Post/Author/DateTime	Post
totoro 04-17-05, 10:52 PM	I had thought that RAW alignment made sense before reading BoVD yesterday. Ugh. I noticed my alignment system is a house rule. Does anybody have simple house rules for Law/Chaos? I have a nice one for Good/Evil, but my Law/Chaos is so-so. Kind of long, so please ignore all that follows if not interested and post a simple law/chaos house rule if you have one. ---- GOOD: For any action, if the primary motivation for the action is to protect the innocent (innocent being good, morally-aware neutral, or of unknown alignment--from the perspective of the actor), then the action is good-aligned. It doesn't matter what the action is so long as the primary motivation is protecting the innocent. GOOD TENDENCIES: A person with good tendencies would need some minimal motivation to protect the innocent (such as being sure victory is possible). This might be the type of person who would not intervene in a rape, but would run off and call the cops. A Good person, on the other hand, would intervene at great personal risk (before or after calling the cops). NEUTRAL: For an action that neither harms nor protects the innocent the action is neutrally-aligned (or non-aligned, if there is no moral significance to the action). EVIL TENDENCIES: A person with evil tendencies would need some motivation (such as profit) to harm the innocent. This is enough to merit full evil status in RAW, but not in my games. EVIL: For any action, if the primary motivation for the action is to harm the innocent (good, morally-aware neutral, or of unknown alignment), then the action is evil-aligned. You actually have to WANT to kill innocent people even if you gain nothing by it--or perhaps, just not care that your actions are sure to cause innocent deaths for no "good" reason. That makes evil in my game really, really evil.
jaerad 04-18-05, 03:23 AM	Haven't read BoVD, but just going off a hunch... Shouldn't be that hard to come up with Law/Chaos. You have things laid out in terms of motivation and tendencies, same thing applies. If you intent to honor tradition, or you choose what you think to be the correct morally good action - lawful. If you want to buck tradition, or you do things w/o really thinking about it - chaotic. Neutral is more that you don't think much in general about law and order - you're concerns are more for what's right/wrong. Close? Way off? Keep outta this n3wb?
totoro 04-18-05, 03:39 AM	Haven't read BoVD, but just going off a hunch... Shouldn't be that hard to come up with Law/Chaos. You have things laid out in terms of motivation and tendencies, same thing applies. If you intent to honor tradition, or you choice what you think to be the correct morally good action - lawful. If you want to buck tradition, or you do things w/o really thinking about it - chaotic. Neutral is more that you don't think much in general about law and order - you're concerns are more for what's right/wrong. Close? Way off? Keep outta this n3wb? I thought about using tradition and discipline (discipline is even worse), but that doesn't really narrow the field so that players know exactly what it means to be lawful or chaotic. I want my players to be able to say, "I intended to protect the innocent, so my alignment is good." That way, the CHARACTER can get confused about what is good (like a veteran who goes nuts in the middle of a war and starts killing women and children--the player knows the character is getting evil even if the character is only dimly aware), but the PLAYER knows what it takes to be any given alignment. I want a player to also be able to say "I intended to do X, so my alignment is lawful." For example, my current law/chaos (which I don't particularly like): LAWFUL: If it is your intention to tell the truth without any deception or to otherwise act without deception, your action is lawful. LAWFUL TENDENCIES: You tell the truth and do not deceive unless it will clearly interfere with the moral component of your alignment. NEUTRAL: Yeah, you sometimes lie and deceive it is in your interests or to further the moral component of your alignment. CHAOTIC TENDENCIES: Truth and deception are irrelevant unless deception will interfere with the moral component of your alignment. CHAOTIC: Truth and deception are irrelevant and should not be considered. Truth is a good starting point, I reasoned, because lies can be detected so there is some power to truth. There is no power to tradition (and when you die and move on to the next world, tradition won't follow you). Still, I think there might be something better.
