History AlternativeCharacterInterpretation / TableTopGames

** Hanse Davion: MagnificentBastard who [[IncrediblyLamePun outfoxed]] his hidebound or deranged opponents, or OP guy who only got by on [[CreatorsPet writer's fiat]]? His son, Victor: [[TheNapoleon Midget who can't possibly live up to his father's legacy]] or skilled warrior hobbled by politics and the above-mentioned evil sister?

** Kronos, Prince of Fate, may very well be another manifestation of God. Lucifer, Valefor, Alaemon, and/or Kobal may also all be secretly working for God. Valefor might actually ''be'' Lucifer. Or Valefor (a Demon Prince) and Janus (an Archangel) might be ''the same person''.

* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': Invoked. The game itself explicitly supports tweaking and creatively reinterpreting the characterization of major figures, and two or three possibilities are suggested for every Archangel/Demon Prince supplement.

** This reaches its pinnacle with Alaemon, the Prince of Secrets, who doesn't ''have'' a definitive past -- his ''Superiors'' expansion gives three possible origin stories, all of which fit the available evidence.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'': All the factions that make up the Grand Alliance Of Order are subjected to this, as they're the de factor protagonists of the setting; depending on who you ask (and, indeed, which [[DependingOnTheWriter authors you read]]) they're either genuinely good, heroic, and noble forces trying to save the realms from Chaos, a bunch of LawfulNeutral [[VillainProtagonist Villain Protagonists]] no better than ''40k'''s Imperium Of Man, or somewhere in the middle.

*** There is also good reason why Orks were given one InUniverse by the Eldar philosopher Uthan the Perverse, who argued that they were the pinnacle of creation and merely regarded as crude by everyone else despite their clear strength and enduring nature. Orks really do not know fear (including fear of death), stress, or poverty (last one is arguable, but Orks do pay for things with naturally regrowing teeth), problems that plague every other civilisation that has or will have ever existed.

*** ''TabletopGame/AdvancedDungeonsAndDragonsSecondEdition'': In ''Guide to Hell'', it was suggested "Asmodeus" was the false face put forward by one of the primal beings of Law, an aspect of the archetypal World Serpent, the fallen ancient god [[UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} Ahriman]]. This introduced the interpretation that he was no mere Satan figure (which he had previously embodied) and made him something more ancient and terrible, [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned in the Hells by the very laws he helped write into the cosmos]] and plotting to shatter those laws so he might reforge them for his own ends. 3rd Edition's ''Manual of the Planes'' continued to hint at his secret nature, but never went very far with it. (In this case, Asmodeus's counterpart as the other half of the World Serpent was Jazirian, the goddess of the couatls. She's mentioned so rarely that some bits of fanon have filled in the gaps with her own Alternative Interpretation, making her the ''logos'' to Asmodeus's great Lie, and that she may even have died between 2nd and 3rd edition - another bit of fanon from that is that her discorporate essence is behind the Words Made Flesh of the illumians in ''Races of Destiny''.)

