Evil is, well, evil and half the players out there seem to think chaotic is what you play when you want to play evil without admitting it by putting "evil" on your character sheet.
Yeah, a lot of players think chaotic means license to be an ******* and call it 'just playing my character' whereas evil means edgelord, Yo!. I honestly consider the default alignment of PCs in a heroic campaign be CG, as in my experience very few PC parties are overly concerned about whether what they're doing is actually legal, properly justified by the evidence, etc.
I actually prefer the original warhammer approach, that lawful meant stagnant no change, no evolution, no development. Everything just stayed the same and Chaotic meant just that, chaos, constant change and flux nothing ever consistent. The idea was the perfect system held a balance. You then applied your good, neutral evil to that, but even then too much good would create just as unbalanced a society as too much evil.
Evil is, well, evil and half the players out there seem to think chaotic is what you play when you want to play evil without admitting it by putting "evil" on your character sheet.
Yeah, a lot of players think chaotic means license to be an ******* and call it 'just playing my character' whereas evil means edgelord, Yo!. I honestly consider the default alignment of PCs in a heroic campaign be CG, as in my experience very few PC parties are overly concerned about whether what they're doing is actually legal, properly justified by the evidence, etc.
DND has been primarily a game of murder hobos so I would say the default alignment is chaotic evil.
That's relative. It hasn't been primarily a murderhobo game for me, over 30+ years. A decent chunk of it, sure, but not the major part.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Chaos and Evil are endpoints, not axises..... and 'Orderly decay' vs 'Chaotic corruption' substitutes the concept that societies have rules intended for the public good with everything is going to end badly, one way or another. It is nihilism. Guess what, heroes? No matter what you do, in the end you will lose. Not sure how that is any sort of selling point....
The concept that societies have rules intended for the public good is that LG perspective you are ranting about, even though it is actually the basis of pretty much every modern society in the world today, despite the ongoing debate about how much and what kinds of laws and controls over society are truly good, something not appropriate to dive into here, but I'll happily discuss with you if you wish to PM me.
It's my thread, I do what I want. Hueh.
Fair cop on the 'chaos and evil are endpoints, not axes' thing, but the point remains. LG assumes that all rules and laws are 'for the public good'. The tyrannical hyper-authoritarian Kingdom of Warringland which has transformed its populace into an obedient indentured workforce designed to supply its armies and aggressively expand is just as 'LG' as the neighboring Realm of Niceguyton. Players and DMs who insist that LG is the only truly 'Heroic' alignment are basically recreating the Avengers Civil War bit. The average schmuck acts within the law because they have no choice, no impact, and no power. When individuals of exceptional means, power, and fortune see a problem they know they can correct, should they wait to be dispatched by the King? Should they stay their hands and act only as the king requires and empowers them to act, even when doing so brings ruination to the people? Should they be nothing more than the king's echoes, ignoring their own ability to help? Or should they act, swiftly and decisively, within their means and their initiative...even when doing so brings ruination to the people? Should they trust their own insight and abilities over those of an entire kingdom and undermine the very land they seek to protect by disregarding the King's authority?
Heh. One may be able to guess that I detest the original nine-box alignment grid and consider it absolutely pants-on-hands worthless for literally any function not directly related to old-fashioned Great Wheel cosmology. Part of this is because I hold a conviction, as do pretty much all of my characters, that if you see a problem it is within your means to address and you choose deliberately not to address it, you are now the cause of that problem as much as the original source of the problem is. Don't wait eight months for the King and his court to deliberate and hem and haw and power-struggle and politick and play reindeer games, the way they always ******* do, when demons are overrunning your town and eating your doods. Get your Doom Guy on and merder those deemuns.
Fair cop on the 'chaos and evil are endpoints, not axes' thing, but the point remains. LG assumes that all rules and laws are 'for the public good'.
No, LG is when the rules and laws actually are for the public good. D&D has never been good at resolving how a lawful character should behave when the laws don't match the character's alignment, other than the laws a character obeys not necessarily being the same as the society's laws.
Part of this is because I hold a conviction, as do pretty much all of my characters, that if you see a problem it is within your means to address and you choose deliberately not to address it, you are now the cause of that problem as much as the original source of the problem is. Don't wait eight months for the King and his court to deliberate and hem and haw and power-struggle and politick and play reindeer games, the way they always ****ing do, when demons are overrunning your town and eating your doods. Get your Doom Guy on and merder those deemuns.
Yeah, a lot of players think chaotic means license to be an ******* and call it 'just playing my character' whereas evil means edgelord, Yo!. I honestly consider the default alignment of PCs in a heroic campaign be CG, as in my experience very few PC parties are overly concerned about whether what they're doing is actually legal, properly justified by the evidence, etc.
I did specify 'heroic campaign'. A murder-hobo campaign does generally default to chaotic evil.
I actually prefer the original warhammer approach, that lawful meant stagnant no change, no evolution, no development. Everything just stayed the same and Chaotic meant just that, chaos, constant change and flux nothing ever consistent. The idea was the perfect system held a balance. You then applied your good, neutral evil to that, but even then too much good would create just as unbalanced a society as too much evil.
I would argue it generates down usually to chaotic neutral because usually DMs feed there murder hobo characters NPCs and monsters that deserve death.
That's relative. It hasn't been primarily a murderhobo game for me, over 30+ years. A decent chunk of it, sure, but not the major part.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
It's my thread, I do what I want. Hueh.
Fair cop on the 'chaos and evil are endpoints, not axes' thing, but the point remains. LG assumes that all rules and laws are 'for the public good'. The tyrannical hyper-authoritarian Kingdom of Warringland which has transformed its populace into an obedient indentured workforce designed to supply its armies and aggressively expand is just as 'LG' as the neighboring Realm of Niceguyton. Players and DMs who insist that LG is the only truly 'Heroic' alignment are basically recreating the Avengers Civil War bit. The average schmuck acts within the law because they have no choice, no impact, and no power. When individuals of exceptional means, power, and fortune see a problem they know they can correct, should they wait to be dispatched by the King? Should they stay their hands and act only as the king requires and empowers them to act, even when doing so brings ruination to the people? Should they be nothing more than the king's echoes, ignoring their own ability to help? Or should they act, swiftly and decisively, within their means and their initiative...even when doing so brings ruination to the people? Should they trust their own insight and abilities over those of an entire kingdom and undermine the very land they seek to protect by disregarding the King's authority?
Heh. One may be able to guess that I detest the original nine-box alignment grid and consider it absolutely pants-on-hands worthless for literally any function not directly related to old-fashioned Great Wheel cosmology. Part of this is because I hold a conviction, as do pretty much all of my characters, that if you see a problem it is within your means to address and you choose deliberately not to address it, you are now the cause of that problem as much as the original source of the problem is. Don't wait eight months for the King and his court to deliberate and hem and haw and power-struggle and politick and play reindeer games, the way they always ******* do, when demons are overrunning your town and eating your doods. Get your Doom Guy on and merder those deemuns.
Please do not contact or message me.
No, LG is when the rules and laws actually are for the public good. D&D has never been good at resolving how a lawful character should behave when the laws don't match the character's alignment, other than the laws a character obeys not necessarily being the same as the society's laws.
Standard CG.