Alignment variation question

[black-jack]

I was thinking about alignments and came up with a question: what if law/chaos were the primary moral guides instead of good/evil? How drastically would that change a setting? How well could a lawful good paladin work with a paladin of tyranny if law was the priority? Would most angels be on the side of demons or devils? I was thinking about running a campaign with this set-up, but I would like some opinions on whether or not this would be a good idea.

[Vhaidara]

The problem is that, as badly defined as Good and Evil are, Law and Chaos are a million times worse.

Honestly, I have traditionally dropped the cooperation restriction from paladins, since it is counter-intuitive to the entire trope of minor villains who want to get ahead joining the heroes to stop the major villain who wants to destroy the world (one of my favorites)

As far as the outsider issue, people always forget that Angels are Any Good. You were thinking of Archons (LG). And on that premise, Archons probably would be more likely to work with Devils than Eladrin (CG).

[Red Fel]

First off, as Keledrath noted, Law and Chaos are incredibly difficult to pin down, moreso than Good and Evil. You'll note that 3.0 gave Good and Evil a book each (BoED and BoVD, respectively) and, while the material was often broken or difficult to work with, the fluff was fascinating. They never even tried with Law and Chaos (or, if they did, they certainly didn't have anything to show for it).

The thing is, Law and Chaos aren't really moral choices. It's kind of hard to express morality in terms of tradition versus individuality, honor versus passion, order versus creativity. You can look at an action, in a vacuum, and have a pretty good idea of whether it's Good or Evil. For example, killing perfectly normal puppies for no reason is probably an Evil act. You can also look at an action, in light of mitigating and aggravating factors, and be able to make an argument for Good or Evil. For example, killing the puppies because they are half-Daelkyr abomination puppies, or in order to feed a starving village.

The same isn't true for Law and Chaos. Again, look at the puppy killing (why do I hate puppies today?) - is it Lawful? Chaotic? How many additional considerations do we have to add before we can consider it? Look at murder, a classic case of Evil-unless-X. Is it Lawful? Chaotic? What about charity? What about choosing diplomacy over combat, or combat over diplomacy?

Think of the average game, and how frequently (or infrequently) you have to make moral (Good vs. Evil) choices. Now think of how frequently you have to make decisions between Law and Chaos. If the former group of choices are infrequent, the latter are downright rare.

Bottom line: I don't necessarily agree that Good and Evil are the primary alignment guidelines (that varies by character), but if they are, it's only because they're more practical - they're easier to comprehend and they come up more frequently.

[Zaq]

The problem with Law and Chaos is that if you ask four people what Law and Chaos mean, you'll get five different answers, and at least three of them will be convincing.

I mean, I have a good idea in my head about what Law and Chaos mean. If you're familiar with Edo-period literary concepts, I think of them in terms of giri and ninjō—if you're primarily motivated by giri, you're being Lawful, and if you're primarily motivated by ninjō, you're being Chaotic. But that's by no means the only way of looking at Law and Chaos. I think it's a valid way, but it's very far from being the only way. You surely have a different idea about how Law and Chaos work, and I'm in no way prepared to say that your idea is less valid than mine. But yours very well might be in conflict with mine, and if one of us is the GM and one of us is a player, that can be bad.

The upshot of this is that alignment arguments are a lot more likely to come up when you're focusing on Law and Chaos. The GM is going to have a good idea in his or her head what Law and Chaos mean, but the players are likely to have different ideas, and that can cause some uncomfortable friction if you're really trying to spotlight alignment. Sure, you can get similar arguments when you're spotlighting Good and Evil, but they're a lot more likely to come up with you're focusing on Law and Chaos.

You can still pull it off, but you have to be prepared to have some confusion and/or some discussions about what Law and Chaos really mean. The more easygoing the GM is, the more likely this will go smoothly, but make no mistake, someone is going to have to order a casting or two of Bigby's Waving Hand if you think about some of the finer details too hard.

[Thy Dungeonman]

This is weird. I don't have much time to get into it now, but I tend to have the opposite opinion from the emerging consensus here. I think good and evil are more fraught and difficult to deal with because they are the subject of IRL ethics, and the underdefined/simplistic nature of Law and Chaos make them easier to focus on. You would have to generate more of your own homebrew material for it, and you may have more advanced and opinionated players argue over the judgments involved (I've never had this happen), but I'd find it easier to set out unambiguous guidelines for Law and Chaos than the other axis.

