Printable View
I'm not sure what section to post this in, so I thought that friendly banter is probably the most safe.
It is fairly easy to tell the difference between LE, NE, and CE. Same goes for LN, TN, and CN.
But concerning good...
How do you tell the difference between the three?
For example, does a NG character do what's right regardless of the law? Well, if he does, what separates him and a CG character?
The goods are tricky to tell... Help anyone?
This should probably go in the Roleplaying thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
I find it sort of like this, when it comes to gods:
LG: Uses his power to create/obey laws and rules for benevolent reasons.
NG: Acts for what he considers to be Good, regardless of tany other forces.
CG: Acts to preserve freedom, liberating people for benevolent reasons.
Well, not just in terms of gods, in terms of characters.
The chaos/law axis doesn't have much to do with actual laws, but rather inner impulses and behavior ways of creature. It's bigger thing that humans laws in cosmology.
What is this doing in Friendly banter anyway?
A, I see.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
For characters, I think of it more like this:
Lawful Good: Strives for discipline, obedience, law-abiding and calm of itself and others in an ethical way for benevolent reasons.
Neutral Good: Does whatever it considers "for the greater good" in a situation, regardless of Law or Chaos.
Chaotic Good: Strives for the freedom, celebration and joy of itself and others in an ethical way for benevolent reasons.
Troll Patrol: Moved to a more appropriate forum.
Thanks, I was just about to message you for such a request.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeb The Troll
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiryt
Believe me, I'm a huge advocate of "lawful doesn't mean you have to follow the laws," but still, if something goes against your code, but is the right thing to do, (LG,) then what do you do?
And with CG, do you have to be an advocate of individual freedoms? Can't you still strive for good without caring about that, and do it in a chaotic way, so one can be CG?
My take on it...
Good is all about the welfare of the individual. A Good character wants to improve the lot of people around them. A really Good character will put themselves at a significant loss or risk to do so. So then, Law and Chaos is all about what you perceive to be improving their lot, and how you go about it.
These aren't the only philosophies that might be articulated for each alignment, but I hope they sort of get it right.
Lawful Good: The good of the individual and the good of society are inextricably linked. You cannot have one without the other. Justice, tempered by compassion, is the foundation of a healthy society, together with social cohesion promoted by respect for common values and aspirations. Everyone should contribute to this collective good and everyone should reap the rewards. Where necessary, laws may be enacted to require this service if it is not offered freely.
Neutral Good: The good of the individual is the highest good, and the greatest wellspring of one's own good is to do good by another. We are each searching half-blindly for what it really means to be good, and so we all have something to offer each other on this journey. Ultimately, no-one is more right than another, and no one has the right to compel another's aid or obedience to a certain definition of good. That said, there are certainly mistakes that ought to be prevented, and of course there are some who would abuse others for their own selfish benefit. Certain limitations on risky actions ought to be laid out, as deemed appropriate from time to time.
Chaotic Good: The good of the individual depends on freedom to define one's own good. No one has the right to pursue their own (or another's) welfare in a way that is detrimental to the welfare of others -- and this includes being required to work within a system that defines welfare for you. One's goals and aspirations are highly personal and each person must be free to pursue them as they see fit, limited only by not harming another. But even this limit cannot be controlled by one person or group; it is the place of the strong to offer aid to the weak where it is called for, not to pre-emptively impose rules in the name of protection.
And now to answer a couple of other comments.
The answer is, "it depends". To a Lawful Good character, the "right thing to do" is often to stick by the code. An immediate gain at the cost of the code's tenets might undo much of the good that the code itself accomplishes. However, codes are never perfect; the highest law of the Lawful Good character is to do good, and so any particular code can always stand to be refined towards the ideal of perfectly harmonised Good and Law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
You don't have to advocate for individual freedoms, but you kind of have to believe in them, because striving for Good in a Chaotic way pretty much means you act like you believe in them. What does it mean to act in a Chaotic way? You certainly don't follow rules for their own sake, and you might even get a bit of a kick from deliberately breaking with tradition and doing the unexpected. You don't follow any particular method or scheme; such things might have value and you'll dabble in them to find what that value is, but you have no attachment to them and ultimately see them as limiting if pursued too far.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
In other words, you believe you should enjoy plenty of individual freedom. And so a Chaotic Good character will believe that this degree of freedom ought to be enjoyed by everyone.
