Chaotic Neutral: the Lazy Gamer's Tool?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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threemilechild wrote:
In many games, I think NG is a more "generic" and easy alignment.

This is a good example of how subjective alignment is.

See, to me CG is the 'easiest' to play, prob. because it mirrors my own attitudes i guess.

And because it's so subjective, it makes alignment threads reeeeaaaalllly long and tedious, because everyone's stating what *is* CE/CN/whatever alignment as if its fact.

When actually, the Core (and every dnd description of alignments says roughly the same) says quite plainly:

Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies, so two characters of the same alignment can still be quite different from each other. In addition, few people are completely consistent.

It's such an elastic concept, you cannot define it in its entirety.


threemilechild wrote:
...My most annoying, rp-wise, character that I currently -- possibly ever, but we'll see, I'm only two sessions in -- play is probably my Lawful Neutral Displacer Beast. "No, I can't help you search for treasure right now. I have to eat this dead kobold."...

In this example nothing necessarily points towards Lawful behavior!

Lawful does NOT mean having a internal system for doing things, a chaotic has that as well (usually). Lawful means defining a chain of command/dependencies and keeping to it! So if your DB is actually the leader of the group, then this could be lawful, if not and he simply assumes that his wishes are more important than any order/wishes of the other chars, he is surely chaotic!

If chaotic would haven been called "libertarian" it wouldn't probably so hard for many people to understand the core of this alignment.


<threadjack>

Quote:
it was time to get the heck out of Dodge.

Is Dodge a dangerous town?

Is it the car brand?
In the latter case, I might never envision buying one if their reputation include the quoted text.
</threadjack>

Sorry, couldn't resist :-)


+1 to most of this thread.

The players that I have who always play CN are the ones who really want complete freedom to jack with the rest of the party.

The Exchange

As I see is, Law and Chaos are more statements of the means of achieving the ends specified by Good or Evil.

LN and CN are more likely to view order or freedom as ends in their own right. Neither should be about personal habits or desires; a CN character could suffer from OCD and a LN character could be a slob.

A character who can't control his impulses isn't showing that he's CN; he's showing that he has a low Wisdom score.

(Though it's more likely that his player's the one who chose Wisdom as his dump stat. )


i typically play lawful neutral, true neutral, lawful evil, or neutral good. all of which i share a few tendencies with. i will occasionally whip together a chaotic neutral. but i rarely do so. i don't try to act disruptive as much as i like to be able to punish the disruptive player should there be one. preferably with no moral or ethical qualms.


Charender wrote:

+1 to most of this thread.

The players that I have who always play CN are the ones who really want complete freedom to jack with the rest of the party.

No. -1 to this generalization and the one made by the OP.

I'm a GM, so I don't care what alignments I'm "allowed" to play. To say all players of CN characters are disruptive is just untrue.

Sorry guys.


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I have mixed feelings about the CN alignment.

On one side, I have seen bad players using it as an excuse to play psychopaths with no responsibility, disrupting the game and annoying the other characters for selfish pleasure.
Many of them were basically CE under disguise, not even having the courage to be evil and to face the consequences.

On another side, I have seen a few others exploring the entropic aspect of the alignment, anarchists with no commitment to anything, but still living a rich life as mercenaries and daredevils, becoming actual heroes without a cause.
As we know from legends, books and movies, antiheroes can be real heroes.

Basically that's in the hands of the player. That's his responsibility to make some concessions to the game and have a minimum of group spirit.
Even if his character is a lunatic, he should try to be useful to the group, just out of respect for the other players and the DM.
The same thing applies to Lawful Fascist paladins.
In other words, even if your character is a jerk, don't play as a jerk.


Jerky characters (such as Bender, Ralph or Belkar) usually only work out in a comical environment without too much seriousness.

In so far I am astounded how many people use these as "examples" for playing an (evil, chaotc) alignment because it oviously doesn't fit into most of the "normal" campaigns.

In my campaign I long ago told my players that I decide which alignment they have after how they play. Often the players themselves are not the best judges of their own actions (and some don't care about whats what and simply play).

If you do this be sure to give some guidelines (PRGs definitions are usually fine but I additionally stretch that chaotic doesn't mean totally random/mental disorder but rather "loving his freedom").

