I hate Chaotic Neutral

[Kid Charlemagne]

That was a big problem for me back in the 80's, but I haven't seen so much recently. I think of CN a the lazy alignment. The players who take it typically are just looking for an alignment where they just don't have to watch what they do in any way. There are exceptions, I'm sure - I've just never seen one in 26 years of gaming.

One thing I've done to reduce the issue (besides getting a higher quality of gamer) is to reduce the importance of alignment, and not do the "alignment police" thing as DM. I don't penalize PC's for changing alignment, in fact I pay very little attention to it at all.

 

[francisca]

Am I alone here? Any strategy in dealing with this?

Yes. I have a strategy. I explain to any player taking CN that there are three aspects of alignment:
-what is on your sheet
-how you act
-how the world perceives your actions.

Evil is as evil does. If a player wants to play CN as "I can do anything, tee-hee, and I can justify it as 'playing my alignment', tee-hee.", they are free to do so. However, if they start doing things which would be considered evil from a particular perspective, and say a cleric with that particular persepective should cast detect evil, the player in question would light up like he had lunch at the Chernobyl McDonalds. But I play alignments a bit loose anyway. Moral relativism and all that, doncha' know.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I haven't had too many issues with it but...

I see it as the "I'm going to do what I've got to do regardless of the consequences."

It works great for a character who has one motivating factor.

In some ways, I can see Guts, the main character in Berserk, having this mentallity. He's initially bound by his defeat at Griffith's hands, but still does a lot of things his own way. Perhaps the CN character needs to have some 'friends' to push him into doing the right thing.

CN to me, is not 'insane' and as it still has the neutral component, means that the character is not evil so should not be killing people left and right "because."

Part of it though, depends on what the campaign is about. If it's mercenaries who are sloppy, CN is a great alignment. Professioanl mercenaries who have all their i's dotted and their t's crossed on the other hand, would probably be LN.

 

[Mercule]

I'm afraid I cannot help, because your idea that CN = lack of motivation is very alien to me, and IMHO personal gain has nothing to do with it. In fact, I consider CN and CG the correct representation of RL ecology activists, animal rights activists, pacifist protesters, revolutionaries (when they side with the poor) and others, which isn't at all about personal gain!

CN is also a very good descriptive value for laissez faire capitalists. Unfettered, self-regulating markets driven only by the needs, goals, and ambitions of individuals. Any self-deterministic philosophy is very much in tune with the Chaotic alignments. Meanwhile, any group-oriented philosophy, from Socialism to NeoConservatism (semi-inflamitory terms chosen to try to represent a pole, not disparage anyone) are going to be better described as Lawful.

Obviously, it's pretty hard to categorize any real-world position as truly Lawful or Chaotic. There are a lot of NeoCons who are true-blue capitalists, and there are a lot of Socialists who are animal rights/ecologic activists. If you want to pigeon-hole someone into the alignment system, you'd just look at the real hot-buttons.

Alternatively, you can gauge the Lawful/Chaotic by whether the character tends to view the world as collections or as individuals.

 

[Cavalorn]

Am I alone here? Any strategy in dealing with this?

CN is often problematic because it's unclear whether the person is supposed to have a Chaos-based ideology or an idiosyncratic value system. That is, do they value Chaos as an abstract principle (in the same way that a lawful character might honour Law in the abstract) or do they use chaos as a license to do as they like, without sliding too far into the realms of evil or good.

In the former case, the character would be obliged to support the cause of chaos. He'd have a moral obligation to sabotage, upset or undermine instances of entrenched Law. That gives the DM a handle - something that the character is interested in and obliged to, other than his own whims.

Case in point (spoiler for Planescape the computer game):

[sblock]Ravel Puzzlewell tries to free the Lady of Pain from the 'cage' of Sigil, because she cannot abide imprisonment. That's chaotic.[/sblock]

When a character with a CN alignment is just covering his own freedom to do as he pleases, I'd say the forefeit would be the loss of implicit freedoms that other people enjoy without pausing to think about it. Characters take it for granted that they can use a city or town's resources, but the truth is that there's an unspoken agreement between merchant and client that the latter is of 'good character'. To the rest of the world, CN equals the Seal of Untrustworthiness. A bartender wouldn't want chaotics staying in his rooms, a shop wouldn't want chaotics browsing it, even a patron would be hesitant about paying chaotics in advance for a mission. For all any of them know, the CN character could just 'change his mind'.

So, there are two strategies there. Either present the player with affronts against the Chaos that he values as a principle, or present him with the price of being chaotically aligned in a system that has an implicit regard for law.

 

[Shemeska]

I've had one CN NPC who effectively became a PC because the players wanted her to stick around with them, and while she eventually went CG, she's the archetype CN nutcase.

CN tiefling Xaositect. Lucid and her were contradictions in terms, but oh Lord was it amusing for a few years. *chuckle* Playing something so far out there on the border of sanity however is probably not something that would work out for most actual PCs and might cause difficulty in the game. Still, I'm of the opinion that alot of the bans on CN are simply a knee-jerk reaction to people who fundamentaly didn't understand CN as an alignment and were simply using it as an excuse to do whatever the hell they wanted with their PC.

Honestly I consider not having the players pick an alignment for their character and have me assign it later to them based on their actions and motivations. I want players to play their character, not play alignment first and character second.

 

[XCorvis]

Chaotic Neutral? What's that?

Oh, you mean Chaotic Stupid. I was a little confused there for a second.

Actually, it sounds like a player problem more than an alignment problem. Henry gave some good advice.

With regards to his loot problem - make the player happy by showering the party with money. Then nail them with opponents who use sunder, or destrachans, rust monsters and other item destroyers. Tax them every time they enter a city. Have the clerics and paladins tithe. Make them spend money to go places (buy a teleport or plane shift), or purchase land and other things that don't directly affect combat. A lot of cash comes in, then it goes out again.

 

[Psion]

CN is also a very good descriptive value for laissez faire capitalists.

Which is not exactly an argument that makes me think that it's not all about personal gain.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of a lot of the alignments. CN is, basically, just someone who is not overly altruistic and doesn't like too many rules. It is neither random nor disinterested.

The problem is that taking the alignment is usually the first warning sign to me that the player does not understand it.

It does make sense as "free spirit" sort of character, but free spirits don't necessarily make good adventurers unless they have other reasons to stay involved. If a player does not define their personality and motivation beyond alignment, CN is typically not enough.

I can rely on appealing to the good PC's altruism.
I can rely on appealing to the lawful PC's sense of duty.
I cannot rely on anything other than money, or so it seems, when it comes to the run of the mill CN PC IME.

 

[Psion]

Actually, it sounds like a player problem more than an alignment problem.

Oh, I agree. The problem is that the player wishes to make a character without ethical "strings", which makes it harder to work them into a game. The symptom is "CN" is their usual first choice for alignment.

 

[Enkhidu]

Have you thought about retiring alignment completely, and replacing it with the allegience system in d20 Modern? It would enable you to dicatate one of the allegiances for the entire party, thereby giving them a single mandatory connection to what/whoever you choose, and reducing the amount of enticement hoops to jump through.