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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6412802" data-attributes="member: 2067">This is dismissive, but language is the playground of thought. Wordplay is idea-play. A change in language changes the way things are. It's Shakespearian -- a simple change in name from Montague means life and death to people. Metaphors and similies are transformative (and in PS, often literal as well). It's mythic -- the events of gods are things written and told and otherwise unknown. It's revolutionary -- if anyone can read the holy texts, everyone gets to offer their opinion on them, and someone nails a list of complaints to the door that sparks ages of bloodshed and warfare. (These are all, btw, part of why PS evokes a more pseudo-Renaissance vibe than a pseudo-medieval vibe). In a setting of "belief made real" word-play may change reality. Certainly that label means something in that example character arc. The idea is simply that the definitions of these words ("Chaotic Evil", "Neutral Good") are open to interpretation in PS. It takes a D&D system where there is no doubt, and introduces doubt without necessarily abandoning the system. Of course, one may also abandon the system. It is not, however, a prerequisite to enjoyment in the setting for me, and the setting would lose something of its first oomph (in part, as specifically a D&D setting, with all the baggage that comes with being one of those) without it. Others may reasonably disagree, especially, I think, if they've got a lot of experience outside the D&D RPG orthodoxy already, which means that the tweak is less significantly eye-opening to them. In KM circa 1995, it was pretty eye-opening. In KM circa 2014, I can see the setting without it functioning just fine -- but you'd lose the ability to open the eyes any folks who are in the same headspace as KM circa 1995 with the idea that lawful good might mean something very different to one PC or NPC than to another.Either way, the general thrust of the argument is "PS adds shades of grey to D&D by opening the alignments up to individual character interpretation, rather than having them laid down and inflexible by the setting, so it doesn't NEED to get rid of alignments. Though it could." I don't know that anyone's really disputed that central point, despite all the border shenanigans about what does or does not define a shade of grey. I don't think one can reasonably say that normal D&D is not more black-and-white, or dispute PS certainly does introduce ambiguity when compared to that baseline! And if we're agreed on that, then we're agreed on the substantive points I'm making there.</blockquote>

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