does CN get a bad rap?

[|)ar|{]

lawful characters work together regarless of g vs e axis
good characters can be counted on not to do evil things
CN cannot be counted on to work together or to not do evil deeds

Even True N's are easier to play with. At least they tend to have set ideals.

Even if you play CN perfectly they are about the least reliable person you will likely have on your team. And most of the time they get played as a "do whatever I want" alignment by people who want to be justified in screwing with the party.

True I suppose you could play a liberator, super freedom fighter type who values freedom above all else and fights the "man". It might work as an ok group member just he still sounds like a lot of trouble.

 

[Maldor]

If people are messing up the party the party should take care of it in this game pc's react harshly againest even small infractions with a heavy hand so if you friend screws you over i suegest hurting them

but then agian my favorit is NE and my characters are usally very vengful

as for all the GM's who don't allow evil alignments well that sounds very dull to me just saving the town, people, world whatever this week for no real reason other then i'm a nice preson and qush darn it poeple like me just stricks me as weird and boring i like my characters to have motive

 

[frankthedm]

or is there something in the alignment that makes it particularly villainous? Explain!

CN characters seek change and unpredictablity. They can not be relied on except to be unreliable. You can expect a good character to take risks to help others, you can expect a lawful character to follow thier pattern and you can expect an evil character to put others at risk to help himself, but the whims of a CN are only tempered by thier wisdom.

When the party needs to be a well oiled machine, the CN is the monkeywrench.

When the party needs to follow the plan, the CN wants to try something new.

Well played LN is actually more difficult since that leads to inter-party duels or Seppuku.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

I like to play chaotic neutral rogues. Usually I play them as characters that like to act outside the law and are also against the heroic ideal of helping everyone in need. They usually are in it for personal profit, but have strong family and friendship relationships that they would be willing to risk their lives for.

That's where I come at it from, too. I've actually never seen this whole people-playing-CN-as-CE thing that everyone else is talking about.

Anyway, what's the old bromide? "Alignment is not a straitjacket"? I tend to believe that the C in CN can encompass lots of different attitudes, and a good player's going to pick one that will mesh well with the group and be interesting. Sometimes that'll be the guy who dislikes authority (with a wealth of possible reasons and levels of vehemence available to suit the campaign). For another character, maybe it'll be a philosophical position: the universe is not subject to immutable, predictable laws, and so he refuses to think in absolutes and distrusts those who do. Another character's Chaotic might be an expression of his reluctance to accept responsibility. All are distinct from the rightfully-maligned "coin-flip Chaotic," and could probably fit into most parties pretty easily.

Likewise, the N can cover everything from moral ignorance to moral ambivalence to staunchly utilitarian pragmatism to "I help my friends and family, and strangers can look out for themselves," and points in between.

And each character's going to put a different emphasis on the individual halves of the alignment anyway. Some are going to be more concerned with the law/chaos axis than they are with good/evil, or vice versa. Some characters might be more True Neutral With Slight Chaotic Tendencies, some might be more Chaotic Good With Moral Defects, or whatever.

At that point, all the alignment's really doing is telling the GM whether to apply extra damage from magic weapons (Holy/Unholy or Lawful/Chaotic) and whether an opponent's "Protection from [whatever]" spell applies or not. As long as the PC's actual personality as it's being played is a decent fit with the tone of the game and with the rest of the party, I have to say I honestly don't give a crap whether the player wants to take extra damage from a Lawful weapon or doesn't want to be affected by a Protection from Good spell, any more than I would care about whether their character uses a longsword or a battleaxe. It's a mechanical choice they can make for themselves, and I'll accept whatever alignment they write down on the sheet as long as it's not diametrically opposed to how they're actually playing the PC.

--
you can't kick puppies and spit on contracts and claim to be lawful good, after all
ryan

 

[Jolly Giant]

...there seem to be a lot of CN villains in published adventures...

I never use published adventures, so this kinda surprised me. Maybe the designers make the villains neutral to make battles last longer? Eliminating Smite Evil and other anti-evil spells and effects that could otherwise have brought the villain down a lot quicker...

 

[Herobizkit]

Chaotic Neutral is pretty much the "act the way you feel at that moment" alignment. Personally, I find it's the best alignment IN D&D as the best representation of Player Characters.

Generally speaking, your typically Good-aligned people try to eke out the best living possible and work together for a common goal: for protection, versus a common enemy, supporting a decent ruler, or any time it would create the most benefit... but in my adventures, left to their own devices, PC's will step over their own mothers if it means they somehow come out "on top".

