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Amaril
2014-04-01, 12:34 PM
How might one go about building a world focused on the conflict between Law and Chaos, with no objective Good and Evil alignments? As I'm picturing it right now, the shape of the conflict varies somewhat based on the scope one looks at, similar to the vanilla two-axis alignment scale. On the mortal level, the followers of Law might believe that everyone should have a predetermined destiny that serves some greater plan (which may or may not benefit you personally), while the servants of Chaos would say that nothing should be deterministic and everyone should have complete free will, for better and worse. On the other hand, when looking at the cosmic forces that drive this conflict, I'm picturing beings of Law fighting to make the cosmos a place of complete emptiness where nothing exists and nothing happens (and thus, nothing ever violates the rules), while beings of Chaos are forces of blind, uncontrolled creation and destruction who want to dissolve everything into complete entropy.

How would you do something like this? How would you play up this conflict in the world and make it apparent to the players? Thoughts?

Everyl
2014-04-01, 09:06 PM
I have little first-hand experience with it, but I'm pretty sure that the Warhammer setting is basically this - law-chaos conflict, no objective good or evil. Other settings have done similar things, too; old-school Mage: the Ascension was built around the conflict between order and chaos, with chaos usually being depicted more sympathetically.

The way I see it, a setting without Good and Evil as fundamental concepts winds up being built largely of shades of gray. Someone who is strongly Lawful can do everything that traditional D&D would label Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, and Lawful Evil without necessarily violating their ethics. It is a world where noble crusaders battle the forces of chaos to defend their idea of civilization, without a second thought for the fields of corpses they leave in their wake. The difference between a "freedom fighter" and an "insurgent terrorist" is mostly or entirely in the propaganda you're listening to; after all, there's no objective morality to say that killing innocents to achieve a higher goal is right or wrong.

On a grander metaphysical scale, I'd see it as a conflict between stasis and dynamism. If Law were to reign, the universe would be basically sterile. Nothing could change, as change would introduce the potential for disorder and chaos. Chaos, on the other hand, would eliminate all stability. Everything becomes subject to change, often without rhyme or reason. Life may not even be possible, as the conditions would never be stable long enough. The conflict between the two forces is necessary to the world being in any condition for people to live in it.

That's my 2 cents, anyway.

TandemChelipeds
2014-04-04, 10:09 PM
One of the biggest challenges in a setting like this is figuring out what to do with the player characters. In a 2-axis alignment system, there's quite a bit of potential diversity in character alignment, and you could easily have a lawful good paladin teaming up with a chaotic neutral rogue and a true neutral wizard, because none of them are particularly fond of letting the BBEG sink his claws into everything. When the central conflict is law vs. chaos, however, the simplicity, ironically, complicates things. After all, in that context, the chaotic neutral rogue is exactly the sort of character that the paladin is supposed to treat as an enemy. You could solve this by insisting that the players decide on an alignment for their party, but good luck getting them to agree on one.

I'm currently putting together a Law/Chaos setting, and I'm dealing with this issue in two simultaneous (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT22qYtMskY#t=120) ways, either of which you may or may not find useful. First, however, I should establish a dichotomy: High alignment, and low alignment. High alignment is what's on the scale of gods. It's what clerics and paladins have to worry about. Low alignment's alignment on the level of mortals, and it's more of a political thing than a philosophical one. Therefore, you can have things like thieves that venerate lawful gods and lawyers that worship chaotic trickster figures.
Low law and low chaos don't really represent opposed philosophical stances so much as differing priorities. Chaotic characters would really rather not get stolen from, but if they have to choose between eliminating crime and keeping their freedoms, they'd much rather keep the freedom. Lawful characters, conversely, like being able to do what they want, but they like safety better.
The main conflict of my setting isn't something as simple as Law/Chaos. Or rather, it is a Law/Chaos conflict, but it isn't a binary one. There are three major players(I can describe them in greater detail if you want): Two vastly differing kinds of high chaos, and a single form of high law. In-setting, high law literally refers to support and acceptance of the lawful entity's edicts; each of these players is opposed to the other two, and therefore we have two major forms of high chaos. Thus, characters connected to one form of chaos could team up with a character connected to law out of a mutual opposition to the other form of chaos. This could potentially allow you to have a paladin and a chaotic cleric in the party and still make perfect sense, while keeping the seeds of internal conflict that one would expect from that sort of arrangement.

Since the conflict isn't between law and chaos themselves, this gives your non-divine characters a degree of freedom; after all, there are all kinds of different ways to be lawful or chaotic, and the players shouldn't be confined to just one. This also lets you throw in all kinds of bit players that technically share an alignment with party members, but aren't devoted to the same cause, which makes it far easier to provide them with enemies or uncertain allies than if each alignment represented a unified force(would you throw explicitly Good-aligned enemies at your typical DnD party?) Also, if you really want to play up the Warhammer/cosmic horror angle(and you really should, or what's the point of chaos?), you might want to look up Chaositech, a 3.5 splatbook by Monte Cook. Refluff it to suit your setting's take on chaos and you're golden.

