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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7975562" data-attributes="member: 18">I think at that point it becomes a useless descriptor, because they're not actually equally organised, don't actually equally value consistent laws and rules and so on, and even if few of them value individualism (which I'd actually suggest was valued in a number of ancient societies, with Rome being a very obvious example, despite, ironically, it being often held up as the classic "Lawful" society), then there clearly are very significant differences. But if they're all L (and probably mostly LE by D&D alignment standards), then I guess we just shouldn't apply alignments to societies at all? Maybe that is the solution.Also, an ancient history student, I think your point is a bit rubbish and facile frankly. The notion than individualism is some super-modern thing that's never been seen before is gibberish to the point where it's almost a political stance (it's like the people who claim communitarian societal approaches are strictly a post-Marx thing, which is just gibberish but I've heard actual professors claim it before, and not at terrible universities either). Individualism is a theme that comes and goes throughout human history. It's very prevalent in some ancient cultures, and near absent in others. After the Romans, it tends to decline a bit in the West (and never really got big in the East AFAIK), but reawakens in the 1000s, as the Christian church recognises that individuals can seek individual salvation - that everyone has a separate soul (this may seem obvious, but it was actually a huge deal in the 1000s-1100s) that is saved separately, and gradually grows from there, being spurred forwards by the Black Death and the resultant shortage of both skilled and unskilled labour.Also let's come at it from the other direction, and see what D&D does - and we can see from countless products from 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E and 5E, that your approach is not followed. One individualistic society will be LN or even LG. Another will be CE. One largely collectivist society will be LN, another will be CG. Looking at D&D it seems much more like the L-N-C applies largely to how organised and focused on formal procedures, formal rules, and inflexible traditions a society is, than anything else.</blockquote>

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