kingpocky
2008-02-21, 08:17 PM
I was reading an article called "Tome of Fiends," (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=646241) part of a very well-written series, and the section on Law and Chaos struck me as particularly interesting. It starts out with the point that "Law and Chaos do not have any meaning under the standard D&D rules." Basically, everything that is explicitly spelled out in the PHB description is contradictory. A working definition has to be drawn from inferences, and there are several different possible interpretations. What are your thoughts on what the definitions of Law and Chaos should be?
Here's the part of the article I'm focusing on:
Law and Chaos: Your Rules or Mine?
Let's get this out in the open: Law and Chaos do not have any meaning under the standard D&D rules.
We are aware that especially if you've been playing this game for a long time, you personally probably have an understanding of what you think Law and Chaos are supposed to mean. You possibly even believe that the rest of your group thinks that Law and Chaos mean the same thing you do. But you're probably wrong. The nature of Law and Chaos is the source of more arguments among D&D players (veteran and novice alike) than any other facet of the game. More than attacks of opportunities, more than weapon sizing, more even than spell effect inheritance. And the reason is because the "definition" of Law and Chaos in the Player's Handbook is written so confusingly that the terms are not even mutually exclusive. Look it up, this is a written document, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to stop reading at this time, flip open the Player's Handbook, and start reading the alignment descriptions. The Tome of Fiends will still be here when you get back.
There you go! Now that we're all on the same page (page XX), the reason why you've gotten into so many arguments with people as to whether their character was Lawful or Chaotic is because absolutely every action that any character ever takes could logically be argued to be both. A character who is honorable, adaptable, trustworthy, flexible, reliable, and loves freedom is a basically stand-up fellow, and meets the check marks for being "ultimate Law" and "ultimate Chaos". There aren't any contradictory adjectives there. While Law and Chaos are supposed to be opposed forces, there's nothing antithetical about the descriptions in the book.
Ethics Option 1: A level of Organization.
Optimal span of control is 3 to 5 people. Maybe Chaotic characters demand to personally control more units than that themselves and their lack of delegation ends up with a quagmire of incomprehensible proportions. Maybe Chaotic characters refuse to bow to authority at all and end up in units of one. Whatever the case, some DMs will have Law be well organized and Chaos be poorly organized. In this case, Law is objectively a virtue and Chaos is objectively a flaw.
Being disorganized doesn't mean that you're more creative or interesting, it just means that you accomplish less with the same inputs. In this model pure Chaos is a destructive, but more importantly incompetent force.
Ethics Option 2: A Question of Sanity.
Some DMs will want Law and Chaos to mean essentially "Sane" and "Insane". That's fine, but it doesn't mean that Chaos is funny. In fact, insanity is generally about the least funny thing you could possibly imagine. An insane person reacts inappropriately to their surroundings. That doesn't mean that they perform unexpected actions, that's just surrealist. And Paladins are totally permitted to enjoy non sequitur based humor and art. See, insanity is when you perform the same action over and over again and expect different results.
In this model we get a coherent explanation for why, when all the forces of Evil are composed of a multitude of strange nightmarish creatures, and the forces of Good have everything from a glowing patch of light to a winged snake tailed woman, every single soldier in the army of Chaos is a giant frog. This is because in this model Limbo is a place that is totally insane. It's a place where the answer to every question really is "Giant Frog". Creatures of Chaos then proceed to go to non Chaotically-aligned planes and are disappointed and confused when doors have to be pushed and pulled to open and entrance cannot be achieved by "Giant Frog".
If Chaos is madness, it's not "spontaneous", it's "non-functional". Actual adaptability is sane. Adapting responses to stimuli is what people are supposed to do. For reactions to be sufficiently inappropriate to qualify as insanity, one has to go pretty far into one's own preconceptions. Actual mental illness is very sad and traumatic just to watch as an outside observer. Actually living that way is even worse. It is strongly suggested therefore, that you don't go this route at all. It's not that you can't make D&D work with sanity and insanity as the core difference between Law and Chaos, it's that in doing so you're essentially making the Law vs. Chaos choice into the choice between good and bad. That and there is a certain segment of the roleplaying community that cannot differentiate absurdist humor from insanity and will insist on doing annoying things in the name of humor. And we hate those people.
