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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5705697" data-attributes="member: 58197">Fair point, and it was putting it strongly to say that Law/Chaos is nonsense. Nevertheless, it's very ill-defined; the descriptions of &quot;lawful&quot; and &quot;chaotic&quot; are a grab bag of behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. The descriptions of &quot;good&quot; and &quot;evil&quot; are much simpler.Here's what the SRD has to say about good and evil:That's it. (The rest of the Good/Evil section is devoted to what it means to be neutral on that axis.) Obviously there is plenty of scope for debate here, but most of the debate centers on questions of &quot;how good is good&quot; and &quot;how evil is evil.&quot; Take this very thread. I see some people saying domination is categorically and utterly evil, others saying it's evil except when justified by necessity, and others saying it's a neutral tool. I don't see anybody saying it's good.Contrast the section on law and chaos *takes deep breath*:Four paragraphs instead of two, and look at all the stuff jumbled together in those paragraphs. Is lawfulness about you, yourself, playing by society's rules (tell the truth, respect authority, honor tradition)? Or is it about being methodical and organized (reliability, lack of adaptability, close-mindedness)? Or is it about your vision of an ideal society (in which people can depend on each other, etc.)?This is why I tend to react dismissively (sometimes too much so) to claims of &quot;such-and-such is lawful&quot; or &quot;such-and-such is chaotic.&quot;All that said, reading through those definitions, I see very little evidence for domination either way as far as Law/Chaos is concerned. The only thing that might apply is &quot;obedience to authority,&quot; but that's about how the Lawful character reacts to authority, not how she makes others react to her. On the other hand, Good/Evil has some things to say on the subject. Domination is not respecting the dignity of other sentients, and it certainly ought to qualify as oppression.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5705697, member: 58197"] Fair point, and it was putting it strongly to say that Law/Chaos is nonsense. Nevertheless, it's very ill-defined; the descriptions of "lawful" and "chaotic" are a grab bag of behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. The descriptions of "good" and "evil" are much simpler. Here's what the SRD has to say about good and evil: That's it. (The rest of the Good/Evil section is devoted to what it means to be neutral on that axis.) Obviously there is plenty of scope for debate here, but most of the debate centers on questions of "how good is good" and "how evil is evil." Take this very thread. I see some people saying [i]domination[/i] is categorically and utterly evil, others saying it's evil except when justified by necessity, and others saying it's a neutral tool. I don't see anybody saying it's good. Contrast the section on law and chaos *takes deep breath*: Four paragraphs instead of two, and look at all the stuff jumbled together in those paragraphs. Is lawfulness about you, yourself, playing by society's rules (tell the truth, respect authority, honor tradition)? Or is it about being methodical and organized (reliability, lack of adaptability, close-mindedness)? Or is it about your vision of an ideal society (in which people can depend on each other, etc.)? This is why I tend to react dismissively (sometimes too much so) to claims of "such-and-such is lawful" or "such-and-such is chaotic." All that said, reading through those definitions, I see very little evidence for [i]domination[/i] either way as far as Law/Chaos is concerned. The only thing that might apply is "obedience to authority," but that's about how the Lawful character reacts to authority, not how she makes others react to her. On the other hand, Good/Evil has some things to say on the subject. [i]Domination[/i] is not respecting the dignity of other sentients, and it certainly ought to qualify as oppression. [/QUOTE]

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