What is up with chaotic and/or good characters?

[Zhentarim]

The thing is, in my experience, most people are some form of evil, a significant minority are neutral, and there are few, if any, good people. Lawful Good reacts to the world as they think it should be, Lawful Evil reacts to the real world as it really is.

Cooperation is lawful more than anything. An affably evil lawful evil can have many friends and be dependable, but they are also realists.

Chaotic Good is even worse, since they are not only niave, but they spread chaos and disorder in the name of their “ideals”.

Everybody wants to rule the world.

[OgresAreCute]

What's the deal with airline food?

[Lvl45DM!]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

I feel like im missing the joke here,but...
Im not a lawful person in real life, but its fun to play lawful, to develop a code and work with or for a community.
I struggle to play evil because its not fun to kill people who dont deserve it, even in fantasy.

Its fine to play evil, but to define Good and Lawful as unrealistic is a pretty horrifying statement.

[Mordaedil]

Maybe a psychologist can help you with that.

[tiercel]

If you don’t understand Law, it’s because you don’t understand that to be on top of the world, there has to be a world to be on top of. If that world understands that its proper place is to serve those strong enough to take it, organize it, and rule it, very much the better.

Lawful Good is a deliciously useful alignment in that those people understand the value of knowing their place, and won’t simply try to smash the system, but their compulsion to help others makes them ever so easy to steer toward desired ends.

Simple “freedom” to smash and destroy isn’t true effectiveness. Real power comes not just from a strong self, but from those that know their place is to serve — who WANT to serve, knowing that what strengthens you strengthens them. Power doesn’t mean just crushing anyone who disagrees with you; it’s when your system is so effective that few if any even want, much less dare, to disagree — and those who do are dealt with by those who willingly pledge themselves to you, freeing you for the more important work of remaking the world in your image.

A better world.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

Lawful is the feel that the world requires order to function efficiently. Structure brings peace to a lawful character's mind. The world is better with rules and government in a lawful persons eyes.

Good is living and working for the benefit of others and doing it with no interest in being rewarded for your efforts. Maybe a little gratitude every once in a while, but not much else. A good person respects life in whatever form it takes and should search for a non lethal way to solve issues.

Chaotic feels that life is better with less rules and that things will work out by themselves. Everyone is equal and the same rules apply to everyone. Just because you believe that the world doesn't need rules doesn't mean you don't have morals, do on to others as you would have done onto you.

Evil is living for yourself, other people are usually obstacles or tools. You don't do anything unless it interested you or furthers your goals. Your view on life is you are the only one that matters and everyone else is beneith you, so the value of a life is pretty insignificant to you.

(Edited part) Neutral is everything in between these, most if the world fits under the neutral category. They're willing to look the other way when people do wrong things, or willing to do wrong things if they know they can get away with it. Most people generally look out for themselves, but will help others in need. Killing someone is generally something they frown on, but not something they would be completely against doing with the right reason.

These are the pretty general descriptions of the alignments my brother and I have come up with. Now each one does have varying degrees.. like an evil person can easily have friends, lovers, comrads.. as long as they're generally like minded or have someone notable worth. And a good person might not think twice about striking down someone he believes is evil. Alignments are more guidelines rather than rules.

[TheYell]

Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit.

Unless you lack the guile to fool all the people all the time, in which case, you're a dead duck.

[King of Nowhere]

A good person respects life in whatever form it takes and should search for a non lethal way to solve issues.

Chaotic feels that life is better with less rules and that things will work out by themselves. Everyone is equal and the same rules apply to everyone. Just because you believe that the world doesn't need rules doesn't mean you don't have morals, do on to others as you would have done onto you.

Killing someone is generally something neutrals frown on, but not something they would be completely against doing with the right reason.

.

A good person will kill as readily as an evil one in the right circumstances. Only their reasons will be different.

I think it comes from a Discworld book, but it may be a quote from somewhere else.

Most Good people will readily kill if they think it's a last resort to protect something, generally other lives.
Although good people often try to get the offending side to back down peacefully, because they'd no longer have reasons to kill if the offending side refrained. Compare how robbers will try to get your wallet without shooting you if possible, because shooting will get them in more trouble.

[Andezzar]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

The true murder-hobo sentiment.

