This might be something that plenty of people have covered before me, but I had a hard time finding it. Discussion of the Neutral Alignment of the Law-Chaos axis is very much buried somewhere between people arguing over what Law and Chaos are exactly, and people arguing about True Neutral in the 3x3 matrix most modern gamers use. My idea of Neutral doesn't quite make sense with a Good-Evil axis.
Two Sides to the Struggle
I know Alignment isn't binary. In DCC it is one axis with three points. One might go so far as to call it a spectrum - that makes sense conceptually, but I can't think of a good gameplay or narrative reason to define someone as "38% Lawful", as you could if it were a complete spectrum. Three options is simple and provides a nice overarching categorization of factions and ideals. In this article, I don't intend to make it any more complicated than that. There are still the same three options by the end of it.
The DCC RPG book presents, in no uncertain terms, a simple choice between Law and Chaos - two fundamental forces of the universe. It then presents Neutrality as a balance between the two or an indifference toward the two. This is where the "binary" part comes in. If Alignments are fundamental forces then there are two: Law and Chaos. Balance isn't a force in itself, nor is "indifferent". It's the space between. It's a lack of force.
If Law and Chaos were real-world forces, neutrality would exist right in the midpoint of their fields (where there is no force - balance) or in something chargeless like a neutron (which does not emit a force - indifferent).
Warning, subjective opinion ahead: having a grand cosmic war between Law and Chaos going on and a majority of the inhabitants of the universe simply falling under Neutral, the "nothing" category, simply by default - well that’s just kind of boring! Humans are mostly Neutral. Animals are basically all Neutral. Great Old Ones are Neutral. All of these Neutral beings are fighting for… nothing. There’s no Primal Servants of Neutrality because there’s nothing for them to fight for. They emit no force.
What if that wasn't the case?
Not just a Middle Ground
Rather than viewing Neutral as the middle-ground, I prefer to think of it as a third party in the aforementioned grand cosmic war. A disparate party nonetheless fighting toward the same end - a vast majority unwittingly so. It isn’t something both Lawful and Chaotic, nor exactly a middle-ground, but instead something that pulls at both. One standing between Law and Chaos does not want either side to win. Neutrality is a force that prolongs the cosmic war, never allowing the extremes to truly take hold. Entropy is often associated with Chaos, but Neutrality could be considered a sort of entropy within the forces of Alignment itself. Some think of Neutrality as the middle path between Yin and Yang, but it also creates the seeds of Yin within Yang and Yang within Yin.
For a while I thought there should be more than just Neutral to represent this. Perhaps Balance and Unaligned, splitting Neutral into its two common representations for a total of four. Now we’re left with that boring non-participating faction again. Perhaps Nature is its own Alignment, the Alignment of the universe itself and what it brings into being just by existing. Not to mention the incomprehensible motivations of the Great Old Ones in the Void that came before even Law and Chaos - it's easy for this to balloon out of control, so what is it that makes all these parts a whole?
What Neutrality Fights For
Law is the force of Order. Chaos is the force of Entropy. Either one of these forces will destroy the universe as we know it if left unchecked. Neutrality is the force of Survival, the sheer desire to be that keeps the war going. Forever.
All this to say I think of it more like a triangle than a line.
I appreciate neutrality as the uninvolved option for players that just want to be Conan or something but I get the appeal of having it be a third participating faction. I like your idea of neutrality exerting itself through its survival instinct, but I would expand that to neutrality being the position of sheer force of will or breadth of being, to the extent that powerful neutral entities are more "real" than anything else. Cosmic law and chaos originate from the higher and lower planes but ours is the domain of neutrality.
ReplyDeleteThe best part is the player who just wants to be Conan still fits! Rarely will you find an unaligned character who brings no Law and no Chaos. If he sows the seeds for both, he's fighting for Neutrality.
DeleteI like that idea, Neutral entities being more grounded while Law and Chaos are metaphysical.