Alternative Character Interpretation / Tabletop Games

Alternative Character Interpretation in Tabletop Games.

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• AmberDiceless takes the fact that characters were portrayed differently between Corwin and Merlin in The Chronicles of Amber books and runs with it, presenting several different interpretations of each of the characters (prominent or not) and encouraging Game Masters to write their own interpretations if those don't work for them. Yes, every character from The Chronicles of Amber canon has multiple sets of stats, each at a different point level, and the GM is expected to mix-and-match to taste.
• Android does this with the player characters. Are they honest detectives searching for a murderer, or corrupt investigators striving to frame the person they happen not to like? The fiction says one thing while the game mechanic says another; the incoherence is so strong that a fan mod for the rulebook was released to alter it.
• BattleTech as a whole (At least up until the Jihad) seems to have been an exercise in creating AC Is, all depending on what faction you decide to side with. Except for a few unambiguous puppy-punters like Romano Liao or Katherine Steiner-Davion, most characters can have several Interpretations.
  • Hanse Davion: Magnificent Bastard who outfoxed his hidebound or deranged opponents, or OP guy who only got by on writer's fiat? His son, Victor: 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: Proud Warrior Race Guys who deserve to lead Humanity, or Lawful Stupid guy with way too much power?
    • In-Universe, the application of this trope towards Aleksandr Kerensky caused a split within the Clans between the Crusaders and the Wardens. Did he want his descendants to conquer the Inner Sphere and re-establish the Star League by force, or did he want them to watch over the Inner Sphere until they were ready to restore the Star League themselves? In truth, he probably didn't want the SLDF to return to the Inner Sphere at all.
  • Sun-Tzu Liao: Magnificent Bastard who is trying to restore a fallen nation or Manipulative Bastard who only got by on the same kind of fiat that decriers attributed to Hanse Davion?
  • ComStar: They are either religious cult who seek to preserve and recover lost Star League tech, or just conniving schemers who want to rule over the Inner Sphere. Their previous plot made them no more different than the Word of Blake, except they are far less extreme and destructive.
• Chess:
  • In shogi (a Japanese chess variant), the "king" has also been viewed as representing the children of that player's color — the future, if you will. Referenced in Naruto.
  • Poor, maligned Black: just minding his business on the other side of the border until one day White stages a surprise attack and leaves him with no choice but to defend his homeland with violence. When will White be taken to account for his crimes against chess pieces? There is no justice in this board.
  • A blocked bishop is traditionally seen as useless since it's hemmed in by pawns and can barely move, let alone attack anything. But a different point of view is that it can be a useful way to shore up a critical pawn structure.
  • The Queen is the most powerful chess piece, contrary to some, but not all historical queens. In Chess' origin country in The East, the Queen was actually a Vizier, an obviously male adviser who historically could act as a power behind a throne, especially if the king is young or weak. However, in the equally patriarchal Europe, this piece became a queen but it may represent political influence as Queens acted as ambassadors and diplomats. The queen's power in chess may reflect either political influence or the actions of a Queen's agents, spies, and personal guards. In the end, she is still acting on the orders of her king. More cynical schools of thought may see the queen's power in seduction and sex.
  • The King's limited mobility in chess is often interpreted as being a weaker piece. Some assume that it refers to the fact that many historical kings were older, physically weaker men who were well past their battle years. A more modern interpretation suggests that this is symbolic of the fact that a king's power was not in what he could personally do, but in the influence and control that he had over others. A physically powerful man may be able to fight several enemies at once and win, but this does not necessarily translate into leadership, political, or strategic skills. A king pre-occupied with the governing of his kingdom, daily aspects of the Standard Royal Court, and the task of people pleasing is usually obligated to leave the fighting to the professionals. ^note Although a king can't be "fired" or "voted out of office" per se, a king can still be "removed" but it's often not a very pleasant aspect for the king in question. History has shown that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of power one has and the amount of freedom to act independently.
  • Modern chess computers finally killed the the centuries long viewpoint that keeping pieces on the board and defended is more important than activity. While the 1920's style of "hyper modern" chess did develop a theory of "good" and "bad" bishops depending on them being blocked by their own pawns, the post 2010's computers finally ended the debate for good. These computers would rather kill the activity of an opponent by blocking pieces, gaining small but devastating long term positional advantage.
