Alignment and Insanity

[WayneLigon]

So a psychopath killer is Neutral because he isn't capable of making moral decisions?

If he is a true psychopath, then yeah. It's like he was born blind. There's no reason to think him evil because he doesn't know what 'red' means. Because of the exact nature of his madness,unfortunatly, he's still a terrible danger to himself and others and so has to be dealt with in some fashion. Since more D&D worlds don't seem to have asylums much above the level of 'snake pit', kinder to put a sword in him. Or, if you have the resources, just cast Heal him. Poof, no more psychopath.

True psychopaths, though, are really rare. We in the modern world over-diagnose and generalize using that term because it's become 'sexy'. The vast majority of your mass killers know exactly what they are doing; they may be messed up to some degree but not to much that they don't have a choice, so they are Evil.

It all depends, too, on how you've defined the world view of such things in your game. Insanity might work the way we think it does in our world, or it might work totally differently.

 

[ThirdWizard]

One of the standard things I trot out from my GMing past is the Chaotic Evil NPC who needs to keep control of a city he is governing so he can do the excavation and magical rituals necessary to open a gateway to The Abyss. According to the RAW, his alignment would deprive him of the impulse control necessary to pull off his plan.

Chaotic alignment doesn't mean they don't have impulse control. They have adaptability and flexibility. Some chaotic characters exibit recklessness and arbitraryness, but that doesn't mean they lack self control or the ability to hold a group together for some purpose. Many monsters in the game are Chaotic but lead others of their own kind or others.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Many monsters in the game are Chaotic but lead others of their own kind or others.

[Very Broadly Speaking]

And generally do so via personal methods.

Lawful characters can hang their hat, so to speak, on the authority granted by position. Even a weak-willed Lawful individual will be able to, at last resort, say, "It is so because I'm the Captain."

A Lawful individual will be comfortable with saying, "I will rule because I am the son of the King. It is right that I should rule." And Lawful subjects will be happy with that.

A Chaotic individual would be less comfortable resorting to something as ... external ... as in-born position to enforce his will on others. A Chaotic individual will rule, not because he was born as the Crown Prince, but because he feels that the training he gained as he was growing up makes him the best-suited to rule. He will rule because he knows he has the personal respect of the barons, or because he knows he can personally cow the barons into submission.

Lawful governments rely on hierarchies for their power. Chaotic governments are Cults of Personality.

[/Very Broadly Speaking]

 

[fusangite]

Chaotic alignment doesn't mean they don't have impulse control. They have adaptability and flexibility. Some chaotic characters exibit recklessness and arbitraryness, but that doesn't mean they lack self control or the ability to hold a group together for some purpose. Many monsters in the game are Chaotic but lead others of their own kind or others.

A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Thankfully, his plans are haphazard and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him. The demented sorceror pursuing mad schemes of vengeance and havoc is chaotic evil.

How anybody can take from this that alignment and sanity are not connected or that chaotic evil is not disadvantageous is beyond me.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I can't tell if you're labeling the Chaotic, Evil, or combination of the two as insane.

In either case, the CE ruler will most likely arbitrarily kill off those he deems as threats (whether through paranoia or not), put others in control of various aspects of governing that don't interst him (probably killing them off regularly so they don't gain too much power), and rule based on how he feels instead of any kind of existing laws. He will probably indulge himself in whatever activities he sees fit, taking full advantage of his position.

He will hold his position through power, fear, magic, or any other method likened to these. He will have to worry about insurrections because people dislike dying, so he has to make them fear what would happen if they did that more than continued existance under his leadership. The larger the area, the more difficult it is to rule over. These kind of people don't really care about ruling a large area, anyway, being more concerned with personal power and standard of living instead of controlling or domination of others. That's more of a lawful concept.

Being that a high level character can kill vast amounts of lower level characters, D&D makes this potentially much more plausable than what we might consider realistic. A 15th level evil barbarian ruler could potentially kill all the citizens of a small city in one encounter. Especially considering he's probably been slowly taking out those who would actually pose a threat to him. A sufficiently paranoid ruler will also be difficult to assassinate.

