 2cp:

- Sometimes, CN is taken by players who really want to be CE but are forbidden to do so, due to setting / group contract constraints (or just want to be immune to Smite Evil etc.)

- in the hands of other players, CN is mostly harmless. They may portray their character with some quirks, or certain anarchic or egotistic tendencies. The latter can be a bit problematic, if taken to the extreme. But then again, extreme egotism is a characteristic of Evil, so that would fall back to case 1. (Whereas anarchists can just as well be CG.)

There are basically two problematic non-evil alignments, and CN is one of them. The other, of course, is LG. Unfortunately, many players (and DMs) don't understand the concept of LG and portray/interpret such characters as uptight bigots or "Lawful Stupid".
Personally, when first I played a LG character it was due to build constraints (one of my classes had to be Good, the other had to be Lawful). I got the hang of it and now would I say I understand what LG is _supposed_ to be like. In fact, it has become pretty much my favourite alignment, and the majority (but not all) of my characters of the last years have been LG.

Prime32
2011-05-03, 05:09 AM
Obligatory TVTropes links:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticNeutral
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticStupid

If you're using your alignment to determine your actions, ur doin it wrong. There are more than nine possible personalities in the world. Decide what your character is like, then find an alignment to describe it. Or let the DM assign your alignment.

A good example of a Chaotic Neutral protagonist is Lina Inverse. Because, y'know, she's a D&D character.

dsmiles
2011-05-03, 05:19 AM
A good example of a Chaotic Neutral protagonist is Lina Inverse. Because, y'know, she's a D&D character. As a matter of fact, she is. Both. She was statted out in the BESM: The Slayers d20 campaign book. She was also CN.

valadil
2011-05-03, 08:32 AM
In defense of Chaotic stupid players, the word chaotic has a lot of implications that the alignment Chaotic ignores. A lot of people misinterpret Chaotic to mean entropic or random. It's not.

When a player takes on a Chaotic alignment, the GM should explain what that means. Flipping a coin each morning to decide to help the party or kill the party is not how a Chaotic person behaves, and yes I've seen that done. The GM should also explain that Chaotic characters usually have an interest in keeping themselves alive. They may be irrational or impulsive at times, but they're not insane. This paragraph also goes for Evil characters. Someone who is Evil does not have a quota of orphans to murder every day. They will not do things to draw the attention of the town guard unless they see a way to benefit from it. If your players want to play that kind of game, let them play Grand Theft Auto.

So back to the original quote,



Well, their logic was "The Goddess told us not to desecrate her sacred lands, and acted like she was better than us. We are chaotic neutral, and don't like being told what to do by people in power, so we were only RPing our characters.


Those Chaotic stupid players were ... right? A Chaotic character would resent authority. What I said before the quotation may not apply to them after all.

OTOH there are other ways to buck authority than to murder authority's worshipers. I think I would have aimed for something a little more subtle, but I'm not really the Chaotic type.



You should have predicted that is how we would play our characters and adjusted the encounter CR accordingly." I thought was insane, but I have seen a lot of similar sentiments on this forum, so I thought maybe I was the one who didn't get it.

And this part boils down to a player expectation problem rather than an alignment one. The players saw you set up a challenge and decided they were going to face it. A challenge put in play is obviously fair game, so they must be able to defeat it, right? Well that's part of another discussion but you already knew that.

Regardless of what that other thread prefers (and I don't even know what they prefer at this point as I stopped reading it) you need to tell your players that you're the kind of GM that will kill them if they do something suicidal. You are not obliged to make every challenge level appropriate, but you will try to warn them when they're getting in over their heads. It's their job to evaluate if a challenge is doable. And if a challenge is out of their league it's their job to find an in character way out of it.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 08:52 AM
In my experience, people, especially people new to roleplaying games, tend towards Chaotic Neutral behaviour because they can't (yet) apply real life expectations or common sense to a fictional world. You could say that they're incapable of properly getting into character and seeing the world as it would be through their character's eyes, leading to non-sensical behaviour because they're "blind" to how karma operates within a fictional setting.

Ie., it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, hopefully metaphorically.

Playing a character that's truly CN within the context of the gameworld is much, much harder. Few people can pull off convincing neutrality on the good - evil axis in my opinion, especially when combined with whimsicality of chaos. The so-called neutrals often sway too much towards needless cruelty and malevolence, resulting in E rather than N as their second descriptor - others (a minority in my experience) can't help their goody-two-shoes nature shining through and end up with G.

Choco
2011-05-03, 09:29 AM
I agree that there is nothing wrong with the CN alignment. The only problem I have noticed is that it is the alignment of choice for players who want an in-game excuse for their disruptive behavior. Basically, WAY too many people play CN as Chaotic Stupid. Although IMO the entire Chaotic end of the alignment spectrum is often used as that, just CN seems to be the most common because the players view it as giving them the most freedom by not restricting them to good or evil. Basically a "I have an excuse to act however I want and be in character!" card.

Which I guess is fair enough. You can see Chaotic Stupid behavior in plenty of villains in pop culture, and it actually works out just fine for them as long as they are the biggest fish in the pond. Then inevitably they pick a fight with a bigger fish (either a more powerful villain or the heroes) and get what is coming to them. That last part is what most Chaotic Stupid players find the hardest to swallow.

FMArthur
2011-05-03, 09:31 AM
As I've seen it Chaotic Neutral is mostly picked for 3 reasons:
Player does not care about alignment or doesn't want the alignment system in their way. It can be a player who believes that the rules restrict roleplaying or a quick and easy afterthought at character generation. I suppose this is probably the best one (from a DM perspective) outside of legitimately Chaotic Neutral character creation.
Player uses it as a substitute for Evil. Being an Evil character comes with a lot of caveats: DM disallowance, other players' perceptions on Evil characters, and spell/class feature interaction with Evil targets or party members (Paladin!) generally favours nonevil characters. You will never convince a player that his total nonchalance toward the torture, enslavement and soul-obliteration of his whole family, village, country or plane of existence is actually Evil and not Chaotic Neutral. It doesn't matter what you say. You can only force them to comply or just work around it.
Player wants to act in an inconsistent manner, whatever provides the most benefit. They don't want to make a believable entity in your world with any motivations outside of greed and safety. They really can't help but approach problems in an analytical fashion rather than as an appropriate response from the character. The less background material you require of your players' characters, the more like this they will be.

Morghen
2011-05-03, 09:45 AM
CN is pretty common in the groups I've played with the last few years.

The most common reason for picking it is that it allows the most flexibility.

You can do altruistic things and justify it.
You can do selfish things and justify it.
You can eat a baby and justify it.


If you're min/maxing your alignment, CN is for you.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 09:48 AM
You could say the same about Evil alignment- it's just as capable of "doing altruistic things and justifying it" as CN is.

Conversely, if the DM enforces alignment change for sufficiently Evil deeds, a baby-eating CN character won't stay CN long.

Sebastrd
2011-05-03, 09:54 AM
All in all, I'd like to think I managed a decent CN character; the only problem is that eventually, she began to slide towards CG. What do other people think? Have you seen CN played well? If it is played well, does the character generally shift to another alignment in time? How would you envision the ideal CN character?

Han Solo is the prototypical CN character. If you read the desriptions of alignment in the 3.5 PHB, you'll see that it's not at all out of character for a CN to drift into CG occasionally.

Ajadea
2011-05-03, 10:03 AM
CN is pretty common in the groups I've played with the last few years.

The most common reason for picking it is that it allows the most flexibility.

You can do altruistic things and justify it.
You can do selfish things and justify it.
You can eat a baby and justify it.


If you're min/maxing your alignment, CN is for you.

Um, actually, you want TN to min/max your alignment: you can cast spells from all four alignments and are immune to the more extreme effects of holy smite and its kin.

If you want to drift into being altruistic or overly self-interested on occasion, that's fine. And certain amounts of selfishness are common across the Neutral alignments.

Eat a baby and most of the time, you fall like a rock into CE.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 10:04 AM
In Complete Scoundrel, Han is cited as TN rather then CN.

Morghen
2011-05-03, 10:16 AM
Eat a baby and you fall like a rock into CE.This is the thing that always gets me about alignment discussions. A single act shouldn't force an alignment change. And everyone always talks about some horribly evil thing that gets Character X bounced into CE (or whatever). The discussion usually doesn't get around to the (in this case, CN) guy who does some extremely pure altruistic act. According to the school of thought that condemns the one-time baby-eater to CE, that guy should immediately be tossed into one of the Good alignments.

A consistent pattern of behavior will do it pretty quickly, but a single act shouldn't.


[Side note: I wasn't talking about min/maxing for combat. I should have specified that I was limiting the scope to behavior.]

Ajadea
2011-05-03, 10:27 AM
I tend to look at alignment as a mechanical thing as much as a personality thing. I still think someone who kills and eats a baby (reasons like group starvation excluded) falls into CE-but because it was one act, it isn't that hard to atone for it and skip straight into CN again. Similarly, a CN person who does an act of pure good for altruistic reasons into CG-because for a while, that's the way the universe sees him.

If their behavior patterns head back to normal, so do their alignments.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 10:30 AM
The DMG actually says that this is the general rule, though there are exceptions- and gives as an example the evil guy who has a massive change of heart and becomes good.

In practice Evil is probably weighted more heavily than Good- an evil guy who regularly does good acts isn't really in much danger of changing to Neutral- but Neutral and Good guys who regularly do Evil acts are much more in danger of changing.