conjurer_lord 04-18-05, 11:52 PM	Law/chaos is truly difficult. I tried to develop a campaign setting where law/chaos took the role of good/evil (i.e. LG and LE will work together, but LG and CG won't). It just didn't work out, because I couldn't handle the logistics (or the strangeness of a paladin and blackguard working together). An idea for law: If the motivation is to maintain tradition or keep things the way they currently are, the action is lawful. Thus, defending the king is lawful, because it maintains the government, even if the king himself is chaos incarnate. For chaos: If the intent is to do something new or to change the staus quo, the action is lawful. Thus, collapsing a bridge is chaotic, because it messes up the way people move. The problem with that is that any action by nature will change the way things work, but since you're going by intent, you could bypass that. Another idea: If the act is done randomly or semi-randomly (i.e. random killings to vent anger or healing someone on the spur of the moment), it would be chaotic. It it was planned or there is a reasonable purpose for the act (killing the king to collapse the government, even though that would cause chaos in the long run, or healing people who are brought to you while you are in the temple), the act would be lawful. I think law and chaos will always be a bit more arbitrary than good and evil. Good luck with your rules though. I'm always happy when someone gives law and chaos a good look. That alignment axis gets too little attention.
strenoth 04-19-05, 03:49 AM	well, law and chaos are both defines as many things: Lack of change is lawful, while change is chaotic seems to be the most basic, but also... Having a set, personal code that you defined either by careful thinking or by accepting a traditional code passed down is lawful. Deciding your actions based entirely on what you feel is chaotic. A balance between those two is Neutral on this access. Hmm, propositon, for the law/chaose access, repalce 'neutral' with 'balanced'. Thuse, a 'true nuetral' person becomes a 'Balanced Nuetral' person. Not using the same word for 2 different descriptors is a good thing I think. let's see.. keeping your word despite drawbacks is considered lawful, while breaking a promise if you no longer feel like it is considered Chaotic. This is seperate from good/evil because a LG person who unwittingly made a promise to an evil person would do their best to keep that promise even when they foudn that person was evil, while a CG person would consider the promise null & void the instant they realised the person was evil.
jaerad 04-19-05, 04:24 AM	let's see.. keeping your word despite drawbacks is considered lawful, while breaking a promise if you no longer feel like it is considered Chaotic. This is seperate from good/evil because a LG person who unwittingly made a promise to an evil person would do their best to keep that promise even when they foudn that person was evil, while a CG person would consider the promise null & void the instant they realised the person was evil. I disagree. Keeping your word even when it breaks your code of honor/morals is crazy. Take the classic shotgun example. You give me your shotgun to hold onto it for awhile. You come back later and ask for it back, raving about how your wife is cheating on you. Keeping the shotgun amounts to stealing - since I was only storing it for you. But giving you the shotgun is wrong since I know you aren't in a state of mind condusive to rational thinking. I'll admit, Lawful and Good really go together for me. What's the point of having a personal code of honor if you don't stick to it? Having a code of honor is lawful, having a morally good code of honor is good. Sticking to it is - lawful? good? Breaking it seems chaotic. Depends on intent I guess, but I think I've rambled enough.
Moon-Lancer 04-19-05, 09:11 AM	actually there are 2 different ways to look at the non moral alignments. Order/Chaos Law/Freedom They are tied together a organized person can say they are lawful by being organized, but believe in freedom. However, for classes, the classes its good to understand that some classes are meant to be lawful or freedom, while others are Order or Chaos. A Paladin HAS to be LAWFULL, but doesn’t need to be Full of order. A monk Does not have to follow the laws, but needs to be of Order. A warlock does not need to care about freedom, but the power inside them makes them disorganized, and Chaotic. The problem is wotc Is using the word lawful to mean organized and lawful. Books like boed tend to speak more of Law and Freedom while the recent article about alignment talks more about Order and Chaos. Wotc Combines Order and Lawful together and can mean both or one or the other. Now if someone was Order but for freedom, their are not rules for how this would work. You might be natural, that that would mess up a paladin. Maybe a paladin has to be order and lawful at the same time, but the flavor text many times does not indicate this. In my opinion the alignment systems need an overhaul. There is too much variation going to what lawful and what chaotic can mean to be tied to a requirement to a class.
