On Alignments Continued

And now the alignment that most matches the modern understanding of doing good.  It certainly would have been popular among the hippies of the 60s and 70s.  That is, the Chaotic Good.  As I mentioned in my last Alignment post, the Neutrals are always difficult, and it's tough to see where one ends and the opposite extreme begins. 

But Chaotic Good is how many today operate by virtue of living today.  Many heroes and defenders of the good operate within this ethos.  It is, in so many ways, consequentialism lived out.  But not entirely.  By virtue of good, it would balk at doing actual evil that good may come of it.  The answer to Caiaphas's famous question would be a resounding 'No!' 

Nonetheless, on the other hand, the idea that those rascally rules and procedures of this button down, conformist society have just got to go plays large.  Rules were made to be broken.  It's not 'if it feels good, it is good.'  Nor is it 'no rules, just right.'  But it lives with an almost ingrained disdain for law and order.  Sure laws must exist.  Rules must happen.  But only up until the common good is in any way infringed upon.  At that point, the rule or law is the first thing to go.

Again, it's not for evil.  Evil will not be done.  That's not to say harsh measures may not happen, and some may argue whether such grave decisions as the one that led to the vaporization of Hiroshima falls here or elsewhere.  Certainly it may ask the question of moral relativity.  In this regard, Chaotic Good is not the easiest alignment.  At what time does one kill the prisoners and still remain good?  Even if it's for the greater good and the prisoners are evil?  In fact, in many ways, hearkening back to those peace loving hippies, many of that ilk would resist such things as the death penalty and even all war, no matter what the cost.

So it's a little tougher than at first glance.  Still, on the whole, and for game purposes, it's the alignment for the free spirit, the person who lives within a rules-set only out of necessity, but will gladly break any law, lie, steal, or do anything short of evil for the greater good, particularly the good of the individual.  And at times, the CG will see the good of the individual as supreme to, if not entirely incompatible with, the good of the common law.

Some examples:

There can be no more famous, or better, example of CG in modern fiction than Harry Potter.  Was there ever a rule that kid didn't break?  He and his compatriots lie, steal, break rules, violate standards.  We won't even get into Dumbledore's turn around from wise sage to Machiavellian plotter.  The whole series is a testament to the modern notion that authority is almost always suspect, and when it comes to being good, there just aren't many rules when you're doing it for the individual good.

Batman of course, especially in the Nolan manifestation, is almost borderline Chaotic Neutral, but that his goals are for the greater good.  He operates outside of the laws he tries to protect.  And that's important.  Robin Hood is mentioned here again because while I speculated he would loyally follow a good leader (and Scott's Robin makes that seem more likely), most portryals show him while he fights the evils of Prince John.  To that end, he rebels against the rules on a daily basis.  But they are evil laws and rules, and there's the trick.  Yes, Robin might well be CG all the way, even when the leader is good and the laws are good.  We only see him when the laws are ministered by forces of darkness. 

Unlike Batman, he seems content to operate within the structure as long as the structure is good.  The structure is good in Gotham.  Murder and stealing and breaking and entering are wrong  And there are good cops enforcing that.  Nonetheless, Batman chooses to operate outside of those laws for the greater good.  Robin?  It's hard to say, and a case could be made either way.  But in any event, none of these folks are lawful in the least, and with the possible exception of Robin, who may simply put the good above all things, they are willing to go against laws, rules and standards as a first resort.  The classic Chaotic Good.

On alignments continued

I won't do daily posts as a general rule.  I happened to have a little extra time, and there are many things I've been kicking around that will find their way onto the blog in the early days. 

Neutral Good

The Neutral (Good/Evil) are the toughest.  Years ago in graduate school, we had an old news bulletin board.  That was before the Internet took off.  I saw an article in which some obscure group of Scottish Fundamentalist Christians condemned the Reverend Jerry Falwell as a flaming liberal.  I realized then and there that labels are not always accurate, can be mighty subjective, and often tell more about the ones using the labels than the ones the labels are used against.

In the Alignment System, no alignments are more susceptible to this subjectivity than the Two Neutrals.  After all, what might seem 'neutral' good to one might be Chaotic Good or Lawful Good to another.  To some, break one rule, and you're Chaotic all the way.  To a real anti-establishment hippy rebel, on the other hand, having any regard for the law and customs puts you in the fuddy-duddy lawful camp right then and there.  So it's tough.

And realistically, just when does a person willing to put the common good above law and order cease being Neutral and become Chaotic Good?  I'll give you that once you're willing to lie or break a law for the greater good, you're no longer Lawful Good.  But that arbitrary line between Neutral and Chaotic is the mischief.