Ethics Option 3: The Laws of the Land.
Any region that has writing will have an actual code of laws. Even oral traditions will have, well, traditions. In some campaigns, following these laws makes you Lawful, and not following these laws makes you Chaotic. This doesn't mean that Lawful characters necessarily have to follow the laws of Kyuss when you invade his secret Worm Fort, but it does mean that they need to be an "invading force" when they run around in Kyuss' Worm Fort. Honestly, I'm not sure what it even means to have a Chaotic society if Lawful means "following your own rules". This whole schema is workable, but only with extreme effort. It helps if there's some sort of divinely agreed upon laws somewhere that nations and individuals can follow to a greater or lesser degree. But even so, there's a lot of hermits and warfare in the world such that whether people are following actual laws can be just plain hard to evaluate.
I'd like to endorse this more highly, since any time you have characters living up to a specific arbitrary code (or not) it becomes a lot easier to get things evaluated. Unfortunately, it's really hard to even imagine an entire nation fighting for not following their own laws. That's just really weird. But if you take Law to mean law, then you're going to have to come to terms with that.
Ethics Option 4: My Word is My Bond.
Some DMs are going to want Law to essentially equate to following through on things. A Lawful character will keep their word and do things that they said they were going to. In this model, a Lawful character has an arbitrary code of conduct and a Chaotic character does not. That's pretty easy to adjudicate, you just announce what you're going to do and if you do it, you're Lawful and if you don't you're not.
Here's where it gets weird though: That means that Lawful characters have a harder time working together than do non-lawful characters. Sure, once they agree to work together there's some Trust there that we can capitalize, but it means that there are arbitrary things that Lawful characters won't do. Essentially this means that Chaotic parties order one mini-pizza each while Lawful parties have to get one extra large pizza for the whole group and we know how difficult that can be to arrange. A good example of this in action is the Paladin's code: they won't work with Evil characters, which restricts the possibilities of other party members.
In the world, this means that if you attack a Chaotic city, various other chaotic characters will trickle in to defend it. But if you attack a Lawful city, chances are that it's going to have to stand on its own.
Adherence to Self: Not a Rubric for Law
Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as adhering to one's personal self. That may sound very "Lawful", but there's no way that makes any sense. Whatever impulses you happen to have, those are going to be the ones that you act upon, by definition. If it is in your nature to do random crap that doesn't make any sense to anyone else then your actions will be contrary and perplexing, but they will still be completely consistent with your nature. Indeed, there is literally nothing you can do that isn't what you would do. It's circular.
Rigidity: Not a Rubric for Law
Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as being more "rigid" as opposed to "spontaneous" in your action. That's crap. Time generally only goes in one direction, and it generally carries a one to one correspondence with itself. That means that as a result of a unique set of stimuli, you are only going to do one thing. In D&D, the fact that other people weren't sure what the one thing you were going to do is handled by a Bluff check, not by being Chaotic.
I Fought the Law
Regardless of what your group ends up meaning when they use the word "Law", the fact is that some of your enemies are probably going to end up being Lawful. That doesn't mean that Lawful characters can't stab them in their area, whatever it is that you have alignments mean it's still entirely acceptable for Good characters to stab other Good characters and Lawful characters to stab other Lawful characters (oddly, noone even asks if it's a violation of Chaotic Evil to kill another Chaotic Evil character, but it isn't). There are lots of reasons to kill a man, and alignment disagreements don't occupy that list exclusively.
Code of Conduct: Barbarian
A Barbarian who becomes Lawful cannot Rage. Why not? There's no decent answer for that. Rage doesn't seem to require that you not tell people in advance that you're going to do it, nor does it actually force you to break promises once you're enraged. It doesn't force you to behave in any particular fashion, and noone knows why it is restricted.
Code of Conduct: Bard
If anyone can tell me why a concert pianist can't be Lawful I will personally put one thing of their choice into my mouth. Music is expressionistic, but it is also mathematical. Already there are computers that can write music that is indistinguishable from the boring parts of Mozart in which he's just going up and down scales in order to mark time.
