Differentiating between Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil

[atemu1234]

I think we all know the stereotypes of the alignments and how you're supposed to behave with each. We also know that Chaotic Neutral is often used is Chaotic Evil-lite, so how should we roleplay them differently to differentiate them?

[Blackhawk748]

Well Chaotic Neutral is generally a very self centered person, but they are aware of people rights, they just usually dont care all that much, but they dont go out of their way to inflict grievous harm.

Chaotic Evil on the other hand, loves inflicting grievous harm and in some cases may not be aware that other beings have rights. This does not mean they are foaming at the mouth lunatics, you can still be smart and be Chaotic Evil, you can also be smart Chaotic Neutral.

[Extra Anchovies]

Chaotic Neutral looks after the self and only the self; when they help others, it's a collateral effect of helping themselves, and when they harm others, it is also a collateral effect of helping themselves. Chaotic Evil harms others even to their own detriment; when they help themselves, they do not care about whether others are harmed, and when they harm others they do not care if it harms themselves.

Chaotic Neutral quits the job they don't like. Chaotic Evil burns their place of employment down.

[Taveena]

Ehh, I'm inclined to disagree. A chaotic neutral character CAN be altruistic, just like a true neutral character, they just don't have the active drive towards altruism - going out and FIGHTING for justice, standing up for what's right - that Good characters do. Similarly, a CN character could be a jerk, but until he starts knowingly causing harm and not giving a damn, he's beginning to slip towards Evil.

[zyggythorn]

the personal RP matrix I use goes a bit like this

LG: How can I help YOU without hurting YOU
NG: How can I help YOU without hurting US
CG: How can I help YOU without hurting ME
LN: How can I help US without hurting YOU
TN: How can I help US without hurting US
CN: How can I help US without hurting ME
LE: How can I help ME without hurting YOU
NE: How can I help ME without hurting US
CE: How can I help ME without hurting ME

YOU meaning party members, npc's, little minor characters
US meaning Party members with whom the PC has an agreement/friendship, organizations that they may belong to, and generally positive npc's
ME meaning, obviously the PC themselves.

How a character goes about the goal may be different, but the end result is usually the same. Evil is about Self Gain, whereas Chaos is about Self Preservation.
(ie: a CG character with a nice wisdom score may be willing to let a LE character or organization aid for a bit longer than a low wis CG character- who is likely trying to kill LE character or disband said organization)

[Troacctid]

Don't cross the Moral Event Horizon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon).

[squiggit]

Neutral on the good-evil access generally implies selfishness, but not to the extent of being willing to hurt someone else for their benefit. A Neutral character tends to be a fairly decent person, just someone who isn't going to put themselves at much risk to help someone else. A neutral person might donate to a charity, but probably wouldn't run into a burning building to rescue a stranger.

Evil characters also tend to be selfish, but have no qualms about doing what they want to do at the expense of others.

Chaotic Evil harms others even to their own detriment; when they help themselves, they do not care about whether others are harmed, and when they harm others they do not care if it harms themselves.
That's your classic chaotic stupid villain, but not even close to a necessary component of the alignment.

[Sartharina]

the personal RP matrix I use goes a bit like this

LG: How can I help YOU without hurting YOU
NG: How can I help YOU without hurting US
CG: How can I help YOU without hurting ME
LN: How can I help US without hurting YOU
TN: How can I help US without hurting US
CN: How can I help US without hurting ME
LE: How can I help ME without hurting YOU
NE: How can I help ME without hurting US
CE: How can I help ME without hurting ME

YOU meaning party members, npc's, little minor characters
US meaning Party members with whom the PC has an agreement/friendship, organizations that they may belong to, and generally positive npc's
ME meaning, obviously the PC themselves.

How a character goes about the goal may be different, but the end result is usually the same. Evil is about Self Gain, whereas Chaos is about Self Preservation.
(ie: a CG character with a nice wisdom score may be willing to let a LE character or organization aid for a bit longer than a low wis CG character- who is likely trying to kill LE character or disband said organization)... that matrix doesn't work as a stand-in for alignment.

