New OOTS products from CafePress
New OOTS t-shirts, ornaments, mugs, bags, and more
Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 31 to 41 of 41
  1. - Top - End - #31
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    OrcBarbarianGuy

    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Ohio

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Take Gandalf, and make his motivation less “must save world” and more “my life will suck if Sauron wins”. Gets a diverse group of individuals together to save the world, prefers advice and being in the background to leading armies, doesn’t always work well with the kings and regents he meets, humble. Very much does his own thing with no big organization around him.

  2. - Top - End - #32
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Telonius's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Wandering in Harrekh
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    My most recent character was like this; a Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Olidammara. I played her as basically a bartender confidante. Very perceptive, knows what makes people tick. Completely willing to involve herself in schemes that have a decent chance of working, but absolutely okay with saying "no" to a dumb plan that's not likely to work. Operated a tavern that had special "singles nights" involving Pipes of Frenzied Revelry. Recruited most of the staff of the tavern from miscreants the party had defeated (but not killed). Basically, she loved subverting the (Lawful Good) town's expectations and was savvy enough to get away with it; perceptive enough to know how far she could push things without getting the bar shut down.

  3. - Top - End - #33
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    They're so wise that they notice every bit of organizational foolishness baked into existing hierarchies and traditions, and know correctly the better way things should be done. While they can follow societal rules when it serves their goals (they are wise after all), they fundamentally are incapable of actually feeling respect for those rules when they make no sense.
    This. This is perfect. This is the highest wisdom.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-04-21 at 07:11 PM.
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

    Join Date
    Aug 2022
    Location
    the other Pacific coast
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    example characters from fictional media:

    Trafalgar Law
    from One Piece.
    arguably high WIS
    wouldn't go out of his way to hurt or help people.


    Shintaro Kazama
    from the Yakuza games
    mentor character, so high WIS.
    "Yakuza with a heart of gold", i.e. CN


    Riddick,
    portrayed by Vin Diesel
    insightful & perceptive = high WIS
    ruthless, but not needlessly cruel = CN

  5. - Top - End - #35
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Rynjin's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2016

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Quote Originally Posted by MetroAlien View Post
    Shintaro Kazama
    from the Yakuza games
    mentor character, so high WIS.
    "Yakuza with a heart of gold", i.e. CN
    Designating a character whose defining character traits are loyalty, duty, and responsibility, and who is driven entirely by his personal code of honor and need for redemption as CN is certainly...novel.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Troll in the Playground
    Join Date
    Jul 2015

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Quote Originally Posted by MetroAlien View Post
    Riddick,
    portrayed by Vin Diesel
    insightful & perceptive = high WIS
    ruthless, but not needlessly cruel = CN
    This is a pretty good example, and its notable how Riddick does not fit in with society. He spends a very large portion of the movies he's in on the run, and when he does acquire a position of importance, loses it almost immediately because it both doesn't interest him and he doesn't know how to manage his subordinates. He even, to a very real extent, knows betrayal is coming, but it's simply not in his nature to take the steps to stop it. It's also notable that Riddick's universe is full of characters like him, but because they lack his level of personal bad***ery almost all of them are in prison or dead.

    Chaotic neutral is, in many ways, the hardest alignment to survive as. Chaotic good individuals have friends, who will often go out of their way to say their butts when they commit some massive faux pas. Chaotic evil individuals are protected (at least for a time) by paranoia and intimidation. Chaotic neutral characters have none of this, and the alignment does more damage to itself than almost any other. D&D gets around this with the Slaadi by just having them spawn spontaneously, but that obviously doesn't work for humans.
    Now publishing a webnovel travelogue.

    Resvier: a P6 homebrew setting

  7. - Top - End - #37
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Lizardfolk

    Join Date
    Aug 2022
    Location
    the other Pacific coast
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Designating a character whose defining character traits are loyalty, duty, and responsibility, and who is driven entirely by his personal code of honor and need for redemption as CN is certainly...novel.
    Yakuza go 'screw da law' and 'f the poh-leece' so I wrote it off as anti-lawful.
    Seeing that Asian stereotypes as a whole (and Japanese especially so) already resemble 'lawful' alignment, I feel that it should be seen through a prism of sorts...

    This is a pretty good example, and its notable how Riddick does not fit in with society.
    That's a very good point I didn't even think about.
    My idea was to point out that "high WIS" doesn't necessarily mean the sage stereotype.

