D&D General Alignment: the problem is Chaos

[Aging Bard]

My view on law is this. And it should be called order but it doesn’t flow off the tongue easily. First, men don’t make laws, they make regulations. Law comes from nature. But that’s me. In general I tell players lawful means you have principles. Chaotic means you don’t care about the principles you care about the consequences. A neutral person will use principles and drop them when the the consequences don’t seem to be working.
But if that’s too complex for people i tell them lawful means you do what is best for the group and chaotics are individualists, which I don’t quite like

I definitely understand this view, but the notion of "natural law" simply does not exist in actual governments, certain not the squabbling feudal kingdoms of my setting. I do use this notion for how True Neutrals think about things, though.

 

[Malmuria]

So I can understand those who see no use for them. I think alignment can be very useful for worldbuilding and NPC design, but that requires useful, believable definitions. I wouldn't say even past editions have been great at this.

Can you explain a bit more about what is useful for world-building and npc design? As in it's one thing to have in mind a particular kind of character or kingdom/society and then think about whether it's lawful, neutral, or chaotic, but in those cases the worldbuilding part is already done and you are just applying labels. In the other threads people were saying alignment is useful as a short hand when you don't have time to think, but when you are siting down and thinking about a specific society in your world or a specific character and their motivations within the context of your setting, what added value does alignment provide?

Unless alignment is treated as metaphysical, in which case you get things like this (from the Rules Cyclopedia):
"A character may not learn a different alignment language unless he changes alignments. In such a case, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately."
I actually love that because it's so weird. If I was going to use alignment to build a kingdom everyone would only speak in alignment all the time. Lawful would have no regional dialects.

 

[tetrasodium]

I completely agree. It's bonkers that chaotic persists as alignment options for so long. lawful evil has safeguards to protect the campaign & other players from both lawful evil. chaotic evil has a safeguard for those things from evil... chaotic good though all bets are off so screw everyone else at the table

 

[Cadence]

Yes, I understood your source. I think what you are calling LAWFUL and CHAOTIC are pretty close to Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil, but not exactly. What's missing is the cosmic enmity between the two that your example is capturing. It's fine if you want to play that up in your setting, but I don't think it's essential (though it's a cool dynamic). Frankly, I don't think your quoted source entails my definition of Chaos at all, but that's fine. To be specific, I'd be happy to play in a campaign using your quoted source's alignment system and I'd know what to do and I'd have fun.

You can separate Law and Chaos from Good and Evil too. In particular, I don't think anything in my definition of LAW implied anything GOOD. An ultra-lawful version of many countries not that long-ago in the grand scheme of history would have still probably have some combination chattel slavery, spousal rape, and genocide against some group or the other...

Following the same notation as above, one could do something like...

GOOD - Helping others, and avoiding harming others if possible is the most important thing. ("extraplanar good beings")

Good - Tries to help others when possible but sometimes knows that sacrifices must be made and may have other goals and purposes ("good")

good - Generally dislikes harming others and has an active conscience ("good tendencies")

evil - Doesn't particularly mind harming others and does so without hesitation when it serves their purposes but may have a group they look out for ("evil tendencies")

Evil - Enjoys harming others and causing pain, looking out for oneself is worth hurting others. ("evil")

EVIL - Causing pain, sewing despair, bringing woe, and actively overturning the GOOD are the most important things. ("extraplanar evil beings")

 

[Aging Bard]

Causing trouble isn't always evil. From a good old fashioned hippy freak out to a protest movement about real societal ills, Chaos (capital C) is happy to stir the pot. Of course Chaos intersects with Good and Evil which gives different flavours of Chaos which leads to different types of pot stirring; something your hard core Chaotic (hello slaads) is happy to see.

Now out here in the real world I don't think alignment serves any purpose. (I don't think it serves much purpose in a game world either.) So please don't take what I'm saying as some sort of personal manifesto. I'm just mucking about with the concept.

Also: I'm on board with all of what Cadence said in their post #9 above.

Amen brother. Also, I'm glad you mentioned the slaadi. Now remember that I am a VERY old 1e player so my lore stops with the Fiend Folio (FF). And the FF version of the slaadi is basically Chaotic Evil, hardly different from demons. To me, the slaadi embody every version of personal code there can possibly be. You should NEVER know what a slaad is thinking until you engage them. Every one of them is sui generis.

 

[Cadence]

Very glad you posted this, thank you. As long as we don't view alignment as cartoonishly intense (Dudley Do-Right, anyone?), I think the average walking around person is Lawful Good. They obey most laws, and they grant their fellow agency (or certainly don't interfere with it). I happen to disagree with interpreting lack of intensity as Neutral, but that's a choice.

Which is fine if you don't want any match-up between the alignment of the characters and the extraplanar exemplars of the alignments, right? They (particularly the Demons and Devils) are supposed to be almost cartoonish versions, right?

So, what do you lose by describing your view as "lawful tendencies and good tendencies" or "lawful good as opposed to LAWFUL GOOD"?

 

[Krachek]

The actual alignment system is pretty simplistic and leave no space for cross behavior.
Lawful refers to Law, but can be extended to tradition, culture, social and familial role, sense of keeping your words. A character may be lawful in one aspect and chaotic in another.
And the Law or tradition refer usually to the native country, what relation the character have to other country or race Law, tradition, culture. If you follow the laws of men but shun the laws of dwarves, that make you what? Of course we can use neutral, but we will have to use it for most characters.

 

[Aging Bard]

I completely agree. It's bonkers that chaotic persists as alignment options for so long. lawful evil has safeguards to protect the campaign & other players from both lawful evil. chaotic evil has a safeguard for those things from evil... chaotic good though all bets are off so screw everyone else at the table

I guess I'm hoping my version of alignment makes it a viable and playable choice again. Probably too much to hope for.

 

[Cadence]

I guess I'm hoping my version of alignment makes it a viable and playable choice again. Probably too much to hope for.

The way you described it doesn't sound uplayable!!! It just sounds to me more like the book would describe neutral or chaotic-tendencies.

Good luck on your quest! (Are quests too orderly and long term of a thing for chaotic beings to have?)

 

[Aging Bard]

Can you explain a bit more about what is useful for world-building and npc design? As in it's one thing to have in mind a particular kind of character or kingdom/society and then think about whether it's lawful, neutral, or chaotic, but in those cases the worldbuilding part is already done and you are just applying labels. In the other threads people were saying alignment is useful as a short hand when you don't have time to think, but when you are siting down and thinking about a specific society in your world or a specific character and their motivations within the context of your setting, what added value does alignment provide?

Unless alignment is treated as metaphysical, in which case you get things like this (from the Rules Cyclopedia):
"A character may not learn a different alignment language unless he changes alignments. In such a case, the character forgets the old alignment language and starts using the new one immediately."
I actually love that because it's so weird. If I was going to use alignment to build a kingdom everyone would only speak in alignment all the time. Lawful would have no regional dialects.

Great question. As a DM, I can't be infinitely creative. If I can have some guides as to the fundamentals of an NPC or a settlement, I can improvise from there. Having solid definitions for alignment lets me focus on roleplaying those alignments and not have to get into what we mean. I'm a big fan of random tables to generate personality traits for the same reason: give me a list, and I can improvise from there.