LG are the ones most likely to hurt others trying to help them.
LE has absolutely no qualms about hurting others to help himself.

[The Insanity]

I feel like we had this discussion already... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378804-Neutral-Evil-v-s-Chaotic-Neutral)

I have a simple but effective guideline for you: If you need to ask yourself if an act is Evil, it probably is, so just in case don't do it, unless you really really have to (as in "have no choice", not "want to") and are ready for atonement and roleplaying an emo character.

[Troacctid]

I feel like we had this discussion already... (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?378804-Neutral-Evil-v-s-Chaotic-Neutral)

I have a simple but effective guideline for you: If you need to ask yourself if an act is Evil, it probably is, so just in case don't do it, unless you really really have to (as in "have no choice", not "want to") and are ready for atonement and roleplaying an emo character.

Amen to that.

[Seto]

Ehh, I'm inclined to disagree. A chaotic neutral character CAN be altruistic, just like a true neutral character, they just don't have the active drive towards altruism - going out and FIGHTING for justice, standing up for what's right - that Good characters do. Similarly, a CN character could be a jerk, but until he starts knowingly causing harm and not giving a damn, he's beginning to slip towards Evil.

YES, thank you. Dammit.

[Taveena]

The man who spray-paints "FREE WRONGLY ACCUSED PERSON" on a wall but makes no attempt to negotiate with the police (LG) or break him out (CG)? CN. The woman who tips over trashcans for ****s and giggles? Also CN.

[Duke of Urrel]

We've all seen the detailed explanations of how this alignment differs from that. None of them is sufficient to draw a hard and fast line anywhere.

I would offer this as a guide: a Chaotic-Neutral character is one who may get along with other characters who are not Evil. A Chaotic-Evil character – or really any seriously Evil character – is one who will not get along with other characters who are not Evil, absent some strong circumstances beyond this character's (and player's) control.

I hear some people objecting: What about Belkar? And I have two responses.

1. Those "strong circumstances beyond the Evil character's control"? The plot of the Order of the Stick is chock-full of them.

2. The storyline of the Order of the Stick comic is not an actual D&D game. It's fiction, and in fiction, the author has and exercises total control, for which, in the case of Rich Burlew, we should all rejoice. On the other hand: In real life (that is, at the real gaming table), in which the dungeon master has less than total control (because of those dice, for one thing, and those rules, for another), it's much harder to make co-operation between Good and Evil work...

Of course, there are D&D games and there are D&D games. Some players like player-on-player violence – so much so that they are willing to let their ideologically radically opposed characters kiss and make up afterward, just so that they can fight all over again later. For my taste, that strains plausibility too far, but for others… player-on-player violence is just too much fun. So for some players, my handy distinction between CN and CE doesn't work. Sorry about that.

[Divide by Zero]

Caricatures aside, I generally consider Good/Neutral/Evil to be primarily about how far a character is willing to go to accomplish their goals. An Evil character needs no justification to do Good or Neutral acts if it benefits their goals, whereas a Good character would prefer doing Good acts to Neutral ones and would need some serious mitigating circumstances to even consider an Evil act.

So a CE character is simply willing to do things that a CN character would be unwilling to do, all else being equal.

[Yogibear41]

CG- respects life and avoids unnecessary death will not trade an innocent's life to save his own

CN- does what its wants to do with respect for life to a degree, he doesn't actively want to kill people, but if it comes to saving his own hide he will sacrifice a innocents life in a heart beat.

CE - has no respect for life and actively supplements its goals with killing and torture

[Jeff the Green]

Basically, the chaotic alignments share the trait that they follow their whims instead of a code. They differ in what their whims are: CG is impelled to help others and sacrifice himself, CN is impelled to help himself without sacrificing others, and CE is impelled to hurt others (whether that's because it's intrinsically pleasant for them, as a sadist, or because hurting people gets them something else they want).