• Coming up with new interpretations of Cthulhu Mythos entities seems to be a particular focus of tabletop games that use Mythos elements. Delta Green Countdown dedicated a sizeable chunk of its wordcount to a reimagination of Hastur, and Trail of Cthulhu has a list of Mythos entities and potential reinterpretations (aligning them with the fundamental forces of physics, for example).
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The archdevil/god (depending on edition and setting), Asmodeus:
    • Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition: 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 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, 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.)
    • Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Asmodeus is said to have usurped his position from 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. It was later stated that 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.
  • Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition: 3.5e'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: Lawful Good Yondalla and Chaotic Neutral 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.
  • Pelor The Burning Hate is a reinterpretation of Pelor, Neutral Good god of the Sun, Light, Strength, and Healing in the Greyhawk setting (particularly as regards to 3rd Edition). It manages to remain consistent with everything attributed to Pelor, while explaining his every action and trait as actually evil in disguise.
  • Alhoons are mind flayers that have undergone a version of lichification, utterly abhorred by traditional mind flayer society. However, some have pointed out that becoming an alhoon not only frees a mind flayer from the need to eat brains outside of For the Evulz, but it also makes the mind flayer effectively immortal. Consider that elder brains devour their mind flayer servants under the pretense of making them immortal, and the abhorrent nature of the alhoon takes on a very different light: monster of monsters, or Defector from Decadence? Or just a different kind of evil than an ordinary illithid?
  • The Dark Powers in the Ravenloft campaign setting.
    • They are usually interpreted as being evil, since they are the 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 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). 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 Dungeons & Dragons is chock-full of people whose job description amounts to killing and torturing innocents For the Evulz? 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 TSR and later 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 Lawful Blue.
• 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?
  • Dragon-Bloods: Pitiful, tyrannical usurpers or noble "little guys" who did what had to be done and kept the world from falling to pieces?
  • Sidereals: Stuck-up bureaucrats who couldn't see beyond their own noses and almost doomed Creation as a result, or secret agents who keep reality intact?
  • Abyssals: Death-obsessed omnicidal maniacs, or the tragically corrupted and repentant shells of people that might once have been heroes?
  • The Lunars. In second edition, 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 the first edition Lunars book, "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" was exactly correct. It wasn't until the second edition that White Wolf fixed that.
    
    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 dooms), Lunars often abandon said projects, for better or worse.
    
    Third edition changes things yet again; Lunars aren't raving flea-bitten beastmen or misunderstood heroes, instead being the primary faces of resistance to the Realm, seeking to bring it down for a variety of reasons, with younger Lunars mainly in it because of the threat the Realm poses to them and theirs. As to how they'll destroy the Realm, and what they'll do next... there are as many plans as there are Lunars fighting the Realm.
  • The 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?
    
    Right now, the answer looks like "It depends on the Primordial." Some were really that awful. Kimbery turns out not to have changed much by becoming a Yozi, and was just as much of a mood-swinging psychotic My Beloved Smother who alternated between loving the Lintha and her other creations and showering them with her favor and hating them for real or imagined slights against her and tormenting them back when she was a Primordial. The Dragon's Shadow was a treacherous Manipulative Bastard who is strongly implied to have intentionally orchestrated the Primordial War and whose primary change upon becoming the Ebon Dragon was actually being better off than he was as a Primordial — he now embodies the dragon he was once the mere shadow of, and is one of the most powerful and influential of the Yozis. She Who Lives In Her Name destroyed much of Creation at the conceptual level in what amounted to a temper tantrum upon being defeated and imprisoned, and was against the existence of free will from the start — The Dragon's Shadow convinced Theion (now Malfeas) that free will was necessary, and he convinced She Who Lives In Her Name to allow its existence.
  • The Neverborn: A bunch of sore losers trying to end an ancient war in a draw? Or a bunch of Woobies trying to end their eternal torment the only way they know how? Or Jerkass Woobies combining both?
  • Autochthon: Noble champion of the little guy, or a vindictive psycho murdering his peers because they picked on him?
  • The Fair Folk: Twisted, horrific, soul-sucking monsters from beyond, out to sunder Creation and lay waste to reality? Or angry, displaced natives trying to get back their homelands?
  • The Deathlords are typically portrayed as monsters who agreed to destroy Creation in exchange for the power to rule over its dying remains; the First and Forsaken Lion and Eye and Seven Despairs' saving of Creation from the Great Contagion is normally described as if it were an accident. Fridge Logic, however, suggests an alternative interpretation — why would they want Creation to be killed by someone else? Given that they are supposed to be two of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, it makes much more sense to assume that they saved the world deliberately; even if they swore to destroy it, neither really has any actual reason to want to see it die, and plenty of reasons not to. They're all still brutal dictators and conquerors, and the only First Age Solars not to repent of the horrific atrocities they committed in life.