Of course you can do those things!Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
Think of Order (I hate the word "Law" in games. People keep thinking of actual laws) as an empathy with the concept of "something greater".
"The Whole" has an intrinsic value in which those within are essential to it. It's the type of person who feels a certain expected behavior is important to compose something else (be it personal development or the state of a community).
Chaos is the opposite. Chaotic people don't see such intrinsic value in the abstraction of a "bigger entity made of smaller entities" like the orderly guy does. To him, each being is complete on its own, and thus no behavior should be demanded that isn't directly beneficial to his interests.
If I were playing a LG character faced with a dilemma, I might seek the advice of a mentor, leader, deity or someone they perceive as wiser. If no such person is available, then I'd stick with my code unless it is really obviously not the right thing to do. If I find myself in lots of moral conflict scenarios then it would be time to reevaluate and possibly modify my code.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erts
e.g. I am a monk sworn to never take a life. I have a BBEG I'm told I need to kill or very bad stuff will happen. I return to my monastery to ask my teachers what I ought to do, and they say putting my spiritual purity above the needs of others is selfish, promotes the ego and is thus counter to spiritual purity anyway. With this new insight, I do what I must.
If I were NG, I might still have a code of conduct or general rules, but be more comfortable breaking them at times if I felt it was needed, and could do so without that being a challenge to the code. Over time, it might end up that my morals have drifted somewhat from what I profess they are.
e.g. I am a police officer who breaks the rules to get evidence that can convict some really nasty person. While this act is unlawful, I go back to being a police officer afterwards and try to put it behind me. Maybe after a few instances of this I realise I no longer believe in the ideals of my profession, and leave the force.
As a CG character, I might trust in myself and go with my gut feeling/conscience. This means I'm pretty adaptable, but may well be hypocritical or inconsistent, either because my views are actually changing faster to new information than those of NG or LG, or because intuition is not always the best guide.
e.g. I am a healer, who one month smuggles in medicine created from the eggs of a gold dragon to cure a terrible plague. I know what it is, but don't ask too many questions. The next month, I'm appalled when I find warforged being worked to death as slaves, even though their labour is being used for something good like a city wall to defend against evil barbarians.
I wish there was room in my signature to quote you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine
I like this definition. Lawful Good cares more about the social structure and the benefit of the whole, so more socialist in that regard. Chaotic Good believes each individual knows what's good for themselves, while the social structures are not important and should adapt themselves to the individual, so more Libertarian. Neutral would be the right point in the middle and more philantrophic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peregrine
I like it
I'd like to add that Law and Chaos are also associated with personality traits, and that often outsiders of the relevant alignments will exemplify the personality traits rather than the philosophies. In this case, it's a dichotomy between self-discipline and passion. Elves, for example, aren't terribly concerned with individualism. They're Chaotic Good because they do good in a way that is passionate and artistic, rather than proscribed and ascetic.
While I don't want this to turn into an argument about alignment, I disagree. Libertarianism, socialism, libertarian socialism, utilitarianism, deontology, whatever, are all codes of conduct. I think the crux of law vs chaos is one's approach to the whole idea of CoCs, not what the CoC happens to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Random NPC
Well, not the crux, as Law/Chaos are very poorly defined in the rules, and allow for multiple interpretations. But as a DM I wouldn't want to map real-world political/ethical/economic philosophies to a 4-bit system.
The easydamus site:
http://easydamus.com/alignment.html
did try to map a few basic philosophies to the alignment system, in a "Neutral Good may be associated with...." fashion.
The way I see it, good/evil is about the goals you have. Lawful/chaotic is about how you get there.
Evil goals are destructive, selfish and hateful.
Good goals are productive, altruistic and friendly.