Epsilon Rose
2011-05-03, 10:40 AM
How did I forget about Lina?
She's even a Sorceress with a tendency to nuke things.


I do not read Batman comics, but I've seen the Joker on many Chaotic Evil motivators, so I'll trust you on that one.

Lying, cheating, whatever, that can be more efficient. These actions are also more likely to cause collateral damage-the fake money you bribe the trader with means he can't buy the food he thought he could buy for his kid, an promise made to the watchman to hire him after he gets fired for letting a prisoner escape ends up being forgotten, and the man ends up starving to death.

And that's assuming that the watchman doesn't crack and spill the beans about the bribe in exchange for a reduced sentence. If they do tell all, now the government knows you've used bribery and helped a convicted criminal escape. They may send people out to hunt the party and then where are you going to go? Is that worth it?

And if you are going to say "kill the watchman", I have to point out that while killing in self-defense is Neutral, killing someone because they are in your way is actually Evil.

Being Chaotic Evil is in fact a very good way to get your goals done now. It's also going to get people out for your head on a pike.

A. I hate to break it to you but most of those do trend toward evil.
Bribing a guard to help a friend might be chaotic, bribing a relatively innocent guard with poorly forged money is both stupid and more evil.
If you're trying to S*** over every one at each point along the way chaotic is no longer your defining feature.

Also, why would he "crack and spill the beans"? If things are done even moderately intelligently he's not getting a sentence because no one needs to know he took a bribe (you're not paying him to act as a turn coat [that would a actually probably require a lawful alignment], just to look the other way for a few moments).

Also also, those are very extreme examples, and not particularly likely. Neither an ex-guard nor a trader is so dependent on the pcs good will that they'll starve without it. And sadly neither of those outcomes are liable to factor into the efficiency calculations of any pc who's likely to cause them.

Lastly if you just broke someone out of prison that is why the authorities are chasing you. Bribing a guard would be ancillary if it even factored.

randomhero00
2011-05-03, 11:30 AM
Shrug, CN is my favorite alignment and I've never had a problem playing it and keeping it from disrupting a game. Basically its an alignment I take as being tempted by evil but having some core philosophy that keeps one free from true evil. Combine that with an annoyance for authority figures and bingo.

askandarion
2011-05-03, 12:03 PM
CN can be done, by a player looking to role-play. But in my experience, the majority who routinely choose or prefer CN do so because they are by nature antagonistic/disruptive/jerk players and use the CN tag to camouflage their OOC behavioral patterns as IC "roleplaying". I think that's what gets people so riled up over CN characters. I've also seen the reasons FMArthur mentions, but not as much

There's also the tendency of CN characters, regardless of whether or not OOC behavior is an issue, being typically played contrary to the group or to the detriment of the other characters (such as the player who views pen-and-paper as video games and doesn't care about getting their character into really stupid situations because there is no concern or investment in the PC, which can really bug a group if the other players treat the game as srius bizness).

I guess I just feel that CN requires a finer touch than the other alignments to pull off well, because it usually A. does not have a motivation that goads it towards strong cooperation with others, and B. isn't as clear-cut.

Gravitron5000
2011-05-03, 01:03 PM
Shrug, CN is my favorite alignment and I've never had a problem playing it and keeping it from disrupting a game. Basically its an alignment I take as being tempted by evil but having some core philosophy that keeps one free from true evil. Combine that with an annoyance for authority figures and bingo.

Because everything is better with bingo :smallbiggrin:

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 01:37 PM
On the subject of law vs. chaos, I find it mostly meaningless.

For example, a lawful character is usually depicted as:

Orderly
Acting on Logic over Emotion
Honorable
Follows Authority / Tradition

However, most of these things, especially when taken to extreme levels, contradict the others.

I usually run Law as someone who is in favor of society, and Chaos as someone who is against it. The dictator who wants to establish a new order is lawful evil, the barbarian heroes who want to rape and pillage are chaotic evil, while the serial killer who just wants to hide in the shadows and be left alone to inflict pain is neutral evil.
Likewise the king and his guard are lawful good. The rebels who want to liberate the people are chaotic good, while people who just want everyone to be happy in are neutral good.

I usually play my characters as what I consider Neutral Good, although I may lean toward law, chaos, or neutral depending on events that occur over the campaign.
However, I don't write that on my sheet. I usually write unaligned, or if the DM doesn't allow that as close to Chaotic Evil as the DM will allow.
The reason I do this is I play a character, not an alignment. Sometimes I do things that I feel are the "right" thing to do, even when the book lists them as "always evil" like poison, casting certain spells, or showing mercy to / working with someone who is evil, or even committing minor evil acts for larger good ends. Also, sometimes my character makes a mistake or acts on emotion, and actually does commit an act that is evil.
When these things happen, if I have Good or Lawful, or even Neutral, written on my sheet the DM will chew me out for bad RPing or just flat out tell me I can't do it. If I have CE written on my sheet it never comes up, I have never, in all my 20+ years of gaming, seen someone say "Stop that! You are acting too Lawful / Good for your alignment!"

DeltaEmil
2011-05-03, 01:47 PM
Like Morghen said, most players just write Chaotic Neutral on their alignment line so that they can do evil stuff and claim that their characters aren't evil, because they sometimes do good stuff.

The problem is if alignment is used as an excuse for an annoying behaviour. Doesn't matter if it's lawful good, neutral good, chaotic good, lawful neutral, neutral (or even true neutral), chaotic neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil or chaotic evil.

The moment when another player or the gm asks why that one character did that, and you get the justification that it's because of the alignment, that's when problems arise.

druid91
2011-05-03, 01:50 PM
Can an alignment based on utter personal freedom ever truly play well with others?

Discuss.

To me CN isn't about utter personal freedom.

It's about being perfectly willing to punch out the king and tell him he is wrong if necessary.

Example scenario...

King: "There is no way The orcs are massing an attack, my trusted vizier told me the scouts reported nothing!"

Lx: ":smallsigh:, I suppose we have to go on an extremely long adventure to get proof that the vizier is evil and that the orcs are gathering for war..."

Cx:":smallannoyed: Look dude your vizier is evil *Casts dominate person on the vizier* Remove all magical gear and dismiss any active spells"

Vizier: "Yes master. *does so*"

Cx:"*casts zone of truth* Did you misreport the scouts findings on the orcs."

Vizier: "Yes. They are massing for war."

Cx: "There, now can you get the army ready?"

Lx:*Stares at his team mate horrified at this breach of the law*

King:*glares at Cx* "You would do well to learn some respect, you were right this once but had you been wrong...:smallfurious:"

slaydemons
2011-05-03, 02:01 PM
I haven't been playing D&D for long but I never thought that CN had a lack of respect for authorities, you know when played properly not like CS. I played it once he wasn't evil just very spontaneous and was looking out for himself mostly, his teammates were 2nd priority but they were much higher then anything else. if he had the choice between his team or a big bag of gold he would of course save his team without a thought. even though he was spontaneous he had his own set of codes he swore to never break, pretty much never kill in cold blood and never take anything you didn't earn. thats how it should be played right? I am not a bad player for choosing to play a non-jerk way right?

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 03:43 PM
Sometimes I do things that I feel are the "right" thing to do, even when the book lists them as "always evil" like poison, casting certain spells, or showing mercy to / working with someone who is evil, or even committing minor evil acts for larger good ends.

"Showing mercy to someone who is evil" certainly isn't an "always evil" act in either the PHB or BoED. Indeed, BoED puts a rather heavy emphasis on Good guys being merciful wherever reasonably possible.

"Working with someone who is evil"- again- allowable under certain circumstances- as long as you don't simply turn a blind eye to their evil acts.

"Committing minor evil acts for larger good ends" seems to be a major feature of the "flexible Neutral" character archetype in Heroes of Horror.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 03:50 PM
The showing mercy and never working with evil come up as examples of lawful good behavior in the PHB and the paladin's code. I have had some DMs take it too far, one time I played a paladin and actually fell because after I defeated a bandit in combat I mended his wounds instead of letting him bleed out.
The BOED goes on further to say that assisting an evil outsider is always evil, no matter the reason, no matter the ends, even if you are working together for a good goal. This would include working together to defeat another evil outsider, or working toward the outsiders redemption.

As for the flexible neutral, I really don't like getting into it. When I do something that I feel is the right thing to do OOC and the DM tells me that it is the wrong thing to do and I am no longer good, it is insulting to me personally, and will invariably start an argument that disrupts the game. I have learned to avoid it and just not write "good" on my character sheet no matter my intentions to RP a good character.

druid91
2011-05-03, 03:53 PM
The showing mercy and never working with evil come up as examples of lawful good behavior in the PHB and the paladin's code. I have had some DMs take it too far, one time I played a paladin and actually fell because after I defeated a bandit in combat I mended his wounds instead of letting him bleed out.
The BOED goes on further to say that assisting an evil outsider is always evil, no matter the reason, no matter the ends, even if you are working together for a good goal. This would include working together to defeat another evil outsider, or working toward the outsiders redemption.

As for the flexible neutral, I really don't like getting into it. When I do something that I feel is the right thing to do OOC and the DM tells me that it is the wrong thing to do and I am no longer good, it is insulting to me personally, and will invariably start an argument that disrupts the game. I have learned to avoid it and just not write "good" on my character sheet no matter my intentions to RP a good character.

The first thing with the bandit, is textbook "I don't like paladins, you fall."

