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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 413045" data-attributes="member: 5171">Maybe it's just the nature of what we're discussing, but there's something deeply unnerving about multiple people saying nice things about my post.  I keep glancing over my shoulder nervously...Um, yeah, the treasure room and door thing was me being hugely absurdist -- but I'm sure that if a DM were short-sighted enough to give a first-level CE wizard a wand of fireballs, it would happen at some point.  "Treasure?  Bah!  What is treasure to a God?  BWAHAHAHA, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt!"To the 10th level CE wizard scrying the whole thing, it's a display of inbred idiocy.  Experience has given that wizard a better view of plans and strategems, and even if he didn't need that treasure himself, he could have used it for something else.  A tenth level chaotic evil wizard can maintain the appearance of lawfulness for longer, because he knows that the moment he flips out and starts fireballing the commoners in the market square, a bunch of square-jawed adventurers are going to come looking for him -- and eventually, one of them will be smart or strong enough to get through his defenses.I'm not saying that the 10th level CE Wizard isn't as chaotic or as evil as the 1st level guy with the wand of fireballs (who is counterintuitively screaming "lightning bolt" over and over again instead of "fireball", proving that he's not worth the one round of melee combat it would take to kill him).  He's just advanced to a more elitist understanding of true chaos and true evil.  He can put on an amulet of nondetection and make nice at the local duke's ball.  Heck, he'll even save the duke from an assassin rather than taking it as an opportunity to disintegrate the duke's body and polymorph himself into the duke to take his place.  Why?  Because he's not aiming for the local duchy.  He's aiming higher -- and he's figured out an important factor of the multiverse:True Chaos and True Evil are not one hundred minor sins.True Chaos and True Evil are ninety-nine good deeds that move you into the position to take them by surprise with one deed that guarantees your power, your strength, and your indomitable rulership.Delayed Gratification.  The end justifies the means, even if those means are unpleasant and not fun and involve actually keeping promises and stuff.With the Duke trusting him and appointing him as Ducal Advisor, the 10th level wizard is in position to use his new influence to sureptitiously guide bandits and enemy humanoids, getting chaos into the region, fanning the flames of war, and convincing the duke that the only way to save the Duchy is to unlock the ancient relic currently housed in the mausoleum under the "No, seriously, do NOT use!" sign.And that relic, once in the wizard's hands, will win him a kingdom.This might be the heart of the disagreement.  My personal belief is that demons won't betray each other as quickly and easily -- that Chaotic Evil does not preclude long-term planning or the ability to act lawful, or even good, as the occasion demands.  That, by extrapolation, Graz'zt can expect several centuries of good work from his Succubus before she turns on him.  This is why:The Abyss has been around for a long, long, long time.  They've gotten really really good at backstabbing and cheating and lying.  They've watched top players get done in, and they've watched how it happened, and they've learned that nine times out of ten, betrayal gets noticed and results in you being torn limb from limb and eaten.  That Succubus isn't going to break allegiance the first chance she gets.  She's going to keep stringing Graz'zt along while she works her wiles.  She knows he doesn't trust her.  She knows that he's prepared to kill her if he even suspects that she's being less than forthright.  So she will serve well, and faithfully, biding her time, and she will be a GOOD servant, reporting truthfully, acting on her master's behalf, and so forth.  She's going to wait for an opportunity that will REALLY pay off, make her a power in her own right, because experience has shown her that changing loyalties is useless -- everyone who changes loyalties too early gets killed as short-sighted and stupid.And Graz'zt, for his part, won't be foolish enough to expect unswerving loyalty.  Heck, he'll smile and wink at her side schemes, her little covens and cabals that gain her power, because he knows that it makes her feel special, and her power, for now, is his power.   He wouldn't even tell her not to do that stuff -- because if she breaks that rule and gets away with it, she'll consider breaking more.  He'll have few rules, and she'll know that it's death to break them.I fully agree that eventually, a CE creature will make its move.  But I see them as much more cautious and careful, based on what they've witnessed and what powers they've seen.  Physically powerful, spell-like prodigies with six heads and multiple gaze attacks and eye rays will find themselves bumped into spheres of annhilation if they wantonly break rules and disregard alliances.  Even Chaotic Evil societies will put down their mad dogs.(In fact, they probably work off their stress on mortals, doing the easy lies and casual betrayals on the Primes because it's so much less complicated than the million alliances and thousand betrayals and murky allegiances of their home.  So humanity could easily misunderstand demonic societies, thinking them simplistic, with all of them always lying and never doing anything that merits trust, because the demons don't think the humans are worth really thinking about...)So anyway... that's pretty murky, but I'm at work, writing quickly, and it's the best I can do on short notice.Summary: Chaotic Evil can still be long-sighted.  And the Abyss is a mean enough place that nobody can get by for long without playing.  And playing means at least the pretense of alliance, agreements, and such.Or maybe just "The Abyss is a Harsh Mistress..."-TackyEDIT: Lots of good points made while I was writing this.  I'm mainly asking the question of whether Chaotic Evil and long-term thinking are mutually exclusive.</blockquote>

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