Societies: Lawful and Chaotic; What Are They?
- Thread starter Chrisling
- Start date
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To be fair, this is a problem in virtually all games out there. Unless you have a pretty good idea on how you're going to spend your XPs before you spend them, characters tend to get chaotic and confused, not real good in a lot of things, often to the point of frustrating the player. So far, in my experience, this is less of a problem with D&D than, say, Champions, GURPs or WOD games -- you've got to try really hard to break a D&D C, hehe.
mkletch said:
To be fair, this is a problem in virtually all games out there. Unless you have a pretty good idea on how you're going to spend your XPs before you spend them, characters tend to get chaotic and confused, not real good in a lot of things, often to the point of frustrating the player. So far, in my experience, this is less of a problem with D&D than, say, Champions, GURPs or WOD games -- you've got to try really hard to break a D&D C, hehe.
herald
First Post
Philosophy has always been a difficult idea to explain. And the current alignment system always has me pondering how it might relate to modern day ethics and politics.
I will for the most part try and remain polically neutral for this discussion. If my opinions seemed biased. I'm sorry. Take them for what they are worth.
Law always struck me as communal based. Power comes from concentration of numbers of people and it's ability to work together.
Chaos always struck me as Independance Based. Power comes from the ability and freedom to do anything you wanted.
Societies have always had to struggle to balance Commuity against Independance. There has to be some give and take or there is no peace.
My personal problem is that the words to describe what I think about these two concepts don't accurately define what I'm talking about. As a matter of fact, I can't find any one word that means freedom in a neutral concept, it's ether very good or very bad.
So I will just stick with what I have.
So in a fantasy world where alignment is not just a philosophy, but philosophy brought to life, with creatures that are the emobodyment of those concepts, just what makes something lawful or chaotic?
Well this is where some imagination comes in. As far as I can tell, the game books and suplements don't really spell that out for you. So information about there behavior might conflict with stated alignment.
But alignment is not an absolute for behavior. Situations arise every day that test alignment, and one or many activities might not be truely indicative of the Law/Chaos axis. This isn't true really in Good/Evil. There the line is more black and white, but a person has to make many, many decisions every day in their best intrest to ensure health, well being and prosperity.
Sometimes it is easier to go along with the community if a majority thinks something should be done. There times people have to stand up and resist that change to prevent a loss of thier rights, or even remove themselves from that group.
It might be nessessary for you to decide if you need to explore what makes dwarves Lawful or Lawful good. Maybe its because, even in thier clanish nature that have a codex of laws that ensure rights and protections that are for the whole of thier community. Or maybe it's built into their religion and tenets of faith. Have flexability in your choice so that exceptions to the rule exist, and allow for mortal faillings in ethics without immediate alignment changes.
In my game, when I feel that players are going to step over that alignment line. I often say, "there is something in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel that what your doing might not be the right thing."
Often my players then have the time to think about their ethics, and either justify thier actions (just like the way we all do internally everyday), or rethink there situation. If the continue down the path without reasonable justifications for thier actions, alignment change happens (there is a discussion with the player one on one and this is worke out mutually)
I will for the most part try and remain polically neutral for this discussion. If my opinions seemed biased. I'm sorry. Take them for what they are worth.
Law always struck me as communal based. Power comes from concentration of numbers of people and it's ability to work together.
Chaos always struck me as Independance Based. Power comes from the ability and freedom to do anything you wanted.
Societies have always had to struggle to balance Commuity against Independance. There has to be some give and take or there is no peace.
My personal problem is that the words to describe what I think about these two concepts don't accurately define what I'm talking about. As a matter of fact, I can't find any one word that means freedom in a neutral concept, it's ether very good or very bad.
So I will just stick with what I have.
So in a fantasy world where alignment is not just a philosophy, but philosophy brought to life, with creatures that are the emobodyment of those concepts, just what makes something lawful or chaotic?
Well this is where some imagination comes in. As far as I can tell, the game books and suplements don't really spell that out for you. So information about there behavior might conflict with stated alignment.
But alignment is not an absolute for behavior. Situations arise every day that test alignment, and one or many activities might not be truely indicative of the Law/Chaos axis. This isn't true really in Good/Evil. There the line is more black and white, but a person has to make many, many decisions every day in their best intrest to ensure health, well being and prosperity.
Sometimes it is easier to go along with the community if a majority thinks something should be done. There times people have to stand up and resist that change to prevent a loss of thier rights, or even remove themselves from that group.