Scarab Sages

I have always joked that D&D only really had 2 Alignments...

Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Self-Centered.

-Uriel


Evil Lincoln wrote:
Charender wrote:

+1 to most of this thread.

The players that I have who always play CN are the ones who really want complete freedom to jack with the rest of the party.

No. -1 to this generalization and the one made by the OP.

I'm a GM, so I don't care what alignments I'm "allowed" to play. To say all players of CN characters are disruptive is just untrue.

Sorry guys.

So you are saying that my generalization about the players that I play with is incorrect? Interesting....


Charender wrote:


So you are saying that my generalization about the players that I play with is incorrect? Interesting....

Sorry, I simply meant to disagree with the sentiment. It hasn't been my experience, and I am sorry that it has been that way for you. Please accept my apoligies, I should have parsed your statement more carefully. Interpret me as disagreeing with the "+1" and not with your personal experience.

I think the problem isn't the CN alignment, the problem is disruptive players. These are the same players who play LG paladins badly and give them a bad name. They are people who really don't grasp the social aspect of our hobby.

Blaming the alignment is counterproductive. It is the players themselves who need to improve. Mainly, they need to develop some empathy for the GM and the other players, instead of spoiling other people's fun to further their own whims.


Evil Lincoln wrote:
Charender wrote:


So you are saying that my generalization about the players that I play with is incorrect? Interesting....

Sorry, I simply meant to disagree with the sentiment. It hasn't been my experience, and I am sorry that it has been that way for you. Please accept my apoligies, I should have parsed your statement more carefully. Interpret me as disagreeing with the "+1" and not with your personal experience.

I think the problem isn't the CN alignment, the problem is disruptive players. These are the same players who play LG paladins badly and give them a bad name. They are people who really don't grasp the social aspect of our hobby.

Blaming the alignment is counterproductive. It is the players themselves who need to improve. Mainly, they need to develop some empathy for the GM and the other players, instead of spoiling other people's fun to further their own whims.

Ok, then perhaps a little more explaination is in order.

I specifically have 1 player who would play alignment:none if he could. The guy is there for combat, and gets bored and disruptive in social situations. He often picks CN for his character. My opinion is that he is picking CN to actively have to avoid having to RP anything relating to alignment. This guy is a self admitted non-roleplayer.

I have another player who is new to the group, so I am not 100% sure on my read. But my gut feeling is that he was just using CN for his alignment so that he would have free reign to undermine the party.

These are the only two players who always pick CN.

I have another player who when he does choose CN, he uses it to undermine the party, because in his mind, CN is the alignment for the anti-party character.

My other regular player is a team player. No matter what alignment he picks the rest of the party can rely on him. I have never seen him play a CN character.

So, my rather small sampling lines up with the general synopsis of the thread. Players who play CN are either trying to avoid RPing their alignment, or they want to be free to backstab their party members.


I find that all alignments are fine, as long as the player isn't being immature or especially contrary.

Chaotic, to me, means that a person is more interested in the individual aspects of society, and more willing to abandon a plan or jump in without a plan at all.

Neutral (with regards to good and evil) has changed since 2nd Edition, and it means that while a person isn't particularly focused on "saving the innocent villagers", they also aren't quite willing to go over that line of "feed the innocent villagers to the wolves".

To me, that means that a Chaotic Neutral person would be willing to jump into a situation without care of planning, and would only really feel motivated to self sacrifice when it comes to those he considers within his "circle".

He wouldn't be willing to kill just anyone, nor turn on his own allies, for no reason.

This is what makes Chaotic Neutral playable in 3e. Someone playing the old 2e version of Chaotic Neutral would be pegged as Chaotic Evil, at best. Probably be considered a lunatic and ready to be "put down" like one might a rabid dog.

"Insane" simply isn't an alignment choice in D&D since 3e came out. There's rules for that in the Unearthed Arcana OGL supplement if someone really wants to explore that side of gaming...


So then, I guess a better formulation would be:

"Chaotic Neutral. Okay on its own, but disruptive jerks seem to prefer it."

But I'll repeat, you take the same disruptive jerk and make them a paladin, and you will still have a disruptive jerk.


Evil Lincoln wrote:
Charender wrote:

+1 to most of this thread.