Beating Back Chaos
Long ago "Law" and "Chaos" were used euphemisms by Pohl Anderson for Good and Evil, and that got taken up by other fantasy and science fiction authors and ultimately snow-balled into having a Chaos alignment for D&D. If you go back far enough, "Chaos" actually means "The Villains", and when it comes down to it there's no logical meaning for it to have other than that so the forces of Chaos really are going to show up at your door to take a number for a whuppin at some point. Depending upon what your group ends up deciding to mean by Chaos, this may seem pretty senselessly cruel. If the forces of Chaos are simply unorganized then you are essentially chasing down hobos and beating down the ones too drunk to get away. If Chaos is insanity than the Chaos Hunters in your game are essentially going door to door to beat up the retarded kids.
The key is essentially to not overthink it. Chaos was originally put into the fantasy genre in order to have bad guys without having to have black hatted madmen trying to destroy the world. So if Team Chaos is coming around your door, just roll with it. The whole point is to have villains that you can stab without feeling guilty while still having villains to whom your characters can lose without necessarily losing the whole campaign world.
Code of Conduct: Knight
Sigh. The Knight' code of conduct doesn't represent Lawful activity no matter what your group means by that term. They can't strike an opponent standing in a grease effect, but they can attack that same person after they fall down in the grease! They also are not allowed to win a duel or stake vampires (assuming, for the moment that you were using some of the house rules presented in The Tome of Necromancy that allow vampires to be staked by anyone). So the Knight's code is not an example of Lawfulness in practice, it's just a double fistful of stupid written by someone who obviously doesn't understand D&D combat mechanics. If you wanted to make a Knight's Code that represented something like "fighting fair", you'd do it like this:
* May not accept benefit from Aid Another actions.
* May not activate Spell Storing items (unless the Knight cast the spell into the item in the first place).
* May not use poison or disease contaminated weapons.
But remember: such a code of fair play is no more Lawful than not having a code of fair play. Formians are the embodiment of Law, and they practically wrote the book on cooperation. So while a Knight considers getting help from others to be "cheating", that's not because he's Lawful. He considers getting such aid to be cheating and he's Lawful. What type of Lawful a Knight represents is determined by your interpretation of Law as a whole. Maybe a Knight has to uphold the law of the land (right or wrong). Maybe a Knight has to keep his own word. Whatever, the important part is that the arbitrary code that the Knight lives under is just that arbitrary. The actual contents of the code are a separate and irrelevant concern to their alignment restriction.
Code of Conduct? Monk
Again with the sighing. Noone can explain why Monks are required to be Lawful, least of all the Player's Handbook. Ember is Lawful because she "follows her discipline", while Mialee is not Lawful because she is "devoted to her art". FTW?! That's the same thing, given sequentially as an example of being Lawful and not being Lawful. Monk's training requires strict discipline, but that has nothing to do with Lawfulness no matter what setup for Law and Chaos you are using. If Lawfulness is about organization, you are perfectly capable of being a complete maverick who talks to noone and drifts from place to place training constantly like the main character in Kung Fu total lack of organization, total "Chaotic" total disciplined Monk. If Law is about Loyalty, you're totally capable of being treacherous spies. In fact, that's even an example in the PHB "Evil monks make ideal spies, infiltrators, and assassins." And well, that sentence pretty much sinks any idea of monks having to follow the law of the land or keeping their own word, doesn't it? The only way monk lawfulness would make any sense is if you were using "adherence to an arbitrary self" as the basis of Law, and we already know that can't hold.
Code of Conduct: Paladin Again
This has to be repeated: Paladins don't get Smite Chaos. They are not champions of Law and Good, they are Champions of Good who are required to be Lawful. If your game is not using Word is Bond Ethics, Paladins have no reason to be Lawful. Paladins are only encouraged to follow the laws of the country they live in if those laws are Good. They are actually forbidden by their code of conduct from following the precepts of Evil nations. The Paladin shtick works equally well as a loner or a leader, and it is by definition distinctly disloyal. A Paladin must abandon compatriots.