  8. - Top - End - #38
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Bohandas's Avatar

    Join Date
    Feb 2016

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Organized crime is generally Lawful Evil
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

    Omegaupdate Forum

    WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext

    PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket

    Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil

    Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)

  9. - Top - End - #39
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Rynjin's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2016

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Quote Originally Posted by MetroAlien View Post
    Yakuza go 'screw da law' and 'f the poh-leece' so I wrote it off as anti-lawful.
    Seeing that Asian stereotypes as a whole (and Japanese especially so) already resemble 'lawful' alignment, I feel that it should be seen through a prism of sorts...
    Anti-law =/= anti-Lawful. The quickest example to give is that many Paladins could be considered anti-law, if the laws are considered unjust. Are Paladins Chaotic? No.

    The Yakuza, more than any other organized crime syndicate in human history was built on a rigid set of laws, and in many cases WERE the law for many settlements not long after the Meiji era began, acting as basically a suped up community watch and "get **** done" committee. They brought order to lawless regions and helped devastated communities get back on their feet...coincidentally (of course) allowing them to really get their claws in these communities and form cores of people who are very loyal to the idea of the Yakuza as the people who could help them when the government was too aloof or incompetent to do so.

    This honor code and ruleset is actually the core of every conflict in the series: the protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, an "old school Yakuza" (already considered a throwback to an earlier era in the late 80s, when he got started) who believes in honor, serving the community, and all that jazz clashes with more "Chaotic", self-serving, and profit-driven Yakuza. Shenanigans ensue.

    Kazama, being his mentor and surrogate father, is the one who instilled these values in Kiryu. The man lives and dies by those values; working as a hitman for the Yakuza, but abiding by his personal code to never kill "civilians" if he can help it, and particularly not children...to the point he takes it upon himself to found an orphanage to care for all the children whose parents he murdered.

    That is...like the actual, textbook definition of Lawful Evil. The Code above all. Honor above all.

  10. - Top - End - #40
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Zanos's Avatar

    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Ability scores shouldn't really affect your ability to be any particular alignment. A high wisdom character who is chaotic could still be reckless or disrespect legitimate authority, because all his high wisdom means is that he has a wealth of real world experience and greater philosophical justification for behaving in that manner. People who disrespect authority aren't necessarily fools, and there are plenty of characters in fiction and people in the real world who are both described as wise and in constant conflict with orderly society.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    This. This is perfect. This is the highest wisdom.
    "Whatever works" is going to be neutral. Just as a Lawful character might occasionally default to taking an ordered approach, a Chaotic character is going to occasionally default to a chaotic approach, even when something more measured might be more successful. In fact, it's literally in the alignment definitions that Neutral characters follow rules when they want, and break them when they want. The idea that "lawful slavishly follows the rules even when its stupid" and "chaotic doesn't do that" isn't supported by any version of the alignment system. Alignment on L v C is about your biases.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    That is...like the actual, textbook definition of Lawful Evil. The Code above all. Honor above all.
    I agree, organized crime can definitely be Lawful. I don't know much if anything about the history of the Yakuza, but I do know that in other "organized" crime syndicates, the laws and oaths were really just tiny barriers for the foot soldiers to not behave in ways the upper crust disliked, and were frequently broken when they became inconvenient for folks at the top. So how "Lawful" your organized crime is will depend on whether or not folks follow those Laws even when they become an inconvenience. And of course, both Lawful and Chaotic characters can exist in an organization that's setup as Lawful.
    Last edited by Zanos; 2023-04-27 at 04:02 PM.
    If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them!

  11. - Top - End - #41
    Titan in the Playground
     
    Rynjin's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2016

    Default Re: Chaotic, High Wisdom

    Quote Originally Posted by Zanos View Post
    I agree, organized crime can definitely be Lawful. I don't know much if anything about the history of the Yakuza, but I do know that in other "organized" crime syndicates, the laws and oaths were really just tiny barriers for the foot soldiers to not behave in ways the upper crust disliked, and were frequently broken when they became inconvenient for folks at the top. So how "Lawful" your organized crime is will depend on whether or not folks follow those Laws even when they become an inconvenience. And of course, both Lawful and Chaotic characters can exist in an organization that's setup as Lawful.
    Yeah. This, as mentioned, is the core conflict of the series. The "ideal of the Yakuza" clashing with "the reality of the Yakuza". The majority of characters absolutely fall under what you're talking about here.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •