Critique my alignment handout!

Critique my alignment handout! My new players aren't clear about how Chaotic Neutral is supposed to behave (simple concept, I know :P) so I made this handout to demonstrate the differences between alignments. Feedback is welcome!
[sblock="Alignment Guide"] Alignment Guide.jpg[/sblock]
 

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I've always banned CN from my games. An alignment which is only interested in chaos, regardless of morality? It makes a cooperative team-based game like D&D tough to run. Kind of a "get out of jail free" card. It's even worse than evil characters, and those can be tricky to DM.
 

I've always banned CN from my games. An alignment which is only interested in chaos, regardless of morality? It makes a cooperative team-based game like D&D tough to run. Kind of a "get out of jail free" card. It's even worse than evil characters, and those can be tricky to DM.
I've heard that before from others, and I'm beginning to see the appeal. If giving my players a brief refresher (and reminder about "the social contract" in D&D) doesn't yield an improvement by the end of next session, I'll bring the hammer down.
 

I've always banned CN from my games. An alignment which is only interested in chaos, regardless of morality? It makes a cooperative team-based game like D&D tough to run. Kind of a "get out of jail free" card. It's even worse than evil characters, and those can be tricky to DM.

I'm sad that the actions of a few have banned my favorite alignment from so many tables. It's a very versatile alignment. My current Barbarian in my friend's Pathfinder game is chaotic neutral, because he only has one goal that he cares about, only one plot hook that really motivates him. He doesn't backstab the party, he doesn't steal everybody's gold, he doesn't piss in the mouths of puppies and goldfish, he's just got very selfish motivations for going out and doing hero things.
 

I'm sad that the actions of a few have banned my favorite alignment from so many tables. It's a very versatile alignment. My current Barbarian in my friend's Pathfinder game is chaotic neutral, because he only has one goal that he cares about, only one plot hook that really motivates him. He doesn't backstab the party, he doesn't steal everybody's gold, he doesn't piss in the mouths of puppies and goldfish, he's just got very selfish motivations for going out and doing hero things.
Alas, my growing-problem player just shifted his alignment to chaotic neutral from chaotic good. He and the rest of my players are newbies, but he specifically has not latched onto a plot hook after two months of playing LMoP. (His character is a cousin of Gundren Rockseeker.)
 

That is a VERY good-looking alignment guide. And it provides good guidance in useful areas.

BUT

I think it could gain from some clarifying adjustments. The alignment axes are very ethereal - so making statements about money (doing things "for free") and laws is perhaps too specific.

Also, you should use specific definitions of each term before going into the example-writing process. Case in point: I wouldn't include willingness to "harm" anyone in the definition of a "good" person - personal gain or otherwise.

You might get more mileage out of two scales: a goodness scale, and a lawfulness scale. Sort of like this:

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"] [TR] [TD]
[/TD] [TD]Min[/TD] [TD]Mid[/TD] [TD]Max[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Lawful[/TD] [TD]Unpredictable, can't be trusted[/TD] [TD]Somewhat trustworthy, follows certain rules[/TD] [TD]Predictable, follows a code[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Good[/TD] [TD]No regard for living things, max regard for self.[/TD] [TD]Cares for some living things, even more than self.[/TD] [TD]Holds all life forms as equal, some more than self.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So these are more abstract, so with a little thinking your PCs can apply them to more situations. And you can plant concepts like money and laws in there, by interpreting them as "rules" or part of a "code," OR caring for some living things - on the goodness scale - might mean respecting their rights to property.

Edit: Chaotic Neutral, in terms of this table, becomes a character who is unpredictable and cares for some creatures more than himself, and doesn't care for others. So, not someone you would want on guard duty, but if you know you're one of the people he cares about, then the CN character might still be useful in the party.
 
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I'm sad that the actions of a few have banned my favorite alignment from so many tables. It's a very versatile alignment. My current Barbarian in my friend's Pathfinder game is chaotic neutral, because he only has one goal that he cares about, only one plot hook that really motivates him. He doesn't backstab the party, he doesn't steal everybody's gold, he doesn't piss in the mouths of puppies and goldfish, he's just got very selfish motivations for going out and doing hero things.

I agree. To many play the alignment as 'I do what I want when I want, who gives a :):):):) about the rest of you'. I've always been fond of it for similar reasons to your own. The character follows his own path and his own set of rules. Not a madman but a survivalist who cares little for the strictness of civilization but does care about his or her goals and the lives of their allies. They may do things others find odd, or not care about things for reasons they cannot grasp. A CN Barbarian makes a lot of sense, I've always enjoyed the alignment when playing warlocks. One of my most memorable was a kooky wizard who's arcane experimenting and potion mixing has done something funny to his head. He wasn't necessarily insane he just lacked motivation for anything beyond what was right in front of his face. Was drawn to adventuring for the shine of gold and the power of the arcane. Did he occasionally do some disagreeable things, you bet your ass but he cared about the people who surrounded him in his own way.