The players that I have who always play CN are the ones who really want complete freedom to jack with the rest of the party.

No. -1 to this generalization and the one made by the OP.

I'm a GM, so I don't care what alignments I'm "allowed" to play. To say all players of CN characters are disruptive is just untrue.

Sorry guys.

Hold the phone. Never did I say that all players of CN characters are doing it for the wrong reasons. I said that I've seen it played for the wrong reasons so often that I immediately suspect a player of doing it that way the moment I see "Chaotic Neutral" on their character sheet.

What's a good analogy? It's like seeing a middle eastern guy with a turban or whatnot get onto your plane with you... your first thought may not be "oh he's a terrorist", but it may be "could he be a terrorist?"... you suspect it... you could well be wrong and it's probably not fair to the guy to have that first thought, but it's understandable why your first thought was what it was based on the things you've seen.


Evil Lincoln wrote:

So then, I guess a better formulation would be:

"Chaotic Neutral. Okay on its own, but disruptive jerks and lazy role-players seem to prefer it."

But I'll repeat, you take the same disruptive jerk and make them a paladin, and you will still have a disruptive jerk.

FTFY


I know, way old thread, but seemed worth me making a comment. I've grown to like the CN because it gives me the ability to be a 'good' character, while if i screw up and do evil things once in awhile, as a player i'm not freaked out about it. Sometimes there's also race restrictions too. My current character is a Dhamphire, who by rules is impossible to become good, even though she's seeking a form of redemption for her creation. So she does a lot of good things even though I know as a player she'll never change alignment to good. Also gives a further excuse to do evil things, like when the cleric did a stupid and walked into a chain lightning trap (which I saw, being the rogue, told him stop, and he didn't ... took him down to 1 HP). I drag him out of the room, wake him up, and then proceed to smack him upside the head with my club (I have the Enforcer feat, so I could do it as subdual and sneak ... and he failed his intimidate save). Definitely evil, but as a character it made sense to her, and as a player I didn't care. Granted, he decided to channel positive energy at her a few times, which may have been evil on it's own ...

Silver Crusade

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angelic.spectra wrote:
Sometimes there's also race restrictions too. My current character is a Dhamphire, who by rules is impossible to become good, even though she's seeking a form of redemption for her creation.

?

Dhampir can totally be good with no problems at all.

If you mean full-blown vampire, even then Blood of the Night shows that it's possible. It's just really hard.

Grand Lodge

Most of my characters are CN. None of them are chaotic stupid. In fact they are the most conniving, plotting, outside the box thinking characters at the table. They don't kick in doors, they don't murder bums, and they don't hinder the party. They have their own agendas but won't sacrifice everything for themselves.

Scarab Sages

angelic.spectra wrote:
I know, way old thread, but seemed worth me making a comment. I've grown to like the CN because it gives me the ability to be a 'good' character, while if i screw up and do evil things once in awhile, as a player i'm not freaked out about it. Sometimes there's also race restrictions too. My current character is a Dhamphire, who by rules is impossible to become good, even though she's seeking a form of redemption for her creation. So she does a lot of good things even though I know as a player she'll never change alignment to good. Also gives a further excuse to do evil things, like when the cleric did a stupid and walked into a chain lightning trap (which I saw, being the rogue, told him stop, and he didn't ... took him down to 1 HP). I drag him out of the room, wake him up, and then proceed to smack him upside the head with my club (I have the Enforcer feat, so I could do it as subdual and sneak ... and he failed his intimidate save). Definitely evil, but as a character it made sense to her, and as a player I didn't care. Granted, he decided to channel positive energy at her a few times, which may have been evil on it's own ...

I think you can do the same thing as C/G. I'm playng a c/g cleric, and sometimes i go crazy. I have to be honest, during the last session a changed my allignment (i've beaten up the alchemist of our group, because he was disrespectful with a very important npc) and I had to find a cleric for an espiaton but totally worth it...


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Over here in the UK we have a bit of a trope against BMW drivers - they rarely use indicators, rarely drive under the speed limit, rarely give other drivers consideration, always hog the fast lane, and so on and so forth. I dare say other countries have similar views for drivers of different brands of car, but for us it is BMW drivers.

