Nope, orcs are commies. LotR reads like straight up nazi propaganda and only gets a pass because the author fought Germans in WWI. In fact, here's a secondhand quote:

Probably true as well.
I've read Horus Rising and enjoyed it but I was in university back then and didn't have time for extra reading past that first book. After I get through some D&D, I'll try to take out the Horus Heresy.

Slightly off topic but this may interest some people: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.gemrb&hl=en

It allows you to play some of the early D&D games such as Baldur's Gate & Planescape Torment on your android phone. Not sure how good it is as only played a little Baldur's Gate on it but nonetheless (you need a fairly large screen.)

I read quite a few Dragonlance novels in my younger days. Despite it's faults, I credit the series for my love of fantasy today.

As many have said, apart from the early Weis & Hickman works, it's can be hard to find good ones. Even those are fairly standard fantasy, but enjoyable. I actually liked the Legends series more than the Chronicles.

I remember enjoying The Legend of Huma at the time as well, even though it was written by Knaak. I'd have to go back and read it again to see if I still found it enjoyable though.

A bit off topic, but does anyone have any experience with the Darksword trilogy by Weis and Hickman? I vaguely recall reading at least some of the first one, and am curious if they would be worth going back and taking a look at.

How can anyone actually justify CG? I mean unless you're Drizzzt...

LE is easy to justify, anything with "good" in it wouldn't make it past my DM veto.

I can handle Lawful Good, but Chaotic Good rubs me the wrong way. There is just something so increadibly sanctimonious and unlikeable everytime I read Drizzit killing a prisoner or helpless opponent etc and then being expected to view him as a 'good' character. Chaotic good is by definition a contradiction because most of the concepts that are associated with 'good' are also associated with 'law' such as honesty, mercy, honor, etc. since 'chaotic' characters are not bound by laws or rules, this gives CG characters such as Drizzit a huge amount of leeway to do all sorts of things that should never be considered 'good' and still come out smelling like a rose,this irritates me in the Drizzit books and in players to no end.

Robin Hood
Han Solo
Batman?

As with most licensed/piggybacked fiction, most of it is crap. The R.A. Salvatore stuff is highly acclaimed however.

Hey, I liked the alignment system. Overly simplified as it was, it still gave a pretty good rough guidelines.

I play chaotic good most of the time, taking it as "end justifies the means". Backstab/assasinate a bad guy instead of going all lawful stupid and challenging him to single combat (and find out he's going to cheat)? Check. Slippery slope, and one might end up neutral and then evil.

But Drizzt, like they said in The Order of the Stick, "recently it seems every drow in the world is chaotic good and wields twin sabres", or something to that effect anyway,

Anyway, Order of the Stick certainly belongs in everybodys D&D reading list.

Batman is a horrible example of a chaotic good character, consdiering he lives by a strict moral code (no killing, no guns, etc). He is almost Paladin-like in some respects. The fact that he operates outside of the law does not make him chaotic considering (A) the Gotham Police support his activities, and (B) if the law was all that mattered to Lawful Good, then all Paladins would be restrained to city watch duty, because heaven forbid they break some Drow or Duegar law while adventuring in the underdark and fall.

I am unconvinced that Han Solo is of a chaotic alignment after a New Hope. Clearly the Han in the Cantina on Tatooine was Chaotic, but by the end of the trillogy he is clearly less of a wild card.

Robin Hood? He could possibly be thoguht of as Chaotic good, but considering he has his own clear moral code that he operates by, I would be more inclined to have him as Neutral Good.

Of course, all of this is moot, because dividing everything into alignments is silly and arbitrary, IMO. I just cannot stand character such as Drizzit that are 'good' by authorial fiat, as opposed to actually exhibiting behavior that could constitute good.

I used to keep a count of the number of times in the Drizzit books where 'good' guys executed prisoners or other helpless opponents or otherwise killed 'evil' characters merely because of their race or affiliation (in clear contrast to the what is supposedly a major point of the series -Drizzit being a good drow who has to deal with the unjust racism of surfacers) Apparently it's only OK to be instantly hostile towards creatures from 'evil' races if they aren't Drizzit- otherwise it's racism. the books are full of double standards and it annoys me.

really?

i always saw chaotic good is a guy/gal who does stuff regardless what law say. Batman (at least in animated series) is prime example. does good while breaking dozens laws.
Superman is lawful good. he obeys government, laws the best he can.

and drizzt murdering people even tough he is good. he is still a drow. so his good is a bit skewed by his nature and upbringing. He is good but borders neutral territory. at last thats what i understood based on dark elf trilogy.


never read icewind trilogy. after 3rd of october i shall do it as i already purchased first two books.
no.

batman is chaotic good. chaotic does not mean you don't have rules. chaotic means you have your own rules. they are just good and you can change them. Batman at least the main one is chaotic good.

and respect of the law does not mean respect of every law. paladins respect law of their faith (i think)
they break laws which they see unjust and ungood. they do not break laws set upon themselves.


and batman shot darkseid. lawful good wouldn't do that.

