I hate Chaotic Neutral

[Li Shenron]

But since I'm about to play a paladin dwarf in Thanee's game it is something I have a selfish interest in clarifying.

Selfish individual!

I think the dwarven traditional greed is probably a refuse of an old explanation why are they the best miners in the world? Because they crave for previous gems and ores... But would a specific dwarf jeopardize his comrades to fetch a shining gem? I say it depends whether if he's good or not. This lust for shining minerals and artistic crafts could be simply a genetic weakness of dwarves which they are sometimes battling against because of their disposition towards being LG. It's not exactly greed to me however. Maybe Duergars are the result of dwarves having surrendered to their greedy instincts.

 

[Li Shenron]

2. If personal gain is the only motivation, maybe dangle the idea that there's this really nifty cool magic item. That turns out to be a cheap trinket that the bad guy had hoodwinked folks into thinking was good.
3. Make it a personal challenge. "Defend the town!" "Why, what's in it for me?" "Nothing." "Ehh, then I guess I won't do it." "What you're scared?" Challenge his adventurerhood.
4. Get the other players involved to help with the motivation. Have them try to convince the CN guy to come along.
5. Dirty tricks old man. Common, let's go clear out this dungeon of monsters, it should only take a few hours. Then lead them into world's largest dungeon.
6. Personal ties. Kidnap his {mother/father/brother/sister/son/daughter/donkey}. If he lets the relative go, then the rest of the family gets ticked at him, and you could draw a little plot around that.
7. Peer presure. Common everyone else is doing it. Its fun. You know you want to. It'll make you feel good. (Think of all the antismoking campaigns. Reverse them.)
8. Negative reinforcement. So he doesn't want to do X because there is no reward. Have some NPCs do X. Have X involve the gratitude of the populace like free room and board, free meals etc, or nifty treasure. Either way hopefully he sees that sometimes doing something with no reward gets you a reward anyways.

Nice ideas!

And in the worst case, what about telling CN player this: "Ok, so you don't have any motivation for entering the dungeons? Fine, you wait outside." Then proceed to play with the others until the end of the evening.

No, I'm joking, that's a bad suggestion

 

[CronoDekar]

The interesting thing when I think about it, is that TN should have more motivation troubles than CN, supposing you don't go for the "balance" approach to TN. At least CN could theoretically be interested in toppling dictators, or taking down The Man. TN's interest? "... eh, more money would be nice, but I don't care that much about changing things." (Not that TN can have no motivation, just that I'd imagine they'd have this problem more than CN.) Of course though, I still have seen the problem mainly with players that have CN down on their sheets.

Anyway, I like the idea of requiring players to give you goals and motivations for the character, and it's reasonable to ask that they don't put "treasure" as one of these. Require that they at least give you some cursory background or personality that drives them on. Another thing I personally do is just put the characters in a group before the campaign even starts with some sort of goal. They may have different reasons they want to complete this goal, but they all have at least one.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

And in the worst case, what about telling CN player this: "Ok, so you don't have any motivation for entering the dungeons? Fine, you wait outside." Then proceed to play with the others until the end of the evening.

No, I'm joking, that's a bad suggestion

actually, I've come to feel that that it the best thing to do with obstructionist players. I'm done dragging characters into the adventure kicking and screaming.

 

[fusangite]

I think it's a trait of evil and that neutral (unless you have the true neutral balance fanatics) has no inherent traits, but rather inherits traits from both good and evil, which are somewhat weaker than they are for the more extreme alignments.

Most people who think alignment makes sense have the tendency you are expressing. You believe some aspect of the RAW are not true. All I did was paste the definition of CN as it is written in the PHB. You are essentially saying that the PHB is wrong about alignment. How can it be? It is the text that defines alignment.

I definitely see anything like that on the good-evil axis, not the lawful-chaotic axis.

Well, good for you for house-ruling alignment to make it coherent. Just don't stand up and defend alignment as it is defined if you don't even abide by these definitions yourself.

 

[Thanee]

Huh?

Bye
Thanee

 

[fusangite]

OK ok, I guess we should try to answer your original question and stop going off about whose alignment is better then whose.

I tried to do that for a while but Psion doesn't seem to think my suggestions rate a response. So I feel I can guiltlessly bash people over the head about their ideas regarding alignment.

 

[Psion]

The interesting thing when I think about it, is that TN should have more motivation troubles than CN, supposing you don't go for the "balance" approach to TN.

Theoretically, yes. Again, practically, it's more of a player problem and declaring your character to have as few attachments and possible and no sense of loyalty or obligations is part of that symptom.

At any rate, thanks for some real suggestions (especially schporto). I don't think of my existing players as being actively obstructionist, but I still don't like dangling a golden magical carrot in front of the players all the time. My one CN player was manageable, and I understood his playstyle. As a player, he has sort of a "facilitate the DM" attitude. But still, perhaps its never come up because I understood from low levels that poor oppressed villagers probably weren't going to appeal to his sympathies, so I never tried it.

It's the addition of 2 new players (yay! new players!) who picked CN at the drop of a hat that concerned me and worried me that a party I was going to have to arm-twist was in the making.

My strategy is sort of developing along these lines, after a little thought:

1. Perhaps choose my mechanical goodies to favor good PCs. (As much as I disdain BoED, it sounds like just the ticket.)
2. Work in more patrons and beneficiaries that can sense the taint of the non-good players and have them act as a beacon. I am running a planar game, and throwing in celestials as patrons is not out of the question.
3. More actively roleplay the CN fighter's CG dragon cohort as sort of a "conscience".
4. A "no kidding" speech to the players about defining deeper motivations to exclude cash.
5. Finally, I am thinking of setting up a bit of a revenge melodrama in the upcoming story arc. I might even start a thread about doing just that. (Or perhaps morphing Vindication! beyond recognition is the ticket.) Revenge is always a good motive that keeps the party determined to take down the REAL bad guy.
6. Alternately, or in addition, shift to a more oppressive campaign model where the characters get involved or get dead. Yeah, the emotional blackmail of villagers may not work, but you may find it was just a warning when the dream beast comes after you...

 

[Psionicist]

I asked this question on another message board:

Do you think duty is a positive or negative word?

That is, in my opinion, what alignments are all about - feelings about various concepts. Nothing more.

 

[Felon]

I did just that. I declared a moratorium on Chaotic Neutral nearly 20 years ago. Damn good thing too. It's an alignment refuge for those who don't want to roleplay and just want to do whatever they want without any consequences - ever. It's CE masquerading as something legitimate.

Ah yes, a moratorium on personalities. Brilliant. It ensures mandatory roleplyaing. Genius.

Why not nerf LN too? That's just a refuge for fascists masquerading as something legitimate. Nerf the hell out of TN. That's just the ultimate copout on roleplaying. I guess evil alignments are out altogether; if I can't just do whatever I please as CN, then what's the point of allowing me to be CE? So some paladin can whack me for being a free spirit?

Then everyone's got a "G" in their alignment, and when they fail to be good little cat's-paws, they have no alignment that would capture their alignment accurately. Sounds like fun.