Time and again, we hear about players in a campaign world being nothing better than bandits, or vigilantes, or homicidal maniacs with massive egos and a thirst for gold and magic. Sure, it's a GAME. But that's what people are like in "the savage frontier"; you do what you must to survive, and if you benefit from some other creature's death, no skin off your teeth.

So if PC's are supposed to be a "cut above" the rest of regular society, giving their ill-gotten gains to the church doesn't make them any less guilty of random slaughter and mayhem. But it DOES make them feel better.

This is why I feel that an alignment system doesn't work in D&D (except for the instances that one of the other posters mentionned re: in-game mechanical reasons), and this is why I dropped it entirely.

"But what about the paladins?" you cry. Pretty straight-forward, if you ask me. If you're supposed to be the epitome of law and good, act like it. You don't need an alignment on your sheet to act a certain way; that's what role-playing is for.

 

[Bayushi Seikuro]

I think that CN gets a bad rap due to the players, partly because of how ill-explained it's been before. And the fact that new gamers learn from old gamers, rather than from reading. "CN? Oh that means you do whatever you want all the time, because you're Crazzee..."

That, as well as what others said, a way to be evil in a no-evil game.

Last high level game I was in, the character was CN. He was generally a good guy who could be counted on by his friends and people that were close to him. He was CN in that... no decision ever took him more than about seven seconds to make, and his gratuituous use of magic power for everything had no limit. For him, most of the time, there was no reason to dial his spells down in power or effect. He pushed boundaries, he pushed other characters, but generally, at the end of the campaign he was viewed as a catalyst for growth, not some overpowered bully.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I blame a surplus of idiots giving the alignment a bad name.

I've seen real CN characters in action and know that it can work - and bring a great deal to the gaming table.

I, of course, also saw my fair share of idiots who played them like psychopaths - I even got scolded for not playing my CN character crazy enough. And one of the most-quoted lines in our games is "I'm CN - why can't I just kill people?" by a player notorious for playing power-hungry anti-characters.

 

[Quartz]

Belphanior from The Adventurers is pretty much an exemplar of CN. He has his aims and his motives and anyone who gets in the way should beware!

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

If people are messing up the party the party should take care of it in this game pc's react harshly againest even small infractions with a heavy hand so if you friend screws you over i suegest hurting them

but then agian my favorit is NE and my characters are usally very vengful

as for all the GM's who don't allow evil alignments well that sounds very dull to me just saving the town, people, world whatever this week for no real reason other then i'm a nice preson and qush darn it poeple like me just stricks me as weird and boring i like my characters to have motive

You can have motive without it being evil, you know. I'm one of those who don't "allow" evil alignments because I don't want to put up with atrocities made by the players. If anyone wants to play an evil charater, well, they can DM today, then. Regardless, my usual gaming group is Neutral more often than not. They may put Lawful Neutral, True Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, but they usually clam up and cooperate with authority if that authority is giving them a job. In that respect, they have lawful tendencies.

But they also like to strike on their own, build a base, and generally assert their "independence". In that respect, they're chaotic. The difference is how much they underscore each of those two impulses.

Chaotic Neutral is pretty much the "act the way you feel at that moment" alignment. Personally, I find it's the best alignment IN D&D as the best representation of Player Characters.

Generally speaking, your typically Good-aligned people try to eke out the best living possible and work together for a common goal: for protection, versus a common enemy, supporting a decent ruler, or any time it would create the most benefit... but in my adventures, left to their own devices, PC's will step over their own mothers if it means they somehow come out "on top".

Time and again, we hear about players in a campaign world being nothing better than bandits, or vigilantes, or homicidal maniacs with massive egos and a thirst for gold and magic. Sure, it's a GAME. But that's what people are like in "the savage frontier"; you do what you must to survive, and if you benefit from some other creature's death, no skin off your teeth.

So if PC's are supposed to be a "cut above" the rest of regular society, giving their ill-gotten gains to the church doesn't make them any less guilty of random slaughter and mayhem. But it DOES make them feel better.
(snip)

Man, I wouldn't want to play with your PCs, then. But I guess it just goes to show the diversity of all people who play D&D. My characters particularly are usually under employ (caravan guards, scouts, troubleshooters) or working particularly far away from any centers of civilisation. And if they should come across non-hostile humanoids, they're more likely to trade and talk shop than hold them up. Of course, the chance that they meet with bandits out on the wilderness is pretty high, though.