Chaotic Good Is The Most Popular Alignment!

Hussar said:

So, those would be my reasons for making Conan CN. What are yours?

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I will let GentleGamer do the talking for me:
Conan's Morality

Hussar said:

Well. That’s fair I suppose. If the group is allowed to execute your character for stepping out of line, then your alignment doesn’t matter too much.

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Do you really have to jump to these absolutely wild hyperbolic versions of folks arguments in order to formulate a response?

Hussar said:

See, I'm a little confused. We all agree that Jayne is chaotic neutral because he betrays the group. Yes? Does anyone disagree with that? Would anyone put Jayne's alignment as something else?

So, what about Han Solo says Chaotic Neutral? He doesn't betray anyone. He's self interested, sure, but, that's just neutral. He doesn't do anything on a whim that I can think of.

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This, in my view is one of the major problems with the 9-alignment system as traditionally presented in D&D. The difference between Chaotic and Neutral with respect to Law and Chaos is simply a matter of degree, and the line between them is not particularly bright. Sure, we can probably all agree that betraying one’s allies falls on the Chaotic side of the line, but does one betrayal make a self-interest les character Chaotic Neutral? Can a character be considered Chaotic Neutral if they haven’t betrayed their allies? And while we’re at it, isn’t self interest a characteristic of evil too? What can a self-interested character get away with doing before crossing the line from Neutral to Evil?

This is why I prefer to define Chaotic as not simply valuing their own individual freedom, but being ideologically opposed to Law. A Chaotic character is not merely an individualist, but an anarchist. Or a libertarian, I suppose. They fall on the far bottom portion of the political compass, is my point. Just as obeying laws doesn’t necessarily make one Lawful, breaking them doesn’t necessarily make one Chaotic. Law and Chaos are strong ideological stances, and Neutrality is merely the lack of a stance.

Now, if Law is roughly analogous to Authoritarianism and Chaos to Libertarianism, I like to map Good and Evil to Altruism and Egoism respectively. A Good character seeks to do the most good for others regardless of the cost to themselves, and an Evil character acts in their own self-interest regardless of the harm it may cause others. Neutrality on this spectrum is likewise defined by not taking a stance. The ethically neutral character does not knowingly harm others for their own benefit, but nor do they go out of their way to help others.

Personally, I would say Jayne’s willingness to betray his allies doesn’t make him Chaotic (though his opposition to the Authoritarian government certainly does that). It makes him Evil. Han, on the other hand, he starts out New Hope skirting the line between Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil (leaning towards Evil when he shot first, but towards Neutral after the edit), and by the end of the film has come around to Chaotic Good. And he pretty much remains Chaotic Good for the rest of the trilogy.

Once again, the idea that only a CN PC would possibly do anything such as turn on a fellow party member baffles me. A LG PC that learns one of his compatriots is secretly a CE sociopathic murderer (as an extreme example) would likely turn their compatriot in to the local authority as soon as possible. How is it any different other than motivation?

Picking some arbitrary disruptive behavior, whether that's falling asleep on watch, turning in fellow party members or whatever else comes up next is pointless. Arguing about it even more so. The motivation behind any action may differ, but to say "only PCs of one alignment" would do something like that is simply untrue.

Charlaquin said:

This, in my view is one of the major problems with the 9-alignment system as traditionally presented in D&D. The difference between Chaotic and Neutral with respect to Law and Chaos is simply a matter of degree, and the line between them is not particularly bright. Sure, we can probably all agree that betraying one’s allies falls on the Chaotic side of the line, but does one betrayal make a self-interest les character Chaotic Neutral? Can a character be considered Chaotic Neutral if they haven’t betrayed their allies? And while we’re at it, isn’t self interest a characteristic of evil too? What can a self-interested character get away with doing before crossing the line from Neutral to Evil?

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It's worse than that, really. You can have an upstanding citizen who would sacrifice himself to save the community, helps little old ladies across the road, donates money to help orphaned children, but secretly also abuses those children on a regular basis to satisfy his appetites. Is he LG? Is he evil? Is he LG with evil tendencies? Something else?

Most people don't fall solidly within a single alignment, but rather have multiple personality traits which fall regularly within two, three or even more alignments. That's why I prefer my players just come up with a personality for their PC and then I don't bother to look at their alignment.

