Can You Guys Help Me Get My Head Around Chaotic Neutral? Now with Bonus Material!

[boerngrim]

I've always believed the average DnD commoner/villager would be more likely to be chaotic neutral than lawful good, as they are often listed. Most villagers tend to keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those more powerful than they are. After reading this thread I think my impression was generally correct.
Of course in every village/community there would be standouts of differing allignments, but it seems that the average joe would probably lean toward chaotic neutral.
Come to think of it most people in RL do too. Most people keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those who are more powerful than them...unless something moves them to action.
Kooky.

 

[Felon]

The best way to depict a chaotic neutral society is to have "law" simply be a set of loose rules that serve the whims of whoever's in power.

Las Vegas springs to mind. Everybody at the low end of the food chain is trying to find a way to exploit the system, be it by counting cards or availing themselves of cheap liquor and all-you-can-eat buffets. The guys at the top let you play as long as you don't win too much. As soon as you do, they call you a cheater and declare you persona non gratas. But people still come en masse anyway.

Or, try thinking of Bartertown from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Again, not many rules, just enough to create the illusion of order. You got a problem with somebody, start a fight, go to thunderdome. One man enters, one man leaves. Break a deal, face the wheel. There are plenty of ways to cheat, and the rules ultimately provide no real shelter from Aunty or MasterBlaster doing whatever they please.

I think the key to understanding a CN society is that nobody decides to live there for the protection the establishment provides. They're there for the opportunities that its chaotic nature allows.

 

[Ourph]

I've always believed the average DnD commoner/villager would be more likely to be chaotic neutral than lawful good, as they are often listed. Most villagers tend to keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those more powerful than they are. After reading this thread I think my impression was generally correct.
Of course in every village/community there would be standouts of differing allignments, but it seems that the average joe would probably lean toward chaotic neutral.
Come to think of it most people in RL do too. Most people keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those who are more powerful than them...unless something moves them to action.
Kooky.

I agree with everything above except that I think N/N is probably more accurate. IMO unless a PC or NPC has a specific reason to be otherwise, they should, by default, be considered N/N.

 

[Celebrim]

I've always believed the average DnD commoner/villager would be more likely to be chaotic neutral than lawful good, as they are often listed. Most villagers tend to keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those more powerful than they are. After reading this thread I think my impression was generally correct.
Of course in every village/community there would be standouts of differing allignments, but it seems that the average joe would probably lean toward chaotic neutral.
Come to think of it most people in RL do too. Most people keep to themselves, mind their own business, and try not to attract the attention of those who are more powerful than them...unless something moves them to action.
Kooky.

As for the modern world, without pointing to any particular examples, I think that the modern world strongly encourages the sort of individuality associated with chaos. There are counterexamples of modern lawful societies where communal feeling is strong, respect for traditions overweighs personal choices or gains, and so forth, but these are comparitively rare in the developed world. I'd love to list what I think are a few examples on both sides, but almost certainly someone from somewhere would consider that a negative sterotype.

But yes, I agree that for most people on the boards, most people they've met are probably CN. (Neutral Good tends to come up most often in self-selection polls, but this is not unexpected if you assume that everyone tends to define 'good' as 'what I do'.)

Now, most people generally (certainly most people not in modern libertarian democracies or some other society that encourages 'chaoticness') are probably actually pure neutral, having no particularly strong feelings either way on society versus the individual except as it impinges upon thier health and happiness. Most people aren't willing to sacrifice for thier community, thier freedom, a desire to do good, or a desire to do evil. They are just trying to get by, and they don't have any particular philosophy beyond 'Let me get by, and I'll let you get by', and maybe not even that coherent. When world building, I go by the rule that 80% of the population on average ought to be neutral. The rest I tend to cluster around opposite extremes, the 'dominate philophy' and the 'dissident philosophy'. So, in a society that is predominately say 'Lawful Good', you'll tend to have a strong anachistic backlash against the precieved rigidity of that philosophy, and in a society that is largely 'Chaotic Good', you'll tend to have a militant backlash against the societies percieved weakness. So forth.