The second thing, I can see that. By working with an evil outsider, you are allying yourself with a physical embodiment of evil. Even a redemption is likely a ruse meant to lure you to darkness.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 03:59 PM
The BOED goes on further to say that assisting an evil outsider is always evil, no matter the reason, no matter the ends, even if you are working together for a good goal.

Actually, that's BOVD. BOED does state evil outsiders are "best slain, or at least banished" but doesn't say that it would be an evil act to not do so.

And in its section on "working with evil beings toward a greater good" it doesn't specifically exempt Evil Outsiders from the statement that "while dangerous, it's not evil in itself.

In novels (the Forgotten Realms novel Tymora's Luck, for example), paladins have worked alongside fiends (on the orders of their deity) without Falling.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 03:59 PM
The first thing with the bandit, is textbook "I don't like paladins, you fall."

The second thing, I can see that. By working with an evil outsider, you are allying yourself with a physical embodiment of evil. Even a redemption is likely a ruse meant to lure you to darkness.

Well, the PHB does say that the paladins code requires they never associate with evil and punish wrongdoers. The description of the LG alignment says they hate to see the wicked go unpunished and refers to the sample character as "merciless". Its an overly strict reading I agree, but it is a valid one.

As for the second, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I really prefer to be allowed to use my judgement about such things though. Just because something is evil 99% of the time doesn't mean it is evil the remaining 1%, nor does it mean that a good person won't go along with it if it is the lesser of two evils.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 04:00 PM
Savage Species mentions the "Chaotic/Accepting" viewpoint- that even fiends may be the victims of their own psychoses- and redeemable.

There's certainly precedent for redeemed fiends.

On "Good characters committing evil deeds"- Champions of Ruin does say that "even Good characters may be driven to them from time to time"- it's the repeated use of evil deeds that tends to be the sign of an Evil character.

druid91
2011-05-03, 04:02 PM
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I really prefer to be allowed to use my judgement about such things though. Just because something is evil 99% of the time doesn't mean it is evil the remaining 1%, nor does it mean that a good person won't go along with it if it is the lesser of two evils.

Yet a paladin is not just a good person.

A good person can do many things a paladin can't.

A paladin is to crush evil wherever he can, if he can save some from it's group than fantastic.

But if to try would be to risk evil... They knew what would happen when they began their path.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 04:11 PM
Yay, paladins and their code are not a good example of how good characters should be or act. They represent a very narrow and demanding subset of Lawful Good morality, the purest white and blue without even the slightest hint of black or orange.

There are many unquestionably good characters who would utterly fail at being a paladin.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 04:12 PM
The "non-association" rule has always been tricky- but in the past, it tended to be (at least in D&D novels) somewhat flexible.

In Azure Bonds, after defeating the evil red dragon (with the terms defined before the duel) the paladin has won its aid against a greater threat.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 04:24 PM
I think the crux of the issue is: Paladin's code denies association with evil beings, but Paladins only fall for gross violations of their code, and it isn't necessarily given that all violations of the code are evil, gross or not.

Splatbooks often have gone to lenghts to state that Paladins can, say, redeem evil creatures or work together against a greater evil. From this, we could gather that while they might still violate the code, they are slight enough that they don't actually prevent a person from being a Paladin.

Pisha
2011-05-03, 04:26 PM
Talakeal - it sounds like your issues have less to do with the alignment (or even the alignment system) itself, and more with a particular DM's interpretation of that alignment.

Which is partly why I started this thread :) I've noticed a trend towards viewing alignments through a strict pre-conceived lens, and I was hoping to see some discussion about more nuanced alignment interpretations. I really do see alignments as a valuable roleplaying tool, but not a crutch nor a limitation. A lawful good or chaotic evil character might conceivably take the exact same action in a particular circumstance; the character's reasons, how and if they rationalize it to themselves, and how it affects them in the future will be vastly different, though, and that's the interesting part. I'd like GM's (and players) to be less likely to say "Your lawful good character wouldn't do that," and more willing to ask "Why is your lawful good character doing that?"

...y'know, that and hearing defenses of the much-maligned CN. :smallwink:

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 04:30 PM
Talakeal - it sounds like your issues have less to do with the alignment (or even the alignment system) itself, and more with a particular DM's interpretation of that alignment.


Not any one DM in particular. The problem is D&D encourages black and white thinking when it comes to morality, and I don't like to view the world in black and white. When I run up against a DM who doesn't agree with me on some moral issues, which is almost all of them as no two people share exactly the same ethics, it causes conflict.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 04:33 PM
A lawful good or chaotic evil character might conceivably take the exact same action in a particular circumstance; the character's reasons, how and if they rationalize it to themselves, and how it affects them in the future will be vastly different, though, and that's the interesting part. I'd like GM's (and players) to be less likely to say "Your lawful good character wouldn't do that," and more willing to ask "Why is your lawful good character doing that?"

...y'know, that and hearing defenses of the much-maligned CN. :smallwink:

Sounds about right. I got the impression that DMs weren't supposed to say "your character wouldn't do that" and more to make a private note on their "alignment track" for the character,

eventually if there's a strong pattern, changing the characters alignment (discussing it with the player beforehand).

dsmiles
2011-05-03, 05:05 PM
Stuff.
I was wondering when you'd show up. We've been posting in this for, like, three whole days! :smalltongue:

I, for one, definitely use the alignment tracker. I sum it up at the end of each session, and make adjustments to the character's alignments then. I'm not one to ever say, "Your LG character wouldn't do that." Nor am I inclined to ask why they're doing it. Evil acts with good intent are still evil acts. Good acts with evil intent are still good acts.

Talya
2011-05-03, 05:11 PM
Poorly thought out character motivations. Alignment is often misused to indicate how you should act, but people have that backwards; how you act determines your alignment. Alignment is merely a gauge to sum up your characters actions and attitudes in a nice handy package. But if you haven't worked out those motivations and attitudes first, slapping an alignment on the character and moving ahead from there isn't going to help.

Neither Chaotic, nor Evil, need to be incompatible with other players. In fact, Good characters are often a bigger problem, if everyone is playing properly -- Evil doesn't mind working with Good to accomplish its goals. The same cannot be said for the party paladin.

Neutral represents the average person in the world. Chaotic neutral is simply an average person with a greater streak of independant thought, individuality, or rebelliousness. Lawful neutral is that average person with a focus on obeying the rules. None represent a problem.

Imagine a character who was highly individualistic, independant, and had no respect for any authority, who also wandered the streets at night dishing out lethal vigilante justice for the most trivial of offenses? Perhaps he never touched an innocent, perhaps he even protected them on occasion. But ultimately, he was a chaotic evil murderer who was attempting to clean up society to be the way HE wanted it.

The person obviously Chaotic Evil. Doesn't mean he'd kill you as quickly as look at you. And it doesn't mean he can't work well with others. Alignment is a quick measure, but it doesn't say who you are.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 05:16 PM
I was wondering when you'd show up. We've been posting in this for, like, three whole days! :smalltongue:

I, for one, definitely use the alignment tracker. I sum it up at the end of each session, and make adjustments to the character's alignments then. I'm not one to ever say, "Your LG character wouldn't do that." Nor am I inclined to ask why they're doing it. Evil acts with good intent are still evil acts. Good acts with evil intent are still good acts.

That's interesting. So a good hearted character with a low wisdom would be evil in your world even though he tries to do the right thing but makes the wrong choice, and a character with purely selfish motivations is good so long as they remain in situations where it is in their best interest to play along with the good guys?

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 05:18 PM
Imagine a character who was highly individualistic, independant, and had no respect for any authority, who also wandered the streets at night dishing out lethal vigilante justice for the most trivial of offenses? Perhaps he never touched an innocent, perhaps he even protected them on occasion. But ultimately, he was a chaotic evil murderer who was attempting to clean up society to be the way HE wanted it.

The person obviously Chaotic Evil. Doesn't mean he'd kill you as quickly as look at you. And it doesn't mean he can't work well with others. Alignment is a quick measure, but it doesn't say who you are.

When "trivial offenses" are replaced with "severe offenses" you've got a character pretty close to Dexter from Darkly Dreaming Dexter.

The tricky part is the line in PHB: "Evil characters debase and destroy the innocent, for fun or profit".

If this is not considered to be compulsary, and characters can be evil through committing evil deeds, rather than specifically through being willing to harm the innocent- then this definitely allows for the evil character to play well with the rest of the party.

And to be quite heroic- toward those they have no reason to believe are "the guilty".

I personally like this more loose interpretation of Evil alignment.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 05:22 PM
Most DM's have a black and white world view, and the latter D&D books like the BoVD, BoED, and Fiendish Codex all seem to agree. Logically, I see this playing out as a world where everyone is neutral, or if you have a strict DM evil. The only "good" people are those who are more concerned about remaining pure that actually doing good, and have managed to avoid to many "lesser of two evils" no win sutations.

Meanwhile, everyone who actually gets something done will accrue lots of evil acts along the way. Thus, the evil people are divided into three schools, those who act out of good motives, those who act out of selfish motives, and those who act out of sadistic motives, all are equally evil because neither the intention nor the end results of an action matter, only the tools.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 05:30 PM
BoVD does mention that intent and context matter- to a degree.

And "unwitting evil acts" are easier to atone for (in that the person casting the spell on you won't have to expend XP and so probably won't charge you as much- demand as difficult a quest, etc.)

When a character knows that an act is evil and does so anyway "for the greater good"- and eventually through committing such acts, changes alignment to evil- it doesn't automatically follow that they are "as evil" as a person who commits evil acts purely for their own profit.