I should note that this is not really a post bashing BMW drivers nor the car. It simply using the commonly held stereotype to make the point.

Anyhow, the point is this. If the BMW driver is a bad and selfish driver, then surely he is going to be similarly bad driver in a Ford or Skoda. It is therefore not the car, it is the person driving it. Yes, they are attracted to the car because it says something to them, but that does not mean that an otherwise excellent driver will suddenly turn into a selfish roadhog because he is in a BMW.

Take that and apply it to alignments. A great player will not turn into a jerk because his character is CN. Nor will a jerk player become a great player because he is forced to play LG/NG or whatever. Yes, a jerk player is attracted to CN because he sees possibilities for being an idiot 'within the rules', but that does not mean that CN as an alignment is bad.

Don't blame the alignment, blame the player.

For the record, I've seen and played plenty of CN characters who are good party members.


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A good example of CN behaviour is necro-ing a thread four years old....


From the Pathfinder Lexicon:

Chaotic Neutral: 1. See NEUTRAL EVIL. 2. The alignment of the player who most often chooses to play Paladins. 3. Shorthand for “My GM forbids Evil characters, but I still wanna steal from orphanages, torture kittens, set Iomedae's churches on fire, and throw rocks at the bears my allies are trying to sneak around.” Totally Not Evil. Honest.
See also: ALIGNMENT, CHARACTER CONCEPT (or “That's What My Character Would Do”), and ROLEPLAYING.


I like to start true neutral and shift as necessary. CN seems too restrictive where I see tn as " a bit of everything."


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Calybos1 wrote:

From the Pathfinder Lexicon:

Chaotic Neutral: 1. See NEUTRAL EVIL. 2. The alignment of the player who most often chooses to play Paladins. 3. Shorthand for “My GM forbids Evil characters, but I still wanna steal from orphanages, torture kittens, set Iomedae's churches on fire, and throw rocks at the bears my allies are trying to sneak around.” Totally Not Evil. Honest.
See also: ALIGNMENT, CHARACTER CONCEPT (or “That's What My Character Would Do”), and ROLEPLAYING.

#3 is definitely true in my experiences. When I see someone with CN on their character sheet, I inwardly facepalm and groan, because almost without fail they play it as #3.


With young players I have found this to be more common, however I have a friend that no longer plays that would do exactly .3 in the case of evil being banned. He was 28 or 29 last time we played and he was his token half orc barbarian cn with evil leanings.

Liberty's Edge

I've never had a problem with a character because they were CN, nor have I ever had a player try to justify their character's inappropriate behavior with that alignment. I've had a couple of troublesome players...but they were troublesome whatever Alignment they played, from CE to LG.


Lazaro wrote:

In my first 3.0 game I played a CN fighter. After stating him up and thinking up a quick background. I was told by the DMthat I could pretty much throw it out the window. That a CN character's story wasn't important, just that I observe the one rule about CN. EVERYTHING IS RANDOM!

I asked what he meant. Well all my choices, actions had to be made at the spur of the moment. I HAD to roll a % to do anything. If I wanted to attack, who I attacked, etc. Anything you could thing of I pretty much had to roll for it.

Because of this I wound up attacking or turning on the party alot of the time. Suffice it to say I didn't stay with that group for too long. But this idea of playing still seems to linger, even in my current group.

Was the DM 10? Because if he/she was older than that...wow.


I don't generally go in for the alignment as ideology interpretation. Alignment seems to me to be more about how a person INTERACTS with the prevailing ideologies around them.

Lawful Good - Will follow the law unless it's evil, most of the time.
Lawful Neutral - Will follow the law and not care about whether or not it's evil.
Lawful Evil - Will follow the law, but will abuse it for their own benefit even to the point of harming/killing others.

Neutral Good - Will try to do good not caring about the laws in place, except in order to remain free and do more good.
Neutral - Will most of the time not care about the law or good except as it benefits them, nor will they go out of their way to break the law or oppress others.
Neutral Evil - Loves oppressing others and using their power to hurt others for their own betterment.

Chaotic Good - Screw the man! But only because he's oppressive and overzealous interpretation of the law can lead to evil.
Chaotic Neutral - Screw everyone. But no point in going out of your way to hurt people. No point in going out of your way to help them either.
Chaotic Evil - Screw the man, you do what you want, when you want, and who cares who it hurts.