So, I think a CE character is perfectly capable of keeping control of a city long enough to do some vastly evil demonic ressurection or whatnot. Afterward, he'll probably level the city or give it to the demon to destroy. Fun times.

 

[moritheil]

That's blatant bias and dogmatism, though. No more, however, than the original question.

I'm sorry, could you explain how my posting an open question as to whether or not insane people can be of all alignments is blatantly biased and dogmatic?

 

[Tonguez]

I can't tell if you're labeling the Chaotic, Evil, or combination of the two as insane.

In either case, the CE ruler will most likely arbitrarily kill off those he deems as threats (whether through paranoia or not), put others in control of various aspects of governing that don't interst him (probably killing them off regularly so they don't gain too much power), and rule based on how he feels instead of any kind of existing laws. He will probably indulge himself in whatever activities he sees fit, taking full advantage of his position.

He will hold his position through power, fear, magic, or any other method likened to these. He will have to worry about insurrections because people dislike dying, so he has to make them fear what would happen if they did that more than continued existance under his leadership. The larger the area, the more difficult it is to rule over. These kind of people don't really care about ruling a large area, anyway, being more concerned with personal power and standard of living instead of controlling or domination of others. That's more of a lawful concept.

Being that a high level character can kill vast amounts of lower level characters, D&D makes this potentially much more plausable than what we might consider realistic. A 15th level evil barbarian ruler could potentially kill all the citizens of a small city in one encounter. Especially considering he's probably been slowly taking out those who would actually pose a threat to him. A sufficiently paranoid ruler will also be difficult to assassinate.

So, I think a CE character is perfectly capable of keeping control of a city long enough to do some vastly evil demonic ressurection or whatnot. Afterward, he'll probably level the city or give it to the demon to destroy. Fun times.

actually you know it would be quite possible for a CE King to have a lawful bureaucracy operating to keep the populace in control. It would be rife with politics and backstabbing but she as the hedonistic head of state who kills those who displease who and has whole villages razed on a whim would be quite possible.

Anyway I'm not sure what this conversation is about anymore. Is it the relative merits of alignment, alignment and behaviour or alignment and sanity

 

[Sejs]

Short answer: yes, they can be lawful. Insanity has nothing to do with alignment. It has more to do with one's perceptions being skewed to something far outside what would be considdered normal parameters. Very, very, very lawful is just as crazy as very, very, very chaotic.

What matters is degree, not direction.

 

[DireWhelp]

On the flip side, those with bi polar and multiple personality disorders and schizophrenics would fall into the chaotic camp.

I suffer form bi-bipolar and I certainly wouldn't describe myself as chaotic. I had emotional swings, not personality swings.

Generally speaking, people don't choose to be insane.

And mental illness also doesn't always take away the ability of a person to make choices of the sort that would effect alignment so IMO that idea is flawed.

Personally I don't think mental illness should ever be linked to alignment

I agree.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I agree.

I think a better argument might be, "I don't think Real World mental disorders should be linked to alignment."

In the real world, a mental disorder generally means that someone suffers from a medical condition caused by any of a number of physical causes: hormonal imbalances, physical damage to certain parts of the brain, etc.

In a fantasy world, that need not be the case.

Perhaps the fantasy version of OCD is someone who has, somehow, absorbed extra Law into their bodies (based on the theory that Primes are made up, at least in part, of all the alignment, elemental, and energy forces). Thus, while their soul might be Chaotic, their body actually requires them to perform certain Lawful rituals day in and day out. They don't like it, and they resist doing it, but in the end they need to, just like they need to eat.

Similarly, I don't think multiple personality disorder is really a mental disorder in fantasy worlds where it is actually possible for multiple personalities to actually exist inside one body (take, for instance, the Tribe of One series from Dark Sun). It's probably more a sign of possession, whether by friendly or unfriendly spirits, souls, beings, outsiders, etc.

EDIT:

The goal of all this being, any particular reference to a real world mental disorder is probably going to have one of two reactions: 1) it'll offend someone due to the fact that its too close to home, and / or 2) no one will know it well enough to due it justice (one of the more-often-cited reasons people don't like cross-gendered roleplaying).

Although this particular topic wouldn't trip alarm #1 for me, there are others that would, and so I'm not insensitive to that sort of issue.