Thoughts on Alignment and Classes

[theoremtank]

There are two classes for which I feel the alignment restrictions do not always make sense. These are the Barbarian and the Monk.

[From the SRD]
Lawful characters tell the truth, keep their word, respect authority, honor tradition, and judge those who fall short of their duties. Chaotic characters follow their consciences, resent being told what to do, favor new ideas over tradition, and do what they promise if they feel like it.

"Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, and a lack of adaptability.

"Chaos" implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility.
People who are neutral with respect to law and chaos have a normal respect for authority and feel neither a compulsion to obey nor to rebel. They are honest, but can be tempted into lying or deceiving others.

In my opinion, the barbarian has just as many lawful qualities as it does chaotic. A barbarian would hold the laws and traditions of its clan or community in high esteem. He would respect the tribe leader's authority. He is typically close minded and lacks outside cultural adaptability. The barbarian would never be chaotic in the setting of his own community. I believe the arguement for a barbarian being chaotic lies more in his reaction to the world outside of his tribe. Although, a barbarian is agressive towards outside communities and cultures because of his lack of understanding and closemindedness (this is a downfall of lawful behavior). He does not respect a foreign culture's idea of law because it is not the "true" law. That is, the law that governs his tribe. This is closemindedness. The barbarians thoughts on outside cultures are akin to a chrisitan fanatic; they don't understand these cultures and they don't want to, they are just wrong. Chaos as defined in the rules has nothing to do with savage behavior. It is defined in terms of a person following his own moral code, ideas, and philosophy. This does not encompass the typical barbarian.

Excluding a monk from being of chaotic alignment does not always make sense. Chaotic alignment does not imply the character is without discipline. A chaotic aligned monk would fit the archetype of the 'soul searcher', or the wandering 'student of life.' He is openminded, and seeks to understand outside influences. How he chooses to interpret these influences is left to his own ideas and concious. These are not qualities of lawfullness. The concept of discipline, which is a strong monk trait, is independent of the definitions of law or chaos. For instance: Drizzt Do'Urden fits the chaotic alignment. He was tremendously disciplined in his study of swordplay and combat (like most monks); this does not contradict his alignment. He uses what works in terms of combat, and alters what he believes does not (a chaotic trait). For those that read Homeland, recall his frustration and eventual solution with the combat manuever that Zaknafein swore was the only correct option. However, Drizzt is very much like the archetype of a monk in terms of mindset. He is open minded and takes what is good from society and discards what is not. Monks are less likely to be fanatical than they are to be openminded. I would argue a monk be lawful only in the early initial stages of his training. That is, he must respect his elders and their opinion. However, when the monk becomes older and must advance his training, this is where the chaotic alignment takes over.

I'm open to feedback, please jump in.

Thanks

 

[Tonguez]

I agree and would advise you to dump 'alignment' all together...

 

[Dinkeldog]

Welcome to the House Rules forum where we discuss such things as house rules on alignment restrictions, and perhaps ways to play D&D without alignments at all.

 

[Drawmack]

First I'll Give Arguments for the core rules, then I'll discuss my houserulling on restriction for the classes.

Why must a monk be lawful?
A monk represents a martial arts expert. In the martial arts people spend many years learning to control their thoughts and emotions. In many of the arts meditation and self control is taught over and above fighting. It is this type of training that leads to a lawful alignment restriction. The monk follows a very strict set of codes not unlike the paladin and it is following these codes that makes them lawful.

Why must a barbarian be chaotic?
The barbarian is the undisciplined fighter. He rages out of anger. He is a bull in a china shop when placed into ''normal'' society. He lives his life based on his gut feelings and therefor is chaotic.


In summation:
If there is a law or code that states, ''You must follow your heart and be true to your own desires.'' what alignment would you be if you followed that code? Someone who acts this way is chaotic but obeying the code makes you lawful.

My houserule on this:
If you can find a way to meet the prerequisites then do it, as in a code like the above. If there is no way your character concept can meet the prereques for the class you want then give me a creative and believable backstory.

For Example:
I want to be a human - dwarven defender:
As an infant my mother left me in a dwarven inn. Being that their society is a LG society they took me in and the church or moradin raised me. I was always treated like a dwarf and do not even fit in with human society. When I reached adulthood and showed an interest in being a defender the priests nurtured this and helped me learn as they honestly raised me as a dwarf.