It might be nessessary for you to decide if you need to explore what makes dwarves Lawful or Lawful good. Maybe its because, even in thier clanish nature that have a codex of laws that ensure rights and protections that are for the whole of thier community. Or maybe it's built into their religion and tenets of faith. Have flexability in your choice so that exceptions to the rule exist, and allow for mortal faillings in ethics without immediate alignment changes.
In my game, when I feel that players are going to step over that alignment line. I often say, "there is something in the pit of your stomach that makes you feel that what your doing might not be the right thing."
Often my players then have the time to think about their ethics, and either justify thier actions (just like the way we all do internally everyday), or rethink there situation. If the continue down the path without reasonable justifications for thier actions, alignment change happens (there is a discussion with the player one on one and this is worke out mutually)
Urbannen said:
This is a quagmire into which arguments can vanish. Seriously!
Like Adam Smith? Smith teaches that <I>by helping yourself, you help the group</i>. Selfishness as altruism! Ayn Rand goes way farther than Smith, and is a disturbingly influential philosopher in some political circles.
Furthermore, by helping the group, do you mean "the group as a collection of individuals" or the "group as an organic entity existing seperately from the individual" as is taught in Hegelian philosophy? Is the GROUP more important than all the people in it?
I've avoided the subject altogether because it's such a quagmire. Tread there with care.
Morals and ethics
IMO, it was a pretty bad choice for D&D to bring the terms "morals" and "ethics" into discussion of alignment. In a sort of philosophical sense, morals is the body of rules society imposes on an individual and ethics is how an individual deals with those rules. <I>Cultures</i> have morals, <i>people</i> have ethics.
Of course, both words also have meaning way outside of this, too, which is where confusion sets in.
IMO, the "moral" and "ethic" division of alignment is worse than pointless; it actually muddies the waters. When people have to spend time talking about the meaning of the words rather than the concepts those words purportedly embody, some sloppy writing has gone on, alas.
IMO, it was a pretty bad choice for D&D to bring the terms "morals" and "ethics" into discussion of alignment. In a sort of philosophical sense, morals is the body of rules society imposes on an individual and ethics is how an individual deals with those rules. <I>Cultures</i> have morals, <i>people</i> have ethics.
Of course, both words also have meaning way outside of this, too, which is where confusion sets in.
IMO, the "moral" and "ethic" division of alignment is worse than pointless; it actually muddies the waters. When people have to spend time talking about the meaning of the words rather than the concepts those words purportedly embody, some sloppy writing has gone on, alas.
Jeremy Ackerman-Yost
Explorer
Chrisling said:This is a quagmire into which arguments can vanish. Seriously!
Like Adam Smith? Smith teaches that <I>by helping yourself, you help the group</i>. Selfishness as altruism! Ayn Rand goes way farther than Smith, and is a disturbingly influential philosopher in some political circles.
Furthermore, by helping the group, do you mean "the group as a collection of individuals" or the "group as an organic entity existing seperately from the individual" as is taught in Hegelian philosophy? Is the GROUP more important than all the people in it?
I've avoided the subject altogether because it's such a quagmire. Tread there with care.
Well, this could be considered inflammatory, but I think we can disregard Smith and Rand. That philosophy is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to be selfish without feeling bad about yourself. The only reason it's "influential" is because people WANT to be selfish and don't want to be burdened by their conscience over it.
Can't comment on Hegelian philosophy. Insufficient data.
Canis said:
LOL. Well, I feel pretty comfortable disregarding Rand. I'd disagree about Smith -- he's an interesting person if you actually read him, as opposed to learning about him in school or whatever. Smith is usually massively misrepresented, IMO, in American culture.
However, regardless of how one feels about Smith and Rand, they <I>are</i> influential. So there will be people who create arguments based on what they said. Some of these people play RPGs, so making blanket statements that disregard selfishness-as-altruism are likely to be met with a fair bit of contempt from those crowds.
The best way to handle the arguments is a good dose of game theory. Nothing quite like a mathematician proving altruism works to confuse people who can't understand the argument. ;p
mkletch
First Post
Canis said:
No, it is a valid philosophy, regardless of one's personal views. See, that is the problem with philosphical thought in general. There can be conflicting viewpoints that are perfectly valid, and it is choice rather than some universal truth that makes a particular view 'right' in the eyes of one individual or society. And when you pick one, it does not invalidate the other(s).
-Fletch!
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