I hate Chaotic Neutral

[Lonely Tylenol]

However this idea sometimes has bad consequences! I have heard a few players stating that a Neutral (on the good-evil axis) is someone who doesn't care if the goodies or the meanies win the war at the end. Someone like that, who doesn't care whether good or evil triumphs, is EVIL in my vision.

Of course you want good to win. Good makes a better neighbour, and a hell of a better ruler. But alignment isn't about "who wins the big war at the end". It's about personal outlook. The CN guy isn't likely to be interested if anyone's having a war, other than to either stay clear or see if any interesting happenings are occurring as a result. He doesn't care about other people's fights. He just wants to be left alone to do his own thing, and he's not interested whether the guys that are trying to decide his life for him are good or evil.

Not wanting to get involved isn't evil. But the CN guy isn't going to say "oh, an age of eternal darkness? Not my problem." He's just going to be steamed that he's being forced to defend his freedom from yet another stupid oppressive force, just like when that paladin tried to "reform" him. Why don't they all go soak their heads?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

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.

Dwarves strike me as the "teach a man to fish" type, rather than the "give a man a fish" type. They'd rather hold on to what they have, because they earned it, damn it! If some freeloading bum needs some coin, he should get a job like everyone else. Hell, I'll loan him money for a sword (with interest, of course) and he can be an adventurer. There's good coin in that, and upward mobility!

Kind of like old-school conservatives.

 

[Sejs]

The way I handle it in my games is to tell my players to not worry about alignment. That they should instead focus on playing their character in a manner that they feel is true to that character as a person, given the individual's history, experiences, outlook and so on. Don't even bother writing anything in the alignment space on your sheet, because in the end it does matter and will only serve to distract you from making your character a real human (etc,) being. Besides, it's not like you've got a mood-ring style badge that tells you what you're doing. Oops, it's turning blue, I must be acting Chaotic Good. Nah, none of that.

I tell my players to leave figuring out what alignment they are to me, the DM. I've found the results of such to be two-fold. First, it removes the ability to hide behind an alignment as a shield. Oh, I can do this because I'm such-and-such alignment so you can't get upset at me. Nuh uh. Personal responsibility. Second, it's led to a general deepening of the roleplaying ability of my players because they no longer have an artificial compass to fall back on, forcing them to think about their character's perceptions and judgements on an internal level rather than just saying well he's Neutral Good, so he'll do X. As a result, I've had to change how I approach certain aspects of magic - a change I gladly made, mind you, but that's another post for another time.

 

[BadMojo]

Very interesting topic, guys. Lots of thought provoking stuff.

I'm about to play a CN neutral character, after a long stint as a LG monk.

I find it useful to look at some literary (or other media) characters that fit, or nearly fit, the D&D concept of CN.

As I've been reading Dark Horse's Conan comics lately, that was the first thing that came to mind. I've yet to read the original REH material, but from what I've read the Dark Horse version of Conan is very close to the original character.

Young Conan seems to be the archetypical CN character. He has nothing but disdain for "civilization" and its laws, is a thief, but on the other hand will rescue a maiden in distress (motives possibly questionable) and most definitely will stick by friends and companions.

The utter lack of respect for authority and laws of man definitely seems to fit the "Chaotic" concept, while his career as a thief seems to rule out a "Good" alignment. Then again, Conan wasn't a murderer and would often fight against opressors.

Some type of gray area between CN & CG would be really nice, but since this isn't a discussion about revamping the alignment system...

For the record, my last character was a CN, slightly unreliable, thrill-seeker who did back up his companions, out of friendship, when things got tough. He wasn't above cutting the occasional purse or leaving a friend stuck with the bar tab, but wouldn't kill indiscriminately or betray a friend. Main character motivations were helping out his friends and doing exciting, swashbuckler-y things.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The way I handle it in my games is to tell my players to not worry about alignment. That they should instead focus on playing their character in a manner that they feel is true to that character as a person, given the individual's history, experiences, outlook and so on.

That's interesting.

See, I was playing a character - whom I'd marked as CG - that had a background as a sailor in the Brelish Navy (Eberron Campaign). I'd always laughingly described him as a pirate, though that was never actually strictly true.

I considered having him move in the direction of becoming the captain of his own ship. I thought it would be interesting and fun, from a player's perspective.

And then I thought about it some more.

My character was Chaotic Good. He respected people, not institutions. He'd follow a good Captain (and had) because that Captain was a competent leader, not because he had some blessing from above and a shiny bit of lace on his coat.

