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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Phat Lute" data-source="post: 4874847" data-attributes="member: 84524">Indeed.  I was a lifelong player of chaotic characters, and being something of a 'method actor' I draw from my own experiences. If real people fit into alignment categories, I'd consider myself having something of a chaotic bent.But my characters (and myself) aren't really impulsive.  They'll do unconventional things and will question why everyone is going one way rather than the other, but they almost always have a plan. My favorite Lewis Carrol quote: "No good fish does anything without a porpoise."For instance, if there's a procedure for getting a task resolved and an issue comes up that I feel needs taken care of right away, I'm just as likely to get up, go over to the person who knows the answer or has the power to resolve it, and talk to them as I am to fill out a bunch of requests or forms and wait for them to get back to me.  I don't do it on a whim.  I do it to get things done.  Not everyone likes it, and I've been accused of 'getting all up in someone's face' because I walked over to get something done instead of waiting for a half dozen e-mails, but if it gets the job done and no one is hurt, I don't see the point in following a wasteful procedure.If everyone starts doing something one way, I'll do it my own way if it makes more sense to me or I can do it more efficiently. If I walk into a room and everyone is doing the same thing, I'll ask them why.  I won't disobey the rules if it will hurt someone else, and I'll think about the rules objectively to see if I can find a good reason to follow them, but if there's a way to that I can do it faster or better doing it my own way, I will.I think a more lawful person would be inclined to follow the rules, and ask questions (maybe) if something comes up.  A chaotic person would be thinking about whether or not to follow the rule the second someone told it to them.By the same token, nothing annoys me more than those people who wait until the last minute to merge into traffic.  They just waste everyone's time selfishly.  Rushing up to the end of the lane that's ending is going to make you stop, and everyone else stop.  That's not chaotic, it's selfishly retarded. It's not a 'do whatever I want thing' so much as a 'do what seems most sensible in the current situation regardless of what everyone else is doing' thing.If I can come up with an effective plan and do something that the other guy wasn't expecting, I'm in happy-fun land.  But I do plan.  A lot.  There's a lot of room within the individual alignments in the alignment structure.  Think of it this way: Dumbledore is probably chaotic good. (Pragmatically chaotic.) But so is Luna Lovegood. (Impulsively chaotic.) Captain Kirk is chaotic good.  He plans.  He just doesn't follow the rules if they don't make sense to him or it isn't working.  If Spock can explain the point of the rule, he might follow it, though.  Regardless, there's always a point to what he's doing.  If he was completely impulsive or never followed rules, he wouldn't last long in Starfleet (or in life in general.). Even chaotic people need to choose when to follow their own instincts and sensibilities rather than someone else's.  I tend to think of the "pragmatically chaotic" people a lot like the way Three-Dog in Fallout 3 describes the protagonist: "There's something in your eyes that says, 'I'm the guy that knows how to get **** done.'" People may not like you, but they don't have to.  You'll probably suffer some along the way because of it.  But there's no point following a crooked path that everyone else is on when a straight line will do.That's my take on it, at least.</blockquote>

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