Societies: Lawful and Chaotic; What Are They?

[Chrisling]

Theuderic is a troll. The faster you ignore him, the faster he'll disappear.

I knew he was a troll when he attacked one of the poster's intellectual prowess for, in a discussion about <i>alignments in Dungeons and Dragons</i>, the person spoke of both Adolf Hitler and the Emperor from the SW stuff.

Okay. It's a sign of intellectual paucity to talk about, uh, y'know, the Emperor when 80 posts into a discussion about <i>alignment in Dungeons and Dragons</i>.

LMFAO.

No, it's not a sign of intellectual weakness to discuss either Hitler or the Emperor when talking about <i>alignment in Dungeons and Dragons</i>. After all, y'know, we're talking about . . . .

<I>Alignment in Dungeons and Dragons</i>.

Since then, of course, he's continued to just be insulting, needlessly, to people. So, please, please, please, mes amis, let us ignore him.

 

[Theuderic]

Theuderic is a troll. The faster you ignore him, the faster he'll disappear

That's real nice thanks a lot

 

[S'mon]

Theuderic is a troll. The faster you ignore him, the faster he'll disappear.

OK Chrisling, sorry to fall for the troll - some of them are quite sneaky.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

To be clearer - I'm not against the Paladin/Bard idea, I just don't think you've demonstrated that foucs. BTW, I like KM's idea about a "Musical" Paladin PrC.

I realized I had missed the focus as soon as I started reading Kamikaze Midget's post.

I guess I wasn't clear that it was the music that brought him in, but it was the ideas that made him stay. He became truly and deeply committed to his god's views on justice and protecting the innocent. So he's more of a holy warrior who happens to have tapped into areas of music and knowledge than a musician who happened to become a holy warrior.

Actually I arrived at the idea because I wanted a paladin who was intelligent and had studied extensively, especially holy texts and both Church and military history. Of course, studying those things also fills your head with all the asides, philosophies, and trivia that are hanging around the edges of those texts. I thought that bardic Knowledge was the perfect mechanic for the kind of information I wanted him to have access to. (Bardic Knowledge is the perfect mechanic for a scholar, IMO. We've read so much, we often need the equivalent of a mental die roll to dredge up a specific piece of information). So, I had a paladin scholar (I figured I'd work out how to give him bardic knowledge later), and I wanted to give him some quirks. Something to show that he wasn't everyone's typical paladin. So I made him good with kids. I figured, not only was he isolated from the world because of his paladin training, but when you tack on being a bookworm, he's probably REALLY isolated and naive. So, what does he do with the kids? Tells 'em stories, parables and such since he's devout, and...sings...songs... perform skill + bardic knowledge = bard. Ooh. He could sing battle hymns as he went into battle. The power of the songs would come from his god...

And so on, so I re-wrote the character's history to account for the musical ability, but my actual goal was knowledge. I have a firm belief that fighting classes got screwed in this area. Paladins were mostly drawn from the educated nobility, yet the only Knowledge skill they get is Religion? Who are your generals in this world? Fighters who've been taking Knowledge: Tactics & Knowledge: Military History as cross-class skills? The Educated feat helps this somewhat, but still, at 2+int mod per level, they better have 18 intelligence if they want to have any other skills.

Anyway, this is even further off topic than all the Nazi Germany stuff, so I guess I'll stop rambling now...

 

[GuardianLurker]

At four pages into this thread, I'm surprised it hasn't had more hijackings.

But to return to topic:
Perhaps the problem is that people keep getting bogged down in real-world/specific examples?

Perhaps if we focused on a more detailed breakdown of "Lawful" versus "Chaotic" characteristics? Putting them in opposed pairs might help.

Lawful *** <> *** Chaotic
Society ---- <> --- Individual
(?) Constrained --- <> --- Unbounded (?)
Traditional --- <> --- Innovative
Hierarchical --- <> --- Anarchical
Rule-bound --- <> --- Whimsical
Fixed --- <> --- Mobile
??????
(Water --- <> --- Metal)
(Air --- <> --- Earth)

These are the ones I remember seeing; please add more.

 

[Sir Hawkeye]

Some thoughts:
1. The more you look at something the more it looks like true neutral. Nothing is absolutely lawful, chaotic, good, or evil. Alignment is an average of many traits.

2. Societies don't have alignments per se. There are probably at least four (possibly five) seperate alignments involved in a society:

The concepts of government
The government itself (and the members of government)
The population as a whole
The average alignment of an individual.

For example, America (IMHO):
Chaotic Good concepts of government (originally, at least)
Lawful Neutral government (Good tendencies)
Population as a Whole Neutral (Chaotic tendencies?)
Avg Citizen True Neutral (Good Tendencies?)

The last two don't trust me on. see point #1.

The Dwarven example:
Chaotic concepts of government
Lawful Good Governments, Societies, Individuals (Not enough detail to really judge)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Some thoughts:
1. The more you look at something the more it looks like true neutral. Nothing is absolutely lawful, chaotic, good, or evil. Alignment is an average of many traits.

Gotta disagree with you here. The more I look at something, the more the "shades of grey" cancel each other out and it reveals itself as Good or Evil.

People are going to hate this, but...

True Neutral is a myth. Doesn't exist. All actions can ultimately be characterized as good or evil once you remove rationalizations and artificial cognitive constructs.

That aside, there is more room for neutrality on the Law-Chaos axis. In fact, this thread proves that there's almost nothing but room in the middle, as they are absolute, abstract concepts that cannot exist in human behavior.

 

[Rhialto]

Gotta disagree with you here. The more I look at something, the more the "shades of grey" cancel each other out and it reveals itself as Good or Evil.

People are going to hate this, but...

True Neutral is a myth. Doesn't exist. All actions can ultimately be characterized as good or evil once you remove rationalizations and artificial cognitive constructs.

I'm afraid I disagree with you, Canis. I'd have to say most people aren't really good, but aren't particularly evil either. And most actions follow that same rule...

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm afraid I disagree with you, Canis. I'd have to say most people aren't really good, but aren't particularly evil either. And most actions follow that same rule...

Typical modern, relativist viewpoint.

btw- No need to couch it nicely. Disagree with me loud and strong. Everyone disagrees with me on this. Fire-and-brimstone Catholic priests think I'm over the top on this. It's extreme. And I'm cognizant that it's probably dead wrong, but it lets me cut through certain forms of B.S. like a hot knife through butter. When I start applying it to people, their true motivations (which they've often hidden behind massive rationalizations) always come rolling out.

So, it works for me. I don't know why I felt the need to put it out there for public perusal, though. I think the lack of sleep is getting to me.

 

[jgbrowning]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by jgbrowning
well i think we can all agree that the current system of law-chaos, good-evil doesn't do a good job of explaining societies because the determing factor of the definition is mutable. The determining factor here being an individual's perception. Other than to say we can't come to terms with the issue since its one of perception and not objective.. well i dont have much to say.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"On another thread, we have the issue of those not willing to accept these definitions are a matter of perception. They are "divinely inspired", for lack of a better term. But I agree with what you say. Just as long as the definitions are set at the beginning of the campaign, or the default PHB definitions accepted, that is fine."



Well what i was talking about was not the concept of an divinely inspired concept of law-chaos. I was refering to how we, as players of the game, interpret such rules.

and even divinely inspired wouldnt mean doodle in a world with a multiplicity of gods. one god says a=a, one says a=b. which ones right? unless your running a monotheistic game, or a game with a single big 'ole creator god that's still involved even clerics will have problems.


joe b.