Here's my personal interpretation. I see things as being somewhat of a combination of Ethics options one and three. Lawful and Chaotic describe how you would feel about a system that enforces organization. The primary reason that it's difficult to define is that it deals with feelings more than actions. A chaotic character might very well choose to obey a rule he finds meaningless or stupid, because disobeying is simply more trouble than it's worth from a pragmatic viewpoint. A lawful character could willingly disobey orders from a superior they have agreed to follow, if the situation is important enough. Anyone who is basically rational will obey laws they see as beneficial and follow orders that correctly further a goal. The difference is in how they feel about it.
Being chaotic doesn't mean being opposed to organization. As pointed out in the article, being opposed to organization is stupid. What matters is whether the organization is mandatory or voluntary. Lawful philosophy believes that generally, organization must be enforced for it to function properly. Chaotic philosophy believes organizations generally function more positively if individuals are free to make their own decisions when they disagree with the organization.
While the two ideas aren't completely contradictory, they do better than the RAW definitions of Law and Chaos. Chaotic individuals can recognize the good that comes from having guards to stop people from stealing and murdering, and most wouldn't say that you should be able to opt out whenever you feel like it. Lawful individuals recognize that restrictions can be counterproductive, and usually support ways of allowing such things to be changed. Alignment is determined by which you more generally agree with. Neutral characters think that both ideas can be equally accurate in different situations, or don't feel too strongly one way or the other.
Chaotic societies make sense from this perspective. Dwarves and elves both have traditions, but elven traditions are followed simply because it's something the elves happen to like doing. If an individual didn't want to follow a tradition in an elven society, no one would really be that bothered. Doing such in a dwarven society is likely to get you thrown out. Lawful nations wouldn't be any more likely than Chaotic nations to come to the assistance of other nations sharing their alignment. The only reason anyone would be more likely to stand up for someone with the same ethical alignment is a slight admiration for how they're doing things. Sure, you might admire the kingdom next door for having well-codified and enforced rules and traditions - but they aren't your rules and traditions, so that makes them only slightly better than a chaotic kingdom. Even chaotic empires are possible. Getting an army together and using it to coerce others into paying tribute isn't necessarily lawful (Orcs do it all the time.) A chaotic empire wouldn't care about imposing its culture, so long as it's getting paid. The Mongol and Aztec empires could be real-life examples.
Why is the Barbarian required to be chaotic? I'm guessing that it has more to do with the idea behind the class than anything innately chaotic about raging. The definition of "Barbarian" is also a little sketchy. The term originally meant non-Greek or non-Roman. That wouldn't work very well, as most campaigns aren't set in historical earth. More basically, it means "uncivilized." That fits well with Barbarians being the only class unable to read. Thus, Barbarians are people who either grew up in small tribal societies, or spent their lives fending for themselves in the wilderness. The former shouldn't be required to be chaotic - tribal societies can have very strict laws and traditions. The latter makes a little more sense, but not completely. Having a strongly chaotic nature might be a reason for someone to stay away from society, but there are plenty of equally plausible reasons for living in the wilderness - Being lost, exiled, etc. If you've spent your entire life without being aware of any civilization, there's no reason to assume you'd dislike it if you found one. I guess the best argument would be that only people with a certain outlook can unlock the mystic energy within through raging, but that's still pretty silly.
Why is the Monk required to be lawful? I'm going to guess that it's similar to why the assassin is required to be evil. I think it's ultimately a fluff-based decision. There's nothing necessarily lawful about accepting strict training, and there's nothing necessarily evil about causing death (heck, PCs are expected to make a living off of it.) However, in the requirements for assassin there's also the special "The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins" requirement. This does make a certain amount of sense. In order to receive training as an assassin, you must join and participate in a group that is very explicitly evil. However, there's no reason things should have to be that way in any particular campaign. There could be an organization dedicated to the promotion of good through the destruction of people who spread evil (similar to the organization in Assassin's Creed.) Perhaps understanding the art of the monk requires that you accept their philosophy. However, there are groups of good, neutral, and evil monks. It's no huge stretch to imagine there could be ethically neutral or chaotic monasteries. Basic classes are also supposed to be generally less restrictive in regard to such things than prestige classes.