* In 4th edition of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', Asmodeus usurped his position from [[NoNameGiven He Who Was]], his patron deity. A lot of text tries to portray He Who Was as a benevolent deity, but angels are supposed to be extensions of their patron deity's will. How did Asmodeus get so many angels on his side? Perhaps He Who Was wasn't as squeaky clean as he's made out to be. In fact, HWW might have been the god of ambition, and the reason he had so many usurpers following Asmodeus was because of their ambitious nature.
** 3.5 Edition's ''Races of the Wild'' reveals something interesting about halflings and their religion: Yondalla wasn't always the squeaky clean paragon of Lawful Good she is today. She created the halflings by stealing the best bits from all the other races, and the gods punished her by forcing her to split into two goddesses: LawfulGood Yondalla and ChaoticNeutral Dallah Thaun. They are still the same person, sharing thoughts and memories, which is why there are so many CN halflings who can claim, even under magical compulsion, to worship a LG goddess. This is a canon example of ACI, as no other books even so much as mention it; other races are forbidden to even know about Dallah Thaun. This suggests that the halflings, generally seen as no more than harmlessly mischievous, are knowingly perpetuating a culture-wide scam that allows them to steal, cheat and take vengeance all they want, and all in the name of a lawful good deity.
*** What's really strange is that the other gods are apparently in on it. They know of Dallah's existence, but even high level non-halfling clerics who can talk to their gods directly are seemingly kept in the dark. Good gods, evil gods, lawful ones, chaotic ones, none seem to have any problem with keeping this a secret from everyone. So either there is a truly massive cover-up going on (with even gods who despise each other playing along) or ''there is no Dallah Thaun'', the book is a fabrication, and the halflings made her up as some sort of excuse for doing as they please.
*** Perhaps she was invented by Yondalla herself, as a sort of alter ego. That means that Yondalla is not Lawful Good, and the entire halfling religion is founded on a lie.
** In regards to Asmodeus and He Who Was, there's some new information out about it. He Who Was was apparently the leader of the gods in their war with the primordials, but was such a benevolent god that he had little taste for war and battle and was a poor general. Asmodeus was the most powerful and skilled general the gods had, and his angels were their most powerful army. His tactics, however, were brutal and horrifying to He Who Was, who eventually cast Asmodeus down for his actions. Perhaps the peace loving He Who Was created Asmodeus and his army as an aspect of himself, an expression of his ruthless, violent tendencies so that he didn't have to live with them himself. Which could have been why he simply cast Asmodeus down, instead of destroying him outright. He couldn't bring himself to destroy part of himself.
*** In a late 2nd Edition book (when the cosmos was significantly different), ''Guide to Hell'', it was suggested "Asmodeus" was the false face put forward by one of the primal beings of Law, an aspect of the archetypal World Serpent, the fallen ancient god [[UsefulNotes/{{Zoroastrianism}} Ahriman]]. This introduced the interpretation that he was no mere Satan figure (which he had previously embodied) and made him something more ancient and terrible, [[SealedEvilInACan imprisoned in the Hells by the very laws he helped write into the cosmos]] and plotting to shatter those laws so he might reforge them for his own ends. 3rd Edition's ''Manual of the Planes'' continued to hint at his secret nature, but never went very far with it. (In this case, Asmodeus's counterpart as the other half of the World Serpent was Jazirian, the goddess of the couatls. She's mentioned so rarely that some bits of fanon have filled in the gaps with her own Alternative Interpretation, making her the ''logos'' to Asmodeus's great Lie, and that she may even have died between 2nd and 3rd edition - another bit of fanon from that is that her discorporate essence is behind the Words Made Flesh of the illumians in ''Races of Destiny''.)
** [[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?443306-quot-Pelor-the-Burning-Hate-quot-(from-Wizards-forum Pelor The Burning Hate]] is a reinterpretation of Pelor, Neutral Good god of the Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing. It manages to remain consistent with everything attributed to Pelor, while explaining his every action and trait as actually evil in disguise.

* The Dark Powers in the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' campaign setting are usually interpreted as being evil, since they are the [[GeniusLoci 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 [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment appropriate to their crimes]].
** The CoolAndUnusualPunishment 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 HauntedCastle, 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). The 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 ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' is chock-full of people whose job description amounts to killing and torturing innocents ForTheEvulz? On the other hand, the core domains of Ravenloft often are relatively safe places to live, compared to what is normal to [=DnD-land=]. Commonly encountered 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 Creator/{{TSR}} and later [[Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast WotC]] 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.
** Still other gamemasters take the radical stance that the Dark Powers ''don't exist'': Ravenloft works the way it does simply because that's its fundamental nature as a plane, just like the Plane of Fire is inherently hot. The darklords' curses are personalized because they're unconsciously inflicting such torments on themselves, out of repressed guilt.
** Still another interpretation is that the Dark Powers aren't jailing these evil beings, but recruiting them. They find the vilest evil beings they can, make them master of a realm under their command, often with powerful servants under their command, and then hit them with one ironic curse for centuries. Then, at some point, when their army is big enough and their generals 'conditioned' enough, they offer to give the Dark Lords whatever they want in exchange for their service. Suddenly the Dark Powers are in command of some of the most powerful, crafty and severely pissed off mortal and immortal evil doers in the history of D&D.
** It's also possible that the Dark Powers are simply [[BlueAndOrangeMorality Lawful Blue]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is ''made'' for this, and has room for all possible interpretations of ''every'' side, from the Imperium to Chaos.