  • All of them? All of the above.
• In Nomine: 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 in addition to their default personalities.
  • Blandine, Archangel of Dreams, may be a nauseatingly saccharine Pollyanna, a recluse whose isolation from reality borders on senility, or a tyrant who rules over the Marches with an iron fist.
  • David, Archangel of Stone, may be a kind-hearted patron of communities or a slow-minded clod with granite between his ears.
  • Dominic, Archangel of Judgement, may be an ineffectual nanny who can't do more than wag his finger at heretics, an uncompromising tyrant, an outright Balseraph in disguise, or the smartest, most clear-eyed person in Heaven.
  • Gabriel, Archangel of Fire, may be stark raving mad, an air-headed celestial ditz, a would-be enforcer of Heavenly law who misses obvious sins happening right under her nose, or lying about hearing God's voice in order to manipulate other angels.
  • Khalid, Archangel of Faith, may be a devoted pacifist, a guardian of all faiths, a militant religious fanatic, or Fallen and a Demon Prince.
  • Laurence, Archangel of the Sword, may be a jumped-up kid grievously out of touch with reality, a noble and virtuous knight among knights, or a poker-spined disciplinarian with no tolerance for foreign viewpoints or independent thought.
  • Litheroy, Archangel of Revelation, may be naïve comic relief or a tragedy waiting to happen, a relentless crusader against obfuscation and deception whose opposition to Heaven's own secrets skirts the edge of rebellion, a patsy for Heaven's Inquisition, or a borderline Outcast who left Heaven entirely to focus on his research.
  • Michael, Archangel of War, may be an amoral warhawk willing to accept any cost in lives for the sake of his crusades or a testosterone-laden Rambo parody.
  • Yves, Archangel of Destiny, may be a secret mastermind, a doddering old man, or God in a George Burns costume.
  • Zadkiel, Archangel of Protection, may be a shrewish, demanding matriarch who never got over her own mommy issues with Novalis, a saccharine Granny Classic stereotype all apple pie and obliviousness, or Jewish instead of Muslim (with accompanying Jewish Mother mannerisms).
  • Andrealphus, Prince of Lust, may be a shallow, flighty prima donna or a hardcore sadist who only gets off on the pain of others.
  • Asmodeus, Prince of the Game, may drop the order aspect of his word to be a cosmic gamer complete with video games and tournament arcs, drop the game metaphor to make him a brutal enforcer of order at all costs, or be a pitiful victim of his own success, twisted into Lucifer's pawn by his own Word.
  • Fleurity, Prince of Drugs, may be a slave to the needle doomed to be disposed of and forgotten about by the other Princes or a comical stoner stereotype looking for God at the bottom of a bong.
  • Haagenti, Prince of Gluttony, may be gluttonous comic relief too busy stuffing himself to do anything evil, or a manipulative mastermind who carefully encourages destructive and harmful forms of consumption.
  • Kobal, Prince of Dark Humor, may be a destructive mocker who only takes fleeting contentment from the suffering of others, or a whimsical joker who's lasted as long as he has only through Lucifer's protection.
  • Mammon, who by default is both a fool and a fading power, may instead be every bit as cunning and dangerous as he thinks he is, with his supposed weakness merely a ruse to disguise his true strength.
  • Nybbas, Prince of the Media, may be a sociopath who'll happily stoop to any atrocity for ratings, a cartoonish studio head stereotype who's more sleazy than evil, or a clever trickster who'll charm you while picking your pocket.
  • Valefor, Prince of Theft, may be a freewheeling punk only interested in keeping himself entertained, a double-agent for Lucifer, Asmodeus, Janus, or God Himself, or a supernatural terrorist who will keep striking at his fellows until he's torn the foundations out from under all of Hell.
  • Vapula, Prince of Technology, may be a coldly intelligent monster weaving subtle and horrific schemes, a scatterminded genius barely aware of the world around him, and a cybernetic horror, more machine than celestial, that dreams of the day when synthetic life shall rule over all.
  • 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.
  • 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 — a renegade servant of the Archangel of Revelations, a former inquistor of Asmodeus who has been desperately been passing himself off as the true Alaemon after killing the original, or an extremely deep-cover agent for Heaven.