Even within an alignment, there can be a spectrum- with Evil characters ranging from the "only just evil" to the "utterly malicious".

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 05:36 PM
Evil doesn't mind working with Good to accomplish its goals.

This is a... how should I put it? False generalization. When both good and evil are present, there's an obvious conflict in personalities present, but without more specifics you can't state as a hard-and-fast rule whether problems it causes are one-sided, mutual, or neither. Both fiction and real life are full of examples where yes, the Evil person does mind, sometimes more than the good person.


That's interesting. So a good hearted character with a low wisdom would be evil in your world even though he tries to do the right thing but makes the wrong choice, and a character with purely selfish motivations is good so long as they remain in situations where it is in their best interest to play along with the good guys?

Dunno about the guy you adressed this to, but I know it'd sure be so in my games. Healthy self-interest carries seeds of altruism, and on the other hand path to hell is paved with good intentions. End up doing enough evil, whatever your intentions, and you will end up evil as well. On the flipside, no matter how dark your mind is, if you never are anything but a positive influence to the world, you've earned your place in heaven.

Many debates have been held about whether it's the intent or actual deed that matters, but in my mind the easiest answer has always been "both".

dsmiles
2011-05-03, 05:39 PM
BoVD does mention that intent and context matter- to a degree.

And "unwitting evil acts" are easier to atone for (in that the person casting the spell on you won't have to expend XP and so probably won't charge you as much- demand as difficult a quest, etc.)

When a character knows that an act is evil and does so anyway "for the greater good"- and eventually through committing such acts, changes alignment to evil- it doesn't automatically follow that they are "as evil" as a person who commits evil acts purely for their own profit.

Even within an alignment, there can be a spectrum- with Evil characters ranging from the "only just evil" to the "utterly malicious".
"Unwitting evil acts" would rarely even need the spell in order for the person who committed it to atone, unless their fluff (read: Paladins and/or exalted characters) specifically states that they would need to atone. Enough good acts and you're right back where you're started.

EDIT: Evil acts committed for the "greater good" are still evil. Just take a look at The Operative from Firefly: The Movie Serenity.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 05:44 PM
EDIT: Evil acts committed for the "greater good" are still evil. Just take a look at The Operative from Firefly: The Movie Serenity.
True- the question is whether such a character would be "as evil" as a character whose evil acts weren't driven by this kind of altruistic motive.

"Unwitting evil acts" would rarely even need the spell in order for the person who committed it to atone, unless their fluff (read: Paladins and/or exalted characters) specifically states that they would need to atone.
Interestingly, the phrasing in the Paladin class seems to imply that they only fall for "willingly" or "willfully" committing evil acts.

It's only the Atonement spell itself- that seems to suggest that characters can fall for unwilling, or unwitting, evil acts.

dsmiles
2011-05-03, 05:46 PM
Well, in that specific instance, The Operative was (IMO) a downright evil barstard.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 05:47 PM
Well, I disagree on many points, or atleast think they are ambiguous enough that I there is no right answer. Which is why I just say "Fine I am Chaotic Evil" and then get on doing what I feel is the right thing to do in a given situation.

Talya
2011-05-03, 05:48 PM
Most DM's have a black and white world view, and the latter D&D books like the BoVD, BoED, and Fiendish Codex all seem to agree.

D&D has an "objective morality," unlike real life. This means good and evil are clearly defined (well, usually), and one's opinion does not matter. Nothing is relative ("from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!"), and even the gods are subject to the absolute morality of the universe.

BoED is not quite so black and white as you would believe, as while it keeps the objective morality of the setting, it recognizes that individuals can exhibit both good and evil traits, and while their alignment will still balance out to something measurable, it is not necessarily good to simply destroy Evil, as you will be destroying Good along with it. (I am in particular thinking of the picture where the paladin must choose between destroying evil or allowing love to grow. It has the two succubi engaged in girl-on-girl, err...demon-on-demon action and the paladin has walked in on them. It's truly a ridiculous scenario, but i think it was hyperbole for effect.) It also emphasizes that redemption is always the better choice, if it can be managed.

The book isn't perfect, and had terrible editors, but I generally like the concept, and it's one of my more commonly used books.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 05:48 PM
True. But such characters are often, in fiction, seen as better than those who do so for less noble reasons.

Ozymandias, in Watchmen, is a good example- which is why his alignment in D&D terms, seems to be contested so much- with many arguing that his motives- and the foreseeable consequences of his actions, are such as to raise him all the way to Neutral or better.



The book isn't perfect, and had terrible editors, but I generally like the concept, and it's one of my more commonly used books.

Yes. I like the general theme of mercy and redemption in it.

Talya
2011-05-03, 05:58 PM
Yes. I like the general theme of mercy and redemption in it.

Nevertheless, a friend of mine suggests that the correct choice for the paladin is to ask if he can join, and offer to become a blackguard.

Thankfully, there are no succubi in real life, or my friend would be a negative-energy-saturated pool of steaming flesh on the floor.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 06:00 PM
True. But such characters are often, in fiction, seen as better than those who do so for less noble reasons.

Ozymandias, in Watchmen, is a good example- which is why his alignment in D&D terms, seems to be contested so much- with many arguing that his motives- and the foreseeable consequences of his actions, are such as to raise him all the way to Neutral or better.

Ozymandias believes that a nuclear war would happen and kill billions of people, and he could come up with no alternative to avert it save the destruction of New York.
What if he had been able to see the future, and knew with absolute certainty that he was correct?
In D&D the "right" choice would be to sit back and praise your own purity, while the world burns, New York along with it. Ozymandias could have stopped it by killing a small fraction of the people, but he is too "good" for that.

This sort of idea really curbs the players ability to play their character, but it also harms the DM. You can't have misguided heroes as plot elements, people who, say revert to torture in a ticking time bomb scenario, or people who wish to work together with evil people for mutual benefit, or people who want to wipe out all evil people in the world (or if you are going by strict PHB Lawful god NOT wipe out all evil people in the world). It's really lame.

Take for example the classic evil genius train scenario. The evil genius has tied seven people to one railroad track upon which a train is currently speeding along. The hero is too far away to do anything about it except pull a switch which will divert the train onto a second track, upon which only a single person has been tied. It is a real world philosophy problem, and 90% of people believe the right thing to do is to pull the switch. In D&D, however, pulling the switch is evil, and the right thing to do is walk away, and thus is telling those 90% of people that their beliefs are wrong.

Likewise, I feel insulted when I am told my healer is evil for preparing Deathwatch for a triage situation, or choosing to poison a foe rather than painfully hack him to pieces, or to beat up a misguided guard who tries to get in my way while the real villain kills innocents by the truckload.

In real life, and in most good fiction, there are important questions that need to be explored. Even in religious circles there are debates as to what is truly the right thing to do. Simply slapping an "ALWAYS EVIL BECAUSE I SAID SO" without even trying to justify it is both insulting to the ethics of the players and harmful to the story they are trying to create.

hamishspence
2011-05-03, 06:02 PM
Which is why I just say "Fine I am Chaotic Evil" and then get on doing what I feel is the right thing to do in a given situation.

Given that alignment tends to be (at least partly) in the DM's hands, it's entirely possible for the DM to decide that the character, because they're so concerned with doing "the right thing" by themselves and others- might be able to maintain one of the Neutral alignment even with a few evil deeds being committed now and again.



Take for example the classic evil genius train scenario. The evil genius has tied seven people to one railroad track upon which a train is currently speeding along. The hero is too far away to do anything about it except pull a switch which will divert the train onto a second track, upon which only a single person has been tied. It is a real world philosophy problem, and 90% of people believe the right thing to do is to pull the switch. In D&D, however, pulling the switch is evil, and the right thing to do is walk away, and thus is telling those 90% of people that their beliefs are wrong.

The D&D rule is that "Murder is evil" not that "killing is evil". So, if a case can be made that such an act is not, legally or morally, murder, then it might not count as an evil act after all.

Interestingly, when it's "push a person straight in front of a train to deflect it"- the quizzes tend to show people considering that wrong, unlike pulling the switch.


Likewise, I feel insulted when I am told my healer is evil for preparing Deathwatch for a triage situation,

Given that it's on the "must be good-aligned" Healer's list, and the "falls if it ever commits an evil act" Slayer of Domiel list- I think the intent appears to be, to retcon PHB's [Evil] tag on the spell away- the way it was in 3.0.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 06:17 PM
Given that it's on the "must be good-aligned" Healer's list, and the "falls if it ever commits an evil act" Slayer of Domiel list- I think the intent appears to be, to retcon PHB's [Evil] tag on the spell away- the way it was in 3.0.

Yeah, I always felt that was a typo, the death knell was supposed to have the evil tag, but that was never the errata, and lots of people choose to error on the side of RAW.

But, while on the subject of evil spells.

There is one point in the game Vampire the Masquerade Redemption where you are locked in the villains dungeon. The dungeon master is asleep, and one of your party belongs that a clan that has necromantic powers. She animates the remains of a previous torture victim and makes it grab the key off the dungeon master's belt and unlock the heroes cell. The heroes then break out of the dungeon and proceed to stop the bad guys big evil ritual that will end the world.

However, using BoED logic a "good" character would rather sit in their cell and let the world end rather than cast a necromantic spell. You could also replace that with slipping a sleeping poison into the guards drink or working together with a demon locked in the next cell to escape if you prefer.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 06:25 PM
This sort of idea really curbs the players ability to play their character, but it also harms the DM.

How?

Because I really don't get.

