D&D 5E Player agency and Paladin oath.

[Flamestrike]

Your problem lies in allowing a Paladin into a party full of 'Neutral-Good' murderous monsters.

 

[Flamestrike]

It's part of the game, and a known and accepted risk of what I've chosen to do. Nobody's agency is impacted:

Aside from the guy that wants to play DnD as a co-operative game, and doesnt want to deal with being shoehorned into playing a game with a psychotic monster.

Seriously, in a party where I was playing a LG PC, I simply wouldnt allow an evil monster into the party, and you'd be booted out the instant your tendencies came to the fore.

That being the case, whats the point of even creating that PC? You're wasting your own time, and simply deliberately (or at least recklessly) creating conflict at the table.

How is that fun? To me it just sounds like a jerk move.

 

[Helldritch]

Just allowing CN and Evil alignment is asking for trouble with capital letters. Group cohesion was down the drain the moment the PCs were created. Two good aligned vs two evil aligned PCs disguised as neutrals. As Flamestrike more or less said, one good act does not bring forgiveness and peace of mind from murder and psychotic behavior.

Your players should've talked to each others and aligned themselves to each other's characters. Group cohesion is very important in all games unless you had a very precise agenda or a story about betrayal (or something like this) and the concerned player(s) agreed. Otherwise, allowing either the paladin and the warlock or the two CN was a mistake.

 

[Oofta]

Just allowing CN and Evil alignment is asking for trouble with capital letters. Group cohesion was down the drain the moment the PCs were created. Two good aligned vs two evil aligned PCs disguised as neutrals. As Flamestrike more or less said, one good act does not bring forgiveness and peace of mind from murder and psychotic behavior.

Your players should've talked to each others and aligned themselves to each other's characters. Group cohesion is very important in all games unless you had a very precise agenda or a story about betrayal (or something like this) and the concerned player(s) agreed. Otherwise, allowing either the paladin and the warlock or the two CN was a mistake.

I'm okay with someone playing CN in my campaign, I just make it clear that they can't use it as an excuse to be evil or insane.

But yeah, a lot of people who claim their PCs are CN are really playing evil murder hobos.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm okay with someone playing CN in my campaign, I just make it clear that they can't use it as an excuse to be evil or insane.

But yeah, a lot of people who claim their PCs are CN are really playing evil murder hobos.

This is almost always and exclusively the case that I saw. CN is the "sneaky" way that some "clever" players take to play evil without being evil. It bugs me to no end that some players think the DM will not see where they are going. To do a CN in my games, you must be willing to take a lot of decision on a random roll that I will call. It will not be the player that will call the roll, but me. So far three players have accepted the condition in the last 10 years (I have banned CN from my games since the 2000 but my two groups have not changed since 2010 so...). And guess what, they did play true CN and it was fun. BUT they didn't fall in the trap of becoming murder hobbos.

Edit: Forgot to say that I think I call random roll for decision about 6 or 7 times top with all three characters. The random rolls for decision were fun but often detrimental for the character as they were often in brothel, gambling houses and other pleasurable and expensive downtime activities. It also led to some fun adventures where the player had to convince his friend to go on a "quest" so he could get back the items he had lost to gambling or pawned to have more pleasure.

 

[Flamestrike]

To do a CN in my games, you must be willing to take a lot of decision on a random roll that I will call.

Ergh. That's awful. That's also not what CN is.

Chaotic Neutral is a person who is neither morally Evil nor Good (being morally in the middle, generally self serving) who is impulsive, spontaneous, unconventional and cares little about family, honour or tradition.

Examples include Captain Jack Sparrow (PotC), Deadpool (the Superhero), Hondo Ohnaka (Star Wars) Bronn of the Blackwater (GoT) and Daryl Dixon (TWD).

Morally Neutral (not a murderer, and not a saviour), generally self serving, and unpredictable, and not beholden to any codes or traditions.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

A 2 year old is chaotic Neutral....

Edit: with evil tendencies....

 

[Laurefindel]

A 2 year old is chaotic Neutral....

Edit: with evil tendencies....

... just wait until they're four ...
same alignment, more toddler levels...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's kind of the definition of Evil. Evil never thinks it's the villain.

Eh, sometimes evil just doesn’t care that it’s the villain.
I’ve known evil. Sometimes, there is no illusion that they’re in the right. They just don’t care about being in the right.

I'm okay with someone playing CN in my campaign, I just make it clear that they can't use it as an excuse to be evil or insane.

But yeah, a lot of people who claim their PCs are CN are really playing evil murder hobos.

Yeah I make clear in session 0 with new people that Evil acts make a character Evil, and the old trope of balancing them with Good acts just does not exist.

Neutral at my table means either a dedication to cosmic balance, or to natural order regardless of civilized order,etc, and Chaotic means either a dedication to liberty above all, bringing change, anti-authoritarian attitudes, etc. Rage Against The Machine is Chaotic. Doesn’t matter how predictable, how good at keeping a schedule, whatever, they are a force for change that wants to tear down the authoritarian structures of oppression, to (To quote a famous civil rights speech) “throw their bodies upon the gears, and upon the levers, upon all the apparatus. To indicate to the people who own it, the people who run it, that until [they] are free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

Chaotic Neutral can cover a wide range of realistic actual people. It’s not Pinky Pie meets Deadpool at his most wacky.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Here's how 3e defined it:

Chaotic Neutral, "Free Spirit"
A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.
Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal.

Plus:
Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.
"Chaos" implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Those who promote chaotic behavior say that only unfettered personal freedom allows people to express themselves fully and lets society benefit from the potential that its individuals have within them.
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships.

And 5e:
Chaotic neutral (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else. Many barbarians and rogues, and some bards, are chaotic neutral.

For some reason lots of people (even more recent players!) are stuck on versions of alignment that haven't been in a current edition for almost 20 years. I recommend everyone read the 3e Alignment description, and as a DM consider having your players refer to either it, or the brief 5e descriptions (or both).

I actually had a player ask if they could play a CN character back in 2014 in LMoP, and I asked them what they meant by it. They showed me a web comic of an unabashedly murderous CE character, I told them no, explained (or sent them links) better explanations like the one above, and we ended up with two actually CN characters in the game that didn't cause any problems.

Even if you are playing 1e-2e you should use the later alignment descriptions, because the ones in the AD&D PHBs are non-sensical and the NPCs don't actually follow them (most published "True Neutral" or NPCs in the AD&D years were 3e "Neutral", not philosophical balance champions). I'm sure someone can think of a reason why the older absurd alignment definitions might have some merit in some campaigns that aren't intended to be farces, but I can't think of one myself.