Here's the part of the article I'm focusing on:
Law and Chaos: Your Rules or Mine?
Let's get this out in the open: Law and Chaos do not have any meaning under the standard D&D rules.
We are aware that especially if you've been playing this game for a long time, you personally probably have an understanding of what you think Law and Chaos are supposed to mean. You possibly even believe that the rest of your group thinks that Law and Chaos mean the same thing you do. But you're probably wrong. The nature of Law and Chaos is the source of more arguments among D&D players (veteran and novice alike) than any other facet of the game. More than attacks of opportunities, more than weapon sizing, more even than spell effect inheritance. And the reason is because the "definition" of Law and Chaos in the Player's Handbook is written so confusingly that the terms are not even mutually exclusive. Look it up, this is a written document, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to stop reading at this time, flip open the Player's Handbook, and start reading the alignment descriptions. The Tome of Fiends will still be here when you get back.
There you go! Now that we're all on the same page (page XX), the reason why you've gotten into so many arguments with people as to whether their character was Lawful or Chaotic is because absolutely every action that any character ever takes could logically be argued to be both. A character who is honorable, adaptable, trustworthy, flexible, reliable, and loves freedom is a basically stand-up fellow, and meets the check marks for being "ultimate Law" and "ultimate Chaos". There aren't any contradictory adjectives there. While Law and Chaos are supposed to be opposed forces, there's nothing antithetical about the descriptions in the book.
Ethics Option 1: A level of Organization.
Optimal span of control is 3 to 5 people. Maybe Chaotic characters demand to personally control more units than that themselves and their lack of delegation ends up with a quagmire of incomprehensible proportions. Maybe Chaotic characters refuse to bow to authority at all and end up in units of one. Whatever the case, some DMs will have Law be well organized and Chaos be poorly organized. In this case, Law is objectively a virtue and Chaos is objectively a flaw.
Being disorganized doesn't mean that you're more creative or interesting, it just means that you accomplish less with the same inputs. In this model pure Chaos is a destructive, but more importantly incompetent force.
Ethics Option 2: A Question of Sanity.
Some DMs will want Law and Chaos to mean essentially "Sane" and "Insane". That's fine, but it doesn't mean that Chaos is funny. In fact, insanity is generally about the least funny thing you could possibly imagine. An insane person reacts inappropriately to their surroundings. That doesn't mean that they perform unexpected actions, that's just surrealist. And Paladins are totally permitted to enjoy non sequitur based humor and art. See, insanity is when you perform the same action over and over again and expect different results.
In this model we get a coherent explanation for why, when all the forces of Evil are composed of a multitude of strange nightmarish creatures, and the forces of Good have everything from a glowing patch of light to a winged snake tailed woman, every single soldier in the army of Chaos is a giant frog. This is because in this model Limbo is a place that is totally insane. It's a place where the answer to every question really is "Giant Frog". Creatures of Chaos then proceed to go to non Chaotically-aligned planes and are disappointed and confused when doors have to be pushed and pulled to open and entrance cannot be achieved by "Giant Frog".
If Chaos is madness, it's not "spontaneous", it's "non-functional". Actual adaptability is sane. Adapting responses to stimuli is what people are supposed to do. For reactions to be sufficiently inappropriate to qualify as insanity, one has to go pretty far into one's own preconceptions. Actual mental illness is very sad and traumatic just to watch as an outside observer. Actually living that way is even worse. It is strongly suggested therefore, that you don't go this route at all. It's not that you can't make D&D work with sanity and insanity as the core difference between Law and Chaos, it's that in doing so you're essentially making the Law vs. Chaos choice into the choice between good and bad. That and there is a certain segment of the roleplaying community that cannot differentiate absurdist humor from insanity and will insist on doing annoying things in the name of humor. And we hate those people.
Ethics Option 3: The Laws of the Land.
