I am disappoint. Really, people, I am hopefully done with the piuracy thread and you pick up being wrong on the internet right where the anti-piracy people left off.

Alignment does not make sense. If you have a definition of Law and Chaos - any definition - it is wrong because it's self-contradictory. On the other hand, Good and Evil have been defined in internally consistent ways multiple times - but there's no guarantee every player in your group uses the same definition. (There's apparently a lot of Kantians on this forum, but even Kantians have different absolute imperatives.)

Your best bet would be to treat it like a tag. There are monsters, places and societies tagged [Law]; Lawful monsters include Formians and Inevitables; Formians are a rigid caste society of psionic ants; Inevitables are basically Terminators, solitary robots who hunt down people... there are planes of Law that include places that look like this and are populated by these... the tag interacts with the rules thusly: alignment detection, Word spells, aligned weapons, cleric domains, blah blah.

See, this is bad. It sorts monsters into trustworthy and untrustworthy races. So there are people of two types: those with whom you can theoretically communicate but still have to kill them on sight, because they're untrustworthy and will poison your grain and rape your civilians, and then there are those who you should torture into submission instead, because they ARE trustworthy. Having it on a per-monster basis means players will carry a wand of Detect Law and kill anyone who doesn't light up.

Yes, thats seriously what this policy does. If you start punishing players for making deals with Chaotic Evil people, they will learn, and if Lawful Evil people are "redeemable" by extracting a promise of cooperation from them, then torture is a tool of Good in the setting. And that's f@#ked up, twice so if your idea of Good is always trying to take the talky option.

Furthermore, the DM should never ever tell the player what his character will or will not do. The DM already has all the NPCs, and all the noncommunicative monsters, and the setting, and a countable infinite number of world events, and rule adjudication. That's too muich control over the narrative. Now you want him to control the player characters, too?

Furthermore x2, killing people in their sleep is what paladins have traditionally done waaaaaay before D&D = and should continue to be allowed to do in D&D to be at all playable. The game itself is about breaking into people's homes, stabbing them in the face and taking their stuff. If you challenge a kobold to what in Medieval Europe would be considered a "fair fight", you're going to die. And it can't be fair if you're always winning! Seriously, a recommended encounter in 3.x is four to one. Reconcile THIS with "chivalry".

The concept of "fairness" in warfare has always been about the benefit of the high and mighty. So, in the Middle Ages, one on one fights were fair, because a well-fed and well-armored knight could always beat a peasant. In D&D, the high and mighty are characters who advance by class levels. So if you're an Assassin, the EL system dictates you are supposed to be equal in power to a Barbarian when both you and him play to your strengths, and it is perfectly okay of you to spring from ambush and stab that sucker in the kidney before he sees you and chops your head off.

Obligatory links:
on alignment
on fighting fair
how society in D&D works

P.S. I hope no one starts a thread about austerity.

I think it's important to go in to any fantasy book with the expectation that it's not going to be earth-shattering, ground-breaking, thought-provoking fiction. It's pure entertainment at best, and dreadfully bad, nigh unreadable trash at worst.

A few years ago I went on a HUGE Dragonlance collecting bender when I found a store that was selling pretty much every book ever published for $3 each (and B2G1 free on top of that). I bought well over 100 novels, though I haven't even begun to read them yet.

I like all the Weiss/Hickman books (Dragons of Summer Flame is my absolute favorite DL novel to date), but the Jean Rabe ones are the absolutely DREADFUL, nigh unreadable garbage mentioned above.

Apart from Dragonlance, I remember enjoying the six SpellJammer novels when I was a kid, but I don't know how well they'd hold up today and the last book in the series may cost a pretty penny. Same goes for the Dark Sun books by Troy Denning.

I actually recently got into the works of Raymond E. Feist, whose work was the inspiration for the excellent Betrayal at Krondor. I tried to read Magician as a child, but found it way too dense. It's still slow in spots, but I enjoyed it overall and LOVED the next two books in the series (Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon). It's a little more political, which gives it a slightly more mature feel.

There were also six Hunter the Reckoning books I enjoyed, though they may be out of print now. They're very pulpy, but entertaining none the less.

Well said, but just saying it doesn't make it so.
Let's say "chaos is entropy".

But anyway, I'd like to add a few notes on your must read.

Barbarians. Rage means losing control, being wild and going by instincts. Basically embracing chaos. So no lawful, tidy controlled rages for barbarians. The ruleset doesn't make the player lose control, but the character pretty much should.

Bards. The writer confuses bards with general musicians. Musicians can be as orderly as they want, bards are tricksters, creatures of wild magic. There needs to be an element of unpredictability and madness to them.

Much of what you write, I agree with, however. The same with the stuff in your obligatory links.
It's basically just the definition of law-chaos I disagree with.

Gord the Rouge... written by Gary Gygax

Well ... yes? But you're pretty wildly misrepresenting my position, here. Among other things, are you claiming that chaotic good characters "poison grain and rape civilians?" For that matter, very few people would consider promises made under torture to be valid, so "If someone tends to be lawful, that encourages you to torture them!" is a pretty weird conclusion to draw.