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My first character was Chaotic Neutral, but was the only one of three CN characters in that party that didn't fall to CE. Sure, she would have burned commoners to death if there was a good reason to. She just didn't count 'for the lulz' as a good reason like her fellow CNs did.

I recall trying to keep a balance of using good methods to reach selfish ends (or vice versa), and ensuring that my character had lines they wouldn't cross.

...As for other players, two really stick out in my memory. Both picked CN characters for their first run through, and both handled them quite differently.

One was raised by fey and spent over 6000 years off-plane not growing up, barely noticing that the time was passing. She's a bit off from normal human morality, but she doesn't fling her lightning spells into crowds of civilians for fun. Her backstory indicates that she was CG before the start of the campaign, and she still tends towards heroic goals, she's just somewhat negatively affected by the fey influence, and is relatively willing to use unscrupulous methods to do what she believes is right. She's a lovely character to have in my game and the player is wonderful to GM for.

The other one is wholly 'lolrandom' with no personality beyond "He's chaotic neutral", and is played by a player who definitely uses the alignment as a crutch. The player herself has weird views on alignments, and operates in extremes (i.e. she's a person who will declare that all elves must be nature-loving, elitist, pretty-boy druidic archers, and anyone who plays an elf as anything else is doing it wrong and must, according to her view of the rules, instantly lose all class abilities) with no real capacity for making a character's personality feel natural. Her CN character is still alive for now only because that group has massive schedule conflicts and can rarely ever meet up. Assuming the game continues to progress, he'll die, and I can all-but guarantee it'll be as a result of a bad decision made in the name of "I'm Chaotic Neutral". (Heck, I can pinpoint exactly where he's most likely to die and what's going to kill him. It's an encounter that involves fireworks, and it should be a relatively easy one, unless somebody stupid gets remotely close to explosives.)

The Exchange

I don't think I've ever run a CN character. I've portrayed NPCs of that alignment, of course, but they're rarer than LG or CE - mainly because they're not very good team players, and Pathfinder worlds tend to be very, very tough to solo. ;) When I'm statting up NPCs, CN only seems to pop up for petty criminals, spoiled brats, barbarian warriors, and the occasional artistic type. I tend to use True Neutral a lot more.

There does seem to be a direct correlation between the percentage of CN adventurers and the GM's ability to ban people - a GM gaming at his own house tends to see fewer than 5% Chaotic Neutrals, whereas one running public games at a game store tends to see upwards of 35% Chaotic Neutrals. (The sort of gamer who has to attend store games because every GM in his neighborhood can't stand him is... a different topic.)

Having to adventure alongside a Chaotic Neutral is almost always a burden. Seriously. I don't think I've ever said, "What a wonderful portrayal of a free-spirited person who walks the line between hero and villain!" Whereas I have said, over and over, "Put it/them/her back, you idiot! You're going to get us all killed!" There may be thousands of people who portray the loner-who-plays-by-his-own-rules admirably, of course; I've just had the misfortune of not meeting one for twenty-five years. ;)

P.S. to Calybos: Nice to see the Lexicon still getting quoted...


MicMan wrote:
if not and he simply assumes that his wishes are more important than any order/wishes of the other chars, he is surely chaotic!

And how, exactly, do hobgoblins and most Lawful Evil creatures fit into this notion?

Hobgoblins and most Lawful Evil characters follow strict codes, but generally won't go along with rules that hurt them (just like Lawful Good characters generally won't go along with rules that hurt the innocent). Hobgoblins are also scheming a#+!$+%s constantly plotting against their masters.

Hobgoblins know no master, but have rigid, disciplined mindsets and crave order. Lawful.

RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

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rando1000 wrote:

I don't generally go in for the alignment as ideology interpretation. Alignment seems to me to be more about how a person INTERACTS with the prevailing ideologies around them.

Lawful Good - Will follow the law unless it's evil, most of the time.
Lawful Neutral - Will follow the law and not care about whether or not it's evil.
Lawful Evil - Will follow the law, but will abuse it for their own benefit even to the point of harming/killing others.

Law is not Legal.