Any region that has writing will have an actual code of laws. Even oral traditions will have, well, traditions. In some campaigns, following these laws makes you Lawful, and not following these laws makes you Chaotic. This doesn't mean that Lawful characters necessarily have to follow the laws of Kyuss when you invade his secret Worm Fort, but it does mean that they need to be an "invading force" when they run around in Kyuss' Worm Fort. Honestly, I'm not sure what it even means to have a Chaotic society if Lawful means "following your own rules". This whole schema is workable, but only with extreme effort. It helps if there's some sort of divinely agreed upon laws somewhere that nations and individuals can follow to a greater or lesser degree. But even so, there's a lot of hermits and warfare in the world such that whether people are following actual laws can be just plain hard to evaluate.
I'd like to endorse this more highly, since any time you have characters living up to a specific arbitrary code (or not) it becomes a lot easier to get things evaluated. Unfortunately, it's really hard to even imagine an entire nation fighting for not following their own laws. That's just really weird. But if you take Law to mean law, then you're going to have to come to terms with that.
Ethics Option 4: My Word is My Bond.
Some DMs are going to want Law to essentially equate to following through on things. A Lawful character will keep their word and do things that they said they were going to. In this model, a Lawful character has an arbitrary code of conduct and a Chaotic character does not. That's pretty easy to adjudicate, you just announce what you're going to do and if you do it, you're Lawful and if you don't you're not.
Here's where it gets weird though: That means that Lawful characters have a harder time working together than do non-lawful characters. Sure, once they agree to work together there's some Trust there that we can capitalize, but it means that there are arbitrary things that Lawful characters won't do. Essentially this means that Chaotic parties order one mini-pizza each while Lawful parties have to get one extra large pizza for the whole group and we know how difficult that can be to arrange. A good example of this in action is the Paladin's code: they won't work with Evil characters, which restricts the possibilities of other party members.
In the world, this means that if you attack a Chaotic city, various other chaotic characters will trickle in to defend it. But if you attack a Lawful city, chances are that it's going to have to stand on its own.
Adherence to Self: Not a Rubric for Law
Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as adhering to one's personal self. That may sound very "Lawful", but there's no way that makes any sense. Whatever impulses you happen to have, those are going to be the ones that you act upon, by definition. If it is in your nature to do random crap that doesn't make any sense to anyone else then your actions will be contrary and perplexing, but they will still be completely consistent with your nature. Indeed, there is literally nothing you can do that isn't what you would do. It's circular.
Rigidity: Not a Rubric for Law
Sometimes Lawfulness is defined by people as being more "rigid" as opposed to "spontaneous" in your action. That's crap. Time generally only goes in one direction, and it generally carries a one to one correspondence with itself. That means that as a result of a unique set of stimuli, you are only going to do one thing. In D&D, the fact that other people weren't sure what the one thing you were going to do is handled by a Bluff check, not by being Chaotic.
I Fought the Law
Regardless of what your group ends up meaning when they use the word "Law", the fact is that some of your enemies are probably going to end up being Lawful. That doesn't mean that Lawful characters can't stab them in their area, whatever it is that you have alignments mean it's still entirely acceptable for Good characters to stab other Good characters and Lawful characters to stab other Lawful characters (oddly, noone even asks if it's a violation of Chaotic Evil to kill another Chaotic Evil character, but it isn't). There are lots of reasons to kill a man, and alignment disagreements don't occupy that list exclusively.
Code of Conduct: Barbarian
A Barbarian who becomes Lawful cannot Rage. Why not? There's no decent answer for that. Rage doesn't seem to require that you not tell people in advance that you're going to do it, nor does it actually force you to break promises once you're enraged. It doesn't force you to behave in any particular fashion, and noone knows why it is restricted.
Code of Conduct: Bard
If anyone can tell me why a concert pianist can't be Lawful I will personally put one thing of their choice into my mouth. Music is expressionistic, but it is also mathematical. Already there are computers that can write music that is indistinguishable from the boring parts of Mozart in which he's just going up and down scales in order to mark time.
