Brainstorming - Order vs. Chaos (no Good or Evil)

[ExLibrisMortis]

I assume both Order and Chaos live by set principles, that is, Chaos is not random. If Chaos weren't set in its Chaotic principles, there'd be a net excess of Order with a little noise from the random chaotic tendencies. Compare to a parliament where half the members randomly vote aye or nay, while the other half votes as a bloc. The bloc-half will virtually always have more votes.

With that in mind:
Order (or Law) is about following principles that you believe should be followed by others, as well, and you will hold them to your standards.
Chaos is about following principles that you believe apply to you, specifically, and that don't neccessarily apply to anyone else.

Extreme Order believes that there is one set of principles to live by that's 'correct', and try to subject the multiverse to this. Example: the Inevitables of Mechanus.
Extreme Chaos believes that no-ones personal principles can ever apply to anyone else (or at least, they can't be proven/argued to apply to anyone else). I don't have an explicit example for this, but I imagine many non-societal groups/species fall under this, and any species without a theory of mind.

Light Order believes that their personal code is valuable, but may not apply to people beyond their direct surroundings.
Light Chaos believes that their personal code may be useful to others, but it must be adapted to the individual.

Effectively, light Order and Chaos meet in the middle. The scale at which your moral principles apply can be 'me', 'my family', 'my country', 'my species', 'my world', 'my plane', or 'my multiverse', and anything in between. It's a neat continuum.

[anti-ninja]

The stuff I have for "Team Not Order" is:
- Personal (not Institutional)
- Individualist (not Collectivist)
- Change is Cyclical (not Progressive)
- See the Person (not the Title or Office)
- Faeries in the Woods (not Craftsmen in the City)
- Dragons and Bandit-Barons (not Knights or Kings)
- Bards and Barbarians (not Clerics or Paladins)
- Nature and Wilderness (not Cities or Cultivated Fields)

If there's a better word for "Team Not Order" than Chaos, I'm super interested.

Thanks!

this seems like a pretty good list for team not order but i find a few problems with it,clerics alignment differs from deity to deity they can be champions of ruder or not order depending on their god.

[Orcus The Vile]

Twist: It's the mighty Chaotic Empire that the underdog Lawful Rebels are fighting against.

There was once a huge empire of order. It was safe but there was no freedom. The rebels ended it and now there is complete freedom.

But since sometimes what I want is the opposite of what you want the real and only rule of this new empire is "Might makes it right".

It is pure chaos. You can do whatever you want if you are able to get away with it.
There is no law.

Necromancers raise undead, strong warriors act as overlords and barbarians steal and rape everyone.

Artists fear no censorship. Scientist doesn’t have a moral code.

A new group of rebels seek to bring back the former order and safety they used to have in the old empire.

[Nifft]

this seems like a pretty good list for team not order but i find a few problems with it,clerics alignment differs from deity to deity they can be champions of ruder or not order depending on their god.

Clerics are all beholden to an externally-imposed code of behavior, and are representatives of their faith as an institution. They are all servants of something which is bigger than themselves.

In D&D, usually I see "chaotic" clerics represented as basically identical to all other clerics -- i.e. the Catholic church, except with an icon of snakes or a hammer (or whatever) instead of Christian iconography -- and that's just a failure of imagination, which I do not feel obligated to uphold.

Also, I can't find many literary examples of priests who are identifiable as even a half-decent match for a D&D Cleric who are not on the side of Order. Do you have any such examples?

[anti-ninja]

Clerics are all beholden to an externally-imposed code of behavior, and are representatives of their faith as an institution. They are all servants of something which is bigger than themselves.

In D&D, usually I see "chaotic" clerics represented as basically identical to all other clerics -- i.e. the Catholic church, except with an icon of snakes or a hammer (or whatever) instead of Christian iconography -- and that's just a failure of imagination, which I do not feel obligated to uphold.

Also, I can't find many literary examples of priests who are identifiable as even a half-decent match for a D&D Cleric who are not on the side of Order. Do you have any such examples?

sure priests of the Greek god of fertility and wine Dionysus,his followers did not worship in temples but in the woods ,there the might be in a state of ecstasy and madness.Ims ure you could find examples of deity's and priest lie that in many pagan religions .

[Nifft]

sure priests of the Greek god of fertility and wine Dionysus,his followers did not worship in temples but in the woods ,there the might be in a state of ecstasy and madness.Ims ure you could find examples of deity's and priest lie that in many pagan religions .