  • The GM's Guide has options for giving the entire game an Alternative Character Interpretation. "Backwards" has the angels all being Knight Templar fanatics and the demons being heroic rebels. "Dark Low Contrast" is basically doing it Black-and-Black Morality style, where both sides just plain suck. "Bright Low Contrast" is when you play the game strictly for the sitcom value and neither side's really evil at all.
• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Yawgmoth: a Well-Intentioned Extremist Badass Normal Omnidisciplinary Scientist who made use of some innovative methods to grant his fellows a better life only to be betrayed by the woman he loved and exiled into a void plane for nine millennia, thus making his Roaring Rampage of Revenge more than justified? Or perhaps an Affably Evil Deadly Doctor with Munchausen by proxy, who lost his mind worshipping machines and became an Evilutionary Biologist (remember, Science Is Bad)?
    • Alternately, a leader who is banished for his success, and builds a world out of his tomb. This world is one without war or dissension, but slowly collapsing. His attempts to bring this everlasting peace back to his homeworld is foiled by Urza, an Omnicidal Maniac with a legacy of war and misery thousands of years long.
  • Urabrask the Hidden and Red Phyrexians in general: Indifferent to the Mirrans in their domain, secretly rebelling against their other Phyrexian brethren out of genuine compassion due to their alignment, or having a secret agenda just as (if not more) heinous as their other-spectrum brothers?
  • Elesh Norn preaches about the Machine Orthodoxy, but does she truly believe in it or is simply using it as a false religion to further her own goals?
• Nobilis: is Lord Entropy a decent person regretfully playing the monster for the net benefit of the world, a lonely god cursed with an inability to be loved using his power to strike back at a concept that has rejected him, a perpetual test of strength forcing Nobles to be as ruthless and cunning as possible, an Excrucian agent, or simply a colossal tool on a power trip?
  • Nobilis spinoff Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine deliberately invokes this, providing options to allow players to customise the pregenerated PCs as they see fit.
  • Also, in relation to Lord Entropy, CMWGE is set in a possible future of the Nobilis setting, and as such settles on Lord Entropy as an asshole, the very embodiment of evil, who apparently did one good thing that ultimately killed him - deciding to save the world rather than destroy it - which resulted in the creation of his son, Entropy II. However, if you're playing Entropy II, or a version thereof, you can decide what kind of asshole Lord Entropy was: did he treat Entropy II like crap? Treat him as a near-equal? Treat him as nothing more than an object? Or was he actually nice to him?
• This happens a lot in the Old World of Darkness:
  • In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, are the Garou noble warriors who serve as the last, best hope against the Wyrm, or childish thugs who waste so much time fighting among themselves that they neglect their common enemy? Are they a race of atoners who are coping with the consequences of their ancestors' bloody mistakes, or potential tyrants who would dominate humanity again if given half a chance?
  • Nowhere does 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.
    
    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 Order of Hermes, or the Verbena...
    
    To put a point on it: Depending on who you ask, the Technocracy is a genocidal Thought Police bent on creating a stagnant world they have absolute control over, a bunch of Well-Intentioned Extremists for whom Utopia Justifies the Means, or Designated Villains who are absolutely justified in their belief that supernatural influence over the Human Race is a quantifiable bad thing. By the same token, the Council of Nine either represents the last best hope for creativity, nobility and the realization of personal potential, or are 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 World of Darkness.
  • The central idea of Demon: The Fallen is the alternate interpretation that Lucifer rebelled 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?
    
    And there's the ever continuing problem of getting the players to not just be Always Chaotic Evil since they are called demons. Some go for Blood Knight types, some go for manipulative Al-Pacino-From-Devils-Advocate types, and almost all of them miss the point of the game. The expanded power sets (Lore of Violation anyone?) don't really help with this (of course, said expanded powers originate with the Earthbound, who are pretty much unabashed monsters).
  • Pretty much all the Changing Breeds have different interpretations of each other as regards their roles in service to Gaia (or whichever of the Earth/Moon/Sun trio they prefer), but then you have the Imbued, who are... unprecedented, to put it mildly. Of all the supernatural creatures in the World of Darkness, they have no lofty litany to pass down or any apparent connection to anything but the bizarre calling of the Heralds, and even they have no idea what the Hell it means. The only ones who seem to have a clear idea of what they really are, are the Nagah, the were-serpents: To them, the Imbued are the last sign that Gaia has abandoned all hope in her shapeshifting Children, being the ones she's chosen to replace them as her protectors.
