Is it possible to have a Chaotic society?

[maddman75]

An example of a purely chaotic society would be the wildlings from A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. Contrasting strongly to the orderly folk of Westeros whose family ties and orders of knights form the basis of society. The wildlings reject this, they have no laws, no king, not even marriage. There's a guy they follow around and respect, but he can't really tell them what to do.

I filed the serial numbers off this for my campaigns' barbarian tribes. It was rather frustrating when the PCs tried to deal with them.

PC: Who is your leader?
Barbs: We have no leader. Each warrior does as he pleases.
PC: Okay...well is there a representative, someone who can speak for the tribe?
Barbs: No barbarian may presume to speak for another.
PC: Well, how can I get the tribe to listen?
Barbs. I dunno. Talking?

 

[S'mon]

From reading the posts, an interesting question is coming to the fore. Basically, when it comes to large societies (I'm excluding tribes and other small groups), there seem to be two equally compelling definitions of a chaotic society:
(a) a society like the early republic United States in which the power of the state to make rules was circumscribed by an ethos of freedom based on clearly codified individual rights
(b) a society like imperial Russia in which there was a chaotic, constantly shifting semi-autonomous bureaucracy and service gentry enforcing the whims of a despot with no real sense of the rule of law and no concept of individual rights

I would argue that (a) is Chaotic Good and (b) is Lawful Evil but a lot of people seem to believe that (b) is an example of chaotic government because the experience of living under the regime is one of disorder.

I'd put USA pre-Consitution as tending to CG, NG(C) afterwards - this is ignoring slavery etc. Imperial Russia probably NE(C). Russia and America are both somewhat more chaotic societies than the norm. Lawful societies would include China, Japan and Germany.

Edit: Soviet Russia would be Lawful Evil, even though the bulk of the population were Neutral to Chaotic.

 

[clark411]

From reading the posts, an interesting question is coming to the fore. Basically, when it comes to large societies (I'm excluding tribes and other small groups), there seem to be two equally compelling definitions of a chaotic society:
(a) a society like the early republic United States in which the power of the state to make rules was circumscribed by an ethos of freedom based on clearly codified individual rights
(b) a society like imperial Russia in which there was a chaotic, constantly shifting semi-autonomous bureaucracy and service gentry enforcing the whims of a despot with no real sense of the rule of law and no concept of individual rights

I would argue that (a) is Chaotic Good and (b) is Lawful Evil but a lot of people seem to believe that (b) is an example of chaotic government because the experience of living under the regime is one of disorder.

Wary about pushing the discussion along this quote due to it's political nature (I suppose Soviet Russia is technically History) but I can't help it... where's the Good in A, and the Evil in B?

I would say that a chaotic society is challenging. Chaotic nations, ie.. the nebulous sort of settlement growth (and the subsequent mishmash of laws etc) was quote chaotic, but that chaos was only due to a transition into centralized government. "Society" has a centrist connotation that almost defies the term chaos itself. Cultures most certainly have the capacity to be chaotic in the sense of free will / self determination etc, but I can't see a social order being inherently chaotic without some external, or monumental force, impressing chaos onto it.

 

[Valiantheart]

I was going to try and come up with a cogent discussion of "What do we mean by 'Chaos'", but in the end I decided to merely say this:

This discussion is just one more reason I am happy to have dropped the whole alignment concept in my games!

Curious:
How did you resolve such things as Holy weapons, Smith Evil, Protection from Alignments Spells, etc IYCW?

Oh an example of a Chaotic society modern day Russia or former Eastern Block country or any recently freed/independent country in its infancy or setting up a new form of government or recovering from a revolution.

 

[Wombat]

Curious:
How did you resolve such things as Holy weapons, Smith Evil, Protection from Alignments Spells, etc IYCW?

I drop them. Quite simple, actually. Since there is no alignment, there is no protection from, etc. OTOH, there are spells that allow you to channel your god's might against unbelievers (Smite Unbeliever, etc.).

Alignment is nowhere near the necessity to D&D that most people think it is. Drop alignment and you drop more headaches than you gain.