So here's how I see the Neutral Good person.  This is the person who is good, but realizes that there are times that rules just need to be broken, obviously if the rule is warped and evil, or if the tradition is in the way of good will toward men.  But no less so if the rule or law is good, but might cause bad ends. The Good is always the goal and always the means, but typically law and order are also part of the good.  It simply understands that there are times when the law and order aren't part of the good, and that's when the heart of the law kicks in.  The Neutral Good will break evil laws.  When it comes to good laws, a little creative circumnavigating will be in order, but that's about it.  The main reason, at the end of the day, is for accomplishing the good.  As long as the law and order points to the good, then good it is.  There can be extremes before going into either Lawful/Chaotic camp, but on the whole, there remains a tension in which the person simply puts the good above all things, without falling into complete fealty to the laws or just concluding that authority and custom is always wrong.

Examples (and this is certainly open to some debate);

 

 

Samwise is not so much a philosophical thinker on this, as much as his actions suggests he's willing to do what he needs to do for his master Frodo, as well as for the greater good.  He's no rebel.  He never really has a point in which he says 'screw the law, I'm doing this'.  But you get, just from his overall life portrait, that he recognizes when something is in the way of the good, he wouldn't think twice in defaulting to doing the good, even if it steps on some traditional toes.  And yet, overall, Sam is still a person who puts much stock in those traditional toes, and would never just willy-nilly jettison them, seeing them as an important part of the greater good in most cases.

The other two represent extremes.  Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version), breaks laws, kills people, lies and doe everything a Chaotic Neutral person would do.  And yet, he also exists within a social framework that he never completely disregards.  He breaks such laws for the greater good and to protect the weak and the helpless, not just because he has an issue with law and order.  Flynn's Robin is one that, when the laws are aligned to the good and are administered by the right people for the best reasons, he will gladly be part of administering the laws and following the leaders.  He doesn't have some beef with authority or laws in general.  He simply does whatever when those laws are wicked, or are used by wicked individuals for wicked ends.

Atticus, on the other extreme, is darn near LG.  He doesn't lie.  He's honest.  He's loyal.  He's brave.  He's willing to do whatever for the right reasons using the right methods.  And yet, at the end of the story, he is willing to lie, or at least support a lie.  He may not come up with the lie that gets Boo Radley off the hook, but he finally realizes it's the lie that must be upheld. 

The last two particularly show the extremes that exist within this category.  The Lawful Good, in the end, won't lie, and won't break rules and laws.  He may oppose evil societies and their evil laws.  But those laws he cherishes won't be broken, because they are part of the common good.  The Chaotic Good individual is almost entirely skeptical of any order or rules.  Laws are made to be broken, because generally they impede the common good, the primacy of the individual circumstance.   But the neutral is in that broad area in between, and may be, for those individuals of good will (and more humble dispositions), the default alignment since most good folks will be somewhere between the Robin Hoods and the Atticus Finches, much less hover in the two extremes of the good.

On Alignments

I know that the alignment system has had its share of critics over the years.  I realize it has its roots in the wargaming pedigree from which the hobby emerged.  I know it seems overly mechanical and forced.  And no, I don't have separate alignment languages for each possible alignment.  With that said, I keep the alignments as a guide for gameplay.  After all, some things just need an alignment - I'm thinking Holy Avengers.  And it helps the players, though they are free to change, or may change and not realize it.  As for figuring out the somewhat abstract, sometimes evolved idea of what these alignments are and what they point to, I give you the illustrations I came up with to help my boys, esp. the younger ones, figure out what it means.  I'll unpack different alignments and the system more down the road.

Lawful Good
It's not shocking that in our post-modern age, many products treat LG as a sort of disease, the uptight religious fanatic, intolerant and judgmental.  Yet in the day, in the world of the 1st Edition, it's pretty clear that LG is the good of good.  The best.  Not one prone to consequentialist reasoning, but the one who doesn't lie or do evil that good may come of it.  The one who will suffer pain and death before breaking a vow, a promise, or an ethic.  This is the person who believes the law is a source of good and should be upheld, but never at the expense of the common good. 

A couple examples:

These guys do the right things for the right reasons using the right means.  True, in Jackon's Lord of the Rings, Aragorn (and many characters) loses that and slips into the modern tendency toward a consequentialist, if not downright Machiavellian, approach to problem solving.  The Director's Cut scene at the Black Gate, in which Aragorn hacks off the head of the Mouth of Sauron, was particularly unfortunate, displaying an 'I'm the good guy, so rules don't apply' attitude that would be foreign to the character as described by Tolkien.  With this, I mean the original Superman and Aragorn in the books. 

For instance, when Aragorn is dispensing justice following Sauron's fall, he is confronted with Beregond, who abandoned his post and even killed in order to save Faramir.  Aragorn must uphold the law, correct?  Well he does.  The punishment is that Beregond be stripped of his position and banished from ever being part of the elite guard.  He is rewarded, however, by being promoted to Faramir's captain of the guard.  Aragorn was Lawful Good.  He upheld the law while making sure that in so doing, the law did not create an evil or a bad result.  That is Lawful Good in a nutshell.  It's Betsie ten Boom refusing to lie, even to the Nazis, while making sure that in telling the truth, she never betrayed the Jewish refugees her family risked (and lost) life and limb to hide.  Hence, especially in the early incarnation of D&D, LG is the ultimate good, the best, described in the Players Hand book as none other than Saintly.