Chaotic Neutral Alignment should be against the rules!!!

[Kargin el Tomath]

I hate the Chaotic Neutral Alignment. It really really rrrreeeeeaaaaallllyyy irks me. All it does is gives players the freedom to do whatever they please and not really have to follow any alignment. If they want they can go kill that ironsmith down the way for not fitting there horse right. And why? Because they can simply pass it off as a fit of rage and an alignment change isn't quite applicable then. I see more and more players every day choosing this alignment so they can run amok in a game and not have to worry about alignment. Who knows maybe i'm just frustrated, but it seems to me this is the easy way out.

It ends up turning role playing into roll playing, if you understand my meaning.

What are everyone else's thought on this???

 

[zilch]

This really depends on who is playing the Chaotic Neutral character.

Anyway, shouldn't people have the freedom to do what they want anyway? Are you complaining about people having freedom? Whats that about?

 

[Bonedagger]

So you're saying your players actions have no consequences if their alignment are CN?

I don't think the persons they harm are going to let them get away with it just because it is a part of the characters nature to act irresponsible. Let them meet what goes for the law in that area.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Never had a great problem with it.
But the situation you describe: A "spontaneous" alignment chance is not okay, but when the character tends to do things that can be considered evil (and killing a smith for bad work is usually evil), and never - or seldomly - does anything good, than, at some time, he will have completed the shift to evil and is chaotiv evil.

A Chaotic Neutral character would be someone who might think selfischly, but sometimes - and not to seldom - he will help others, maybe even without expecting anything for it (this might actually be considered a "lawful" expectation..)
Sometimes he might do some things that are conisdered evil, butn not usually.

Neutral always has to do with some kind of balance.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Gargoyle]

Your example sounds more like Chaotic Evil to me than Chaotic Neutral, but interpretations aside, if you're the DM house rule it so that Chaotic Neutral isn't allowed if it is causing a problem.

I always tell my players the following before the campaign starts: My campaign is one where the player characters are heroic allies. The player characters don't have to be good, and can even be quite close to evil at times, but they have to act like heroes most of the time, and they have to get along as well as most friends do. That makes my job as the DM easier when I create adventures and plan the campaign, keeps the party somewhat unified, and gives them the freedom to role-play their characters as they see fit, within certain guidelines. I don't restrict them to playing "within their alignment" or change their alignment based on their gameplay, but do suggest alignment changes to them if their behavior is way off. In fact I rarely pay attention to their alignments unless they are paladins or clerics.

Hope this helps.

 

[S'mon]

IMO killing the blacksmith like this is clearly Evil and I as GM would change the PC's alignment to evil.

Killing somebody on a whim is CE.
Killing them for some real or imagined slight or breach of contract may be LE, but still E.

'Neutral' kills are at best the kind where your CN thief is robbing the blacksmith's shop, he comes in carrying his hammer and you kill him in self defence, as being safer than trying to disarm/subdue him. I'd expect a CG thief to try to disarm/subdue a robbery victim without killing, even at personal risk (unless maybe the target was clearly Evil - an evil high priest or somesuch).

 

[S'mon]

I think the question to ask when adjudicating the morality of the action, whether it's CN or CE, is whether a Lawful Neutral would do it for Lawful reasons (eg breach of contract), or would you say it was LE? If it's Evil for a Lawful, it's not Neutral for a Chaotic!
All Neutrals should be held to a similar moral standard on the good-evil axis.

 

[LostSoul]

IAll it does is gives players the freedom to do whatever they please and not really have to follow any alignment.

Players can always have their characters do as they please. They don't have to "follow" any alignment. Alignment follows them.

Actions dictate alignment.

 

[Tsyr]

I agree with the people who say that characters can already do whatever they want, regardless of alignment...

If I were playing a lawful neutral monk who, for some reason or another, violated his neutral alignment, but the DM tried to tell me I couldn't do it because it was evil and I was neutral, I would get up, slap him silly, and walk out

IMHO, no human can ALWAYS follow an alignment... there will always be deviations, sooner or later. This is not bad, it happens. When the deviations become the norm, its time for an alignment shift.

Also, CN is NOT, as I see it, a licence to do whatever... A CN character who acts in an evil fashion is evil, and his alignment should change to reflect that. IMHO, CN was intended for "shady" characters who wouldn't fit in any "good" alignment, but really havn't sunk so far to be evil... it's not a place you sink to and then can't go any lower, you most certainly can sink lower

 

[Lady Dragon]

The character you described is already chaotic evil.A chaotic neutral character would be unprediticable yes,but he would not be a murderer.He would still have some respect for the lives of other sentient creatures thats the line between neutral and evil.He might kill if provoked but he wouldn't do it just on a whim thats what makes him still neutral not evil.The chaotic evil person would kill on a whim beacause life means nothing to him.

Also killing a blacksmith should have some consequences make your player feel these and he probably won't do it again if his characters are always being executed for murder.