Re: Elven Alignments

That G.Gygax used the term "Law" was unfortunate, as I see the same
misconception about this happening here.  Law is not exactly the
opposite of Chaos.  It's opposite is Anarchy.  The opposite of Chaos
would be Order.

IMHO, what is intended by the C-N-L side of the alignment is the
tendency towards Chaotic or Orderly conduct (which *may* include
following Laws, too).  However, this does not mean that a character who
is LG, say, is "straight jacketed" into following all laws.  Indeed, one
of the duties of a Paladin would be to uphold "truth and justice" while
smiting evil, especially those who practise evil laws (eg.  LE, of which
the Nazi Regime is an excellent example)

It's also possible for a chaotic organization to have "Laws" or "Rules"
at least - I mean, just look at most HUGE private corporations (Any
slights to those corporate folks out there unintentional ;-)!)

The IEN heirarchy could be interpreted much in the same way as the Drow
"House" System (see the classic module D3).  Elves *may* have a strong
interest in their individual freedom and goals, giving an average
CE-CN-CG alignment spread for the species as a whole.  However, they can
still cite an allegiance to a ship, nation, House or whatever, and could
still follow rules (which may be quite complicated, disorganised, etc.,
but still a sort of set of Laws).  There would, of course, be
individuals who ARE indeed more orderly (LE-LN-LG) and I would argue
these would tend towards leadership roles, especially within the IEN.

Remember that the alignments in the MM, especially for races who can
become PCs, are just the racial "mean".  For those statistically minded
out there this would perhaps represent, say, 80% of the population, with
the remainder spread out over the rest of the alignments.  This makes
the game more interesting anyways, doesn't, especially when PCs
prejudices turn out to be dead wrong in an encounter?

-JDS






>----------
>From: 	steve swenson[SMTP:scott@??????.????????.com]
>Reply To: 	spelljammer@????.com
>Sent: 	Monday, February 02, 1998 10:39 AM
>To: 	spelljammer@????.com
>Subject: 	Re: [SPELLJAMMER] - IEN Fascists?
>
>'Michael Childs wrote:'
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >From: Magistar2 <Magistar2@???.com>
>>
>> >
>> >Think a moment, what we veiw as evil others might veiw as good.  Each
>> side of
>> >the war consider their sides to be good, after all, we'll we might veiw
>> the
>> >nazis as chaotic and evil, they would consider themselves lawful and
>> good.
>>
>> Nazis chaotic evil?  They had a dictatorship!  The elves are considered
>> chaotic and in the Monstrous Manual it says, "Elves value their
>> individual freedom highly . . ." This was not the case in Nazi Germany,
>> at least not what I hear from the americans.  It is one of the problems
>> with the alignment in AD&D.  Lawful is considered good and chaotic is
>> viewed as evil.  However, chaotic is described as valuing individual
>> freedom.
>
>    No this is actually an artifact of culture.  If you break the law you
>must be bad but if you adhere to it you are good.  Cultures especially the
>modern ones confuse law/chaos with good/evil.  Modern culture seems to be
>ln/cn   no wonder we're so fu**** up.
>
>
>           --Steve
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