Silver Crusade

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Ross Byers wrote:
rando1000 wrote:

I don't generally go in for the alignment as ideology interpretation. Alignment seems to me to be more about how a person INTERACTS with the prevailing ideologies around them.

Lawful Good - Will follow the law unless it's evil, most of the time.
Lawful Neutral - Will follow the law and not care about whether or not it's evil.
Lawful Evil - Will follow the law, but will abuse it for their own benefit even to the point of harming/killing others.

Law is not Legal.

Exhibit A: The Mafia


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The way I see it, it all comes down to this: A Lawful guy will place a system and ensure that he's a part of it. Lawful Evil will ensure that he's the happiest part, Lawful Good will ensure the system helps everyone, Lawful Neutral will ensure the system runs effectively and endures.

Now, the Chaotic guy might place systems, too. Those systems might even be very strict. The difference is that he generally won't want to be a part of them. Chaotic characters always crave some manner of independence, so they won't want to be members of orders that force them along a strict path.

It gets a bit muddy with Lawful Evil, of course, which is where you have to keep in mind that essentially nobody is perfectly balanced. Some, like fiends and kobolds/hobgoblins, are probably more evil than Lawful and will break laws when it suits them. Others are more Lawful than Evil, and will face their just desserts if the laws turn against them.

Thoughts on this interpretation?


Any alignment can be played Stupid. No sense singling out Chaotic Stupid.

The Exchange

It's not 'worse', it's just 'more common'. Though I've seen Lawful Stupid a-plenty as well. ;) Almost (almost!) makes me think 4th Edition was onto something with that "Unaligned" business.


I've played Chaotic Neutral with no problems. I had Fighter who was mercenary and he would switch side if the offer was better. He would commit acts of evil but didn't like to and didn't like doing acts of good either, he had reputation to maintain after all. Word can't get out that he helped people out the kindness of his heart though it did happen from time to time. Same as word can't get out of atrocities he did because someone paid him though that happened sometimes when the deal was just too good and chance of getting caught was minimal. The character was loyal to a few friends but if you weren't on that short list you really didn't know where you stood with him. Nothing crazy about this character for CN.

Silver Crusade

Gluttony wrote:

My first character was Chaotic Neutral, but was the only one of three CN characters in that party that didn't fall to CE. Sure, she would have burned commoners to death if there was a good reason to. She just didn't count 'for the lulz' as a good reason like her fellow CNs did.

I recall trying to keep a balance of using good methods to reach selfish ends (or vice versa), and ensuring that my character had lines they wouldn't cross.

...As for other players, two really stick out in my memory. Both picked CN characters for their first run through, and both handled them quite differently.

One was raised by fey and spent over 6000 years off-plane not growing up, barely noticing that the time was passing. She's a bit off from normal human morality, but she doesn't fling her lightning spells into crowds of civilians for fun. Her backstory indicates that she was CG before the start of the campaign, and she still tends towards heroic goals, she's just somewhat negatively affected by the fey influence, and is relatively willing to use unscrupulous methods to do what she believes is right. She's a lovely character to have in my game and the player is wonderful to GM for.

The other one is wholly 'lolrandom' with no personality beyond "He's chaotic neutral", and is played by a player who definitely uses the alignment as a crutch. The player herself has weird views on alignments, and operates in extremes (i.e. she's a person who will declare that all elves must be nature-loving, elitist, pretty-boy druidic archers, and anyone who plays an elf as anything else is doing it wrong and must, according to her view of the rules, instantly lose all class abilities) with no real capacity for making a character's personality feel natural. Her CN character is still alive for now only because that group has massive schedule conflicts and can rarely ever meet up. Assuming the game continues to progress, he'll die, and I can all-but guarantee it'll be as a result of a bad decision made in the name of "I'm Chaotic Neutral"....

Yeah, definitely comes down to the player. Those examples are as different as night and day.

I do have to admit I do get suspicious at times that when someone says CN they mean "lolrandom" or "NE disguised as CN", but it absolutely can be played well. And that's coming from someone whose last CN character did fall into CE...

That Skull and Shackles...


I don't think CN is really worse for RP than any other alignment to someone who misunderstands the alignment system so thoroughly....
I tend to think of alignment based on motivation, and for self-serving mercenaries for hire, CN or even CE makes a lot of sense.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

blahpers wrote:
Any alignment can be played Stupid. No sense singling out Chaotic Stupid.

