Help me understand LAW and CHAOS

[Alcamtar]

GOOD and EVIL are easy. They are clearly defined, having a single objective definition in the PHB, they are intuitively understood, they have corresponding energy plantes (positive/negative), and they function as real cosmic forces... you can have good- or evil-aspected items and places with meaningful magical effects of weal and corruption.

LAW and CHAOS are nebulous, and I just can't pin them down. Their PHB definition is fuzzy and can't make up its mind -- is it discipline vs. freedom (just a personality quirk), or government vs. anarchy, or civilization vs. monsterdom (Poul Anderson), or order vs. disorder (Moorcock), or... what?

If Good and Evil spells tap their energy planes, how do law/chaos spells work? What energy planes correspond with law and chaos?

Why can't priests of law Turn chaotic creatures, and why can't chaos priests Rebuke chaotic creatures?

If you can create areas of good or evil with Hallow and Unhallow, what are the law/chaos versions?

Also, every definition I can come up with for law/chaos except the Moorcockian order/disorder seems to also have a moral component such that law is "better" and more good. What do you think?

Essentially in order to make sense of the spells I need to define law/chaos as an energy, not just a personality preference. Law needs to mean more than just government or being disciplined, it needs to be a metaphysical law and energy that *produces* these. So if you flood a kingdom with Law, the government gets stronger, if you flood it with Chaos energy, it dissolves and becomes anarchy.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Alchemist]

I think the Moorcockian variety is probably the best, and that is how OD&D handled alignment. There was no good or evil, only law and chaos.

The deficiencies you mention betray the good/evil alignment focus of the game and the lack of focus on the other axis. Like you mentioned, Moorcockian law/chaos holds the least ethical bias and will probably work the best for you. As far as applying it, you're largely on your own (although I'm sure there's plenty of help to be found around here)

I personally prefer tales of order vs chaos over good vs evil, so I wish you luck and would be happy to contribute to these developments.

 

[FireLance]

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this recently:

The Nature of "Lawful"

The Nature of "Lawful" 2

For what it's worth, here's one of my posts from the second thread:

To me, the essence of chaos as an alignment (as opposed to the more general meaning of chaos) is whether a person believes there should be rules or not. Lawful people believe that behavior should be governed by rules, although they could disagree on what the rules should be (lawful good and lawful evil people probably would). Chaotic people prefer to follow their personal beliefs and opinions rather than the rules. A lawful person and a chaotic person could decide to do the same thing - the lawful one because the rules say so, and the chaotic one because he feels like it.