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<blockquote data-quote="Burr" data-source="post: 4227736" data-attributes="member: 41103">Here is why Chaotic Good is a bad distinction, in retrospect.&nbsp; Suppose a Good person sees one law as mandating truly &quot;good&quot; behavior and another law as rewarding &quot;evil&quot; behavior (for those in charge, at least).&nbsp; Yeah, a non-lawful person would have no problem rejecting whatever laws they see fit to reject.&nbsp; But a truly Good person could never see fit to reject a law they believe to be good, even if they believe legal hierarchies are generally bad for society.&nbsp; Thus, all good people who are not Lawful Good are simply Good.&nbsp; You could, of course, reject Neutral Good instead and keep Chaotic Good.&nbsp; But LG-CG implies polarity that doesn't necessarily exist to any great degree.&nbsp; (One Good person might reject a single evil law out of a multitude of good laws, but this shouldn't seem to make them Chaotic).&nbsp; It is better to think of Lawful Good as a species of Good overall.Chaotic Evil makes sense, on the other hand.&nbsp; The evil side of the equation includes monsters and creatures that may well reject any and all laws, even evil ones.&nbsp; Good is good, but evil is anything it wants to be at any given time.Now let's look at Lawful Evil.&nbsp; Suppose a Lawful Evil creature discovered a utopian kingdom with laws that perfectly mandated good behavior.&nbsp; Would that creature cease to behave evilly in order to remain lawful?&nbsp; It seems unlikely.&nbsp; Hence, it is unlikely that there are any truly lawful evil creatures.&nbsp; Rather, there are only evil creatures who can tolerate lawfulness.&nbsp; That makes them simply Evil, not Lawful Evil.The utopia scenario could also be applied to Lawful Good characters.&nbsp; Put a LG Paladin in a distopia of perfectly evil laws.&nbsp; This forces the Paladin into a hard choice: be lawful or be good?&nbsp; However, that also seems like a conflict it makes sense to throw at players.&nbsp; It seems much harder to conclude what the Paladin's choice will be than to conclude that a lawful evil NPC would choose evil over lawfulness.&nbsp; Perhaps if D&amp;D weren't focused on good protagonists and evil antagonists we'd have to treat them the same, but in general it seems more useful to keep Lawful Good and toss Lawful Evil aside.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Burr, post: 4227736, member: 41103"] Here is why Chaotic Good is a bad distinction, in retrospect. Suppose a Good person sees one law as mandating truly "good" behavior and another law as rewarding "evil" behavior (for those in charge, at least). Yeah, a non-lawful person would have no problem rejecting whatever laws they see fit to reject. But a truly Good person could never see fit to reject a law they [i]believe to be good[/i], even if they believe legal hierarchies are generally bad for society. Thus, all good people who are not Lawful Good are simply Good. You could, of course, reject Neutral Good instead and keep Chaotic Good. But LG-CG implies polarity that doesn't necessarily exist to any great degree. (One Good person might reject a single evil law out of a multitude of good laws, but this shouldn't seem to make them Chaotic). It is better to think of Lawful Good as a species of Good overall. Chaotic Evil makes sense, on the other hand. The evil side of the equation includes monsters and creatures that may well reject any and all laws, even evil ones. Good is good, but evil is anything it wants to be at any given time. Now let's look at Lawful Evil. Suppose a Lawful Evil creature discovered a utopian kingdom with laws that [i]perfectly[/i] mandated good behavior. Would that creature cease to behave evilly in order to remain lawful? It seems unlikely. Hence, it is unlikely that there are any truly lawful evil creatures. Rather, there are only evil creatures who can [i]tolerate[/i] lawfulness. That makes them simply Evil, not Lawful Evil. The utopia scenario could also be applied to Lawful Good characters. Put a LG Paladin in a distopia of perfectly [i]evil[/i] laws. This forces the Paladin into a hard choice: be lawful or be good? However, that also seems like a conflict it makes sense to throw at players. It seems much harder to conclude what the Paladin's choice will be than to conclude that a lawful evil NPC would choose evil over lawfulness. Perhaps if D&D weren't focused on good protagonists and evil antagonists we'd have to treat them the same, but in general it seems more useful to keep Lawful Good and toss Lawful Evil aside. [/QUOTE]

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