[13th Age] Should I play up the conflict between Law and Chaos?

Doug McCrae · Apr 17, 2018

I'm considering playing up the conflict between Law and Chaos in a Three Hearts and Three Lions, Keep on the Borderlands, OD&D, red box D&D stylee. Will my (British) players just think I'm ripping off Warhammer?

Tony Vargas · Apr 17, 2018

Doug McCrae said:
I'm considering playing up the conflict between Law and Chaos in a Three Hearts and Three Lions, Keep on the Borderlands, OD&D, red box D&D stylee. Will my (British) players just think I'm ripping off Warhammer?

I'm not British nor familiar with Warhammer, so can't help with the last bit.

But you could quite easily bring something like Moorcockian Law/Chaos into 13A using Icons. Either just the two, or the various adherents of each.

Doug McCrae · Apr 17, 2018

I want to make it "D&D-y". Even though he's an Appendix N author the Moorcockian Law/Chaos divide has never been a big part of D&D. Sure, it's part of the 1e nine alignment system, but the conflict between Good and Evil has always been much more important. OD&D, Red Box and Keep on the Borderlands Law versus Chaos is essentially Good versus Evil. Anderson is similar with (I think, long time since I read it) a connection of magic with Chaos and science with Law.

Anderson's description of capricious, fey, ultra-sophisticated elves in 3H&3L is brilliant btw.

LuisCarlos17f · Apr 18, 2018

My law-chaos conflict is different in my fantasy worlds. For me chaos means attuned to Nature and/or primal forces and behavior with people from different allegiance (chaotic characters would be honorable only with people with the same allegiance). My house rule is using alignment and allegiance, and powers with key alignment can hurt enemies with same alignment but different allegiance (religion, country, race, brotherhood) for example drow cleric vs shaman orc.

My cosmic law-chaos conflict would be the fay lords allied with the titans against the gods in a new titanomachy, and human civilization in the middle of the battlefield.

Doug McCrae · Apr 18, 2018

[MENTION=6802378]LuisCarlos17f[/MENTION]

That seems reasonable under a nine alignment system. Good, Evil and Nature are the three most important factions in D&D-world, with a possible Cthulhu/Tharizdun/Far Realm as a fourth. Under the three alignment system I'd place Nature as neutral.

This is a different approach to Tolkien, where nature is very clearly good and the forces of evil, represented by orcs and Saruman, are strongly anti-nature.

LuisCarlos17f · Apr 18, 2018

Do remember Tolkien went Church all Sundays, in in their work, the evil forces who rebelled against the supreme creator always were weaker.

In World of Darkness is Chaos(change), Weaver(order) and Wyrn(destruction to be created or renewed again), but I don't agree, the true order isn't frozen but harmony, and this can't go against the Natural Law. There isn't a cosmic balance between good and evil, but evil is when the harmony is broken. To change the true artist need a lot of discipline, effort and hard work. Some day people will notice this manicheism isn't right. We don't need the evildoing or the dark side of the force for something like the ying-yang balance, but we have to learn to face the suffering to avoid becoming stupy teletubbies (do you know the movie "Idiocracy"?), and this is a totally different thing.

Have you thought about how a chaotic group could survive a serious crisis like a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion (I don't say martian in flying saurces, but something like Napoleon's army). Even the evilest groups need a common loyalty to fight against other factions or there will be like in the fitna of al-Andalus, the civil war among Muslims what caused the end of the Omeya dinasty and it helped Christians for the Spanish Reconquest.

Sorry, I have to logout now because my ex-wife Sansa Stark is asking me to feed her dogs. It seems as if they hadn't eaten in all a week. ;-)

Aldarc · Apr 18, 2018

Doug McCrae said:
I'm considering playing up the conflict between Law and Chaos in a Three Hearts and Three Lions, Keep on the Borderlands, OD&D, red box D&D stylee. Will my (British) players just think I'm ripping off Warhammer?

Possibly, as I have no foreknowledge of what your players will think, but Law-Chaos was a dynamic long before Warhammer. There are a number of other systems and settings that draw upon Law-Chaos as well. For example in Tékumel, the gods are divided between the Gods of Stability and the Gods of Change, thinly veiled Law-Chaos themes. So it is really a question of how you approach the conflict between Law and Chaos.

Tony Vargas · Apr 18, 2018

Doug McCrae said:
OD&D, Red Box and Keep on the Borderlands Law versus Chaos is essentially Good versus Evil. Anderson is similar with (I think, long time since I read it) a connection of magic with Chaos and science with Law.

Same answer, though: 13A icons should be ideal, or at least pretty workable, for the purpose. Either as just Law & Chaos, pick a side, or with several representatives of each.

Philip Francis · Apr 20, 2018

I understand your concern as Warhammer strongly used the Moorcockian Law / Chaos conflict to bring forward the sense of futility in the face of a hostile universe that is prevalent in Lovecraft. It also allows for a more dynamic group as you dodge the Paladin should arrest the Thief tension as everyone is united against Chaos.

13th Age should enable you to present this in a fun way for your players that helps background the source material and make it unique to you. My thoughts are:

The Dragon Empire draws some inspiration from Glorantha and 13G (the Glorantha variant) has a strong Law / Chaos split that is different in flavour to Warhammer. If you can afford the outlay it might be worth looking at (or just nick some ideas from any old RQ stuff you might have laying around).

Emphasise combats with Demons, Chuuls (Bestiary 1), Slimes, Gelatanous Cubes etc. and unify the monsters as being examples of Chaotic intrusion. This then allows the Demonist rather than the Orc Lord or the Three to be the main villainous icon.

If your group enjoy being creative, don't decide on the Icon alignment to law or chaos until after the players have chosen their affiliations. Any Icons that have a negative relationship to the players or any Icons they have ignored can then be placed on the side of Chaos. This will provide you with some interesting hooks for a campaign arc - which icons want to preserve the 13th Age and the Empire vs. those that seek its downfall (with a side helping of neutrals who could flip either way).

Doug McCrae · Apr 22, 2018

Quote about Law and Chaos from Three Hearts and Three Lions that I found on Grognardia.

Holger got the idea that a perpetual struggle went on between primeval forces of Law and Chaos. No, not forces exactly. Modes of existence? A terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? In any case, humans were the chief agents on earth of Law, though most of them were so only unconsciously and some, witches and warlocks and evildoers, had sold out to Chaos. A few nonhuman beings also stood for Law. Ranged against them were almost the whole Middle World, which seemed to include realms like Faerie, Trollheim, and the Giants--an actual creation of Chaos. Wars among men, such as the long-drawn struggle between the Saracens and the Holy Empire, aided Chaos; under Law all men would live in peace and order and that liberty which only Law could give meaning. But this was so alien to the Middle Worlders that they were forever working to prevent it and extend their own shadowy dominion.

This shows that, as with Keep on the Borderlands, Law and Chaos are quite strictly separated by geography.