Societies: Lawful and Chaotic; What Are They?

[Chrisling]

Canis,

Going after the fashion of Gizzard, I think that the good of the collective vs. the good of the individual fits poorly into both the good vs. evil and law vs. chaos paradigm created by D&D.

I mean, this is my intepretation, but a Chaotic Good person helps their society because they're good. And a Lawful Evil person helps their society because it's part of the rules of that society (probably). So collectivism vs. individualism doesn't seem to fit in either law vs. chaos (because lawful people tend towards collectivism) or good vs. evil (because good people help others because they're good) -- but needs to be decided on a case by case basis.

 

[S'mon]

Chaotic Honour etc

From 2000AD 'Slaine' saga.
Slaine (CG barbarian) looms over Slough Throt (NE 'Drune' Druid), axe raised.

Slough Throt:
"But... you gave your word! The word of a Sessair warrior!"

Slaine:
"Breaking my word to a Drune is no hardship!"

Chaotics can have a strong sense of honour, but it's an individualistic honour - eg both giver and receiver of a vow must be worthy of honour for the vow to be meaningful, as in the quote above. Lawfuls are more likely to see honour as something important of itself, so that they won't break their word regardless of who they gave it to, or at any rate it's a dishonourable act.

BTW criminal groups like the mafia used to be commonly portrayed as LE, like in the Godfather films, but the truth is probably closer to 'Goodfellas', basically more CE than LE.

As far as modern societies go, I certainly wouldn't class all 1st world ones as Lawful. Italy is a classic Chaotic society, and apart from the fascist interlude has been so for centuries. France is definitely on the chaotic side of neutral, England probably on the lawful side (harder to judge since I live there!). Germany is very definitely lawful. Most people would say the USA was pretty chaotic, though in a very different (and more functional) way than Italy.
Some of what were called 2nd world societies are also clearly chaotic, Columbia for instance, while others are closer to lawful, and Mexico has both in different areas (chaotic borders, lawful hinterlands?). Russia is pretty chaotic. China is much more lawful.

 

[Chrisling]

Re: Chaotic Honour etc

Chaotics can have a strong sense of honour, but it's an individualistic honour - eg both giver and receiver of a vow must be worthy of honour for the vow to be meaningful, as in the quote above. Lawfuls are more likely to see honour as something important of itself, so that they won't break their word regardless of who they gave it to, or at any rate it's a dishonourable act.

BTW criminal groups like the mafia used to be commonly portrayed as LE, like in the Godfather films, but the truth is probably closer to 'Goodfellas', basically more CE than LE.

You seem to be more proving my point, that "honor" is relative to the culture that holds it, than anything else. Honor is a tricky word, and there is no real "right" honor, taken from the outside.

On the other hand, I don't know much about how the Mafia really works. It's sorta a secret society I'm not part of. But I did grow in Las Vegas, and many Las Vegans actually see the Mafia as a force of stability. The decline of the Mob in LV was lamented quite a bit as allowing unruly elements into the town.

 

[mkletch]

In response to the social mobility argument (which, by the way, I find interesting and worthy of further exposition), I'd have to say that a lawful society, almost by definition, has to exist around laws. It has to have structure in every way. That could include the structure through which one experiences social mobility. Whether or not a lawful society has the option for social mobility is simply one cog in that machine.

I found the use of ant-like creatures in 3E as the paragons of lawfulness absurd. Every bit of research on ant behavior in the last 20 years has shown ants to be almost completely chaotic in their individual actions. A few overarching rules produce a result that seems like order, but really is not. The modrons (no, I'm not trying to start that one again) were presented (in 1E and on the wizards web site) as a machine, a regulated structure of behavior and role. The extreme of lawfulness had to be invented, for there is nothing to compare in the real world. It has social mobility, and is well documented.

My overall point is that you can come up with several definitions of lawfulness, and all of them valid, except that they are mutually exclusive of each other. In that case, there is no right answer - a situation that almost begs to be described as ... chaotic.

D&D would be such a better game if alignment weren't a game mechanic, but a roleplaying device. I guess it's too ingrained in the D&D culture.

-Fletch!

 

[Urbannen]

Mkletch, I totally agree: Lawful has too many possible definitions. They should either do away with it, or rigidly define it in a way that makes sense universally.

As far as modern societies go, I certainly wouldn't class all 1st world ones as Lawful. Italy is a classic Chaotic society, and apart from the fascist interlude has been so for centuries. France is definitely on the chaotic side of neutral, England probably on the lawful side (harder to judge since I live there!). Germany is very definitely lawful. Most people would say the USA was pretty chaotic, though in a very different (and more functional) way than Italy.