• One of these is raised by the main rulebook of Paranoia XP. Friend Computer is usually portrayed as unhinged, a little bit stupid, gullible, and ruthless. One brief section of XP suggests an alternative: Friend Computer is 100% sane and sees through all the evasions and deceptions, but has concluded that deceit, fear, ignorance, horrific inefficiency, and all the other perks of Paranoia are the very quintessence of human nature and has decided to do everything necessary to nurture these traits, using Obfuscating Stupidity.
  • The rulebook also suggests that the GM should always have another layer. Okay, the PCs find out that Friend Computer is being controlled by evil mutants from Beta Complex, who are actually being controlled by a group of High Programmers back in Alpha Complex, who were set up by Friend Computer as part of a paranoid sting operation, but this plan was added into Friend Computer's memory banks by aliens from Pluto, who are actually just psychic projections of The Illuminati, etc. In short, in Alpha Complex, everything has an alternative interpretation.
    • It even gets meta — one of the most common trends in GMing Paranoia is to reference the name of Alpha Complex, and create other complexes with other computers. Some players even conjecture this was intended by the designers all along.
• Warhammer isn't immune either.
  • The Empire: The most advanced, powerful and well-intentioned human society in the world, and the best hope for humanity's survival? Or, well, The Empire? Either one can apply Depending on the Writer.
  • The Lizardmen: Ruthless, alien monsters willing to commit genocide (even on fellow creations of the Old Ones; for instance, Lizardmen caused the earthquakes that ruined the Dwarves' empire, and Lord Mazdamundi wants no Elves outside Ulthuan, even if it requires their extinction) to advance an ancient plan that already went wrong well beyond correction? Or the last honest and purposeful race in the world trying to make things right, and best hope against the forces of Chaos? Or a race of lost children, trying to enact a plan complex beyond understanding while attempting to contact parents that have long ago passed away?
  • Bretonnia: Ancient, chivalric and noble nation that is a shining ray of decency in the old world? Or a corrupt, barbaric feudal nation that pretends at being civilized whilst brutally suppressing the lower classes and will eventually meet its downfall either by peasant revolution or the ramifications that the state religion is founded upon an elaborate elven lie is true?
    • A nation of unwitting Slaanesh worshippers, who are only initiated into the secret if they become Grail Knights?
    • Games Workshop: Total ass-holes for changing Bretonnia from 100% the former to a grey area or to be commended for a nice level of racial development on an otherwise boring, overly romantic idea of the Middle Ages?
  • Nagash: Evil Necromancer who destroyed the most noble and sophisticated human nation, or tragic figure who set himself up as a benevolent dictator and was betrayed by those around him, causing him to go insane?
    • Isn't it canon that he was both, more or less?
    • Actually, if you read his book, Nagash the Sorcerer, it's made pretty clear he enjoyed the pain of others and wanted power for powers sake. He entombed his own brother alive so he could take his throne and feed his brother's wife a drink made (unknown to her) from her murdered son's blood. He was a malicious, petty, monster. The closest thing to benevolence in his reign was...he reclaimed his city's glory by sacking another city and killing every living thing he could find, whether they were soldiers or civilians.
  • Tomb Kings: Total dicks who want to take over the world and "kill" each other for power or lost souls doomed to never again find peace, and trying to bring their once great empire to life?
  • The von Carstein Vampire Counts: Megalomaniacal tyrants who simply want to rule the entire world, starting with the Empire, or the only faction that cares enough about the peasantry not to send them in to do their dirty work, or possibly [really/deluded into believing that they are] the best hope to stop Chaos from conquering all?
    • Vlad leans more towards the latter, his successors, more the former.
  • There's also the connection to 40k as well as the origins of Sigmar: Is the Warhammer World simply another "Feudal World" in the 40k universe, an alternate dimension to the 40k universe that the Chaos Gods occasionally take interest in, or are they two completely unique settings that only have the chaos gods in common due to corporate laziness?^note Originally the fluff indicated that the Warhammer World did exist in the 40k universe, but as time went on this was dropped and outright retconned in certain material. There is also the possibility that Sigmar is one of the two lost primarchs who were never named, if it is indeed set in the 40k Universe. The End Times thoroughly jossed this one, as the entire Warhammer World and associated universe was destroyed in the ensuing maelstrom of Chaos. Sigmar would re-create the world, but now it's explicitly in a new universe.
