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Alternative Character Interpretation/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions
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* This happened a lot in the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'':
** Nowhere did it stand out more than in ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. When the games began, the mystically oriented Traditions were the good guys fighting a war of ideology against the all-powerful Technocracy, who tried to "smooth out" the bumps in reality through extermination of all supernatural creatures. As the game went through multiple revisions, however, the flaws and in-fighting of the Traditions began to come to the fore, and it became possible for the player characters to be a group of young, idealistic Technocrats trying to reform a corrupt monolith from the inside.<br /><br />The later sourcebooks (and the old stuff if you look hard enough) make it more and more easy to believe that the Technocracy, even with its flaws, really is doing the right thing by trying to save humanity from all the supernatural things that want to eat them, enslave them, or remake the world in their own image. A world ruled by the Technocracy might be bleak, but imagine a world dominated by the philosophical paradigm of, say, [[The Magocracy|The Order of Hermes]], or the [[Gaia's Vengeance|Verbena]]...<br /><br />To put a point on it: depending on who you ask, the Technocracy is a genocidal [[Big Brother Is Watching|Thought Police]] bent on creating a stagnant world they have absolute control over, a bunch of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well-Intentioned Extremists]] for whom [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], or [[Designated Villain|Designated Villains]] who are the absolutely justified in their belief that supernatural influence over the Human Race is a quantifiable bad thing. By that same token, the Council of Nine either represents the last best hope for creativity, nobility and the realization of personal potential, or a bunch of selfish children who refuse to acknowledge the true implication of their abilities against the Greater Good. It's all heavily dependent on where on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]] the World of Darkness lies. Unfortunately for the Traditions, this is the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|World of Darkness.]]
** The central idea of ''[[Demon: The Fallen]]'' is the alternate interpretation that Lucifer rebelled [[Satan Is Good|in order to save humanity]] from being condemned to ignorance by an uncaring God. But even that interpretation is subject to a decent amount of doubt. Was it for love? Or was Lucifer simply ambitious? Or did he do it because God ''told'' him to?<br /><br />And there's the ever continuing problem of getting the players to not just be [[
* It happens a lot in ''[[Exalted]]''.
** Solars: Are they returning divinely empowered rulers who will lead Creation into a new golden age, or are they destined to fall into the same madness as before and make things even worse?
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*** Currently, they seem to be working for one group of eldritch abominations (C'tan) to eradicate another group of eldritch abominations (the Chaos Gods) who are a byproduct of a third group (the Old Ones) which they will also eliminate in the process. That leaves 2 out of 3 eldritch abominations wiped out, and of the third, 1 of its 4 surviving members may actually be helping the human race. The other 3 view the Human Race as Doritos, but you can't have everything can you?
**** Further, there are more than a few indications that only the Necrons or the Orks are actually capable of stopping the Tyranids, of those two the Necrons are arguably the better choice, because simply spawning billions and billions of orks until they form a pile big enough to stop the hive is... Somewhat sub-optimal... and so crazed hyper-science is a better choice. In addition, their plan to seal off the materium from the immaterium, while having some rather major consequences for space travel, ''does'' solve the whole problem with Chaos being infinite and unstoppable. And since there are other ways of moving around the universe if you're smart enough to see them, it's not that bad of an idea. {{spoiler|The Emperor was trying to do this a long time ago and there's an opening to the webway under the golden throne. So it can't be THAT bad of a plan.}}
** Chaos: [[
*** Chaos isn't good nor evil. It simply is a reflection of Mankind's desires, dreams, and thoughts.
*** The Chaos Space Marines: Vile ravagers in every possible sense, worse even than the ruthless Imperium? Or simply those that, in those dark days, cling to whatever powers they might in order to give themselves a glimmer of hope for bettering their own lot in life? Both?
**** Abaddon the Despoiler: An [[Memetic Mutation|armless, brainless]] [[General Failure]] who could never topple the Imperium or the only person who could unite Chaos against the Imperium. Were the Black Crusades complete and utter failures or merely setting things up for a final assault against the Imperium?
*** The Chaos Gods: Khorne is as much strength and honor as he is bloodshed and violence, Nurgle is as genial and loving and the comfort of the weak and the poor as he is corrupting and pestilent, Slaanesh stands for joy and pleasure to all the senses through art and form as much as outright hedonism, and Tzeentch, while a capricious schemer, could also be said to stand for hope and innovation. These are factual aspects of the characters; they embody positive and negative traits at once.
*** Tzeentch: brutal, traitorous Magnificent Bastard who simply wants destruction, just trying to survive, or enacting a Machiavellian plot to destroy the other Chaos Gods as a ploy to save the sentient races of the galaxy, bringing him into well intentioned extremist territory. Or he could be as caring as Nurgle, except less caring towards his worshipers than the races they originally came from? Truth be told, we know far less about Tzeentch than the other gods, and GW intends to keep it this way, so really, any character interpretation is possible.
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*** There really isn't an alternate interpretation, they love it and they need it.
*** Alternate Interpretation: They are Eldar who avoided being consumed by Slaanesh, but were not fortunate enough to develop a way to fully sever the link to the Bright God as their bretheren did via the Craftworld's Soul Stones, the Exodite's World Spirit, or Harlequin's Protection of Cegorrach. So corrupted and debased by their link to Slaanesh, they are now little more than her puppets, enslaved to her dark desires. Possessing little strength of their own, they painfully await the birth of Ynead and their final release.