[Telonius]

A good person will kill as readily as an evil one in the right circumstances. Only their reasons will be different.

I think it comes from a Discworld book, but it may be a quote from somewhere else.

Most Good people will readily kill if they think it's a last resort to protect something, generally other lives.
Although good people often try to get the offending side to back down peacefully, because they'd no longer have reasons to kill if the offending side refrained. Compare how robbers will try to get your wallet without shooting you if possible, because shooting will get them in more trouble.

You might be thinking from this from Men at Arms:

Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat.

They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.

So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.

[J-H]

I guess that's your personal perspective. I'm lawful good in my personal life, neutral good in my views on society, and chaotic good the first Tuesday of every November that a certain real life event takes place on.

I can understand LE (from watching real life stuff that we can't talk about here), neutral evil seems to be the default state of man absent education, and chaotic evil seems to be the result of mental illness.

The Neutral alignments, where characters are agnostic about the existence of good and evil and the foundational underpinnings of how morality works, and don't care enough to find out? I don't get those. Chaotic neutral's even worse, and looks like BPD/bipolar type territory to me.

[Jay R]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

Yes, of course Neutral Evil is far more effective for people to do anything to their own benefit. Who could deny it? And yes, of course being generous, heroic, and virtuous is self-limiting.

But a lot of us come to D&D to pretend to be heroes. I would much rather play a game of rescuing the village from orcish raiders than one of pillaging inoffensive villagers of their goods.

I want to play a warrior who is stronger than I am, a rogue who is more dexterous than I am, a cleric who is wiser than I am.

And for the exact same reasons, I want to play a hero who is nobler than I am.

[RedMage125]

I guess that's your personal perspective. I'm lawful good in my personal life, neutral good in my views on society, and chaotic good the first Tuesday of every November that a certain real life event takes place on.

I can understand LE (from watching real life stuff that we can't talk about here), neutral evil seems to be the default state of man absent education, and chaotic evil seems to be the result of mental illness.

The Neutral alignments, where characters are agnostic about the existence of good and evil and the foundational underpinnings of how morality works, and don't care enough to find out? I don't get those. Chaotic neutral's even worse, and looks like BPD/bipolar type territory to me.

I may be able to help you understand that, as I would almost certainly be Lawful Neutral by D&D alignment mores.

Neutral with respect to Good and Evil does not mean that they "don't care" about morality. Neutral people still prefer Good over Evil, after all, they'd rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. But they're not personally invested in doing good things for people not personally connected to them. Neutral individuals may make sacrifices for, and even be selfless...for those that are close to them. But by and large, they don't do such for strangers.

Most humans are Neutral. They care for their family and friends, they usually do what is expected of them, but they might do something shady if it doesn't hurt anyone and can benefit them.

Lawful Neutral is actually very similar to Neutral Good. The main distinction is that, when choosing between what is "just" and what is "right", they will choose what is just. I personally identify as LN, and I value fairness. In the shop I lead, for example, if all my junior sailors are equally happy or equally unhappy, I feel like I'm doing a good job.

Chaotic Neutral is not BPD. Chaotic Neutral individuals act on whim a lot. They usually won't go out of their way to hurt others, but they're impulsive. A Chaotic Neutral bard, for example, may love adventuring with heroes, so he can write an epic heroic ballad. He loves the idea of saving others and defeating evil. But he does it because he wants fame and glory. He doesn't ACTUALLY care about helping others. He will, but he wants recognition for it.

"What's in it for me?" Is a common thing to hear from those who are Neutral on the good/evil scale. Yes, evil is also selfish, but the big difference is that evil people are willing to do things that hurt or are a detriment to others to benefit themselves. Neutral would rather not hurt others, but don't really view helping strangers with no benefit to themselves as worth their time.

[Seto]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

When well-played, they are neither flat nor unrealistic. The same could be said of any alignment, really. Depth and realism are a function of good roleplaying, not character type. Alignment is purely a behavior descriptor, and that's rarely enough to make a character compelling : generally speaking, the trick is to go beyond alignment and get into the character's mindset. Not "how do they act", but "why do they act that way".

