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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wyrmshadows" data-source="post: 3968770" data-attributes="member: 56166">The Law and Chaos axis of D&D is nothing more than Gygax's misinterpretation of Michael Moorcock's "alignment" system. In Moorcock's work there is no cosmological good or evil, there is onlhy law and chaos which, when  in balance work out toward the good of all but when out of balance are destructive. Its just the personification of order vs. entropy in Moorcock's vision. However D&D takes two incompatible systems, the traditional fantasy trope of good vs. evil and adds Moorcock's order vs. entropy axis on top of it. And then adds a neutral alignment to the axis. In the good and evil scheme beings can be morally good or evil but be either rigid or liberal in the manner in which they meet their goals. In the good or evil scheme, no one cares if you are the stoic and honorable knight or a free spirited elven ranger...in both instances you are one of the good-guys.When you add the cosmic descriptors of law vs. chaos you can get freakish situations like lawful good knights teaming up with lawful evil devils to crush the chaotic good elves who have teamed up with chaotic evil demons!?!?! I have had conversations like this over the years with folks who actually thought a paladin would prefer a devil's company to that of a pixie because the former was LE and the latter was CG. Insane.The fact is that good and evil are viceral and mythic. These are the catagories we assign to elements of our consciousness, our behaviors and external circumstance. Everyone understands you when you say "Those evil Nazi bastards!!!" This resonates with the human condition.No one gets excited when someone is too chaotic or too lawful. Someone who is too lawful is seen as rigid and unyielding in both their personal code of conduct and any societal laws/taboos. If this rigidity is coded into law and is used for the elevation of this individual or his group at the expense of others in an extreme way (the Nazis) then he and those like him are deemed an evil that must be stopped.Someone who is too chaotic can be seen as a flake, undisciplined and anarchist perhaps. However it isn't until the anarchist commits a terrible crime such as those of Ted Kazinski (the Unibomber) and he is deemed evil that anyone really cares. No one acts merely against law or chaos because no one thinks along these lines. There is nothing coded into our nature that sees law and chaos as forces to be promoted or opposed. However good and evil are part of the human psyche as demonstrated in the worlds myths and religions.So I would argue that law and chaos, at least as cosmic forces, need to go away because there is no demonstrable archetypes outside of Moorcock's work that utilie this axis. And considering Moorcock used these as a replacement for good and evil I would suggest that the manner in which D&D uses them is a complete misrepresentation of their original intent as well as something that is incompatible with any fantasy tropes when combined with any other moral axis.The fact is that good and evil represent both a moral highground and a moral lowground respectively. There is no moral virtue or vice that can be assigned to law or chaos because both are wonderful when in balance and both are destructive when one achieves a great deal of ascendancy over the other. Assigning a moral value to law and chaos is like trying to assign a moral value to creation/destruction, life/death, order entropy, day/night, summer/winter, masculine/feminine, etc. or any other natural force or state. All of these things, like law and chaos are by necessity amoral and impersonal.Wyrmshadows</blockquote>

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