Law vs. Chaos - the forgotten conflict

[James Jacobs]

The demon/elemental conflict of the Age Before Ages where the Wind Dukes took up arms against the obyriths of the Abyss is an excellent example of the Law vs. Chaos angle of things in D&D. It's a good example. But a better example is the Blood War. There's been PLENTY of prodcuts focusing on that, especially in the good old Planescape days.

With the obyriths themselves, I tried to make them more a force of chaos than evil. Sure, they're bad news, but they're more about the Chaos than the Evil. Which is why all obyriths have DR lawful, and why they get spell like abilities like cloak of chaos rather than the evil versions of the spells. The Abyssal Heritor feats in Fiendish Codex I are another place where I focused on the law vs. chaos angle a little bit. The fun thing there, of course, is that it allows PCs to have Abyssal-themed elements without being forced into the Bad Guy PC role.

 

[KenSeg]

The two best examples of law verse chaos are the already mentioned Babylon 5 series and one of my altime favorite book series - the Elric series. Elric by Moorcock was one of the best storylines of that conflict I have read in over35 years of reading sfi-fi and fantasy.

-KenSeg
gaming since 1978

 

[Clueless]

Law vs. Chaos was a conflict emphasized in Planescape... you may want to look there for some material to work with.

 

[Irda Ranger]

OK, allow me to air a grievance.

Why do we bother having Law and Chaos components to alignment in D&D when 95% of time and product is devoted to Good vs. Evil?

Heh. You're right. Law & Chaos don't get a lot of press.

Can anyone point me towards any material, preferrably WotC (but 3rd party is OK too) that focuses on the conflict of Law vs. Chaos?

The Last of the Renshai (a trilogy) by Mickey Zucker Reichart is good. Amazon doesn't seem to carry it though, so maybe it's out of stock?

The Novels of Recluce by L.E. Modessit Jr. are also good. Strictly a law vs. chaos theme.

I think LvC doesn't get a lot of coverage though because of moral ambiguity. There's no clear "good guys" and "bad guys." D&D has been characterized as "kill things and take their stuff", and that's not entirely inaccurate. Most people, if they're going to be "killing things" and "taking their stuff" want to know that they're at least doing it for good reasons, or that the things they're killing are "bad." After all, Law and Chaos aren't "bad", they're just different - and killing people just because they're different hasn't been in vogue for centuries now.

LvC is also unpopular because no human can be "a pure achetype" the way a Tormite Paladin can always do the "right" thing and a devoted Cyrcist can always do the "bad" thing. There's only a range of acceptable "mixes" of Law and Chaos; a pure expression of Law would be like an Automaton or Ant who never changes what they do (regardless of circumstance), while a pure expression of Chaos would like playing a character who's got ADD, Schizophrenia, and an LCD addiction.

You're right though that is should get more play. Campaigns that emphasize some of the problems that Lawful and Chaotic organizations have working together (such as an order of human Paladins and bands of Halfling irregulars), even when facing a common enemy, would keep things interesting.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The two best examples of law verse chaos are the already mentioned Babylon 5 series and one of my altime favorite book series - the Elric series. Elric by Moorcock was one of the best storylines of that conflict I have read in over35 years of reading sfi-fi and fantasy.

-KenSeg
gaming since 1978

B5 tried, and the switcheroo that the vorlons were more order than good was interesting, but it happened too close to the resolution of that storyline to explore it well, IMO, and by Crusade they were back to "Shadows bad! Evil shadows, yuck!"

 

[Mouseferatu]

and by Crusade they were back to "Shadows bad! Evil shadows, yuck!"

Uh, that might be because the shadows were evil. Sure, their position in the storyline was that of the force of chaos, and they certainly mastered that in spades. But they were certainly evil in their methods. (Or, in D&D terms, the shadows were chaotic evil entities involved in a law-vs-chaos storyline.)

 

[Slife]

The Novels of Recluse by L.E. Modessit Jr. are also good. Strictly a law vs. chaos theme.

I'd advise, though, that you don't read more than two or three of them. They get really repetitive.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Uh, that might be because the shadows were evil. Sure, their position in the storyline was that of the force of chaos, and they certainly mastered that in spades. But they were certainly evil in their methods. (Or, in D&D terms, the shadows were chaotic evil entities involved in a law-vs-chaos storyline.)

Which is why, imo, the storyline failed overall in presenting a LvC storyline effectively. The 4th season reveals gave the strong possibility that the Vorlons were in fact evil as well, but had better press agents, won last time and had Kosh mark one as a slightly gone native public face. From the early Crusade I saw, that aspect completely disapeared.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Which is why, imo, the storyline failed overall in presenting a LvC storyline effectively. The 4th season reveals gave the strong possibility that the Vorlons were in fact evil as well, but had better press agents, won last time and had Kosh mark one as a slightly gone native public face. From the early Crusade I saw, that aspect completely disapeared.

Ah, so your problem isn't that it presented the Shadows as bad, but that it didn't also present the Vorlons as bad? I can get behind that.

However, this leads me back to the main topic...

I think it's almost impossible to have a pure LvC storyline, because neither Law nor Chaos are innately harmful. Unlike good and evil, there's no inherent reason to support one over the other.

Law and chaos become problematic only when they pursue their nature to a harmful degree. Law stifles growth and creativity; chaos causes destruction and violence. But guess what? In both cases, those problems arise because the methods of the law or chaos in question become evil--and thus we're back to at least a partly GvE conflict, rather than a pure LvC one.

The only real way for a story to focus on LvC, without bringing GvE into it, is to pit Lawful Evil vs Chaotic Evil (such as the Shadows vs Vorlons was, at least at one point). Anything else will, by definition, eventually return, at least in part, to GvE.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Good and Evil represent a conflict of goals.

Law and Chaos represent a conflict of methodologies. That's a different sort of conflict than the one between good and evil, and it should be run differently.

Law and Chaos might well want the exact same thing, but disagree on the best way to achieve it.

EDIT: In fact, that's exactly the case with the Vorlons and the Shadows. Both of them honestly wanted (or told themselves they wanted) the younger races to grow and advance and mature. They disagreed in methodologies. The Vorlons thought the younger races should be encouraged to unite and work together, while the Shadows thought that strength could only come from competition.
\
Imagine non-evil versions of both philosophies, where the Shadows encouraged non-violent competition and creative struggle, while the Vorlons supported strong traditions and institutions- but both with the exact same goal.