Oofta said:

Once again, the idea that only a CN PC would possibly do anything such as turn on a fellow party member baffles me. A LG PC that learns one of his compatriots is secretly a CE sociopathic murderer (as an extreme example) would likely turn their compatriot in to the local authority as soon as possible. How is it any different other than motivation?

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Turning A PC in for murder is not a betrayal. There can be no expectation that your gaming buddies are going to be okay with you murdering someone and not tell the police. The same goes for adventuring parties.

Oofta said:

Once again, the idea that only a CN PC would possibly do anything such as turn on a fellow party member baffles me. A LG PC that learns one of his compatriots is secretly a CE sociopathic murderer (as an extreme example) would likely turn their compatriot in to the local authority as soon as possible. How is it any different other than motivation?

Picking some arbitrary disruptive behavior, whether that's falling asleep on watch, turning in fellow party members or whatever else comes up next is pointless. Arguing about it even more so. The motivation behind any action may differ, but to say "only PCs of one alignment" would do something like that is simply untrue.

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I mean, it's not like a Paladin has ever joined a game only for the first thing for them to do is "Detect Evil" on the party and then "Smite Evil" on anyone who is non-good.

Hussar said:

But none of this changes the fact that Jayne was untrustworthy.

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If you take the term "untrusteorthy" to the extreme of anyone who ever messes up etc, then yup. But that makes everyone untrustworthy snd do the term becomes meaningless.

Moreover, here us the rub, it also tends to blow any claim linking reliability and any relationship to lawful vs chaos.

If falling asleep on watch means unreliable - there is nothing about lawful that says you dont fall asleep or fo so less than others.

If turning on comrades in certain circumstances means unreliable, well, a lawful type might well do so if his teammates are going severely unlawful, in directions they oppose - and turn them in.

The Jayne calling the cops to turn them in for bounty could have played out just fine if Jayne had been a lawful type and the trigger was revelation if River and Doc as wanted criminals with now system wide alerts and high threat notice etc.

The further you choose to step to the edges the less foundation you stand on.

But that's fine. The continual use of broadly scoped words into more extreme cases shows nothing more to be gained.

Maxperson said:

No. Oversleeping and showing up late for your shift is "not perfect." Deciding to betray your companions is freaking unreliable and untrustworthy.

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And in the course of the show and the movie most every character that got any development at all at one time or another made an intentional choice to defy orders, go against the group etc - even in cases that put others in danger - sometimes cuz they were led astray by those playing on their weaknesses.

Remember the case where Mal's flaws led him to get taken out by Mrs Reynolds delivering the ship into the clutches of bad guys? The doctor not letting them in on how dangerous River was until after she blew? Heck, River with imbeded programming? How many times did River collapse at times of crisis, causing problems?

In 5e terms, each character had flaws. Each character saw those flaws come up in ways that really showed them as "unreliable" and at times willing to let those flaws put the others at risk.

That's maybe a bit of the reasoning behind 5e basically spending a lot more space on ideal, flaw, bonds than they did on alignments and especially on perfect adherence to alignments.

I think to me it makes more sense to try to define flaws, bonds and ideals for most any long run characters (and their changes) than alignment or broader qualities.

Hussar said:

See, I'm a little confused. We all agree that Jayne is chaotic neutral because he betrays the group. Yes? Does anyone disagree with that? Would anyone put Jayne's alignment as something else?

So, what about Han Solo says Chaotic Neutral? He doesn't betray anyone. He's self interested, sure, but, that's just neutral. He doesn't do anything on a whim that I can think of.

I can at least present pretty solid evidence for my alignment interpretation. Other than, "Cos I said so" I'm not seeing much reasoning going on here.

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"We all agree that Jayne is chaotic neutral because he betrays the group. Yes? Does anyone disagree with that?"

I do. Jayne is chaotic neutral for a lot of reasons - alignment is not determined by a singular act.

Betraying your party to the authorities could be a lawful act or a good act as well - depending on the particulars.

As for Han Solo, like most characters over long periods (here spread over multiple movies over like 40 years) his character does not seem to have a single alignment. I think to me I would try to define flaws, bonds and ideals for most any long run characters (and their changes) than alignment.