You only need to accept a few premises, and suddenly, all the elements you say are somehow unusable are back on the table. (Namely, you must accept that character determines alignment, not the other way around; that alignment can change as a character changes; that sometimes, the best action for a desired end result is not morally Good; and that sometimes, events conspire so that there are only bad options.)

I have a very black-and-white (and blue-and-orange for the Law - Chaos -axis) view of alignment, and tend to be quite strict about it. Yet I use all those listed elements all the time, and have never felt like they're watered down or "lame" because of how I view and use Alignment.

Jjeinn-tae
2011-05-03, 06:32 PM
Personally, in real life, I fall under this alignment. While I don't like playing myself, I do like playing the alignment, never really playing on the tabletop, I never seen the disruption it can cause first hand, and any accounts I've seen say more "Chaotic Evil" then Neutral, and Chaotic in the Psychopathic way.

The Neutral portion of Chaotic Neutral means you aren't really out to cause harm. You might be apathetic to others, or you might care a lot (positively or negatively) but don't get involved, or maybe you just want to be left alone.

You like your freedom though, and try and make sure others don't infringe on that. With neutrality, that often means respecting others' freedom and not running around breaking every law you can think of. Even if you are selfish enough not to care, that's still a way to get yourself locked up, and that's not good for your freedom to say the least.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 06:40 PM
The simplest form of Chaotic Neutral would likely be "Teenager Rebel Without a Cause". Someone who instinctively balks at all authority, but feels bad about hurting others so he "chickens out" of everything that'd count as evil, yet at the same time is too lazy and selfish to actively contribute to well-being of anyone else. Like someone who just lounges before the computer all day, barking "you can't tell me what to do!" at everyone, and thus ends up doing nothing.

Hmmm...

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 06:40 PM
The thing is, in a world with black and white morality why would anyone who sets out to do the right thing ever make a mistake, especially when divinations allow people to analyze said morality? Every church and philosopher in the world would have a big list of inviolate commandments, and a hierarchy of which takes precedence when they conflict.

You would never get a villain who believed they were doing the right thing unless they are legitimately crazy, because every school boy could tell them they were wrong.

Likewise, players don't need to ever make ethical choices, as ethics are laid out for them. This doesn't work in the real world, of course, because you can't apply an absolute rule to every specific situation. And when those situations come up, good aligned characters must act in a way that is not good to our real world sensibilities. Thus I lose all respect for my character, who I cannot help but hold up to my own moral ideals.

Imagine, for example, that in the fantasy world that god of cats was good and the god of dogs was evil, and all paladins were required to sacrifice a puppy every evening to regain spells. It might work in the context of a fantasy world, but would you really be able to look up to Bob the paladin as a player?

Likewise, if you are playing FATAL it is an absolute in the system that women and minorities are inferior to white males, and rape is the social norm. A "good" character in fatal would be a bigoted misogynistic rapist, and still be good, but I would still be disgusted by his behavior and wouldn't look up to him or want to play him.
Of course, D&D isn't always like that, 90% of the time it follows real world morality unless you have a wierd DM. However, the rest of the time wierd stuff crops up and tends to spoil the game.

Talya
2011-05-03, 06:51 PM
Imagine, for example, that in the fantasy world that god of cats was good and the god of dogs was evil, and all paladins were required to sacrifice a puppy every evening to regain spells. It might work in the context of a fantasy world, but would you really be able to look up to Bob the paladin as a player?

I'm afraid exterminating all the puppies in the world cannot redeem him from a lifetime of venerating cats. He is unforgiven.


Likewise, if you are playing FATAL

Suffice it to say, that if you are playing FATAL, you have greater concerns than the details of good or evil.


D&D isn't always like that, 90% of the time it follows real world morality

No surprise there, really. "Real world morality" is also just stuff people make up and write down in books. However, I would argue that whether D&D follows "real world morality" at all will greatly depend on which "real world morality" one folows.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 07:14 PM
The thing is, in a world with black and white morality why would anyone who sets out to do the right thing ever make a mistake, especially when divinations allow people to analyze said morality? Every church and philosopher in the world would have a big list of inviolate commandments, and a hierarchy of which takes precedence when they conflict.

You are assuming a level of effort and precision that flat-out doesn't exist in many settings. In practice, most people would have to make most of their decisions without such a crutch to lean on. Great majority would not even have firsthand experience with such magic.

Plus, looking at centuries of philosophical and theological discussion in real life, analyzing morality has not stopped people from making stupid choices. People have often even made choices they agree were stupid or wrong. So meh.

See also "sometimes, events conspire so that there are only bad options".


You would never get a villain who believed they were doing the right thing unless they are legitimately crazy, because every school boy could tell them they were wrong.

To be completely honest, most RL "evil people" are insane, and most Evil D&D folks would count as insane in the real world. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10917339#post10917339)

Also, "sometimes, the best action for a desired end result is not morally Good".


Likewise, players don't need to ever make ethical choices, as ethics are laid out for them. This doesn't work in the real world, of course, because you can't apply an absolute rule to every specific situation. And when those situations come up, good aligned characters must act in a way that is not good to our real world sensibilities. Thus I lose all respect for my character, who I cannot help but hold up to my own moral ideals.

I had a long rant about this somewhere, but I can't be arsed to find it.

The crux is: accepting that sometimes adhering to Alignment leads to counter-intuitive results is necessary if you want to effectively use Alignment at all. Alignment is supposed to make sense within the game, not within whatever ethical and moral believes you hold in real life.

You've also stumbled upon the answer why people would not adhere to objective morality in-universe. Presumably, humans in D&D land still possess most of the same instincts as humans in real world, which means that sometimes, their feelings run counter to the objective morality of the setting. This is pretty much why there are evil creatures at all - the natural instincts of, say, a Mindflayer or a Dragon drive them to act in ways that count as Evil with the Alignment system.

Also, "character determines alignment" and "alignment can change as a character changes".


Imagine, for example, that in the fantasy world that god of cats was good and the god of dogs was evil, and all paladins were required to sacrifice a puppy every evening to regain spells. It might work in the context of a fantasy world, but would you really be able to look up to Bob the paladin as a player?

Yes, I would. Because it's a game, and I can accept absurdities from a game.

Ever watched a couple of preteens talking about some computer game? They get all hyped about how "tough" or "cool" killing X or Y was within the context of the game. They brag with who destroyed the most enemies and what not. It's the same thing. The game encourages certain kind of play. Playing the game that way nets you the highest score or whatever, and someone who gets a great score is a great player, regardless of how in-universe events of the game map on real-life morality.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 07:22 PM
I guess you have an easier time seperating yourself from your entertainment than I do, I would be disgusted by such a character, and would quickly lose any interest in playing the character, and by extension the game.

In a video game I might be able to put aside real world ethics for a while, but if it is the theme of the game I simply won't play it. However, in an RPG the whole point is for me to play a character, and I can't play a character whose actions I do not understand, especially if they disgust me as anyone who follows the BoED style morality surely would.

I would also be really pissed off if I made the "wrong decision" and chose what the DM feels is the evil choice and I feel is the good choice, and suddenly have violated my alignment and am worse than the chaotic stupid jackass who did nothing at all.

Pisha
2011-05-03, 07:25 PM
The thing is, in a world with black and white morality why would anyone who sets out to do the right thing ever make a mistake, especially when divinations allow people to analyze said morality? Every church and philosopher in the world would have a big list of inviolate commandments, and a hierarchy of which takes precedence when they conflict.

You would never get a villain who believed they were doing the right thing unless they are legitimately crazy, because every school boy could tell them they were wrong.

Likewise, players don't need to ever make ethical choices, as ethics are laid out for them.

Which is precisely why black-and-white morality doesn't work, not in real life and not in D&D. If there's a big o' checklist telling you, in no uncertain terms, which acts are good and which are evil, it would be boring. (And I maintain that such a list would be impossible, anyway.) If there isn't a list, but morality is still black and white, cut and dried... well, that's pretty nastily unfair.

I honestly don't for a moment believe that D&D was ever meant to be 100% black and white when it comes to morality. It may not go into a lot of detail about shades of grey and no-win situations and degrees of culpability and intent vs. result, but that's because it's a game and not an ethics textbook! It doesn't mean that those concepts don't apply, though. They do, just as much as they do in the real world.

For the record, I do think intent matters. If you sneak into a man's house and slit his throat while he's sleeping in order to rob him, that is an evil act. If it later turns out that he was a terrible bad man who ate babies for breakfast and terrorized the entire town and the world is better without him, it's still an evil act. Just one with happy side effects. Furthermore, if you know he's Evil McBabyeater, he's way too powerful for you to face in open combat, but he's due to eat a dozen tiny babies tomorrow morning... if a character decides to take the chance, sneak past the guards and slip through the traps, and risk her life to kill him while he's sleeping and save the babies, then no, I would not consider that an evil action. In some cases, it really does come down to intent.

And if you're casting a necromantic spell for the purpose of healing your friends, a GM claiming that's evil needs to seriously take a step back and think about the logic of what he just said.

Short version: it is not remotely possible for a gaming book to give guidelines for every moral and ethical situation that can come up. So if what the book says contradicts what common sense and your own morals say about a given situation, take the book with a grain of salt and use your brain.