I've always found using a grid to help newer players understand the concept of alignment. Lawful/Neutral/Chaos at the top and Good/Neutral/Evil along the side. As each meet up a short description not unlike DMMike's explains how each interact.
 
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I've always banned CN from my games. An alignment which is only interested in chaos, regardless of morality? It makes a cooperative team-based game like D&D tough to run. Kind of a "get out of jail free" card. It's even worse than evil characters, and those can be tricky to DM.

I used to refer to it as "chatroom neutral" - license to be a dick from a thousand miles away!

To the OP, very useful guideline.

I'd reduce NE to: " sometimes willing to harm friends .." Rather than often ...
 

Have you thought of using the alignment definitions from Palladium? I don't like most things about that game but I did like their alignment much better. There is no neutral alignments. There are various selfish alignments and examples from popular culture.
 

I think your alignment descriptions are good and well thought out as far as they go, and are in fact probably better thought out than the descriptions TSR/WotC have typically provided. The are useful as minimal, practical guides to how your character should generally behave, and they avoid all the common fallacies you see in descriptions of alignment (alignment as personality, alignment as a stricture for 'good' but freedom for 'evil', lawful good as more good than good, chaotic evil as more evil than evil, evil defined by a lack of a single virtue, or good defined by the presence of a single virtue, etc.)

That said, while I like the table, I'd prefer it to be supplemented with a bit more depth and a bit more specifics.

In play, I find that Chaotic Neutral is the most common alignment of characters played by Americans with a mainstream cultural background. Banning it seems impossible, since no matter what a player puts on a character sheet, they'll gravitate to Chaotic Neutral in probably 2/3rds of the cases - and those that don't group strongly around CN (N, CG, CE). You might as well have on the character sheet what the player is actually animating, otherwise, you might as well have 'red team', 'purple team', etc.

As a minor critique, I think you should make the statement of Neutral Evil stronger and more symmetrical with Neutral Good. Evil doesn't merely tolerate laws or rules that favor the strong over the weak, it is intolerant of laws when they favor the weak over the strong. Likewise, Evil doesn't merely avoid helping others for free, but is compelled to hurt others even when it does so at a cost or risk. Neutral evil in particular is less interested in whether harming others results in personal gain (Chaotic), but in doing harm for its own sake. It is not only, "Often willing to harm friends for personal gain.", "Often willing to harm others even at personal cost and personal risk." Granted, the first implies the former (since losing the friend involves a cost and a risk), but its even more than that - the actual pain caused by the betrayal is weighed as a benefit to be enjoyed. The fact that they successfully abused a friend - someone that trusted them and depended on them - is a form of self-validation greatly to be savored. That the pain of betrayal was more acute for the friend because they thought that the person was their friend is itself something that will be delighted in and gloated over. One typical problem I see with statements of 'neutral evil' is that they typically end up being 'less evil' than either 'lawful evil' or 'chaotic evil' because they give 'neutral evil' a wishy-washier motivation. This is failure to understand that self-interest (doing evil to advance the good cause of ones own happiness) or self-sacrifice (doing evil to advance the good cause of one's own tribal security and prosperity) are mitigating factors in a person's degree of depravity and render evil more understandable and more palatable. A person who is 'neutral evil' is literally doing evil for its own sake, and holding up evil itself as the highest good.

The best example of this I can think of parallels the 'What Alignment is the Batman' meme, where the real answer is, "Which Batman?" The question of "What alignment is the Joker?", has a similar problem. The Joker is traditionally presented in the form of the Clown Prince of Crime, with an explicitly Chaotic Evil motivation - he's doing this all because of the depraved delight he takes in it but he's got basically the normal motivations associated with depravity. He wouldn't sacrifice his own interests and when Batman has the advantage he legitimately begs for mercy because the only thing he really cares for is himself.

But the Keith Ledger Joker is presented with a different set of motivations. The Keith Ledger Joker is neutral evil and has the classic neutral evil motivation - he wants to prove Good doesn't actually exist and that a fundamental level there really is no such thing as goodness. His schemes aren't done to advance his own interest, but instead to advance evil as a general principle. He doesn't want to steal things to have them. He wants to watch the world burn. And ultimately, when faced with death, he doesn't beg for mercy because he would rather die than see mercy or justice exist and be validated. Evil is more important to him than even himself in a way that Chaotic Evil would never agree to.
 
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