Interesting example!

I'd agree that that guy is some sort of a priest, but I'm not sure he fits as a Cleric.

Was there anything about those priests being armed & armored knights who defended their faith, rather than just leading celebrants in rites and rituals?

- - -

From another angle, Druids are also priests, but they're obviously not Clerics. I'd put them in the center: not actually Wild, but also not strictly Order. They live in the Wild, but they get class features to resist Wild influence and control the actions of Wild denizens.

[anti-ninja]

Was there anything about those priests being armed & armored knights who defended their faith, rather than just leading celebrants in rites and rituals?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_priests here examples of warrior priests all through history.

[Frozen_Feet]

As far as Clerics go, even in reality there is a noticeable distinction between clergies of book religions and those of natural faiths, as well as between different varieties of book religions.

Hence, in a true class system, it's wise to separate them. Do what AD&D did: call the more militant, scripturally-focused priests Clerics, and the followers of charismatic natural faiths Shamans and Witch-Doctors. Druids are an intermediary form - still reliant on oral tradition and worship of nature, but more organized than invidualistic tribal priests.

Monks fill another gap, incorporating mental discipline of Order with martial skill and goal of enlightement, but without prosetylizing and aggression of Clerics or their overt reliance on gods.

[Thrudd]

As primeval forces, Order is the force which creates and builds and organizes. Chaos destroys and breaks down structures of all sorts.

No culture can be completely chaotic, some order is required to allow socialization of some kind. But depending on the situation, some organizations and cultures may serve the purpose of primeval chaos by bringing about the end of a larger organization. Barbarian hordes destroying the empire: Those barbarian tribes certainly have their own social order, but they serve the purpose of greater chaos by breaking down a large structure into smaller parts.
A secret cult may work to undermine the structure of a large established religion. The cult has its own internal order and rules, but it serves the cause chaos by its goal of contributing to breaking structures down. If the cult was successful in destroying the religion, servants of chaos within its own ranks might seek individual power at the expense of fellow cult members, until that organization was broken as well. Orderly members of the cult would try to grow their organization to supplant the old religion. Chaos finds a way to break things apart, order seeks to build and grow structures.

The ultimate purpose/tool of chaos is entropy, everything broken down to the smallest independent parts, ie atoms. Order's purpose is combining parts into working structures, building. Evolution requires both working in concert, the fact of death is what separates the successful strategies from the unsuccessful. If there were no chaos, things would crystallize into forms and never move. If chaos ruled all, there would be nothing but single cells or atoms randomly bumping into eachother.

What people, races and creatures fall on which side of the cosmic struggle will depend on prevailing conditions. The warlord that organizes tribes into an army and goes about conquering different lands to build an empire is serving greater order, even though on the small scale he is destroying the old order of the civilizations being conquered. Small scale chaos leading to larger order. If that warlord destroyed civilizations and did not replace them with anything, but just looted and moved on, he would be serving greater chaos, even though his army is probably very organized.

[erikun]

Order is the idea that an organized and structured life is the best way for a person to gain security and obtain their goals. Order generally requests sacrifice in order to ensure that everyone is able to do the same. Orderly societies collect taxes to help feed people in the society to ensure that nobody goes hungry, or to pay for the structure and prosperity of the society, or to finance a war which helps ensure the safety of the realm. An orderly society would ask everyone to give so that everyone would have security and safety within. An orderly person would ask for an equal measure and consideration in all things.

Chaos is the idea that a person should be free to obtain their goals and prosperity on their own, and any rules or laws should be to their benefit in doing so. Rules and regulations are there to benefit the people involved in a society. People in a chaotic society who give taxes would expect something in return, something that directly benefits them in a society. People giving to an army would expect either security against a considerable threat or some sort of benefit for going to war. Chaotic societies can be fine with tradition, even principles like giving to charities - under the assumption that they want the charity there in case something happens to themselves. A chaotic society would ask everyone to give in order to provide something with gives everyone a greater chance to prosper. A chaotic individual would ask for everyone to have an equal shot at getting something.

At least, that's my idea on the two.

Twist: It's the mighty Chaotic Empire that the underdog Lawful Rebels are fighting against.

Sounds like every "PC party saving villages and fighting against the Orcish raiding mob" plot to me.

[Nifft]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_priests here examples of warrior priests all through history.

Since the priests of Dionysus are not on that list, I guess you're providing a citation against your own point?