Prime32
2011-05-03, 07:26 PM
The BOED goes on further to say that assisting an evil outsider is always evil, no matter the reason, no matter the ends, even if you are working together for a good goal. This would include working together to defeat another evil outsider, or working toward the outsiders redemption.Wait, if killing an evil outsider is always good, where does assisted suicide fall? :smalltongue:

I prefer to base alignment on the energies you wield rather than actions, with everyone who doesn't ping strongly on a detect alignment spell as neutral. More body than mind, if you will. So a cleric of a good deity will be Good in mechanics terms even if he eats babies. Using [Evil] spells a lot won't make you any more cruel, but an overzealous knight may not know or care.

Talakeal
2011-05-03, 07:31 PM
Short version: it is not remotely possible for a gaming book to give guidelines for every moral and ethical situation that can come up. So if what the book says contradicts what common sense and your own morals say about a given situation, take the book with a grain of salt and use your brain.

BoED has passages telling you not to do that though. It tells you that the ends never justifies the means, the method matters more than the result, taking the lesser of two evils is worse than walking away, motives don't matter, the tools you use for a job matters more than the job, cultural factors are irrelevant, and that even if you think you are sacrificing your purity for a higher cause you are wrong.

Its bollocks, and I don't by it, but in my experiance both irl and on these forums most DMs do.

I also find it wierd that animals are always neutral, but really stupid / foolish / insane humanoids still have to face the music of their actions.


Wait, if killing an evil outsider is always good, where does assisted suicide fall? :smalltongue:

Ah, you see in this case both choices are evil. Therefore a good person would simply cover their eyes and ears and run away from the situation, leaving making an actual decision to one of those vile evil beings who actually get things done.

Edit: If you can't tell, I really hate the book of exalted deeds and vile darkness.

cattoy
2011-05-03, 08:15 PM
Devil's Dictionary entries.

CN - A perfectly reasonable alignment for my PCs.

CS - A dysfunctional alignment for other people's PCs.

Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

druid91
2011-05-03, 08:36 PM
Devil's Dictionary entries.

CN - A perfectly reasonable alignment for my PCs.

CS - A dysfunctional alignment for other people's PCs.

Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Because the sort of people who play CS really would stick out like a sore thumb unless they were actively trolling their game group.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-03, 08:38 PM
I guess you have an easier time seperating yourself from your entertainment than I do, I would be disgusted by such a character, and would quickly lose any interest in playing the character, and by extension the game.

Not exactly. I've noted I have much higher capacity of empathy towards fictional characters than many other people I know. I do however have much greater patience and tolerance towards things I dislike than much of those same people, which means I can put up with greater quantities of entertainment I find repugnant.

(Sometimes leads to funny situations, such as when reading over my old writings or roleplays - when I create villains or just plain dislikeable characters, I draw heavily from things I myself hate. So I'm sometimes left thinking "Wait, I played this jerk. Oh the shame!")


In a video game I might be able to put aside real world ethics for a while, but if it is the theme of the game I simply won't play it. However, in an RPG the whole point is for me to play a character, and I can't play a character whose actions I do not understand, especially if they disgust me as anyone who follows the BoED style morality surely would.

I would also be really pissed off if I made the "wrong decision" and chose what the DM feels is the evil choice and I feel is the good choice, and suddenly have violated my alignment and am worse than the chaotic stupid jackass who did nothing at all.

I think the difference here is that I do understand what drives many actions I find repugnant, and often draw inspiration heavily from my own dislikes as noted above. Maybe it's bit like difference between romance artist and horror artist?

About that second paragraph, in the "insanity defense" thread on poster noted how some people might react strongly to Alignment because Good and Evil are such loaded words. To me, what I perceive as right and wrong and what the game perceives as such exist on different grids, and don't influence each other too much. In your case, you might take game adjucations more personally.


Which is precisely why black-and-white morality doesn't work, not in real life and not in D&D. If there's a big o' checklist telling you, in no uncertain terms, which acts are good and which are evil, it would be boring. (And I maintain that such a list would be impossible, anyway.) If there isn't a list, but morality is still black and white, cut and dried... well, that's pretty nastily unfair.

I don't quite agree. Rather, I think there are, and have been several such checklists, and creation of one can be deceptively simple.

The problem with such lists always boils down to one phenomenom: there are always fringe occasions where letter of the law clearly points towards one solution, yet it doesn't feel right. Despite seeming clarity, it does not add up in the minds of people. These are the counter-intuitive edges of the Alignment system, for example.

There are few ways to get around this; the one I'm advocating in context of D&D is to simply swallow your gut reaction and live with it. Second is to create addenda for these situations as they come across; third is to have a secondary system of ethics to fall back on. (Technically, you can use the third solution in D&D by using Good or Evil as primary and Law or Chaos as secondary [or vice versa] system, but this doesn't actually lead to the desired outcome.)

I wholly disagree on black and white morality being boring, however. It's only boring if there's no other substance to choices than good or evil, and no other goals. This is rarely true of actual D&D scenarios. Quite often, Alignment is just dressing - the real meat is defeating monsters and getting loot (or something else). Very often, such actions require compromising with such checklists even if they are in play - that's why falling Paladins are such a popular topic, for example.


I honestly don't for a moment believe that D&D was ever meant to be 100% black and white when it comes to morality. It may not go into a lot of detail about shades of grey and no-win situations and degrees of culpability and intent vs. result, but that's because it's a game and not an ethics textbook! It doesn't mean that those concepts don't apply, though. They do, just as much as they do in the real world.

Well, there Neutrality, for all your grey and brown needs! However, one thing to think about is that muted colors might exist less on the level of actions and more on the level of characters. Even if singular actions are all black and white, a character can easily end up committing both - ending up as a mix. Someone who strives for good yet accidentally commits evil might garner a few black stones, but their white ones will likely outnumber those.

So Neutral or "gray" characters are those who do both good and evil, or just plain don't do much.


For the record, I do think intent matters. If you sneak into a man's house and slit his throat while he's sleeping in order to rob him, that is an evil act. If it later turns out that he was a terrible bad man who ate babies for breakfast and terrorized the entire town and the world is better without him, it's still an evil act. Just one with happy side effects. Furthermore, if you know he's Evil McBabyeater, he's way too powerful for you to face in open combat, but he's due to eat a dozen tiny babies tomorrow morning... if a character decides to take the chance, sneak past the guards and slip through the traps, and risk her life to kill him while he's sleeping and save the babies, then no, I would not consider that an evil action. In some cases, it really does come down to intent.


And if you're casting a necromantic spell for the purpose of healing your friends, a GM claiming that's evil needs to seriously take a step back and think about the logic of what he just said.


There's twp actions there, actually - one good and one evil, both committed with good intent. So most likely Good, at worst at the brightest corner of Neutral. :smallwink: Not something for a Paladin or other paragon of goody-two-shoeness to do, but I could see a Good Wizard doing that on occasion.



I also find it wierd that animals are always neutral, but really stupid / foolish / insane humanoids still have to face the music of their actions.

Yeah, I find it annoying as well - animals are much more clever than D&D gives them credit for, they should have Alignment (and in a few cases Int scores above 3.)

But it makes sense as long as you accept that D&D looks at animals in a very archaic way, considering them so unintelligent they can't really act outside their instincts, so they can't be held responsible of what their instincts drive them to do.

As far as sanity of sapients (in D&D terms, things with Int 3+) goes, I direct you at the other thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10917339#post10917339) I started.


Ah, you see in this case both choices are evil. Therefore a good person would simply cover their eyes and ears and run away from the situation, leaving making an actual decision to one of those vile evil beings who actually get things done.

Alignment is about actions that persist. Many "ordinary" Good characters would not risk anything expect bad conscience. One black stone to counter thousand white ones, yeah, but that's life. An Exalted character might really cover his eyes and ears and run, but Exalted characters are on the far idealistic side of Good. A Paladin with even a hint of pragmatism would just hand the job to someone else.

dsmiles
2011-05-03, 08:38 PM
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...Not everyone. The first place I ever heard about horribly played CN characters was here in the Playground. I've played CN, and I don't play them as CS. The way CS has been described on here isn't a realistic interpretation of any alignment, not even CE.

hamishspence
2011-05-04, 02:48 AM
An Exalted character might really cover his eyes and ears and run, but Exalted characters are on the far idealistic side of Good. A Paladin with even a hint of pragmatism would just hand the job to someone else.

And some might choose to do the evil act- and seek to atone as soon as possible- regardless of the general principle that, by committing an evil act- one shifts the balance of the universe toward Evil.

Exalted characters can fall (losing their Exalted feats) and rise again- it's only Saints that can never regain their Saint status once they've lost it.

Sebastrd
2011-05-05, 08:54 AM
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Check out the thread about "forcing a DM's hand". That guy is an admitted CS.

Pisha
2011-05-05, 11:11 AM
Not everyone. The first place I ever heard about horribly played CN characters was here in the Playground. I've played CN, and I don't play them as CS. The way CS has been described on here isn't a realistic interpretation of any alignment, not even CE.

Actually, I do have a friend who tends to play CN/CE as CS. His saving grace is that he manages to be genuinely amusing at it (and about half the time, there's a method to his madness that we don't discover until much, much later.) Needless to say, the other characters - PC and NPC alike - tend to treat him as a fairly frightening sociopath (albeit a charming one), but y'know, in a certain type of game, that can be fun.

druid91
2011-05-05, 11:23 AM
Actually, I do have a friend who tends to play CN/CE as CS. His saving grace is that he manages to be genuinely amusing at it (and about half the time, there's a method to his madness that we don't discover until much, much later.) Needless to say, the other characters - PC and NPC alike - tend to treat him as a fairly frightening sociopath (albeit a charming one), but y'know, in a certain type of game, that can be fun.