Beating Back Chaos
Long ago "Law" and "Chaos" were used euphemisms by Pohl Anderson for Good and Evil, and that got taken up by other fantasy and science fiction authors and ultimately snow-balled into having a Chaos alignment for D&D. If you go back far enough, "Chaos" actually means "The Villains", and when it comes down to it there's no logical meaning for it to have other than that so the forces of Chaos really are going to show up at your door to take a number for a whuppin at some point. Depending upon what your group ends up deciding to mean by Chaos, this may seem pretty senselessly cruel. If the forces of Chaos are simply unorganized then you are essentially chasing down hobos and beating down the ones too drunk to get away. If Chaos is insanity than the Chaos Hunters in your game are essentially going door to door to beat up the retarded kids.
The key is essentially to not overthink it. Chaos was originally put into the fantasy genre in order to have bad guys without having to have black hatted madmen trying to destroy the world. So if Team Chaos is coming around your door, just roll with it. The whole point is to have villains that you can stab without feeling guilty while still having villains to whom your characters can lose without necessarily losing the whole campaign world.
Code of Conduct: Knight
Sigh. The Knight' code of conduct doesn't represent Lawful activity no matter what your group means by that term. They can't strike an opponent standing in a grease effect, but they can attack that same person after they fall down in the grease! They also are not allowed to win a duel or stake vampires (assuming, for the moment that you were using some of the house rules presented in The Tome of Necromancy that allow vampires to be staked by anyone). So the Knight's code is not an example of Lawfulness in practice, it's just a double fistful of stupid written by someone who obviously doesn't understand D&D combat mechanics. If you wanted to make a Knight's Code that represented something like "fighting fair", you'd do it like this:
* May not accept benefit from Aid Another actions.
* May not activate Spell Storing items (unless the Knight cast the spell into the item in the first place).
* May not use poison or disease contaminated weapons.
But remember: such a code of fair play is no more Lawful than not having a code of fair play. Formians are the embodiment of Law, and they practically wrote the book on cooperation. So while a Knight considers getting help from others to be "cheating", that's not because he's Lawful. He considers getting such aid to be cheating and he's Lawful. What type of Lawful a Knight represents is determined by your interpretation of Law as a whole. Maybe a Knight has to uphold the law of the land (right or wrong). Maybe a Knight has to keep his own word. Whatever, the important part is that the arbitrary code that the Knight lives under is just that arbitrary. The actual contents of the code are a separate and irrelevant concern to their alignment restriction.
Code of Conduct? Monk
Again with the sighing. Noone can explain why Monks are required to be Lawful, least of all the Player's Handbook. Ember is Lawful because she "follows her discipline", while Mialee is not Lawful because she is "devoted to her art". FTW?! That's the same thing, given sequentially as an example of being Lawful and not being Lawful. Monk's training requires strict discipline, but that has nothing to do with Lawfulness no matter what setup for Law and Chaos you are using. If Lawfulness is about organization, you are perfectly capable of being a complete maverick who talks to noone and drifts from place to place training constantly like the main character in Kung Fu total lack of organization, total "Chaotic" total disciplined Monk. If Law is about Loyalty, you're totally capable of being treacherous spies. In fact, that's even an example in the PHB "Evil monks make ideal spies, infiltrators, and assassins." And well, that sentence pretty much sinks any idea of monks having to follow the law of the land or keeping their own word, doesn't it? The only way monk lawfulness would make any sense is if you were using "adherence to an arbitrary self" as the basis of Law, and we already know that can't hold.
Code of Conduct: Paladin Again
This has to be repeated: Paladins don't get Smite Chaos. They are not champions of Law and Good, they are Champions of Good who are required to be Lawful. If your game is not using Word is Bond Ethics, Paladins have no reason to be Lawful. Paladins are only encouraged to follow the laws of the country they live in if those laws are Good. They are actually forbidden by their code of conduct from following the precepts of Evil nations. The Paladin shtick works equally well as a loner or a leader, and it is by definition distinctly disloyal. A Paladin must abandon compatriots.
