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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6121842" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think the notion of &quot;misinterpret&quot; is not all that helpful here. Suppose player A advances a certain interpretation, and GM B replies &quot;That's a misinterpretation&quot;, from the point of view of A the meaning of &quot;minsinterpretation&quot; is nothing more than &quot;interpretation differing from B's preferred interpretation&quot;. There is no shared methodology, in this sort of domain, for establishing a robust consensus on what counts as misinterpretation.Which also goes to the issue of &quot;strong thematic materia&quot; and &quot;squeezing stardard views into the alignment system&quot;. You can't at one-and-the-same-time preserve the strength of the thematic material, and tell people that it's all about a fictional moral system that has no bearing upon or connection to real world values.People gerally don't play paladins because they adhere to some fictional, stipulated moral code which (for no particular reason?) we happen to label &quot;lawful good&quot; or &quot;honourable&quot; or &quot;chivalric&quot; - at least, not in my experience. They are interested in exploring the idea of a genuinely lawful good warrior who is genuinely honourable and chivalric. That's what gives the material it's thematic heft.That's not to say there's not some scope for tweaking on the margins - the GM might explain to the players, for instance, that certain social norms are different in the gameworld from the contemporary USA (eg that debt bondage is widely understood as a permissible institution, even though it is obviously at odds with contemporary human rights norms as well as bankruptcy practices). But the more the GM says &quot;This isn't about real world values, it's about these fictional values that I'm elucidating for you&quot;, the more the GM is killing off the strength of the thematic material.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6121842, member: 42582"] I think the notion of "misinterpret" is not all that helpful here. Suppose player A advances a certain interpretation, and GM B replies "That's a misinterpretation", from the point of view of A the meaning of "minsinterpretation" is nothing more than "interpretation differing from B's preferred interpretation". There is no shared methodology, in this sort of domain, for establishing a robust consensus on what counts as misinterpretation. Which also goes to the issue of "strong thematic materia" and "squeezing stardard views into the alignment system". You can't at one-and-the-same-time preserve the strength of the thematic material, [I]and[/I] tell people that it's all about a fictional moral system that has no bearing upon or connection to real world values. People gerally don't play paladins because they adhere to some fictional, stipulated moral code which (for no particular reason?) we happen to label "lawful good" or "honourable" or "chivalric" - at least, not in my experience. They are interested in exploring the idea of a [I]genuinely[/I] lawful good warrior who is [I]genuinely[/I] honourable and chivalric. That's what gives the material it's thematic heft. That's not to say there's not some scope for tweaking on the margins - the GM might explain to the players, for instance, that certain social norms are different in the gameworld from the contemporary USA (eg that debt bondage is widely understood as a permissible institution, even though it is obviously at odds with contemporary human rights norms as well as bankruptcy practices). But the more the GM says "This isn't about [I]real world[/I] values, it's about these fictional values that I'm elucidating for you", the more the GM is killing off the strength of the thematic material. [/QUOTE]

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