I could stop there, really, but let's dig in anyway. Good relies on being an inspiration to others: it wouldn't work if Good people weren't admirable. Do you have heroes, real or fictional? People whose morals you admire and would like to emulate? That would be an example of a compelling Good character (although it's possible to admire non-Good and non-Lawful characters of course). As for Law, it's not any blander or more boring that Chaotic or Neutral. Most people experience a conflict between their duty, the general rules of society, on the one hand, and their individual desires and drives on the other hand. It's natural to conciliate them somewhere near the middle ground, which makes us Neutral. But Lawful characters have something. Something special that makes them find more value in their place as part of the collective, than in their own individual worth. Why? What is it? A faith, a burning ideal, a sense of a greater mission? or maybe a fear, a fear of themselves, of what would happen if they let themselves be? Answer that question and you'll have a compelling Lawful character.

That's how you make realistic and relatable characters. But that was just narrative realism. Speaking in terms of verisimilitude, or statistical realism ("would you be likely to encounter and/or understand such an individual"?), I would say Chaotic Evil is more unrealistic than Lawful Good. I wouldn't say that people are inherently good - I would say people aren't inherently anything, and most end up True Neutral -, but for most of us, Evil feels wrong. Being actually Evil without great internal conflict is hard. Same with Chaos. If you're not naturally a psychopath/sociopath, you have many internal barriers to overcome before truly being Evil or Chaotic. That's the one thing I actually find compelling in Kylo Ren's character arc.

As for CE being "the most effective alignment"... Well, yeah, from a tactical perspective. When you have no ethical limitations on your options, you have more options to pick from. What's that got to do with depth and psychological realism anyway?

[Nifft]

Chaotic Evil is the most efficient way to get Smite Evil'd out of the campaign, but otherwise it's deeply sub-optimal.

[Manyasone]

Since I consider the CE alignment with raving lunatics I find it the most limiting alignment. If the Tanar'ri were efficient there wouldn't be a Blood War

[TheYell]

Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit.

I'm sure Red Fel has some thoughts....

[ShurikVch]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

Actually, your issue is as old as D&D itself.

You know the sole reason why the Paladin class exist?
Because, before it was added, nobody wanted to play as LG character. Ever.
Apparently, they're considered it too incompatible with that whole murderhoboing... [ahem!] I mean - adventuring business

The only major problem with your reasoning is: CE may be self-destructing; just look at Devils - they're almost always LE, but universally regarded as master manipulators!

Neutral with respect to Good and Evil does not mean that they "don't care" about morality

... but it still completely possible: "I don't care how bad or good he is - he's still my lord, and I swore my allegiance to him" (some LN liegeman)

[Cavir]

The recruiting post for one of the games I am in had an interesting link to alignments. I typically play NG but his articles opened me up to LG without being Paladin level. Playing Evil (without breaking the game) can be fun too.

[MoiMagnus]

I don’t understand good and lawful alignments. They seem flat and unrealistic. Lawful Good in particular makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil seem less bad, but they still seem self-limiting to me. Chaotic Evil seems to be the most effective alignment in that you are truly independant and have the guile to manipulate the masses to your benefit. Does anybody else feel the same?

I disagree. I find that every alignment is unrealistic if understood too strictly.

Loyal Good? You have no choice other than obeying the law for the greater good.
Loyal Evil? You are a jerk, you can't have friends nor anybody you care about without being bound by the law to care about them (by the way, you will systematically try to abuse the law when you can, even if it may have some long term consequences on you).
Chaotic Evil? Not only you are a jerk, but you can't be around someone else without trying to kill him.
Chaotic Good? You will end up in jail because you are pathologically unable to obey orders and laws, but refuse to kill anybody to defend yourself (because that would be evil).

If you see alignment as restrictions, you will be restricted by them. For some reasons, people tend to assume LG is more restrictive as the others, and refuse to call LG anybody that does not behave as LG every-time in every situation. (While they have no problem with CE characters not trying to systematically back-stab the other PCs when they sleep)

Someone that value law, try to be honest as much as possible, while not being an extremist (so he understand that sometimes law can be bypassed, even if he hate doing so), try to help people (when its reasonably feasible, accepting that he can't oppose every evil). That's Loyal Good.

That's not the MOST loyal good you could do. But evil PCs are rarely the MOST EVIL POSSIBLE, since that would be unplayable.

