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Slaads are failures as exemplars of Chaotic NEUTRAL
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7871161" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>This actually has a measure of truth to it I think, and it's a deep problem with how Slaad are portrayed and how CN is concieved that goes to the heart of why Slaad fail as exemplars of it.</p><p></p><p>In my own write up of the Slaad, in the link above, I tried to somewhat rectify this problem by altering the way Slaad were conceived at some fundamental levels while still trying to explain and incorporate all the diverse bizarre and rather unchaotic things that have been written about them. And to some extent, I think I did a pretty good job and some of the Slaad Lords and Slaad Cults do better capture the essentials of CN than the canonical write ups and depictions. I'm rather proud of it.</p><p></p><p>But there is still a problem in some of the write up that occasionally I'm confusing Chaotic Neutral, with that more evil than even Chaotic Evil philosophy - Neutral Evil. Examples of this can I think be found in the write up of Quag, Ssendam and even Breasdefea. The problem with viewing Chaotic as meaninglessness is it is very easy to slip from that into equating Chaotic with Nihilism. Real chaotic find meaning in everything because they think that they can actually invent meaning, and so for example the problem with my Quag write up is that Quag as presented is much closer to Nuetral Evil than it is Chaotic Evil, because the Quag of the write up doesn't balance his ignorance with creativity. He really ought to be more the embodiment of Triviality than the is, and be less destructive than he is.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, it's easy to make the mistake of assigning insanity to CN as if insanity was a single narrow spectrum of behavior. Actual sociopathy and violent psychopathy belongs more to NE and things near to it, than it does to CN, which is more like the alignment of harmless eccentrics and things near to that. NE and not CN is the alignment of serial killers and people who destroy without clear cause. CN is more the alignment of just not doing things the way anyone else would.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that I think when the Slaad were originally conceived, this distinction between CN and NE wasn't really made, and they were in part conceived as mindless engines of destruction and merely a better class of demon in the sense of being better designed to perform D&D combat than the rather weak demons of Gygax's original conception. And people still confuse and lump the whole bottom right hand corner of the square together as if they were a single philosophy.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It's a reflection of the overall shift in beliefs of the larger society.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7871161, member: 4937"] This actually has a measure of truth to it I think, and it's a deep problem with how Slaad are portrayed and how CN is concieved that goes to the heart of why Slaad fail as exemplars of it. In my own write up of the Slaad, in the link above, I tried to somewhat rectify this problem by altering the way Slaad were conceived at some fundamental levels while still trying to explain and incorporate all the diverse bizarre and rather unchaotic things that have been written about them. And to some extent, I think I did a pretty good job and some of the Slaad Lords and Slaad Cults do better capture the essentials of CN than the canonical write ups and depictions. I'm rather proud of it. But there is still a problem in some of the write up that occasionally I'm confusing Chaotic Neutral, with that more evil than even Chaotic Evil philosophy - Neutral Evil. Examples of this can I think be found in the write up of Quag, Ssendam and even Breasdefea. The problem with viewing Chaotic as meaninglessness is it is very easy to slip from that into equating Chaotic with Nihilism. Real chaotic find meaning in everything because they think that they can actually invent meaning, and so for example the problem with my Quag write up is that Quag as presented is much closer to Nuetral Evil than it is Chaotic Evil, because the Quag of the write up doesn't balance his ignorance with creativity. He really ought to be more the embodiment of Triviality than the is, and be less destructive than he is. Likewise, it's easy to make the mistake of assigning insanity to CN as if insanity was a single narrow spectrum of behavior. Actual sociopathy and violent psychopathy belongs more to NE and things near to it, than it does to CN, which is more like the alignment of harmless eccentrics and things near to that. NE and not CN is the alignment of serial killers and people who destroy without clear cause. CN is more the alignment of just not doing things the way anyone else would. The problem is that I think when the Slaad were originally conceived, this distinction between CN and NE wasn't really made, and they were in part conceived as mindless engines of destruction and merely a better class of demon in the sense of being better designed to perform D&D combat than the rather weak demons of Gygax's original conception. And people still confuse and lump the whole bottom right hand corner of the square together as if they were a single philosophy. It's a reflection of the overall shift in beliefs of the larger society. [/QUOTE]
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