I view prerequsites as a guideline. You should follow them if you can but if you can convince me that your character would have some reason to be able to take the class without meeting the prerequisits then you may do that.

 

[SylverFlame]

Merilon has the same thread as this being run in the DnD Rules section, I thought there was one in here to. Hmmm. Must have been bumped. ANyways, just plugging it.

I agree with Drawmack though, all "restrictions" are guidelines. Besides, it something improves the campaign you're playing in, why not go for it?

 

[Andion Isurand]

My website has a little of what I have to say about the chaotic/lawful alignment axis. The link is in my sig.

 

[Merlion]

I have posted threads on class alignment restrictions in I think all three of the forums. I've been debating on posting one about alignment in general. But since someone has brought thease things up in house rules, here are some thoughts.
Personaly I'm not really a fan of doing away with alignment entirly. I like it that there are spells and effects that specficialy effect beings of certain alignments...and that there are beings who exemplify certain alignments.
I dont like the Law/Chaos portion of alignment for a lot of reasons. Some of them have to do with my personal views of things, some are more purely game related. Some are against the whole concept, some beefs with how it is portrayed in DnD. To me in this game Law and Chaos especialy in relation to the alignment of relatively "normal" beings, boils down to personality traits, and to a lesser extent political tendencies. This is why I dislike any class having an alignment restriction related to Law/Chaos. Because when it comes right down to it, its essentialy saying, a character of this class has(or cannot have) this kind of personality..with the depth of options depending on the particular restriction.
Monks powers stem from disicpline, therefor all Monks must be Lawful. As the original poster pointed out, firstly disicpline really isnt necessarily a lawful trait. and even if it is...the class implies one lawful trait, so all memembers of that class MUST be lawful. it makes no sense. Especialy since as has been pointed out many monk characteristics would qualify as Chaotic in the nebulous DnD definition of such things.
The Barbarian being barred from Lawful alignment seems to make more sense, but as theoremtank pointed out theres many reasons why it doesnt make sense...the underlying one being simple since Law and Chaos are a set of personality traits in DnD why should any class be limited to or excluded from either one?
The Paladin is a little more complicated, as its a more engrained part of the game and is very bound up with the things that inspired the original desingers of the game. Although, some of those inspirations(the Crusaders for instance) are pretty out of sync with the Paladin class itself anyway. Now if you look at the Paladin as solely being a representation of the Arthurian knight as depicted in more recent fantasy, then I guess the Lawful restriction makes some sense. However taking the Paladin more as it is presented in my opnion, especialy in the current rules, as a warrior of goodness and virtue given favor by the forces thereof to which things like Sir galahad and the Templars were AN inspiration, the Lawful restriction really makes no sense. Why do you have to be Lawful in order to pursue goodness and virtue and the protection of the innocent? Now a case can be made along the lines of Good being the ultimate Law and that makes sense...although to me that concept is exemplfied better by the "Neutral" Good alignment anyway...since if you already have your ultimate Law in Good then no other Law is going to matter much to you...but within the actual explanations of alignments in DnD theres no real meaningful link between goodness/virtue and Law...Chaos is said to encompass the concepts of freedom and openmindedness which are all Good concepts. To me the Paladin has always seemed like a champion of good...with mandatory adherence to the principles of Law tacked on for no clear reason. Even the references to lawfulness in the paladin code seem to have just been thrown in to justify the restriction...the only such references in the code, really are where it repeats that "a paladin must be of lawful good alignment" and when it states that a paladin must respect legitmate authority. Although really respecting legitmate authority really does not preclude alignments other than Lawful. even a chaotic person can have respect for the authority of a government within its own land, or a person within there own home.
I dont really see why Law and Chaos even exist as part of alignment. The words are misleading as to there actual meaning within the game. Chaos and Order are concepts which rarely have a whole lot of direct bearing on most peoples lives...Order lets you know that the sun will most likely rise in the morning, Chaos reminds you that anything can happen at any time. the words "law" and "chaos" only relate to the things they are used to represent in this game in a general way. Many of the things...such as reliability or freespiritedness are simple personality traits. Others, such as wether you feel that the king should remain in power because that is his right by blood regardless of his actions, or that you feel that your baron shouldnt be able to tell you what crops to grow, are political views. I feel that those two things should be decided entirly by the player based on character concept and are equally open to all classes, or at the very least that the terms used to describe them in the framework of the alignment system be clearer.
I realize I'm rambling and some of that might not be as clear as I would like. but those are some of my main thoughts on those issues.