Lawful ways of achieving things involve concepts such as
- community
- hierarchy
- discipline
- structure
- tradition
Chaotic ways of achieving things involve concepts such as:
- individuality
- freedom
- intuition
- decentralization
- innovation
So, when confronted with a problem, a lawful character will recur to his personal or organisational code, refer the problem to his superiors, attempt to alter the framework he's working in and try to find tried and true solutions.
A chaotic character by contrast will try solve the problem on his own terms, seek spontaneous and extemporaneous solutions or present the problem for general discussion.
A lawful character will be hindered by his inability to see beyond institutional and established approaches and a tendency to overregulate. He might later realize that his sweeping solution created other problems elsewhere. Example: the LG character tries to solve a city's corruption problem and manages to get a law passed that disallows officials from taking money from outsiders. Later he finds that officials quit in droves because they can no longer support themselves without the legitimate contributions.
A chaotic character will be hindered by his on-the-spot approach and his inability to see the bigger picture. Example: To solve the abovementioned corruption problem, the CG character campaigns for the removal of all officials he has identified as corrupt. Later he realizes that the new officials that take their places ultimately slip into the same practices, since the systemic issues remain unsolved.
A neutral character will try to balance both approaches, seeing things both, or alternately, in terms of systemic and personal issues. Example: the NG character realizes that pay levels for city officials are too low, providing incentives for bribery and some city officials are simply greedy bastards. He pushes for a pay raise, minimizing, if not entirely abolishing the problem.
As a rule I tend to think that NG characters are best at achieving good goals, because they are less constrained, as with all partly neutral alignments.
I don't want to delveQuote:
Originally Posted by Random NPC
too muchat all into real-life politics/economics, but even with the same definitions of Order-as-communitarian and Chaos-as-individualistic that you use, it is easy, very easy in fact, to argue the exact opposite. People can't really seek happiness for themselves if they have to spend all their time, power (i.e money) and energy in a strife for survival. Unbridled individual freedom is a beautiful idea, but it won't let, it won't help your average homeless beggar to live a fulfilling life.
More generally, the "Lawful Good" and "Chaotic Good" societies suggested in this thread strike me as quite strawmannish, especially when compared to the "Neutral" Good ones. In fact, the latter isn't so much the middle term it is supposed to be, or even a golden mean, than it is the "best of both worlds" and the only actual, valid Good doctrine. Helping people follow your path while forbidding them any other way of life is not altruistic, except in Celestia where one wouldn't be here if they didn't believe in the one same Truth to begin with. Enabling - in theory - every way of life that is not obviously destructive without caring whether or not people have the material means to actually do anything at all is not altrustic, except in Arborea where everything is abundant and Evil does not exist. You can't say you actively care about people if you don't help them live the life of their choice ; and caring about people at large is pretty much the definition of Good in the standard D&D cosmology.
You know what they say about paladins rarely trying to get political power over the larger society ? Well, that's why. They know they can't expect to run an entire country like a giant-sized paladinic Order. They know that their lifestyle is a choice, and they can't expect - much less compel - anyone to do the same choice.
I see this fairly often too. But I hope my descriptions aren't giving you this impression, because I actually believe most strongly in the Lawful Good point of view I described. Perhaps that's why it was the shortest of the three descriptions; it just made sense to me, so I didn't feel the need to keep adding verbiage to it. :smalltongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Murdim
(In hindsight, perhaps I could have explained the last part -- "Where necessary, laws may be enacted to require this service if it is not offered freely" -- a bit better. It was meant to describe things like taxes to raise money for public welfare, not necessarily requiring everyone to do two hours a fortnight of community service, and certainly not demanding that everyone believe in the same values and ideals.)
Lawful Good people as a whole don't believe in forcing people to follow their way, because they don't often believe that their way is solely and completely right. But in contrast to Neutral Good (at least as I described it) and certainly Chaotic Good ideals, they do believe that one way can be clearly more right than another. And these ways are often the ones that become the foundation of traditions and customs, so it is appropriate to enshrine them in law and expect people to follow them, unless and until they can show how they ought to be amended to be better.
The problem with the law/chaos axis is that there are two good ways of interpreting it: it's either organization and society vs freedom and individualism, or discipline vs spontaneity. Depending on which one you choose, different characters will register as lawful and chaotic for you.