D&D General Slaads are failures as exemplars of Chaotic NEUTRAL

[Warpiglet-7]

Alignment is tricky. But for me, evil ignores rights of others. Neutral does not regularly infringe on others but wont make sacrifices to protect the rights of others unless perhaps it’s the members of friends family or nation/group.

good...is more likely to take chances to help others. More likely to take a stand and be altruistic.

but we gotta eat and slaad gotta breed. To live and survive is not evil...

 

[FrozenNorth]

I despise traditionalism, don’t see the value of nostalgia, and view rules as only legitimate if they continue to make sense in the context of making people’s lives better without enslaving individuals to their social order. I’m Chaotic. I like to think Chaotic Good.

Wouldn’t that make you Neutral? The Chaotic characters I see are those that generally have a REALLY GOOD REASON for associating the law and lawfulness with oppression, so their default state is “don’t trust or cooperate with the authorities, because they are acting in their interests, not yours”.

In a Pathfinder game, my Chaotic character was a rebel in Cheliax. Basically, in a totalitarian regime, the system is out to get you and you have to adjust yourself with that in mind.

Even in a more Good society, a Chaotic character would tend to think that they could deal with problems on their own, without involving the guards (probably because they feel the guards are incompetent, rather than evil).

 

[Voadam]

Some fey are, historically described, pretty good exemplars of CN as whim driven. They essentially do what they like when they like with no particular reference to any human notion of good or bad.

When I was running Pathfinder I houseruled it so that all Fey were Chaotic Subtype and detected as Chaotic similar to Undead and Evil in Detect Evil. I remember it giving the inquisitor in one of my games more things to smite.

I did the same for Constructs with Law.

It felt right even without a standard Good non-outsider counterpart.

Aberrations could conceptually align for Chaos in a Far Realms/Warhammer sort of way, though traditionally D&D has had a lot of LE abberrations (mind flayers jump to mind).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wouldn’t that make you Neutral? The Chaotic characters I see are those that generally have a REALLY GOOD REASON for associating the law and lawfulness with oppression, so their default state is “don’t trust or cooperate with the authorities, because they are acting in their interests, not yours”.

Nope. It makes me Chaotic. I am not indifferent to authority or tradition, but actively skeptical. Both have to actively prove their worth in order to be kept.

 

[Blue Orange]

You could reskin it so the slaad don't engage in parasitism to reproduce (it wasn't that way in 1st ed), which creeps everyone out as we evolved to be afraid of parasites.

There could definitely be 'life slaads' that resurrect things chaotically, as suggested above, and other paths of slaads (golden, silver, and copper by analogy with dragons maybe?) that play up the positive aspects of chaos, disrupting oppressive empires (remember the paladin of liberty?) and inspiring new schools of art.

 

[Scott Christian]

4e got it right, every other edition igored Slaadi behavior, which as depicted is 100% Chaotic Evil in every depiction of them. They are always shown as predatory and even some demons appear to do Chaotic Neutral in action better then them.

See the problem is Slaads as depicted are too homocidal, more then simply chaotic, they hunt humaniods for breeding, and there appears to be no facet of them that counter balances this blatant evil.

Slaads should be as likely to be kind as cruel or even indifferent, but when have the Slaad ever been depicted as something other then predatory. They are the equivilant of the Magog who with exceptions like Rev Bem, are seen as Chaotic Evil. Both species rape and murder as way of life (implanting victims is argueable a form of rape, and TV show Andromeda refers to it that way). Where is the neutrality.

D&D needs way better exemplars of Chaotic Neutrality. It has great exemplars of every alignment except Chaotic Neutral.

Or reform Slaads so they are as helpful as they are dangerous, creative as they destructive.

Too funny. On one of the threads I was debating with someone (it was awhile ago, no idea who) about alignment. And they used the slaad as an example. I was blown away! It was something I hadn't noticed.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

D&D needs way better exemplars of Chaotic Neutrality. It has great exemplars of every alignment except Chaotic Neutral.

Of course you forget about 65% of my PCs, with the rest as Neutral or Chaotic Good It's no wonder they always leave a path of destruction behind them...

 

[Bohandas]

D&D needs way better exemplars of Chaotic Neutrality. It has great exemplars of every alignment except Chaotic Neutral.

As I mentioned before, the formians are pretty evil too, seemingly being all about slavery and conquest

 

[Voadam]

As I mentioned before, the formians are pretty evil too, seemingly being all about slavery and conquest

Modrons are generally seen as exemplars of LN while formians are generally a lawful expansionist slaver society from a LN plane.