Obviously, trying to classify entire races (edit: and individual people) into one of nine boxes has problems. Which is why I called it "useful shorthand" instead of "the be-all and end-all of player/NPC interaction."

Barbarian is a suggested melee class for "societies that do not have the resources to train fighters". It is a favored class for orcs (who are chaotic evil as a race). And yet strict tribal customs of a primitive people are an established trope, especially tricking "stupid savages" into an agreement, pulling a fast one on them and having them let you go even though they understand they have been tricked.

Iconic bard.

Sorry about that. I was going by the GM recommendations in published TSR and WotC materials. And they seriously recommend that players should learn to never ever deal with Evil creatures, because a properly roleplayed evil creature should stab the characters in the back, serves them right for being stupid. Essentially, diplomacy is the new Self-Destruct Button. Poison grain and rape civilians is what D&D authors think Chaotic Evil monsters are supposed to do if the players are "stupid" enough to make deals with them.

why?

I thought that the Richard Knaak books weren't too bad. Legend of Huma, Kaz the Minotaur, Land of the Minotaurs.

P.S. - Too bad most of this thread descended into off-topic alignment debate.

Because there will be characters that are simultaneously highly Lawful and highly Chaotic, depending on how you put the spin on them, which keywords you use.

For example, a vigilante is killing people rather than allowing them due process. That's chaotic, right? Only it's a robot. Lawful, then.

Ember the Monk is following her personal code of honor. Lawful. Your average barbarian is all about honor. Chaotic.

Lawful societies are supposed to be better organized. Except Lawful creatures, which compose those Lawful societies, have these principles which they cannot compromise, while Chaotic creatures (spontaneous, adaptable) can always tell their conscience to take a nap.

And then it comes down to the fact that as long as the GM isn't insane and doesn't require committing atrocities to be Evil, you can do good more effectively by writing Chaotic Evil on your character sheet.

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Edit: The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King is apparently awesome.

not conscience. thats good vs evil not chaos vs law.

you cannot be chaotic good and kill people because you are chaotic.


law and chaos, good and evil are forces which govern the whole creation. they are equal. you interpret them as if you are chaotic then you can do evil or good.

a robot killing without due process is not chaotic. as robot he is following strict rules, strict methods of acting. therefore he is lawful.
for a paladin that would be chaotic action because he will be going against the rules, doing whatever he wants to.

an honor does make one lawful or chaotic either. it depends on how your honor operates what kind of creature does it.

drizzt is chaotic good because he does not abide by any standards, laws, doesn't play by the book so to speak

he is good because he kills mostly evil people/creatures protects weak but he is not very good character either by being cruel, unforgiving. that does not make him chaotic or lawful that makes him more evil.


so I ask again.

Why?

Similar or same actions, different motives.
It's (subtly) different whether you act on the orders of higher authority and disregard local laws, or whether you just want to get the job done and don't give a damn.

The kinds of barbarians that are all about honor and glory, not so much about loot and the joy of killing and battle, I wouldn't necessarily call chaotic, nor necessarily barbarians. It all kind of depends. Personal code, love of killing, hoarding of wealth, would IMO rather fall to lawful evil, but that's just my take. That's assuming running a society requires doing chaotic backhanded stuff, that's your take (and one which history seems to support), but that's not true in a more ideal D&D world. And while that is true in a twisted crazy sort of way, it totally separates player's intention from character motives. Sure, if the player is the driving intellect and motivator behind the characters, it's quite effective if the characters don't have qualms with following your instructions to the letter. But doesn't explain what chaotic evil characters are doing the good deeds for anyway.

But even if granting that lawful and chaotic can be interpreted in many ways, I don't see that as a bad thing. It just means you can go and do your own thing, building characters and assigning alignments as you feel is right.

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I recall I liked the first Dragonlance Heroes series*, but particularly the one written by Nancy Varian Berberick.
A crazy thought, but maybe I should look up more stuff written by her.
* I was 20 yrs younger at the time though, might be my taste differs now, who knows.

Drizzt series is so-so and it means it's one of better Dungeons and Dragons novels I read.
I can't recommend Maztica at all, I stopped reading it very soon. On the other hand I liked The Moonshae Trilogy a lot.
From Dragonlance I quite enjoyed Heroes books but disliked the Chronicles. I wasn't able to finish second book. That's all I read from Dragonlance.
I read some other Forgotten Realms books but I can't remember them now so I guess they were not too good. :-)
It's no high literature but I think almost any I read is better than most Star Wars novels. :-/

I read it not so long ago (last one bit more than year ago) but I am not sure what are you talking about, as I don't remember such behaviour. Would you mind to refresh my memory?

But does he not have his own code? Which code is "lawful" based upon, the law in the region you live in, the law of specific individuals or some cosmic pre-defined "general" law, which the "lawful" or "chaotic" status of anything else?

Also good & evil are very vague terms in this regard as well. It is quite alright for a paladin to go into an orc village and slaughter everyone in it, but it is not alright for an orc to go into a human village and slaughter everyone in it. So good & evil in D&D seem to be very vague and the definition is rather one-sided.