does CN get a bad rap?

[Seeten]

IME, folks who gravitate to CN have disrupting play as their reason for being with the party, and mysteriously become bored if they have to play a solo game where the only characters they can irritate are NPCs.

I find the solution is not to ban perfectly good alignments, but to state things like, "I expect the party to have good reasons to work together, and not backstab each other."

So, if you're Jack Sparrow, you can be CN, fine, but you have to explain your reasons for being with the party, which cannot include, "Soon I will backstab them".

As long as the players are working together for each others fun, any alignment works fine. If your players are trying to screw each other, LN can do this better than CN.

 

[Seeten]

See i'd allowed CN in either a good/neutral game, but not NE/CE/LE. But the exact opposite with evil/non-good games, IE CN and no LG/NG/CG.

LE plays well with others. I've said it many times. It plays nicer than CN, certainly, with less backstory.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Chaotic-Random, impulsive

Neutral- In the middle, not taking sides.

From what I gather, A Cn would do as they wish, weaving in and out of what is good or evil with out being truly good or evil.

CN gets a bad wrap because people think it can justify acting LE.

---Rusty

 

[freyar]

Actually, what I think of as a CN PC fits what you're saying, DungeonMaster, which is how I play a DMPC in my solo campaign. (He's impulsive but most of the time doesn't care what he does as long as he gets money or fame eventually, and his 6 CHA keeps him from influencing the party much at all.)

But this doesn't quite jive with how I often see CN portrayed on the boards (witness this discussion) or in adventure modules. For example, in a recent Dungeon adventure (Diplomacy, in #144),
[sblock]The CN NPC (mercane) is treated on the same level as the NE NPC (arcanaloth) and is, in fact, more likely to attack the PCs directly. While this fits with the chaotic tendencies, his long range plans don't seem that different from the LN NPCs, even though the LN NPC (a modron) mostly seems there as a straight man.[/sblock]
And this seems to come up fairly often. I just wonder if the idea that "CN characters don't play well in parties" gets carried over into adventure design or if people really think CN is kind of villainous.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I find the solution is not to ban perfectly good alignments, but to state things like, "I expect the party to have good reasons to work together, and not backstab each other."

So, if you're Jack Sparrow, you can be CN, fine, but you have to explain your reasons for being with the party, which cannot include, "Soon I will backstab them".

As long as the players are working together for each others fun, any alignment works fine. If your players are trying to screw each other, LN can do this better than CN.

This is basically my approach. I combine that with making alignment a DM-decided feature, not a PC-decided feature. You decide how your character acts. The universe (me, as DM) decides how that fits in with it's scheme of moral and ethical action.

 

[Li Shenron]

So, is it just that CN gets misplayed a lot...?

Yes.

There's some habit of many gamers to think that being CN equals "being able to do whatever you want". That obviously irritates everyone else who is playing a different alignment, especially if the DM often makes comments about how they should behave.

There might also be a heritage from early D&D where you only had Law vs Chaos, and often they were played as Law=Good and Chaos=Evil.

 

[BroccoliRage]

That's a very good idea, and easy to implement.

It's an excellent idea for someone who can't do anything more than put words in other people's mouths.

 

[freyar]

There might also be a heritage from early D&D where you only had Law vs Chaos, and often they were played as Law=Good and Chaos=Evil.

That's very interesting! And it does possibly explain the general perception. Thanks!

 

[green slime]

The character's themselves, should never really worry about alignment they are. Only those of a religious following, should be questioning themselves: "Am I following the dictates of my religion/deity closely enough?"

Alignment as such is a goal, a guideline, for a character's behaviour, rather than a straight jacket, beyond which the character may never extend his reach. I don't care what it says on your character sheet. As the DM, I'll give you an apropriate alignment that I see fits the way you play IMC. If this would adversely affect your character, I'll let you know, and you can think about it. Have problems with the way I see it, we can discuss it, and I will clarify my position again.

I'd rather players play their own characters as they see them, and let the DM worry about the alignment implications, than have players argue amongst themselves about who would really do what because of something written on a character sheet, three years ago.

 

[Piratecat]

It's an excellent idea for someone who can't do anything more than put words in other people's mouths.

Let's have a little contest. Say, next person to insult someone gets a free vacation? How does that sound?

Sheesh, you guys - and I do mean both of you. You know better than to snipe at one another. Time to stop.