which of these things are always true of a character with a lawful alignment in D&D?

@kasdeya ☑ they’re boring

which of these things are always true of a character with a chaotic alignment in D&D?

@kasdeya actually this is kind of hard to answer. i’ve seen characters which have not shared any subset of any of these qualities before

@rowan omg I should have added an option for “non of these”! I always want to edit these after I post them but I can’t or all of the votes will get reset. oh, well

@rowan hehehehe very fair tbh

@kasdeya we are voting based on what *we* tend to take these to mean when roleplaying but as always, the meanings are to an extent only made real within the mind of a player, and other players could choose to understand or play it differently

@rowan @kasdeya okay but what if we want to read the 15,000+ word reply now?

@kasdeya heck, all of the above. Chaotic characters aren't really tied to laws so they could be one thing one moment and the other thing the next. They can be collectivist by opening the kingdoms grain supply to the whole public and taking on its guards. And it can be selfish because they really did that cause they hold a grudge with a former friend that became a total sell-out so they wanted to spite that loser.

The only real rule they follow is what feels right to themas they follow their heart (that's been traditionally taken by the good/neutral/evil alignment, but I'm sure there's better alignments today)

@tempest @kasdeya inhales deeply

i don’t like the traditional understand of the d&d alignment because it’s boring, stifling, and doesn’t really make sense nor does it make for a good character. the stock standard definition of lawful (as in lawful good) is something along the lines of rigidly following some oath or vow to an organization or higher power, whether “good” or “evil.” this feels more like a subset of lawful rather than the defining feature.

once, we had a discussion with a player who insisted they were chaotic good with these qualities because there is no reasoning with them; all of their actions are seemingly arbitrary because they’re given from on high which had the practical effect of being wildly chaotic. i i really, really like this interpretation. conversely, a “lawful good” person can break laws to enact what they know to be good in spite of man-made law or the ordinance of some holy order.

i take a lawful alignment to mean putting central some “law” (obviously). a law doesn’t need to be a man-made law or a law ordained by a deity – it can originate from anywhere: the believer’s mind, some unspoken / unwritten rule which is understood by a community, etc. a character which is lawful will often value their chosen laws enough to be driven to act on them. being lawful doesn’t necessitate a black-and-white worldview can frequently lead to it.

if any of kas’ options come close to representing how i feel about lawful, it’d be requiring some type of authoritarianism – but even then, what if their central code is autonomy and freedom above all else? we can easily envision some wild west sheriff-type who doesn’t value Laws In General, only the law of their town. eastern civilization comes rolling in to disrupt the quiet lives of the people who elected them and this violates their moral code so much that they’re driven to act – even against the federal government. lawful neutral maybe?? but the second word of the alignment chart has always been the more Problematic of the two, i think. good according to who? any character which believes they are evil doesn’t feel authentic to me, especially a lawful character. from the perspective of a lawful character, they are always* good.

okay i have to stop ksdofjsaodifa. the only unifying concept of lawful, in our mind, is that the lawful character is driven by some law – usually higher than themselves.

* not always. there’s likely scenarios where a character knows they’re violating their own code, but whatever. there’s exceptions to everything!! im stupid dont listen to me i have no idea what im talking about, i just bash keys until something happens

@kasdeya i kinda think none of those things have to be true. my headcanon is that lawful characters act based on reason and principle, and hold some consistent base of values over a long period of time. (one such value could be conformity, leading to the per-jurisdiction chameleon one of your options suggests.)

@kasdeya conversely i think chaotic characters keep no particular consistent base of values; they are mercurial and are difficult to predict from their prior actions. perhaps, like one of my friends, they prefer to do "the funniest possible thing"

@rowan @kasdeya *nods* that makes sense, and lines up with how we feel we tend to play it for a lot of our characters — there is / are central values they hold, the "law" that they strive to align their actions to

we also feel this becomes more interesting when it's not "define this as a player, and make sure the character's actions align with it" and is more like . . . played as representing the character's internal motivations and aspirations. this means that then those "laws" can be a driving force in their growth (or in a storytelling sense, in their character arc)

the difficulty we have ran into before is that if we define lawful in this way, we find ourselves left without a way to meaningfully define chaotic. self-centered characters can have a "law" of "i look out for myself first", but the natural inclination would be to try to draw a line between the laws that are traditionally lawful and those that manifest more as chaotic . . . but if we go down this line of thinking for too long we eventually end up reinventing kantian ethics from first principles, by which point everyone has gotten bored and left the table :p

@kasdeya strawman for the funnies:

lawful good: do it because it is right
chaotic good: do it because it feels right
lawful evil: do it because it's wrong
chaotic evil: do it because it feels wrong

lawful neutral: don't do it
chaotic neutral: do it

@kasdeya (if i want to take this too seriously, "lawful" needs a reason to do something, and "chaotic" needs a reason to *not* do something. their defaults are totally opposite. lawful: "why did you do that?" chaotic: "well, why not??")

@rowan @kasdeya then again, "no one is actually chaotic, alignment was made up by Big Religion to sell more indulgences" would be on-brand for us