totoro 04-20-05, 02:04 AM	Good comments (I like to discuss alignment). What I'm really looking for is a PRACTICAL implementation of law/chaos. So, an implementation that lets you draw out aligned action on a grid with predictable progression from law to chaos. The problem I have with the "personal code" implemenation (although perfectly legitimate) is LAWFUL has a personal code, CHAOTIC has no personal code, and NEUTRAL has something in between. I have the same problem with following tradition. Either of these would work if there was a clear cut-off between lawful and neutral, neutral and chaos. For example, if the law/chaos practical implementation is based on truth, you could say LAWFUL always tells the truth, CHAOTIC doesn't care about the truth, and NEUTRAL tells the truth if they swear an oath. I don't think truth works that well as a law/chaos implementation, but you can have degrees of truth (lies as compared to oath-breaking). I suppose it is possible that there isn't a satisfying practical implementation...
totoro 05-05-05, 12:44 AM	:bump: Sorry to bump. Still not happy with law/chaos practical implementations so looking for help. My latest thought is emotion-based. Chaotics do things because they feel passion. Lawfuls do things because they feel obligated (e.g., they do what must be done). So, practical implementation: Lawful acts are done without emotion. A Lawful Good act would be to grimly sacrifice yourself for the good of all. A Lawful Evil act would be to coldly calculate the means for producing the greatest amount of harm to innocent people. A Lawful Neutral act would be to force others to play by your rules. Eh. I don't know. What do you think?
Moon-Lancer 05-05-05, 01:21 AM	i like. You may go through and look at the flavor text of a class that requires an alignment, and find out how that class is interpreting alignment. A paladin and monk use lawful in different ways. If you are a dm just reinforce that it’s important to follow the flavor of the class and follow how they interpret the alignment in that case. I think in general, alignment inset important unless its tied to a class. you may also try an alignment system like this. Only restriction would be that a character couldn’t be lawful and freedom, or chaotic and disciplined. Druids would just pick two opposing alignments like lawful chaotic or discipline freedom. They could also just try to keep all four in check at the same type. Monks have to have discipline Paladins would be Law Any class dealing with vigilantly Justice would be freedom, and any classes dealing with mental organization, such as warlocks, would be chaotic As I have read it neutral characters usually only deal with law and freedom, not discipline and chaotic. Although I do not see why they couldn’t be pure neutral for everything.. Law-----------------------------------Freedom ------------Good----Neutral----evil------------ Discipline ---------------------------Chaotic(disorganized)
totoro 05-05-05, 03:28 AM	That's pretty interesting. Law/Freedom makes some sense. Disciplined/Chaotic makes some sense. Maybe selfless/selfish/anti-social for law/neutral/chaos. It's kind of like law/freedom, but I want a three-tiered alignment. So, LG is selflessly good so that society benefits, while CG is good, but anti-social (e.g., always does good, but does bad, too--like grafitti or theft). NG might just do good deeds and then try to benefit from them (though NG will do the good deeds even if they cannot benefit). LN would selflessly enforce the status quo. CN would do whatever they please (short of murder/mayhem) and expend some extra effort breaking rules. N would go about their business without attempting to force their ways on others (unless the others force their ways first), trying to benefit as much as the norms of the land allow. LE would selflessly expand the dominion of hell on the prime material plane. CE would selfishly do whatever they please, and then some. NE would do evil deeds and happily profit from their deeds, if any profit is available. (L) would imply selflessness with respect to following all of the rules. (C) would imply willingness to break rules, but not a willingness to flout them. I kind of like this now. Chaotics and Lawfuls will not get along well at all. That's the way it should be. Chaotics have more freedom, but chaos is kind of bad, so detect alignment spells will generally work in favor of lawful people. Maybe this works?