this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Chaotic motivation and lawful action are not mutually exclusive, in my experience. Lawful good is believing that there is a right code to live by - "the law" - be that an actual legal system, or a creed.
Chaotic good, on the other hand, is still good, but it's a very personal, sometimes selfish good. They do not have a book or spoken history to point to and say "this is what's right." But they know it when they see it.
That's how I've always explained it to people, after having it explained to me as that ๐คท
I think people are too strict on defining alignment. It makes things less fun. For example, I played a Paladin who had a personality that was somewhat selfish, but warshipped a lawful good god. This required his behavior to be lawful good even if it wasn't what he wanted to be doing. His personality was more true neutral or maybe neutral good. What's the alignment of the character?
.... That's either neutral or chaotic. Maybe even true neutral? They don't respect the law. They get something from the law. That is not lawful good, IMO
The actions were always lawful good. There's a large philosophical argument about actions versus intent for a reason. It's not that simple.
I'm speaking to alignment of a character, not a specific action. In your example, regardless of the action itself, the character is not being Lawful Good. They are not interested in the creed itself for its own sake. They are interested in what they get from following the creed. That's not Lawful Good, no matter how you slice it IMO
Sure, I agree. There are plenty of philosophers who would argue otherwise though. I just think alignment as the nine quadrants gets stale. People should be willing to take other outlooks.
There are millinia of philosophers arguing about morality. The typical D&D quadrants are boring in comparison. The people in the world won't care if something good happens just because the paladin wanted to impress their god. They'll just be happy that something good happened. Will the god care? That's up to them (and the DM).
Does a lawful character follow the law because something bad will happen otherwise, or do they morally agree with lawfulness? Both follow laws equally, but one doesn't always agree with them.
I think that's a bit off track though. The purpose of the alignment chart is not to accurately cover the full history of philosophy. It's about providing structure around which the player can internalize their character's motivations, and a guide for the DM and other players who won't have as clear an understanding of that as the player themself.
Imagine instead of a 9x9 grid, it's a 900x900 grid, split into 9 broad segments.
Your character's actual internal moral compass might fall anywhere on that 900x900 grid, and the edges of each quadrant blur together, but it's a solid rubric for everyone to align (heh) on what to expect from a character.
And for new players it can provide a starting point for understanding their own character.
My point is to stress that how the character feels is more important than what they do when it comes to alignment because that best serves the goal of the system: encouraging deeper connection with the character and moving players more towards actual role-play instead of simple play-acting
I agree it's a good starting point, and I think that's how it should remain. It's also faster to describe "I'm lawful good" instead of "my code of ethics involves..." but I don't like it when people use it as a defining characteristic for their character.
What reasons they have for following that alignment is much more interesting than just saying they're following it. How does their personality and desires play into it? Where might they do something against it?
I agree it's useful for communication, but a lot of people stop at that and don't consider their character's opinions, desires, and goals further.
Totally agree with that. But that's almost always on the people at the table to encourage, and to do so only after the new player has gotten comfortable with the basics. I've seen too many cases where veteran players push new players to go deep on character motivation when they're not even comfortable with improving in front of other people yet. Can be a big turn off to newbies who aren't really excited to sink their teeth into the game from the get-go
Chaotic and lawful are opposite ends of the matrix, evil and good are similarly opposites. Ignoring neutrality, we can look at a punnet square-esque 2x2 grid of chaotic good - chaotic evil -lawful good - lawful evil
The way I see it (and this is a hotly debated topic, so it's all pretty firmly in the realm of interpretation) is that lawful good is akin to a benevolent government, chaotic good is akin to Robinhood, lawful evil is akin to a fascist regime or dictatorship, chaotic evil is akin to the joker.
There's a lot of nuance between those extremes, of course, but to make broad strokes you can ask "are they working within or without a strong system" to get lawful vs chaotic, and "are they trying to help others or hurt others" to get good and evil.
Using those questions gives a good basis to start dissecting people and characters.
Hitler worked within the political system to create a new totalitarian regime and harm the people who fell outside it. Lawful evil.
Robinhood flaunted laws and committed crimes in the pursuit of helling those in need. Chaotic good.
You'll note that chaotic, whether good or evil, doesn't build societies or ideologies. They're more focused on their own goals. Lawful creates structure for societies to confirm to.
This is a great start but I think the most important of the many nuances is that lawful doesn't mean governmental, and chaotic doesn't mean anarchic.
A king who acts purely on whim with no consistency to the rule of law, even if there are supposed to be rules to follow, is chaotic
A paladin who follows an ancient code passed down through a single master/apprentice relationship for generations is Lawful
I've always seen it as: lawful = there is a higher authority to which the character is committed, even if they're the only one committed to it. Chaotic =acting only/mostly with your own purpose at heart, even if that is wrapped up in a lawful-looking package.
tl;dr: chaotic characters can use legal systems, and powerful characters can be fiercely independent
I agree!! I tried to parse my own comment as "hey this is a big fat opinion soup" just because the alignment chart is highly debated and often forgone entirely as too restrictive. Lots of motivations that buck the chart entirely.