Look at the arguments we have on this thread; we cannot even agree on a common definition of Law and Chaos, much less Good and Evil. Even in the game these Absolutes play out far from absolute.

Drop alignment, drop your problems.

 

[fusangite]

Clark411 says,

Wary about pushing the discussion along this quote due to it's political nature (I suppose Soviet Russia is technically History) but I can't help it... where's the Good in A, and the Evil in B?

I'm happy to drop the good and evil from my post if it means that my ideas will be more palatable.

I would say that a chaotic society is challenging. Chaotic nations, ie.. the nebulous sort of settlement growth (and the subsequent mishmash of laws etc) was quote chaotic, but that chaos was only due to a transition into centralized government. "Society" has a centrist connotation that almost defies the term chaos itself. Cultures most certainly have the capacity to be chaotic in the sense of free will / self determination etc, but I can't see a social order being inherently chaotic without some external, or monumental force, impressing chaos onto it.

So, you don't see a desire for liberty as equally intrinsic in people as a desire for social cohesion? I do see the maintenance of one's liberty as a fairly basic human impulse.

I think one thing that is making our debate problematic is that a lot of people tend to see alignment as something that frequently makes people go against their rational self-interest. To me, what makes a society chaotic is not inefficiency, disobedience or lack of a codified structure, it is design and shared objectives. If the society's basic values are human liberty, less government and the maintenance of individual choice, I see no reason to force this society to run inefficiently and contrary to its own interest just because it is "chaotic."

Similarly, I see no reason that a lawful society must be efficient just because the ethos of the culture is the subordination of individual choice and liberty to a collective good. Indeed, as lawful societies are more likely to build large bureaucracies, in a sense, I see them as more likely to fall victim to inefficiency or corruption.

When I design villains in my campaigns, I refuse to let their alignment handicap them in how they run their day to day lives; my villains' objectives are based on their alignment but this doesn't mean that I should handicap them in achieving those objectives by virtue of the very alignment they are trying to fulfill.

 

[NPC]

Visit Italy. IMO, it's a great example of a chaotic society that works just fine.

 

[Psion]

Elder-Basilisk has interesting points, but they are based on what is inherently a false assumption. The D&D alignment system is not subjective, it is objective. No matter what societal values present, a Chaotic person is always Chaotic, and a Lawful person is always Lawful. This does not change if you take a Chaotic person out of one society and place them in another, and vice versa for the Lawfully aligned person.

Just because it bears repeating.

If someone has a high regard for traditions and conventions as set forth by his family, he is "lawful" by the D&D convention even if his conventions make him an outlaw in the society he is in. By the same token, if someone is a free spirit, they are so whether or not most of the remaining parts of society are also that way.

 

[Norfleet]

The real problem here is that you're trying to apply an alignment to a society. This doesn't work. This was beaten to death not all that long ago in a thread that I can't search for, but I'm sure somebody can.

Assigning an alignment to an entire society is, in essence, silliness. Most societies that grow beyond a tribal organizational structure will, by very nature, be lawful neutral: The society itself has a set of laws that people are expected to adhere to: If the society itself were "chaotic", it would quickly dissolve into tribal or clan-based subgroups, or into simple anarchy. That doesn't mean that the majority of the people in the society are such. It doesn't even mean that ANY of the people in the society are such. The society, as a whole, may have a completely different alignment from the people in it.

A lawful society of chaotic people tends to have laws emphasizing things like rights and freedoms. A lawful society of lawful people would be strict and have a strong tendency towards bureaucracy. A lawful society of evil people would have codified rules for even backstabbing and deceit, which might even be legal. Societies themselves, however, aren't really "good" or "evil". People are good or evil, not societies. Whether the society behaves in an evil manner or not is entirely dependent on which group of people is in power there. Smite/Detect/Protection From Good/Evil/Law/Chaos works on PEOPLE, not on societies.

 

[Lela]

A lawful society of evil people would have codified rules for even backstabbing and deceit, which might even be legal.

The Drow, as a side note, are an excellent example of this. This was the main reason I loved the book Homeland. It displays the way a society can be filled to the brink with Chaos without destroying itself.