Help me determine the alignment for my orcs!
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Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
The more I look at it, the more I think that you need to provide some details about how leadership gets handed around. The notion of "knowing one's place in the clan" and individual power struggles of the "most powerful warrior = leader" can be fit together, but the seams are neater if there's some kind of procedure for challenging the leader, or if it's ceremonial, or can only be done under certain circumstances, or if there's a good reason that not all members of the tribe would be jockeying for position at all times.
J. A. Garlock
Explorer
Hey what can I say ? HEH heh 
Tar Markvar
First Post
I started reading your post and thought, "Chaotic Neutral, for sure." Then, by the end, I was thinking, "Lawful Neutral."
Where I run into problems is when you said that they have a policy that the strongest warrior gets to take what he wants. This would seem to go against LN, which would have a rigid structure for deciding who gets what, who can challenge whom, etc. Having a "To the victor go the spoils" attitude seems rather chaotic to me. To me, a Lawful society can't survive as such if a stronger unstart could come along and topple the lawful government just by being stronger than the ruler. In a Lawful society, even Lawful Neutral, there would be laws and organizations built to adjudicate and avoid such confrontations. I imagine your orcs as living by a code of honor and tradition passed down for generations, but they would seem to follow it mostly because it's a good idea, not from any innate sense of lawfulness.
Therefore, I would say your orc society is, at its base, True Neutral. Rulers might be Lawful or Chaotic, but the society itself tends both ways enough to balance out one or the other.
Where I run into problems is when you said that they have a policy that the strongest warrior gets to take what he wants. This would seem to go against LN, which would have a rigid structure for deciding who gets what, who can challenge whom, etc. Having a "To the victor go the spoils" attitude seems rather chaotic to me. To me, a Lawful society can't survive as such if a stronger unstart could come along and topple the lawful government just by being stronger than the ruler. In a Lawful society, even Lawful Neutral, there would be laws and organizations built to adjudicate and avoid such confrontations. I imagine your orcs as living by a code of honor and tradition passed down for generations, but they would seem to follow it mostly because it's a good idea, not from any innate sense of lawfulness.
Therefore, I would say your orc society is, at its base, True Neutral. Rulers might be Lawful or Chaotic, but the society itself tends both ways enough to balance out one or the other.
I like using "expanded orcs" as well. As for alighnment, they would be much like humans, all over the place (albeit very few would be good). The lawful vs. chaotic thing would boil down to how well they followed the "rules" you set down. The society itself strikes me as true neutral, with chaotic and evil tendencies, but alighnment seem to mean less the larger the group you try to discribe.
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Which thread on the nature of Lawful & Chaotic should I refer you to?
It seems that most of us here are of the group-focused = Lawful, individual-focused = Chaotic camp.
Apply that to shadow's statement that "Honor in the orc sense of the word means knowing your place in the clan, and being loyal to the clan" gives you a definitely Lawful taste in your mouth. Factor in all the cultural rules he alludes to, and there you go.
Besides, I don't think there'a anything automatically Chaotic about small nomadic groups. Quite the reverse, usually. Group reliance on any given individual is high, so rule-breakers and cheaters are not tolerated (i.e. exiled or executed) because even one non-productive member is a drain on the group. Cities tend to generate lots more rule-breakers. Warrior cultures don't have that. And warrior cultures usually have more elaborate and specific ettiquette, which people tend to think of as Lawful because of its rules structure. Social stratification is also stricter than in cities.
It seems that most of us here are of the group-focused = Lawful, individual-focused = Chaotic camp.
Apply that to shadow's statement that "Honor in the orc sense of the word means knowing your place in the clan, and being loyal to the clan" gives you a definitely Lawful taste in your mouth. Factor in all the cultural rules he alludes to, and there you go.
Besides, I don't think there'a anything automatically Chaotic about small nomadic groups. Quite the reverse, usually. Group reliance on any given individual is high, so rule-breakers and cheaters are not tolerated (i.e. exiled or executed) because even one non-productive member is a drain on the group. Cities tend to generate lots more rule-breakers. Warrior cultures don't have that. And warrior cultures usually have more elaborate and specific ettiquette, which people tend to think of as Lawful because of its rules structure. Social stratification is also stricter than in cities.
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