My character also had a decent Wisdom score and an average Charisma score. I realized that he was self-aware enough for him to realize that he'd never be the kind of Captain he'd be comfortable following; he had no particular gift for inspiring others and so would need to fall back on the authority granted by his position in order to accomplish anything.

Through my character's alignment, I decided that a choice that might have been fun for me would, in fact, be hypocritical for him. A bit of revisionist history in his background to take into account my new insights, and this new aspect of his character became an important part of how I played him.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

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.

Meh. It's a game. People are there to have fun. If someone continually plays CN so they can pretty much justify any kind of behavior on the part of their PC - and like Psion and others, I've seen this happen enough over 25+ years to have have had my fill of such nonsense - to the detriment of others' enjoyment, then yeah, banning play of that alignment seems reasonable. Either that, or eject the offending player. Ya don't wanna play nice and have a good time with everyone else? Fine. Then find somewhere else to hone yer Craft, O Master Thespian.

 

[William Ronald]

Very interesting topic, guys. Lots of thought provoking stuff.

I'm about to play a CN neutral character, after a long stint as a LG monk.

I find it useful to look at some literary (or other media) characters that fit, or nearly fit, the D&D concept of CN.

As I've been reading Dark Horse's Conan comics lately, that was the first thing that came to mind. I've yet to read the original REH material, but from what I've read the Dark Horse version of Conan is very close to the original character.

Young Conan seems to be the archetypical CN character. He has nothing but disdain for "civilization" and its laws, is a thief, but on the other hand will rescue a maiden in distress (motives possibly questionable) and most definitely will stick by friends and companions.

The utter lack of respect for authority and laws of man definitely seems to fit the "Chaotic" concept, while his career as a thief seems to rule out a "Good" alignment. Then again, Conan wasn't a murderer and would often fight against opressors.

Some type of gray area between CN & CG would be really nice, but since this isn't a discussion about revamping the alignment system...

For the record, my last character was a CN, slightly unreliable, thrill-seeker who did back up his companions, out of friendship, when things got tough. He wasn't above cutting the occasional purse or leaving a friend stuck with the bar tab, but wouldn't kill indiscriminately or betray a friend. Main character motivations were helping out his friends and doing exciting, swashbuckler-y things.

I think a young Conan can be a model for a CN (arguably CG leaning) character. Another, more conflicted example would be Thomas Covenant in the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. He tended to do what he wanted, did not often take responsibility for his actions (believing that he was in a delusion), but could be capable of acts of great cruelty or kindness. Ultimately, by the end of the series, he learned to take responsibility for his actions -- whether or not those actions were in a dream or another reality. (One could argue that Covenant moves from a CN alignment to a CG alignment by the time of the Second Chronicles.)

BadMojo, I think your character is an example of a CN hero who is capable of working with fellow adventurers. Ultimately, I think the problems explored in this thread are not so much about alignment as uncooperative players.

 

[BadMojo]

I think a young Conan can be a model for a CN (arguably CG leaning) character. Another, more conflicted example would be Thomas Covenant in the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. He tended to do what he wanted, did not often take responsibility for his actions (believing that he was in a delusion), but could be capable of acts of great cruelty or kindness. Ultimately, by the end of the series, he learned to take responsibility for his actions -- whether or not those actions were in a dream or another reality.

Personally, I think Thomas Covenant would be a good example of old school "crazy" CN that most DM's hate.

Conan seems to me to be more along the lines of 3.X interpretation of CN.

I tend to amuse myself by assigning alignments to characters from Steven Brust's Dragaera books. Some of those are tough, really tough. How's that for geeky?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Ultimately, I think the problems explored in this thread are not so much about alignment as uncooperative players.

Yes, exactly. If I'd ever seen anyone who had played CN in a way that wasn't what was being complained about by Psion and others, then I would cast a much less jaundiced eye on that alignment as an option for PCs. When playing an alignment in such a way that it disrupts the enjoyment of the game for others, it's not "good roleplaying" anymore; it's attention-whoring.

 

[Alzrius]

I also despise the CN alignment. It's basically carte blanche for PCs to be able to do whatever they want to do, with no other justification necessary.

I find that a lot of players nowadays play Neutral alignments, either to avoid spells and effects that hammer Good-aligned characters, or because they see being so Good as a way to be railroaded, but CN is the worst, since it gives them an excuse to slip any sort of structure for their characters.