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<blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 1908292" data-attributes="member: 14140">With any given individual, any broad stroke &quot;personality&quot; adjective doesn't have to be any sort of straightjacket. certainly their can be anal-retentive, orderly, precision teamworks anarchists, they just don't fit the stereotype.Additionally, someone can be &quot;chaotic&quot; without following every tenet of &quot;chaotic&quot;. One can be &quot;chaotic&quot; and be very &quot;individual over the group&quot; while at the same time being very &quot;honorable&quot; and keeping your word at all costs etc.That said, handling the &quot;must&quot; part of our question, the &quot;ought&quot; side is another matter.Stereotypes are what they are because of patterns or preconceptions.In my games, it is OFTEN true that evil parties do not work as well together as good parties do, and my addversaries are setup and played that way. Why? because the evil guys do not have any sort of presumption of &quot;trust&quot; so to speak. The list of &quot;things i might do to get ahead&quot; includes a lot of unsavory options and the belief that &quot;my partners think that way too&quot; leads to them being less willing to embrace &quot;you got my back&quot; options. At least some of their attention and effort is focused on the allies.Chaotic vs lawful works pretty much the same, with (depending on which elements of &quot;chaotic&quot; the characters) chaotic usually being less organized and usually being more likely to run the &quot;five individuals running together&quot; mode as opposed to &quot;a five man team&quot; mode because of that individual vs group good thing.So, i tend to use the nature and organization in combat and planning to help differentiate diverse &quot;alignments&quot; in actual play. if my &quot;chaotic and evil&nbsp; groups&quot; were equally organized and well scripted as my &quot;lawful and good&quot; groups, i would risk having them be rather bland and repetitive. Its just one more way to differentiate.As another nod to this, often my chaotic and evil groups use the puyramid power structure: one big leader with several weaker flunkies and several weaker for each. This shows a genuine fear of revolt, so the leader at any stage keeps those underlings weak enough he is at no risk.Contrast to the good/lawful side where teams of equals is perfectly fine, since they expect loyalty as a matter of course.Again, different traits for personality/ethics/beliefs produce distinguishable and differentiated solutions/approachs to problems, not just the same &quot;most efficient&quot; way of doing it for everyone.All this, but stating FTR that I underplay alignment and always tell my players this about alignment... &quot;Player your character, not your alignment. Alignment will be DERIVED&nbsp; from character choices. Alignment should never DRIVE character choices.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="swrushing, post: 1908292, member: 14140"] With any given individual, any broad stroke "personality" adjective doesn't have to be any sort of straightjacket. certainly their can be anal-retentive, orderly, precision teamworks anarchists, they just don't fit the stereotype. Additionally, someone can be "chaotic" without following every tenet of "chaotic". One can be "chaotic" and be very "individual over the group" while at the same time being very "honorable" and keeping your word at all costs etc. That said, handling the "must" part of our question, the "ought" side is another matter. Stereotypes are what they are because of patterns or preconceptions. In my games, it is OFTEN true that evil parties do not work as well together as good parties do, and my addversaries are setup and played that way. Why? because the evil guys do not have any sort of presumption of "trust" so to speak. The list of "things i might do to get ahead" includes a lot of unsavory options and the belief that "my partners think that way too" leads to them being less willing to embrace "you got my back" options. At least some of their attention and effort is focused on the allies. Chaotic vs lawful works pretty much the same, with (depending on which elements of "chaotic" the characters) chaotic usually being less organized and usually being more likely to run the "five individuals running together" mode as opposed to "a five man team" mode because of that individual vs group good thing. So, i tend to use the nature and organization in combat and planning to help differentiate diverse "alignments" in actual play. if my "chaotic and evil groups" were equally organized and well scripted as my "lawful and good" groups, i would risk having them be rather bland and repetitive. Its just one more way to differentiate. As another nod to this, often my chaotic and evil groups use the puyramid power structure: one big leader with several weaker flunkies and several weaker for each. This shows a genuine fear of revolt, so the leader at any stage keeps those underlings weak enough he is at no risk. Contrast to the good/lawful side where teams of equals is perfectly fine, since they expect loyalty as a matter of course. Again, different traits for personality/ethics/beliefs produce distinguishable and differentiated solutions/approachs to problems, not just the same "most efficient" way of doing it for everyone. All this, but stating FTR that I underplay alignment and always tell my players this about alignment... "Player your character, not your alignment. Alignment will be DERIVED from character choices. Alignment should never DRIVE character choices." [/QUOTE]

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