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Message: <blockquote data-quote="leporidae" data-source="post: 1935354" data-attributes="member: 19624">A Chaotic Nation or a Nation of ChaoticsTo talk about a nation/society having an alignment is mostly meaningless and more than a little confusing. Unless it is solely inhabited by beings with a hive mind, any nation/society is composed of many individuals who will (generally) have different beliefs and motivations (based on my existentialist interpretation of D&D alignment - no disrespect to those who take an essentialist approach to alignment in their campaigns).I can think of three, sometimes conflicting, sometimes overlapping, ways to interpret the idea of an nation with an alignment:1. A large majority of the population shares that alignment.2. The most powerful and influential group in the society shares that alignment and enforces it on the rest of the population.3. The general state of 'law and order' in the society. (Though I believe this conflates the idea of a chaotic situation with Chaotic alignment. For example, imagine a society entirely composed of lawful individuals engaged in civil war - the nation might be chaotic, but not Chaotic, in my opinion.)The way I interpret the difference between Lawful and Chaotic alignments in my campaign (which I hope isn't too far from the orthodox interpretation) is the degree to which behavior is influenced by loyalty to abstract principles. (Silveras' post earlier in the thread has some concrete examples of what I'm trying to say here). Chaotic individuals can be loyal/kind/generous/self sacrificing to friends, family, tribe, or just people they meet. They may even be lawabiding, either in the case that the laws of the land happen to agree with their inclinations, or if law enforcement is strict enough (and they are sensible/afraid enough) to prevent them from doing as they wish.  But Loyalty, Obedience, and Faithfulness as abstractions would seem either ridiculous or meaningless.In my campaign (similiar to what NewJeffCTHome mentions) the chaotic nation was a continent-wide but ramshackle common law Republic created by a union of meritocratic Orcish tribes (plus demi-human allies) with an association of small Human democracies (along with allied self-ruling Dwarven and Halfling colonies). Most individuals in the Republic are loyal to their own family/neighborhood/village/tribe, each province has its own assembly and laws, with numerous exceptions for groups who are self-ruling, or obey the laws of a neighboring province out of tradition. The whole collection is held together by three things:1. Loyalty to Gruumsh, (who makes personal appearances and isn't just an abstract figure to his worshippers - in addition he decided to become Chaotic Good, and accept worshippers of all species, not just Orcs) holds together the military. 2. Ancient and revered tradition holds together the provincial and national assemblies (though these probably attract a much higher proportion of lawful persons than the general population.)3. Money holds together the merchant class, who are prospering under the general peace, and even though they may individually tend to be neutral or chaotic, see little benefit in trying to break up the Republic.</blockquote>

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