Here's my personal interpretation. I see things as being somewhat of a combination of Ethics options one and three. Lawful and Chaotic describe how you would feel about a system that enforces organization. The primary reason that it's difficult to define is that it deals with feelings more than actions. A chaotic character might very well choose to obey a rule he finds meaningless or stupid, because disobeying is simply more trouble than it's worth from a pragmatic viewpoint. A lawful character could willingly disobey orders from a superior they have agreed to follow, if the situation is important enough. Anyone who is basically rational will obey laws they see as beneficial and follow orders that correctly further a goal. The difference is in how they feel about it.
Being chaotic doesn't mean being opposed to organization. As pointed out in the article, being opposed to organization is stupid. What matters is whether the organization is mandatory or voluntary. Lawful philosophy believes that generally, organization must be enforced for it to function properly. Chaotic philosophy believes organizations generally function more positively if individuals are free to make their own decisions when they disagree with the organization.
While the two ideas aren't completely contradictory, they do better than the RAW definitions of Law and Chaos. Chaotic individuals can recognize the good that comes from having guards to stop people from stealing and murdering, and most wouldn't say that you should be able to opt out whenever you feel like it. Lawful individuals recognize that restrictions can be counterproductive, and usually support ways of allowing such things to be changed. Alignment is determined by which you more generally agree with. Neutral characters think that both ideas can be equally accurate in different situations, or don't feel too strongly one way or the other.
Chaotic societies make sense from this perspective. Dwarves and elves both have traditions, but elven traditions are followed simply because it's something the elves happen to like doing. If an individual didn't want to follow a tradition in an elven society, no one would really be that bothered. Doing such in a dwarven society is likely to get you thrown out. Lawful nations wouldn't be any more likely than Chaotic nations to come to the assistance of other nations sharing their alignment. The only reason anyone would be more likely to stand up for someone with the same ethical alignment is a slight admiration for how they're doing things. Sure, you might admire the kingdom next door for having well-codified and enforced rules and traditions - but they aren't your rules and traditions, so that makes them only slightly better than a chaotic kingdom. Even chaotic empires are possible. Getting an army together and using it to coerce others into paying tribute isn't necessarily lawful (Orcs do it all the time.) A chaotic empire wouldn't care about imposing its culture, so long as it's getting paid. The Mongol and Aztec empires could be real-life examples.
Why is the Barbarian required to be chaotic? I'm guessing that it has more to do with the idea behind the class than anything innately chaotic about raging. The definition of "Barbarian" is also a little sketchy. The term originally meant non-Greek or non-Roman. That wouldn't work very well, as most campaigns aren't set in historical earth. More basically, it means "uncivilized." That fits well with Barbarians being the only class unable to read. Thus, Barbarians are people who either grew up in small tribal societies, or spent their lives fending for themselves in the wilderness. The former shouldn't be required to be chaotic - tribal societies can have very strict laws and traditions. The latter makes a little more sense, but not completely. Having a strongly chaotic nature might be a reason for someone to stay away from society, but there are plenty of equally plausible reasons for living in the wilderness - Being lost, exiled, etc. If you've spent your entire life without being aware of any civilization, there's no reason to assume you'd dislike it if you found one. I guess the best argument would be that only people with a certain outlook can unlock the mystic energy within through raging, but that's still pretty silly.
Why is the Monk required to be lawful? I'm going to guess that it's similar to why the assassin is required to be evil. I think it's ultimately a fluff-based decision. There's nothing necessarily lawful about accepting strict training, and there's nothing necessarily evil about causing death (heck, PCs are expected to make a living off of it.) However, in the requirements for assassin there's also the special "The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins" requirement. This does make a certain amount of sense. In order to receive training as an assassin, you must join and participate in a group that is very explicitly evil. However, there's no reason things should have to be that way in any particular campaign. There could be an organization dedicated to the promotion of good through the destruction of people who spread evil (similar to the organization in Assassin's Creed.) Perhaps understanding the art of the monk requires that you accept their philosophy. However, there are groups of good, neutral, and evil monks. It's no huge stretch to imagine there could be ethically neutral or chaotic monasteries. Basic classes are also supposed to be generally less restrictive in regard to such things than prestige classes.