That takes a lot of integrity, and I just want to say thanks, and that I'm impressed.

As far as Clerics go, even in reality there is a noticeable distinction between clergies of book religions and those of natural faiths, as well as between different varieties of book religions.

Hence, in a true class system, it's wise to separate them. Do what AD&D did: call the more militant, scripturally-focused priests Clerics, and the followers of charismatic natural faiths Shamans and Witch-Doctors. Druids are an intermediary form - still reliant on oral tradition and worship of nature, but more organized than invidualistic tribal priests.

Monks fill another gap, incorporating mental discipline of Order with martial skill and goal of enlightement, but without prosetylizing and aggression of Clerics or their overt reliance on gods.

Good points.

Yeah, there's no need to use the word "Cleric" for a priest of the Wild. Shaman is probably a better term.

As primeval forces, Order is the force which creates and builds and organizes. Chaos destroys and breaks down structures of all sorts.
(...)
The ultimate purpose/tool of chaos is entropy, everything broken down to the smallest independent parts, ie atoms.

That would mean Chaos = Evil, so it's not appropriate for this setting.

In this setting, the ultimate purpose / tool of chaos is THE INDIVIDUAL. Empowering a bunch of individuals for their own sake will generally result in disorder, but disorder was not the goal. It's just the side-effect.

[Elbeyon]

Entropy is a real thing. Did you just call our universe evil. o. O?

[Nifft]

Entropy is a real thing. Did you just call our universe evil. o. O?

Lots of real evil things do happen in our universe.

Entropy is not usually evil because it is not purposeful.

Intentional entropy would be evil, but there is no such thing in reality, so you don't really have a point.

[Thrudd]

Since the priests of Dionysus are not on that list, I guess you're providing a citation against your own point?

That takes a lot of integrity, and I just want to say thanks, and that I'm impressed.

Good points.

Yeah, there's no need to use the word "Cleric" for a priest of the Wild. Shaman is probably a better term.


That would mean Chaos = Evil, so it's not appropriate for this setting.

In this setting, the ultimate purpose / tool of chaos is THE INDIVIDUAL. Empowering a bunch of individuals for their own sake will generally result in disorder, but disorder was not the goal. It's just the side-effect.

Chaos doesnt equal evil. It equals destruction of structure. There is no moral judgement inherently connected to that. Nature requires that chaos and order be operating in concert, proceding one another endlessly to perpetuate and evolve life. Death isnt evil, it is a part of the natural process, but it does serve chaos. Ultimate order would desire to lock every particle in the universe into a single perfect structure eternally. Its like the dad in the Lego Movie who wants to build everything just so and glue it in place permanently. Ultimate Chaos would have nothing but a pile of loose individual bricks all over the floor, no two stacked together. It is about the indivudual, and freedom, in a way. At the human level, a follower of chaos always does what they want, goes where they feel, respects no laws or authority. The follower of order always must know their place in a structure/hierarchy, always performs their assigned duty and always follows proscribed rituals and chain of command.

It is "good" to break structures sometimes, just as it might be "evil" to build or perpetuate them. Structures and institutions can become corrupt or inefficient or hazardous to life, and they need to be destroyed.

A society, even one with unwritten laws that relies on only familial connections and common sense, is still a structure of Order. Wherever things or people are connected to one another in a semi permanent way, as via loyalty and trust, you have Order at work, building and connecting things.
A society where laws are all geared toward protecting the rights of the individual and does nothing to force anyone to do anything against their will is still a structure with laws and therefore the work of Order.

If there are cosmic powers of Order and Chaos, like gods that are responsible for the action of the two forces, they might sometimes grant assistance to those who promise to further the cause of greater Chaos or Order.

Maybe the term you want instead of "chaos" is freedom? Empowering individuals to pursue their own goals as opposed to holding the group above the individual? Law vs Anarchy, instead of Order vs Chaos? Anarchy is all about the individual. Chaos is all about entropy and disorder. One can certainly lead to the other.

[Grek]

If you make things Law vs. Chaos or even Order vs. Team Not Order, people will draw in their Chaos = WH40K Chaos = killburnducksplattertaffymaimlolrandumb baggage. See: lots of posts in this thread. Likewise, having four will see people trying to map them to Good, Evil, Law and Chaos. I suggest making three different forms of Order instead, each subtly different:

The Axiom of Law is the single commandment of the Yhudist philosophy: "Do as you would have all others do at all other times in all other places, and it shall be so." It is based in the principle that all sentient beings, past, present and future, are incarnations and reincarnations of a single universal soul, and that all sentient beings must thus act as if they will some day suffer all the pain and enjoy all the happiness they bring to others, as this is quite literally the case. To fail to feed a beggar is to allow your own self to starve on the streets.