** Hanse Davion: MagnificentBastard who [[IncrediblyLamePun outfoxed]] his hidebound or deranged opponents, or MarySue who only got by on [[CreatorsPet writer's fiat]]? His son, Victor: [[TheNapoleon Midget who can't possibly live up to his father's legacy]] or skilled warrior hobbled by politics and the above-mentioned evil sister?
** The Clans: [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Proud Warrior Race Guys]] who deserve to lead Humanity, or LawfulStupid [[MarySue Mary Sues]] with [[TheMunchkin way too much power]]?

*** The [[CrystalDragonJesus Imperial Cult]] and the [[TheChurch Ecclesiarchy]] that enforces it: is it a CorruptChurch run by [[TheFundamentalist murderous fanatics]] who keep the people in line with fear and ignorance, or a ([[BlackAndGreyMorality by 40k standards]]) SaintlyChurch that tolerates internal diversity and [[GoodShepherd protects imperial citizens]] from demonic heresy? In the earliest versions of the game, the Imperial Creed was depicted in a firmly negative light, but in later editions this was made much more ambiguous.
*** To add to this, is the [[FlatEarthAtheist atheistic Imperial Truth]] any better or any worse than the Imperial Cult?

*** The [[PoliticalCommisar Commisariat]]: ruthless, callous, fanatical zealots, murdering their own men to enforce loyalty through fear, or inspiring commanders and morale officers who are charged with the duty to [[ShootTheDog occasionally sacrifice one life for many lives?]] Some are one, some are the other.

*** The [[CrystalDragonJesus Imperial Creed]] and the [[TheChurch Ecclesiarchy]] that enforces it: is it a CorruptChurch run by [[TheFundamentalist murderous fanatics]] who keep the people in line with fear and ignorance, or a ([[BlackAndGreyMorality by 40k standards]]) SaintlyChurch that tolerates internal diversity and [[GoodShepherd protects imperial citizens]] from demonic heresy? In the earliest versions of the game, the Imperial Creed was depicted in a firmly negative light, but in later editions this was toned down - to the point that Saints of the [[AmazonBrigade Sisters of Battle]] preform objective miracles through their faith.

*** The Inquisition: are they, as Ciaphas Cain ('''Hero of the IMPERIUM!''') once called them, "the Emperor's pet psychopaths" or are they heroic individuals shouldering an impossibly weighty burden and forced to make the cruelest decisions imaginable? Canon is that they can be one or the other; some are evil, some are good.
*** The Space Marines: psychotic butchers driven solely by hatred for everything nonhuman (and yet barely human themselves), or noble paladins of the Emperor and defenders of all humanity's goodness? Depends upon the chapter.\\

*** The Commisariat: ruthless, callous, fanatical zealots, murdering their own men to enforce loyalty through fear, or inspiring commanders and morale officers who are charged with the duty to [[ShootTheDog occasionally sacrifice one life for many lives?]] Some are one, some are the other.
*** The Adeptus Mechanicus: Is their obsession with controlling the use of all human technology merely the product of a powerful elite not wishing that power to slip through their fingers, or is it meant to safeguard the Imperium from technological terrors such as mass robot uprisings? Is the "Omnissiah" some sinister dark god imprisoned on Mars or merely another co-equal aspect of the God-Emperor? Furthermore, do the [=AdMech=] actually worship their toasters and calculators while having no idea how they really work, or are they (at least the higher ups) just running the Cult of the Machine as a front? (Most of the novels seem to treat them as competent engineers whose craft is integrated with their religion.)
*** The fluff explains that it is because of this worship that the quality of their machines is so good. Since technological prowess is akin to a divine skill and enlightenment, any particular priest will take great care to learn every aspect of his trade, and apply equal dedication when actually fixing something. Therefore he will not skimp on the finest materials and will always keep his machine in top working order, in turn reinforcing the idea that failure and malfunctions are heresy. One theory also states that all the chanting and prayers are actually used as a way to teach them timing for certain repair works, such as waiting for data to process or a chemical reaction to form.