EDIT:
Incidentally, another thing that could work is a world where there is, indeed, a stark binary cosmic struggle between the forces of Law and Chaos... and nobody cares. Most people are too preoccupied with the daily struggle of living or petty political squabbles to care one way or another about which side wins. Agents of Law and Chaos alike are regarded as dangerous, fanatical lunatics, and all that anyone really wants is for them to go away.

redwizard007
2014-04-16, 02:32 PM
One of the biggest challenges in a setting like this is figuring out what to do with the player characters.

This is the only part of these comments I disagree with. Just as in a standard alignment set you should have limits, but those limits can be so much less restrictive. Disallow either CN or LN and see where things go.

Is anyone going to tell me they couldn't work a LG monk and CG ranger into a party and then send the party against the insert any alignment here horde of barbarians or the LE king brutally oppressing his subjects.

How about a CE rogue and a LE Cleric. I bet they both feel they have enough money and influence, right? No, they want to team up to save what they have from the same rampaging horde and then they can undermine and depose the tyrant king to seize his throne.

Now lets break the mold. LG paladin and LE monk or CG barbarian and CE necromancer. Is either couple going to want 2.3 kids and a white picket fence? Probably not. Are they likely to stop the barbarians and take out the king? Sure.

As long as the players are willing to cooperate to make the game work, it will go off without a hitch. The key here is to be up front with your players. Let them know that you want to try focusing more on law vs. chaos. Let them make characters and then let them justify why those characters could conceivably work together. If they lean towards lawful then you make your campaign about taming the chaos to make society safe for the majority. If they lean towards chaos then you are running a campaign about liberation and personal freedoms. Let the good/evil axis temper the flavor of the game and of the characters actions but keep the spotlight on law/chaos.

- Picture the orc raiding party being led by elven rangers in a strike against the duke. Who is defending the duke? A cadre of dwarven paladins and a necromancer... Tell me you don't want to DM that!

TandemChelipeds
2014-04-17, 02:25 AM
This is the only part of these comments I disagree with. Just as in a standard alignment set you should have limits, but those limits can be so much less restrictive. Disallow either CN or LN and see where things go.

Is anyone going to tell me they couldn't work a LG monk and CG ranger into a party and then send the party against the insert any alignment here horde of barbarians or the LE king brutally oppressing his subjects.

How about a CE rogue and a LE Cleric. I bet they both feel they have enough money and influence, right? No, they want to team up to save what they have from the same rampaging horde and then they can undermine and depose the tyrant king to seize his throne.

Now lets break the mold. LG paladin and LE monk or CG barbarian and CE necromancer. Is either couple going to want 2.3 kids and a white picket fence? Probably not. Are they likely to stop the barbarians and take out the king? Sure.

As long as the players are willing to cooperate to make the game work, it will go off without a hitch. The key here is to be up front with your players. Let them know that you want to try focusing more on law vs. chaos. Let them make characters and then let them justify why those characters could conceivably work together. If they lean towards lawful then you make your campaign about taming the chaos to make society safe for the majority. If they lean towards chaos then you are running a campaign about liberation and personal freedoms. Let the good/evil axis temper the flavor of the game and of the characters actions but keep the spotlight on law/chaos.

- Picture the orc raiding party being led by elven rangers in a strike against the duke. Who is defending the duke? A cadre of dwarven paladins and a necromancer... Tell me you don't want to DM that!

I was under the impression that there was no good/evil axis here. Just law/chaos. In that framework, a lawful character really wouldn't be working with a chaotic one, if law and chaos really were the stark dichotomy that everyone defined their lives by. Of course, that isn't the only way to treat law vs. chaos.

redwizard007
2014-04-17, 09:49 AM
I was under the impression that there was no good/evil axis here. Just law/chaos. In that framework, a lawful character really wouldn't be working with a chaotic one, if law and chaos really were the stark dichotomy that everyone defined their lives by. Of course, that isn't the only way to treat law vs. chaos.

After rereading the original post I think you understood what he is looking for better than I did. It looks like he wants to keep L/C but drop G/E. Not my personal preference, but do-able.

Look to things like the american revolution (or is it an american rebellion,) the occupation of Afghanistan (or were they liberated from the Taliban,) and other real world conflicts for inspiration on a human level. Looking at things from either side can give you loads of insights you may not have anticipated. It can also be a touchy subject for some players so be careful.