The Rules of Hospitality are the customary rules and obligations for both guests and hosts set down by the Fey Lords of old. Any noble guest bearing a gift (no matter how meager), is entitled to sustenance, shelter and sanctuary in the home of any other noble for a minimum three days. In return, the guest must do no harm to their host, obey all properly proclaimed rules of the household and depart when asked. Anyone may declare themselves a noble, but any false noble who fails to meet these obligations must be put to death by all true nobility.

The Code of Niffterabi is a list of 143 specific commandments laid down by Grand Emperor Niffterabi the First during the founding of the Grand Empire. It lays down both brutal punishments for crimes and generous rewards for service to be administered by agents of the Emperor in specific and explicit detail. Exerts include the branding of liars with hot irons, the storage of grain in times of plenty for times of famine and a reward of twice the value of the contents to any who returns a dropped purse to the rightful owner.

[Elbeyon]

Lots of real evil things do happen in our universe.

Entropy is not usually evil because it is not purposeful.

Intentional entropy would be evil, but there is no such thing in reality, so you don't really have a point.

No, equating entropy, intentional or otherwise, to evil is just a poorly constructed thought. Everything is causing entropy. And, lots of things are doing it on purpose. Living things are relatively high concentrations of entropy. I just snapped my fingers. That was a intentional cause of entropy. People that break rocks for a living are intentionally causing entropy. To say that causing an increase in randomness/chaos is evil is kinda absurd.

[Nifft]

Chaos doesnt equal evil. It equals destruction of structure. There is no moral judgement inherently connected to that. Nature requires that chaos and order be operating in concert, proceding one another endlessly to perpetuate and evolve life. Death isnt evil, it is a part of the natural process, but it does serve chaos.

Intentional Entropy as a goal seems evil to me for the same reason intentional death seems like an evil goal. Obviously death and entropy are not inherently evil.

Ultimate order would desire to lock every particle in the universe into a single perfect structure eternally. Its like the dad in the Lego Movie who wants to build everything just so and glue it in place permanently. Ultimate Chaos would have nothing but a pile of loose individual bricks all over the floor, no two stacked together.

Sounds like you're picturing them as both being equally life-destroying in different ways.

I don't find it helpful to think about "ultimate" or "infinite" order or chaos. Borges said it better than I can:

There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite.

IMHO it's much more useful to stay at ground level (where the people are) rather than try to think about either life-destroying infinitude.

For the purpose of this setting, the Ultimate Order would just be a really big, really well-run city.

A society, even one with unwritten laws that relies on only familial connections and common sense, is still a structure of Order. Wherever things or people are connected to one another in a semi permanent way, as via loyalty and trust, you have Order at work, building and connecting things.

Not for this setting. A society which has no institutions, where the only social connections are between individuals, would not be a structure of Order.

This might be an example of where trying to use absolutes is misleading.

If there are cosmic powers of Order and Chaos, like gods that are responsible for the action of the two forces, they might sometimes grant assistance to those who promise to further the cause of greater Chaos or Order.

Yes, there totally should be.

So far I've got:

Order - Clerics, Monks, Paladins - This implies that there are gods who either support (or are supported by) urban development.

In-Between - Druids, Rangers - I'm putting Rangers and Druids as go-between classes, as people who mediate the border regions, but individuals could go deep in either direction.

Wild - Fey, Bards - This implies some sort of Wild power in music. Plus, both of those are associated with Arcane magic -- perhaps Arcane magic is Wild in origin. (1e Rangers could cast both Divine and Arcane spells, so if Rangers are a go-between, that's aesthetically pleasing.)

Maybe the term you want instead of "chaos" is freedom?

Freedom is not an accurate term for the Wild, because law & order can be used to promote and protect freedom. In the real world, we've got heavily oppressive regimes with a lot of structure (e.g. North Korea), and with very little structure (e.g. a typical 3rd world warlord). Though I do think the word "Freedom" would figure heavily in anti-Order propaganda text.