[John05]

One of my favorite stories is the Oresteia. One of the central arcs involves Orestes's handling of vengeance. The Furies (avatars of vengeance) are pushing him to avenge his father King Agamemnon by killing his mother. His mother is guilty of murdering his father as retribution for executing her (and his) daughter, Iphigenia. The father executed the daughter because his people were angry about the Trojan war. They lost family members but the King lost nothing. They wanted blood. No it wasn't rational. Basically, it's a ****storm cycle of impassioned vengeance.

This is how a lot of family feuds/spats went on before rule of law. Just a cycle of vengeance until one "side" wins. This kind of environment isn't conducive to civilization though. You can just have blood feuds resolving all conflict. Civilization would never progress from tribes, large families ruled by overbearing patriarchs.

Orestes eventually puts an end to the cycle of vengeance. Interestingly, he DOES kill his mother, but he does so with Apollo as his patron. It was an active disavowal of the Furies (passionate vengeance) and an embrace of rule of law / justice as his motivator. When people put their faith in rule of law, and put aside their personal feelings, that is how civilization is allowed to develop and grow beyond populistic, tribal instincts.

The story is a great example of Law vs Chaos, as opposed to Good vs Evil. It's an impersonal adherence to principles. Some people have that. It's not necessarily what's beneficial for the individual and it's not always the easiest thing to do. It's not even always self-satisfying, but if it was, it would be a trivial matter.

That's something the forces of chaos will never understand or appreciate. Law will stand as an impartial target for grievances that people would have directed at each other. It's a pillar of civilization.

[Nifft]

This is how a lot of family feuds/spats went on before rule of law. Just a cycle of vengeance until one "side" wins. This kind of environment isn't conducive to civilization though. You can just have blood feuds resolving all conflict. Civilization would never progress from tribes, large families ruled by overbearing patriarchs.

Orestes eventually puts an end to the cycle of vengeance. Interestingly, he DOES kill his mother, but he does so with Apollo as his patron. It was an active disavowal of the Furies (passionate vengeance) and an embrace of rule of law / justice as his motivator. When people put their faith in rule of law, and put aside their personal feelings, that is how civilization is allowed to develop and grow beyond populistic, tribal instincts.

*looks at Earth politics, circa 2018*

We need more Apollo.

[Felyndiira]

Lawful doesn't mean "follow the rules always, no matter what." A Lawful person might be lawful because he is deeply devoted to tradition, takes great pains to keep order in a city, live a mostly organized lifestyle, is extremely loyal to his liege, or a host of other things.

Lawful Good is simply a person who is both lawful and good. If the above lawful person also tries to help others whenever possible, and is willing to make those personal sacrifices to make life better for everyone else, he is LG. LG doesn't confer any additional requirements other than "be lawful" and "be good".

Same with Chaotic Evil. Chaotic people can still prefer to live in an orderly society, hold jobs, be a charming socialite, and integrate well with society. Same with evil people. An assassin who loves his job because of low work hours and high pay, who loves spending his hard-earned money partying and getting wild, who will often mess with people for a laugh, who loves to travel and discover, and who has a network of good friends is CE, but perfectly good as a PC.

[Kish]

If this is your attitude, I'm kind of puzzled that you'd play any game with expected morality. You can make amoral, greedy mercenaries in most campaigns (at least to some extent), but Wrath of the Righteous? I'd think you'd avoid it the same way I'd avoid Hell's Vengeance.

[Zhentarim]

If this is your attitude, I'm kind of puzzled that you'd play any game with expected morality. You can make amoral, greedy mercenaries in most campaigns (at least to some extent), but Wrath of the Righteous? I'd think you'd avoid it the same way I'd avoid Hell's Vengeance.

I was exaggerating in the OP. I do see good as naive and lawful as inflexible, though.

All in all, I’m either true neutral or chaotic neutral. I’m not particularly good or evil, but I’m contrary more often than not.

[John05]

I'll make a case for "Good" too.

For a lot of people, having a sense of moral righteousness gives them a kind of strength that they would never have otherwise.

As self-satisfying as hedonism and selfishness may be, for obvious reasons it doesn't lead to selfless bravery. As much as people may argue the specifics, we can at least agree it will *look* cowardly to do the safe, pragmatic thing, and run from obvious dangers and inconvenience.