[black-jack]

Thanks a lot for the responses! It seems the consensus so far is that law vs. chaos is much more ambiguous that good vs. evil, but if the GM clearly defines them and is prepared for other definitions it could work for a game. Also, thank you for the clarification about angels and archons.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I want to point out that there is a big Law vs Chaos conflict in core DnD: the Blood War. Law vs Chaos is actually an older war than Good vs Evil (which were concepts invented later to help force people from Chaos to Law).

[black-jack]

I want to point out that there is a big Law vs Chaos conflict in core DnD: the Blood War. Law vs Chaos is actually an older war than Good vs Evil (which were concepts invented later to help force people from Chaos to Law).

That's definitely something I'll look into. If anything, it sounds like an interesting read.

[Red Fel]

That's definitely something I'll look into. If anything, it sounds like an interesting read.

The Blood War is really only there to remind us about how Good is so much better than Evil, despite there being easily enough Evil for the heroes to slaughter a thousand times over. The whole gist of it is that Evil Outsiders disagree on how to be Evil, so they kill each other, while Good Outsiders are Good, and get along with everybody without any complaint or care.

It's pure propaganda, I tell you!

[Crake]

I think an easy way to describe why Law/Chaos being the primary motivators wouldnt work is because, and this is just the way I see it I suppose, but Good/Evil is the what, Law/Chaos is the how.

[Thy Dungeonman]

I think an easy way to describe why Law/Chaos being the primary motivators wouldnt work is because, and this is just the way I see it I suppose, but Good/Evil is the what, Law/Chaos is the how.
As someone may know about me from some of my other posts, I love the horoscope/personality test aspect of alignment. If we take what you say as true, it opens up the fun question of what axes would represent "Where," "When," and "Why."

...OK, I can think of boring answers to those questions, but couldn't there be fun ones?

[Kanthalion]

I think an easy way to describe why Law/Chaos being the primary motivators wouldnt work is because, and this is just the way I see it I suppose, but Good/Evil is the what, Law/Chaos is the how.

Admitting that there are shades and overlap, I tend to think of the Law/Chaos as the what and the Good/Evil as the why. Thus it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between a LE and a LG.

[black-jack]

The Blood War is really only there to remind us about how Good is so much better than Evil, despite there being easily enough Evil for the heroes to slaughter a thousand times over. The whole gist of it is that Evil Outsiders disagree on how to be Evil, so they kill each other, while Good Outsiders are Good, and get along with everybody without any complaint or care.

It's pure propaganda, I tell you!

This is basically what what I would do in the campaign, except replace good with lawful and evil with chaotic. lawful beings could get along fine because the law binds them, but the chaotic group would be, well, chaos. Sure the lawfuls would disagree on petty things like slavery, but they would still work together for the greater law. :smallamused:

[JusticeZero]

To get it work, you need a stronger Law vs Chaos split. For instance, the alternate world in City of Heroes had this; in that world, everything had gone horribly wrong, and the Superman equivalent and friends, unable to save the world, settled for saving their "Metropolis", ruling it with an iron fist propped up by mind control and propaganda just to keep people calm and focused on the things that needed to be done to keep the inhuman horrors outside of the wall at bay. A bunch of people took offense at the "iron fist" and "thought police" parts and rage against the machine, but it isn't clear what they plan to do about the horrors if they actually won - maybe there is a plan that you aren't seeing, and maybe the people would still be able to defend themselves if they knew the truth, it's never really certain. Clear battle lines and you can make a case either way, and both sides have good and evil factions in them. There is no good place for compromise, since once the arguably justified mind control drugs and secret police start unwinding, things are likely to unravel fast.

[Thy Dungeonman]

Ooh, JZ's last comment kind of evoked Warhammer's fantasy setting in my mind, and it occurred to me that could be a very good model as well. The baddies are literally servants of "Chaos" fighting against civilization (Law), and everyone in the world seems like a gritty jerkwad who would be evil by modern standards. Ergo, Law and Chaos being more important than Good and Evil.

[JaminDM]

And on that premise, Archons probably would be more likely to work with Devils than Eladrin (CG).

Got it in one.