[Nifft]

No, equating entropy, intentional or otherwise, to evil is just a poorly constructed thought. Everything is causing entropy. And, lots of things are doing it on purpose. Living things are relatively high concentrations of entropy. I just snapped my fingers. That was a intentional cause of entropy. People that break rocks for a living are intentionally causing entropy. To say that causing an increase in randomness/chaos is evil is kinda absurd.

Sorry, you're not making the right connection here.

Intention is what makes something evil or not.

Intentionally hastening the heat-death of the universe for no reason other than you want more entropy... that's not something a good person would do. Nor a sane person, I guess.

Unless you're just calling any productive activity "intentional entropy" -- but IMHO that is not a useful definition, since it means all acts of Order are also "intentional entropy". (Literally all acts involve more entropy, because that's just how physics is currently set up.)

So you're either missing the point about intention, or you're saying something purely academic which is not helpful.

Either way, could we drop it? It's not really adding to the discussion.

[anti-ninja]

Since the priests of Dionysus are not on that list, I guess you're providing a citation against your own point?

I missed the part where you asked for citation of clerics of Dionysus being warriors, I thought you meant warrior priests in general. but yeah I kinda just did provide citation against my own point then ,so i concede priest of Dionysus do not as far as I can prove fit the cleric archetype

[Nifft]

I missed the part where you asked for citation of clerics of Dionysus being warriors, I thought you meant warrior priests in general. but yeah I kinda just did provide citation against my own point then ,so i concede priest of Dionysus do not as far as I can prove fit the cleric archetype

That's fine, though. Not all religious spellcasters need to use the Cleric class.

Druids are one obvious example of a priest which isn't a Cleric.

[Thrudd]

So it sounds much more like you're going for old ways vs new ways, or legalism vs tradition, or maybe even "tribal" vs "civilized".

I guess my question is, what is the real dividing line between your two factions? The forces of order follow laws for their own sake, and the forces of chaos do what they personally feel is right regardless of law? But that doesnt fit, because they follow the traditional laws of hospitality, supposedly even if they dont feel like it, even the fae are bound by this.
Maybe order you're describing is really the force of technological progress, including social technologies like hierarchical religion and legalistic government. Not order is the force of ancient tradition based on a way of life more closely connected with nature. So "civilization" vs "the way of the ancients".

I just think chaos and order are not the right terms, regardless of how D&D has been defining them.

[StandardDeviant]

An idea, drawing mostly on Moorcock, that I've been tinkering with, is to use the law/chaos conflict as the deep metaphysics underpinning a game universe. Both sides are utterly alien in nature and intent. The mortal (and, indeed, divine) world exists as the battleground on which the great powers fight their proxy wars. A direct confrontation would result in the absolute destruction of everything. This has (probably) happened before. So, again per Moorcock, Law and Chaos play an endless, insane series of games, with gods and mortals as their pawns.
Neither side should be allowed to win. Law seeks a static universe: crystalline, symmetric, mathematically pure, utterly inimical to life. Chaos, on the other hand, wants to rule reality according to whim and whim alone. And the whims of chaos are...chaotic. As in: "Hey, look at those mortals, aren't they cute? Let's give them some balloons! Yay! You know what would make those mortals even cuter? Turning them inside out! *splorch*"

Good and evil are only meaningful or possible so long as the two sides remain balanced--or stalemated, which amounts to the same thing. If either law or chaos pulls too far ahead, little things like life and free will cease to exist. And, yes, the aims of both factions are "evil" by any normal standard, but both are necessary to keep the world up and running. And either side can present itself as "good" and make a convincing case, by pointing out the flaws of the opposition. As a really simple example, "There's too much crime here! Go Law!" and "The government is oppressive! Go Chaos!" are arguments that could simultaneously gain traction pretty much anywhere.

Since law and chaos are ontologically prior to the world's deities, the gods themselves are participants in the game, whether they know it or not. Just as with mortals, they may find themselves naturally aligned more closely to one side or the other, largely as a matter of personality.

The upshot of all this is that it can be used as the backdrop for a variety of different campaign worlds, with different flavors depending on the rules of engagement that law and chaos have settled upon in a given realm. In a more hands-on universe, you might find supernatural beings representing either side duking it out directly. Individuals might deliberately swear allegiance to one side or the other. The gods might have chosen sides. At the other end of the spectrum, the gods themselves may be unaware that a cosmic conflict between stability and change is being played out in a universe they honestly believe themselves to govern. Either way, you've got a ready source of conflict built deep into the foundations of the game world, which is a good thing, I think.