We are not only talking about lawss here. Lawful indicates some sort of code that characters live by, either laws, or a personal code. Lawful Evil characters are frequently described as using personal moral codes to justify their evil behavior ("I may have killed all of the captives older than 12, but I *did* enslave the rest. I'm not a complete monster" etc) The moral code of a Paladin or batman are not any less 'lawful' because one happens within the law and one outside. It is the personal striving for 'good' within a structured system of morality that matters. Batman carries out his brand of justice within a moral code that restricts his available options because he understands the importance of rules. Drizzit is a hypocrite who values nothing real outside of his friendship and whatever group he has latched himself onto and has projected what he thinks 'good' is onto. He endlessly moralizes about how his side is good and anyone who opposes them are evil, but there lies the problem of the alignment system-is alignment determined by intentions? If so, Drizzit could concievably be considered 'chaotic good'-but so would many of the people who he heartlessly kills. If alignment is determined by actions however, he is clearly far from good, and possibly even evil. If both are equally important, than he clearly must be neutral, because his actions are too evil to be considered good, and yet he is convinced of his own righteousness. The disparity between his actions and his beliefs combine to make him an insufferably hypocritical moralizer, moreso because there is never any indication that the author ever acknoledges or realizes the problems with how he is written.

I can't speak about drizzt cause i just read dark elf trilogy and only recently bought icewind trilogy (only first 2 books)
i just stated how i interpreted his character from his origin story. good, but dark.

but you are wrong about how chaotic works. Everyone has set of rules. Joker has set of rules.

Chaotic means you are not bind by outside rules. you may obey them. you may follow them but they do not have any power over them. they follow their own morality, their own desires not anything set by the society, organizations, group etc.

lawful characters do. they do not follow own rules. they follow established rules of their organization, group, church. they accept those rules and never break them no matter what they might think and are not even capable of thinking otherwise.

Batman creates his own justice, his own rules and system. that makes him chaotic. and he seeks betterment of the world and that makes him good.

chaotic can be reasoned. chaotic can see points of other side, can do bad without being bad themselves if a greater good is at stake.
batman does that.
superman does not
thats not an issue of chaotic vs lawful

thats an issue of good vs evil. in your case an evil character has touches of good by not wanting to kill everyone and seeing how killing everyone might be evil.

lawful vs chaotic is:

Kill 80 percent of men, kill all elderly. enslave the rest. Kill children to weaken defense.

vs

Kill anyone and bring me some good slaves. i want sexy ones.

The example I gave was to highlight how a lawful (evil in this case) character could have their lawful alignment defined by their personal moral code, and not necessarily by laws. Batman is not chaotic because he follows a set of laws, even if they are his own. He is good because he performs good deeds with the intention of doing good. Therefore he is lawful good.

At any rate, as you pointed out,
Paladins are Lawful good. If operating on an independent moral code makes one chaotic, then that would make Paladins chaotic good, an alignment, I would like to point out-would immediately result in them losing their status as paladins. Going by this, the only career path Paladins would have available to them would be as city guards, because they would fall for 'creating their own justice' if they followed their personal codes.

Being someone who follows the letter of the law does not make you a paladin, it does not make you lawful good, it makes you a lawful neutral cleric of Helm.

Chaotic means to do whatever you want within your personal system of morality. What your morality is determines where you are on the good/neutral/evil axis. to Be chaotic good means to do whatever you think is good regardless of expectations, codes, or laws. The problem is that this results in players/characters acting impulsively and committing many acts of evil by default because they do not hold themselves to laws out of principle. Chaotic good characters by definition cannot have a moral code to act against unlike lawful characters, which leads to characters who can act like psycopaths and who can justify things like going around casting detect evil on people and murdering those that fail. (in other words, obviously evil actions) Chaotic good by definition is a bit of a contradiction because it demands absolute morality (good before all else, even the laws) with a blatent disregard for morality (customs, laws, culture-all these mean nothing, the only thing that matters is *my* morality)

At any rate, this is getting side tracked from my original intention, not to re-evaluate Drizzit's alignment, but rather to point out what a colossal, hypocritical, murderous, sanctimonious, arrogant all around unlikeable and unsympathetic character Drizzit is. I personally found many of the antagonists he invariably kills to be far more interesting than he was.