The nature of "lawful" 2

[Scharlata]

[...] But is the changing of the Kingdom itself lawful or chaotic?

Does someone consider the building of a house a chaotic act? Someone deems the changing of a poor wooden hut into a decent stone house a nonlawful act? Does it not take a set of rules, planes, considerations and blueprints to erect, construct and build? Did your forefathers (and mothers, that is) that wrote the American Constitution (or our ancestors who wrote the german "Verfassung") commit a chaotic act defining the independence from some other kingdom?

I think we all could anser all questions with "indeed, no"! More lawful a man/woman cannot be!

Kind regards

 

[Zweischneid]

Hey, just because it's been written about before doesn't make it an invalid perspective. Just the opposite in fact.

And a number of other books that are along the law/chaos axis instead of the good/evil axis point this out.

Mickey Zucker Riechert, Jack Chalker, and LE Modesitt are a few more authors who've written looking along that axis.

Not saying that, but D&D alignment aint based on those I believe.

If it makes you feel better, all laws are simply a subset of chaos.

And Zelazny at least goes full circle, where chaos is spread from the Courts(!) of Chaos. In places where chaos reigns supreme and change is the only absolute, change & chaos are inchangengable (i.e. without alternative).. the ultimate form of law/stasis.

Either way, I always read Zelazny's wierd Chaos mumbo the way that neither Law nor Chaos can exist without the other. Something thats not given sufficient credit in Gyrax D&D alignments IMO.

 

[TheEvil]

Events don't have alignments

The LG fighter is almost certainly behaving in a lawful fashion, though we really don't get enough description on that.
As far whether the kingdom being changed from LE to LG is a lawful or chaotic thing, events don't have alignments. There will certainly be chaotic times in the course of the change, but that doesn't endow the event with any kind of alignment.

 

[ARandomGod]

Does someone consider the building of a house a chaotic act?

Someone might. It depends, why was it done?

Someone deems the changing of a poor wooden hut into a decent stone house a nonlawful act?

It easily could be. It easily could be. Once again we need to determine the reasons behind the actions. It's definitely an act of change, but the act itself isn't as important as the motivations behind the act. It could be a consistent, lawful change, or it could be an inconsistent, unlawful change. There could even be a law in that area against having houses made of stone.

Does it not take a set of rules, planes, considerations and blueprints to erect, construct and build?

It doesn't... but it's very, very helpful.

Did your forefathers (and mothers, that is) that wrote the American Constitution (or our ancestors who wrote the german "Verfassung") commit a chaotic act defining the independence from some other kingdom?

I think we all could anser all questions with "indeed, no"! More lawful a man/woman cannot be!

Kind regards

Actually, the throwing off the yolk of a kingdom and declaring independence is a very good example of an extremely chaotic act. The later writing of the constitution and building laws could be seen as a lawful act to balance this, an atonement of sorts. The founders could easily have been lawful, but the revolution was practially the definition of chaotic.

A number of people seem to be arguing that Law cannot change and that any change is chaotic. That is incorrect, in my view. First, imposing law certainly causes changes, no matter whether it was because law was imposed on a previously lawless place, or whether a new set of laws replaces the old. Second, Law can change and adapt as well, but the change will be made in as orderly a fashion as possible.

Law, by it's nature, cannot change without an influx of chaos. Structure, law, order, custom, these are the things of law. Innovation, change, inspiration, and creativity are the things of chaos.

So yes, Law cannot change. But lawful people can change. This is because the alignment Lawful is not Law to the exclusion of Chaos. A few minorly chaotic things does not comprise changing an alignment. Just because a man whose daily regieme consists of always eating eggs and ham does not make that man chaotic if he has steak and eggs one day, or even if he decides to go with waffles. But it IS a minor act of chaos. Just because a man who never lies tells his wife one day that she's still as pretty now at 45 as she was when they married at 16 does not make him chaotic, or even neutral. There are a number of minor acts of chaos within law all the time. Law without chaos leads to stagnation and death.

By the same accord, Chaotics often have and indeed NEED bits of law in order to even exist, for chaos taken it it's extreme, chaos without law leads to dissolution and death.

So yes, all change is, by definition, chaotic. But minor chaotic acts don't make a person non-lawful.

A MAJOR chaotic act, however, like throwing off the old rules and rulers and coming up with your own... well, that person or group really has to at least for a while be considered chaotic. A group of Paladins who decided one day that their rulers and their kingdom was just wrong, who revolted and make a country of their own. Well, that country would likely be Lawful, as the people who made it were by nature Lawfully aligned. On the other hand, those Paladins likely needed to make an atonement for their actions, even given that those actions were needed (perhaps it had become an evil kingdom, perhaps the rulers were acting themselves in flagrant violation of the law, or any number of situations where such a group would come into conflict with itself to the degree that it needed to revolt). Now, non-Paladins might not need to "atone", but their actions at the time are clearly, IMO, not only non-lawful but chaotic. However, I would argue that those characters would maintain their status as lawfully aligned as long as they did take actions to establish a proper new kingdom, with appropriate new laws, and as long as they acted in the balance of their lifes as lawful.