*** It was (at least at one time) seriously suggested that the Dark Eldar blood-sport was more akin to the villagers from the story of St George and the Dragon. Slaanesh wants souls, and they made a bargain to keep feeding her and in exchange she doesn't come and eat them all up at once. It's a Machiavellian deal with the devil, but as the last (or so it seemed) remnant of a doomed race preserving themselves even if it won't last forever is of prime importance, because they know that eventually Slaanesh will fall. In the generations that have followed, the original reasons for killing have been forgotten, they simply know they must kill and torture to survive. And when you're civilization is built on blood shed its really really hard to hold back the tides of any other form of debauchery. Which leads us to today where in constantly foisting off the touch of Slaanesh the Dark Eldar have ended up with so many similarities to her worshipers that you can't tell the difference. When gods are real and tangible and absolutely want to eat your souls you really don't have a whole lot of choice but to play ball. It's either independent evil under the shadow of death, or death and soul rape. Urgh.
** Tyranids: Hungry, or deliberately trying to eat everything? Do they not realize that other species are sentient, or simply not care? Are they just an extragalactic [[Horde of Alien Locusts]] consuming every natural resource they can use, or are they running from something so terrifying that the entire biomass of multiple galaxies turned into organic death machines would not be enough? Out of control bioweapon? They did kill off the Squats, so they can't be ''all'' bad.
*** All of the above? Actually no, they are just simply a swarm of insects. Intelligent, but they still don't give a damn.
*** Killing off the Squats: a great service to us all or the most terrible crime since the Heresy?
** Possibly one of the biggest ones in the whole of 40k is the Emperor. Is he... the guiding light of humanity in the darkness, a weakling corpse barely a shadow of his former self, or simply planning a comeback? Was he an idealistic crusader who wanted to establish an era of hope and strength for humanity, or a mass-murdering tyrant who ruthlessly crushed all opposition and was willing to exterminate entire non-human species in order to establish his own rule? Did he genuinely desire the destruction of religion in an effort to impose his will upon the free thoughts of man, or was it only in order to guide a newly psychic humanity to a future free of chaos? We may never know...
*** It's unlikely that anyone will get a clear answer. GW uses the Emperor (as a character) very sparingly, and so very little about him is known. Suffice to say, a massive amount of 40k depends on exactly how much the Emperor knew...did he deliberately scatter the Primarchs or was he the victim of a terrible accident? Did he deliberately choose to die at Terra or was it an accident too?...
* Yawgmoth from ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. A [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] [[Badass Normal]] [[Omnidisciplinary Scientist]] [[Utopia Justifies the Means|who made use of some innovative methods to grant his fellows a better life]] only to be [[Love Makes You Evil|betrayed by the woman he loved]] [[Sealed Evil in a Can|and exiled into a void plane for nine millennia]], thus making his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|more than justified]]? Or perhaps an [[Affably Evil]] [[Deadly Doctor]] with [[Munchausen Syndrome|Munchausen by proxy]], [[Machine Worship|who lost his mind]] [[Mechanical Lifeforms|worshipping machines]] and became an [[Evilutionary Biologist]] ([[Anvilicious|remember]], [[Science Is Bad]])?
* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' isn't immune either.
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* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''
** One word: Elves. Even after ''The Complete Book of Elves''. Naturally, the internet demonstrated that there are both people [[Can't Argue with Elves|squeeing]] over these obliviously enough to not notice [[Screw You, Elves|any of the jokes]] refined in the book, taking all for face value with complete seriousness and run with it, and vigilant geniuses who take jokes there for face value and then "discover" (GASP!) that elves aren't as cuddly as they present themselves.
** The Dark Powers in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' campaign setting are usually interpreted as being evil, since they are the [[Genius Loci|presumed masters behind the eponymous Demiplane of Dread, a place of evil and horror]], but it is also possible that they are good, and use Ravenloft as a prison for the worst villains and monsters in the multiverse. If the cage sometimes seems a gilded one, remember that each of the major villains trapped there are also given curses [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|appropriate to their crimes]].
*** The [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]] suffered by every dark lord is designed to break them and hit them where it really hurts. For example, Strahd von Zarovich, who murdered his brother to steal his fiancée (and countless other crimes) is cursed with vampirism and forced to relive the loss of his beloved Tatiana every generation. Unless things have changed in the latest edition, the setting is called The Land of Mists or something similar by its residents; Ravenloft is from ''Ravana's Loft'', and is Strahd's absolutely trope-tastic [[Haunted Castle]], named for Strahd's mother.
*** The problem is, almost none of the villains trapped in Ravenloft are actually major (only Vecna/Kaz and Lord Soth, all long gone from Ravenloft, were bigshots before going there). Dark Powers pick people whom they can make to suffer beautifully, not those really dangerous or really heinous. Snatching a guy who murdered his brother to steal his fiancée out of love, when ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' is chock-full of people whose job description amounts to killing and torturing innocents [[For the Evulz]]? On the other hand, core domains of Ravenloft often are relatively safe places to live, compared to what is normal to DnD-land. Commonly encountering monsters are weak enough to remain in hiding, instead of rampaging and assaulting openly, and there is a comparative shortage of insanely powerful psychopaths on the loose. To be fair, it's not like TSR and later [[Wot C]] could denude their other campaign settings of all their good villains. Also, the Dark Powers may just not have the power to take all the really major villains from all over the multiverse; it's not like the Dark Powers have ever been portrayed as omnipotent, even within Ravenloft. Maybe they're just doing the best they can. Also, the fact that Ravenloft is in some ways ''safer'' for the average person than the typical campaign setting, what with the lack of lots of randomly rampaging monsters, may be further support for the idea that the Dark Powers are good.
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