** The Craftworld Eldar: Utterly amoral self-serving bastards, or tragic heroes seeking to save their people and destroy Chaos? Villains or victims? Reluctant distant allies of humanity against the darkness, or among their most insidious foes?

** The Emperor himself, especially during the Horus Heresy novels. Was he a good man who didn't grasp the psychology of those without godlike power? Was he a bad father to many of the Primarchs because he didn't know how to be a good one, or because he didn't realise he ''needed'' to be a father at all? Was the Heresy the result of a failure, or a part of his plan? Is the religious fanaticism of the 41st Millennium a betrayal of his secular philosophy, or was he planning from the beginning to institute his own religion once all others were crushed? If the latter, was it a plan to ascend to full godhood and defend humanity from the Dark Gods, or just a power trip? Or was he just an asshole?
** The Tyranids. Are they advancing on the galaxy purely for the sake of invading it... or are they running away from another, greater threat?
** The Orks: ruthless, amoral monsters with no concept of peace and promoting violence for violence' sake, or the only species in a completely mad universe that can not only survive, but thrive and grow, and the only protection against all other threats that would otherwise eradicate the Milky Way? Possibly both? Indeed, most media depicting Orks has them either infighting, or fighting (and winning) against other aliens, or mutants, or heretics, while they are only ever implied, but not shown, to butcher human civilians; and while they are shown killing human military personnel quite often, Orks have no concept of torture and generally understand anyone carrying a weapon or building a bunker to be looking for a fight. Lastly, Orks are the strange inversion of HatesEveryoneEqually in that they actually hate nobody, but they're massively obsessed with fighting and peace is a non-concept for them just as well as the other things mentioned.

** The Lunars. Most of the world sees them as raving, flea-bitten beastmen who squander their lives fighting each other over territory, mates, and bragging rights, when they aren't attempting to burn and destroy civilization to usher in total chaos. This is actually a deliberate ruse to appear less of a threat, so that the Dragonblooded and Sidereals don't try seriously hunting them down like they did the Solars. While many Lunars might fit the stereotypes if you squint real hard (and some even if you don't), for the most part they're a band of misunderstood heroes honestly trying to protect the world from itself and actually fighting to prevent Chaos. There are various factions devoted to protecting the world in the way they think most important, either by preserving (and improving) ancient knowledge, defending nature (and thus the Mother Earth Goddess) from ruination, patrolling the borders of the world to keep Chaos at bay, seeking to reinstate the Solar Exalted as kings of the world (a highly controversial idea among Lunars), or experimenting with isolated human civilizations in an attempt to come up with a viable alternative to the Realm's corrupt brand of civilization. In general, yes, the Lunar Exalted think the current order is corrupt and needs to go -- but they're not so stupid as to do that unless they've got something better to replace it, and they've given a lot of thought about ''how'' to do the replacing without destroying the world in the attempt.\\

In ''Exalted 2.0'', the whole Lunar "let's figure out a way to create a better society" thing is executed in practice by having individual Lunars go out and ''create test societies'' -- which frequently fail to produce positive results. Rather than try to fix the problems that they have caused through their social engineering (such as now-ancient grudges, entire societies on the brink of being press-ganged into demonic armies, and other such [[DoomyDoomsofDoom dooms]]), Lunars often ''abandon'' said projects, for better or worse.
** The [[OurTitansAreDifferent Primordials]]: Callous and vindictive psychopaths who treated their minions like dirt and the world and their creations like playthings they would occasionally break for fun? Or the victims of divine usurpers who painted them as far more malicious than they ever were, and now are so angry by this betrayal that they embrace this persona, and arranged it so that history repeats itself?\\

* In the latest edition of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', Asmodeus usurped his position from [[NoNameGiven He Who Was]], his patron deity. A lot of text tries to portray He Who Was as a benevolent deity, but angels are supposed to be extensions of their patron deity's will. How did Asmodeus get so many angels on his side? Perhaps He Who Was wasn't as squeaky clean as he's made out to be. In fact, HHW might have been the god of ambition, and the reason he had so many usurpers following Asmodeus was because of their ambitious nature. (HHW is [[{{YHWH}} one letter away]] from being a VERY SignificantAnagram...)