Finally, I'd like to take a quick look at neutrality. One might be neutral by virtue of apathy: unaware of or uncommitted to the great game, indifferent to social and political struggles along the axis. On the other hand, one might be actively neutral. In a world where the metaphysical conflict is played out openly, a neutral party would strive to keep the sides balanced, opposing either side as necessary, should they seem likely to pull too far ahead. On a political level, an actively neutral individual would strive for the optimal middle ground between, say, individual liberty and rule of law. Possibly, there exist actively neutral supernatural entities trying to keep the Law vs Chaos fight from wrecking everything. Or possibly not.

[Nifft]

So it sounds much more like you're going for old ways vs new ways, or legalism vs tradition, or maybe even "tribal" vs "civilized".

That's part of it, yeah.

I guess my question is, what is the real dividing line between your two factions?

I've tried to break it down in a bunch of previous posts, including the OP. Obviously at least some of these are not clear -- could you specify which, and what's unclear? Thanks.

Maybe order you're describing is really the force of technological progress, including social technologies like hierarchical religion and legalistic government. Not order is the force of ancient tradition based on a way of life more closely connected with nature. So "civilization" vs "the way of the ancients".

Hmm. That's true in part, but not totally. Arcane magic is also progressing by research and innovation, and so far Arcane magic seems pretty solidly Team Not Order.

Hierarchical religion and legalistic government are both collectivist, so yeah, that's Team Order.

I just think chaos and order are not the right terms, regardless of how D&D has been defining them.

I'm open to suggestions.

The current best candidate for "chaos" is Wild (or Wyld for bonus pretension).

[Flickerdart]

I'm open to suggestions.

You could use Freedom instead of Chaos, if you can stand losing the implications of primitivism.

[Thrudd]

An idea, drawing mostly on Moorcock, that I've been tinkering with, is to use the law/chaos conflict as the deep metaphysics underpinning a game universe. Both sides are utterly alien in nature and intent. The mortal (and, indeed, divine) world exists as the battleground on which the great powers fight their proxy wars. A direct confrontation would result in the absolute destruction of everything. This has (probably) happened before. So, again per Moorcock, Law and Chaos play an endless, insane series of games, with gods and mortals as their pawns.
Neither side should be allowed to win. Law seeks a static universe: crystalline, symmetric, mathematically pure, utterly inimical to life. Chaos, on the other hand, wants to rule reality according to whim and whim alone. And the whims of chaos are...chaotic. As in: "Hey, look at those mortals, aren't they cute? Let's give them some balloons! Yay! You know what would make those mortals even cuter? Turning them inside out! *splorch*"

Good and evil are only meaningful or possible so long as the two sides remain balanced--or stalemated, which amounts to the same thing. If either law or chaos pulls too far ahead, little things like life and free will cease to exist. And, yes, the aims of both factions are "evil" by any normal standard, but both are necessary to keep the world up and running. And either side can present itself as "good" and make a convincing case, by pointing out the flaws of the opposition. As a really simple example, "There's too much crime here! Go Law!" and "The government is oppressive! Go Chaos!" are arguments that could simultaneously gain traction pretty much anywhere.

Since law and chaos are ontologically prior to the world's deities, the gods themselves are participants in the game, whether they know it or not. Just as with mortals, they may find themselves naturally aligned more closely to one side or the other, largely as a matter of personality.

The upshot of all this is that it can be used as the backdrop for a variety of different campaign worlds, with different flavors depending on the rules of engagement that law and chaos have settled upon in a given realm. In a more hands-on universe, you might find supernatural beings representing either side duking it out directly. Individuals might deliberately swear allegiance to one side or the other. The gods might have chosen sides. At the other end of the spectrum, the gods themselves may be unaware that a cosmic conflict between stability and change is being played out in a universe they honestly believe themselves to govern. Either way, you've got a ready source of conflict built deep into the foundations of the game world, which is a good thing, I think.

Finally, I'd like to take a quick look at neutrality. One might be neutral by virtue of apathy: unaware of or uncommitted to the great game, indifferent to social and political struggles along the axis. On the other hand, one might be actively neutral. In a world where the metaphysical conflict is played out openly, a neutral party would strive to keep the sides balanced, opposing either side as necessary, should they seem likely to pull too far ahead. On a political level, an actively neutral individual would strive for the optimal middle ground between, say, individual liberty and rule of law. Possibly, there exist actively neutral supernatural entities trying to keep the Law vs Chaos fight from wrecking everything. Or possibly not.