Query: Are you friends with HK-47?

Pisha
2011-05-05, 12:22 PM
Query: Are you friends with HK-47?

Who with the whatnow?

druid91
2011-05-05, 12:28 PM
Who with the whatnow?

Knights of the old republic reference.

HK-47, An assassin droid who is much more "in the know" about certain things than the player, wants to kill all meatbags (anything not a droid, or his current master), and is generally an evil person in such an amusing way that I keep him around and happy even when I'm trying to be a light sided jedi.

cattoy
2011-05-05, 01:35 PM
Check out the thread about "forcing a DM's hand". That guy is an admitted CS.

Originally Posted by cattoy
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Again, how can you have a balanced discussion of the subject when only one side of the issue is ever voiced? Nobody who admits to playing CN as "CS" has posted here.

druid91
2011-05-05, 02:05 PM
Originally Posted by cattoy
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Again, how can you have a balanced discussion of the subject when only one side of the issue is ever voiced? Nobody who admits to playing CN as "CS" has posted here.

Are you implying that playing Chaotic stupid is acceptable?

Because I who ride the edge of chaotic stupid with most of my characters, know that there is indeed a point where you have taken your zany hijinks too far.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-05, 02:21 PM
I've played one or two characters who count as CN. Most notable was an anarchist who initially wanted nothing but to stay in a desert and draw things. (Well, that's not quite accurate. At the very beginning, he was an executioner for a king, but killed in a peasant revolt. In his death, he became a vengeful ghost and embodied that which destoyed him, killing his former king under the pretense that there should be no rulers.)

I GM to players who all play their characters as varying shades of Chaotic, Neutral and Stupid included (oh so very much!).

oxybe
2011-05-05, 02:38 PM
i have no problem allowing any character in my group when i'm GMing as long as you follow this one corollary to the "rule of fun (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfFun)" i happily add: "don't be a ****"

don't be disruptive to the group. don't cause problems because "it's in character". it's not the character's fault the character is at the table, YOU brought the PC here. you're the problem.

so don't be a ****. if you are a ****, you get kicked out after the third strike: fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice shame on me. fool me thrice and you can pack up your stuff an leave.

thing is, a disruptive player will be disruptive no matter what system, ruleset or whatever you put in front of him, regardless if he's playing the Evil Lord Vorpal von Hackenslash or Saint Jesus McOrphanedkittenkisser.

if he's going to be a ****, he's going to be a ****. a "no CN, LE, TE, CE, whatever" rule won't stop this player since he'll pick LG and you'll suddenly have a paladin that's killing people left and right and burning down orphaned puppies with terminal diseases or something.

if i can't gather up buddies to play with, i find it's easier to roll with whoever shows up and kick out the jerks as they show up. a good player will play any alignment he's comfortable with well. a jerk will play any character jerkishly.

shrug.

Pisha
2011-05-05, 02:41 PM
Knights of the old republic reference.

HK-47, An assassin droid who is much more "in the know" about certain things than the player, wants to kill all meatbags (anything not a droid, or his current master), and is generally an evil person in such an amusing way that I keep him around and happy even when I'm trying to be a light sided jedi.

Hah! Maybe. I just know that if I sit down to a new group and he's there, I should probably not make an overly serious character if I don't want to be terribly frustrated. (No joke, I could probably fill a whole thread with this guy's so-crazy-it-just-might-work antics.)


Originally Posted by cattoy
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Again, how can you have a balanced discussion of the subject when only one side of the issue is ever voiced? Nobody who admits to playing CN as "CS" has posted here.

Well, one problem is that the difference between the two is often in the eye of the beholder. (No, not that kind of beholder.) I'm running on the assumption that no one wants to be seen as Chaotic Stupid (or anything Stupid, for that matter), so the idea was to reach a consensus regarding what people consider legitimate CN portrayals. That way, people can more easily avoid the CS pitfalls.

However, maybe you're right. So let's expand this. Has anyone here ever played true Chaotic Stupid? I'm talking the "flip a coin, heads I heal you tails I stab you," attacking authority figures on a whim 'cuz "I hate the Law!," and doing things just because "it was funny," Chaotic Stupid. Don't be shy, if you've done this, 'fess up and tell us about it! Did you have fun? Did the rest of the party have fun? Were you still able to work as part of the party, or did they get sick of you and kick you out? What advice do you have for playing a goofy CS character, and still having a fun game for everyone?

Talakeal
2011-05-05, 03:14 PM
Well, one time I tried to create a mechanical system to award bonus XP for RPing your alignment, and I had one play who actively embraced chaos and did the coin flip thing. Of course, like most chaotic stupid players, he simply did nothing when the coin came up "help" and he didn't feel like it, but he always followed it when it meant he got to do something cruel or destructive with the excuse of "just following chaos!"

BTW, one time our gaming group took the alignment quiz in the third ed DM book about helping you make a character, but we took it out of character. Most people got Neutral, a few got LN, LG, or NG as would be expected. Said player was the only one to score both Evil and Chaotic.

Pisha
2011-05-05, 05:05 PM
BTW, one time our gaming group took the alignment quiz in the third ed DM book about helping you make a character, but we took it out of character. Most people got Neutral, a few got LN, LG, or NG as would be expected. Said player was the only one to score both Evil and Chaotic.

*laughs herself silly* Fair enough. Which may be the other reason why you won't find too many devoted CS players in a discussion like this - most of the time, if someone is playing that way, they don't really care about having a fun game for everyone. (Or building rapport within a party or telling a good story or any of that.) So a discussion about reining in the antisocial tendencies of CS towards a more realistic and party-compatible CN would not be of interest to them.

However, again, I have to believe there are exceptions to that rule, and it would be fun to hear from them!

TimeWizard
2011-05-06, 01:42 PM
I have seen precisely one well role played CN character, and that was Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark in Iron Man 1 (pre-abduction). I left out Jack Sparrow on purpose (chips down: he is a Good guy, personality flaws aside). The big question which I have yet to see personally answered is: Why?

If you're NG, its because you want to do good, and you're willing to stretch the rules a bit. Understandable.

If you're LN, it's because you believe in following orders, likely due to militaristic reasons. Perfectly Logical.

If you're NE, it's because you want to be a hurtful jack*** (in character). You want to do evil, but you kinda care about the rules? What are you, a grammar school bully? Generally speaking the Laws keep you from doing bad things, so why not be CE? Because you are kind of afraid to go all the way? Bully: Alright I guess.

If you're CN, it's because you want to subvert the rules, but not to help or harm. You just like breaking rules for the sake of it. You don't do good, you don't do evil, you don't really have a purpose other than "I am CONSTANTLY bored" which is a serious, non-humorous mental condition*. These characters are flat and likely to become CS because there are little justifications for "I hate the way that people keep in order all the time". That worked for Tyler Durden but he doesn't exist. You know who hates the status quo? revolutionaries. You know what they do when they win? Become the Government**.

So my challenge to the "well played" CN's out there... I know you can make a compelling reason why you hate the system but aren't trying to replace it. I know you can find a reason to break the rules but not because you delight in the joy/suffering of others. So for the Love of Pelor: THINK OF A GOOD ONE.

*Unless you are in Puck, from AMSND, in that case keep up the good work. And stop helping Loki.
**Unless you're V, in which case, ANARCHY IN THE UK!

Sebastrd
2011-05-06, 02:27 PM
Originally Posted by cattoy
Funny how everyone has encountered horribly played CN characters but nobody who posts here has ever played one...

Again, how can you have a balanced discussion of the subject when only one side of the issue is ever voiced? Nobody who admits to playing CN as "CS" has posted here.

I'd say this fits the definition of "posted here".

Confessions of a CS (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195752)

dsmiles
2011-05-06, 02:31 PM
@TimeWizard:

Chaotic Neutral, "Free Spirit"

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal.

Emphasis mine.

A rogue who is only out for him/herself, stealing what he needs to survive, but not actively trying to hurt anyone would be CN. He avoids authority (police), resents restrictions (doesn't want a job to earn his/her keep) and challenges traditions (living like a vagabond while stealing what you need) just by living that kind of life. He obviously doesn't care about others' freedom, and he is the ultimate individualist.

Tell me that's not CN.

druid91
2011-05-06, 02:41 PM
If you're CN, it's because you want to subvert the rules, but not to help or harm. You just like breaking rules for the sake of it. You don't do good, you don't do evil, you don't really have a purpose other than "I am CONSTANTLY bored" which is a serious, non-humorous mental condition*. These characters are flat and likely to become CS because there are little justifications for "I hate the way that people keep in order all the time". That worked for Tyler Durden but he doesn't exist. You know who hates the status quo? revolutionaries. You know what they do when they win? Become the Government**.

So my challenge to the "well played" CN's out there... I know you can make a compelling reason why you hate the system but aren't trying to replace it. I know you can find a reason to break the rules but not because you delight in the joy/suffering of others. So for the Love of Pelor: THINK OF A GOOD ONE.

*Unless you are in Puck, from AMSND, in that case keep up the good work. And stop helping Loki.
**Unless you're V, in which case, ANARCHY IN THE UK!

Well, with mine it's more of a case of pride, combined with strength. Until recently most of my characters could easily wipe nations of the map. Or assassinate kings without issues.

When you weild that kind of power, it's reasonable to adopt a Might makes right or %&@kicking equals authority position. That's the chaotic down.

From there, all you need is a sort of general apathy and self serving personality to get the neutral.