For a more cosmic approach look at the creation and or "end-of-days" myths of everything from Christianity to Norse, Egyptian, and Greek mythology (as well as many others I'm sure.) Generally those view chaos as a bad thing and order as a good thing, but you could conceivably twist that. Again, tread carefully when sampling from real world religion.

My final advice is to make the heavens as turbulent as you like but keep things on the ground more moderate with minorities of extremists on either end. Shoot, It might be the most fun to run a semi-neutral campaign and combat the zealots on both sides.


High alignment is what's on the scale of gods. It's what clerics and paladins have to worry about. Low alignment's alignment on the level of mortals, and it's more of a political thing than a philosophical one. Therefore, you can have things like thieves that venerate lawful gods and lawyers that worship chaotic trickster figures.
Low law and low chaos don't really represent opposed philosophical stances so much as differing priorities. Chaotic characters would really rather not get stolen from, but if they have to choose between eliminating crime and keeping their freedoms, they'd much rather keep the freedom. Lawful characters, conversely, like being able to do what they want, but they like safety better.

This was remarkably well stated, BTW. I't the essential gray area of alignments that make them fun to play and make the system work.

Aella
2014-04-17, 11:17 AM
With no objective good or evil, how do you determine which is better? Who says Chaos is better than Law? Nobody! So the premise doesn't really work without morality on some level. Even if the upholders of Law wanted Law so wanton chaos would be averted, they'd still be upholding an objective morality that says wanton destruction is wrong. Or if the upholders of Chaos believe that freedom should be upheld, they too are valuing freedom, which means they believe it to be good and thus objectively uphold it.

redwizard007
2014-04-17, 01:23 PM
With no objective good or evil, how do you determine which is better? Who says Chaos is better than Law? Nobody!

All of the following are purely Law/Chaos questions without (as far as I can tell) any good/evil aspects and we find reasons to fight about some of them pretty intensely.

-Do you prefer traditional or progressive values? (gay marriage, etc.)
-Is it ok if the government spies on everybody as long as they are only doing it to keep us safe from terrorists?
-Should I need a license to carry a concealed weapon into a bar?
-Is it reasonable for a government to limit how many children we can have?
-Do you think fellas look better in a suit and tie or jeans and a sport coat?
-Should local or federal governments have more authority?

Now are there ways to color every one of those questions to lean towards selfish or altruistic ways of thinking? Of course, and that is our good/evil axis. It's nearly impossible to remove good and evil from the game even if you pretend to do so with house rules. (Gnolls just can't stop eating folks after all.)


...Even if the upholders of Law wanted Law so wanton chaos would be averted, they'd still be upholding an objective morality that says wanton destruction is wrong.

Wanton destruction would be more CE than CN. Think of pure chaos as change. It could be birth, death, building, razing, or anything else that alters the state of something. It could indeed be wanton destruction, but could just as easily be planting trees in a field or reversing desertification.

Establishing order on the other hand can also be morality free... Or not. Seen the new Superman movie? One major premise is that the Kryptonians had reached the pinnacle of evolution and rather than continue conceiving children naturally they were cloned and premade to specialize at one task in society. That's just about as lawful as it can get. ZERO change.


...Or if the upholders of Chaos believe that freedom should be upheld, they too are valuing freedom, which means they believe it to be good and thus objectively uphold it.

Again, we have slightly different takes on alignment. I'd call your attention to the following quote from the PH
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). So a true CN or Chaotic character without a good/evil axis would be more likely to react badly to "lawful oppression" only if it affected him and even then he might just leave the area instead.

Look, there is a reason D&D was built on a G/E conflict. Its natural for us to pick up on the fact that kicking in your door and killing you in your own living room is evil/bad... Unless its done by a group of racially diverse, highly skilled mercenaries with varying skill sets (PCs.)
Picking the lock on your door, sifting through your underwear drawer and helping oneself to any leftovers in the fridge on the other hand is just...creepy.

TandemChelipeds
2014-04-17, 03:08 PM
After rereading the original post I think you understood what he is looking for better than I did. It looks like he wants to keep L/C but drop G/E. Not my personal preference, but do-able.

Look to things like the american revolution (or is it an american rebellion,) the occupation of Afghanistan (or were they liberated from the Taliban,) and other real world conflicts for inspiration on a human level. Looking at things from either side can give you loads of insights you may not have anticipated. It can also be a touchy subject for some players so be careful.