[Troacctid]

CN is impelled to help himself without sacrificing others

I wouldn't say that. Neutral on the Good/Evil axis doesn't mean you're out to help yourself. It just means that you aren't Good, but you aren't Evil. "Neutral" is more like the absence of alignment.

[RoboEmperor]

I think the conclusion in my thread was
1. No matter how "neutral" or "good" you are, doing any evil act makes you CE. So if you want an item another person has, no matter how much gold you offer, how many threats and warnings you give, in the end if he doesn't part with the item and you take it by force, you're CE. If you kill the guy you're definately CE, if you spare him, it's a grey area since that's no different from stealing and CN steals.

2. A lot of NEUTRAL MONSTERS in the monster manual kill and wipeout entire trading ships, etc. so by comparison, the occasional evil act doesn't mean you're evil.

All in all, it depends on your DM. I'm still not sure if my PC is NE or CN, but it seems most people here think stealing for selfish reasons is enough to make you evil so i went with that. So if your character goes mugging but not killing people, he's evil.

[Sartharina]

I think the conclusion in my thread was
1. No matter how "neutral" or "good" you are, doing any evil act makes you CE. So if you want an item another person has, no matter how much gold you offer, how many threats and warnings you give, in the end if he doesn't part with the item and you take it by force, you're CE. If you kill the guy you're definately CE, if you spare him, it's a grey area since that's no different from stealing and CN steals.

2. A lot of NEUTRAL MONSTERS in the monster manual kill and wipeout entire trading ships, etc. so by comparison, the occasional evil act doesn't mean you're evil.

All in all, it depends on your DM. I'm still not sure if my PC is NE or CN, but it seems most people here think stealing for selfish reasons is enough to make you evil so i went with that. So if your character goes mugging but not killing people, he's evil.
A neutral character CAN balance out the evil they do with an equal amount of Good - but the Good, like the Evil, has to be in good faith as well. Madmen are often Chaotic Neutral (Yes, he just murdered a bus full of nuns - but he believed they were possessed by demons, or is horrified by his own inability to stop killing things)

[atemu1234]

A neutral character CAN balance out the evil they do with an equal amount of Good - but the Good, like the Evil, has to be in good faith as well. Madmen are often Chaotic Neutral (Yes, he just murdered a bus full of nuns - but he believed they were possessed by demons, or is horrified by his own inability to stop killing things)

Must we reference The Book of Moral Ethnocentricism?

[Sartharina]

Must we reference The Book of Moral Ethnocentricism?

We can toss it in the trash. The BoVD isn't even 3.5 anyway, and the BoED only describes 'good', and 'gooder than good', having absolutely no bearing on Neutral and Evil.

[White Blade]

Chaotic neutral characters follow their hearts. Those hearts are not exceptionally wicked or especially righteous - They might murder a man who harmed their sister or take care of a kid who they grew up with. They might do both. For instance, a kid that grew up on the street might do both those things. But he isn't thinking about their moral implications - He's just following his heart.

A chaotic evil character follows his heart - But there's something messed up there. It might be a ruthless self-centeredness that dominates everything or it might be a passionate, irrational hatred for some person or group or it might be a sadistic streak a mile wide.

The difference between the chaotic alignments for me is that there's a bent in the good and the evil personalities - A chaotic good person has a good heart, obviously so, and a chaotic evil person has a bad heart, obviously so. Neutral (Law-Chaos) characters follow their hearts some of the time, but they also have principles that drive their interpretations of things. Lawful characters are people of principle - They do things because they think that is the right or best way to do things.

If I'm running a chaotic neutral character, his wants are always at the forefront of my mind but I assume they aren't all together different from what I want - Safety, pleasure, love, vindication, and perhaps a little suffering of my enemies on the side (but nothing that will make me feel bad about it later.). I'm helpful to my friends and, if it doesn't cost me too much, usually to everybody else as well.

