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As a self-avowed hater of "CaW"/"CaS" stuff, I have to point out that your characterization of "CaS" is woefully wrong. Like I...don't know how you got that out of it, because it's so extreme I don't even know where to begin. No game I've ever seen labelled "CaS" does the thing you describe...

So, real talk. I have no freaking clue what "play at the world" means. At all. People use the phrase plenty. Nobody ever explains what the everloving flip it means. The only thing I've ever gotten out of it is that it's a title of a book analyzing games.

This is not possible. The GM creates the antagonists. Hence, by definition, she cannot be "completely neutral and impartial". Further, the GM runs the game--as I'm 99.9% certain I've heard you personally say before--in order for the group to have a good time. For OSR-type players, that usually...

This whole presentation perfectly encapsulates why I dislike the CaW/CaS concept. I just want that noted at the outset. I just about outright reject this alleged "distinction" because 99.9999% of the time it is absolutely riddled with disparagement for "Combat-as-Sport" while doing nearly...

The only idea in this direction that I've ever been okay with is, well, one I came up with myself, but because I was trying to build a pattern of sorts. That is, for the heartbreaker that exists in my head, Humans (aka "Wanderfolk") would have three variants, unlike other races which I tried to...

I can't wait to read about the adventures of Male Elf, son of Delf and Lelf!

I mean, I mostly think he was very good at getting people to think that banal ideas, presented in complex ways, were actually profound ideas. Which does require a certain kind of intelligence....just not the kind I think you're referring to.

You may note that I have not cared a ton for alignment as a structure in most editions. And that's entirely because the convenient shorthand is actually really misleading and gets people to think in far too rigid terms about things that should be much more complicated (not to mention flexible?)...

Well I mean back in 4e it was perfectly possible, because the lore wasn't structured to make gnolls just the worst and instead making it so some of them could be cool. So the answer is "don't blame us for WotC deciding to make gnolls horrendous rapacious monsters"? I mean don't they have to do...

Agreed. Jack is a whimsical dude who loves freedom and hates the rigid hierarchical structures of most social order, which is why he chooses to live as a pirate. He's also smart and cunning (two related but separate things). Hell, when we learn what got him in a bad way in the first place, he...

Impersonations are fine...just don't become the mask, m'kay?

I mean, I don't think it's THAT stupid of a move, mostly because, from all data I've ever had access to, it turns out most people favor being good, even if it is less beneficial than choosing something wicked/bad/un-good. It's not like anyone's ever been able to force you to not do evil stuff...

I don't see that as indicating being ruled by one's whims and emotions. This says what they do do, or at least are willing to do without a qualm, not that they are constantly and chronically backstabbing, burning bridges at every single turn, etc. Indeed, it specifically says, in the party you...

"LotR" is the poster child for high fantasy. I know that in close reading it's got only a tenuous relationship with such a thing (e.g. the hobbits' lives are pretty damned mundane), but in the grand scope it has some extraordinarily powerful beings. No surprise given it's directly inspired by...

And I still reject the idea that CE has to be bound to such a behavior type that means it is necessarily the Inherently Stupid Alignment.

You...did pick out the one and only example I gave that could be analyzed that way...

I mean, I think there's a pretty clear difference between HYPER HYPER magical setting, where nothing more than vaguely like IRL urban environments exist, and HYPER HYPER modern-urban setting, where nothing more than vaguely like magical things or events exist I would not classify Ravnica as...

I just see this as a needlessly stupefying take on Chaos. Chaos does not need to be so utterly enslaved to whim that it cannot organize; it just needs that organization to be one that always justifies its legitimacy to the individual. So you can have an organized group of freedom fighters (aka...

While this is true in the abstract, a pattern of behavior can still indicate that consequences are being ignored so often, it would be unlikely that the perpetrator understood them. I'll get to an example just below. Perhaps. I would say the most chaotic evil thing someone can do is maintaining...

Well, you have to articulate an idea of both Chaos and Evil that actually coheres. "Chaos" is usually depicted as sloppy, slapdash, shambolic; to be of Chaos is to self-diminish because you can't get your poop together. To overcome this, we need a conception of chaos which is self-reinforcing...