Play with me here :)
Say you have a character whose purpose is to maintain balance. Balance between Good and Evil, and between Law and Chaos. Because they work for neither one of these forces, but all of them together, they'd be Neutral, like the traditional Druid who also strives for balance*. Or Aeons, who also exist for balance. To the extremes. They care for no one, nothing, only balance. They will kill, they will save, they will create or destroy, all depending on what has to be done for cosmic balance. To me, this seems like a code. A very strong code to boot, almost reminiscent of those of... [dramatic pause] ... Lawful beings.
Am I wrong, or is striving for balance in this way actually an extremely lawful thing to do? Maybe even the most lawful thing to do, as literally nothing else matters to them but keeping this, goal, this law of ultimate balance?
*Or so I believe, as I've never actually played any versions other than Pathfinder.
It is a common misconception that just because you act in a consistant manner within your alignment paramaters or 'have a code you live by' that this is lawlfully aligned behavior. In fact it is simply acting in your alignment.
Having a code of SOME sort to live by does not automatically make you lawful. What that code is and how it reflects your alignment is what matters.
Han Solo is usually pointed out as Chaotic Good. But he had rules he lived by. They were just not the same rules the empire liked and mostly outside what 'legal' orginizations accepted. His rules being DIFFERENT makes him Chaotic, not the fact he has them.
It just seems to me that cosmic balance would be the greatest law above all else. Like if you just keep to yourself, living your life in balance between the four, then you're neutral. But when you start enforcing this on others like Aeons do, then it's more like a law.
I'm in no way saying I am correct, it's just something that struck me as odd, and now I'm out to collect/challenge opinions.
No, because the greatest form of Law would be unchanging stability, constant and timeless. Balance does not want this. Ultimate Chaos is change; there is no such thing as a constant. Balance also does not want this.
About enforcement, chaotic beings certainly can "enforce" their chaos on other beings and the world around them. So a being of balance can enforce that balance.
Thymus, this becomes a semantic discussion at some point instead of an alignment one.
You could use the same argument to say that a true neutral character must really be good because they view balance as the ultimate goal and therefore must view it as morally correct.
In the end the way I have always played true neutral is not that the character is in search of some perfect cosmic balance between good/evil and law/chaos. Instead I play such characters as intellectually appreciating the extremely profound realization that without evil there can be no good, and without chaos there can be no order. They work to preserve the balance between them so that each can exist, because if there is no balance, eventually there is no good or evil. One cannot exist without the other.
Most of my true neutral characters are biased towards good but recognize the purpose and value of evil. They typically don't have a bias between law and chaos. But just because they are biased towards good doesn't mean they won't work to restore the necessary balance.
Of course True Neutral can go a completely different way,,, neutral in a way as in an animalistic ignorance of the concepts of good/evil/law/chaos. :D
TN characters don't care about maintaining social order. They also don't care about expressing individualism. To me, that is what the Law/Chaos axis is about. Maybe they don't care because they're a druid in harmony with nature, or because they're an enlightened monk who's transcended such petty concerns, or maybe just because they're dumb as a stump and don't get the question. Whatever.
Apathy