Chaotic Good Is The Most Popular Alignment!

Charlaquin · Jun 17, 2019

Maxperson said:
Tom is the epitome of the original true neutral druid. He wasn't chaotic at all. He just didn't care about things like law, chaos, good and evil.

Just going to ignore the “by my standard” part then?

billd91 · Jun 17, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Just going to ignore the “by my standard” part then?

I think the implication is he disagrees with your standard.

doctorbadwolf · Jun 17, 2019

Hussar said:
If you went back to the example I brought up that started this all, it was from a player who WAS 100% reliable then claimed to be CN.

Which you brought up as if it were relevant to what anyone else was talking about.

Are you kidding? Falling asleep on watch is not an uncommon thing. It doesn't make people insane. It makes them unreliable. My personal rest time is more important than your safety. Snore.

Intentionally falling asleep on watch while in dangerous territory where there are potentially creatures that can easily kill your whole team in your sleep is one of two things. Insane, intentionally suicidal, or moronic.

You say “your safety” as if the person in question isn’t capable of understanding their own safety. That isn’t a person who is both intelligent and mentally stable.

Refusing to take watch is sane and not completely idiotic, but intentionally sleeping on watch? Come on, man.

Charlaquin · Jun 17, 2019

billd91 said:
I think the implication is he disagrees with your standard.

Wha... It’s my standard. I’m not asserting that it’s the way D&D presents it, nor the way it “should” work. On the contrary, I call it my standard specifically to denote that it’s a personal preference that varies from common practice. Nobody has to share my preference, but arguing against it doesn’t make sense. I’m not asserting anything to make an argument against.

Gradine · Jun 17, 2019

I think anytime that a lengthy and passionate argument breaks out about D&D alignment, Gary gets another set of wings.

Jharet · Jun 17, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Of course it is. It’s the goodest good alignment as currently written, so it’s no surprise most players would gravitate towards it. Chaotic Neutral is the neutralest neutral, so that would appeal most to players who don’t want to be tied down to any ideology, and chaotic evil is the evilest evil, so it’s the one DMs are least likely to allow in their campaigns.

That would be LAWFUL GOOD and TRUE NEUTRAL.

Staffan · Jun 18, 2019

Hussar said:
Where I do find it interesting is in alignment archetypes. Wolverine makes a pretty good CG archetype, I think we'd agree. But, what's a chaotic neutral archetype? The only one I could think of was Q from Star Trek. And, well, everyone keeps telling me that CN is totally reliable and completely okay with working with groups, so, Q obviously isn't CN by that standard.

So, what character would you see as being typical of a CN alignment?

Jayne Cobb, from Firefly.

Jayne realizes that working with a crew is safer than working alone, but he doesn't have any particular loyalty to his crew. In a flashback, we see him selling out his former team because Mal gives him a better offer. He later tries to sell out part of his current crew (though he considers those two to be a dangerous liability, not crew), and only abandons that plan when it becomes clear that he's being double-crossed by the people he tried selling them out to. In a different episode, we see him reacting to disturbances aboard the ship by tearing away the sheet covering his wall-mounted arsenal... only to use the sheet to cover his head so he won't be disturbed in his sleep.

Jayne doesn't prioritize harming people, but he doesn't really care if he does. He prioritizes his own desires above those of others. That makes him Chaotic Neutral.

Maxperson · Jun 18, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Just going to ignore the “by my standard” part then?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but this thread is about the D&D standard. If we're going to go by your standard, then we can make Tom LG, NG, CG or any other alignment you feel like assigning him with your personal standard. It's just not something that really goes with this thread.

Charlaquin · Jun 18, 2019

Maxperson said:
I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but this thread is about the D&D standard. If we're going to go by your standard, then we can make Tom LG, NG, CG or any other alignment you feel like assigning him with your personal standard. It's just not something that really goes with this thread.

This thread is about “Chaotic Good is the most popular alignment” and whatever discussion evolves from that jumping-off point. Hussar made an argument about Q being the Ur-example of Chaotic Neutral and challenged folks to give him an example of an archetypical CN character that would be more compatible with a D&D adventuring party. I responded to that by pointing out that Q did in fact help the crew of the enterprise (on a few occasions, though I only gave one example), so clearly even the most quintessentially CN character is fully capable of working with others, provided doing so is in their own interest. As an aside, I gave an example of a character that fits well with CN as I define it at my own table. If you’re interested in discussing that aside, I’m up for that, but pointing out that it isn’t a typical example of a CN character is kind of redundant. I don’t claim that my interpretation of the alignments is in line with the way D&D presents them.

Yaarel · Jun 18, 2019

I appreciated the point that Charlaquin made in his post about ‘Chaotic Neutral’ being the ‘truest’ Neutral.

I interpreted this to mean: Chaotic Neutral: ‘I am going to do what I want, and I really dont care what the DM expects of me or my player character.’

In other words, ‘truest Neutral’.

Similarly for ‘Chaotic Good’: ‘My character is good, and I have zero interests in the DM manipulating or punishing me because of the DMs ethical opinions’. ... ‘truest Good’.

Similarly for ‘Chaotic Evil’: ‘My character does whatever I want. F everyone else.’ In other words, ‘truest Evil’.

I dont interpret the official alignments this way. But it helped me make sense of why Chaotic Neutral was surprisingly popular.

I assume, many of these players want the Chaotic Neutral character to kill monsters and steal treasures, and dont want to get entangled in reallife ethical implications.