Challenge answered.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-06, 02:58 PM
So for the Love of Pelor: THINK OF A GOOD ONE.

Fear and hatred of commitment. You don't want to deal with other people, because you fear that they might make you compromise with yourself. You don't want to hurt anyone by rejecting them, but neither do you want to risk hurting them by forcing them to change due to your presence. So you isolate yourself - go to some place where there's no rule besides your own. Where you don't need to worry of other people, what they think of you and what you think of them.

Burner28
2011-05-06, 03:25 PM
Ozymandias believes that a nuclear war would happen and kill billions of people, and he could come up with no alternative to avert it save the destruction of New York.
What if he had been able to see the future, and knew with absolute certainty that he was correct?
In D&D the "right" choice would be to sit back and praise your own purity, while the world burns, New York along with it. Ozymandias could have stopped it by killing a small fraction of the people, but he is too "good" for that.
There would be those that believe that Ozymandias' action may not have been necessary nor successful


This sort of idea really curbs the players ability to play their character, but it also harms the DM. You can't have misguided heroes as plot elements, people who, say revert to torture in a ticking time bomb scenario, or people who wish to work together with evil people for mutual benefit, or people who want to wipe out all evil people in the world (or if you are going by strict PHB Lawful god NOT wipe out all evil people in the world). It's really lame.

Alignment is not an restriction kit. I kinda doubt one becomes Evil-aligned that easily:smalltongue:

TimeWizard
2011-05-06, 03:58 PM
@Frozen feet and DSmiles: If mind your own business is CN, then what is TN? I's starting to get confused. If you care about laws you're Lawful, if you couldn't care either way you're neutral, if your're CN then... you also don't care either way?

dsmiles
2011-05-06, 04:04 PM
@Frozen feet and DSmiles: If mind your own business is CN, then what is TN? I's starting to get confused. If you care about laws you're Lawful, if you couldn't care either way you're neutral, if your're CN then... you also don't care either way?

Neutrality and Chaotic Neutral (emphasis mine):

Neutral, "Undecided"

A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil—after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.

Some neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run.

Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion.

Chaotic Neutral, "Free Spirit"

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal.

Frozen_Feet
2011-05-06, 04:59 PM
@Frozen feet and DSmiles: If mind your own business is CN, then what is TN? I's starting to get confused. If you care about laws you're Lawful, if you couldn't care either way you're neutral, if your're CN then... you also don't care either way?

True neutral might mind his own business, but he's not compelled to rebel or otherwise react strongly when his freedoms are infringed. Because of this, a TN character would rarely feel an urge to become a complete hermit, like the CN character I described. A TN character might slip through the cracks of society and become a social outcast due to that, but it's because of their apathy and passiveness, as opposed to the active dislike of society possessed by the CN character above.

El Dorado
2011-05-06, 05:24 PM
I played a chaotic neutral rogue who tended to live in the moment. This led to good and bad results. The worst decision was when he promised to retrieve the same magic item for two different patrons. He thought that he'd figure a way out of the predicament and keep both bounties. He didn't. He ended up having to pay his earnings from one patron to the other. But I guess all of that is as much a result of poor decision making skills as his alignment. :smallwink:

navar100
2011-05-06, 05:53 PM
If you're CN, it's because you want to subvert the rules, but not to help or harm. You just like breaking rules for the sake of it. You don't do good, you don't do evil, you don't really have a purpose other than "I am CONSTANTLY bored" which is a serious, non-humorous mental condition*. These characters are flat and likely to become CS because there are little justifications for "I hate the way that people keep in order all the time". That worked for Tyler Durden but he doesn't exist. You know who hates the status quo? revolutionaries. You know what they do when they win? Become the Government**.



You're really going to claim Tyler Durden is Chaotic Neutral?
:smallsmile:

Pisha
2011-05-06, 06:17 PM
So for the Love of Pelor: THINK OF A GOOD ONE.

Challenge accepted.

So, to take the character I referenced in my original post: Dala grew up as a ward of the state in a LE empire, raised in (and by) a LE church, which did its level best to, essentially, brainwash her. The empire and church didn't represent themselves as LE, of course, and most people in the empire only considered it a nice and orderly society - unless, of course, they fell afoul of the law. Dala was in a position to see firsthand how harsh and cruel this orderly society could be, how "the law" could be manipulated mercilessly against undeserving people. And she grew to hate it.

To this day, she dislikes the very concept of law. She's not stupid; she understands that sometimes it is a necessary evil, and she knows that some rulers are kind and benevolent. (She currently works for one; more on that later.) However, she feels that a) just because law is occasionally necessary does not make it good, and b) ...well, in her own words: "If a man is standing behind me with an axe, raised and aimed at my head, ready to strike me down if I do something wrong, of course I would prefer that the man with the axe was a wise, patient, merciful person, who wouldn't swing the axe for cruel or arbitrary reasons. But you know what I'd like even better? Nobody standing behind me with an axe."

So she pretty much acts as though laws do not apply to her. She doesn't reflexively break them just 'cuz they're there (usually...), but she does what she wants and tries not to get caught. (She also doesn't stay in jails. Ever. Even if it would be a good idea. It's just a thing. She doesn't like jails.) She can pretend to be Lawful (and has, in the past), but that just means it's easier to do her own thing behind the scene, with no one paying attention to her.

However, that doesn't put her on the side of Good. For most of her life, she held the opinion that if the citizens of the Empire were too stupid, blind and lazy to see the evil behind the facade, then they deserved whatever they got. She was out for her own profit and her own freedom. Yes, she occasionally joined groups to plot and plan and scheme to bring down the Empire, but she was motivated less by altruism than by a personal dislike of the Empire and the Church. (And, let's face it, because all that cloak-and-dagger revolutionary stuff is pretty fun.)

As for hurting and helping people: she never went out of her way to hurt anyone, but if it had to be done, she wasn't going to stay awake nights worrying about it either. She'd help her friends (cuz she liked them), she'd help little kids (cuz she likes kids), and depending on circumstances she might even help someone just because she was bored or feeling generous, but in general? If it wasn't going to pay well or benefit her in any way, she didn't feel any particular need to go out of her way to help strangers.

Eventually, this changed; when the party accepted a commission from a rebellious lord who'd seceded from the Empire and set himself up as king, they settled down into a stronghold to protect a city near the border. Between this and some other influences, she began to actually care about the people they were protecting, and to realize that she wanted to bring down the Empire, not just out of spite, but because they really were hurting people. Accordingly, this was the first step on her long, slow progress towards CG.

(As for why she's working for a king: 1) by seceding from the Empire, he pretty much spit in the Emperor's eye, and that made her smile; 2) he's pretty much giving them land, titles, and gold for the same things they'd be doing anyway, so... bonus; and 3) the king, knowing perhaps when not to push his luck, has so far treated their arrangement as a business deal between equals, rather than a subject-ruler relationship. She's still philosophically opposed to the idea of monarchy [and she's had some interesting conversations with the town guards vis a vis jails and the advisability of staying inside them once put there], but in general, this is an arrangement she can live with. So long as the king doesn't do anything silly, like telling her to do something she doesn't want to do.)

There. A fully-fleshed-out character, with a realistic motivation for being true CN, at least until alignment drift happened. :smallbiggrin:

Dacia Brabant
2011-05-08, 09:06 PM
If you're CN, it's because you want to subvert the rules, but not to help or harm. You just like breaking rules for the sake of it. You don't do good, you don't do evil, you don't really have a purpose other than "I am CONSTANTLY bored" which is a serious, non-humorous mental condition*. These characters are flat and likely to become CS because there are little justifications for "I hate the way that people keep in order all the time". That worked for Tyler Durden but he doesn't exist. You know who hates the status quo? revolutionaries. You know what they do when they win? Become the Government**.

So my challenge to the "well played" CN's out there... I know you can make a compelling reason why you hate the system but aren't trying to replace it. I know you can find a reason to break the rules but not because you delight in the joy/suffering of others. So for the Love of Pelor: THINK OF A GOOD ONE.

I have one for you--my take on the Modern Prometheus:


I have a Warforged psiontist (with a Ph.D. in Metacreativity :smallbiggrin:) that started out as truly undecided between any moral and ethical systems, uncertain whether any of them even applied to him since he's a perfect outsider, not born into or a part of any particular society or culture or species--he never even knew his own creator, and the lab he awoke in was removed from civilization. However, through his interactions with people and society he quickly learned to value freedom--his own freedom, that is.

Since he didn't awake into any kind of orderly system or social arrangement, but rather had perfect freedom of choice and action, he believed this was his natural condition. And since everyone he encountered that took any interest in him only wanted to confine or control him for their own purposes, he came to reject their ways, seeing them as antitethical to who he is. He's unique (Warforged are ultra-rare in this world) and a total outsider, so their rules or ways don't apply to him, but for the same reason he doesn't actively attack society or fight to change it--just as he wasn't made to be controlled, he wasn't made to control either, so he lets them do what they will to each other as long as they don't try to hurt him.

I've still been playing him as a dispassionate, disinterested hermit though so he's effectively been True Neutral with Chaotic tendencies, but if he were more assertive or militant about his beliefs he easily would be full-on Chaotic Neutral. Also, his impending meeting with other sapient constructs who've gone bonkers is about to "corrupt" him and tip him over into believing in Chaos--scientifically that is, as in random variance being the universal truth of all observable matter--and he's going to plunge fully into that kind of Chaos as part of his quest for self-perfection. This should push him over the TN/CN line as well.

Does that pass the test?