Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 3969291" data-attributes="member: 58197">The problem with the Lawful and Chaotic alignments has always been that they conflate three different axes of behavior/ideology:1. Community versus Individual.  The Lawful character believes in working within the community and adhering to social norms, even if it means sacrificing one's independence.  The Chaotic character believes in maintaining independence and freedom of action, even if it means violating the rules of the community.  3E example: Devils adhere rigidly to the rules of their community and so are Lawful, even though some lack the intelligence to plan ahead and none has any personal code of behavior.2. Methodical versus Spontaneous.  The Lawful character acts in a methodical, organized fashion, trying to have a plan of action for every eventuality.  The Chaotic character acts in an improvised, spontaneous fashion, trying to maintain flexibility at all times.  3E example: Barbarians tend to act spontaneously and so cannot be Lawful, even though they may work within their communities and may have clearly defined codes of behavior.3. Principled versus Adaptive.  The Lawful character has a clearly defined code of behavior and tries to uphold it regardless of the situation.  The Chaotic character dislikes hard-and-fast rules and believes in adapting one's behavior to the needs of the moment.  3E example: Paladins follow a clearly defined code of behavior and so must be Lawful, even though they may work outside the community and may act in a spontaneous way.Any one of these three is a perfectly good definition for the Law/Chaos axis and would work quite well in most D&D games.  The problem is that D&D tries to use all three at once, which is the cause of most of the arguments as different players (and game designers, for that matter) seize on different aspects of the definitions.For example, someone who thinks the Law/Chaos axis is about Community versus Individual will conclude that Batman is Chaotic Good, because he acts outside the established order and violates both social norms and the rules of the community.  But someone who thinks the Law/Chaos axis is about Principled versus Adaptive will conclude that Batman is Lawful Good, because he has a definite code of behavior and sticks to it.  If one of those people is playing a Batman-like character, and the other is the DM, there's going to be some difficulty.I kind of like the Law/Chaos axis.  I think having an extra dimension to alignment produces more variety in the game's cosmology, and I'd really like to see 4E pick one of the above definitions and run with it.  Failing that, however, I'd get rid of it entirely.  No Law/Chaos axis at all is preferable to the mess we've been stuck with up till now.</blockquote>

Verification