I disagree when it comes to politics. Alignment-wise, any political struggle should probably be considered lawful or neutral on both sides unless it's something like a guerrilla war between fascists and anarchists. As you yourself illustrated, it's easy to interpret any side of any conflict as lawful or chaotic. In the Afghanistan example, is America chaotic for overturning the traditional lifestyle imposed by the Taliban, or are they lawful for imposing their own ideals and disregarding the will of the people(ironically, in the nominal pursuit of democracy)? Are the Taliban lawful for strictly enforcing a harsh, disciplined way of life, or chaotic for opposing American hegemony? In this case, I'd say both sides are lawful. I think this is the nature of law. Everyone lawful wants order, but they all want a different kind of order, and these differing ideals conflict with each other. From this arises conflict; chaos. I'd argue that law is what escalates chaos.

redwizard007
2014-04-17, 03:44 PM
I disagree when it comes to politics. Alignment-wise, any political struggle should probably be considered lawful or neutral on both sides unless it's something like a guerrilla war between fascists and anarchists. As you yourself illustrated, it's easy to interpret any side of any conflict as lawful or chaotic. In the Afghanistan example, is America chaotic for overturning the traditional lifestyle imposed by the Taliban, or are they lawful for imposing their own ideals and disregarding the will of the people(ironically, in the nominal pursuit of democracy)? Are the Taliban lawful for strictly enforcing a harsh, disciplined way of life, or chaotic for opposing American hegemony? In this case, I'd say both sides are lawful. I think this is the nature of law. Everyone lawful wants order, but they all want a different kind of order, and these differing ideals conflict with each other. From this arises conflict; chaos. I'd argue that law is what escalates chaos.

You have no idea how big the grin on my face is right now.

Just for poops and chuckles lets spin Afghanistan example on its head... The forces of chaos have been behind the whole event. Ripping down the old king in 1973 to form a republic, then a military coup in '78 followed by soviet intervention in '79 and a comunist style pupet government that held onto partial power until the Mujahadeen finally finished them off in '92. Total chos reigned until the Taliban came to dominance in '96. Then the U.S. stepped in, then out leaving a quasi-democratic state doomed to failure.

Seriously though. What we are talking about here are largely perceptions, personal prefrences, and degrees of agreement (or dissagreement.) With the right spin most arguments can be made to support either law or chaos. Muddying the waters further to illistrate that point seems silly. My only intention was to support the idea that a campaign can be run with a focus on L vs. C rather than the traditional G vs. E and I believe we have established that as well as pointing out a number of potential pitfalls and potentially gaping holes that will need to be either addressed by smarter men than me or ignored as are so many other holes in the fantasy genre (rediculious numbers of intelligent humanoids are in fact covered in another thread...)


I'd argue that law is what escalates chaos. I'm totally adding this to my signature :smallbiggrin: I'm assuming you were taking the Sheriff->robinhood/USSR->mujahadeen tact on this.

Aella
2014-04-17, 09:03 PM
@redwizard007

Your post summed it up with your defination of a chaotic character. As in someone who does want they want when they want without restraints. This shows an objective standard too. People don't just go do things just because. As much as we might think we do, we don't. We do many things for pleasure, others for survival, some for others, some for ourselves, etc. At the end of the day, we have some guiding compass. The assumption around here seems to be that a chaotic character will go against the Law because they are chaos. But this proves that objective morality must still exist because why would the chaotic character go against the law? For the heck of it? Then they believe that pleasure or whatever makes them happy is morally justified. Because they believe in freedom? Then they believe that they have a right to do as they wish and that it is immoral to stop them.

And finally, if there is no intent, why are we even talking about this? Assuming it's a sentient being, there really is no point. If there is no intent, then it's just animalism. So there must be an intent, which proves that objective morality has to exist. And that's how you solve the conflict: objective morality.

TandemChelipeds
2014-04-17, 09:17 PM
@redwizard007

Your post summed it up with your defination of a chaotic character. As in someone who does want they want when they want without restraints. This shows an objective standard too. People don't just go do things just because. As much as we might think we do, we don't. We do many things for pleasure, others for survival, some for others, some for ourselves, etc. At the end of the day, we have some guiding compass. The assumption around here seems to be that a chaotic character will go against the Law because they are chaos. But this proves that objective morality must still exist because why would the chaotic character go against the law? For the heck of it? Then they believe that pleasure or whatever makes them happy is morally justified. Because they believe in freedom? Then they believe that they have a right to do as they wish and that it is immoral to stop them.

And finally, if there is no intent, why are we even talking about this? Assuming it's a sentient being, there really is no point. If there is no intent, then it's just animalism. So there must be an intent, which proves that objective morality has to exist. And that's how you solve the conflict: objective morality.

What in the blue blazes are you jabbering on about?

redwizard007
2014-04-17, 10:19 PM
What in the blue blazes are you jabbering on about?

Our conversations spiraled out of control.

TandemChelipeds
2014-04-17, 11:02 PM
If you say so. Everything in that post just read as a massive non-sequitur and only makes sense if we imagine law and chaos as monolithic entities, and players as creatures allergic to ambiguity.