• Warhammer 40,000 is made for this, and has room for all possible interpretations of every side, from the Imperium to Chaos.
  • The Imperium of Man: Are they a vast, monolithic entity of xenophobic fundamentalists, or simply a race that has been forced to resort to extreme measures in order to ensure their very survival in the Grim and Dark future?
    • The setting seems to go back and forth between both of these.
    • 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 Inquisition: are they, as Ciaphas Cain^note 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.
      Within chapters: Night Lords? Psychopath butchers, or self-sacrificing heroes who enforced the Imperium and were rewarded by Malicious Slander? The Dark Angels? Covering up their primarch's decision to sit out the Horus Heresy or shamed, attempting to atone for the treachery of their members?
    • For several years, the Dark Angels were very notably part of this genre because it wasn't clear whether Lion El'Johnson or Luther was the actual traitor. It goes a step further because it was also possible there was no traitor faction and the conflict was bred purely from paranoia. The Horus Heresy series did remove the doubts of what actually happened though.
    • The Imperial Cult and the Ecclesiarchy that enforces it: is it a Corrupt Church run by murderous fanatics who keep the people in line with fear and ignorance, or a (by 40k standards) Saintly Church that tolerates internal diversity and protects imperial citizens from demonic heresy? In the earliest versions of the game, the Imperial Cult was depicted in a firmly negative light, but in later editions this was made much more ambiguous.
    • To add to this, is the atheistic Imperial Truth any better or any worse than the Imperial Cult?
    • 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 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 Tau: Sinister fundamentalist collectivists with no place for individuality, or idealistic and good-hearted folk heroically seeking a prosperous future for the universe? Naively doomed to sink in the mire of GRIMDARK reality, or bearers of the hopeful torch the universe needs to rekindle itself?
    • Commander Farsight: cruel renegade or secret agent of the Empire, forced to bear the hatred of his own people? Or freedom fighter trying to free his people from Ethereal mind control? Or shortsighted idiot/enemy pawn that's undermining one of the few things keeping the Tau from having to resort to the kinds of extremes their contemporaries have to. Even Games Workshop plays with this one, at one point having an article on their website that had someone converting him into a Necron pawn. Abnormally long lived Tau? Or a succession of same-named individuals?
    • The truth to this question resides with the sword he carries. There are theories that Farsight is now an Eldar puppet due to the Dawn Blade being rumored to be one of the swords of Vaul, one of the only weapons that can permanately kill a C'tan. In addition, the blade looks very much Eldar in design (see Wraithlord sword).
    • The Ethereal Caste itself. Benevolent rulers who hoisted the Tau out of a Dark Age, replacing continual war and strife with order and purpose, or oppressive tyrants who use Mind Control to ruthlessly increase their own power and glory, or dog shooting pragmatists? And where did they come from in the first place? Are they freaks of evolution, creations of mad science, or something even worse?
    • There is a fan theory that the Ethereals are the last ditch effort of the Old Ones to save the universe by helping create an Empire that could unite all of the races against Chaos/Tyranids/Orks/Necrons.
    • A lot of this debate stems from the Tau originally being portrayed almost completely positively. The more negative elements were retconned in later.
  • 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?
    • Are they merely jerkasses seeking to preserve their own race at the expense of everyone else, or atoners doing whatever is necessary to stop the threat of Chaos and the Necrons? The last dying gasp of a decadent race, or the only hope against threats that the younger races do not fully comprehend?
  • The Ynnari: The last, best hope for the survival of the Eldar and victory against Chaos, or deluded idiots who have doomed their species to something far worse in their desperation to avoid extinction?
  • 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 Hates Everyone Equally 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.
    • There is also good reason why Orks were given one In-Universe 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.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: 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 authors you read) they're either genuinely good, heroic, and noble forces trying to save the realms from Chaos, a bunch of Lawful Neutral Villain Protagonists no better than 40k's Imperium Of Man, or somewhere in the middle. It also doesn't helpt that many Order factions have sub-factions very different from the norm; Fyreslayers, for instance, are often characterized as Only in It for the Money, but members of the Hermdar Lodge of Fyreslayers are famous (or infamous amongst their own kind) for helping free oppressed peoples from tyrants for shockingly low wages, or even for free. Sylvaneth have Blue-and-Orange Morality, but only members of the Dreadwood Glade are explicitly hostile to humans on principle. So any given interpretation of how "good" a given Order faction is has in-universe precedent for being true.