A person who runs from danger and puts his OWN safety and OWN benefit above all others will appear cowardly.

People who believe they are righteous have always seemed more fearless to me, more compelling. That's why I can always appreciate villains who believe they are fighting for something for a grander purpose. I can appreciate extremely selfish villains too, but I'll always wonder about odd behaviours, "Why is this completely *selfish*, pragmatic, intelligent villain not retreating and doing things the cowardly but safe way? He has all the time in the world. What is he even fighting for?"

SELFLESS villains, ones who have greater concerns outside their own personal well-being are going to act in less cowardly ways (or at least ways that *appear* less cowardly).

The problem with Evil to me is this: What ARE they fighting for that is "Evil"? The only ones that would APPEAR to act in less cowardly ways are ones who are basically masochists. Ones who enjoy risk and are NOT pragmatic/safe/intelligent types.

Good characters don't have their problems. They're selfless, and thus more often appear Fearless, and fearlessness is something most people on some degree can respect.

This is before we even begin to touch on "afterlife rewards" (i.e. who is more likely to concede first in a game of life-or-death "chicken" -like two people driving towards each other at max speed- the one who thinks there is nothing in the afterlife, or maybe Hell if he does believe in afterlife, or the one who 100% believes that he has righteousness on his side and that he will be rewarded in the afterlife?).

Good people don't have to be boring. Some good people have CONVICTION. That's something a lot of modern youth I see are lacking. They live aimless lives before falling into deeper and deeper depression because they can't imagine living for something greater than themselves. Some people just don't like themselves enough and NEED that higher, selfless purpose to shine.

[Quertus]

Law believes that Speed Limits are valuable, because they create one uniform, testable, "this is safe" standard.

Chaos believes that everyone should be allowed to drive as fast as they want to, and suffer the consequences if they drive faster than they can.

Good chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will help the most people.

Neutral chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will help themselves.

Evil chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will hurt those they want to suffer.

[Zhentarim]

Law believes that Speed Limits are valuable, because they create one uniform, testable, "this is safe" standard.

Chaos believes that everyone should be allowed to drive as fast as they want to, and suffer the consequences if they drive faster than they can.

Good chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will help the most people.

Neutral chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will help themselves.

Evil chooses where or not to have Speed Limits based on what they think will hurt those they want to suffer.

What about Lawful Evil in your example as opposed to Chaotic Evil?

[Felyndiira]

What about Lawful Evil in your example as opposed to Chaotic Evil?

Lawful Good - "We should have speed limits. It keeps the roads safe, so less people would get hurt."

Chaotic Good - "Screw speed limits. They don't help and just add hassle to peoples' lives. People are going to be safe anyway, and there aren't enough people who would be reckless without them and wouldn't be reckless anyway."

Lawful Neutral - "We should have speed limits. It's just the way things are."

Chaotic Neutral - "Screw speed limits. I don't like them."

Lawful Evil - "We should have speed limits. It lets me make lots of money off people and gives me an excuse to fine the ever-living crap out of those annoying guys I hate."

Chaotic Evil - "Screw speed limits. I have a titanium-plated monster truck and don't care if I hit people, so let me do my 200 mph."

[John05]

What about Lawful Evil in your example as opposed to Chaotic Evil?

On the matter of something as mundane as speed limits, I would say Lawful Good and Lawful Evil actually don't differ TOO much. They both want stability. The REASONS they want stability might differ. Lawful Good believe stability and rule of law will result in happiness and well-being of citizens in the long run. Lawful Evil likely have more selfish reasons. More stability == they have more stable rule and higher profits/productivity for themselves. We want efficient exploitation of the naive citizens, after all.

Chaotic Evil on the other hand don't care for stability. Chaotic people generally want more excitement. They're the types that can't stand the idea of office jobs. That stuff's boring. They can't stand speed limits because it limits their own freedom to have fun (speed racing, or watching people crash and burn). Who the **** cares about "profits", "productivity", "efficient systems" and all that **** that Lawful Evil types do? The difference they have with Chaotic Good types is that they expect and like it when the chaos causes innocent people to suffer.