If I'm running a chaotic evil character, I want to think of why I described them as evil - Is it because they're rapacious? Because they view other people as objects? Because they have a virulent hatred for goblins or elves? All of those are perfectly justifiable reasons for them to be evil. Then, I take that reason, and mix it into the ordinary mix of neutral's ordinary self-centeredness.

To put it another way, I think that Good and Evil characters go out of their way to earn those titles - A chaotic good person is naturally compassionate and regularly visits the local street children and treats them like human beings, maybe teaching them or playing with them or feeding them. A chaotic evil character leads a group of young thugs to beat up the recent immigrant to town or wraps men and women around his finger and uses them and throws them away.

[Doctor Awkward]

The simplest way to differentiate CN from CE is generally how they go about treating others:
A chaotic neutral will do what it takes to fulfill his desires, but typically chooses to do it away from anyone who might disagree.
A chaotic evil character will do what it takes to fulfill his desires at the expense of anyone that might disagree.

Alignment is not your personality, your motivations, or your history. It's a set of guidelines for helping you decide how your character will respond to a given situation.

A chaotic neutral character typically doesn't do evil things because he doesn't usually have evil desires.
An overly cynical person also makes for a solid chaotic neutral. Someone who used to have ideals, but got burned by them too many times. So now they hold allegiance to no one and make up their own minds about what is right or wrong, and whether or not they want to do anything about it.

Because I like anime, here's some textbook examples:

Vegeta, from Dragonball Z, during the Cell Saga. Sure he started out nasty, but once he gave up on the whole immortality thing, he settled nicely into this category. He stays on Earth simply because he has no where else to go, and devotes his entire life to becoming stronger than Goku. Sure he helps out against the baddies, but that's entirely to show off and feed his own ego.

Killer B, from Natruo, is another one. He flagrantly disregards order's (from his brother), and fakes being captured just so he can have some alone time to go write music of all things. But sit there and tell me he can't be a decent person when he feels like it.


On the chaotic evil side:

Orochimaru, also from Naruto. His goal is simple: he wants to be immortal. And he flaunts any and all societal conventions in pursuit of that goal (including literally killing babies), and takes a great delight in how horrified people are when they discover what he has done. Most damning is when he starts a war with Konoha. Why? Because he thinks peace is boring.

Bankotsu of the Band of Seven, from InuYasha. A lot of people disagree with me on this because they claim he has a code about never betraying comrades. That's not a code. He has a personal rule. One rule. Because he's not stupid. And people again say that he's not chaotic because his rule imposes on the freedoms of others. Chaotic evil characters care about their own freedoms, but couldn't care less about someone else's. Bankotsu's entire motivation was to kill as many people as he possibly could. He starts a mercenary group to, in his own words, "slaughter everyone". He leads that group not because he has genuine leadership qualities, but because he is more powerful than the rest of them combined. His incredible physical strength and charisma drew in others like him as followers.

And finally, one of my favorites, Hidan, from Naruto. Not only is he gloriously chaotic evil as exactly as the book spells it out, but he also typifies an excellently done Paladin of Slaughter. He is completely devoted to the destruction of law and order because that's what the tenants of his religion dictate; tenants he's obligated to follow because that's what fuels his immortality (he even constantly complains about how annoying they are while remaining completely sincere in his belief of them!) He's loud, rude, horrible to his allies, and follows his partner's lead only because his partner's goals happen to (mostly) line up with his own, and because his partner is capable of beating him into submission.

[atemu1234]

We can toss it in the trash. The BoVD isn't even 3.5 anyway, and the BoED only describes 'good', and 'gooder than good', having absolutely no bearing on Neutral and Evil.

True, but it used a very similar situation to describe that intentions are basically worthless. I think it has to do with poisoning a well, not blowing up a bus, but other than that it's the same, and it said that character IS evil.

[Sartharina]

True, but it used a very similar situation to describe that intentions are basically worthless. I think it has to do with poisoning a well, not blowing up a bus, but other than that it's the same, and it said that character IS evil.A book that only applies to half an edition says that. Books that apply to the whole system say otherwise.

Neutral can be villainous.