Gamers are probably a bad case study to draw inferences from because - although I hate feeding this sterotype - gamers are probably about 10-20 IQ points on average smarter than the general public, and the smarter you are the more likely you are to have developed some sort of well-thought out (or at least complicated) intellectual moral structure for living your life. So, gamers as a whole are more likely to have alignment extremes than the general public. Even the nuetral ones will tend toward intellectual neutralness ('harmony', 'balance', 'moderation', etc.), rather than the unreflective survival oriented neutrality.

 

[PhantomNarrator]

It's all about Freedom

CN people tend to be solo acts. They aren't joiners, or if they are they don't tend to last. They will break rules and laws whenever it suits them, especially if they are unlikely to suffer for it. CN's value individual and personal freedom more than anything else, even if that freedom means others must lose theirs. They're not usually malevolent, just very self-centered and contemptuous of authority.

 

[davidschwartznz]

Chaotic societies don't have traffic laws.

When someone inevitably gets runover...

A CG society is more likely to ostracise the offender than punish him.

A CN society shrugs and says ' happens.'

A CE society points and laughs.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

CN people tend to be solo acts. They aren't joiners, or if they are they don't tend to last. They will break rules and laws whenever it suits them, especially if they are unlikely to suffer for it. CN's value individual and personal freedom more than anything else, even if that freedom means others must lose theirs. They're not usually malevolent, just very self-centered and contemptuous of authority.

I disagree, this sounds like more of a description of a passive CE who hasn't worked up the nerve to risk retaliation with active evil.

A CN individual is no more likely to pursue their own interest at the expense of someone else's, imo, than a LN or TN individual. Chaos is not some sort of Evil Light (just 5 calories, not evil enough!) it is, by D&D definition, an allignment on a completely different scale from good and evil.

Also, I don't see chaotic individuals as having trouble with groups or cooperation - they have problems with heirarchies. A chaotic organization is based on mutual respect (both being respectful of others and respecting others in their core competencies) rather than a set structure. A CN person can easily take direction from someone who they believe understands what needs to be done better than they do, or someone who is temporarily taking a coordinating role. They will be harder pressed to take orders, though the line between a direction and an order may be entirely one of feel.

In the STAP game I play, there was a conflict between a highly chaotic (planarly chaotic in fact) PC and a lawful PC who had taken the role of ship's captain, in which the distinction between directions and orders, and the need for a coordinator vs the need for a "boss" featured heavily.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Chaotic societies don't have traffic laws.

When someone inevitably gets runover...

A CG society is more likely to ostracise the offender than punish him.

A CN society shrugs and says ' happens.'

A CE society points and laughs.

Again, CN is pretty much indistinguishable from evil in this scenerio (and is incapable of rational thought)...

A choatic society may not have traffic laws. They could easily have a traffic code though. The difference is that you are not punished merely for breaking the code, but if someone gets killed while you are breaking the code, you are at fault.

 

[Celebrim]

Again, CN is pretty much indistinguishable from evil in this scenerio (and is incapable of rational thought)...

Apathy is indistinguishable from sadism? The apathetic are incapable of rational thought?

I think that you can distinguish between someone who will, in a pinch, sacrifice someone else freedom's and someone who actively seeks to destroy someone elses freedoms.

 

[Ourph]

Also, I don't see chaotic individuals as having trouble with groups or cooperation - they have problems with heirarchies. A chaotic organization is based on mutual respect (both being respectful of others and respecting others in their core competencies) rather than a set structure. A CN person can easily take direction from someone who they believe understands what needs to be done better than they do, or someone who is temporarily taking a coordinating role. They will be harder pressed to take orders, though the line between a direction and an order may be entirely one of feel.

I agree. It surprises me that so many in this thread are asserting that concepts of "society", "laws" or "organized groups" are anathema to CN individuals. The difference between LN and CN isn't that one forms organized groups and writes laws while the other doesn't. The difference is that LN people form groups, create organizations and write laws because their general philosophy is that such things are good and they are more comfortable in those settings, while CN form groups, create organizations and write laws as an act of compromise, with the understanding that it is a necessary evil (or the lesser of two evils). CN people will still participate in "structured society" (even hierarchical ones) when the alternatives presented by not participating are distasteful enough. (IMO, YMMV)