Right, that's exactly how I've seen it. There's a constantly shifting competition between the two cosmic forces which has resulted in matter and life and everything else existing. So long as they keep eachother going, life and the universe exists as a delicate balance. deities or people that are aware of this would take a neutral stance and try to maintain the status quo. Others are convinced by varying conditions and arguments that one side is preferable over the other and are pawns in the game. Most people and creatures just live their lives without declaring a side, experiencing varying degrees of both order and chaos as is natural.

[Nifft]

An idea, drawing mostly on Moorcock, that I've been tinkering with, is to use the law/chaos conflict as the deep metaphysics underpinning a game universe. Both sides are utterly alien in nature and intent. The mortal (and, indeed, divine) world exists as the battleground on which the great powers fight their proxy wars. A direct confrontation would result in the absolute destruction of everything. This has (probably) happened before. So, again per Moorcock, Law and Chaos play an endless, insane series of games, with gods and mortals as their pawns.
Neither side should be allowed to win. Law seeks a static universe: crystalline, symmetric, mathematically pure, utterly inimical to life. Chaos, on the other hand, wants to rule reality according to whim and whim alone. And the whims of chaos are...chaotic. As in: "Hey, look at those mortals, aren't they cute? Let's give them some balloons! Yay! You know what would make those mortals even cuter? Turning them inside out! *splorch*"

Good and evil are only meaningful or possible so long as the two sides remain balanced--or stalemated, which amounts to the same thing. If either law or chaos pulls too far ahead, little things like life and free will cease to exist. And, yes, the aims of both factions are "evil" by any normal standard, but both are necessary to keep the world up and running. And either side can present itself as "good" and make a convincing case, by pointing out the flaws of the opposition. As a really simple example, "There's too much crime here! Go Law!" and "The government is oppressive! Go Chaos!" are arguments that could simultaneously gain traction pretty much anywhere.

Since law and chaos are ontologically prior to the world's deities, the gods themselves are participants in the game, whether they know it or not. Just as with mortals, they may find themselves naturally aligned more closely to one side or the other, largely as a matter of personality.

The upshot of all this is that it can be used as the backdrop for a variety of different campaign worlds, with different flavors depending on the rules of engagement that law and chaos have settled upon in a given realm. In a more hands-on universe, you might find supernatural beings representing either side duking it out directly. Individuals might deliberately swear allegiance to one side or the other. The gods might have chosen sides. At the other end of the spectrum, the gods themselves may be unaware that a cosmic conflict between stability and change is being played out in a universe they honestly believe themselves to govern. Either way, you've got a ready source of conflict built deep into the foundations of the game world, which is a good thing, I think.

Finally, I'd like to take a quick look at neutrality. One might be neutral by virtue of apathy: unaware of or uncommitted to the great game, indifferent to social and political struggles along the axis. On the other hand, one might be actively neutral. In a world where the metaphysical conflict is played out openly, a neutral party would strive to keep the sides balanced, opposing either side as necessary, should they seem likely to pull too far ahead. On a political level, an actively neutral individual would strive for the optimal middle ground between, say, individual liberty and rule of law. Possibly, there exist actively neutral supernatural entities trying to keep the Law vs Chaos fight from wrecking everything. Or possibly not.

Moorcock is great, and was a major inspiration for this setting idea (just as he was for D&D in general).

I guess what I need to do is define how my idea differs from Moorcock, since his work casts a long shadow.

Similarities:
- Law vs. Chaos
- Most people are neutral
- Inherent opposition between sides

Differences:
- My Order and Wild are not inimical to life
- It's possible to live a life of perfect Order, or a life of pure Wild, and be okay as a human
- It's just not as optimal as mixing them together

So, I guess what I'm doing is scaling down the cosmic forces from Moorcock to merely human things, and adding in a clause that both Order and Wild are compatible with being inherently good -- they're not just a situational good (by opposing the other life-destroying infinitude).

IMHO Moorcock is great because he made the universe as a cosmic conflict which cannot be won -- both sides are terrible and terrifying. His cosmology is a conflict between life-destroying evils, and I'm going for something slightly different.

My goal is to have Order vs. Wild be a conflict between incompatible forces of good.

(Also evil. There's nothing inherently good about Order or Wild. Both are compatible with good and evil.)

[Thrudd]

That's part of it, yeah.