This all depends on how you define the terms "Lawful" and "Chaotic". As for Italy, I would classify the Southern part of it as a second world nation. As for France, I have lived there, and a more Lawful nation state I cannot imagine. It has an aggressively centralized government. It is an incredibly bureaucratic society. French people talk about revolting and sometimes do put on little shows of demonstrating, but that doesn't stop them from towing the line in a society that is far more rigid than the United States', where I live. As for the national "character" of the French people, well, you might characterize it as neutral with chaotic tendencies. Why not? The only consistent way that the Lawful/Chaotic alignments in D&D are used anyway is to describe personality types.
England is very definitely Lawful. The United States is also very Lawful - trying driving here as opposed to in any second-world nation if you don't believe me. I had never even seen a car accident happen until I went to Mexico at age 23, where I saw three in a six week period. This was in the "hinterlands" of Jalisco as well. Perhaps it was explained by a Mexican woman I knew whose father had simply bought her a driver's license when she was 13 years old.

After saying all this, the debate can be summed up simply: What defines Law? What defines Chaos? Each poster's response tries to answer this question. Each has his or her own idea.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

How do you see Lawful Evil then? I see it as "I'd do whatever makes me happy if I could; but I realize that there are people more powerful than me, so I reign myself in a bit." Evil is inherently a bit individualistic, but Lawful Evil is constrained by the bounds of fear and respect.

Originally posted by Chrisling
Going after the fashion of Gizzard, I think that the good of the collective vs. the good of the individual fits poorly into both the good vs. evil and law vs. chaos paradigm created by D&D.

I mean, this is my intepretation, but a Chaotic Good person helps their society because they're good. And a Lawful Evil person helps their society because it's part of the rules of that society (probably). So collectivism vs. individualism doesn't seem to fit in either law vs. chaos (because lawful people tend towards collectivism) or good vs. evil (because good people help others because they're good) -- but needs to be decided on a case by case basis.

Good and Evil are defined by your actions, not your motivations.

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader wanted societal order and prosperity. "Together we can bring an end to this destructive conflict." etc. From what we've learned of his motivations in Ep 2, he actually really wanted to better society. Very Lawful. He was also willing to do it by any means necessary - Evil.

A Chaotic Good person helps PEOPLE. If that benefits society, so be it, but the goals are individuals.

We can quibble about it quite a bit, though. The way the rules use Law and Chaos jumps around like a toad on a hot plate, so there's no real answer.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Waiter, there's a Monkey on my Wrench

Or rather, I would put forward the idea that a society may have a different alignment than the people in it.

America, for instance, is often described as a society of laws, rule of law and constitutionalism as symptoms of such. Americans, however, are very often described as enamored of individualism and seeing the good/rights of the individual as being more important than the good/laws of the society.

In the original dwarf problem, the society was decentralized and fractitious but the individuals had a deep sense of tradition, respect for authority, discipline, and working with/for the group.

So an alignment for the dwarf society might be chaotic but the alignment for the people of the society be lawful.

I would use a similar system to describe the Mongols pre-Khan, in which the individual clans had very strong laws and traditions, but the clans as a whole couldn't get organized and fought all the time.

I would even say that it can work on the good/evil access as well, say Rome or Early America, but I would not think it too likely that most of the people, or at least most of the people in power, in a Chaotic-Evil society would have Lawful-Good attitudes.

I'm not saying that this is the way it is all the time, but that it is a useful way of dealing with some individual cases and of simulating the sometimes very divergent outlooks of people and the systems they live in.

 

[Chrisling]

Everyone who has responded, <I>thank you</i>. As my game is essential a Planescape game, all of this has been incredibly useful.

<I>For the purposes of my game</I>, I'm thinking of going with the social mobility angle. Or, to elaborate a bit: Whether a society is lawful or chaotic will be mostly defined who decides who and what the people in that society are: society or the individual.

In lawful societies, it's law (or tradition, which can be a sterner law than anything written down) decides what the individual does with their life. In chaotic societies, the individual decides what they will do with their life, how they will define and shape it.

In lawful societies, where there is "social mobility," it is the system that decides how and to what extent the individual goes up. An example of this would be a bureaucratic meritocracy, where a person's job position was determined by standardized testing and review panels. That'd be lawful. In a chaotic society, while they might have standardized testing and review panels, there would be multiple channels to get the position -- a vote, for instance.

Or that's what I'm thinking, now.

Go ahead. Tear it up. I know you want to.

