D&D General Alignment: the problem is Chaos

[Sithlord]

Really. For play. Pick a definite and give it to your players and go with it

is it group versus individual
Or
Principle versus consequence

pick one go with it with respect to law versus chaos

or if u have another idea for you game. Write it up and give it to your players.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

So... we've created an alignment test by reaction to multiple threads?

The Paradox of Law strikes again.

By the way, I'm absolutely certain the printing press was a work of Chaos that served as a trial run for the roiling sea of ideas, uncertainty, and conflict inherent in social media. The old way of the Catholic Church having a monopoly on information resources and the means to read, interpret, and spread ideas was highly Lawful by comparison. You could say literacy itself is a tool of Chaos that Law coopted only to end up using against itself.

 

[Cadence]

View attachment 137774
The Paradox of Law strikes again.

It feels like the non-Good part of Law might be able to fix that some with a little elimination of the competition...

 

[Maxperson]

But an intuitive definition for Law usually is "obeys the law" or "respects the law". These seem intuitive, but their opposites do not unless we want insane Chaotic characters, which some past editions encouraged. "Disrespects the law" is almost OK for Chaos, but what does that mean in practice? I still think you end up with "LOL I'll do want I want" as a justifiable interpretation.

Obeying the law is only part of what lawful can be. I just posted this in another alignment thread and it comes from the 3e alignment section.

"Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it. “Law” implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closemindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should."

"A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Ember, a monk who follows her discipline without being swayed either by the demands of those in need or by the temptations of evil, is lawful neutral."

I think the reason is that, in real life, there aren't any "real" Chaotic societies (I'll explain below). But since the 1st Edition of the Monster Manual, elves have been canonically Chaotic Good. That's a rather important group of demi-humans to not fully understand their default alignment!

I'm going to disagree with that statement. Laws are necessary for any large society to function. The presence of necessary laws doesn't transform the society to lawful. You have to look at the fundamental beliefs of the society in question, because those beliefs will run throughout the laws of that society.

Take America. We have many laws, but fundamental to those laws, and in fact in our greatest set of laws(the Constitution) is the idea that freedom and individuality are to be protected. Freedom of expression. Freedom of religion. Freedom of the press. Freedom from persecution over individuality(age, gender, etc.). The right to choose. The right of individuals to vote. And more. America would be in my opinion a CG society.

So to get a useable definition of Chaos, we also need to refine Law as a subtle reworking of the "respect" concept. I propose the following:

A Lawful person accepts the legitimacy of law that is external to themselves; a Chaotic person does not.

I'm not sure I agree with this, either. You can accept the legitimacy of law, while chafing under the restrictiveness of those laws. Traffic laws are like that. Many ignore them, but we still for the most part obey the majority or don't break them by much, not because we are lawful, but because the cops will ticket us if we don't. We also understand, even if we don't like them, the legitimacy of those laws.

A lawful person follows the laws, because he believes in the order and stability that they represent. Society would fall apart without them, so they are necessary and good.

A chaotic person follows the laws primarily because he has to, or in some cases because they match his beliefs(freedom of expression).

This definition is close to respect, but slightly different. It says that one can recognize the legitimacy of a body coming together to determine their laws, whether or not you agree with the outcome. For example, I'm sure we can all think of countries whose laws we do not admire. But do you then think those countries and their laws are illegitimate? I imagine there could be a few of these, but in general, we let sovereign countries be sovereign and run their internal affairs. In other words, we follow the Rule of Law as it's known in political science. So a Lawful person follows their own country's laws, even if some of them seem unjust. That same Lawful person would express disapproval of another country's laws by not traveling there or by biting their tongue.

A lawful person can express disapproval of bad laws in his own country. He doesn't have to follow the laws blindly. If he feels a law is a bad one, he might go through the proper procedures to try and get it overturned.

So what does it mean for a Chaotic person to not view "external" laws as legitimate? Simple--only their own internal laws are legitimate, their "code". A Chaotic Good person understands that others have their own codes and they are legitimate for them. A Chaotic Neutral person values their code above all, and is not concerned whether or not it infringes on the agency of others. Note that this definition allows the Chaotic Neutral to not be a lunatic! They could even fit into a Lawful society, never respecting it but discretely carrying out their code whenever possible. Finally, I think this definition gets us very close to the tradition definition of Chaotic Evil: a person who respects neither agency nor the legitimacy of any law. In all these cases, I don't think any of these Chaos alignments correspond to any real human society. Our definition of "society" presupposes a minimum level of Law.

Have an internal code of conduct is generally a lawful behavior. Lawful, as I showed above, doesn't have to mean that you follow the laws of the land. It can be a code as well.

 

[Yaarel]

A "personal code", individualist and Chaotic, is the opposite of an "organizational code", collectivist and Lawful.



The concept of a "personal code" as an example of Lawful, seems to derive from earlier traditions where it means "predictable", nonrandom, disciplined and nonimpulsive. However, random versus predictable, is never helpful (becoming "chaotic stupid" versus "lawful stupid"), and is not really a thing anymore in 5e alignment.

 

[Maxperson]

Havent read entire thread yet, but this is interesting, we could have;

LG, G, CG,
L, N, C
LE, E, CE

That chart is no different than the standard nine alignments. It just removes the N from the neutral portion that would still be there. NG is Good that is neutral with respect to lawful or chaotic, or G.

 

[Maxperson]

I never read Anderson, so I cant compare.

But Moorcock Chaos is definitely Chaotic Evil, and I always find it difficult to use as an example for D&D.

Moorcock is something like CE versus L, or maybe even CE versus LE.

That's not entirely accurate. It's not that chaos is evil and law is good. His stories are about the extremes of law and chaos both being evil, with balance being good. You need a mix of law and chaos for life to thrive and do well. Too much chaos and it gets too destructive. Too much law and you get stagnant and progress doesn't happen. So chaos is good in moderation as is law, because then you get balance or close to it.

So chaos and law are both good and evil. Which it is depends on how much of it you have.

 

[Yaarel]

That chart is no different than the standard nine alignments. It just removes the N from the neutral portion that would still be there. NG is Good that is neutral with respect to lawful or chaotic, or G.

Yeah, but I like it that way.

For me it also emphasizes that "Neutral Good" is pure Good (G), and the LG and CG are less ethical violations of it, where the highest Good is occasionally sacrificed for the sake of order or independence.

 

[Yaarel]

That's not entirely accurate. It's not that chaos is evil and law is good. His stories are about the extremes of law and chaos both being evil, with balance being good. You need a mix of law and chaos for life to thrive and do well. Too much chaos and it gets too destructive. Too much law and you get stagnant and progress doesn't happen. So chaos is good in moderation as is law, because then you get balance or close to it.

So chaos and law are both good and evil. Which it is depends on how much of it you have.

My point was, the Moorcock Chaos is about randomness to a degree that is Evil. Therefore, it has little or nothing to do with D&D Chaotic Neutral.

 

[Maxperson]

A "personal code", individualist and Chaotic, is the opposite of an "organizational code", collectivist and Lawful.



The concept of a "personal code" as an example of Lawful, seems to derive from earlier traditions where it means "predictable", nonrandom, disciplined and nonimpulsive. However, random versus predictable, is never helpful (becoming "chaotic stupid" versus "lawful stupid"), and is not really a thing anymore in 5e alignment.

It depends on the code or the person and I'm going to invoke godw....I mean batmans's law. Batman is highly ordered in both his personal code and his thoughts and actions. He is very lawful, despite going by his individual code, often breaking the law in the process.