I've tried to break it down in a bunch of previous posts, including the OP. Obviously at least some of these are not clear -- could you specify which, and what's unclear? Thanks.

Hmm. That's true in part, but not totally. Arcane magic is also progressing by research and innovation, and so far Arcane magic seems pretty solidly Team Not Order.

Hierarchical religion and legalistic government are both collectivist, so yeah, that's Team Order.

I'm open to suggestions.

The current best candidate for "chaos" is Wild (or Wyld for bonus pretension).

What you've said so far is clear, but how it all connects, the big picture, is not. There seems to be a somewhat arbitrary dividing line between the two, like order is only order after a certain threshold of laws and organization. Wild is all about the individual, but not exclusively, because the individual is expected to uphold traditions and customs. Some traditions are laws that mean order, others are not, and it isn't exactly clear why. Even the laws of the city were started by an individual at some point, enforced probably by force and threat of punishment just like in the wild. Its just a matter of more people being in close proximity.

I think the problem is, you've already basically decided who is on which team before clearly defining what the sides are. Your definition of the factions is based in part by who you want to be on each side, and that is why we're running into problems locking down a consistent vision/definition for the opposing forces. Why is arcane magic on team Wild? Because you don't need to petition an outside power to get it? So team order requires the veneration and obeisance of abstract concepts and ideals, while team wild venerates only self and direct experience, including experience of ancestors. If you had an order of wizards with a hierarchical organization or guild, that lived in the city, which team would they be on? Is divine magic that flows from nature or follows ancestral tradition not on team wild?

Maybe team Order must follow gods and their laws and sees civilization as a divine mandate of some kind, while team Wild makes its own laws and follows those of their ancestors and only reveres gods that serve them in some way. Team God and team Wild.

[Nifft]

What you've said so far is clear, but how it all connects, the big picture, is not. There seems to be a somewhat arbitrary dividing line between the two, like order is only order after a certain threshold of laws and organization. Wild is all about the individual, but not exclusively, because the individual is expected to uphold traditions and customs. Some traditions are laws that mean order, others are not, and it isn't exactly clear why. Even the laws of the city were started by an individual at some point, enforced probably by force and threat of punishment just like in the wild. Its just a matter of more people being in close proximity.

The dividing line is not between "follows rules" vs. "LOL SO RANDOM XD".

The dividing line is between seeing institutions vs. seeing individuals.

Traditional social rules -- like the hospitality thing -- is about a relationship between individuals. Therefore it's Team Not Order. Team Order would care about the person's category, affiliation, and social rank -- and would not take in an enemy soldier asking for

I think the problem is, you've already basically decided who is on which team before clearly defining what the sides are. Your definition of the factions is based in part by who you want to be on each side, and that is why we're running into problems locking down a consistent vision/definition for the opposing forces.

The recurring problem seems to be that people come to this thread with massive and inappropriate misconceptions, which I try to address with both examples and general rules, but the preconceptions are very persistent.

I did post some examples of who is on each side, but that section is written after I wrote about the general rules, so I don't really see this complaint as valid.

Some people learn better from examples than rules, and I'm trying to communicate with those people as well as people like you (i.e. people who prefer rules rather than examples).

Why is arcane magic on team Wild?

Because many major examples of Arcane casters -- Bards, Fey, Warlocks, Sorcerers -- are strongly Wild, and Wizards (as mentioned before) are viable as a go-between.

If you had an order of wizards with a hierarchical organization or guild, that lived in the city, which team would they be on? Is divine magic that flows from nature or follows ancestral tradition not on team wild?

I have them listed as a go-between, just like Rangers.

Maybe team Order must follow gods and their laws and sees civilization as a divine mandate of some kind, while team Wild makes its own laws and follows those of their ancestors and only reveres gods that serve them in some way. Team God and team Wild.

Team Order follows laws because following laws is good for society as a whole. NOT because Order == Law or anything as simplistic as that.

The Underground Railroad would be an example of a pro-Order, anti-law organization. They aided runaway slaves blindly, without knowing anything about the individuals they were helping except for their institutional social status. They were opposing an institution, not any individual.

Following laws is a typical consequence, not a core value.

Similarly, Team Not Order would follow or disobey laws as fit their personal code, ambition, and relationships with other individuals. If a Wild character has reason to respect the local King, she could easily obey all of that King's edicts out of a sense of personal respect. The difference is: when that specific King passes away, the Wild character's respect does NOT transfer to the new King.