 

[S'mon]

This all depends on how you define the terms "Lawful" and "Chaotic". As for Italy, I would classify the Southern part of it as a second world nation. As for France, I have lived there, and a more Lawful nation state I cannot imagine. It has an aggressively centralized government. It is an incredibly bureaucratic society. French people talk about revolting and sometimes do put on little shows of demonstrating, but that doesn't stop them from towing the line in a society that is far more rigid than the United States', where I live. As for the national "character" of the French people, well, you might characterize it as neutral with chaotic tendencies. Why not? The only consistent way that the Lawful/Chaotic alignments in D&D are used anyway is to describe personality types.
England is very definitely Lawful. The United States is also very Lawful - trying driving here as opposed to in any second-world nation if you don't believe me. I had never even seen a car accident happen until I went to Mexico at age 23, where I saw three in a six week period. This was in the "hinterlands" of Jalisco as well. Perhaps it was explained by a Mexican woman I knew whose father had simply bought her a driver's license when she was 13 years old.

After saying all this, the debate can be summed up simply: What defines Law? What defines Chaos? Each poster's response tries to answer this question. Each has his or her own idea.

Fair enough. France like Russia is a naturally imperialist state that typically seeks to impose order on its naturally unruly inhabitants. I class French society as N(C) because the French do not have an _internalised_ lawfulness - they have lots of bureaucracy, but they do their best to avoid it. This is very different from England or especially Germany, where the typical citizen has the 'internal aspect' - they feel they _ought_ to obey the laws, even apart from fear of being caught if they don't.
As for the USA and car crashes, well I never saw the aftermath of a multiple-fatality crash until I visited the US! My experience with US bureaucracy and attitudes is that the USA is much much more 'chaotic' than the UK, even if it may be less chaotic than its southerly neighbours. Doesn't necessarily mean the US isn't a better place than the UK in many ways, but it's defininitely less lawful. Being more legalistic (willing to resort to litigation) is not a sign of an orderly society - Japan is a good example of a lawful (in D&D terms) society, where there are very few lawyers.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Societies are, almost by nessecity, to some extent, Lawful. Having a viewpoint beyond the individual is Lawful, to some extent.

A Chaotic view would be something like "We're all Individuals!" Everyone is largely the same, with a multitude of variations, and there is no internal ranking system. From a "pure" CN perspective, no outside system should stop someone from doing something -- there are no authority figures, no leaders, no people whose place it is at the head. Nobody deserves any more respect than you by any swing of the fish. The only way you give people leeway is if they show you that they deserve it -- which is why CN beings like Slaad can have a sort of loose ranking system -- there is a respect for actual raw power, because they can force you to listen to them. But, laregley, Gray Slaad won't care if a Red Slaad calls itself "King of Limbo," because he has a right to call himself whatever he pleases. But the moment he starts trying to enforce his edicts on the Gray, the Gray will have to kill him -- just because he can't be subordinated to anyone. And if the Gray goes up against a White in an attempt to prove that, he knows he's going to die horribly...so he doesn't. Keep a respectful distance, and maybe be willing to be bullied a little bit.

It's hard to have anything more than a purely anarchic society with Chaotics. Elves do it fairly well, because they're all Good and thus they're all concerned with each other's well being. They want people to be happy, so not having anyone enforce that edict makes sense for them. Slaadi, as has been pointed out, don't really care one way or the other what the others do, as long as they don't invade each other's individual space, and, in that case, a ranking system emerges simply based on raw power. More powerful/religious/philosophical Slaads may even be interested in spreading that delightful freedom to other lands, seeing themselves as above the power of the 2nd level Aristocrat king because they *can*. In their book, now they're kinda in control of it, at least until someone shows them otherwise. For orcs and the like, it's similar but more brutal. The freedom isn't just for individuals any more -- an orc doesn't care what his makes his cousin happy. It becomes selfish, and delighting in the pain of others. If hurting Grok makes me happy, I hurt Grok. If that makes Grok unhappy, all the better. If he wants to change it, he's welcome to try. It's still fairly egaltarian, because an orc chieftan is aware that he's not nessecarily better than the rest of the orcs...but he can boss them around. Chaotic Evil is very, very selfish, but isn't so much concerned with power. As long as they can make themselves happy (by hurting others around them), they're content.

Any form of happy deference to any form of authority is, at the very least, neutral. In addition, Lawful types would try to maintain and ensure that the authority remains in place, because, in the mind of a Lawful, the differences created by reality need to be categorized and ranked. Sight is better than blindness, but a blind woman's touch is better than a sighted woman's.

Lawful types don't need to always obey the codified laws of their nation, but they should respect them in spirit at all times. A lawful revolutionary would work "within the system."

Clans can be quite lawful, if they are led and governed by order and ranking. If there is a clan head, and he is respected simply for being a clan head, and the head is a desired constant as a position. If the clan is chaotic, then the head of the clan is probably loathed for his position, and people only listen to him as far as he can make them (or, if they're CG, if he has a good idea others may listen to him...but would never feel obligated to).

Don't so narrowly define what is and isn't in-alignment. In reality, they're quite flexible tools.