Very true.

..but you don't see many threads about the issues with "Neutral Stupid"


Our current Shadowrun game has a player who's characters would be chaotic neutral or chaotic evil in pathfinder. They tend to die horribly when they do stupid stuff, and on more than one occasion their antics have required GM intervention to save the rest of the team from the consequences of their actions.

More details here, look for Farm Boy.


Mistah J wrote:
but you don't see many threads about the issues with "Neutral Stupid"

That suggests to me that one of the answers is better education, by which I mean a better explanation in official rules and more explanation by GMs and experienced players at the table. Or, just possibly, that some players actually read what is written in existing rules.

To whit:

Quote:

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those others suffer). a chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as he is to cross it.

Chaotic neutral represents freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal.

Note such phrases as "his behavior is not totally random" and, "A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy."

In other words, those player who insist on being complete anarchic screwballs are actually not playing that way because 'that's what CN is'. They are playing that way because they find it fun.

Ché Guevara was probably CN in alignment if alignments were applied to real world figures (I know he doesn't fit neatly into the category, but few such examples do in real life).* He didn't, however, randomly murder his friends or run through the streets naked. He even served in the Cuban government.

* Marxist guerrilla fighting the capitalist government for the common good would push towards CG (as he saw it), but he was also prepared to commit murder and execute enemies without trial, which rather knock him back into N territory.


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Mistah J wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Any alignment can be played Stupid. No sense singling out Chaotic Stupid.

Very true.

..but you don't see many threads about the issues with "Neutral Stupid"

Neutral stupid is ...

"Well, I helped save this orphanage from burning down, now I have to go find another one to burn down so I stay neutral"


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Alignment: The Lazy Gamers Morality. Morality doesn't exist on a grid and, even if objectively measurable (which I am already completely skeptical of) is not something that can be adjudicated by a GM. Even then, morality usually shifts based on the very particularized facts of a situation. The alignment system is the lazy part, in fact, the need to conform to alignment usually leads to characters acting out to fit a dumb game imposed moral stereotype than it would without an alignment system.

The Exchange

Really? Maybe it's just my GMing method, but in my games the players can act however they please, and I don't even mention the word unless class abilities are at stake. They usually only find out there was a shift when they're hit by a spell where it makes a difference (such as chaos hammer.) Of course, a lot of the more complex folks end up True Neutral or close to it; but there's nothing wrong with that. A fine alignment. 700 billion animals can't be wrong. ;)


FavoredEnemy wrote:
Most of my characters are CN. None of them are chaotic stupid. In fact they are the most conniving, plotting, outside the box thinking characters at the table. They don't kick in doors, they don't murder bums, and they don't hinder the party. They have their own agendas but won't sacrifice everything for themselves.

I'm right there with you. I enjoy CN characters because they are free spirits unhindered by the good/evil paradigm. My characters have agendas, which can be long term, that the work on at their own pace. The characters work with the group, after all it's in their interest, but the don't put the groups goals above their own. Above all they are individuals and that's appealing.

Over my gaming career I've seen many people say CN is lazy. In fact to play CN correctly it takes thought and a consideration of the characters motivations. LG is easy, not always fun, or convenient, but easy to determine. There is a finesse to playing CN.

Ultimately you should play an alignment for two main reasons (1) it's fun (2) it fits in with the group which in turn feeds #1. Don't worry to much about what someone thinks is lazy or easy-mode.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8

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RDM42 wrote:
Mistah J wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Any alignment can be played Stupid. No sense singling out Chaotic Stupid.

Very true.

..but you don't see many threads about the issues with "Neutral Stupid"

Neutral stupid is ...

"Well, I helped save this orphanage from burning down, now I have to go find another one to burn down so I stay neutral"

ha ha.. a good one!

Another classic:

"Well, there are 6 of us and 4 of them now so I have to switch sides!"

I'm not saying it is not possible.. just that it doesn't come up as often as the other two.


Dork Lord wrote:


What restrictions are there for a CN character?

None whatsoever ... just like every alignment.

Your actions determine your alignment, not the other way around. The only consequence would be an alignment shift.

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