h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If memory serves, then having a chaotic neutral character automatically shifts them into good or evil as soon as they do anything at all...

Not so, I have successfully been purely Chaotic several times. It happens to be the alignment of madmen, impulsive characters and the like... theses characters tend to die rather early on in the game if they are not powerful to begin with.

Is this not due in part to the indesisive and slightly mad type of person that it takes to actively choose this kind of character meaning that all ingame desicions tend to lead to an early death anyway?

Possibly very true. But a CN character can pheasibly be a very safe character depending on how they are chaotic. I gotta say, though, it's a ton of fun to play one of these characters at least once.

The real advantage is that Mirrors of Opposition are no problem. My character looked in one and all I got was a super-organised duplicate who is now his secretary...