But the idea that revolution is Lawful is, as far as I'm concerned, not looking at the axis completely enough. As, for that matter, is the thought that change is NOT chaotic.

Sure, bits of chaos lead to new law, but that's not terribly surprising. Chaos NEEDS law in order to exist as a meaningful concept. Just as law needs chaos in order to not stagnate into oblivion. And so saying I reiterate (and requote):

A number of people seem to be arguing that Law cannot change and that any change is chaotic. That is incorrect, in my view.

I believe that you see this as incorrect because you are looking at the larger picture, and you are not seeing the details. Certainly the end result is Law, but the details... Bringing in Law or changing Law is defintely chaotic.

First, imposing law certainly causes changes, no matter whether it was because law was imposed on a previously lawless place, or whether a new set of laws replaces the old.

And there you are, essentially stating my point. Imposing law causes change. The initial seed of chaos that has the end result of law. Is this act lawful? Overall, when you look at the big picture, yes. Is this small, tiny act outside of the big picture lawful? No.

Second, Law can change and adapt as well, but the change will be made in as orderly a fashion as possible.

And there you are saying it again. As orderly a fashion as possible. Acknowledging that it cannot be completely orderly, that an element of chaos is introduced with each and every change, that the act cannot be accomplished without an influx of some amount of chaos.

Your examples against the fact that change is chaos contains within it the very elements of chaos that are needed. You just haven't looked at them or haven't acknowledged the fact that they are indeed there, and that they are indeed chaos. Are these examples of lawfulness? Yes. Was chaos present? Inescapably.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

I say chaotic, not because of the example you gave, but because during the transition there is likely to be a lot of swinging back and forth, as the tyrant wins a battle, and then the new good guy. Unless it's a perfectly smooth revolution, things are going to be a little chaotic,

R from Three Haligonians

 

[FireLance]

I have to admit, I don't agree with the position that any change is chaotic, or that stasis is lawful. A completely closed-up demiplane containing nothing but a motionless planet and a moon perpetually circling it in a stable path - is it chaotic because the moon is always moving, or is it lawful because the moon moves in a constant, unchanging, regular, predictable path? I would say neither because change is not in itself chaotically aligned. To me stasis is the opposite of any alignment - when nothing changes, there can be no law, no chaos, no good or evil.

But even if we take the assumption that any change is chaotic, the lawfulness of a specific act may override it. Take the example of good and evil. Some would argue that killing any creature is an evil act. Even so, if that creature was an evil demon about to sacrifice the souls of a group of innocents to gain greater personal power, I would say that the good of stopping the demon before he could harm others overrides the evil of killing it and the specific act is good overall even if killing is an evil act in general. Applying this principle to this case, the lawfulness of imposing law overrides the chaotic nature of the change.

 

[FireLance]

Or, to take the concept that change is chaotic to the most ridiculous extreme that I can think of, anything that a person does, from breathing to eating to typing on a computer, is chaotic because it changes the world in some way.

So, even as you're reading this, you're being chaotic RIGHT NOW, IYKWIMAITYD .

 

[ARandomGod]

Or, to take the concept that change is chaotic to the most ridiculous extreme that I can think of, anything that a person does, from breathing to eating to typing on a computer, is chaotic because it changes the world in some way.

So, even as you're reading this, you're being chaotic RIGHT NOW, IYKWIMAITYD .

You could be. Although I'd argue against that definition of "change". Any regular motion is not change.

For that matter, I don't say that anyone who has chaos is chaotic. I DID say that Law taken to it's extreme is indeed a ridiculous extreme. As would be chaos. In distilling and understanding the concepts of Law and Chaos you have to look at what the essence of those things are. Purified.

If you don't think chaos is change, what do YOU think that the essence of chaos is?

 

[FireLance]

To me, the essence of chaos as an alignment (as opposed to the more general meaning of chaos) is whether a person believes there should be rules or not. Lawful people believe that behavior should be governed by rules, although they could disagree on what the rules should be (lawful good and lawful evil people probably would). Chaotic people prefer to follow their personal beliefs and opinions rather than the rules. A lawful person and a chaotic person could decide to do the same thing - the lawful one because the rules say so, and the chaotic one because he feels like it.

 

[spider_minion]

The lawful good character only needs to respect just authority. Any good character can fight against the evil empire . . . but I think the government the good guy sets up in its place really determines his lawfulness or chaoticness.

IMO, the whole lawful-chaotic distinction is kinda wacked. I prefer to think of it as the difference between Kirk and Spock . . . one acts on his emotions and the other on reason.